Mitre Tavern, going back to do it, if he skipped one by chance. Though bearish in his manners and arrogant in dispute, especially when talking "for victory," Johnson had a large and tender heart. He loved his ugly, old wife--twenty-one years his senior--and he had his house full of unfortunates--a blind woman, an invalid surgeon, a destitute widow, a negro servant--whom he supported for many years, and bore with all their ill-humors patiently. Among Johnson's numerous writings the ones best entitled to remembrance are, perhaps, his _Dictionary of the English Language_, 1755; his moral tale, _Rasselas_, 1759; the introduction to his edition of Shakspere, 1765, and his _Lives of the Poets_, 1781. Johnson wrote a sonorous, cadenced prose, full of big Latin words and balanced clauses. Here is a sentence, for example, from his _Visit to the Hebrides_: "We were now treading that illustrious island which was once the luminary of the Caledonian regions, whence savage clans and roving barbarians derived the benefits of knowledge and the blessings of religion. To abstract the mind from all local emotion would be impossible, if it were endeavored, and would be foolish, if it were possible." The difference between his colloquial style and his book style is well illustrated in the instance cited by Macaulay. Speaking of Villiers's _Rehearsal_, Johnson said, "It has not wit enough to keep it sweet;" then paused and added--translating English into Johnsonese--"it has not vitality sufficient to preserve it from putrefaction." There is more of this in Johnson's _Rambler_ and _Idler_ papers than in his latest work, the _Lives of the Poets_. In this he showed himself a sound and judicious critic, though with decided limitations. His understanding was solid, but he was a thorough classicist, and his taste in poetry was formed on Pope. He was unjust to Milton and to his own contemporaries, Gray, Collins, Shenstone, and Dyer. He had no sense of the higher and subtler graces of romantic poetry, and he had a comical indifference to the "beauties of nature." When Boswell once ventured to remark that poor Scotland had, at least, some "noble wild prospects," the doctor replied that the noblest prospect a Scotchman ever saw was the road that led to London.