No More Learning

"Folks say a great deal of generosity, and this one's being
public-sperited, and that one free-handed about giving,” said Mrs.
Crowe, who was a little nervous in the silence.
we can't tell the sorrow it would be to some folks not to give,
same's 'twould be to me not to save. I seem kind of made for
that, as if 'twas what I'd got to do. I should feel sights better
about it if I could make it evident what I was savin' for. If I
had a child, now, Sarah Ann," and her voice was a little husky,
—“if I had a child, I should think I was heapin' of it up because
he was the one trained by the Lord to scatter it again for good.
But here's Crowe and me, we can't do anything with money, and
both of us like to keep things same's they've always been. Now
Priscilla Dance was talking away like a mill-clapper, week before
last. She'd think I would go right off and get one o' them new-
fashioned gilt-and-white papers for the best room, and some new
furniture, an' a marble-top table. And I looked at her, all struck
up. Why,' says I, Priscilla, that nice old velvet paper ain't
hurt a mite. I shouldn't feel 'twas my best room without it.
Dan'el says 'tis the first thing he can remember rubbin' his little
baby fingers on to it, and how splendid he thought them red
roses was. ' I maintain,” continued Mrs. Crowe stoutly, that
folks wastes sights o' good money doin' just such foolish things.
Tearin' out the insides o' meetin'-houses, and fixin' the pews dif-
ferent; 'twas good enough as 'twas, with mendin': then hard times
come, an' they want to put it all back same's 'twas before. ”
This touched upon an exciting subject to active members of
that parish. Miss Binson and Mrs. Crowe belonged to opposite
parties, and had at one time come as near hard feelings as they
could and yet escape them. Each hastened to speak of other
things and to show her untouched friendliness.
"I do agree with you,” said Sister Binson, that few of us
know what use to make of money beyond every-day necessities.
You've seen more o' the world than I have, and know what's


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SARAH ORNE JEWETT
8277
expected. When it comes to taste and judgment about such
things, I ought to defer to others; ” and with this modest avowal
the critical moment passed when there might have been an
improper discussion.
In the silence that followed, the fact of their presence in a
house of death grew more clear than before. There was some-
thing disturbing in the noise of a mouse gnawing at the dry
boards of a closet wall near by. Both the watchers looked up
anxiously at the clock; it was almost the middle of the night,
and the whole world seemed to have left them alone with their
solemn duty. Only the brook was awake.
“Perhaps we might give a look up-stairs now,” whispered
Mrs. Crowe, as if she hoped to hear some reason against their
going just then to the chamber of death; but Sister Binson rose,
with a serious and yet satisfied countenance, and lifted the small
lamp from the table. She was much more used to watching than
Mrs. Crowe, and much less affected by it. They opened the door
into a small entry with a steep stairway; they climbed the creak-
ing stairs, and entered the cold upper room on tiptoe. Mrs.
Crowe's heart began to beat very fast as the lamp was put on a
high bureau, and made long fixed shadows about the walls. She
went hesitatingly toward the solemn shape under its white
drapery, and felt a sense of remonstrance as Sarah Ann gently,
but in a business-like way, turned back the thin sheet.
«Seems to me she looks pleasanter and pleasanter,” whispered
Sarah Ann Binson impulsively, as they gazed at the white face
with its wonderful smile. « To-morrow 'twill all have faded out.
I do believe they kind of wake up a day or two after they
die, and it's then they go. ” She replaced the light covering, and
they both turned quickly away; there was a chill in this upper
room.
« 'Tis a great thing for anybody to have got through, ain't
it ? ” said Mrs. Crowe softly, as she began to go down the stairs
on tiptoe. The warm air from the kitchen beneath met them
with a sense of welcome and shelter.
“I don't know why it is, but I feel as near again to Tempy
down here as I do up there,” replied Sister Binson. "I feel as
if the air was full of her, kind of. I can sense things now and
then that she seems to say. Now I never was one to take up
with no nonsense of sperits and such, but I declare I felt as if
she told me just now to put some more wood into the stove. "
»


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8278
SARAH ORNE JEWETT
Mrs. Crowe preserved a gloomy silence. She had suspected
before this that her companion was of a weaker and more credu-
lous disposition than herself. « 'Tis a great thing to have got
through,” she repeated, ignoring definitely all that had last been
said. “I suppose you know as well as I that Tempy was one
that always feared death. Well, it's all put behind her now; she
knows what 'tis. ” Mrs. Crowe gave a little sigh, and Sister Bin-
son's quick sympathies were stirred toward this other old friend,
who also dreaded the great change.
"I'd never like to forgit almost those last words Tempy spoke
plain to me,” she said gently, like the comforter she truly was.
«She looked up at me once or twice, that last afternoon after I
come to set by her and let Mis' Owen go home; and I says,
'Can I do anything to ease you, Tempy? ' and the tears come
into my eyes so I couldn't see what kind of a nod she give me.
No, Sarah Ann, you can't, dear,' says she; and then she got her
breath again, and says she, looking at me real meanin', 'I'm only
a-gettin' sleepier and sleepier; that's all there is,' says she, and
smiled up at me kind of wishful, and shut her eyes. I knew well
enough all she meant. She'd been lookin' out for a chance to tell
me, and I don't know's she ever said much afterwards. ”
Mrs. Crowe was not knitting; she had been listening too
eagerly. “Yes, 'twill be a comfort to think of that sometimes,”
she said in acknowledgment
« I know that old Dr. Prince said once in evenin' meetin'
that he'd watched by many a dyin' bed, as we well knew, and
enough o' his sick folks had been scared o' dyin' their whole
lives through; but when they come to the last, he'd never seen
one but was willin', and most were glad, to go. ( 'Tis as natural
as bein' born or livin' on,' he said. I don't know what had
moved him to speak that night. You know he wa’n’t in the
habit of it, and 'twas the monthly concert of prayer for foreign
missions anyways,” said Sarah Ann; “but 'twas a great stay to
the mind to listen to his words of experience. ”
« There never was a better man," responded Mrs. Crowe in
a really cheerful tone. She had recovered from her feeling of
nervous dread, the kitchen was so comfortable with lamplight
and firelight; and just then the old clock began to tell the hour
of twelve with leisurely whirring strokes.
Sister Binson laid aside her work, and rose quickly and
went to the cupboard. « We'd better take a little to eat," she
>


## p. 8279 (#479) ###########################################

SARAH ORNE JEWETT
8279
use
explained. “The night will go fast after this. I want to know
if you went and made some o' your nice cupcake, while you
was home to-day ? ” she asked in a pleased tone; and Mrs. Crowe
acknowledged such a gratifying piece of thoughtfulness for this
humble friend who denied herself all luxuries. Sarah Ann brewed
a generous cup of tea, and the watchers drew their chairs up to
the table presently, and quelled their hunger with good country
appetites. Sister Binson put a spoon into a small old-fashioned
glass of preserved quince, and passed it to her friend.
She was
most familiar with the house, and played the part of hostess.
Spread some o' this on your bread and butter,” she said to
Mrs. Crowe. “Tempy wanted me to some three or four
times, but I never felt to. I know she'd like to have us com-
fortable now, and would urge us to make a good supper, poor
dear. ”
“What excellent preserves she did make! ” mourned Mrs.
Crowe. “None of us has got her light hand at doin' things
tasty. She made the most o' everything, too. Now, she only
had that one old quince-tree down in the far corner of the piece;
but she'd go out in the spring and tend to it, and look at it so
pleasant, and kind of expect the old thorny thing into bloomin'. ”
“She was just the same with folks,” said Sarah Ann. "And
she'd never git more'n a little apernful o' quinces, but she'd
have every mite o goodness out o' those, and set the glasses up
onto her best-room closet shelf, so pleased. 'Twa'n't but a week
ago to-morrow mornin' I fetched her a little taste o' jelly in a
teaspoon; and she says "Thank ye,' and took it; an' the minute
she tasted it she looked up at me as worried as could be. Oh,
I don't want to eat that,' says she. I always keep that in case
o' sickness. " ‘You're goin' to have the good o' one tumbler
yourself,' says I. 'I'd just like to know who's sick now, if you
ain't! An' she couldn't help laughin', I spoke up so smart.
Oh dear me, how I shall miss talkin' over things with her! She
always sensed things, and got just the p’int you meant. ”
“She didn't begin to age until two or three years ago, did
she? ” asked Mrs. Crowe. "I never saw anybody keep her looks
as Tempy did. She looked young long after I begun to feel like
an old woman. The doctor used to say 'twas her young heart,
and I don't know but what he was right. How she did do for
other folks! There was one spell she wasn't at home a day for
a fortnight. She got most of her livin' so, and that made her
>
(
»


## p. 8280 (#480) ###########################################

8280
SARAH ORNE JEWETT
(
case
some
own potatoes and things last her through. None o' the young
folks could get married without her, and all the old ones
disappointed if she wa’n't round when they was down with sick-
ness and had to go. An' cleanin', or tailorin' for boys, or rug-
hookin', - there was nothin' but what she could do as handy as
most. I do love to work! ! —'a'n't you heard her say that twenty
times a week ? ”
Sarah Ann Binson nodded, and began to clear away the
empty plates. “We may want a taste o' somethin' more towards
mornin',” she said. “There's plenty in the closet here; and in
comes from a distance to the funeral, we'll have a
little table spread after we get back to the house. ”
“Yes, I was busy all the mornin'. I've cooked up a sight of
things to bring over,” said Mrs. Crowe. "I felt 'twas the last I
could do for her. ”
They drew their chairs near the stove again, and took up
their work. Sister Binson's rocking-chair creaked as she rocked;
the brook sounded louder than ever. It was more lo
ly when
nobody spoke, and presently Mrs. Crowe returned to her thoughts
of growing old.
“Yes, Tempy aged all of a sudden. I remember I asked her
if she felt as well as common, one day, and she laughed at me
good. There: when Dan’el begun to look old, I couldn't help
feeling as if somethin' ailed him, and like as not 'twas somethin'
he was goin' to git right over, and I dosed him for it stiddy,
half of one summer. »
"How many things we shall be wanting to ask Tempy! ”
exclaimed Sarah Ann Binson after a long pause. "I can't make
up my mind to doin' without her. I wish folks could come back
just once, and tell us how 'tis where they've gone. Seems then
we could do without 'em better. ”
The brook hurried on, the wind blew about the house now
and then; the house itself was a silent place, and the supper, the
warm fire, and an absence of any new topics for conversation
made the watchers drowsy. Sister Binson closed her eyes first,
to rest them for a minute; and Mrs. Crowe glanced at her com-
passionately, with a new sympathy for the hard-worked little
woman. She made up her mind to let Sarah Ann have a good
rest, while she kept watch alone; but in a few minutes her own
knitting was dropped, and she too fell asleep. Overhead, the
pale shape of Tempy Dent, the outworn body of that generous,
((


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SARAH ORNE JEWETT
8281
loving-hearted, simple soul, slept on also in its white raiment.
Perhaps Tempy herself stood near, and saw her own life nd its
surroundings with new understanding. Perhaps she herself was
the only watcher.
Later, by some hours, Sarah Ann Binson woke with a start.
There was a pale light of dawn outside the small windows. In-
side the kitchen the lamp burned dim. Mrs. Crowe awoke too.
"I think Tempy'd be the first to say 'twas just as well we
both had some rest,” she said, not without a guilty feeling.
Her companion went to the outer door, and opened it wide.
The fresh air was none too cold, and the brook's voice was not
nearly so loud as it had been in the midnight darkness. She
could see the shapes of the hills, and the great shadows that lay
across the lower country. The east was fast growing bright.
« 'Twill be a beautiful day for the funeral,” she said, and
turned again, with a sigh, to follow Mrs. Crowe up the stairs.
The world seemed more and more empty without the kind face
and helpful hands of Tempy Dent.
THE BRANDON HOUSE
From Deephaven. Copyright 1877, by James R. Osgood & Co.
I
DO NOT know that the Brandon House is really very remark-
able, but I never have been in one that interested me in
the same way.
Kate used recount to select audiences at
school some of her experiences with her Aunt Katharine; and it
was popularly believed that she once carried down some inde-
structible picture books when they were first in fashion, and the
old lady basted them for her to hem round the edges at the rate
of two a day. It may have been fabulous. It was impossible to
imagine any children in the old place; everything was for grown
people; even the stair railing was too high to slide down on.
The chairs looked as if they had been put, at the furnishing
of the house, in their places, and there they meant to remain.
The carpets were particularly interesting; and I remember Kate's
pointing out to me one day a great square figure in one, and
telling me she used to keep house there with her dolls for lack
of a better play-house, and if one of them chanced to fall out-
side the boundary stripe, it was immediately put to bed with a
cold. It is a house with great possibilities; it might easily be


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8282
SARAH ORNE JEWETT
»
made charming. There are four very large rooms on the lower
floor, and six above, a wide hall in each story, and a fascinating
garret over the whole, where were many mysterious old chests
and boxes, in one of which we found Kate's grandmother's
love-letters; and you may be sure the vista of rummages which
Mr. Lancaster had laughed about was explored to its very end.
Facing each other are two old secretaries, and one of them
we ascertained to be the hiding-place of secret drawers, in which
may be found valuable records deposited by ourselves one rainy
day when we first explored it. We wrote, between us, a tragic
journal' on some yellow old letter-paper we found in the desk.
We put it in the most hidden drawer by itself, and flatter our-
selves that it will be regarded with great interest some time or
other. Of one of the front rooms, the best chamber,” we stood
rather in dread. It is very remarkable that there seem to be
no ghost stories connected with any part of the house, particularly
this. We are neither of us nervous; but there is certainly some-
thing dismal about the room. The huge curtained bed and im-
mense easy-chairs, windows and everything, were draped in some
old-fashioned kind of white cloth which always seemed to be
waving and moving about of itself. The carpet was most singu-
larly colored with dark reds and indescribable grays and browns;
and the pattern, after a whole summer's study, could never be
followed with one's eye. The paper was captured in a French
prize somewhere some time in the last century; and part of the
figure was shaggy, and therein little spiders found habitation, and
went visiting their acquaintances across the shiny places. The
color was an unearthly pink and a forbidding maroon, with dim
white spots, which gave it the
the appearance of having molded.
It made you low-spirited to look long in the mirror; and the
great lounge one could not have cheerful associations with, after
hearing that Miss Brandon herself did not like it, having seen
so many of her relatives lie there dead. There were fantastic
china ornaments from Bible subjects on the mantel; and the only
picture was one of the Maid of Orleans, tied with an unneces-
sarily strong rope to a very stout stake. The best parlor we also
.
rarely used, because all the portraits which hung there had for
some unaccountable reason taken a violent dislike to us, and fol-
lowed us suspiciously with their eyes. The furniture was stately
and very uncomfortable, and there was something about the
room which suggested an invisible funeral.


## p. 8282 (#483) ###########################################




## p. 8282 (#484) ###########################################


SAMUEL JOHNSON)


## p. 8282 (#485) ###########################################


SON
2
kseller was borot Lich
tember 170g He was
school of that city though
B gave me in the free
ON Michael
1
4
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! !


## p. 8282 (#486) ###########################################

. في


## p. 8283 (#487) ###########################################

8283
SAMUEL JOHNSON
(1709-1784)
BY GEORGE BIRKBECK HILL
AMUEL Johnson, the son of a bookseller, was born at Lich-
field, Staffordshire, England, September 18th, 1709. He was
educated mainly in the grammar school of that city; though
perhaps the best part of his education he gave himself, in the free
run which he had of the books in his father's shop. Lichfield was
the literary centre of a large district. Old Michael Johnson sup-
plied scholars with their folios, as well as less severe readers with
romances, poems, essays, and pamphlets. It was in climbing up to
search for some apples which young Samuel imagined his brother
had hidden behind a large folio, that he came across the works of
Petrarch, and fell to studying them.
He was a mere child when,
reading Hamlet' in his father's kitchen, he was so greatly scared
by the ghost that he suddenly hurried up-stairs to the street door,
that he might see people about him. With the memory of this ter-
ror fresh in his mind, he wrote many years afterwards: “He that
peruses Shakespeare looks round him alarmed, and starts to find him-
self alone. ” He read with wonderful rapidity, ravenously as if he
devoured the book, and what he read his powerful memory retained.
“He knew more books,” said Adam Smith, «than any man alive. ”
At the age of nineteen he entered Pembroke College, Oxford,
“the best qualified for the university that his tutor had ever known
come there. »
Thence he was driven by poverty after a residence of
only fourteen months. During the next few years he lived partly by
teaching. At the age of twenty-six he married. Two years later he
went up to London with a half-finished tragedy in his pocket, and
David Garrick as his companion. There for five-and-twenty years he
lived the hard life of a poor scholar. His wife died after a long
illness. “ The melancholy of the day of her death hung long upon
me,” he recorded in his diary. His own body, though large and
powerful, was not sound, and his mind was often overcast by melan-
choly. My health,” he said in his old
«has been from my
twentieth year such as has seldom afforded me a single day of ease. ”
In this period of his life he did most of his work. He wrote the
Debates of Parliament, which were wholly in form and mainly in
age,
(
((


## p. 8284 (#488) ###########################################

8284
SAMUEL JOHNSON
substance his own invention; his great Dictionary; his two poems
(London' and 'The Vanity of Human Wishes'; the Rambler, the
Idler, and Rasselas,' and numerous minor pieces. He published
moreover Observations on Macbeth,' and he made a beginning of
his edition of Shakespeare.
In 1762, when he was in his fifty-third year, a pension of £300
from the King freed him from the pressure of poverty. The rest of
his life he passed in modest comfort. A friendship which he formed
a little later added greatly to his happiness. A wealthy London
brewer of the name of Thrale, a man of such strong sense that he
sought a comrade this rough genius, gave him a second home.
Both in his town house and in his beautiful country villa a room was
set apart for Johnson. Mrs. Thrale, «a lady of lively talents im-
proved by education,” flattered by the friendship of so great a man
and by the society which he drew round her table, tended him like
a daughter. Her kindness soothed twenty years of a life radically
wretched. ” To the Thrales he generally gave half the week, passing
the rest of his time in his own house. There he found constant
shelter for two humble friends; sometimes indeed for as many as
five.
His pen had long intervals of rest. He finished his Shakespeare,
wrote four political tracts which added nothing to his reputation, and
his Journey to the Western Islands. Happily he was roused from
his indolence by the request of the booksellers that he should under-
take that one of all his works by which he is best known,- the
(Lives of the English Poets. ' “I wrote it,” he says, “in my usual
way, dilatorily and hastily; unwilling to work, and working with
vigor and haste. ”
The indolence into which he seemed to have sunk was
apparent than real. That powerful mind was seldom long at rest.
“He was a kind of public oracle, whom everybody thought they had
a right to visit and consult. ) David Hume might complain that
«men of letters have in London no rendezvous, and are indeed sunk
and forgotten in the general torrent of the world. Those who knew
Johnson felt no such want. «His house became an academy. ” So
did the taverns which he frequented, whose chairs he looked upon as
so many thrones of human felicity. “There I have,” he said, “free
conversation, and an interchange of discourse with those whom I
most love; I dogmatize and am contradicted, and in this conflict of
opinions and opinions I find delight. ” In Thrale's house too «the
society of the learned, the witty, and the eminent in every way, called
forth his wonderful powers. Among his friends he numbered Rey-
nolds, Burke, Goldsmith, Garrick, and Boswell. They were all mem-
bers of that famous club of which he was the light and centre. In
more
»


## p. 8285 (#489) ###########################################

SAMUEL JOHNSON
8285
the grave.
>
the world of letters his opinion was eagerly awaited. (((What does
Johnson say of such a book? ' was the question of every day. ”
This, the happiest period of his life, was brought to an end by the
death of Mr. Thrale in 1781. “I looked,” he recorded in his diary,
«for the last time upon the face that for fifteen years had never been
turned upon me but with respect or benignity. ” The widow, who had
scarcely buried her husband before she fell in love with an Italian
singer, began to feel the old man's friendship a burden and reproach,
and deserted him as she deserted her daughter. While he was
thus losing his second home, «death visited his mournful habitation. ”
Blind Miss Williams and that strange old surgeon Robert Levett,
whom he had sheltered so many years and who repaid his kindness
by companionship whenever he needed it, quickly followed Thrale to
His own health began to break, and he was attacked by
a succession of painful disorders.
Though the ranks of his friends were thinning and his strength
was failing, he did not lose heart. He tried “to keep his friendships
in constanț repair,” and he struggled hard for life. “I will be con-
quered,” he said: "I will not capitulate. ” Death had always been
terrible to him. Had Mr. Thrale outlived him he would have faced
it in the house of friends, who by their attentions and their wealth
would have screened some of its terrors from his view.
He now
faced it month after month in the gloom of solitude. He died on
December 13th, 1784. «His death,” wrote one of his contemporaries,
kept the public mind in agitation beyond all former example. It
made a kind of era in literature,” said Hannah More. Harriet Mar-
tineau was told, by an old lady who well remembered the time, that
«the world of literature was perplexed and distressed as a swarm of
bees that have lost their queen. ” The sovereign man of letters was
indeed dead. “Sir,) Goldsmith had one day said to him, you are
for making a monarchy of what should be a republic. ” The republic
was at length founded; the last monarch of the English world of lit-
erature was gathered to his fathers. The sceptre which Dryden had
handed down to Pope, and Pope to Johnson, fell to the ground, never
to be raised again. The Declaration of Independence was read in the
funeral service over the newly opened grave in Westminster Abbey.
High as Johnson still stands as a writer, his great reputation rests
mainly on his talk and on his character as a man, full as it was of
strange variety, rugged strength, great tenderness, dogged honesty
and truthfulness, a willingness to believe what was incredible com-
bined with an obstinate rationality” which ever prevented him, and
Toryism with the spirit of a rebel glowing beneath. He had in the
highest degree that element of manhood” (to quote Lowell's words)
(which we call character. It is something distinct from genius —
(
((


## p. 8286 (#490) ###########################################

8286
SAMUEL JOHNSON
»
though all great geniuses are endowed with it. Hence we always
think of Dante Alighieri, of Michael Angelo, of William Shakespeare,
of John Milton; while of such men as Gibbon and Hume we merely
recall the works, and think of them as the author of this or that. ”
This holds more true of Samuel Johnson than even of the four
mighty geniuses whom Lowell instances. It is in the pages of his
friend and disciple that he lives for us as no other man has ever
lived. Of all men he is best known. In his early manhood he set
up an academy, and failed. The school which he founded in his later
years still numbers its pupils by thousands and tens of thousands.
“We are,” said Sir Joshua Reynolds, of Dr. Johnson's school. He
may be said to have formed my mind, and to have brushed from it
a great deal of rubbish. He qualified it to think justly. ” He still
qualifies the mind to think; he still clears it of cant; he still brushes
from it all that rubbish which is heaped up by affectation, false sen-
timent, exaggeration, credulity, and indolence in thinking. "All who
were of his school,” Reynolds added, “are distinguished for a love
of truth and accuracy. ” “He taught me,” wrote Boswell, “to cross-
question in common life. ” The great master still finds many apt
scholars.
“He spoke as he wrote,” his hearers comme
monly asserted. This
was not altogether true. It might indeed be the case that every-
thing he said was as correct as a second edition”; nevertheless his
talk was never so labored as the more ornate parts of his writings.
Even in his lifetime his style was censured as “involved and turgid,
and abounding with antiquated and hard words. ” Macaulay went
so far as to pronounce it “systematically vicious. ” Johnson seems to
have been aware of some of his failings. "If Robertson's style be
faulty,” he said, “he owes it to me; that is, having too many words,
and those too big ones. ” As Goldsmith said of him, “If he were to
inake little fishes talk (in a fable), they would talk like whales. " In
the structure of his sentences he is as often at fault as in the use
of big words. He praised Temple for giving a cadence to English
prose, and he blamed Warburton for having his sentences unmeas-
ured. ” His own prose is too measured and has too much cadence.
It is in his Ramblers that he is seen at his worst, and in his Lives
of the Poets) at his best. In his Ramblers he was under the temp-
tation to expand his words beyond the thoughts they had to convey,
which besets every writer who has on stated days to fill up a certain
number of columns. In the Lives, out of the fullness of his mind
he gave far more than he had undertaken in his agreement with the
booksellers. With all its faults, his style has left a permanent and a
beneficial mark on the English language. It was not without reason
that speaking of what he had done, he said: “Something perhaps I
“
»


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SAMUEL JOHNSON
8287
>
»
have added to the elegance of its construction, and something to the
harmony of its cadence. ” If he was too fond of words of foreign
origin, he resisted the inroad of foreign idioms. No one could say
of him what he said of Hume: “The structure of his sentences is
French. ” He sturdily withstood “the license of translators who were
reducing to babble a dialect of France. ” Lord Monboddo complained
of his frequent use of metaphors. In this he was unlike Swift, in
whose writings, it was asserted, not a single one can be found. If
however he used them profusely, he used them as accurately as
Burke; of whom, as he was speaking one day in Parliament, a by-
stander said, “How closely that fellow reasons in metaphors! ” John-
son's writings are always clear. To him might be applied the words
he used of Swift: “He always understands himself, and his readers
always understand him. ” “He never hovers on the brink of mean-
ing. ” If he falls short of Swift in simplicity, he rises far above him
in eloquence. He cares for something more than “the easy and safe
conveyance of meaning. ” His task it was not only to instruct, but to
persuade; not only to impart truth, but to awaken “that inattention
by which known truths are suffered to be neglected. ” He was “the
great moralist. ” He was no unimpassioned teacher, as correct as he
is cold. His mind was ever swayed to the mood of what it liked
or loathed, and as it was swayed, so it gave harmonious utterance.
Who would look to find tenderness in the preface to a dictionary?
Nevertheless Horne Tooke, "the ablest and most malevolent of all
the enemies of his fame,” could never read Johnson's preface without
shedding a tear. He often rose to noble heights of eloquence; while
in the power of his honest scorn he has scarcely a rival. His letters
to Lord Chesterfield and James Macpherson are not surpassed by any
in our language. In his criticisms he is admirably clear. Whether
we agree with him or not, we know at once what he means; while
his meaning is so strongly supported by argument that we
neither neglect it nor despise it. Не may put his reader into a
rage, but he sets him thinking.
Of his original works, Irene) was the first written, though not the
first published. It is a declamatory tragedy. He had little dramatic
power, and he followed a bad model, for he took Addison as his mas-
ter. The criticism which in his old age he passed on that writer's
(Cato' equally well fits his own Irene. “It is rather a poem in
dialogue than a drama, rather a succession of just sentiments in ele-
gant language than a representation of natural affections, or of any
state probable or possible in human life. It was in his two imita-
tions of Juvenal's Satires, London and the Vanity of Human
Wishes,' that he first showed his great powers. Pope quickly dis-
covered the genius of the unknown author. In their kind they are
can
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SAMUEL JOHNSON
masterpieces. Sir Walter Scott (had more pleasure in reading them
than any other poetical composition he could mention. ” The last
line of manuscript he sent to press was a quotation from the Van-
ity of Human Wishes. ' « 'Tis a grand poem,” said Byron, “and so
true! - true as the truth of Juvenal himself. ” Johnson had planned
further imitations of the Roman satirist, but he never executed them.
What he has done in these two longer poems and in many of his
minor pieces is so good that we may well grieve that he left so
little in verse. Like his three contemporaries Collins, Gray, and
Goldsmith, as a poet he died in debt to the world.
In the 'Rambler he teaches the same great lesson of life as in his
serious poems. He gave variety, however, by lighter papers modeled
on the Spectator, and by critical pieces. Admirable as was his humor
in his talk,-“in the talent of humor,” said Hawkins, there hardly
ever was his equal,” — yet in his writings he fell unmeasurably short
of Addison. His criticisms are acute; but it is when he reasons of
righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come that he is seen at
his strongest.
(Rasselas,' struck off at a heat when his mother lay dying, tells
in prose what the Vanity of Human Wishes, tells in verse. It is
little known to the modern reader, who is not easily reconciled to its
style. At no time could it have been a favorite with the young and
thoughtless. Nevertheless, as years steal over us, we own, as we lay
it down with a sigh, that it gives a view of life as profound and true
as it is sad.
His Dictionary, faulty as it is in its etymologies, is a very great
performance. Its definitions are admirable; while the quotations are
so happily selected that they would afford the most pleasant reading
were it possible to read a heavy folio with pleasure. That it should
be the work of one man is a marvel. He had hoped to finish it in
three years; it took him more than seven. To quote his own words,
“He that runs against time has an antagonist not subject to casual-
ties. ” He was hindered by ill health, by his wife's long and fatal
illness, and by the need that he was under of making provision for
the day that was passing over him. ” During two years of the seven
years he was writing three Ramblers a week.
Of his Shakespeare, Macaulay said: “It would be difficult to name
a more slovenly, a more worthless edition of any great classic. I
doubt whether when he passed this sweeping judgment, he had read
much more than those brief passages in which Johnson sums up the
merits of each play. The preface, Adam Smith, no friend of John-
son's fame, described as “the most manly piece of criticism that was
ever published in any country. ” In the notes the editor anticipated
modern critics in giving great weight to early readings. Warburton,


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SAMUEL JOHNSON
8289
in the audacity of his conjectural emendations, almost rivaled Bentley
in his dealings with Milton. He floundered, but this time he did
not flounder well. Johnson was unwilling to meddle with the text so
long as it gave a meaning. Many of his corrections are ingenious,
but in this respect he came far behind Theobald. His notes on
character are distinguished by that knowledge of mankind in which
he excelled. The best are those on Falstaff and Polonius. The
booksellers who had employed him did their part but ill. There
are numerous errors which the corrector of the press should have
detected, while the work is ill printed and on bad paper.
His four political tracts were written at the request of govern-
ment. In one of them, in a fine passage, he shows the misery and
suffering which are veiled from men's sight by the dazzle of the glory
of war.
In the struggle between England and her colonies he with
Gibbon stood by George III. , while Burke, Hume, and Adam Smith
were on the side of liberty.
In his Journey to the Western Islands) he describes the tour
which he made with Boswell in 1773. In this work he took the part
of the oppressed tenants against their chiefs, who were, he wrote,
«gradually degenerating from patriarchal rulers to rapacious land-
lords. » His narrative is interesting; while the facts which he gathered
about a rapidly changing society are curious. « Burke thought well
of the philosophy of the book. ”
His last work was the Lives of the English Poets. '
It was
undertaken at the request of the chief London booksellers,
had determined to publish a body of English poetry,” for which he
was to furnish brief prefaces. These prefaces swelled into Lives.
"I have,” he wrote, “been led beyond my intention, I hope by the
honest desire of giving useful pleasure. ” For payment he had re-
quired only two hundred guineas. “Had he asked one thousand, or
even fifteen hundred,” said Malone, the booksellers would doubtless
readily have given it. ” In this great work he traveled over the
whole field of English poetry, from Milton who was born in 1608
to Lyttleton who died in 1773. To such a task no man ever came
better equipped. He brought to it wide reading, a strong memory,
traditional knowledge gathered from the companions of his early
manhood, his own long acquaintance with the literary world of Lon-
don, and the fruits of years of reflection and discussion. He had
studied criticism deeply, and he dared to think for himself. No
man was ever more fearless in his judgments. He was overpowered
by no man's reputation. His criticisms of Milton's Lycidas) and of
Gray show him at his worst. Nevertheless they are not wholly with-
out foundation. 'Lycidas,' great as it is, belongs to an unnatural
school of poetry. It is a lament that never moved a single reader to
XIV-519
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SAMUEL JOHNSON
tears. No one mourns over young Lycidas. Blind as Johnson was
to the greatness of the poem, he has surpassed all other critics in
the splendor of the praise he bestowed on the poet. To the exquisite
beauties of Gray, unhappily, he was insensible. His faults he makes
us see only too clearly. We have to admit, however unwillingly,
that at times Gray is “tall by standing on tiptoe,” and does indulge in
commonplaces to which criticism disdains to chase him.