Deformities of Samuel Johnson, Selected from His Works

'The laurels which human praise confers are withered and blasted by the unworthiness of those who wear them.' There is often a curious contrast between an author and his books. The mildest, the politest, the wisest, and the most worthy man alive, pens five hundred pages to display the pleasures of friendship and the beauties of benevolence; but alas! he is a theorist only, for his sympathy never cost him a shilling. A party-tool talks of public spirit. A pedant commands our tears. A pensioner inveighs against pensions; and a bankrupt preaches public œconomy. The philosopher quotes Horace, while he defrauds his valet. A mimick of Richardson, is a domestic tyrant: A Sydenham, the rendezvous of diseases: A declaimer against envy, of all men the most invidious. The satirist has not a reformer's virtues. The poet of love and friendship is without a mistress, or a friend; while a time-server celebrates the valour of heroes, and exults in the freedom of England. Like Penelope, most writers employ part of their time to undo the labours of the rest. Judging by their lives one would think it were their chief study to render learning ridiculous. We lose all respect for teachers, who, when the lesson is ended, are 'no wiser or better than common men.' To be convinced that books are trifles, let us only remark how little good they do, and how little those, who love them, love each other. The monopolists of literary fame, for the most part, regard a rival as an enemy. Their mutual hostilities, like those of aquatick animals, are unavoidable and constant; and their voracity differs from that of the shark, but as a half-devoured carcase, from a murdered reputation. The existence of many books depends on the ruin of some of the rest; yet, with our English Dictionary, a few immortal compositions are to live unwounded by the shafts of envy, and to descend in a torrent of applause from one century to another. A thousand of their critics will exist and be forgotten; a thousand of their imitators will sink into contempt; but THEY shall defy the force of time; continue to flourish thro' every fashion of philosophy, and, like Egyptian pyramids, perish but in the ruins of the globe.

DEFORMITIES, &c

In the number of men who dishonour their own genius, ought to be ranked Dr Samuel Johnson; for his abilities and learning are not accompanied by candour and generosity. His life of Pomfret concludes with this maxim, that 'he who pleases many, must have merit;' yet, in defiance of his own rule, the Doctor has, a thousand times, attempted to prove, that they who please many, have no merit. His invidious and revengeful remark on Chesterfield, would have disgraced any other man. He said, and nobody but himself would have said it, that Churchill was a shallow fellow. And he once told some of his admirers, that Swift was a shallow, a very shallow fellow: reminding us of the Lilliputian who drew his bow to Gulliver[23 - Swift had the splendid misfortune to be a man of genius. By a very singular felicity, he excelled both in verse and prose. He boasted, that no new word was to be found in his volumes; though, in glory above all writers of his time, he did not fancy that entitled him to ingross or insult conversation. He was no less remarkably clean, than some are remarkably dirty. His love of fame never led him into the lowest of all vices; and a sense of his own dignity made him respect the importance and the feelings of others. He often went many miles on foot, that he might be able to bestow on the poor, what a coach would have cost him. He raised some hundreds of families from beggary, by lending them five pounds a-piece only. He inspired his footmen with Celtic attachment. Whatever was his pride, he shewed none of it in 'the venerable presence of misery.' Though a poet he was free from vanity; though an author and a divine, his example did not fall behind his precepts; though a courtier, he disdained to fawn on his superiors; though a patriot, he never, like our successive generations of blasted orators, sacrificed his principles to his passions. 'His meanest talent was his wit.' His learning had no pedantry, his piety no superstition; his benevolence almost no parallel. His intrepid eloquence first pointed out to his oppressed countrymen, that path to Independence, to happiness, and to glory, which their posterity, at this moment, so nobly pursue. His treatise on the conduct of their foreign allies, first taught the English nation the dangers of a continental war, dispelled their delusive dreams of conquest, and stopt them in the full career to ruin.]. For the memory of this man, who may be classed with Cato and Phocion, the Doctor feels no tenderness or respect. And for that[24 - See parallel between Diogenes and Dr Johnson in Town and Country Magazine. In his life of Swift, the Doctor tells us, that 'he relieved without pity, and assisted without kindness.'], and other critical blasphemies, he has undergone innumerable floggings. No writer of this nation has made more noise. None has discovered more contempt for other men's reputations, or more confidence in his own. I would humbly submit a few hints for his improvement, if he be not 'too old to learn.' And, whatever freedoms I take, the Doctor himself may be quoted as a precedent for insolent invective, and brutal reproach. He has told us[25 - Idler, No. 70.], that 'the two lowest of all human beings are, a scribbler for a party, and a commissioner of excise.' This very man was himself the hired scribbler of a party; and why should a commissioner of excise be one of the meanest of mankind? In the preface to his octavo Dictionary, the Doctor affirms, that, 'by the labours of all his predecessors, not even the lowest expectation can be gratified.' The author of a revisal of Shakespeare[26 - Preface to Shakespeare.] attacks (he says) with 'gloomy malignity, as if he were dragging to justice an assassin or incendiary. He bites like a viper, and would be glad to leave inflammations and gangrene behind him.' For this shocking language, which could have been answered by nothing but a blow, the primum mobile, perhaps, was, that the critic had dedicated his book to Lord Kaims, (a Scotsman, and another very shallow fellow) 'as the truest judge, and most intelligent admirer of Shakespeare.'

His treatment of Colley Cibber is, if possible, worse. That great ornament of the stage was a man of genius, at least equal to Dr Johnson – but they had a quarrel, and though Cibber has been more than twenty years buried, the Doctor, in his life of Pope, studies to revenge it. His expressions are gross. 'In the Dunciad, among other worthless scribblers he (Pope) had mentioned Cibber. The dishonour of being shewn as Cibber's antagonist could never be compensated by the victory. Cibber had nothing to lose – The shafts of satire were directed in vain against Cibber, being repelled by the impenetrable impudence,' &c.[27 - Life of Pope.] We have been deafened about the Doctor's private virtues; of which these passages are a very poor evidence.

It is believed by some, that Dr Johnson's admirable Dictionary is the most capital monument of human genius; that the studies of Archimedes and Newton are but like a feather in the scale with this amazing work; that he has given our language a stability, which, without him, it had never known; that he has performed alone, what, in other nations, whole academies fail to perform; and that as the fruit of his learning and sagacity, our compositions will be classical and immortal. This may be true; but the book displays many proofs or his ill-nature, and evinces what I want to insist on, viz. that he who despises politeness cannot deserve it. For his seditious and impudent definitions[28 - The following extracts from the Doctor's Dictionary are a key to his political tenets: Excise, a hateful tax levied upon commodities, and adjudged, not by the common judges of property, but wretches hired by those to whom excise is paid. Gazetteer, was lately a term of the utmost infamy, being usually applied to wretches that were hired to vindicate the court. Pension, an allowance made to any one without an equivalent. In England it is generally understood to mean pay given to a state hireling for treason to his country. Pensioner, a slave of state, hired by a stipend to obey his master. King, monarch, supreme governour. Monarch, a governour invested with absolute authority, a King. Whig, 1. whey, 2. the name of a faction. Tory, one who adheres to the antient constitution of the state, and the apostolical hierarchy of the church of England, opposed to a whig. Johnson's fol. Dic. The word faction is always used in a bad sense; though, in defining it, the Doctor did not, and, after what he had said of a whig, perhaps durst not say, that a faction is always a term for the supposed disturbers of public peace. 'The most obsequious of the slaves of pride, the most rapturous of the gazers upon wealth, the most officious of the whisperers of greatness, are collected from seminaries appropriated to the study of wisdom and of virtue;' Rambler, No. 180. That is to say, men of learning are a set of the most sneaking, pitiful, time-serving rascals. The reader will make his own applications.] he would, in Queen Anne's reign, have had a fair chance of mounting the pillory. Hume, Smith, and Chesterfield may be quoted to prove, that Walpole and Excise were improper objects of execration; but an emanation of royal munificence has, of late, relaxed the Doctor's frigorific virtue; and, in his False Alarm, he affirms, that our government approaches nearer to perfection, than any other that fiction has feigned, or history recorded. This is going pretty far; but the peevish, though incorruptible patriot, proceeds a great deal farther. His political pieces have great elegance and wit; yet, if the tenth part of what he advances in them be true, his countrymen are a mob of ignorant, ungrateful, rebellious ruffians. Every member in Opposition is a fool, a firebrand, a monster; worse, if that were possible, than Ravillac, Hambden, or Milton[29 - See Political tracts by the author of the Rambler. His character of Hambden, the reader will find in the 1st page of Waller's life. Of Milton, he says, that 'his impudence had been at least equal to his other powers. Such was his malignity, that hell grew darker at his frown. He thought women born only for obedience, and men only for rebellion.' There is much more in the same tone; and, with what justice his epithets are applied, let Englishmen judge.]. Here is a short specimen:

'On the original contrivers of mischief let an insulted nation pour out its vengeance. With whatever design they have inflamed this pernicious contest, they are themselves equally detestable. If they wish success to the colonies, they are TRAITORS to this country; if they wish their defeat, they are TRAITORS at once to America and England. To them (Mess. Burke & Co.) and them only, must be imputed the interruption of commerce, and the miseries of war, the sorrow of those who shall be ruined, and the blood of those that shall fall[30 - Taxation no tyranny.].'

From the Doctor's volumes I am to select some passages, illustrate them with a few observations, and submit them to the reader's opinion. These pages aim at perspicacity. They are ambitious to record TRUTH.

'He that writes the life of another, is either his friend or his enemy, and wishes either to exalt his praise, or aggravate his infamy[31 - Ibid, No. 89.].' The Doctor betrays a degree of inconsistency incompatible with his reputed abilities. After such a confession, what have we to hope for in his lives of English poets?

Having thus denied veracity both to Plutarch and himself, this Idler, in the very next page, leaps at once from the wildest scepticism to the wildest credulity. The paragraph is too long for insertion; but the tenor of it is, that 'a man's account of himself, left behind him unpublished, may be depended on;' because, 'by self-love all have been so often betrayed, that (now for the strangest flight of nonsense) all are on the watch against its artifices.'

In his Dictionary, temperance is defined to be 'moderation opposed to gluttony and drunkenness.' And he has since defined 'sobriety or temperance' to be 'nothing but the forbearance of pleasure[32 - Idler, No. 85.].' This maxim needs no comment.

'A man will, in the hour of darkness and fatigue, be content to leave behind him every thing but himself[33 - Tour, p. 59.].' Here the Doctor supposes, that a person can leave himself behind himself. When the reader examines the passage in the original, he will be convinced, that this cannot be an error of the press only. Had the Rambler, when he crossed Tweed, left behind him his pride, his indolence, and his vulgarity, he would have returned a much wiser, better, and happier man than he did.

Form, he explains to be, 'the external appearance of any thing, shape;' but, when speaking of hills in the North of Scotland, he says, 'the appearance is that of matter incapable of FORM[34 - Tour, p. 84.]!' He has seen matter, not only destitute, but incapable of shape. He has seen an appearance which is incapable of external appearance. And yet, in the same book, he seems to regret the weakness of his vision.

Beauty is 'that assemblage of graces which pleases the eye.' But, in the Idler[35 - Idler, No. 82.], he displays his true idea of beauty; and it is a very lame piece of philosophy. Judge from a few samples: 'If a man, born blind, was to recover his sight, and the most beautiful woman was to be brought before him, he could not determine whether she was handsome or not. Nor if the most handsome and most deformed were produced, could he any better determine to which he should give the preference, having seen only these two.' And again, 'as we are then more accustomed to beauty than deformity, we may conclude that to be the reason why we approve and admire it.' Moreover, 'though habit and custom cannot be said to be the cause[36 - He should have said causes, for he mentions two. – What is the Doctor's distinction here between habit and custom?] of beauty, IT is certainly the cause of our liking it[37 - Quere, Are we more accustomed to beauty than deformity? or is not the fact otherwise. – Did habit ever make a sick man fond of disease, or a poor man fond of poverty?]. I have no doubt, but that, if we were more used to deformity than beauty, deformity would then lose the idea now annexed to it, and take that of beauty; as if the whole world should agree that yes and no should change their meanings, yes would then deny, and no would affirm.' This is such a perfection of nonsense, that the reader will, perhaps, think it a forgery; but he will find it verbatim et literatim, and the whole number is in the same stile.

'Swift in his petty treatise on the English language, allows that new words must sometimes be introduced, but proposes that none should be suffered to become obsolete[38 - Vide Preface to folio Dict.].' The Doctor has not given a fair quotation from Swift. One would imagine that Swift had proposed to retain every word which is to be found in any of our popular authors, but he neither said nor meant any such thing. His words are these: 'They' (the members of the proposed society) 'will find many words that deserve to be utterly thrown out of our language!' And the Dean says nothing afterwards which infers a contradiction[39 - Dr Campbell of Aberdeen, on the use of new words, says, 'That nothing can be juster than Johnson's manner of arguing on this subject, in regard to what Swift a little chimerically proposeth, that though new words be introduced, none should be suffered to become obsolete.' This Gentleman ought to have consulted Swift himself. Let him peruse the 'petty treatise,' and then let him blush for having trusted an author void of fidelity.].

In his account of Lyttleton, the Doctor's good nature is evident. He speaks not a word as to the merit of the history of Henry II. but – 'It was published with such anxiety as only vanity can dictate.' We are next entertained with a page of dirty anecdotes concerning its publication, which the Doctor seems to have picked up from some printer's journeyman. 'The Persian Letters have something of that indistinct and headstrong ardour for liberty which a man of genius always catches when he enters the world, and always suffers to cool as he passes forward.' Of the admired monody to the memory of Lady Lyttleton, we are told only that it is long. 'His dialogues of the dead were very eagerly read, tho' the production rather, as it seems of leisure than of study, rather effusions than compositions. The names of his persons too often enable the reader to anticipate their conversation; and when they have met, they too often part without a conclusion.' These remarks apply with peculiar justice to Dr Johnson's dictionary, for that work is an effusion rather than a composition. His reader is for the most part able to anticipate his definitions, and they generally end without conclusion. Lord Lyttleton's poems 'have nothing to be despised and little to be admired.' But here, as usual, the Doctor contradicts himself, and in the very next line 'of his Progress of Love, it is sufficient blame to say that it is pastoral. His blank verse in Blenheim has neither much force, nor much elegance. His little performances, whether songs or epigrams, are sometimes spritely, and sometimes insipid' – and of course despicable. The candid and accurate author of the Rambler has forgot the existence of that beautiful blossom of sensibility, that pure effusion of friendship, the prologue to Coriolanus.

The life of Dr Young has been written by a lawyer, who conveys the meanest thoughts in the meanest language. His stile is dry, stiff, grovelling, and impure. His anecdotes and ideas, are evidently the cud of Dr Johnson's conversation. He continues in the same fretful tone from the first line to the last. He is at once most contemptuous and contemptible. Whatever he says is insipid or disgusting. He is the bad imitator of a bad original; and an honest man cannot peruse his libel without indignation. He steps out of his way to remind us of Milton's corporal correction, a story fabricated, as is well known, by his Employer. His ignorance has already been illustrated in a periodical pamphlet. Johnson himself, with all his imperfections, is often as far superior to this unhappy penman, as the author of the Night-Thoughts is superior to Johnson. And yet this critical assassin, this literary jackall, is celebrated by the Doctor[40 - As the venerable and admirable father of the English Dictionary has treated the names of such men as Young and Lyttleton with so little ceremony, the reader will perhaps forgive the insertion of his own character, as drawn by Chesterfield. 'I am almost in a fever, whenever I am in his company. His figure (without being deformed) seems made to disgrace or ridicule the common structure of the human body. His legs and arms are never in the position, which, according to the situation of his body, they ought to be in; but constantly employed in committing acts of hostility upon the graces. He throws any where but down his throat, whatever he means to drink; and only mangles what he means to carve. Inattentive to all the regards of social life, he mistimes, or misplaces every thing. He disputes with heat, and indiscriminately, mindless of the rank, character, and situation, of those with whom he disputes; absolutely ignorant of the several gradations of familiarity or respect, he is exactly the same to his superiors, his equals, and his inferiors; and therefore by a necessary consequence absurd to two of the three. Is it possible to love such a man? No. The utmost I can do for him, is to consider him as a respectable Hottentot.' Churchill's account of our hero comes nearly to the same. And I presume that the inimitable Dr Smollet, has exhibited a third picture of this illustrious original in Humphry Clinker, Vol. 1. – Dr Johnson's letter to the Earl of Chesterfield concludes in these words: 'Whatever be the event of my endeavours, I shall not easily regret an attempt which has procured me the honour of appearing thus publicly, my Lord, your Lordship's most obedient, and most humble servant, Sam. Johnson.' These extracts afford a striking contrast between the severity of the polite peer, and the humble politeness (for once) of the rugged pedant.]. Pares cum paribus facile congregantur.

'Dryden's poem on the death of Mrs Killigrew is undoubtedly the noblest ode that our language ever has produced. The first part flows with a torrent of enthusiasm. All the stanzas, indeed, are not equal.' He proceeds to compare it with an imperial crown, &c. But, a little after, 'the ode on St Cecilia's day is allowed to stand without a rival[41 - Lives of English poets, vol. iii. p. 243 and 284. 12mo edit.].' These are his identical words; and his admirers may reconcile them if they can. Indeed, he seems ashamed of his own inconsistency, and is ready to relapse; but thinks, upon the whole, that Alexander's Feast 'may, perhaps, be pronounced superior to the ode on Killigrew.' Dr Johnson is said to be the greatest critic of his age; yet the verses on Mrs Killigrew are beneath all criticism; and, perhaps, no person ever read them through, except their author, and himself.

Dryden's fable 'of the Cock and Fox seems hardly worth the labour of rejuvenescence[42 - Vide Life of Dryden.].' Some narcotic seems to have refrigerated the red liquor which circulates in the Doctor's veins[43 - Vid. Dict. article Blood.], and to have hebetated and obtunded his powers of excogitation[44 - Excogitation, this combination of letters is to be found in the Doctor's works, though not in his Dictionary.], for elegance and wit never met more happily than here. Peruse only the first page of this poem, and then judge. The nonsense which has been written by critics is, in quantity and absurdity, beyond all conception. Perhaps his admirers may answer, that my remark is but the ramification of envy, the intumescence of ill-nature, the exacerbation of 'gloomy malignity.' However, it would not be amiss to commit that page of inanity to the power of cremation; and let not his fondest idolaters confide in its indiscerptibility. In painting the sentiments and the scenes of common life, to write English which Englishmen cannot read, is a degree of insolence hardly known till now, and seems to be nothing but the poor refuge of pedantic dullness.

His Abyssinian tale hath many beauties, yet the characters are insipid, the narrative ridiculous, the moral invisible, and the reader disappointed. 'Intercepting interruptions and volant animals' are above common comprehension. The Newtonian system had reached the happy valley; for its inhabitants talk of the earth's attraction and the body's gravity[45 - Rasselas, chap. vi.]. To tell a tale is not the Doctor's most happy talent; he can hardly be proud of his success in that species of fiction.

Speaking of Scotland, he says, 'The variety of sun and shade is here[46 - He meant to say there.] utterly unknown. There is no tree for either shelter or timber. The oak and the thorn is equally a stranger. They have neither wood for palisades, nor thorns for hedges. A tree may be shown in Scotland as a horse in Venice[47 - Tour, p. 16. and 18. &c.].' An English reader may, perhaps, require to be told, that there are thousands of trees of all ages and dimensions, within a mile of Edinburgh; that there are numerous and thriving plantations in Fife; and that, as some of them overshadow part of the post-road to St Andrew's, the Doctor must have been blinder than darkness, if he did not see them. But why would any man travel at all, who is determined to believe nothing which he hears, and who, at the same time, cannot see six inches beyond his nose?

'We are not very sure that the bull is ever without horns, though we have been told that such bulls there are[48 - Tour, p. 186.].' Who are the we he refers to? and who but the Doctor ever started so weak a question? His ignorance is below ridicule. It is true, that, in England, bulls which want horns are less numerous than husbands who have them; yet such bulls are always to be found. For the performance which contains this profound remark, this agglomerated ramification of torpid imbecility, be it known, that we have paid six shillings, which verifies the proverb, that a fool and his money are soon parted.

'We found a small church, clean to a degree unknown in any other part of Scotland[49 - Ibid, p. 21.]!' Here the fact may be true; but Dr Johnson must be ignorant whether it is or not. It is certain, that some buildings of that kind in Edinburgh, are no high specimens of national taste; but, if the Rambler would insinuate that this want of elegance is general, we must impeach his veracity; we must remind him, that there are gloomy, dirty, and unwholesome cathedrals in both countries; and we must lament, that, when entering Scotland, the Doctor left every thing behind him but HIMSELF.

'Suspicion has been always considered, when it exceeds the common measure, as a token of depravity and corruption; and a Greek writer has laid it down as a standing maxim, that he who believes not the oath of another, knows himself to be perjured. – Suspicion is, indeed, a temper so uneasy and restless, that it is very justly appointed the concomitant of guilt. Suspicion is not less an enemy to virtue than to happiness. He that is already corrupt, is naturally suspicious, and he that becomes suspicious, will quickly be corrupt[50 - Rambler, No. 79.].' This cannot always be true; but, if it were, the Rambler is by far the greatest miscreant who ever infested society. Speaking of Scotland, he says, 'I know not whether I found man or woman whom I interrogated concerning payments of money, that could surmount the illiberal desire of deceiving me, by representing every thing as dearer than it is. – The Scot must be a sturdy moralist who does not love Scotland better than truth[51 - Tour, p. 369 &c.].' Apply the Doctor's maxims to his own conduct, and then judge of his honesty. He adds a little after: 'The civility and respect which we found at every place, it is ungrateful to omit, and tedious to repeat[52 - Tour, p. 373.].' He should not have spoke of ingratitude. The picture grows quite shocking.

'How they lived without kail, it is not easy to guess. They cultivate hardly any other plant for common tables; and, when they had not kail, they probably had NOTHING[53 - Ibid, p. 55.].' As the word kail is not to be found in his Dictionary, an English reader will be at a loss to find out what he means. His conjecture is ridiculous; and here a new contradiction must be swallowed by the Doctor's believers; for, if OATS be 'a grain, which, in England, is generally given to horses, but, in Scotland, supports the people[54 - Vid. folio Dictionary.],' in that case, it is easy to guess how they lived without kail. Any thing else had surely been better than to fill up his heavy folios with such peevish nonsense.

In his life of Butler, the Doctor has confined his remarks to Hudibras, though the rest of that author's works, both in prose and verse, merit equal attention. What are we to think of this invidious and culpable omission? Hudibras itself would, perhaps, have been omitted, if the book had not tended to ridicule dissenters; for no man in England seems to hate that sect so heartily. In Watt's life, he takes care to tell us, that the author was to be praised in every thing but his non-conformity; and, in his ever memorable Tour, the Rambler says, 'I found several (Highland Ministers), with whom I could not converse, without wishing, as my respect increased, that they had not been presbyterians[55 - Tour, p. 242.].' Here a critic has very properly interrogated the Doctor, what he would have said or thought, if the Highland ministers had lamented that he was not a presbyterian? This man has no tincture of the liberal and humane manners of the present age; and yet, with his peculiar consistency, he laughs at the dissenter who refused to eat a Christmas pye[56 - Butler's life.]. This quondam believer in the Cocklane ghost says, 'though I have, like the rest of mankind, many failings and weaknesses, I have not yet, by either friends or enemies, been charged with superstition[57 - Rambler, No. 59.];' yet, with all the Doctor's 'contempt of old women and their tales[58 - Ibid.],' he would, if a Roman consul, have disbanded his army for the scratching of a rat[59 - Vid. Plutarch.].

'We found tea here, as in every other place, but our spoons were of horn[60 - Tour, p. 283.].' This important fact had been hinted in a former page; and such is the Doctor's politeness!

Some rugged rock's hard entrails gave thee form,
And raging seas produc'd thee in a storm.

    Pope.
'They do what I found it not very easy to endure. They pollute the tea-table by plates piled with large slices of Cheshire cheese[61 - Tour, p. 124.].' The happiness of this remark will be fully felt by those acquainted with the peculiar purity of Pomposo's person.

'M'Leod left them lying dead by families as they stood[62 - Ibid, p. 154.].' This is profound; for no man can stand and lie at the same time. The line ought to be read thus: 'M'Leod left them lying dead by families as they HAD stood.'

Of the Memoirs of Scriblerus, the Doctor says: 'If the whole may be estimated by this specimen, which seems to be the production of Arbuthnot, with a few touches, perhaps, by Pope, the want of more will not be much lamented; for the follies which the writer ridicules, are so little practised, that they are not known; nor can the satire be understood but by the learned: He raises phantoms of absurdity, and then drives them away: He cures diseases that were never felt.

'For this reason[63 - The Doctor ought to have said, 'For these reasons,' as he mentions several.], the joint production of three great writers has never obtained any notice from mankind. It has been little read, or when read, has been forgotten, as no man could be wiser, better, or merrier by remembering it.

'The design cannot boast of much originality; for, besides its general resemblance to Don Quixote, there will be found in it particular imitations of the history of Mr Ouffle.

'Swift carried so much of it into Ireland as supplied him with hints for his travels; and with those the world might have been contented, though the rest had been suppressed[64 - Pope's life.].'

Here we have a copious specimen of the Doctor's taste; and all the volumes of English criticism cannot produce a poorer page.

The work thus condemned, displays a very rich vein of wit and learning. The follies which it exposes, though a little heightened, were, in that age, frequent, and perfectly well known. The writers whom it ridicules, have sunk into nihility. The book is always reprinted with the prose works of Pope, and Swift, and Arbuthnot; and what stronger mark of notice can the public bestow? Every man who reads it, must be the wiser and the merrier; and the satire may be understood with very little learning.

Dr Arbuthnot was a Scotsman, and, probably, a Presbyterian. He was an amiable man. He is dead. Dr Johnson feels himself to be his inferior; and, therefore, endeavours to murder the reputation of his works. To gain credit with the reader, he artfully draws a very high character of Arbuthnot, a few pages before, and here, in effect, overturns it. He had said that Arbuthnot was 'a scholar, with great brilliancy of wit.' But, if his wit and learning are not displayed in the Memoirs of Scriblerus, we may ask where wit and learning are to be found?

Of this extract, the style is as slovenly as the leading sentiments are false.

The book is said to be, the 'production of Arbuthnot.' Within ten lines, it is 'the joint production of three great writers.' How can follies be practised which are not known? or diseases cured, which were never felt? He claims the attributes of omniscience when saying, that 'it has been little read, or when read, has been forgotten;' for, as it has been so frequently reprinted, no human being can be certain that it has been little read, or forgotten; but there is the strongest evidence of the contrary. This period concludes, as it began, with a most absurd assertion. If 'the design cannot boast of much originality,' there is nothing original in the literary world. Who is Mr Ouffle? and who told the Doctor that Swift carried any part of Scriblerus into Ireland, to supply hints for his travels? When Gulliver was published, Dr Arbuthnot, as appears from their correspondence, did not know whether that book was written by Swift or not; so that we are sure the Dean carried nothing of Arbuthnot's along with him. Had Dr Johnson 'flourished and stunk' in their age, he would have been the hero of Martin's memoirs; and, to suppose him conscious of this circumstance, will account for the Rambler's malevolence, and explain why the bull broke into a china-shop.

I beg particular attention to the following passage.

'His (Pope's) version may be said to have tuned the English tongue; for, since its appearance, no writer[65 - He should have said, no poet; for that was his meaning, if he had any. No writer, includes prose as well as verse; and this sample may give us a fair idea of the Doctor's accuracy in point of style.], however deficient in other powers, has wanted melody[66 - Life of Pope.].' This is wild enough; but, of Gray's two longest Odes, 'the language is laboured into harshness.' Hammond's verses 'never glide in a stream of melody.' The diction of Collins 'was often harsh, unskilfully laboured, and injudiciously selected. His lines, commonly, are of slow motion, clogged and impeded with clusters of consonants.' Of the style of Savage, 'The general fault is, harshness.' The diction of Shenstone 'is often harsh, improper, and affected,' &c.

Of these five poets, some were not born when Pope's version was published; and, of the rest, not one had penned a line now extant. They are all here charged, in the strongest terms, with harshness; and yet, (mirabile dictu!) since the appearance of Pope's version, 'no writer, however deficient in other powers, has wanted melody.'

It is no less curious, that the author of this wonder-working translation is himself charged with want of melody; and that too in a poem written many years after the appearance of Pope's Homer. 'The essay on man contains more lines unsuccessfully laboured, more harshness of diction, more thoughts imperfectly expressed, more levity without elegance, and more heaviness without strength,[67 - Ibid.]' &c.

'Gray thought his language more poetical, as it was more remote from common use[68 - Gray's life.].' This assertion is not entirely without foundation, but it is very far from being quite true.

'Finding in Dryden, honey redolent of spring, an expression that reaches the utmost limits of our language, Gray drove it a little more beyond common apprehension, by making gale to be redolent of joy and youth[69 - Gray's life.].' The censure is just. But Dr Johnson is the last man alive, who should blame an author for driving our language to its utmost limits: For a very great part of his life has been spent in corrupting and confounding it. In some verses to a Lady, he talks of his arthritic pains[70 - Gentleman's Magazine, Vol. XVII.], an epithet not very suitable to the dialect of Parnassus. Dr Johnson himself cannot always write common sense. 'In a short time many were content to be shewn beauties which they could not see[71 - Gray's life.].' He must here mean – 'Beauties which they could not have seen;' – for it is needless to add, that no man can be shewn what he cannot see.

It is curious to observe a man draw his own picture, without intending it. Pomposo, when censuring some of Gray's odes, observes, That 'Gray is too fond of words arbitrarily compounded. The mind of the writer seems to work with unnatural violence. Double, double, toil and trouble.' He (the author of an Elegy in a country church-yard) 'has a kind of strutting dignity, and is tall by walking on tip-toe. His art and his struggle are too visible, and there is too little appearance of ease, or nature. In all Gray's odes, there is a kind of cumbrous splendour which we wish away[72 - Ibid.].' We may say like Nathan, Thou art the man.

Mr. Gray, and Mr. Horace Walpole, are said to have wandered through France and Italy[73 - Ibid.]. And as a contrast to this polite expression, I shall add some remarks which have occurred on the Doctor's own mode of wandering.

'It must afford peculiar entertainment to see a person of his character, who has scarcely ever been without the precincts of this metropolis (London), and who has been long accustomed to the adulation of a little knot of companions of his own trade, sallying forth in quest of discoveries – Neither the people nor the country that he has visited will perhaps be considered as the most extraordinary part of the phænomena he has described. – The Doctor has endeavoured to give an account of his travels; but he has furnished his readers with a picture of himself. He has seen very little, and observed still less. His narration is neither supported by vivacity, to make it entertaining, nor accompanied with information, to render it instructive. It exhibits the pompous artificial diction of the Rambler with the same vacuity of thought. – The reader is led from one Highland family to another merely to be informed of the number of their children, the barrenness of their country, and of the kindness with which the Doctor was treated. In the Highlands he is like a foolish peasant brought for the first time into a great city, staring at every sign-post, and gaping with equal wonder and astonishment at every object he meets[74 - Edinburgh Review, Vol. III. P. 55. et seq.].'

'At Florence they (Gray and Walpole) quarelled and parted; and Mr. Walpole is now content to have it told that it was by his fault[75 - Gray's life.].' This is a dirty insinuation; and the rant which follows in the next period is of equal value.

He observes, That 'A long story perhaps adds little to Gray's reputation[76 - Ibid.].' Perhaps was useless here, and indeed the Doctor has introduced it in a thousand places, where it was useless, and left it out in as many where it was necessary. In justice to Gray, he ought to have added, that their Author rejected, from a correct edition of his works, this insipid series of verses.