dicrous light, one was almost inclined to think | vainglory of superior vigour. His piety, in ridicule the test of truth. He was surprised to some instances, bordered on superstition. He be told, but it was certainly true, that, with great was willing to believe in preternatural agency, powers of mind, wit and humour were his shin- and thought it not more strange that there ing talents. T he often argued for the sake should be evil spirits than evil men. Even the of triumph over his adversary, cannot be dis- question about second sight held him in sussembled. Dr. Rose, of Chiswick, has been pense. "Second sight," Mr. Pennant tells us, heard to tell of a friend of his, who thanked him "is a power of seeing images impressed on the for introducing him to Dr. Johnson, as he had organs of sight by the power of fancy, or on the been convinced, in the course of a long dispute, fancy by the disordered spirits operating on the that an opinion, which he had embraced as a mind. It is the faculty of seeing spectres or settled truth, was no better than a vulgar error. visions, which represent an event actually passThis being reported to Johnson, "Nay," said ing at a distance, or likely to happen at a future he, “do not let him be thankful, for he was right, day. In 1771, a gentleman, the last who was and I was wrong." Like his uncle Andrew, in supposed to be possessed of this faculty, had a the ring at Smithfield, Johnson, in a circle of boat at sea in a tempestuous night, and, being disputants, was determined neither to be thrown anxious for his freight, suddenly started up, and nor conquered. Notwithstanding all his piety, said his men would be drowned, for he had seen self-government, or the command of his pas- them pass before him with wet garments and sions in conversation, does not seem to have been dripping locks. The event corresponded with among his attainments. Whenever he thought his disordered fancy. And thus," continues the contention was for superiority, he has been Mr. Pennant, "a distempered imagination, known to break out with violence, and even fe- clouded with anxiety, may make an impression rocity. When the fray was over, he generally on the spirits; as persons, restless and troubled softened into repentance, and, by conciliating with indignation, see various forms and figures measures, took care that no animosity should be while they lie awake in bed." This is what Dr. left rankling in the breast of his antagonist. Of Johnson was not willing to reject. He wished this defect he seems to have been conscious. In for some positive proof of communications with a letter to Mrs. Thrale, he says, "Poor Baretti! another world. His benevolence embraced the do not quarrel with him; to neglect him a little whole race of man, and yet was tinctured with will be sufficient. He means only to be frank particular prejudices. He was pleased with and manly, and independent, and perhaps, as the minister in the Isle of Sky, and loved him so you say a little wise. To be frank, he thinks, much that he began to wish him not a Presbyis to be cynical; and to be independent, is to be terian. To that body of Dissenters his zeal for rude. Forgive him, dearest lady, the rather, the Established Church made him in some debecause of his misbehaviour I am afraid he gree an adversary; and his attachment to a learned part of me. I hope to set him here- mixed and limited Monarchy led him to declare after a better example." For his own intolerant open war against what he called a sullen Reand overbearing spirit he apologized by observ-publican. He would rather praise a man of ing, that it had done some good; obscenity and impiety were repressed in his company. In It was late in life before he had the habit of mixing, otherwise than occasionally, with polite company. At Mr. Thrale's, he saw a constant succession of well-accomplished visitors. that society he began to wear off the rugged points of his own character. He saw the advantages of mutual civility, and endeavoured to profit by the models before him. He aimed at what has been called by Swift the lesser morals, and by Cicero minores virtutes. His endeavour, though new and late, gave pleasure to all his acquaintance. Men were glad to see that he was willing to be communicative on equal terms and reciprocal complaisance. The time was then expected when he was to cease being what George Garrick, brother to the celebrated actor, called him the first time he heard him converse, "A TREMENDOUS COMPANION." He certainly wished to be polite, and even thought himself so; but his civility still retained something uncouth and harsh. His manners took a milder tone, but the endeavour was too palpably seen. He laboured even in trifles. He was a giant gaining a purchase to lift a feather. It is observed by the younger Pliny, that in the confines of virtue and great qualities there are generally vices of an opposite nature. In Dr. Johnson not one ingredient can take the name of vice. From his attainments in literature grew the pride of knowledge; and from his powers of reasoning, the love of disputation and the (d) Oxford than of Cambridge. He disliked a Whig, and loved a Tory. These were the shades of his character, which it has been the business of certain party-writers to represent in the darkest colours. Since virtue, or moral goodness, consists in a just conformity of our actions to the relations in which we stand to the Supreme Being and to our fellow creatures, where shall we find a man who has been, or endeavoured to be, more diligent in the discharge of those essential duties? His first prayer was composed in 1738; he continued those fervent ejaculations of piety to the end of his life. In his Meditations we see him scrutinizing himself with severity, and aiming at perfection unattainable by man. His duty to his neighbour consisted in universal benevolence, and a constant aim at the production of happiness. Who was more sincere and steady in his friendships? It has been said that there was no real affection between him and Garrick. On the part of the latter, there might be some corrosions of jealousy. The character of PROSPERO, in the Rambler, No. 200, was, beyond all question, occasioned by Garrick's ostentatious display of furniture and Dresden china. It was surely fair to take from this incident a hint for a moral essay; and though no more was intended, Garrick, we are told, remembered it with unea siness. He was also hurt that his Litchfield friend did not think so highly of his dramatic art as the rest of the world. The fact was, Johnson could not see the passions as they rose and chased one another in the varied features Like Milton and Addison, he seems to have been fond of his Latin poetry. Those compo sitions show that he was an early scholar; but his verses have not the grace ease that gave so much suavity to the poems Addison. The translation of the Messiah apours under two disadvantages; it is first to be compared with Pope's inimitable performance, and afterwards with the Pollio of Virgil. It may appear trifling to remark, that he has made the letter o, in the Virgo, Virgo parit. But the translation has great merit, and some admirable lines. In the odes there is a sweet flexibility, particularly, To his worthy friend Dr. Laurence; on himself at the theatre, March 8, 1771; the Ode in the Isle of Sky; and that to Mrs. Thrale from the same place. of that expressive face; and by his own manner of reciting verses, which was wonderfully impressive, he plainly showed that he thought there was too much of artificial tone and measured cadence in the declamation of the theatre. The present writer well remembers being in conversation with Dr. Johnson near the side of the scenes during the tragedy of King Lear: when Garrick came off the stage, he said, "You two talk so loud you destroy all my feel-word Virgo, long and short in the same line; ings." "Prithee," replied Johnson, "do not talk of feelings, Punch has no feelings." This seems to have been his settled opinion; admirable as Garrick's imitation of nature always was, Johnson thought it no better than mere mimicry. Yet it is certain that he esteemed and loved Garrick; that he dwelt with pleasure on his praise; and used to declare, that he deserved his great success, because on all applications for charity he gave more than was asked. After Garrick's death he never talked of him without a tear in his eye. He offered, if Mrs. Garrick would desire it of him, to be the editor of his works and the historian of his life.* It has been mentioned, that on his death-bed he thought of writing a Latin inscription to the memory of his friend. Numbers are still living who know these facts, and still remember with gratitude the friendship which he showed to them with unaltered affection for a number of years. His humanity and generosity, in proportion to his slender income were unbounded. It has been truly said, that the lame, the blind, and the sorrowful, found in his house a sure re-the object of prayers offered up to the Deity. The treat. A strict adherence to truth he considered as a sacred obligation, insomuch that, in relating the most minute anecdote, he would not allow himself the smallest addition to embellish his story. The late Mr. Tyers, who knew Dr. Johnson intimately, observed, "that he always talked as if he was talking upon oath." After a long acquaintance with this excellent man, and an attentive retrospect to his whole conduct, such is the light in which he appears to the writer of this essay. The following lines of Horace may be deemed his picture in miniature. Iracundior est paulo, minus aptus acutis "Your friend is passionate, perhaps unfit For the brisk petulance of modern wit. FRANCIS' HOR. Book. i. Sat. 3. It remains to give a review of Johnson's works; and this, it is imagined, will not be unwelcome to the reader. His English poetry is such as leaves room to think, if he had devoted himself to the Muses, that he would have been the rival of Pope. His first production in this kind was London, a poem in imitation of the third satire of Juvenal. The vices of the metropolis are placed in the room of ancient manners. The author had heated his mind with the ardour of Juvenal, and, having the skill to polish his numbers, he became a sharp accuser of the times. The Vanity of Human Wishes is an imitation of the tenth Satire of the same author. Though it is translated by Dryden, Johnson's imitation approaches nearest to the spirit of the original. The subject is taken from the Alcibiades of Plato and has an intermixture of the sentiments of Socrates concerning general proposition is, that good and evil are so DIF The prologue to Irene is written with ele I. to be sent to Ethiopia to procure manuscripts. | in the disasters of their country; a race of men, Having spoken in favour of monarchy and bi- quibus nulla ex honesto spes. shops, he was plundered by the Puritans, and twice carried away a prisoner from his rectory.gance, and, in a peculiar style, shows the literary He died very poor in 1646. pride and lofty spirit of the author. The epilogue, we are told in a late publication was written by Sir William Young. This is a new discovery, but by no means probable. When the appendages to a dramatic performance are not assigned to a friend, or an unknown hand, or a person of fashion, they are always supposed to be written by the author of the play. It is to be wished, however, that the epilogue in question could be transferred to any other writer. It is the worst jeu d'esprit that ever fell from Johnson's pen.* An account of the various pieces contained in this edition, such as miscellaneous tracts, and philological dissertations, would lead beyond the intended limits of this essay. It will suffice to say, that they are the productions of a man who never wanted decorations of language, and always taught his readers to think. The life of the late king of Prussia, as far as it extends, is a model of the biographical style. The review of the Origin of Evil was, perhaps, written with asperity; but the angry epitaph which it provoked from Soame Jenyns, was an ill-timed resentment, unworthy of the genius of that amiable author. The tragedy of Irene is founded on a passage in Knolles' History of the Turks; an author highly commended in the Rambler, No. 122. An incident in the Life of Mahomet the Great, first Emperor of the Turks, is the hinge on which the fable is made to move. The substance of the story is shortly this. In 1453 Mahomet laid siege to Constantinople, and having reduced the place, became enamoured of a fair Greek, whose name was Irene. The sultan invited her to embrace the law of the Prophet, and to grace his throne. Enraged at this intended marriage, the Janizaries formed a conspiracy to dethrone the Emperor. To avert the impending danger, Mahomet, in a full assembly of the grandees, "catching with one hand," as Knolles relates it, "the fair Greek by the hair of her head, and drawing his falchion with the other, he, at one blow, struck off her head, to the great terror of them all; and, having so done, said unto them, Now, by this, judge whether your emperor is able to bridle his affections or not." The story is simple, and it remained for the author to amplify it with proper episodes, and give it compli- The Rambler may be considered as Johnson's cation and variety. The catastrophe is changed, great work. It was the basis of that high reputaand horror gives place to terror and pity. But, tion which went on increasing to the end of his after all, the fable is cold and languid. There days. The circulation of those periodical essays is not, throughout the piece, a single situation to was not, at first equal to their merit. They had excite curiosity, and raise a conflict of passions. not, like the Spectators, the art of charming by The diction is nervous, rich, and elegant; but variety; and indeed how could it be expected? splendid language, and melodious numbers, will The wits of Queen Anne's reign sent their conmake a fine poem, not a tragedy. The senti- tributions to the Spectator; and Johnson stood ments are beautiful, always happily expressed, alone. "A stage-coach," says Sir Richard but seldom appropriated to the character, and Steele, "must go forward on stated days, whegenerally too philosophic. What Johnson has ther there are passengers or not." So it was with said of the tragedy of Cato may be applied to the Rambler, every Tuesday and Saturday, for Irene: "It is rather a poem in dialogue than a two years. In this collection Johnson is the drama; rather a succession of just sentiments great moral teacher of his countrymen; his esin elegant language, than a representation of na- says form a body of ethics; the observations on tural affections. Nothing excites or assuages life and manners are acute and instructive; and emotion. The events are expected without soli- the papers, professedly critical, serve to promote citude, and are remembered without joy or sor-the cause of literature. It must, however, be acOf the agents we have no care; we con- knowledged, that a settled gloom hangs over the sider not what they are doing, nor what they are author's mind; and all the essays, except eight suffering; we wish only to know what they have or ten, coming from the same fountain-head, no It is unaffecting elegance, and chill phi- wonder that they have the raciness of the soil losophy." The following speech, in the mouth from which they sprang. Of this uniformity of a Turk, who is supposed to have heard of Johnson was sensible. He used to say, that if he the British constitution, has been often selected had joined a friend or two, who would have been from the numberless beauties with which Irene able to intermix papers of a sprightly turn, the abounds: collection would have been more miscellaneous, and by consequence more agreeable to the generality of readers. This he used to illustrate by repeating two beautiful stanzas from his own Ode to Cave, or Sylvanus Urban ; row. to say. "If there be any land, as fame reports Non ulla Musis pagina gratior, Utilibus recreare mentem. Æthereis variata fucis. These are British sentiments. Above forty years ago they found an echo in the breast of applauding audiences; and to this hour they are * Dr. Johnson informed Mr. Boswell that this epilogue the voice of the people, in defiance of the meta- was written by Sir William Young. See Boswell's Life physics and the new lights of certain politicians, nal evidence that it is not Johnson's, is very strong, partiof Johnson, vol. i. p. 166-70. 8vo. edit. 1804. The interwho would gladly find their private advantagecularly in the line "But how the devil," &c. It is remarkable that the pomp of diction, | imagination, alive to the first objects of nature which has been objected to Johnson, was first and of art. He reaches the sublime without assumed in the Rambler. His Dictionary was any apparent effort. When he tells us, "If we going on at the same time, and, in the course of consider the fixed stars as so many oceans of that work, as he grew familiar with technical flame, that are each of them attended with a difand scholastic words, he thought that the bulk ferent set of plancts; if we still discover new of his readers were equally learned; or at least firmaments and new lights that are sunk further would admire the splendour and dignity of the in those unfathomable depths of æther, we are style. And yet it is well known that he praised lost in a labyrinth of suns and worlds, and conin Cowley the easy and unaffected structure of founded with the magnificence and immensity the sentences. Cowley may be placed at the of nature;" the ease with which this passage head of those who cultivated a clear and natural rises to unaffected grandeur, is the secret charm style. Dryden, Tillotson, and Sir William that captivates the reader. Johnson is always Temple, followed. Addison, Swift, and Pope, lofty; he seems, to use Dryden's phrase, to be with more correctness, carried our language o'er-informed with meaning, and his words do well nigh to perfection. Of Addison, Johnson not appear to himself adequate to his conception. was used to say, He is the Raphael of Essay He moves in state, and his periods are always Writers. How he differed so widely from such harmonious. His Oriental Tales are in the true elegant models is a problem not to be solved, style of Eastern magnificence, and yet none of unless it be true that he took an early tincture them are so much admired as the Visions of from the writers of the last century, particularly Mirza. In matters of criticism, Johnson is neSir Thomas Browne. Hence the peculiarities ver the echo of preceding writers. He thinks of his style, new combinations, sentences of an and decides for himself. If we except the Esunusual structure, and words derived from the says on the Pleasures of Imagination, Addison learned languages. His own account of the cannot be called a philosophical critic. His momatter is, "When common words were less ral Essays are beautiful: but in that province pleasing to the ear, or less distinct in their signi- nothing can exceed the Rambler, though Johnfication, I familiarized the terms of philosophy, son used to say, that the Essay on The burthens by applying them to popular ideas." but he for- of mankind (in the Spectator No. 558) was the got the observation of Dryden: If too many fo- most exquisite he had ever read. Talking of reign words are poured in upon us, it looks as if himself, Johnson said, "Topham Beauclerk has they were designed, not to assist the natives, but to wit, and every thing comes from him with ease; conquer them. There is, it must be admitted, a but when I say a good thing I seem to labour." swell of language, often out of all proportion to When we compare him with Addison, the conthe sentiment; but there is, in general, a fulness trast is still stronger. Addison lends grace and of mind, and the thought seems to expand with ornament to truth: Johnson gives it force and the sound of the words. Determined to discard energy. Addison makes virtue amiable; Johncolloquial barbarisms and licentious idioms, he son represents it as an awful duty. Addison in forgot the elegant simplicity that distinguishes sinuates himself with an air of modesty; John the writings of Addison. He had what Locke son commands like a dictator; but a dictator in calls a round-about view of his subject; and his splendid robes, not labouring at the plough. though he was never tainted, like many modern Addison is the Jupiter of Virgil, with placid sewits, with the ambition of shining in paradox, renity talking to Venus: he may be fairly called an ORIGINAL THINKER. "Vultu, quo cœlum tempestatesque serenat." His reading was extensive. He treasured in his mind whatever was worthy of notice, but he Johnson is Jupiter tonans: he darts his lightadded to it from his own meditation. He col-ning, and rolls his thunder, in the cause of virtue lected, quæ reconderet, auctaque promeret. Addison was not so profound a thinker. He was born to write, converse, and live with ease; and he found an early patron in Lord Somers. He depended, however, more upon a fine taste than | the vigour of his mind. His Latin poetry shows, that he relished, with a just selection, all the refined and delicate beauties of the Roman class ics; and piety. The language seems to fall short of ideas; he pours along, familiarizing the terms of philosophy, with bold inversions, and sonorous periods; but we may apply to him what Pope has said of Homer: "It is the sentiment that swells and fills out the diction, which rises with it, and forms itself about it; like glass in the furnace, which grows to a greater magnitude, as the breath within is more powerful, and the heat more intense." It is not the design of this comparison to decide between these two eminent writers. In matters of taste every reader will choose for himself. Johnson is always profound, and of course gives the fatigue of thinking. Addison charms while he instructs; and writing, as he always does, a pure, an elegant and idiomatic style, he may be pronounced the safest model for imitation. The essays written by Johnson in the Adventurer may be called a continuation of the Rambler. The Idler, in order to be consistent with the assumed character, is written with abated vigour, in a style of ease and unlaboured elegance. It is the Odyssey after the Illiad. In tense thinking would not become the Idler. The from his own apprehensions. The discourse on the nature of the soul gives us all that philosophy knows, not without a tincture of supersti tion. It is remarkable that the vanity of humar pursuits was, about the same time, the subject that employed both Johnson and Voltaire: but Candide is the work of a lively imagination; and Rasselas, with all its splendour of eloquence, exhibits a gloomy picture. It should, however, be remembered, that the world has known the weeping as well as the laughing philosopher. The Dictionary does not properly fall withir the province of this essay. The preface, how ever, will be found in this edition. He who reads the close of it, without acknowledging the force of the pathetic and sublime, must have more insensibility in his composition than usually falls to the share of a man. The work itself, though in some instances abuse has been loud, and in others malice has endeavoured to undermine its fame, still remains the MOUNT ATLAS of English Literature. Though storms and tempests thunder on its brow, can doubt; but it was an office which he never cordially embraced. The public expected more than he had diligence to perform; and yet his edition has been the ground on which every subsequent commentator has chosen to build. One note for its singularity, may be thought worthy of notice in this place. Hamlet says; "For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a God-kissing carrion." In this Warburton discovered the origin of evil. Hamlet, he says, breaks off in the middle of the sentence; but the learned commentator knows what he was going to say, and being unwilling to keep the secret, he goes on in a train of philosophical reasoning that leaves the reader in astonishment. Johnson, with true piety, adopts the fanciful hypothesis, declaring it to be a noble emendation, which almost sets the critic on a level with the author. The general observations at the end of the several plays, and the preface will be found in this edition. The former, with great elegance and precision, give a summary view of each drama. The preface is a tract of great crudition and philosophical criticism. It stands unmoved, and glories in its height. "Rasselas," says Sir John Hawkins, "is a That Johnson was eminently qualified for th specimen of our language scarcely to be paral-office of a commentator on Shakspeare, no mar leled; it is written in a style refined to a degree of immaculate purity, and displays the whole force of turgid eloquence." One cannot but smile at this encomium. Rasselas is undoubtedly both elegant and sublime. It is a view of human life, displayed, it must be owned, in gloomy colours. The author's natural melancholy, depressed, at the time, by the approaching dissolution of his mother, darkened the picture. A tale, that should keep curiosity awake by the artifice of unexpected incidents, was not the design of a mind pregnant with better things. He, who reads the heads of the chapters will find, that it is not a course of adventures that invites him forward, but a discussion of interesting questions; Reflections on Human life, the History of Imlac, the Man of Learning; a Dissertation upon Poetry; the Character of a wise and happy Man, who discourses with energy on the government of the passions, and on a sudden, when Death deprives him of his daughter, forgets all his maxims of wisdom and the eloquence that adorned them, yielding to the stroke of affliction with all the vehemence of the bitterest anguish. It is by pictures of life, and profound moral reflection, that expectation is engaged and gratified throughout the work. The History of the Mad Astronomer, who imagines that, for five years, he possessed the regulation of the weather, and that the sun passed from tropic to tropic by his direction, represents in striking colours the sad effect of a distempered imagination. It becomes the more affecting when we recollect that it proceeds from one who lived in fear of the same dreadful visitation; from one who says emphatically, "Of the uncertainties in our present state, the most dreadful and alarming is the uncertain continuance of reason." The inquiry into the cause of madness, and the dangerous prevalence of imagination, till in time some particular train of ideas fixes the attention, and the mind recurs constantly to the favourite conception, is carried on in a strain of acute observation; but it leaves us room to think that the author was transcribing Johnson's political pamphlets, whatever was his motive for writing them, whether gratitude for his pension, or the solicitation of men in power, did not support the cause for which they were undertaken. They are written in a style truly harmonious, and with his usual dignity of language. When it is said that he advanced positions repugnant to the common rights of mankind, the virulence of party may be suspected. It is, perhaps, true that in the clamour raised throughout the kingdom, Johnson over-heated his mind; but he was a friend to the rights of man, and he was greatly superior to the littleness of spirit that might incline him to advance what he did not think and firmly believe. In the False Alarm, though many of the most eminent men in the kingdom concurred in petitions to the throne, yet Johnson, having well surveyed the mass of the people, has given, with great humour, and no less truth, what may be called, the birth, parentage, |