comment, and what is given as my "enlarging"
is an _olla podrida_ of sentences torn from the context in three
different and unconnected passages of this Introduction. The only one
of them which has any bearing on the point shews, though garbled,
that, in attributing motives, I distinguished between Johnson and his
set.

Having thus laid the ground for fixing on me opinions I had nowhere
professed, the reviewer asks, "Had Mr. Hayward, when he passed such
slighting judgment on the motives of the venerable sage who awes us
still, no fear before his eyes of the anathema aimed by Carlyle at
Croker for similar disparagement? 'As neediness, and greediness, and
vain glory are the chief qualities of most men, so no man, not even a
Johnson, acts, or can think of acting, on any other principle.
Whatever, therefore, cannot be referred to the two former categories,
Need and Greed, is without scruple ranged under the latter.'"[1]

[Footnote 1: Edinb, Review, No. 230, p. 511.]

This style of criticism is as loose as it is unjust; for one main
ingredient in Miss Seward's mixture is Platonic love, which cannot be
referred to either of the three categories. Her error lay in not
adding a fourth ingredient,--the admiration which Johnson undoubtedly
felt for the admitted good qualities of Mrs. Thrale. But the lady was
nearer the truth than the reviewer, when he proceeds in this strain:

"We take an entirely different view at once of the character and the
feelings of Johnson. Rude, uncouth, arrogant as he was--spoilt as he
was, which is far worse, by flattery and toadying and the silly
homage of inferior worshippers--selfish as he was in his eagerness
for small enjoyments and disregard of small attentions--that which
lay at the very bottom of his character, that which constitutes the
great source of his power in life, and connects him after death with
the hearts of all of us, is his spirit of imaginative romance. He was
romantic in almost all things--in politics, in religion, in his
musings on the supernatural world, in friendship for men, and in love
for women."

* * * * *

"Such was his fancied 'padrona,' his 'mistress,' his 'Thralia
dulcis,' a compound of the bright lady of fashion and the ideal
Urania who rapt his soul into spheres of perfection."

Imaginative romance in politics, in religion, and in musings on the
supernatural world, is here only another term for prejudice,
intolerance, bigotry,