out of his house and sat all night in his post-chaise in much agitation, in consequence of which he caught a cold that eventually caused his death.
Mr. Hamilton (Chancellor of the Exchequer in Ireland) informs me that Johnson has written his own life.[1] He once saw it on his table. He had thoughts of writing a second part to his admirable work Rasselas, but I know not whether he ever executed it.[2] It is much to be lamented that he did not translate Tacitus, a work that I have heard he once had thoughts of undertaking. How well he would have done it, may be collected from his translation of part of Milton’s Panegyric on Cromwell.
I should be glad to see some of his very earliest prose productions before he came to London, in order to ascertain whether from the first he adopted the style by which he has been so much distinguished. Lobo being a translation from the French, is not a fair specimen. In the preface to it his style is clearly discernible. I imagine there are three periods or epochs in his style. At first he was certainly simpler than afterwards. Between the years 1750 and 1758 his style was, I think, in its hardest and most laboured state. Of late, it is evidently improved.
His last work, the Lives of the Poets, has all the vigour and energy of the Rambler, without so much artificial niceness in the construction of the sentences, and without the hardness of phraseology that distinguishes that work. He formed his style, I imagine,
- ↑ This was doubtless the sketch of his childhood, recognized as genuine.
- ↑ I have since found that he never did.—Mal. Mr. Hamilton was William Gerard, noticed in the Life.
