JOHNSON. 77 



of such translations, such metrical doers into crabbed 

 and unpoetical English, as have of late been praised, 

 merely because readers, ignorant of Italian, wish to read 

 Dante without the help of a dictionary, he might have 

 more easily been forgiven. Towards Dryden he is 

 wholly unjust."" Nor had he apparently a due value for 

 the poetry of Johnson. He includes the ' Vanity of 

 Human Wishes' among the specimens, but he never 

 mentions Johnson at all among the poets whom he 

 commemorates. Bestowing so disproportioned a space 

 upon Goldsmith renders it plain that he undervalued 

 Johnson. For though Goldsmith is superior to him, 

 they are too near in merit, and come from schools too 

 much alike to authorize him who sets the one so high, to 

 neglect or undervalue the other. 



him, just before he went to Boulogne, where he died. He expressed 

 himself with extreme bitterness of attack on the bad taste of the 

 world, for admiring it so highly; no one could doubt that his 

 jealousy was personally irritated; a feeling wholly unworthy of 

 one who had written his admirable songs. I trust that nothing in 

 the text may be supposed to have been written with any disrespect 

 towards Mr. Campbell's Essay, which is a work in every way 

 worthy of its author. Maiiy of the critical observations have the 

 peculiar delicacy which might be expected from so eminent a poet. 

 Many parts of it are written with much felicity of diction. Some 

 passages shew all the imagination of a truly poetical genius. The 

 description for instance, of a launch, is fine poetry in all but the 

 rhythm. 



* It is remarkable that Mr. Campbell, in selecting proofs from 

 Pope, (whom he most justly defends from all the puny attacks of 

 taste vitiated by theory, and judgment perverted by paradox,) 

 should, to shew his power of picturesque description, have omitted 

 the finest example of all, the Italy in his ' Dunciad :' 



" To happy convents, buried deep in vines, 

 Where slumber abbots purple as their wines, &c.'' 



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