CRITICAL NOTICES OP NEW PUBLICATIOJfS. 147 



The character of Johnson cannot be deduced, like that of the 

 poet, from his creations ; there is no embodying of feelings and 

 emotions natural to himself. There was a graveness in the consti- 

 tution of Johnson opposed to refinement, and which was not always 

 subdued by reason. Reading the pages of Boswell, we are success 

 sively led away by diiFerent feelings ; now audible in our admira- 

 tion, and then indignant and disiJ:usted wnth his brutality. At one 

 moment charmed by his humility, in the next offended with his 

 overbearance, astonished at his reasoning, hating his bigotry, re- 

 verencing his virtues, but suspicious of a "faith" that was almost 

 without hope, leaving him a prey to childish superstition and 

 credulity. 



Dr. Johnson lived at a time most fortunate for his reputation; 

 not that his works could be less than immortal, but the extension 

 of his fapie was mostly owing to the loud admiration of his great 

 contemporaries, and it is the names of Fox, Burke, Goldsmith, 

 Reynolds, Garrick — those lustrous stars with whom Johnson com- 

 muned as with familiar spirits, whose adoration of mind ele- 

 vated him above himself — that have lent such lustre to the life of 

 Johnson. Boswell has wisely interwoven the opinions of those 

 illustrious persons. We take our seat beside them, and as their 

 thoughts are uttered we behold them " come like shadows ;'* and 

 thus the w^ork is a history of the age rather than of the individual. 



The character of Johnson may be divided into the natural, or 

 physical, literary, and moral. It is not less essential that a man be 

 judged by his peers on this ground, that a distinction may be made 

 between physical disease and moral culpability — that the expressions 

 of suffering be not exaggerated into sin. Not only in courts of 

 judicature, but in the individual estimation of character, the mind 

 should be physiologically considered. If this were the case, justice 

 would be always merciful, and general opinion without calumny ; 

 while the predisposing knowledge of an evil would be a security 

 against it — "venienti oceurrite morho." A noble and generous spirit 

 weeps over the failings that dim the lustre of the great man's fame. 



The physical character of Johnson is an apology for his brutality: 

 it is in his gloomy and hypochondriacal disposition that w^e are to 

 seek for an excuse for his moroseness. The mind that is lighted up 

 by a constitutional vivacity, can form no idea of the hereditary 

 gloominess of Johnson. Prostrated beneath the murky vapours of 

 melancholy, Johnson's feelings were betrayed by the bitterness, even 

 savageness, of retort. It is not the dull, clod-pated clown that 

 suffers from the malady of mind. Idiotcy is the privilege of the 

 ignorant and debased ; madness is the passion of intjelTect, thaj; 

 would break down its alliance with the body. Poor Swift, Collins, 

 Cowper ? The incubus was shadowed upon their spirits, with all 

 the horrors of the grave, and wrought their lives into inconsisten- 

 cies. How constantly was Johnson oppressed and weighed down by 

 the darkness of despondency, impelled by a stern sense of right, 



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