not to examine or consider other men's, not to confer themselves with others: to recount their miseries, but not the good gifts, fortunes, benefits, which they have; to ruminate on their adversity, but not once to think on their prosperity, not what they have, but what they want; to look still on them that go before, but not on those infinite numbers that come after; whereas many a man would think himself in heaven, a petty prince, if he had but the least part of that fortune which thou so much repinest at, abhorrest, and accountest a most vile and wretched estate." Here is Addison, dealing with a similar subject, in The Mountain of Miseries:—"It is a celebrated thought of Socrates, that if all the misfortunes of mankind were cast into a public stock, in order to be equally distributed among the whole species, those who now think themselves the most unhappy would prefer the share they are already possessed of, before that which would fall to them by such a division. Horace has carried this thought a great deal further (Sat. i. 1, ver. 1), which implies that the hardships or misfortunes we lie under are more easy to us than those of any other person would be, in case we could change conditions with him."
There we have types of the two manners which mainly contributed to mould Johnson's style; the one, such as Burton's, learned, ample, diffuse; the other, like Addison's, pitched in the key of good conversation, correct, neat, transparently clear; but of these two manners, that which Burton represents
