in an important degree have contributed to preserve and improve the morality of the British nation."

Such is the emphatic testimony borne in the life of Sir J. Mackintosh to the merits of the author of the "Rambler" and "Idler."

Samuel Johnson, the central figure among the literary men of the first twenty-four years of George the Third's reign, was born at Lichfield, on the 18th of September, 1709. His father, Michael Johnson, was a bookseller in that place, and used moreover to open a shop at Birmingham on every market day; for at the beginning of the last century the book-buying section of the Birmingham community did not support a single bookseller. Michael Johnson, magistrate, high churchman, and Tory, made money by selling books, and lost it by endeavouring to manufacture parchment; and in the end died insolvent. Samuel's mother, who lived to the age of nearly ninety, and whom he regarded with affectionate reverence, appears to have been a woman of strong sense and estimable character, but without education. "My father could not bear to talk of his affairs," says Johnson, speaking of his early years, "and my mother, being unacquainted with books, cared not to talk of anything else. Had my mother been more literate, they had been better companions."

A big heavy child young Samuel was, yet far from being healthy. His face was disfigured with scrofula, and from the same cause one of his eyes was almost useless-" The dog was never worth much, sir," he used to say of that unprofitable member in later days. His earliest reminiscence was of being taken to London to be touched by Queen Anne; for the belief in the efficacy of the royal touch as a cure for the king's evil had not yet died out in England. He told Mrs. Thrale he remembered Queen Anne "He had a confused, but somehow a sort of solemn recollection of a lady in diamonds, with a long black hood." As a boy, at the Lichfield grammar school, under Mr. Hunter, who, according to Johnson, beat his pupils unmercifully, accompanying the flagellation by the consoling assurance, that it was administered to save them from the gallows, he made considerable progress in Latin: and he seems to think the discipline did him good. "My master," he said to Bennet Langton, "whipped me very well. Without that, sir, I should have done nothing." Indolent and procrastinating, he seemed yet to learn by intuition; and his marvellous memory enabled him to hold tenaciously what he had once gained. His indolence, and in some measure

his shortsightedness, prevented him from joining in the ordinary sports of the boys. That his unusual talents were acknowledged by pupils: and masters alike there is no doubt. Afterwards at the grammar school at Stourbridge, to which he was removed at the age of fifteen, he profited much from the instruction of the able Mr. Went worth. He afterwards said of the Lichfield and Stourbridge grammar schools, "At one I learnt. much in the school, but little from the master; in the other, I learned much from the master, but little in the school." But Johnson could hardly have avoided gaining knowledge any where.

JOHNSON AT PEMBROKE COLLEGE, OXFORD; PRIDE AND POVERTY.

Two years spent in a somewhat desultory: manner at home intervened between his leav ing Stourbridge and commencing his university career at Pembroke College, Oxford. He read a great deal, in an irregular and fitful way, during this period, and astonished the tutors at Pem broke by the extent and variety of his knowledg of books. How he got to the university at al is a matter of some doubt, for his father's affair. were becoming more and more embarrassed; but there is little doubt that the assistance of friend: furnished the necessary funds. Promises a further assistance seem to have been given, and not fulfilled; and Johnson's college career wa embittered by the sordid cares of poverty. Th independence of spirit that marked him during his whole career was already shown here. H flung down the staircase the new shoes a sym pathising observer of his raggedness had lef outside his door; but he hid his real feeling with Spartan firmness; and few could have sta pected, as he lounged at the college gates, enter taining a group of students with learning tha made them stare, how keenly he felt his position

sufficiently interested to inquire the name of the author, and to prophesy that the unknown man would soon be unearthed, or, as he called it, déterré." Everybody was delighted with it," said a reverend bishop, quoted by Boswell; and, there being no name to it, the first buzz in the literary circles was, Here is an unknown poet, greater even than Pope." And it is recorded in the Gentleman's Magazine of that year, that it "got to the second edition in the course of a week." But the last line of the poem, "Slow rises worth by poverty depressed," is singularly applicable to Johnson. Twenty years of hard and obscure work lay before him, ere he emerged from the slough of despond of poverty and neglect. How hard the struggle was, is shown by his unavailing efforts to escape from it. He who hated teaching tried vainly for the mastership of a country school, with a salary of sixty pounds. But for the fact that the want of a degree was fatal to the scheme, he would have turned to the study of civil law. He writes to Cave, "If you could spare me another guinea for the history, I should take it very kindly; but if you do not, I shall not think it an injury." Cave also speaks at a later time, while the Dictionary was in progress, of "feeding him with guineas;" that is, doling out those coins one or two at a time, to keep the working author at his task. This was the time when, to his own disadvantage, he made acquaintance with that wild, erratic, profligate, and utterly ungovernable genius, Richard Savage, whose life he afterwards wrote. At this time his dwelling-place was occasionally at some distance from London, as, for instance, at Greenwich; and in later and more prosperous days he once whimsically described to Joshua Reynolds how he and poor Savage had walked round and round St. James's Square all night, neither having enough money to pay for a lodging, but both brimful of patriotism, inveighing against a profligate ministry, and resolved to "stand by their country." This Bohemian Savage had a strange fascination for Johnson. His experiences were varied; he had seen life in its opposite phases, at one time in the nobleman's library, at another in the night cellar where footpads and highwaymen skulked from the thieftaker, or furtively caroused. Of his temper and discretion it is sufficient to state that he began an insolent letter to a nobleman who had been his friend, with the words, "Right Honourable Brute and Booby," and after a few lines of insolence, concluded with a petulant "I defy and despise you," worthy of Miss Squeers.

JOHNSON'S MARRIED LIFE; THE VANITY OF HUMAN WISHES."

He accepted his life of drudgery and hardship with a quiet endurance which told of a true and wise philosophy. He must occasionally have been conscious of a bitter feeling when he saw his friend and pupil, little David Garrick, rapidly advancing to fame and fortune, by exhibiting his painted face on the stage, while he himself was toiling on, not able on all days to procure necessaries, and sorely put to it at the best of times to satisfy the demands of his elderly charmer, who seems not to have been so considerate to him as his constant affection and care for her entitled him to expect. I have been told by Mrs. Desmoulins, who before her marriage lived for some time with Mrs. Johnson at Hampstead, that she indulged herself in country air and nice living, at an unsuitable expense, while her husband was drudging in the smoke of London, and that she by no means treated him with that complacency which is the most engaging quality in a wife." If Mrs. Desmoulins lived with the old woman at Hampstead, it was not quite kind on her part to expose the weaknesses of her hostess to that old woman of the opposite sex, James Boswell, who would be sure to put it on record; but it gives us a glimpse of the sturdy, rough-mannered, honesthearted man, toiling on in his untidy garret library in Gough Square, Fleet Street, and believing in his doubtful spouse to the last, even to the extent of recording on her tombstone, of course in Latin, that she was beautiful, cultured, ingenious, and pious. He kept her wedding ring as an especial treasure to the last day of his life, and held her memory in honour. gentle-hearted man was this uncouth, slovenly scholar, for all his roughness; but, naturally enough, he had little sympathy for what he called "foppish lamentations"-complaints of the minor ills of life, which appeared very smali indeed to him, who had tasted the bitterness of real want and sorrow during a series of years. It was not safe, however, to beard the lion cr the bear in his den. When purse-proud Osborne, the bookseller, ventured too far, presuming on the poor author's position, he was made by the most summary method to understand his mistake. The fellow was impudent to me, sir." said Johnson to Boswell, in explanation, "and I knocked him down."

A

The drudgery of his life was, however, broken occasionally by fitful rays of the sunshine of success. While Mrs. Johnson was inhabiting

the Hampstead lodgings, her husband occasmally came forth from Gough Square to pay ler a visit; and at Hampstead, according to kewell, he wrote much, if not all, of his second poem, "The Vanity of Human Wishes." Great gertiary profit this poem did certainly not bring him; he received for it only fifteen pounds. But it confirmed the favourable impression aily produced by his "London," and vindieted his pretensions to be considered a poet. Lue "London," it is imitated from Juvenal; and the cbject is to show that man walketh in a vain staw. Vanity of vanities" is the text on which he writes; "all is vanity." Great men a taken as the types of especial forms of ition. Wolsey the courtier stands "in fulldignity." Through him the rays of royal buty shine. But the sovereign's countenance 3 withdrawn from him; he falls,

"Remembered folly stings, And his last sighs reproach the faith of kings." Charles XII., the frantic Alexander of the Seth, is to bear witness "on what foundation stands the warrior's pride;" the vanity of the

for kingly titles is set forth in the example that unfortunate Elector of Bavaria, who a he years before had paid for the short possesBon of the dignity of Emperor of Germany, with defeat and humiliation that broke his heart. Mr Walter Scott was accustomed, with genial

asm, to praise the dignity and grandeur if the poem. Byron's estimate of this work is sions and sound, though tinged with his own thropy. "Read Johnson's Vanity of Human " he says; "all his examples and mode frag them sublime, as well as the latter part, a the exception of an occasional couplet." Then he takes objection, not without reason, to the opening line,

"Let observation with extended view,"

as heavy and superfluous. "But," he continues, - us a grand poem-and so true! True as the et the famous tenth satire) of Juvenal him1 The lapse of ages changes all things-time -anguage-the earth-the bounds of the seathe stars of the sky, and everything about, ai, and underneath man, except man himay, who has always been, and always will be, a larky rascal. The infinite variety of lives acts but to death, and the infinity of wishes adset to disappointment." Thus wrote Byron

Ravenna Diary of 1821; and none had marterly experienced the disappointment of those aspirations founded on the prospect of

In 1749, through the kindness of Garrick, who had now become manager of Drury Lane, a work of Johnson's, written some years before, was introduced to the public. "Irene," a tragedy, was performed at Drury Lane. It failed to please; and, indeed, it is heavy and wearisome to a degree; but it brought him nearly three hundred pounds in author's rights and copyright. He said he felt "like the monument," unshaken by his ill-success; but he acquiesced in the popular verdict, and never wrote for the stage again. In this year he commenced the series of essays known as "The Rambler."

By this time, too, he had begun the work with which his name is always associated in literary history, that Dictionary of the English language, which, imperfect as it may appear when judged by the standard of the present day, is certainly a marvellous achievement when we consider the circumstances under which it was undertaken and completed. The chief London booksellers took shares in the venture-the names of Mr. Robert Dodsley and the two Messrs. Longman curiously linking the past with the present-and Johnson undertook the task on his own responsibility, and fondly hoped to complete it in three years. His calculations were rather vague. "Sir," said Dr. Adams, "how can you do this in three years?" "Sir," replied Johnson, sententiously, "I have no doubt that I can do it in three years." "But the French Academy," urged Adams, "which consists of forty members, took forty years to compile their dictionary." Johnson's reply was decisive: "Sir, thus it is; this is the proportion. Let me see; forty times forty are sixteen hundred. As three to sixteen hundred so is the proportion of an Englishman to a Frenchman."

Of course there was no gainsaying so logical and lucid an estimate; but amid the toils of dictionary-making drudgery, and the struggle against the morbid melancholy and indolence proceeding mainly from chronic ill-health-long afterwards he declared in a letter to Boswell that after his twentieth year he rarely had a day entirely free from pain-we occasionally get a glimpse of Johnson in a more cheerful mood at this period of his career. One whimsical

scene comes especially before us. Topham Beauclerk and Bennet Langton-Beau and Lankey, as he nicknamed them-were especial favourites with the sage at this time, and continued so, until death terminated the friendship. He liked them none the less because both were gentlemen of good birth, Beauclerk belonging to the St. Albans family, and one of Langton's ancestors, as Johnson complacently remarked, having received a grant from Edward III. Topham Beauclerk was, even for those days, essentially a 'fast' man, and there was something ludicrous in the close friendship between him and Johnson, respect for whom, however, always kept him on his best behaviour in the great man's presence. What a coalition!" cried Garrick, on hearing of this close companionship. "I shall have to bail my old friend out of the round-house." In the summer of the year 1752, "one night at three in the morning." as the Irish song has it, there was a great knocking at the door of Johnson's chambers in the Temple. Down sallied the indignant lexicographer, armed with a poker, and found in the disturbers of his peace Messrs. Beauclerk and Langton, who had been supping, probably, "not wisely but too well," at a tavern, and now came to invite the author of the Rambler" to a ramble. "What is it, you dogs?" cried Johnson, amused at their impudence. "I'll have a frisk with you." So forth they started, and helped the early fruiterers and greengrocers in Covent Garden to arrange their hampers (Johnson's assistance must have been valuable), and repaired to a tavern, where they made a bowl of bishop, and emptied it. Thence they proceeded by boat to Billingsgate market, and Johnson absolutely determined, with Beau, to continue their "frisk' through the day; scolding Langton, who cried off on the plea of having to breakfast with some young ladies, for "leaving his social friends, to sit with a set of wretched unidead girls." "I heard of your frolic t'other night-you'll be in the Chronicle," said Garrick to Johnson; whereat the latter observed confidentially to some friends, "He durst not do such a thing; his wife would not let him."

THE DICTIONARY PUBLISHED; LETTER TO LORD CHESTERFIELD.

At length, after eight years of labour, the Dictionary was ready; and courtly Lord Chesterfield, by whom Johnson at the time of its commencement, had been regaled with "the chameleon's diet - promise-crammed " - took upon himself to write two papers in the World,

recommending the work, and assuming the airs of a patron. This was too much for Johnson to stand. His honest blood boiled within him at the hollow compliments of the polite worldling: and be sat down and wrote that famous letter," which, preserved to us by the indefatigable Boswell, remains to show posterity what kind of man was the Right Honourable Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield. There is at once dignity and pathos in the reproachful sentence in which the poor man of letters explains how he has been treated. "Seven years, my lord, have now passed," he writes, "since I waited in your outward rooms, or was repulsed from your door, during which time I have been pushing on my work through difficulties, of which it is useless to complain, and have brought it at last to the verge of publication, without one act of assistance, one word of encouragement, or one smile of favour. . . . Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and when he has reached ground encumbers him with help? The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labours, had it been early, had been kind: but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it."

In some quarters this plain speaking was censured as impertinence. But in those years of toil and drudgery Johnson had suffered much. He had lost the wife he loved, and had endurel all the bitterness of hope deferred; and he hal a right to speak out. His explanation of his conduct on this occasion has a sturdy English ring about it. "Sir," he said of Chesterfield. "after making great professions, he had for many years taken no notice of me; but when my Dictionary was coming out, he fell a scribbling in the World about it. Upon which I wrote to him a letter, expressed in civil terms, but such as might show him that I did not mind what he said or wrote, and that I had done with him." We do not think Johnson lost much by thus silencing Lord Chesterfield.

JOHNSON AND THE BOOKSELLERS; TASK-WORK AND DRUDGERY.

A work so important as the English Dictionary could not fail to raise the author to a position of eminence. The University of Oxford bestowed the degree of Master of Arts upon Johnson. At Oxford, which he visited in 1754, he was received with distinction. Laudatory letters poured in ; and Garrick wrote an epigram, in which he de