' BOSWELL. 'An historian! My dear Sir, you surely will not rank
his compilation of the Roman History with the works of other
historians of this age?' JOHNSON. 'Why, who are before him?' BOSWELL.
'Hume,--Robertson,--Lord Lyttelton.' JOHNSON (his antipathy to the
Scotch beginning to rise). 'I have not read Hume; but, doubtless,
Goldsmith's History is better than the VERBIAGE of Robertson, or the
foppery of Dalrymple.' BOSWELL. 'Will you not admit the superiority of
Robertson, in whose History we find such penetration--such painting?'
JOHNSON. 'Sir, you must consider how that penetration and that painting
are employed. It is not history, it is imagination. He who describes
what he never saw, draws from fancy. Robertson paints minds as
Sir Joshua paints faces in a history-piece: he imagines an heroic
countenance. You must look upon Robertson's work as romance, and try
it by that standard. History it is not. Besides, Sir, it is the great
excellence of a writer to put into his book as much as his book will
hold.
Pages:
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455