'
"_This last and long-enduring passion for Mrs. Thrale was, however,
composed perhaps of cupboard love, Platonic love, and vanity tickled
and gratified, from morn to night, by incessant homage_. The two
first ingredients are certainly oddly heterogeneous; but Johnson, in
religion and politics, in love and in hatred, was composed of such
opposite and contradictory materials, as never before met in the
human mind. This is the reason why folk are never weary of talking,
reading, and writing about a man--
"'So various that he seem'd to be,
Not one, but all mankind's epitome.'"
After quoting the sentence printed in italics, the reviewer says: "On
this hint Mr. Hayward enlarges, nothing loth." I quoted the entire
letter without a word of comment, and what is given as my "enlarging"
is an _olla podrida_ of sentences torn from the context in three
different and unconnected passages of this Introduction. The only one
of them which has any bearing on the point shews, though garbled,
that, in attributing motives, I distinguished between Johnson and his
set.
Having thus laid the ground for fixing on me opinions I had nowhere
professed, the reviewer asks, "Had Mr. Hayward, when he passed such
slighting judgment on the motives of the venerable sage who awes us
still, no fear before his eyes of the anathema aimed by Carlyle at
Croker for similar disparagement? 'As neediness, and greediness, and
vain glory are the chief qualities of most men, so no man, not even a
Johnson, acts, or can think of acting, on any other principle.
Pages:
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259