D d not had lately died. Over his bereavement he | Mirabeau lay dying, " carrying in his heart As if there were not obstacles enough in the biographer's path, one more was added by the embarrassment of debt. In his pride of lineage he had raised on mortgage a large sum for the purchase of an estate which had been imprudently given by one of his ancestors to a younger son, and so had been lost to the main line. He had borrowed another sum of £500 to lend to an unlucky first cousin, and now the creditor was pressing him for repayment. He bought a lottery ticket for £16 8s. od., and lost the prize for £5,000 only by the two last figures, "which, alas! were 48, whereas those of the fortunate one were 33." He was depressed about the success of his forthcoming book by his "damned good-natured friends," who "shook their heads at the two quartos and two guineas. George Steevens," he writes, "kindly tells me that I have over-printed, and that the curiosity about Johnson is now only in our own circle." At a time when he should, like Johnson, have been "delivering his book to the world with the spirit of a man that has endeavored well," he feels "a continual uneasiness, all the prospect before me for the rest of life seeming gloomy and hopeless." In how feverish a bustle of life was one of the most restful of books brought to its close! As we turn to it from "vexing thoughts," and the restlessness of modern days, how few are the traces which we discover of all this debt, drink, tears, penitence, matrimonial projects, and idle longings for preferment, for a seat in Parliament, for a brilliant career in Westminster Hall? Still more are we struck at the calm which enfolds it when we think of the huge upheaval that was beginning all around. While the printer's devil was running to Boswell with the last sheet, Could the world, which is often so slow in discovering what is both great and new, have recognized in Boswell the genius which was really his, we should perhaps have traced in his character as little restlessness as in his book. It was the denial of his just share of fame which was forever stirring him to struggle for eminence. Like Goldsmith he was read, enjoyed, and mocked. To Gray he was a fool who wrote a most valuable book by chance, merely because he told with veracity what he heard and saw. To Horace Walpole Goldsmith was an inspired idiot. Boswell and Goldsmith constantly asserted themselves because they felt their real superiority to men who were ranked far above them. Lord Chancellor Camden took no more notice of Goldsmith than if he had been an ordinary man. While the author of "The Vicar of Wakefield " and of "The Deserted Village" still moves our laughter and our tears affectuum poters at lenis dominator- the lord chancellor is as dead to us as his wig. Boswell knew, as I have said, that "he had largely provided for the instruction and entertainment of mankind;" while Wedderburn and Dundas had done nothing but largely provide for themselves and their descendants. The "Life of Johnson we owe, as we owe most great work, to "that last infirmity of noble mind," the love of fame the laudum immensa cupido. "I have an ardent ambition for literary fame," wrote Boswell in the preface to his "Corsica," "a hope of being remembered after death." To the friend of his youth he had always confided his "towering hopes; " but before long he confided them to a mocking world. Hopes such as his were felt by another young Scotchman, past whose | thirty, all printed in Great Britain. The father's door, a few months before he was pirates of Dublin certainly printed one, born, was carried poor Boswell's dead and perhaps more. In the United States body on the way to its last resting-place in no doubt many have appeared - one much Auchinleck. "Think not," wrote Thomas against any wish of mine. In both EnCarlyle to a friend, "think not I am care- gland and America there have been stereless about literary fame. No; Heaven otyped editions, so that the number of knows that ever since I have been able to copies issued must have been vast. The form a wish, the wish of being known has tours to Corsica and the Hebrides were been the foremost." It was this wish that quickly translated into foreign languages; supplied his genius with that patient en- but the "Life of Johnson can only be durance of long, laborious days, which read by those who understand our tongue. with the radiance of learning has lighted It is, perhaps, as well that this is so. His up the ages of Cromwell, of Frederick, strong common sense put suddenly into and of the French Revolution. At aspira- the heads of Frenchmen or Germans might tions such as these, when they are openly have the same effect on them as it had on avowed, the world mocks, though they are Boswell, and cause them a headache. one of the strongest, and by far the cheap- Of all the editions of his work Boswell est of the motive powers in the service saw only the first and second. He was but of mankind. The rewards bestowed on fifty-four when he died. With his fine authors are not so great that under pain of constitution he should have lived to fourridicule and contempt they are to be de- score, and over his ninth edition have sung prived of their "immortal longings." Had his Nunc dimittis. Even as it was, his Boswell kept his vanity well hidden, or pride in his success was great. There had he turned it into surly pride, he might were, no doubt," cold-blooded and morose have nursed it as much as he pleased; mortals," as he called them, "who really but, as old Burton says, "they are the disliked his book;" but in his "moments veriest asses that hide their ears the of self-complacency " he “assimilated "it most.' I like to think that there was one to the Odyssey. From "persons eminent great man by whom his merits were liber- for their rank, learning, talents, and acally allowed. It was no doubt by the in- complishments he was regaled with sponfluence of Sir Joshua Reynolds that, in taneous praise, much of which," he writes, the autumn of the year in which the "Life" I have under their hands to be reposited of Johnson " was published, Boswell was in my archives at Auchinleck." How appointed secretary for foreign corre- greatly would he have been delighted could spondence to the Royal Academy. In the he have known that "Burke affirmed that list of its honorary officers his name fol- Boswell's 'Life' was a greater monument lows those of Johnson, Goldsmith, and to Johnson's fame than all his writings Gibbon. put together." But he would, I fear, have been still more pleased had Miss Burney told him that "a GREAT PERSONAGE reading his book the very summer it came out, and was applying to her for explanations without end. Nay, the queen frequently condescended to read over with her passages and anecdotes which perplexed her. One kind of success was not refused him. His works met with a rapid sale. Both of his "Corsica" and his "Tour to the Hebrides" three editions were called for within the year. Of the "Life of Johnson twelve hundred copies were sold in less than four months. Cowper, who the same spring was receiving subscriptions for his translation of Homer, complained of "living in days of terrible taxation, when verse not being a necessary of life is accounted dear, be it what it may, even at the lowest price." In judging of the extent of the sale we must remember, too, that the English-speaking population of the world is probably five times as numerous as it was then; though there is one large and interesting section of that great host, which, by its peculiar institutions, often manages to buy books and yet not benefit authors. How many editions have been published in all I do not know. In the British Museum there are at least was It is the sweetest of all earthly things The book was to spread with the spread well's Life of Johnson.' I used to talk | MY DEAR AUNT, row winchester and eton. The MOLLY. of Johnson when I saw him disturbed, or I have begun at the High School this Christwhen I wished to avoid other subjects.' mas, I like it very much. Mother can't teach In pious gratitude let all true Johnsoni- me any more. She used to help me with ans gather together on Saturday, the six- French, but French isn't what it was. teenth day of this month of May, and honor teaching at the school is quite equal to harthe memory of James Boswell, and keep I am your loveing niece, the centenary of his magnum opus with joyous festivity. As he wanders with his friend and master through those happy (The child is mother of the woman shades "where there is no room for Whig-girl; and Molly, it may be observed, even gism," may there reach him some faint then knew how to make the best of her echo of the applause with which we express small attainments.) our gratitude towards the greatest of biographers, the author of the immortal "Life of Dr. Samuel Johnson!" GEORGE BIRKBECK HILL. From The National Review. A MODERN HIGH-SCHOOL GIRL. MOLLY is my niece, and a high-school girl of seventeen; and I am going to tell of a tour I made with her in the summer vacation. Now Molly is a pretty girl, sweet, and well-mannered; indeed, she comes up generally to so high a standard of excellence in girls, that I am afraid I shall seem but a cross-grained female for relating the following story; and yet it is all true; I have not enlarged on it by one word. What I would like to discover is where the fault lay. I will explain how it all came about. But first I must mention that, as I have always lived a rather secluded life in the country, perhaps I am a little old-fashioned in my ideas. I am a widow, and, having no children, my views on education have perforce been purely theoretic, my chief companions being my books. I had become a devout follower of Ruskin, and the views of that great writer on girls' training always struck me as particularly sound. Now, I had no young relations save a family of nieces who attended a high school recently founded near London, and said to be most excellent in its teaching and results. I did not often see the girls, but I duly received from their mother accounts of their progress; how Molly had just begun Latin, how Ethel was first in chemistry, and how Daisy had got the second prize in mathematics. I have still the letter which Molly (aged then about nine) wrote me, in a scrawly, child's hand, to tell me of her first going to school. This was it: -or The girls' progress seemed to be excellent, and I, too, became a firm believer in high schools. All that the girl of the past lacked, I thought to myself, the girl of the future will possess. She will have wasted none of her time on the foolish samplers and cross-stitch of her grandmother's times, or the still more useless crewelwork of her mother's youth. She will have a well-trained mind, keenly alive to new impressions, and ready to seize upon the best part of everything that comes in her way. Accordingly when she was just seventeen, last year, I determined to give her a treat, and take her for a foreign tour during the summer vacation. Her small outfit was soon ready, and she met me at Charing Cross one bright July morning, in the happiest frame of mind. She had never been out of England before. (Human nature has always been my favorite study, and I must here confess that the wish to take Molly as my travelling companion had originated partly in pure selfishness, as I promised to myself much enjoyment from seeing the effect of foreign travel on a young and untried mind, fresh from the stimulating power of a high-school education.) Molly, as I have said, is pretty. Although tall, she has none of the awkwardness and all the grace of youth, so that people often think her less of a child than she really is. She was quietly and tastefully dressed. In her pretty blue serge travelling dress, "picked out" with red, I saw many people look at her admiringly, and felt proud of my charming companion. She enjoyed the breezy crossing, and did full justice to the delicious lunch of the Calais Gare Maritime. Two little, plaintive English ladies, who were surreptitiously eating their own ham sandwiches to a "demi-siphon," which they had ordered from the waiter, looked at her approvingly. "Dear me," said Molly, as we travelled towards Bâle, "how very like ‘abroad' is to England!" She quite enjoyed the night journey, and emerged rosy from it; while I, alas! was racked with sick-headache. She had brought in her bag two schoolbooks, which, at first, she made a continual show of studying; one was a history book, the other "Experimental Chemistry." I do not exactly know of what use the latter was supposed to be, as one could hardly practise chemistry in the train, especially during a night journey; but I shall have more to say of both these works anon. We had lovely weather, and stayed, before leaving the beaten track, at the usual kind of cosmopolitan first-class hotel. Molly liked the lifts in these, and never lost an opportunity of going up or down in them. I think it was with something of this feeling that she enjoyed the St. Gothard railway. We stayed at Lugano, and here, after several days of comfortable idleness, I suggested that Molly should indite a letter home. She yawned. "Oh, auntie, what's the use? They'll know that nothing can have happened to me. Besides, letter-writing is a thing of the past." Is filial affection a thing of the past, too? I thought, as I reflected on the long, double-sheeted effusions I had been used to pen in my youth whenever I left home for a day or two. However, on this occasion, Molly had to make letter-writing a thing of the present; and here is what "They don't look so very high," my niece remarked feebly, raising her eyes as though to look at Monte Rosa were rather a tiresome duty. And then she wouldn't, or said she couldn't walk. I, who am past fifty, tramped gaily all day; but Molly, aged seventeen, strong and rosy, declared that walking knocked her up. 66 "Nobody goes in for walking now," she said; we play fives and cricket." Mules were seldom to be had in this particular place; so after three days of it, Molly quietly took to her bed. She called her complaint "sunstroke;" but as she was in no pain, had no fever, and ate her dinner with a will, I have some suspicion that the sunstroke existed entirely in her imagination. A lady staying in the hotel, to whom I confided my troubles, confirmed these theories. "Oh, it's nothing," she said; "girls of the present day are often like that. There's nothing they won't do to avoid being taken for a walk." This was unfortunate, as I had taken Molly with me abroad for the express purpose of taking walks. I remember reading a story somewhere about a young couple who, settling out in the wilds of California, hired a "yeller gal" to do the housecleaning. The yeller gal cleaned just one room, and was then seen quietly to walk away. She had had about enough of it, she said when interrogated, and she couldn't be persuaded to come back. "Them yeller gals," concluded the narrator, "is jest about the meanest trash." Molly, although I wouldn't wish to call her "the meanest trash," yet imitated the yeller gal" in her tactics. Politely and silently, she declined further exercise. She sat in the village meadow with her chemistry book - which, by the way, is doubtless still reposing in that meadow; for Molly never found out its loss till we were many miles away and already thinking of the return journey. Molly's not being able to walk altered my plans. The mountains bored her so much that, though the weather was still perfectly cloudless, and the high Alps most tempting for a prolonged stay, we left at the end of a week for Venice. As we were leaving the valley, and just as "the sun looked over the mountain's rim," I took a farewell glance at Monte Rosa, glistening in the morning light, and quoted the well-known lines: How faintly flush'd, how phantom-fair, A thousand shadowy-pencill'd valleys "Is that your own composition?" asked Molly, turning round upon her mule. We went to Milan. Molly recovered altogether there, and, under the fascination of the shops, was quite well for a day or two. She enjoyed the spiral staircases in the cathedral, with something of the same feeling, I imagine, as she had enjoyed the hotel lifts and the St. Gothard Railway. We visited the Brera also; but here Molly showed such evident signs of boredom that I dared not stay too long, fearing a return of the sunstroke. "Are all these pictures hand-painted?" Molly had asked on first entering. I think she would have felt more respect for them if they had been Aspinalled by an entirely new machine process. I Next day we started for Venice. really think Molly's limpness on that journey was partially to be accounted for by the heat (it was hot as it only knows how to be hot in the Lombard plains), and she soon relapsed into the "squeezed lemon condition that Ruskin comments upon so severely in "Fors Clavigera," à propos of some travelling companions on this very journey. I felt for her, but could not reconcile my conscience to letting her pass by all the points of interest unnoticed. "There is Catullus' Villa, Molly," I cried, forgetting the heat, as we came upon the promontory of Sermione, and the blue Garda-lake glittering in the sun. Molly half opened her eyes. "Do you know him?" she asked. She had taken a prize for Latin last term. In Peschiera, half an hour later, she did not show even a semblance of interest. All the great scenes of history and art, all the places made sacred by long association, were as nothing to the mind of this highly trained schoolgirl. Squeezed lemons, indeed! Squeezed lemons are all too inadequate to describe Molly's martyred attitude. At Verona, I dared not even mention Juliet's house, or the Roman Amphitheatre! And than we crossed the Mestre Bridge over the lagoon, lit with the golden fires of sunset. How well I remembered my first crossing of that bridge! What a thrill it brings into my heart even now to recall how I craned my neck out of the windows to catch the first sight of Venice! But that was when I was a girl, thirty years ago. My niece belongs to the modern school. She was yawning desperately, I noticed, in her corner of the carriage. But Molly enjoyed Venice too, in her way, and for a time. "What a heavenly place!" she exclaimed next morning, as she took me from one sham jewellery shop window to another. She bought a gondola-brooch for a franc, and a string of blue beads for sixty centimes. With these she was evidently more pleased than with the shining façade of St. Mark. I am not certain whether she ever really looked at that, during our week's stay in Venice. But then churches in general were a grief to her. There were so very many of them to be seen. They made her feel so giddy that she generally had to be assisted back to the gondola, there to wait till 1 had finished my inspection of some rare Bellini in the sacristy. I am ashamed to say, that so far from "doing" the Ducal Palace, Ruskin in hand, Molly never got beyond the courtyard at the foot of the "Giant's Staircase. Here she paused, and said, as if the idea had occurred to her for the first time: "How many doges were there at once ?" 66 'Only one," I answer, with a gasp; "they reigned in order like kings, you know." "What a very big house for only one doge !" Oh! Shade of Shakespeare! However, to do Molly justice, she was interested for quite two days in Venice. But, when her small stock of money failed, boredom began again, as in the mountains. She never spoke to the natives, either in the Alps or in Venice. For one thing, she knew very little German or Italian. I wondered at this, as I knew that she "did" Schiller's "Thirty Years' War," and Pellico's "Prigioni " for school, and these are by no means beginners' books. But Molly explained innocently, "Oh, mother always looks out all the words for me in the dictionary, and then I learn the bit she has translated for me by heart, so that I can read it off to the German mistress next day." 66 But, my dear child," I remonstrated, |