if not a great book, really
impressive within the limits of its capacity.

After this imperfect survey of Johnson's writings, it only remains to be
noticed that all the most prominent peculiarities are the very same
which give interest to his spoken utterances. The doctrine is the same,
though the preacher's manner has changed. His melancholy is not so
heavy-eyed and depressing in his talk, for we catch him at moments of
excitement; but it is there, and sometimes breaks out emphatically and
unexpectedly. The prospect of death often clouds his mind, and he bursts
into tears when he thinks of his past sufferings. His hearty love of
truth, and uncompromising hatred of cant in all its innumerable
transmutations, prompt half his most characteristic sayings. His queer
prejudices take a humorous form, and give a delightful zest to his
conversation. His contempt for abstract speculation comes out when he
vanquishes Berkeley, not with a grin, but by 'striking his foot with
mighty force against a large stone.' His arguments, indeed, never seem
to have owed much to such logic as implies systematic and continuous
thought. He scarcely waits till his pistol misses fire to knock you down
with the butt-end. The merit of his best sayings is not that they
compress an argument into a phrase, but that they are vivid expressions
of an intuitive judgment. In other words, they are always humorous
rather than witty. He holds his own belief with so vigorous a grasp that
all argumentative devices for loosening it seem to be thrown away. As
Boswell says, he is through your body in an instant without any
preliminary parade; he gives a deadly lunge, but cares little for skill
of fence. 'We know we are free and there's an end of it,' is his
characteristic summary of a perplexed bit of metaphysics; and he would
evidently have no patience to wander through the labyrinths in which men
like Jonathan Edwards delighted to perplex themselves. We should have
been glad to see a fuller report of one of those conversations in which
Burke 'wound into a subject like a serpent,' and contrast his method
with Johnson's downright hitting. Boswell had not the power, even if he
had the will, to give an adequate account of such a 'wit combat.'

That such a mind should express itself most forcibly in speech is
intelligible enough. Conversation was to him not merely a contest, but a
means of escape from himself. 'I may be cracking my joke,' he said to
Boswell,'and curs