y to be
considered as Speakers, in some measure, of the everlasting truth, as
Prophets in that age of theirs. By Nature herself, a noble necessity
was laid on them to be so. They were men of such magnitude that they
could not live on unrealities,--clouds, froth and all inanity gave-way
under them: there was no footing for them but on firm earth; no rest
or regular motion for them, if they got not footing there. To a
certain extent, they were Sons of Nature once more in an age of
Artifice; once more, Original Men.

As for Johnson, I have always considered him to be, by nature, one of
our great English souls. A strong and noble man; so much left
undeveloped in him to the last: in a kindlier element what might he
not have been,--Poet, Priest, sovereign Ruler! On the whole, a man
must not complain of his 'element,' of his 'time,' or the like; it is
thriftless work doing so. His time is bad: well then, he is there to
make it better!--Johnson's youth was poor, isolated, hopeless, very
miserable. Indeed, it does not seem possible that, in any the
favourablest outward circumstances, Johnson's life could have been
other than a painful one. The world might have had more of profitable
_work_ out of him, or less; but his _effort_ against the world's work
could never have been a light one. Nature, in return for his
nobleness, had said to him, Live in an element of diseased sorrow.
Nay, perhaps the sorrow and the nobleness were intimately and even
inseparably connected with each other. At all events, poor Johnson had
to go about girt with continual hypochondria, physical and spiritual
pain. Like a Hercules with the burning Nessus'-shirt on him, which
shoots-in on him dull incurable misery: the Nessus'-shirt not to be
stript-off, which is his own natural skin! In this manner _he_ had to
live. Figure him there, with his scrofulous diseases, with his great
greedy heart, and unspeakable chaos of thoughts; stalking mournful as
a stranger in this Earth; eagerly devouring what spiritual thing he
could come at: school-languages and other merely grammatical stuff, if
there were nothing better! The largest soul that was in all England;
and provision made for it of 'fourpence-halfpenny a day.' Yet a giant
invincible soul; a true man's. One remembers always that story of the
shoes at Oxford: the rough, seamy-faced, rawboned College Servitor
stalking about, in winter-season, with his shoes worn-out; how the
charitable Gentleman Commoner secretly