Chapter II: Part 2

'We are not very sure that the bull is ever _without horns_, though we have been told that such bulls there are[28].' Who are the _we_ he refers to? and who but the Doctor ever started so weak a question? His ignorance is below ridicule. It is true, that, in England, bulls which _want_ horns are less numerous than husbands who _have_ them; yet such bulls are always to be found. For the performance which contains this profound remark, this _agglomerated ramification of torpid imbecility_, be it known, that _we_ have paid six shillings, which verifies the proverb, that _a fool and his money are soon parted_.

'We found a small church, clean to a degree unknown in any other part of Scotland[29]!' Here the fact _may_ be true; but Dr Johnson _must_ be ignorant whether it is or not. It is certain, that some buildings of that kind in Edinburgh, are no high specimens of national taste; but, if the Rambler would insinuate that this want of elegance is general, we must impeach his veracity; we must remind him, that there are gloomy, dirty, and unwholesome cathedrals in _both_ countries; and we must lament, that, when entering Scotland, the Doctor _left every thing behind him but_ HIMSELF.

'Suspicion has been always considered, when it exceeds the common measure, as a token of depravity and corruption; and a Greek writer has laid it down as a standing maxim, that _he who believes not the oath of another, knows himself to be perjured_.--Suspicion is, indeed, a temper so uneasy and restless, that it is very justly appointed the concomitant of guilt. Suspicion is not less an enemy to virtue than to happiness. He that is already corrupt, is naturally suspicious, and he that becomes suspicious, will quickly be corrupt[30].' This cannot always be true; but, if it were, the Rambler is by far the greatest miscreant who ever infested society. Speaking of Scotland, he says, 'I know not whether I found man or woman whom I interrogated concerning payments of money, that could surmount the illiberal desire of _deceiving me_, by representing every thing as dearer than it is.--The Scot must be a sturdy moralist who does not love Scotland better than truth[31].' Apply the Doctor's maxims to his own conduct, and then judge of his honesty. He adds a little after: 'The civility and respect which we found at every place, it is _ungrateful_ to omit, and tedious to repeat[32].' He should not have spoke of ingratitude. The picture grows quite shocking.

'How they lived without kail, it is not easy to guess. They cultivate hardly any other plant for common tables; and, when they had not kail, _they probably had_ NOTHING[33].' As the word _kail_ is not to be found in his Dictionary, an English reader will be at a loss to find out what he means. His conjecture is ridiculous; and here a _new_ contradiction must be swallowed by the Doctor's believers; for, if OATS be 'a grain, which, in England, is generally given to horses, but, in Scotland, _supports_ the people[34],' in that case, it is easy to guess how they lived without _kail_. Any thing else had surely been better than to fill up his heavy folios with such peevish nonsense.

In his life of Butler, the Doctor has confined his remarks to _Hudibras_, though the rest of that author's works, both in prose and verse, merit equal attention. What are we to think of this invidious and culpable omission? Hudibras itself would, perhaps, have been omitted, if the book had not tended to ridicule dissenters; for no man in England seems to hate that sect so heartily. In Watt's life, he takes care to tell us, that the author was to be praised in every thing but his _non-conformity_; and, in his ever memorable Tour, the Rambler says, 'I found several (Highland Ministers), with whom I could not converse, without wishing, as my respect increased, that they had not been presbyterians[35].' Here a critic has very properly interrogated the Doctor, what he would have said or thought, if the Highland ministers had lamented that _he_ was _not_ a presbyterian? This man has no tincture of the liberal and humane manners of the present age; and yet, with his peculiar consistency, he laughs at the dissenter who refused to eat a Christmas pye[36]. This quondam believer in the Cocklane ghost says, 'though I have, like the rest of mankind, many failings and weaknesses, I have not yet, by either friends or enemies, been charged with _superstition_[37];' yet, with all the Doctor's 'contempt of old women and their tales[38],' he would, if a Roman consul, have disbanded his army for the scratching of a rat[39].

'We found tea here, as in every other place, but our spoons were of horn[40].' This important fact had been hinted in a former page; and such is the Doctor's politeness!

Some rugged rock's hard entrails gave thee form,
And raging seas produc'd thee in a storm. POPE.

'They do what I found it not very easy to endure. They _pollute_ the tea-table by plates piled with large slices of Cheshire cheese[41].' The happiness of this remark will be fully felt by those acquainted with the peculiar purity of Pomposo's person.

'M'Leod left them _lying_ dead by families as they _stood_[42].' This is _profound_; for no man can stand and lie at the same time. The line ought to be read thus: 'M'Leod left them lying _dead_ by families as they HAD _stood_.'

Of the Memoirs of Scriblerus, the Doctor says: 'If the whole may be estimated by this specimen, which seems to be the production of Arbuthnot, with a few touches, perhaps, by Pope, the want of more will not be much lamented; for the follies which the writer ridicules, are so little practised, that they are not known; nor can the satire be understood but by the learned: He raises phantoms of absurdity, and then drives them away: He cures diseases that were never felt.

'For this reason[43], the joint production of three great writers has never obtained _any_ notice from mankind. It has been little read, or when read, has been forgotten, as no man could be wiser, better, or merrier by remembering it.

'The design cannot boast of much originality; for, besides its general resemblance to _Don Quixote_, there will be found in it particular imitations of the history of Mr Ouffle.

'Swift carried so much of it into Ireland as supplied him with hints for his travels; and with those the world might have been contented, though the rest had been suppressed[44].'

Here we have a copious specimen of the Doctor's _taste_; and all the volumes of English criticism cannot produce a poorer page.

The work thus condemned, displays a very rich vein of wit and learning. The follies which it exposes, though a little heightened, were, in that age, frequent, and perfectly well known. The writers whom it ridicules, have sunk into _nihility_. The book is always reprinted with the prose works of Pope, and Swift, and Arbuthnot; and what stronger mark of _notice_ can the public bestow? Every man who reads it, must be the wiser and the merrier; and the satire may be understood with very little learning.

Dr Arbuthnot was a Scotsman, and, probably, a Presbyterian. He was an amiable man. He is _dead_. Dr Johnson feels himself to be his inferior; and, therefore, endeavours to murder the reputation of his works. To gain credit with the reader, he artfully draws a very high character of Arbuthnot, a few pages before, and here, in effect, overturns it. He had said that Arbuthnot was 'a scholar, with great brilliancy of wit.' But, if his wit and learning are not displayed in the Memoirs of Scriblerus, we may ask where wit and learning are to be found?

Of this extract, the style is as slovenly as the leading sentiments are false.

The book is said to be, the 'production of Arbuthnot.' Within ten lines, it is 'the joint production of _three_ great writers.' How can follies be practised which are not known? or diseases cured, which were never felt? He claims the attributes of omniscience when saying, that 'it has been little read, or when read, has been forgotten;' for, as it has been so frequently reprinted, no human being can be certain that it has been little read, or forgotten; but there is the strongest evidence of the contrary. This period concludes, as it began, with a most absurd assertion. If 'the design cannot boast of much originality,' there is nothing original in the literary world. Who is Mr Ouffle? and who told the Doctor that Swift carried any part of Scriblerus into Ireland, to supply hints for his travels? When Gulliver was published, Dr Arbuthnot, as appears from their correspondence, did not know whether that book was written by Swift or not; so that we are sure the Dean carried _nothing_ of Arbuthnot's along with him. Had Dr Johnson 'flourished and stunk' in their age, he would have been the hero of Martin's memoirs; and, to suppose him conscious of this circumstance, will account for the Rambler's malevolence, and explain why the bull broke into a china-shop.

I beg particular attention to the following passage.

'His (Pope's) version may be said to have tuned the English tongue; for, since its appearance, no writer[45], however deficient in other powers, has wanted _melody_[46].' This is wild enough; but, of Gray's two longest Odes, 'the language is laboured into _harshness_.' Hammond's verses 'never glide in a stream of _melody_.' The diction of Collins 'was often _harsh_, unskilfully laboured, and injudiciously selected. His lines, commonly, are of slow motion, clogged and impeded with clusters of consonants.' Of the style of Savage, 'The general fault is, _harshness_.' The diction of Shenstone 'is often _harsh_, improper, and affected,' &c.

Of these five poets, some were not born when Pope's version was published; and, of the rest, not one had penned a line now extant. They are all here charged, in the strongest terms, with _harshness_; and yet, (_mirabile dictu!_) since the appearance of Pope's version, 'no writer, however deficient in other powers, has wanted _melody_.'

It is no less curious, that the author of this wonder-working translation is himself charged with want of melody; and that too in a poem written many years after the appearance of Pope's Homer. 'The essay on man contains more lines unsuccessfully laboured, more _harshness_ of diction, more thoughts imperfectly expressed, more levity without elegance, and more heaviness without strength,[47]' &c.

'Gray thought his language more poetical, as it was more remote from common use[48].' This assertion is not entirely without foundation, but it is very far from being quite true.

'Finding in Dryden, honey _redolent of spring_, an expression that reaches the utmost limits of our language, Gray drove it a little more beyond common apprehension, by making _gale_ to be _redolent of joy and youth_[49].' The censure is just. But Dr Johnson is the last man alive, who should blame an author for driving our language to its utmost limits: For a very great part of his life has been spent in corrupting and confounding it. In some verses to a Lady, he talks of his _arthritic_ pains[50], an epithet not very suitable to the dialect of Parnassus. Dr Johnson himself cannot always write common sense. 'In a short time many were content to be shewn beauties which _they could not see_[51].' He must here mean--'Beauties which they could not have seen;'--for it is needless to add, that no man can be shewn what he cannot see.

It is curious to observe a man draw his own picture, without intending it. Pomposo, when censuring some of Gray's odes, observes, That 'Gray is too fond of words arbitrarily compounded. The mind of the writer seems to work with unnatural violence. _Double, double, toil and trouble._' He (the author of an Elegy in a country church-yard) 'has a kind of strutting dignity, and is tall by walking on tip-toe. His art and his struggle are too visible, and there is too little appearance of ease, or nature. In all Gray's odes, there is a kind of cumbrous splendour which we wish away[52].' We may say like Nathan, _Thou art the man_.

Mr. Gray, and Mr. Horace Walpole, are said to have _wandered_ through France and Italy[53]. And as a contrast to this polite expression, I shall add some remarks which have occurred on the Doctor's own mode of wandering.

'It must afford peculiar entertainment to see a person of his character, who has scarcely ever been without the precincts of this metropolis (London), and _who has been long accustomed to the adulation of a little knot of companions of his own trade_, sallying forth in quest of discoveries--Neither the people nor the country that he has visited will perhaps be considered as the most extraordinary part of the phaenomena he has described.--The Doctor has endeavoured to give an account of his travels; but he has furnished his readers with a picture of himself. He has seen very little, and observed still less. His narration is neither supported by vivacity, to make it entertaining, nor accompanied with information, to render it instructive. It exhibits the pompous artificial diction of the Rambler with the same _vacuity of thought_.--The reader is led from one Highland family to another merely to be informed of the number of their children, the barrenness of their country, and of the kindness with which the Doctor was treated. In the Highlands he is like a foolish peasant brought for the first time into a great city, staring at every sign-post, and gaping with equal wonder and astonishment at every object he meets[54].'

'At Florence they (Gray and Walpole) quarelled and parted; and Mr. Walpole is _now_ content to have it told that it was by his fault[55].' This is a dirty insinuation; and the rant which follows in the next period is of equal value.

He observes, That '_A long story_ perhaps adds little to Gray's reputation[56].' _Perhaps_ was useless here, and indeed the Doctor has introduced it in a thousand places, where it was useless, and left it out in as many where it was necessary. In justice to Gray, he ought to have added, that their Author rejected, from a correct edition of his works, this insipid series of verses.

'Gray's reputation was now so high that he had the honour of refusing the laurel[57].' No man's reputation has ever yet acquired him the laurel, without some particular application from a courtier. What honour is acquired by refusing the laurel? An hundred pounds a-year would have enabled an oeconomist like Mr Gray to preserve his independence and exert his generosity. The office of laureat is only ridiculous in the hands of a fool. Mr. Savage in that character produced nothing which would dishonour an Englishman and a poet. It is probable that Mr. Gray, a very costive writer, could hardly have made a decent number of verses within the limited time. From the passage now quoted the reader will not fail to remark, that the Rambler 'nurses in his mind a foolish disesteem of kings[58].'

Mr. Gray 'had a notion not very peculiar, that he could not write but at certain times, or at happy moments; a fantastic foppery to which _my_ kindness for a man of learning and of virtue wishes him to have been superior[59].' Milton, who was no doubt a shallow fellow compared with the Reformer of our language, had the same 'fantastic foppery.' Mr Hume remarks that Milton had not leisure 'to watch the returns of genius.'--Every man feels himself at some times less capable of intellectual effort, than at others. The Rambler himself has, in the most express terms, contradicted his present notion. In Denham's life he quotes four lines which must, he says, have been written 'in some _hour propitious to poetry_.' In another place in the same lives his tumid and prolix eloquence disembogues itself to prove, what no man ever doubted, viz. 'That a tradesman's hand is often out, he cannot tell why.' And an inference is drawn, That this is still more apt to be the case with a man straining his mental abilities.

In Gray's ode on spring, 'The thoughts have nothing new, the morality is natural, but too stale[60].' Read the poem, and then esteem the critic if you can. Speaking of _the Bard_ he says, 'Of the first stanza the abrupt beginning has been celebrated; but _technical_ beauties can give praise only to the inventor[61].' The question here is, What he means by a _technical_ beauty? That word he explains, 'Belonging to arts; not in common or popular use'--How can this word in either of these senses apply here with propriety?

What he says of 'these four stanzas[62]'--conveys, I think, no sentiment. Every word may be understood separately, but in their present arrangement they seem to have no meaning, or they mean nonsense, and perhaps, contradiction; but this passage I leave to the supreme tribunal of all authors--to the reason and common sense of the reader. He can best determine whether he has 'never seen the notions in any other place, yet persuades himself that he always felt them.' These ideas are very beautifully expressed in many passages of Gaelic poetry: and Mr. Gray, let it be remembered, to the honour of his taste and candour, was the warm admirer of Fingal.

Comparing Gray's ode with an ode of Horace[63], he says, 'there is in _the Bard_ more force, more thought, and more variety'--as indeed there very well may, for in the one there are thirty-six lines only, and in the other one hundred and forty-four. His whole works are full of such trifling observations. 'But to copy is less than to invent, theft is always dangerous.' If he means to insinuate that Gray's Bard is a copy of Horace, (and this is the plain inference from his words) I charge him in direct terms as _an atrocious violator of_ TRUTH.

'The fiction of Horace was to the Romans credible; (NO) but its revival disgusts _us_ with apparent and unconquerable falsehood, _Incredulus odi_[64].' How will the Doctor's verdict be digested at Aberdeen by 'a poet, a philosopher, and a good man[65].' It is diverting to remark how these _mutual admirers_ clash on the clearest point, with not a possibility of reconcilement.

I pass by five or six lines, which are not worth contradiction, though they cannot resist it. 'I do not _see_ that _the Bard_ promotes any truth moral or political[66].' The Rambler's intellect is _blind_.--He seems to have stared a great deal, to have seen little or nothing. The Bard very forcibly impresses this moral, political, and important truth, that eternal vengeance would pursue the English Tyrant and his posterity, as enemies to posterity, and exterminators of mankind. Dr Johnson, a stickler for the _jus divinum_, did not relish this idea.

He commends the 'Ode on Adversity,' but the hint was at 'first taken from Horace[67].' The poem referred to has almost no resemblance to Mr Gray's. And if we go on at this rate, where will we find any thing original? He mistakes the title of this poem, which is not an 'Ode on,' but a 'Hymn to' Adversity. This is a clear though trifling proof of his inattention. As he dare not condemn this piece, it is dismissed in six lines, to make room for '_The wonderful wonder of wonders_, the two Sister Odes, by which many have been persuaded to think themselves delighted[68].' He chews them through four tedious octavo pages. We come then to Gray's Elegy, which occupies an equal share of a paragraph containing only fourteen lines. So much more plentiful is the critic in gall than honey! And in reading this fragment we may remark that _nonsense_ is not _panegyric_.

Speaking of Welsh Mythology, he says, 'Attention recoils from the repetition of a tale that, even when it was _first_ heard, was heard with scorn[69].' There is no reason to think that the Welsh disbelieved these fictions. It is much more likely that many believe them at this day. Shakespeare has from this superstition made a whimsical picture of Owen Glendower: He painted nature. This is one of those assertions which our dictator should have qualified with a _perhaps_, an adverb, which, wherever it _ought_ to be met with in the Doctor's pages, 'will not easily be found[70].'

'But I will no longer look for particular faults; yet let it be observed that the ode might have been concluded with an action of better example; but suicide is always to be had without expence of thought[71].'

The lines objected to are these:

'He spoke, and headlong from the mountains height,
Deep in the roaring tide, he plung'd to endless night.'

Let the Doctor, if he can, give us a better conclusion.

'_The Prospect of Eaton College_ suggests nothing to Gray, which every beholder does not equally think and feel[72].' He might as well have said, that every man in England is capable of producing Paradise Lost.

We have seen with what tenderness Dr Johnson speaks of the dead, we shall now see his tenderness to the living. 'Let us give the Indians arms, and teach them discipline, and encourage them now and then to plunder a plantation. Security and leisure are the parents of sedition[73].' The Doctor seems here to be serious. The proposal must reflect infinite honour on his wisdom and humanity.

'No part of the world has yet had reason to rejoice that COLUMBUS found at last reception and employment[74].' This wild opinion is fairly disproved by Dr Smith, a philosopher not much afraid of novelty; for he has advanced a greater variety of original, interesting, and profound ideas, than almost any other author since the first existence of books.

'Such is the unevenness of Dryden's compositions that ten lines are seldom found together without something of which the reader is ashamed[75].' This is a very wide _aberration_ from truth. In Dryden's fables we may frequently meet with five hundred lines together, without _ten_ among them, which could have disgraced the most eminent writer. His prologues and epilogues are a never failing fountain of good sense and genuine poetry. But it were insulting the taste of the English nation to insist any farther on this point. We shall presently see how far Dr Johnson's Dictionary will answer the foregoing description.

Dryden it is said discovers 'in the preface to his fables, that he translated the first book of the Iliad without knowing what was in the second[76].' This insinuation revolts against all probability; and whoever peruses that elegant and delightful preface will find it to be NOT TRUE.

'The highest pleasure which nature has indulged to sensitive perception is that of rest after fatigue[77].' And _sensitive_ is defined '_having sense or perception; but not reason_.' If I understand the meaning of this passage, it is, that no pleasure communicated through any of the organs of sense is equal to that of _rest_. This assertion leads to the most absurd consequences. In man, to separate sensitive from rational perception appears to be simply impossible. Even rest is not in strict language any pleasure. It is merely a mitigation of pain. The reader will decide whether I do the Doctor justice, while I say, that he must have been petrified when he composed this maxim. Thirst and hunger had been long forgot. Handel and Titian had no power to charm. We learn that a lover can receive, and his mistress can bestow nothing which is equal to the rapturous enjoyment of an _easy chair_. The thought is new; no human being ever did, or ever will conceive it, except this immortal IDLER.

'Physicians and lawyers are no friends to religion, and many _conjectures_ have been formed to discover the _reason_ of such _a combination_ between men who agree in _nothing else_, and who seem to be less affected in their own provinces by religious opinions than any other part of the community[78].' He then proceeds in the tone of an author, who has made a discovery to inform us of the cause. 'They have all seen a parson, seen him in a habit different from their own, and therefore _declared war_ against him.' But _this_ can be no motive for peculiar antipathy to parsons, allowing such antipathy to exist; for in habit all other classes differ no less from the clergy, than the lawyer and physician. But the remark itself is frivolous and false. Boerhaave and Hale were men of eminent piety. Physicians and lawyers have as much regard for religion as any other people generally have. Their _agreeing in nothing else_ is another of the blunders crowded into this passage. But I have too much respect for the reader's understanding to insist any farther on this point. The _conjecturers_, the _combination_, and the _declaration of war_, exist no where but in the Doctor's pericranium. He was at a loss what to say, and the position is only to be regarded as a _turbid ebullition of amphibological inanity_. But while we thus meet with something which is ridiculous in every page, we are not to forget even for a moment, what we have often heard, and what is most unquestionably _true_, viz. That Dr Johnson is the father of British literature, capital author of his age, and the greatest man in Europe[79]!!!

'We are by our occupations, education, and habits of life, divided almost into different species, who regard one another for the most part with scorn and malignity[80].' The Doctor is himself a proof, that a man may look upon almost all of his own profession with scorn and malignity: So that between his precept and his practice, the world seems bad enough. But I hope every heart revolts at this gross insult on the characters of mankind. He brings as an instance the aversion which subsists between soldiers and sailors. There no doubt have been jealousies and bloodshed between these two classes of men, but the same accidents fall out more frequently between soldiers themselves. The _scorn_ and _malignity_ of admirals seldom affect any line of service but their own. His captain of foot[81], who saw no danger in a sea-fight was a fool, and just such a specimen of English officers, as the Doctor himself is of English travellers. Our repulse at Carthagena was not owing to an antipathy between the _common_ men. Our late victory at Savannah proves with what ardour they can unite. The Doctor has insulted almost every order of society.

Coblers with coblers smoke away the night,
Even players in the common cause, unite.
AUTHORS alone with more than mortal rage,
Eternal war with brother authors wage[82].

'To raise esteem we must benefit others,' is an assertion advanced in the same page. But the Doctor, if he knows any thing, must know that _esteem_ is often felt for an enemy. We value for his courage or ingenuity the man who never heard our name, or who would not give a guinea to save us from perdition. We can esteem the hero who butchers nations, and the pedant who perplexes truth. Marlborough's avarice led him to continue the continental war, till he had laid the great foundation of our public debt. He was detested as much as any general _now_ in England, and yet 'he was so great a man (said one of his enemies) that I have forgot his faults.' Posterity, while they suffer for his baseness, pay the due tribute of esteem to his genius and intrepidity.

In every point of view this maxim is 'the baseless fabrick of a vision.' And what had so far _obumbrated_ the Rambler's powers of _ratiocination_, it is not easy to guess. We sometimes feel it impossible to esteem even our benefactor. 'I have received obligations (said Chatterton) without being obliged.' And of consequence, his benefactors had forfeited his esteem. The father of British literature has in forty other places contradicted his own words. He has proved that esteem is involuntary, and that benefits do not always procure it.

The Doctor says, 'That Cowley having, when very young, read Spenser, became _irrecoverably_ a poet[83].' And he adds a remark that shows his good sense: 'Such are the accidents which, sometimes remembered, and sometimes perhaps forgotten, PRODUCE that particular designation of mind and propensity for some certain science or employment, which is commonly called genius. The true genius is a mind of large general powers, _accidentally_ determined to some particular direction. The great painter of the present age had the first fondness for his art excited by a perusal of Richardson's treatise.' This drawling definition contradicts common sense. Does the Doctor mean that Cowley would have become a painter by perusing Richardson? or that Reynolds would have become a poet by perusing Spenser? This is the clear inference from his words, and its absurdity is 'too evident for detection, and too gross for aggravation[84].' At this rate Garrick might have eclipsed Newton, and Voltaire defeated Frederick. Plato possessed 'a mind of large general powers.' He read Homer. He wrote verses, and he found that he could not be a poet. The Doctor himself has 'large general powers;' but he could never have been made a decent dancing master. Marcel might have broke his heart, before his pupil had acquired three steps of a minuet. In his dictionary the Doctor, without a word of _accidental_ determination, defines genius to be 'disposition of _nature_, by which any one is qualified for some peculiar employment.' And here I cannot help adding, that 'the great painter' has by stepping out of his own line, discovered the narrowness of even a great man's knowledge. He affirms[85], That _scarce a poet from Homer down to Dryden ever felt his fire diminished merely by his advance in years_. There is nothing more absurd, says Cicero, than what we hear asserted by some of the philosophers. Even in painting, the President's own profession, that rule does not hold. Cellini tells us, that Michael Angelo's genius decayed with years; and he speaks of it as common to all artists. His notion was perhaps grafted on an opinion of the Doctor's about the durability of Waller's genius[86]. But Waller was a feeble poet; he never had a genius, so that we need not wonder he never lost it. All his verses are hardly worth one of Dr Johnson's imitations of Juvenal.

Rowe (the famous tragic poet) 'seldom moves either pity or terror[87].' Paradise Lost is a work which 'the reader admires, and lays down, _and forgets to take up again_[88],' But Rowe's Lucan, which is very little read, the Doctor pronounces to be 'one of the _greatest_ productions of English poetry.' Dr Johnson's sycophants have asserted, that 'in the walks of criticism and biography he has long been without a rival.' And they are no doubt willing to support their idol in his infamous assertion, that Swift 'excites neither surprise nor admiration[89].' The Doctor's disregard for the unanimous sentiments of mankind often excites surprize, but never admiration. Let us here apply his own observation, that 'there is often found in commentaries a spontaneous train of invective and contempt, more eager and venemous than is vented by the most furious controvertist in politics, against whom he is hired to defame[90].' We may illustrate the Rambler's remark by his own example: 'Theobald, a man of narrow comprehension, and small acquisitions, with no native and intrinsick splendour of genius, with little of the artificial light of learning--his contemptible ostentation I have frequently concealed[91].' The definer of a fiddlestick proceeds thus: 'I have in some places shewn him, as he would have shewn himself for the reader's diversion, that the _inflated_ emptiness of some notes may justify or excuse the contraction of the rest.'--The advocate for tenderness and decorum goes on to tell us, that 'Theobald, thus weak and ignorant, thus _mean_ and FAITHLESS, thus petulant and ostentatious, by the good luck of having Pope for his enemy, has escaped, and escaped _alone_ with reputation from this undertaking. So easily is he praised whom no man can envy[92].' How does it appear that Theobald was weak and ignorant? The Doctor himself had in the preceding page told us, that 'he (Theobald) collated the antient copies, and rectified _many_ errors.' This assertion our author, with his wonted consistency, has flatly contradicted in the very next line. 'What _little_ he (Theobald) did was commonly right.' Has the Doctor adduced, or has he attempted to adduce evidence, that Theobald was _mean_ and _faithless_, or what provocation has he to load this man's memory with such injurious epithets? His burst of vulgarity can reflect disgrace on nobody but himself. It is evident, tho' he thinks proper to deny it, that he considered Theobald as an object of envy; yet he is obliged to confess that Theobald 'escaped, and escaped _alone_, with reputation,' from the talk of amending Shakespeare. In assigning a reason for this applause of Theobald, Dr Johnson pays a very poor compliment to the penetration of the public, for surely to combat a writer of so much merit and popularity as Pope, was not the plainest road to eminence in the literary world.

'In his (Shakespeare's) tragic scenes there is _always something wanting_'----NO[93]----'In his comic scenes he is seldom very successful, when he engages his characters in _reciprocations_ of smartness, and contests of sarcasms; their ideas are _commonly gross_, and their pleasantry _licentious_.' This accusation is cruel and unjust, as all the world knows already. But a great part of that preface is an incoherent jumble of reproach and panegyrick[94]. If any thing can be yet more faulty than what we have just now seen, it is what follows: 'Whenever he (Shakespeare) solicits his invention, or strains his faculties[95], the offspring of his _throes_ is _tumour_ (i. e. _puffy_ grandeur[96]), _meanness_, _tediousness_, and _obscurity_. His declamations or set speeches are _commonly cold and weak_.' The _set speeches_ (as the Doctor elegantly terms them) of Petruchio, of Jacques, of Wolsey, and of Hamlet, are _perhaps_ neither cold nor weak. The conclusion of this period is worthy of such a beginning; he mentions certain attempts from which Shakespeare 'seldom escapes without the pity or resentment of his reader.' The Doctor himself is an object of pity. Shakespeare has been in his grave near two centuries--His life was innocent--His writings are immortal. To feel resentment against so great a man because his works are not every where equal, is an idea highly becoming the generosity of Dr Johnson.

What 'truth, moral or political,' is promoted by telling us, that, when Thomson came to London, _his first want was a pair of shoes_; that Pope 'wore a kind of fur doublet, under a shirt of very coarse warm linen, with fine sleeves[97];' and a long string of such tiresome and disgusting trifles, which make his narrative seem ridiculous. Had Dr Johnson been Pope's apothecary, we would certainly have heard of the frequency of his pulse, the colour of his water, and the quantity of his stools.

'Though Pope seemed angry when a dram was offered him, he did not forbear to drink it[98].' And who the Devil cares whether he did or not? The Doctor needed hardly to have told us, that 'his petty peculiarities were communicated by a female domestic;' for no gentleman would have confessed that they came within the reach of his observation.

The _truly illustrious_ author of the RAMBLER, has exerted his venemous eloquence, _through several pages_, in order to convince us, that 'never were penury of knowledge and _vulgarity_ of sentiment so happily disguised,' as in Pope's Essay on Man. For this purpose, the Doctor celebrates the character of Crousaz, whose intentions 'were _always_ right, his opinions were solid, and his religion pure[99].' In opposition to such authorities, let us hear the great and immortal citizen of Geneva.

'M. de Crousaz has lately given us a refutation of the ethic epistles of Mr Pope, which I have read; but it did not please me. I will not take upon me to say, which of these two authors is in the right; but I am persuaded, that the book of the former will never excite the reader to do any one virtuous action, whereas _our zeal for every thing great and good is awakened by that of_ POPE[100].'

The Essay on Man, he says, 'affords an egregious instance of the predominance of genius, the dazzling splendour of imagery, and the seductive powers of eloquence. The reader feels his mind full, though he learns NOTHING; and when he meets it in its new array, no longer knows the talk of his mother, and his nurse[101].' If the conversations of Dr Johnson's mother and his nurse were equal to Mr Pope's verses, it is a pity the Doctor had not preserved them. He could hardly have spent his time so well. And it is a wonder that with so many rare opportunities of improvement, the Doctor has never yet eclipsed his nurse. Voltaire pronounces Pope's Essay to be the finest didactick poem in the world, and he would no doubt have replied to the Doctor's objections in that tone of contempt with which the Doctor replied to some of his--'These are the petty cavils of petty minds[102].'

In the Essay on Man 'so little was any evil tendency discovered, that, as innocence is unsuspicious, many read it for a manual of piety[103];'--and will continue to read it, when the cavils of Dr Johnson are forgotten or despised.

'He (Pope) nursed in his mind a foolish disesteem of Kings.' And again, 'He gratified that ambitious petulance with which he affected to insult the great[104].'

Dr Johnson himself is by no means remarkable for his respect to the great. In the preface to his folio Dictionary, he tells us, that it was written 'without any patronage of the _great_,' which is a mistake; for he had published a pamphlet, some years before, wherein he acknowledges, that Chesterfield had patronized him; and why the Doctor should retract his own words, it is hard to say; for Chesterfield continued his friend to the last; and such a man was very likely _the strongest spoke in the Doctor's wheel_. But his Lordship is now dead, and the Doctor is always and eminently _grateful_.

'It has been maintained by some, _who love to talk of what they do not know_, that pastoral is the _most antient_ poetry.' But in the next period, 'pastoral poetry was the _first_ employment of the human imagination[105].' The Doctor, therefore, by his own account, is one of those, _who love to talk of_ (and what is yet worse, to assert) _what they do not know_. In North America, the natives have no conception of pastoral life among themselves, and their poetry, such as it is, hath no relation to that state of society.

Pastoral poetry 'is generally pleasing, because it entertains the mind with representations of scenes, familiar to _almost every_ imagination, and of which _all_ can equally judge whether they are well described, or not[106].'

This period is so closely interwoven with nonsense, that it will take some pains to disentangle it. Rural scenes are not familiar to _almost every_ imagination. In England half the people are shut up in large towns, and such is the gross ignorance of some of them, that an old woman in London once asked, _whether potatoes grew on trees_. Neither is every man an equal judge even of what is familiar to him. Observe how the Rambler confounds the distinction between _all_, and _almost every_. The whole number is in the same stile.

'At this time a long course of opposition to Sir Robert Walpole had filled the nation with clamours for liberty, of which no man felt the want, and with care for liberty which was not in danger[107].'

No man was more violent than Dr Johnson in abusing Walpole. We have already seen some of those political definitions, which at this hour deform the Doctor's Dictionary. His late zeal for government could arise from self interest only. And to take his own words, he comes under suspicion _as a wretch hired to vindicate the late measures of the Court_[108]. He accuses Milton as a tool of authority, as a forger hired to assassinate the memory of Charles I. These charges came with a very bad grace from the Rambler. They are long since refuted in a separate publication, and yet they will be reprinted in every future edition of his book.

Will any man be the wiser, the better, or the merrier, by reading what follows--'Lyttleton was his (Shenstone's) neighbour, and his rival, whose empire, spacious and opulent, looked with disdain on the _petty state_ that appeared behind it. For a while the inhabitants of Hagley affected to tell their acquaintance of the _little fellow_ that was trying to make himself admired; but when by degrees the Leasowes forced themselves into notice, they took care to defeat the curiosity which they could not suppress, by conducting their visitants perversely to inconvenient points of view, and introducing them at the wrong end of a walk to detect a deception; injuries of which Shenstone would heavily complain[109].' The paragraph closes with a _deep_ observation.

As the Doctor's own associates[110] have lamented the existence of this beautiful and important passage, I have only to say, that _Poor_ Lyttleton (as the Doctor calls him) patronized Fielding, and that the Rambler patronizes William Shaw: That his Lordship was an elegant writer: That he did not adopt Johnson's new words: That _Lexiphanes_ was dedicated to him: That he was a great and an amiable man: And that he is _dead_.

With all his affectation of hard words, the Doctor becomes at once intelligible when he wishes to reprobate a rival genius, or insult the ashes of a benefactor. In defiance of Addison, and a thousand other _shallow fellows_, he asserts that Milton 'both in prose and verse had formed his stile by a _perverse_ and _pedantick_ principle[111].'

Speaking of Mr Walmsley, he says, 'At this man's table I enjoyed many chearful and agreeable hours, with companions such as are not often to be found.--I am not able to name a man of equal knowledge. He never received _my_ notions with contempt.--He was one of the first friends whom literature procured me,--and I hope that at least my _gratitude_ made me worthy of his notice. It may be doubted whether a day now passes, in which I have not some advantage from his friendship[112].' But then, 'He was a WHIG with ALL the virulence and malevolence of _his_ party.' This is a most beautiful conclusion; and quite in the Doctor's stile. His accusation is incredible. A monster, such as he draws here, can seldom deform existence.

We are told that at St. Andrews Cardinal Beaton 'was murdered by the ruffians of Reformation[113].' And it seems to be the fashion of the day, to censure that action. Yet it is allowed on all hands that Wishart's doctrine, in spite of its _incomprehensibilities_, was better than Popery--that Beaton, a profligate usurping Priest, had committed every human vice--that, without civil authority, he dragged our Apostle to the stake--and that his avowed design was to expell or exterminate the whole Protestant party. Had the Cardinal been permitted to complete his plan, we durst not at this day have disputed, 'Whether it is better to worship a piece of rotten wood[114], or throw it in the fire?' It is therefore evident that to kill this tyrant was highly proper and laudable. We may just as well censure the centurion who slew Caligula. When a philosopher, who truly deserves that title, was once in conversation reprobating Melvil, he was interrupted by this, simple question, Whether if his own antagonist had conducted _him_ to the stake, he would not have pardoned a pupil for avenging his blood? 'I would most certainly,' he replied, and such must be the real sentiments of all men, whatever they may chuse to print. When we attempt to hide the feelings of nature, that we may support a favourite system, we never fail to become ridiculous. In this age and nation, if a magistrate shall rise above the law; if he rob us of life with the most barbarous exulation; if his guilt equal whatever history hath recorded; if he want nothing but the purple and the legions to rival Domitian, the voice of nature will be heard. The brave will reject such unmanly, such fatal refinements of speculation. Like Hambden and Melvil, they will stand forth in defence of themselves, and their posterity. They will relieve their fellow citizens from temporal perdition. They will drive insolence and injustice from the seat of power. They will exult in danger, and rush to revenge or death. They will plunge their swords in the heart of their oppressor; or they will teach him, like Charles, to atone upon the scaffold for the tears and the blood of his people; and while in the eyes of their countrymen, they read their glory[115], they will perhaps reflect with a smile, that some slavish pedant, some pensioned traitor to the rights of mankind, is one day to mark them out as objects of public detestation[116].

'The theatre, when it is under any other direction, is peopled by such characters as were never seen, conversing in a language which was never heard, upon topics which will never arise in the commerce of mankind.--Upon every other stage the universal agent is love, by whose power all good and evil is distributed, and every action quickened or retarded. To bring a lover, a lady and a rival into the fable; to entangle them in contradictory obligations, perplex them with oppositions of interest, and harrass them with violence of desires inconsistent with each other; to make them meet in rapture, and part in agony; to fill their mouths with hyperbolical joy, and outrageous sorrow; to distress them as nothing human ever was distressed; to deliver them as nothing human ever was delivered, is the business of a modern dramatist. For this probability is violated, life is misrepresented, and language is depraved[117].' The weakest of Dr Johnson's admirers will blush in reading this passage. He very fairly denies every degree of merit, to every dramatic writer, of every age or nation, Shakespeare alone excepted. What can be more ridiculous than this?

'Every man finds his mind more strongly seized by the tragedies of Shakespeare than of any other writer; others please us by particular speeches, but he always makes us anxious for the event, by exciting restless and _unquenchable_[118] curiosity, and compelling him that reads his work to read it through[119].' But the Doctor overthrows all this within a few pages, for Shakespeare has '_perhaps_ not _one_ play, which, if it were now exhibited as the work of a cotemporary writer, _would be heard to the conclusion_[120].' The Rambler cannot always suppress his thorough contempt for the taste of the public. He no doubt laughs internally at their folly in admiring him.

* * * * *

I proceed to the Doctor's English Dictionary, and shall begin with quoting the remarks already made by a judicious friend, on this subject.

'Among the many foibles of the human race, we may justly reckon this to be one, that when they have once got any thing really useful, they apply it in all cases, proper or improper, till at last they make it quite ridiculous. Nothing can possibly be more useful than a just and accurate _definition_, because by this only we are able to distinguish one thing from another. It is obvious, however, that _in definitions we ought always to define a thing less known, by one which is more so, and those things which are known to every body, neither can be defined, nor ought we to attempt a definition of them at all; because we must either explain them by themselves, or by something less known than themselves, both of which give our definitions the most ridiculous air imaginable_.

'A certain right reverend gentleman, not many miles from Edinburgh, and whom, out of my great regard for the cloth, I put in the first place, gave the following definition of a thief. "A thief," says he, "my friends, is a man of a _thievish disposition_." Now though this definition is somewhat imperfect, for a thief also exerts that _thievish disposition_ which lurks in his breast, I intend to take it for my model, on account of its great conformity to many of the definitions given by the most celebrated authors.--I remember to have seen in one of the Reviews a definition of _Nature_, which began in the following manner. "Nature is that _innate_ celestial fire."--The rest has in truth escaped my memory, though I remember the Reviewers indecently compared it to the following lines, which they say were a description of a dog-fish.

'And his evacuations
Were made _a parte post_.
_A parte post!_ these words so hard
In Latin though I speak 'em,
Their meaning in plain English is,
He made pure _Album Graecum_.

'This definition rather goes a step beyond that of the clergyman, as it explains the words _a parte post_ by _Album Graecum_, which are more obscure than the former, and neither of which, out of my great regard to decency, I choose to translate.--Whether Dr Johnson composed his dictionary, after hearing the above-mentioned clergyman's sermon, or not, I cannot tell, but he seems very much to have taken him for his model, even though the said clergyman was a Presbyterian, and Dr Johnson has an aversion at Presbyterians. Thus, when he tells us, that _short_ is _not long_, and that _long_ is _not short_, he certainly might as well have told us that a thief is a man of a thievish disposition. I am surprised indeed how the intellects of a human creature could be obscured by pedantry, and the love of words, to such a degree, as to insert this distinction in a book, pretended to be written for the instruction and benefit of society. Much more am I surprised how the authors of all dictionaries of the English language have followed the same ridiculous plan, as if they had positively intended to make their books as little valuable as possible. Nay, I am almost tempted to think, that the readers have a natural inclination to peruse nonsense, and cannot be satisfied without a considerable quantity of that ingredient in every book which falls into their hands. _Long_ and _short_ are terms merely relative, and which every body knows; to explain them therefore by one another, is to explain them by themselves. But besides this ridiculous way of explaining a thing by itself, pedants, of whom we may justly reckon Dr Johnson the Prince, have fallen upon a most ingenious method of explaining the English by the _Latin_, or some other language still further beyond the reach of vulgar ken. Thus, when Dr Johnson defines _fire_, he tells us it is the _igneous element_. _To water_ (the verb) he tells us, is to _irrigate_, by which no doubt we are greatly edified. _To do_ is to _practise_, and _to practise_ is _to do_, &c.

'But the most curious kind of definitions are these oenigmatical ones of our author, by which he industriously prevents the reader from knowing the meaning of the words he explains. Thus, the _hair_ he tells us is one of the common _teguments_ of the body; but this will not distinguish it from the skin, and shews the extreme poverty of judgment under which the Doctor laboured, when he could not point out the distinguishing mark between the hair and skin. A dog is "a domestic animal remarkably various in his species," but this does not distinguish him, except to natural historians, from a cow, a sheep, or a hog; for of these there are also different _breeds_ or species. A cat is "a domestic animal that catches mice;" but this may be said of an owl, or a dog; for a dog will catch mice if he sees them, though he does not watch for them as a cat does. Nay, if we happen to overlook the word _animal_, or not to understand it, we may mistake the cat for a mouse-trap. The earth, according to our learned author, is "the element distinct from fire, air, or water;" but this may be light or electricity as well as earth.--Air is "the element encompassing the terraqueous globe;" but an unlearned reader would be very apt to mistake this for the ocean, &c.