Part 44 (1/2)
This entry is not calculated to afford any credit to the narrative concerning lord Jefferies. R.]
[Footnote 119: See what is said on this head with regard to Cowley and Addison, in their respective lives.]
[Footnote 120: Preface to Ovid's Metamorphoses. Dr. J.]
[Footnote 121: We are not about to attempt a justification of Dryden's strange use, in the above stanzas, of nautical phrases, but we must remark, that Johnson's antipathy to s.h.i.+ps, and every thing connected with them, made him unusually sensitive of any thing like naval technicalities. And yet surely the occasional and judicious use of them in description is quite as allowable as the introduction of allusions to the printing office or bookseller's shop, with which Johnson happened to be familiar, and, therefore, did not disapprove. St. Paul did not disdain to adopt naval phraseology in his exquisite narrative of his own perils by sea. ED.]
[Footnoteb 122: A heart-sinking and painful depression has been experienced by most of us on concluding a favourite author; but the sensation has never been more vividly portrayed in language, than in the above pa.s.sage. ED.]
[Footnote 123: I cannot see why Johnson has thought there was any want of clearness in this pa.s.sage even in prose. Addison has given us almost the very same thought in very good prose: ”If we look forward to him [the deity] for help, we shall never be in danger of falling down those precipices which our imagination is apt to create. Like those who walk upon a line, if we keep our eye fixed upon one point, we may step forward securely; whereas an imprudent or cowardly glance on either side will infallibly destroy us.” Spectator, No. 615. J.B.]
[Footnote 124: This is an error. The alexandrine inserted among heroick lines of ten syllables is found in many of the writers of queen Elizabeth's reign. It will be sufficient to mention Hall, who has already been quoted for the use of the triplet:
As tho' the staring world hang'd on his sleeve.
Whenever he smiles to laugh, and when he sighs to grieve.
Hall's Sat. book i. sat. 7.
Take another instance:
For shame! or better write or Labeo write none.
Hall's Sat. book ii. sat 1. J.B.]
SMITH
Edmund Smith is one of those lucky writers who have, without much labour, attained high reputation, and who are mentioned with reverence, rather for the possession, than the exertion of uncommon abilities.
Of his life little is known; and that little claims no praise but what can be given to intellectual excellence, seldom employed to any virtuous purpose. His character, as given by Mr. Oldisworth, with all the partiality of friends.h.i.+p, which is said, by Dr. Burton, to show ”what fine things one man of parts can say of another,” and which, however, comprises great part of what can be known of Mr. Smith, it is better to transcribe, at once, than to take by pieces. I shall subjoin such little memorials as accident has enabled me to collect.
Mr. Edmund Smith was the only son of an eminent merchant, one Mr. Neale, by a daughter of the famous baron Lechmere. Some misfortunes of his father, which were soon followed by his death, were the occasion of the son's being left very young in the hands of a near relation, (one who married Mr. Neale's sister,) whose name was Smith.
This gentleman and his lady treated him as their own child, and put him to Westminster school, under the care of Dr. Busby; whence, after the loss of his faithful and generous guardian, (whose name he a.s.sumed and retained,) he was removed to Christ church, in Oxford, and there, by his aunt, handsomely maintained till her death; after which he continued a member of that learned and ingenious society, till within five years of his own; though, some time before his leaving Christ church, he was sent for by his mother to Worcester, and owned and acknowledged as her legitimate son; which had not been mentioned, but to wipe off the aspersions that were ignorantly cast by some on his birth. It is to be remembered, for our author's honour, that, when at Westminster election he stood a candidate for one of the universities, he so signally distinguished himself by his conspicuous performances, that there arose no small contention, between the representative electors of Trinity college, in Cambridge, and Christ church, in Oxon, which of those two royal societies should adopt him as their own. But the electors of Trinity college having the preference of choice that year, they resolutely elected him; who yet, being invited, at the same time, to Christ church, chose to accept of a students.h.i.+p there. Mr. Smith's perfections, as well natural as acquired, seem to have been formed upon Horace's plan, who says, in his Art of Poetry:
Ego nec studium sine divite vena, Nec rude quid prosit video ingenium; alterius sic Altera poscit opem res, et conjurat amice.
He was endowed by nature with all those excellent and necessary qualifications which are previous to the accomplishment of a great man.
His memory was large and tenacious, yet, by a _curious felicity, chiefly_ susceptible of the finest impressions it received from the best authors he read, which it always preserved in their primitive strength and amiable order.
He had a quickness of apprehension, and vivacity of understanding, which easily took in and surmounted the most subtile and knotty parts of mathematicks and metaphysicks. His wit was prompt and flowing, yet solid and piercing; his taste delicate, his head clear, and his way of expressing his thoughts perspicuous and engaging. I shall say nothing of his person, which yet was so well _turned_, that no neglect of himself in his dress could render it disagreeable; insomuch, that the fair s.e.x, who observed and esteemed him, at once commended and reproved him by the name of the _handsome_ sloven. An eager but generous and n.o.ble emulation grew up with him; which (as it were a rational sort of instinct) pushed him upon striving to excel in every art and science that could make him a credit to his college, and that college the ornament of the most learned and polite university; and it was his happiness to have several contemporaries and fellow-students who exercised and excited this virtue in themselves and others, thereby becoming so deservedly in favour with this age, and so good a proof of its nice discernment. His judgment, naturally good, soon ripened into an exquisite fineness and distinguis.h.i.+ng sagacity, which as it was active and busy, so it was vigorous and manly, keeping even paces with a rich and strong imagination, always upon the wing, and never tired with aspiring. Hence it was, that, though he writ as young as Cowley, he had no puerilities; and his earliest productions were so far from having any thing in them mean and trifling, that, like the junior compositions of Mr. Stepney, they may make grey authors blush. There are many of his first essays in oratory, in epigram, elegy, and epick, still handed about the university in ma.n.u.script, which show a masterly hand; and, though maimed and injured by frequent transcribing, make their way into our most celebrated miscellanies, where they s.h.i.+ne with uncommon l.u.s.tre. Besides those verses in the Oxford books, which he could not help setting his name to, several of his compositions came abroad under other names, which his own singular modesty, and faithful silence, strove in vain to conceal. The Encaenia and publick collections of the university upon state subjects, were never in such esteem, either for elegy or congratulation, as when he contributed most largely to them; and it was natural for those who knew his peculiar way of writing, to turn to his share in the work, as by far the most relis.h.i.+ng part of the entertainment. As his parts were extraordinary, so he well knew how to improve them; and not only to polish the diamond, but enchase it in the most solid and durable metal.
Though he was an academick the greatest part of his life, yet he contracted no sourness of temper, no spice of pedantry, no itch of disputation, or obstinate contention for the old or new philosophy, no a.s.suming way of dictating to others, which are faults (though excusable) which some are insensibly led into, who are constrained to dwell long within the walls of a private college. His conversation was pleasant and instructive, and what Horace said of Plotius, Varius, and Virgil, might justly be applied to him:
Nil ego contulerim jucundo sa.n.u.s amico. Sat. v. l. 1.
As correct a writer as he was in his most elaborate pieces, he read the works of others with candour, and reserved his greatest severity for his own compositions; being readier to cherish and advance, than damp or depress a rising genius, and as patient of being excelled himself (if any could excel him) as industrious to excel others.
'Twere to be wished he had confined himself to a particular profession, who was capable of surpa.s.sing in any; but, in this, his want of application was, in a great measure, owing to his want of due encouragement.
He pa.s.sed through the exercises of the college and university with unusual applause; and though he often suffered his friends to call him off from his retirements, and to lengthen out those jovial avocations, yet his return to his studies was so much the more pa.s.sionate, and his intention upon those refined pleasures of reading and thinking so vehement, (to which his facetious and unbended intervals bore no proportion,) that the habit grew upon him; and the series of meditation and reflection being kept up whole weeks together, he could better sort his ideas, and take in the sundry parts of a science at one view, without interruption or confusion. Some, indeed, of his acquaintance, who were pleased to distinguish between the wit and the scholar, extolled him altogether on the account of the first of these t.i.tles; but others, who knew him better, could not forbear doing him justice as a prodigy in both kinds. He had signalized himself, in the schools, as a philosopher and polemick of extensive knowledge and deep penetration; and went through all the courses with a wise regard to the dignity and importance of each science.