Johnson, too, notices his “Self-commendation; his diligence in reminding the world of his merits, and expressing, with very little scruple, his high opinion of his own powers.” Dryden shall answer in his own words; with all the simplicity of Montaigne, he expresses himself with the dignity that would have become Milton or Gray:—
“It is a vanity common to all writers to overvalue their own productions; and it is better for me to own this failing in myself, than the world to do it for me. For what other 207 reason have I spent my life in such an unprofitable study? Why am I grown old in seeking so barren a reward as fame? The same parts and application which have made me a poet, might have raised me to any honours of the gown, which are often given to men of as little learning, and less honesty, than myself.”
How feelingly Whitehead paints the situation of Dryden in his old age:—
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Yet lives the man, how wild soe’er his aim, Would madly barter fortune’s smiles for fame? Well pleas’d to shine, through each recording page, The hapless Dryden of a shameless age! Ill-fated bard! where’er thy name appears, The weeping verse a sad memento bears; Ah! what avail’d the enormous blaze between Thy dawn of glory and thy closing scene! When sinking nature asks our kind repairs, Unstrung the nerves, and silver’d o’er the hairs; When stay’d reflection came uncall’d at last, And gray experience counts each folly past! |
Mickle’s version of the Lusiad offers an affecting instance of the melancholy fears which often accompany the progress of works of magnitude, undertaken by men of genius. Five years he had buried himself in a farm-house, devoted to the solitary labour; and he closes his preface with the fragment of a poem, whose stanzas have perpetuated all the tremblings and the emotions, whose unhappy influence the author had experienced through the long work. Thus pathetically he addresses the Muse:—
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——Well thy meed repays thy worthless toil; Upon thy houseless head pale want descends In bitter shower; and taunting scorn still rends And wakes thee trembling from thy golden dream: In vetchy bed, or loathly dungeon ends Thy idled life—— |
And when, at length, the great and anxious labour was completed, the author was still more unhappy than under the former influence of his foreboding terrors. The work is dedicated to the Duke of Buccleugh. Whether his Grace had been prejudiced against the poetical labour by Adam Smith, who had as little comprehension of the nature of poetry as becomes a political economist, or from whatever cause, after possessing it for six weeks the Duke had never condescended to open the volume. It is to the honour of Mickle that the 208 Dedication is a simple respectful inscription, in which the poet had not compromised his dignity,—and that in the second edition he had the magnanimity not to withdraw the dedication to this statue-like patron. Neither was the critical reception of this splendid labour of five devoted years grateful to the sensibility of the author: he writes to a friend—
“Though my work is well received at Oxford, I will honestly own to you, some things have hurt me. A few grammatical slips in the introduction have been mentioned; and some things in the notes about Virgil, Milton, and Homer, have been called the arrogance of criticism. But the greatest offence of all is, what I say of blank verse.”
He was, indeed, after this great work was given to the public, as unhappy as at any preceding period of his life; and Mickle, too, like Hume and Dryden, could feel a wish to forsake his native land! He still found his “head houseless;” and “the vetchy bed” and “loathly dungeon” still haunted his dreams. “To write for the booksellers is what I never will do,” exclaimed this man of genius, though struck by poverty. He projected an edition of his own poems by subscription.
“Desirous of giving an edition of my works, in which I shall bestow the utmost attention, which, perhaps, will be my final farewell to that blighted spot (worse than the most bleak mountains of Scotland) yclept Parnassus; after this labour is finished, if Governor Johnstone cannot or does not help me to a little independence, I will certainly bid adieu to Europe, to unhappy suspense, and perhaps also to the chagrin of soul which I feel to accompany it.”