master. In that characteristic
way of his, half of patronage, half of reproof, and wholly pedagogical,
he summons his subject to the bar of his dialectics, and according to
his lights administers justice. He admits that Browne has "great
excellencies" and "uncommon sentiments," and that his scholarship and
science are admirable, but strongly condemns his style: "It is vigorous,
but rugged; it is learned, but pedantic; it is deep, but obscure; it
strikes, but does not please; it commands, but does not allure; his
tropes are harsh and his combinations uncouth."

Behemoth prescribing rules of locomotion to the swan! By how much would
English letters have been the poorer if Browne had learned his art
of Johnson!

Notwithstanding such objurgations, some have supposed that the style of
Johnson, perhaps without conscious intent, was founded upon that of
Browne. A tone of oracular authority, an academic Latinism sometimes
disregarding the limitations of the unlearned reader, an elaborate
balancing of antitheses in the same period,--these are qualities which
the two writers have in common. But the resemblance, such as it is, is
skin-deep. Johnson is a polemic by nature, and at his best cogent and
triumphant in argument. His thought is carefully kept level with the
apprehension of the ordinary reader, while arrayed in a verbal pomp
simulating the expression of something weighty and profound. Browne is
intuitive and ever averse to controversy, feeling, as he exquisitely
says, that "many have too rashly charged the troops of error and remain
as trophies unto the enemies of truth. A man may be in as just
possession of the truth as of a city, and yet be forced to surrender."
Calmly philosophic, he writes for kindred minds, and his concepts
satisfying his own intellect, he delivers them with as little passion as
an AEolian harp answering the wind, and lingers not for applause or
explanation. His being

"Those thoughts that wander through eternity,"

he means that we too shall "have a glimpse of incomprehensibles, and
thoughts of things which thoughts but tenderly touch."

How grandly he rounds his pregnant paragraphs with phrases which for
stately and compulsive rhythm, sonorous harmony, and sweetly solemn
cadences, are almost matchless in English prose, and lack only the
mechanism of metre to give them the highest rank as verse.

"Man is a noble animal, splendid in ashes and pompous in the grave,
solemnizing nativities an