D E F O R M I T I E S, &c.

In the number of men who dishonour their own genius, ought to be ranked Dr Samuel Johnson; for his abilities and learning are not accompanied by candour and generosity. His life of Pomfret concludes with this maxim, that 'he who pleases many, must have merit;' yet, in defiance of his own rule, the Doctor has, a thousand times, attempted to prove, that they who please many, have no merit. His invidious and revengeful remark on Chesterfield, would have disgraced any other man. He said, and nobody but himself would have said it, that Churchill was a shallow fellow. And he once told some of his admirers, that Swift was a shallow, a very shallow fellow: reminding us of the Lilliputian who drew his bow to Gulliver[3]. For the memory of this man, who may be classed with Cato and Phocion, the Doctor feels no tenderness or respect. And for that[4], and other critical blasphemies, he has undergone innumerable floggings. No writer of this nation has made more noise. None has discovered more contempt for other men's reputations, or more confidence in his own. I would humbly submit a few hints for his improvement, if he be not 'too old to learn.' And, whatever freedoms I take, the Doctor himself may be quoted as a precedent for insolent invective, and brutal reproach. He has told us[5], that 'the two lowest of all human beings are, a scribbler for a party, and a commissioner of excise.' This very man was himself the hired scribbler of a party; and why should a commissioner of excise be one of the meanest of mankind? In the preface to his octavo Dictionary, the Doctor affirms, that, 'by the labours of all his predecessors, not even the lowest expectation can be gratified.' The author of a revisal of Shakespeare[6] attacks (he says) with 'gloomy malignity, as if he were dragging to justice an assassin or incendiary. He bites like a viper, and would be glad to leave inflammations and gangrene behind him.' For this shocking language, which could have been answered by nothing but a blow, the primum mobile, perhaps, was, that the critic had dedicated his book to Lord Kaims, (a Scotsman, and another very shallow fellow) 'as the truest judge, and most intelligent admirer of Shakespeare.'

His treatment of Colley Cibber is, if possible, worse. That great ornament of the stage was a man of genius, at least equal to Dr Johnson—but they had a quarrel, and though Cibber has been more than twenty years buried, the Doctor, in his life of Pope, studies to revenge it. His expressions are gross. 'In the Dunciad, among other worthless scribblers he (Pope) had mentioned Cibber. The dishonour of being shewn as Cibber's antagonist could never be compensated by the victory. Cibber had nothing to lose—The shafts of satire were directed in vain against Cibber, being repelled by the impenetrable impudence,' &c.[7] We have been deafened about the Doctor's private virtues; of which these passages are a very poor evidence.

It is believed by some, that Dr Johnson's admirable Dictionary is the most capital monument of human genius; that the studies of Archimedes and Newton are but like a feather in the scale with this amazing work; that he has given our language a stability, which, without him, it had never known; that he has performed alone, what, in other nations, whole academies fail to perform; and that as the fruit of his learning and sagacity, our compositions will be classical and immortal. This may be true; but the book displays many proofs or his ill-nature, and evinces what I want to insist on, viz. that he who despises politeness cannot deserve it. For his seditious and impudent definitions[8] he would, in Queen Anne's reign, have had a fair chance of mounting the pillory. Hume, Smith, and Chesterfield may be quoted to prove, that Walpole and Excise were improper objects of execration; but an emanation of royal munificence has, of late, relaxed the Doctor's frigorific virtue; and, in his False Alarm, he affirms, that our government approaches nearer to perfection, than any other that fiction has feigned, or history recorded. This is going pretty far; but the peevish, though incorruptible patriot, proceeds a great deal farther. His political pieces have great elegance and wit; yet, if the tenth part of what he advances in them be true, his countrymen are a mob of ignorant, ungrateful, rebellious ruffians. Every member in Opposition is a fool, a firebrand, a monster; worse, if that were possible, than Ravillac, Hambden, or Milton[9]. Here is a short specimen:

'On the original contrivers of mischief let an insulted nation pour out its vengeance. With whatever design they have inflamed this pernicious contest, they are themselves equally detestable. If they wish success to the colonies, they are TRAITORS to this country; if they wish their defeat, they are TRAITORS at once to America and England. To them (Mess. Burke & Co.) and them only, must be imputed the interruption of commerce, and the miseries of war, the sorrow of those who shall be ruined, and the blood of those that shall fall[10].'

From the Doctor's volumes I am to select some passages, illustrate them with a few observations, and submit them to the reader's opinion. These pages aim at perspicacity. They are ambitious to record TRUTH.

'He that writes the life of another, is either his friend or his enemy, and wishes either to exalt his praise, or aggravate his infamy[11].' The Doctor betrays a degree of inconsistency incompatible with his reputed abilities. After such a confession, what have we to hope for in his lives of English poets?

Having thus denied veracity both to Plutarch and himself, this Idler, in the very next page, leaps at once from the wildest scepticism to the wildest credulity. The paragraph is too long for insertion; but the tenor of it is, that 'a man's account of himself, left behind him unpublished, may be depended on;' because, 'by self-love all have been so often betrayed, that (now for the strangest flight of nonsense) all are on the watch against its artifices.'

In his Dictionary, temperance is defined to be 'moderation opposed to gluttony and drunkenness.' And he has since defined 'sobriety or temperance' to be 'nothing but the forbearance of pleasure[12].' This maxim needs no comment.

'A man will, in the hour of darkness and fatigue, be content to leave behind him every thing but himself[13].' Here the Doctor supposes, that a person can leave himself behind himself. When the reader examines the passage in the original, he will be convinced, that this cannot be an error of the press only. Had the Rambler, when he crossed Tweed, left behind him his pride, his indolence, and his vulgarity, he would have returned a much wiser, better, and happier man than he did.

Form, he explains to be, 'the external appearance of any thing, shape;' but, when speaking of hills in the North of Scotland, he says, 'the appearance is that of matter incapable of FORM[14]!' He has seen matter, not only destitute, but incapable of shape. He has seen an appearance which is incapable of external appearance. And yet, in the same book, he seems to regret the weakness of his vision.

Beauty is 'that assemblage of graces which pleases the eye.' But, in the Idler[15], he displays his true idea of beauty; and it is a very lame piece of philosophy. Judge from a few samples: 'If a man, born blind, was to recover his sight, and the most beautiful woman was to be brought before him, he could not determine whether she was handsome or not. Nor if the most handsome and most deformed were produced, could he any better determine to which he should give the preference, having seen only these two.' And again, 'as we are then more accustomed to beauty than deformity, we may conclude that to be the reason why we approve and admire it.' Moreover, 'though habit and custom cannot be said to be the cause[16] of beauty, IT is certainly the cause of our liking it[17]. I have no doubt, but that, if we were more used to deformity than beauty, deformity would then lose the idea now annexed to it, and take that of beauty; as if the whole world should agree that yes and no should change their meanings, yes would then deny, and no would affirm.' This is such a perfection of nonsense, that the reader will, perhaps, think it a forgery; but he will find it verbatim et literatim, and the whole number is in the same stile.

'Swift in his petty treatise on the English language, allows that new words must sometimes be introduced, but proposes that none should be suffered to become obsolete[18].' The Doctor has not given a fair quotation from Swift. One would imagine that Swift had proposed to retain every word which is to be found in any of our popular authors, but he neither said nor meant any such thing. His words are these: 'They' (the members of the proposed society) 'will find many words that deserve to be utterly thrown out of our language!' And the Dean says nothing afterwards which infers a contradiction[19].

In his account of Lyttleton, the Doctor's good nature is evident. He speaks not a word as to the merit of the history of Henry II. but—'It was published with such anxiety as only vanity can dictate.' We are next entertained with a page of dirty anecdotes concerning its publication, which the Doctor seems to have picked up from some printer's journeyman. 'The Persian Letters have something of that indistinct and headstrong ardour for liberty which a man of genius always catches when he enters the world, and always suffers to cool as he passes forward.' Of the admired monody to the memory of Lady Lyttleton, we are told only that it is long. 'His dialogues of the dead were very eagerly read, tho' the production rather, as it seems of leisure than of study, rather effusions than compositions. The names of his persons too often enable the reader to anticipate their conversation; and when they have met, they too often part without a conclusion.' These remarks apply with peculiar justice to Dr Johnson's dictionary, for that work is an effusion rather than a composition. His reader is for the most part able to anticipate his definitions, and they generally end without conclusion. Lord Lyttleton's poems 'have nothing to be despised and little to be admired.' But here, as usual, the Doctor contradicts himself, and in the very next line 'of his Progress of Love, it is sufficient blame to say that it is pastoral. His blank verse in Blenheim has neither much force, nor much elegance. His little performances, whether songs or epigrams, are sometimes spritely, and sometimes insipid'—and of course despicable. The candid and accurate author of the Rambler has forgot the existence of that beautiful blossom of sensibility, that pure effusion of friendship, the prologue to Coriolanus.

The life of Dr Young has been written by a lawyer, who conveys the meanest thoughts in the meanest language. His stile is dry, stiff, grovelling, and impure. His anecdotes and ideas, are evidently the cud of Dr Johnson's conversation. He continues in the same fretful tone from the first line to the last. He is at once most contemptuous and contemptible. Whatever he says is insipid or disgusting. He is the bad imitator of a bad original; and an honest man cannot peruse his libel without indignation. He steps out of his way to remind us of Milton's corporal correction, a story fabricated, as is well known, by his Employer. His ignorance has already been illustrated in a periodical pamphlet. Johnson himself, with all his imperfections, is often as far superior to this unhappy penman, as the author of the Night-Thoughts is superior to Johnson. And yet this critical assassin, this literary jackall, is celebrated by the Doctor[20]. Pares cum paribus facile congregantur.

'Dryden's poem on the death of Mrs Killigrew is undoubtedly the noblest ode that our language ever has produced. The first part flows with a torrent of enthusiasm. All the stanzas, indeed, are not equal.' He proceeds to compare it with an imperial crown, &c. But, a little after, 'the ode on St Cecilia's day is allowed to stand without a rival[21].' These are his identical words; and his admirers may reconcile them if they can. Indeed, he seems ashamed of his own inconsistency, and is ready to relapse; but thinks, upon the whole, that Alexander's Feast 'may, perhaps, be pronounced superior to the ode on Killigrew.' Dr Johnson is said to be the greatest critic of his age; yet the verses on Mrs Killigrew are beneath all criticism; and, perhaps, no person ever read them through, except their author, and himself.

Dryden's fable 'of the Cock and Fox seems hardly worth the labour of rejuvenescence[22].' Some narcotic seems to have refrigerated the red liquor which circulates in the Doctor's veins[23], and to have hebetated and obtunded his powers of excogitation[24], for elegance and wit never met more happily than here. Peruse only the first page of this poem, and then judge. The nonsense which has been written by critics is, in quantity and absurdity, beyond all conception. Perhaps his admirers may answer, that my remark is but the ramification of envy, the intumescence of ill-nature, the exacerbation of 'gloomy malignity.' However, it would not be amiss to commit that page of inanity to the power of cremation; and let not his fondest idolaters confide in its indiscerptibility. In painting the sentiments and the scenes of common life, to write English which Englishmen cannot read, is a degree of insolence hardly known till now, and seems to be nothing but the poor refuge of pedantic dullness.

His Abyssinian tale hath many beauties, yet the characters are insipid, the narrative ridiculous, the moral invisible, and the reader disappointed. 'Intercepting interruptions and volant animals' are above common comprehension. The Newtonian system had reached the happy valley; for its inhabitants talk of the earth's attraction and the body's gravity[25]. To tell a tale is not the Doctor's most happy talent; he can hardly be proud of his success in that species of fiction.

Speaking of Scotland, he says, 'The variety of sun and shade is here[26] utterly unknown. There is no tree for either shelter or timber. The oak and the thorn is equally a stranger. They have neither wood for palisades, nor thorns for hedges. A tree may be shown in Scotland as a horse in Venice[27].' An English reader may, perhaps, require to be told, that there are thousands of trees of all ages and dimensions, within a mile of Edinburgh; that there are numerous and thriving plantations in Fife; and that, as some of them overshadow part of the post-road to St Andrew's, the Doctor must have been blinder than darkness, if he did not see them. But why would any man travel at all, who is determined to believe nothing which he hears, and who, at the same time, cannot see six inches beyond his nose?

'We are not very sure that the bull is ever without horns, though we have been told that such bulls there are[28].' Who are the we he refers to? and who but the Doctor ever started so weak a question? His ignorance is below ridicule. It is true, that, in England, bulls which want horns are less numerous than husbands who have them; yet such bulls are always to be found. For the performance which contains this profound remark, this agglomerated ramification of torpid imbecility, be it known, that we have paid six shillings, which verifies the proverb, that a fool and his money are soon parted.

'We found a small church, clean to a degree unknown in any other part of Scotland[29]!' Here the fact may be true; but Dr Johnson must be ignorant whether it is or not. It is certain, that some buildings of that kind in Edinburgh, are no high specimens of national taste; but, if the Rambler would insinuate that this want of elegance is general, we must impeach his veracity; we must remind him, that there are gloomy, dirty, and unwholesome cathedrals in both countries; and we must lament, that, when entering Scotland, the Doctor left every thing behind him but HIMSELF.

'Suspicion has been always considered, when it exceeds the common measure, as a token of depravity and corruption; and a Greek writer has laid it down as a standing maxim, that he who believes not the oath of another, knows himself to be perjured.—Suspicion is, indeed, a temper so uneasy and restless, that it is very justly appointed the concomitant of guilt. Suspicion is not less an enemy to virtue than to happiness. He that is already corrupt, is naturally suspicious, and he that becomes suspicious, will quickly be corrupt[30].' This cannot always be true; but, if it were, the Rambler is by far the greatest miscreant who ever infested society. Speaking of Scotland, he says, 'I know not whether I found man or woman whom I interrogated concerning payments of money, that could surmount the illiberal desire of deceiving me, by representing every thing as dearer than it is.—The Scot must be a sturdy moralist who does not love Scotland better than truth[31].' Apply the Doctor's maxims to his own conduct, and then judge of his honesty. He adds a little after: 'The civility and respect which we found at every place, it is ungrateful to omit, and tedious to repeat[32].' He should not have spoke of ingratitude. The picture grows quite shocking.

'How they lived without kail, it is not easy to guess. They cultivate hardly any other plant for common tables; and, when they had not kail, they probably had NOTHING[33].' As the word kail is not to be found in his Dictionary, an English reader will be at a loss to find out what he means. His conjecture is ridiculous; and here a new contradiction must be swallowed by the Doctor's believers; for, if OATS be 'a grain, which, in England, is generally given to horses, but, in Scotland, supports the people[34],' in that case, it is easy to guess how they lived without kail. Any thing else had surely been better than to fill up his heavy folios with such peevish nonsense.

In his life of Butler, the Doctor has confined his remarks to Hudibras, though the rest of that author's works, both in prose and verse, merit equal attention. What are we to think of this invidious and culpable omission? Hudibras itself would, perhaps, have been omitted, if the book had not tended to ridicule dissenters; for no man in England seems to hate that sect so heartily. In Watt's life, he takes care to tell us, that the author was to be praised in every thing but his non-conformity; and, in his ever memorable Tour, the Rambler says, 'I found several (Highland Ministers), with whom I could not converse, without wishing, as my respect increased, that they had not been presbyterians[35].' Here a critic has very properly interrogated the Doctor, what he would have said or thought, if the Highland ministers had lamented that he was not a presbyterian? This man has no tincture of the liberal and humane manners of the present age; and yet, with his peculiar consistency, he laughs at the dissenter who refused to eat a Christmas pye[36]. This quondam believer in the Cocklane ghost says, 'though I have, like the rest of mankind, many failings and weaknesses, I have not yet, by either friends or enemies, been charged with superstition[37];' yet, with all the Doctor's 'contempt of old women and their tales[38],' he would, if a Roman consul, have disbanded his army for the scratching of a rat[39].

'We found tea here, as in every other place, but our spoons were of horn[40].' This important fact had been hinted in a former page; and such is the Doctor's politeness!

'They do what I found it not very easy to endure. They pollute the tea-table by plates piled with large slices of Cheshire cheese[41].' The happiness of this remark will be fully felt by those acquainted with the peculiar purity of Pomposo's person.

'M'Leod left them lying dead by families as they stood[42].' This is profound; for no man can stand and lie at the same time. The line ought to be read thus: 'M'Leod left them lying dead by families as they HAD stood.'

Of the Memoirs of Scriblerus, the Doctor says: 'If the whole may be estimated by this specimen, which seems to be the production of Arbuthnot, with a few touches, perhaps, by Pope, the want of more will not be much lamented; for the follies which the writer ridicules, are so little practised, that they are not known; nor can the satire be understood but by the learned: He raises phantoms of absurdity, and then drives them away: He cures diseases that were never felt.

'For this reason[43], the joint production of three great writers has never obtained any notice from mankind. It has been little read, or when read, has been forgotten, as no man could be wiser, better, or merrier by remembering it.

'The design cannot boast of much originality; for, besides its general resemblance to Don Quixote, there will be found in it particular imitations of the history of Mr Ouffle.

'Swift carried so much of it into Ireland as supplied him with hints for his travels; and with those the world might have been contented, though the rest had been suppressed[44].'

Here we have a copious specimen of the Doctor's taste; and all the volumes of English criticism cannot produce a poorer page.

The work thus condemned, displays a very rich vein of wit and learning. The follies which it exposes, though a little heightened, were, in that age, frequent, and perfectly well known. The writers whom it ridicules, have sunk into nihility. The book is always reprinted with the prose works of Pope, and Swift, and Arbuthnot; and what stronger mark of notice can the public bestow? Every man who reads it, must be the wiser and the merrier; and the satire may be understood with very little learning.

Dr Arbuthnot was a Scotsman, and, probably, a Presbyterian. He was an amiable man. He is dead. Dr Johnson feels himself to be his inferior; and, therefore, endeavours to murder the reputation of his works. To gain credit with the reader, he artfully draws a very high character of Arbuthnot, a few pages before, and here, in effect, overturns it. He had said that Arbuthnot was 'a scholar, with great brilliancy of wit.' But, if his wit and learning are not displayed in the Memoirs of Scriblerus, we may ask where wit and learning are to be found?

Of this extract, the style is as slovenly as the leading sentiments are false.

The book is said to be, the 'production of Arbuthnot.' Within ten lines, it is 'the joint production of three great writers.' How can follies be practised which are not known? or diseases cured, which were never felt? He claims the attributes of omniscience when saying, that 'it has been little read, or when read, has been forgotten;' for, as it has been so frequently reprinted, no human being can be certain that it has been little read, or forgotten; but there is the strongest evidence of the contrary. This period concludes, as it began, with a most absurd assertion. If 'the design cannot boast of much originality,' there is nothing original in the literary world. Who is Mr Ouffle? and who told the Doctor that Swift carried any part of Scriblerus into Ireland, to supply hints for his travels? When Gulliver was published, Dr Arbuthnot, as appears from their correspondence, did not know whether that book was written by Swift or not; so that we are sure the Dean carried nothing of Arbuthnot's along with him. Had Dr Johnson 'flourished and stunk' in their age, he would have been the hero of Martin's memoirs; and, to suppose him conscious of this circumstance, will account for the Rambler's malevolence, and explain why the bull broke into a china-shop.

I beg particular attention to the following passage.

'His (Pope's) version may be said to have tuned the English tongue; for, since its appearance, no writer[45], however deficient in other powers, has wanted melody[46].' This is wild enough; but, of Gray's two longest Odes, 'the language is laboured into harshness.' Hammond's verses 'never glide in a stream of melody.' The diction of Collins 'was often harsh, unskilfully laboured, and injudiciously selected. His lines, commonly, are of slow motion, clogged and impeded with clusters of consonants.' Of the style of Savage, 'The general fault is, harshness.' The diction of Shenstone 'is often harsh, improper, and affected,' &c.

Of these five poets, some were not born when Pope's version was published; and, of the rest, not one had penned a line now extant. They are all here charged, in the strongest terms, with harshness; and yet, (mirabile dictu!) since the appearance of Pope's version, 'no writer, however deficient in other powers, has wanted melody.'

It is no less curious, that the author of this wonder-working translation is himself charged with want of melody; and that too in a poem written many years after the appearance of Pope's Homer. 'The essay on man contains more lines unsuccessfully laboured, more harshness of diction, more thoughts imperfectly expressed, more levity without elegance, and more heaviness without strength,[47]' &c.

'Gray thought his language more poetical, as it was more remote from common use[48].' This assertion is not entirely without foundation, but it is very far from being quite true.

'Finding in Dryden, honey redolent of spring, an expression that reaches the utmost limits of our language, Gray drove it a little more beyond common apprehension, by making gale to be redolent of joy and youth[49].' The censure is just. But Dr Johnson is the last man alive, who should blame an author for driving our language to its utmost limits: For a very great part of his life has been spent in corrupting and confounding it. In some verses to a Lady, he talks of his arthritic pains[50], an epithet not very suitable to the dialect of Parnassus. Dr Johnson himself cannot always write common sense. 'In a short time many were content to be shewn beauties which they could not see[51].' He must here mean—'Beauties which they could not have seen;'—for it is needless to add, that no man can be shewn what he cannot see.

It is curious to observe a man draw his own picture, without intending it. Pomposo, when censuring some of Gray's odes, observes, That 'Gray is too fond of words arbitrarily compounded. The mind of the writer seems to work with unnatural violence. Double, double, toil and trouble.' He (the author of an Elegy in a country church-yard) 'has a kind of strutting dignity, and is tall by walking on tip-toe. His art and his struggle are too visible, and there is too little appearance of ease, or nature. In all Gray's odes, there is a kind of cumbrous splendour which we wish away[52].' We may say like Nathan, Thou art the man.

Mr. Gray, and Mr. Horace Walpole, are said to have wandered through France and Italy[53]. And as a contrast to this polite expression, I shall add some remarks which have occurred on the Doctor's own mode of wandering.

'It must afford peculiar entertainment to see a person of his character, who has scarcely ever been without the precincts of this metropolis (London), and who has been long accustomed to the adulation of a little knot of companions of his own trade, sallying forth in quest of discoveries—Neither the people nor the country that he has visited will perhaps be considered as the most extraordinary part of the phænomena he has described.—The Doctor has endeavoured to give an account of his travels; but he has furnished his readers with a picture of himself. He has seen very little, and observed still less. His narration is neither supported by vivacity, to make it entertaining, nor accompanied with information, to render it instructive. It exhibits the pompous artificial diction of the Rambler with the same vacuity of thought.—The reader is led from one Highland family to another merely to be informed of the number of their children, the barrenness of their country, and of the kindness with which the Doctor was treated. In the Highlands he is like a foolish peasant brought for the first time into a great city, staring at every sign-post, and gaping with equal wonder and astonishment at every object he meets[54].'

'At Florence they (Gray and Walpole) quarelled and parted; and Mr. Walpole is now content to have it told that it was by his fault[55].' This is a dirty insinuation; and the rant which follows in the next period is of equal value.

He observes, That 'A long story perhaps adds little to Gray's reputation[56].' Perhaps was useless here, and indeed the Doctor has introduced it in a thousand places, where it was useless, and left it out in as many where it was necessary. In justice to Gray, he ought to have added, that their Author rejected, from a correct edition of his works, this insipid series of verses.

'Gray's reputation was now so high that he had the honour of refusing the laurel[57].' No man's reputation has ever yet acquired him the laurel, without some particular application from a courtier. What honour is acquired by refusing the laurel? An hundred pounds a-year would have enabled an œconomist like Mr Gray to preserve his independence and exert his generosity. The office of laureat is only ridiculous in the hands of a fool. Mr. Savage in that character produced nothing which would dishonour an Englishman and a poet. It is probable that Mr. Gray, a very costive writer, could hardly have made a decent number of verses within the limited time. From the passage now quoted the reader will not fail to remark, that the Rambler 'nurses in his mind a foolish disesteem of kings[58].'

Mr. Gray 'had a notion not very peculiar, that he could not write but at certain times, or at happy moments; a fantastic foppery to which my kindness for a man of learning and of virtue wishes him to have been superior[59].' Milton, who was no doubt a shallow fellow compared with the Reformer of our language, had the same 'fantastic foppery.' Mr Hume remarks that Milton had not leisure 'to watch the returns of genius.'—Every man feels himself at some times less capable of intellectual effort, than at others. The Rambler himself has, in the most express terms, contradicted his present notion. In Denham's life he quotes four lines which must, he says, have been written 'in some hour propitious to poetry.' In another place in the same lives his tumid and prolix eloquence disembogues itself to prove, what no man ever doubted, viz. 'That a tradesman's hand is often out, he cannot tell why.' And an inference is drawn, That this is still more apt to be the case with a man straining his mental abilities.

In Gray's ode on spring, 'The thoughts have nothing new, the morality is natural, but too stale[60].' Read the poem, and then esteem the critic if you can. Speaking of the Bard he says, 'Of the first stanza the abrupt beginning has been celebrated; but technical beauties can give praise only to the inventor[61].' The question here is, What he means by a technical beauty? That word he explains, 'Belonging to arts; not in common or popular use'—How can this word in either of these senses apply here with propriety?

What he says of 'these four stanzas[62]'—conveys, I think, no sentiment. Every word may be understood separately, but in their present arrangement they seem to have no meaning, or they mean nonsense, and perhaps, contradiction; but this passage I leave to the supreme tribunal of all authors—to the reason and common sense of the reader. He can best determine whether he has 'never seen the notions in any other place, yet persuades himself that he always felt them.' These ideas are very beautifully expressed in many passages of Gaelic poetry: and Mr. Gray, let it be remembered, to the honour of his taste and candour, was the warm admirer of Fingal.

Comparing Gray's ode with an ode of Horace[63], he says, 'there is in the Bard more force, more thought, and more variety'—as indeed there very well may, for in the one there are thirty-six lines only, and in the other one hundred and forty-four. His whole works are full of such trifling observations. 'But to copy is less than to invent, theft is always dangerous.' If he means to insinuate that Gray's Bard is a copy of Horace, (and this is the plain inference from his words) I charge him in direct terms as an atrocious violator of Truth.

'The fiction of Horace was to the Romans credible; (NO) but its revival disgusts us with apparent and unconquerable falsehood, Incredulus odi[64].' How will the Doctor's verdict be digested at Aberdeen by 'a poet, a philosopher, and a good man[65].' It is diverting to remark how these mutual admirers clash on the clearest point, with not a possibility of reconcilement.

I pass by five or six lines, which are not worth contradiction, though they cannot resist it. 'I do not see that the Bard promotes any truth moral or political[66].' The Rambler's intellect is blind.—He seems to have stared a great deal, to have seen little or nothing. The Bard very forcibly impresses this moral, political, and important truth, that eternal vengeance would pursue the English Tyrant and his posterity, as enemies to posterity, and exterminators of mankind. Dr Johnson, a stickler for the jus divinum, did not relish this idea.

He commends the 'Ode on Adversity,' but the hint was at 'first taken from Horace[67].' The poem referred to has almost no resemblance to Mr Gray's. And if we go on at this rate, where will we find any thing original? He mistakes the title of this poem, which is not an 'Ode on,' but a 'Hymn to' Adversity. This is a clear though trifling proof of his inattention. As he dare not condemn this piece, it is dismissed in six lines, to make room for 'The wonderful wonder of wonders, the two Sister Odes, by which many have been persuaded to think themselves delighted[68].' He chews them through four tedious octavo pages. We come then to Gray's Elegy, which occupies an equal share of a paragraph containing only fourteen lines. So much more plentiful is the critic in gall than honey! And in reading this fragment we may remark that nonsense is not panegyric.

Speaking of Welsh Mythology, he says, 'Attention recoils from the repetition of a tale that, even when it was first heard, was heard with scorn[69].' There is no reason to think that the Welsh disbelieved these fictions. It is much more likely that many believe them at this day. Shakespeare has from this superstition made a whimsical picture of Owen Glendower: He painted nature. This is one of those assertions which our dictator should have qualified with a perhaps, an adverb, which, wherever it ought to be met with in the Doctor's pages, 'will not easily be found[70].'

'But I will no longer look for particular faults; yet let it be observed that the ode might have been concluded with an action of better example; but suicide is always to be had without expence of thought[71].'

The lines objected to are these:

Let the Doctor, if he can, give us a better conclusion.

'The Prospect of Eaton College suggests nothing to Gray, which every beholder does not equally think and feel[72].' He might as well have said, that every man in England is capable of producing Paradise Lost.

We have seen with what tenderness Dr Johnson speaks of the dead, we shall now see his tenderness to the living. 'Let us give the Indians arms, and teach them discipline, and encourage them now and then to plunder a plantation. Security and leisure are the parents of sedition[73].' The Doctor seems here to be serious. The proposal must reflect infinite honour on his wisdom and humanity.

'No part of the world has yet had reason to rejoice that Columbus found at last reception and employment[74].' This wild opinion is fairly disproved by Dr Smith, a philosopher not much afraid of novelty; for he has advanced a greater variety of original, interesting, and profound ideas, than almost any other author since the first existence of books.

'Such is the unevenness of Dryden's compositions that ten lines are seldom found together without something of which the reader is ashamed[75].' This is a very wide aberration from truth. In Dryden's fables we may frequently meet with five hundred lines together, without ten among them, which could have disgraced the most eminent writer. His prologues and epilogues are a never failing fountain of good sense and genuine poetry. But it were insulting the taste of the English nation to insist any farther on this point. We shall presently see how far Dr Johnson's Dictionary will answer the foregoing description.

Dryden it is said discovers 'in the preface to his fables, that he translated the first book of the Iliad without knowing what was in the second[76].' This insinuation revolts against all probability; and whoever peruses that elegant and delightful preface will find it to be NOT TRUE.

'The highest pleasure which nature has indulged to sensitive perception is that of rest after fatigue[77].' And sensitive is defined 'having sense or perception; but not reason.' If I understand the meaning of this passage, it is, that no pleasure communicated through any of the organs of sense is equal to that of rest. This assertion leads to the most absurd consequences. In man, to separate sensitive from rational perception appears to be simply impossible. Even rest is not in strict language any pleasure. It is merely a mitigation of pain. The reader will decide whether I do the Doctor justice, while I say, that he must have been petrified when he composed this maxim. Thirst and hunger had been long forgot. Handel and Titian had no power to charm. We learn that a lover can receive, and his mistress can bestow nothing which is equal to the rapturous enjoyment of an easy chair. The thought is new; no human being ever did, or ever will conceive it, except this immortal Idler.

'Physicians and lawyers are no friends to religion, and many conjectures have been formed to discover the reason of such a combination between men who agree in nothing else, and who seem to be less affected in their own provinces by religious opinions than any other part of the community[78].' He then proceeds in the tone of an author, who has made a discovery to inform us of the cause. 'They have all seen a parson, seen him in a habit different from their own, and therefore declared war against him.' But this can be no motive for peculiar antipathy to parsons, allowing such antipathy to exist; for in habit all other classes differ no less from the clergy, than the lawyer and physician. But the remark itself is frivolous and false. Boerhaave and Hale were men of eminent piety. Physicians and lawyers have as much regard for religion as any other people generally have. Their agreeing in nothing else is another of the blunders crowded into this passage. But I have too much respect for the reader's understanding to insist any farther on this point. The conjecturers, the combination, and the declaration of war, exist no where but in the Doctor's pericranium. He was at a loss what to say, and the position is only to be regarded as a turbid ebullition of amphibological inanity. But while we thus meet with something which is ridiculous in every page, we are not to forget even for a moment, what we have often heard, and what is most unquestionably true, viz. That Dr Johnson is the father of British literature, capital author of his age, and the greatest man in Europe[79]!!!

'We are by our occupations, education, and habits of life, divided almost into different species, who regard one another for the most part with scorn and malignity[80].' The Doctor is himself a proof, that a man may look upon almost all of his own profession with scorn and malignity: So that between his precept and his practice, the world seems bad enough. But I hope every heart revolts at this gross insult on the characters of mankind. He brings as an instance the aversion which subsists between soldiers and sailors. There no doubt have been jealousies and bloodshed between these two classes of men, but the same accidents fall out more frequently between soldiers themselves. The scorn and malignity of admirals seldom affect any line of service but their own. His captain of foot[81], who saw no danger in a sea-fight was a fool, and just such a specimen of English officers, as the Doctor himself is of English travellers. Our repulse at Carthagena was not owing to an antipathy between the common men. Our late victory at Savannah proves with what ardour they can unite. The Doctor has insulted almost every order of society.

'To raise esteem we must benefit others,' is an assertion advanced in the same page. But the Doctor, if he knows any thing, must know that esteem is often felt for an enemy. We value for his courage or ingenuity the man who never heard our name, or who would not give a guinea to save us from perdition. We can esteem the hero who butchers nations, and the pedant who perplexes truth. Marlborough's avarice led him to continue the continental war, till he had laid the great foundation of our public debt. He was detested as much as any general now in England, and yet 'he was so great a man (said one of his enemies) that I have forgot his faults.' Posterity, while they suffer for his baseness, pay the due tribute of esteem to his genius and intrepidity.

In every point of view this maxim is 'the baseless fabrick of a vision.' And what had so far obumbrated the Rambler's powers of ratiocination, it is not easy to guess. We sometimes feel it impossible to esteem even our benefactor. 'I have received obligations (said Chatterton) without being obliged.' And of consequence, his benefactors had forfeited his esteem. The father of British literature has in forty other places contradicted his own words. He has proved that esteem is involuntary, and that benefits do not always procure it.

The Doctor says, 'That Cowley having, when very young, read Spenser, became irrecoverably a poet[83].' And he adds a remark that shows his good sense: 'Such are the accidents which, sometimes remembered, and sometimes perhaps forgotten, PRODUCE that particular designation of mind and propensity for some certain science or employment, which is commonly called genius. The true genius is a mind of large general powers, accidentally determined to some particular direction. The great painter of the present age had the first fondness for his art excited by a perusal of Richardson's treatise.' This drawling definition contradicts common sense. Does the Doctor mean that Cowley would have become a painter by perusing Richardson? or that Reynolds would have become a poet by perusing Spenser? This is the clear inference from his words, and its absurdity is 'too evident for detection, and too gross for aggravation[84].' At this rate Garrick might have eclipsed Newton, and Voltaire defeated Frederick. Plato possessed 'a mind of large general powers.' He read Homer. He wrote verses, and he found that he could not be a poet. The Doctor himself has 'large general powers;' but he could never have been made a decent dancing master. Marcel might have broke his heart, before his pupil had acquired three steps of a minuet. In his dictionary the Doctor, without a word of accidental determination, defines genius to be 'disposition of nature, by which any one is qualified for some peculiar employment.' And here I cannot help adding, that 'the great painter' has by stepping out of his own line, discovered the narrowness of even a great man's knowledge. He affirms[85], That scarce a poet from Homer down to Dryden ever felt his fire diminished merely by his advance in years. There is nothing more absurd, says Cicero, than what we hear asserted by some of the philosophers. Even in painting, the President's own profession, that rule does not hold. Cellini tells us, that Michael Angelo's genius decayed with years; and he speaks of it as common to all artists. His notion was perhaps grafted on an opinion of the Doctor's about the durability of Waller's genius[86]. But Waller was a feeble poet; he never had a genius, so that we need not wonder he never lost it. All his verses are hardly worth one of Dr Johnson's imitations of Juvenal.

Rowe (the famous tragic poet) 'seldom moves either pity or terror[87].' Paradise Lost is a work which 'the reader admires, and lays down, and forgets to take up again[88],' But Rowe's Lucan, which is very little read, the Doctor pronounces to be 'one of the greatest productions of English poetry.' Dr Johnson's sycophants have asserted, that 'in the walks of criticism and biography he has long been without a rival.' And they are no doubt willing to support their idol in his infamous assertion, that Swift 'excites neither surprise nor admiration[89].' The Doctor's disregard for the unanimous sentiments of mankind often excites surprize, but never admiration. Let us here apply his own observation, that 'there is often found in commentaries a spontaneous train of invective and contempt, more eager and venemous than is vented by the most furious controvertist in politics, against whom he is hired to defame[90].' We may illustrate the Rambler's remark by his own example: 'Theobald, a man of narrow comprehension, and small acquisitions, with no native and intrinsick splendour of genius, with little of the artificial light of learning—his contemptible ostentation I have frequently concealed[91].' The definer of a fiddlestick proceeds thus: 'I have in some places shewn him, as he would have shewn himself for the reader's diversion, that the inflated emptiness of some notes may justify or excuse the contraction of the rest.'—The advocate for tenderness and decorum goes on to tell us, that 'Theobald, thus weak and ignorant, thus mean and FAITHLESS, thus petulant and ostentatious, by the good luck of having Pope for his enemy, has escaped, and escaped alone with reputation from this undertaking. So easily is he praised whom no man can envy[92].' How does it appear that Theobald was weak and ignorant? The Doctor himself had in the preceding page told us, that 'he (Theobald) collated the antient copies, and rectified many errors.' This assertion our author, with his wonted consistency, has flatly contradicted in the very next line. 'What little he (Theobald) did was commonly right.' Has the Doctor adduced, or has he attempted to adduce evidence, that Theobald was mean and faithless, or what provocation has he to load this man's memory with such injurious epithets? His burst of vulgarity can reflect disgrace on nobody but himself. It is evident, tho' he thinks proper to deny it, that he considered Theobald as an object of envy; yet he is obliged to confess that Theobald 'escaped, and escaped alone, with reputation,' from the talk of amending Shakespeare. In assigning a reason for this applause of Theobald, Dr Johnson pays a very poor compliment to the penetration of the public, for surely to combat a writer of so much merit and popularity as Pope, was not the plainest road to eminence in the literary world.

'In his (Shakespeare's) tragic scenes there is always something wanting'——NO[93]——'In his comic scenes he is seldom very successful, when he engages his characters in reciprocations of smartness, and contests of sarcasms; their ideas are commonly gross, and their pleasantry licentious.' This accusation is cruel and unjust, as all the world knows already. But a great part of that preface is an incoherent jumble of reproach and panegyrick[94]. If any thing can be yet more faulty than what we have just now seen, it is what follows: 'Whenever he (Shakespeare) solicits his invention, or strains his faculties[95], the offspring of his throes is tumour (i. e. puffy grandeur[96]), meanness, tediousness, and obscurity. His declamations or set speeches are commonly cold and weak.' The set speeches (as the Doctor elegantly terms them) of Petruchio, of Jacques, of Wolsey, and of Hamlet, are perhaps neither cold nor weak. The conclusion of this period is worthy of such a beginning; he mentions certain attempts from which Shakespeare 'seldom escapes without the pity or resentment of his reader.' The Doctor himself is an object of pity. Shakespeare has been in his grave near two centuries—His life was innocent—His writings are immortal. To feel resentment against so great a man because his works are not every where equal, is an idea highly becoming the generosity of Dr Johnson.

What 'truth, moral or political,' is promoted by telling us, that, when Thomson came to London, his first want was a pair of shoes; that Pope 'wore a kind of fur doublet, under a shirt of very coarse warm linen, with fine sleeves[97];' and a long string of such tiresome and disgusting trifles, which make his narrative seem ridiculous. Had Dr Johnson been Pope's apothecary, we would certainly have heard of the frequency of his pulse, the colour of his water, and the quantity of his stools.

'Though Pope seemed angry when a dram was offered him, he did not forbear to drink it[98].' And who the Devil cares whether he did or not? The Doctor needed hardly to have told us, that 'his petty peculiarities were communicated by a female domestic;' for no gentleman would have confessed that they came within the reach of his observation.

The truly illustrious author of the Rambler, has exerted his venemous eloquence, through several pages, in order to convince us, that 'never were penury of knowledge and vulgarity of sentiment so happily disguised,' as in Pope's Essay on Man. For this purpose, the Doctor celebrates the character of Crousaz, whose intentions 'were always right, his opinions were solid, and his religion pure[99].' In opposition to such authorities, let us hear the great and immortal citizen of Geneva.

'M. de Crousaz has lately given us a refutation of the ethic epistles of Mr Pope, which I have read; but it did not please me. I will not take upon me to say, which of these two authors is in the right; but I am persuaded, that the book of the former will never excite the reader to do any one virtuous action, whereas our zeal for every thing great and good is awakened by that of Pope[100].'

The Essay on Man, he says, 'affords an egregious instance of the predominance of genius, the dazzling splendour of imagery, and the seductive powers of eloquence. The reader feels his mind full, though he learns NOTHING; and when he meets it in its new array, no longer knows the talk of his mother, and his nurse[101].' If the conversations of Dr Johnson's mother and his nurse were equal to Mr Pope's verses, it is a pity the Doctor had not preserved them. He could hardly have spent his time so well. And it is a wonder that with so many rare opportunities of improvement, the Doctor has never yet eclipsed his nurse. Voltaire pronounces Pope's Essay to be the finest didactick poem in the world, and he would no doubt have replied to the Doctor's objections in that tone of contempt with which the Doctor replied to some of his—'These are the petty cavils of petty minds[102].'

In the Essay on Man 'so little was any evil tendency discovered, that, as innocence is unsuspicious, many read it for a manual of piety[103];'—and will continue to read it, when the cavils of Dr Johnson are forgotten or despised.

'He (Pope) nursed in his mind a foolish disesteem of Kings.' And again, 'He gratified that ambitious petulance with which he affected to insult the great[104].'

Dr Johnson himself is by no means remarkable for his respect to the great. In the preface to his folio Dictionary, he tells us, that it was written 'without any patronage of the great,' which is a mistake; for he had published a pamphlet, some years before, wherein he acknowledges, that Chesterfield had patronized him; and why the Doctor should retract his own words, it is hard to say; for Chesterfield continued his friend to the last; and such a man was very likely the strongest spoke in the Doctor's wheel. But his Lordship is now dead, and the Doctor is always and eminently grateful.

'It has been maintained by some, who love to talk of what they do not know, that pastoral is the most antient poetry.' But in the next period, 'pastoral poetry was the first employment of the human imagination[105].' The Doctor, therefore, by his own account, is one of those, who love to talk of (and what is yet worse, to assert) what they do not know. In North America, the natives have no conception of pastoral life among themselves, and their poetry, such as it is, hath no relation to that state of society.

Pastoral poetry 'is generally pleasing, because it entertains the mind with representations of scenes, familiar to almost every imagination, and of which all can equally judge whether they are well described, or not[106].'

This period is so closely interwoven with nonsense, that it will take some pains to disentangle it. Rural scenes are not familiar to almost every imagination. In England half the people are shut up in large towns, and such is the gross ignorance of some of them, that an old woman in London once asked, whether potatoes grew on trees. Neither is every man an equal judge even of what is familiar to him. Observe how the Rambler confounds the distinction between all, and almost every. The whole number is in the same stile.

'At this time a long course of opposition to Sir Robert Walpole had filled the nation with clamours for liberty, of which no man felt the want, and with care for liberty which was not in danger[107].'

No man was more violent than Dr Johnson in abusing Walpole. We have already seen some of those political definitions, which at this hour deform the Doctor's Dictionary. His late zeal for government could arise from self interest only. And to take his own words, he comes under suspicion as a wretch hired to vindicate the late measures of the Court[108]. He accuses Milton as a tool of authority, as a forger hired to assassinate the memory of Charles I. These charges came with a very bad grace from the Rambler. They are long since refuted in a separate publication, and yet they will be reprinted in every future edition of his book.

Will any man be the wiser, the better, or the merrier, by reading what follows—'Lyttleton was his (Shenstone's) neighbour, and his rival, whose empire, spacious and opulent, looked with disdain on the petty state that appeared behind it. For a while the inhabitants of Hagley affected to tell their acquaintance of the little fellow that was trying to make himself admired; but when by degrees the Leasowes forced themselves into notice, they took care to defeat the curiosity which they could not suppress, by conducting their visitants perversely to inconvenient points of view, and introducing them at the wrong end of a walk to detect a deception; injuries of which Shenstone would heavily complain[109].' The paragraph closes with a deep observation.

As the Doctor's own associates[110] have lamented the existence of this beautiful and important passage, I have only to say, that Poor Lyttleton (as the Doctor calls him) patronized Fielding, and that the Rambler patronizes William Shaw: That his Lordship was an elegant writer: That he did not adopt Johnson's new words: That Lexiphanes was dedicated to him: That he was a great and an amiable man: And that he is dead.

With all his affectation of hard words, the Doctor becomes at once intelligible when he wishes to reprobate a rival genius, or insult the ashes of a benefactor. In defiance of Addison, and a thousand other shallow fellows, he asserts that Milton 'both in prose and verse had formed his stile by a perverse and pedantick principle[111].'

Speaking of Mr Walmsley, he says, 'At this man's table I enjoyed many chearful and agreeable hours, with companions such as are not often to be found.—I am not able to name a man of equal knowledge. He never received my notions with contempt.—He was one of the first friends whom literature procured me,—and I hope that at least my gratitude made me worthy of his notice. It may be doubted whether a day now passes, in which I have not some advantage from his friendship[112].' But then, 'He was a Whig with ALL the virulence and malevolence of his party.' This is a most beautiful conclusion; and quite in the Doctor's stile. His accusation is incredible. A monster, such as he draws here, can seldom deform existence.

We are told that at St. Andrews Cardinal Beaton 'was murdered by the ruffians of Reformation[113].' And it seems to be the fashion of the day, to censure that action. Yet it is allowed on all hands that Wishart's doctrine, in spite of its incomprehensibilities, was better than Popery—that Beaton, a profligate usurping Priest, had committed every human vice—that, without civil authority, he dragged our Apostle to the stake—and that his avowed design was to expell or exterminate the whole Protestant party. Had the Cardinal been permitted to complete his plan, we durst not at this day have disputed, 'Whether it is better to worship a piece of rotten wood[114], or throw it in the fire?' It is therefore evident that to kill this tyrant was highly proper and laudable. We may just as well censure the centurion who slew Caligula. When a philosopher, who truly deserves that title, was once in conversation reprobating Melvil, he was interrupted by this, simple question, Whether if his own antagonist had conducted him to the stake, he would not have pardoned a pupil for avenging his blood? 'I would most certainly,' he replied, and such must be the real sentiments of all men, whatever they may chuse to print. When we attempt to hide the feelings of nature, that we may support a favourite system, we never fail to become ridiculous. In this age and nation, if a magistrate shall rise above the law; if he rob us of life with the most barbarous exulation; if his guilt equal whatever history hath recorded; if he want nothing but the purple and the legions to rival Domitian, the voice of nature will be heard. The brave will reject such unmanly, such fatal refinements of speculation. Like Hambden and Melvil, they will stand forth in defence of themselves, and their posterity. They will relieve their fellow citizens from temporal perdition. They will drive insolence and injustice from the seat of power. They will exult in danger, and rush to revenge or death. They will plunge their swords in the heart of their oppressor; or they will teach him, like Charles, to atone upon the scaffold for the tears and the blood of his people; and while in the eyes of their countrymen, they read their glory[115], they will perhaps reflect with a smile, that some slavish pedant, some pensioned traitor to the rights of mankind, is one day to mark them out as objects of public detestation[116].

'The theatre, when it is under any other direction, is peopled by such characters as were never seen, conversing in a language which was never heard, upon topics which will never arise in the commerce of mankind.—Upon every other stage the universal agent is love, by whose power all good and evil is distributed, and every action quickened or retarded. To bring a lover, a lady and a rival into the fable; to entangle them in contradictory obligations, perplex them with oppositions of interest, and harrass them with violence of desires inconsistent with each other; to make them meet in rapture, and part in agony; to fill their mouths with hyperbolical joy, and outrageous sorrow; to distress them as nothing human ever was distressed; to deliver them as nothing human ever was delivered, is the business of a modern dramatist. For this probability is violated, life is misrepresented, and language is depraved[117].' The weakest of Dr Johnson's admirers will blush in reading this passage. He very fairly denies every degree of merit, to every dramatic writer, of every age or nation, Shakespeare alone excepted. What can be more ridiculous than this?

'Every man finds his mind more strongly seized by the tragedies of Shakespeare than of any other writer; others please us by particular speeches, but he always makes us anxious for the event, by exciting restless and unquenchable[118] curiosity, and compelling him that reads his work to read it through[119].' But the Doctor overthrows all this within a few pages, for Shakespeare has 'perhaps not one play, which, if it were now exhibited as the work of a cotemporary writer, would be heard to the conclusion[120].' The Rambler cannot always suppress his thorough contempt for the taste of the public. He no doubt laughs internally at their folly in admiring him.

I proceed to the Doctor's English Dictionary, and shall begin with quoting the remarks already made by a judicious friend, on this subject.

'Among the many foibles of the human race, we may justly reckon this to be one, that when they have once got any thing really useful, they apply it in all cases, proper or improper, till at last they make it quite ridiculous. Nothing can possibly be more useful than a just and accurate definition, because by this only we are able to distinguish one thing from another. It is obvious, however, that in definitions we ought always to define a thing less known, by one which is more so, and those things which are known to every body, neither can be defined, nor ought we to attempt a definition of them at all; because we must either explain them by themselves, or by something less known than themselves, both of which give our definitions the most ridiculous air imaginable.

'A certain right reverend gentleman, not many miles from Edinburgh, and whom, out of my great regard for the cloth, I put in the first place, gave the following definition of a thief. "A thief," says he, "my friends, is a man of a thievish disposition." Now though this definition is somewhat imperfect, for a thief also exerts that thievish disposition which lurks in his breast, I intend to take it for my model, on account of its great conformity to many of the definitions given by the most celebrated authors.—I remember to have seen in one of the Reviews a definition of Nature, which began in the following manner. "Nature is that innate celestial fire."—The rest has in truth escaped my memory, though I remember the Reviewers indecently compared it to the following lines, which they say were a description of a dog-fish.

'This definition rather goes a step beyond that of the clergyman, as it explains the words a parte post by Album Græcum, which are more obscure than the former, and neither of which, out of my great regard to decency, I choose to translate.—Whether Dr Johnson composed his dictionary, after hearing the above-mentioned clergyman's sermon, or not, I cannot tell, but he seems very much to have taken him for his model, even though the said clergyman was a Presbyterian, and Dr Johnson has an aversion at Presbyterians. Thus, when he tells us, that short is not long, and that long is not short, he certainly might as well have told us that a thief is a man of a thievish disposition. I am surprised indeed how the intellects of a human creature could be obscured by pedantry, and the love of words, to such a degree, as to insert this distinction in a book, pretended to be written for the instruction and benefit of society. Much more am I surprised how the authors of all dictionaries of the English language have followed the same ridiculous plan, as if they had positively intended to make their books as little valuable as possible. Nay, I am almost tempted to think, that the readers have a natural inclination to peruse nonsense, and cannot be satisfied without a considerable quantity of that ingredient in every book which falls into their hands. Long and short are terms merely relative, and which every body knows; to explain them therefore by one another, is to explain them by themselves. But besides this ridiculous way of explaining a thing by itself, pedants, of whom we may justly reckon Dr Johnson the Prince, have fallen upon a most ingenious method of explaining the English by the Latin, or some other language still further beyond the reach of vulgar ken. Thus, when Dr Johnson defines fire, he tells us it is the igneous element. To water (the verb) he tells us, is to irrigate, by which no doubt we are greatly edified. To do is to practise, and to practise is to do, &c.

'But the most curious kind of definitions are these œnigmatical ones of our author, by which he industriously prevents the reader from knowing the meaning of the words he explains. Thus, the hair he tells us is one of the common teguments of the body; but this will not distinguish it from the skin, and shews the extreme poverty of judgment under which the Doctor laboured, when he could not point out the distinguishing mark between the hair and skin. A dog is "a domestic animal remarkably various in his species," but this does not distinguish him, except to natural historians, from a cow, a sheep, or a hog; for of these there are also different breeds or species. A cat is "a domestic animal that catches mice;" but this may be said of an owl, or a dog; for a dog will catch mice if he sees them, though he does not watch for them as a cat does. Nay, if we happen to overlook the word animal, or not to understand it, we may mistake the cat for a mouse-trap. The earth, according to our learned author, is "the element distinct from fire, air, or water;" but this may be light or electricity as well as earth.—Air is "the element encompassing the terraqueous globe;" but an unlearned reader would be very apt to mistake this for the ocean, &c.

'When the Doctor comes to his learned definitions, he outdoes, if possible, his œnigmatical ones. Network is "any thing reticulated or decussated at equal distances." A nose is "the prominence on the face which is the organ of scent, and the emunctory of the brain."—The heart is "the muscle which by its contraction and dilatation propells the blood through the course of circulation, and is therefore considered as the source of vital motion."—Now let any person consider for whom such strange definitions can possibly be intended. To give instruction to the ignorant they certainly are not designed; neither can they give satisfaction to the learned, because they are not accurate. The nose, for instance, he says is the emunctory of the brain; but every anatomist knows that it performs no such office, neither hath the nose any communication with the brain, but by means of its nerves.—Yet this dictionary is reckoned the best English one extant. What then must the rest be; or what shall we think of those who mistake a book, stuffed with such stupid assemblages of words, for a learned composition? Definitions undoubtedly are necessary, but not such as give us no information, or lead us astray. Neither can any thing shew the sagacity, or strength of judgment, which a man possesses, more clearly than his being able to define exactly what he speaks about; while such blundering descriptions as these, above quoted, shew nothing but the Doctor's insignificance[121].'

That the courteous reader may be qualified to judge for himself, I shall now insert a variety of quotations from this wonderful, amazing, admirable, astonishing, incomparable, immortal, and inimitable book. Too much cannot be said in its praise. I shall however let it speak for itself. Every page, indeed, is so pregnant with superexcellent beauties, that in selecting them, the critic's situation resembles that of the schoolman's ass between two bundles of hay; his only difficulty is where to begin. The pious husband of Bathsheba had asked 'What is Man?' But let it be told in Rome, and published in the streets of Paris, to the honour of the English nation, that her greatest philosopher has received 300l. a-year for informing us that—

Man is a 'Human being. 2. Not a woman. 3. Not a boy. 4. Not a beast.' Woman. 'The female of the human race.' Boy. '1. A male child; not a girl. 2. One in the state of adolescence.' Girl. 'A young woman or child.' (Female child he should have said.) Damsel. 'A young gentlewoman; a wench; a country lass.' Lass. 'A girl; a maid; A young woman.' Wench. '1. A young woman. 2. A young woman in contempt. 3. A strumpet.' Strumpet. 'A whore, a prostitute.' Whore. '1. A woman who converses unlawfully with men; a fornicatress; an adultress; a strumpet. 2. a prostitute; a woman who receives men for money.' To whore, v. n. (from the noun) 'To converse unlawfully with the other sex.' To whore, v. a. 'To corrupt with regard to chastity.' Whoredom, s. (from whore) 'Fornication.' (Here follow several other definitions on the same pure subject, which every body understands as well as Dr Johnson.) Young. 'Being in the first part of life. Not old.' Youngster, younker. 'A young person.' (I pass by ten other articles, about youthful compounded of youth and full, &c. &c. because young people are in no danger of thinking themselves old.) Yuck, s. (jocken, Dutch.) 'Itch,' Old. 'Past the middle part of life; not young; not new; ancient; not modern. Of old. Long ago; from ancient times.' Hum, interj. 'A sound implying doubt and deliberation, Shakespeare.' Fiddlefaddle, s. (a cant word) 'Trifles.' Fiddlefaddle, a. 'Trifling; giving trouble.'

Fiddler, s. (from fiddle) 'A musician, one that plays upon a fiddle.' Here follow fiddlestick, compounded of fiddle and stick, and warranted an English word by Hudibras; and Fiddle-string, s. (Fiddle and string) 'the string of a fiddle. Arbuthnot.' Sheep's eye. 'A modest and diffident look, such as lovers cast at their mistresses.' Love. 'Lewdness.' And thirteen other explanations. Lovemonger. 'One who deals in affairs love.' (Besides about twenty other articles concerning this subject of equal obscurity and importance.) Sweetheart. 'A lover or mistress.' Mistress. 'A woman beloved and courted; a whore, a concubine.' Wife. 'A woman that has a husband.' A Runner. 'One who runs.' Husband. 'The correlative to wife.' Shrew. 'A peevish, malignant, clamorous, spiteful, vexatious, turbulent woman.' Scold. 'A clamorous, rude, mean, low, foul mouthed woman.' Henpecked, a. (hen and pecked) 'Governed by the wife.' Strap. 'A narrow long slip of cloth or leather.' Whip. 'An instrument of correction tough and pliant.' Cuckingstool, s. 'An engine invented for the punishment of scolds and unquiet women.' Cuckoldom. 'The state of a cuckold.' (Cuckold, s. Cuckold, v. a. Cuckoldy, a. and Cuckoldmaker, s. (compounded of cuckold, and maker) I leave out, as the reader is, perhaps, already initiated in the mysteries of that subject.) Arse, s. 'The buttocks' To hang an arse. 'To be tardy, sluggish' Buttock. 'The rump, the part near the tail' Rump. '1. The end of the backbone. 2. The buttocks.' Thimble. 'A metal cover by which women (yea and taylors too Doctor) secure their fingers from the needle.' Needle. 'A small instrument pointed at one end to pierce cloth, and perforated at the other to receive the thread.' Gunpowder. 'The powder put into guns to be fired.' Maidenhead. Maidenhode. Maidenhood. 'Virginity, virgin purity, freedom from contamination.' Oh, interj 'An exclamation denoting pain, sorrow, or surprise.' Hope 'That which gives Hope. The object of Hope.' Fear. '1. Dread; horror; apprehension of danger. 2. Awe; dejection of mind. 3. Anxiety, solicitude,' &c. Impatience. 'Heat of passion; inability to suffer delay, eagerness.' Virgin. 'A woman not a mother.' Virginity. 'Maidenhead; unacquaintance with man.' Fart. 'Wind from behind. Suckling' To fart. 'To break wind behind. Swift.' Marriage. 'The act of uniting a man and woman for life.' Repentance. 'Sorrow for any thing past.' Kiss. 'Salute given by joining lips.' Kisser. 'One that Kisses.' To piss, v. n. 'To make water. L'Estrange.' Piss s. (from the verb) 'Urine; animal water. Pope.' Pissburnt, a. 'Stained with urine.' Pedant. 'A man vain of low knowledge.'

Of these extracts, I suppose opinion is uniform. Every man who reads them, reads them with contempt. To tell us that a man is not a beast, seems to be an insult, rather than a definition. To say, that young is not old, and, that old is not young, of old, &c. is to say nothing at all. There is a medium; there is a state between these periods of life. And his definitions convey no meaning; for a man may be not old tho' he is not young. Many articles, such as whoring, whoremaster, whoremonger, whorishly, &c. are as indecent, as they are impertinent, and seem only designed to divert school boys. Hum, Yuck, Fiddle, Fiddler, Fiddlefaddle, s. Fiddlefaddle, a. Fiddlestick, Fiddlestring, Thimble, Needle, Gunpowder, Hope, O, and O—and Oh, and twenty-eight or thirty explanations of the particle on, are left without remark to the reader's penetration. Some are well enough acquainted with a maidenhead, and such as are not, will be no wiser by reading Dr Johnson: For he says, That it is virginity, and that again is explained (like more than half the words in his book) by the word it explains. Neither can a maidenhead ensure freedom from pollution; for a girl may be polluted, without losing her maidenhead; and on the other hand, the Doctor dare not say that a married woman is, for that reason, polluted. Love, he calls lewdness, and he may as well say, that light is darkness. His admirers will answer, that he also gives the right meaning; but let them tell, why he gave any besides the right meaning, and why he collected such a load of blunders into his book. Or since he did collect them, why he did not mark them down as wrong. For in the preface to his octavo, he tells us, that it is written for 'explaining terms of science.' But to select twenty barbarous misapplications of a word, is not explaining the word, but only confusion worse confounded. Indeed that whole preface is a piece of the most profound nonsense, which ever insulted the common sense of the world. A virgin, is a woman not a mother. But many wives, and many concubines too, have never propagated the species, though they had (as Othello says) a thousand times committed the act of shame. From this literary chaos, a foreigner would be apt to imagine that they were virgins.

Corking pin. 'A pin of the largest size.' Bum. 'The part upon which we sit.' Butter. 'An unctuous substance.' Buttertooth. 'The great broad foretooth.' Off. prep. 'Not on.' Potato. 'An esculent root.' Turnip. 'A white esculent root.' Parsley, 'A plant.' Parsnep. 'A plant.' Colliflower. 'Cauliflower.' Cauliflower. 'A species of cabbage.' Cabbage. 'A plant.' Pit. 'A hole in the ground.' Pin. 'A short wire, with a sharp point, and round head, used by women to fasten their cloaths.' Plate. 'A small shallow vessel of metal (or of stone or wood Doctor) on which meat is eaten.' Play. 'Not work.' Poker. 'The iron bar with which men stir the fire.' Pork. 'Swine's flesh unsalted.' (Here you may find Porker, Porkeater, Porket, Porkling, with all their derivations, definitions, and authorities.) Porridge. 'Food made by boiling meat in water.' Porridge-pot, (porridge and pot) 'The pot in which meat is boiled for a family.' Porringer, (from porridge) 'a vessel in which broth is eaten.' Part. 'Some thing less than the whole.' And thirteen other ramifications. Pulse. 'Oscillation; vibration.' Puff. 'A quick blast with the mouth.' Vid. in same page, Pudding, s. from the Swedish, (which is a mistake, for it is from the French boudin) Pudding Pie, from Pudding and Pie, and Pudding-time, from Pudding and time. Puddle, s. Puddle, v. a. & Puddly, &c. Shadow. 'Opacity, darkness, Shade.' Shade. 'The cloud or opacity made by interception of the light.' Darkness. 'Obscurity. Umbrage.' Shadiness, 'The state of being shady; umbrageousness.' Shady. 'Full of shade; MILDLY gloomy.'

(No light, but rather darkness visible.)

Sevenscore. 'Seven times twenty.' Shadowy. 'Dark, opake.' To yawn. 'To gape, to oscitate,' Yawn, s. 'Oscitation, Hiatus.' Yea. 'Yes.' Yes, 'A term of affirmation, the affirmative particle opposed to no.' See also in the same place, Yest. Year. (12 months) Yesterday, s. The day last past, the next day before to-day. Yesterday, ad. Yesternight, s. Yesternight, ad. Yet, con. Yet, ad. Nine times explained. Vent. 'A small aperture; a hole; a spiracle.' Wind. 'A flowing wave of air; flatulence; windiness.' Winker. 'One who winks.' To wink. 'To shut the eyes.'

(No, Sir, unless you open them again directly.)

Window. 'An aperture in a building by which air and light are intromitted.' N. B. Almost the whole of the same page is daubed over with such jargon. Said. 'Aforesaid.' Scoundrel. 'A mean rascal; a low petty villain.' Rascal. 'A mean fellow; a scoundrel.' Villain. 'A wicked wretch.' Wretch. 'A miserable mortal.' No, ad. 'The word of refusal. 2. The word of denial.' No, a. '1. Not any; NONE. 2. No one; NONE: not any one.' (Had this word none altered its meaning, before the Doctor got to the end of the line?) Nobody. (No and body) 'No one; not any one.' (See also Nod, v. a. Nod, s. Nodder. Noddle. Noddy, &c.) None. '1. Not one. 2. Not any. 3. Not other.' Nothing. 'Negation of being; not any thing,' and seventeen other definitions. Afore. (a and fore) 'before, nearer in place to any thing.'

'There is a certain line, beyond which, if ridicule attempts to go, it becomes itself ridiculous, and there is a sphere of criticism in that particular region, in which, if the critic plays his batteries on too contemptible objects, he must unavoidably depart from his proper dignity, and must himself be an object of the raillery he would convey[122].'

Hear the Doctor on Music.

Music. '1. The science of harmonical sounds. 2. Instrumental, or vocal harmony.' Harmony. 'Just proportion of sound.' Melody. 'Music; harmony of sound.' Tune. 'Tune is a diversity of notes put together.' Locke, Milton, Dryden. Tenour, s. 'A sound in music.'

One requires little skill in music to see that the Doctor knows nothing of that science. He confounds melody with harmony; the one consisting in a succession of agreeable sounds, and the other arising from coexisting sounds. His account of a tune is curious. And we may say in his own stile, that his dictionary is 'a diversity of words put together.' His numerous omissions on this head will neither afflict, nor surprise us; but we must be mortified and amazed to reflect on the partial and injurious distribution of fame. For his book exhibits in every page, perhaps without a single exception, a variety of errors and absurdities. They are clear to the darkest ignorance. They are level to the lowest understanding, and yet our language is exhausted in praise of their author. Pronis animis audiendum!

Poem. 'The work of a poet; a metrical composition.' Poet. 'An inventor; an author of fiction; a writer of poems; one who writes in measure.' Poetess. 'A she poet.' Poetry. 'Metrical composition; the art or practice of writing poems. 2. Poems, poetical pieces.' To circumscribe poetry by a DEFINITION will only shew the narrowness of the definer[123]. Tragedy. 'A dramatic representation of a serious action.' Comedy. 'A dramatic representation of the lighter faults of mankind.' Eclogue. 'A pastoral poem, so called, because Virgil called his pastorals eclogues.' Tragic-comedy. 'A drama compounded of merry and serious events.' Farce. 'A dramatic representation written without regularity.' Elegy. '1. A mournful song. 2. A funeral song. 3. A short poem, without points or turns.' Idyl. 'A small short poem.' Epigram. 'A short poem terminating in a point.' Epic, a. 'Narrative; comprising narrations, not acted, but rehearsed. It is usually supposed to be heroic.' Epistle. 'A letter;' and a letter again is 'an epistle.' Ode. 'A poem written to be sung to music; a lyric poem.' Ballad. 'A song.' Song. 'A poem to be modulated by the voice.' Catch. 'A song sung in succession.'

I believe that Dr Johnson has written better verses than any man now alive in England. He is said to be the first critic in that country, and therefore we had the highest reason to expect elegant entertainment and philosophical instruction, when the poet and critic was to speak in his own character.

But here, as in the rest of this work, the native vigour of his mind seems entirely to leave him. We look around us in vain for the well known hand of the Rambler, for the sensible and feeling historian of Savage, the caustic and elegant imitator of Juvenal, the man of learning, and taste, and genius. The reader's eye is repelled from the Doctor's pages, by their hopeless sterility, and their horrid nakedness.

Most of the definitions in this work may be divided into three classes; the erroneous, œnigmatical, and superfluous. And of the nineteen last quoted, every one comes under some, or all of these heads.

A poem is said to be the work of a poet: And so were Dryden's prefaces. Again it is a metrical composition. No age had ever a greater profusion of rhimes than the present. In Oxford there are two thousand persons all of whom can occasionally make verses. Yet in this abundance of metrical composition, we have very few poems.

A poet is—1. 'An inventor,' but so was Tubal Cain. 2. 'An author of fiction,' but so was Des Cartes. 3. 'A writer of poems;' but as he has not been able to point out what a poem is, the definition goes for nothing. 4. 'One who writes in measure.' But in Cowley's life, the Doctor himself speaks of men, who thought they were writing poetry, when they were only writing verses. We are still exactly where we set out.

The third definition is superfluous, and the fourth is very clumsy. The fifth and sixth are still worse, for comedy[124] is frequently very serious and tender, as well as tragedy; and that again represents the lighter faults of mankind, as well as comedy. By the way, what are these lighter faults, which our comedy is said to represent. In our comic scenes, adultery, and profaneness, appear to be the chief pulse of merriment. What the Doctor says of a farce is not true, nor is elegy always mournful[125]. What can he mean by a poem without points or turns? An Idyll is a small short poem. An Epigram is a short poem; but so is an Epitaph, or a Sonnet, and often an Ode, a Fable, &c. An Epigram terminates in a point. Wonderful! Of the rest of these definitions, the reader will determine whether they be not every one of them pitiful; and if it was possible for the Doctor, or any other man, to convey less information, on so plain a subject.

'In comparing this with other dictionaries of the same kind, it will be found that the senses of each word are more copiously enumerated, and more clearly explained[126].'

Of his clear and copious explanations, here is an additional specimen.

Beast. 'An animal distinguished from birds, insects, fishes, and man.' It is also distinguished from reptiles, though the Doctor cannot tell us how. A Reptile is (but sometimes only) 'An animal that creeps upon many feet.' A Snail is 'A slimy animal that creeps upon plants.' Many animals creep on plants besides a Snail. He dare not venture to say that a Snail is a Reptile, for he had said that a Reptile creeps upon many feet, and a Snail has none. Locke is quoted to prove that a Bird is a fowl, and we are edified by hearing that a fowl is a 'bird, or a winged animal.' But this may be the butterfly, the bat, or the flying fish. He should have said a feathered animal. We are informed from Creech and Shakespeare, that a fish is an animal that inhabits the water. But besides amphibious animals, from the crocodile down to the water-mouse, we have seen Erucæ Aquaticæ, or Water Caterpillars, which are truly aquatic animals, yet are perfectly different from all fish. Insects are 'so called from a separation in the middle of their bodies, whereby they they are cut into two parts, which are joined together by a small ligature, as we see in common flies.'

Quere. How many insects answer this description?

Dr. Johnson had certainly no great occasion to quote Peacham and Swift before he durst tell us, (as he does) that a Lily is a flower, and Posteriors the hinder parts. He forgot to introduce the Dean when affirming, that a T——d is excrement; but both Pope and Swift (among others) are cited for P—ss and F—t.

His learning and his ignorance amaze us in every page. Pox are, '1. Pustules; efflorescencies; exanthematous eruptions. 2. The venereal disease.' A particular species of it only. The first part of this clear explanation would puzzle every old woman in England, though most of them know more of small pox than the Rambler himself.

Day. '1. The time between the rising and the setting of the sun, called the artificial day. 2. The time from noon to noon, called the natural day.' Natural. 'What is produced by nature,' therefore as the day from sunrise to sunset is 'produced by nature,' that, and that only, must be the natural day. Artificial. 'Made by art, not natural, fictitious, not genuine.' The day from noon to noon is certainly not natural, and of consequence, that, and that only, must be the artificial day.

Night is, '1. The time of darkness. 2. The time between sunset, and sunrise.' When the Doctor acquires the first elements of geography, he will learn, that in no climate of the world is the time between sunset and sunrise all of it a time of darkness. Even at the equator, night does not succeed till half an hour after sunset. If he has ever seen the sun rise here, he must also have seen that we have always day light long before the sun appears. In June our nights are never entirely dark. Neither is night, when it really comes on, constantly the 'time of darkness,' for the Doctor may frequently see to read his own mistakes by moonshine. Of this profound period, the first part contradicts the second, and every body sees the absurdity of both. What are we to think of such a definer of 'scientific terms,' when his errors have not even the negative merit of consistency.

Snowbroth, s. (snow and broth) 'very cold liquor.' And Shakespeare is quoted; but when the poet said[127] that the blood of an old courtier was as cold as Snowbroth, he meant melted snow. Now it is somewhat odd that every body can see Shakespeare's idea exactly, except this learned commentator. Lion. 'The fiercest and most magnanimous of four-footed beasts.' But fierceness cannot consist with magnanimity[128]. Other animals exceed the Lion in fierceness; and a Horse, an Elephant, or a Dog, equal his magnanimity. This definition contains nothing but a glaring contradiction, of which neither end is true! Thunder 'Thunder is a most bright flame rising on a sudden, moving with great violence, and with a very rapid velocity, through the air, according to any determination, and commonly ending with a loud noise or rattling.' Shakespeare. Milton.

It is needless to say that the learned and ingenious Pensioner has confounded thunder with lightning. The inelegance and tautology of this definition I pass by; but why should he profane the names of Milton and Shakespeare to support such monstrous nonsense?

Stone. 'Stones are bodies insipid, hard, not ductile or malleable, nor soluble in water.' This definition answers wood, or glass, or the bones of an animal. One. 'Less than two; single; denoted by an unit.' Raleigh.

Without consulting Raleigh, we know that a man may have 'less than two' guineas in his pocket, and yet have more than one. But still we are not sure, that he has even a single farthing. One is single, but we are only where we started, for single (more Lexiphanico) is 'one, not double; not more than one.' The matter is little mended, when he subjoins that one is that which is expressed by an unit, for this may be the numerator of any fraction. Take his book to pieces, put it into the scales of common sense, and see how it kicks the beam.

A circle is, '1. A line continued till it ends where it began. 2. The space inclosed in a circular line. 3. A round body, an orb.'

The first of these definitions does not distinguish a circle from a triangle, or any other plain figure. He might have found a circle properly defined in Euclid, and a hundred other books. What are we to think of the rest of his mathematical definitions? Well, but he clears up this point, for a circle is 'the space inclosed in a circular line,' The third definition is no less erroneous than the second, for if a man were to mention the circle of the earth, we could not suspect that he meant the globe itself.

Botany and the electrical fluid, are not inserted. Electricity he terms a property in bodies. From this expression, and from all he says on the subject, we can ascertain his ignorance of that most curious and important branch of natural philosophy. Electricity in general signifies 'the operations of a very subtile fluid, commonly invisible, but sometimes the object of our sight and other senses. It is one of the chief agents employed in producing the phænomena of nature.' Its identity with lightning was discovered in 1752, three years before the publication of Dr. Johnson's folio dictionary. For the author then to talk of it as 'a peculiar property, supposed once to belong chiefly to amber,' is shameful. It shews us the depth of his learning, and the degree of attention which he thought proper to bestow on his great work.

Elasticity. 'Force in bodies, by which they endeavour to restore themselves.' To what? To their former figure, after some external pressure? And without adding some words like these the definition conveys no meaning.

Of Water, we get a very long winded account, which neither Dr. Johnson nor any body else can comprehend, for he sinks into mere jargon. Canst thou conceive (gentle reader) what are 'small, smooth, hard, porous, spherical particles' of water! Water, says Newton, 'is a fluid tasteless salt, which nature changes by heat, into vapour, and by cold into ice, which is a hard fusible brittle stone, and this stone returns into water by heat[129].' Boerhaave calls water, 'a kind of glass that melts at a heat any thing greater than 32 degrees of Farenheit's thermometer. The boundary between water and ice[130].'

Claw. 'The foot of a beast or bird armed with sharp nails.' Nail. 'The talons of birds or beasts.' Talon. 'The claw of a bird of prey.' Dict. 4th edit.

Here a nail is talons; Talons are a claw; and a claw is said to be a foot (alias a nail) armed with nails. The quotations are literal and complete. The words are all plain English. And if you cannot comprehend a nail armed with nails, wait upon Dr. Johnson, and perhaps he will explain it.

Legion. 'A body of Roman soldiers, consisting of about five thousand.'

This is not accurate. The number of men in a Roman legion rose by degrees from about 3200 to about 7000.

Decemvirate. 'The dignity and office of the ten governors of Rome.' Tribune. 'An officer of Rome chosen by the people.' Censor. 'An officer of Rome, who had the power of correcting manners.' Consul. 'The chief magistrate in the Roman republic.'

Wherein did the Decemviri differ from the King, the Consul, the Dictator, the Triumvir, the Military Tribune, the Cæsar, and the Emperor, for all these were likewise 'Governors of Rome?' The Decemviri were also an inferior set of men appointed to take care of the Sybil's books, to conduct colonies, &c. So that this definition is very incompleat. A Tribune was 'chosen by the people.' But this does not distinguish him from many other magistrates. The Censor had 'the power of correcting manners;' but he had other powers beside that, and every magistrate had that power as well as he, though it was a province more peculiarly his. The Censor is an officer still known in Venice, and in countries where the liberty and abuse of the press are unknown, the licensers of books are called Censors, though the Doctor does not give us these two explanations of the word. A Consul is 'the chief magistrate in the Roman republic.' He was a magistrate long after the republic was dissolved; for Caligula made his horse a Consul! But tho' the Consul was commonly one of the chief magistrates in Rome, he was never the chief, as the Doctor roundly expresses it, for he had always a colleague. The Censor was at least his equal, and the Dictator was by law his superior. What we learn of the Centurion, the Triumvir, and the Lictor, is very trifling. Innumerable words which puzzle the plain reader of a Roman historian are wanting, such as an Ædile, a Prætor, a Quæstor, a Cæsar, a Military Tribune, the Hastati, Principes, Triarii, Velites, the Labarum, or Imperial Standard, the Balistæ, the Balearians, &c. A Maniple is 'a small band of soldiers.' And a Cohort is 'a troop of soldiers, containing about 500 foot.' A Cohort was in general the tenth part of the foot in a Roman Legion, consequently their number varied, and the Prætorian Cohort, or that to which the standard was intrusted, contained, at least in latter ages, many more men than any of the rest. But in the very page where this concise author thus blunders about a Cohort, he takes care to tell us, that Coition, is copulation; the act of generation. That cold is 'not hot, not warm, chill, having sense of cold, having cold qualities.' That coldly is 'without heat.' that coldness is 'want of heat;' and a heap of similar jargon. Blot. 'A blur.' Blur. 'A blot.'