Not lost, but gone before, New Power in Europe, Oxymel, Olmsted's Journey thro' Texas, Ordnance, Improved, Popocatapetl, Ascent of, Sunflowers vs. Fever and Ague, 542 Sapphires, Chemical, 559 Switzerland, Pedestrianism, Southern Statesman, To, 212 225 Texas, Journey through, 44 Twelfth Day at St. James', 185 Perfumes, Manufacture and Consumption of, 88 Very, Lydia A., Poems by, Photography, Applications of, Pathological Specimens, Preservation of, Pedestrianism in Switzerland, Painters' Anachronisms, Quack,. Red Sea and the Mediterranean, 121 Vapor Bath, Substitute for, 350 Washing Machine, Patent, 447 185 Steel, by Electricity, 544 639 641 705, 754 754 766 780 794 212 882 753 768 20 544 Westward! Ho! 268 641 Wife's Portrait, 261 787 Water, Action of Heat on, 448 512 798 Whittier, John Greenleaf, Walpole, Horace,. 68 Yale Elihu, 703 732 520 TALES. Athelings, The; continued, . 738, 781 24, 92, Lairds' Seam, 799 80 416, 561, 666 Dream from Heaven, 258 My Father is Here, Music of the Winds, 256 My Namesake, 20 575 Vigil,.. *575 64 I owe no man a dollar,. Invitation to the Country, Judas, the Apostate, LITTELL'S LIVING AGE.-No. 671.-4 APRIL, 1857. his malady. His cheeks were deeply scarred. He lost for a time the sight of one eye, and he saw but very imperfectly with the other, But the force of his mind overcame every SAMUEL JOHNSON.* SAMUEL JOHNSON, one of the most eminent English writers of the eighteenth century, was the son of Michael Johnson, who was, at the beginning of that century, a magis- impediment. Indolent as he was, he actrate of Lichfield, and a bookseller of great quired knowledge with such ease and rapidnote in the midland counties. Michael's ity, that at every school to which he was abilities and attainments seem to have been sent he was soon the best scholar. From considerable. He was so well acquainted sixteen to eighteen he resided at home, and with the contents of the volumes which he was left to his own devices. He learned exposed to sale, that the country rectors of much at this time, though his studies were Staffordshire and Worcestershire thought without guidance and without plan. He him an oracle on points of learning. Be- ransacked his father's shelves, dipped into a tween him and the clergy, indeed, there was multitude of books, read what was interesta strong religious and political sympathy. ing and passed over what was dull. An orHe was a zealous churchman, and, though dinary lad would have acquired little or no he qualified himself for municipal office by useful knowledge in such a way; but much taking the oaths to the sovereigns in posses- that was dull to ordinary lads was interestsion, was to the last a Jacobite in heart. ing to Samuel. He read little Greek; for At his house, a house which is still pointed his proficiency in that language was not such out to every traveller who visits Lichfield, that he could take much pleasure in the Samuel was born on the 18th of September, masters of Attic poetry and eloquence. But 1709. In the child the physical, intellec- he had left school a good Latinist, and he tual, and moral peculiarities which after- soon acquired, in the large and miscellaneward distinguished the man were plainly ous library of which he now had the comdiscernible; great muscular strength accom- mand, an extensive knowledge of Latin litpanied by much awkwardness and many in- erature. That Augustan delicacy of taste, firmities; great quickness of parts, with a which is the boast of the great public schools morbid propensity to sloth and procrastina- of England, he never possessed. But he was tion; a kind and generous heart, with a early familiar with some classical writers, gloomy and irritable temper. He had inher- who were quite unknown to the best scholited from his ancestors a scrofulous taint, ars in the sixth form at Eton. He was pewhich it was beyond the power of medicine culiarly attracted by the great restorers of to remove. His parents were weak enough learning. Once, while searching for apples, to believe that the royal touch was a specific for this malady. In his third year he was taken up to London, inspected by the court surgeon, prayed over by the court chaplains, and stroked and presented with a piece of gold by Queen Anne. One of his earliest recollections was that of a stately lady in a diamond stomacher and a long black hood. Her hand was applied in vain. The boy's features, which were originally noble and not irregular, were distorted by and he found a huge folio volume of Petrarch's While he was thus irregularly educating himself, his family were sinking into hopeless poverty. Old Michael Johnson was much better qualified to pore upon books, and From the new edition of the Encylopædia to talk about them, than to trade in them. Brittanica, now in course of publication in London His business declined: his debts increased: and Boston: in the latter place by Messrs. Little, Brown & Company. The article is by Macaulay, and is referred to by the genial and able writer in No. 669 of the Living Age. DCLXXI. LIVING AGE. VOL. XVII. 1 it was with difficulty that the daily expenses of his household were defrayed. It was out of his power to support his son at either winter his father died. The old man left but a pittance; and of that pittance almost the whole was appropriated to the support of his widow. The property to which Samuel succeeded amounted to no more than twenty pounds. university; but a wealthy neighbor offered | he could pay. In the autumn of 1731, he assistance; and, in reliance on promises was under the necessity of quitting the uniwhich proved to be of very little value, versity without a degree. In the following Samuel was entered at Pembroke College, Oxford. When the young scholar presented himself to the rulers of that society, they were amazed not more by his ungainly figure and eccentric manners than by the quantity of extensive and curious information which he had picked up during many months of His life during the thirty years which desultory but not unprofitable study. On followed was one hard struggle with povthe first day of his residence he surprised his erty. The misery of that struggle needed nc teachers by quoting Macrobius; and one of aggravation, but was aggravated by the suf-. the most learned among them declared, that ferings of an unsound body and an unsound he had never known a freshman of equal at-mind. Before the young man left the unitainments. versity, his hereditary malady had broken At Oxford, Johnson resided during about forth in a singularly cruel form. He had three years. He was poor even to ragged- become an incurable hypochondriac. He ness; and his appearance excited a mirth said long after that he had been mad all and a pity which were equally intolerable his life, or at least not perfectly sane; and, to his haughty spirit. He was driven from in truth, eccentricities less strange than his the quadrangle of Christ Church by the have often been thought grounds sufficient sneering looks which the members of that for absolving felons, and for setting aside aristocratical society cast at the holes in his wills. His grimaces, his gestures, his mutshoes. Some charitable person placed a new terings, sometimes diverted and sometimes pair at his door; but he spurned them terrified people who did not know him. At away in a fury. Distress made him, not a dinner-table he would, in a fit of absence, servile, but reckless and ungovernable. No stoop down and twitch off a lady's shoe. opulent gentleman commoner, panting for He would amaze a drawing room by sudone-and-twenty, could have treated the aca- denly ejaculating a clause of the Lord's demical authorities with more gross disre- Prayer. He would conceive an unintellispect. The needy scholar was generally to gible aversion to a particular alley, and perbe seen under the gate of Pembroke, a gate form a great circuit rather than see the now adorned with his effigy, haranguing a hateful place. He would set his heart on circle of lads, over whom, in spite of his touching every post in the streets through tattered gown and dirty linen, his wit and which he walked. If by any chance he audacity gave him an undisputed ascen- missed a post, he would go back a hundred dancy. In every mutiny against the disci-yards and repair the omission. Under the pline of the college he was the ringleader. influence of his disease, his senses became Much was pardoned, however, to a youth so morbidly torpid, and his imagination morhighly distinguished by abilities and ac-bidly active. At one time he would stand quirements. He had early made himself poring on the town-clock without being able known by turning Pope's Messiah into Latin to tell the hour. At another, he would disverse. The style and rhythm, indeed, were tinctly hear his mother, who was many miles not exactly Virgilian; but the translation off, calling him by his name. But this was found many admirers, and was read with not the worst. A deep melanchely took pleasure by Pope himself. possession of him, and gave a dark tinge to The time drew near at which Johnson all his views of human nature and of human would, in the ordinary course of things, destiny. Such wretchedness as he endured have become a Bachelor of Arts: but he has driven many men to shoot themselves or was at the end of his resources. Those drown themselves. But he was under no promises of support on which he had relied temptation to commit suicide. He was sick had not been kept. His family could do of life; but he was afraid of death; and he nothing for him. His debts to Oxford shuddered at every sight or sound which retradesmen were small indeed, yet larger than minded him of the inevitable hour. In re |