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NOTES.

THE LIFE OF DRYDEN.

[P.SS. refers to a few proof-sheets corrected in MS. by Johnson himself, and preserved in the British Museum, which have been compared, as far as they go, with the texts as above.]

Page 3, line 1. about. 'now,' P. SS.

1. 3. display. 'account,' P. SS. 1. 5. nothing. 'no more,' P. SS.

beyond what. 'than,' P. SS.

1. 6. casual mention and uncertain tradition. On reviewing the received accounts of his life and writings I found so much inaccuracy and uncertainty that I soon resolved to take nothing upon trust, but to consider the subject as wholly new.' (Advertisement to Malone's Life of Dryden.) 'Unfortunately this anathema upon all before him in the same career (like that of the hair-dresser, who laments with generous pity the misconduct of your head before you sent for him) attaches itself, in part, upon the celebrated writer of the same life, Dr. Johnson, deceased. But that he is "deceased" can alone account for it; for I doubt whether Malone, valiant as he is, would have written these comments (which are like a wasp's ́tail in the nose of a giant) upon so irritable a personage.' Essence of Malone, by Minutius Felix, 1800. In spite of this satire upon the hypercritical industry of Malone, there can be no doubt that Johnson's characteristic aversion from a steady and prolonged exertion of his powers prevented his making a very close investigation of the worth of the casual mention' and 'uncertain tradition.' It must always be remembered that the Lives of the Poets was a work undertaken for the booksellers, written to order, and regarded by Johnson as a piece of taskwork.

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1. 6. beyond what. 'than,' P. SS.

1. 7. 1631. There was thus just about 150 years between the birth of Dryden and the publication of this life by Johnson, which appeared in 1779.

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1. 8. Oundle. After Oundle read was.' Ist edit.

1. 12. reported. 'said,' P. SS.

Derrick. Mr. Derrick's life of Dryden was prefixed to a very incorrect edition of Dryden's Miscellanies, published by the Tonsons in 1760, 4 vols. 8vo. Derrick's part was poorly executed, and the edition never became popular.

1. 13. two hundred. It was really £60, as proved by Malone.

1. 14. Anabaptist. This word is not given in the first edition of Johnson's Dictionary. The Anabaptists were a sect (the name of which is now corrupted to 'Baptists') of very early origin in England. They can be traced among the Lollards and the original Independents, out of which latter church the Baptists first came forth as a distinct sect. Their numbers increased greatly during the Civil War, many of the soldiers who fought under Cromwell and Monk professing their faith. They afterwards considered that their cause had been betrayed by Cromwell; they protested against the imprisonment of Biddle (Crosby, vol. iii. p. 231), and were firm advocates of liberty of conscience. 'The Anabaptists,' says Burnet (History of his Own Time, i. p. 701), 'were generally men of virtue and of an universal charity.' Thus the English Anabaptists must not be confounded with the Anabaptists of Germany in the sixteenth century, who united Socialism, Communism, and Polygamy to their religious doctrines, possessed themselves of the city of Münster, and were only subdued after a long siege, 1536.

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1. 15. no authority. Derrick's authority may have been the reproaches afterwards mentioned (infra, 1. 22), as for instance Langbaine, Account of the Dramatic Poets,' p. 139. He (Dryden) has ridiculed the several professions of Lutherans, Calvinists, Presbyterians, Huguenots, Anabaptists, Independents, Quakers, &c., though I must observe by the way that some people among the persuasions here mentioned might justly have expected better usage from him on account of his old acquaintance in the year 1659.' Langbaine's 'Account' was first published in 1691. So also in the Reflections on the pretended Parallel in the play called the "Duke of Guise," an attack on him attributed to T. Shadwell (published 1683), we read-' And 'tis not enough when he meets some of his old acquaintances (whom he knows to be of an opinion he once professed to be of, and much different from what he now pretends),' &c.

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1. 21. patrimony. In the first edition the rest of this paragraph reads thus:-'or considered as a deserter from another party (or religion). I am inclined therefore to think that Derrick was misinformed.'

1. 26. Dr. Busby. Dr. Busby was one of those masters who seem to have won respect by extreme severity. Cf. the notice of Dryden's life prefixed to his Select Works in this series-Our master Busby used to whip a boy so long till he made him a confirmed blockhead.' Cf. also Johnson's answer when asked how he obtained so much learning in spite of his habitual sluggishness-'Sir, my master whipped me very

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well.' Boswell's 'Life,' Malone's edition, 1853, p. 7. Johnson approved of this kind of discipline and regretted its disuse. Cf. Boswell,' Life,' anno 1775. There is now less flogging in our great schools than formerly, but then less is learned there; so that what the boys get at one end they lose at the other.' Cf. also, on the other side, Herbert Spencer, 'On the Study of Sociology' in the International Scientific Series, p. 190: 'It may be needful, therefore, that our boys should be accustomed to harsh treatment, giving and receiving brutal punishments without too nice a consideration of their justice. . . . So that a certain brutalization has to be maintained during our passing phase of civilization.' See also the same author's chapter on 'The Rights of Children' in his Social Statics.'

P. 4, 1. 4. Lord Hastings. This Lord Hastings had been a scholar at Westminster, and his great promise of excellence caused a special grief to be felt at his early death in 1649 from small-pox. He was the son of the Earl of Huntingdon, heir to the Duke of Clarence, brother to King Edward IV. Cf. Select Dryden, Clar. Press Series, Introduction, p. xiii.

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1. 5. conceits. Conceit here an unexpected turn of fancy. Johnson quotes for the meaning 'sentiment as distinguished from imagery,' Pope's lines:

'Some to conceit alone their works confine

And glitt'ring thoughts struck out at ev'ry line.' Essay on Criticism, 289. The conceits here complained of were fantastical expressions of comparisons between things as unlike as possible. For the 'example of Cowley' cf. Johnson's life of that poet, where he says:-'About the beginning of the seventeenth century appeared a race of writers that may be termed the metaphysical poets..... The metaphysical poets were men of learning, and to shew their learning was their whole endeavour : but unluckily resolving to shew it in rhyme, instead of writing poetry they only wrote verses. . . . . Their thoughts are often new but seldom natural; they are not obvious, but neither are they just; and the reader, far from wondering how he missed them, wonders more frequently by what perverseness of ingenuity they were ever found..... The most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together, nature and art are ransacked for illustrations, comparisons, and allusions; their learning instructs and their subtlety surprizes; but the reader commonly thinks his improvement dearly bought, and though he sometimes admires, is seldom pleased. . . Milton tried the metaphysical style only in his lines on Hobson the Carrier; Cowley adopted it and excelled his predecessors, having as much sentiment and more music.' As an example, among many others, Johnson himself quotes Cowley :

'All armed in brass, the richest dress of war

(A dismal glorious sight!) he shone afar.

The sun himself started with sudden fright

To see his beams returned so dismal bright.'

Cowley, says Johnson, was almost the last of that race, and undoubtedly the best.

1. II. constellation. The termination -tion was then pronounced as a dissyllable. Compare the lines p. 75:

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Compare also the full note there given.

1. 22. Oxford to him. These lines were probably only a passing compliment, intended to please the immediate audience before whom they were to be recited. Cf. the Introduction to Dryden's works in this Series, p. xiv.

1. 26. It was not. This is not correct. The poem on the Death of Lord Hastings had already appeared in a volume entitled 'Tears of the Muses on the Death of Henry, Lord Hastings,' 1649.

1. 29. Sprat and Waller. The productions of the three poets were bound together. For a notice of Sprat and Waller see Introduction to Dryden, Clar. Press Series, p. xviii.

1. 31. panegyrists of usurpation. Johnson's political position may perhaps best be described as that of a consistent Monarchist. In this he never altered, though he could drop the 'fierce Jacobitism' which accompanied it in his youth. After the receipt of his pension he became a partisan of the Hanoverian family, and we soon after find him suggesting a ducking as a remedy for a man who attacked public measures and the royal family. But the modern reader must not forget that the royal measures were innovations mostly, and that the 'Whig dogs,' as Johnson called them, would perhaps now mostly vote on what is commonly known as the Conservative side in politics. Cf. the Introduction to Burke's 'Thoughts on the Present Discontents' in this Series. Johnson never loses the chance of an assault on the opponents of the reigning sovereign; cf. his Life of Waller, where, mentioning the speech made by Waller in 1640, he says:-'The King's demand of a supply produced one of those noisy speeches which disaffection and discontent regularly dictate; a speech filled with hyperbolical complaints of imaginary grievances.'

P. 5, 1. 5. It was, however. For instance, in 1681 Dryden's political opponents published a reprint of his 'Heroique Stanzas on the late Lord Protector,' under the title of An Elegy on the Death of the late Usurper O. Cromwell,' the object of which publication was to injure Dryden with his new political allies and at court. This was printed in the form of a folio broadside; it was 'published to show the loyalty and integrity of the poet,' and it has the following lines as a 'postscript.'

"The printing of these lines afflicts me more

Than all the drubs I in Rose Alley bore;

This shows my nauseous mercenary pen
Would praise the vilest and the worst of men.'

So also in the Protestant Satire (1687) we read:

Thus needy Bayes, his Rose Street aches past,
By Fate enlightened, Tory turns at last;

Though bred a saint he was not born to fast';

where Bayes is a nickname for Dryden, derived from the farce of the Rehearsal, 1671. Cf. note on the Rehearsal, p. 7, 1. 4. For 'Rose Street aches' see the account of the assault on Dryden, given in the Introduction to his works, Clar. Press Series, p. xxx.

1. 8. same year. Should be 'next year,' 1661.

1. 15. darkness and cold. 'Darkness' and 'cold' are subjects in this sentence. We should say 'darkness is certainly privation and cold probably so.' Johnson's strong classical tendencies most likely caused him thus to put the emphatic word last. This elaborate justification of Dryden's diction will not stand. Cf. the note on the passage in the 'Select Works of Dryden' in this Series, where is quoted the following from the poem 'News from Hell,' by Captain Radcliffe :— 'Laureate, who was both learned and florid, Was damned long since for "silence horrid"; Nor had there been such clutter made But that this silence did invade.

Invade! and so it might well, that's clear,
But what did it invade ?-an ear!'

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There are some phrases of which it may be said, as J. S. Mill remarked of the expression exchangeable value,' that no amount of authority which can be quoted for them can make them good English. So also in the Fourth Letter by Martin Clifford the passage was again attacked. Cf. note on p. 17, l. 25.

1. 19. also. only,' P. SS.

1. 24. commonly. 'always,' P. SS. After dedication read 'and' P.SS. 1. 26. easily. 'always,' P. SS.

1. 28. The time at which. The Wild Gallant' was probably first exhibited in 1662 or 1663. See Malone, p. 53. But the 'Duke of Guise' had been composed before this and laid aside on the advice of friends.

P.6, 1. 16. the critics. Among them the following from Pepys' Diary: 'Took coach and to court and there saw the "Wild Gallant" performed by the King's house, but it was ill acted, and the play so poor a thing as ever I saw in my life, almost, and so little answering the names that from the beginning to the end I could not, nor can at this time, tell certainly which was the "wild Gallant."' 1662-3.

1. 17. were. 'was,' P. SS.

1. 19. dramatic. 'theatrical,' P. SS. After 'performances' the first edition reads and indeed there is the less as they do not appear in the collection to which this narration is to be annexed.'

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