periority of Cervantes to all other modern writers? Shakespeare
himself has, till lately, been worshipped only at home, though his plays
are now the favourite amusements of Vienna; and when I was at Padua some
months ago, Romeo and Juliet was acted there under the name of Tragedia
Veronese; while engravers and translators _live_ by the hero of La Mancha
in every nation, and the sides of miserable inns all over England and
France, and I have heard Germany too, are adorned with the exploits of
Don Quixote. May his celebrity procure my pardon for a digression in
praise of a writer who, through four volumes of the most exquisite
pleasantry and genuine humour, has never been seduced to overstep the
limits of propriety, has never called in the wretched auxiliaries of
obscenity or profaneness; who trusts to nature and sentiment alone, and
never misses of that applause which Voltaire and Sterne labour to
produce, while honest merriment bestows her unfading crown upon
Cervantes.

Dr. Johnson was a great reader of French literature, and delighted
exceedingly in Boileau's works. Moliere, I think, he had hardly
sufficient taste of, and he used to condemn me for preferring La Bruyere
to the Duc de Rochefoucault, who, he said, was the only gentleman writer
who wrote like a professed author. The asperity of his harsh sentences,
each of them a sentence of condemnation, used to disgust me, however;
though it must be owned that, among the necessaries of human life, a rasp
is reckoned one as well as a razor.

Mr. Johnson did not like any one who said they were happy, or who said
any one else was so. "It is all cant," he would cry; "the dog knows he
is miserable all the time." A friend whom he loved exceedingly, told him
on some occasion, notwithstanding, that his wife's sister was _really_
happy, and called upon the lady to confirm his assertion, which she did
somewhat roundly, as we say, and with an accent and manner capable of
offending Mr. Johnson, if her position had not been sufficient, without
anything more, to put him in very ill-humour. "If your sister-in-law is
really the contented being she professes herself, sir," said he, "her
life gives the lie to every research of humanity; for she is happy
without health, without beauty, without money, and without
understanding." This story he told me himself, and when I expressed
something of the horror I felt, "The same stupidity," said he, "which
prompted her to extol felicity s