for the public, his style became systematically vicious." In his "Life" he retracts many of these sweeping and unjust assertions, and now recognises their beauty, eloquence, and power. We hear him for instance saying, regarding JOHNSON'S "Life of Savage," "that no finer specimen of literary biography existed in any language living or dead, and a discerning critic might have confidently pre dicted that the author is destined to become the founder of a new school of English literature."

Another gross misstatement of Macaulay is regarding JOHNSON's opinion of travel and of history. Macaulay writes: "of foreign travel and of history he spoke with the fierce and boisterous contempt of ignorance." Now, Boswell says-" He talked with uncommon animation of travelling into distant countries, that the mind was enlarged by it, and that an acquisition of dignity of character was derived from it."

In order to assist our readers in forming a conclusion as to these conflicting statements, we shall for a moment examine the evidence

and illustration which Macaulay gives for his sweeping assertion. "What does a man learn by travel? Is Beauclerc the better for travelling? What did Lord Charlemont learn in his travels except that there was a snake in the pyramids of Egypt ?" In these sentences his lordship has strangely jumbled together a question of Boswell with that of JOHNSON, so that although Macaulay has placed the sentences in inverted commas, as if they were accurately quoted, they are really not so. But this quotation, besides being confused, is unfair. It has been abbreviated so as to leave out the clause which qualifies the whole statement. We must be permitted to give the quotation in full as recorded by Boswell :-"Time may be employed to more advantage, from nineteen to twenty-four, almost in any way than travelling. When you set travelling against mere negation, against doing nothing, it is better to be sure; but how much more would a young man improve were he to study during these years. How little does travelling supply to the conversation of any man who has travelled? How little to Beauclerc ?" Boswell;

"What say you to Lord

-(Charlemont) ?” JOHNSON: "I never but once heard him talk of what he had seen, and that was of a large serpent in one of the pyramids of Egypt." From this it is evident that JOHNSON had no contempt for travelling, but seemed to think a young man from nineteen to twenty-four might be better employed in storing his mind, in order to prepare him for receiving the full advantage of travelling. He once remarked that "he who would carry home the wealth of the Indies, must carry the wealth of the Indies with him."

Indeed, so far from JOHNSON having “a fierce and boisterous contempt of travelling," we find him enthusiastically fond of it in every period of his life. We hear him, when a lad at Oxford, saying to himself, "Well, I have a mind to see what is done in other places of learning. I'll go and visit the universities abroad. I'll go to France and Italy. I'll go to Padua, and I'll mind my business, for an Athenian blockhead is the worst of all blockheads." We see him again, in his sixty-fourth year, journeying through the wilds of the Highlands of

A

Scotland, at considerable inconvenience to himself. In his sixty-eighth year anxious to visit the Baltic. In his seventieth year we find him arranging to travel abroad with the Thrales, and hear him saying "we must to be sure see Rome, Florence, and Venice, and as much more as we can." Macaulay is judiciously silent, however, in not giving any illustration in proof of what he asserts, that JOHNSON spoke "of history with the fierce and boisterous contempt of ignorance."

History seems to be a very tender point with Macaulay; indeed, from the form of his sentence, he seems angry. What remark of JOHNSON 'could have offended him? Let us try to find out. On one occasion JOHNSON observed that all history was at first oral; that assertion could give no offence. Again, he remarks, "that there is more

thought in the moralist than the historian. There

is but a shallow stream of thought in history."

Bosweli: "But surely, sir, a historian has reflec

tion." JOHNSON: "Why, yes, sir; and so has a cat when she catches a mouse for her kitten." Again, says JOHNSON," we must consider how very

little history there is. I mean real authentic history. That certain kings reign and certain battles are fought, we can depend upon as true; but all the colouring, all the philosophy of history, is conjecture." Gibbon, the famous historian, was present when these observations were made, and did not venture to contradict them. Is it possible that these remarks, which gave no offence to Gibbon, England's greatest historian, could give offence even to Macaulay.

But to return from this digression.

Another popular notion is that JOHNSON was

NOT POLITE. This too is erroneous.

called by some a "savage."

He was

savage."." They were only so far right in the resemblance, as that like the savage, he never came into suspicious company without his club in his hand and his bow and quiver at his back.”'

Others called him a "bear." Mrs. Boswell said that she had often heard of a man leading a bear, but she had never before heard of a man being led