78 JOHNSON. 



Of Johnson's Latin verses it remains to speak, and 

 they assuredly do not rise to the level of his English, nor 

 indeed above mediocrity. The translation of Pope's 

 'Messiah/ however, a work of his boyhood, gave a 

 promise not fulfilled in his riper years. His not unfre- 

 quent efforts in this line are neither distinguished by 

 the value of the matter nor the felicity of the diction; 

 nor is he always correct in his quantity. Such offences 

 as 'Littera Skaise,' for an Adonian in his Sapphics to 

 'Thralia dulcis,' would have called down his severe cen- 

 sure on any luckless wight of Paris, or of Edinburgh, 

 who should peradventure have perpetrated them ; nor 

 would his being the countryman of Polignac, or of by 

 far the finest of modern Latinists, Buchanan, have ope- 

 rated except as an aggravation of the fault'*. 



It remains to consider Johnson's personal character 

 and habits. Nor can we here avoid, first of all, attend- 

 ing to the rank which he held among those who either 

 cultivate conversation as an art, or indulge in it as a 

 relaxation, both pleasing and useful, from severer occu- 

 pations. That there have been others who shone more 

 in society both as instructive and as amusing^ompanions, 

 is certain. Swift's range was confined, but within its 

 limits he must have been very great. Addison, with an 

 extremely small circle, has left a great reputation in this 

 kind. Steele was probably more various and more lively, 

 though less delightful. But Bolingbroke's superiority to 

 all others cannot be doubted; and nearer our times 

 Burke could hardly be surpassed, though his refinement 



* Variabilis was always objected to by Parr, and it is not of pure 

 Latinity, though to be found, I believe, in Apuleius, a mean 

 authority. 



