JOHNSON. 53 



The pamphlets and other occasional tracts of this emi- 

 nent writer are of a far higher merit than his ' Moral 

 Essays;' and they are so much the more excellent, 

 because they are occasional. The subject is either the 

 attack or the defence, sometimes both combined, of some 

 opinions, some measures, some men. The singularly 

 polemical powers of the author's mind his controversial 

 propensities his talent for pointed writing and for decla- 

 mation, relieved by epigram his power of sarcasm, and 

 disposition to indulge in it his plain, common sense 

 way of viewing every subject and his short, downright, 

 fearless way of handling it, fitted him for such contests 

 beyond almost any one who ever engaged in them ; and 

 he had the advantage of writing at a time when the 

 conduct of both political and literary warfare was in the 

 hands of men little capable of able or even of correct 

 writing, and when, except the writings of Junius, and of 

 Burke, and perhaps of Wflkes, nothing had appeared 

 which preferred even a moderate claim to the approval 

 of well informed readers. The American pamphlet, 

 ' Taxation no Tyranny/ and the review of Soame Jenyns' 

 treatise ' On the Origin of Evil,' were soon distinguished 

 as the productions of a very superior pen to any before 

 known, at least to any known since the Addisons, the 

 Swifts, and the Steeles took a part in the labours of the 

 ephemeral press. Nor are there any of the Craftsmen 

 and the Examiners equal, upon the whole, in merit to 

 the pamphlets of Johnson, taking all the qualities re- 

 quired in such works into the account, though, doubt- 

 less, the exquisite wit of both Addison and Swift has a 

 lightness and a flavour which we in vain look for in the 

 works of their more stately successor ; while, as for the 



