Miscellany Johnson's Translation of the Messiah appeared, with this modest motto from Scaliger's Poeticks. Ex alieno ingenio Poeta, ex suo tantum versificator.
I am not ignorant that critical objections have been made to this and other specimens of Johnson's Latin Poetry[1]. I acknowledge myself not competent to decide on a question of such extreme nicety. But I am satisfied with the just and discriminative eulogy pronounced upon it by my friend Mr. Courtenay.
'And with like case his vivid lines assume
The garb and dignity of ancient Rome.—
Let college verse-men trite conceits express,
Trick'd out in splendid shreds of Virgil's dress;
From playful Ovid cull the tinsel phrase,
And vapid notions hitch in pilfer'd lays:
Then with mosaick art the piece combine,
And boast the glitter of each dulcet line:
Johnson adventur'd boldly to transfuse
His vigorous sense into the Latiin muse;
Aspir'd to shine by unreflected light,
And with a Roman's ardour think and write.
He felt the tuneful Nine his breast inspire,
And, like a master, wak'd the soothing lyre:
Horatian strains a grateful heart proclaim,
While Sky's wild rocks resound his Thralia's name[2].
Hesperia's plant, in some less skilful hands,
To bloom a while, factitious heat demands:
Though glowing Maro a faint warmth supplies,
The sickly blossom in the hot-house dies:
By Johnson's genial culture, art, and toil,
Its root strikes deep, and owns the fost'ring soil;
Imbibes our sun through all its swelling veins,
And grows a native of Britannia's plains[3].'
The 'morbid melancholy,' which was lurking in his constitution, and to which we may ascribe those particularities,
- ↑ See Post, under July 16, 1754.
- ↑ See Boswell's Hebrides, Sept. 6. 1773.
- ↑ Poetical Review of the Literary and Moral Character of Dr. Johnson, by John Courtenay, Esq., M.P. Boswell.
