Young was evidently not making this a personal poem. Attempts have been made to identify the sceptical Lorenzo, but unsuccessfully. The poem has been a mine of epigrammatic maxims. Young had caught Pope's trick of epigram to the life. Night Thoughts is one of the most frequently quoted of poems, though undoubtedly many who use its verses do not know whom they are quoting.

This text is that of the edition edited by Young himself. (London, 1757.)

MARK AKENSIDE

(1721-1770)

Akenside was a practising physician in London from 1747 to the end of his life, and attained considerable distinction in his profession. He wrote many learned medical papers. He published the Pleasures of Imagination in 1744, Odes on Several Subjects, in 1745. The second part of Pleasures of Imagination was left unfinished at his death. He produced short poems from time to time, throughout his life. His work was very successful in his own time, but is little read since the eighteenth century. It is in general stiff and inclines to the rhetorical; the intellectual predominates over the emotional. The Hymn to the Naiads, however, is almost unique among the eighteenthcentury poems in the genuine and feeling interpretation it presents of a classic theme.

The text used is that edited by Rev. George Gilfillan. (Edinburgh, 1857.)

SAMUEL JOHNSON

(1709–1784)

The rising tide of romanticism and naturalism received a check in the third quarter of the century when a dictator arose who in taste and principle was opposed to the movement. There is something in the grand gloom of Johnson's temperament that is akin to certain Gothic elements. But Johnson himself never recognized any such affinity; he strictly set his face against romantic developments of different sorts, and wrote, pretty consistently, according to his own criticism. It is perhaps no exaggeration to say that the public taste

would have been ready for the romantic school twenty years earlier, had it not been for Johnson's influence. Untouched by the influence of Thomson and Gray and Collins, he turned to Pope and Dryden for his types. He prolonged the vogue of the heroic couplet; he ignored the momentary showing of Greek influence and continued the Roman; he returned to satire and moral-didactic subjects; he set aside the lyric, and made common sense once more the peer, or superior of imagination. But it was a finer and higher common sense than had ruled the Queen Anne period. It was a common sense to live by, not merely to give point to wit. There is no sneer in his satire; his censure is in the end wholesome. Pope never got far from the personal in his satires; his criticisms of the world or of individuals usually have the snarl of his own rancour. Johnson is big where Pope is little. He is general where Pope is personal. It is the wants and the lacks of the world that seem to him worth versifying, not his individual grievances. Yet all his verse is at the same time a result of his own temperament. His vigorous morality, his melancholy combined with simple faithfulness, are distinctly himself. These elements do much to put his poetry on a higher plane than its æsthetic qualities would allow it. Some of the merits of even the earlier writers of the pseudo-classic school he lacks. His wording does not show such easy and sharp condensation as theirs does. The logical aptness of his phrase does not delight so often. His verse is -as would be expected - sonorous rather than musical, or even brisk.

Johnson's influence on poetry was far out of proportion to the amount of his own production; this is, of course, partly because the poems themselves were supplemented by his expression of opinion, in his prose and in his conversation. His London was published in 1738, on the same day with Pope's satire, 1738. Johnson began his career as Pope was closing his, for Pope did little new work after this date. The Vanity of Human Wishes appeared in 1749. These two are his only considerable efforts in verse. In fact, aside from them, the greater part of his verse is in prologues, addresses to different persons, and slight occasional poems of different sorts. These he produced at intervals throughout the rest of his life.

The text of these poems is that of Murphy's edition. (London, 1824.)

THE VANITY OF HUMAN WISHES

129.

The full caption of the poem was, The Vanity of Human Wishes, Being the Tenth Satire of Juvenal Imitated. It was published in January, 1749, a month before Johnson's Irene was staged. Although Johnson was now fairly well advanced in fame, he received only fifteen guineas for the poem. The historical events referred to in the poem are nearly all so well known that it has not been thought necessary to explain them in the notes, except in a few cases. Villiers. George Villiers (1592-1628), first Duke of Buckingham. 130. Harley. Robert Harley (1661-1724), first Earl of Oxford and Mortimer. 131. Wentworth. Thomas Wentworth (1593-1641), first Earl of Strafford. Hyde. Edward Hyde (1608-1674), first Earl of Clarendon. 139. Bodley's dome. The Bodleian Library, Oxford. The library of the University was destroyed in the time of Edward VI., and was later restored through the efforts, and largely through the gifts, of Sir Thomas Bodley (1545-1612). 140. Bacon's mansion. "There is a tradition that the study of friar Bacon [Roger Bacon (cir. 1214-1294?)], built on an arch over the bridge, will fall when a man greater than Bacon shall pass under it."-Johnson's note. 164. Thomas Lydiat (1572–1646), English divine and scholar. He suffered hardship at the hands of the parliamentarians, and at the time of his death was in great poverty. 187-190. Within a decade before this poem was published, England had been involved in the Spanish war and the war of the Austrian succession, and now bore a national debt of about seventy-eight million pounds. Within fifty years the debt had increased about seventy-three millions, chiefly by means of war expenses. 192. Swedish Charles. Charles XII. of Sweden. 241. bold Bavarian. Charles Albert (1697-1745), Elector of Bavaria, Holy Roman Emperor from 1742 to 1745. 245246. Maria Theresa. 313. Lydia's monarch. Croesus (sixth century B.C.). See any encyclopædia account of him for the story referred to. 317. Evidently an exaggeration. Marlborough seems to have preserved his faculties and, to a considerable extent, his energies up to the end of his life. His final illness lasted but a few days. See Coxe's Memoirs of the Duke of Marlborough. 321. Vane. Usually identified with Lady Vane, the heroine of the Memoirs of a Lady of Quality in Smollett's Peregrine Pickle. Malone says she was an Anne Vane, mistress to Frederick, Prince of Wales. See Boswell's

Life of Johnson, Vol. V., p. 49, note (G. B. Hill's edition). 322. Sedley. Catharine Sedley, daughter of Sir Charles Sedley. She was created Countess of Dorchester by James II., whose mistress she was. Johnson was not very happy in his choice of examples of beauty, for neither of these women was especially well favoured. For Sedley, see Macaulay's History of England, Chap. VI.

PROLOGUE

In 1747 Garrick became joint patentee and manager of the Drury Lane Theatre. For the opening of it, Johnson wrote this prologue, which was spoken by Garrick. 17. Charles II. 42. Mrs. Aphra Behn (1640-1689) was a playwright of the Restoration period. Her plays were notable, even in that time, for their grossness. Thomas Durfey (1653-1723) was a versifier and playwright. His comedies were popular, but very light and transient. His songs were very popular in their time. 46. Hunt; a boxer on the stage. Mahomet; a rope-dancer; he had exhibited at Covent Garden Theatre in 1746.

OLIVER GOLDSMITH

(1728-1774)

Goldsmith's position as a poet is anomalous. His judgment and acquired taste were opposed to his own inclination and poetic feeling, and in the end his work is somewhat contradictory. Left to himself, in a different period, he would doubtless have produced work of a distinctly romantic type. But in some ways he was very much under the influence of Johnson and his dogmatic theses. Goldsmith is more original and shows more initiative in general purpose in his prose than in his verse. His novel, his plays, even his essays, show this. But in his verse he follows Johnson in his return to the intellectual school. So Goldsmith is found using the heroic couplet and trying to write on sociological and economic themes. But he cannot entirely do this; the feeling element, the human interest will come in. The Traveller has a touching personal introduction and a human element all the way through; five readers of The Deserted Village out of six forget the economic thesis, and remember only the grace of kindliness, the humanity, the portraiture of life. The main ostensible

purpose of the poem is lost, practically, and the pictures of the preacher and schoolmaster and village life take its place. The element that in Goldsmith's plan was presumably incidental, obscures the major purpose. In each type of work, the qualities that appeal to the feelings are the ones that make the distinct and final impression.

The whole quantity of Goldsmith's verse is not great. The writing of poetry was always merely incidental to his other work. As he produced verse very slowly, and even the most prosaic prose paid better generally than verse, he was driven by his immediate necessities to do hack-work when he should have been producing greater things. He could not afford, he said, "to court the draggletail muses." Besides the pieces represented here, the remainder of his verse consists chiefly of prologues and epilogues and short occasional poems.

This text is that of Cunningham's edition. (London, 1854.)

THE TRAVELLER

The sub-caption is, A Prospect of Society. The poem was printed first in 1764 (dated 1765), but the composition of it was begun eight or nine years earlier, when the author was travelling through Europe. It was finished, however, after he returned to London and had become known through his Enquiry into the State of Polite Learning in Europe (1759), and the Citizen of the World (1762). The influence of Johnson is seen in it, and some of the lines are Johnson's how many, is not known; Johnson said he remembered but nine. This section is but the introduction, but it shows what the plan and theme of the poem are. Although Goldsmith is considering various peoples in a very general way with reference to their prospect for happiness, he puts in some very good bits of specific description of life, and in some passages the tone is very personal, as in this introductory section. The poem is dedicated to his brother Henry. 10. a lengthening chain. Cf. Citizen of the World, Letter III.

THE DESERTED VILLAGE

Written in 1768-1770, and published in May, 1770. Before the end of August of the same year, a fifth edition was called for. The poem