Anecdotes by Hannah More.
��evening turned out very pleasant J . Johnson was in* full song, and I quarrelled with him sadly. I accused him of not having done justice to the * Allegro/ and ' Penseroso.' He spoke dis paragingly of both 2 . I praised Lycidas, which he absolutely abused 3 , adding, if Milton had not written the Paradise Lost, he would have only ranked among the minor poets 4 : he was a Phidias that could cut a Colossus out of a rock, but could not cut heads out of cherry stones 5 .
Boswell brought to my mind the whole of a very mirthful conversation at dear Mrs. Garrick's, and my being made by Sir William Forbes 6 the umpire in a trial of skill between Garrick and Boswell, which could most nearly imitate Dr. Johnson's manner. I remember I gave it for Boswell in familiar con versation, and for Garrick in reciting poetry 7 . Mrs. Boscawen shone with her usual mild lustre. Memoirs, i. 212.
��weight and power, when spoken by her to oblige and even delight.' Early Diary of F. Burney, \. ill.
1 It was on April 20 the party was held. Boswell writes of it, ' I spent with Johnson one of the happiest days that I remember to have en joyed in the whole course of my life.' Life, iv. 96.
2 It must have been by way of contradiction, for in the Life of Milton he says : ' Every man that reads them reads them with plea sure. . . . They are two noble efforts of imagination.' Works, vii. 121-2.
Dr. Warton, twenty-five years earlier, spoke of them as poems ' which are now universally known ; but which by a strange fatality lay in a sort of obscurity, the private enjoyment of a few curious readers, till they were set to admirable music by Mr. Handel.' Essay on Pope, ed. 1762, i. 39.
3 Of Lycidas Johnson wrote :
- Surely no man could have fancied
that he read it with pleasure, had he not known the author.' Works, vii. 1 2 1 .
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��4 Paradise Lost Johnson describes as * a poem which, considered with respect to design, may claim the first place, and with respect to perform ance the second, among the pro ductions of the human mind.' Ib. vii. 125. Macaulay thought 'that if only the first four books of Para dise Lost had been preserved Milton would then have been placed above Homer.' Trevelyan's Macaulay, ed. 1877, ii. 200.
5 Life, iv. 305.
6 Scott's ' lamented Forbes.' Mar- mion, canto iv, Introduction. See Life, v. 24.
7 ' I recollect Garrick's exhibiting him to me one day, as if saying, "Davy has some convivial pleasantry about him, but 'tis a futile fellow " ; which he uttered perfectly with the tone and air of Johnson.' Ib. ii. 326.
Charlotte Burney describes how one day * Garrick took off Dr. John son most admirably; his see-saw, his pawing, his very look, and his voice. Ke took him off in a speech 2 Poor
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