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Table of Contents
  • Audiet Pugnas vitio Parentum / Rara Juventus. Hor: Young men—the few who are left after the crimes of their fathers—will hear of battles. [School and College Latin Exercises]
  • Bonae leges ex malis moribus proveniunt: Good laws spring from bad habits [School and College Latin Exercises]
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  • Adjecere bonae paulo plus artis Athenae: Kind Athens Added a Little More Skill [School and College Latin Exercises]
  • Mea nec Falernae Temperant Vites, neque Formiani Pocula Colles: Neither Falernian vines nor Formian hills mellow my cups [School and College Latin Exercises]
  • Scheme for the Classes of a Grammar School
  • Advertisement for the School at Edial
  • Observations on Common Sense
  • Preface to the 1738 Volume of the Gentleman’s Magazine
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  • Dedication and Preface to An Introduction to the Game of Draughts (1756)
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  • Review of Thomas Birch, The History of the Royal Society, vols. 1–2 (1756)
  • Review of Arthur Murphy, The Gray’s-Inn Journal, 2 vols. (1756)
  • Review of Joseph Warton, An Essay on the Writings and Genius of Pope (1756)
  • Review of James Hampton, The General History of Polybius (1756)
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  • Review of Archibald Bower, Affidavit (1756); John Douglas, Six Letters and Review of Mr. Bower’s Answer (1757); and John Douglas, Bower and Tillemont Compared (1757)
  • Review of Francis Home, Experiments on Bleaching (1756)
  • Review of Stephen Hales, An Account of a Useful Discovery (1756)
  • Review of Charles Lucas, An Essay on Waters (1756)
  • Review of Robert Keith, A Large New Catalogue of the Bishops (1756)
  • Review of Patrick Browne, The Civil and Natural History of Jamaica (1756)
  • Review of Charles Parkin, An Impartial Account of the Invasion under William Duke of Normandy (1756)
  • Review of A Scheme for Preventing a Further Increase of the National Debt (1756)
  • Review of Conferences and Treaties (1756)
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  • Review of Richard Lovett, The Subtil Medium Prov’d (1756)
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  • Review of Johann Georg Keyssler, Travels (1756)
  • Review of Elizabeth Harrison, Miscellanies (1756)
  • Review of Jonas Hanway, A Journal of Eight Days Journey (1757)
  • Review of Jonas Hanway, A Journal of Eight Days Journey, Second Edition (1757)
  • Reply to a Letter from Jonas Hanway in the Gazetteer (1757)
  • Review of Samuel Bever, The Cadet (1756)
  • Review of the Test and Con-Test (1756)
  • Review of William Whitehead, Elegies (1757)
  • Review of A Letter to a Gentleman in the Country on the Death of Admiral Byng (1757)
  • Preliminary Discourse in the London Chronicle
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  • "Dedication to John Lindsay, Evangelical History of Our Lord Jesus Christ Harmonized
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  • Of the Duty of a Journalist (1758)
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  • Advertisement for the Public Ledger in the Universal Chronicle (1760)
  • To The Public in the Public Ledger (1760)
  • The Weekly Correspondent Number I [Public Ledger]
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  • Preface to J. Elmer, Tables of Weights and Prices
  • From The Italian Library Containing an Account of the Lives and Works of the most valuable authors of Italy (1757)
  • Proposals for Printing by Subscription, Le Poesie di Giuseppe Baretti (1758)
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  • Advertisement [For The World Displayed]
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  • Letter to the Society of Arts (26 February 1760)
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  • Address of the Painter’s, Sculptors, &Architects to George III (1761)
  • Preface to A Catalogue of the Pictures, Sculptures, Models, Drawings, Prints, &c Exhibited by the Society of Artists of Great-Britain at the Great Room in Spring Gardens Charing Cross May the 17th Anno 1762 Being the Third year of their Exhibition (1762)
  • Review of William Tytler, Historical and Critical Enquiry into the Evidence Produced … Against Mary Queen of Scots
  • Contributions to John Kennedy, A Complete System of Astronomical Chronology, Unfolding the Scriptures
  • Proposals and Advertisement [for Anna Williams, Miscellanies in Prose and Verse] (1762)
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  • Dedication to Jerusalem Delivered (1763)
  • Dedication to The Works of Metastasio (1767)
  • Dedication to Cyrus: A Tragedy (1768)
  • Review of Oliver Goldsmith, The Traveller
  • Dedication for Thomas Percy, Reliques of Ancient English Poetry
  • 23 Sept. 1765 [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 1–4 Oct. 1765. [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 20 Nov. 1765. [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 19 Dec. 1765. [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
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  • 3 March 1768 [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
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  • 23 March 1768 [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 23 March 1768 [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 13 March 1769 [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 1 October 1774 [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 4 October 1774 [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 13 October 1774 [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 4 September 1780 [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 4 September 1780 [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 5 Sept. 1780 [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • Dedication for George Adams, A Treatise Describing and Explaining the Construction and Use of New Celestial and Terrestrial Globes
  • Dedication to John Gwynn, London and Westminster Improved
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  • Meditation on a Pudding
  • Hereford Infirmary Appeal
  • Dedication for A General History of Music (1776)
  • From A General History of Music, Vol. II (1782)
  • Dedication to An Account of the Musical Performance . . . in Commemoration of Handel (1785)
  • Advertisement for the Spectator
  • Dedication to Zachary Pearce, A Commentary, with Notes, on the Four Evangelists and the Acts of the Apostles
  • Letter of 16 May 1777
  • The Petition of the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Commons of the City of London, in Common Council Assembled, Friday 6 June 1777
  • Letter to Lord Bathurst, the Lord Chancellor, 8 June 1777
  • Letter to William Murray, First Earl of Mansfield, Lord Chief Justice, Wednesday, 11 June 1777
  • Petition of Mrs. Mary Dodd to the Queen
  • Dodd’s Letter to the King, Sunday, 22 June 1777
  • Petition of William Dodd to the King, Monday, 23 June 1777
  • Dodd’s Last Solemn Declaration, Wednesday, 25 June 1777
  • Johnson’s Observations on the Propriety of Pardoning William Dodd, Wednesday, 25 June 1777
  • Introduction and Conclusion to Occasional Papers (1777)
  • Proposal for Printing William Shaw, An Analysis of the Scotch Celtic Language
  • Dedication to Sir Joshua Reynolds, Seven Discourses
  • Preface to Thomas Maurice, Oedipus Tyrannus
  • The Case of Collier v. Flint
  • Translation of Sallust, De Bello Catilinario
  • General Rules of the Essex Head Club
  • On the Character and Duty of an Academick
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Review of Joseph Warton, An Essay on the Writings and Genius of Pope (1756)
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Review of Joseph Warton, An Essay on the Writings and Genius of Pope (1756)1
An Essay on the writings and genius of Pope. 8vo. Cooper. [1756]
This is a very curious and entertaining miscellany of critical remarks and literary history. Though the book promises nothing but observations on the writings of Pope, yet no opportunity is neglected of introducing the character of any other writer, or the mention of any performance or event in which learning is interested. From Pope, however, he always takes his hint, and to Pope he returns again from his digressions. The facts which he mentions though they are seldom anecdotes in a rigorous sense, are often such as are very little known, and such as will delight more readers than naked criticism.
As he examines the works of this great poet in an order nearly chronological, he necessarily begins with his pastorals, which considered as representations of any kind of life, he very justly censures;2 for there is in them a mixture of Grecian and English, of ancient and modern images. Windsor is coupled with Hybla, and Thames with Pactolus.3 He then compares some passages which Pope has imitated or translated with the imitation or version, and gives the preference to the originals, perhaps not always upon convincing arguments.
Theocritus makes his lover wish to be a bee, that he might creep among the leaves that form the chaplet of his mistress.


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Pope’s enamoured swain longs to be made the captive bird that sings in his fair one’s bower, that she might listen to his songs, and reward them with her kisses. The critic prefers the image of Theocritus as more wild, more delicate, and more uncommon.4
It is natural for a lover to wish that he might be any thing that could come near to his lady. But we more naturally desire to be that which she fondles and caresses, than that which she would avoid, at least would neglect. The superior delicacy of Theocritus I cannot discover, nor can indeed find, that either in the one or the other image there is any want of delicacy. Which of the two images was less common in the time of the poet who used it, for on that consideration the merit of novelty depends, I think it is now out of any critic’s power to decide.
He remarks, I am afraid with too much justice, that there is not a single new thought in the pastorals, and with equal reason declares, that their chief beauty consists in their “correct and musical versification, which has so influenced the English ear, as to render every moderate rhymer harmonious.”5
In his examination of the Messiah, he justly observes some deviations from the inspired author, which weaken the imagery, and dispirit the expression.6
On Windsor-forest, he declares, I think without proof, that descriptive poetry was by no means the excellence of Pope;7 he draws this inference from the few images introduced in this poem, which would not equally belong to any other place. He must inquire whether Windsor-Forest has in reality any thing peculiar.
“The stag-chace is not,” he says, “so full, so animated, and so circumstantiated as Somerville’s.”8 Barely to say, that one performance is not so good as another, is to criticise with


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little exactness. But Pope has directed, that we should “in every work regard the author’s end.”9 The stag-chace is the main subject of Somerville, and might therefore be properly dilated into all its circumstances; in Pope it is only incidental, and was to be dispatched in a few lines.
He makes a just observation, “that the description of the external beauties of nature, is usually the first efforta of a young genius, before he hath studied nature and passions. Some of Milton’s most early as well as most exquisite pieces are his Lycidas, l’Allegro, and Il penseroso, if we may except his ode on the nativity of Christ, which is indeed prior in order of time, and in which a penetrating critic might have observed the seeds of that boundless imagination, which was one day to produce the Paradise Lost.”1
Mentioning Thomson and other descriptive poets, he remarks that writers fail in their copies for want of acquaintance with originals, and justly ridicules those who think they can form just ideas of valleys, mountains, and rivers in a garret of the Strand.2 For this reason I cannot regret with this author, that Pope laid aside his design of writing American pastorals;3 for as he must have painted scenes which he never saw, and manners he never knew, his performance, though it might have been a pleasing amusement of fancy, would have exhibited no representation of nature or of life.
After the pastorals, the critic considers the lyric poetry of Pope, and dwells longest on the ode on St. Cecilia’s day, which he, like the rest of mankind, places next to that of Dryden, and not much below it. He remarks after Mr. Spence, that the first stanza is a perfect concert.4 The second he thinks a little


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flat; he justly commends the fourth, but without notice of the best line in that stanza, or in the poem.
Transported demigods flood round,
And men grew heroes at the sound.
In the latter part of the ode he objects to the stanza of triumph.
Thus song could reveal, &c.
As written in a manner “ridiculous and burlesque,” and justifies his answer by observing that Addison uses the same numbers in the scene of Rosamond, between Grideline and Sir Trusly.5
How unhappy is he, &c.
That the measure is the same in both passages must be confessed, and both poets perhaps chose their numbers properly; for they both meant to express a kind of airy hilarity. The two passions of merriment and exultation are undoubtedly different; they are as different as a gambol and a triumph, but each is a species of joy; and poetical measures have not in any language been so far refined, as to provide for the subdivisions of passion. They can only be adapted to general purposes, but the particular and minuter propriety must be sought only in the sentiment and language. Thus the numbers are the same in Colin’s Complaint,6 and in the ballad of Darby and Joan,7 though in one sadness is represented, and in the other only tranquillity; so the measure is the same of Pope’s Unfortunate Lady and the Praise of Voiture.
He observes very justly, that the odes both of Dryden and Pope conclude unsuitably and unnaturally with epigram.8
He then spends a page upon Mr. Handel’s music to Dryden’s


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ode, and speaks of him with that regard, which he has generally obtain’d among the lovers of sound. He finds something amiss in the air “With ravished ones,” but has overlooked or forgotten the grossest fault in that composition, which is that in this line,
Revenge, revenge Timotheus cries, he has laid much stress upon the two latter words, which are meerly words of connexion, and ought in music to be considered as parenthetical.9
From this ode is struck out a digression on the nature of odes, and the comparative excellence of the ancients and moderns. He mentions the chorus which Pope wrote for the duke of Buckingham, and thence takes occasion to treat of the chorus of the ancients.1 He then comes to another ode of “The dying Christian to his soul,” in which finding an apparent imitation of Flatman, he falls into a pleasing and learned speculation on the resembling passages to be found in different poets.2
He mentions, with great regard, Pope’s ode on solitude, written when he was but twelve years old, but omits to mention the poem on silence, composed, I think, as early, with much greater elegance of diction, music of numbers, extent of observation, and force of thought.3 If he had happened to think on Baillet’s chapter of Enfans celebres,4 he might have made, on this occasion, a very entertaining dissertation on early excellence.
He comes next to the Essay on Criticism, the stupendous performance


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of a youth not yet twenty years old, and after having detailed the felicities of condition, to which he imagines Pope to have owed his wonderful prematurity of mind, he tells us that he is well informed, this essay was first written in prose: There is nothing improbable in the report, nothing indeed but what is more likely than the contrary; yet I cannot forbear to hint to this writer and all others the danger and weakness of trusting too readily to information. Nothing but experience could evince the frequency of false information, or enable any man to conceive that so many groundless reports should be propagated as every man of eminence may hear of himself. Some men relate what they think as what they know; some men of confused memories and habitual inaccuracy ascribe to one man what belongs to another; and some talk on without thought or care. A few men are sufficient to broach falshoods, which are afterwards innocently diffused by successive relators.
He proceeds on examining passage after passage of this essay; but we must pass over all these criticisms to which we have not something to add or to object, or where this author does not differ from the general voice of mankind. We cannot agree with him in his censure of the comparison of a student advancing in science with a traveller passing the Alps, which is, perhaps, the best simile in our language; that in which the most exact resemblance is traced between things in appearance utterly unrelated to each other.5 That “the last line conveys” no new idea is not true, it makes particular what was before general.6 Whether the description which he adds from another author be, as he says, more “full and striking,” than that of Pope, is not to be inquired.7 Pope’s description is relative, and can admit no greater length than is usually allowed


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to a simile, nor any other particulars than such as form the correspondence.
“Unvaried rhymes,” says this writer, “highly disgust readers of a good ear.”8 It is surely not the ear, but the mind that is offended; the fault rising from the use of common rhymes, is that by reading the past line the second may be guessed, and half the composition loses the grace of novelty.
On occasion of the mention of an alexandrine, the critic observes, that “the alexandrine may be thought a modern measure, but that Robert of Gloucester’s verse is an alexandrine, with the addition of two syllables; and that Sternhold and Hopkins translated the psalms in the same measure of fourteen syllables, though they are printed otherwise.”9
This seems not to be accurately conceived or expressed: an alexandrine, with the addition of two syllables, is no more an alexandrine, than with the detraction of two syllables. Sternhold and Hopkins did generally write in the alternate measure of eight and six syllables; but Hopkins commonly rhymed the first and third, Sternhold only the second and fourth: So that Sternhold may be considered as writing couplets of long lines; but Hopkins wrote regular stanzas. From the practice of printing the long lines of fourteen syllables in two short linesb arose the licence of some of our poets, who, though professing to write in stanzas, neglect the rhymes of the first and third lines.
Pope has mentioned Petronius among the great names of criticism, as the remarker justly observes without any critical merit.1 It is to be suspected, that Pope had never read his


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book, and mentioned him on the credit of two or three sentences which he had often seen quoted, imagining that where there was so much there must necessarily be more. Young men in haste to be renowned too frequently talk of books which they have scarcely seen.
The revival of learning, mentioned in this poem, affords an opportunity of mentioning the chief periods of literary history, of which this writer reckons five, that of Alexander, of Ptolemy Philadelphus, of Augustus, of Leo the tenth, of queen Anne.2
These observations are concluded with a remark which deserves great attention: “In no polished nation, after criticism has been much studied, and the rules of writing established, has any very extraordinary book ever appeared.”3
The Rape of the Lock was always regarded by Pope as the highest production of his genius. On occasion of this workc the history of the comic heroic is given, and we are told, that it descended from Tassonid to Boileau, from Boileau to Garth, and from Garth to Pope.4 Garth is mentioned perhaps with too much honour; but all are confessed to be inferior to Pope. There is in his remarks on this work no discovery of any latent beauty, nor any thing subtle or striking; he is indeed commonly right, but has discussed no difficult question.
The next pieces to be considered are the Verses to the Memory of an unfortunate Lady, the Prologue to Cato, and Epilogue to Jane Shore. The first piece he commends; on occasion of the second he digresses, according to his custom, into a learned dissertation on tragedies, and compares the English and French with the Greek stage. He justly censures Cato for want of action and of characters, but scarcely does justice to the sublimity of some speeches and the philosophical exactness in the sentiments.5 “The simile of mount Atlas, and that of the Numidian


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traveller smothered in the sands, are indeed, in character,” says the critic, “but sufficiently obvious.”6 The simile of the mountain is indeed common, but that of the traveller I do not remember;e that it is obvious, is easy to say, and easy to deny.——Many things are obvious when they are taught.
He proceeds to criticise the other works of Addison, till the epilogue calls his attention to Rowe, whose character he discusses in the same manner with sufficient freedom and sufficient candor.
The translation of the epistle of Sappho to Phaon is next considered;7 but Sappho and Ovid are more the subjects of this disquisition than Pope. We shall therefore pass over it to a piece of more importance, the epistle of Eloisa to Abelard, which may justly be regarded as one of the works on which the reputation of Pope will stand in future times.8
The critic pursues Eloisa through all the changes of passion, produces the passages of her letters to which any allusion is made, and intersperses many agreeable particulars and incidental relations. There is not much profundity of criticism, because the beauties are sentiments of nature, which the learned and the ignorant feel alike.9 It is justly remarked by him, that the wish of Eloisa, for the happy passage of Abelard into the other world, is formed according to the ideas of mystic devotion.
These are the pieces examined in this volume; whether the remaining part of the work will be one volume or more, perhaps the writer himself cannot yet inform us.1 This piece however


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is a complete work, so far as it goes, and the writer is of opinion, that he has dispatched the chief part of his task; for he ventures to remark, that the reputation of Pope, as a poet, among posterity, will be principally founded on to his Windsor-Forest, Rape of the Lock, and Eloisa to Abelard, while the facts and characters alluded to in his late writings will be forgotten and unknown, and their poignancy and propriety little relished; for wit and satire are transient and perishable, but nature and passion are eternal.
He has interspersed some passages of Pope’s life, with which most readers will be pleased. When Pope was yet a child, his father, who had been a merchant in London, retired to Bin-field. He was taught to read by an aunt, and learned to write without a master, by copying printed books. His father used to order him to make English verses, and would oblige him to correct and retouch them over and over, and at last could say, “These are good rhymes.”
At eight years of age he was committed to one Taverner a priest, who taught him the rudiments of the Latin and Greek. At this time he met with Ogleby’s Homer, which seized his attention; he fell next upon Sandy’s Ovid, and remembred these two translations with pleasure to the end of his life.
About ten, being at school near Hide-park-corner, he was taken to the play-house, and was so struck with the splendor of the drama, that he formed a kind of play out of Ogleby’s Homer, intermixed with verses of his own. He persuaded the head-boys to act this piece, and Ajax was performed by his master’s gardener; they were habited2 according to the pictures in Ogleby. At twelve he retired with his father to Windsor-Forest, and formed himself by the study in the best English poets.
In this extract it was thought convenient to dwell chiefly upon such observations as relate immediately to Pope, without deviating with the author into incidental inquiries. We intend to kindle, not to extinguish curiosity, by this slight sketch of a work abounding with curious quotations and


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pleasing disquisitions. He must be much acquainted with literary history both of remote and late times, who does not find in this essay many things which he did not know before; and if there be any too learned to be instructed in facts or opinions, he may yet properly read this book as a just specimen of literary moderation.
Editorial Notes
1 Eddy, no. 5; LM, I.35–38. Joseph Warton’s Essay was published by Mary Cooper, Robert Dodsley’s main trade publisher, but Dodsley did not acknowledge his involvement until 1762. Warton’s name was held back until the posthumous edition of 1806 (ODNB). SJ wrote to Warton on 15 April 1756 and chided him for publishing his Essay anonymously (Letters, I.133–34). Donald Greene included this review in his Oxford Authors Samuel Johnson (1984; pp. 488–94); we have benefited from his commentary.
2 For SJ’s regularly low opinion of pastoral poetry, see, e.g., Ramblers 36 and 37 (Yale, III.195–205). SJ’s assessment of Pope’s pastorals in his Life of Pope is more generous, but he depreciates the whole genre as “not professing to imitate real life” (Yale, XXIII.1193–95).
3 Warton calls this mixture a “blemish” (Essay, p. 4).
4 Warton, Essay, p. 4.
5 SJ both quotes and paraphrases Warton, Essay, p. 10.
6 “Weakened” and “diminished” are Warton’s words (Essay, p. 12).
7 “Descriptive Poetry was by no means the shining talent of Pope” (Warton, Essay, p. 20).
8 Paraphrased from p. 20. SJ praises The Chace in his Life of Somervile (Yale, XXII.846).
9 Pope, Essay on Criticism, l. 255.
a effort emend.] effect (see Greene, Oxford Authors Samuel Johnson, p. 815)
1 Quoted fairly accurately from Warton (Essay, p. 37), though Warton wrote “manners and passions” rather than “nature and passions.”
2 Warton’s admiring digression on Thomson is on pp. 41–51. On p. 42 he contrasts him to dwellers in the Strand, the western end of the road (the A4) that runs through the heart of London, where SJ and many other writers lived.
3 Warton, Essay, p. 11.
4 “Perfect concert”: Warton, Essay, p. 53. Joseph Spence called it a “perfect consort” in his Essay on Pope’s Odyssey (1726–27), p. 151. Consort was often written for concert (OED, s.v. concert).
5 Warton, Essay, p. 57; Addison, Rosamond I.ii.1–12.
6 Colin’s Complaint for his Mistress’s Unkindness (1710), by Nicholas Rowe but published under Addison’s name.
7 “Darby and Joan” is a ballad also called “The Happy Old Couple” and ascribed to Philip Wharton, first Duke of Wharton.
8 Warton says epigram is “a species of wit as flagrantly unsuitable to the dignity, and as foreign to the nature, of the lyric, as it is of the epic muse” (Essay, p. 62).
9 For commentary on this judgment, see Morris Brownell, Samuel Johnson’s Attitude to the Arts (1989), pp. 23–27. In brief, Brownell argues, “Johnson’s demand that a musician should follow the poet’s prosody is as commonplace a criticism as Warton’s complaint about Handel’s divisions” (p. 25). Cf. Greene, Oxford Authors Samuel Johnson, p. 815.
1 “Two Choruses to the Tragedy of Brutus” (1717); Warton, Essay, pp. 70–77.
2 In this digression, Warton quotes Rambler 143 on such resemblances (p. 93). He refers to Thomas Flatman (1635–88).
3 SJ expresses this preference again in his Life of Pope (Yale, XXIII.1041–42).
4 Des enfans devenus célèbres par leurs études ou par leurs écrits. Traité Historique (1688). This work of five hundred pages covers ancients and moderns from Alexander to Scaliger, Grotius, and Hobbes.
5 Cf. SJ’s Life of Pope: “the comparison of a student’s progress in the sciences with the journey of a traveller in the Alps, is perhaps the best that English poetry can shew” (ll. 219–32; Yale, XXIII.1200).
6 “Hills peep o’er Hills and Alps on Alps arise!” (l. 232; Warton, Essay, pp. 141–42).
7 Warton cites Anthony Ashley Cooper, third Earl of Shaftesbury, Characteristicks (1711), II.389.
8 Warton, Essay, p. 149. SJ criticizes Pope for “same rhymes” and “double rhymes” in his Life of Pope (Yale, XXIII. 1226).
9 Close paraphrase of Warton (Essay, p. 150), who refers to Al Such Psalmes of David as Thomas Sternehold . . . didde in his life time draw into English Metre (1549). This work led to the influential Metrical Psalter (1562), to which John Hopkins was the largest contributor. The poems are set in alternate lines of eight and six syllables.
b lines emend.] line
1 Essay on Criticism, ll. 667–68; Warton, Essay, pp. 174–75.
2 Warton, Essay, pp. 187–89.
3 Warton, Essay, p. 203; SJ substitutes “book” for “work.”
c work emend.] wotk
d Tassoni emend.] Fassoni
4 Warton, Essay, pp. 205–18.
5 SJ similarly acknowledges the justice of Warton’s judgment in his Life of Addison (Yale, XXIII.655), before arguing for the play’s excellence. SJ sends up a view like Warton’s as cant in Idler 60 (Yale, II.184–89), but expresses a version of it himself in his preface to Shakespeare (Yale, VII.84).
6 Warton, Essay, p. 262.
e remember; emend.] remember^
7 Pope’s translation of Ovid’s Epistle to Sappho (in Ovid’s Epistles [1712]).
8 Cf. SJ’s Life of Pope: “The epistle of Eloisa to Abelard is one of the most happy productions of human wit” (Yale, XXIII.1209).
9 Cf. SJ’s Proposals for an Edition of Shakespeare (1756): “It is the great excellence of Shakespeare, that he drew his scenes from nature, and from life” (Yale, VII.53).
1 Warton published a second volume in 1782.
2 Habited: attired.
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Document Details
Document TitleReview of Joseph Warton, An Essay on the Writings and Genius of Pope (1756)
AuthorJohnson, Samuel
Creation Date1756
Publ. DateN/A
Alt. TitleN/A
Contrib. AuthorJohnson, Samuel
ClassificationSubject: Alexander Pope; Subject: Poetry; Subject: Literary criticism; Subject: John Dryden; Subject: Essay; Subject: Authors; Subject: Biography; Genre: Book Review
PrinterN/A
PublisherJ. Richardson
Publ. PlaceLondon
VolumeSamuel Johnson: Johnson on Demand
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