The Life of Samuel Johnson - James Boswell [857]
And Dacier observes upon it, ‘Apres avoir marque les deux qualites qu’il faut donner aux personnages qu’on invente, il conseille aux Poetes tragiques, de n’user pas trop facilement de cette liberte quils ont d’en inventer, car il est tres difficile de reussir dans ces nouveaux caracteres. Il est mal aise, dit Horace, de traiter propre-ment, c’est Ü dire convenablement, des sujets communs; c’est Ü dire, des sujets inventes, et qui n’ont aucun fondement ni dans V Histoire ni dans la Fable; et il les appelle communs, parce qu’ils sont en disposition ä tout le monde, et que tout le monde a le droit de les inventer, et qu’ils sont, comme on dit, au premier occupant.’650 See his observations at large on this expression and the following.
After all, I cannot help entertaining some doubt whether the words, Difficile est proprie communia dicere, may not have been thrown in by Horace to form a separate article in a ‘choice of difficulties’ which a poet has to encounter, who chooses a new subject; in which case it must be uncertain which of the various explanations is the true one, and every reader has a right to decide as it may strike his own fancy. And even should the words be understood as they generally are, to be connected both with what goes before and what comes after, the exact sense cannot be absolutely ascertained; for instance, whether proprie is meant to signify in an appropriated manner, as Dr. Johnson here understands it, or, as it is often used by Cicero, with propriety, or elegantly. In short, it is a rare instance of a defect in perspicuity in an admirable writer, who with almost every species of excellence, is peculiarly remarkable for that quality. The length of this note perhaps requires an apology. Many of my readers, I doubt not, will admit that a critical discussion of a passage in a favourite classick is very engaging.
a It would not become me to expatiate on this strong and pointed remark, in which a very great deal of meaning is condensed.
a These words must have been in the other copy. They are not in that which was preferred.
a He however, upon seeing Dr. Warton’s name to the suggestion, that the Epitaph should be in English, observed to Sir Joshua, ‘I wonder that Joe Warton, a scholar by profession, should be such a fool.’ He said too, ‘I should have thought Mund Burke would have had more sense.’ Mr. Langton, who was one of the company at Sir Joshua’s, like a sturdy scholar, resolutely refused to sign the Round Robin. The Epitaph is engraved upon Dr. Goldsmith’s monument without any alteration. At another time, when somebody657 endeavoured to argue in favour of its being in English, Johnson said, ‘The language of the country of which a learned man was a native, is not the language fit for his epitaph, which should be in ancient and permanent language. Consider, Sir; how you should feel, were you to find at Rotterdam an epitaph upon Erasmus in Dutch!’ For my own part I think it would be best to have Epitaphs written both in a learned language, and in the language of the country; so that they might have the advantage of being more universally understood, and at the same time be secured of classical stability. I cannot, however, but be of opinion, that it is not sufficiently discriminative. Applying to Goldsmith equally the epithets of ‘Poetæ, Historici, Physici,’ is surely not right; for as to his claim to the last of those epithets, I have heard Johnson himself say, ‘Goldsmith, Sir, will give us a very fine book upon the subject; but if he can distinguish a cow from a horse, that, I believe, may be the extent of his knowledge of natural history.’ His book is indeed an excellent performance, though in some instances he appears to have trusted too much to Buffon, who, with all his theoretical ingenuity and extraordinary