"CRINCUM-CRAN CUM,-Lines of irregularity and involution. "DING DONG, Tintinabulary chimes, used metaphorically to signify despatch and vehemence 1." The serious imitators of Johnson's style, whether intentionally or by the imperceptible effect of its strength and animation, are, as I have had already occasion to observe, so many, that I might introduce quotations from a numerous body of writers in our language, since he appeared in the literary world. I shall point out the following: WILLIAM ROBERtson, d. d. "In other parts of the globe, man, in his rudest state, appears as lord of the creation, giving law to various tribes of animals which he has tamed and reduced to subjection. The Tartar follows his prey on the horse which he has reared, or tends his numerous herds which furnish him both with food and clothing; the Arab has rendered the camel docile, and avails himself of its persevering strength; the Laplander has formed the rein-deer to be subservient to his will; and even the people of Kamschatka have trained their dogs to labour. This command over the inferiour creatures is one of the noblest prerogatives of man, and among the greatest efforts of his wisdom and power. Without this, his dominion is incomplete. He is a monarch who has no subjects; a master without servants; and must perform every operation by the strength of his own arm 2." EDWARD GIBBON, ESQ. "Of all our passions and appetites, the love of power is of the most imperious and unsociable nature, since the pride of one man requires the submission of the multitude. In the tumult of civil discord the laws of society lose their force, and their place is seldom supplied by those of humanity. The ardour of contention, the pride of victory, the despair of success, the memory of past injuries, and the fear of future dangers, all contribute to inflame the mind, and to silence the voice of pity 3." 1 [On the original publication of Mr. Boswell's own work the press teemed with parodies, or imitations of his style of reporting Dr. Johnson's conversation; but they are now all deservedly forgotten, except one by Mr. Alexander Chalmers, which is executed with so much liveliness and pleasantry, and is, in fact, so just a criticism on the lighter portions of this work, that the reader will be, the Editor believes, much pleased to find it preserved in the (General) appendix.-ED.] History of America, vol. i. quarto, p. 332.-BOSWELL. 2 64 3Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," vol. i. chap. iv.-BOSWELL. MISS BURNEY. "My family, mistaking ambition for honour, and rank for dignity, have long planned a splendid connexion for me, to which, though my invariable repugnance lias stopped any advances, their wishes and their views immovably adhere. I am but too certain they will now listen to no other. I dread, therefore, to make a trial where I despair of success; I know not how to risk a prayer with those who may silence me by a command 4." REVEREND MR. NARES". "In an enlightened and improving age, much perhaps is not to be apprehended from the inroads of mere caprice: at such a period it will generally be perceived that needless irregularity is the worst of all deformities, and that nothing is so truly elegant in language as the simplicity of unviolated analogy. Rules will, therefore, be observed, so far as they are known and acknowledged: but, at the same time, the desire of improvement having been once excited will not remain inactive; and its efforts, unless assisted by knowledge as much as they are prompted by zeal, will not unfrequently be found pernicious; so that the very persons whose intention it is to perfect the instrument of reason will deprave and disorder it unknowingly. At such a time, then, it becomes peculiarly necessary that the analogy of language should be fully examined and understood; that its rules should be carefully laid down; and that it should be clearly known how much it contains which being already right should be defended from change and violation; how much it has that demands amendment; and how much that, for fear of greater inconve niences, must, perhaps, be left, unaltered, though irregular." A distinguished authour in "The Mirror 6," a periodical paper published at Edinburgh, has imitated Johnson very closely. Thus, in No. 16: "The effects of the return of spring have "Cecilia," book vii. chap. i.-BOSWELL. 5 The passage which I quote is taken from that gentleman's "Elements of Orthoepy; containing a distinct View of the whole Analogy of the English Language, so far as relates to Pronunciation, Accent, and Quantity:" London, 1784. I beg leave to offer my particular acknowledgments to the authour of a work of uncommon merit and great utility. I know no book which contains, in the same compass, more learning, polite literature, sound sense, accuracy of arrangement, and perspicuity of expression.-BOSWELL. That collection was presented to Dr. Johnson, I believe, by its authours; and I heard him speak very well of it.-BoswELL. been frequently remarked, as well in relation to the human mind as to the animal and vegetable world. The reviving power of this season has been traced from the fields to the herds that inhabit them, and from the lower classes of beings up to man. Gladness and joy are described as prevailing through universal nature, animating the low of the cattle, the carol of the birds, and the pipe of the shepherd." The Reverend Dr. Knox, master of Tunbridge school, appears to have the imitari aveo of Johnson's style perpetually in his mind; and to his assiduous, though not servile, study of it, we may partly ascribe the extensive popularity of his writings 1. In his "Essays, Moral and Literary," No. 3, we find the following passage: "The polish of external grace may indeed be deferred till the approach of manhood. When solidity is obtained by pursuing the modes prescribed by our forefathers, then may the file be used. The firm substance will bear attrition, and the lustre then acquired will be durable." There is, however, one in No. 11 which is blown up into such tumidity as to be truly ludicrous. The writer means to tell us, that members of Parliament who have run in debt by extravagance will sell their votes to avoid an arrest, which he thus expresses: They who build houses and collect costly pictures and furniture with the money of an honest artisan or mechanick will be very glad of emancipation from the hands of a bailiff by a sale of their senatorial suffrage." But I think the most perfect imitation of Johnson is a professed one, entitled "A Criticism on Gray's Elegy in a Country Churchyard 3," said to be written by Mr. Young, professor of Greek, at Glasgow, and of which let him have the credit, unless a better title can be shown. It has not only the particularities of Johnson's style, but that very species of literary discussion and illustration for which he was eminent. Having already quoted so much from others, I shall refer the curious to this performance, with an assurance of much entertainment. Yet whatever merit there may be in any imitations of Johnson's style, every good judge must see that they are obviously different from the original; for all of them are either deficient in its force, or overloaded with its peculiarities; and the powerful sentiment to which it is suited is not to be found. self: "I thank you for the very great entertain- It were to be wished that he had imitated that great man in every respect, and had not followed the example of Dr. Adam Smith, in ungra- | ciously attacking his venerable Alma Mater, Oxford. It must, however, be observed, that he 3 [It seems to the Editor to be one of the most is much less to blame than Smith: he only ob- insipid and unmeaning volumes ever published. jects to certain particulars; Smith to the whole He cannot make out whether it was meant for institution; though indebted for much of his learn- jest or earnest; but it fails either way, for it has ing to an exhibition which he enjoyed for many neither pleasantry nor sense. Johnson saw this years at Baliol College. Neither of them, how- work, and thus writes of it: "Of the imitation ever, will do any hurt to the noblest university in of my style, in a criticism on Gray's Churchyard, the world. While I animadvert on what appears I forgot to make mention. The author is, I beto me exceptionable in some of the works of Dr. lieve, utterly unknown, for Mr. Steevens cannot Knox, I cannot refuse due praise to others of his hunt him out. I know little of it, for though it productions; particularly his sermons, and to the was sent me, I never cut the leaves open. I had spirit with which he maintains, against presumpa letter with it, representing it to me as my own tuous hereticks, the consolatory doctrines peculiar work; in such an account to the public there may to the Christian Revelation. This he has done be humour, but to myself it was neither serious in a manner equally strenuous and conciliating. nor comical; I suspect the writer to be wrongNeither ought I to omit mentioning a remarkable headed. As to the noise which it makes I never instance of his candour. Notwithstanding the heard it, and am inclined to believe that few atwide difference of our opinions upon the impor- tacks either of ridicule or invective make much tant subject of university education, in a letter to noise but by the help of those that they provoke." me concerning this work, he thus expresses him--Letter to Thrale, 5 July, 1783.-ED.] VOL. II. 58 END OF THE LIFE. APPENDIX. No. I. [NOTE on Cibber's Lives of the Poets,— referred to in page 60.] tional sum; when he, soon after (in the year 1758), unfortunately embarked for Dublin, on an engagement for one of the theatres there; but the ship was cast away, and every person on board perished. There were about sixty passengers, among whom was the Earl of Drogheda, with many other persons of consequence and property. "As to the alleged design of making the compilement pass for the work of old Mr. Cibber, the charges seem to have been founded on a somewhat uncharitable construction. We are some of the proprietors, who are still living; and we hope that it did not occur to the first designer of the work, who was also the printer of it, and who bore a respectable character. "We have been induced to enter circumstantially into the foregoing detail of facts relating to the Lives of the Poets, compiled by Messrs. Cibber and Shiels, from a sincere regard to that sacred principle of truth, to which Dr. Johnson so rigidly adhered, according to the best of his knowledge; and which, we believe, no consideration would have prevailed on him to violate. In regard to the matter, which we now dismiss, he had, no doubt, been misled by partial and wrong information: Shiels was the Doctor's amanuensis; he had quarrelled with Cibber; it is natural to suppose that he told his story in his own way; and it is certain that he was not a very sturdy moralist.' In the Monthly Review for May, 1792, there is such a correction of the above passage, as I should think myself very culpable not to subjoin. "This account is very inaccurate. The following statement of acts we know to be true, in every material circumstance: Shiels was the principal collector and digester of the materials for the work; but as he was very raw in authour-assured that the thought was not harboured by ship, an indifferent writer in prose, and his language full of Scotticisms, [Theoph.] Cibber, who was a clever, lively fellow, and then soliciting employment among the booksellers, was engaged to correct the style and diction of the whole work, then intended to make only four volumes, with power to alter, expunge, or add, as he liked. He was also to supply notes occasionally, especially concerning those dramatick poets with whom he had been chiefly conversant. He also engaged to write several of the Lives; which (as we are told) he accordingly performed. He was farther useful in striking out the jacobitical and tory sentiments, which Shiels had industriously interspersed wherever he could bring them in; and as the success of the work appeared, after all, very doubtful, he was content with twentyone pounds for his labour, besides a few sets of the books to disperse among his friends. Shiels had nearly seventy pounds, beside the advantage of many of the best Lives in the work being communicated by friends to the undertaking; and for which Mr. Shiels had the same consideration as for the rest, being paid by the sheet for the whole. He was, however, so angry with his whiggish supervisor (THE. like his father, being a violent stickler for the political principles which prevailed in the reign of George the Second) for so unmercifully mutilating his copy, and scouting his politicks, that he wrote Cibber a challenge; but was prevented from sending it by the publisher, who fairly laughed him out of his fury. The proprietors, too, were discontented in the end, on account of Mr. Cibber's unexpected industry; for his corrections and alterations in the proof-sheets were so numerous and considerable, that the printer made for them a grievous addition to his bill; and, in fine, all parties were dissatisfied. On the whole, the work was productive of no profit to the undertakers, who had agreed, in case of success, to make Cibber a present of some addition to the twenty guineas which he had received, and for which his receipt is now in the booksellers' hands. We are "This explanation appears to me satisfactory. It is, however, to be observed, that the story told by Johnson does not rest solely upon my record of his conversation; for he himself has published it in his Life of Hammond, where he says, "the manuscript of Shiels is now in my possession. Very probably he had trusted to Shiels's word, and never looked at it so as to compare it with The Lives of the Poets,' as published under Mr. Cibber's name. What became of that manuscript I know not. I should have liked much to examine it. I suppose it was thrown into the fire in that impetuous combustion of papers, which Johnson I think rashly executed when moribundus."-BosWELL. No. II. [ARGUMENT in favour of Mr. James Thompson, minister of Dumfermline,-referred to in p. 71.] "Of the censure pronounced from the pulpit, our determination must be formed, as in other farther assured, that he actually obtained an addi- | cases, by a consideration of the act itself, and the particular circumstances with which it is invested. censure has been always considered as inherent in the church; and that this right was not confer"The right of censure and rebuke seems ne-red by the civil power; for it was exercised when cessarily appendant to the pastoral office. He, to whom the care of a congregation is intrusted, is considered as the shepherd of a flock, as the teacher of a school, as the father of a family. As a shepherd tending not his own sheep but those of his Master, he is answerable for those that stray, and that lose themselves by straying. But no man can be answerable for losses which he has not power to prevent, or for vagrancy which he has not authority to restrain. "As a teacher giving instruction for wages, and liable to reproach, if those whom he undertakes to inform make no proficiency, he must have the power of enforcing attendance, of awakening negligence, and repressing contradiction. "As a father, he possesses the paternal authority of admonition, rebuke, and punishment. He cannot, without reducing his office to an empty name, be hindered from the exercise of any practice necessary to stimulate the idle, to reform the vicious, to check the petulant, and correct the stubborn. "If we inquire into the practice of the primitive church, we shall, I believe, find the ministers of the word exercising the whole authority of this complicated character. We shall find them not only encouraging the good by exhortation, but terrifying the wicked by reproof and denunciation. In the earliest ages of the church, while religion was yet pure from secular advantages, the punishment of sinners was publick censure and open penance; penalties inflicted merely by ecclesiastical authority, at a time while the church had yet no help from the civil power, while the hand of the magistrate lifted only the rod of persecution, and when governours were ready to afford a refuge to all those who fled from clerical authority. "That the church, therefore, had once a power of publick censure is evident, because that power was frequently exercised. That it borrowed not its power from the civil authority is likewise certain, because civil authority was at that time its enemy. "The hour came at length, when, after three hundred years of struggle and distress, Truth took possession of imperial power, and the civil laws lent their aid to the ecclesiastical constitutions. The magistrate from that time co-operated with the priest, and clerical sentences were made efficacious by secular force. But the state, when it came to the assistance of the church, had no intention to diminish its authority. Those rebukes and those censures which were lawful before, were lawful still. But they had hitherto operated only upon voluntary submission. The refractory and contemptuous were at first in no danger of temporal severities, except what they might suffer from the reproaches of conscience, or the detestation of their fellow Christians. When religion obtained the support of law, if admonitions and censures had no effect, they were seconded by the magistrates with coercion and punishment. "It therefore appears from ecclesiastical history, that the right of inflicting shame by public the civil power operated against it. By the civil power it was never taken away; for the Christian magistrate interposed his office, not to rescue sinners from censure, but to supply more powerful means of reformation; to add pain where shame was insufficient; and when men were proclaimed unworthy of the society of the faithful, to restrain them by imprisonment from spreading abroad the contagion of wickedness. "It is not improbable that from this acknowl edged power of publick censure grew in time the practice of auricular confession. Those who dreaded the blast of publick reprehension were willing to submit themselves to the priest by a private accusation of themselves, and to obtain a reconciliation with the church by a kind of clandestine absolution and invisible penance; conditions with which the priest would, in times of ignorance and corruption, easily comply, as they increased his influence, by adding the knowledge of secret sins to that of notorious offences, and enlarged his authority, by making him the sole arbiter of the terms of reconcilement. "From this bondage the Reformation set us free. The minister has no longer power to press into the retirements of conscience, to torture us by interrogatories, or put himself in possession of our secrets and our lives. But though we have thus controlled his usurpations, his just and original power reins unimpaired. He may still see, though he may not pry; he may yet hear, though he may not question. And that knowledge which his eyes and ears force upon him it is still his duty to use, for the benefit of his flock. A father who lives near a wicked neighbour may forbid a son to frequent his company. A minister who has in his congregation a man of open and scandalous wickedness may warn his parishioners to shun his conversation. To warn them is not only lawful, but not to warn them would be criminal. He may warn them one by one in friendly converse, or by a parochial visitation. But if he may warn each man singly, what shall forbid him to warn them altogether? Of that which is to be made known to all, how is there any difference whether it be communicated to each singly, or to all together? What is known to all must necessarily be publick. Whether it shall be publick at once, or publick by degrees, is the only question And of a sudden and solemn publication the impression is deeper, and the warning more effectual, "It may easily be urged, if a minister be thus left at liberty to delate sinners from the pulpit, and to publish at will the crimes of a parishioner, he may often blast the innocent, and distress the timorous. He may be suspicious, and condemn without evidence; he may be rash, and judge without examination; he may be severe, and treat slight offences with too much harshness; he may be malignant and partial, and gratify his private interest or resentment under the shelter of his pastoral character. "Of all this there is possibility, and of all this there is danger. But if possibility of evil be to |