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INDEX TO VOL. X. OF LITTELL'S LIVING AGE.

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LITTELL'S LIVING AGE.

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From the New Quarterly Review.

Men of Letters of the time of George the Third.
By LORD BROUGHAM. London: Colburn, 1846.

tunate class, an usher at a school, a walk of life "Lobo's History of Abyshe quitted in disgust. sinia" is among his early literary works: it is a translation. In 1734, after quitting this employ, We are again indebted to the kindness of Lord he marries a widow, a person of no personal recBrougham for the proof-sheets of the work before ommendations, but one of more than ordinary menus. It commences with the life of Dr. Johnson. tal powers, and one who succeeded in obtaining No greater life does the period of George the complete rule over his heart and affections for sixThird contain; and, whether viewed as moralist, teen years, and after whose decease he ever kept poet, critic, biographer, or lexicographer, Johnson the day of her death as a fast, and offered up is the most distinguished man of his day. Many prayers for her soul. We have witnessed a singumay hesitate to assign him the second of these lar adherence to this habit of praying for the dead wreaths; but however slight in quantity, his poe-in many exalted minds. We trust they were personally benefited by it; but the souls of the dead are fixed in the bodements of glory or gloom, from which no prayer can rescue.

ously expressed his admiration of the "London." This period was, however, one of fearful struggle with him for the means of livelihood, as the correspondence with Cave sadly indicates. Johnson impransus,' was the signature to one letter, Fra Paolo." The while he was translating

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try has in it a pith and vigor that well indicates to what points he had the power to ascend, had not the stern realities of existence destroyed the imaIn the spring of 1737 Johnson came to London, ginative, and compelled him to fix his attention on the real and practical objects in which lay his and commenced a literary life. Amid a mass of bread. Few things affect the mind more than the other matters he published his "London" and desolation of poverty that visited most of the illus-"The Vanity of Human Wishes." Pope genertrious wits of that period: from it the Titan of the age was not exempt; and this moral and beneficent Prometheus, while pouring consolation to others, was heart-devoured by the vulture of care and anxiety preying on the immortal liver. John-" son was born on the 18th of September, 1709, at Lichfield. His father was a bookseller. After a story of the "Rasselas," written in the evenings somewhat desultory education, he entered, at nine-of the week of his mother's death, to defray her teen years of age, Pembroke College, Oxford. funeral expenses and debts-that sacrifice to filial While there he was in great pecuniary difficulty, duty, which God remembered well, produced the and ultimately left it without a degree, though he sad and suffering son only one hundred pounds! continued to the close of life to honor his Alma The terrible affliction of his life preying on him Mater, and spent many of his happiest days in col- with the deeper affection of the heart. We have lege society. It must, however, be noted, that to direct the attention of our readers to the beautiJohnson never assumed the title of Doctor, which ful notice Lord Brougham has taken of this affection, was tardily bestowed upon him after the publica- and the comparison of an analogous instance at p. 16. "Great wits to madness sure are near allied, tion of his dictionary, but wrote himself, on his card," Mr. Johnson" to the last.

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And small partitions do their bounds divide," That morbid, or rather morbific, affection that at times superinduced a torpor of faculties, began at is too true in the morbid tendency remarkable in an early period of even his college life; and this Collins, Johnson, and Newton. Among the contrigiant in intellect always labored under the fearful butions of Johnson to the Gentleman's Magazine," impression that he should become insane. It is were the debates in parliament. Johnson never more than probable, that the religious tendency of designed that these should be considered as actual Johnson's mind alone prevented him from suicide; reports of the proceedings in the house, but many for religion in a strong mind produces that requisite persons have viewed them in that light. The acbalance of the feelings that is essential to the right quaintance with Savage during his first five years use of them, subduing the intellectual and imagin- in London, was in all respects unfortunate for ative within due limits, and educing the moral, re- Johnson. Few, however, can do other than symLaw's Serious pathize with the generous defence of Savage when flective, and spiritual faculties. Call to a Holy Life," (a work the writer has found dead, or feel other than astonished at the daring of admirable influence, notwithstanding its quaint-attack on his unfeeling mother. Lady Macclesfield ness,) has the honor of convincing the judgment was seventy years of age when the life of Savage of Johnson of the necessity for religion. He came to it to scoff, and remained to pray. It is not every book that brings a Johnson to his knees. The extent of Johnson's classical acquirements as a Latin versifier was certainly not equal to Milton's; but the suffrage of Pope on this question weighs with us but triflingly, since the brilliant bard knew but indifferently either Greek or Latin in a critical sense. Johnson became at first one of that unfor1

CXII.

LIVING AGE.

VOL. X.

appeared, and the chief scandal of that life had been fifty years previous; so that we fully concur with Lord Brougham, that the escape of Johnson from action for libel is somewhat marvellous. The aged mother was therefore probably too conscious of the truth, if not of all, of much, that Johnson had written; still so aged a woman is not the light in which, from that life, we are prepared to regard. Savage's mother.

The miscellaneous character of Johnson's labors, | reputed to have been practised on him relative to as enumerated by Lord Brougham, is quite astound- the disposal of her property, Johnson would probaing during the twenty-five years of his London life, bly have approved much less: but surely he could but we doubt not is far below the truth. Yet how not have loved Mrs. Thrale, to which cause Lord inadequate the remuneration. "The Vanity of Brougham, and we own with some appearance of Human Wishes" produced him fifteen guineas! justice, appears to have assigned his irate feelings The "Irene" failed from want of dramatic in- on her marriage with Piozzi. But we entertain terest; and it is curious to see Johnson and Gold- little doubt that Madame Piozzi continued to sink smith both experiencing the vanity of dress in no lower and lower in the scale of society by her moderate degree. The author of " Irene," Sam- marriage, and at length found herself almost enuel Johnson, in a scarlet and gold-laced waistcoat tirely surrounded by mimes and musicians. We and gold-laced hat, fancying himself induing the are far from insinuating that some of the highest fitting costume for a dramatic author. The minds of our era are not to be found among these; "Rambler" appeared in 1750 and 1751. It will but the general class is unmixedly bad and frivolive in some of its papers while the language lous, and mere pretenders to intellectuality. The lasts. The "Idler" saw the light in 1758 and life of Johnson grew more pleasant and conven1759. They were nearly all Johnson's own pa- tional during his latter years, and tours in various pers, unsupported, as Addison was in his "Specta- parts enabled him to obtain deeper insight into tor," by numerous friends. He announced the mankind, which the "Rasselas" and many other Dictionary in 1747. His dispute with Lord Ches- of his works fail to exhibit. In 1783, when 74, terfield at its outset is not favorable to Johnson's he suffered from a paralytic stroke. Under amenity of disposition, a faculty in which he did this affliction he was still himself in a wonderful not abound; nor if the story of a small pecuniary degree. Conscious of the blow, from a confusion gift from the earl be true, which he neglected and indistinctness in his head for half a minute, he to acknowledge, in all respects to his seldom prayed for the preservation of his faculties, and impeached veracity. The stipulated price was then turned his devotions into Latin verse, to see £1575; but the expenses of amanuenses for a that he was equal to an effort of order. How long period of time, left him but a small gainer similar to the death of Wollaston, who, hearing by it. his friends speak of him as dead, motioned for a pencil, and continued to mark strokes on the paper fainter and fainter, until he expired! He recovered from the immediate effects of this first blow, but did not get his speech until the second day. For a year he remained in a weakly state, but not, however, without seeing his friends, and going out at times, but died on the 18th December, 1784, "having suffered," says Lord B., " far less from apprehension of the event than his former habit of regarding it with an extreme horror might have led us to expect." The following observations of Lord Brougham on his understanding are as sound as comprehensive :

In 1759 he lost his mother; in 1752 his wife. He then entered on that singular line of conventional existence with Miss Williams, Mrs. Desmoulines, and Mr. Levett, an apothecary, all of whom were materially aided by his benevolence, and the second only survived Johnson. His lines on his humble companion, Levett, show both affection and imagination. Johnson had struggled on unstained by any act of meanness, subserviency, or dishonesty to fifty-four years of age. At this period Lord Bute incurred the rancor of the "North Briton" to no small extent, by conferring on the first of English lexicographers a pension from the crown of £300 per annum. How fear- "The prevailing character of his understanding ful an influence does party exercise! Men like was the capacity of taking a clear view of any Wilkes and Churchill grudging the veteran John- subject presented to it, a determination to ascertain son this £300 per annum, which, given earlier, the object of search, and a power of swiftly perhad enriched England with many a noble and ma- ceiving it. His sound sense made him pursue tured production, and enabled Johnson to write steadily what he saw was worth the pursuit, something nearer to the perfect model of an En-piercing at once the husk to reach the kernel, reglish dictionary. Wilkes did not fail to turn upon jecting the dross which men's errors and defects him the full force of his own definitions of a pen- of perspicacity or infirmity of judgment had spread sioner-" a slave of state paid to obey a master,' over the ore, and rejecting it without ever being and a pension," pay, given to a state hireling for tempted by its superficial and worthless hues to treason to his country." Both are as erroneous regard it with any tolerance. Had he been as and prejudiced as possible, and certainly conduce knowing as he was acute, had his vision been as in no respect to the credit of the writer of a dic- extensive as it was clear within narrow limits, he tionary, who ought to be unimpassioned. It is to would only have gained by this resolute determius no sufficient answer to say, that the twenty-two nation not to be duped, and would not have been years of his life that followed after the grant of the led into one kind of error by his fear of falling into pension did not produce the same relative portion another. But it must be allowed, that even in his of high literary performance with the preceding most severe judgments he was far oftener right twenty-five. Johnson had worked too hard to than wrong; and that on all ordinary questions, work long; his malady, too, gained on him. The both of opinion and of conduct, there were few "Lives of the Poets," however, his master-piece, men whom it was more hopeless to attempt dewas produced, and over this period his two pam-ceiving, either by inaccurate observation, by unrephlets, "Taxation no Tyranny," and "On the Falkland Isles." In 1765 he commenced his intimacy with Mrs. Thrale. The circumstances of this intimacy, and the marriage with Piozzi of this 'lady, are not dwelt upon by Lord Brougham with the same degree of bitterness that many persons have evinced. Of the character of Mrs. Piozzi and of her subsequent passion, we presume we must call it, for Conway, the actor, and of the deception

flecting appeals to the authority, whether of great names or of great numbers, by cherished prepossessions little examined, or by all the various forms which the cant of custom or of sentiment is wont to assume. Out of this natural bent of his understanding arose as naturally the constant habit of referring all matters, whether for argument or for opinion, to the decision of plain common sense. His reasonings were short; his topics were homely;

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