and
I observe it to his credit, that this learned gentleman has himself
caught no mean degree of the expansion and harmony, which, independent
of all other circumstances, characterise the sentences of Johnson. Thus,
in the Preface to the volume in which his Essay appears, we find,--

'If it be said that in societies of this sort, too much attention is
frequently bestowed on subjects barren and speculative, it may be
answered, that no one science is so little connected with the rest, as
not to afford many principles whose use may extend considerably beyond
the science to which they primarily belong; and that no proposition is
so purely theoretical as to be totally incapable of being applied to
practical purposes. There is no apparent connection between duration and
the cycloidal arch, the properties of which duly attended to, have
furnished us with our best regulated methods of measuring time: and he
who has made himself master of the nature and affections of the
logarithmick curve, is not aware that he has advanced considerably
towards ascertaining the proportionable density of the air at its
various distances from the surface of the earth.'

The ludicrous imitators of Johnson's style are innumerable. Their
general method is to accumulate hard words, without considering, that,
although he was fond of introducing them occasionally, there is not a
single sentence in all his writings where they are crowded together, as
in the first verse of the following imaginary Ode by him to Mrs.
Thrale[1178], which appeared in the newspapers:--

'_Cervisial coctor's viduate_ dame,
_Opin'st_ thou this gigantick frame,
_Procumbing_ at thy shrine:
Shall, _catenated_ by thy charms,
A captive in thy _ambient_ arms,
_Perennially_ be thine?'

This, and a thousand other such attempts, are totally unlike the
original, which the writers imagined they were turning into ridicule.
There is not similarity enough for burlesque, or even for caricature.

Mr. COLMAN, in his _Prose on several occasions_, has _A Letter from
LEXIPHANES[1179]; containing Proposals for a Glossary or Vocabulary of
the Vulgar Tongue: intended as a Supplement to a larger DICTIONARY_. It
is evidently meant as a sportive sally of ridicule on Johnson, whose
style is thus imitated, without being grossly overcharged:--

'It is easy to foresee, that the idle and illiterate will complain that
I have increased their labours by endeavouring