each individual there would be distressing when alone."Boswell.

In 1777, it appears, from his "Prayers and Meditations," that Johnson suffered much from a state of mind "unsettled and perplexed," and from that constitutional gloom which, together with his extreme humility and anxiety with regard to his religious state, made him contemplate himself through too dark and unfavorable a medium. It may be said of him that he "saw GOD in clouds." Certain we may be of his injustice to himself in the following lamentable paragraph, which it is painful to think came from the contrite heart of this great man, to whose labors the world is so much indebted: "When I survey my past life, I discover nothing but a barren waste of time, with some disorders of body and disturbances of mind very near to madness, which I hope He that made me will suffer to extenuate many faults, and excuse many deficiencies."-Boswell.

To Johnson, whose supreme enjoyment was the exercise of his reason, the disturbance or obscuration of that faculty was the evil most to be dreaded. Insanity, therefore, was the object of his most dismal apprehension; and he fancied himself seized by it, or approaching to it, at the very time. when he was giving proofs of a more than ordinary soundness and vigor of judgment.-Boswell.

It was observed to Dr. Johnson, that it seemed strange that he who has so often delighted his company by his lively and brilliant conversation should say he was miserable. Johnson: "Alas! it is all outside; I may be cracking my joke, and cursing the sun: Sun, how I hate thy beams!" -Boswell.

An axiom of his was that the pains and miseries incident to human life far outweighed its happiness and good. But

much may be said in Dr. Johnson's justification, supposing this notion should not meet with universal approbation, he having, it is probable, imbibed it in the early part of his life, when under the pressure of adverse fortune, and in every period of it under the still heavier pressure and more adverse influence of nature herself; for I have often heard him lament that he inherited from his father a morbid disposition both of body and of mind-an oppressive melancholy, which robbed him of the common enjoyments of life.—Miss Reynolds.

His "Prayers and Meditations" are full of indications of the deepest melancholy. He writes, "I have made no reformation; I have lived totally useless." Again, "A kind of strange oblivion has overspread me, so that I know not what has become of the last year, and perceive that incidents and intelligence pass over me without leaving any impression." A lady once said to him that she could not understand why men got drunk; she wondered how a man could find pleasure in making a beast of himself; and Johnson said, "He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man." Boswell says, in his account of their tour together in the Hebrides, "Before breakfast, Dr. Johnson came up to my room, to forbid me to mention that this was his birthday; but I told him I had done it already; at which he was displeased." And in a letter to Mrs. Thrale Johnson writes as follows: "Boswell, with some of his troublesome kindness, has informed this family and reminded me that the eighteenth of September is my birthday. The return of my birthday, if I remember it, fills me with thoughts which it seems to be the general care of humanity to escape. I can now look back upon threescoreand-four years, in which little has been done and little has been enjoyed; a life diversified by misery, spent part in the sluggishness of poverty, and part under the violence of pain, in gloomy discontent or importunate distress. But perhaps

I am better than I should have been if I had been less afflicted. With this I will try to be content." Four years after that time, Johnson and Boswell were visiting Dr. Taylor, and Boswell had again a chance to learn that his great friend did not choose to have his birthday observed. "Last night," he says, "Dr. Johnson had proposed that the crystal lustre, or chandelier, in Dr. Taylor's large room should be lighted up some time or other. Taylor said it should be lighted up next night. "That will do very well,' said I, 'for it is Dr. Johnson's birthday."" But Johnson was again displeased, and sternly said that the chandelier should not be lighted next day, that he would not permit it to be done.Editor.

FEAR OF DEATH.

WHEN we were alone, I introduced the subject of death, and endeavored to maintain that the fear of it might be got over. I told him that David Hume said to me he was no more uneasy to think he should not be after his life, than that he had not been before he began to exist. Johnson: "Sir, if he really thinks so, his perceptions are disturbed; he is mad. If he does not think so, he lies. He may tell you he holds his finger in the flame of a candle, without feeling pain; would you believe him? When he dies, he at least gives up all he has." Boswell: "Foote, sir, told me that, when he was very ill, he was not afraid to die." Johnson: "It is not true, sir. Hold a pistol to Foote's breast, or to Hume's breast, and threaten to kill them, and you'll see how they behave." Boswell: "But may we not fortify our minds for the approach of death?" Here I am sensible I was in the wrong, to bring before his view what he ever looked upon with horror; for, although when in a celestial frame of mind, in his "Vanity of Human Wishes," he has supposed death to be "kind nature's signal for retreat,"

from this state of being to "a happier seat," his thoughts upon this awful change were, in general, full of dismal apprehensions. His mind resembled the vast amphitheatre, the Coliseum at Rome. In the centre stood his judgment, which, like a mighty gladiator, combated those apprehensions that, like the wild beasts of the arena, were all around in cells, ready to be let out upon him. After a conflict, he drives them back into their dens; but, not killing them, they were still assailing him. To my question, whether we might not fortify our minds for the approach of death, he answered, in a passion, "No, sir, let it alone. It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance-it lasts so short a time." He added, with an earnest look, "A man knows it must be so, and submits. It will do him no good to whine." I attempted to continue the conversation. He was so provoked that he said, "Give us no more of this ;" and was thrown into such a state of agitation that he expressed himself in a way that alarmed and distressed me; showed an impatience that I should leave him, and when I was going away, called to me sternly, "Don't let us meet to-morrow."-Boswell.

The horror of death, which I had always observed in Dr. Johnson, appeared strong to-night. I ventured to tell him that I had been, for moments in my life, not afraid of death; therefore I could suppose another man in that state of mind for a considerable space of time. He said, "He never had a moment in which death was not terrible to him." He added that it had been observed that scarce any man dies in public but with apparent resolution, from that desire of praise which never quits us. I said, Dr. Dodd seemed willing to die, and full of hopes of happiness. "Sir," said he, "Dr. Dodd would have given both his hands and both his legs to have lived. The better a man is, the more he is afraid of death, having a clearer view of infinite purity."Boswell.

He said to Boswell, "I have made no approaches to a state which can look on death as not terrible." On another occasion he said that the whole of life was but keeping away the thoughts of death. An old friend of his at Lichfield tells that some one in a company, of which Johnson was one, vouched for the company that there was no one in it afraid of death. "Speak for yourself, sir," said Johnson; "for, indeed, I am." He held that the protraction of mere existence was a "sufficient recompense for very considerable degrees of torture."-Editor.

TORY AND HIGH-CHURCHMAN.

To such a degree of unrestrained frankness had he now accustomed me, that in the course of this evening I talked of the numerous reflections which had been thrown out against him on account of his having accepted a pension from his present Majesty. "Why, sir," said he, with a hearty laugh, "it is a mighty foolish noise that they make. I have accepted of a pension as a reward which has been thought due to my literary merit; and now that I have this pension, I am the same man in every respect that I have ever been; I retain the same principles. It is true that I cannot now curse" (smiling) "the house of Hanover; nor would it be decent for me to drink King James's health in the wine that King George gives me money to pay for. But, sir, I think that the pleasure of cursing the house of Hanover and drinking King James's health are amply overbalanced by three hundred pounds a year."

There was here, most certainly, an affectation of more Jacobitism than he really had; and, indeed, an intention of admitting for the moment, in a much greater extent than it really existed, the charge of disaffection imputed to him by the world, merely for the purpose of showing how dexterously he could repel an attack, even though he were placed