Johnson's prose works consist of short pieces, his Dictionary excepted. His `English Dictionary' was a work of great labour, and the quotations are chosen with so much ingenuity, that, though necessarily mere fragments, they are amusing to read. Dr. Robertson, the historian, said that he had read Johnson's Dictionary from beginning to end ; and it is probable that very few ever open it for refer ence without reading much more than the passage they looked for. It is however in some respects a very defeotIve work. Johnson had scarcely any knowledge of the Anglo-Saxon, and no knowledge of any of the cognate Teutonic dialects ; accordingly, the etymological part is not of much value; the etymologies being copied chiefly from Skinner and Junius. His definitions are constructed without sufficient con sideration, and without any systematic plan. He also frequently errs in tracing the successive significations of a word. Between 1750 and 1760 he published the 'Rambler' and the 'Idler,' periodical essays in the style of the Spectator,'—works generally read and of very extensive influence in their day, but which now probably are comparatively seldom disturbed. His edition of Shakspere was pub lished in 1765; the preface is one of his ablest productions, particularly that part which relates to the unities and dramatic illusion. He had not sufficient antiquarian knowledge or poetical feeling for com menting on Shakspere; his notes are not numerous, and though marked with his strong sense are only occasionally valuable. In 1755 he published the account of his journey in the Hebrides, an entertaining and an instructive work, though it discusses with need• less solemnity subjects familiar to every inhabitant of the country, though strange to a townsman like Johnson. his ' Lives of the Poets,' published in 1781, are a useful and interesting contribution to English blopaphy and criticism, and are too well known to require specific notion. The criticisms in this work are sometimes biased by political, religious, and even personal antipathies, as may be seen in his un. favourable judgment of Milton's poetry, dictated by his dislike for the republican and nonconformist; and his somewhat captious censure of Gray. His judgments of the general character of a poet are how ever more frequently correct than his criticisms upon particular passage. and expressions. The style is on the whole perhaps more simple and better than in any other of his writings.
A complete list of Johnson's works is prefixed to Boswell'a 'Life; but from what has been stated, it sufficiently appears that his iutellec tnal efforts were desultory and unconnected, and took the form of Essays, Lives, Critical Notices, Prefaces, &c. He had no compre hensive or profound acquaintance with any department of human knowledge; he did not attempt any systematic investigation of any considerable branch of metaphysical, ethical, political, or resthetical science. Even as a grammarian, his acquirements were limited and
superficial; of physical and mathematical science he knew scarcely anything. It may however be remarked that he had adopted that theory of ethics which is now commonly known by the name of utilitarian, as may be seen from his review of Soame Jenyna's ' Inquiry into the Origin of Evil:' Johnson here says of this theory, that it affords "a criterion of action on account of virtue and vice, for which he has often contended, and which must be embraced by all who are willing to know why they act or why they forbear, to give any reason of their conduct to themselves or others." From his habit of writing for the booksellers, ho had acquired a power of treating the most heterogeneous subjects with scarcely any preparatory knowledge; witness hie papers on the construction of Blackfriars Bridge, and his very ingeniona argument, dictated to Boswell, on a question of Scotch law. In English literature his reading was extensive, particularly in the writers of the 17th and 18th centuries; but he seems to have known comparatively little about the writers of the age of Elizabeth : his 'Lives of the Poeta ' begin with Cowley. He does not seem to have studied attentively the works of any of the chief English philosophers, as Bacon, Hobbes, Locke; his theological learning was but scanty; nor was he very well versed in the political history or laws of his country. He had a fair acquaintance with the ordinary Latin classics; of Greek he used to say that he knew but little ; but it was found that Johnson's "little" was what some men of more pretensions to scholarship would have accounted great. He could read French and Italian; but he seems to have scarcely known anything of the modern literature of foreign countries.
Johnson's opinions were regarded by many of his contemporaries with a sort of superstitious reverence. In the present generation his credit had fallen lower than it deserved ; but the notices of him by several of the greatest writers of the day, even when unfavourable, have served to show that be could not be safely neglected by the literary student, while by the general reader many of his works will continue to be read, from the vigour of thought which they display.
(Murphy, Life, in preface to Works; Boswell, Life, Croker's edit; Memoir by Walter Scott ; Essays by Macaulay and Carlyle. A brief but elaborate character of Dr. Johnson, written by Sir James Mackintosh, will be found in his Life, vol. ii. p. 166.)