the mechanism of his language, polished as marble, cold as marble, too; in Philosophy, where he works with human nature as an anatomist, who feels that his minute examinations might be injured by any burst of feeling or eloquence; in History, where, naturally opposed to turbulence and enthusiasm, he as naturally leans toward despotism, intolerant of liberty among actors, though he wished it to be fearless and unrestrained among thinkers. No hatred of oppression burns in his pages, no yearning love of man glows there, no stirring sympathy with the restless human soul, no just appreciation of the religious instinct in directing the course of public events. A second defect was his disregard of facts, a negligence which proceeded not from an indifference to truth, for he was an ardent lover of it, nor from a 'constitutional indolence,' which is the usual account, but from his devotion to ideas.

Influence. He was a nettle, and aroused thinkers to unwonted activity.

In Philosophy, before submitting to be gored by either horn of the dilemma to which Hume had reduced it, men looked about to see if there were any possible avenue of escape. The result was the birth of two great schools of thought, the Common Sense, and the Transcendental: the first an appeal, for guidance, to the consciousness of mankind; the second, an attempt to ascertain whether we have any ideas independent of experience, ideas which may be called universal, necessary, and certain.

In Theology, he produced expansion. The foundations of Christianity were deepened and broadened. Its spirit became more liberal and enlightened.

In Ethics, he was the first to give to the utilities the aspect of a theoretical system which to-day is so extensively applied to the successful guidance of daily life, though it discovers not the farreaching light of eternity.

In Political Economy, he was the first to declare the principles of Free Trade. He told-what the politicians of his time despised, but what those of our time are teaching '- that all commodities are bought by labor, that the question for international legislation was one, not of rivalry, but of coöperation.

1 Mr. Hume is, beyond all doubt, the author of the modern doctrines which now rule the world of science.-Lord Brougham.

In History, he was the first to divert attention from the pomp of historic events to the deep under-currents which float them and reveal the living progress of the people. Moreover, the History of England, by provoking a host of controversial attacks, was the means of throwing new and important light on portions of British history.

Thus has Hume, by forcing men to doubt and inquire, rendered inestimable service to the cause of truth. The movement of civilization describes the spiral of the calculus-progressive but revolutionary. The disturbance at the outset is uncomfortable; but as the frame-work of affairs adjusts itself to the new truth, the good effects become apparent, and at length prevail.

For I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs,

And the thoughts of men are widened by the process of the suns.'

After all, his greatest service may be the incidental one of teaching human reason its weakness, of showing how the noblest fabric may be undermined by a destructive force not greater than the constructive one which has raised it. 'Man,' says Goethe, 'is not born to solve the mystery of Existence; but he must nevertheless attempt it, in order that he may learn how to keep within the limits of the knowable.'

And now, Mr. Hume, we cannot refrain from wishing that, along with your incisive intellect, you possessed more heart and soul; along with your self-reliant majesty, more reverence and trust. The noblest natures among men have been devout ones, whose hearts have been centrally dedicated, whose sympathies have gone out to the struggling and the sorrowing. Sometimes the sadness of the universe bows you; sometimes a sense of God comes to you, and changes the hue and expression of things before you; once in a while, the cloud of scepticism breaks, and you know in that vision what it is to believe in immortality: but we regret that you have not sensibilities strong enough to see the heights, nor fine enough to feel the depths, of this world mystery and grandeur. You carry in your bosom no sheaves of sunbeams, no carols of birds, nor plaintive cadence of Eolian harp. You bring no real joy to the troubled, no inspiration to the indifferent, nothing to console the suffering or to dry the mourner's tear. But we do not forget that you are a metaphysician, living in an age neither aglow with conviction nor alive to the hopes and fears of life.

SAMUEL JOHNSON.

The characteristic peculiarity of his intellect was the union of great powers with low prejudices.-Macaulay.

Biography.-Born in Litchfield, in 1709. Entered Oxford in 1728. At the expiration of three years, the financial distress of his father obliged him to quit the University without his degree. Tried to support himself by teaching in a grammar-school, but failed. At twenty-five, married a widow, fat and fifty, who had children as old as himself. As a means of subsistence, opened a boarding-school, and failed. Went to London in 1737, to earn his bread, resolved, against want, disease, and the world, to live by his pen without patronage or party; climbing, by toilsome stairs, slowly but manfully up to eminence and command. Placed above want by a royal pension in 1762. Died in 1784, having struggled from childhood against scrofula, melancholy, indolence, and the fear of insanity, and, during the greater part of his life, having passed the morning in doubt that he should have food for the afternoon.

Appearance.-Large, robust, corpulent, shabby, and slovenly, with the outward signs of a voracious appetite.

Manners.-Eccentric and boorish. In company he would retire to a window or corner, and mutter a Latin verse or a prayer. Again, he would roll his head, sway his body to and fro, stretch out, and then convulsively draw back his leg. It was his constant anxiety to go in and out of a door in a particular way. When he had gone wrong, he would go back, put himself in the proper posture, and start anew. At table, he stoops suddenly, seizes the foot of a lady, and draws off her shoe. Dinner served, he darts at the food, with eyes riveted to his plate, refusing to speak, and eating till he perspires, and the veins of his forehead stand out. Having gorged himself, he is ready for a sparring-match at debate. Why, sir!' What then, sir?' 'No, sir! You don't see your way through the question, sir!' 'Sir, I perceive you are a vile Whig!' 'My dear lady, talk no more of this; nonsense can be defended but by nonsense.' 'One thing I know, which you don't seem to know, that you are very uncivil.'

At the end of a period, in dispute, he would blow out his breath like a whale, and swallow several cups of tea. He had a trick of touching the posts as he walked, and a practice of treasuring up scraps of orange-peel. Pensioned by the king, he indulged his natural indolence, lying in bed often till mid-day and later. In a pretty drawing-room, among elegant philosophers, he would be regarded as a strange animal, into whose history people would inquire with wondering caution.

Writings.-The Rambler (1750-1752), and the Idler (17581760), attempts to revive the periodical miscellany, sunk into disrepute at the death of Addison. Sage, sensible, moral, and pious, they wanted the ease, grace, pleasantry, and variety, to make them popular. The happy sketches of prevailing manners, which contributed so much to the popularity of former essayists, found no place in his serious pages. His essays have rather the character of sermons, teaching solid and profitable truths in an earnest and impressive way. Here is an example which will give some idea of their dignified strain:

To lessen that disdain with which scholars are inclined to look on the common business of the world, and the unwillingness with which they condescend to learn what is not to be found in any system of philosophy, it may be necessary to consider, that though admiration is excited by abstruse researches and remote discoveries, yet pleasure is not given, nor affection conciliated, but by softer accomplishments, and qualities more easily communicable to those about us. He that can only converse upon questions about which only a small part of mankind has knowledge sufficient to make them curious, must lose his days in unsocial silence, and live in the crowd of life without a companion. He that can only be useful on great occasions may die without exercising his abilities, and stand a helpless spectator of a thousand vexations which fret away happiness, and which nothing is required to remove but a little dexterity of conduct and readiness of expedients.

No degree of knowledge attainable by man is able to set him above the want of hourly assistance, or to extinguish the desire of fond endearments and tender officiousness; and, therefore, no one should think it unnecessary to learn those arts by which friendship may be gained. Kindness is preserved by a constant reciprocation of benefits or interchange of pleasures; but such benefits only can be bestowed as others are capable to receive, and such pleasures only imparted as others are qualified to enjoy.'

A Dictionary of the English Language (1755); the first of the kind in English literature, and eminently successful; imperfect in its etymologies, but accurate in its definitions, and happy in its illustrative quotations. He was never able to divest himself entirely of prejudice, and a few of the definitions, which betray his personal feelings and peculiarities, are somewhat amusing. As a Tory, hating Walpole and the Whig Excise Act, he defines excise as 'a hateful tax levied upon commodities, and

adjudged, not by the common judges of property, but by wretches hired by those to whom excise is paid.' Pension is an allowance made to any one without an equivalent. In England, it is generally understood to mean pay given to a state hireling for treason to his country.' Johnson, it will be remembered, had not yet been pensioned, and it is not surprising that he should have had some compunctious visitings' at his subsequent acceptance of one. He mortally offended the Scotch by defining oats to be 'a grain which, in England, is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.' Lord Chesterfield, hoping to secure its dedication to himself, extolled it; but his favor, once sought and refused, now so tardily bestowed, was disdained, and Johnson addressed him a letter whose keen sarcasm, condensed vigor, and chiselled diction are admirably typical of the writer and his style:

'MY LORD:-I have been lately informed, by the proprietor of The World, that two papers, in which my Dictionary is recommended to the public, were written by your lordship. To be so distinguished, is an honor which, being very little accustomed to favors from the great, I know not well how to receive, or in what terms to acknowledge. When upon some slight encouragement I first visited your lordship, I was overpowered, like the rest of mankind, by the enchantment of your address; and could not forbear to wish that I might boast myself Le vainqueur du vainqueur de la terre; that I might obtain that regard for which I saw the world contending; but I found my attendance so little encouraged, that neither pride nor modesty would suffer me to continue it. When I had once addressed your lordship in public, I had exhausted all the art of pleasing which a retired and uncourtly scholar can possess. I had done all that I could; and no man is well pleased to have his all neglected, be it ever so little.

Seven years, my lord, have now passed since I waited in your outward rooms, or was repulsed from your door; during which time I have been pushing on my work through difficulties, of which it is useless to complain, and have brought it, at last, to the verge of publication, without one act of assistance, one word of encouragement, or one smile of favor. Such treatment I did not expect, for I never had a patron before.

The shepherd in Virgil grew at last acquainted with Love, and found him a native of the rocks.

Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and when he has reached the ground, encumbers him with help?

The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labors, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it. I hope it is no very cynical asperity not to confess obligations where no benefit has been received, or to be unwilling that the public should consider me as owing that to a patron which Providence has enabled me to do for myself.

Having carried on my work thus far with so little obligation to any favorer of learning, I shall not be disappointed though I should conclude it, if less be possible, with less: for I have been long wakened from that dream of hope in which I once boasted myself with so much exultation.'

Rasselas (1759), a novel written in eight nights to pay for his mother's funeral; a series of dialogues and reflections on art,