THE LIVES OF THE ENGLISH POETS: PRIOR, CONGREVE, BLACKMORE AND POPE




INTRODUCTION



When, at the age of sixty-eight, Johnson was writing these "Lives of
the English Poets," he had caused omissions to be made from the
poems of Rochester, and was asked whether he would allow the
printers to give all the verse of Prior. Boswell quoted a censure
by Lord Hailes of "those impure tales which will be the eternal
opprobrium of their ingenious author." Johnson replied, "Sir, Lord
Hailes has forgot. There is nothing in Prior that will excite to
lewdness;" and when Boswell further urged, he put his questionings
aside, and added, "No, sir, Prior is a lady's book. No lady is
ashamed to have it standing in her library." Johnson distinguished
strongly, as every wise man does, between offence against
convention, and offence against morality.

In Congreve's plays he recognised the wit but condemned the morals,
and in the case of Blackmore the regard for the religious purpose of
Blackmore's poem on "The Creation" gave to Johnson, as to Addison,
an undue sense of its literary value.

With his "Life of Pope," which occupies more than two-thirds of this
volume, Johnson took especial pains. "He wrote it," says Boswell,
"'con amore,' both from the early possession which that writer had