The world had to take him at his own valuation or not at all.
He never deviated one hair's breadth from the way he had chosen.

Judged by the standards of journalistic success, the _Rambler_ could not well be worse than he made it.

Compared with the lightness and gaiety and the mere lip-service to morality of Addison its edification is ponderous.
Both authors state the commonplaces of conduct, but Addison achieves lightness in the doing of it, and his manner by means of which platitudes are stated lightly and pointedly and with an air of novelty, is the classic manner of journalism.

Johnson goes heavily and directly to the point, handling well worn moral themes in general and dogmatic language without any attempt to enliven them with an air of discovery or surprise.

Yet they were, in a sense, discoveries to him; not one of them but was deeply and sincerely felt; not one but is not a direct and to us a pathetically dispassionate statement of the reflection of thirty years of grinding poverty and a soul's anguish.