And the truth is, the only 'crime' he ever committed was plagiarism.
The self-assumed title of Captain should have deceived nobody, for the
braggart never stole anything more difficult of acquisition than another
man's words. He picked brains, not pockets; he committed the greater
sin and ran no risk. He helped himself to the admirable inventions
of Captain Smith without apology or acknowledgment, and, as though to
lighten the dead-weight of his sin, he never skipped an opportunity of
maligning his victim. Again and again in the very act to steal he will
declare vaingloriously that Captain Smith's stories are 'barefaced
inventions.' But doubt was no check to the habit of plunder, and you
knew that at every reproach, expressed (so to say) in self-defence, he
plied the scissors with the greater energy. The most cunning theft is
the tag which adorns the title-page of his book:

Little villains oft submit to fate
That great ones may enjoy the world in state.

Thus he quotes from Gay, and you applaud the aptness of the quotation,
until you discover that already it was used by Steele in his
appreciation of the heroic Smith! However, Johnson has his uses, and
those to whom the masterpiece of Captain Alexander is inaccessible will
turn with pleasure to the General History of the lives and adventures
of the most Famous Highwaymen, Murderers, Street-Robbers, &c., and will
feel no regret that for once they are receiving stolen goods.

Though Johnson fell immeasurably below his predecessor in talent, he
manifestly excelled him in scholarship. A sojourn at the University had
supplied him with a fine assortment of Latin tags, and he delighted to
prove his erudition by the citation of the Chronicles. Had he possessed
a sense of humour, he might have smiled at the irony of committing a