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148 CRITICAL NOTICES OP NEW PUBLICATIONS. 



ceaselessly resolving, and yet the victim of disappointment and self- 

 condemnation. A martyr to the fears of an unsatisfied faith, to 

 himself unforgiving, he made no exception in favour of others, nor 

 scrupled to sacrifice feelings to truth. As a literary character, 

 Johnson cannot be celebrated for his attainments ; as a classic he 

 was far from first-rate ; knowing little of the sciences, and discursive 

 in his reading ; but his prodigious memory collated and arranged in 

 the best order whatever he read; so that though an irregular student, 

 his mind was enriched by the working up of his own ideas, while 

 his knowledge was applied in a thousand various dresses suitable to 

 the subject : it is no wonder, therefore, that he could pass for a most 

 erudite scholar. No part of his attainments were unapplied or unpro- 

 ductive ; in his arguments profoundly logical, with a reflex power so 

 inexhaustible that new ideas grew up from the mere collision of 

 each other, until he was sometimes startled into -an admiration of 

 his own omnipotence. But Johnson was not infallible, as his obse- 

 quious friend would persuade us ; and more than once do we cry 

 out against the pusillanimity of his auditors who could tolerate 

 his absurdities. It is too often the case that one or two forcibly 

 told truths will open the way for a succession of errors, without 

 being perceived as such ; so readily does an inferior mind resign its 

 judgment altogether when rebutted in a first attack. Thus the 

 conviction of some, and the assent of many, placed Johnson on the 

 oracular tripod ; accustomed to regard his fiat as a law incontrover- 

 tible, everything he said was admitted upon precedent ; mor i» it 

 strange that he himself, at length, became intolerant, and believed 

 in the infallibility of his own verdict. In the dialogue between the 

 Doctor and Mrs. Knowles, he is turned, like a turtle, upon his back, 

 and his answer to the spirited remarks of his fair opponent is fraught 

 with coarse insolence and school-boy sulkiness.* If his friends had 

 been more like Mrs. Knowles, he would have been polished by 

 repeated " ruhs.*^ Still, Johnson was a mighty spirit: as a mo- 

 ralist he was perfectly orthodox ; but had he possessed less mora- 

 lity, he might have enjoyed more religion : his worship was with- 

 out fervour, for it was the oblation of duty. The broken sobs of 

 the contrite heart, or the holy aspirations of religion, were unknown 

 to him. His religion pertained to the understanding, not to the 

 heart ; quieting his conscience without animating his affections. 

 We are not of those who ridicule Johnson's fear of death : had his 

 faith been confirmed, his fears would have been removed. The fear 

 of death belongs to thinking minds : it is not the unlettered vulgar 

 who fear death ; they have nothing to loose but life, which is the 

 least of all losses. It is the ''delighted spirit;" for "^ who would 

 loose for fear of pain this intellectual being }'* " To die, and go 

 we know ri&t where," was what he felt. Great minds fear death, 

 for they have much to part with — ignorance exchanges only the 

 sleep of life for that of the grave. 



