smaller way, is his
criticism of a smaller man. Dr. Adams, talking of Newton, Bishop of
Bristol, whom Johnson disliked, once said, "I believe his
_Dissertations on the Prophecies_ is his great {167} work," Johnson's
instant answer was, "Why, sir, it is Tom's great work; but how far it
is great, or how much of it is Tom's, are other questions." How
mercilessly perfect! A thousand years of preparation could not have
put it more shortly or more effectively. It both does the business in
hand and gives expression to himself; nor is there in it a superfluous
syllable; all of which is, again, another way of saying that it has
style. And he did not need the stimulus of personal feeling to give
him this energy of speech. The same gift is seen when he "_communia
dicit_," when he is uttering some general reflection, the common wisdom
of mankind. Moliere said, "Je prends mon bien ou je le trouve."
Johnson might have used the same words with a slightly different
meaning. He excelled all men in recoining the gold of common sense in
his own mind. All the world has said "humanum est errare": but the
saying is newborn when Johnson clinches an argument with, "No, sir; a
fallible being will fail somewhere." So on a hundred other
commonplaces of discussion one may find him, all through Boswell's
pages, adding that unanalysable something of himself in word or thought
which makes the ancient dry bones stir again to life. "It is better to
live rich than to die rich"; "no man is a hypocrite in his {168}
pleasures"; "it is the business of a wise man to be happy"; "he that
runs against time has an antagonist not subject to casualties"; "the
great excellence of a writer is to put into his book as much as his
book will hold"; "there are few ways in which a man can be more
innocently employed than in getting money"; "no woman is the worse for
sense and knowledge"; but "supposing a wife to be of a studious or
argumentative turn it would be very troublesome; for instance--if a
woman should continually dwell upon the subject of the Arian heresy";
"a man should keep his friendship always in repair"; "to cultivate
kindness is a valuable part of the business of life"; "every man is to
take existence on the terms on which it is given to him"; "the man who
talks to unburden his mind is the man to delight you"; "No, sir, let
fanciful men do as they will, depend upon it it is difficult to disturb
the system of life."

The man who thinks, as Taine