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Every page of the Rambler shows a mind teeming with classical allusion and poetical imagery: illustrations from other writers are, upon all occasions, so ready, and mingle so easily in his periods, that the whole appears of one uniform vivid texture.

The style of this work has been censured by some shallow critics as involved and turgid, and abounding with antiquated and hard words. So ill-founded is the first part of this objection, that I will challenge all who may honour this book with a perusal, to point out any English writer whose language conveys his meaning with equal force and perspicuity. It must, indeed, be allowed, that the structure of his sentences is expanded, and often has somewhat of the inversion of Latin ; and that he delighted to express familiar thoughts in philosophical language; being in this the reverse of Socrates, who, it is said, reduced philosophy to the simplicity of common life. But let us attend to what he himself says in his concluding paper: 'When common words were less pleasing to the ear, or less distinct in their signification, I have familiarised the terms of philosophy, by applying them to popular ideas.' And, as

to the second part of this objection, upon a late careful revision of the work, I can with confidence say, that it is amazing how few of those words, for which it has been unjustly characterised, are actually to be found in it; I am sure, not the proportion of one to each paper. This idle charge has been echoed from one babbler to another, who have confounded Johnson's Essays with Johnson's Dictionary; and because he

1 Yet his style did not escape the harmless shafts of pleasant humour; for the ingenious Bonnell Thornton published a mock Rambler in the Drury Lane Journal.

thought it right in a lexicon of our language to collect many words which had fallen into disuse, but were supported by great authorities, it has been imagined that all of these have been interwoven into his own compositions. That some of them have been adopted by him unnecessarily, may, perhaps, be allowed; but, in general, they are evidently an advantage, for without them his stately ideas would be confined and cramped. 'He that thinks with more extent than another, will want words of larger meaning.'1 He once told me, that he had formed his style upon that of Sir William Temple, and upon Chambers's Proposal for his Dictionary. He certainly was mistaken; or if he imagined at first that he was imitating Temple, he was very unsuccessful;3 for nothing can be more unlike than the simplicity of Temple, and the richness of Johnson. Their styles differ as plain cloth and brocade. Temple, indeed, seems equally erroneous in supposing that he himself had formed his style upon Sandys's View of the State of Religion in the Western parts of the World.

The style of Johnson was, undoubtedly, much formed upon that of the great writers in the last century,

1 Idler, No. 70.

[The Paper here alluded to, was, I believe, Chambers's Proposal for a second and improved edition of his Dictionary, which, I think, appeared in 1738. This Proposal was probably in circulation in 1737, when Johnson first came to London.—M.]

8 [The author appears to me to have misunderstood Johnson in this instance. He did not, I conceive, mean to say that, when he first began to write, he made Sir William Temple his model, with a view to form a style that should resemble his in all its parts; but that he formed his style on that of Temple and others, by taking from each those characteristic excellences which were most worthy of imitation. See this matter further explained in vol. iii. under April 9, 1778, where, in a conversation at Sir Joshua Reynolds's, Johnson himself mentions the particular improvements which Temple made in the English style. These, doubtless, were the objects of his imitation, so far as that writer was his model.-M.]

Hooker, Bacon, Sanderson, Hakewell,1 and others; those 'Giants,' as they were well characterised by a Great Personage, whose authority, were I to name him, would stamp a reverence on the opinion.

We may, with the utmost propriety, apply to his learned style that passage of Horace, a part of which he has taken as the motto to his Dictionary:

'Cum tabulis animum censoris sumet honesti :
Audebit quæcumque parum splendoris habebunt,
Et sine pondere erunt, et honore indigna ferentur,
Verba movere loco; quamvis invita recedant,
Et versentur adhuc intra penetralia Vestæ :
Obscurata diu populo bonus eruet, atque
Proferet in lucem speciosa vocabula rerum,
Quæ priscis memorata Catonibus atque Cethegis,
Nunc situs informis premit et deserta vetustas:
Adsciscet nova, quæ genitor produxerit usus:
Vehemens, et liquidus, puroque simillimus amni,
Fundet opes, Latiumque beabit divite lingua.'

To so great a master of thinking, to one of such vast and various knowledge as Johnson, might have been allowed a liberal indulgence of that licence which Horace claims in another place :

'Si forte necesse est

Indiciis monstrare recentibus abdita rerum,
Fingere cinctutis non exaudita Cethegis

Continget; dabiturque licentia sumpta pudenter:
Et nova fictaque nuper habebunt verba fidem, si
Græco fonte cadent, parce detorta. Quid autem
Cæcilio Plautoque dabit Romanus, ademptum
Virgilio Varioque? Ego cur, acquirere pauca

1 [Hakewell was Rector of Exeter College, Oxford, in 1642, and onwards till his death in 1649. His reputation has disappeared. The Great Personage is of course the King.—A. B.]

2 Horat. Epist. Lib. ii., Epist. 2, V. 110.

VOL. I.

M

Si possum, invideor; cum lingua Catonis et Ennî
Sermonem patrium ditaverit, et nova rerum
Nomina protulerit? Licuit, semperque licebit
Signatum præsente nota producere nomen.'1

Yet Johnson assured me, that he had not taken upon him to add more than four or five words to the English language, of his own information; and he was very much offended at the general licence by no means 'modestly taken' in his time, not only to coin new words, but to use many words in senses quite different from their established meaning, and those frequently very fantastical.

Sir Thomas Browne, whose life Johnson wrote, was remarkably fond of Anglo-Latin diction; and to his example we are to ascribe Johnson's sometimes indulging himself in this kind of phraseology. Johnson's comprehension of mind was the mould for his language. Had his conceptions been narrower, his expression would have been easier. His sentences have a dignified march; and it is certain that his example has given a general elevation to the language of his country, for many of our best writers have approached very near to him; and, from the influence which he has had upon our composition, scarcely anything is written now that is not better expressed than was usual before he appeared to lead the national taste.

1 Horat. De Arte Poetica, v. 48.

2 The observation of his having imitated Sir Thomas Browne has been made by many people; and lately it has been insisted on, and illustrated by a variety of quotations from Browne in one of the popular essays written by the Reverend Mr. Knox, Master of Tunbridge School, whom I have set down in my list of those who have sometimes not unsuccessfully imitated Dr. Johnson's style.

[Browne's own style has been most successfully imitated. See the 'Fragment on Mummies.'-Works, Wilkins' edition, vol. iv. p. 274.-A. B.]

This circumstance, the truth of which must strike every critical reader, has been so happily enforced by Mr. Courtenay, in his Moral and Literary Character of Dr. Johnson, that I cannot prevail on myself to withhold it, notwithstanding his, perhaps, too great partiality for one of his friends:

'By nature's gifts ordain'd mankind to rule,
He, like a Titan, form'd his brilliant school;
And taught congenial spirits to excel,
While from his lips impressive wisdom fell.
Our boasted Goldsmith felt the sovereign sway;
From him derived the sweet, yet nervous lay.
To Fame's proud cliff he bade our Raffaelle rise;
Hence Reynolds' pen with Reynolds' pencil vies.
With Johnson's flame melodious Burney glows,
While the grand strain in smoother cadence flows.
And you, Malone, to critic learning dear,
Correct and elegant, refined though clear,
By studying him, acquired that classic taste,

Which high in Shakespeare's fane thy statue placed.
Near Johnson Steevens stands, on scenic ground,
Acute, laborious, fertile, and profound.
Ingenious Hawkesworth to this school we owe,
And scarce the pupil from the tutor know.
Here early parts accomplish'd Jones sublimes,
And science blends with Asia's lofty rhymes:
Harmonious Jones! who in his splendid strains
Sings Camdeo's sports, on Agra's flowery plains,
In Hindu fictions while we fondly trace
Love and the Muses, deck'd with Attic grace.
Amid these names can Boswell be forgot,

Scarce by North Britons now esteem'd a Scot?1

1 The following observation in Mr. Boswell's Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides may sufficiently account for that gentleman's being 'now scarcely esteemed a Scot' by many of his countrymen :- If he (Dr. Johnson) was particularly prejudiced against the Scots, it was because they were more in his way; because he thought their success in Eng. land rather exceeded the due proportion of their real merit; and because he could not but see in them that nationality which, I believe,

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