d that he wanted: he thought
nothing right, but what either himself or some of his friends had said
or done. He was passionately kind and angry; careless either to
gain or to keep, vindictive, but if he was well answered, greatly
chagrined; interpreting the best sayings and deeds often to the worst.
He was for any religion, being versed in all; his inventions were
smooth and easy, but above all he excelled in translation. In short,
he was in his personal character the very reverse of Shakespear, as
surly, ill-natured, proud and disagreeable, as Shakespear with ten
times his merit was gentle, good-natured, easy and amiable." He had a
very strong memory; for he tells himself in his discoveries that he
could in his youth have repeated all that he had ever written, and so
continued till he was past forty; and even after that he could have
repeated whole books that he had read, and poems of some select
friends, which he thought worth remembring.

Mr. Pope remarks, that when Ben got possesion of the stage, he brought
critical learning into vogue, and that this was not done without
difficulty, which appears from those frequent lessons (and indeed
almost declamations) which he was forced to prefix to his first plays,
and put into the mouths of his actors, the Grex, Chorus, &c. to remove
the prejudices and inform the judgement of his hearers. Till then
the English authors had no thoughts of writing upon the model of the
ancients: their tragedies were only histories in dialogue, and their
comedies followed the thread of any novel, as they found it, no less
implicitly than if it had been true history. Mr. Selden in his preface
to his titles of honour, stiles Johnson, his beloved friend and a
singular poet, and extols his special worth in literature, and his
accurate judgment. Mr. Dryden gives him the title of the greatest man
of the last age, and observes, that if we look upon him, when he was
himself, (for his last plays were but his dotages) he was the most
learned and judicious writer any theatre ever had; that he was a most
severe judge of himself as well as others; that we cannot say he
wanted wit, but rather that he was frugal of it; that in his works
there is little to be retrenched or altered; but that humour was his
chief province.

Ben had certainly no great talent for versification, nor does he seem
to have had an extraordinary ear; his verses are often wanting in
syllables, and sometimes have too many.

I shall quo