considered to represent extraordinarily high nights of genius; but is it slander to say now that, except the celebrated Dictionary, hardly one of his volumes is ever moved from the shelf? I can remember having his "classic" tale put into my hand when I was a lad, as a sublime composition – a model of style and of construction, and a hive of wisdom; but I do not think I at that time was enticed far beyond the initial sentence wherein the drum is beat to call the audience together. How many of his lines do we ever hear quoted to-day? Perhaps the name at which the world grew pale: I can remember no more. While a man might be presented with a guinea for every leaf of the 'Rambler' or 'Idler' which he has turned, and yet not be exceeding rich!
No; it is the social and conversational Doctor, the brave true-hearted man, the denouncer of vice and profaneness – who could be neighbour to the poor and forsaken, who could stun pretenders with a concentrated sentence – the simple-living conscientious Colossus, to whom we look back with affectionate respect. Great gatherings and special observances would not create an appreciation of Johnson's great qualities if we had it not; and as fortunately we have it, and have retained it but little impaired for a hundred years, it is itself the best witness to his merit to which we can point. Being dead he yet speaketh, as Abel does. With commanding intellect, great acquirements, and many infirmities of both body and mind, he not ineffectually endeavoured to live agreeably to his high profession: his life, private and social, has been exhibited and sifted as few lives have been; he is seen to have been in the main firm, honest, and true, with many failings, especially in small things, but free from grievous blot of any kind. Without birth or connections, without wealth or even competence, with nature in many ways against him, Johnson by force of character wrought for himself a dictatorship to which the well-born, the rich, the gifted, and the great submitted. A grand figure truly! but we have him effectually enshrined in the memory and sentiment of the nation. There is no need of going to Lichfield.
As I have been tracing the sentences immediately foregoing, it was impossible almost but that there should steal into my mind thought of a distinguished contemporary and friend of Johnson, who, in many respects, is antithetical to him. Dr Goldsmith deserves, and has found, a warm place in the hearts of posterity; but it is not his character, it is his sweet and pleasant writings for which we cherish his memory. His pen wound its way into the affections of men, charmed their ears, delighted their imaginations. He did not tower above them like Johnson; his voice came from among them, giving shape to their thoughts, articulating their cries, showing them to themselves in kindly groupings. How, being to the eye of his fellows what he appeared, he could give forth the utterances which delighted them, which delight us, and which will delight our posterity for generations, is one of the mysteries which for ever are confounding the world. Immensely inferior as he was to Johnson as a man, as a writer he left him far behind. Johnson's works (the Dictionary again excepted) are kept alive through our liking of their author; but it is not so with "Sweet Auburn" or "The Primroses." They have immortalised Goldsmith; he did nothing for
