desired extent. The result is sometimes highly interesting and valuable,
as it is sometimes a new contribution to the dust-heaps; but in any case
the design is something quite different from Johnson's. He has left much
to be supplied and corrected by later scholars. His aim is simply to
give a vigorous summary of the main facts of his heroes' lives, a pithy
analysis of their character, and a short criticism of their productions.
The strong sense which is everywhere displayed, the massive style, which
is yet easier and less cumbrous than in his earlier work, and the
uprightness and independence of the judgments, make the book agreeable
even where we are most inclined to dissent from its conclusions.

The criticism is that of a school which has died out under the great
revolution of modern taste. The booksellers decided that English poetry
began for their purposes with Cowley, and Johnson has, therefore,
nothing to say about some of the greatest names in our literature. The
loss is little to be regretted, since the biographical part of earlier
memoirs must have been scanty, and the criticism inappreciative.
Johnson, it may be said, like most of his contemporaries, considered
poetry almost exclusively from the didactic and logical point of view.
He always inquires what is the moral of a work of art. If he does not
precisely ask "what it proves," he pays excessive attention to the
logical solidity and coherence of its sentiments. He condemns not only
insincerity and affectation of feeling, but all such poetic imagery as
does not correspond to the actual prosaic belief of the writer. For the
purely musical effects of poetry he has little or no feeling, and allows
little deviation from the alternate long and short syllables neatly
bound in Pope's couplets.

To many readers this would imply that Johnson omits precisely the poetic
element in poetry. I must be here content to say that in my opinion it