As Johnson had abundant homage paid to him during his life[1277], so no writer in this nation ever had such an accumulation of literary honours after his death.  A sermon upon that event was preached in St. Mary’s Church, Oxford, before the University, by the Reverend Mr. Agutter, of Magdalen College[1278].  The Lives, the Memoirs, the Essays, both in prose and verse, which have been published concerning him, would make many volumes.  The numerous attacks too upon him, I consider as part of his consequence, upon the principle which he himself so well knew and asserted[1279].  Many who trembled at his presence, were forward in assault, when they no longer apprehended danger.  When one of his little pragmatical foes was invidiously snarling at his fame, at Sir Joshua Reynolds’s table, the Reverend Dr. Parr exclaimed, with his usual bold animation, ’Ay, now that the old lion is dead, every ass thinks he may kick at him.’

A monument for him, in Westminster Abbey, was resolved upon soon after his death, and was supported by a most respectable contribution[1280]; but the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul’s having come to a resolution of admitting monuments there, upon a liberal and magnificent plan, that Cathedral was afterwards fixed on, as the place in which a cenotaph should be erected to his memory[1281]:  and in the cathedral of his native city of Lichfield, a smaller one is to be erected.  To compose his epitaph, could not but excite the warmest competition of genius[1282].  If laudari a laudato viro be praise which is highly estimable[1283], I should not forgive myself were I to omit the following sepulchral verses on the authour of THE ENGLISH DICTIONARY, written by the Right Honourable Henry Flood[1284]:—­

     ’No need of Latin or of Greek to grace
        Our JOHNSON’S memory, or inscribe his grave;
      His native language claims this mournful space,
        To pay the Immortality he gave.’

The character of SAMUEL JOHNSON has, I trust, been so developed in the course of this work, that they who have honoured it with a perusal, may be considered as well acquainted with him.  As, however, it may be expected that I should collect into one view the capital and distinguishing features of this extraordinary man, I shall endeavour to acquit myself of that part of my biographical undertaking[1285], however difficult it may be to do that which many of my readers will do better for themselves.

His figure was large and well formed, and his countenance of the cast of an ancient statue; yet his appearance was rendered strange and somewhat uncouth, by convulsive cramps, by the scars of that distemper which it was once imagined the royal touch could cure, and by a slovenly mode of dress.  He had the use only of one eye; yet so much does mind govern and even supply the deficiency of organs, that his visual perceptions, as far as they extended, were uncommonly quick and accurate[1286].  So morbid was his temperament,