The structure of his style is perfectly modern.' Johnson
said that he had partly formed his style upon Temple's; _ante_, i. 218.
In the last _Rambler_, speaking of what he had himself done for our
language, he says:--'Something, perhaps, I have added to the elegance of
its construction, and something to the harmony of its cadence.'
[743] 'Clarendon's diction is neither exact in itself, nor suited to
the purpose of history. It is the effusion of a mind crowded with ideas,
and desirous of imparting them; and therefore always accumulating words,
and involving one clause and sentence in another.' _The Rambler_,
No. 122.
[744] Johnson's addressing himself with a smile to Mr. Harris is
explained by a reference to what Boswell said (_ante_, p. 245) of
Harris's analytic method in his _Hermes_.
[745] 'Dr. Johnson said of a modern Martial [no doubt Elphinston's],
"there are in these verses too much folly for madness, I think, and too
much madness for folly."' Piozzi's _Anec_. p. 61. Burns wrote on it the
following epigram:--
'O thou whom Poetry abhors,
Whom Prose has turned out of doors,
Heard'st thou that groan--proceed no further,
'Twas laurell'd.
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