THE

BRITISH MAGAZINE.

MAY 1, 1839.

ORIGINAL PAPERS.

DR. JOHNSON.

THE republic of letters is a community exposed to constant changes of government. It presents at different times the appearance of a wild democracy, of a stern oligarchy, of a stringent despotism. When the minds of men in general are awake and active, when they are hurrying headlong into new fields of knowledge, and are engaging in fresh pursuits without concert or subordination, literature is a democracy, exhibiting all the energy and vices of that form of polity-adventurous, original, independent, but at the same time rash, extravagant, unchastised, and always rapidly tending to the repose offered by more settled rule. When society has advanced in manners, institutions, and intelligence, when individuals regularly fall into prescribed stations, and the various branches of knowledge are cultivated almost exclusively by professional men, literature presents the image of an aristocracy. But let a man of unusually powerful parts or genius arise, who, by his surpassing talents, or from his being the representative of opinions or feelings to which the age is already disposed, becomes an object of general attention; and it frequently happens that he is lifted by his comrades to the seat of empire, and hailed by the acclamations of the multitude as the monarch of literature. Such, indeed, is the natural disposition of mankind to subordination, and such the force of superior minds, that though the whole realm of letters has rarely been. united under one man, its various departments and provinces are usually subject to a single master.

The establishment of a literary monarchy has perhaps in most instances been effected by violence and faction, and has often been characterized by the worst features of an act of usurpation. Yet it has not unfrequently been introduced by unexceptionable means, and has sometimes exercised a most favourable influence on the interests of mankind. The dictatorship enabled Cincinnatus and Fabius to save, though it was abused by Sylla and Cæsar to destroy, their country. VOL. XV.-May, 1839. 3 R

The malignant effects of the influence exercised in France by Voltaire were scarcely more remarkable than the happy results which in England attended the literary supremacy of Dr. Johnson.

The high principles and great abilities of this eminent man, fostered as they were, and enjoying free scope for their exercise, in our happy institutions, placed him for the last twenty years of his life at the head of English literature. His success was honourable alike to himself and his country. With scarcely a friend, and without a party, he rose, without any adventitious advantages, from the lowest depths of obscurity and indigence to the greatest distinction which can be procured by letters. After having spent the earlier part of his life in attempts to gain a scanty subsistence, when the royal bounty had placed him in easier circumstances, in spite of uncouth manners and a rough and independent bearing, he became the companion of nobles and senators, and dictated the laws of morals and criticism in the intellectual circles of our metropolis.

In power and independence he pursued the course which he had followed in obscurity and poverty. At the splendid tables and in the brilliant circles to which he was admitted in his latter years, he asserted the same truths, and maintained the same opinions on the great points of life and literature, as he had defended when his lot was very different. He was conscious of his vocation. It was a noble one. He was called by. Providence to bear his testimony to the principles which alone could enable his country to weather the greatest storm which ever agitated the world. Some may think that he enunciated them in a form somewhat exaggerated. But if England had not been under the influence of a respect for religion and royalty, which calcu lating men might sneer at as superstitious, she would scarcely have escaped the convulsion which devastated France.

More than fifty years have now elapsed since the death of Dr. Johnson. The interval has been filled with great events, and by nearly two generations of men of letters. The progress of society in the meantime has been unusually rapid. The tumult of war and change has torn us from our ancestors; and in fifty years the world has, as it were, lived a century. The consequence is, that we think very little of what immediately preceded the mighty events which are even still in the course of development. Material and visible changes engage more of our attention than the subtile and delicate influences which form the bond of union between the past and the present, and serve to perpetuate national identity. But rightly to estimate any particular period, we must always make due allowance for these secret or less obvious causes. After all the great events which have been crowded into the last fifty years, we cannot duly estimate our present position without taking into account the influence which was exercised upon English society and literature by Dr. Johnson.

The admiration with which Johnson was regarded by his contemporaries has long given place to a very different view of his merits. It has of late become the fashion to depreciate and despise him. He has been ridiculed as a vulgar pedant, and a narrowminded bigot. His style has become almost a byword for what is

laboured and pompous. His criticisms have been pointed at as exhibiting the very dotage of an obsolete school. His works have been represented as destitute of taste and feeling, and as burying good sense and truth under a load of verbose formality,

It is not the object of the writer of this paper to undertake the advocacy of Johnson, or even to attempt an estimate of his intellectual and literary character. In the study of the writers of a very different school, he has become abundantly sensible of his faults and deficiencies. He is willing to admit that the extravagant estimate formed of him by his contemporaries was characteristic of the state of things which prevailed at the period, and that his criticisms and learning could only be admired by a formal and superficial age. He is well aware that much of his direct influence is gone, since the great German critics have discovered the true philosophy of literature, and given better views of the principles of art and criticism than were ever taught by the modern classical schools. But he would have justice done him for what he effected among his contemporaries, and for what we ought to acknowledge ourselves indebted to him even now. In directing attention to undoubted historical facts, he will be rendering the highest praise to the memory of Johnson.

To those who have been in the habit of regarding Johnson as having corrupted our language by his free use of words of Latin origin, it may seem strange to represent him as the writer who first rendered the English tongue perfectly correct and grammatical. Yet this was most certainly the fact. Poetry with us, as among every other people, was correct and elegant, when prose was scarcely cultivated at all; and we had undoubtedly great models of prose from an early period of our literature; but Englishmen generally wrote loosely and ungrammatically, and some of our most eminent authors were in their style negligent and inaccurate, till the middle of the last century. Johnson effected a complete and permanent reform. His extreme accuracy banished solecisms and vulgarisms from the written language of his country. And from his time negligence in composition has been regarded as a proof of vulgarity and ignorance. No one will consider this as a small service, who duly estimates the connexion which must always subsist between language and manners.

This was not the only service which he rendered to our literature; but his services in matters of literature and philology are of small account, when compared with the influence which he exercised upon the state of English society and morals. We have had no man of letters who has contributed in anything like the same degree to improve the national character. The political convulsions of the seventeenth century had produced a most injurious effect on the public morals. The reign of puritanism had been followed by a dreadful reaction. Freethinkers, politicians, and latitudinarians had brought about a melancholy relaxation of principles and manners; and the earlier part of the eighteenth century was a period of general profligacy. The most successful works of our literature were, with a few admirable exceptions, sceptical and licentious. Literature appeared to be entirely dissociated from religion. All classes were more or less

infected with gross vices. There was no earnest attention given to great principles; the most exciting and awful subjects were treated with coldness and levity. As the century advanced, there was a manifest improvement. There was still little real philosophy, little originality, or deep feeling; but men became more serious and regular, more thoughtful and reflecting, more willing to attend to and examine serious subjects. And yet this was the very period when an opposite process was going on elsewhere. France was becoming infidel, and a spirit of profane scepticism was spreading over all the rest of Europe.

This memorable result was chiefly due to the influence of Johnson. It was he who reclaimed the truant spirit of literature, and brought her back to the service of religion. He formed a link between the world and the church. Even the admirable example of George the Third would, as far as we can calculate, have operated much less beneficially, if the great principles of morality and religion had not been maintained, and vice and profaneness rebuked, by this great man. The author of "Rasselas" and "The Rambler" must have exerted a powerful influence upon mankind if he had been a retired student. But it was not merely, or chiefly, as a writer that Johnson acted upon his generation, and, through his generation, upon posterity. His great conversational powers rendered him an object of respect and attention to people who would not have been affected by books. His eccentricities made him an object of curiosity. He was universally courted and listened to. Wherever he came, he inculcated his principles. He put down what was noxious with a high hand. Vice and sophistry cowered before the modern Socrates. His vigorous and eloquent talk purified and elevated the minds of his hearers. Filthy communication and profane swearing, which had so long been the disgrace of English society, fled from his presence. Every company which he entered became a school of morals.

We still feel the effects of his influence, though his reputation has decayed. It is thus the world treats its benefactors. These few words are written by one who reveres his character, and who would have it estimated as it deserves. This, therefore, is not the place for qualification or complaint. It is not the time to point out the deficiencies of his moral system, or to shew how that love of society which led him so much into the world acted injuriously upon his own character, and led him to take up with views which came far short of the purity and elevation of Christian morals. He taught all he knew. We have to be thankful that he was brought to know so much. His vocation did not extend further. What is highest and holiest cannot profitably or safely be exposed indiscriminately to all. Pearls must not be cast before swine. His was an honourable duty. If any in these times are called to a duty still more honourable, let them not forget that he has made it easier for them to perform it. The unclean spirit must be cast out, and the man be brought to his right mind, before the soul is in a state to receive the deep things of the gospel.

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THE WALDENSES AND ALBIGENSES.

NO. II.

WERE THESE ONLY DIFFERENT NAMES FOR THE SAME PERSONS?

It is obvious that one of the most important points to settle about the Waldenses and Albigenses is this-Whether they were two distinct sects, or one sect under different names?

It seems very strange that, after all the noise which they have made in the world, and the volumes which have been written about them, such a question should still remain. Indeed, in one sense, it does not remain; there is no question about the matter; it has been decided both ways. The old writers, whom there is more or less pretence for calling contemporaries, clearly supposed them to be two sects; modern popular writers are almost unanimously of opinion that they were one.*

The reason of this is very clear, and has already been hinted at. He who knows not what to say when he is asked, "Where was your religion before Luther?" will be equally at a loss when asked, "Where was your religion before Waldo ?" and therefore it is very necessary (if I may so speak) to weld the one sect on to the other, in order to obtain an indefinite antiquity and obscurity of origin, instead of the annoying certainty that Peter Waldo did not live till after the middle of the twelfth century. How this is managed, and by what means the two sects are made out to have been one, may be the subject of future discussion; at present, my object is rather to state the plain facts of the case, and the plain inference to be drawn from them, than the means by which a dispute has been got up, or the way in which it has been carried on. It is a most important part of church-history, and one which, if party had not interfered, would have been as clear as it is instructive in itself, and illustrative of the whole history of heresy.

As to the Albigenses, the facts which we gather from the most original sources which are accessible seem to be these:-In the beginning of the eleventh century, Manichæan heresy was detected, at least it was asserted that it existed, in France. It does not appear that any such charge had been brought against any individual whatever in that part of the world for centuries. It seems impossible to account for the report of what those who record it call a new and unheard-of heresy, except by supposing it true. Why should it not be? Nobody doubts that there had been plenty of Manichæans in other times, at other places; and why not then in France? It is a mere suggestion of ignorance that "Manichæan" was a nickname of abuse; but if it were otherwise, it is to be observed that most of the writers from whom

Of course the reader will not understand me to speak of Romish writers, nor of men of real learning and research among protestants, such as Mosheim, Fabricius, Hallam, and others who have had occasion to mention these sects, but of their professed historians and apologists, Perrin, Morland, Leger, Basnage, and the writers who have followed them.