a cataract or a cavern, by everything rude and everything polished, everything great and everything little; we do not see a thicket but with some temptation to enter it, nor remark an insect flying before us but with an inclina tion to pursue it. If it were put before a practised writer as a task, he would be able to replace a dozen of these words by some a syllable shorter; but we greatly doubt whether, if it were not a set task, he would use words having a smaller total of syllables, or which filled less space. In some of the cases where the words are big who would wish them either dwarfed or fewer? "The Rambler," No. 189, has this sudden, resounding burst of epithets: "a tumultuary magnificence of boundless traffic." Whether or not it be a little out of place where it occurs, it is a procession of adverbs and adjectives which does credit to the English language. If it cannot be spoken without opening the lips a little wider than usual, that will not do Britons any harm. When Dr. Johnson elsewhere speaks of the "lusciousness of eulogy" ("Rambler," 104), or of "magnificent obscurity" ("Rambler," 77), he is not using cumbrous phrases; he is but making our language put on its purple, and appear for a moment in its own proper pomp. 543 the common, the native. Let it be re- un Dr. Johnson could think a thought into finer separate parts than anybody. An idea which occurs to ordinary people in a block was in his mind a thing of joints and members. Two or three examples will best show this. In "Rambler" No. 14, when writing of the difference between theory and practice, he says: "A man proposes his schemes of life in a state of abstraction and disengagement, exempt from the enticements of hope, the solicitations of affection, the importunities of Our own view is that the specialty of appetite, or the depressions of fear." Johnson's style is generally very much Opening again at the seventeenth paper of more a matter of logic than of mere lan- the same work, we find a list of divisions guage, with the added explanation in the nearly as numerous and exact: "The ex5ad passages of a certain defect in emo- tensive influence of greatness, the glitter of tion, of which something further shall be wealth, the praises of admirers, and the said directly, the big verbiage, when it attendance of suppliants, appear vain and comes, not being used for its own sake, but empty things when the last hour apas a haphazard substitute for something proaches." Turning at random to "Raswhich he knew was missing. He himself selas," on the chance page we read: “He stated that he had not tried to bring in projected the relief of distress, the detecmore than four or five new words. In tion of fraud, the defeat of oppression, and reading of set purpose all that he has the diffusion of happiness." Johnson has written, we were surprised to find so few the same wealth of fine differentiation in words not in use by writers now. All that abusing. In his "Lives of the Poets," by stay notably by us are these: "orbity," way of emphasizing the generosity shown for loss or lack of children; "adscitious," to Savage by the player Wilks, he says for accidental; "reposite," for to lay by; most unfairly- that acting" makes men, "labefaction," for softening; "defæca- for whatever reason, contemptuous, insotion," for cleansing. These words cer- lent, petulant, selfish, and brutal."* tainly were not needed. The only charm man who is able to keep a thought before that can be seen in them is that of ped-him while he thinks it into such a multiantry; they are blots upon the page wher- plicity of particulars must, by the same act, ever they occur. It can only be urged sustain his verbal expression of it beyond that he who used them had made a dic- the common. It should be noted that the tionary, while none of his critics has done divisions are not mere strings of words; so. It was for years a necessary mental the distinctions are real ones in the subhabit with Johnson to have several sets ject. We will give but one more example, of words, the outlandish as well as the common, present together in his mind, where other people have only one set A does not matter, so far as the merely verbal question is • Whether or not he was hitting covertly at Garrick concerned. and in it the reader will be struck with the | could develop it into an area — not a chain exact propriety of the diversified epithets. of ratiocination beside which an ordiIn his "General Observations on Shake-nary writer's dealing with it would be a speare's Plays," he thus comments on patch. This is not saying that it is the "Coriolanus: "The old man's merri- deepest thinking ever offered, it is only ment in Menenius, the lofty lady's dignity asserting it to be the most multiform, the in Volumnia, the bridal modesty in Virgilia, most comprehensive within its narrowed the patrician haughtiness in Coriolanus, limits. the plebeian malignity and tribunitian insolence in Brutus and Sicinius, make a very pleasing and interesting variety." His power of distinguishing is inexhaustible, for it is infinitesimal. But fully to give the secret of the Johnsonian mannerism, alike in its merits and in its faults, a great falling-off in the literary emotion in his case has to be pointed out. At times, his words, like those of It was this which made Johnson so for- every notable writer, take on an activity of midable a controversialist. He could draw their own. Whenever this happens with a conclusion within the limits of any other any one, it is either much for the better or man's: no possible mode of restricting an much for the worse. The best passages opponent's statement escaped him. By in our chief prose writers, no less than in virtue of the same power he could not him- our poets, are where the phraseology has self be put in fetters. If anybody was become oracular in this fashion; the versuccessfully dealing with an affirmation of biage grows wiser than the thoughts, more his, he had but to press some verbal spring tender than the feelings; and the man who in it, and it opened, revealing another in- falls into this trance of language, is himself side. In nearly every notable instance of the most amazed at the glory and the controversial victory by Dr. Johnson it beauty of the utterance. But, in truth, the will be found that he triumphs by narrow- words, in prose at any rate, can only be ing the area of the argumentation. trusted a single inch in advance of the Throughout, regarded as mere logical play thinking; the thoughts must perpetually of the intellect within the dimensions of a overtake and guide the ecstasy, while they point, Johnson's thinking was perfect. take fire from it. Here Johnson was at Sustained ratiocination, in the way of a fault. His words would begin this autochain of reasoning, he never attempts. matic stir, and do so with an unquestionBy his skill in the other mode he makes able air of nobleness, but the literary that appear to be unnecessary. The ex- emotion ran out almost at once, leaving planation of his having some enormous only a mechanical movement to go on. prejudices obviously lies in the fact that he The phrases by inflating into bigness did would not sustain his thinking in a chain; but mimic the happiness they should have he would not let his mind act freely on had; doing this easily, consistently, perthose subjects. So far as he would and fectly, from the wealth of verbiage he had did think, there was not a spot of shade in amassed in dictionary truckling. But the his intellect where either a superstition or delicate sense of fitness was lacking, all a fallacy could hide. By this native the fine adjustments of propriety had strength of wit issuing in good sense he ceased to act. Instead of these you have casually anticipated several of our most the resonant pomp going starkly forward, boasted modern legal reforms. He ar- increasing, unabashed by laughter, growing gued against capital punishment excepting every moment more out of place, until it for murder; he condemned the giving ends preposterously, in a huge monumental general forms of security; he was for shame of language, which time cannot derestricting imprisonment for debt. These, cay. In this way, for instance, he comes however, are not the points we were want to speak of brewers' vats as being the poing to bring out. Cases might be multi- tentialities of growing rich beyond the plied showing that Johnson had the ability dreams of avarice, or, in his happiest, most to begin to think upon a proposition earlier pardonable miscarriage by this fault, affirms than other men, and of ceasing to think that the death of Garrick eclipsed the gaion it later, within the area he had permitted ety of nations. A few instances of this to himself. It, therefore, is not very won- grotesqueness have been seized on, and derful that he should often want a wider have been still further exaggerated. After sweep of sentence in which to say all that all, they have not very much real value, for occurred to him upon a point. "The they hide rather than illustrate the one Rambler," ," "The Idler," and the contribu- broad defect of Johnson's work. This is tions to "The Adventurer," are all proofs an over-activity of the intellect always go. that, give Johnson an inch of subject, heling on. Everything is reasoned about, and only reasoned about. The feelings are the same thing. the defining and illusnever allowed to mass themselves suffi- trating a word. "Rasselas" is the shortciently to tell; he forever dissects them est novel ever written, of either the first away by perpetual small variations of the or the second rank, and it ends without topic. In the very worst examples, even being concluded. The tragedy of "Irene" the reasoning itself becomes formal, going shows the same impatience of prolonged on working when there is not an iota of effort, for, although nobody ever wished it sentiment left. It does so with the most longer, that is not because it is lengthy amazing needlessness, as though ratioci- now. "Hamlet" must contain nearly half nation was a new discovery, requiring that as much again in quantity. "The Journey every possible inference and conclusion to the Western Islands of Scotland" is should be explicitly given as novelties. a small, thin volume. If we put these This issues in sentences which might have aside, all the rest of Johnson's writings are been constructed on the monotonous plan mere fritters of production. Two or three of the "buts" in Solomon's proverbs. of the memoirs in his "Lives of the PoHere is one: "Whoever is apt to hope ets" would make decent-sized pamphlets good from others is diligent to please them; (.e., Pope, Dryden, and Savage); while But he that believes his own powers are three of his political papers Marmorstrong enough to force their own way, Norfolciense," "The False Alarm," and commonly tries only to please himself." "Taxation no Tyranny” are quite big There are numbers of such sentences. It enough to justify their name of tracts. resembles reasoning by the syllogism fully But the compositions forming "The Ramdrawn out, to which the present shortened bler," "The Idler," and his writings in patience of mankind is not equal. Very "The Adventurer," might all be printed frequently Johnson puts the whole of the on fly-sheets. In an ill sense, it suited his matter into words, including those parts physical sluggishness, his constitutional we habitually take for granted, and sup- laziness, as it also did in a better mode the press in the statement. When this is multiform activity of his intellect when it found out it is resented. Not only is it was acting, that Addison and Steele had felt to be a waste of time, it is an obvious just made the essay a popular form of arraignment of our mental faculties. Men, writing. But if that desultory literary when told that twice seven make fourteen, fashion was then in his favor, it is wholly do not like its being added that this is so against both him and us now. The mod because three and four are seven. They ern development of the novel has effectuthink they have a right to be credited with ally spoiled us for such single mouthfuls of knowing as much as that. Indeed, a deep- plain fiction as essayists can give. It is er instinct than that of vanity is at work as a moralist that Johnson survives. The in the objection. The human mind can character-sketches, the apologues, and only stretch its attention between certain other devices with which he eked out his limits. It is but by a progressive dropping proper work, become every year more and out from our statements of what every more a kind of neglected mental débris, body comes mechanically to know, assum- among which we have to search for what ing it as commonplace, that we can make we want. No one can help a feeling of progress in our ordinary affirmations, push- vexatious regret as he turns over the pages. ing them on another step by drawing in In no other English writer of the first the prior links. Johnson failed greatly class have we half as much of what must here. In one word, he had no right per- be called waste work as we have in Johnception of the commonplace. He is continually telling us what was already in our thoughts sufficiently, and which has the merit of never needing again to be said in this world. son. It is a kind of waste which might well form the best of some authors, even of some literatures, but in him it still is waste. The question was how can works on the plan of "The Spectator," "The Rambler," and "The Idler," get the needed diversifi cation of their contents? There is obviously the resource of an imaginary club. It broke down in the hands of Addison, but not before he had made it impossible for anybody else to try it. Johnson was too prudent to do so. There remained the palpable artifice of pretended letters from correspondents, and, besides this, one or man two minor arts which the literary fashions This depreciation, however, must not go then current admitted of. Among these, a step further. We allow that the charperhaps, the most valuable was that of the acters wanted life, but they had everything "dream." No writer for two generations else. If Johnson had not the true spirit past has been permitted avowedly to go to of humor which can create, he was pos sleep over his writings: it is a privilege sessed of a cleverness that did everything which modern readers insist on keeping but substitute it. Nobody can detect any for themselves. But Johnson was at lib lack of information. Richardson had not erty to write, "While pondering this, I fell so much of the stock furniture of this asleep, and lo! I beheld." etc. It was also kind needed by a writer of fiction; Fieldthen allowed to point a moral by imagining ing scarcely had more. The appropriate any impossible scenes, provided that they details of every situation, be it of town life were placed in the East or at a very great or life in the country, are fully and condistance anywhere else. Such geograph- sistently given. Again and again the ical license no longer exists. A certain reader is so busily entertained by parair of childishness has overtaken all these ticulars that he forgets the want of true trivial arts, antiquating them, with the re- versatility in the feigned characters. In sult of not a little restricting the literary this secondary way, many of the sketches apparatus. Johnson both dreamt in print are really diverting. If the space for it and made imaginary journeys; his great offered, it would be possible to quote a resource, however, was fictitious corre- series of passages so good, that few perspondence. He who so scorned Garrick sons could perceive what was lacking in for being a player, himself tried every them. Nothing does ail them but that kind of personation with the pen. He nameless fault which 'only the collective writes to himself pretending to be a man public can find out; the successive genof fashion about town a city trades-erations neglect to go on reading, and by a country squire a gamester- this simple means posterity comes to retain only the indescribable best of each kind. For instance, we might defy any one to point out in what respects the sketch of the virtuoso given in the eightysecond "Rambler" could be made smarter than it is. This collector of curiosities allows his tenants to pay their rent in butterflies, but then, in that way, he obtains three earth-worms not known to naturalists. The sale of the Harleian Collection finally ruins him; he mortgages his lands to buy thirty medals which he could never meet with before. Or, take the account in "Rambler " No. 57, of Lady Bustle, with her conserves, home-made wines, and the jealously-guarded receipt of the famous orange pie. The story of the pie would not have disgraced Goldsmith. If something still lighter is wanted, there is the letter in "Rambler " No. 34, in which a young lover relates his coach excursion with Anthea, an heiress. The description of her humors, her affected frights, her pretended discontents, and her real satisfaction, leaves out no particular which Addison could have put in, only he would have put them in with a general difference. The portrait of Tom Tempest, in "Idler " No. II, who still stood up for the house of Stuart, is antiquated now, but one can see that it was very good then. In "Rambler" No. 46, Euphelia, describing the dull monotony of her visit to some country relations, gives a picture of the silly exclusiveness and stupid passions of rural a virtuoso a legacy-hunter- a shop ap- society in those days, which hardly could | genuine, and the world does not ask be better done. Will Marvel's account of for what wages it was produced. If his his wonderful journey, in "Idler" No. 49, being a humorist may be questioned, is a piece of very lively exaggeration. there is no doubt of his being a wit. A We might prolong the list. In all the writer who in his first special effort took cases the excellence would be seen to lie Juvenal as his model, and achieved such in the perfect fulness of detail. Johnson's a poem as "London," must have had intellect forbids any overlooking. His satire for his original literary impulse. In logical faculty positively stands him in the a moment we will speak of his poetry in a stead of imagination; he is able to reason separate paragraph, but he appears in his out all that necessarily belongs to the sit- prose works as the satirist throughout. uation or the character with which he is You never go far without coming upon a dealing. But no man can use the under-stroke of it. It is not satire of the very standing in place of the imagination with- first rank, we admit: there is not enough out the risk of its betraying him into great of bitterness in it. We need not say that failure through excess. It does not know it makes only a very distant approach to what details to omit, one particular is Juvenal; it is far below Pope in the keenworth just as much to it as another. In ness of its sting. His satire, in fact, is this way Johnson repeatedly does not rather the perfection of verbal style, than know when to stop. Some of his jokes of real ill-feeling; the words fit so well are as cumbrous as he was himself. Among that they grow hard and shine, at the these huge failures may be set down the angles they are so sharp that they cut. If paper on "Garrets," " Rambler" No. 117; a man writes exactly upon trifles, he must that on "Magnets for Discovering Virtue," develop wit; and the very fact of the "Rambler" No. 199; the one about " Ad- topic being trivial makes the wit take on vertisements," "Idler " No. 40; and that the appearance of satire. Johnson's ridion "The Miseries of having been in cule of card-playing in society, the forming Trade," in "Rambler" No. 123. There collections of curiosities, feminine worship are others, but of what use is it to specify of soldiers' finery, and the then popular them, when even the best of what we have custom of attending auction-sales, gets its been speaking of has, in reference to pres- success in this way. But some parts of ent readers, not to mention later pos- his minor political papers, we do not terity, to be certainly regarded as waste? mean the "tracts," deserve higher All this attempted humor was really hack- praise. The wit is sustained somewhat ney writing. Whenever Johnson was beyond what the mere polish of style afraid of his readers tiring of the lay ser- could give; in commenting on the war it mons which were his right work, he put in becomes once or twice really savage. It a character-sketch, or a fiction of some must be confessed that the doings of our kind, meaning it to be mirthful. It was troops about the year 1758 were not brilnatural and for him to do it the liant. Any one who had attained a full easy doing it was part of his acquired craft. command of his pen would be pretty sure Johnson, it must be borne in mind, started to write his best in dealing with them, for as a hack, and in fact he never laid down he would be under the full stress of the character. To compose an epitaph, patriotic indignation. To find fault with or to write " "Lives," to supply other an army gives full scope for satire; it is authors with "prefaces" and "introduc- the largest and finest topic a wit can have. tions," was journey-work belonging to his Johnson proved this. There has not been business. Down to the last it remained much; put into English type that reads so just as much so, as in the earlier days it grimly as the latter half of “ Idler" No. was to provide the Gentleman's Maga- 8. His sketch of a method by which our zine with Parliamentary debates. There army might, in course of time, be brought has been no other such literary journey- to look an enemy in the face, whether man. In nine cases out of ten, allowing for the manner which would cling to him too much, the workmanship was excellent. But it was hackney, and in the end the world is not satisfied with that, in either literature or art. There is no mystery in it. Somebody, either before or after, stirred by the genuine impulse, does the same thing better. Fortunately for Johnson, wit is always French or American, is not very unlike what Swift would have given us. The passage is too lengthy for us to quote. In his political tracts, written more or less to order, he moves in fetters; the wit there is nearly all a matter of mere finish of phrase, and sometimes the secret that it is so is shamelessly apparent. The attack made on "Junius" in the paper on the Falkland Islands is of this labored, unsuc |