426 Essay on
��with little intermediate use of the pen, form and polish large masses by continued meditation, and write their productions only, when, in their opinion, they have completed them. This last was Johnson's method. He never took his pen in hand till he had weighed well his subject, and grasped in his mind the senti ments, the train of argument, and the arrangement of the whole. As he often thought aloud, he had, perhaps, talked it over to himself. This may account for that rapidity with which, in general, he dispatched his sheets to the press, without being at the trouble of a fair copy 1 . Whatever may be the logic or eloquence of The False Alarm, the House of Commons have since erased the resolution from the Journals 2 . But whether they have not left materials for a future controversy may be made a question.
In 1771 he published another tract, on the subject of FALK LAND ISLANDS. The design was to shew the impropriety of going to war with Spain for an island thrown aside from human use, stormy in winter, and barren in summer 3 . For this work it is apparent that materials were furnished by direction of the minister 4 .
At the approach of the general election in 1774, he wrote a short discourse, called THE PATRIOT, not with any visible application to Mr. Wilkes s ; but to teach the people to reject the leaders of the opposition, who called themselves patriots. In 1775 he undertook a pamphlet of more importance, namely, Taxation no Tyranny 6 , in answer to the Resolutions and Address of the American Congress. The scope of the argument was, that distant colonies, which had, in their assemblies, a legislature of their own, were, notwithstanding, liable to be taxed in a British Parliament, where they had neither peers in one house, nor representatives in the other. He was of opinion, that this country was strong enough to enforce obedience. ' When an
1 Life, i. 71 ; iii. 62, n. I. 4 Life, ii. 134.
2 Ib. ii. 112. 5 Ib. ii. 286. Wilkes is mentioned
3 Murphy quotes the pamphlet, in it. Works, vi. 216. Works, vi. 198. 6 Life, ii. 312.
Englishman,
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