with his prospects about this time, that he endeavoured to obtain the mastership of a free school in the country, worth only 60l. a year. But the statutes of the foundation, unfortunately, limited the presentation to an M.A., and he was obliged to confine his aspirations to the precarious labours of an author. He remained without any opportunity of making his abilities in any degree generally known until May, 1738, when, after repeated refusals from the booksellers to purchase it at any price, Dodsley had judgment enough to give him ten guineas for "London," a poem, in imitation of the third satire of Juvenal. That was an effort which amply justified the expectations of the publisher, and ultimately did no small service to the reputation of the author. After an interval, he followed it up with "The Vanity of Human Wishes," a similar paraphrase on the tenth satire of Juvenal, which appeared, with equal success, in 1749. The former poem showed greater skill in adaptation, but the latter has the praise of finer feeling. It was also during the year 1738 that the favourite of his early hopes, the tragedy of "Irene," came before the public, and failed to please them, notwithstanding all the influence and support of Garrick, who brought it forward at the theatre in Drury-lane, of which he was already a patentee. In sentiment and diction it is moving and elevated, but it wants dramatic interest and events, and on that account but feebly excites the sympathies of an audience. Johnson was greatly chagrined at its fate. His next production, however, made ample amends for his disappointment. He wrote the life of Savage, his partner in the sorrows of adversity, and his friend up to the dawning of brighter prospects, with a degree of pathos, truthfulness, and an energy of periods, which fully developed the peculiar character of his strength, and created a high opinion of his learning and great confidence in his critical powers.

It was from the vicissitudes of his past life, in all probability, and the great variety of subjects he had been drawn to reflect upon, just as so many speculations for subsistence, that Johnson was spurred to write the " Rambler," at the rate of two papers a week, on the 20th of March, 1750. Thirtyseven years had elapsed since the joint labours of Steele and Addison had delighted and instructed the town with essays of the same sort. Attempts had been repeatedly made to emulate their popularity, more particularly by the "Craftsman," "Common Sense," and the " Champion." The comparative failure of those undertakings would have served to damp the courage of a less resolute projector. Johnson, dogmatical and courageous, persisted in his plan; but neither the "Rambler," nor the "Idler," which followed it in April, 1760, as a sort of companion, succeeded to the prosperity of the celebrated papers they professed to imitate. Of the two, the "Rambler" is unquestionably the nobler performance, and is eminently distinguished by all the energetic qualities that distinguish Johnson's style. Nevertheless it cannot be ranked upon an equality with the "Spectator," &c. His style is universally lofty and serious; theirs is always simple and agreeable; both instruct, and both improve but the one has the gravity of a master, the other the lightness of a companion: he never approached wit, but he fell upon satire, which he delivered well but with a frown; whenever

they drew near it, they mingled it with pleasantry, and uttered it in smiles. Perhaps it was that Johnson being unfortunate, never shook off the moody spirit which neglect and suffering had engendered; while Addison was always complacent, because he scarcely ever found the world rough; and Steele, by constitution, was always happy in spite of adversity itself. Johnson had other peculiarities his morbid feelings in religious matters are well known; that divine belief which soothes most hearts with hope, depressed his with gloomy terrors; religious fear in him seems stronger than confidence, and makes him dwell more deeply on the threats than on the promises of his Bible. To this melancholy temperament must be attributed the extreme shock he received upon the death of his wife, in 1752: his affliction was violent, and the recollection of it lasted so long, that no event of his life can be conceived more formidably affecting than this occurrence proved.

In May, 1754, appeared his Dictionary of the English Language, with a History of the Language, and an English Grammar, 2 vols. folio. The project for this great work, which is said to have originated with Dodsley, was digested in 1746, and announced to the public during the following year, in a pamphlet entitled, "The Plan of a Dictionary of the English Language, addressed to the Right Honourable Philip Dormer, Earl of Chesterfield, one of his Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State." every appearance, all the honours which a dedication of the work itself could give, were applied in this address; it was nevertheless printed without any dedication at all, and the doctor assigned his reasons for his conduct in a letter to the earl, which describes his feelings so admirably, and has been so generally admired, that its insertion seems unavoidable :

To

"My Lord, I have been lately informed by the proprietor of the World, that two papers, in which my Dictionary is recommended to the public, were written by your lordship. To be so distinguished is an honour, which, being very little accustomed to favours from the great, I know not well how to receive, or in what terms to acknowledge.

"When upon some slight encouragement I first visited your lordship, I was overpowered, like the rest of mankind, by the enchantment of your address, and could not forbear to wish that I might boast myself le vainqueur du vainqueur de la terre, that I might obtain the regard for which I saw the world contending; but I found my attendance so little encouraged, that neither pride nor modesty would allow me to continue it. When I had once addressed your lordship in public, I had exhausted all the art of pleasing which a retired and uncourtly scholar can possess.

I had done all that

I could, and no man is well pleased to have his all neglected, be it ever so little.

"Seven years, my lord, have now passed since I waited in your outward rooms, or was repulsed from your door; during which time I have been pushing on my work through difficulties of which it is useless to complain, and have brought it at last to the verge of publication, without one act of assistance, one word of encouragement, or one smile of favour. Such treatment I did not expect, for I never had a patron before.

"The shepherd, in Virgil, grew at last ac

quainted with love, and found him a native of the rocks.

"Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and when he has reached ground encumbers him with help? The notice you have been pleased to take of my work, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed until I am indifferent and cannot enjoy it,-till I am solitary and cannot impart it,-till I am known and do not want it. I hope it is no very cynical asperity not to confess obligations where no benefit has been received, or to be unwilling that the public should consider me as owing that to a patron which Providence has enabled me to do for myself.

"Having carried on my labour thus far with so little obligation to any favourer of learning, I shall not be disappointed, though I should conclude it, if less be possible, with less; for I have not long awakened from that dream of hope, in which I once boasted myself with so much obligation, My lord, yours, &c. &c.

66

"SAMUEL JOHNSON."

Johnson's Dictionary was his greatest labour, so great, indeed, and on that account so generally respected, that his biographer may well spare himself, at this period, the trouble of describing either the magnitude of the task, or the acclamations with which it was received. Every scholar knows that praises were showered upon the work, and honours upon the author. Reward, unfortunately, was not bestowed as readily or as plentifully as it had been deserved; on the contrary, it is with feelings of shame and indignation we relate, that Johnson had still to struggle so much with adversity, that almost immediately after this splendid donation to the literature of his country, he was arrested for five pounds and eighteen shillings. It is not to be concealed, however, that his price for the Dictionary was, altogether, 1500l., but the sum was paid in small fractional parts, which were consumed as they were received, and to no small extent disbursed among clerks and amanuenses.

"Rasselas," the next of his works in order of composition, produced him 1251., and was fanned from the press by a full gale of popularity and praise; for though his Dictionary may be better known, Rasselas is, of all his works, that one which is oftenest read. In style and feeling it is eminently Johnsonian; perhaps in no other case has an author been so successful in transfusing into his pages every sentiment, habit, and turn of thought, as well as of word, for which he was individually remarkable; and thus making his book an imbued portraiture of his mind and feelings. Rasselas literally teems with the man. The object for which it was published, and the circumstances under which it was composed, deserve to be recorded. His mother had died, leaving some little debts unpaid, and Johnson, unable either to discharge them, or even bury her, set himself to work, and finished this impressive tale during the evenings of a single week. The loose portions were sent off to the press every night, as he completed the chapters; and this eloquent treatise of morality, rich in imagery, and splendid in language, was thus hurried before the criticism of the world, with scarcely an opportunity for revision or improvement.

In the year 1762, government, taking a tardy notice of his merits and wants, put his name on the pension list for 300l. a year. Gratitude for this benefit led him afterwards to write two or three political pamphlets,-tasks far from irksome to his feelings, inasmuch as no servant of the crown could be more sincerely attached to those high principles in church and state which were then in the ascendant.

ters.

Johnson's circumstances no sooner became easy, than he rose rapidly in authority as a man of letEre long almost every adventurer in the fertile field was glad to be ushered from the press with some favourable notice from his pen; and of those few who were confident enough not to seek his praise, there was, perhaps, not one who did not dread his censure. But, perhaps, the event, above all others, which contributed to exalt him, as it were, upon a throne of superiority, from which to govern the republic of British literature, was the institution of the celebrated Literary Club, over which, by a sort of tacit compliment, he was allowed to act as president. The most eminent men in politics, as well as literature and the arts, composed its members; among whom were Burke, Fox, Sheridan, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Goldsmith, and Gibbon. To have received the voluntary homage of such a body of men was honour enough for the course of any life; but Johnson lived for other distinctions. George III. took occasion to seek an interview with him in the library of Buckingham-house; and is represented to have been as much pleased with the impressive respect evinced by his subject, as the subject was delighted with the familiar condescension of the monarch.

There remain three other works by Dr. Johnson to be noticed the first, his edition of Shakspeare, published in 1765; the second, "A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland,' printed in 1774; and the third, his "Lives of the Poets," completed in 1779. Of these performances, the first, perhaps, was not as extensively patronized as it deserved to be; while the last has been commended beyond its deserts. The Journey has been pronounced the most elaborate specimen of his grandiloquence he has published, but it was never very popular. His preface to Shakspeare is a masterpiece of composition, far superior to any thing of the kind that had appeared before. When he undertook the "Lives of the Poets," he had tired of his vocation as an author: the work consequently proceeded slowly, was finished in hurried fits of irksomeness, and is more an instance of extraordinary memory, than just criticism or diligent investigation. Strong antipathies prevented him from doing justice to many of the writers presented to his notice: the subject itself, moreover, was not, in some respects, well adapted to his powers; for he was deficient in imagination, and had no sense of the romantic.

In 1783 Johnson suffered a dangerous attack of paralysis, and though the robustness of his constitution overcame the disorder, yet a train of severe afflictions resulted from it. He expressed a wish to visit Italy, and his friends exerted themselves to procure an addition to his pension, that he might travel with ease. But they were unsuccessful: he struggled on with complicated disorders until, after several violent struggles, they triumphed over his life, at the period already mentioned in his epitaph. His death was greatly la

с

mented; and his body followed to a grave, under the statue of Shakspeare, in Westminster Abbey, by a numerous train of mourners composed of the most eminent men in London.

Johnson was a tall man, with large bony limbs, a strength more than common, and in early life an activity far superior to the promise of such a form. His face, though naturally well proportioned, was disfigured by scrofula, or king's evil, through which he also lost the sight of one of his eyes in infancy, and was ever after subjected to an affection similar to St. Vitus's dance. A personal appearance thus strongly marked was rendered still less prepossessing by his general manners. He was grave in his deportment, rude in his address, and possessed a loud voice, delivered his words with dogmatical emphasis and overbearing impetuosity. Vehemently addicted to argumentation, he was impatient of contradiction, and unmerciful in victory. In Lord Chesterfield's Letters to his Son, we find him delineated in these terms:-"There is a man whose moral character, deep learning, and superior parts, I acknowledge and respect, but whom it is so impossible for me to love, that I am almost in a fever when I am in his company. His figure, without being deformed, seems made to disgrace or ridicule the common structure of the human body: his legs and arms are never in the position which, according to the situation of his body, they ought to be in, but constantly employed in committing acts of hostility upon the Graces. He throws any where but down his throat whatever he means to drink, and only mangles what he means to carve. Inattentive to all the regards of social life, he mistimes or misplaces every thing. He disputes with heat, and indiscriminately, mindless of the rank, character, and situation of those with whom he disputes. Absolutely ignorant of the several gradations of familiarity or respect, he is exactly the same to his superiors, his equals, and his inferiors; and therefore, by a necessary consequence, absurd to two of the three. Is it possible to love such a man? No: the utmost I can do for him is to consider him a respectable Hottentot."

This passage, meant for a portrait, amounts almost to a caricature; it is a retort, and therefore to be credited with caution. Johnson publicly declared that he had expected to find Chesterfield a lord amongst wits, but discovered he was only a wit amongst lords. This sarcasm, and the defiance breathed in his letter concerning the Dictionary, must naturally be supposed to have engendered some of the venom which commonly embitters retaliation. After all, perhaps Goldsmith's opinion came nearest to the truth;-" he had nothing of the bear about him but his skin" (and growl). The persons who knew him, and observed his private conduct, concur in stating that his heart was tenderly susceptible of charity, gratitude, and every kind emotion. His purse was ever open to almsgiving; and his house, as far as its convenience permitted, was an asylum for the unhappy, on whom he is reported to have at times expended his income with a greater liberality than the dictates of prudence could have warranted. Early in life, when his circumstances were very narrow, he received into his household Miss Williams, a lady, blind, destitute, but full of talent, and much attached to his wife, and ever after afforded her that

protection which enabled her to support life. The savings of his industry, amounting to 1500l., as he left no relatives, he bequeathed to a black servant, Francis Barber, for whom he had always expressed great consideration, and whom he, in general, treated with the familiarity of an humble friend.

To describe the literary reputation of Dr. Johnson can hardly be necessary, for where is the English reader who does not know that he was supereminent? As a biographer, a critic, a moralist, a philologist, and a novelist, he ranked in the first class of the writers of his day; and in those other branches of literature upon which he adventured, though not with equal distinction, such as poems, tragedy, and political tracts, his merits were uniformly respectable. His "Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland" is considered to afford the most finished specimen of that grandiloquent style for which he is famous: his "Lives of the Poets" are still universally read, though often dispraised by modern critics; but the little novel of "Rasselas seems to have enjoyed and deserved the greatest popularity: it is at once masterly and pleasing. His Dictionary obtained for him the style of the Colossus of our Literature, and the Preface to his edition of Shakspeare is admitted upon all hands to constitute an example of critical composition unequalled in his age. The formal honours with which these various labours were crowned, consisted of a degree of M.A., procured from the University of Oxford through the interest of Mr. Warton, to grace the first appearance of his Dictionary; a degree of Doctor of Laws, awarded by a diploma from the University of Dublin, in 1765, ob egregiam scriptorum elegantiam et utilitatem, and a similar degree reconferred by the University of Oxford in 1774.

There is no writer in our language whose style has been more generally imitated, and at the same time violently censured, than the style of Dr. Johnson. For many years few writers aspiring to distinction ventured to use any other. It is now exploded, but it would be unjust to deny it the merit of being vigorous, yet precise, dignified, and yet subtle, and attractive by the measured falls of musical rotundity. The heaviest charges against it are, that it innovated largely upon the pure idiom of the language by an excessive adaptation of sounding Latinisms; that it is rich to satiety, and melodious to sameness. To discuss these points would require an essay of no brief extent; and, after all, the better way, perhaps, will be to turn to his works, and determine the degree of his merit by the effect which they produce upon the reader.

Besides his genius and writings, which are the foundation of Johnson's present reputation, he had amongst his contemporaries another powerful source of distinction. This was his personal character and conversational ability: no man at all approached to an equality with him as a talker. His memory was singularly retentive, his observation keen, his judgment strong and decided; and though he read with more rapidity than system, he had a most extraordinary facility of extemporaneously methodizing his thoughts and information, however diffuse or incongruous. From his earliest years he had accustomed himself to such accuracy in the manner in which he expressed himself even upon the commonest occasions, that he at all times

delivered himself with a force and elegance that defied rivalry. The confidence derived from habitual success, and the didactic manner he was proud of, impressed his ordinary conversation with the ornate and measured style so remarkable in

his writings, and gave such an effect to all he uttered, that Goldsmith declared it was impossible to argue with him; for if his pistol missed fire, like the man in Cibber's play, he knocked you down with the butt-end of it.

A STATUE of Sir George Eliott, Baron Gibraltar | and Viscount Heathfield, was erected in the south transept of St. Paul's cathedral in 1825. It is modelled of a larger size than life, in the regimentals of a general officer, and was executed by C. Rossi, R.A. The pedestal is wrought in altorelievo, representing Victory descending from a castellated rock to crown a warrior on the seashore with laurel. The style of this statue, both in the attitude of the figure, and the expression of the countenance, is creditable; but the alto-relievo upon the pedestal is singularly bad. There is no inscription.

George Augustus, the son of Sir Gilbert Eliott, was born at Stobbs, in Roxburghshire, during the year 1718, and educated at the university of Leyden. His earliest passion was for a military life. He first entered the army as a volunteer in the service of the King of Prussia, and upon his return to Scotland attached himself as a volunteer to the 23rd regiment of foot. In 1736 he obtained a commission in the corps of engineers, and paid considerable attention to the studies which are necessary for success in that department of the service. Six years afterwards his uncle, General Eliott, procured him the adjutancy of the 2nd troop of horse grenadiers, a regiment in which he passed through the various gradations of rank until he became a lieutenant-colonel, and was made aid-de-camp to George II. It was with this regiment that he first distinguished himself in Germany, and was wounded at the battle of Dettingen. In 1759 he was nominated by the king to raise and discipline the first regiment of light horse, which he commanded with so much success on the Continent that his majesty allowed them to be surnamed Eliott's, and be honoured with the appellation of Royals. He was gazetted a lieutenantgeneral in January, 1761, and upon the termination of the war accompanied his regiment to the Havannah. Early in 1775 he received the post of commander-in-chief of Ireland, but was removed, before the year closed, to be governor of Gibraltar. With this command he was raised to the rank of general in April, 1778, and acquired in it great and well-merited renown.

The siege of Gibraltar, by the united forces of Spain and France, is an historical event so signal, glorious, and proverbially well-known, that it can hardly be necessary to relate here the circumstances from which it arose, or the many gallant stages in which it proceeded. The place was invested almost at the very beginning of the war, and defended under every emergency by Eliott with invincible skill and bravery. In 1782 the state of the garrison excited an interest the most

intense throughout all Europe. The Spaniards had just reduced Minorca, and came to urge on the siege, excited by the spoils of victory, the encouraging promises of their sovereign, and the aid of brave and experienced allies. Their preparations were vast and extensive beyond example. No less than 1200 pieces of ordnance, and 83,000 barrels of gunpowder, were provided for the attack. The combined fleets of France and Spain, amounting to fifty ships of the line, hovered around the bay to cover every movement; 12,000 chosen Frenchmen led the operations, and the Count D'Artois and Duc de Bourbon, the one brother, and the other cousin to the king of France, descended upon the fortifications for the express purpose of adding enthusiasm to the cause and dignity to the scene.

The condition in which General Eliott was thus placed was imminent in the extreme. Such was the scarcity of provisions in the garrison that every article was put up to public auction in the marketplace; and the officers, the men, the inhabitants, and even the governor himself, bade for every thing in common, and made their purchases upon terms of perfect equality. But what principally aggravated this distress was a total ignorance of the particular designs or precise nature of the attack meditated by the besiegers. Day after day the Mediterranean thickened with vessels, while fresh labours continually blockaded the land: loose reports of extraordinary manoeuvres, and vague declarations of newly-invented ordnance of irresistible powers, were incessantly wafted to the rock; but no positive or definite information could be attained of their plans. Such was the embarrassment amidst which Eliott resolved to try the fortune of a cannonade upon some distant works, which to all appearances were nearly finished. He opened a discharge of red-hot balls, carcases, and shells, at daybreak on the 8th of September; and though the effect was for a while doubtful, yet so regular was the fire, and so admirably directed, that by ten o'clock the great fort Mahon was in flames, and before the evening closed totally consumed. The following was a day of retaliation. A new battery of sixty-four heavy guns and about sixty mortars began to play upon the garrison with the first light, while a squadron of nine ships, taking advantage of a favourable gale, dropped down the bay, and, as they made a circuit of the bastions, kept up repeated volleys. The discharge by land was even more intense, but on neither side did the garrison betray weakness: shot was returned for shot, and the day concluded without advantage to the enemy.

These efforts were daily persisted in with a systematic vigour, of which some notion may be formed

when it is stated, that the combined army on shore threw 6500 cannon shot and 1080 shells against the rock in every twenty-four hours. Every operation by land or by sea, which experience could suggest or ingenuity devise, was resorted to, and it was prophesied aloud that the British must forthwith surrender confounded or fall overwhelmed. The boast was bold, and not ill-founded, and yet the perseverance and intrepidity of the besieged rendered it utterly vain. Nor can that resistance be pronounced less than prodigious, which diverted from complete success assaults so constant, a weight of fire so astonishing, and manoeuvres the most destructive.

Formidable as were the exertions hitherto made, they were far eclipsed by those which took place on the 13th of September, a day, in truth, of fiery destruction. At seven o'clock in the morning a general cannonade was opened against the rock from every quarter of the works, both from the sea and from the shore. An adequate description of the scene that ensued is not to be given in words. It is easy to state that there was neither pause nor relaxation on either side; that the guns flashed, and the balls flew without cessation: but to place before the eye the might of three great nations in action, to paint the dead and the dying, give the outcry of the double battle, the crash of ruined forts and dismantled ships, the roar on the ocean, the thunder on the land, and, above all, the unnatural glare of flashing lights, now redder than the sun, and now obscured by volumes of smoke blacker and more horrid than the dense clouds of a storm, all this is impossible. It has been admitted on all hands that the evolutions of the enemy were masterly and valiant in the extreme, and it raised the astonishment of Europe to see General Eliott, straitened within the narrow fortifications of a rock, and even curtailed in the ordinary resources of defence, (for the garrison had not been for some time provided with stores,) nevertheless

triumphantly withstand a siege unparalleled in the annals of modern warfare. His defence was in every respect the most complete. The assault raged on with unabated fury during the day, and was continued with more terrible effect during the night. It was at that extreme stage that the battering-ships were set on fire-some were burnt to the edge of the water, others were raked in the holds until they sunk, and the rest completely beaten. In the morning only two Spanish feluccas were to be seen in the bay, and they fell into our hands the easiest of captures.

From this period the enemy looked only to the starvation of the garrison for success, and accordingly disposed their fleets to prevent Lord Howe from throwing in provisions for its relief. In that hope they were also disappointed, for, after eluding their superior forces by a series of successful manœuvres, his lordship landed all the stores consigned to his trust on the 12th of October. Some attacks of minor interest were afterwards made, but the vigour of the siege declined as the expectations of the besiegers were frustrated, and it was gradually abandoned. As soon as peace was restored, General Eliott returned to England, and was made a knight of the garter; but a more adequate acknowledgment of his services was awarded in 1787, when he was raised to the peerage by the titles of Baron Gibraltar, Viscount Heathfield. He enjoyed an interval of repose from the cares of command until 1790. In that year he proposed to resume his government, but had proceeded no further on his way to it than Aix-la-Chapelle when he was seized with paralysis, which put a period to his life, July 6, at the age of 73. His body was conveyed to England, and deposited in a vault constructed for its reception near his seat at Heathfield, in Sussex. He had one son, Francis Augustus, who succeeded to his title and estates, and a daughter, the lady of Troughton Fuller, Esq., to whom he gave 20,000l.

THE first monument placed in St. Paul's cathedral was raised to the memory of John Howard, in 1795, and opened to public inspection during the following year. It stands near the great iron gate leading into the south aisle, and is the work of John Bacon, R.A., and well executed. There is an expressive earnestness and energy in the action of the figure, but it is hard to discover the propriety of the idea that represents a man of Howard's modest and benevolent character attired as an ancient Roman, trampling on fetters, and bearing in his right hand a key, and in his left a roll, on which are inscribed the words, "PLAN FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF PRISONS AND HOSPITALS." The front of the pedestal is filled with a piece of bassorelievo, in which a prison scene is introduced, with a figure distributing food and raiment. The epitaph was written by Howard's relation, the late Samuel Whitbread, M.P., and is engraved on the south side of the pedestal :

This extraordinary man had the fortune to be honoured while living in the manner which his virtues deserved:

He received the thanks

of both Houses of the British and Irish Parliaments, for his eminent services rendered to his Country and to Mankind.

Our national Prisons and Hospitals, improved upon the suggestion of his wisdom, bear testimony to the solidity of his judgment, and to the estimation in which he was held. In every part of the civilized world, which he traversed to reduce the sum of human misery,

from the throne to the dungeon, his name was mentioned

with respect, gratitude, and admiration.
His modesty alone

defeated various efforts which were made during his life,