To comply with
that request is the design of this essay, which the writer undertakes
with a trembling hand. He has no discoveries, no secret anecdotes, no
occasional controversy, no sudden flashes of wit and humour, no private
conversation, and no new facts, to embellish his work. Every thing has
been gleaned. Dr. Johnson said of himself, "I am not uncandid, nor
severe: I sometimes say more than I mean, in jest, and people are apt to
think me serious[a]." The exercise of that privilege, which is enjoyed
by every man in society, has not been allowed to him. His fame has given
importance even to trifles; and the zeal of his friends has brought
every thing to light. What should be related, and what should not, has
been published without distinction: "dicenda tacenda locuti!" Every
thing that fell from him has been caught with eagerness by his admirers,
who, as he says in one of his letters, have acted with the diligence of
spies upon his conduct. To some of them the following lines, in Mallet's
poem on verbal criticism, are not inapplicable:
"Such that grave bird in northern seas is found.
Whose name a Dutchman only knows to sound;
Where'er the king of fish moves on before,
This humble friend attends from shore to shore;
With eye still earnest, and with bill inclined,
He picks up what his patron drops behind,
With those choice cates his palate to regale,
And is the careful Tibbald of a whale.
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