[196] Johnson entertained a very high idea of the varied learning and science necessarily connected with the character of an accomplished physician, and often affirmed of the physicians of this island, that “they did more good to mankind without a prospect of reward, than any profession of men whatever.” His friendship for Dr. Bathurst, and the most eminent men in the medical line of his day, is well known. See an epistle to Dr. Percival, developing the wide field of knowledge over which a physician should expatiate, prefixed to Observations on the Literature of the Primitive Christian Writers. Ed.
[197] A most curious and original character of Akenside is given by George Hardinge, in vol. viii. of Nichols’s Literary Anecdotes. Ed.
[198] We shall, in comparison with this criticism, quote a passage from Rasselas, and deduce no inference:
“As they were sitting together, the princess cast her eyes on the river that flowed before her: answer, said she, great father of waters, thou that rollest thy floods through eighty nations, to the invocation of the daughter of thy native king. Tell me, if thou waterest, through all thy course, a single habitation from which thou dost not hear the murmurs of complaint.” Ed.
[199] I have a soul, that like an ample shield
Can take in all; and verge enough for more.
Dryden’s Sebastian.
[200] Lord Orford used to assert, that Gray “never wrote any thing easily, but things of humour;” and added, that humour was his natural and original turn. For a full examination of Johnson’s strange and capricious strictures on the poetry of Gray, we, with much satisfaction, refer our readers to the life prefixed to, and the notes that accompany, an elegant edition of Gray’s works, 2 vols. 8vo. Oxford, 1825. Much that is both elegant and useful will be found in that publication. Ed.
[201] Dr. Johnstone, of Kidderminster.