But then, in any case, such fulsome flattery is not in accordance with the spirit of our century. We might, too, now-a-days think it dubious praise that Johnson, after reading one of his friend's essays and praising it in general, should pick out one passage in particular with the remark--"I think I might as well have said this myself." More valuable we should consider the praise of Burke, who, writing to Mr. Malone, says, "I have read over some part of the discourses with an unusual sort of pleasure. . . . He is always the same man, the same philosophical, the same artist-like critic, the same sagacious observer, with the same minuteness, without the smallest degree of trifling." This is true; Sir Joshua's polished mind and calm philosophical observation makes itself felt in every line of his writings. There was a time when envious calumny disputed the authorship of these Discourses, attributing them now to Burke, now to Johnson. The imputation is too futile to need refutation. There are those who deny to any man the merit of having written his own works, commencing with Homer and Shakespeare. This is a strange craze of the critical mind. Seeing the work is the result of a human hand, why not, for example, allow that Shakespeare wrote what he claims as his own, in lieu of attributing the authorship to Lord Bacon? Again, why should there not have been a Homer as there was a Dante, in lieu of an aggregation of men? A very petty and despicable envy, or the frantic desire of saying something new and strange to attract attention to ourselves, may be pronounced the motor force of such theories.