History of the Turks; an author highly commended in the Rambler, No. 122. An incident in the Life of Mahomet the Great, first emperor of the Turks, is the hinge on which the fable is made to move. The substance of the story is shortly this. In 1453 Mahomet laid siege to Constantinople, and, having reduced the place, became enamoured of a fair Greek, whose name was IRENE. The sultan invited her to embrace the law of the Prophet, and to grace his throne. Enraged at this intended marriage, the Janizaries formed a conspiracy to dethrone the emperor. To avert the impending danger, Mahomet, in a full assembly of the grandees, ' Catching with one hand,' as KNOLLES relates it, 'the fair Greek by the hair of her head, and drawing his falchion with the other, he, at one blow, struck off her head, to the great terror of them all; and, having so done, said unto them, Now, by this, judge whether your emperor is able to bridle his affections or not?' The story is simple, and it remained for the author to amplify it with proper episodes, and give it complication and variety. The catastrophe is changed, and horror gives place to terror and pity. But, after all, the fable is cold and languid. There is not, throughout the piece, a single situation to excite curiosity, and raise a conflict of passions. The diction is nervous, rich, and elegant; but splendid language, and melodious numbers, will make a fine poem, not a tragedy. The sentiments are beautiful, always happily expressed, but seldom appropriated to the character, and generally too philosophic. What Johnson has said of the Tragedy of Cato may be applied to Irene: 'it is rather a poem in dialogue

in the twenty-fifth chapter where Sir Hans Sloane is mentioned as "the founder of the magnificent museum which is one of the glories of our country"-is preserved at that museum in a cabinet, which may truly be called the place of honour. ... There may be seen Nelson's hasty sketch of the line of battle at the Nile; and the sheet of paper on which Wellington computed the strength of the cavalry regiments that were to fight at Waterloo; and

the note-book of Locke; and the
autographs of Samuel Johnson's
Irene, and Ben Jonson's Masque of
Queens; and the rough copy of the
translation of the Iliad, written, as
Pope loved to write, on the margin
of frayed letters and the backs of
tattered envelopes!' Trevelyan's Mac-
aulay, ed. 1877, ii. 396.

I

1 Life, i. 100.

"The General History of the Turkes, by Richard Knolles, ed. 1603, p. 353.

than

than a drama; rather a succession of just sentiments in elegant language, than a representation of natural affections. . . . Nothing here "excites or assuages emotion.". . . The events are expected without solicitude, and are remembered without joy or sorrow. Of the agents we have no care; we consider not what they are doing, or what they are suffering; we wish only to know what they have to say. . . . It is unaffecting elegance, and chill philosophy. The following speech, in the mouth of a Turk, who is supposed to have heard of the British constitution, has been often selected from the numberless beauties with which IRENE abounds:

'If there be any land, as fame reports,

Where common laws restrain the prince and subject;
A happy land, where circulating pow'r

Flows through each member of th' embodied state;
Sure, not unconscious of the mighty blessing,

Her grateful sons shine bright with ev'ry virtue;
Untainted with the LUST OF INNOVATION 2;
Sure all unite to hold her league of rule
Unbroken as the sacred chain of nature,
That links the jarring elements in peace".

These are British sentiments. Above forty years ago they found an echo in the breast of applauding audiences, and to this hour they are the voice of the people, in defiance of the metaphysics and the new lights of certain politicians, who would gladly find their private advantage in the disasters of their country*; a race of men, quibus nulla ex honesto spes.

The Prologue to Irene is written with elegance, and, in a peculiar strain, shews the literary pride and lofty spirit of the author. The Epilogue, we are told in a late publication, was written by Sir William Young. This is a new discovery, but

1 Works, vii. 456.

'Cato is a fine dialogue on liberty and the love of one's country.' Warton's Essay on Pope, ed. 1762, i. 259.

2 For 'the fury of innovation' from which Tyburn itself is not safe' see ante, p. 349, n. 4.

3 Irene, Act i. sc. 2.

Perhaps Priestley is one of these politicians. See Life, iv. 238, n. 1 for Boswell's attack on his doctrine of Philosophical Necessity. The metaphysics and the new lights may be a reference to Hudibras and his squire Ralph. 5 Life, i. 196.

by

by no means probable'. When the appendages to a Dramatic Performance are not assigned to a friend, or an unknown hand, or a person of fashion, they are always supposed to be written by the author of the Play. It is to be wished, however, that the Epilogue in question could be transferred to any other writer. It is the worst Feu d'Esprit that ever fell from Johnson's pen2.

An account of the various pieces contained in this edition, such as miscellaneous tracts, and philological dissertations, would lead beyond the intended limits of this essay. It will suffice to say, that they are the productions of a man who never wanted decorations of language, and always taught his reader to think. The life of the late king of Prussia, as far as it extends3, is a model of the biographical style. The Review of THE ORIGIN OF EVIL was, perhaps, written with asperity; but the angry epitaph, which it provoked from SOAME JENYNS, was an illtimed resentment, unworthy of the genius of that amiable author *.

Boswell in the first edition of the Life says:—‘The Epilogue was written by Sir William Yonge.' To the second edition he added, no doubt in answer to Murphy, 'as Johnson informed me.' Ib. i. 197, n. 4.

The wonder is that Johnson accepted this Epilogue, which is a little coarse and a little profane. Chesterfield writes of Yonge as a man 'with a most sullied, not to say blasted character.' Letters, iv. 53.

3 It ends with the year 1745. It was published in 1756 in The Literary Magazine. Life, i. 308; Works, vi. 435. Carlyle, in his Frederick the Great (ed. 1862, iii. 276), has the following about the English Lives of that king:-'One Dilworth, an innocent English soul, writing on the spot some years after Voltaire, has this useful passage:-"It is the great failing of a strong imagination to catch greedily at wonders. Vol

taire was misinformed, and would perhaps learn by a second inquiry a truth less amusing and splendid. A Contribution was by News-writers, upon their own authority, fruitlessly proposed. It ended in nothing: the Parliament voted a supply." . . . "Fruitlessly by News-writers on their own authority," that is the sad fact.' In a footnote Carlyle adds:-'A poor little Book, one of many coming out on that subject just then, which contains, if available now, the above sentence and no more. Indeed its brethren, one of them by Samuel Johnson (impransus, the imprisoned giant) do not even contain that, and have gone wholly to zero.'

It is strange Carlyle did not see Johnson's hand in the one sentence. Dilworth stole it from him, and slightly spoilt it in the stealing. See Works, vi. 455; Life, i. 498, n. 4.

Life, i. 316; Gentleman's Magazine, 1786, pp. 428, 696.

The

The Rambler may be considered as Johnson's great work. It was the basis of that high reputation which went on increasing to the end of his days. The circulation of those periodical essays was not, at first, equal to their merit. They had not, like the Spectators, the art of charming by variety; and indeed how could it be expected? The wits of queen Anne's reign sent their contributions to the Spectator; and Johnson stood alone. A stage-coach, says Sir Richard Steele, must go forward on stated days, whether there are passengers or not1. So it was with the Rambler, every Tuesday and Saturday, for two years. In this collection Johnson is the great moral teacher of his countrymen; his essays form a body of ethics; the observations on life and manners are acute and instructive; and the papers, professedly critical, serve to promote the cause of literature. It must, however, be acknowledged, that a settled gloom hangs over the author's mind; and all the essays, except eight or ten 2, coming from the same fountain-head, no wonder that they have the raciness of the soil from which they sprung. Of this uniformity Johnson was sensible. He used to say, that if he had joined a friend or two, who would have been able to intermix papers of a sprightly turn, the collection would have been more miscellaneous, and, by consequence, more agreeable to the generality of readers. This he used to illustrate by repeating two beautiful stanzas from his own Ode to Cave, or Sylvanus Urban3:

Non ulla Musis pagina gratior,
Quam quæ severis ludicra jungere
Novit, fatigatamque nugis

Utilibus recreare mentem.

Texente nymphis serta Lycoride,
Rosæ ruborem sic viola adjuvat
Immista, sic Iris refulget
Æthereis variata fucis.

It is remarkable, that the pomp of diction, which has been objected to Johnson, was first assumed in the Rambler. Dictionary was going on at the same time, and, in the course of that work, as he grew familiar with technical and scholastic words, he thought that the bulk of his readers were equally learned; or at least would admire the splendour and dignity of the style'. And yet it is well known, that he praised in Cowley the ease and unaffected structure of the sentences 2. Cowley may be placed at the head of those who cultivated a clear and natural style. Dryden 3, Tillotson*, and Sir William Temple3, followed. Addison, Swift, and Pope, with more correctness, carried our language well nigh to perfection. Of Addison,