he elder man of letters was full
to overflowing with the milk of human kindness, the younger one was full
to overflowing with something not nearly so nice; and that whilst Johnson
was pre-eminently a reasonable man, reasonable in all his demands and
expectations, Carlyle was the most unreasonable mortal that ever
exhausted the patience of nurse, mother, or wife.

Of Dr. Johnson's affectionate nature nobody has written with nobler
appreciation than Carlyle himself. 'Perhaps it is this Divine feeling of
affection, throughout manifested, that principally attracts us to
Johnson. A true brother of men is he, and filial lover of the earth.'

The day will come when it will be recognised that Carlyle, as a critic,
is to be judged by what he himself corrected for the press, and not by
splenetic entries in diaries, or whimsical extravagances in private
conversation.

Of Johnson's reasonableness nothing need be said, except that it is
patent everywhere. His wife's judgment was a sound one: 'He is the most
sensible man I ever met.'

As for his brutality, of which at one time we used to hear a great deal,
we cannot say of it what Hookham Frere said of Landor's immorality, that
it was:

'Mere imaginary classicality
Wholly devoid of criminal reality.'

It was nothing of the sort. Dialectically the great Doctor was a great
brute. The fact is, he had so accustomed himself to wordy warfare, that
he lost all sense of moral responsibility, and cared as little for men's
feelings as a Napoleon did for their lives. When the battle was over,
the Doctor frequently did what no soldier ever did that I have heard tell
of, apologized to his victims and drank wine or lemonade with them. It
must also be remembered that for the most part his victims sought him
out. They came to be tossed and gored. And after all, are they so much
to be pitied? They have our sympathy, and the Doctor has our applause. I
am not prepared to say, with the simpering fellow with weak legs whom
David Copperfield met at Mr. Waterbrook's dinner-table, that I would
sooner be knocked down by a man with blood than picked up by a man
without any; but, argumentatively speaking, I think it would be better
for a man's reputation to be knocked down by Dr. Johnson than picked up
by Mr. Froude.

Johnson's claim to be the best of our talkers cannot, on our present
materials, be contested. For the most part we have only talk about other
talkers. Johnson's is mat