at its best when he is strongly moved: "That man is little to be envied whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona." Or take the first paragraph of his letter to Mr Macpherson, the author of Ossian, who had threatened him with summary vengeance:—"Mr James Macpherson, I received your foolish and impudent letter. Any violence offered me I shall do my best to repel; and what I cannot do for myself, the law shall do for me. I hope I shall never be deterred from detecting what I think a cheat by the menaces of a ruffian." It is a great mistake, however, to suppose that Johnson always wrote what is known as Johnsonese, or that the faults which we associate with Johnsonese do much to spoil the best things that he has written. It is not difficult to see that the worse side of his style answers to a physical infirmity of his nature, just as its better side answers to his mental strength. He had a powerful and clear mind, richly stored with knowledge; a high spirit; extraordinary depth and tenderness of feeling; and a sense, which his early miseries had only strengthened by touching his pride, that the vocation of literature is a high and noble one. Such a nature craved stately and ample utterance; he must be allowed to enforce each thought as it arises, to expand it, and to clothe it in language both exact and decorous. But then that powerful mind was subject to a lethargy against which he could not always strive successfully; it
