ignorance has already been illustrated in a periodical pamphlet. Johnson himself, with all his imperfections, is often as far superior to this unhappy penman, as the author of the Night-Thoughts is superior to Johnson. And yet this critical assassin, this literary jackall, is celebrated by the Doctor[20]. Pares cum paribus facile congregantur.

'Dryden's poem on the death of Mrs Killigrew is undoubtedly the noblest ode that our language ever has produced. The first part flows with a torrent of enthusiasm. All the stanzas, indeed, are not equal.' He proceeds to compare it with an imperial crown, &c. But, a little after, 'the ode on St Cecilia's day is allowed to stand without a rival[21].' These are his identical words; and his admirers may reconcile them if they can. Indeed, he seems ashamed of his own inconsistency, and is ready to relapse; but thinks, upon the whole, that Alexander's Feast 'may, perhaps, be pronounced superior to the ode on Killigrew.' Dr Johnson is said to be the greatest critic of his age; yet the verses on Mrs Killigrew are beneath all criticism; and, perhaps, no person ever read them through, except their author, and himself.

Dryden's fable 'of the Cock and Fox seems hardly worth the labour of rejuvenescence[22].' Some narcotic seems to have refrigerated the red liquor which circulates in the Doctor's veins[23], and to have hebetated and obtunded his powers of excogitation[24], for elegance and wit never met more happily than here. Peruse only the first page of this poem, and then judge. The nonsense which has been written by critics is, in quantity and absurdity, beyond all conception. Perhaps his admirers may answer, that my remark is but the ramification of envy, the intumescence of ill-nature, the exacerbation of 'gloomy malignity.' However, it would not be amiss to commit that page of inanity to the power of cremation; and let not his fondest idolaters confide in its indiscerptibility. In painting the sentiments and the scenes of common life, to write English which Englishmen cannot read, is a degree of insolence hardly known till now, and seems to be nothing but the poor refuge of pedantic dullness.

His Abyssinian tale hath many beauties, yet the characters are insipid, the narrative ridiculous, the moral invisible, and the reader disappointed. 'Intercepting interruptions and volant animals' are above common comprehension. The Newtonian system had reached the happy valley; for its inhabitants talk of the earth's attraction and the body's gravity[25]. To tell a tale is not the Doctor's most happy talent; he can hardly be proud of his success in that species of fiction.

Speaking of Scotland, he says, 'The variety of sun and shade is here[26] utterly unknown. There is no tree for either shelter or timber. The oak and the thorn is equally a stranger. They have neither wood for palisades, nor thorns for hedges. A tree may be shown in Scotland as a horse in Venice[27].' An English reader may, perhaps, require to be told, that there are thousands of trees of all ages and dimensions, within a mile of Edinburgh; that there are numerous and thriving plantations in Fife; and that, as some of them overshadow part of the post-road to St Andrew's, the Doctor must have been blinder than darkness, if he did not see them. But why would any man travel at all, who is determined to believe nothing which he hears, and who, at the same time, cannot see six inches beyond his nose?

'We are not very sure that the bull is ever without horns, though we have been told that such bulls there are[28].' Who are the we he refers to? and who but the Doctor ever started so weak a question? His ignorance is below ridicule. It is true, that, in England, bulls which want horns are less numerous than husbands who have them; yet such bulls are always to be found. For the performance which contains this profound remark, this agglomerated ramification of torpid imbecility, be it known, that we have paid six shillings, which verifies the proverb, that a fool and his money are soon parted.

'We found a small church, clean to a degree unknown in any other part of Scotland[29]!' Here the fact may be true; but Dr Johnson must be ignorant whether it is or not. It is certain, that some buildings of that kind in Edinburgh, are no high specimens of national taste; but, if the Rambler would insinuate that this want of elegance is general, we must impeach his veracity; we must remind him, that there are gloomy, dirty, and unwholesome cathedrals in both countries; and we must lament, that, when entering Scotland, the Doctor left every thing behind him but HIMSELF.

'Suspicion has been always considered, when it exceeds the common measure, as a token of depravity and corruption; and a Greek writer has laid it down as a standing maxim, that he who believes not the oath of another, knows himself to be perjured.—Suspicion is, indeed, a temper so uneasy and restless, that it is very justly appointed the concomitant of guilt. Suspicion is not less an enemy to virtue than to happiness. He that is already corrupt, is naturally suspicious, and he that becomes suspicious, will quickly be corrupt[30].' This cannot always be true; but, if it were, the Rambler is by far the greatest miscreant who ever infested society. Speaking of Scotland, he says, 'I know not whether I found man or woman whom I interrogated concerning payments of money, that could surmount the illiberal desire of deceiving me, by representing every thing as dearer than it is.—The Scot must be a sturdy moralist