the violent emotions of
Catiline's restless mind, did not forget its indication in "his walk
now quick and now slow," it maybe allowed to think that the character
of Dennis was alike to be detected in his habitual surliness.

Even in his old age--for our chain must not drop a link--his native
brutality never forsook him. Thomson and Pope charitably supported the
veteran Zoilus at a benefit play; and Savage, who had nothing but a
verse to give, returned them very poetical thanks in the name of
Dennis. He was then blind and old, but his critical ferocity had no
old age; his surliness overcame every grateful sense, and he swore as
usual, "They could be no one's but that _fool_ Savage's"--an evidence
of his sagacity and brutality![40] This was, perhaps, the last peevish
snuff shaken from the dismal link of criticism; for, a few days after,
was the redoubted Dennis numbered with the mighty dead.

He carried the same fierceness into his style, and commits the same
ludicrous extravagances in literary composition as in his manners. Was
Pope really sore at the Zoilian style? He has himself spared me the
trouble of exhibiting Dennis's gross personalities, by having
collected them at the close of the Dunciad--specimens which show how
low false wit and malignity can get to by hard pains. I will throw
into the note a curious illustration of the anti-poetical notions of a
mechanical critic, who has no wing to dip into the hues of the
imagination.[41]

In life and in literature we meet with men who seem endowed with an
obliquity of understanding, yet active and busy spirits; but, as
activity is only valuable in proportion to the capacity that puts all
in motion, so, when ill directed, the intellect, warped by nature,
only becomes more crooked and fantastical. A kind of frantic
enthusiasm breaks forth in their actions and their language, and often
they seem ferocious when they are only foolish. We may thus account
for the manners and style of Dennis, pushed almost to the verge of
insanity, and acting on him very much like insanity itself--a
circumstance which the quick vengeance of wit seized on, in the
humorous "Narrative of Dr. Robert Norris, concerning the Frenzy of Mr.
John Dennis, an officer of the Custom-house."[42]

It is curious to observe that Dennis, in the definition of genius,
describes himself; he says--"Genius is caused by a _furious joy_ and
_pride of soul_ on the conception of an extraordinary hint. Many men
have