'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.
Coblers with coblers smoke away the night,
Even players in the common cause, unite.
Authors alone with more than mortal rage,
Eternal war with brother authors wage[82].
'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.