1 8 Prosscr Hall Fryc 



Johnsonese. Invariably direct, idiomatic, and incisive in his talk, 

 in his writing he was equally as involved, ponderous, and round- 

 about. "When we were taken upstairs," he writes to Mrs. Thrale 

 in one of his letters from the Hebrides, "a dirty fellow bounced 

 out of the bed in which one of us was to lie." In his published 

 account of the incident as it appears in the Journey to the Heb- 

 rides the sentence has been transmuted thus: "Out of one of 

 the beds, on which we were to repose, started up at our entrance, 

 a man black as a Cyclops from the forge." Of Buckingham's 

 Rehearsal he is said to have remarked that it had not wit enough 

 to keep it sweet, adding after a moment, "It has not vitality 

 enough to preserve it from putrefaction." 



In spite of the perplexity which this procedure of his seems to 

 have caused the critics, wdio are never weary of protesting their 

 amazement that the same man should talk so straight and write 

 so crooked and of fabricating ingenious explanations to account 

 for the mystery, it is perfectly evident what Johnson was driving 

 at. It is perfectly evident in the first place that he drew a very 

 sharp distinction between talk and literary prose. And it is 

 equally evident that he was doing his best to raise that prose from 

 the colloquialism into which it had fallen, and to give it another 

 excellence than that of conversation. In this purpose of enlarg- 

 ing and deepening the content of English prose he was frequently 

 unsuccessful ; occasionally, however, he does succeed — at least 

 nearly enough to indicate his intention and suggest the idea to 

 others. And as his contribution to English prose has never been 

 accurately defined or liberally appreciated, it may be w^orth while 

 to quote at length a significant passage. He is commenting on 

 the remark attributed to Milton that "his vein never happily 

 flowed but from the autumnal equinox to the vernal." 



"This dependence of the soul upon the seasons, those temporary and 

 periodical ebbs and flows of intellect, may, I suppose, justly be derided 

 as the fumes of vain imagination. Sapicits dominahitur astris. The author 

 that thinks himself weather-bound will find, with a little help from helle- 

 bore, tliat lie is only idle or exhausted. But while tliis notion has pos- 

 session of the head, it produces the inability which it supposes. Our pow- 

 ers owe much of tiicir energy to our hopes; f>ossuiit quia 7'idcntiir. When 

 success seems attainalilc. diligence is enforced; l)ut when it is admitted 



IS 



