turgid and familiar: to buy the alliance
of Britain, "Climes were paid down." Antithesis is his favourite: "They
for kindness hate;" and, "because she's right, she's ever in the wrong."

His versification is his own: neither his blank nor his rhyming lines
have any resemblance to those of former writers; he picks up no
hemistichs, he copies no favourite expressions; he seems to have laid
up no stores of thought or diction, but to owe all to the fortuitous
suggestions of the present moment. Yet I have reason to believe that,
when once he had formed a new design, he then laboured it with very
patient industry; and that he composed with great labour and frequent
revisions.

His verses are formed by no certain model; he is no more like himself in
his different productions than he is like others. He seems never to have
studied prosody, nor to have had any direction but from his own ear.
But, with all his defects, he was a man of genius and a poet.

-----

[Footnote 185: See Gent. Mag. vol. lxx. p. 225. N.]

[Footnote 186: As my great friend is now become the subject of
biography, it should be told, that every time I called upon Johnson
during the time I was employed in collecting materials for this life and
putting it together, he never suffered me to depart without some such
farewell as this: "Don't forget that rascal Tindal, sir. Be sure to hang
up the atheist." Alluding to this anecdote, which Johnson had mentioned
to me.]

[Footnote 187: Dr. Johnson, in many cases, thought and directed
differently, particularly in Young's works. J.N.]

[Footnote 188: Not in the Tatler, but in the Guardian, May 9, 1713.]

[Footnote 189: See a letter from the duke of Wharton to Swift, dated
1717, in Swift's works, in which he mentions Young being then in
Ireland. J.B.N.]

[Footnote 190: Davies, in his life of Garrick, says 1720, and that it
was produced thirty-three years after.]

[Footnote 191: Mr. Boswell discovered in this heavy piece of biography a
successful imitation of Johnson's style. An eminent literary character
exclaimed, "No, no, it is not a good imitation of Johnson; it has all
his pomp without his force; it has all the nodosities of the oak without
its strength." Endeavouring to express himself still more in Johnsonian
phrase, he added, "It has all the contortions of the Sybil, without the
inspiration." See Boswell, iv. According to Malone, this eminent person
was Burke, and the observation is assigned to him, wit