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 planets; 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; John-. colloquial 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 when he cultivated his native language,
no wonder that he formed that graceful style,
which has been so justly admired; simple, yet
elegant; adorned, yet never overwrought; rich
in allusion, yet pure and perspicuous; correct,
without labour; and though sometimes deficient
in strength, yet always musical. His essays, in
general, are on the surface of life; if ever ori-
ginal, it was in pieces of humour. Sir Roger de
Coverly, and the Tory Fox-hunter, need not to
be mentioned. Johnson had a fund of humour,
but he did not know it: nor was he willing to
descend to the familiar idiom and the variety of
diction which that mode of composition required.
The letter, in the Rambler, No. 12, from a young
girl that wants a place, will illustrate this ob-
servation. Addison possessed an unclouded

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."

In

It is not the design of this comparison to decide between these two eminent writers. 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 ele-. gance. It is the Odyssey after the Illiad. In

tense thinking would not become the Idler. The first number presents a well-drawn portrait of an Idler, and from that character no deviation could be made. Accordingly, Johnson forgets his austere manner, and plays us into sense. He still continues his lectures on human life, but he adverts to common occurrences, and is often content with the topic of the day. An advertisement in the beginning of the first volume informs us, that twelve entire essays were a contribution from different hands. One of these, No. 33, is the journal of a Senior Fellow at Cambridge, but as Johnson, being himself an original thinker, always revolted from servile imitation, he has printed the piece, with an apology, importing that the journal of a citizen in the Spectator almost precluded the attempt of any subsequent writer. This account of the Idler may be closed, after observing, that the author's mother, being buried on the 23d of January, 1759, there is an admirable paper occasioned by that event, on Saturday the 27th of the same month, No. 41. The reader, if he pleases, may compare it with another fine paper in the Rambler, No. 54, on the conviction that rushes on the mind at the bed of a dying friend.

from his own apprehensions. The discourse on the nature of the soul gives us all that philoso phy 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..

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 dis covered 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 erudition and philosophical criticism.

Though storms and tempests thunder on its brow, And oceans break their billows at its feet, It stands unmoved, and glories in its height. "Rasselas," says Sir John Hawkins, "is a That Johnson was eminently qualified for ths 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 Johnson's political pamphlets, whatever was expectation is engaged and gratified throughout his motive for writing them, whether gratitude the work. The History of the Mad Astronomer, for his pension, or the solicitation of men in who imagines that, for five years, he possessed power, did not support the cause for which they the regulation of the weather, and that the sun were undertaken. They are written in a style passed from tropic to tropic by his direction, re- truly harmonious, and with his usual dignity of presents in striking colours the sad effect of a language. When it is said that he advanced podistempered imagination. It becomes the more sitions repugnant to the common rights of mankind, affecting when we recollect that it proceeds from the virulence of party may be suspected. It is, one who lived in fear of the same dreadful visita-perhaps, true that in the clamour raised throughtion; from one who says emphatically, "Of the out the kingdom, Johnson over-heated his mind; uncertainties in our present state, the most dread- but he was a friend to the rights of man, and he ful and alarming is the uncertain continuance of was greatly superior to the littleness of spirit that reason." The inquiry into the cause of mad- might incline him to advance what he did not ness, and the dangerous prevalence of imagina- think and firmly believe. In the False Alarm, tion, till in time some particular train of ideas though many of the most eminent men in the kingfixes the attention, and the mind recurs con- dom concurred in petitions to the throne, yet Johnstantly to the favourite conception, is carried on son, having well surveyed the mass of the peoin a strain of acute observation; but it leaves us ple, has given, with great humour, and no less room to think that the author was transcribing | truth, what may be called, the birth, parentage,

Sermons.

and education of a remonstrance. On the subject | largest Bull* in England; and some of the best of Falkland's Islands, the fine dissuasive from too hastily involving the world in the calamities of war, must extort applause even from the party that wished, at that time, for the scenes of tumult and commotion. It was in the same pamphlet that Johnson, offered battle to JUNIUS; a writer, who, by the uncommon elegance of his style, charmed every reader, though his object was to inflame the nation in favour of a faction. Junius fought in the dark; he saw his enemy and had his full blow; while he himself remained safe in obscurity. But let us not, said Johnson, mistake the venom of the shaft for the vigour of the bow. The keen invective which he published on that occasion, promised a paper war between two combatants, who knew the use of their weapons. A battle between them was as eagerly expected as between Mendoza and Big Ben. But Junius, whatever was his reason, never returned to the field. He laid down his arms, and has, ever since, remained as secret as tne man in the mask in Voltaire's History.

We now come to the Lives of the Poets, a work undertaken at the age of seventy, yet the most brilliant, and certainly the most popular, of all our Author's writings. For this performance he needed little preparation. Attentive always to the history of letters, and by his own natural bias fond of biography, he was the more willing to embrace the proposition of the Booksellers. He was versed in the whole body of English Poetry, and his rules of criticism were settled with precision. The dissertation, in the Life of Cowley, on the metaphysical Poets of the last century, has the attraction of novelty as well as sound observation. The writers who followed Dr. Donne, went in quest of something better than truth and nature. As Sancho says in Don Quixote, they wanted better bread than is made with wheat. They took pains to bewilder themselves, and were ingenious for no other purpose than to err. In Johnson's review of Cowley's works, false wit is detected in all its shapes, and the Gothic taste for glittering conceits, and far-fetched allusions, is exploded, never, it is hoped, to revive again.

The account of his journey to the Hebrides, or Western Isles of Scotland, is a model for such as shall hereafter relate their travels. The author did not visit that part of the world in the Án author who has published his observations character of an Antiquary, to amuse us with on the Life and Writings of Dr. Johnson, speakwonders taken from the dark and fabulous ages; ing of the Lives of the Poets, says, "These com nor as a Mathematician, to measure a degree, positions abounding in strong and acute remark, and settle the longitude and latitude of the seve- and with many fine and even sublime passages, ral islands. Those, who expected such informa- have unquestionably great merit; but if they tion, expeeted what was never intended. In be regarded merely as containing narrations of every work regard the writer's end. Johnson went the lives, delineations of the characters, and to see men and manners, modes of life, and the strictures of the several authors, they are far progress of civilization. His remarks are so from being always to be depended on." He artfully blended with the rapidity and elegance adds, "The characters are sometimes partial, of his narrative, that the reader is inclined to and there is sometimes too much malignity of wish, as Johnson did with regard to Gray, that misrepresentation, to which, perhaps, may be to travel, and to tell his travels, had been more of his joined no inconsiderable portion of erroneous employment. criticism." The several clauses of this censure deserve to be answered as fully as the limits of this essay will permit.

As to Johnson's Parliamentary Debates, nothing with propriety can be said in this place. They are collected in two volumes by Mr. Stockdale, and the flow of eloquence which runs through the several speeches is sufficiently known.

It will not be useless to mention two more volumes, which may form a proper supplement to this edition. They contain a set of Sermons left for publication by John Taylor, LL. D. The Reverend Mr. Hayes, who ushered these Discourses into the world, has not given them as the composition of Dr. Taylor. All he could say for his departed friend was, that he left them in silence among his papers. Mr. Hayes knew them to be the production of a superior mind; and the writer of these Memoirs owes it to the candour of that elegant scholar, that he is now warranted to give an additional proof of Johnson's ardour in the cause of piety, and every moral duty. The last discourse in the collection was intended to be delivered by Dr. Taylor at the funeral of Johnson's wife; but that reverend gentleman declined the office, because, as he told Mr. Hayes, the praise of the deceased was too much amplified. He, who reads the piece, will find it a beautiful moral lesson, written with temper, and no where over-charged with ambitious ornaments. The rest of the Discourses were the fund, which Dr. Taylor, from time to time carried with him to his pulpit. He had the

In the first place, the facts are related upon the best intelligence, and the best vouchers that could be gleaned, after a great lapse of time. Probability was to be inferred from such materials as could be procured, and no man better understood the nature of historical evidence than Dr. Johnson; no man was more religiously an observer of truth. If his History is any where defective, it must be imputed to the want of better information, and the errors of uncertain tradition.

Ad nos vix tenuis famæ perlabitur aura.

If the strictures on the works of the various authors are not always satisfactory, and if erroneous criticism may sometimes be suspected. who can hope that in matters of taste all shall agree? The instances in which the public mind has differed from the positions advanced by the author, are few in number. It has been said, that justice has not been done to Swift, that Gay and Prior are undervalued; and that Gray has been harshly treated. This charge, perhaps, ought not to be disputed. Johnson, it is well known had conceived a prejudice against

*See Johnson's Letters from Ashbourne, in this ed tion.

LICENSED PRINTING be denied to the friends of the British constitution?

ter, with the titles of Director of public Councès, the Leader of unconquered Armies, the Father of It is unnecessary to pursue the argument his Country. Milton declared at the same time, through all its artifices, since, dismantled of or- that nothing more pleasing to God, or more agreenament and seducing language, the plain truth able to reason, than that the highest mind should may be stated in a narrow compass. Johnson have the sovereign power. In this strain of servile knew that Milton was a republican; he says, flattery Milton gives us the right divine of tyrants. an acrimonious and surly republican, for which But it seems, in the same piece, he exhorts it is not known that he gave any better reason Cromwell "not to desert those great principles than that a popular government was the most of liberty which he had professed to espouse; frugal; for, the trappings of a monarchy would for, it would be a grievous enormity, if, after set up an ordinary commonwealth." Johnson having successfully opposed tyranny, he should knew that Milton talked aloud "of the danger himself act the part of a tyrant, and betray the of RE-ADMITTING KINGSHIP in this nation ;" and cause that he had defended." This desertion when Milton adds, "that a commonwealth was of every honest principle the advocate for liberty commended, or rather enjoined, by our Saviour | lived to see. Cromwell acted the tyrant; and himself, to all Christians, not without a remarka- with vile hypocrisy, told the people, that he had ble disallowance, and the brand of Gentilism consulted the Lord, and the Lord would have it UPON KINGSHIP," Johnson thought him no better so. Milton took an underpart in the tragedy. than a wild enthusiast. He knew as well as Did that become the defender of the people of Milton, "that the happiness of a nation must England? Brutus saw his country enslaved; he needs be firmest and certainest in a full and struck the blow for freedom, and he died with free council of their own electing, where no sin-honour in the cause. Had he lived to be a segle person but reason only sways;" but the ex-cretary under Tiberius, what would now be said ample of all the republics, recorded in the annals of his memory? of mankind, gave him no room to hope that REA- But still, it seems, the prostitution with which SON only would be heard. He knew that the Milton is charged, since it cannot be defended, republican form of government, having little or is to be retorted on the character of Johnson. no complication, and no consonance of parts, by For this purpose a book has been published, a nice mechanism forming a regular whole, was called Remarks on Dr. Johnson's Life of Milton; too simple to be beautiful even in theory. In to which are added Milton's Tractate of Education, practice, it perhaps never existed. In its most and Areopagitica. In this laboured tract we are flourishing state, at Athens, Rome, and Car- told, "There is one performance ascribed to the thage, it was a constant scene of tumult and pen of the Doctor, where the prostitution is of commotion. From the mischiefs of a wild de- so singular a nature, that it would be difficult mocracy, the progress has ever been to the do- to select an adequate motive for it out of the minion of an aristocracy and the word aristo-mountainous heap of conjectural causes of hu cracy fatally includes the boldest and most tur- man passions or human caprice. It is the speech bulent citizens, who rise by their crimes, and of the late unhappy Dr. William Dodd, when he call themselves the best men in the state. By was about to hear the sentence of the law prointrigue, by cabal, and faction, a pernicious oli-nounced upon him, in consequence of an indictgarchy is sure to succeed, and end at last in the ment for forgery. The voice of the public has tyranny of a single ruler. Tacitus, the great given the honour of manufacturing this speech master of political wisdom, saw, under the mixed to Dr. Johnson; and the style and figuration of authority of king, nobles, and people, a better the speech itself confirm the imputation. But it form of government than Milton's boasted repub-is hardly possible to divine what could be his lic; and what Tacitus admired in theory, but motive for accepting the office. A man, to exdespaired of enjoying, Johnson saw established press the precise state of mind of another, about in this country. He knew that it had been to be destined to an ignominious death for a overturned by the rage of frantic men; but he capital crime, should, one would imagine, have knew that, after the iron rod of Cromwell's some consciousness, that he himself had incurusurpation, the constitution was once more re-red some guilt of the same kind." In all the stored to its first principles. Monarchy was established, and this country was regenerated. It was regenerated a second time at the Revolution: the rights of men were then defined, and the blessings of good order and civil liberty have been ever since diffused through the whole community

:

The peace and happiness of society were what Dr. Johnson had at heart. He knew that Milton called his defence of the Regicides a defence of the people of England, but, however glossed and varnished, he thought it an apology for murder. Had the men, who, under a show of liberty, brought their king to the scaffold, proved by their subsequent conduct, that the public good inspired their actions, the end might have given some sanction to the means; but usurpation and slavery followed. Milton undertook the office of secretary under the despotic power of Cromwell, offering the incense of adulation to his mas

schools of sophistry is there to be found so vile an argument? In the purlieus of Grub-street is there such another mouthful of dirt? In the whole quiver of malice is there so envenomed a shaft?

After this it is to be hoped, that a certain class of men will talk no more of Johnson's malignity. The last apology for Milton is that he acted according to his principles. But Johnson thought those principles detestable; pernicious to the constitution in Church and State, destructive of the peace of society, and hostile to the great fabric of civil policy, which the wisdom of ages has taught every Briton to revere, to love and cherish. He reckoned Milton in that class of men of whom the Roman historian says, when they want, by a sudden convulsion, to overturn the government, they roar and clamour for liberty; if they succeed, they destroy liberty itself. Üt imperium evertant, libertatem præfe