drawing-room and the coffee-house. Nothing is ever said which might not
pass in conversation between a couple of "wits," with, at most, some
graceful indulgence in passing moods of solemn or tender sentiment.
Johnson, though devoted to society in his own way, was anything but a
producer of small talk. Society meant to him an escape from the gloom
which beset him whenever he was abandoned to his thoughts. Neither his
education nor the manners acquired in Grub Street had qualified him to
be an observer of those lighter foibles which were touched by Addison
with so dexterous a hand. When he ventures upon such topics he flounders
dreadfully, and rather reminds us of an artist who should attempt to
paint miniatures with a mop. No man, indeed, took more of interest in
what is called the science of human nature; and, when roused by the
stimulus of argument, he could talk, as has been shown, with almost
unrivalled vigour and point. But his favourite topics are the deeper
springs of character, rather than superficial peculiarities; and his
vigorous sayings are concentrated essence of strong sense and deep
feeling, not dainty epigrams or graceful embodiments of delicate
observation. Johnson was not, like some contemporary antiquarians, a
systematic student of the English literature of the preceding centuries,
but he had a strong affection for some of its chief masterpieces.
Burton's _Anatomy of Melancholy_ was, he declared, the only book which
ever got him out of bed two hours sooner than he wished. Sir Thomas
Browne was another congenial writer, who is supposed to have had some
influence upon his style. He never seems to have directly imitated any
one, though some nonsense has been talked about his "forming a style;"
but it is probable that he felt a closer affinity to those old scholars,
with their elaborate and ornate language and their deep and solemn tone
of sentiment, than to the brilliant but comparatively superficial
writers of Queen Anne's time. He was, one may say, a scholar of the old
type, forced by circumstances upon the world, but always retaining a