tract on
the Falkland Islands, the materials for which were furnished him by
Government, he appears to have much the better of the argument; for he
has to shew the folly of involving the nation in a war for a
questionable right, and a possession of doubtful advantage; but his
invective against his opponents is very coarse; he does not perform the
work of dissection neatly: he mangles rather than cuts. When he applies
the word "gabble" to the elocution of Chatham, we are tempted to compare
him to one of the baser fowl, spoken of by an ancient poet, that clamour
against the bird of Jove.

Not many copies of this pamphlet had been dispersed, when Lord North
stopped the sale, and caused some alterations to be made, for reasons
which the author did not himself distinctly comprehend. Johnson's own
opinion of these two political essays was, that there was a subtlety of
disquisition in the first, that was worth all the fire of the second.
When questioned by Boswell as to the truth of a report that they had
obtained for him an addition to his pension of 200_l_. a year, he
answered that, excepting what had been paid him by the booksellers, he had
not got a farthing for them.

About this time, there was a project for enabling him to take a more
distinguished part in politics. The proposition for bringing him into
the House of Commons came from Strahan the printer, who was himself one
of the members; Boswell has preserved the letter in which this zealous
friend to Johnson represented to one of the Secretaries of State the
services which might reasonably be expected from his eloquence and
fidelity. The reasons which rendered the application ineffectual have
not been disclosed to us; but it may be questioned whether his powers of
reasoning could have been readily called forth on a stage so different
from any to which he had been hitherto accustomed; whether so late in
life he could have obtained the habit of attending to speakers,
sometimes dull, and sometimes perplexed; or whether that dictatorial
manner which easily conquered opposition in a small circle, might not
have been borne down by resentment or scorn in a large and mixed
assembly. Johnson would most willingly have made the experiment; and
when Reynolds repeated what Burke had said of him, that if he had come
early into parliament, he would certainly have been the greatest speaker
that ever was there, exclaimed, "I should like to try my hand now." That
we may proceed witho