"Their reputation," says he, "seems to be still increasing; and we may venture to predict, that it will yet increase, till some of those great vicissitudes, to which all that is human is perpetually exposed, and which all must eventually experience, shall blot out our name and our language, and bury us in barbarism. But even

amid the ruins of Britain, Milton will survive : Europe will preserve one portion of him; and his native strains will be cherished in the expanding bosom of the great queen of the Atlantic, when his own London may present the spectacle of Thebes, and his Thames roll a silent and solitary stream through heaps of blended desolation." The Lives of Milton and Dryden fully develope Johnson's confined taste in poetry; he has declared of Lycidas, that " surely no man could have fancied that he read it with pleasure, had he not known the author;" and he has termed, Comus" inelegantly splendid, and tediously instructive." Dryden's very indifferent poem on the death of Mrs. Killigrew, he has been pleased to call" the noblest ode that our language ever has produced;" while the FABLES, the most perfect and poetical production of the bard, he has scarcely condescended to notice! In short, the Doctor limited his ideas of excellence in poetry,

* Life of Milton, p. 81.

to ratiocination in harmonious numbers, à limitation which has led him into manifold acts of injustice to the most exalted of our poets.

The second volume of Johnson's Lives, or the tenth of Murphy's edition, embraces twenty-two poets, viz. Smith, Duke, King, Sprat, Halifax, Parnell, Garth, Rowe, Addison, Hughes, Sheffield, Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Fenton, Gay, Granville, Yalden, Tickell, Hammond, Somerville, and Savage; and yet how few among this list of names merit to be rescued from oblivion, as writers of miscellaneous poetry! Rowe and Congreve have obtained their fame entirely in another sphere; and when we have enumerated Parnell, Addison, and Prior, Gay, Tickell, and Somerville, all that should be found in the pages of a selection will have been taken from the croud. Dispensary of Garth, as a local and satiric poem, has enjoyed its day, but is now little capable, from any intrinsic merit, of affording either pleasure or instruction..

The

These twenty-two Lives are written, in general, with sufficient impartiality, or freedom from prejudice; those of Addison and Savage are, the best; and the latter, as we have already observed, a master-piece of biography.

The succeeding volume of the Poets, however, again presents us with marked specimens of our

author's want of judgment, taste, and candour. It includes sixteen bards; Swift, Broome, Pope, Pitt, Thomson, Watts, A. Philips, West, Collins, Dyer, Shenstone, Young, Mallet, Akenside, Gray, and Lyttelton. Of these, eight might be spared, namely, Swift, Broome, Pitt, Watts, Philips, West, Mallet, and Lyttelton. In the bulky

verses of Swift, there is nothing that can touch the heart, or exalt the imagination; they are, for the most part, either trifling, or disgustingly indelicate; and what merit they possess, arises chiefly from the simplicity and ease of the language and versification.

Of the poets whom we wish to omit, either in this or the preceding volumes, all that is truly valuable might be condensed in a couple of duodecimos; for instance, from the eight writers just rejected, not more than half a dozen short poems would be required, and among these, the Ballads of Mallet, and the Monody of Lyttelton.

To the genius of Pope, of Thomson, and of Young, Dr. Johnson has done ample justice; the parallel between Pope and Dryden, and the poetical characters of Thomson and Young, are written with the utmost felicity of language and imagery. It is highly to be lamented, that with several other very eminent poets in this volume, he has pursued a very different plan; to Collins,

to Dyer, to Shenstone, to Akenside, and Gray, he has dealt forth little more than indiscriminate censure; while his criticism on the odes of Gray descends to absolute puerility.

With all the faults, however, which we have pointed out in the critical biography of Johnson, his Lives must nevertheless be esteemed, for their frequent acuteness and vigour, a work truly great and splendid. It may, indeed, be said, that what chaff there is in them is so gross, so soon discovered, and so easily separable from the wheat, that little trouble is required, and the grain, when thus cleansed, is of so pure and fine a texture, as richly to compensate the labour of sifting; to drop the metaphor, whatever injury the apathy and prejudice of Johnson might, during his lifetime, and the prevalence of his popularity, inflict, has been since completely obliterated, by a calm and dispassionate public, which, naturally inclined to take part with the oppressed, has fostered with peculiar favour the objects of our author's critical persecution.

The very defective catalogue of poets, to which Johnson, through the direction of the proprietors of his edition, was unfortunately limited, induced some enterprising booksellers at Edinburgh to publish, in the year 1792, a collection upon a much more comprehensive plan. In this edition,

which now extends to fourteen volumes, large octavo, printed in double columns, and in a very small type, the biographical and critical prefaces are the composition of Robert Anderson, M. D. and place his talents for the undertaking in a most respectable light. I cannot avoid wishing, however, that, since this publication was intended as a more complete and general collection of British Poets than had hitherto been printed, it was not more extensive, embracing the old Scotch, as well as more of the old English, bards. It contains, however, one hundred and fourteen authors, and is carried down nearly to the year 1795, at which period the thirteenth volume closed.

Of this copious collection, eleven volumes are devoted to the original poets;