Note 735 — AN ESSAY ON MAN, IN FOUR EPISTLES

This sort of burlesque abstract, which may be so easily but so unjustly made of any composition whatever, is exactly similar to the imperfect and unfair representation which the same critic has given of the beautiful imagery in Il Penseroso of Milton.—Warton.

Johnson's criticism of a poem like this, cannot be compared with his futile declamation against the imagery of the Penseroso. For in speaking of the Penseroso, Johnson spoke of what I do not hesitate to say he did not understand. He had no congenial feelings properly to appreciate the character of such poetry; but the case is different where he brings his great mind to try, by the test of truth, arguments and doctrines which appeal to the understanding. Johnson was not an inadequate judge of Pope's philosophy, though he was certainly so of Milton's poetry. But no composition could possibly stand before his contemptuous declamation.—Bowles.