an illumination of the pen of Johnson.' In due time the little book was published at London, 1778, as "An Analysis of the Gaelic Language." Encouraged by the success with which, he says, his labours were received, he conceived the plan of "a Collection of all the Vocables in the Gaelic Language, that could be collected from the voice, or old books and MSS." Johnson entering into his scheme with true interest, encouraged him to appeal to the Scottish nation to raise a fund for the undertaking. An attempt was therefore made to enlist the sympathies and gain the support of the Highland Society; but the machinations, as our author asserts, of Macpherson, who was aware of Shaw's connection with Johnson, defeated these efforts. In his vexation and disappointment, he turned to Johnson for advice; professed to him that he would risk his little all, three or four hundred pounds, if he could entertain any hopes of his outlays being ultimately refunded. Courage and perseverance were inspired into his heart by a speech the Doctor made to him on this occasion. "Sir, if you give the world a vocabulary of that language, while the island of Great Britain stands in the Atlantic Ocean, your name will be mentioned." The youthful enthusiasm of Shaw was rekindled by the noble words, and setting forth that same spring, he travelled in the pursuit of his object 3,000 miles, finished the work at his own expense, and "has not to this day been paid their subscriptions by his countrymen." Thus "A Gaelic and English Dictionary, containing all the words in the Scotch and Irish dialects of the Celtic, that could be collected from the voice, and old books, and MSS.," was published in London, in 2 vols. 4to., 1780.

In the year after this, he returned to the more distinctively Ossianic controversy in "An Enquiry into the Authenticity of the Poems ascribed to Ossian. By W. Shaw, A.M. London, 1 Vol. ii., p. 376. 2 Ibid., p. 152. 3 Memoirs, p. 153. 4 Ibid., p. 154. See also Life, vol. iii., p. 349.

1781"; and when Mr. John Clark of Edinburgh attacked he for the opinions he had expressed in the above pamphlet, there is no doubt that Johnson contributed largely to the "Reply to Mr. Clark's Answers," London, 1782. Boswell in the "Life" selects a few paragraphs from this answer, which "mark their great author." The controversy continued, and waxed warmer: Mr. Clark answered (1783) Mr. Shaw's reply, and a "Rejoinder to an Answer from Mr. Clark on the subject of Ossian's Poems" was published by Mr. Shaw in 1784.

In answer to an appeal which Shaw addressed' to Johnson, "to state the facts at large, which first led you to a discovery of this monstrous imposition, to rescue your Gallic (sic) coadjutors from the odium incurred by espousing your cause," he assures us that had Johnson's health permitted, he intended "to have published a state of the controversy from the beginning, to balance the arguments and evidence on both sides, and to pronounce judgment on the whole." There seems to be no record of the subsequent history of this able and vigorous man. From a letter of Johnson to Boswell, we learn that Shaw had sought Johnson's help to obtain for him, through Lord Eglinton, a chaplaincy in one of the newlyraised (Highland) Regiments. Of this intervention, if indeed it were made, nothing further is said. It would appear as if Johnson induced him "to take orders in the Church of England," though he lived not to see him provided for. Upon his going to settle in Kent in 1780 as a curate, Johnson wrote to Mr. Allen, the vicar of St. Nicholas, Rochester, in his favour, the following letter:

"SIR,

"Mr. William Shaw, the gentleman from whom you will receive this, is a studious and literary man: he is a stranger and will

2 Memoirs, p. 159-64.

1 Vol. iii., p. 349-50.

1

Life, vol. ii., p. 470.

be glad to be introduced into proper company: and he is my friend, and any civility you shall show him, will be an obligation on, Sir, your most obedient servant, (Signed) "SAM. JOHNSON."

In the preface to his little volume of Memoirs he tells us that he had been favoured with contributions from Mrs. Desmoulins, Thomas Davies of Covent Garden, and, above all, from Mr. Elphinston, who had introduced him to Johnson.

Omitting for the present any allusion to the "Journal of the Tour to the Hebrides," which Boswell published in 1785, the next book which occupied the attention of the world was "The Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D., during the last twenty years of his life, by Hesther Lynch Piozzi." From a letter of Walpole's, in Mr. Hayward's "Life and Writings of Mrs. Piozzi," vol. i., p. 290, we learn that it came out on the 26th of March, 1786. The sale was rapid. It is said that when the king sent for a copy of the "Anecdotes" on the evening of the day of publication, not a single copy was to be had.' Though printed in London, the "Anecdotes" had been written in Italy. It was at Venice that she learnt by a letter from Cadell, her publisher, that he never brought out a work the sale of which was so rapid, and that rapidity of so long continuance.2 With very pardonable exultation, she says, "I suppose the fifth edition will meet me at my return." The "Anecdotes" gave great offence to Johnson's friends, to none more than to Boswell. He who was, on the whole, singularly kind, genial, and considerate in his estimate of character, was impelled, reluctantly we believe, to turn aside and animadvert on her not infrequent inaccuracies, and her somewhat heartless levities, in her delineations of Johnson's character and habits. Just as we seem to see the monk whom Sterne sketches at the opening of the "Sentimental Journey"— mild, pale, penetrating-so Boswell's

1

Hayward's Piozzi, vol. i., p. 291.

2 Ibid., p. 291.

equally graphic description of Mrs. Thrale-short, plump, brisk-prepares us to understand the lady, whose character seems to have been marred by a flippancy which recurs too often in her pages. But all this notwithstanding, her active kindnesses to Johnson, continued for nearly twenty years of his life, should be remembered to her credit by all who love and respect Johnson. Her "Anecdotes," with all abatements made, must ever take high rank among the books which help us to understand him. Readers will, therefore, find them occupying the first place in the volume entitled "Johnsoniana.”

Dr. Joseph Towers followed (1786) in "An Essay on the Life, Character, and Writings of Dr. Samuel Johnson." Born March, 1737, he was the son of a second-hand bookseller in Southwark. His access to books, which he enjoyed from an early age, seems to have been his chief education. He appears to have been essentially a self-educated man, and acquired his very considerable stock of knowledge by diligent study in the leisure hours after business. He carried on the business of bookseller for nine years in Fore Street, but with no great success. In 1774 he gave up business, and was ordained a preacher in the Unitarian body, and became forenoon preacher at Newington Green, where the celebrated Dr. Price preached in the afternoon. He stepped forth boldly, but with the respect which was due to Johnson's reputation, to reply to Johnson's political pamphlets, in "A Letter to Samuel Johnson, occasioned by his late political publications." This letter, together with a paragraph in a letter from Temple to Boswell, were laid before Johnson by Boswell himself, who notifies that these two instances of animadversion appeared, from the effects they had on Johnson, evinced by his silence and his looks, to impress him much. "I am willing to do justice," Boswell remarks, "to the merits of Dr. Towers, of Ubi supra, p. 191.

1

3

Biograph. Dict., vol. xxix.

3 Life, vol. ii., p. 150.

2

whom I will say, that though I abhor his whiggish democratical notions and propensities, I esteem him as an ingenious, knowing, and very convivial man." Boswell's testimony to Towers' social and convivial talents may be more implicitly received than his testimony to Towers' political principles. His "Essay on the Life, Character, and Writings of Dr. Samuel Johnson" will, however, reward study. We miss, indeed, the charm of original anecdotes and conversations. Of these Towers has none, except those which he had derived from the recently published sources described in the preceding remarks.

Appointed an executor under the will, Sir John Hawkins now pressed forward to be the biographer of Johnson, and the editor of the first collected edition of his works. He had been appointed, not only the executor of his will, but also, as he tells us in his advertisement to his Life, the "guardian of his fame;" and in this capacity of guardian of Johnson's fame, Sir John at once proceeded to prepare the first formal Life, and the first collected edition of his works. He could hardly have completed his arrangements with the trade before some months of 1785 had elapsed; and in little more, therefore, than two years, the eleven octavo volumes containing "The Life and Works" appeared in 1787. The four volumes which afterwards appeared as supplements to the "Works" show that not conscientious care, but greedy haste, had been the motive power, alike of the biographer and the publishers, in the work which they had produced. The Life, indeed, has its merits. In spite of the extraneous matter, which belonged as well to the biography of any of Johnson's contemporaries as to that of Johnson, there is much in Hawkins's Life which has not been superseded. His account of the manner in which the debates in Parliament were drawn up by Guthrie and Johnson for the "Gentleman's Magazine," still repay reading; and the same may be said of the accounts of the Ivy Lane Club