Smollett has never been excelled, not even by Cooper and Marryat, in the portrayal of old "sea dogs," and in this novel there are three that are unrivaled in all fiction-Commodore Trunnion, Lieutenant Hatchway and Tom Pipes the bo'sun. They become the center of no end of comical situations, from the marriage of the commodore with Mrs. Grizzle to the hunting scene where the horses run away with the sailors. One thing is certain, the interest in the story never flags and though, as has often been said, it is not for all

tastes, men like Edmund Burke were greatly delighted with it. Burke thought Tom Pipes the bo'sun one of the most humorous characters ever invented. The description of the old commodore's death is one of the finest things in the volume and full of pathos. He gave minute directions as to the disposition of his "old hulk" after he had "slipped his cable" and dictated the following epitaph :

Here lies, foundered in a fathom and a half, the shell of Hawser Trunnion, Esq., formerly commander of a squadron in his majesty's service, who broached to at 5 p. m. Oct. x., in the year of his age three score and nineteen. He kept his guns always loaded and his tackle ready manned, and never showed his poop to the enemy, except when he took her in tow; but his shot being expended, his match burnt out and his upper works decayed, he was sunk by Death's

superior weight of metal. Nevertheless he will be weighed again at the great day, his rigging refitted and his timbers repaired, and with one broadside make his adversary strike in his turn.

This is almost as good as Dr. Franklin's celebrated epitaph.

Smollett next wrote next wrote "Count Fathom"-a terrible picture of crime and human depravity"Sir Launcelot Greaves" and "The History of an Atom," but no time need be lost on them.

His last and greatest novel is " The Expedition of Humphry Clinker," of which Thackeray said: "It is, I do believe, the most laughable story that has ever been written since the goodly art of novel writing began." It will be remembered that in "Vanity Fair" Becky Sharp, when acting as governess at Sir Pitt Crawley's, ingratiates herself with her pupils by introducing them to the history of "Humphry Clinker."

The story is told in a series of letters written by Matthew Bramble and the members of his family, describing the scenes and adventures through which they pass during a tour they make through Bath and London to Scotland. we have Matthew Bramble, the eccentric but kindly old bachelor, traveling for the benefit of his health; Tabitha Bramble, his sister and

Here

housekeeper, Jerry Melford, his nephew, and Lydia Melford, his niece, and the never-to-beforgotten Winifred Jenkins, Tabitha's maid servant. Humphry Clinker is the footman and Lieutenant Lishmahago, a Scotch lieutenant, is the acknowledged prototype of Scott's Dugald Dalgetty. These characters are immortal in the pantheon of fiction. It is a very noble gallery. The story partakes of some of the objectionable features that are inseparable from all of Smollett's novels, but it is a masterpiece of comedy and broad farce. It was a great favorite with Macaulay.

Smollett's poetry is no longer remembered, but there is one passage in his "Ode of Independence" that contains the true poetic fire:

Thy spirit, Independence, let me share.
Lord of the lion heart and eagle eye;
Thy steps I follow with my bosom bare,

Nor heed the storm that howls along the sky.

SAMUEL JOHNSON.

(1709-1784.)

SAMUEL JOHNSON was born at Lichfield in 1709, was educated as a sizar at Pembroke College, Oxford, taught school for a time and failed, married for love a woman many years his senior and in his twenty-eighth year went up to London with a tragedy in his pocket to pursue the literary calling. Never was there a more inopportune moment for such a pursuit. The period has been well described, as "a dark night between two sunny days." The patronage of the great, such as supported Addison and Congreve and Swift and Steele had disappeared. The patronage of the public had not commenced. Sales of histories, of poems, of essays and of periodicals

were extremely limited, and booksellers could not afford to pay much for the most industrious literary labor. All that a writer could do, though his whole time were employed, was to provide for the passing day, nor could he always do this. There

were no men of letters of more distinguished genius in the eighteenth century than Samuel Johnson, James Thomson, Henry Fielding and William Collins, yet each one of them at some period in his life suffered imprisonment for debt.

For twenty-five years Johnson pursued this calling and remained a literary hack, writing poems, essays, articles of every sort, and finally the dictionary that brought him fame and but little money. Then George III. ascended the throne and a pension of three hundred pounds was bestowed upon the great lexicographer. At last his years of toil were rewarded and he emerged from the garrets and low eating houses in which his life had been passed to associate on equal terms with the refined and the cultivated, who regarded him as the dictator of literature and esteemed him a classic. Goldsmith and Gibbon, Burke and Reynolds became his familiar friends and took delight in his society and conversation.

Thanks to Boswell, Mrs. Thrale, Fanny Burney, Miss Seward and Miss Reynolds, not to mention several less prominent writers, we know Dr. Johnson as we do few of the great writers of the past. Others we picture to ourselves in the light of their works; with his personality and conversation we are as familiar as with acquaint