nied the utterance of these words, from a poor author to a purse-proud bookseller, made a deep impression in Johnson's favor, and secured him, perhaps, more civility and respect in his subsequent dealings with the trade than any other transaction of his life.—Anonymous (from a volume entitled "Memoirs of the Life and Writings of the late Dr. S. Johnson," London, 1785).

No man was ever more remarkable for personal courage. He had, indeed, an awful dread of death, or, rather, "of something after death;" and what rational man, who seriously thinks of quitting all that he has ever known, and going into a new and unknown state of being, can be without that dread? But his fear was from reflection, his courage natural. His fear, in that one instance, was the result of philosophical and religious consideration. He feared death; but he feared nothing else, not even what might occasion death. Many instances of his resolution may be mentioned. One day, at Mr. Beauclerk's house in the country, when two large dogs were fighting, he went up to them, and beat them till they separated. And at another time, when told of the danger there was that a gun might burst if charged with many balls, he put in six or seven and fired it off against a wall. Mr. Langton told me that when they were swimming together near Oxford, he cautioned Dr. Johnson against a pool which was reckoned particularly dangerous; upon which Johnson directly swam into it. He told me himself that one night he was attacked in the street by four men, to whom he would not yield, but kept them all at bay till the watch came up and carried both him and them to the round-house. -Boswell.

As Johnson had now very faint hopes of recovery, and as Mrs. Thrale was no longer devoted to him, it might have been supposed that he would naturally have chosen to remain in the comfortable house of his beloved wife's daugh

ter, and end his life where he began it. But there was in him an animated and lofty spirit; and however complicated diseases might depress ordinary mortals, all who saw him beheld and acknowledged the invictum animum Catonis. Such was his intellectual ardor even at this time, that he said to one friend, "Sir, I look upon every day to be lost in which I do not make a new acquaintance;" and to another, when talking of his illness, "I will be conquered; I will not capitulate."-Boswell.

Fear was, indeed, a sensation to which Mr. Johnson was an utter stranger, excepting when some sudden apprehensions seized him that he was going to die; and even then he kept all his wits about him, to express the most humble and pathetic petitions to the Almighty; and when the first paralytic stroke took his speech from him, he instantly set about composing a prayer in Latin, at once to deprecate God's mercy, to satisfy himself that his mental powers remained unimpaired, and to keep them in exercise, that they might not perish by permitted stagnation. When one day he had at my house taken tincture of antimony instead of emetic wine, he was himself the person to direct what to do for him, and managed with as much coolness and deliberation as if he had been prescribing for an indifferent person.—Mrs. Piozzi.

Johnson, with that native fortitude which, amidst all his bodily distress and mental sufferings, never forsook him, asked Dr. Brocklesby, as a man in whom he had confidence, to tell him plainly whether he could recover. "Give me," said he, "a direct answer." The doctor having first asked him if he could bear the whole truth, which way soever it might lead, and being answered that he could, declared that, in his opinion, he could not recover without a miracle. "Then," said Johnson, "I will take no more physic, not even my opiates; for I have prayed that I may render up my soul to God unclouded.”—Boswell.

INDEPENDENCE.

ONE day,* when the servant who used to be sent to school to conduct him home had not come in time, he set out by himself, though he was then so near-sighted that he was obliged to stoop down on his hands and knees to take a view of the kennel, before he ventured to step over it. His school-mistress, afraid that he might miss his way, or fall into the kennel, or be run over by a cart, followed him at some distance. He happened to turn about and perceive her. Feeling her careful attention as an insult to his manliness, he ran back to her in a rage and beat her as well as his strength would permit.-Boswell.

Mr. Bateman's lectures were so excellent, that Johnson used to come and get them at second-hand from Taylor, till his poverty being so extreme that his shoes were worn out, and his feet appeared through them, he saw that this humiliating circumstance was perceived by the Christ-church men, and he came no more. He was too proud to accept of money; and somebody having set a pair of new shoes at his door, he threw them away with indignation.†-Boswell.

He took care to guard himself against any possible suspicion that his settled principles of reverence for rank and respect for wealth were at all owing to mean or interested motives; for he asserted his own independence as a literary man. "No man," said he," who ever lived by literature has lived more independently than I have done."-Boswell.

Boswell: "Goldsmith is the better for attacks." Johnson: "Yes, sir; but he does not think so yet. When Gold

*When he was about four years old.

† At Oxford University, where Johnson was a member of Pembroke ColHis friend Taylor was a member of Christ-church College.

lege.

smith and I published each of us something at the same time, we were given to understand that we might review each other. Goldsmith was for accepting the offer. I said, 'No; set reviewers at defiance.' It was said to old Bentley, upon the attacks against him, 'Why, they'll write you down.' 'No, sir,' he replied; 'depend upon it, no man was ever written down but by himself.""-Boswell.

Dr. Watson observed that Glasgow University had fewer home students since trade increased, as learning was rather incompatible with it. Johnson: "Why, sir, as trade is now carried on by subordinate hands, men in trade have as much leisure as others; and now learning itself is a trade. A man goes to a bookseller and gets what he can. We have done with patronage. In the infancy of learning, we find some great man praised for it. This diffused it among others. When it becomes general, an author leaves the great and applies to the multitude." Boswell: "It is a shame that authors are not now better patronized." Johnson: "No, sir. If learning cannot support a man, if he must sit with his hands across till somebody feeds him, it is as to him a bad thing, and it is better as it is. With patronage, what flattery! what falsehood! While a man is in equilibrio, he throws truth among the multitude, and lets them take it as they please; in patronage, he must say what pleases his patron, and it is an equal chance whether that be truth or falsehood." Watson: "But is not the case now that, instead of flattering one person, we flatter the age?" Johnson: "No, sir. The world always lets a man tell what he thinks his own way."-Boswell.

Nothing more certainly offended Dr. Johnson than the idea of a man's faculties decaying by time. "It is not true, sir," would he say; "what a man could once do, he would always do, unless, by dint of vicious indolence, and compli ance with the nephews and nieces who crowd around an old

fellow, and help to tuck him in, till he, contented with the exchange of fame for ease, e'en resolves to let them set the pillows at his back, and gives no further proof of his existence than just to suck the jelly that prolongs it."-Mrs. Piozzi.

Johnson's connection with Chesterfield came to an eclaircissement the moment the Dictionary made its appearance. Moore, author of "The World," and the creature of this nobleman, was employed by him to sound Johnson on the subject of a dedication. Some time before Johnson had been refused admittance to his lordship. This, it was pretended, happened by the mistake of a porter, though it is pretty well known few servants take such liberties without the connivance of their masters. Johnson, who saw through all the disguises of Chesterfield's pride, never forgave the indignity. Moore, without touching on that point, expressed his hopes that Johnson would dedicate his Dictionary to Chesterfield. He received a very pointed and direct negative. "I am under obligations," said he, "to no great man; and, of all others, Chesterfield ought to know better than to think me capable of contracting myself into a dwarf, that he may be thought a giant." "You are certainly obliged to his lordship," said Moore, "for two very elegant papers in 'The World,' and all the influence of his good opinion, in favor of your work." "You seem totally unacquainted with the true state of the fact," replied Johnson. "After making a hazardous and fatiguing voyage round the literary world, I had fortunately got sight of the shore, and was coming into port with a pleasant tide and a fair wind, when my Lord Chesterfield sends out two little cockboats to tow me in. I know my Lord Chesterfield tolerably well, Mr. Moore. He may be a wit among lords, but I fancy he is no more than a lord among wits."-Anonymous (abridged; from a Memoir published in 1785).

Further to appease him, his lordship sent two persons, the