262 SAMUEL JOHNSON

whose words and deeds have a far greater influence on our imagination ; but there are very few whom, when all has been said, we can love so heartily as Samuel Johnson. Samuel Johnson.

MACAULAY

The best proof that Johnson was really an extra- ordinary man is that his character, instead of being de- graded has, on the whole been decidedly raised by a work (T6e Life of Boswell) in which all his vices and weaknesses are exposed more unsparingly than they were ever exposed by Churchill or by Kenrick. Critical Essays.

The characteristic peculiarity of his intellect was the union of great powers with low prejudices. The judge- ments which Johnson passed on books . . . are the judge- ments of a strong but enslaved understanding. Within his narrow limits he displayed a vigour and an activity which ought to have enabled him to clear the barrier which confined him. Critical Essays.

NEWMAN

Few men have the gifts of Johnson, who, to great vigour and resource of intellect, when it was fairly roused, united a rare common sense and a conscientious regard for veracity which preserved him from flippancy or extravagance in writing. Essays.

TAINE

We now send for his books and after an hour we ob- serve, that whatever the work be, tragedy or dictionary, biography or essay, he always writes in the same style. His phraseology rolls ever in solemn and majestic periods, in which every substantive marches ceremoniously ac- companied by its epithet ; grand pompous words peal like an organ ; every proposition is set forth balanced by

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