Vallis aromaticas fundit Saronica nubes,
evinces that he could be pleased without elegance in a mode of composition, of which elegance is the chief recommendation. If we wished to impress foreigners with a favourable opinion of the taste which our countrymen have formed for the most perfect productions of the Roman muse, we should send them, not to the pages of Johnson, but rather to those of Milton, Gray, Warton, and some of yet more recent date.
It was the chance of Johnson to fall upon an age that rated his great abilities at their full value. His laboriousness had the appearance of something stupendous, when there were many literary but few very learned men. His vigour of intellect imposed upon the multitude an opinion of his wisdom, from the solemn air and oracular tone in which he uniformly addressed them. He would have been of less consequence in the days of Elizabeth or of Cromwell.
FOOTNOTES: [1] Bull's Fifth Sermon. [2] In a note to Johnson's Works, 8vo. Edition, 1810, it is said that this is rendered improbable by the account given of Colson, by Davies, in his life of Garrick, which was certainly written under Dr. Johnson's inspection, and, what relates to Colson, probably from Johnson's confirmation. [3] Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, vol. v. p. 696. [4] Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, vol. v, p. 15 [5] Ibid. vol. viii. [6] Warburton's Letters, 8vo. Edit. p. 369. [7] This defect has probably been remedied by Mr. Todd's enlargement of the Dictionary. [8] Wooll's Life of Joseph Warton, p. 230. [9] The writers, besides Smart, were Richard Holt, Garrick, and Dr. Percy. Their papers are signed with the initials of their surnames. Johnson's are marked by two asterisks.—See Hawkins's Life of Johnson, p.351. [10] Miss Seward's letters, vol. i. p. 117. [11] Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, vol. ii. [12] Vol. xix. p. 71. Ed. 1815. [13] Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, vol. ii. p. 532. [14] Wooll's Memoirs of Dr. Joseph Warton. [15] Plato de Republica, 1. v. 476.
* * * * *
JOHN ARMSTRONG.
John Armstrong, the son of a Scotch minister, was born in the parish of Castleton, in Roxburghshire. The date of his birth has not been ascertained, nor is there any thing known concerning the earlier part of his education. The first we hear of it is, that he took a degree in medicine at Edinburgh, on the fourth of February, 1732; on which occasion he published his Thesis, as usual, and chose De Tabe Purulenta for the subject of it. A copy of a Latin letter, which he sent to Sir Hans Sloane with this essay, is said to be in the British Museum. In an advertisement prefixed to some verses which he calls Imitations of Shakspeare, he informs the reader that the first of them was just finished when Thomson's Winter made its appearance. This was in 1726, when he was, he himself says, very young. Thomson having heard of this production by a youth, who was of the same country with himself, desired to see it, and was so much pleased with the attempt, that he put it into the hands of Aaron Hill, Mallet, and Young. With Thomson, further than in the subject, there is no coincidence. The manner is a caricature of Shakspeare's.
In 1735, we find him in London, publishing a humorous pamphlet, entitled An Essay for abridging the Study of Physic, which, though he did not profess himself the writer, Mr. Nichols says [1], he can, on the best authority, assert to be his. In two years after he published a Medical Essay. This was soon followed by a licentious poem, which I have not seen, and the title of which I do not think it necessary to record.— While thus employed, it was not to be expected that he should rise to much eminence in his profession. The dying man does not willingly see by his couch one who has recently disgraced himself by an open act of profligacy. In January 1741, he solicited Dr. Birch to use his influence with Mead in recommending him to the appointment of Physician to the Forces which were then going to the West Indies. It does not appear that this application was successful; but in five years more, (February 1746,) he was nominated one of the Physicians to the Hospital for Invalid Soldiers behind Buckingham House; and in 1760, Physician to the Army in Germany. Meantime (in 1744) he had published his Art of Preserving Health, a didactic poem, that soon made its way to notice, and which, by the judiciousness of the precepts, might have tended to raise some opinion of his medical skill. At the beginning he addresses Mead:—
—Beloved by all the graceful arts,
And long the favourite of the healing powers.
He had now become intimate with Thomson, to whose Castle of Indolence he contributed the three stanzas which conclude the first canto. One of the alterations made in them by Thomson is not for the better. He had written—