EARLY FRENCH POETS
Many Authors





THE

EARLY FRENCH POETS,

A SERIES OF NOTICES AND TRANSLATIONS:

WITH AN

_Introductory Sketch of the History of French Poetry._

BY THE REV. HENRY CARY, M.A.

MDCCCXLVI.

* * * * *

_Shortly will be published_,

THE ODES OF PINDAR,

IN ENGLISH VERSE.

SECOND EDITION, WITH NOTES,

EDITED BY THE REV. HENRY CARY, M.A.

* * * * *

_Preparing for the Press_,

THE

LITERARY JOURNAL AND LETTERS

OF THE

REV. HENRY FRANCIS CARY.

_WITH A MEMOIR_.

BY HIS SON, THE REV. HENRY CARY, M.A.



* * * * *




LIVES

OF

ENGLISH POETS,

FROM

JOHNSON TO KIRKE WHITE,

DESIGNED AS A CONTINUATION OF JOHNSON'S LIVES.

BY THE LATE

REV. HENRY FRANCIS CARY, M.A.

TRANSLATOR OF DANTE.

MDCCCXLVI.

* * * * *


EDITOR'S PREFACE.

The papers of which this volume is composed originally appeared in the
London Magazine, between the years 1821 and 1824. It was the author's
intention to continue the series of Lives to a later period, but a
change in the proprietorship of the Magazine prevented the completion of
his plan. They are now for the first time published in a separate form,
and under their author's name.

In seeing the work through the press, the Editor has had occasion only
to alter one or two particulars in the Life of Goldsmith, which the
labours of that Poet's more recent biographer, Mr. Prior, have
subsequently elucidated.

HENRY CARY.

WORCESTER COLLEGE, OXFORD. _Dec_. 1, 1845.

CONTENTS.


SAMUEL JOHNSON

JOHN ARMSTRONG

RICHARD JAGO

RICHARD OWEN CAMBRIDGE

TOBIAS SMOLLETT

THOMAS WARTON

JOSEPH WARTON

CHRISTOPHER ANSTEY

WILLIAM MASON

OLIVER GOLDSMITH

ERASMUS DARWIN

WILLIAM JULIUS MICKLE

JAMES BEATTIE

WILLIAM HAYLEY

SIR WILLIAM JONES

THOMAS CHATTERTON

HENRY KIRKE WHITE





LIVES OF ENGLISH POETS.

* * * * *

SAMUEL JOHNSON.

There is, perhaps, no one among our English writers, who for so great a
part of his life has been an object of curiosity to his contemporaries
as Johnson. Almost every thing he said or did was thought worthy of
being recorded by some one or other of his associates; and the public
were for a time willing to listen to all they had to say of him. A mass
of information has thus been accumulated, from which it will be my task
to select such a portion as shall seem sufficient to give a faithful
representation of his fortunes and character, without wearying the
attention of the reader. That any important addition should be made to
what has been already told of him, will scarcely be expected.

Samuel Johnson, the elder of two sons of Michael Johnson, who was of an
obscure family, and kept a bookseller's shop at Lichfield, was born in
that city on the 18th of September, 1709. His mother, Sarah Ford, was
sprung of a respectable race of yeomanry in Worcestershire; and, being a
woman of great piety, early instilled into the mind of her son those
principles of devotion for which he was afterwards so eminently
distinguished. At the end of ten months from his birth, he was taken
from his nurse, according to his own account of himself, a poor diseased
infant, almost blind; and, when two years and a half old, was carried to
London to be touched by Queen Anne for the evil. Being asked many years
after if he had any remembrance of the Queen, he said that he had a
confused but somehow a sort of solemn recollection of a lady in diamonds
and a long black hood. So predominant was this superstition relating to
the king's evil, that there was a form of service for the occasion
inserted in the Book of Common Prayer, and Bishop Bull,[1] in one of his
Sermons, calls it a relique and remainder of the primitive gift of
healing. The morbidness of constitution natural to him, and the defect
in his eye-sight, hindered him from partaking in the sports of other
children, and probably induced him to seek for distinction in
intellectual superiority. Dame Oliver, who kept a school for little
children, in Lichfield, first taught him to read; and, as he delighted
to tell, when he was going to the University, brought him a present of
gingerbread, in token of his being the best scholar her academy had ever
produced. His next instructor in his own language was a man whom he used
to call Tom Browne; and who, he said, published a Spelling Book, and
dedicated it to the universe. He was then placed with Mr. Hunter the
head master of the grammar school in his native city, but, for two years
before he came under his immediate tuition, was taught Latin by Mr.
Hawkins, the usher. It is just that one, who, in writing the lives of
men less eminent than himself, was always careful to record the names of
their instructors, should obtain a tribute of similar respect for his
own.