Page:Six Essays on Johnson.djvu/155

Rh where the reality was lacking. Why should a poet pretend to be a shepherd, and translate real passion into the jargon of a rustic trade? The famous criticism on Lycidas was not primarily dictated by personal or political hostility to Milton; the substance of it is repeated in many passages of the Lives. The Elegies of Hammond are criticized in almost the same words. ‘The truth is,’ says Johnson, ‘these elegies have neither passion, nature, nor manners. Where there is fiction, there is no passion; he that describes himself as a shepherd, and his Neaera or Delia as a shepherdess, and talks of goats and lambs, feels no passion. He that courts his mistress with Roman imagery, deserves to lose her; for she may with good reason suspect his sincerity.’ And again, of Shenstone’s Pastoral Ballad he says: ‘I cannot but regret that it is pastoral; an intelligent reader acquainted with the scenes of real life sickens at the mention of the crook, the pipe, the sheep, and the kids.’ Lord Lyttelton is even more summarily treated. ‘Of his Progress of Love,’ says the biographer, ‘it is sufficient blame to say that it is pastoral.’

Where Johnson repeats a thought many times, it is always worth while to pause, and look for his meaning. He found Lycidas lacking in that deep personal affection and regret which, to him, was the soul of an elegy. ‘What image of tenderness,’ he asks, ‘can be excited by these lines?—

‘We know that they never drove a field, and that they had no flocks to batten; and though it be allowed that the representation may be allegorical, the true meaning