public upon biographic fidelity, to represent him, not as his weak or prejudiced idolaters might wish to behold him; not in the light in which they desire to contemplate Johnson, who pronounce his writings to be an obscure jargon of pompous pedantry, and his imputed virtues a superstitious farrago of pharisaic ostentation; but as he was the most wonderful composition of great and absurd, of misanthropy and benevolence, of luminous intellect and prejudiced darkness, that was ever produced in the human breast.

The only part of this work whose omission I could much have wished, is the passage which records the despot's injustice to Mrs Montague's ingenious and able Treatise on Shakespeare. Its omission, as all my correspondents observe, would have been much more consonant than its appearance to the philanthropy of the biographer.

I have, it is true, seen a great deal of nonsense about your Tour in the public prints, and that both in its praise and abuse. It is hard to say who are most absurd, they who vilify its entertaining effusions, as vapid and uninteresting, or they who fancy they see a perfect character in the stupendous mortal whom its pages exhibit in lights so striking and so various; bowing down before the relics of popish superstition; repay

ing the hospitable kindness of the Scotch professors with unfeeling exultation over the barrenness of their country, and the imputed folly of their religion; and roaming, like a Greenland bear, over Caledonia and her lonely isles.

I have written to the elegant bard of Sussex, to Mr Whalley, who is on the Continent, to my late and ever-honoured friend, Dr John Jebb, and my other literary correspondents upon the merits of your Tour; and in a spirit of warm en

comium upon the gay benevolence, characteristic

traits, scenic graces, and biographic fidelity which adorn its pages; observing also how valuable a counterpart it forms to Dr Johnson's Tour to the Hebrides. In one we perceive, through a medium of solemn and sublime eloquence, in what light Scotland, her nobles, her professors, and her chieftains appeared to the august wanderer; in the other how the growling philosopher appeared to them. If the use of biography is to ascertain and discriminate character, its domestic minuteness is its most essential excellence.

The nearly universal approbation with which those whose opinions are of consequence, have mentioned your work to me, precludes all ideas of defence against the frothy spleen descending so continually upon ingenious composition from the

pen of anonymous criticism. It descends in plenteous effusion,

"But leaves no spot or blame behind.”

LETTER XXVIII.

MISS SCOTT.

Lichfield, March 29, 1786.

CAN it be that three months of this dreary season have elapsed, without affording me an opportunity of expressing the satisfaction I feel from perceiving you likely to renounce the painful combat with long-established affection? Ah! if the delay of Mr Taylor's wishes were to terminate only with your mother's existence, who shall say when it may end? His lot is harder than that of Jacob toiling for his Rachael, if Hope has no distincter goal. Meantime life wears and

wastes.

I ventured to pass the Christmas month at Wellsburn, in Warwickshire, beneath the hospitable and elegant mansion of my friend, Mr Dewes, a gentleman of many virtues, and many accomplishments.

They are of a nature to make one regret his celibacy. A younger brother of his changed the name of Dewes to that of Granville for a large fortune, left him by his uncle. I have heard, had Mr Granville chosen it, he might have obtained the Lansdown title, being descended from that family. His lovely lady, with a mind well cultivated, and adorned by every feminine virtue, has the most ingenuous and charming manners imaginable. She and her equally excellent husband, and another brother of Mr Dewes, with the respective children of each, formed our party.

These agreeable families reside in the village, and several in the neighbourhood, with whom we had much social intercourse. Our short day and long evening were divided with a regularity that husbanded the hours. They were, in turn, enlivened by music and poetry, by some agreeable evening card-parties, and by convivial sprightliness. Thus it was that we scarce heard the howling of those sleety storms that made the without scene so total a contrast to that within. The village of Wellsburn almost borders on the park of the Lucy family, from whence Shakespeare stole the deer. To the many other pleasures of that excursion, was added an ineffably pleasing sensation, the result of finding myself, for the first time of my life, in the Shakesperian region; in meet

ing, on our visits, the waves of the Avon, though they were crusted over with ice.

No, dear Miss Scott, Johnson's mind was not originally perverted by applause; though, when his literary fame became established, the dread of his merciless wit infused into the feelings of his auditors a servility which fed the diseases of his nature, arrogance and envy; but they were inherent propensities, which "grew with his growth, and strengthened with his strength."

The rigid, nay the uncharitable orthodoxy of his avowed opinions, was the source of that flood. of adulation which has been poured upon his tomb. He stood forth the vengeful champion of the established hierarchy. It became necessary to put upon his character the whole armour of virtue, to give weight to his applauses, and force to his anathemas. The clergy are a numerous class, and, in general, the most literary of all other classes. They seek to make Johnson a saint, after the same manner, and for similar reasons, that the monks canonized very frail kings, when Popery was in force amongst us.

*

Miss Reeves' reply to my Stricture on her Richardsonian absurdity, is at once weak and artHer Treatise on Romances is, in every re

ful.

* Gent, Mag. Feb. 1786.