uniformity's sake, was thought necessary. What was forced upon him be at least performed with sincerity; and the hold that his memoir has had upon mankind may be best illustrated by a passage in Lord Byron:
Milton's the prince of poets,—so we say,
A little heavy, but no less divine
An independent being in his day—
Learn'd, pious, temperate in love and wine:
But his life falling into Johnson's way,
We're told this great high-priest of all the Nine
Was whipt at college—a harsh sire, odd spouse,
For the first Mrs. Milton left his house.[1]
"That Milton suffered the indignity of corporal punishment at college is now," Mr. Cunningham continues, "among those that read, pretty generally exploded; but it will be long before the impression is thoroughly rooted out, advanced as it is by Johnson, and countenanced by Byron in a poem like 'Don Juan.' That Shakespeare stole deer, and that Milton was whipt at college, will long continue (I fear) among the vulgar errors of our literature." Notwithstanding the parenthetical "I fear" of this passage in his preface, Mr. Cunningham, in a note on the obnoxious statement in Johnson's text, remarks that the "accuracy of Aubrey," that tattling fons et origo of the scandal, is "curiously confirmed" by Tom Warton's "industry and knowledge"—adding, all to the prejudice of the "I fear," and to the verification of the "vulgar error," that the said Aubrey "was a curious inquirer, with ample means of information, and no motive whatever for telling a lie. He went to the poet's widow and to Marvell for information." Which conveys Mr. Cunningham's last impressions on the subject—his preface, p. xviii, or his foot-note at p. 85? Certainly the last impression he leaves on his readers is, that Aubrey is a trustworthy witness, with means of correct knowledge, and without conceivable motive to misrepresent: in short, the distressing dilemma being,—either convict Milton of having received a whipping, or that σπερμολόγος Aubrey of having perpetrated a "hum,"—why, let Milton be whipped by all manner of means.
More definite and satisfactory is Mr. Cunningham's general way of supplying those defects and correcting those errors for which Johnson's "Lives" are notorious. In emendation and elucidation and illustration from all Quarters, Mr. Cunningham is entirely chez lui. To detect inaccuracies in dates, names, facts, quotations, marriage lines, burial certificates, he has a lynx eye, and keeps it wide open too. This kind of work involves an amount of labour hugely disproportioned to the result which comes before the public, who are treated to the well-sifted corn, while the annotator has been toiling and choking himself amid the heaped-up refuse, the dryasdust chaff. Care in such details argues large expenditure of time and exertion; and Mr. Cunningham is notably careful. Here
- ↑ Byron stoutly dissented from the then growing reaction against Johnson's critical authority. In a letter to Disraeli he says, "The opinions of that truly great man, whom it is the present fashion to decry, will ever be received by me with that deference which time will restore to him from all." And again: "Johnson strips many a leaf from every laurel; still Johnson's is the finest critical work extant, and can never be read without instruction and delight."
