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great number adjund ideas. To a mind ftored like that of Johnfon 

 with much of the bed learning of antient and modern times, and 

 with that knowledge which only an attentive obfervation of life 

 can beftow ; to a fagacity like his, which faw almoft intuitively 

 through a chain of confequences, and to a comprehenfive mind, 

 fuch as he poffeffed, which took in at a glance a great number of 

 collateral circumftances, this ftru£ture of a fentence was a neceflary 

 inftrument of communication; it gave fimplicity to v/hat was 

 complex, and unity to what was manifold. But let the writer 

 who has not Johnfon's flock of ideas, his fagacity or his com- 

 prehenfion, bev/are of imitating. When trivial circumftances arc 

 enumerated in this pompous phrafe, or words not of diftincTl 

 meaning exhibited in long-founding triods, good fenfe and good 

 tafte are difgufted : the dwarf in giants armour is more contemp- 

 tible than in his native littlenefs. 



But liowever the ftyle of Johnfon may be charaderized, or 

 however Englifh profe compofition may have been improved by 

 thefe peculiarities of conftrudion, it is by his nice feledion and 

 corred ufe of words that he is principally diftinguifhed, and the 

 En2;li(h language principally benefitted. The ftudent who, in 

 tranflating Virgil into other Latin, complained of the difficulty of 

 his tafk, " quia optimum quodque verhum VirgUlus nfurpavit" be- 

 caufe Virgil had preoccupied the words bell fitted to exprefs his 

 meaning, paid to the Latin poet a compliment which might witli 

 equal truth be paid to the Englifli moralifl. It would be difficult 

 to convey in fo many other wordsthe precifc import of any fen- 



( I 2 ) tencc 



