It would be hardly worth while to record these ill-tempered judgments if they were not the natural outcome of a method which held unquestioned sway over English taste for a full century--in France for nearly two--and which, during that time, if we except Gray and his friends, was not seriously disputed by a single man of mark. The one author in whose favour the rules of "correct writing" were commonly set aside was Shakespeare; and perhaps there is no testimony to his greatness so convincing as the unwilling homage it extorted from the contemporaries of Pope, of Johnson, and of Hume. Johnson's own notes and introductions to the separate plays are at times trifling enough; [Footnote: Compare the assault on the "mean expressions" of Shakespeare (Rambler, No. 168).] but his general preface is a solid and manly piece of work. It contrasts strangely not only with the verdicts given above, but with his jeers at _Chevy Chase_ [Footnote: Ib. x. 139.]--a "dull and lifeless imbecility"--at the _Nonne Prestes Tale_, and at the _Knightes Tale_ [Footnote: Ib. ix. 432.] One more instance, and we may leave this depressing study in critical perversity. Among the great writers of Johnson's day there was none who showed a truer originality than Fielding; no man who broke more markedly with the literary superstitions of the time; none who took his own road with more sturdiness and self-reliance. This was enough for Johnson, who persistently depreciated both the man and his work. Something of this should doubtless be set down to disapproval of the free speech and readiness to allow for human frailty, which could not but give offence to a moralist so unbending as Johnson. But that will hardly account for the assertion that "Harry Fielding knew nothing but the outer shell of life"; still less for the petulant ruling that he "was a barren rascal". [Footnote: Boswell's _Life_, ii. 169. Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay, i. 91] The truth is--and Johnson felt it instinctively--that the novel, as conceived by Fielding--the novel that gloried in painting all sides of life, and above all in drawing out the humour of its "lower spheres"--dealt a fatal blow not only at the pompous canons which the _Rambler_ was pleased to call "the indispensable laws of Aristotelian criticism", [Footnote: Johnson's Works, v. 431.] but also at the view which found "human life to be a state where much is to be endured and little to be enjoyed". It would be hard to say whether Johnson found more in Fielding to affront him, as pessimist or as critic. And it would be equally hard to say in which of the two characters lay the greater barrier to literary insight. Even Richardson--no less revolutionary, though in a different way, than Fielding--was only saved so as by fire; by the undying hatred which he shared with Johnson for his terrible rival. It was rather as moralist than as artist, rather for "the sentiment" than for the tragic