Our beloved old friend Doctor Johnson had many views about
literature which now appear to us cramped and strange, but we should
examine his sayings with respect. When however it is found that the
old man used to foam and bellow at persons who did not approve of his
paradoxes, one is slightly inclined--in spite of reverence for his
moral strength--to set him down as a nuisance, and to wonder how
people managed to put up with him at times. In reading the
conversations and essays of the moralist we constantly meet with
passages which we should think over temperately were it not that we
are informed by the critic or his biographer that only fools would
venture to question Johnson's wisdom and insight.
Take the famous article on Milton. Speaking of "Lycidas," Johnson
coolly observes, "In this poem there is no nature, for there is no
truth; there is no art, for there is nothing new. Its form is that of
a pastoral--easy, vulgar, and therefore disgusting; whatever images it
can supply are easily exhausted, and its inherent improbability always
forces dissatisfaction on the mind. He who thus grieves will excite no
sympathy; he who thus praises will confer no honour.
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