the blessings of religion. To abstract the
mind from all local emotion would be impossible, if it were endeavored,
and would be foolish, if it were possible." The difference between his
colloquial style and his book style is well illustrated in the instance
cited by Macaulay. Speaking of Villiers's _Rehearsal_, Johnson said, "It
has not wit enough to keep it sweet;" then paused and added--translating
English into Johnsonese--"it has not vitality sufficient to preserve it
from putrefaction." There is more of this in Johnson's _Rambler_ and
_Idler_ papers than in his latest work, the _Lives of the Poets_. In
this he showed himself a sound and judicious critic, though with
decided limitations. His understanding was solid, but he was a thorough
classicist, and his taste in poetry was formed on Pope. He was unjust to
Milton and to his own contemporaries, Gray, Collins, Shenstone, and
Dyer. He had no sense of the higher and subtler graces of romantic
poetry, and he had a comical indifference to the "beauties of nature."
When Boswell once ventured to remark that poor Scotland had, at least,
some "noble wild prospects," the doctor replied that the noblest
prospect a Scotchman ever saw was the road that led to London.

The English novel of real life had its origin at this time. Books like
De Foe's _Robinson Crusoe_, _Captain Singleton_, _Journal of the
Plague_, etc., were tales of incident and adventure rather than novels.
The novel deals primarily with character and with the interaction of
characters upon one another, as developed by a regular plot. The first
English novelist, in the modern sense of the word, was Samuel
Richardson, a printer, who began authorship in his fiftieth year with
his _Pamela_, 1740, the story of a young servant girl who resisted the
seductions of her master, and finally, as the reward of her virtue,
became his wife. _Clarissa Harlowe_, 1748, was the tragical history of a
high-spirited young lady who, being driven from her home by her family
because she refused to marry the suitor selected for her, fell into the
toils of Lovelace, an accomplished rake. After struggling heroically
against every form of artifice and violence, she was at last drugged and
ruined. She died of a broken heart, and Lovelace, borne down by remorse,
was killed in a duel by a cousin of Clarissa. _Sir Charles Grandison_,
1753, was Richardson's portrait of an ideal fine gentleman, whose
stately doings fill eight volumes, but who seem