'But pray, Dr. Johnson, do you really think that he deserves that illustrious theatrical character, and that prodigious fame, which he has acquired?' 'Oh, Sir,' said he, 'he deserves every thing that he has acquired, for having seized the very soul of Shakspeare; for having embodied it in himself; and for having expanded its glory over the world'.' I was not slow in communicating to Garrick the answer of the Delphic oracle. The tear started in his eye-'Oh! Stockdale,' said he, ' such a praise from such a man!—this atones for all that has passed.' I called on Dr. Johnson one morning, when Mrs. Williams, the blind lady, was conversing with him. She was telling him where she had dined the day before. 'There were several gentlemen there,' said she, 'and when some of them came to the tea-table, I found that there had been a good deal of hard drinking.' She closed this observation with a common and trite moral reflection; which, indeed, is very ill-founded, and does great injustice to animals-'I wonder what pleasure men can take in making beasts of themselves!' 'I wonder, Madam,' replied the Doctor, 'that you have not penetration enough to see the strong inducement to this excess; for he who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man 2.' Mrs. Bruce, an old Scotch lady, the widow of Captain Bruce, who had been for many years an officer in the Russian service, drank tea with me one afternoon at my lodgings in Bolt Court, when Johnson was one of the company. She spoke very broad Scotch; and this alarmed me for her present social situation. As we were conversing on a subject in which we were interested, she interrupted us by saying that we should give Dr. Johnson an opportunity of favouring the company with his sentiments. By this absurd interruption the Doctor was naturally far less communicative. That undaunted dame was, however, determined to make him speak if it was possible. 'Dr. Johnson,' said she, 'you tell us, in your Dictionary, that in England oats are given to horses; but that in Scotland they support the people. Now, Sir, I can assure you, that in Scotland we give oats to our horses, as well as you do to yours in England.' I almost trembled for the widow of the Russian hero; I never saw a more contemptuous leer than that which Johnson threw at Mrs. Bruce: however, he deigned her an answer, I am very glad, Madam, to find that you treat your horses as well as you treat yourselves.' I was delivered from my panic, and I wondered that she was so gently set down. Soon after I had entered on my charge as domestic tutor to my Lord Craven's son I called on Dr. Johnson. 'Well (said he) how do you like your place?' On my hesitating to answer, or on my answer which expressed not much love of my situation, he added the following words of consolation: You must expect insolence.' I 'Oats. A grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.' 'The sarcastic Jew in Richard of Devizes' History of Richard I says Oxford barely keeps its clerks from starving, Exeter gives the same grain to men and horses.' C. W. Boase's Oxford, p. 65. Hector told Boswell that Johnson, in his boyhood, 'used to have oatmeal porridge for breakfast.' Morrison Autographs, 2nd series,; i. 368. A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON BY THOMAS TYERS1 WHEN Charles the Second was informed of the death of Cowley, he pronounced, 'that he had not left a better man behind him in England 2.' It may be affirmed with truth, that this was the case when Dr. Johnson breathed his last. Those who observed his declining state of health during the last winter, and heard his complaints, of painful days and sleepless nights, for which he took large quantities of opium 3, had no reason to expect that he could survive another season of frost and snow. I 1 From the Gentleman's Magazine, December, 1784. The gentleman whom he thus familiarly mentioned [as Tom Tyers] was Mr. Thomas Tyers, son of Mr. Jonathan Tyers, the founder of that excellent place of publick amusement, Vauxhall Gardens. Mr. Thomas Tyers was bred to the law; but having a handsome fortune, vivacity of temper, and eccentricity of mind, he could not confine himself to the regularity of practice. He therefore ran about the world with a pleasant carelessness, amusing everybody by his desultory conversation. He abounded in anecdote, but was not sufficiently attentive to : His constitution was totally broken, and no art of the physician or surgeon could protract his existence beyond the 13th of December. When he was opened, one of his kidneys was found decayed. He never complained of disorder in that region; and probably it was not the immediate cause of his dissolution. It might be thought that so strong and muscular a body might have lasted many years longer. For Johnson drank nothing but water, and lemonade (by way of indulgence), for many years, almost uninterruptedly, without the taste of any fermented liquor and he was often abstinent from animal food1, and kept down feverish symptoms by dietetic management. Of Addison and Pope he used to observe, perhaps to remind himself, that they ate and drank too much, and thus shortened their days2. It was thought by many, who dined at the same table, that he had too great an appetite 3. This might now and then be the case, but not till he had subdued his enemy by famine. But his bulk seemed to require now and then to be repaired by kitchen physic. To great old age not one in a thousand arrives. How few were the years of Johnson in comparison of those of Jenkins and Parr! But perhaps Johnson had more of life, by his intenseness of living. Most people die of disease. He was all his life preparing himself for death: but particularly in the last stage of his asthma and dropsy. Take care of your soul-don't live such a life as I have done-don't let your business or dissipation make you neglect your sabbath'-were now his constant inculcations 5. Private and publick prayer, when his visitors were his audience, were his constant exercises. He cannot be said to have been weary of the weight of existence, for he ' declared, that to prolong it only for one year, but not for the comfortless sensations he had lately felt, he would suffer the amputation of a limb1. He was willing to endure positive pain for possible pleasure. But he had no expectation that nature could last much longer. And therefore, for his last week, he undoubtedly abandoned every hope of his recovery or duration, and committed his soul to God. Whether he felt the instant stroke of death, and met the king of terrors face to face, cannot be known for 'death and the sun cannot be looked upon,' says Rochefoucault 2. But the writer of this has reason to imagine that when he thought he had made his peace with his Maker, he had nothing to fear 3. He has talked of submitting to a violent death, in a good cause, without apprehensions. On one of the last visits from his surgeon, who on performing the puncture on his legs, had assured him that he was better, he declared, 'he felt himself not so, and that he did not desire to be treated like a woman or a child, for that he had made up his mind.' He had travelled through the vale of this world for more than seventy-five years. It probably was a wilderness to him for more than half his time. But he was in the possession of rest and comfort and plenty, for the last twenty years. Yet the blessings of fortune and reputation could not compensate to him the want of health, which pursued him through his pilgrimage on earth. Post equitem sedet atra cura. 'For when we mount the flying steed, rence of this, because I believe it has been frequently practised on myself.' Life, iv. 306. 5 It was in 1762 that his pension was given him, and in 1765 that his friendship with the Thrales began. His 'rest and comfort' were greatly marred by Mr. Thrale's death in 1781, and by the estrangement from Mrs. Thrale which soon followed. His feeling of solitude was increased by the death of Levett in 1782, and of Miss Williams in 1783. "And when he mounts,' &c. FRANCIS. HORACE, Odes, iii. 1, 36. Of |