DR, pARWIN. 77 



perienced what manner of man he was. 

 The furly dictator felt the mortification, 

 and revenged it, by offering to avow his 

 difdain of powers too diftinguifhed to be 

 an object of genuine fcorn. 



Dr. Darwin, in his turn, was not much 

 more juft to Dr. Johnfon's genius. He 

 uniformly fpoke of him in terms, which, 

 had they been deferved, w r ould have jufti- 

 fied Churchill's " immane Pompofo,"' as an 

 appellation of fcorn ; fince, if his perfbn 

 was huge, and his manners pompous and 

 violent, fo were his talents vaft and power- 

 ful, in a degree from which only prejudice 

 and refentment could withhold refpecT:. 



Though Dr. Darwin's hefitation in fpeak- 

 ing precluded his flow of colloquial elo- 

 quence, it did not impede, or at all leflen, the 

 force of that concifer quality, wit. Of fa- 

 tiric wit he poffeffed a very peculiar fpecies. 

 It was neither the dead-doing broadfide of 

 Dr. Johnfon's fatire, nor the aurora borealis 

 of Gray, whofe arch, yet coy and quiet 



faftidi- 



