version
commonly begins with an ode or an epistle, then rises perhaps to a
political irony, and is at last brought to its height by a treatise of
philosophy. Then begins the poor animal to entangle himself in
sophisms and to flounder in absurdity.'

The author of the philosophical treatise, _A Free Inquiry into the Nature
and Origin of Evil_, did not at all enjoy this 'merry bout' of the
'frolick' Johnson.

The concluding paragraphs of Johnson's Preface to his Dictionary are
historical prose, and if we are anxious to find passages fit to compare
with them in the melancholy roll of their cadences and in their grave
sincerity and manly emotion, we must, I think, take a flying jump from
Dr. Johnson to Dr. Newman.

For sensible men the world offers no better reading than the _Lives of
the Poets_. They afford an admirable example of the manner of man
Johnson was. The subject was suggested to him by the booksellers, whom
as a body he never abused. Himself the son of a bookseller, he respected
their calling. If they treated him with civility, he responded suitably.
If they were rude to him he knocked them down. These worthies chose
their own poets. Johnson remained indifferent. He knew everybody's
poetry, and was always ready to write anybody's Life. If he knew the
facts of a poet's life--and his knowledge was enormous on such
subjects--he found room for them; if he did not, he supplied their place
with his own shrewd reflections and sombre philosophy of life. It thus
comes about that Johnson is every bit as interesting when he is writing
about Sprat, or Smith, or Fenton, as he is when he has got Milton or Gray
in hand. He is also much less provoking. My own favourite _Life_ is
that of Sir Richard Blackmore.

The poorer the poet the kindlier is the treatment he receives. Johnson
kept all his rough words for Shakspeare, Milton, and Gray.

In this trait, surely an amiable one, he was much resembled by that
eminent man the late Sir George Jessel, whose civility to a barrister was
always in inverse ratio to the barrister's practice; and whose friendly
zeal in helping young and nervous practitioners over the stiles of legal
difficulty was only equalled by the fiery enthusiasm with which he thrust
back the Attorney and Solicitor General and people of that sort.

As a political thinker Johnson has not had justice. He has been lightly
dismissed as the last of the old-world Tories. He was nothing of the