JOHNSON. 65 



and it was somewhat disrespectful to their dupes : his 

 unqualified opinion remained unrefuted ; his arguments 

 are to this day unanswered, and the believers found it 

 more easy to rail at him than to refute. But though the 

 work cannot be charged with unfairness or even with 

 prejudice, it must be admitted to be superficial and even 

 flimsy. Less entertaining than most books of travels, it 

 is solemn about trifles, and stately without excuse, so 

 as not rarely to provoke a smile, at the disproportion 

 between the sound and the sense. He has himself in the 

 concluding sentence of the book, very fairly stated the 

 reason why his remarks must needs have little value, his 

 inquiries be imperfect, and his wonder often misplaced ; 

 only that his want of information, which he confines to 

 national manners, is pretty generally apparent on all the 

 subjects he touches upon. " Novelty and ignorance must 

 always be reciprocal, and I cannot but be conscious that 

 my thoughts on national manners are the thoughts of one 

 who has seen but little." 



We have now considered all his prose writings, except 

 the 'Lives of the Poets' his greatest and best. The 

 design of publishing a good and full edition of the English 

 Poets, had been formed by the booksellers in the year 

 1777, and they asked him to give a short life and 

 criticism, by way of preface, to each. They were to 

 choose the poets, and he was to write upon each one thus 

 selected. He at once agreed, and being desired to name 

 his price, very modestly fixed on 200/. ; but they gave 

 him 300/. He was afterwards allowed to recommend 

 the insertion of a few other lives : and it seems well to 

 have justified their being themselves the selectors, that 

 the four whom he added were Blackmore, Watts, Pom- 



