JOHNSONIAN

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JOHNSONIAN. A term applied to the style of Samuel JOHNSON or any style resembling it. His moralizing essays in The Rambler magazine (1750–2) best illustrate the style, not only in its long words, but in the antithetical balancing of phrases which often went with them: ‘I could seldom escape to solitude, or steal a moment from the emulation of complaisance, and the vigilance of officiousness.’

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