After writing another characteristic article, on Biography, he furnished for Fraser’s Magazine one of the finest biographical portraits ever painted,—­that of Dr. Johnson, in which that cyclopean worker stands out, with even more distinctness than in Boswell’s “Life,” as one of the most honest, earnest, patient laborers in the whole field of literature.  Carlyle makes us almost love this man, in spite of his awkwardness, dogmatism, and petulance.  Johnson in his day was an acknowledged dictator on all literary questions, surrounded by admirers of the highest gifts, who did homage to his learning,—­a man of more striking individuality than any other celebrity in England, and a man of intense religious convictions in an age of religious indifference.  We now wonder why this struggling, poorly paid, and disagreeable man of letters should have had such an ascendency over men superior to himself in learning, genius, and culture, as Burke and Gibbon doubtless were.  Even Goldsmith, whom he snubbed and loved, is now more popular than he.  It was the heroism of his character which Carlyle so much admired and so vividly described,—­contending with so many difficulties, yet surmounting them all by his persistent industry and noble aspirations; never losing faith in himself or his Maker, never servilely bowing down to rank and wealth, as others did, and maintaining his self-respect in whatever condition he was placed.  In this delightful biography we are made to see the superiority of character to genius, and the dignity of labor when idleness was the coveted desire of most fortunate men, as well as the almost universal vice of the magnates of the land.  Labor, to the mind of Johnson as well as to that of Carlyle, is not only honorable, but is a necessity which Nature imposes as the condition of happiness and usefulness.  Nor does Carlyle sneer at the wedded life of Johnson, made up of “drizzle and dry weather,” but reverences his fidelity to his best friend, uninteresting as she was to the world, and his plaintive and touching grief when she passed away.

Carlyle in this essay exalts a life of letters, however poorly paid (which Pope in his “Dunciad” did so much to depreciate), showing how it contributes to the elevation of a nation, and to those lofty pleasures which no wealth can purchase.  But it is the moral dignity of Johnson which the essay makes to shine most conspicuously in his character, supported as he was by the truths of religion, in which under all circumstances he proudly glories, and without which he must have made shipwreck of himself amid so many discouragements, maladies, and embarrassments,—­for his greatest labors were made with poverty, distress, and obscurity for his companions,—­until at last, victorious over every external evil and vile temptation, he emerged into the realm of peace and light, and became an oracle and a sage wherever he chose to go.