146 CRITICAL NOTICES OP NEW PUBLICATIONS. 



and fine linen" that the picture is fair and good ; but when there 

 is the natural fire-side look, undecked by affectation. 



The difficulty of the task is, indeed, sufficiently proved. Consi- 

 dering the multiplicity of biographers, how few are adequate to the 

 enterprise. It is no trifling play to unravel the intricacies of the 

 human hearty and to exhibit the primary impulse of actions so con- 

 tradictory, and in their results so often unfortunate. There is one 

 essentiality necessary to the excellence of biographies, and that is, a 

 similarity of character, if not in the same degree of power. With- 

 out this, that vigorous enthusiasm which quickens the eye to per- 

 ceive, and which propels the mind with a prescient intelligence, is 

 lost, and the only merit of the work is in the bare exposition of 

 facts. Did not Hayley require the religious fervour of Cowper ? 

 or could Johnson himself do more than lend his voice to the univer- 

 sal praise of Milton ? There was a dissimilarity which rendered 

 their labour abortive. Men may write with the understanding, 

 and not of the heart, or the reverse. 



The life of the poet is the record of feelings, and emotions, and 

 ardent aspirations — twin sister of devotion. The life of the philo- 

 sopher and man of science is not of feeling, but of fact — when spe- 

 culation is only a prelude to reality. But there is also the life of 

 the moral philosopher, and there is the life of the colloquist ; which 

 last are the least numerous. Johnson and Coleridge belong to the 

 last, though in themselves dissimilar. The work before us, with 

 all its imperfections, is certainly unequalled, comparing it with 

 similar productions, excluding the biography of the poet and the 

 natural philosopher. Boswell chose the only method by which it 

 was possible to pcjurtray the moral character of Johnson. Hawkins's 

 life wants the aphoristical conversations of Johnson, and therefore 

 wants everything ; inasmuch as the character of the colloquial 

 Titan was best found in his conversations. 



No man would think of looking for the character of Johnson in 

 his productions : he was too cautious to commit himself in writing, 

 and was too wise to unloose those vagrant opinions (to which the 

 best of men sometimes incline), as precedents for evil minds to act 

 upon in future generations: Johnson was not a man to mislead by a 

 foolish desire to surprise — he knew the power of precedent. It was 

 in conversation, in the unrestrained intercourse of social meeting, 

 that the doctor unbuckled himself, and gave way to the natural 

 vigour of his mind : when surrounded with a few chosen friends, 

 he would temper his corrections with kindness, and run unbridled 

 from subject to subject, ransacking and seeking tribute of the whole 

 universe of soul. There was no other mode of exhibiting the true 

 character of Johnson than by his conversation-^/j/Ze. We look in 

 vain for the reflection of the author in The Rambler ; for individu- 

 ality in his London, his Vanity of Hitman Wishes, in his Irene ; we 

 behold no personal semblance in the history of Rasselas, nor do we 

 recognize the gross and gloomy depressions of his nature in the 

 tender melancholy of the lovely Pekuah. 



