By a curious coincidence, Lord Rosebery within five days of
his great Budget speech gave an address at the Johnson bicentenary celebration (at Lichfield on Wednesday) which from a literary point of view is as good as the Budget speech was from the political. With Lord Rosebery's sympathy both of comprehension and approbation for Johnson the man we are entirely at one. We cannot agree, however, that Lord Rosebery is right when be adopts the popular view that the Johnson of the collected works is nothing as compared with the Johnson of Boswell. Lord Rosebery speaks of " two poems and some biographies "—that is, the " Lives of the Poeta "—as if they were the only literary achievement of Johnson which counts. He talks, too, of Johnson's Shake- spearean criticism as being " held by competent judges not to possess any special value." We desire to join issue here. We hold that not only is " Rassclas " a great book, but that "The Rambler" contains much that is admirable, not only from the point of view of morals and religion, but of litera- ture. Again, the Shakespearean criticisms contain some of the most penetrating things ever said in regard to Shakespeare's characters and plots. We wish we had space to quote some of them, for we are certain that we could convince Lord Rosebery that his "competent judges " have led him astray.
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