meaning of communia is evidently fixed by the words ignota indictaque, which are explanatory of it; so that the sense given it in the commentary, is unquestionably the right one. Yet, notwithstanding the clearness of the case, a late critick has this strange passage: "Difficile quidem esse propriè communia dicere, hoc est, materiam vulgarem, notam et è medio petitam, ita immutare atque exornare, ut nova et scriptori propria videatur, ultro concedimus; et maximi procul dubio ponderis ista est observatio. Sed omnibus utrinque collatis, et tum difficilis, tum venusti, tam judicii quam ingenii ratione habitâ, major videtur esse gloria fabulam formare penitùs novam, quàm veterem, utcunque mutatam, de novo exhibere. (Poet. Præl. v. ii. p. 164.) Where having first put a wrong construction on the word communia, he employs it to introduce an impertinent criticism. For where does the poet prefer the glory of refitting old subjects to that of inventing new ones? The contrary is implied in what he urges about the superiour difficulty of the latter, from which he dissuades his countrymen, only in respect of their abilities and inexperience in these matters; and in order to cultivate in them, which is the main view of the Epistle, a spirit of correctness, by sending them to the old subjects, treated by the Greek writers."

For my own part (with all deference for Dr. Hurd, who thinks the case clear,) I consider the passage, "Difficile est propriè communia dicere," to be a crux for the criticks on Horace.

The explication which My Lord of Worcester treats with so much contempt, is nevertheless countenanced by authority which I find quoted by the learned Baxter in his edition of Horace, "Difficile est propriè communia dicere, h. e. res vulgares disertis verbis enarrare, vel humile thema cum dignitate tractare. Difficile est communes res propriis explicare verbis. Vet. Schol." I was much disappointed to find that the great critick, Dr. Bentley, has no note upon this very difficult passage, as from his vigorous and illuminated mind I should have expected to receive more satisfaction than I have yet had.

Sanadon thus treats of it: "Propriè communia dicere; c'st à dire, qu'il n'st pas aisé de former à ces personnages d'imagination, des caractêres particuliers et cependant vraisemblables. Comme l'on a eté le maitre de les former tels qu'on a voulu, les fautes que l'on fait en cela sont moins pardonnables. C'est pourquoi Horace conseille de prendre toujours des sujets connus tels que sont par exemple ceux que l'on peut tirer des poèmes d'Homere."

And Dacier observes upon it, " Apres avoir marqué les deux qualités qu'il faut donner aux personnages qu'on invente, il conseille aux Poêtes

tragiques, de n'user pas trop facilement de cette liberté quils ont d'inventer, car il est très difficile de reussir dans ces nouveaux caractères. Il est mal aisé, dit Horace, de traiter proprement, c'st à dire convenablement, des sujets communs; c'est à dire, des sujets inventés, et qui n'ont aucun fondement ni dans l'Histoire ni dans la Fable; et il les appelle communs, parce qu'ils sont en disposition à tout le monde, et que tout le monde a le droit de les inventer, et qu'ils sont, comme on dit, au premier occupant." See his observations at large on this expression and the following.

After all, I cannot help entertaining some doubt whether the words, Difficile est proprie communia dicere, may not have been thrown in by Horace to form a separate article in a "choice of difficulties" which a poet has to encounter, who chooses a new subject; in which case it must be uncertain which of the various explanations is the true one, and every reader has a right to decide as it may strike his own fancy. And even should the words be understood as they generally are, to be connected both with what goes before and what comes after, the exact sense cannot be absolutely ascertained; for instance, whether propriè is meant to signify in an appropriated manner, as Dr. Johnson here understands it, or, as it is often used by Cicero, with propriety, or elegantly. In short, it is a rare instance of a defect in perspicuity in an admirable writer, who with almost every species of excellence, is peculiarly remarkable for that quality. The length of this note perhaps requires an apology. Many of my readers, I doubt not, will admit that a critical discussion of a passage in a favourite classick is very engaging.

VIII.

JOHNSON'S RELATIONS WITH CHARLES O'CONOR.

CHARLES O'CONOR, Esq., of Belanagare, in the county of Roscommon, who must be distinguished from his grandson, Charles O'Conor, D.D., Editor of "Rerum Hibernicarum Scriptores Veteres,"

-was the son of Denis O'Conor, and born in an obscure cottage at Kilmactrany, in the county of Sligo, January 1st, 1710. The Penal

Laws then and for many years afterwards, in force, deprived the Roman Catholics of Ireland of education at home, and prohibited them from seeking it abroad. To refugee ecclesiastics, therefore, O'Conor mainly owed his elementary instruction in Latin and Irish, and was initiated into the charms of Irish poetry and music by a native poet and composer, Torlogh O'Carolan. In memory of old Carolan, O'Conor maintained a partiality for the harp to the day of his death.1 By marriage he acquired a considerable fortune, which enabled him to devote himself to Literature, especially to the study of the monuments of Irish history in the vernacular tongue. His first appearance in the world of letters was in the "Ogygian Tales," founded on Irish chronicles and historical poems. This was the prelude to a long series of political and historical writings, which appeared at intervals to the year of his death. His wellknown "Dissertations on the History of Ireland," were published, in their first edition, at Dublin, 1753. It is to these Dissertations, which were brought to his notice by George Faulkner,2 that Johnson refers in his first letter to O'Conor (see vol. i. p. 260-1), wherein he urges him to continue his studies in the direction he had assumed. "Ireland," says Johnson in that letter, "is known by tradition to have been once the seat of piety and learning . . . . I hope you will continue to cultivate this kind of learning which has too long lain neglected, and which, if suffered to remain in oblivion for another century, may, perhaps, never be retrieved." About the year 1756, O'Conor and his friend, John Curry, M.D., projected the formation of an association of the most eminent Catholic clergy and laity to prepare statements of grievances and draw up petitions for redress. The committee of this body first met in Dublin in the year 1757. One part of their scheme was to employ the ablest writers of the day to advocate the claims of the Catholics. To this committee Faulkner had made known the animated language which Johnson frequently indulged in, when he dilated on the oppressions laid on the Roman Catholics of Ireland. Money was accordingly subscribed to retain him, and proposals were actually made to Johnson to undertake their defence. "I have in my possession," writes the grandson and biographer of Charles O'Conor, "a letter from Faulkner to Dr. Jennings engaging him to write pressingly to Mr.` · 1 Memoirs of the Life and Writings of the late Charles O'Conor of Belanagare, by Charles O'Conor, D.D. Dublin, 1796,

An account of Faulkner will be found in the History of the City of Dublin, by J. T. Gilbert, vol. ii., pp. 36-52. Dublin, 1859.

O'Conor to collect fifty guineas among his friends to send as a douceur to Dr. Johnson, with an abstract of the penal laws and Mr. O'Conor's own writings on the subject."

"I send the Doctor my last javelin," says O'Conor, speaking of his Maxims, in reply to Jennings, "but I fear I have thrown them in vain; men in power will not be convinced; there is an obstinacy yoked with pride in this case, and a phantom of pride stalks behind to cement the league between them. I am glad, however, that I threw it, as Dr. Johnson will see that a negative on the plan relative to our waste lands, will render our task-masters inexcusable: it will show that they persecute merely for the sake of persecution, and that the injury they do us in not granting us leases of the red-bogs of Ireland, falls ultimately on themselves."

"Why Dr. Johnson did not undertake the task proposed in favour of the Irish peasantry, after speaking of the Catholics so favourably, I could never discover."1

But though Johnson declined to write in favour of Roman Catholic claims and rights, he never lost his interest in Irish antiquarian inquiries or the discoveries of philology, as they affected the language spoken in Ireland. Twenty years after the date of his first letter, Johnson sent through Dr. Thomas Campbell a second letter to O'Conor, which also Boswell printed ("Life,” vol. ii. p. 380), either from the letter itself, or from a copy of it, which had been sent to him by Mr. Joseph Cooper Walker, of the Treasury, Dublin.

"If I have ever disappointed you, give me leave to tell you that you have likewise disappointed me. I expected great discoveries in Irish Antiquity and large publications in the Irish language; but the world still remains as it was, doubtful and ignorant. . . . . Dr. Leland began his history too late the ages which deserve an exact inquiry are those times (for such there were) when Ireland was the school of the west, the quiet habitation of sanctity and literature."

:

Dr. Campbell, in his "Strictures,” p. i., quoting this same letter, introduced a new and important reading; instead of for such there were, his version has, if such there were, and he founds on it an assertion that Johnson doubted, that Ireland was the school of the west. Mr. Croker considered Campbell's reading the more correct, and suspected that something of national zeal may have misguided the pen of the Irish copyist. "I have in vain," writes Mr. Croker,

i

O'Conor's Life of Charles O'Conor, pp. 335, 336. 2 Campbell's Strictures, p. 1.

"inquired after the original to clear up this point." So has the present editor; but Mr. J. T. Gilbert, who reported on the O'Conor papers for the Historical Manuscripts Commission,1 can give no account of it. He thinks that it may have been sent to Boswelland Boswell's note on this second letter does not contradict it-but if the original were sent, it is now beyond recovery, as it would no doubt have shared the fate of the papers of Boswell reposited-as he fondly hoped, in perpetuity-in the Archives of Auchenleck—that is, it was consumed in the general conflagration which befell them. But no original letter is needed to establish the reading as Boswell gave it, not as Campbell perverted it. There can be little or no doubt to a candid mind that Johnson had no intention of uttering a covert doubt of Ireland having been the school of the West. It seems to lie on the surface, that he distinctly asserts it. And it is clear that O'Conor so understood him. In the Preface to the second edition of his "Dissertations on the History of Ireland," p. iv., he says that "Dr. Johnson, far from joining in the current prejudice against the present subject, or oppressing the writer who undertook it with censure, even where censure was justly due, approved of an endeavour to revive (as far as they can be usefully revived) the ancient language and literature of a sister Isle:" and Charles O'Conor, the biographer of his grandfather, quoting this very letter,2 says: "Dr. Johnson remarked to him (O'Conor) in a letter published by Mr. Boswell, that the period of our history which has been most shamefully neglected, is that from the introduction of Christianity, when Ireland was the School of the West."

It is evident, then, that Johnson sympathized with the genial and generous inquiries of O'Conor, and that Dr. Thomas Campbell's gloss has no justification. Boswell's reading is therefore to be maintained.

1 Eighth Report. London, 1881.

2 O'Conor's Life of O'Conor, p. 422.

END OF VOL. II.