Life of Johnson.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXIV, Issue 939, 8 December 1933, Page 6

Life of Johnson.

’I‘ALKING OF LONDON. he observed, “ Sir, if you wish to have a just notion of the magnitude of this city. you must not be satisfied with seeing its great streets and squares, but must survey the innumerable little lanes and courts. It is not in the showy evolutions of buildings, but in the multiplicity of human habitations which are crouded together, that the wonderful immensity of London consists.”—l have often amused mySelf with thinking how different a place London is to different people. They, whose narrow minds are contracted to the consideration of some one particular pursuit, view it only through that medium. A politician thinks of it: mereiy as the seat of government in its different departments; a grazier. as'a vast market for cattle: a mercantile man, as a place where a prodigious deal of business is done upon ’Change; a dramatick enthusiast, as the grand scene of theatrical entertainments; a. man of pleasure, as an assemblage of taverns, and the great emporium for ladies of easy virtue. But the intellectual man is struck with it, as comprehending the whole of human life in all its variety the contemplation of which is inexhaustible.