But these last, although good fair verses, are only pagnie aussi célèbre qu'est la Faculté de Théologie to the pitch of Paradise Regained.

Johnson. The dog barked at bishops; and Cicero extraordinaires et si hors d'exemple, en font conpraised those who slew his benefactor.

Tooke. It lies in the reasoning: Pascal says Johnson. Let him give way, sir, let him give plainly, "You will be much surprised, when way, for your rump-parliament and regicide. The you learn by my recital how such a bustle termicauses of true eloquence are extinct! I under-nates; and I will tell you it in few words, when stand you, sir: rump and regicide for ever!

Tooke. Better that than hypocriticism; the vague and undisciplined progeny of our Mercuries, which Johnson. It is the nature of the impudent never run furiously from the porter-pot to the tea-pot, to be angry.

Tooke. Doctor, let me present to you this cup this suits idlers: but we neither talk to the popuof tea.

Were the

himself, and has another motive.
volumes of Pascal before me, I might lay my fin-
ger on other small defects, some in expression,
some in reasoning: and I should do it: for you
would not suffer him to fall thereby in your
esteem, nor even to mingle in the crowd of high
literary names. He stands with few; and few will
ever join him.

Johnson. Good scholars and elegant writers may
sometimes lapse. Gray is both yet he says,
"Their name, their years, spelt by the unlettered Muse,
&c."

There were nine, mythologists tell us; but they
have forgotten to inform us which was the unlet-
tered one.
We might as well talk of the power-
less Jupiter, the lame Mercury, and the squinting
Venus. In another poem, the court was sat is not
English; nor is the note, in the Ode to Music, on
Mary de Valence, "of whom tradition says that
her husband:" tradition does not speak here of
her, but of the husband. I have attempted to
demonstrate some improprieties of expression in
other places.

inconsiderate

Tooke. You are supposed by many readers to have been too severe on him.

Johnson. Ay, indeed, that is harsh enough.
Tooke.

"Yet hark how through the peopled air
The busy murmur glows."

Johnson. He might as well have said, Hark! what fantastic green palings and dingy windowshutters!

Tooke. "The azure flowers that blow," are precisely the azure flowers that never did blow. "Hard unkindness' altered eye"

is harsh, ungrammatical, unpoetical, and worse than nonsense. If her eye were altered, it must

"Gay Hope is theirs, by Fancy fed,
Less pleasing when possest."

Unless they possessed it, how is it theirs? He
means the object of Hope, not Hope.

"Nor second he that rode sublime Upon the seraph wings of ecstacy The secrets of the abyss to spy."

Johnson. A critic is never too severe when he be altered for the better. only detects the faults of an author. But he is worse than too severe when, in consequence of this detection, he presumes to place himself on a level with genius. A rat or a serpent can find a hole in the strongest castle: but they could about as much construct it as he could construct the harmonious period or "the lofty rhyme." Severity lies in rash exaggeration and impudent exposure. Such as fall into it cut their own fingers, and tie them up so clumsily as to make them useless. He who exults over light faults betrays a more notable want of judgment than he censures. Sir, have I been two minute in my examination of Gray?

This is just as if I should ride to Highgate or Harrow for the purpose of looking into the hold of a lighter on the Thames. Who would ride sublime to spy what lies low, even in an abyss? particularly to spy its secrets? Speaking of Dryden he mentions his "bright-eyed fancy." Vigorous sense and happy expression are the characteristics of Dryden, certainly not fancy.

"Thoughts that breathe."

Tooke. I think you have not but I doubt whether you have assigned to him that place among the poets (I dare hardly say the men of genius) to which he is entitled. Expunge from It is no great matter to say that of them. his Elegy the second and third stanza, together with all those which follow the words

"Even in our ashes live their wonted fires,"

and you will leave a poem with scarcely a blemish: a poem which will always have more readers than any other in any language. Every church-yard contains a monument of Gray inscribed with everlasting characters.

Johnson. You are enthusiastic for once.

Tooke. No poetry can make me that and I am quite as sensible of Gray's imperfections as you are. He is often very harsh, and, what is wonderful in so laborious a composer, incorrect.

Johnson. Come hither, young lady! Have you Gray's poems? Go fetch them. Now give them this gentleman. Sir! you need not kiss her hand she is not the queen.

Tooke. That graceful curtsey might have well deceived me.

"Loose his beard."

Beards were never tied up like the tails of coach-
horses.

"Hark! how each giant oak and desart cave
Sighs to the torrent's awful voice beneath;

O'er thee, O king, their hundred arms they wave.”

Who wave their hundred arms? Why, the giant
oaks, to be sure. True enough; but not the
desert caves, nor the torrent's awful voice; and
never was sighing more in vain than theirs.
"The thread is spun."
The thread must have been spun before they began
wearing.

"And gorgeous dames and statesmen old
In bearded majesty appear."

What! the gorgeous dames too? Where were
their scissors?

"Nor envy base, nor creeping gain,
Dare the muse's walk to stain.”

One would think he had before his eyes the geese | if celebrated writers did not check and control me on Wimbledon common. And I wish he had not by their authority. written

Tooke. Doctor, I entreat you, as a lover of loyalty, to let every man be loyal in his own way. Obedience to the existing laws is a virtue: respect and reverence of misfortune is another. Only cast out from the pale of loyalty those who espouse the interests of a part rather than of the whole. Whenever I see a person whose connections are plebeian, strive and strain for aristocracy, I know what the fellow would have: he would sacrifice the interests of his friends and class for his own profit. Generosity may induce the high-born man to drop behind his family, and to concern himself in meliorating the condition of those below him. Officiousness and baseness are the grounds on which the plebeian moves, who wrangles and fights for certain men more powerful than enough without him. This is the counterfeit loyalty on which I would gladly see descend your reprobating stamp and hammer. The star of Brunswick is no more censurable than the star of Brentford, and very like it both in brilliancy and magnitude.

Johnson. Sir, this is quibbling.

Tooke. If correctness be the best part of eloquence, and as ninety-nine to a hundred in it, which I think it is, then this is no quibble. When our servants or tradesmen speak to us, it is quite enough that we understand them; but in a great writer we require exactness and propriety. Unless we have them from him, we are dissatisfied, in the same manner as if the man who refuses to pay us a debt should offer us a present. I am ready for eloquence when I find correctness. You complain, and justly, of that affected and pedantic expression of Milton, where he says that Adam was the most comely of men ever born since, and Eve the fairest of her daughters. Johnson. Ay, certainly.

Tooke. Yet you understand what he means. We employ in our daily speech an expression equally faulty. We say, "You of all others ought not, &c." Now surely you are not one of others. Correctly spoken, the phrase would be, “You of all men." On reading Milton's verses the other day, I recollected a parallel passage in Tacitus on Vespasian: "Solus omnium ante se principum in melius mutatus:" and fancying that I had seen it quoted by La Rochefoucault, I had the curiosity to inquire in what manner he translated it for he leaves none without a French version. His words are, "Il fut le seul des empereurs, ses prédécesseurs, qui changea en mieux." Here we see how two acute men pass over, without observing it, a preposterous perversion of language and plain sense.

Johnson. There are faults committed by pedants Johnson. Return to philology: even Cicero him- for the mere purpose of defending them. self, as we have seen, speaks incorrectly.

Tooke. Writers far removed from pedantry use expressions, which, if we reflect on them, excite our wonder.

Johnson. Better those than vulgarisms.

Tooke. Sometimes. Yet my estimation of his good sense and eloquence is undiminished by his inattention and negligence, which rarely occur, and on unimportant matters. The English use Tooke. There we disagree. No expression can infinity for innumerability, which word he uses: become a vulgarism which has not a broad founand it is curious, as being the only word in the dation. The language of the vulgar hath its whole compass of latinity which (with its en-source in physics: in known, comprehended, and clitic) contains nine syllables. "Infinitatem loco-operative things: the language of those who are rum innumerabilitatemque mundorum." I never can think that the word infinitior is founded on reason. What is infinite cannot be more infinite. I do not object so strongly to perfectissimus: this is only a mode of praising what is perfect, which, like infinity, cannot be extended or increased. There are words, however, which neither in their sense nor their formation seem capable of a comparative or superlative. There are properly no such words as resistless, relentless, exhaustless, which we often find not only in poetry but in prose for all adjectives ending in less, of which the first to strike us authors is moneyless, are formed from substantives. Yet we can not say more or most peerless; more or most penniless. We often find indeed a most careless servant, a most thoughtless boy: but the expression is at least inelegant and unhappy: I should even say vicious,

just above the vulgar is less pure, as flowing from what they do not in general comprehend. Hence the profusion of broken and ill-assorted metaphors, which we find in the conversation of almost all who stand in the intermediate space between the lettered and the lowest. I will go further, and venture to assert that you will find most of the expressions in daily use among ourselves to be ambiguous and vague. Your servant would say, a man told me so: the most learned and elegant of your acquaintance would probably say, on the same occasion, a certain person informed me. Here the person is not a certain but an uncertain one, and the thing told may have nothing in it of information. A farmer would say, a deal of money for a galloway: a minister of state, a considerable sum, speaking of the same. Reflection demonstrates clearly that, although the sum may have been

the double of the value, it could not be an object | At one time there is a quickset hedge before me; of consideration, which word, however abused, is at another there are rotten stakes; here a deep equivalent to contemplation; another word strangely ditch, there a quagmire, and farther onward a degraded and misapplied. Certain then is uncer-wide morass. I will mention words for your contain, and considerable is inconsiderable. These words, you cannot fail to have observed, are the signs and figures whereby we denote the very two things which, in one form or other, are the most operative on the human mind; magnitude and truth. As considerable is inconsiderable, and certain is uncertain, so doubt is used for believe. "I doubt you are wrong," is said for "I believe you are wrong." This is elliptical. "I come to the conclusion, or the suspicion, by doubting on points about it, that you are wrong."

Johnson. We will return, at some future time, to the metaphysical of language. The new and strange word an individual seems rather to signify a dividual or particular. Pray tell me now, since you have always a word in defence of the vulgar, what the fools can mean by a dead heat, when racers reach the goal together, and a dead hand, speaking of a man apparently the most alive and active as a dead hand at quoits or tennis?

Tooke. Add also dead level. Dead is finished, accomplished; in that sense the same as deed; deed is fact, and fact implies certainty. A dead level is

an exact one.

sideration as they arise before me, and not in such order as a grammar would require. We are walking in a forest, where the climate is genial, where the soil is rich, and where the fruits are growing wild: we will not at present take the trouble to assort them. As here you find a quince next to a cedar, and there peach-blossoms dropping on a yew, so here we may catch a substantive and an adverb close together, both ready for correction. Johnson. Have it so, and go on.

Tooke. If we write entrance, why not uttrance? than which nothing can be expressed harsher. We should always write "enterance," were it only to make a distinction between this substantive and the verb entrànce. Shakspeare has done it in Macbeth:

"The raven himself is hoarser

That croaks the fatal enterance of Duncan
Under my battlements:"

and many other words on the same principle: for
example, the verse in All's Well that Ends Well:
"And lasting in her sad rememberance."
Johnson. Shakspeare has indeed thus written;
but what man dares always to be right?

Tooke. Simile is not an English word, nor a Latin one, as a substantive. Simily should replace

But of all the inelegances in pages professedly English, fac-simile is the vilest; worse in its conformation than its twin-brother fac-totum. In our language there are other parts of speech used somewhat promiscuously. Some verbs with us are French nouns and particles united. What think you of engross? en gros. It means in one sense, as probably you have remarked in your Dictionary, what is written in thick characters by lawyers; in another, that appropriation to themselves of what is not theirs by right; attributing to the means (the engrossing, or writing in thick letters) what is done by the employer of those means, the lawyer. Colloquially, and sometimes in graver business, we say on all sides. Johnson. Why not?

Johnson. Deed however is no adjective. Tooke. Nor is net, nor is life: yet we say a net-it. income and a life-interest. I have sometimes thought that net might be neat. I am however more inclined to believe that it means purse in this instance, a thing of the same texture; and my reason is, that we say ordinarily, "he netted so much." Since you have admitted me into court as advocate for the vulgar, let me remark that we laugh at those who pronounce an aspirate where there should be none: but are not we our selves more ridiculous, who deliberately write it before words in which it never is pronounced? If we are to pronounce it, why put an to it? as an honest, an honourable, an hour. The simple a denotes that it is wanted; as in a harp, a heart, a house, a home, a harness. Unprofitably do we employ an before words beginning with the aspirate; and much is it to be regretted that we see broken up and dissevered this household of familiar words. All that are aspirated should have a rather than an prefixed. There are other things also we often see in print, but never say for instance, an unicorn, an university, an use, an ewe, an yew-tree. We properly say an only son, improperly such an one; because in only the o has simply its own sound, in one it sounds as if w were before it. Exactly half our vowels are occasionally consonants. Who would venture to say an year ago, or an youth, or an yelping cur, or an yesterday's newspaper?

Johnson. Proceed, sir, proceed but I do not expect much regularity in your proceedings.

Tooke. How many sides have we? I should have believed that we had two only, if a certain compound did not twitch me by the skirt and lay claim to a third.

Johnson. Sir, a man has but two sides from which that expression could have been deduced; for outside and inside have nothing to do with it. They however show us that side in their case signifies part; and it has this signification when we say on all sides. Side, in this sense, is the same as the Latin situs, the Italian sito. Usum loquendi populo concessi.

Tooke. Scientiam mihi reservavi. We have only two halves; yet we say on my behalf, on your behalf, and on his behalf, when the same matter is in litigation among three persons. Chaucer says, Tooke. Look on me as on a fox-hunter in the on this halfe God; on this side of God; and four field. I cannot go straightforward continually. | halves, four sides, as his interpreter expresses it.

Johnson. Would you, who are a stickler for pro- | continue. We might as well call a Doctor of priety, use such an expression as somehow or other, which we hear spoken and find written continually?

Physic a doctor of rhubarb, and a Doctor of Laws a doctor of subpoenas. And yet we smile at the expressions of the vulgar. You would think me vulgar, if I called a man a desperate fool, or a house a desperate big house.

Johnson. Ay, indeed I should.

Tooke. Come along, my learned and affable preceptor. Be it as pleasant for you to be released from the columns of a dictionary as for me to escape from the chapters of a grammar. We will expatiate freely over the wide and varied field before us, here trampling down a troublesome thistle, and there raising up again a neglected flower. We will make hay while the sun shines; and I perceive already that the clouds are rolling

Tooke. I would not; because somehow expresses the whole meaning, and other how is not English. We, who are not vulgar, say brother-in-law, sonin-law, &c. wherein we appear to vie in folly with the French and Italians, and even to exceed them. An Italian calls cognato what we call brother-in-law, neither of which is true. He is not cognate to us, nor is he a brother by the laws. The beaufrère of the Frenchman is ludicrous; so is the parent; but not so much as our grandson, one day old. A Frenchman must speak more ridiculously still if he would speak of a horse-shoe made of anything but iron as Voltaire in Zadig: "Des fers d'argent off. We will toss it about, lightly and easily; à onze deniers de fin." From the same poverty and perversion of language, he attributes sense to dust or clouds: " Nuages agités en sens contraires," meaning direction. There is also an odd expression for "I have it in my power," Je suis à-même: oddness, but not corruption, as in many of ours. We say coadjutor where there is only one helper. And there are expressions which in themselves are very incorrect, yet give an idea not to be mistaken: such for instance is, Round your fireside. You can not be round a side.

:

Johnson. "Round the fire" would be better. Tooke. Not at all. We can not be round it in our houses, unless some of us are behind the chimney. We say, Light the fire. Nothing has less need of lighting. The Italians say, Light the chimney. Now for an impropriety or two in verbs. Originate, a deponent, is become active. People of fashion say He originated the measure.

which is the true meaning of the word discuss; we will let in plentifully light and air, and inhale a fresh fragrance at every heaving of the rake. Others may cart it, lay it on the stack, press it, trim it, truss it, and carry it to market. Even if I should assist you but little, think it somewhat to have drawn around you so many stedfast and inquiring eyes, so many fair heads, each radiant with its circle of glory, like angels about some beatified saint. Johnson. Don't play the fool.

Tooke. Alas! it is the only game I have ever learnt to play: but I dislike to play it singlehanded. Come along, Doctor! We have many words implying intensity, now gone or going out of use among the middling classes, and lapsed entirely from the highest. Such as mighty (for cery) which exactly corresponds with the Latin calde; and desperate, in the same sense, for which they had a relative in insanus, used by Cicero

Johnson. Scholars will always say The measure before the senate in designating the terraces of originated from him.

Tooke. There is another word which we use improperly. We say, "Such a person was executed for robbery :" now the person is prosecuted, the sentence executed. One would imagine that executioner should designate the judge, him who executes the laws; not him who executes only one decision of them; but in our jurisprudence we have the hangman so perpetually before us that the expression is accountable and reasonable. Execution then stands with us for juridical death, and not for the completion of any other sentence. We employ it again on the seizure of goods under a

warrant.

Johnson. Within the last year or two, I have heard the expression "a man of talent," instead of "a man of talents:" and I am informed by my friend, Sir Joshua Reynolds, who quickly discerns an inelegance and strongly disapproves an innovation, that an artist now signifies a painter, and art painting, exclusively.*

Tooke. Ignorant people, I myself have remarked, are beginning to speak so: the fashion cannot

* Since the time of Johnson, the establishment of an academy for painting in England has much infected our language. If we find five metaphors in a chapter, four of them are upon trust from the oil-and-colour-man.

Clodius, which he calls "insanas substructiones." The vulgar now use mortally as Cicero uses immortally, an expression of intensity and vehemence. "Te a Cæsare quotidie plus diligi immortaliter gaudio."

Johnson. There is hardly any writer who does not sacrifice elegance to force, when he has occasion. Addison says that Virgil "strained hard to outdo Lucretius in the description of the plague."

Tooke. Addison, in the same sentence, which I remember for its singular weakness, says also that "if the reader would see with what success, he may find it at large in Scaliger."

Johnson. He might.

Tooke. Could he not find it equally at large in Lucretius and Virgil; or is Scaliger nearer at hand, presenting a more authentic document than the original? Addison is not only an inconsiderate and superficial critic, but is often vulgar and mean: he is sometimes ungrammatical. He is both in that verse by which he has expressed how much more useful the senate was in Thessaly than at Rome.

Johnson. I remember none such.
Tooke.

"The corps of half her senate
Manure the fields of Thessaly."