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. He was called by some a "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

by a bear. Her husband tells of a ludicrous scene in Skye. The day was wet, and the ride to Sligachan Inn was long and dreary; JOHNSON was in bad humour; now growling and grumbling, and then falling into a reverie, out of which he would awake and anxiously wish they were at their journey's end. Boswell says that it was a scene beyond description to see the Highland gillie try to amuse JOHNSON, whom he thought to be a kind of imbecile or half lunatic, by crying out, "Toctor, toctor, see, see; there's a goat; it no be far noo, toctor. See, there is a 'teer,'" clapping his hands to startle them, like a nurse with a rattle trying to soothe a child. Little, says Boswell, did the poor Highlander know the man that he was trying by his simple cunning to amuse; and well may we say of Mrs. Boswell, that little did she know the man whom she was flippantly trying to ridicule. Well might it be said of her what JOHNSON himself once said to Goldsmith with a little temper, "Sir, you have not travelled over my mind, I promise you." Doubtless, however, Mrs. Boswell's idea of JOHNSON was a common one-that

he was a "bear.”

"But," says Goldsmith, "JOHNSON was not a 'bear'; he had only the skin of one." When earnest in debate he might sometimes "look like one, and even roar like one, but it

was often the roar of affection; because he believed that some sacred thing dear to his own soul and precious to humanity, was in danger. Yet Macaulay writes-" His active benevolence contrasted with the constant rudeness and the occasional ferocity of his manners in society." But Carlyle writes-" Few men on record had a more merciful, tenderly affectionate nature than old SAMUEL."

Macaulay's criticism is very much like that of the Irish gentleman who said, "Dr. JOHNSON is not much of a fine gentleman, indeed; but a clever fellow-a deal of knowledge-got a deuced good understanding."

Doubtless, the fact that England's greatest scholar, philosopher, and guide, was allowed to live on fourpence-halfpenny a day; to write in ragged garments behind screens; to sign himself to Cave, “I am, sir, yours, 'Impransus';" to walk the lonely

city streets without a lodging; with no one to purchase his "London,” which gave him immortality; to allow the great lexicographer to be threatened with arrestment for the debt of a few paltry pounds; all this could not tend to make JOHNSON in tone sweet and gentle. "In my young days," he says, "it is true I was inclined to treat mankind with asperity and contempt; as I have advanced in life I have had more reason to be satisfied with it. Mankind have treated me with more kindness, and of course I have more kindness for them." There is such a thing as righteous indignation and anger without sin; and these feelings JOHNSON sometimes exhibited when he encountered impertinence, uncharitableness, hypocrisy, and untruth; but all he did was gentle, if all he said was rough." Dr. Barnard, the Provost of Eton, said "JOHNSON, was the only man that did justice to my good breeding; and you may observe," said he to Mrs. Thrale, "that I am well bred to a degree of needless scrupulosity. No man is so cautious not to interrupt another. No man thinks it so necessary to appear attentive when others are speaking; no man so

steadily refuses preference to himself, or so willingly bestows it on another, as I do; nobody holds so strongly as I do the necessity of ceremony, and the ill effects which follow the breach of it; yet people think me rude, but Barnard did me justice." Indeed, he had a great regard for politeness, and preferred ceremony to ease. "When he entered a room, and everybody rose to do him honour, he returned the attention with the most formal courtesy."

We think that his defective sight and hearing might have suggested to Macaulay and others many apologies for his seeming want of politeness. "He had not the aid of those delicate but significant expressions of the countenance which tend to regulate the manners of the polite;" nor did he hear the boisterousness of his own voice, which seemed to others to be dogmatic and imperious, and which conduced to fix upon his character the stigma of ill-breeding. Well might he say, "I look upon myself as a man very much misunderstood. I am not an uncandid, nor am I a severe man. I sometimes say more than