Johnson, in considering the works of a poet[135], that
'amendments are seldom made without some token of a rent;' but I do not
find that this is applicable to prose[136]. We shall see that though his
amendments in this work are for the better, there is nothing of the
_pannus assutus_[137]; the texture is uniform: and indeed, what had been
there at first, is very seldom unfit to have remained.

_Various Readings[138] in the Life of COWLEY._

'All [future votaries of] _that may hereafter pant for_ solitude.

'To conceive and execute the [agitation or perception] _pains and the
pleasures_ of other minds.

'The wide effulgence of [the blazing] a _summer_ noon.'

In the Life of WALLER, Johnson gives a distinct and animated narrative
of publick affairs in that variegated period, with strong yet nice
touches of character; and having a fair opportunity to display his
political principles, does it with an unqualified manly confidence, and
satisfies his readers how nobly he might have executed a _Tory History_
of his country.

So easy is his style in these Lives, that I do not recollect more than
three uncommon or learned words[139]; one, when giving an account of the
approach of Waller's mortal disease, he says, 'he found his legs grow
_tumid_;' by using the expression his legs _swelled_, he would have
avoided this; and there would have been no impropriety in its being
followed by the interesting question to his physician, 'What that
_swelling_ meant?' Another, when he mentions that Pope had _emitted_
proposals; when _published_ or _issued_ would have been more readily
understood; and a third, when he calls Orrery and Dr. Delany[140],
writers both undoubtedly _veracious_[141], when _true, honest_, or
_faithful_, might have been used. Yet, it must be owned, that none of
these are _hard_ or _too big_ words; that custom would make them seem as
easy as any others; and that a language is richer and capable of more
beauty of expression, by having a greater variety of synonimes.

His dissertation[142] upon the unfitness of poetry for the aweful
subjects of our holy religion, though I do not entirely agree with with
him, has all the merit of originality, with uncommon force and
reasoning.

_Various Readings in the Life of_ WALLER.

'Consented to [the insertion of their names] _their own nomination_.

'[After] _paying_ a fine of ten thousand pounds.

'Congratulating Charles the Second on his [coronation] _recovered
right_.