I
Identifying Johnson's contribution to the translations
and publications of Crousaz's two attacks on Pope's
Essay on Man has been
difficult. James Boswell reports in The Journal of a Tour to the
Hebrides (1786) that on 19 August 1773 when
visiting St. Andrews, Johnson, in speaking of how
quickly he could compose, mentioned that he had
"written six sheets in a day of translation from the
French."[6] Later, on 3 June 1781,
Boswell records in his
journal
that Johnson "Told us at night he had once written
six sheets in one day: forty-eight quarto pages of
translation of Crousaz on Pope, published by itself
in 1740 or 1741."
[7] If this is exactly what
Johnson said, the confusion about the role Johnson
may have had in a translation of Crousaz was
introduced for Boswell by his source. One problem is
the publication date for the translation: all copies
of the
Commentary are dated
either 1739 or 1742, although the latter was issued
in late 1741. A second problem is the format: the
Commentary is not a quarto
but a duodecimo. A third problem, although less
obvious, is the amount of translation Johnson
performed in one day. The text of the volume fills
fourteen and a half sheets. Translating six sheets,
144 duodecimo pages of prose and verse, or about
forty-two percent of the total work, would seem to
be beyond the reach of even Johnson. Perhaps two
sheets or forty-eight duodecimo pages is closer to
the truth.
[8]
By the time Boswell came to write the Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (1791) he was
convinced that the Examination had been translated by Elizabeth
Carter but apparently was unaware of the Commentary. In spite of the
confused account Boswell received from Johnson, he
gathers three pieces of evidence in the Life to prove that Johnson did
not translate Crousaz and leaves the impression that
the issue has been settled. After reprinting
Johnson's letter to Cave of 21 or 22 November 1738
suggesting that "the Examen
should
be pushed forward with the utmost expedition,"
Boswell comments, "But although he corresponded with
Mr. Cave concerning a translation of Crousaz's
Examen of Pope's Essay on Man, and gave advice for
its success, I was long ago convinced by a perusal
of the Preface, that this translation was
erroneously ascribed to him."
[9] As early as 12 March 1786 Boswell
had written to Edmond Malone that Dr. Richard Palmer
"shewed me the translation of Crousaz which has been
ascribed to Dr. Johnson; But which is certainly not
his. I agree with you that the translation itself is
not a test. But the Preface is."
[10] Boswell's statement in the
Life, it should be noted, is a
hit at Sir John Hawkins who, in his
Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.
(1787), attributes the
Examination to Johnson, citing the letter of
21 or 22 November as evidence (Hawkins,
Life, 66-67). As will be seen
below, Boswell's attempt to keep as much distance as
possible between his biography and that of Hawkins
prevented him from using valuable information that
Hawkins offered. In any case, Boswell's first piece
of evidence, based on a recognition of Johnson's
style, is also faulty, for the Preface is only a
translation from Crousaz; Johnson's translation of
the
Commentaire would
undoubtedly be rejected on the same stylistic
grounds.
With his second and third pieces of evidence, Boswell is
on safe ground. He first cites a manuscript in the
British Museum: "Elisæ Carteræ. S.P.D.
Thomas Birch. Versionem tuam
Examinis Crousaziani jam perlegi. Summam styli et
elegantian, et in re difficillimâ
proprietatem, admiratus, Dabam Novemb.
27° 1738."[11] Then he says, "Indeed
Mrs. Carter has lately acknowledged to Mr. Seward,
that she was the translator of the 'Examen.'"[12] Boswell, apparently unaware of the
Commentary, but aware that
the Examination had been
translated by Elizabeth Carter, was at a stand. When
he arrived at 3 June 1781 in the Life he revised his journal account to read:
"He told us, that he had in one day written six
sheets of a translation from the French," bringing
it into accord with his earlier published account in
the Tour, in which he also
omits any reference to Crousaz (Life, 4:127).
Boswell, Hawkins, and other early biographers had
received no help from Johnson on his role as
translator of Crousaz. In the Life
of Pope there is no indication that Johnson
has any connection with a work by Crousaz: "It was
first turned into French prose,
and afterwards by Resnel into verse. Both
translations fell into the hands of Crousaz, who
first, when he had the version in prose, wrote a
general censure, and afterwards reprinted Resnel's
version with particular remarks upon every
paragraph."
[13] Nevertheless the
Commentary was attributed to
Johnson shortly after his death, in plenty of time
to allow Hawkins and Boswell to avoid omitting the
attribution.
[14]
The earliest attribution in print of a translation of
Crousaz to Johnson seems to be that in "An Account
of the Writings of Dr. Samuel Johnson, Including
Some Incidents of His Life" in the European Magazine for January 1785: "In
November [1738], he is believed to have published a
translation of An Examination of Mr. Pope's Essay on
Man, by M. Crousaz, Professor of Philosophy and
Mathematics at Lausanne, 12mo. whose Commentary on
Pope's Principles of Morality, or Essay on Man, we
can ascribe to him with confidence" (Early Biographies, 46). For
some reason Boswell appears not to have consulted
this work, or at least not this portion of it, even
though it may have been written by Isaac Reed or
George Steevens, or both.[15] In his haste
to condemn Hawkins for attributing the Examination to Johnson, Boswell
fails to note that Hawkins follows Johnson's account
by mentioning a second work by Crousaz:
Cave
engaged him to undertake a translation of an
Examen of Pope's Essay on Man, written by Mr.
Crousaz. . . . The reputation of the Essay on Man
soon after its publication invited a translation
of it into French, which was undertaken and
completed by the Abbé Resnel, and falling
into the hands of Crousaz, drew from him first a
general censure of the principles maintained in
the poem, and afterwards, a commentary thereon
containing particular remarks on every paragraph.
The former of these [Examination] it was that Johnson translated,
as appears in the following letter of his to Cave,
which is rendered somewhat remarkable by his
stiling himself Impransus.
(Hawkins, Life,
65-66)
Further clues in Johnson's own writings suggested the
existence of not one but two attacks by Crousaz on
Pope's Essay on Man. The most
important
hint is Johnson's letter
of 21 or 22 November to Cave. The letter begins: "I
am pretty much of your Opinion, that the Commentary
cannot be prosecuted with any appearance of
success," and after suggesting to Cave an
advertisement for the
Examen
to forestall a rival, Johnson adds: "It will above
all be necessary to take notice that it is a thing
distinct from the Commentary." Hawkins, even though
he misses the full significance of the sentence,
recognizes that there are two works, whereas Boswell
apparently does not. Had Boswell, for example,
looked carefully at the
Examination when he read the Preface, he
would have noticed on the verso of the last leaf a
full-page advertisement for the forthcoming
Commentary. Had he actually
read carefully the two-part essay in the 1743
Gentleman's Magazine that he
attributed to Johnson on the basis of internal
evidence, "'Considerations on the Dispute between
Crousaz and Warburton, on Pope's Essay on Man,' in
which, while he defends Crousaz, he shews an
admirable metaphysical acuteness and temperance in
controversy," Boswell would have discovered that the
English translation of the
Commentaire is mentioned explicitly and
nearly half of the essay consists of quotations from
it. In fact, the second installment has as its
title: "
Specimens of M.
Crousaz'
s Sentiments from
the English
Translation of
his Commentary on Mr Pope's
Essay on Man, continued from p. 152." The
running head reads "
Sentiments
from M. Crousaz'
s
Commentary, &c."
[16] Hawkins, who
first attributed the essay to Johnson, had he been
taken more seriously by Boswell, would have alerted
Boswell to the real nature of the essay, although
not to Johnson's role in the
Commentary. Johnson, Hawkins suggests,
decided to become a moderator between Crousaz's
attacks on the
Essay on Man
in his
Examination and
Commentary on one side and
William Warburton's defence in his
Vindication, as it has come to be known,
[17] on the other, "but proceeded no
farther than to state the sentiments of Mr. Crousaz
respecting the poem, from a seeming conviction that
he was discussing an uninteresting question."
[18] Another clue, admittedly difficult
to locate, is a quotation from Johnson's
Commentary in his
Dictionary under
"Consoler."
John Wilson Croker and other editors of Boswell's Life made ingenious attempts to
explain the 21 or 22 November 1738 letter, but it
was not until L. F. Powell undertook his massive
revision of G. B. Hill's edition of the Life that the attribution to
Johnson of the Commentary was
finally resolved. True, Whitwell Elwin in his 1871
introduction to the Essay on
Man in The Works of
Alexander Pope quoted a sentence from
Johnson's long footnote on the ruling passion:
"'Every Observer,' says Johnson, 'has remarked, that
in many men the love of pleasure is the ruling
passion of their youth, and the love of money that
of their advanced years.'" Elwin's footnote reads:
"Crousaz's Commentary on Pope's Essay, translated by
Johnson, p. 109."[19] But this reference, and
an earlier footnote identifying Johnson as the
translator, were overlooked by Johnsonians. Also
ignored was a reference in William John Courthope's
1889 The Life of Alexander
Pope, included as part of the same edition of
The Works of Alexander
Pope, that "Johnson was himself engaged with
Crousaz' Commentary on the Abbé du Resnel's
translation of the 'Essay on Man,' but he
temporarily abandoned it in deference to the opinion
of his publisher, Cave."[20] Powell,
then, unaware of the earlier attributions of the Commentary to Johnson by Pope
scholars, made an independent attribution in
1934.[21] Powell had seen only
the 1742 issue of the Commentary and gave a quasi-facsimile
description of the title page. Allen T. Hazen, while
preparing an exhibition of Johnson books and
manuscripts, which opened at Yale University on 8
November 1935, identified what to date is the unique
copy of the 1739 issue. The discovery was reported
initially by Hazen in the Times
Literary Supplement for 2 November 1935 with
a fuller account and a reproduction of the title
page the following January in an essay co-authored
with E. L. McAdam, Jr., in the Yale University Library Gazette.[22]