The keen research, the exercise of mind,
And that best art, the art to know mankind. —
Nor was his energy confin'd alone
To friends around his philosophick throne;
Its influence wide improved our letter'd isle,
And lucid vigour marked the general style:
As Nile's proud waves, swoln from their oozy bed,
First o'er the neighbouring meads majestick spread;
Till gathering force, they more and more expand,
And with new virtue fertilise the land.'
Johnson's language, however, must be allowed to be too masculine for the delicate gentleness of female writing. His ladies, therefore, seem strangely formal, even to ridicule; and are well denominated by the names which he has given them, as Misella[1], Zozima, Properantia, Rhodoclia.
It has of late been the fashion to compare the style of Addison and Johnson, and to depreciate, I think very unjustly, the style of Addison as nerveless and feeble[2], because it has not the strength and energy of that of Johnson. Their prose may be balanced like the poetry of Dryden and Pope.
- ↑ Malone says that 'Baretti used sometimes to walk with Johnson through the streets at night, and occasionally entered into conversation with the unfortunate women who frequent them, for the sake of hearing their stories. It was from a history of one of these, which a girl told under a tree in the King's Bench Walk in the Temple to Baretti and Johnson, that he formed the story of Misella in the Rambler [Nos. 170 and 171].' Prior's Malone, p. 161. 'Of one [of these women] who was very handsome he asked, for what she thought God had given her so much beauty. She answered:—"To please gentlemen."' Hawkins's Johnson, p. 321. See also Post under Dec. 2, 1784.
- ↑ Hawkins (Life, p. 270) had said that 'the characteristics of Addison's style are feebleness and inanity.' He was thus happily ridiculed by Porson:—'Soon after the publication of Sir John's book, a parcel of Eton boys, not having the fear of God before their eyes, etc., instead of playing truant, robbing orchards, annoying poultry, or performing any other part of their school exercise, fell foul in print (see the Microcosm, No. 36) upon his Worship's censure of Addison's middling style. . . . But what can you expect, as Lord Karnes justly observes, from a school where boys are taught to rob on the highway?' Porson, Tracts, p. 339.
