JOHNSON. 51 



most unsuited to the occasion. Like Addison and Steele, 

 he must needs give many letters from correspondents by 

 way of variety ; but these all write in the same language, 

 how unlike soever their characters. So that anything less 

 successful in varying the uniformity of the book, or any- 

 thing less resembling the lightness, the graces, the elo- 

 quent and witty simplicity of the great masters, can 

 hardly be imagined. Thus we not only find maiden 

 ladies, like Tranquilla, describing themselves as " having 

 danced the round of gaiety amidst the murmurs of envy 

 and the gratulations of applause ; attended from pleasure 

 to pleasure by the great, the sprightly, and the vain ; 

 their regard solicited by the obsequiousness of gallantry, 

 the gaiety of wit, and the timidity of love ;" and spoilt 

 beauties, like Victoria, "whose bosom was rubbed with 

 a pomade, of virtue to discuss pimples and clear dis- 

 colorations ;" but we have Bellaria, at fifteen, and 

 hating books, who "distinguishes the glitter of vanity 

 from the solid merit of understanding/' and describes her 

 guardians as telling her, but telling her in vain, "that 

 reading would fill up the vacuities of life, without the help 

 of silly or dangerous amusements, and preserve from the 

 snares of idleness and the inroads of temptation ;" and 

 Myrtella, at sixteen, who had "learnt all the common 

 rules of decent behaviour and standing maxims of 

 domestic prudence/' till Flavia came down to the village, 

 " at once easy and officious, attentive and unembarrassed," 

 when a struggle commenced with the old aunt, who found 

 *' girls grown too wise and too stubborn to be commanded, 

 but was resolved to try who should govern, and would 

 thwart her mere humour till she broke her spirit/' 



Ponderous as such levities are after the 'Spectator' 



E 2 



