Cecilia's Day, you had
villages composed of very pretty houses; and he mentioned particularly
The Spleen. JOHNSON. 'I think Dodsley gave up the question. He and
Goldsmith said the same thing; only he said it in a softer manner than
Goldsmith did; for he acknowledged that there was no poetry, nothing
that towered above the common mark. You may find wit and humour in
verse, and yet no poetry. Hudibras has a profusion of these; yet it is
not to be reckoned a poem. The Spleen, in Dodsley's Collection, on which
you say he chiefly rested, is not poetry.' BOSWELL. 'Does not Gray's
poetry, Sir, tower above the common mark?' JOHNSON. Yes, Sir; but we
must attend to the difference between what men in general cannot do if
they would, and what every man may do if he would. Sixteen-string Jack*
towered above the common mark.' BOSWELL. 'Then, Sir, what is poetry?'
JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, it is much easier to say what it is not. We all KNOW
what light is; but it is not easy to TELL what it is.'
* A noted highwayman, who after having been several times
tried and acquitted, was at last hanged.
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