Page:A happy half-century and other essays.djvu/27

 Rh a Montagu!" Dr. Johnson praised her conversation,—especially when he wanted to tease jealous Mrs. Thrale,—but sternly discountenanced her attempts at authorship. When Sir Joshua Reynolds observed that the "Essay on the Writings and Genius of Shakespeare" did its authoress honour, Dr. Johnson retorted contemptuously: "It does her honour, but it would do honour to nobody else,"—which strikes me as a singularly unpleasant thing to hear said about one's literary masterpiece. Like the fabled Caliph who stood by the Sultan's throne, translating the flowers of Persian speech into comprehensible and unflattering truths, so Dr. Johnson stands undeceived in this pleasant half-century of pretence, translating its ornate nonsense into language we can too readily understand.

But how comfortable and how comforting the pretence must have been, and how kindly tolerant all the pretenders were to one another! If, in those happy days, you wrote an essay on "The Harmony of Numbers and Versification," you unhesitatingly asked your friends to come and have it read aloud to them; and your