nobody else honour. I have, indeed, not read it all. But when I take up
the end of a web, and find it packthread, I do not expect, by looking
further, to find embroidery. Sir, I will venture to say, there is not
one sentence of true criticism in her book.' GARRICK. 'But, Sir, surely
it shews how much Voltaire has mistaken Shakspeare, which nobody else
has done[265].' JOHNSON. 'Sir, nobody else has thought it worth while. And
what merit is there in that? You may as well praise a schoolmaster for
whipping a boy who has construed ill. No, Sir, there is no real
criticism in it: none shewing the beauty of thought, as formed on the
workings of the human heart.'

The admirers of this Essay[266] may be offended at the slighting manner in
which Johnson spoke of it; but let it be remembered, that he gave his
honest opinion unbiased by any prejudice, or any proud jealousy of a
woman intruding herself into the chair of criticism; for Sir Joshua
Reynolds has told me, that when the Essay first came out, and it was not
known who had written it, Johnson wondered how Sir Joshua could like
it[267]. At this time Sir Joshua himself had received no information
concerning the authour, except being assured by one of our most eminent
literati, that it was clear its authour did not know the Greek tragedies
in the original. One day at Sir Joshua's table, when it was related that
Mrs. Montagu, in an excess of compliment to the authour of a modern
tragedy, had exclaimed, 'I tremble for Shakspeare;' Johnson said, 'When
Shakspeare has got ---- for his rival, and Mrs. Montagu for his
defender, he is in a poor state indeed.'

Johnson proceeded: 'The Scotchman[268] has taken the right method in his
_Elements of Criticism_. I do not mean that he has taught us any thing;
but he has told us old things in a new way.' MURPHY. 'He seems to have
read a great deal of French criticism, and wants to make it his own; as