The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes, Volume 08. Samuel Johnson
he first engaged in the study of physick, he inquired, as he says, of Dr. Sydenham, what authors he should read, and was directed by Sydenham to Don Quixote; “which,” said he, “is a very good book; I read it still.” The perverseness of mankind makes it often mischievous in men of eminence to give way to merriment; the idle and the illiterate will long shelter themselves under this foolish apophthegm.
Whether he rested satisfied with this direction, or sought for better, he commenced physician, and obtained high eminence and extensive practice. He became fellow of the College of Physicians, April 12, 1687, being one of the thirty, which, by the new charter of king James, were added to the former fellows. His residence was in Cheapside19, and his friends were chiefly in the city. In the early part of Blackmore’s time, a citizen was a term of reproach; and his place of abode was another topick to which his adversaries had recourse, in the penury of scandal.
Blackmore, therefore, was made a poet not by necessity but inclination, and wrote not for a livelihood but for fame; or, if he may tell his own motives, for a nobler purpose, to engage poetry in the cause of virtue.
I believe it is peculiar to him, that his first publick work was an heroick poem. He was not known as a maker of verses till he published, in 1695, Prince Arthur, in ten books, written, as he relates, “by such catches and starts, and in such occasional uncertain hours, as his profession afforded, and for the greatest part in coffee-houses, or in passing up and down the streets.” For the latter part of this apology he was accused of writing “to the rumbling of his chariot-wheels.” He had read, he says, “but little poetry throughout his whole life; and for fifteen years before had not written an hundred verses, except one copy of Latin verses in praise of a friend’s book20.”
He thinks, and with some reason, that from such a performance perfection cannot be expected; but he finds another reason for the severity of his censurers, which he expresses in language such as Cheapside easily furnished. “I am not free of the poets’ company, having never kissed the governor’s hands: mine is, therefore, not so much as a permission poem, but a downright interloper. Those gentlemen who carry on their poetical trade in a joint stock, would, certainly, do what they could to sink and ruin an unlicensed adventurer, notwithstanding I disturbed none of their factories, nor imported any goods they had ever dealt in.” He had lived in the city till he had learned its note.
That Prince Arthur found many readers is certain; for in two years it had three editions; a very uncommon instance of favourable reception, at a time when literary curiosity was yet confined to particular classes of the nation. Such success naturally raised animosity; and Dennis attacked it by a formal criticism, more tedious and disgusting than the work which he condemns. To this censure may be opposed the approbation of Locke and the admiration of Molineux, which are found in their printed letters. Molineux is particularly delighted with the song of Mopas, which is, therefore, subjoined to this narrative.
It is remarked by Pope, that what “raises the hero, often sinks the man.” Of Blackmore it may be said, that, as the poet sinks, the man rises; the animadversions of Dennis, insolent and contemptuous as they were, raised in him no implacable resentment: he and his critick were afterwards friends; and in one of his latter works he praises Dennis as “equal to Boileau in poetry, and superior to him in critical abilities.”
He seems to have been more delighted with praise than pained by censure, and, instead of slackening, quickened his career. Having in two years produced ten books of Prince Arthur, in two years more, 1697, he sent into the world King Arthur, in twelve. The provocation was now doubled, and the resentment of wits and criticks may be supposed to have increased in proportion. He found, however, advantages more than equivalent to all their outrages; he was this year made one of the physicians in ordinary to king William, and advanced by him to the honour of knighthood, with the present of a gold chain and a medal.
The malignity of the wits attributed his knighthood to his new poem; but king William was not very studious of poetry; and Blackmore, perhaps, had other merit; for he says, in his dedication to Alfred, that “he had a greater part in the succession of the house of Hanover than ever he had boasted.”
What Blackmore could contribute to the succession, or what he imagined himself to have contributed, cannot now be known. That he had been of considerable use, I doubt not but he believed, for I hold him to have been very honest; but he might easily make a false estimate of his own importance: those whom their virtue restrains from deceiving others, are often disposed, by their vanity, to deceive themselves. Whether he promoted the succession or not, he at least approved it, and adhered invariably to his principles and party through his whole life.
His ardour of poetry still continued; and not long after, 1700, he published a Paraphrase on the book of Job, and other parts of the scripture. This performance Dryden, who pursued him with great malignity, lived long enough to ridicule in a prologue.
The wits easily confederated against him, as Dryden, whose favour they almost all courted, was his professed adversary. He had besides given them reason for resentment, as, in his preface to Prince Arthur, he had said of the dramatick writers almost all that was alleged afterwards by Collier; but Blackmore’s censure was cold and general, Collier’s was personal and ardent; Blackmore taught his reader to dislike, what Collier incited him to abhor.
In his preface to King Arthur he endeavoured to gain, at least, one friend, and propitiated Congreve by higher praise of his Mourning Bride than it has obtained from any other critick.
The same year he published a Satire on Wit, a proclamation of defiance which united the poets almost all against him, and which brought upon him lampoons and ridicule from every side. This he doubtless foresaw, and evidently despised; nor should his dignity of mind be without its praise, had he not paid the homage to greatness which he denied to genius, and degraded himself by conferring that authority over the national taste, which he takes from the poets, upon men of high rank and wide influence, but of less wit, and not greater virtue.
Here is again discovered the inhabitant of Cheapside, whose head cannot keep his poetry unmingled with trade. To hinder that intellectual bankruptcy which he affects to fear, he will erect a bank for wit.
In this poem he justly censured Dryden’s impurities, but praised his powers; though, in a subsequent edition, he retained the satire, and omitted the praise. What was his reason I know not; Dryden was then no longer in his way.
His head still teemed with heroick poetry; and, 1705, he published Eliza, in ten books. I am afraid that the world was now weary of contending about Blackmore’s heroes; for I do not remember that by any author, serious or comical, I have found Eliza either praised or blamed. She “dropped,” as it seems, “dead-born from the press.” It is never mentioned, and was never seen by me till I borrowed it for the present occasion. Jacob says, “it is corrected and revised for another impression;” but the labour of revision was thrown away.
From this time he turned some of his thoughts to the celebration of living characters; and wrote a poem on the Kit-cat Club21, and Advice to the Poets how to celebrate the Duke of Marlborough; but, on occasion of another year of success, thinking himself qualified to give more instruction, he again wrote a poem of Advice to a Weaver of Tapestry. Steele was then publishing the Tatler; and, looking round him for something at which he might laugh, unluckily lighted on sir Richard’s work, and treated it with such contempt, that, as Fenton observes, he put an end to the species of writers that gave advice to painters.
Not long after, 1712, he published Creation, a philosophical poem, which has been, by my recommendation, inserted in the late collection. Whoever judges of this by any other of Blackmore’s performances, will do it injury. The praise given it by Addison, Spectator, 339, is too well known to be transcribed; but some notice is due to the testimony of Dennis, who calls it a “philosophical poem, which has equalled that of Lucretius in the beauty of its versification, and infinitely surpassed it in the solidity and strength of its reasoning.”
Why an author surpasses himself, it is natural to inquire. I have heard from Mr. Draper, an eminent bookseller, an account received by him from Ambrose Philips, “That Blackmore, as he proceeded
At Saddlers’ hall.
The book he alludes to was Nova Hypothesis ad explicanda febrium intermittentium symptomata, &c. Authore Gulielmo Cole, M.D. 1693.
“The Kit-cat Club,” says Horace Walpole, “though generally mentioned as a set of wits, were, in fact, the patriots who saved Britain.” See, for the history of its origin and name, Addisoniana, i. 120; Ward’s complete and humorous account of the remarkable Clubs and Societies. Ed.