BOOKS.

CUNNINGHAM'S JOHNSON..

JOHNSON'S " Lives of the Poets " has a threefold claim to be ad- mitted in a series of British classics : it is the most popular work of one of our most eminent writers ; it has become a household book, to be found in almost every family collection of a few hun- dred volumes ; and, whatever be its defects, it is the only book of its kind in English literature that has gained a wide acceptance. We suspect, indeed, that the defects are one main cause of its po- pularity. Johnson's criticisms on poetry are just such as would occur to any man of clear logical sense and ordinary morality ; he has no sympathy with either the intellectual or moral eccentricities of genius ; would put about the same value on the glove of a mis- tress and the cast-off shoe of a footman; has but slender com- miseration for sentimental sorrow, or respect for sentimental ecstasies ; and would utterly -scorn the babyism or roguery that would claim for gentlemen and ladies who write verses any ex- emption from the immutable laws of morality and retribution. The young, to whom poetry is a passion, may hate the book for its mere common sense, and what they will feel to be a hard ungenial tone ; those who regard art, and especially art expressing itself in language, as a province of human activity subject to organic laws which regulate its development and enter into all even the smallest of its genuine productions, will miss any perception of this fact, any attempt to discern and state such laws ; those who look to poets as to prophets, whose function is to sound and to solve deep problems of existence, will certainly be more than all other readers disappointed and vexed. These, however, are not defects which would be felt by a busy practical race, to whom poetry is for the most part only a recreation, and whose chief de- sire is that their household literature should be sensible and vir- tuous. And it does singularly enough happen, that the poetry of the eighteenth century in England, and indeed of the seventeenth so far at least as Johnson dealt with it, is sadly unpoetio in any pro- found sense; is—with the exception of Milton, who really belongs to the period before the Restoration, as every poet truly belongs to the period which formed and trained him—of the earth, earthy ; good sense or nonsense put into verse more or less graceful or sonorous, but evincing little of that " vision and faculty divine," that power of interpreting man's life to himself, of reading the "open secret," which is the essential characteristic of the great poets. Johnson, therefore, was better fitted for estimating at its true worth the body of English poetry between the Restoration and the close of the eighteenth century, than he would have been for exhaustive criti- cism of the poetry of the period which preceded, or of that which succeeded those hundred years. On these poets we may as a rule take Johnson's judgment to be true, as for as it goes; though where any gleam of a more central fire flashes from the general superficial crackling, he fails to perceive it. As a biographer, Johnson's reputation stands high, though he had neither inclination for minute research nor any very deep sense of what people call now the "significance of facts." He could gather the main familiar incidents of a career into a narrative that rolled on in stately diction and sonorous sentences ; and he could tack sound if obvious moral reflections to the ups and downs, the sorrows and joys, of a chequered life. 'What a biographer ought specially to aim at, a sense of the individuality of his subject, and a corresponding representation,• had no charm for the Doctor, who effaced all the minor living distinctions of men and things by the broad sweep of his loaded brush. In reading John- son's Lives, we are too often reminded of the warning of Sir Joshua Reynolds to his class, against mistaking emptiness for breadth, want of detail for the grand style. But Johnson, in this and in his notions about poetry, (for sense of the thing we scarcely feel justified in awarding him,) only represented his age, and did better than 'any one else what that age was alive to and admired. His work ought to live, if for nothing but to preserve the recol- lection of the opinions of a great man, and of the level of the eighteenth century. So Mr. Murray has, we think, full justifica- tion for occupying three volumes of his Classical Series with it. Nor can it be doubted that the value of the work, as a book of reference and authority, is increased by correcting such errors of date and fact as later researches have brought to light. We think, however, that Mr. Peter Cunningham, to whom the task of editing has been assigned, is rather disposed to make mountains of molehills in respect of his labours. Johnson indulged so sparingly in research, that minute detail, either biographical or bibliographical, is not a characteristic of even the most careful of his literary biographies ; and the number of errors committed is of course only in proportion, and we are bound to say in very small proportion, to the num- ber of facts stated. Mr. Cunningham in his preface gives a tolerably exhaustive list of such mistakes as he has himself cor- rected through the whole series of lives. They are for the moat part only carelessness of reference or slips of memory ; one is a mere verbal blunder, which is curiously enough repeated by Milford in his recent elaborate Life of Milton, prefixed to Mr. Pickering's handsome edition of the complete works ; and of the most important—dates of birth, death, or literary productions—. one may say without much injustice that they have somewhat the value of a chiffonier's treasures. Yet Mr. Cunningham informs us

• Lives of the Most Eminent English Poeta, with Critical Observations on their Works, by Samuel Johnson; with Notes corrective and explanatory by Peter Cue-. ninghant, F.S.A. Volume I. Published by Murray.

that it is twenty years since he resolved to become the editor of Johnson's Lives. Of course he has not spent any great portion of those years upon this task, but we think that most literary rans, with.a fondness fur biographical or bibliographical research, would have found some more interesting matter to insert in their inter- leaved copy of the Lives, during twenty years' miscellaneous read- ing, than seems to have fallen in Mr. Curunegbarn s way, if the first volume is to be taken as a fair •specimen of his industry or good fortune. Mr. Cunningham -might at least have added to the value of Johnson's work by compiling a. list of the various editions of•the works of each poet, and indicating their excellences and de- feetsi -he might, too, have stated briefly the main authorities for each life, thus enabling a reader to go to original sources for his convictions of Johnson's merits as a recorder of facts. Such notes would have been far better worth giving than the majority of those which merely express critical differenees, either of Mr. Cun- ningham's own or of some writer subsequent to Johnson, from judgments pronounced in the text. The•former would at any rate

ve indicated research ; the latter implies nothing but an ac- quaintance with current literature. But, in fact, this edition, the result of twenty years' pre-

meditation—Johnson did not take as many weeks for his prepa- ration—is exceedingly meagre in new matter, resting almost wholly on biographies of the poets published ;ince Johnson's time. The case may be different with the poets who are to come in the next two volumes, but we have been much disappointed with the notes to the first. And the worst of it is, that, from indications here and there, we cannot implicitly trust the carefulness and ac- *survey even of what is put down. Of course most of the facts dated in such a book will be accurate, because for the most part they have been sifted over and over egain • but the especial value of such an edition—apart from its typographical attraction—is that it can be depended on, and saves the necessity of reference to other books. We do not allude to opinions of Mr. Peter Cunningham on literary matters,—as that wonderful dictum in page 18 of the Pre- face, " I would venture to affirm that no one has written finer or truer things about Paradise -Lost than Johnson in his Life,"—be- cause de gustgrus non disputandum, until, at least, some agree- ment has been come to as to the true ground of taste. Otherwise we might enter a passing protest against another dictum which.is printed as Mr. Peter Cunningham's, with a strange air of au- thority, at page 162 : -"The admirers of Milton's political opinions," says the note-writer, " and some too who comprehend his poetry, lave found his prose style Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose, But musical as is Apollo's lute.'

This, however, is not the case." Who, after so magisterial a de- cision, will talk again of the richness, the strength, the wonderful eloquence and power of style, of the author of the Areopagitica ! Mr. Cunningham has a right to his critical opinions. But the faults we hinted at are of another character, and we will enumerate a few that struck us as we read over his 'preface and notes, and which, unless we happened by a singular accident to stumble upon all that are to be found there, must be regarded as specimens. Let us take the-Preface first.

Page 18. Mr. Cunningham states that the tradition of Milton's

having been whipped at college is now, "among those that read, generally exploded "; and he calls it " a vulgar error of our litera- tare." But at page 85 (Life of Milton) he says, "that Milton was whipped at college, rests on the authority of Aubrey, who states the story as from his brother, Mr. Christopher Milton" ; and adds a remark about Aubrey's accuracy, which would lead anybody to suppose that he (Mr. Cunningham) believed the story. Our eon- temporary the Atheneum, hy quoting Aubrey's own words, throws

very justifiable doubt on the meaning of the passage ; but, what- ever Aubrey heard or meant, no editor of Johnson should have se- rated the story without stating Mitford's most satisfactory dis- - emission of the charge. And even Mitford has not made his case as strong as it might be made, by omitting to remark that bitter and scurrilous as was the abuse which was poured upon Milton during his life, such a charge was never made, though Bishop Hall, if we -remember rightly, did accuse him of having been disgraced at

college. On the very next page of the Preface we find assigned as a motive for Johnson's dislike to Swift, a disservice done by the Dean to the Doctor in early life. "Swift, it is supposed," says Mr. Cunningham, " withheld his recommendation"; and therefore Johnson wrote the Dean's life under the ill-controlled fury of a " burning hatred" : and, this, too, when in the very next sentence he quotes Dr. Johnson's own positive assertion to Boswell, that Swift had never personally offended him. Such hypothetical bio- graphy ill becomes a man when setting up: for a corrector of other ,men's misstatements of fact. A little further on, we find a like liberal suggestion as to the cause of Johnson's dislike to Lord ,Lyttelton ; a dislike not very venomous, as is proved by the Doctor's wish to leave his Lordship's life in the hands of his brother Lord Westeote,—certainly not the act of an enemy wish- ing to avenge a wrong.

In page 24 (still of the Preface) we are told, that " Johnson

does not delight in fiction or blank verse, but likes sterling sense expressed in vigorous English and in English hexameters with rhyme." Of course Mr. Cunningham means by hexameters the ordinary ten-syllable heroic measure of Dryden and Pope : we ,need not comment on the strange ignorance thus displayed. More- ioner, at the bottom of the same page, he goes on : " He [Johnson] ;gives, I feel and regret, a most undue preference to blank verse over rhyme,"—a slip of the pen, of course; but such slips have no

e business in editions whose principal merit is their style of gettini. np : we pardon few unimportant misprints in books so mans lously cheap as Mr. Bohn's, but they are not consistent with the pretensions of Albemarle Street and twenty years' preparation.

Mr. Cunningham, we regret to observe, manifests an indisposition to recognize the labours of his eontemporaries. One instance meets us in a note to Johnson's original advertisement. He speaks there of two letters of Dryden discovered since Soott's • edition, and "consequently not included in any edition of. Dryden's works." This would lead a reader ignorant of the real fact to suppose that no letters of Dryden besides those included in Scott's edition hed been since published, and that since Scott'a life no life of Dryden had been published. Mr. Cunningham is of course aware that only this year, Mr. Robert Bell has published a life of Dryden, with several new and interesting letters, and at least ene fact un- known before, which bears with most convincing evidence upon the hitherto most debateable point in Dryden'a career. At page 6 (Life of Cowley) Mr. Cunningham adds a note to , Johnson's general statement, that Cowley went to Cambridge in 1 the year 1636, to inform his readers that Cowley was that year an Iunsuccessful _candidate at Westminster School for election to Tri- nity College. As we'xere nware of a fact which seems to have escaped both Dr. Johnson and kr. Cunningham, (though a phrase in Cowley's will ought to have set them upon traces of it,) namely, that Cowley lived and died a. Fellow of Trinity,Collage, we have made inquirien into this matter, and are informed that the College books prove Cowley was a Westminster scholar of Trinity, and that .he must have been chosen at Westminster in 1636, as his name appears at the top of a list of five Westminster scholars admitted in April 1637. If Mr. Cunningham will make inquiry of those who have in keeping the records of Trinity College, he will doubtless find his statement contradicted. Here, then, is nn error introduced into Johnson, not very important, we admit, but it evidences how little reel trouble Mr. Cuanuigham has taken to.get .a truth perfectly accessible. Moreover, his mistake, had he been scrupulous in acknowledging the sources of his "new " in- formation, would have been shifted from his own shoulders; but, after his fashion, he copies the statement verbatim from the hand- some Oxford edition of J-oheson's works, and leaves the reader to credit the new editor's industr with the discoverTo proceed

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to another University matter : `Johnson states that flton-was-ad- milted to Christ's College, Cambridge, in his sixteenth year, on February 12, 1624. An editor of Mr. Cunningham's pretensions to minute acenraey ought to have remembered, that as the year then began in March, and as Milton was born in December 1608, he was therefore in his seventeenth year in "February 1624," as Mitford rightly states: again an error of no possible importance, except as indicating an inaccurate habit of editing. At page 90 (Life of Milton) Johnson speaks of Milton visiting Galileo, " then a prisoner in the Inquieition." The .phrase. is not particularly important, but it gives an exaggerated colour to Galileo's treatment; and a person correcting Johnson's misstate- ments might as well have explained that Galileo was not thrown into a dungeon, but only confined under an arrest in a friend's house, or in apartments belonging to efficers a the Inquisition. (Vide Walker's Memoir of TasSoni, page 238, quoted by Mitford in his Memoir of Milton.) We cannot attribute the .same degree of unimportance to Mr. Cunningham's omission to correct that malignant charge which Johnson repeats.against Milton of lianing interpolated a prayer from Sidney's Arcadia into the EisonBesilike, with the view of casting contempt and suspicion on the King's piety; a charge which johnson, with characteristic unconsciousness of a double application of his words, introduces by the sententious remark, that ".faction seldom leaves a man honest, however it might find him." If Mr. Cunningham does not know that the charge has no ground whatever but malice, and that it has been refuted, he is not sufficiently versed in the literature of his sub- ject; and if he does know it, he eansthave,a very singular notion dills duty as an editor to leave it without resisark. Then.again, Mr. Cunningham must- knew that .aoree persons have doubted the authenticity of those passages in Milton's History of England which reflected on the Long Parliament and the Assembly of Divines; doubts which are supported by the exceeding internal improbability of Milton attacking that party under -the reign of Charles the Second, and of the licenser objecting to such attacks if presented to him. Johnson, however, affirms that Milton himself gave a copy to the. Earl of Aeglese.a ; from which the 64PPre4sP4 nasaage vas printed first in 1738. Now here was scope Mr assuaute editor; but Mr. Cunningham has not a worelto say on the spbjeat, though it has been ably discussed by Milton's _latest biographer, and liar frequently been a subject of dispute. But our space is limited, and we must proceed, leaving aside memoranda we had made of assertions utterly 'unsupported by cited evidence or reference to anthority, though possibly perfectly correct, and of notes that have no relevancy to the passages to which they are affixed. One labia, however, ,in the life of Dry- den, we-must note, if it were only to call Mr. Cunningham's at- tention to, it, and give him an opportunity of explaining his con- duct, for it amounts to something more than a literary Zen* Mr. Robert Bell, at the beginning of this year, in the Life of Drys din prefixed to the first volume of Parker's Annotated British Poets, along with other new -matter, printed for the first time a mutilated 'Treasury warrant, which threw a strongly favourable light on one of the most questionable passages of Dryden's oar*, and which, whatever ultimate opinion any person may form on Dryden's conversion to Popery, must be taken into account as evi- Luce of great importance. How does Mr. Cunningham deal with this fact? First, in alluding to the letters-patent of 4th March' 1685286, granting a pension of a hundred a year to Dryden, (page 334,) he says, " This is, I suspect, only a renewal by King James of the additional pension granted by King Charles the Second, and which of course expired with the life of that King." Why, till Bell produced the Treasury warrant, the additional hundred a Tear from Charles was unknown ; it was supposed to be an original grant of James, and to be the price of Dryden's conversion : and yet '"auntiingliam talks of it as a matter so familiar as to need no re- mark, and has the coolness to credit his own sagacious " suspicion" with Mr. Bell's elaborate deduction from a newly-discovered fact. The singularity of this proceeding is not diminished when we find that 3ir.Cuuningham himself is provided with an additional official Fed of the increase to Dryden's pension having taken place in the reign of Charles for he publishes, a Treasury order of an earlier date-than Mr. Bell's. We do not therefore deny that Mr. Cun- ningham may have formed his conclusion as soon as or sooner than Mr. Bell, but Mr. Bell published: his first; to him the public are indebted for their new view of Dryden's case; and the laws of lite- rary honesty demauded that due acknowledgment of the fact should be made. Mr. Cunningham in another passage, speaking of Dryden's conversion, says, "Those who would pursue the sub- ject thus admirably handled by 1)r. Johnson, should consult Scott's Life of Dryden, Southey's Life of Cowper, and Macaulay's His- tory." This again looks like studied suppression of Mr. Bell, who certainly has argueti the question quite as ably as any of these writers, and with a faller knowledge of the facts than any of them. We will not dismiss Dryden without stating that Mr. Cunning- ham has found evidence of Dryden's having succeeded in obtain- ing, through Lord Rochester, (Hyde, Earl of Rochester,) a place in the Customs ; a fact which previous biographers have not known. We regret that we have not been able to bestow more praise upon the editing of a book so handsomely. got-up : we trust that the writers and literary history of the eighteenth century have :sampled Mr. Cunningham's attention with more success than we can attribute to his studies among those of the latter part of the seventeenth.

[Since this notice was in type, we have received the second volume of Mr. Cunningham's Johnson ; too late, however, for critical examination this week.—En.]