Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/10

 NOTES AND QUERIES. ID* s. x. JULY 5, 1902.

harsh numbers and uncouth expression ; and w' they affected easily came to be Iqok'd upon as Beauties. Even Milton himself, in his yonger days, fell into this delusion, (bee his poem on Shakespear.) But y e vigour of his genius, or, per- haps, his course of life, w ch led him out of y" high- road of fashion, enabled him, in good time, to break through the state of exemplar vitiis imitabile.* The Court, w ch had worse things to answer for, kept poor Cowley eternally in it. He foresoke y" Conversation (says Dr. Sprat, who design'd him a compliment in y e observation), but never the Lan- guage of the Court. H."

Dr. Hurd, it will be noticed, exhibits some carelessness in spelling; but as the memoranda were intended for his own eye, we are not called upon to be censorious. If, however, he had read with attention Sprat's ' Account of the Life and Writings of Mr. Abraham Cowley,' prefixed to this edition, he would not have stumbled over the word " forsook," for this is how the biographer writes : " He forsook the Conversation, but never the Language, of the City and Court."

It is well known that Dr. Johnson was acquainted with this selection of Cowley's works. Boswell informs us that in a con- versation in 1776 " he expressed his disappro- bation of Dr. Hurd, for having published a mutilated edition under the title of ' Select Works of Abraham Cowley, 1 " but two years afterwards "he seemed to be in a more indulgent humour," for he said :

"I was angry with Hurd about Cowley, for having published a selection of his works: but, upon oetter consideration, I think there is no impropriety in a man's publishing as much as he chooses of any author, if he does not put the rest out of the way. A man, for instance, may print the Odes of Horace alone."

There can be no doubt that Johnson was considerably indebted to Kurd's annotations. He works out the latter's reference to Donne and Ben Jonson as follows in his remarks on the " metaphysic style " :

"This kind of writing, which was, I believe, borrowed from Marino and his followers, had been recommended by the example of Donne, a man of very extensive and various knowledge, and by Jonson, whose manner resembled that of Donne more in the ruggedness of his lines than in the cast of his sentiments."

Further on he says : " But I have found no traces of Jonson in his works : to emulate Donne appears to have been his purpose." Few persons will be found to allow Jonson to be enrolled among the "metaphysic poets " ; nor will they admit that his style is rugged and that he "affected harsh numbers and uncouth expression." Untuned numbers he avoided in his own poems, and


 * Horace, ' Epist.,' I. 19, 1. 17.

condemned in his friends', as we learn from Drummond " that Donne, for not keeping of accent, deserved hanging ; that Donne himself, for not being understood, would perish." It is curious to find that Johnson's condemnation passed on this writer for " that familiarity with religious images and that light allusion to sacred things, by which readers far short of sanctity are frequently offended," had been uttered long before in far stronger language by his great name- sake, when he said to Drummond " that Donne's ' Anniversary ' was profane and full of blasphemies." His life of Cowley proves that Dr. Johnson was well acquainted with Donne's works, but it appears doubtful whether he had done much more than dip into those of Ben Jonson. In the very com- plete index to Boswell's 'Life' Jonson's name is not once found, nor does it occur in ' The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides.' It is, however, once mentioned in the life of Milton, and twice in that of Dryden ; but from these instances we can scarcely infer that the great critic was well acquainted with Ben Jonson's works, for his remarks are little more than an echo of what those two writers have themselves said. On the whole, it does not seem rash to assume that Dr. Johnson adopted Kurd's opinion re- garding Shakespeare's friend, though with some hesitation, as one cannot help thinking from his rather contradictory statements. In one particular he disagrees with Hurd, who considered Milton's poem on Shake- speare to be written in the style of Donne and Cowley ; but Johnson says : " Milton tried the metaphysic style only in his lines upon Hobson the carrier."

Who shall decide when doctors disagree ? We have enough of them mentioned in this note. Though Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and Milton did not bear the title, Donne, Sprat, and Hurd were Doctors of Divinity, Cowley was a Doctor of Physic, and Samuel Johnson of Laws.

I have confined myself to a single annota- tion, but there are others in the volume, which Cowley's critic had evidently studied with attention, and used with advantage in what he is reported to have regarded as the best of his 'Lives of the Poets.' It is, no doubt, an admirable study, and contains some of his choicest writing, especially that golden pas- sage beginning with the words ' ' Language is the dress of thought," but it is much more the criticism of a school of poets than of one particular member of it. By accumulating so many specimens of the fantastic genius of Donne and Cleveland, and bracketing them