Good Judgement

Of all Sam Johnson's works surely An Account of the Life of Mr Richard Savage is the strangest, the most sympathetic, and the one that confirms the genius of the great man. The subject would seem to be so outside of the bracing conservatism of Johnson that you'd expect little else but condemnation in relation to Savage's wasting of money, of talent, of the goodwill of his friends. Yet Johnson manages to see beyond that to the most unlikely qualities and genuinely brings them to life without any sense of sentimentality at all and without losing his judgement.

And what a fine judgement that is. Who else could have written: The reigning error of his life was that he mistook the love for the practice of virtue, and was indeed not so much a good man as the friend of goodness? Isn't that so obviously devastatingly honest and true (even without us knowing the man it's written about)? And doesn't it apply to so many of us?

We live in an age that is wary of being overly judgemental, and rightly so. But sometimes judgement is needed. Let's hope ours is as rich as that of Dr Johnson, and let's hope we find ourselves judged as fairly.