It is not my intention to dwell upon each of Johnson's _Lives of the
Poets_, or attempt an analysis of their merits, which, were I able to
do it, would take up too much room in this work; yet I shall make a few
observations upon some of them, and insert a few various readings.
The Life of COWLEY he himself considered as the best of the whole, on
account of the dissertation which it contains on the _Metaphysical
Poets_. Dryden, whose critical abilities were equal to his poetical, had
mentioned them in his excellent Dedication of his Juvenal, but had
barely mentioned them[133]. Johnson has exhibited them at large, with
such happy illustration from their writings, and in so luminous a
manner, that indeed he may be allowed the full merit of novelty, and to
have discovered to us, as it were, a new planet in the poetical
hemisphere[134].
It is remarked by Johnson, in considering the works of a poet[135], that
'amendments are seldom made without some token of a rent;' but I do not
find that this is applicable to prose[136]. We shall see that though his
amendments in this work are for the better, there is nothing of the
_pannus assutus_[137]; the texture is uniform: and indeed, what had been
there at first, is very seldom unfit to have remained.
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