2

activity, and to enjoy as fully as possible the "short gleams of gaiety which life allows us," were central tenets of his practical philosophy; and, for the rest, though he held that "the cure for the greatest part of human miseries is not radical but palliative," he taught that through the exercise of patience "the great remedy which Heaven has put in our hands " -we can in a measure preserve the peace of the mind." 3 I have already spoken of his own heroic struggle with poverty, hardship, ill-health, and the depression born of hypochondria ; and now we see that his philosophy was at one with his practice.

In the second place we have to note that, pessimist as he was, he was saved from entire despair by the strength of his religious belief, which enabled him always to rest upon the thought of the providence of God and inspired him to look beyond the secular world to the "happier state" to which reference has just been made. As the last chapters of "Rasselas " and the singularly impressive conclusion of "The Vanity of Human Wishes" show, his stoical fortitude was supported by his Christian faith. Yet a man's religion, like everything else about him, takes the colour of his peculiar temperament; and Johnson's was heavily charged with his characteristic melancholy; it was a religion of fear, of spiritual self-torture, and, to use Professor William James' phrase, of

"Do not suffer life to stagnate; it will grow muddy for want of motion. Commit yourself again to the current of the world." ("Rasselas," chap. xxxv.) 2 Cp. letter in Boswell, pp. 497-498. "Rambler," No. 33.

chronic anxiety." He was a believer, but it can scarcely be said that he found peace and joy in believing; consolation he found in it, a stay in affliction, a refuge from miseries which might otherwise have proved overwhelming; but neither peace nor joy. Moreover, we have to remember that, intense as were his feelings, he was not religious in the manner, say, of his great contemporary Wesley. He was, as Sir Leslie Stephen puts it, "a man of the world, though a religious man of the world,” who "represents the secular rather than the ecclesiastical type," and to whom a certain reserve in the expression of his religious emotions" was "almost a sanitary necessity." And it was well for him that he instinctively recognized his limitations, for, as the same critic adds, "if he had gone through the excitement of a Methodist conversion, he would probably have ended his days in a madhouse." 1 These points must be kept steadily in view, for they are essential to a proper understanding of his philosophy.

From such general considerations we may now turn to the great poem which they were designed to introduce:

THE VANITY OF HUMAN WISHES

THE TENTH SATIRE OF JUVENAL, IMITATED
Let Observation, with extensive view,
Survey mankind from China to Peru; y

1 "Johnson" (in "English Men of Letters "), chap. i.

Remark each anxious toil, each eager strife,

And watch the busy scenes of crowded life;
Then say how hope and fear, desire and hate,
"O'erspread with snares the clouded maze of

fate,

Where wav'ring man, betray'd by vent'rous pride
To tread the dreary paths without a guide,
As treach'rous phantoms in the mist delude,
Shuns fancied ills, or chases airy good :
How rarely reason guides the stubborn choice,
Rules the bold hand, or prompts the suppliant
voice :

How nations sink, by darling schemes oppress'd,1
When vengeance listens to the fool's request.
Fate wings with ev'ry wish th' afflictive dart,
Each gift of nature, and each grace of art:
With fatal heat impetuous courage glows,
With fatal sweetness elocution flows;
Impeachment stops the speaker's pow'rful breath,
And restless fire precipitates on death.

But, scarce observ'd, the knowing and the bold
Fall in the gen'ral massacre of gold;

Wide-wasting pest! that rages unconfin'd,

And crowds with crimes the records of mankind.
For gold his sword the hireling ruffian draws,
For gold the hireling judge distorts the laws;
Wealth heap'd on wealth nor truth nor safety
buys,

The dangers gather as the treasures rise.

Let hist'ry tell, where rival kings command,2
And dubious title shakes the madded land,

The reference is to the financial disasters which had followed the collapse
in England of the South Sea Bubble, in France of John Law's Mississippi
Scheme.

Only four years before the claims of the Young Pretender to the English Crown had been shattered at Culloden. A hint of Johnson's Tory leanings is given in the phrase "rival kings."

When statutes glean theace use of the sword,1
How much more safe the vassal than the lord.
Low skulks the hind beneath the rage of pow'r,
And leaves the wealthy traitor in the Tow'r ;
Untouch'd his cottage, and his slumbers sound,
Tho' confiscation's vultures hover round.

The needy traveller, serene and gay, Go travelle
Walks the wild heath, and sings his toil away.2
Does envy seize thee? Crush th' upbraiding joy ;
Increase his riches, and his peace destroy.
Now fears in dire vicissitude invade,

The rustling brake alarms, and quiv'ring shade;
Nor light nor darkness bring his pain relief,
One shows the plunder, and one hides the thief.
Yet still one genʼral cry the skies assails,
And gain and grandeur load the tainted gales ;
Few know the toiling statesman's fear or care,
Th' insidious rival and the gaping heir.

Once more, Democritus,3 arise on earth,
With cheerful wisdom and instructive mirth :
See motley life in modern trappings dress'd,
And feed with varied fools th' eternal jest.
Thou who could'st laugh, where want enchain'd
caprice,

4

Toil crush'd conceit, and man was of a piece;
Where wealth, unlov'd, without a mourner dy'd,
And scarce a sycophant was fed by pride ;
Where ne'er was known the form of mock debate,5

1 Acts of Attainder.

Since to travel on foot was a sure sign of poverty the pedestrian was safe from the highwayman.

• Democritus, the laughing philosopher," is adopted from Juvenal:
"In his own age, Democritus could find
Sufficient cause to laugh at humankind."
Dryden's translation.

The uniformity of the simple old Greek life is contrasted with the variety of the "motley life" of modern civilization.

A debate with a foregone conclusion; a frequent Parliamentary performance in Johnson's time, and not altogether unknown in ours.

Ter

1

Or seen a new-made toi unwieldy state; Where change of fav'rite made no change of laws, And senates heard before they judg'd a cause; How would'st thou shake at Britain's modish tribe,

Dart the quick taunt, and edge the piercing gibe,
Attentive truth and nature to descry,

And pierce each scene with philosophic eye!
To thee were solemn toys, or empty show,
The robes of pleasure and the veils of woe :
All aid the farce, and all thy mirth maintain,
Whose joys are causeless, or whose griefs are vain.

Such was the scorn that fill'd the sage's mind,
Renew'd at ev'ry glance on humankind;
How just that scorn ere yet thy voice declare,
Search ev'ry state,2 and canvass ev'ry pray'r.
Unnumber'd suppliants crowd Preferment's
gate,

Athirst for wealth, and burning to be great;
Delusive Fortune hears th' incessant call,
They mount, they shine, evaporate, and fall.
On ev'ry stage the foes of peace attend,
Hate dogs their flight, and insult mocks their end.
Love ends with hope, the sinking statesman's
door 3

Pours in the morning worshipper no more;
For growing names the weekly scribbler lies,
To growing wealth the dedicator flies.

From ev'ry room descends the painted face,4
That hung the bright palladium of the place;
And, smok'd in kitchens, or in auctions sold,
To better features yields the frame of gold:

1 The Lord Mayor's Show.

2 Every condition of life.

3 Alluding particularly to Sir Robert Walpole's fall in 1742.
The patron's portrait.