cation, to the prying and malignant eye of the world. It is not merely the name of Johnson that is to do service to any caufe. His admirable arguments in favour ́of religion and morality, are not weakened by the proofs of his practical errors: These are always precisely what they were, once good, and always good. His arguments in favour of felf-denial do not lofe their force because he fafted, nor those in favour of devotion, becaufe be faid his prayers. His fafting and his prayers add ftrength to his pious reafonings, from the proof they afford, that he believed in the religion he inculcated. Human nature is frail; common frailties muft inevitably preclude perfection to the leaft faulty profeffor of Chriftianity. The world never fuppofed Johnson to have been a perfect character. His ftupendous abilities, and great learning, it is well known, could not preserve their poffeffor from the depreda

tions of melancholy. But his failings leaned to the fide of virtue. His fuperftition feems to have arifen from the most amiable difpofition in the world, "a pious awe, and fear to have offended," a wifh rather to do too much than too little. Such a difpofition one loves, and always wishes to find in a friend; and it cannot be difagreeable in the fight of him who made us. It argues a fenfibility of heart, a tenderness of confcience, and the fear of God. That he fhould not be confcious of the abilities with which Providence had blessed him, was impoffible. He felt his own powers; he felt what he was capable of having performed, and he faw how little, comparatively fpeaking, he had performed. Hence his apprehenfions on the near profpect of the account to be made, viewed through the medium of conftitutional and morbid melancholy, which often excluded from his fight the bright

beams of divine mercy. His felf-abafement was ftrictly ingenuous; but his expreffions, when compared with the tenor of his conduct, feem too difparaging. Christianity does not require us to deny any one quality we poffefs, or to represent ourselves, in defiance of truth, as one mafs of deformity and guilt. The inftruction of St. Paul, enforced by the most facred example, is fingly this, that we "think not of ourselves more highly than we ought to think; but that we think foberly." Johnson walked at all times humbly with his God; but when we follow him through all his weakneffes, his religious horrors, and facred punctilios, we are inclined to pity the conftitutional feebleness of his nature, while we admire the perfeverance and fervour of his devotion. We owe to the excellencies of the Supreme Being, every poffible degree of veneration and honour; but that virtue should tremble in

the prefence of Infinite Goodness, is not lefs contrary to reafon, than it is contrary to heroifm. In the prefence of Infinite Goodness it feels a congeniality, and affumes a confidence, that leaps, as it were, the gulf between, and dares to aspire to fentiments of attachment, fidelity and love. But it would be unfair to conclude from this circumstance, that the piety and humility of Johnson were of no value; and the fincerity of his repentance, the ftedfaftness of his faith, and the fervour of his charity, of no ufe. There is fomething fo great and awful in the idea of a God, and fomething so fascinating in the effufions of gratitude, that there are numbers of men intrepid and heroical, in every other regard, that cannot boaft of all the ferenity and affurance in the bufinefs of religion, that are so earnestly to be defired; and yet the piety of these men is edifying and venerable. Indeed the fate of the un

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profitable fervant"

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may justly beget appre hensions in the ftouteft mind. Language affords no finer expreffions than those in which the Prayers of Johnson are conceived. They are fhort, fimple, and unadorned. They bear fome refemblance to the Collects in the " Common Prayer-Book,' without that dignity which is derived to the latter, from the venerable antiquity of the ftyle and expreffion. They have no particular method, no display of genius, and no beauties that fhould characterize the man under whofe name they appear. They have nothing that might not have been produced by any man of plain common fenfe. At the fame time they contain few traces of weakness or abfurdity. Never did there exift a greater difparity between the performances of the fame author, than between this publication and the Lives of the Poets, or the numbers of the Rambler. His Meditations, as they are im