only be that of Nathaniel Lee in the madhouse," The world thinks me mad, and I think them so; but numbers have prevailed over right." He did not concern himself to answer every trifling and foolish attack, which ignorance and malignity might make upon him; for he well knew, that to do so, is but to give duration to objects in themselves insignificant, and which, otherwise, would be speedily forgotten. The only controversial compositions he has left behind, are his letters to Jonas Hanway; and in these, there is such a spirit of good-humoured placidity, as completely to prove, that controversial rancour formed no part of his disposition. Possessing, from his long intercourse with mankind, and deep insight into manners and men, much more practical good sense than his great rival, and entertaining a much greater habitual regard for established institutions, he was not so desirous of leading the multitude from the road they had frequented to newformed paths of his own. He had too much reverence for what bore the semblance of truth, to wish to discredit its supporters; or, by making attempts to beautify its outward appearance, to run the hazard of undermining its foundation in the end. With an equal portion of that ingenuity and novelty of fancy, which gives new colours to every subject, and brings to every theme new and unhackneyed accessions of mind, he had too much intellectual solidity to delight in framing hypotheses which could not communicate to the mind. that satisfaction on which he loved to repose-and without the power of giving which all theories are but empty triflings. He had too much soundness in his taste to split into systems, and quarter into subtleties, the unchanged and unchangeable principles of nature; or to convert into intricate and interwoven propositions, the plain and unerring dictates of reason. His devotion to truth was too strong to suffer him to deceive others

-his judgment too sound to allow him to be deceived himself-whether the deceit was introduced by the reveries of a fervid imagination, or the insinuating dexterity of self-love. He is once reported to have said, "How great might have been my fame, had not my sole object been truth;" and the fixed foundation. on which his fame now stands, may be considered as some reward for his immediate self-denial.

"If we proceed to compare their respective intellects, it will, perhaps; be rather difficult to adjust the balance of superiority. In the first, great characteristics of genius, unbounded comprehension of mind, and receptability of images-in the power of communicating, to mental matter, that living energy and alimental nourishment-that intellectual leaven, which gives it the capacity of being kneaded and worked up into an exhaustless diversity of shapes and figurations-in the power of extracting and drawing forth all that human reason, when bent to any given point, can educe-in the power of conceiving mighty plans in the mind, without destroying, in the grasp of the whole, the beauty and the symmetry of the parts-in these first and foremost requisites of genius, the endowments of both seem very evenly divided, though the balance, if at all, preponderates on the side of Johnson. He had, certainly, more of the vivifying mind of a poet-more of that brightness of imagination, which clothes all objects in a vesture of splendour-more of that fervid fulness, which deepens and swells the current of thought-but not more of the boundless expansion and versatility of mind-not more of the variegated exuberance of imagery, or expatiating ubiquity of fancy. He had, perhaps, not so much of that wide sweep of intellect, which, like a drag-net, draws all within its reach into its capacious reservoir of illustration, and which diminishes and contracts the resources of ingenuity by its

extraordinary power of exhaustion; nor had he any part of that fiery fervour, that indomitable vehemence, which blazed forth in Warburton; with which he could burst through every bondage, and overcome every obstacle; which it was impossible to withstand in its attacks, or delay in its course; and which, like the burning simoom of the Arabian deserts, absolutely devastated and laid waste the regions of literature, with the sultriness of its ardour and the unquenchableness of its flame.

"In logical strength and acuteness-in the faculty of seeing immediately the weak side of an argument, and exposing its fallacy with clearness and force-in those powers which Dr Johnson has called the grapplingirons of the understanding-each was superlatively preeminent; and it would be difficult to decide which is the superior. Both great masters of the science of reasoning-endowed with that penetration of discernment, which in a moment pierces through the sophistications of argumentation, and unravels the mazes of subtlety with intuitive quickness and precision-they were yet considerably different in the manner in which those talents were displayed. In Johnson, the science of reasoning has the appearance of being more a natural faculty; and in Warburton, more an artificial acquirement. The one delighted in exhibiting it in its naked force and undivided power-the other was fonder of dividing it into distinctions, and reducing it into parts. The one delighted to overwhelm and confound-the other rather to lead into intricacies, and puzzle with contradictions. The one wielded his weapons with such overpowering strength, that skill was useless, and art unnecessary-the other made use of them as an experienced fencing-master, whom great natural strength, joined with much acquired skill, render irresistible. In the one, the first blow was generally the decider of

the combat-in the other, the contest was often more protracted, though the success in the end not less sure. It was the glory of the one, to evince at once his power, and, by a mighty blow, to destroy the antagonist who assailed him-while it was at once the delight and pride of the other, to deprive his opponent gradually of every particle of armour and weapon of defence; and when he had riven away every obstacle and protection, exultingly and mercilessly to despatch him.

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"In real and true taste, Johnson was unquestionably superior. Discarding all those systems of criticism which had so long fettered and confined the efforts of talent, he first established criticism on the basis and foundation of common sense; and thus liberated our future Shakspeares from those degrading chains and unworthy shackles, which custom had so long allowed the weak to impose upon the strong. His critical decisions-wherever personal hostility did not interfere, and wherever his want of the finer and more delicate perception of inanimate or intellectual beauty did not incapacitate him from judging correctly-are, and ever will be, incontestable for their truth, and unequalled for their talent, and carry with them that undeniable authority and weight, which nothing can question or withstand. Had he been, perhaps, a little less prejudiced, and a little more largely gifted with that fine feeling, which is as necessary to form a great critic as a great poet, he would certainly have been entitled to take a higher place in the province of criticism than any man who went before, or shall hereafter succeed him. Of this true taste, in Warburton there was a most lamentable deficiency; with an equal lack of the more delicate and imaginative qualifications for critical judgment, he possessed none of that sound discriminative power, and unerring rectitude of tact, which so eminently distinguished Johnson. The bias of his mind in criticism

seems totally perverted and warped, and the obliquity of his critical judgment is often as unaccountable as it is amazing. A great part of this is owing to the bigoted adherence which he placed in the systems of the French critics, so popular in England in the beginning of the last century; and a much greater, to his own unconquerable propensity for adjusting and fashioning every thing according to the decrees of some standard hypothesis which had taken possession of his mind, and on which, like the bed of Procrustes, he racked and tortured every unfortunate subject till he had reduced it, by a process of dislocation, into some conformity with his theories. His fondness for Dr Bentley, and Dr Bentley's style of criticism, was also another drawback in his qualifications: from him he derived that inextinguishable rage for emendation, which has descended, like the prophet's mantle, from critic to critic in succession; and, indeed, what Bentley has performed upon Milton, Warburton has no less scrupulously performed upon Shakspeare, though, perhaps, with much more acuteness and ingenuity in the exercise of his editorial capacity. For wanting this emandatory ardour-or, as he would call it, this critical vous he despised Dr Johnson; though, for his superabundance of it, Dr Johnson might much more justly have despised him. To Warburton, criticism was little else than ingenuity in inventing fresh varieties of the text, and dexterity and plausibility in their explanation. An author, chosen for the subject of critical illustration, was to him nothing else than a lamb led out to the slaughter, for the purpose of trying the sharpness of his knife; or an anvil, by frequently striking which his commentator might elicit scintillations and sparkles of his own. If he ever shines, it is always at the expense of his author. He seems utterly incapable of entering into the spirit of his text-of identifying himself with his subject-of losing his own individu