Life of Johnson.
TN DRAWING Dryden’s character, Johnson has given, though I suppose unintentionally, some touches of his own. Thus:—“The power that predominated in his intellectual operations was rather strong reason than quick sensibility. Upon all occasions that were presented, he studied rather than felt; and produced sentiments not such as Nature enforces, but meditation supplies. With the simple and elemental passions as they spring separate in the mind, he seems not much acquainted. He is, therefore, with all his variety of excellence, not often pathetick; and had so little sensibility of the power of effusions purely natural, that he did not esteem them in others.” It may indeed be observed that in all the numerous writings of Johnson, whether in prose or verse, and even in his Tragedy, of which the subject is the distress of an unfortunate Princess, there is not a single passage that ever drew a tear.
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Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20538, 13 February 1935, Page 6
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151Life of Johnson. Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20538, 13 February 1935, Page 6
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