a marvel of clearness and vivacity; whereas to
read 'Rasselas' is about as exhilarating as to wade knee-deep through a
sandy desert. Voltaire and Johnson, however, the great sceptic and the
last of the true old Tories, coincide pretty well in their view of the
world, and in the remedy which they suggest. The world is, they agree,
full of misery, and the optimism which would deny the reality of the
misery is childish. _Il faut cultiver notre jardin_ is the last word of
'Candide,' and Johnson's teaching, both here and elsewhere, may be
summed up in the words 'Work, and don't whine.' It need not be
considered here, nor, perhaps, is it quite plain, what speculative
conclusions Voltaire meant to be drawn from his teaching. The
peculiarity of Johnson is, that he is apparently indifferent to any such
conclusion. A dogmatic assertion, that the world is on the whole a scene
of misery, may be pressed into the service of different philosophies.
Johnson asserted the opinion resolutely, both in writing and in
conversation, but apparently never troubled himself with any inferences
but such as have a directly practical tendency. He was no
'speculatist'--a word which now strikes us as having an American twang,
but which was familiar to the lexicographer. His only excursion to the
borders of such regions was in the very forcible review of Soane Jenyns,
who had made a jaunty attempt to explain the origin of evil by the help
of a few of Pope's epigrams. Johnson's sledge-hammer smashes his flimsy
platitudes to pieces with an energy too good for such a foe. For
speculation, properly so called, there was no need. The review, like
'Rasselas,' is simply a vigorous protest against the popular attempt to
make things pleasant by a feeble dilution of the most watery kind of
popular teaching. He has no trouble in remarking that the evils of
poverty are not alleviated by calling it 'want of riches,' and that
there is a poverty which involves want of necessaries. The offered
consolation, indeed, came rather awkwardly from the elegant country
gentleman to the poor scholar who had just known by experience what it
was to live upon fourpence-halfpenny a day. Johnson resolutely looks
facts in the face, and calls ugly things by their right names. Men, he
tells us over and over again, are wretched, and there is no use in
denying it. This doctrine appears in his familiar talk, and even in the
papers which he meant to be light reading. He begins the prologue t