defects, nor can even the vigorous sense and many beauties of the Rambler and Rasselas redeem them from oblivion, while clothed in such a style.

literary toil is of all the hardest to endure. All this is sad and painful to contemplate, but a brighter day is at hand.

As his Dictionary verged upon pub- In the year following the publication of lication, Johnson's circle of acquaintance his Dictionary, he issued Prospectuses of widened. The obscure writer of reviews an "Edition of Shakspeare with Notes," and translations for magazines is now which he did indeed ultimately comknown to the world as a distinguished plete, but which his characteristic slothpoet, an erudite scholar, a profound fulness, aggravated by the reception of philosopher, a popular essayist, and his pension, delayed for many years. every way worthy of the great undertak- Then during two entire years we have ing he has projected. Already he be- another weekly serial of Moral Essays gins to anticipate his future career. called "the Idler," and whilst that is Already Smollett styles him "the Great carrying on, the most beautiful of his Cham of Literature". Lord Chester- smaller prose writings, his "Rasselas field, as we have seen, would fain have is given to the world. It is a remarkrectified his blunder. Sir Joshua Rey-able proof of the rapidity and correctnolds who is making six-thousand a year ness of his powers of composition, that with his pencil, Bennett Langton, a young Rasselas, which really contains much man of an ancient and respectable family in Lincolnshire, and Topham Beauclerk, his friend, a clever and reckless Oxford student, about this time make his acquaintance. A knot of literary men is gathering round the uncouth genius that still however retains his miserable den in some back lane of the city. Here we have the dawn of that brilliant association, of which Boswell has left us so graphic and interesting a picture, and which afterwards found its nucleus in the Gerrard-street club.

splendid imagery and philosophic thought, was thrown off during the evenings of one week, and the sheets sent to the printer without revision, just as they were penned. About this time he had his first interview with Goldsmith, whose genius he early appreciated, and the intrinsic worth of whose character soon won his affections. He felt that beneath that plain exterior and blundering speech, and in spite of the silly vanity that sometimes made him say and do such ridicu

In the year 1755, the degree of Mas-lous things, "Goldy" possessed a warm ter of Arts was conferred on him by his Alma Mater, and the Dictionary was given to the world. It was introduced by a preface written in Johnson's best style, full of vigorous thought and honourable feeling, yet strongly tinged with gloom. And no wonder, for there was a sad reverse to the picture we have given in the preceding paragraph. His wife had died a year or two previously; -he is now poor and solitary; all his manful exertions seem to be without avail; the writer of "London" and "Irene" of the "Rambler," the "Life of Savage," and the "English Dictionary" must again address himself to toil as a matter of necessity to secure his scanty livelihood. He has already anticipated in the expenses of its publication almost all that the sale of the Dictionary will bring him in. True, his renown has risen; but he is "solitary and cannot enjoy it," he cannot share his honest satisfaction with his buried wife. True, friends have gathered round him, but this has not relieved him from the harsh necessity of toil, and compulsory

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and benevolent heart. Perhaps among all his friends, there was no one he more truly loved. Nor was Goldsmith slow to appreciate the genuine worth and kindness of the gruff, ungainly being, whose acquaintance he had just made. "Ah!" he would say, “Johnson to be sure has a roughness of manner, but no man alive has a more tender heart. He has nothing of the bear but his skin." The circumstances of their first interview as narrated by Goldsmith's biographer, are amusing and characteristic. 'Percy called to take up Johnson at Inner Temple Lane, and found him, to his great astonishment, in a marked condition of cleanliness and neatness; without his rusty brown suit or his soiled shirt, his loose knee breeches, his unbuckled shoes, or his old little shrivelled unpowdered wig; and not at all likely, as Miss Reynolds tells us his fashion in these days was, to be mistaken for a beggarman. He had been seen in no such respectable garb since he appeared behind Garrick's scenes on the first of the nine nights of

Irene, in a scarlet gold laced waiscoat, more than ever with bitter and remorse

and rich gold laced hat. 'In fact,' says Percy, he had on a new suit of clothes, a new wig nicely powdered, and everything so dissimilar from his usual habits, that I could not resist the impulse of inquiring the cause of such rigid regard in him to exterior appearance.' 'Why, sir,' he answered, 'I hear that Goldsmith, who is a very great sloven, justifies his disregard of cleanliness and decency by quoting my practice; and I am desirous this night to show him a better example.' The example was not lost, as extracts from tailors' bills will shortly show; and the anecdote, which offers pleasant proof of the interest already felt by Johnson for his new acquaintance, is our only record connected with that memorable supper. It had no Boswell historian, and is gone into oblivion. But the friendship which dates from it will never pass away."

ful self-reproaches; showing how just the remark, that true happiness is from within, and cannot be artificially produced by any adjustment of external circumstances.

From the reception of his pension to the time of his death, Johnson wrote but little. His "Journey to the Western Islands," his "Edition of Shakspeare," and his "Lives of the Poets" were his only productions of any note. The first is an account of a tour he made of Scotland in company with Boswell, and is characterized by much good sense, and many finely written passages; but disfigured by violent prejudices, imperfect information, and the "Johnsonese" style. In the last two he assumes the chair of criticism, for which he was but very imperfectly qualified. His criticisms were fundamentally faulty, being based upon assumptions he had no right to At length the time has arrived when make. He takes it for granted that all this long period of compulsory toil and poetry must be conformed to a certain miserable poverty is to terminate, and arbitrary standard, the standard he Johnson, having struggled painfully to himself and the school he belonged to eminence and renown, is to spend the had adopted. He evidently has no remainder of his days in competence sympathy whatever with the highest and comfort. In 1762, shortly after and truest style of poetical composition. the accession of George III., and when Allow him his assumptions, grant him Johnson was fifty-four years old, a pen- that Pope is the true model of all poets sion of three hundred a year was settled for all time, that musical numbers, clasupon him, by the interest of the Earl sical finish, and didactic purposes, are of Bute, the then Prime Minister. John- necessary to poetry, concede that his son felt some hesitancy at first about standard is correct, and no one could accepting it. He thought of the defi-be more acute and discriminating. He nition of pensioner in his own dictionary. He thought of the miserable sycophants that had at different periods been thus provided for, and that would probably be associated with himself. But being assured that it was given solely on the score of literary merit, and with no accompanying stipulation, his honest pride gave way, and he accepted it. Of course, considerable stir was raised among his small friends, but this occasioned Johnson no annoyance. "I wish," he observed, "the pension was twice as large, that they might make twice as much noise." And now the great man was to repose from his toils, and give himself up to that literary society he so much relished, and in which he made so conspicuous a figure. And accordingly he does repose. His constitutional slothfulness grows upon him. And though his outward circumstances are so much altered for the better, his private journal abounds

can distinguish with the utmost subtlety between all authors that come within the range of his appreciation, and pronounce upon their relative merits with unimpeachable judgment. But beyond this his criticisms are provoking and contemptible. He might as well have applied Newton's standard, What does it prove? as have extended his own arbitrary ideals to poetry universally. Hence the feebleness of his criticisms on Shakespere, the harsh and ignorant way in which he treats Milton, the cold and sparing praise he bestows on Thompson, and the unmeasured contempt he pours on Grey. Yet these were certainly the four truest poets that came under his notice. Hence too his ridiculous preference of rhyme to blank verse. What he would have said to the productions of Wordsworth, and Coleridge, and Keats, or many of the effusions of our own day, in which the liberty of the poet is per haps pushed to the verge of licentious

ness, with what tremendous invectives solution. "Tom Davies flung him at he would have sought to have crushed Johnson in sport, and he has the them, we dare not conjecture.

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faculty of sticking." And to this day It was shortly after the reception of the mystery remains. Perhaps it was his pension, that he and Boswell first Boswell's love of social enjoyment, or met. The young Scot, who had a mania his faculty of patient listening, for a for hero-hunting, had long burned with good talker loves the company of a good desire to see this colossus of literature. listener, or his unbounded reverence Twice already had he made the attempt, and unmitigated flatteries, or the knowand twice been disappointed. At length ledge that he was taking notes, and one memorable Monday evening, it was purposed to write a biography, or his the 16th of May, 1762, he was sitting at ancient family and the Scotch estate at tea with "Tom Davies and his pretty Auchinlech, or perhaps it was a comwife," who had left the stage and were bination of some or all these causes; now established in a bookseller's busi- but whatever was the bond of sympathy, ness in Russel Street, when Johnson's certain it is that there was a strong huge rolling figure darkened the little mutual attachment between the English window that looked into the shop. Da- sage and the Scotch simpleton. And vies announces his awful approach with prosperity has gained in consequence a theatrical air; he enters, and the cere- the most delightful piece of biography monies of introduction are gone through. that was ever penned. Boswell's book Boswell's little heart flutters a good deal, is an anomaly, an exception to all the and suddenly remembering Johnson's precedents of authorship. The author antipathy to Scotland, heightened just was a man of the most imbecile intellect. now by political circumstances, he whis- His sole excellences were a faculty of pers his friend in considerable agitation, quick observation, and a retentive me"Don't tell where I come from." From mory; and the sole excellences of his Scotland," at once cries Davies, mischie- work are such as result from these. vously. Anxious to deprecate the con- The book is a faithful portraiture of sequences of such a disclosure, Boswell his hero and the men he mingled with; blunders out, "Mr. Johnson, I do in- the most minute features are delinedeed come from Scotland, but I cannot ated; the most trivial incidents are help it," and only gets his desert for chronicled. It has the accuracy and this piece of servility, when Johnson detail of a Flemish painting. And all with a stern look retorts, That, sir, I that it has more than this, is the silliest find is what a very great many of your inanity or the most wearisome commoncountrymen cannot help." This was a place. In so far as it is not a mere hard blow, and the young Scot with all collection of notes and memoranda, a his pertness was considerably abashed. faithful transcript of Boswell's diary, At length, venturing to intrude his it is nothing and worse than nothing. opinion upon some trivial matter of All the observations that are intercomplaint Johnson thought he had spersed, as coming from the author against Garrick, he received another himself, only excite contempt for their rebuff, that fairly gave him his quietus intrinsic worthlessness, and astonishfor the evening. Sir, I have known ment at the ignorant conceit with which David Garrick longer than you have they are obtruded. And yet this is the done, and I know no right you have to most readable biography that ever was talk to me on the subject." penned. "Homer is not more deThis was an unpromising beginning, cidedly the first of heroic poets, Shakebut Boswell was not easily daunted. A spere is not more decidedly the first few days after he visited Johnson in his of dramatists, Demosthenes is not more own chamber, "the giant in his den," decidedly the first of orators, than Bosand met with a more favourable recep- well is the first of biographers. He tion. From that time their intimacy has no second. He has distanced all dates. From that time Boswell dogged his competitors so decidedly that it is the heels of Johnson like his shadow. not worth while to place them. Eclipse The friends of the latter were astonished; is first, and the rest nowhere." they could not conceive what "the From the reception of his pension to big man" found so agreeable in the the close of his life, there is little variasociety of this shallow conceited Scotch-tion in Johnson's history.

man.

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An annual

"He is a bur," was Goldsmith's journey to Lichfield and Birmingham,

propitiatory sacrifice." Indeed, his views of the Christian scheme appear to have been clearer now than ever during his life-time. We may safely believe that he died the death of a Christian. That event took place on the 13th of December, 1784, in the seventy-sixth year of his age.

an occasional visit to his Alma Mater, observed the premonitions of death whence, as well as from Trinity Col- He still doubted whether he had not lege, Dublin, he received during this failed to answer the purposes of life. period the degree of Doctor of Laws, He gave himself with more diligence and his famous tour in Scotland, are to religious duties, and his thoughts the principal events that break its and conversations appear to have been monotony. The bulk of his time was more than ever turned to the great spent in literary conversation. In this event that awaited him, and the subhe had ever delighted, and now that jects it suggested. During his last his pension had set him above author- illness he employed himself unremitship, he could indulge himself to his tingly in religious exercises and mediheart's content. Never was he more tations. There was less of gloom about in his element than when he was the closing scenes of his life than might haranguing to some gathering of dis- have been expected from his previous tinguished men and women at Streatham solicitude. He bore his pains with Park, or bearing all before him in some fortitude, and frequently expressed the vehement disputation at the Literary most satisfactory reliance on the “proClub, the nucleus of the wit, talent, and pitiatory sacrifice." "Study Dr. Clarke,” authorship of the metropolis. And he said urgently to his physician, “ and never does he appear to greater advan-read his sermons." This was astonishtage than in this species of intellectual ing, for Clarke is an Arian, and the gladiatorship. The precision, wit, elo-doctor was violently orthodox. Being quence, and sarcasm of his deliverances, consequently asked why he made so are familiar to all, and need no com- unwonted a recommendation, his reply ment. And though not unfrequently was, "Because he is the fullest on the prejudice led him astray, and passion betrayed him into unseemly violence, though sometimes he argued for the mere sake of arguing, and consciously tried to make the worse side appear the better, though he loved too well to surprise with judgments opposed to the general opinion, and possessed a spirit of opposition which tempted him to dissent from everything advanced by another, though often he was provoked without occasion, and when provoked showed no leniency to the weaknesses, and no regard to the feelings of the offender-making all these just and necessary deductions, such an amount of strong sense, practical wisdom, and shrewd discernment, couched in such happy and powerful expression, has never probably been combined in the expression of any one man. Nor should it be overlooked that the bolts of his sarcasm were generally aimed where they were merited. On the whole, good sense and modesty, frankness and virtue, escaped his censure and won his esteem; it was pertness and affectation, vice and infidelity, | that provoked his indignation, and brought down the lashes of his wit and the thunder of his eloquence. Thus the last twenty years of his life was spent. At length the inevitable event he so much dreaded gave indications of its approach. Is is painful to contemplate The unabated gloom of his apprehen

and the anxiety with which he

Such was the career of this extraordinary man, a man on the whole eminently deserving esteem and veneration. His virtues and regard for religion were conspicuous in an age of sensuality and scepticism; his failures were in great measure constitutional, or the consequences of the hardships and disappointments of his early life. Under a rough exterior he concealed a kind and sympathetic heart, and hence those who knew him best were most strongly attached to him. The amount of good, direct and indirect, which he accomplished, it would be difficult to over-estimate. The moral tone of his writings and conversation must have exerted a very beneficial influence upon his age, while the strength and independence of his character contributed much to the elevation of literature from the debasement to which it had sunk. He left the condition of literary men far better than he found it, when he commenced his career,—and the advancement was in no small degree owing to his own character and exertions.

13

FRANCESCO PETRARCA.

THERE is in the Louvre a Biblioteca Petrarchesca-a Petrarchian Library, of nine hundred volumes, illustrating the history of the poet. Never was there wrought, with all the marble of Athens, or the brass of Corinth, a nobler monument of fame.

critic might not have been so competent to judge of it. Metrical faults, no doubt, deface his African epic, but if Iscanius be excepted there is no writer of the middle ages whose verses approach it in elegance. Yet admitting every blemish in his own works, his restoration of the mouldering fragments of antiquity led to the revival of learning; he renewed the spirit of philosophy; he sought to diminish corruption in the Catholic belief; he looked backward as a poet, and forward as a prophet, and

sures, he predicted many advancements in science and thought, which could only have been foreseen by a lofty and luminous mind.

But the life of Petrarca deserves to occupy this space. His works were the pride of a proud age. Their influence was marvellous on one of the greatest intellectual movements that ever occurred. The poet's popular renown, indeed, springs from his Helicon of while he exhumed many buried treasweet sonnets; but he is celebrated among scholars-the true embalmers of the memory of genius-as the saviour of ancient learning, who bridged by his labours the torrent which was sweeping The state of literature in that period away the shining goals of time, and may be described in four words:-Perescued the priceless purity of classical dantry, Barbarism, Corruption, and literature, to be the model of all future Superstition. Historians were mere creations of the mind. Florence was chroniclers; language decayed daily; the city of his birth, but his life diffused theology was a subtle quackery; jurisits influence over all Italy. He was prudence dealt in commentated cabalnot a Tuscan, but an Italian, and if los; in philosophy Aristotle's authority he was ever hostile to any state it was was forged to countenance a hundred burto the Florentine. He had no narrow, lesques of his system; in medicine, empicivic pride. He was a mediator among ricism, and in science, astrology, usurpenemies; and his peculiar hope was to ed the seats of knowledge; and while see the return of peace, when Italians thousands bowed to this fantastic, unshould live in unison with the soft couth image in mimicry of Latin beauty of their native land, and be in and Grecian learning, beards grew patriotism what they were in art. Per-white on the chins of men who blinded haps in political actions he was moved themselves in searching for the philoby no very intelligible spirit. Originally sopher's stone! a pure republican, he was the panegyrist of an emperor; the friend of Rienzi, he submitted to the patronage of Rienzi's foes; a lover of liberty, he cultivated an attachment to the tyrannic families which were the pest of the Italian states-the Visconti among others, with their fit emblems of snakes. But though the feeling played in many variations on his nature, he was ever faithful to Italy, and with his last breath persuaded her Republics to har

Such, intellectually, was Italy when Petrarca was born. Her political condition was superior. The richest, the most commercial, the most illustrious country of Europe, it was still the battle-field of factions, and two centuries of bloodshed stained its soil. Rome and the German emperors contended for a supremacy which in either would have been an usurpation. Some populations submitted to one, some to the other, and many declared themselves independent of both, though the leaders of their reIn literature and learning he was the volt usually became traitors themselves, master-spirit of his time. Before print- and as princes exercised the despotism ing was invented he acquired a wonder- which they would not vicariously pracful erudition, which was never rusted by tise as feudal lords. The discords of pedantry. He was the lord and not the Italy, however, had partially ceased at slave of the lamp. In Latin compositions the commencement of the fourteenth he attained a purity which Erasmus flip-century, though scarcely one sovereignty pantly depreciated, though if Petrarca was undisputed.

mony.

had never written in that language, his Florence, however, enjoyed a supre