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.
The best proof that Johnson was really an extraordinary man is that his character, instead of being degraded has, on the whole been decidedly raised by a work (The 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 judgements which Johnson passed on books . . . are the judgements 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.
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.
We now send for his books and after an hour we observe, 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 accompanied by its epithet; grand pompous words peal like an organ; every proposition is set forth balanced by
