54 JOHNSON. 



merciless execution of Soame Jenyns, the art of periodical 

 criticism being only of late cultivated, nothing can be 

 found to match it at the beginning of the century, if it 

 be not some of the unmeasured attacks of the Scriblerus 

 school upon their humble adversaries. 



We are thus naturally led to speak of Johnson's poli- 

 tical principles. They were uniformly and steadily those 

 of a high tory in Church and State. He was of a 

 Jacobite family, and he never laid aside his good wishes 

 towards the Stuart family ; but when the madness of 

 1745, and the subsequent carelessness, ingratitude, and 

 sottish life of the Pretender had extinguished all hopes 

 among his followers, the strong opinions in favour of 

 prerogative, the hatred of the Whig party, and his dis- 

 trust, indeed dislike, of all popular courses, remained as 

 abiding parts of Johnson's faith and of his feelings on 

 political subjects. But his Jacobite opinions also re- 

 mained as regarded the history of the past both in regard 

 to persons and things. He had the greatest admiration 

 and even esteem for Charles II., whose licentious life he 

 was forced to allow ; but he declared him to be the best 

 king, excepting James II., that had appeared between 

 the Restoration and the accession of George III. Wil- 

 liam III. he could not endure, and openly called him 

 "one of the most worthless scoundrels that ever existed," 

 (Bos., II. 353.) He, of course, had in his eye the family 

 connexion of that illustrious prince with James. There 

 was no abuse he did not lavish on George II., and in his 

 father he could only find one virtue, that he wished to 

 restore the exiled family, whose merits in Johnson's eyes 

 were plainly the origin of all these violent and absurd 

 opinions. In other respects, however, he was no enemy 



