to tropic, by his direction, represents, in striking colours, the sad effects of a distempered imagination.  It becomes the more affecting when we recollect, that it proceeds from one who lived in fear of the same dreadful visitation; from one who says emphatically:  “Of the uncertainties in our present state, the most dreadful and alarming is the uncertain continuance of reason.”  The inquiry into the cause of madness, and the dangerous prevalence of imagination, till, in time, some particular train of ideas fixes the attention, and the mind recurs constantly to the favourite conception, is carried on in a strain of acute observation; but it leaves us room to think, that the author was transcribing from his own apprehensions.  The discourse on the nature of the soul, gives us all that philosophy knows, not without a tincture of superstition.  It is remarkable, that the vanity of human pursuits was, about the same time, the subject that employed both Johnson and Voltaire; but Candide is the work of a lively imagination; and Rasselas, with all its splendour of eloquence, exhibits a gloomy picture.  It should, however, be remembered, that the world has known the weeping, as well as the laughing philosopher.

The Dictionary does not properly fall within the province of this essay.  The preface, however, will be found in this edition.  He who reads the close of it, without acknowledging the force of the pathethic and sublime, must have more insensibility in his composition, than usually falls to the share of a man.  The work itself, though, in some instances, abuse has been loud, and, in others, malice has endeavoured to undermine its fame, still remains the mount Atlas of English literature.

  “Though storms and tempests thunder on its brow,
  And oceans break their billows at its feet,
  It stands unmov’d, and glories in its height.”

That Johnson was eminently qualified for the office of a commentator on Shakespeare, no man can doubt; but it was an office which he never cordially embraced.  The public expected more than he had diligence to perform; and yet his edition has been the ground, on which every subsequent commentator has chosen to build.  One note, for its singularity, may be thought worthy of notice in this place.  Hamlet says, “For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a god-kissing carrion.”  In this Warburton discovered the origin of evil.  Hamlet, he says, breaks off in the middle of the sentence; but the learned commentator knows what he was going to say, and, being unwilling to keep the secret, he goes on in a train of philosophical reasoning, that leaves the reader in astonishment.  Johnson, with true piety, adopts the fanciful hypothesis, declaring it to be a noble emendation, which almost sets the critic on a level with the author.  The general observations at the end of the several plays, and the preface, will be found in this edition.  The former, with great elegance and precision, give a summary view of each drama.  The preface is a tract of great erudition and philosophical criticism.