474 Essay on
��at the end of the several plays, and the preface, will be found in this edition. The former, with great elegance and precision, give a summary view of each drama. The preface is a tract of great erudition and philosophical criticism *.
Johnson's political pamphlets, whatever was his motive for writing them, whether gratitude for his pension, or the soli citation of men in power 2 , did not support the cause for which they were undertaken. They are written in a style truly harmonious, and with his usual dignity of language. When it is said that he advanced positions repugnant to the common rights of mankind^ the virulence of party may be suspected. 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 3 , and he was greatly superior to the littleness of spirit that might incline him to advance what he did not think and firmly believe. In the False Alarm, though many of the most eminent men in the kingdom concurred in petitions to the throne, yet Johnson, having well surveyed the mass of the people, has given, with great humour and no less truth, what may be called, the birth, parentage, and education of a remonstrance 6 ". On the subject of Falkland's islands, the fine dissuasive from too hastily involving the world in the calamities of war 5 , must extort applause even from the party that wished, at that time, for scenes of tumult and commotion.
reading, ' Being a good kissing car- best manner. The most valuable rion,' by changing good into God. notes are those in which he had an Johnson says nothing of the hy- opportunity of showing how atten- pothesis, but merely remarks ' this is tively he had during many years a noble emendation,' &c. Murphy, observed human life and human na- doubtless, is right in attributing the ture. The best specimen is the note exaggerated praise to his piety. Mr. on the character of Polonius. No- Dyce says : ' Warburton's emenda- thing so good is to be found even in tion, if over-praised by Johnson, at Wilhelm Meister's admirable exam- least has the merit of conveying ination of Hamlet.' Macaulay's something like a meaning.' M'sc. Works, 1871, p. 385.
��1 The general observations are the worst part of the edition they are sometimes almost absurd.
' The preface, though it contains
��Life, ii. 317.
Ib. i. 424; ii. 170.
Ib. ii. 90, n. 5 ; Works^ vi. 172.
Life, ii. 134 ; Works, vi. 199.
��some good passages, is not in his
It
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