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his own manners, was perhaps too delicately sensitive of the roughness which sometimes appeared in Johnson's behavior. One evening about this time, when his lordship did me the honor to sup at my lodgings with Dr. Robertson and several other men of literary distinction, he regretted that Johnson had not been educated with more refinement, and lived more in polished society. "No, no, my lord," said Signor Baretti, "do with him what you would, he would always have been a bear." "True," answered the Earl, with a smile, "but he would have been a dancing bear." To obviate all the reflections which have gone round the world to Johnson's prejudice by applying to him the epithet of a bear, let me impress upon my readers a just and happy saying of my friend Goldsmith, who knew him well: "Johnson, to be sure, has a roughness in his manner; but no man alive has a more tender heart. He has nothing of the bear but his skin."-Boswell.

HIS MERITS OUTWEIGHED HIS DEFECTS.-I pretend not to vindicate his temper, nor to justify his manners; but his many essential virtues and excellences made all who were much connected with him rather grieve at his defects than resent them.-Madame D'Arblay.

AMIABILITY.I knew him well, respected him highly, loved him sincerely. It was never my chance to see him in those moments of moroseness and ill-humor which are imputed to him, perhaps with truth; for who would slander him? But I am not warranted by any experience of those humors to speak of him otherwise than of a friend, who always met me with kindness, and from whom I never separated without regret. When I sought his company, he had no capricious excuses for withholding it, but lent himself to every invitation with cordiality, and brought good-humor with him that gave life to the circle he was in.—Richard Cumberland.

A VIEW OF HIS Rudeness.—That Dr. Johnson possessed the essential principles of politeness and good taste none who knew his virtues and his genius will, I imagine, be disposed to dispute. But why they remained with him, like gold in the ore, unfashioned and unseen, except in his literary capacity, no person that I know of has made any inquiry, though in general it has been spoken of as an unaccountable inconsistency in his character. Much, too, may be said in excuse for an apparent asperity of manners which was, at times at least, the natural effect of those inherent mental infirmities to which he was subject. His corporeal defects also contributed largely to the singularity of his manners; and a little reflection on the disqualifying influence of blindness and deafness would suggest many apologies for Dr. Johnson's want of politeness. The particular instance I have just mentioned, of his inability to discriminate the features of any one's face, deserves, perhaps more than any other, to be taken into consideration, wanting, as he did, the aid of those intellectual signs, or insinuations, which the countenance displays in social converse, and which in their slightest degree influence and regulate the manners of the polite, or even the common, observer. And to his defective hearing, perhaps, his unaccommodating manners may be equally ascribed, which not only precluded him from the perception of the expressive tones of the voice of others, but from hearing the boisterous sound of his own. And nothing, I believe, more conduced to fix upon his character the general stigma of ill-breeding than his loud, imperious tone of voice, which apparently heightened the slightest dissent to a tone of harsh reproof, and, with his corresponding aspect, had an intimidating influence on those who were not much acquainted with him, and excited a degree of resentment which his words in ordinary circumstances would not have provoked. I have often heard him on such occasions express great surprise that what he had said could have given any offence.-Miss Reynolds.

GENERAL VIEW OF JOHNSON'S CHARACTER.

MAN is, in general, made up of contradictory qualities; and these will ever show themselves in strange succession where a consistency in appearance at least, if not reality, has not been attained by long habits of philosophical discipline. In proportion to the native vigor of the mind, the contradictory qualities will be the more prominent, and more difficult to be adjusted, and therefore we are not to wonder that Johnson exhibited an eminent example of this remark which I have made upon human nature. At different times he seemed a different man, in some respects; not, however, in any great or essential article, upon which he had fully employed his mind, and settled certain principles of duty, but only in his manners, and in the display of argument and fancy in his talk. He was prone to superstition, but not to credulity. Though his imagination might incline him to a belief of the marvellous and the mysterious, his vigorous reason examined the evidence with jealousy. He was a sincere and zealous Christian, of High-Church of England and monarchical principles, which he would not tamely suffer to be questioned, and had, perhaps, at an early period narrowed his mind somewhat too much, both as to religion and politics. His being impressed with the danger of extreme latitude in either, though he was of a very independent spirit, occasioned his appearing somewhat unfavorable to the prevalence of that noble freedom of sentiment which is the best possession of man. Nor can it be denied that he had many prejudices, which, however, frequently suggested many of his pointed sayings, that rather show a playfulness of fancy than any settled malignity. He was steady and inflexible in maintaining the obligations of religion and morality, both from a regard for the order of society and from a veneration for the Great Source of all order; correct, nay, stern, in his taste; hard to please, and easily offended; impetuous and irritable in his temper, but of a most humane and benevolent

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heart, which showed itself not only in a most liberal charity, as far as his circumstances would allow, but in a thousand instances of active benevolence. He was afflicted with a bodily disease which made him often restless and fretful, and with a constitutional melancholy the clouds of which darkened the brightness of his fancy and gave a gloomy cast to his whole course of thinking. We therefore ought not to wonder at his sallies of impatience and passion at any time, especially when provoked by obtrusive ignorance or presuming petulance; and allowance must be made for his uttering hasty and satirical sallies even against his best friends. And surely, when it is considered that "amidst sickness and sorrow he exerted his faculties in so many works for the benefit of mankind, and particularly that he achieved the great and admirable Dictionary of our language, we must be astonished at his resolution. The solemn text, "Of him to whom much is given much will be required," seems to have been ever present to his mind in a rigorous sense, and to have made him dissatisfied with his labors and acts of goodness, however comparatively great; so that the unavoidable consciousness of his superiority was, in that respect, a cause of disquiet. He suffered so much from this, and from the gloom which perpetually haunted him and made solitude frightful, that it may be said of him, “If in this life only he had hope, he was of all men most miserable." He loved praise when it was brought to him, but was too proud to seek for it. He was somewhat susceptible of flattery. As he was general and unconfined in his studies, he cannot be considered as master of any one particular science; but he had accumulated a vast and various collection of learning and knowledge, which was so arranged in his mind as to be ever in readiness to be brought forth. But his superiority over other learned men consisted chiefly in what may be called the art of thinking, the art of using his mind, a certain continual power of seizing the useful substance of all that he knew and exhibiting it in a clear and

forcible manner; so that knowledge which we often see to be no better than lumber in men of dull understanding was in him true, evident, and actual wisdom. His moral precepts are practical, for they are drawn from an intimate acquaintance with human nature. His maxims carry conviction, for they are founded on the basis of common-sense and a very attentive and minute survey of real life. His mind was so full of imagery that he might have been perpetually a poet; yet it is remarkable that however rich his prose is in this respect, his poetical pieces in general have not much of that splendor, but are rather distinguished by strong sentiment and acute observation, conveyed in harmonious and energetic verse, particularly in heroic couplets. Though usually grave, and even awful, in his deportment, he possessed uncommon and peculiar powers of wit and humor; he frequently indulged himself in colloquial pleasantry, and the heartiest merriment was often enjoyed in his company, with this great advantage, that it was entirely free from any poisonous tincture of vice or impiety: it was salutary to those who shared in it. He had accustomed himself to such accuracy in his common conversation that he at all times expressed his thoughts with great force and an elegant choice of language, the effect of which was aided by his having a loud voice and a slow, deliberate utterance. In him were united a most logical head with a most fertile imagination, which gave him an extraordinary advantage in arguing, for he could reason close or wide as he saw best for the moment. Exulting in his intellectual strength and dexterity, he could when he pleased be the greatest sophist that ever contended in the lists of declamation; and, from a spirit of contradiction and a delight in showing his powers, he would often maintain the wrong side with equal warmth and ingenuity; so that when there was an audience, his real opinions could seldom be gathered from his talk, though when he was in company with a single friend he would discuss a subject with genuine fairness; but he was too conscientious to make

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