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. His 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

utterance to his feelings in the work just referred to, Reflections on the Revolution in France. On no one of his works did he bestow such care. While going through the press, more than a dozen proofs were made before his critical taste was satisfied. The effect of the publication was prodigious, not only in England, but throughout Europe; and honors and emoluments were showered upon the author from every quarter. Impeachment of Warren Hastings.-The greatest work of Burke's public life was his Impeachment of Warren Hastings. Unfortunately, his speech on this occasion was not written out by the author. The traditions of it that remain, however, leave little doubt that it was one of the greatest efforts of parliamentary eloquence in ancient or modern times. Burke was offered a peerage. Having just lost his only surviving son, he declined the barren honor; and in A Letter to a Noble Lord, written soon after, he gives expression to his feeling of loneliness and bereavement in terms of singular beauty and pathos. Burke's Parliamentary Speeches fill several volumes, and form an enduring monument to his fame as a great philosophical statesman, while his essay on The Sublime and Beautiful, and his Reflections on the Revolution in France, challenge to themselves a foremost place among the great English classics.

"No one can doubt that enlightened men in all ages will hang over the Works of Mr. Burke. He was a writer of the first class, and excelled in almost every kind of prose composition. The extraordinary depth of his detached views, the penetrating sagacity which he occasionally applies to the affairs of men and their motives, and the curious felicity of expression with which he unfolds principles, and traces resemblances and relations, are separately the gift of few, and, in their union, probably without any example. When he is handling any one matter, we perceive that we are conversing with a reasoner and a teacher to whom almost every other branch of knowledge is familiar. His views range over all the cognate subjects; his reasonings are derived from principles applicable to other matters as well as the one in hand; arguments pour in from all sides, as well as those which start up under our feet, the natural growth of the path he is leading us over; while, to throw light round our steps, and either explore its darker places or serve for our recreation, illustrations are fetched from a thousand quarters; and an imagination marvellously quick to descry unthought-of resemblances, pours forth the stores, which a lore yet more marvellous has gathered from all ages and nations and arts and tongues. We are, in respect of the argument, reminded of Bacon's multifarious knowledge, and the exuberance of his learned fancy; while the many-lettered diction recalls to mind the first of Eng lish poets and his immortal verse, rich with the spoils of all sciences and all times. "All his works, indeed, even his controversial, are so informed with general reflec tion, so variegated with speculative discussion, that they wear the air of the Lyceum as well as the Academy. His narrative is excellent; and it is impossible more harmoniously to expose the details of a complicated subject, to give them more animation and interest, if dry in themselves, or to make them bear by the mere power of statement more powerfully upon the argument. In description he can hardly be surpassed, at least for effect; he has all the qualities that conduce to it, — ardor of purpose, some

times rising into violence, — vivid, but too luxuriant fancy, — bold, frequently extravagant, conception, the faculty of shedding upon mere inanimate scenery the light imparted by moral associations.

"He now moves on with the composed air, the even, dignified pace of the historian; and unfolds his facts in a narrative so easy, and yet so correct, that you plainly perceive he wanted only the dismissal of other pursuits to have rivalled Livy or Hume. But soon this advance is interrupted, and he stops to display his powers of description, when the boldness of his design is only matched by the brilliancy of his coloring. He then skirmishes, for a space, and puts in motion all the lighter arms of wit; sometimes not unmingled with drollery, sometimes bordering upon farce. His main battery is now opened, and a tempest bursts forth of every weapon of attack — invective, abuse, irony, sarcasm, simile drawn out to allegory, allusion, quotation, fable, parable, anathema." — Lord Brougham.

Fox.

Rt. Hon. Charles James Fox, 1749-1806, was probably the most brilliant parliamentary debater that England has ever produced.

Fox was of honorable birth, being second son to Lord Holland. He was educated at Eton and Oxford, and in both places distinguished himself by the accuracy of his classical scholarship. He also became proficient in modern languages, and at different times visited the continent, where he acquired the love for gaming, which was the greatest blot upon his life. He entered Parliament at the age of twenty, and devoted himself exclusively to the cultivation of parliamentary eloquence. "I knew him when he was nineteen; since which time he has risen by slow degrees to be the most brilliant and accomplished debater the world ever saw."- Burke.

Fox was at first a supporter of the Tory party, but afterwards went over to the Whigs, and became finally their acknowledged leader. He advocated the American cause in the House of Commons. He was associated with Burke in the impeachment of Warren Hastings, The warm friendship between Burke and Fox was interrupted by the French Revolution, Burke being frightened by its excesses, while Fox palliated and defended them. On the ascendency of Pitt and the war against France, Fox was steadfastly in the opposition.

Works. - Fox's Speeches have been published, in 6 vols., Svo. He also began A History of the Reign of James II.

"The most accomplished debater that ever appeared on the theatre of public affairs." - Brougham.

"He certainly possessed, above all moderns, that union of reason, simplicity, and vehemence which formed the prince of orators. He was the most Demosthenean speaker since Demosthenes." - Mackintosh.