Savage’s single successful poem, The Bastard. ‘Though he did not lose the opportunity which success gave him, of setting a high rate upon his abilities, but paid due deference to the suffrages of mankind when they were given in his favour, he did not suffer his esteem of himself to depend upon others, nor found any thing sacred in the voice of the people when they were inclined to censure him; he then readily shewed the folly of expecting that the publick should judge right, observed how slowly poetical merit had often forced its way into the world: he contented himself with the applause of men of judgement, and was somewhat disposed to exclude all those from the character of men of judgement who did not applaud him.’
Johnson often returns to this topic—as, indeed, it is often suggested by the records of the lives of authors—and never loses an opportunity of repeating his verdict. Can an author judge truly of his own productions? Dryden had asked the question, and had discussed it, not unfairly, in the preface to Secret Love, or the Maiden Queen. Self-love, he had admitted, may easily deceive. But this does not satisfy Johnson, who is for treating the question more drastically, and adds: ‘He might have observed, that what is good only because it pleases cannot be pronounced good till it has been found to please.’
This view of literature opposes Johnson to those authors who refuse to plead before the tribunal of public opinion. Gibbon, in his Memoirs, says that ‘the author himself is the best judge of his own performance,’ and his opinion has the support of almost all the romantic poets that ever lived. Among these Pope (one of the most romantic of poets in his attitude to himself and his
