implies rather a limitation than a fundamental error. Johnson errs in
supposing that his logical tests are at all adequate; but it is, I
think, a still greater error to assume that poetry has no connexion,
because it has not this kind of connexion, with philosophy. His
criticism has always a meaning, and in the case of works belonging to
his own school a very sound meaning. When he is speaking of other
poetry, we can only reply that his remarks may be true, but that they
are not to the purpose.

The remarks on the poetry of Dryden, Addison, and Pope are generally
excellent, and always give the genuine expression of an independent
judgment. Whoever thinks for himself, and says plainly what he thinks,
has some merit as a critic. This, it is true, is about all that can be
said for such criticism as that on _Lycidas_, which is a delicious
example of the wrong way of applying strong sense to inappropriate
topics. Nothing can be truer in a sense, and nothing less relevant.

"In this poem," he says, "there is no nature, for there is no truth;
there is no art, for there is nothing new. Its form is that of a
pastoral, easy, vulgar, and therefore disgusting; whatever images it can
supply are easily exhausted, and its inherent improbability always
forces dissatisfaction on the mind. When Cowley tells of Hervey that
they studied together, it is easy to suppose how much he must miss the
companion of his labours and the partner of his discoveries; but what
image of tenderness can be excited by these lines?--

We drove afield, and both together heard
What time the gray fly winds her sultry horn,
Battening our flocks with the fresh dews of night.