very excellent _Essay on the Learning of Shakspeare_[116] is addressed;
and Dr. Harwood, who has written and published various works;
particularly a fantastical translation of the New Testament, in modern
phrase[117], and with a Socinian twist.

I introduced Aristotle's doctrine in his _Art of Poetry_, of 'the
[Greek: katharis ton pathaematon], the purging of the passions,' as the
purpose of tragedy[118]. 'But how are the passions to be purged by terrour
and pity?' (said I, with an assumed air of ignorance, to incite him to
talk, for which it was often necessary to employ some address)[119].
JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, you are to consider what is the meaning of purging
in the original sense. It is to expel impurities from the human body.
The mind is subject to the same imperfection. The passions are the great
movers of human actions; but they are mixed with such impurities, that
it is necessary they should be purged or refined by means of terrour and
pity. For instance, ambition is a noble passion; but by seeing upon the
stage, that a man who is so excessively ambitious as to raise himself by
injustice, is punished, we are terrified at the fatal consequences of
such a passion. In the same manner a certain degree of resentment is
necessary; but if we see that a man carries it too far, we pity the
object of it, and are taught to moderate that passion.' My record upon
this occasion does great injustice to Johnson's expression, which was so
forcible and brilliant, that Mr. Cradock whispered me, 'O that his words
were written in a book[120]!'

I observed, the great defect of the tragedy of _Othello_ was, that it
had not a moral; for that no man could resist the circumstances of
suspicion which were artfully suggested to Othello's mind. JOHNSON. 'In
the first place, Sir, we learn from _Othello_ this very useful moral,
not to make an unequal match; in the second place, we learn not to yield