Such was I, such by Nature still I am;
Be thine the glory, and be mine the shame.
Good life be now my task: my doubts are done;
What more could shock[160] my faith than Three in One?'
In 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[161].' 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[162].
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