studied
compositions:--'He has made a chasm, which not only nothing can fill up,
but which nothing has a tendency to fill up. Johnson is dead. Let us go
to the next best:--there is nobody; no man can be said to put you in
mind of Johnson[1276].'

As Johnson had abundant homage paid to him during his life[1277], so no
writer in this nation ever had such an accumulation of literary honours
after his death. A sermon upon that event was preached in St. Mary's
Church, Oxford, before the University, by the Reverend Mr. Agutter, of
Magdalen College[1278]. The _Lives_, the _Memoirs_, the _Essays_, both
in prose and verse, which have been published concerning him, would make
many volumes. The numerous attacks too upon him, I consider as part of
his consequence, upon the principle which he himself so well knew and
asserted[1279]. Many who trembled at his presence, were forward in
assault, when they no longer apprehended danger. When one of his little
pragmatical foes was invidiously snarling at his fame, at Sir Joshua
Reynolds's table, the Reverend Dr. Parr exclaimed, with his usual bold
animation, 'Ay, now that the old lion is dead, every ass thinks he may
kick at him.'

A monument for him, in Westminster Abbey, was resolved upon soon after
his death, and was supported by a most respectable contribution[1280];
but the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's having come to a resolution of
admitting monuments there, upon a liberal and magnificent plan, that
Cathedral was afterwards fixed on, as the place in which a cenotaph
should be erected to his memory[1281]: and in the cathedral of his
native city of Lichfield, a smaller one is to be erected. To compose his
epitaph, could not but excite the warmest competition of genius[1282].
If _laudari a laudato viro_ be praise which is highly estimable[1283],
I should not forgive myself were I to omit the following sepulchral
verses on the authour of THE ENGLISH DICTIONARY, written by the Right
Honourable Henry Flood[1284]:--

'No need of Latin or of Greek to grace
Our JOHNSON'S memory, or inscribe his grave;
His native language claims this mournful space,
To pay the Immortality he gave.'

The character of SAMUEL JOHNSON has, I trust, been so developed in the
course of this work, that they who have honoured it with a perusal, may
be considered as well acquainted with him. As, however, it may be
expected that I should collect into one view the capital and
distinguish