diligence to perform; and yet his edition. has been the ground on which every fubfequent commentator has chose to build. The general observations at the end of the feveral plays, with great elegance and precifion, give a fummary view of each drama. The preface is a tract of great eru dition and philofophical criticism. Johnson's political pamphlets, whatever was his motive for writing them, whether gratitude for his penfion, or the folicitation of men in power, did not fupport the cause for which they were undertaken. They are written in a ftyle truly harmonious, and with his ufual dignity of language. When it is said that he advanced pofitions repugnant to the common rights of mankind, the virulence of party may be fufpected. It is, perhaps, true, that in the clamour raised throughout the kingdom, Johnson over-heated his mind; but he was a friend to the rights of man, and he was greatly fuperior to the littlenefs of fpirit that might incline him to advance what he did not think and firmly believe. "The account of his Journey to the Hebrides or Western Ifles of Scotland, is a model for fuch as fhall hereafter relate their travels. The author did not vifit that part of the world in the character of an antiquary, to amufe us with wonders taken from the dark and fabulous ages; nor as a mathematician, to measure a degree, and settle the longitude and latitude of the feveral islands. Thofe who expected fuch information, expected what was never intended. In every work regard the writer's end. Johnson went to fee men and manners, modes of life, and the progrefs of civilization. His remarks are so artfully blended with the rapidity and elegance of his narrative, that the reader is inclined to wish, as Johnson did with regard to Gray, that to travel, and to tell his travels, had been more of his employment. "We come now to the Lives of the Poets, a work undertaken at the age of feventy, yet the most brilliant, and certainly the most popular of all our author's writings. For this performance he needed little preparation. Attentive always to the hif tory of letters, and by his own natural bias fond of biography, he was the more willing to embrace the propofition of the bookfellers. He was verfed in the whole body of the English poetry, and his rules of criticism were fettled with precision. The facts are related upon the best intelligence, and the beft vouchers that could be gleaned, after a great lapse of time. Probability was to be inferred from fuch materials as could, be procured, and no man better understood the nature of hiftorical evidence than Johnson; no man was more religiously an observer of truth. It his history is any where defective, it must be imputed to the want of better information, and the errors of uncertain tradition. Ad nos vix tenuis famæ prelabitur aura. "If the ftrictures on the works of the various authors are not always fatisfactory, and if erroneous criticism may fometimes be fufpected, who can hope, that, in matters of taste, all fhall agree? The inftances in which the public mind has differed from the pofitions advanced by the author, are few in number. It has been faid, that justice has not been done to Swift; that Gay and Prior are undervalued; and that Gray has been harshly treated. This charge, perhaps, ought not to be difputed. Johnson, it is well known, had conceived a prejudice against Swift. His friends trembled for him when he was writing that life, but were pleased, at last, to fee it executed with temper and moderation. As to Prior, it is probable that he gave his real opinion; but an opinion that will not be adopted by men of lively fancy. With regard to Gray, when he condemns the apostrophe, in which Father Thames is defired to tell who drives the hoop or toffes the ball, and then adds, that Father Thames had no better means of knowing than himfelf; when he compares the abrupt beginning of the first stanza of the "Bard" to the ballad of" Johnny Armstrong," there ever a man in all Scotland;" there are, perhaps, few friends of Johnson, who would not wish to blot out both the paffages." The following quotation from Horace is given by Mr. Murphy, as containing Johnfon's picture in miniature. "Iracundior eft paulo minus aptus acutis Is |