" Like most men of great knowledge, as distinguished from mere
scholars, he seems to have been always a rather indiscriminate reader,
and to have been fond, as Johnson was, of "browsing" in libraries.
Johnson neither in amplitude of literature nor exactness of scholarship
could be deemed a match for Lessing; but they were alike in the power of
readily applying whatever they had learned, whether for purposes of
illustration or argument. They resemble each other, also, in a kind of
absolute common-sense, and in the force with which they could plant a
direct blow with the whole weight both of their training and their
temperament behind it. As a critic, Johnson ends where Lessing begins.
The one is happy in the lower region of the understanding: the other can
breathe freely in the ampler air of reason alone. Johnson acquired
learning, and stopped short from indolence at a certain point. Lessing
assimilated it, and accordingly his education ceased only with his life.
Both had something of the intellectual sluggishness that is apt to go
with great strength; and both had to be baited by the antagonism of
circumstances or opinions, not only into the exhibition, but into the
possession of their entire force. Both may be more properly called
original men than, in the highest sense, original writers.
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