DR. ERASMUS DARWIN'S LIFE. 1 85 



sunk in servile silence under the force of his dogmas, 

 when their hearts and their judgments bore contrary 

 testimony. 



" Certainly, however, it was an arduous hazard to the 

 feelings of the company to oppose in the slightest degree 

 Dr. Johnson's opinions. His stentor lungs; that com- 

 bination of wit, humour, and eloquence, which * could 

 make the worse appear the heitm- reason,' that sarcastic 

 contempt of his antagonist, never suppressed or even 

 softened by the due restraints of good breeding, were 

 sufficient to close the lips in his presence, of men who 

 could have met him in fair argument, on any ground, 

 literary or political, moral or characteristic. 



" Where Dr. Johnson was. Dr. Darwin had no chance 

 of being heard, though at least his equal in genius, his 

 superior in science ; nor, indeed, from his impeded 

 utterance, in the company of any overbearing de- 

 claimer ; and he was too intellectually great to be an 

 humble listener to Johnson. Therefore he shunned 

 him on having experienced what manner of man he 

 was. The surly dictator felt the mortification, and 

 revenged it by affecting to avow his disdain of powers 

 too distinguished to be objects of genmne scorn, 



" Dr. Darwin, in his turn, was not mucli more just to 

 Dr. Johnson's genius. He uniformly spoke of him jn 

 terms which, had they been deserved, would have 

 justified Churchill's ' immane Pomposo'as an appellation 

 of scorn ; since if his person was huge, and his manners 

 pompous and violent, so were his talents vast and 

 powerful, in a degree from which only prejudice and 

 resentment could withhold respect. 



