fect the common weal, throw a shade of opprobrium on the legislature of the country.

The wickedness of a loose or profane author is more atrocious than that of the giddy libertine, or drunken ravisher, not only because it extends its effects wider, as a pestilence that taints the air is more destructive than poison infused in a draught, but because it is committed with cool deliberation. By the instantaneous violence of desire, a good man may sometimes be surprized before reflection can come to his rescue; when the appetites have strengthened their influence by habit, they are not easily resisted or suppressed; but for the frigid villainy of studious lewdness, for the calm malignity of laboured impiety, what apology can be invented? What punishcan be adequate to the crime of him who retires to solitude for the refinement of debauchery; who tortures his fancy and ransacks his memory only that he may leave the world less virtuous than he found it; that he may intercept the hopes of the rising generation, and spread

ment can be

snares

snares for the soul with more dexterity....... If, having extinguished in themselves the distinction of right and wrong, they were insensible of the mischief which they promoted, they deserved to be hunted down by the general com-" pact as no longer partaking of social nature; if influenced by the corruption of patrons or readers, they sacrificed their own convictions to vanity or interest, they were to be abhorred with more acrimony than he that murders for pay; since they committed greater crimes without greater temptations

Surely none can think without horror on that man's condition, who has been more wicked in proportion as he had more means of excelling in virtue, and used the light imparted from heaven only to embellish folly, and shed lusture upon crimes."

Apart from a moral consideration I would recommend the three papers (86, 88, 90,) on Milton, as an elegant specimen of criticism, and greatly divested of that ill nature which distinguished his subsequent remarks. He has deter

mined

mined with great precision wherein the true harmony of the English poetry consists, and has considered the versification of Milton with great judgment. These papers are indeed a valuable accession to literary criticism.

Innumerable are the beauties of this work which might be noticed; but it would be in some measure idle; for where is the person who lays any claim to learning that has not read the Rambler of Johnson? The History of Anningait and Ajut is pleasing; and the concluding paper is a noble specimen of literary magnanimity; in which the author disclaims all protection or favour during the progress of his work, and anticipates censure by a firm avowal, that he sought only the advancement of morality, and “that he shall never envy the honours which wit and learning obtain in any other cause, if he can be numbered among the writers who have given ardour to virtue and confidence to truth."

The capacious powers of Johnson's mind are, indeed, truly astonishing. He confesses that the number of his friends

were

were never great during the publication

属

of his Rambler. Yet he says there were "such as would as would not suffer him to

,、,

think he was writing in vain." Two hundred and eight papers comprize this

work and he discharges all the favours he received by the acknowledgement of six out of this number. The rest were all the offspring of his own intellect; and nearly the whole of these are original: there are perhaps some few exceptions*.

When we reflect on this, does not the boasted fecundity of Addison shrink into a smaller circle? and do not the powers of his mind fade before the regular and sublime genius of Johnson? Great re

spect

* The rapidity with which he composed was truly astonishing. He used to affirm that he would sometimes begin to write a sermon after dinner, and send it off by the post of that night.

"I wrote forty eight of the printed octavo pages of the Life of Savage at a sitting; but then I sat up all night. † I have also written six sheets in a day of translation from the French." Boswell's Journal, page 55.

This extreme facility however he used justly to consider as the effect of habit. Many of his papers in the Rambler were written in the midst of conversation and company. Sir Joshua Reynolds one day observing this, asked him, how be could possibly arrange his ideas, or be sufficiently abstracted as to compose at such periods ? "Oh, Sir, he replied, it is quite mechanical."

+ The whole Life it is related was finished in thirty-six hours.

spect and veneration are due to the writings of Addison; but far greater to those of Johnson. Indeed they will hardly admit of comparison. Johnson possessed powers unattainable by Addison ; and Addison moved in a circle where Johnson could not approach. Addison is gay and lively; Johnson grave and sententious. Addison is sometimes trifling; Johnson is always uniform. Addison is seldom more than pleasing; Johnson is often sublime ;* the language of Addison is pure and simple; that of Johnson's is nervous and elegant; Addison's is equable, and never offends by its harshness; Johnson's is sometimes rugged and pedantic; Addison is never affecting; Johnson

There is an inexpressible grandeur in the following passage. Many others might be produced, but this shall suffice :

"If those, who pass their days in plenty and security, could visit for an hour the diurnal receptacles to which the prostitute retires from her nocturnal excursions, and see the wretches that lie crowded together, mad with intemperance, ghastly with famine, nauseous with filth, and noisome with disease, it would not be easy for any degree of abhorrence to harden them against compassion, or to repress the desire which they must immediately feel to rescue such numbers of human beings from a state so dreadful."