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Excerpt from Zu der �ffentlichen Pr�fung S�mtlicher Klassen der Realschule Erster Ordnung zu Nordhausen: Welche Dienstag, den 1. April und Mittwoch den 2. April Veranstaltet Werden Soll, Sowie zu der Hiermit Verbundenen Ausstellung der K�nstlerischen Leistungen der Sch�ler
In the wide field of English Literature Essay-writing has, since the two last centuries, taken a prominent part. A long range of distinguished names, from Francis Bacon, the father of modern philosophy, down to John Rushin, the splendid prose-writer of recent time, have enriched British Literature with so valuable und permanent productions as to render' the Essay a popular literary form among the English. If we were to specify the different modes of thinking in which the English Essay has manifested itself, we might distinguish four great groups, to which all the rest will be easily subordinated. There is first of all the didactic and moral Essay, represented by Francis Bacon, the great researcher into the secrets of human heart; the satirical Essay, by Addison and Steele, _ the keen observers of the foibles of society; then the historical and political Essay, hy Macaulay, the Titian of English prose, as Bulwer styles him; last not least, the critical and biographical Essay, represented by Thomas Carlyle, the most original af all contemporary Essayists. Samuel Johnson, of whose Essays we are going to speak, belongs partly to the moral, partly to the biographical and critical Essayists. While his Rambler and Idler rank him with Bacon and Browne his, "lives of the Poets, the finest critical work extant, as Lord Byron describes it, put him on the same level with the greatest critical writers of all nations and all ages. It is not only as an Essayist that Samuel Johnson is known to the world. His Dictionary gained him almost as high a reputation as the rest of his works taken together, and made his name known wherever the English language is spoken. His poetical works, though inferior to those of Alexander Pope, his great model, assure him an honourable place on the English Parnassus. Still greater is his fame as a literary critic. His authority in matters concerning taste was acknowledged by all his contemporaries who paid him no less homage than the French did to their Boileau the great legislator in literary questions. The great popularity which Johnson enjoyed, particularly in his later life, and which rested as much on his personal qualities as on his literary [merits, has by no means diminished since he died. Of all the men, says Sir Walter Scott in his Lives of the 1novelists, distinguished in this or any other age, Dr. Johnson has left upon posterity the strongest and most vivid impression, so far as person, manners, disposition, and conversation are concerned. We do but name or open aobook which he has written, and the sound and action recall to the imagination at once his form, his merits, his peculiarities.
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