prise requiring hardy zeal and intrepidity; for the resolute execution of a daring project; for all that demands nerve and force; the powers of man are in their perfection at about twenty-seven or nine. Alexander, Charles the Twelfth, and Lord Byron who wrote his poems in the same spirit that the others fought their battles, performed at this age their finest achievements, and all of them coincided in dying at thirty-six. Shakspeare, the all-knowing, has observed this psychological truth: Iago tells us when he commences his diabolics 'I have looked upon the world for four times seven years.' On the other hand, no man can be prepared for the performance of a truly great and elevated work; one enacting the full developement and exercised freedom of every mental faculty, and the long-trained and dependible strength of every power, before the age of forty. At that age Wieland fixed the time when a man is best fitted for a high literary work, and sat down to the composition of Oberon. At that age, which Dryden calls 'the full summer tropic of his genius,' Virgil wrote his best work. After that age Burgh, who had surveyed mankind with accuracy, forbade any one to enter on any new undertaking, perceiving that that was the era of execution, not enterprise. I should therefore conclude that while an artiste of thirty-two is admirably fitted for grand and gigantic experiments in his profession, he is yet unsuited for that last and noblest effort of human genius; that loftiest exhibition of serene might; that most worthy task of Olympian powers; the cooking of a dinner." "We are told in the Acts of the Apostles, that Moses was full forty years old when he began his mission; Mahomet was thirty-nine. Forty, also, was the consular age among the Romans." Leaving this conversation to proceed as it pleased, I turned to Dr. Gauden, who was sitting on the other side of me, and had fallen into a kind of revery. There was a fine landscape by Gouldsborough hanging on the opposite wall, in front of him, at which he was looking intently, and muttering to himself some verses of Flaminius, with the usual intermixture of fretful nods. "Umbræ frigidulæ! arborum susurri! In sinum superi annuant benigni! That must be when I come back." "It is to be regretted, I think, Doctor," said I, falling in with the current of his thoughts, "that the Latin writings of the Italian scholars who clustered about the morning light of modern letters, are not more known and studied than they are. There is some exquisite poetry among them." 66 Beautiful, sir, beautiful. In descriptions of nature they are unrivalled. The history of the literature which Le Clerc happily calls demi-ancient, remains to be written. Rosco's books are beneath contempt." I am glad to hear you say so, for I have always held the opinion that they were infinitely overrated. I never could get through them: they would not take hold of me." "His popularity," replied the Doctor, "illustrates a sagacious remark of Horace Walpole; a fine thinker, now too much neglected; that grace will save any book, and without it none can live long. The gracefulness of his style and the elegance of his manner have given him an acceptance with the general,' who hate to think and are careless of knowing. But he is always superficial and often mistaken; he says more in a sentence than he could stand by in a volume. He sketches, but does not portray, and guesses where he ought to investigate; 'il effleure lorsqu'il devrait percer.' His taste was delicate rather than just and his mind, though polished, was feeble and one-sided. He could argue agreeably, but could not judge accurately. He lacked that strong grasp of mind, that stern watchfulness against prejudice, and that self-denying disinterestedness of sentiment, which are essential in exploring the mines of history." 66 : Among the many services,” said I, “ which Pope rendered to literature, his edition of some of these poets should not be forgotten; if it showed no learning, it proved at least his taste, and his interest in letters. I have sometimes regretted that Johnson did not prosecutǝ his intention of editing Politian." "No doubt he would have done it well; he edited Browne's 'Morals' with consummate ability. But to tell you the truth, Politian is no favourite of mine. His prose is certainly elaborately classical; but his poetry is irreclaimably dull. His personal character is any thing but agreeable; he was intensely and meanly selfish; always cringing and begging. He was insatiable of favours and never seems to have had the least gratitude for them. The wife of Lorenzo, you know, turned him out of the house. It is odd that Mrs. Parr did the same thing to that splendid brute, Porson. I should have been glad if Johnson had edited Petrarch, or Vida, or had written a history of that age. That is a work which is yet to be done; the men of that time are still doubtful in reputation; posterity has formed no definite conclusion about them. Such a man would have settled opinion once and for ever. Let theorists sneer as they may, there is not a critical notion of Johnson's which the nation has not accepted. Brydges and Bowles have written their volumes, and Coleridge has lectured his worst, exhausting logic and his hearers; but not a decision in the lives of the Poets has been shaken that book stands in the history of literature like a rock in the ocean; the waves and waters of opinion may beat around it and beat against it, but it stands, and as it stands, for ever shall stand on." "I have sometimes speculated, Doctor, on the effect which he would have produced on English literature, if with the reputation which he had at his death, he had lived on till our own times. Modern poetry and fiction would have no existence. Byron, and Wordsworth, and Bulwer, would have been crushed like peascods. I suspect that the whole radical system with its liberty and utility, would have been scattered to the winds; for his actual power was immense and his possible power scarcely calculable. For cogency of reason; for simple ability to convince; no man that ever existed may be compared with him. He was a wonderful great man." "Sir, his greatness cannot be overstated. Form the · highest notion that you can have of powerful reasoning or of brilliant wit, and then turn to some of his political pamphlets, or to certain conversations which I could name in Boswell, and you will find that the reality excels your wish. His conversations are to my judgment even more wonderful than his writings. He might have said of Boswell what Mahomet said of Ali, I am the city of knowledge; and he is my gate.' Boswell deserves to be remembered, for his appreciation of Johnson showed a fine spirit, and the meannesses he submitted to, were the sacrifice of dignity to wisdom. And he will be remembered with an immortal insignificance, for he is like the beccafica which the stork takes upon his back and carries to heights which its feeble wing could not attain. His powers were undoubtedly most respectable; for I take it to be the, not so facile, business of a biographer, simply to give you a clear and satisfactory impression of the subject of his book, and this he has done; you see Johnson as he lived; in the rude grandeur of his noble nature: ' nihil hic elegans aut venustum, sed ingens et magnificum, et quod placet magnitudine suâ et quâdam specie immensitatis,' as Burnet says of a view from the shores of the Mediterranean." "Johnson's independence or defiance of the restraints of refined life," said I, "though it exposed him to cavil, was certainly of service to the freedom of his mind, for it enabled him to appreciate the world with stern and conscientious truth. Every gentleman, even the most strongminded, is habitually under the influence of cant; and when the judgment is once resigned to prescription and usage, the limits of the thraldom cannot easily be defined. Johnson stood alone; early a widower,—with no children and no relations near him,-an acknowledged exception to all society,-he was free from the faintest fetter of custom, Custom, that result of the prejudices and passions of many, and the designs of a few, that ape of reason, who usurps her seat, exercises her power, and is obeyed by mankind in her stead.' He was thus enabled to look down upon the establishments of the world with an independence which few others could hope to attain, and where he bore testimony to their value and justice, his évidence had incalculable force." "It is a pity,” said Dr. Gauden, “that Parr and others who imitated the great moralist, should have copied the "brute part of him' so closely. You see clearly that Johnson's rudeness was like the horns of the Fauns and Satyrs, a natural excrescence; while Parr's, like those of Bacchus, was an ornament which he could remove. In his Salmoneus' wieldings of the thunderbolt, he gave too much of the thunder and too little of the bolt. He was a man of small stature; still, when he 'summoned all the energies of his reason, and put forth the whole power of his mind,' he could do considerable.' His dedication of the Warburtonian's Tracts is the most splendid effort of elaborate malignity that the world has ever seen. But he had always the cramped movement of one acting a part, and was still farther dwarfed by acting a part too high for him. Johnson strode with the step of a giant; Parr stalked like one accoutred in the seven-leagued boots of a dwarf. Parr built up his mind on a great model; Johnson's mind grew up, and he swayed it as we sway the limbs of our body. Parr struggles to get up to his subject, as a clumsy swimmer to get upon the ice: Johnson has always conquered his topics, and holds them up with the air of a man going to grate a nutmeg. You find, too, about the latter that natural humour and honest bonhommie which results from the self-composure incident to a thoroughly great mind. It may seem an odd fancy, but there is something in Falstaff which puts me in mind of Johnson." "Warburton was more his fellow than any other eminent man of his country. But he differed in many qualities, and where he differed there he descended." "Warburton had logic rather than reason, and had more of mechanical intellect than moral power; he was forcible rather than strong, and energetic rather than robust. He used the sling; Johnson, the mace. Johnson was like a man who, walking through a forest, meets a lion there and slays him: Warburton was like one who, happening to pass an amphitheatre as he is going through a city on important business, throws |