Dr. Johnson at Work: Observations
on a Columbia Rare Book
 

rrp^ HEe

I   cism of

^LL English
 

JOHN L. A'lAHONEY

extraordinary range and depth of the literary criti-
f Samuel Johnson, the great eighteenth century
glish man of letters, is too familiat to bear any reex¬
amination. The briUiant and searching studies of scholars like
Walter Jackson Bate (The Achievement of Sa?nuel Johnson) and
Jean Hagstrum (Samuel Johnson's Literary Criticism) have pro¬
vided not only a clear and penetrating view of Johnson's evalu¬
ations of specific works of art, but also a thoroughgoing analysis
of the basic principles which underly his approach. Johnson's re¬
gard for Uterature as an enlarger of man's mind and spirit, and his
insistence on the need for a more stirring and imaginative presen¬
tation of truth pervade his reading of Shakespeare, Milton, Dry¬
den, Pope, and a host of other great English poets. His devotion
to the "giandeur of generality," to the gieat law of piobability
or truth to life, and his impatience with whatever distotts these
ideals to concentrate on what is particular or transitory are fun¬
damental to his analysis of many literary endeavors. "The irregu¬
lar combinations of fanciful invention," he contends in his famous
"Preface to Shakespeare," "may delight a-while, by that novelty
of which the common satiety of life sends us all in quest; but the
pleasures of sudden wonder are soon exhausted, and the mind can
only repose on the stability of truth."

It seemed particularly important to the piesent writer, there¬
fore, to call attention to a fascinating volume which he recently-
had the pleasure of examining in the Phoenix Collection of the
Department of Special Collections of the Columbia University