It will be demanded, why a private individual, without interest or connections, presumes to interfere in the quarrels of the learned? But when the most shameless of mankind, is hired to abuse the characters of his countrymen, to blast the reputations of the living and the dead; when such a tool is employed for such a purpose, that those who are insulted cannot with propriety stoop to a reply,—Then the highest degree of goodness may degenerate into the lowest degree of weakness, silence becomes approbation, and tenderness and delicacy deserve different names. He is unfit to be the friend of virtue who cannot defend her dignity; who dares not execute her vengeance. In this shameful affair, one circumstance does honour to Dr Johnson. His friendship is not exhausted in a compliment. He does not excite expectation merely to disappoint it. He resembles not some perfidious wretches, whom his intrepid eloquence hath so properly pointed out to public indignation. Exerting the generosity which often ennobles the character of an Englishman, he engages not his dependant in a performance for which he scruples to pay.
To glean the tithe of this man's absurdities cannot be of peculiar consequence to me: But the world is long since weary of his arrogant pedantry, his officious malice, his detested assiduity to undermine his superiors, and overbear his equals. Reformation is never quite hopeless, and by submitting to make a catalogue of his errors, there is a chance to humble and reform him. Perhaps indeed, like 'The drudges of sedition, HE will hear in sullen silence, HE will feel conviction without shame, and be confounded, but not abashed[171].' I have not arrested a few careless expressions, which, in the glow of composition, will sometimes escape, but by fair, and copious quotations from Dr Johnson's ponderous abortions, have attempted to illustrate his covetous and shameless prolixity; his corruptions of our language; his very limited literature; his entire want of general learning; his antipathy to rival merit; his paralytick reasoning; his solemn trifling pedantry; his narrow views of human life; his adherence to contradictions; his defiance of decency; and his contempt of truth. I have not been sporting in the mere wantonness of assertion. I have produced such various, such invincible, such damning proofs, that the Doctor himself must feel a burst of conviction. To collect every particle of inanity which may be found in our patriot's works is infinitely beyond the limits of an eighteen-pence pamphlet. I stop at present here, but the subject seems inexhaustible[172]!
F I N I S.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Read Mr Mason's Ode to Truth, and pick out a single sentiment if you can.
[2] World, No. 100.
[3] Swift had the splendid misfortune to be a man of genius. By a very singular felicity, he excelled both in verse and prose. He boasted, that no new word was to be found in his volumes; though, in glory above all writers of his time, he did not fancy that entitled him to ingross or insult conversation. He was no less remarkably clean, than some are remarkably dirty. His love of fame never led him into the lowest of all vices; and a sense of his own dignity made him respect the importance and the feelings of others. He often went many miles on foot, that he might be able to bestow on the poor, what a coach would have cost him. He raised some hundreds of families from beggary, by lending them five pounds a-piece only. He inspired his footmen with Celtic attachment. Whatever was his pride, he shewed none of it in 'the venerable presence of misery.' Though a poet he was free from vanity; though an author and a divine, his example did not fall behind his precepts; though a courtier, he disdained to fawn on his superiors; though a patriot, he never, like our successive generations of blasted orators, sacrificed his principles to his passions. 'His meanest talent was his wit.' His learning had no pedantry, his piety no superstition; his benevolence almost no parallel. His intrepid eloquence first pointed out to his oppressed countrymen, that path to Independence, to happiness, and to glory, which their posterity, at this moment, so nobly pursue. His treatise on the conduct of their foreign allies, first taught the English nation the dangers of a continental war, dispelled their delusive dreams of conquest, and stopt them in the full career to ruin.
[4] See parallel between Diogenes and Dr Johnson in Town and Country Magazine. In his life of Swift, the Doctor tells us, that 'he relieved without pity, and assisted without kindness.'
[5] Idler, No. 70.
[6] Preface to Shakespeare.