Johnson was used to say, He is the Raphael of Essay Writers. How he differed so widely from such elegant models is a problem not to be solved, unless it be true that he took an early tincture from the writers of the last century, particularly Sir Thomas Browne'. Hence the peculiarities of his style, new combinations, sentences of an unusual structure, and words derived from the learned languages. His own account of the matter is, 'When common words were less pleasing to the ear, or less distinct in their signification, I have familiarized the terms of philosophy, by applying them to popular ideas". But he forgot the observation of Dryden: If too many foreign words are poured in upon us, it looks as if they were designed, not to assist the natives, but to conquer them. There is, it must be admitted, a swell of language, often out of all proportion to the sentiment; but there is, in general, a fullness of mind, and the thought seems to expand with the sound of the words. Determined to discard colloquial barbarisms and licentious idioms, he forgot the elegant simplicity that distinguishes the writings of Addison. He had what Locke calls a round-about view of his subject 5; and, though he was never tainted, like many modern wits, with the ambition of shining in paradox", he may be fairly called an ORIGINAL THINKER. His reading was extensive. He treasured in his

mind whatever was worthy of notice, but he added to it from his own meditation. He collected, quæ reconderet, auctaque promeret. Addison was not so profound a thinker. He was born to write, converse, and live with ease; and he found an early patron in Lord Somers.

He depended, however, more

tion.' Locke, quoted in Johnson's Dictionary.

6 Dryden's Works, ed. 1808, xiv.

Francis Horner, speaking of Johnson's style in the Rambler, says:-The rhythm dictates what is said.' Horner's Memoirs, ii. 454.

6

Life, iii. 376, n. I.

7 Tacitus, Annals, i. 69.

8

Pope, Prol. Sat., l. 196.

9 'King William had no regard to elegance or literature; his study was only war; yet by a choice of ministers whose disposition was very different from his own he procured without intention a very liberal patronage to poetry. Addison was Hh 2

5 Those sincerely follow reason, but for want of having large, sound, roundabout sense, have not a full view of all that relates to the ques

upon

upon a fine taste, than the vigour of his mind. His Latin Poetry shews, that he relished, with a just selection, all the refined and delicate beauties of the Roman classics; and when he cultivated his native language, no wonder that he formed that graceful style, which has been so justly admired; simple, yet elegant; adorned, yet never over-wrought; rich in allusion, yet pure and perspicuous; correct, without labour, and, though sometimes deficient in strength, yet always musical. His essays, in general, are on the surface of life; if ever original, it was in pieces of humour. Sir Roger de Coverley, and the Tory Fox-hunter', need not to be mentioned. Johnson had a fund of humour, but he did not know it 2, nor was he willing to descend to the familiar idiom and the variety of diction which that mode of composition required. The letter, in the Rambler, No. 12, from a young girl that wants a place, will illustrate this observation. Addison possessed an unclouded imagination, alive to the first objects of nature and of art. He reaches the sublime without any apparent effort. When he tells us, 'If we consider the fixed stars as so many vast oceans of flame, that are each of them attended with a different set of planets; and still discover new firmaments and new lights, that are sunk farther in those unfathomable depths of æther, so as not to be seen by the strongest of our telescopes, we are lost in such a labyrinth of suns and world, and confounded with the immensity and magnificence of nature;' the ease, with which this passage rises to unaffected grandeur, is the secret charm that captivates the reader 3. Johnson is always lofty; he seems, to use Dryden's phrase, to be o'er-inform'd with meaning, and his words do not appear to himself adequate to his conception. He moves in state, and his periods are always harmonious. His Oriental Tales are in the true style of Eastern magnificence 3,

and yet none of them are so much admired as the Visions of Mirza'. In matters of criticism, Johnson is never the echo of preceding writers. He thinks and decides for himself. If we except the Essays on the Pleasures of Imagination, Addison cannot be called a philosophical critic. His moral Essays are beautiful; but in that province nothing can exceed the Rambler, though Johnson used to say, that the Essay on The burthens of mankind (in the Spectator, N°. 558) was the most exquisite he had ever read. Talking of himself, Johnson said, 'Topham Beauclerk has wit, and every thing comes from him with ease; but when I say a good thing, I seem to labour 3.' When we compare him with Addison, the contrast is still stronger. Addison lends grace and ornament to truth; Johnson gives it force and energy. Addison makes virtue amiable; Johnson represents it as an awful duty. Addison insinuates himself with an air of modesty; Johnson commands like a dictator; but a dictator in his splendid robes, not labouring at the plough. Addison is the Jupiter of Virgil, with placid serenity talking to Venus: 'Vultu, quo cœlum tempestatesque serenat ".'

The Vision of Theodore the Hermit was the best thing he ever wrote.' Life, i. 192.

Spectator, No. 159. Unfortunately Addison's promise was never fulfilled, and of 'The Visions of Mirzah' he gave but one.

2 Ib. Nos. 411-421. 'Addison is now to be considered as a critick; a name which the present generation is scarcely willing to allow him. His criticism is condemned as tentative or experimental rather than scientifick; and he is considered as deciding by taste rather than by principles.' Works, vii. 469. Johnson was referring to Warburton, who said that 'Addison was but an ordinary poet and a worse critic,' and to Hurd, who condemned his want of the 'chastised philosophical spirit.' Warton's Pope's Works, ed. 1822, i. 230; iv. 179.

3

Life, v. 76.

4 Addison has dissipated the prejudice that had long connected gaiety with vice, and easiness of manners with laxity of principles. . . . All the enchantment of fancy and all the cogency of argument are employed to recommend to the reader his real interest, the care of pleasing the author of his being.... Truth wears a thousand dresses, and in all is pleasing.' Works, vii. 451, 472.

5As it has been my principal design to inculcate wisdom or piety, I have allotted few papers to the idle sports of imagination. . . . Scarcely any man is so steadily serious as not to complain that the severity of dictatorial instruction has been

too seldom relieved.' Rambler,

No. 208.

Aeneid, i. 255.

Johnson

Johnson is JUPITER TONANS: he darts his lightning, and rolls his thunder, in the cause of virtue and piety. The language seems to fall short of his ideas; he pours along, familiarizing the terms of philosophy', with bold inversions, and sonorous periods; but we may apply to him what Pope has said of Homer: 'It is the sentiment that swells and fills out the diction, which rises with it, and forms itself about it; . . . . like glass in the furnace, which grows to a greater magnitude, . . . . as the breath within is more powerful, and the heat more intense ?.'

It is not the design of this comparison to decide between those two eminent writers. In matters of taste every reader will chuse for himself3. Johnson is always profound, and of course gives the fatigue of thinking. Addison charms while he instructs; and writing, as he always does, a pure, an elegant, and idiomatic style, he may be pronounced the safest model for imitation.

The essays written by Johnson in the Adventurer may be called a continuation of the Rambler. The IDLER, in order to be consistent with the assumed character, is written with abated vigour, in a style of ease and unlaboured elegance. It is the Odyssey after the Iliad. Intense thinking would not become the IDLER. The first number presents a well-drawn portrait of

the style of Addison and Johnson, and to depreciate, I think very unjustly, the style of Addison as nerveless and feeble, because it has not the strength and energy of that of Johnson.' Life, i. 224. Macaulay wrote in 1856:-'On the question of precedence between Addison and Johnson, a question which seventy years ago was much disputed, posterity has pronounced a decision from which there is no appeal.' Misc. Works, ed. 1871, p. 381.

4

Life, i. 255.

5 The Idler may be described as a second part of the Rambler, somewhat livelier and somewhat weaker than the first part.' Macaulay's Misc. Works, p. 383.

an

an Idler, and from that character no deviation could be made. Accordingly, Johnson forgets his austere manner, and plays us into sense. He still continues his lectures on human life, but he adverts to common occurrences, and is often content with the topic of the day. An advertisement in the beginning of the first volume informs us, that twelve entire Essays were a contribution from different hands'. One of these, No. 33, is the journal of a Senior Fellow at Cambridge, but, as Johnson, being himself an original thinker, always revolted from servile imitation, he has printed the piece, with an apology, importing that the journal of a citizen in the Spectator almost precluded the attempt of any subsequent writer 2. This account of the Idler may be closed, after observing, that the author's mother being buried on the 23d of January 1759, there is an admirable paper, occasioned by that event, on Saturday the 27th of the same month, No. 41 3. The reader, if he pleases, may compare it with another fine paper in the Rambler, N°. 54, on the conviction that rushes on the mind at the bed of a dying friend *.

'Rasselas,' says Sir John Hawkins, 'is a specimen of our language scarcely to be paralleled; it is written in a style refined to a degree of immaculate purity, and displays the whole force of turgid eloquence 5. One cannot but smile at this encomium. Rasselas is undoubtedly both elegant and sublime. It is a view of human life, displayed, it must be owned, in gloomy colours. The author's natural melancholy, depressed, at the time, by the approaching dissolution of his mother, darkened the picture". A tale, that should keep curiosity awake by the artifice of unexpected incidents, was not the design of a mind pregnant with better things. He, who reads the heads of the chapters, will find, that it is not a course of adventures that invites him forward, but a discussion of interesting questions; Reflections on Human Life; the History of Imlac, the Man of Learning; a Dissertation upon Poetry; the Character of a wise and happy Man, who dis