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.