or keep it, nor, when he misses it, must he vex his soul. As for literary rivalry and hostilities, no one was ever less touched by them than Johnson. ‘Reputation,’ he said, ‘would be of little worth, were it in the power of every concealed enemy to deprive us of it;’ and he was fond of quoting Bentley’s saying: ‘Depend upon it, no man was ever written down but by himself.’
The passages already quoted from the Life of Milton are conspicuous examples of Johnson’s fairness. He was vigorously accused in his own day of prejudice and injustice towards certain of the English poets; and the echoes of that protest have not yet died away. ‘Men,’ as he himself remarked, ‘are seldom satisfied with praise introduced or followed by any mention of defect.’ This is a profound truth; there is something mysterious in the power of a single qualification to mar the effect of praise. Where love or admiration possesses the mind, there is no room for the thought of defect. A lover does not weigh faults against merits, and after striking a balance, proclaim his enthusiasm for the surplus. In these personal relations only the simplest statements are acceptable. It is a question not of balance, but of direction; not of various conflicting motives, but of the resulting action as it is seen in progress this way or that. When the progress is reversed, even for a moment, the change gives cause to suspect that the hostile forces are stronger than appears. If they were not very strong, they would not be visible.
All this is true; and it is true that Johnson does not offer unmixed praise to any of his fifty-two poets. He was an old man; the heat of his early affections was abated. He had to judge not only of men, but of books, which are sometimes good in parts. His was a new
