Sings Camdeo's sports, on Agra's flowery plains:

In Hindu fictions while we fondly trace Love and the Muses, deck'd with Attick grace.

Amid these names can Boswell be forgot, Scarce by North Britons now esteem'd a Scot'?

Who to the sage devoted from his youth, Imbib'd from him the sacred love of truth; The keen research, the exercise of the mind, And that best art, the art to know mankind— Nor was his energy confin'd alone

To friends around his philosophick throne; Its influence wide improv'd our letter'd isle, And lucid vigour marked the general style: As Nile's proud waves, swoln from their oozy bed,

First o'er the neighbouring meads majestick spread;

Till gathering force, they more and more expand,

An with new virtue fertilise the land. -COURTENAY, JOHN, 1786, A Poetical Review of the Literary and Moral Character of the Late S. Johnson.

Of literary merit, Johnson, as we all know, was a sagacious but a most severe judge. Such was his discernment, that he pierced into the most secret springs of human actions; and such was his integrity, that he always weighed the moral characters of his fellow-creatures in the "balance of the sanctuary."-PARR, SAMUEL, 1789, ed., Tracts by Warburton and a Warburtonian.

No need of Latin or of Greek to grace

Our Johnson's memory, or inscribe his grave ;

His native language claims this mournful space,

To pay the Immortality he gave. -FLOOD, HENRY, 1789, Epitaph on John

son.

Overbearing pedant and bully, whose reputation was proof of the decline of British taste and learning.-BUCHAN, LORD, 1791? Address at the Coronation of the Bust of Thomson, Sep. 22.

We are reading in idle moments, or rather dipping into, a very different work, Boswell's long-expected "Life of Johnson." It is like going to Ranelagh; you meet all your acquaintance: but it is a base and a mean thing to bring thus every idle word into judgement-the judgement of the public. Johnson, I think, was far from a great character; he was continually sinning against his conscience, and then afraid of going to hell for it. A

Christian and a man of the town, a philosopher and a bigot, acknowledging life to be miserable, and making it more miserable through fear of death; professing great distaste to the country, and neglecting the urbanity of towns; a Jacobite, and pensioned; acknowledged to be a giant in literature, and yet we do not trace him, as we do Locke, or Rousseau, or Voltaire, in his influence on the opinions of the times. We cannot say Johnson first opened this vein of thought, led the way to this discovery or this turn of thinking. In his style he is original, and there we can track his imitators. In short, he seems to me to be one of those who have shone in the belles lettres, rather than, what he is held out by many to be, an original and deep genius in investigation. - BARBAULD, ANNA LÆTITIA, 1791, Works, vol. II, p. 157.

After the Doctor's death, Burke, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Boswell sent an ambling circular-letter to me, begging subscriptions for a Monument for himthe two last, I think, impertinently; as they could not but know my opinion, and could not suppose I would contribute to a Monument for one who had endeavoured, poor soul! to degrade my friend's superlative poetry. I would not deign to write an answer; but sent down word by my footman, as I would have done to parish officers with a brief, that I would not subscribe. In the two new volumes Johnson says, and very probably did, or is made to say, that Gray's poetry is dull, and that he was a dull man! The same oracle dislikes Prior, Swift, and Fielding. If an elephant could write a book, perhaps one that had read a great deal would say, that an Arabian horse is a very clumsy ungraceful animal. Pass to a better chapter!WALPOLE, HORACE, 1791, To Miss Berry, May 26; Letters, ed. Cunningham, vol. IX, p. 319.

I remember Mr. Burke, speaking of the Essays of Sir Francis Bacon, said, he thought them the best of his works. Dr. Johnson was of opinion, that "their excellence and their value consisted in being the observations of a strong mind operating upon life; and in consequence you find there what you seldom find in other books." It is this kind of excellence which gives a value to the performances of artists also. It is the thoughts expressed in the works of

Michael Angelo, Correggio, Raffaelle, Parmegiano, and perhaps some of the old Gothic masters, and not the inventions of Pietro da Cortona, Carlo Marati, Luca Giordano, and others, that I might mention, which we seek after with avidity: from the former we learn to think originally. May I presume to introduce myself on this occasion, and even to mention, as an instance of the truth of what I have remarked, the very Discourses which I have had the honour of delivering from this place? Whatever merit they have, must be imputed, in a great measure, to the education which I may be said to have had under Dr. Johnson. I do not mean to say, though it certainly would be to the credit of these Discourses, if I could say it with truth, that he contributed even a single sentiment to them; but he qualified my mind to think justly. No man had, like him, the faculty of teaching inferior minds the art of thinking Perhaps other men might have equal knowledge; but few were so communicative.-REYNOLDS, SIR JOSHUA, 1792? On Johnson's Influence.

Johnson's partiality for old English manners and practices was unbounded; nor can there be produced from the annals of our literature a more fervent antiwhig and anti-gallican.-GODWIN, WILLIAM, 1797, Of English Style, The Enquirer, p. 379.

Every one of tolerable education feels the imitability of Dr. Johnson's and othersuch's style, the imitability of Shakspere's, etc. Hence, I believe, arises. Hence, I believe, arises the partiality of thousands for Johnson. They can imagine themselves doing the same. Vanity is at the bottom of it. The number of imitators proves this in some measure.-COLERIDGE, SAMUEL TAYLOR, 1805, Anima Poeta, p. 97.

Johnson's style has pleased many from the very fault of being perpetually translatable; he creates an impression of cleverness by never saying any thing in a common way.-COLERIDGE, SAMUEL TAYLOR, 1818, Style, Miscellanies Esthetic and Literary, ed. Ashe, p. 182.

The structure of his sentences, which was his own invention, and which has been generally imitated since his time, is a species of rhyming in prose, where one clause answers to another in measure and quantity, like the tagging of syllables at the end of a verse; the close of the

Dr.

period follows as mechanically as the oscillation of a pendulum, the sense is balanced with the sound; each sentence, revolving round its centre of gravity, is contained within itself like a couplet, and each paragraph forms itself into a stanza. Johnson is also a complete balance-master in the topics of morality. He never encourages hope, but he counteracts it by fear; he never elicits a truth, but he suggests some objection in answer to it. He seizes and alternateley quits the clue of reason, lest it should involve him in the labyrinths of endless error: he wants confidence in himself and his fellows. He dares not trust himself with the immediate impressions of things, for fear of compromising his dignity; or follow them into their consequences, for fear of committing his prejudices. His timidity is the result, not of ignorance, but of morbid apprehension.-HAZLITT, WILLIAM, 1818, Lectures on the English Comic Writers, Lecture v.

By

It is a great defect in the education of our youth in both the Universities that they do not sufficiently apply themselves to the study of their mother tongue. this means it happens, that some very learned men and polite scholars are not able to express themselves with propriety in common conversation, and that when they are discoursing on a subject which they understand perfectly well. I have been acquainted with three persons only who spoke English with that eloquence and propriety, that if all they said had been immediately committed to writing, any judge of the English language would have pronounced it an excellent and very beautiful style-Atterbury, the exiled bishop of Rochester; Dr. Gower, provost of Worcester College; and Samuel Johnson.KING, WILLIAM, 1819, Anecdotes of My Own Times.

Rough Johnson, the great moralist. -BYRON, LORD, 1823, Don Juan, canto, xiii.

Of all the men distinguished in this or any other age, Dr. Johnson has left upon posterity the strongest and most vivid impression so far as person, manners, disposition, and conversation are concerned. We do but name him, or open a book which he has written, and the sound and action recall to the imagination at once. his form, his merits, his peculiarities, nay,

the very uncouthness of his gestures, and the deep impressive tone of his voice. We learn not only what he said, but form an idea how he said it; and have, at the same time, a shrewd guess of the secret motive why he did so, and whether he spoke in sport or in anger, in the desire of conviction, or for the love of debate. It was said of a noted wag, that his bonmots did not give full satisfaction when published, because he could not print his face. But with respect to Dr. Johnson, this has been in some degree accomplished; and, although the present generation never saw him, yet he is, in our mind's eye, a personification as lively as that of Siddons in Lady Macbeth, or Kemble in Cardinal Wolsey.-SCOTT, SIR WALTER, 1823, Samuel Johnson.

Perhaps you do not know of my profound veneration for this surly sage; but I am such an admirer of his peculiar style of excellence, that I can easily endure defects that bring him within my reach, and save me the effort of standing on tiptoe to contemplate his gigantic mind.-GRANT, MRS. ANNE, 1823, Letters, May 15; Memoir and Correspondence, ed. Grant, vol. III, p. 2.

At length rose the Colossus of English Philology, Samuel Johnson; having secretly and unremittingly formed his style upon the basis of that of Sir Thomas Browne; a name, in every respect to be held in grateful remembrance. But Johnson, as a philologist, is almost an original; and doubtless among the very foremost in the ranks of the literature of his country. And yet, I know not how it is, but, as years creep on, we do not read his pages with that devoted enthusiasm which we did in our College days: for where is the man, who, having turned his thirtieth year, peruses "Rasselas" or the "Rambler?" It is as a Colloquialist and Biographer that Johnson has scarcely a rival -especially when prejudices did not spread a film over those intellectual orbs, which were constructed to gaze uninjured upon the sun!-DIBDIN, THOMAS FROGNALL, 1824, The Library Companion, p. 608.

The judgments which Johnson passed on books were in his own time regarded with superstitious veneration; and in our own time are generally treated with indiscriminate contempt. They are the judgments

of a strong but enslaved understanding. The mind of the critic was hedged round by an uninterrupted fence of prejudices and superstitions. Within his narrow limits he displayed a vigour and an activity which ought to have enabled him to clear the barrier that confined him. . . . He was no master of the great science of human nature. He had studied, not the genus man, but the species Londoner. Nobody was ever so thoroughly conversant with all the forms of life, and all the shades of moral and intellectual character, which were to be seen from Islington to the Thames, and from Hyde-Park corner to Mile-end green. But his philosophy stopped at the first turnpike gate. Of the rural life of England he knew nothing; and he took it for granted that everybody who lived in the country was either stupid or miserable.-MACAULAY, THOMAS BABINGTON, 1831, Boswell's Life of Johnson, Edinburgh Review, Critical and Miscellaneous Essays.

His imagination was not more lively than was necessary to illustrate his maxims; his attainments in science were inconsiderable, and in learning far from the first class; they chiefly consisted in that sort of knowledge which a powerful mind collects from miscellaneous reading, a various intercourse with mankind. From the refinement of abstruse speculation he was withheld, partly, perhaps, by that repugnar.ce to such subtleties which much experience often inspires, and partly also by a secret dread that they might disturb those prejudices in which his mind had found repose from the agitation of doubt. He was a most sagacious and severly pure judge of the actions and motives of men, and he was tempted by frequent detection of imposture to indulge somewhat of that contemptuous scepticism, respecting the sincerity of delicate and refined sentiments, which affected his whole character as a man and writer.—MACKINTOSH, SIR JAMES, 1835, Memoirs, ed. Mackintosh, vol. II, p. 166.

No man contemplates with greater tenderness than we do the frailties of Dr. Johnson; none respects more the sound parts of his moral system; or admires more the vigor of the elephantine step with which he sometimes tramples down insolent error and presumptuous sophistry. But let no young man, who wishes to write

well study his style.-EVERETT, EDWARD, 1835, Washington Irving, North American Review, vol. 41, p. 3.

Samuel Johnson, in some respects, stood entirely alone in Europe. In those years there was no one in Europe like him. Was a large minded man, an entirely sincere and honest man. Whatever may be our differences of opinion is here entirely insignificant; he must inevitably be regarded as the brother of all honest

men.

One who held this truth among the insincerities that lay around him, that, after all, "life was true yet," and he was a man to hold by that truth, and cling to it in the general shipwreck on the sea of Eternity.-CARLYLE, THOMAS, 1838, Lectures on the History of Literature, p. 180.

His brilliant style has been the ambition of every schoolboy, and of some children of larger growth, since the days of the "Rambler. But the nearer they come to it, the worse. The beautiful is turned into the fantastic, and the sublime into the ridiculous.-PRESCOTT, WILLIAM HICKLING, 1839, Chateaubriand's Sketches of English Literature, North American Review, vol. 49, p. 334.

A love of hard and learned words prevailed throughout; and a fondness for balanced periods was its special characteristic. But there was often great felicity in the expression, occasionally a pleasing cadence in the rhythm, generally an epigrammatic turn in the language, as well as in the idea. Even where the workmanship seemed most to surpass the material, and the word-craft to be exercised needlessly and the diction to run to waste, there was never any feebleness to complain of, and always something of skill and effect to admire. The charm of nature was ever wanting, but the presence of great art was undeniable. Nothing was seen of the careless aspect which the highest of artists ever give their masterpieces, the produce of elaborate but concealed pains; yet the strong hand of an able workman was always marked; and it was observed, too, that he disdained to hide from us the far less labour which he had much more easily bestowed. There is no denying that some of Johnson's works, from the meagerness of the material and the regularity of the monotonous style, are exceedingly little adapted to reading. They are flimsy, and they are dull; they are pompous, and,

though full of undeniable—indeed, selfevident-truths, they are somewhat empty; they are, moreover, wrapped up in a style so disproportioned in its importance, that the perusal becomes very tiresome, and is soon given up. This character belongs more especially to the "Rambler," the object of such unmeasured praises among his followers, and from which he derived the title of the Great Moralist.-BROUGHAM, HENRY LORD, 1845, Lives of Men of Letters of the Time of George III.

As a writer, he is the very incarnation of good sense; and as a man, he was an example of so high a degree of virtue, magnanimity, and self-sacrifice, that he has been justly placed by a profound modern speculator among the heroes of his country's annals. Johnson's

style during the whole of his career was exceedingly peculiar and characteristic both in its beauties and defects, and when he arrived at eminence may be said to have produced a revolution in the manner of writing in English; and as this revolution has to a certain degree lasted till the present day, it will be well to say a few words on the subject. It is in the highest degree pompous, sonorous, and, to use a happy expression of Coleridge, hyper-latinistic; running into perpetual antithesis, and balancing period against period with an almost rhythmical regularity, which at once fills and fatigues the ear.

The prevailing defect of Johnson's style is uniformity: the combinations of his kaleidoscope are soon exhausted; his peal of bells is very limited in its changes; and there is necessarily, in so artificial a style, an air of pretention and ambitiousness, the sameness is more fatiguing than would be the snipped periods and tuneless meanness of a more unostentatious mode of expression. His mind, admira

bly adapted as it was for the scientific part of criticism, was impotent to feel or appreciate what is picturesque or passionate. He is like a deaf man seated at a symphony of Beethoven-a sense is wanting to him. ., . The character of Shakspeare's genius, given in the preface, is a noble specimen of panegyric; and it is singular to see how far the divine genius of the dramatist almost succeeds in overcoming all the prejudices of Johnson's age and education. As a moralist, as a painter of men and minds, Johnson has

done Shakspeare (at least as far as any man could) ample justice; but in his judgment of the great creative poet's more romantic manifestations he exhibits a callousness and insensibility which was partly the result of his education and of the age when he lived, and partly, without doubt, the consequence of the peculiar constitution of his mind—a mind which felt much more sympathy with men than with things, and was much more at home in the "full tide of London existence" than in the airy world of imagination-among the everyday crowds of Fleet Street, than in Prospero's enchanted isle, or the moonlit terraces of Verona.-SHAW, THOMAS B., 1847, Outlines of English Literature, pp. 242, 243, 244, 247, 248.

Dr. Johnson, gravely supporting an aristocratic public policy, while he powerfully and pathetically rebuked aristocratic private conduct. Let the name of Dr. John

son never be mentioned among scholars without a sad respect; but is he, distinctively, the scholar in English history? CURTIS, GEORGE WILLIAM, 1856, The Duty of the American Scholar, Orations and Addresses, ed. Norton. vol. I, p. 11.

Doctor Johnson's written abstractions have little value; the tone of feeling in them makes their chief worth.-EMERSON, RALPH WALDO, 1856-84, English Traits, Works, Riverside ed., vol. v, p.

232.

Dr. Johnson's English style demands a few words. So peculiar is it, and such a swarm of imitators grew up during the half century of his greatest fame, that a special name Johnsonese-has been often used to donate the march of its ponderous classic words. Yet it was not original, and not a many-toned style. There were in our literature, earlier than Dr. Johnson's day, writers who far outdid their Fleet Street disciple in recruiting our native ranks with heavy-armed warriors from the Greek phalanx and the Latin legion. Of these writers Sir Thomas Browne was perhaps the chief. Goldy, as the great Samuel loved to call the author of the "Deserted Village," got many a sore blow from the Doctor's conversational sledge-hammer; but he certainly contrived to get within the Doctor's guard and hit him home, when he said,

If you were to write a fable about little fishes, Doctor, you would make the little

fishes talk like whales.” Macaulay tells us that when Johnson wrote for publication, he did his sentences out of English into Johnsonese. COLLIER, WILLIAM FRANCIS, 1861, A History of English Literature, p. 349.

There is perhaps no subsequent prosewriter upon whose style that of Johnson has been altogether without its effect.CRAIK, GEORGE L., 1861, A Compendious History of English Literature and of the English Language, vol. II, p. 328.

His true genius lay in the masculine strength of his common sense; and in spite of his prejudices, of his dogmatism, of his frequent intolerance and occasional paradox-in spite, still more, of a style in prose strangely contrasting the cold severity of his style in verse unfamiliar, inflated, artificially grandiose still that common sense has such pith and substance that it makes its way to every plain, solid understanding. And while all that Johnson owed to his more imaginative qualities has faded away from his reputation; while his poems are regarded but as scholastic exercises; while his tragedy is left unread; while the fables and tales scattered throughout his essays allure no popular imitation, and even "Rasselas" is less admired for its loftiness of purpose and conception than censured for its inappropriate dialogue or stilted diction, and neglected for the dryness of its narrative and the frigidity of its characters; while his ablest criticisms, composed in his happiest style, rarely throw light upon what may be called the metaphysics of imaginative art, his knowledge of the world has a largeness and at times a depth which preserve authority to his opinions upon the general bearings of life and the prev alent characteristics of mankind-a knowledge so expanded, by its apprehension of generical truths, from mere acquaintanceship with conventional manners, and the sphere of the town life which enthralled his taste, that at this day it is not in capitals that his works are most esteemed as authoritative, but rather in the sequestered homes of rural bookreaders. To men of wit about town, a grave sentence from Johnson upon the philosophy of the great world would seem old-fashioned pedantry, where, to men of thought in the country, it would convey some truth in social wisdom too plain to