He even extended his kindness to a remembrance of Mr. Bewley, the receiver and preserver of the wisp of a Bolt Court hearth-broom, as a relic of the Author of the Rambler; which anecdote Dr. Burney had ventured to confess: and Dr. Johnson now, with his compliments, sent a set of the Prefaces to St. Martin’s-street, directed,
which Mr. Bewley received with rapturous gratitude.
Dr. Johnson wrote nothing that was so immediately popular as his Lives of the Poets. Such a subject was of universal attraction, and he treated it with a simplicity that made it of universal comprehension. In all that belonged to classical criticism, he had a facility so complete, that to speak or to write produced immediately the same clear and sagacious effect. His pen was as luminous as his tongue, and his tongue was as correct as his pen.
Yet those—and there are many—who estimate these Prefaces as the best of his works, must surely so judge them from a species of mental indolence, that prefers what is easiest of perusal to what is most illuminating: for rich as are these Prefaces in ideas and information, their subjects have so long been familiar to every English reader, that they require no stretch of intellect, or exercise of reflection, to lead him, without effort, to accompany the writer in his annotations and criticisms. The Rambler, on the contrary, embodies a course equally new of Thought and of Expression; the development of which cannot always be foreseen, even by the deepest reasoner and the keenest talents, because emanating from original genius. To make acquaintance, therefore, with the Rambler, the general peruser must pause, occasionally, to think as well as to read; and to clear away sundry mists of prejudice, or ignorance, ere he can keep pace with the sublime author, when the workings of his mind, his imagination, and his knowledge, are thrown upon mankind.
The warm and venerating attachment of Dr. Burney to Mr. Crisp, which occasional discourse and allusions had frequently brought forward, impressed the whole Thrale family with a high opinion of the character and endowments of that excelling man. And when they found, also, that Mr. Crisp had as animated a votary in so much younger a person as their new guest; and that this enthusiasm was general throughout the Doctor’s house, they earnestly desired to view and to know a man of such eminent attraction; and gave to Dr. Burney a commission to bring on the acquaintance.