Early Career. Dr. Johnson was born at Lichfield, the son of a bookseller. He was afflicted from boyhood with scrofula, which weakened his eyesight and otherwise indisposed him to bodily exertion. Notwithstanding these obstacles, he was, on his admission to the University, uncommonly well versed in the preparatory studies. After remaining three years at Oxford, he left for want of means to continue his residence, and did not take his degree. He taught for a short time as usher in an academy, but found the duties irksome and gave up the position. He then formed an engagement in Birmingham to write for a paper. His first book, a translation from the French, brought him the sum of five guineas.

Marriage. At the age of twenty-seven he was married to a widow nearly twice his age, with vulgar manners, a loud voice, and a florid complexion. They seem, however, to have lived happily together, and on her death, sixteen years afterwards, he mourned her loss to a degree that for some years unfitted him for literary labor. She brought him a fortune of £800, and with this he attempted to set up an Academy. He obtained, however, only three pupils, one of them the celebrated Garrick. The academy failing, Johnson determined to go to London and enter upon a life of authorship. Garrick went with him to seek fame and fortune as an actor.

Hardships in London. - The first few years of Johnson's life in London were miserable enough. He often suffered from actual hunger, and at times he and the poet Savage walked the streets together at night, because too poor to pay for lodgings. The first work of his which brought him into note was London, a Satire, in imitation of Juvenal. There were in this short piece a vigor of thought and a polish of expression, that marked the author as a man of no common order. Pope, then in his meridian, recognized at once the unknown author as a dangerous competitor, yet had the generosity to help to bring him into notice and favor.

Better Times. Johnson's fortunes after this gradually improved. He found employment for his pen in a variety of literary enterprises, so that he was no longer in actual want, and in 1762, at the age of fiftythree, he received from King George III. the grant of an annual pension of £300. His last days were spent in comparative ease and comfort. He became the centre of a circle of men rarely equalled for brilliancy and genius; he was honored with titles from the Universities; his voice was everywhere listened to as that of the greatest literary magnate of the realm.

Works.

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- His principal works are the following: London, a Satire, already mentioned; The Vanity of Human Wishes, his only other poem of note or value; Irene, a Tragedy, generally admitted to be a failure; Rasselas, or The Happy Valley, a story with little incident, but embellished with a sonorous and flowing eloquence; The Rambler, of which he wrote 204 out of the 208 numbers; The Idler, another series of essays of a like character; A Life of Savage, the poet: The Lives of the Poets, filling many volumes; A Journey to the Hebrides; A volume of Political Essays, originally published as pamphlets; An Edition of Shakespeare, with Preface and Notes; and lastly, A Dictionary of the English Language.

Merits as a Lexicographer. — Johnson was not a linguist; he knew nothing of the science of language, and next to nothing of the requirements of lexicography, as now understood. Yet, in the preparation of his English Dictionary, he achieved a great and lasting work, the most important single contribution to English letters of the age in which he lived. The collection of examples which he made from his own reading and research, in illustration of the meaning of the words, and the surpassing clearness with which in most cases he expressed the meaning in his definitions, have won the admiration of all competent judges, and have made his work the basis of all subsequent efforts in the same line.

Character as an Essayist. As an Essayist, Johnson lacks the grace and simplicity and exquisite humor which were the peculiar charm of Addison; yet he was a fearless advocate of morals and religion, when it was the fashion among men of wit to decry them both; and he undoubtedly, by his courage in this matter, and by the masculine force of his understanding, gave a tone to the public mind on this subject, the effects of which have been felt ever since.

Critical Judgments. — Johnson was a man of violent prejudices, an ultra Tory in politics, and, as such, opposed to republicanism in every shape. He was not only bitter against the Americans, but he did scant justice to Milton, as the poet of the Commonwealth. His judgments, indeed, in matters of poetry, are the least valuable of his opinions. He could appreciate didactic or satiric poetry, like his own, or like that of Dryden, but he would have been as incompetent to feel the finer beauties of Tennyson, as he was to feel those of Shakespeare. His edition of Shakespeare, indeed, except portions of the Preface, was an utter failure. His Lives of the Poets, however, contains some of the best things he has written, and the work, with all its acknowledged shortcomings, is a valuable part of the permanent literature of the language.

Boswell's Life of Johnson. - In enumerating the works of Johnson, Boswell's Biography of him should always be included. That biogra

phy consists mainly of the sayings of Johnson, as recorded by Boswell from day to day, and these sayings are probably a better exponent of Johnson's mind than any of his own writings. When he put pen to paper, his mind was at once on stilts, and he gave utterance to his thoughts according to the false ideas of style which he had formed. But in his table-talk, he was idiomatic and simple, and his thoughts came with a directness that added to their native force.

"Nobody now reads The Rambler or The Idler, and the colossal reputation of Johnson rests almost entirely upon his profound and caustic sayings recorded in Boswell." -Sir Archibald Alison.

"All his books are written in a learned language; in a language which nobody hears from his mother or his nurse; in a language in which nobody ever quarrels, or drives bargains, or makes love; in a language in which nobody ever thinks. Mannerism is pardonable, and is sometimes even agreeable, when the manner, though vicious, is natural. Few readers, for example, would be willing to part with the mannerism of Milton or Burke. But a mannerism which does not sit easy on the mannerist which has been adopted on principle, and which can be sustained only by constant effort, is always offensive, and such is the mannerism of Johnson." — Macaulay.

"In massive force of understanding, multifarious knowledge, sagacity, and moral intrepidity, no writer of the eighteenth century surpassed Dr. Samuel Johnson. Ilis various works, with their sententious morality and high-sounding sonorous periods— his manly character and appearance his great virtues and strong prejudices his early and severe struggles his love of argument and society, into which he poured the treasures of a rich and full mind—his wit, repartee, and brow-beating - his rough manners and kind heart his curious household, in which were congregated the lame, the blind, and the despised — his very looks, gesticulations, and dress - have all been brought so vividly before us by his biographer, Boswell, that to readers of every class Johnson is as well known as a member of their own family.

"In literature his influence has been scarcely less extensive. No prose writer of that day escaped the contagion of his peculiar style. He banished for a long period the naked simplicity of Swift, and the idiomatic graces of Addison; he depressed the literature and poetry of imagination, while he elevated that of the understanding; he based criticism on strong sense and solid judgment, not on scholastic subtleties and refinement; and though some of the higher qualities and attributes of genius eluded his grasp and observation, the withering scorn and invective with which he assailed all affected sentimentalism, immorality, and licentiousness, introduced a pure and healthful and invigorating atmosphere into the crowded walks of literature. These are solid and substantial benefits which should weigh down errors of taste or the caprices of a temperament constitutionally prone to melancholy and ill health, and which was little sweetened by prosperity or applause at that period of life when the habits are formed and the manners become permanent.". -Chambers.

"Johnson's work, as everybody knows, is conducted on the most capricious and irregular plan. Besides these defects of plan, the critic was certainly deficient in sensibility to the more delicate, the minor beauties of poetic sentiment. He analyzes verse in the cold-blooded spirit of a chemist, until all the aroma which constituted its principal charm escapes in the decomposition. By this kind of process, some of the finest fancies of the Muse, the lofty dithyrambics of Gray, the ethereal effusions of Collins, and of Milton, too, are rendered sufficiently vapid." -- Prescott.

"It has been asked, with emphasis, 'Who reads The Rambler?' and it is indubitable that this book, which once exerted so mighty an influence on the English language and people, has given place, at least in general reading, to works of far inferior merit and interest. The reason seems to be that its object is well-nigh accomplished. It commenced with a standard of morals and language elevated far above the prevailing style of morals and of writing. It has elevated both, and has brought the English language and the English notions of morality to its own level. Nor is it wonderful that men should regard with less interest a work which now is seen to have no very extraordinary elevation. It is a component part of English literature, having fixed itself in the language, the style, and the morals of the English people, and taken its place as an integral, almost undistinguished, part of the national principles of writing and morality. The result is that, while the benefits of The Rambler may be diffusing themselves, unperceived, to almost all the endearments of the fireside and the virtues of the community, the book itself may be very imperfectly known and unfrequently perused. Johnson may be almost forgotten, except in praise; but his mighty power is yet sending forth a mild influence over lands and seas, like the gentle movements of the dew and the sunbeam." - Rev. Albert Barnes.

James Boswell, 1740-1795, a Scotch lawyer and writer, is known almost exclusively by his Life of Dr. Johnson, already referred to.

Boswell was on intimate terms with Johnson, and wrote down from day to day what that great man said. These off-hand utterances of Johnson are more remarkable, more stamped with genius, more thoroughly Johnsonian, than even Johnson's own writings. They constitute really a part, and the best part, of his works.

"Boswell's Life of Johnson is one of the best works in the world. It is assuredly a great, a very great work. Homer is not more decidedly the first of heroic Poets, Shakespeare is not more decidedly the first of Dramatists, Demosthenes is not more decidedly the first of Orators, than Boswell is the first of Biographers. He has distanced all his competitors so decidedly that it is not worth while to place them: Eclipse is first, and the rest nowhere. We are not sure that there is in the whole history of the human intellect so singular a phenomenon as this book. Many of the greatest men that ever lived have written biography; Boswell was one of the smallest men that ever lived, and he has beaten them all.” — - Macaulay.

Burke.

Edmund Burke, 1728-1797, was a man of commanding abilities, and one of the leading writers and statesmen of his age. He was a native of Dublin, and a graduate of Trinity College of that city.

First Work. - Burke's first publication of any note was The Vindication of Natural Society, by a Late Noble Writer. It was written in imitation of Bolingbroke, and published anonymously. "The object

was to expose his Lordship's mode of reasoning, by running it out into its legitimate consequences. He therefore applied it to civil society. He undertook, in the person of Bolingbroke, to expose the crimes and wretchedness which have prevailed under every form of government, and thus to show that society is itself an evil, and the savage state the only one favorable to virtue and happiness. It was the most perfect specimen the world has ever seen of the art of imitating the style and manner of another. He went beyond the mere choice of words, the structure of sentences, and the cast of imagery, into the deepest recesses of thought; and so completely had he imbued himself with the spirit of Bolingbroke, that he brought out precisely what every one sees his lordship ought to have said on his own principles, and might be expected to say, if he had dared to express his sentiments." The effect was the more remarkable, because in the opinion of all the eminent critics of that day, both friends and foes, Bolingbroke's style was "not only the best of that day, but in itself wholly inimitable." Yet the critics were completely taken in. The essay was accepted almost universally as a posthumous work of Bolingbroke's. Johnson, Chesterfield, and even Warburton pronounced it genuine. "You see, sir, the fellow's [Bolingbroke's] principles; they come out now in full blaze." - Johnson.

Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful.-In the course of the same year (1756, æt. 28), Burke published his celebrated work, A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, which has become an acknowledged English classic, as much so as any writing of Aristotle is classical in Greek. The publication of this work brought the author at once into public notice, and led to the acquaintance and friendship of Johnson. Reynolds, and other celebrities.

The Annual Register.- Dodsley's Annual Register, which was begun in 1758, owed its origin to a suggestion of Burke's, and most of the matter in the early volumes was prepared by him. An Account of the European Settlements in America, which appeared about the same time, is also ascribed to Burke.

Political Career. In 1766, Burke entered Parliament, and for the next twenty years his pen and his tongue were occupied mainly with affairs of state. The most beautiful and eloquent of all his productions was called out by the excesses and the frenzy of the French republicans, after the overthrow of the monarchy. His own party was in sympathy with the revolutionists in France. But Burke became alarmed at the lengths to which they were going, and in 1790 he gave