Pastoral poetry 'is generally pleasing, because it entertains the mind with representations of scenes, familiar to _almost every_ imagination, and of which _all_ can equally judge whether they are well described, or not[106].' This period is so closely interwoven with nonsense, that it will take some pains to disentangle it. Rural scenes are not familiar to _almost every_ imagination. In England half the people are shut up in large towns, and such is the gross ignorance of some of them, that an old woman in London once asked, _whether potatoes grew on trees_. Neither is every man an equal judge even of what is familiar to him. Observe how the Rambler confounds the distinction between _all_, and _almost every_. The whole number is in the same stile. 'At this time a long course of opposition to Sir Robert Walpole had filled the nation with clamours for liberty, of which no man felt the want, and with care for liberty which was not in danger[107].' No man was more violent than Dr Johnson in abusing Walpole. We have already seen some of those political definitions, which at this hour deform the Doctor's Dictionary. His late zeal for government could arise from self interest only. And to take his own words, he comes under suspicion _as a wretch hired to vindicate the late measures of the Court_[108]. He accuses Milton as a tool of authority, as a forger hired to assassinate the memory of Charles I. These charges came with a very bad grace from the Rambler. They are long since refuted in a separate publication, and yet they will be reprinted in every future edition of his book. Will any man be the wiser, the better, or the merrier, by reading what follows--'Lyttleton was his (Shenstone's) neighbour, and his rival, whose empire, spacious and opulent, looked with disdain on the _petty state_ that appeared behind it. For a while the inhabitants of Hagley affected to tell their acquaintance of the _little fellow_ that was trying to make himself admired; but when by degrees the Leasowes forced themselves into notice, they took care to defeat the curiosity which they could not suppress, by conducting their visitants perversely to inconvenient points of view, and introducing them at the wrong end of a walk to detect a deception; injuries of which Shenstone would heavily complain[109].' The paragraph closes with a _deep_ observation. As the Doctor's own associates[110] have lamented the existence of this beautiful and important passage, I have only to say, that _Poor_ Lyttleton (as the Doctor calls him) patronized Fielding, and that the Rambler patronizes William Shaw: That his Lordship was an elegant writer: That he did not adopt Johnson's new words: That _Lexiphanes_ was dedicated to him: That he was a great and an amiable man: And that he is _dead_.