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is the variety of rhythm in his ten-syllable verse. times of Shakespere's style; but we might as well speak of the style of "Rumor with her hundred tongues." Shakespere has a multiplicity of styles, varying with the ever varying character of his themes. The Proteus of the dramatic art, he identifies himself with each of his characters in turn, passing from one to another like the same soul animating different bodies. Like a ventriloquist, he throws his voice into other men's larynxes, and makes every word appear to come from the person whose character he for the moment assumes. The movement and measure of Othello and The Tempest, Macbeth and the Midsummer Night's Dream, Lear and Coriolanus, are almost as different from each other as the rhythm of them all from that of Beaumont and Fletcher; and yet in every case the music or melody is a subtle accompaniment to the sentiment that ensouls the play. Whoever would know the exhaustless riches of our many-tongued language, its capability of expressing the daintiest delicacies and subtlest refinements of thought, as well as the grandest emotions that can thrill the human brain, should give his days and nights to the study of the myriad-souled poet. It may be doubted whether there is any inflection of harmony, any witchery of melody, from the warble of the flute and the low thrill of the flageolet to the trumpet-peal or the deep and dreadful sub-bass of the organ, which is not brought out in the familiar or the passion. ate tones of this imperial master.

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DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON.

AMUEL JOHNSON was horn at Litchfield, Sept. 18, 1709. After having fought the early battles of life in feeble. health and poverty, and without patronage, he gained a complete victory, placed himself at the head of English literature, and died in a serene and happy frame of mind on the 13th of December, 1784.

Johnson had attended school at Oxford fourteen months when his father, a bookseller, met with misfortunes in trade, thereby forcing Samuel to leave school. In his short college life, he distinguished himself by translating Pope's Messiah into Latin verse. To do Johnson justice in a brief sketch is impossible, but the plan of this book forbids more than the following summary of his work. Upon failure to found a private academy at Edial, near his native city, he determined to make authorship his profession. His first tragedy, Irene, was refused by stage managers, but his contributions to the Gentleman's Magazine were quite popular. He next wrote monthly reports of the proceedings of Parliament, taking care to give the Tories the advantage over the Whigs. In 1738, appeared his poem of London, for which Dodsley gave him ten guineas. No name was signed to this poem, but Pope made inquiries after the author, saying such a man would soon be known. In 1744, he published the Life of Savage, late editor of the Gentleman's Magazine. “This admirable specimen of biography was published anonymously, but it was known to be Johnson's."

His reputation was so well established by this time that the chief booksellers of London engaged him, for 1500 guineas, to prepare a Dictionary of the English Language. The

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work was completed in about seven years. Johnson's Dictionary became at once the standard authority in England. His Vanity of Human Wishes appeared in 1748; Irene, formerly refused, was brought out by Garrick in 1749. Johnson's other works were the Rambler, 1750-52; the Idler, 1758-60; the tale of Rasselas, 1759. The last named was written to pay a debt, and also to pay the funeral expenses of his mother, who had died at the age of ninety.

In 1765 appeared his edition of Shakspere, and in 1775 appeared his Lives of the Poets, the most interesting and valuable of his last works.

Johnson is also numbered among the great poets. Sir Walter Scott has termed his poem, The Vanity of Human Wishes, a satire, the deep and pathetic morality of which has often extracted tears from those whose eyes wander dry over pages professedly sentimental.

At the age of twenty-seven, he married Mrs. Porter, a widow who was in her forty-eighth year. In 1762, through the influence of Lord Bute, the then all-potent minister of England, a pension of £300 was settled upon Johnson. In 1773, at the age of sixty-four, he commenced his celebrated journey to the Hebrides. The greater part of the journey he performed on horseback. His narrative of his travels is one of his most interesting works. His Tory principles led him to write two pamphlets in defense of the ministry and in bitter opposition to the claims of the Americans. In the literary club, including Burke, Reynolds, Goldsmith, Gibbon, Murphy, and others, Johnson reigned supreme, the most brilliant conversationalist of his age." "In massive force of understanding, multifarious knowledge, sagacity, and moral intrepidity, no writer of the eighteenth century surpasses Dr. Samuel Johnson."

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