advance in the periodical essays entitled, "The World;" but, Johnson, who had been provoked by neglect in a visit or two which he had paid to the no in vain at his door, was in no humor to dedicate to him the finished work. On the contrary, he spurned the flattering overtures, and in a spirit of independence, the echo of which rings in noble halls to this day, addressed a remarkable letter to the Earl, which has done more to keep the writer in popular remembrance than the best pages of his "Rambler." as emphatically Johnson's Dictionary. Opening the single capacious volume now in use, no unmeet representative of the burly form of Johnson, as Augustus compared Horace to the fat lit-bleman's drawing-room, or knocking tle roll of his poems, we may light at random on pages illuminated by his philosophical acumen, rich with the stores of his various reading from the Bible and Shakespeare, through the best English authorship to Pope and Swift, while, interspersed with the sound, manly definitions, are several touches of satire and humor, interposed, not more, perhaps, by prejudice, than as a relief to the weary labor of the work. In one of these he defines the word oats, "a grain, which, in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland, supports the people;" and in another, "pension," as "an allowance made to any one without an equivalent, in England, being generally understood to mean pay given to a state hireling for treason to his country," and "pensioner-a slave of state, hired by a stipend to obey his master," definitions which were rather inconvenient to him, when he came himself to occupy that relation to his country. To the word "Lich," which enters into the composition of Lichfield, his native town, he adds an interpretation of the latter word, "the field of the dead, a city in Staffordshire, so named from martyred Christians," with the invocation, Salve magna parens! The Dictionary was seven years in progress. On the eve of its appear ance, in 1755, Lord Chesterfield sought to revive the good feeling of the author towards him exhibited at the start, by some handsome notices of the book in To grace the title-page of his Dictionary, Oxford conferred upon Johnson the degree of M. A. in 1755; LL.D. came twenty years later from that University, and, in the meantime, the same degree had also been given by Dublin. It was only in the latter part of his life that he was known by the title so familiar to us, of Dr. Johnson. In the interval, while Johnson was engaged upon the Dictionary, he had published in 1749 a companion to his "London," in a version of the tenth satire of Juvenal, which he entitled, "The Vanity of Human Wishes." In this, as in his previous version, he had to contend in the literal part of his work with the muse of Dryden, who translated both poems; but Johnson had the advantage of a wider interpretation in his introduction of modern instances and manners; while his benevolent disposition led him to soften the asperities of the original. In the fierce picture of a vicious old instance, which darkens the brilliancy of the Latin poem, Johnson has introduced, an idea entirely of his own age, for The sketch of the life of the man of letters is also his own, sadly inspired by his observation and experience :— “Should no disease thy torpid veins invade, Nor melancholy's phantoms haunt thy shade; Yet hope not life from grief or danger free, Nor think the doom of man revers'd for thee; Deign on the passing world to turn thine eyes, And pause awhile from letters, to be wise; There mark what ills the scholar's life assail, Toil, envy, want, the patron and the jail.” In one noble historic passage he has fairly rivalled the genius of Juvenal, that in which the career of Charles XII. is substituted for that of Hannibal. In fertility of incident, ease and rapidity of movement, the union of personal emotion with historic grandeur, it stands unrivalled. Every school-boy knows it, and the story as told in these verses is "familiar as household words," of the hero who 'left the name at which the world grew pale, To point a moral or adorn a tale." For this poem Johnson received but fifteen guineas from Dodsley-a small advance on the previous poem. The year 1849 saw also the production on the stage of Drury Lane of Johnson's tragedy of "Irene," which had been for some time finished. It was brought forward by Garrick, who gave it his best support, including himself, Barry and King in the cast, with Mrs. Cibber and Mrs. Pritchard; but it was by no means well adapted for the stage, being deficient in dramatic interest and variety of incidenta didactic poem in fact, in the form of dialogue. It was carried through nine nights; the profits of which to the author, with the sum paid by the publisher, amounted to nearly three hundred pounds. On the first night the play was in danger, at an unfortunate passage, of being damned. Johnson, on being asked how he felt as to the failure of his tragedy, stoically replied, «Like the Monument!" He knew his powers too well to tempt the dramatic line again. The "Vanity of Human Wishes" and "Irene" were succeeded in the spring of the following year by the "Rambler," a series of moral essays, somewhat after the plan of the "Spectator," the first number being published on the 20th of March, and others following in suc cession on the Saturday and Tuesday of each week till its conclusion with The the two hundred and eighth number, on the 14th of March, 1752. work, as a whole, is distinguished from its predecessors in this lighter school of literature by its prevailing seriousness. The "Rambler" is for the most part a collection of lay sermons or moralities not unworthy of the pulpit; for Johnson was quite capable of this part of the office of a clergyman, and many a sermon was preached in England which he had furnished to the cloth at a guinea a piece. Among his private prayers and meditations which escaped destruction at his hands, is a solemn invocation of divine support at his entrance on this work; and the aspiration to do something for the glory of God and the good of man was never lost sight of by him in its progress. With the exception of two numbers by his learned friend Mrs. Carter, and some three or four trifling communications, it was entirely written by him. The numbers were published at twopence, and Johnson received two guineas for each. Though compared with the "Spectator," there is a certain heaviness in the style, and the thoughts are often of a sombre cast; yet to an intelligent and sympathizing reader, who has seen enough of life to value it at its true worth, these essays may still be read with much of that admiration which they awakened in their author's own period. Their object is essentially self-knowledge, and it is imparted from the author's experience with the wisdom of a philosopher and the familiar kindness of an intimate. Like Chaucer's "Clerk of Oxenforde," through nearly sixteen years of privation and struggle. She lived to see the establishment of his reputation as one of the foremost poets and prose writers of his time. He had greatly relied on her approval of the early numbers of the "Rambler." "I thought very well of you before," said she, "but I did not imagine you could have written anything equal to this;" and Johnson treasured the observation with the warmth of a lover. When he resumed his work after her death, he chose a particular room in the garret to write it, because he had never seen her in that place, and the rest of the house was insupportable to him. To the end of his days he kept the anniversary of her death with devout religious exercises. Though he had closed the "Rambler," sick at heart with the burden of his private sorrows, the essay was a form of literature too well suited to his mental habits to be long abandoned. Accordingly, we find him in the spring of 1753, while he was still laboring on the Dictionary, engaging in furnishing various papers to the "Ad. venturer," a new periodical of the old "Spectator" fashion, conducted by his friend Dr. Hawkesworth. In this and the following year he wrote twentynine numbers of that work, which is chiefly remembered by his participation in it. The topics upon which he mainly relied were those of literature and philosophy in its application to every-day life, for he constantly held, with Milton's "Adam," in his discourse with the angel Raphael: "That not to know at large of things remote Following the production of the Dictionary, after an interval, in which he was engaged upon the "Literary Magazine," for which he wrote chiefly reviews of books, he again resumed, in April, 1758, the now classic style of the Essayists, in "The Idler," conducted wholly by himself, in a weekly series continued for two years. These papers were not published on a separate sheet like the "Rambler," but originally appeared in a weekly newspaper called "The Universal Chronicle." Twelve of the hundred and three were contributed by Johnson's friends; the rest were from his own pen. Their general character ranks them with their predecessors in the Rambler" and "Adventurer;" but they are of a lighter cast, with more of variety in the treatment than the former. The style, too, is more easy and idiomatic; for Johnson, as he mingled with the world, threw more of the charm of his familiar conversation into his writings. While the "Idler" was in progress, Johnson, in the spring of 1759, published his romance "The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia," the locality doubtless a reminiscence of the travels of Father Lobo, which he had translated. Like others of his best writings it was written with great rapidity, being composed in the evenings of a single week, the motive of this exertion being to procure a sum sufficient to pay the expenses of his mother's funeral and some small debts left by her. She had continued to reside at Lichfield, and had reached the venerable age of ninety. Johnson had constantly contributed to her sup port, and her last days were cheered by his heartfelt correspondence. Ras selas is a collection of philosophic reflections on the aspirations and disap. pointments set in a slender framework of narrative and description. The ideas suggested by the scenery and characters, however, cover any defects or inconsistencies of detail. The conception of a happy valley is pleasing to the imagination, and the dialogue is supported, not by any dramatic interest, but by a certain melancholy grace in the sentiment. The adventures in the world are of a general character, and used only for the pur pose of introducing the reflections. The moral of the whole, the vanity of all things human, is indicated in the opening sentence of the book, a kind of musical incantation to which the rest responds: "Ye, who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy, and pursue with eagerness the phantoms of hope; who expect that age will perform the promises of youth, and that the deficiencies of the present day will be supplied by the morrow; attend to the history of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia." It is the old moral, since the days of Solomon; but it is gently touched, and its tone of disappointment never runs into the language of despair; and as we close the book we feel that the shadows cast over the scene are from the mountain heights of a higher existence beyond. The last thoughts of the volume are given to the charms of knowledge and the solace of immortality. For this work Johnson received from his publishers a hundred pounds, to which they added twenty five on its reaching a second edition. lie in bed till two in the afternoon, and to sit up talking till four in the morning without fearing either the printer's devil or the sheriff's officer." The next incident of importance in Johnson's life, which affected his whole future career, was his acceptance of a pension from George III. in 1762, shortly after his coming to the throne. From that moment, indeed, he ap The amount was three hundred pounds, peared almost exclusively before the sufficient with Johnson's moderate world as a man of leisure and society. wants to provide for his comfort and He was at the age of fifty-three a time support his independence, for which of life when men of toil long for so the resources of his writings had not enjoyment of the fruits of their labors, always proved adequate. A few years and Johnson's had been emphaticany before he had been arrested for a debt a life of care and anxiety. "How hast of less than six pounds, and had escaped thou purchased this experience?" says a temporary lodgement in a debtor's the fantastical Spaniard in Shakespeare prison by the friendly aid of Richard- to his knowing attendant, Moth. "By son the novelist. Some surprise might my penny of observation." If such have been caused by Johnson receiving gifts could be estimated in coin, Johna pension at all; for, with his Jacobite son had expended a fortune in the actendencies, he had shown but little con- quisition. He had been brought by sideration for the house of Hanover; his poverty, in a hard struggle for exbut the new reign offered an oppor- istence, into close contact with the tunity for the fusion of parties. Bute, realities, where dangers were at every the prime minister, was a Tory, and the step to be avoided, and where character recognition of Johnson's services to was in constant risk of suffering shipliterature and morality was sure to wreck. A high sense of duty and a be approved by the persons in the na- morbid conscientiousness had pretion whose good opinion was best served his integrity, while he was deworth having. The annuity was thus licately sensitive to every shade of conferred without pledges or condi- good or evil. A quarter of a century tions, simply as an honor paid to lite- had passed since he first went up to rature and personal worth. In this London with Garrick,-years filled spirit it was received by Johnson, who with thought and painful effort, the could afford to smile while his detract- study of men and of books in depart. ors quoted his definitions of pension ments of life and learning where both and pensioner in the Dictionary. "The were at their highest intensity; and event," as Macaulay has observed, he had been almost daily called to "produced a change in Johnson's whole turn the lessons to account in some enway of life. For the first time since during form of literary compositionhis boyhood, he no longer felt the essays, filled with knowledge of the daily goad urging him to the daily world and animated by philosophy toil. He was at liberty, after thirty like those of the "Rambler;" imagi years of anxiety and drudgery, to in-native tales like "Rasselas;" biogradulge his constitutional indolence, to phies like that of Savage, and poetry, |