life of Johnson, and in illustration of its completeness, and the perfect picture it draws of its subject, says: "Everything about him-his coat, his wig, his figure, his face, his scrofula, his St. Vitus's dance, his rolling walk, his blinking eye, the outward signs which too clearly marked the approbation of his dinner, his insatiable appetite for fish-sauce and veal pie with plums, his inextinguishable thirst for tea, his trick of touching the posts as he walked, his mysterious practice of treasuring up scraps of orange peel, his morning slumbers, his midnight disputations, his contortions, his mutterings, his gruntings, his puffings; his vigorous, acute and hearty eloquence; his sarcastic wit, his vehemence, his insolence, his fits of tempestuous rage, his queer inmates, old Mr. Levett, and blind Mrs. Williams, the cat Hodge, and the negro Frank; all are as familiar to us, as the objects by which we have been surrounded from childhood."

In 1766, his constitution being greatly weakened, he took up his residence with Mr. Thrale,* at Streat

* Mr. Thrale was a wealthy brewer of London; his wife was a woman of some cleverness, and Johnson became much attached to her. She was the daughter of John Salisbury, and born 1739. Her good looks and vivacity introduced her into society, and her connection with Johnson has handed her name down to our time. Mr. Thrale died in 1781, and she married a music master by the name of Gabriel Piozzi, in 1784. The match degraded her in the eyes of society--yet she published several works, and among others, Anecdotes of Dr. JohnShe is the author of a celebrated poem entitled the "Three Warnings." She went to Florence, and, in connection with three gentlemen, aided in founding what is called the Della Cruscan school of poetry. She died at Clifton, England,

son.

1821.

ham, where a room was fitted up for his accommodation, and friends were invited to see him from London. His society was much sought after, and even George III. paid him a visit at the library of Buckingham palace, to which he frequently resorted. In 1773, he made a tour to the Hebrides, in company with Boswell. In 1781, he completed his lives of the poets.

In 1783, he was attacked with paralysis, and soon after was swollen with dropsy. His constitutional melancholy, which had haunted him through life, pursued him to his death-bed. His first approach to the grave was with terror. From this, however, he recovered, and as he came nearer his departure, his mind was tranquillized by religious contemplations. On the day of his death, he pierced his legs first with a lancet, and then with scissors, in order to let off the water which had accumulated; but he bled profusely, soon fell into a doze, and expired. This event occurred on the 13th of December, 1784. A short time before he died, he said to his attendant, Mrs. Sasters, "Jam moriturus," "I am about to die." His last words were uttered to a young friend, Miss Morris-" God bless you, my dear!"

Dr. Johnson was a man of great powers of mind, and the works he has left behind are among the richest stores of English literature. His style of writing was pompous, but suited to the lofty conceptions of his mind. His Dictionary is the most elaborate of his works; his Rambler the most profound; his Lives of the Poets the most pleasing: as a single essay, his preface to his edition of Shakspere is equal to anything of the kind ever produced. It was indeed in

criticism that he chiefly excelled, though his captious humor led him generally to disparage all modern productions. His classical conceit induced him, at the same time, to overrate whatever belonged to antiquity. His predilection for the Latin language was one of the scholastic follies common in his days, though exploded now. Johnson's first poems at college were in Latin, and his dying words were in the same tongue. When besought by Burke, Reynolds and others, in the famous "round robin," to change his Latin epitaph on Goldsmith into our own tongue, he replied that nothing would induce him to disgrace Westminster Abbey with an English epitaph. His love of the Latin was so pervading as to lead him to eschew the sinewy Saxon words of our language, and use, as far as possible, those of Latin derivation. From this, his style acquired much of its turgidity.

Dr. Johnson's powers of conversation were the marvel of his age. He had a ready wit, and a happy talent of illustration. Innumerable instances of these may be found in the gossip of Boswell, Mrs. Piozzi, and others. He was, however, dogmatical in his temper, and sometimes excessively rude in his manHe was humored by the literary men of the day, as if they were dealing with a bear who was not expected to observe a civilized etiquette, and out of the reach of whose huge paws every one must of course be careful to keep.

ners.

A pleasant instance in which his rudeness was rebuked by one of our own countrymen, is handed down to us. Samuel Johnson, of Connecticut, a learned and able man, shortly before the revolution, was in

London, as agent of that colony. Being once at dinner where Dr. Johnson was among the guests, the latter, in reply to some remark, turned sharply to our Johnson, saying, "Sir, what do you know in America? you have no books!" I beg your pardon,” was the reply, we have the Rambler." Dr. Johnson immediately acknowledged the compliment, and his own want of courtesy.

We have spoken of his prodigious memory, but his readiness was equally wonderful. A friend chanced

to commend the following line:

"Who rules o'er freemen should himself be free."

"Yes," said Johnson, instantly,

"Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat."

In speaking of some poems to Mrs. Thrale, he characterized them as ridiculous, and to furnish a parallel, immediately ran off the following burlesque lines. "Hermit hoar, in solemn cell,

Wearing out life's evening gray,
Strike thy bosom, sage, and tell
What is bliss, and which the way?
Thus I spoke, and speaking sighed,
Scarce repressed the starting tear,
When the hoary sage replied,

'Come, my lad, and drink some beer.'"

In speaking of a passage of Lopez de Vega which he thought over praised, he said, "It is a mere play of words; you might as well say,

If the man that turnips cries
Cry not when his father dies,
It is a proof that he had rather
Have a turnip than his father."

Other examples of this kind could be added, almost without number. Of his felicity of illustration, the following are specimens. Speaking of scepticism, he said, "The eyes of the mind are like the eyes of the body, they see only at such a distance; but because they cannot see beyond this point, is there nothing beyond it?" Of memory he said, "In general, a person can remember one thing as well as another; otherwise it would be like a person complaining that he could hold silver in his hand, but could not hold cop. per." Again, "People are not born with a particular genius for particular employments or studies, for it would be saying that a man could see a great way east, but not west."

Dr. Johnson's character presents a singular mixture of good and evil. He was so credulous as to believe firmly in ghosts-yet his incredulity in some things was a sort of disease. He said himself that he did not believe in the great earthquake of Lisbon, in 1755, for six months after the news was received and its authority established. He was harsh, sneering and merciless with his tongue; yet he was all tenderness to his cat; he gave protection in his own house for years blind Mrs. Williams; and when he saw poor children lying asleep on the pavement for a bed, he put pennies in their hands to cheer them when they awoke.

He was a man whose bosom was full of opposites -of noble emotions and low prejudices. In religion and politics, he was bigoted, holding most who differed with him in the first, as infidels, and in the last as rascals. During the war with America, he was a stern enemy of our cause. With a vast deal of re