2 on his rules for poetry. The same kind of tacit allusion occurs in his Preface to the Translation of Father Lobo's Voyage to Abyssinia,1 and in A Project for the Employment of Authors. His Lives of Eminent Persons have only such classical references as apply directly to the subject, and in them there is no allusion to Horace. In his tales of the imagination, which include Rasselas, the Vision of Theodore, the Hermit of Teneriffe, and the Fountains, there is practically no classical allusion of any kind. So also in his Parliamentary Debates; and the few allusions in his political tracts are chiefly to Greek and Latin historians, and to such authors as Cicero. Once in these writings he quotes Horace, in the Thoughts on the Late Transactions respecting Falkland's Islands:3 mortalibus arduum est:" there is nothing which human courage will not undertake, and little that human patience will not endure. The garrison lived upon Falkland's island, shrinking from the blast, and shuddering at the billows.' In what may be called his autobiographical writings, the Account of the Life of Dr. Samuel Johnson, from his Birth to his Eleventh Year, written by himself, the Journey to the Hebrides, and his Prayers and Meditations, there is only one allusion to Horace-in the Meditations. In the Journey to the Hebrides he is reminded of Homer and of Cæsar; the Highlanders he compares with the Greeks of Thucydides in that they went always armed;" and in the island of Raasay he could have fancied himself in Phæacia; but though Boswell tells of his quoting an 1 Wks. 5. 255: A. P. 338. 2 Ibid. 5. 358: E. 2. 2. 70-76. 3 Ibid. 6. 187. 4 O. 1. 3. 37. 5 Wks. 9. 41. 6 Ibid. 9. 62. Ode of Horace on a stormy crossing from one island of the Hebrides to another,' he himself records in his history of the journey no instance where he was reminded of Horace, who was by nature and training a civilian and frequenter of country resorts, the spirit of whose poetry is in general little akin to the life of toil and hardship of the Hebrides. Among the Meditations there is this curious entry, indicating one of those scruples which Johnson has more than once recorded of himself: 'I then dined, and trifled in the parlour and library, and was freed from a scruple about Horace.' What the scruple was he does not intimate. A general glance backward over the life and conversation and the writings of Johnson makes clear what was said at the beginning of this survey, that he had a strong and undeniable personal affection for Horace; a keen appreciation of the beauty of his Odes-perhaps the exquisite grace of Horace's diction appealed to him more strongly by contrast with his own labored style; a respect for his literary criticisms, upon which he relied in his critical essays, though he did not accept his precepts blindly; and, above all, sympathy with Horace's observations upon the conduct of life, and sympathetic understanding of, though not acquiescence in, his fundamental melancholy. It is an interesting reflection upon the results of this investigation, though in no way confirming them, that Murphy, in his Essay on the Life and Genius of Dr. Johnson, can find no more fitting words to complete his picture of his character than in the following lines from Horace's Third Satire of the First Book:* 3 1 Life 5. 163: O. 2. 16. 2 Wks. 9. 284, and Johnsonian Misc. 1. 93. For other instances of such scruples, see Johnsonian Misc. 1. 38, 41, 46, 113, etc. 3 Wks. 1. lxviii. 4 S. 1. 3. 29-34. Iracundior est paulo? minus aptus acutis In pede calceus hæret? At est bonus, ut melior vir Non alius quisquam: at tibi amicus: at ingenium ingens Inculto latet hoc sub corpore. THE LETTER-WRITERS: LORD CHESTERFIELD AND HORACE WALPOLE Lord Chesterfield and Horace Walpole exemplify the letter-writers of the eighteenth century in their use of classical quotation. Both use such quotation liberally as a façon de parler, but neither carries it to the extreme which was reached by the lesser wits; both indeed deprecate its use, yet have involuntarily followed the fashion. Chesterfield gives the following advice to his son on his becoming an attaché to the Embassy at Paris in 1751:1 'Carefully avoid all Greek or Latin quotations; and bring no precedents from the virtuous Spartans, the polite Athenians, and the brave Romans. Leave all that to futile pedants.' In a letter dated June 24 of this year, he has already described his own first efforts and failure to be a successful man of the world, as a warning to his son: 'At nineteen, I left the University of Cambridge, where I was an absolute pedant; when I talked my best, I quoted Horace; when I aimed at being facetious, I quoted Martial; and when I had a mind to be a fine gentleman, I talked Ovid.' And he writes to Mrs. Eugenia Stanhope in 1769, concerning the education of her two sons: 'I am not of the opinion generally entertained in this country, that man lives by Greek and Latin alone; that is, by knowing a great many words of two dead languages, which nobody living knows perfectly, and which are of no use in the common intercourse of life.' 1 Letters of Philip Dormer Stanhope, fourth Earl of Chesterfield, ed. by John Bradshaw, 1892, 2. 474. See also Feb. 22, 1748 (1. 90). 2 Chesterfield's Letters 1. 460. 3 Ibid. 3. 1389. 2 Walpole frequently expresses a dread of pedantry. On October 24, 1758, he writes to George Montagu1 that he is giving up writing, for 'it has dipped me in erudite correspondences-I receive letters every week that compliment my learning-now, as there is nothing I hold so cheap as a learned man, except an unlearned one, this title is insupportable to me; if I have not a care, I shall be called learned, till somebody abuses me for not being learned, as they, not I, fancied I was.' And on September 22, 1765, he writes to him from Paris, protesting against what he calls the French affectation of philosophy, literature, and freethinking: For literature, it is very amusing when one has nothing else to do. I think it rather pedantic in society; tiresome when displayed professedly.' He tries to ward off the dedication of a poem to himself:3 "I remonstrated, and advised him to Augustus, the patron supreme; he would not be said nay, and modesty, as it always does when folks are pressing, submitted, but it was to be a homage to my literary merit. Oh, that was too much, I downright was rude.' And on another occasion he writes to the same friend, William Mason:* 'Mr. Gilpin has sent me his book and dedication. I thank you for the latter being so moderate, yet he talks of my researches, which makes me smile; I know, as Gray would have said, how little I have researched, and what slender pretensions are mine to so pompous a term.' And, finally, he writes to the Countess of Upper Ossory: "[The Morning Post] talks, too, of my extensive learning, which always makes me laugh-no mortal's reading has been more superficial.' In the letters of each may be perceived the view that 1 The Letters of Horace Walpole, ed. by Mrs. Paget Toynbee, Oxford, 1903, 4. 210. 2 Walpole's Letters 6. 301. 3 May 15, 1773 (Walpole's Letters 8. 278). 4 Jan. 27, 1781 (Walpole's Letters 11. 376). 5 Aug. 23, 1780 (Walpole's Letters 11. 261). |