Johnson is often highly pathetic ;* Addison displays no irregular flights, no sudden inspirations; Johnson rises with his subject, and frequently towers into sublimity; Addison exhibits more learning than Johnson; Johnson manifests more natural vigour of intellect; finally, the writings of Addison are less read and less remembered than those of Johnson, which are in every body's hands, and are for ever quoted.

1

Those who do not lie under the influence of a name, and those whose judgments are free from bigotry, will find this parallel just. I venerate the name of Addison, and regard him as a glory to his country; but a long acquaintance with his writings, and those of Johnson, and an impartial estimate of their respective merits incline me to award the preference to the latter for the reasons above stated.

To

* There is something pleasingly pathetic in the following remarks;

"In spring the heart of tranquility dances to the melody of the groves, and the eye of benevolence sparkles at the sight of happiness and plenty; in the winter compassion melts at universal calamity, and the tear of softness starts at the wailings of hunger, and the cries of the creation in distress."

To the Rambler only one objection can be preferred, and that indeed is rather a weighty one. The pictures of life which it contains are always false. They are the monstrous distortions of prejudice, which bear no resemblance to any thing existing; they are the phantoms of a morbid mind, exhibiting no traces of reality. This, in my opinion, greatly disqualifies the work for the hands of youth. Innumerable are the effects which they might produce on the ductile minds of juvenescence*, when the principles are beginning to assume consistency, and the judgment to corroborate opinions.

In the morn

And liquid dew of life contagious
Blastments are most imminent.

SHAKESPEARE.

This is indeed a time when the fancy being active, and the intellect vigorous, and eager after novelty, impressions are received which subsequent experience can rarely eradicate. It is then that amuse

ments

* This word is not, I believe, authorised by any precedent,

bat I consider it as unexceptionable.

ments often grow into habits, and these again not unfrequently become principles of action. The mind being thus pliant, and naturally charmed with what is contrary to common observation, or what is in itself surprising or affecting, it is easy to conjecture what fatal prejudices might be engendered by a too early initiation into the persuasive eloquence of Johnson. It is natural to regard that as true which experience does not contradict, and that which is acknowledged to be just will always have a power which few are willing to oppose. This influence may be justly dreaded from those delineations of Johnson which are to be found in his Rambler, and some other. of his writings. In short, considered as a moral production, and as a system of ethics by which we ought to regulate our actions, and estimate their rectitude or obliquity, it is an inestimable work, but if considered as a faithful picture of life and manners, and an impartial examination of the felicity and infelicity of existence, it will be found abundant in error, clouded with prejudice, and in a great degree

degree visionary and declamatory; and hence a most unfit book to be put in the hands of contemplative youth, unless first weeded of these impurities.*

In

The following judicious remarks on the constitutional melancholy of this writer, I shall do myself the pleasure of transcribing, and I trust they will prove acceptable to my readers.

"As he failed to meet with happiness in the rough paths in which he was compelled to remain, he considered all other passages through our existence as equally impeded by labour and sorrow. In the mist which poverty raised around him, he saw darkly; and those eminences, whose tops were surrounded with a purer air, and more genial atmosphere, were hidden from his sight; when therefore he came forth as a moral writer, his step was indeed vigorous and full of majesty; his demeanour manly and impressive. But dark clouds invested the visage of this great philosopher, and the thunder of his voice was heard with gloomy awe. His readers beheld him with the same dismay with which the sailors of Columbus surveyed the cloud-capped genius of the Cape; they dropped their oars in listless fear, and the whole face of the ocean was darkened by this terrific appearance. The sublime mind of Camoens could fancy the vast Atlantic lulled into a dead calm by the presence of this dæmon of terror; and a sensation not dissimilar to this is effected by the not less formidable and gigantic appearance of Johnson rising in the moral world. He warns those who attempt to navigate the broad ocean of life, of dangers which no prudence can prevent, and of sorrows which no degree of philosophy can palliate, and no fortitude sustain. The Prince of Abyssinia, when he quitted the cloudless atmosphere of the happy valley,

F

In this decision I trust I fhall not be deemed irreverent to the immortal name of Johnson. No excellence however great, nor no genius however sublime, ought to deter a man from displaying, with moderation, the evils which sometimes lurk behind the splendour of language and the strength of argument; for these excrescences discovered, and either cut away, or guarded against, impart a stronger ray of majesty to that excellence which they before contaminated. And in detecting

the

valley, finds in his search of public employ, or of general amusement, uniform disgust and disappointment; while his sister in her visits to haunts of private comfort and domestic intercourse, meets only withsus picion, misery, and repentance. In the Vanity of Human Wishes the sorrows of the student are written with such preciseness of detail, that it is said the author himself could not read the melancholy paragraph without an effusion of tears. The papers in the Rambler, in which any views of life are introduced, display the same perturbed imagination, and the vigorous, but gloomy powers of "Dolorous Declamation." These observations, if they be true, though they diminish not the literary talents and uncommon sagacity of Johnson, yet do they introduce a doubt whether the utility of his writings as a moralist may not be questioned. The sea of life must be navigated by the timid and the bold; and he who places an azimuth in the hand of the voyager, performs a more useful as well as more grateful service, than he who alarms his mind with the probability of impending storms, and adds to his natural fears by elaborate descriptions of hidden rocks, and inevitable shipwrecks. Brit. Mag. vol. 1. p. 219.