Page:An Essay on the Life and Genius of Samuel Johnson.djvu/185

 or over-ruling principle, which cannot be resisted. But Johnson was too easily alarmed in the cause of religion. Organized as the human race is, individuals have different inlets of perception, different powers of mind, and different sensations of pleasure and pain.

Brumoy says, Pascal, from his infancy, felt himself a geometrician; and Vandyke, in like manner, was a painter. Shakespeare, who, of all poets, had the deepest insight into human nature, was aware of a prevailing bias in the operations of every mind. By him we are told, Masterless passion sways us to the mood of what it likes or loathes.

It remains to inquire, whether, in the lives before us, the characters are partial, and too often drawn with malignity of misrepresentation? To prove this, it is alleged, that Johnson has misrepresented the circumstances relative to the tranf-