An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Taste, and of the Origin of our Ideas of Beauty, etc. | Page 2

with
intention to have you think that I speak my opinion.
They cannot however be printed in their present state. Many of your

notions seem not very clear in your own mind, many are not
sufficiently developed and expanded for the common reader; the
expression almost every where wants to be made clearer and smoother.
You may by revisal and improvement make it a very elegant and
curious work.[1]
But Miss Reynolds was not easily discouraged, and Johnson wrote
again on 8 April 1782:
Your work is full of very penetrating meditation, and very forcible
sentiment. I read it with a full perception of the sublime, with wonder
and terrour, but I cannot think of any profit from it; it seems not born to
be popular.
Your system of the mental fabric is exceedingly obscure, and without
more attention than will be willingly bestowed, is unintelligible. The
Ideas of Beauty will be more easily understood, and are often charming.
I was delighted with the different beauty of different ages.
I would make it produce something if I could but I have indeed no hope.
If a Bookseller would buy it at all, as it must be published without a
name, he would give nothing for it worth your acceptance.[2]
In passing it might be pointed out that this letter has previously not
been associated with Miss Reynolds' essay on taste, largely because the
available text of the letter has been so faulty. Where Johnson wrote
"The Ideas of Beauty," obviously referring to the second section of the
Enquiry, Croker, followed by G.B. Hill, printed "The plans of
Burnaby." To this Hill added a note; "Burnaby, I conjecture, was a
character in the book," with the result that scholars have fruitlessly
been searching ever since for the fictitious Mr. Burnaby, One more
example of the dangers of using nineteenth-century transcripts!
Evidently Johnson's stringent objections temporarily halted her plans,
for we hear nothing more about the essay for two years. Meanwhile, as
appears from a later letter, she showed it to Bennett Langton, hoping in
vain for his help. Nevertheless, she was determined to go ahead and
print the work, even at her own expense. Johnson, still counted upon
for aid, wrote to her on 12 April 1784:
I am not yet able to wait on you, but I can do your business
commodiously enough. You must send me the copy to show the printer.
If you will come to tea this afternoon we will talk together about it.[3]
On 30 April he commented further: "Mr. Allen has looked over the

papers and thinks one hundred copies will come to five pounds."
Something, however, made her suspicious of his advice, and on 28 May
there came an end to Johnson's connection with the matter. He wrote: "I
have returned your papers, and am glad that you laid aside the thought
of printing them."
But Miss Reynolds had no intention of permanently giving up her
project. Instead she rewrote parts of the essay which had displeased her
critics, and shortly after Johnson's death proceeded to have 250 copies
privately printed, with a dedication to Mrs. Montagu. With Johnson
gone, "The Queen of the Bluestockings" must have appeared the next
best patron. That Mrs. Montagu, while no doubt flattered by the
dedication, was herself not overly enthusiastic about the essay may be
gathered from a letter written to her by Miss Reynolds on 12 July 1785.
Miss Reynolds began by insisting that "the slightest hint" of
disapprobation on the part of Mrs. Montagu would "consign the work
to oblivion"; then continued:
I never did entertain any desire to publish it, tho I might to sell it. And
my desire of printing it, originated from a motive which tho' vain I
allow, is an natural vanity I wishd to leave behind me a respectable
memorial of my existence, which I then flatterd myself this would be.
Ten impressions or twenty at the most, were all I wishd to have taken
off. Why I had so many as 250 was because Dr. Johnson advised me to
print that number, and to sell them, to stand the sale of them was his
expression, but I must do Dr. Johnson the justice to say, that, that
advice was given me with a proviso that no person was in the secret but
himself, for on my informing him to the contrary, he declined or seemd
to decline the affair of getting them printed for me, which I perceiving
sent to him for the manuscript, foolishly entertaining a slight suspicion
which I much reproach myself for, that some other motives besides the
want of merit in the work had influenced this change of behaviour.
Unluckily from the beginning I made too great allowance in its favour,
from an opinion I had con