This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
ANNIVERSARY OF JOHNSON’S BIRTH
39

car? What would have been his criticism if he had been told that the pulpit of the cathedral church of Lichfield was to be used for a sermon eulogizing his virtues? We cannot tell; no one ever succeeded in anticipating his verdicts. But we may be sure that he would have felt a pleasure as deep as life in the thought that two hundred years after the day of his birth he would be loved by his countrymen and honoured by a national celebration.