served, "that he always talked as if he was talking upon oath." After a long acquaintance with this excellent man, and an attentive retrospect to his whole conduct, such is the light in which he appears to the writer of this essay. The following lines may be deemed his picture in miniature. "Your friend is passionate, perhaps unfit FRANCIS'S HOR., Book i., Sat. 3. It remains to give a review of Johnson's works; and this, it is imagined, will not be unwelcome to the reader. Like Milton and Addison, he seems to have been fond of his Latin poetry. Those compositions show that he was an early scholar; but his verses have not the graceful ease that gave so much suavity to the poems of Addison. The translation of the Messiah labours under two disadvantages; it is first to be compared with Pope's inimitable performance, and afterward with the Pollio of Virgil. But the translation has great merit, and some admirable lines. In the odes there is a sweet flexibility, particularly to his worthy friend Dr. Laurence; on himself at the theatre, March 8, 1771; the Ode in the Isle of Sky; and that to Mrs. Thrale, from the same place. His English poetry is such as leaves room to think, if he had devoted himself to the Muses, that he would have been the rival of Pope. His first production in this kind was London, a poem in imitation of the third satire of Juvenal. The vices of the metropolis are placed in the room of ancient manners. The author had heated his mind with the ardour of Juvenal, and, having the skill to polish his numbers, he became a sharp accuser of the times. The Vanity of Human Wishes is an imitation of the tenth satire of the same author. Though it is translated by Dryden, Johnson's imitation approaches nearest to the spirit of the original. The subject is taken from the Alcibiades of Plato, and has an intermixture of the sentiments of Socrates concerning the object of prayers offered up to the Deity. The general proposition is, that good and evil are so little understood by mankind, that their wishes, when granted, are always destructive. This is exemplified in a variety of instances, such as riches, state preferment, eloquence, military glory, long life, and the advantages of form and beauty. Juvenal's conclusion is worthy of a Christian poet, and such a pen as Johnson's. "Let us," he says, " leave it to the gods to judge what is fittest for us. Man is dearer to his Creator than to himself. If we must pray for special favour, let it be for a sound mind in a sound body. Let us pray for fortitude, that we may think the labours of Hercules and all his sufferings preferable to a life of luxury and the soft repose of Sardanapalus. This is a blessing within the reach of every man; this we can give ourselves. It is virtue, and virtue only, that can make us happy." In the translation, the zeal of the Christian conspired with the warmth and energy of the poet; but Juvenal is not eclipsed. The tragedy of Irene is founded on a passage in Knolles's History of the Turks; an author highly commended in the Rambler, No. 122. An incident in the Life of Mohammed the Great, first Emperor of the Turks, is the hinge on which the fable is made to move. The substance of the story is shortly this. In 1453 Mohammed laid siege to Constantinople, and, having reduced the place, became enamoured of a fair Greek, whose name was Irene. The sultan invited her to embrace the law of the Prophet, and to grace his throne. Enraged at this intended marriage, the janizaries formed a conspiracy to dethrone the emperor. To avert the impending danger, Mohammed, in a full assembly of the grandees," catching with one hand," as Knolles relates it, "the fair Greek by the hair of her head, and drawing his falchion with the other, he at one blow struck off her head, to the great terror of them all; and, having so done, said unto them, Now, by this, judge whether your emperor is able to bridle his affections or not." The story is simple, and it remained for the author to amplify it with proper episodes, and give it complication and variety. The catastrophe is changed, and horror gives place to terror and pity. But, after all, the fable is cold and languid. There is not, throughout the piece, a single situation to excite curiosity and raise a conflict of passions. The diction is nervous, rich, and elegant; but splendid language and melodious numbers will make a fine poem, not a tragedy. The sentiments are beautiful, always happily expressed, but seldom appropriate to the character, and generally too philosophic. What Johnson has said of the tragedy of Cato may be applied to Irene: "It is rather a poem in dialogue than a drama; rather a succession of just sentiments in elegant language, than a representation of natural affections. Nothing excites or assuages emotion. The events are expected without solicitude, and are remembered without joy or sorrow. Of the agents we have no care; we consider not what they are doing nor what they are suffering; we wish only to know what they have to say. It is unaffecting elegance and chill philosophy." The Rambler may be considered as Johnson's great work. It was the basis of that high_reputation which went on increasing to the end of his days. The circulation of those periodical essays was not, at first, equal to their merit. They had not, like the Spectators, the art of charming by va 66 riety; and, indeed, how could it be expected? The wits of Queen Anne's reign sent their contributions to the Spectator, and Johnson stood alone. "A stagecoach," says Sir Richard Steele, "must go forward on stated days, whether there are passengers or not." So it was with the Rambler, every Tuesday and Saturday, for two years. In this collection Johnson is the great moral teacher of his countrymen; his essays form a body of ethics; the observations on life and manners are acute and instructive; and the papers, professedly critical, serve to promote the cause of literature. It must, however, be acknowledged, that a settled gloom hangs over the author's mind; and all the essays, except eight or ten, coming from the same fountain-head, no wonder that they have the raciness of the soil from which they sprang. Of this uniformity Johnson was sensible. He used to say, that if he had joined a friend or two,who would have been able to intermix papers of a sprightly turn, the collection would have been more miscellaneous, and, by consequence, more agreeable to the generality of readers. It is remarkable, that the pomp of diction which has been objected to Johnson was first assumed in the Rambler. His dictionary was going on at the same time; and, in the course of that work, as he grew familiar with technical and scholastic words, he thought that the bulk of his readers were equally learned; or, at least, would admire the splendour and dignity of the style. And yet it is well known that he praised in Cowley the easy and unaffected structure of the sentences. Cowley may be placed at the head of those who cultivated a clear and natural style. Dryden, Tillotson, and Sir William Temple followed. Addison, Swift, and Pope, with more correctness, carried our language wellnigh to perfection. Of Addison, 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 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 roundabout view of his subject; and though he was never tainted, like many modern wits, with the ambition of shining in paradox, he may fairly be 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. 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 upon a fine taste than the vigour of his mind. His Latin poetry shows 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 overwrought; rich in allusion, yet pure and perspicuous; correct without labour; and, though some |