Chapter IV (3)

The Oxford of that day suited Jeffrey ill. It suited few people well who cared for any thing but cards and claret. Southey, who came just after him, tells us that the Greek he took there he left there, nor ever passed such unprofitable months; and Lord Malmesbury, who had been there but a little time before him, wonders how it was that so many men should make their way in the world creditably, after leaving a place that taught nothing but idleness and drunkenness. But Jeffrey was not long exposed to its temptations. He left after the brief residence of a single term; and what in after life he remembered most vividly in connection with it, seems to have been the twelve days' hard traveling between Edinburgh and London, which preceded his entrance at Queen's. Some seventy years before, another Scotch lad, on his way to become yet more famous in literature and law, had taken nearly as many weeks to perform the same journey; but, between the schooldays of Mansfield and of Jeffrey, the world had not been resting.

It was enacting its greatest modern incident, the first French Revolution, when the young Scotch student returned to Edinburgh and changed his College gown for that of the advocate. Scott had the start of him in the Court of Session by two years, and had become rather active and distinguished in the Speculative Society before Jeffrey joined it. When the latter, then a lad of nineteen, was introduced (one evening in 1791), he observed a heavy-looking young man officiating as secretary, who sat solemnly at the bottom of the table in a huge woolen night-cap, and who, before the business of the night began, rose from his chair, and, with imperturbable gravity seated on as much of his face as was discernible from the wrappings of the "portentous machine" that enveloped it, apologized for having left home with a bad toothache. This was his quondam schoolfellow Scott. Perhaps Jeffrey was pleased with the mingled enthusiasm for the speculative, and regard for the practical, implied in the woolen nightcap; or perhaps he was interested by the Essay on Ballads which the hero of the nightcap read in the course of the evening: but before he left the meeting he sought an introduction to Mr. Walter Scott, and they were very intimate for many years afterward.

The Speculative Society dealt with the usual subjects of elocution and debate prevalent in similar places then and since; such as, whether there ought to be an Established Religion, and whether the Execution of Charles I. was justifiable, and if Ossian's poems were authentic? It was not a fraternity of speculators by any means of an alarming or dangerous sort. John Allen and his friends, at this very time, were spouting forth active sympathy for French Republicanism at Fortune's Tavern under immediate and watchful superintendence of the Police; James Mackintosh was parading the streets with Horne Tooke's colors in his hat; James Montgomery was expiating in York jail his exulting ballad on the fall of the Bastile; and Southey and Coleridge, in despair of old England, had completed the arrangements of their youthful colony for a community of property, and proscription of every thing selfish, on the banks of the Susquehanna; but the speculative orators rarely probed the sores of the body politic deeper than an inquiry into the practical advantages of belief in a future state? and whether it was for the interest of Britain to maintain the balance of Europe? or if knowledge could be too much disseminated among the lower ranks of the people?

In short, nothing of the extravagance of the time, on either side, is associable with the outset of Jeffrey's career. As little does he seem to have been influenced, on the one hand, by the democratic foray of some two hundred convention delegates into Edinburgh in 1792, as, on the other, by the prominence of his father's name to a protest of frantic high-tory defiance; and he was justified, not many years since, in referring with pride to the fact that, at the opening of his public life, his view of the character of the first French revolution, and of its probable influence on other countries, had been such as to require little modification during the whole of his subsequent career. The precision and accuracy of his judgment had begun to show itself thus early. At the crude young Jacobins, so soon to ripen into Quarterly Reviewers, who were just now coquetting with Mary Woolstonecraft, or making love to the ghost of Madame Roland, or branding as worthy of the bowstring the tyrannical enormities of Mr. Pitt, he could afford to laugh from the first. From the very first he had the strongest liberal tendencies, but restrained them so wisely that he could cultivate them well.

He joined the band of youths who then sat at the feet of Dugald Stewart, and whose first incentive to distinction in the more difficult paths of knowledge, as well as their almost universal adoption of the liberal school of politics, are in some degree attributable to the teaching of that distinguished man. Among them were Brougham and Homer, who had played together from boyhood in Edinburgh streets, had joined the Speculative on the same evening six years after Jeffrey (who in Brougham soon found a sharp opponent on colonial and other matters), and were still fast friends. Jeffrey's father, raised to a deputy clerk of session, now lived on a third or fourth flat in Buchanan's Court in the Lawn Market, where the worthy old gentleman kept two women servants and a man at livery; but where the furniture does not seem to have been of the soundest. This fact his son used to illustrate by an anecdote of the old gentleman eagerly setting to at a favorite dinner one day, with the two corners of the table cloth tied round his neck to protect his immense professional frills, when the leg of his chair gave way, and he tumbled back on the floor with all the dishes, sauces, and viands a-top of him. Father and son lived here together, till the latter took for his first wife the daughter of the Professor of Hebrew in the University of St. Andrew, and moved to an upper story in another part of town. He had been called to the bar in 1794, and was married eight years afterward. He had not meanwhile obtained much practice, and the elevation implied in removal to an upper flat is not of the kind that a young Benedict covets. But distinction of another kind was at length at hand.

One day early in 1802, "in the eighth or ninth story or flat in Buccleugh Place, the elevated residence of the then Mr. Jeffrey," Mr. Jeffrey had received a visit from Horner and Sydney Smith, when Sydney, at this time a young English curate temporarily resident in Edinburgh, preaching, teaching, and joking with a flow of wit, humanity, and sense that fascinated every body, started the notion of the Edinburgh Review. The two Scotchmen at once voted the Englishman its editor, and the notion was communicated to John Archibald Murray (Lord Advocate after Jeffrey, long years afterward), John Allen (then lecturing on medical subjects at the University, but who went abroad before he could render any essential service), and Alexander Hamilton (afterward Sanscrit professor at Haileybury). This was the first council; but it was extended, after a few days, till the two Thomsons (John and Thomas, the physician and the advocate), Thomas Brown (who succeeded to Dugald Stewart's chair), and Henry Brougham, were admitted to the deliberations. Horner's quondam playfellow was an ally too potent to be obtained without trouble; and, even thus early, had not a few characteristics in common with the Roman statesman and orator whom it was his greatest ambition in after life to resemble, and of whom Shakspeare has told us that he never followed any thing that other men began.

"You remember how cheerfully Brougham approved of our plan at first," wrote Jeffrey to Horner, in April, in the thick of anxious preparations for the start, "and agreed to give us an article or two without hesitation. Three or four days ago I proposed two or three books that I thought would suit him; when he answered with perfect good humor, that he had changed his view of our plan a little, and rather thought now that he should decline to have any connection with it." This little coquetry was nevertheless overcome; and before the next six months were over, Brougham had become an efficient and zealous member of the band.

It is curious to see how the project hung fire at first. Jeffrey had nearly finished four articles, Horner had partly written four, and more than half the number was printed; and yet well-nigh the other half had still to be written. The memorable fasciculus at last appeared in November, after a somewhat tedious gestation of nearly ten months; having been subject to what Jeffrey calls so "miserable a state of backwardness" and so many "symptoms of despondency," that Constable had to delay the publication some weeks beyond the day first fixed. Yet as early as April had Sydney Smith completed more than half of what he contributed, while nobody else had put pen to paper; and shortly after the number appeared, he was probably not sorry to be summoned, with his easy pen and his cheerful wit, to London, and to abandon the cares of editorship to Jeffrey.

No other choice could have been made. The first number settled the point. It is easy to discover that Jeffrey's estimation in Edinburgh had not, up to this time, been in any just proportion to his powers; and that, even with those who knew him best, his playful and sportive fancy sparkled too much to the surface of his talk to let them see the grave, deep currents that ran underneath. Every one now read with surprise the articles attributed to him. Sydney had yielded him the place of honor, and he had vindicated his right to it. He had thrown out a new and forcible style of criticism, with a fearless, unmisgiving, and unhesitating courage. Objectors might doubt or cavil at the opinions expressed; but the various and comprehensive knowledge, the subtle, argumentative genius the brilliant and definite expression, there was no disputing or denying. A fresh, and startling power was about to make itself felt in literature.

"Jeffrey," said his most generous fellow laborer, a few days after the Review appeared, "is the person who will derive most honor from this publication, as his articles in this number are generally known, and are incomparably the best; I have received the greater pleasure from this circumstance, because the genius of that little man has remained almost unknown to all but his most intimate acquaintances. His manner is not at first pleasing; what is worse, it is of that cast which almost irresistibly impresses upon strangers the idea of levity and superficial talents. Yet there is not any man, whose real character is so much the reverse; he has, indeed, a very sportive and playful fancy, but it is accompanied with an extensive and varied information, with a readiness of apprehension almost intuitive, with judicious and calm discernment, with a profound and penetrating understanding." This confident passage from a private journal of the 20th November, 1802 may stand as a remarkable monument of the prescience of Francis Horner.

Yet it was also the opinion of this candid and sagacious man that he and his fellows had not gained much character by that first number of the Review. As a set-off to the talents exhibited, he spoke of the severity--of what, in some of the papers, might be called the scurrility--as having given general dissatisfaction; and he predicted that they would have to soften their tone, and be more indulgent to folly and bad taste. Perhaps it is hardly thus that the objection should have been expressed. It is now, after the lapse of nearly half a century, admitted on all hands that the tone adopted by these young Edinburgh reviewers was in some respects extremely indiscreet; and that it was not simply folly and bad taste, but originality and genius, that had the right to more indulgence at their hands. When Lord Jeffrey lately collected Mr. Jeffrey's critical articles, he silently dropped those very specimens of his power which by their boldness of view, severity of remark, and vivacity of expression, would still as of old have attracted the greatest notice; and preferred to connect with his name, in the regard of such as might hereafter take interest in his writings, only those papers which, by enforcing what appeared to him just principles and useful opinions, he hoped might have a tendency to make men happier and better. Somebody said by way of compliment of the early days of the Scotch Review, that it made reviewing more respectable than authorship; and the remark, though essentially the reverse of a compliment, exhibits with tolerable accuracy the general design of the work at its outset. Its ardent young reviewers took a somewhat too ambitious stand above the literature they criticised. "To all of us," Horner ingenuously confessed, "it is only matter of temporary amusement and subordinate occupation."

Something of the same notion was in Scott's thoughts when, smarting from a severe but not unjust or ungenerous review of Marmion, he said that Jeffrey loved to see imagination best when it is bitted and managed, and ridden upon the _grand pas_. He did not make sufficient allowance for starts and sallies and bounds, when Pegasus was beautiful to behold, though sometimes perilous to his rider. He would have had control of horse as well as rider, Scott complained, and made himself master of the menage to both. But on the other hand this was often very possible; and nothing could then be conceived more charming than the earnest, playful, delightful way in which his comments adorned and enriched the poets he admired. Hogarth is not happier in Charles Lamb's company, than is the homely vigor and genius of Crabbe under Jeffrey's friendly leading; he returned fancy for fancy to Moore's exuberance, and sparkled with a wit as keen; he "tamed his wild heart" to the loving thoughtfulness of Rogers, his scholarly enthusiasm, his pure and vivid pictures; with the fiery energy and passionate exuberance of Byron, his bright, courageous spirit broke into earnest sympathy; for the clear and stirring strains of Campbell he had an ever lively and liberal response; and Scott, in the midst of many temptations to the exercise of severity never ceased to awaken the romance and generosity of his nature.

His own idea of the more grave critical claims put forth by him in his early days, found expression in later life. He had constantly endeavored, he said, to combine ethical precepts with literary criticism. He had earnestly sought to impress his readers with a sense, both of the close connection between sound intellectual attainments, and the higher elements of duty and enjoyment; and of the just and ultimate subordination of the former to the latter. Nor without good reason did he take this praise to himself. The taste which Dugald Stewart had implanted in him, governed him more than any other at the outset of his career; and may often have contributed not a little, though quite unconsciously, to lift the aspiring young metaphysician somewhat too ambitiously above the level of the luckless author summoned to his judgment seat. Before the third year of the review had opened, he had broken a spear in the lists of metaphysical philosophy even with his old tutor, and with Jeremy Bentham, both in the maturity of their fame; he had assailed, with equal gallantry, the opposite errors of Priestley and Reid; and, not many years later, he invited his friend Alison to a friendly contest, from which the fancies of that amiable man came out dulled by a superior brightness, by more lively, varied, and animated conceptions of beauty, and by a style which recommended a more than Scotch soberness of doctrine with a more than French vivacity of expression.

For it is to be said of Jeffrey, that when he opposed himself to enthusiasm, he did so in the spirit of an enthusiast; and that this had a tendency to correct such critical mistakes as he may occasionally have committed. And as of him, so of his Review. In professing to go deeply into the _principles_ on which its judgments were to be rested, as well as to take large and original views of all the important question to which those works might relate--it substantially succeeded, as Jeffrey presumed to think it had done, in familiarizing the public mind with higher speculations, and sounder and larger views of the great objects of human pursuit; as well as in permanently raising the standard, and increasing the influence, of all such occasional writings far beyond the limits of Great Britain.

Nor let it be forgotten that the system on which Jeffrey established relations between his writers and publishers has been of the highest value as a precedent in such matters, and has protected the independence and dignity of a later race of reviewers. He would never receive an unpaid-for contribution. He declined to make it the interest of the proprietors to prefer a certain class of contributors. The payment was ten guineas a sheet at first, and rose gradually to double that sum, with increase on special occasions; and even when rank or other circumstances made remuneration a matter of perfect indifference, Jeffrey insisted that it should nevertheless be received. The Czar Peter, when working in the trenches, he was wont to say, received pay as a common soldier. Another principle which he rigidly carried out, was that of a thorough independence of publishing interests. The Edinburgh Review was never made in any manner tributary to particular bookselling schemes. It assailed or supported with equal vehemence or heartiness the productions of Albemarle-street and Paternoster-row. "I never asked such a thing of him but once," said the late Mr. Constable, describing an attempt to obtain a favorable notice from his obdurate editor, "and I assure you the result was no encouragement to repeat such petitions." The book was Scott's edition of Swift; and the result one of the bitterest attacks on the popularity of Swift, in one of Jeffrey's most masterly criticisms.

He was the better able thus to carry his point, because against more potent influences he had already taken a decisive stand. It was not till six years after the Review was started that Scott remonstrated with Jeffrey on the virulence of its party politics. But much earlier even than this, the principal proprietors had made the same complaint; had pushed their objections to the contemplation of Jeffrey's surrender of the editorship; and had opened negotiations with writers known to be bitterly opposed to him. To his honor, Southey declined these overtures, and advised a compromise of the dispute. Some of the leading Whigs themselves were discontented, and Horner had appealed to him from the library of Holland House. Nevertheless, Jeffrey stood firm. He carried the day against Paternoster-row, and unassailably established the all-important principle of a perfect independence of his publishers' control. He stood as resolute against his friend Scott; protesting that on one leg, and the weakest, the Review could not and should not stand, for that its _right leg_ he knew to be politics. To Horner he replied, by carrying the war into the Holland House country with inimitable spirit and cogency. "Do, for Heaven's sake, let your Whigs do something popular and effective this session. Don't you see the nation is now divided into two, and only two parties; and that _between_ these stand the Whigs, utterly inefficient, and incapable of ever becoming efficient, if they will still maintain themselves at an equal distance from both. You must lay aside a great part of your aristocratic feelings, and side with the most respectable and sane of the democrats."

The vigorous wisdom of the advice was amply proved by subsequent events, and its courage nobody will doubt who knows any thing of what Scotland was at the time. In office, if not in intellect, the Tories were supreme. A single one of the Dundases named the sixteen Scots peers, and forty-three of the Scots commoners; nor was it an impossible farce, that the sheriff of a county should be the only freeholder present at the election of a member to represent it in Parliament, should as freeholder vote himself chairman, should as chairman receive the oaths and the writ for himself as sheriff, should as chairman and sheriff sign them, should propose himself as candidate, declare himself elected, dictate and sign the minutes of election, make the necessary indenture between the various parties represented solely by himself, transmit it to the Crown-office, and take his seat by the same night's mail to vote with Mr. Addington! We must recollect such things, when we would really understand the services of such men as Jeffrey. We must remember the evil and injustice he so strenuously labored to remove, and the cost at which his labor was given. We must bear in mind that he had to face day by day, in the exercise of his profession, the very men most interested in the abuses actively assailed, and keenly resolved, as far as possible, to disturb and discredit their assailant. "Oh, Mr. Smith," said Lord Stowell to Sydney, "you would have been a much richer man if you had come over to us!" This was in effect the sort of thing said to Jeffrey daily in the Court of Session, and disregarded with generous scorn. What it is to an advocate to be on the deaf side of "the ear of the Court," none but an advocate can know; and this, with Jeffrey, was the twenty-five years' penalty imposed upon him for desiring to see the Catholics emancipated, the consciences of dissenters relieved, the barbarism of jurisprudence mitigated, and the trade in human souls abolished.

The Scotch Tories died hard. Worsted in fair fight they resorted to foul; and among the publications avowedly established for personal slander of their adversaries, a pre-eminence so infamous was obtained by the Beacon, that it disgraced the cause irretrievably. Against this malignant libeler Jeffrey rose in the Court of Session again and again, and the result of its last prosecution showed the power of the party represented by it thoroughly broken. The successful advocate, at length triumphant even in that Court over the memory of his talents and virtues elsewhere, had now forced himself into the front rank of his profession; and they who listened to his advocacy found it even more marvelous than his criticism, for power, versatility, and variety. Such rapidity yet precision of thought, such volubility yet clearness of utterance, left all competitors behind. Hardly any subject could be so indifferent or uninviting, that this teeming and fertile intellect did not surround it with a thousand graces of allusion, illustration, and fanciful expression. He might have suggested Butler's hero,

"--who could not ope
His mouth but out there flew a trope,"

with the difference that each trope flew to its proper mark, each fancy found its place in the dazzling profusion, and he could at all times, with a charming and instinctive ease, put the nicest restraints and checks on his glowing velocity of declamation. A worthy Glasgow baillie, smarting under an adverse verdict obtained by these facilities of speech, could find nothing so bitter to advance against the speaker as a calculation made with the help of Johnson's Dictionary, to the effect that Mr. Jeffrey, in the course of a few hours, had spoken the whole English language twice over!

But the Glasgow baillie made little impression on his fellow citizens; and from Glasgow came the first public tribute to Jeffrey's now achieved position, and legal as well as literary fame. He was elected Lord Rector of the University in 1821 and 1822. Some seven or eight years previously he had married the accomplished lady who survives him, a grand-niece of the celebrated Wilkes; and had purchased the lease of the villa near Edinburgh which he occupied to the time of his death, and whose romantic woods and grounds will long be associated with his name. At each step of his career a new distinction now awaited him, and with every new occasion his unflagging energies seemed to rise and expand. He never wrote with such masterly success for his Review as when his whole time appeared to be occupied with criminal prosecutions, with contested elections, with journeyings from place to place, with examinings and cross-examinings, with speeches, addresses, exhortations, denunciations. In all conditions and on all occasions, a very atmosphere of activity was around him. Even as he sat, apparently still, waiting to address a jury or amaze a witness, it made a slow man nervous to look at him. Such a flush of energy vibrated through that delicate frame, such rapid and never ceasing thought played on those thin lips, such restless flashes of light broke from those kindling eyes. You continued to look at him, till his very silence acted as a spell; and it ceased to be difficult to associate with his small but well-knit figure even the giant-like labors and exertions of this part of his astonishing career.

At length, in 1829, he was elected Dean of the Faculty of Advocates; and thinking it unbecoming that the official head of a great law corporation should continue the editing of a party organ, he surrendered the management of the Edinburgh Review. In the year following, he took office with the Whigs as Lord Advocate, and replaced Sir James Scarlett in Lord Fitzwilliam's borough of Malton. In the next memorable year he contested his native city against a Dundas; not succeeding in his election, but dealing the last heavy blow to his opponent's sinking dynasty. Subsequently he took his seat as Member for Perth, introduced and carried the Scotch Reform bill, and in the December of 1832 was declared member for Edinburgh. He had some great sorrows at this time to check and alloy his triumphs. Probably no man had gone through a life of eager conflict and active antagonism with a heart so sensitive to the gentler emotions, and the deaths of Mackintosh and Scott affected him deeply. He had had occasion, during the illness of the latter, to allude to him in the House of Commons; and he did this with so much beauty and delicacy, with such manly admiration of the genius and modest deference to the opinions of his great Tory friend, that Sir Robert Peel made a journey across the floor of the house to thank him cordially for it.

The House of Commons nevertheless was not his natural element, and when, in 1834, a vacancy in the Court of Session invited him to his due promotion, he gladly accepted the dignified and honorable office so nobly earned by his labors and services. He was in his sixty-second year at the time of his appointment, and he continued for nearly sixteen years the chief ornament of the Court in which he sat. In former days the judgment-seats in Scotland had not been unused to the graces of literature; but in Jeffrey these were combined with an acute and profound knowledge of law less usual in that connection; and also with such a charm of demeanor, such a play of fancy and wit sobered to the kindliest courtesies, such clear sagacity, perfect freedom from bias, consideration for all differences of opinion; and integrity, independence, and broad comprehensiveness of view in maintaining his own; that there has never been but one feeling as to his judicial career. Universal veneration and respect attended it. The speculative studies of his youth had done much to soften all the asperities of his varied and vigorous life, and now, at its close, they gave to his judgments a large reflectiveness of tone, a moral beauty of feeling, and a philosophy of charity and good taste, which have left to his successors in that Court of Session no nobler models for imitation and example. Impatience of dullness _would_ break from him, now and then; and the still busy activity of his mind might be seen as he rose often suddenly from his seat, and paced up and down before it; but in his charges or decisions nothing of this feeling was perceptible, except that lightness and grace of expression in which his youth seemed to linger to the last, and a quick sensibility to emotion and enjoyment which half concealed the ravages of time.

If such was the public estimation of this great and amiable man, to the very termination of his useful life, what language should describe the charm of his influence in his private and domestic circle? The affectionate pride with which every citizen of Edinburgh regarded him rose here to a kind of idolatry. For here the whole man was known--his kind heart, his open hand, his genial talk, his ready sympathy, his generous encouragement and assistance to all that needed it. The first passion of his life was its last, and never was the love of literature so bright within him as at the brink of the grave. What dims and deadens the impressibility of most men, had rendered his not only more acute and fresh, but more tributary to calm satisfaction, and pure enjoyment. He did not live merely in the past as age is wont to do, but drew delight from every present manifestation of worth, or genius, from whatever quarter it addressed him. His vivid pleasure where his interest was awakened, his alacrity and eagerness of appreciation, the fervor of his encouragement and praise, have animated the hopes and relieved the toil alike of the successful and the unsuccessful, who can not hope, through whatever checkered future may await them, to find a more, generous critic, a more profound adviser, a more indulgent friend.

The present year opened upon Francis Jeffrey with all hopeful promise. He had mastered a severe illness, and resumed his duties with his accustomed cheerfulness; private circumstances had more than ordinarily interested him in his old Review; and the memory of past friends, giving yet greater strength to the affection that surrounded him, was busy at his heart. "God bless you!" he wrote to Sydney Smith's widow on the night of the 18th of January; "I am very old, and have many infirmities; but I am tenacious of old friendships, and find much of my present enjoyments in the recollections of the past." He sat in Court the next day, and on the Monday and Tuesday of the following week, with his faculties and attention unimpaired. On the Wednesday he had a slight attack of bronchitis; on Friday, symptoms of danger appeared; and on Saturday he died, peacefully and without pain. Few men had completed with such consummate success the work appointed them in this world; few men had passed away to a better with more assured hopes of their reward. The recollection of his virtues sanctifies his fame; and his genius will never cease to awaken the gratitude, respect, and pride of his countrymen.

HAIL AND FAREWELL!

METAL IN SEA-WATER.

The French _savans_, MM. Malaguti, Derocher, and Sarzeaud, announce that they have detected in the waters of the ocean the presence of copper, lead, and silver. The water examined appears to have been taken some leagues off the coast of St. Malo, and the fucoidal plants of that district are also found to contain silver. The _F. serratus_ and the _F. ceramoides_ yielded ashes containing 1-100,000th, while the water of the sea contained but little more than 1-100,000,000th. They state also that they find silver in sea-salt, in ordinary muriatic acid, and in the soda of commerce; and that they have examined the rock-salt of Lorraine, in which also they discover this metal. Beyond this, pursuing their researches on terrestrial plants, they have obtained such indications as leave no doubt of the existence of silver in vegetable tissues. Lead is said to be always found in the ashes of marine plants, usually about an 18-100,000th part, and invariably a trace of copper. Should these results be confirmed by further examination, we shall have advanced considerably toward a knowledge of the phenomena of the formation of mineral veins.--_Athenaeum._

[From Bentley's Miscellany.]

DR. JOHNSON: HIS RELIGIOUS LIFE, AND HIS DEATH.

The title is a captivating one, and will allure many, but it very feebly expresses the contents of the volume, which brings under our observation the religious opinions of scores upon scores of other men, and is enriched with numerous anecdotes of the contemporaries of the great lexicographer. The book, indeed, may be considered as a condensation of all that was known and recorded of Dr. Johnson's practice and experience of religion from his youth to his death; of its powerful influence over him through many years of his life--of the nature of his faith, and of its fruits in his works; but there is added to this so much that is excellent of other people--the life of the soul is seen in so many other characters--so many subjects are introduced that are more or less intimately connected with that to which the title refers, and all are so admirably blended together, and interwoven with the excellent remarks of the author, as to justify us in saying of the book, that it is one of the most edifying and really useful we have for years past met with.

It has often been our lot to see the sneers of beardless boys at the mention of religion, and to hear the titter of the empty-headed when piety was spoken of, and we always then thought of the profound awe with which the mighty mind of Dr. Johnson was impressed by such subjects--of his deep humiliation of soul when he reflected upon his duties and responsibilities--and of his solemn and reverential manner when religion became the topic of discourse, or the subject of his thoughts. His intellect, one of the grandest that was ever given to man, humbled itself to the very dust before the Giver; the very superiority of his mental powers over those of other men, made him but feel himself the less in his own sight, when he reflected from whom he had his being, and to whom he must render an account of the use he made of the vast intellectual powers he possessed.

But the religion of Dr. Johnson consisted not in deep feeling only, nor in much talking nor professing, but was especially distinguished by its practical benevolence; when he possessed but two-pence, one penny was always at the service of any one who had nothing at all; his poor house was an asylum for the poor, a home for the destitute; there, for months and years together, he sheltered and supported the needy and the blind, at a time when his utmost efforts could do no more than provide bare support for them and himself. Those whom he loved not he would serve--those whom he esteemed not he would give to, and labor for, and devote the best powers of his pen to help and to benefit.

The cry of distress, the appeal of the afflicted, was irresistible with him--no matter whatever else pressed upon him--whatever literary calls were urging him--or however great the need of the daily toil for the daily bread--all was abandoned till the houseless were sheltered, till the hungry were fed, and the defenseless were protected; and it would be difficult to name any of all Dr. Johnson's contemporaries--he in all his poverty, and they in all their abundance--in whose lives such proofs could be found of the most enlarged charity and unwearied benevolence.

But the book treats of so many subjects, of so much that is connected with religion in general, and with the Church of England in particular, that we can really do no more than refer our readers to the volume itself; with the assurance that they will find in it much useful and agreeable information on all those many matters which are connected in these times with Church interests, and which are more or less influencing all classes of the religious public.

The author writes freely, and with great power; he argues ably, and discusses liberally all the points of religious controversy, and a very delightful volume is the result of his labors. It must do good, it must please and improve the mind, as well as delight the heart of all who read it. Indeed, no one not equal to the work could have ventured upon it without lasting disgrace had he failed in it; a dissertation upon the faith and morals of a man whose fame has so long filled the world, and in whose writings so much of his religious feelings are displayed, and so much of his spiritual life is unvailed, must be admirably written to receive any favor from the public; and we think that the author has so ably done what he undertook to do, that that full measure of praise will be awarded to him, which in our judgment he deserves.

A perusal of this excellent work reminds us of the recent sale of some letters and documents of Dr. Johnson from Mr. Linnecar's collection. The edifying example of this good and great man, so well set forth in the present volume, is fully borne out in an admirable prayer composed by Dr. Johnson, a few months before his death, the original copy of which was here disposed of. For the gratification of the reader, we may be allowed to give the following brief abstract of the contents of these papers:

"To DAVID GARRICK.
"Streatham, December 13, 1771.

"I have thought upon your epitaph, but without much effect; an
epitaph is no easy thing. Of your three stanzas, the third is
utterly unworthy of you. The first and third together give no
discriminative character. If the first alone were to stand,
Hogarth would not be distinguished from any other man of
intellectual eminence. Suppose you worked upon something like
this:

"The hand of Art here torpid lies,
That traced th' essential form of grace,
Here death has clos'd the curious eyes
That saw the manners in the face.
If genius warm thee, Reader, stay,
If merit touch thee, shed a tear,
Be Vice and Dullness far away,
Great Hogarth's honor'd dust is here."

"To DR. FARMER.
"Bolt Court, July 22d, 1777.

"The booksellers of London have undertaken a kind of body of
English Poetry, excluding generally the dramas, and I have
undertaken to put before each author's works a sketch of his
life, and a character of his writings. Of some, however, I know
very little, and am afraid I shall not easily supply my
deficiencies. Be pleased to inform me whether among Mr. Burke's
manuscripts, or any where else at Cambridge any materials are to
be found."

"To OZIAS HUMPHREY.
"May 31st, 1784.

"I am very much obliged by your civilities to my godson, and must
beg of you to add to them the favor of permitting him to see you
paint, that he may know how a picture is begun, advanced and
completed. If he may attend you in a few of your operations, I
hope he will show that the benefit has been properly conferred,
both by his proficiency and his gratitude."

The following beautiful prayer is dated Ashbourne, Sept. 18, 1784:

"Make me truly thankful for the call by which Thou hast awakened
my conscience and summoned me to repentance. Let not Thy call, O
Lord, be forgotten, or Thy summons neglected, but let the residue
of my life, whatever it shall be, be passed in true contrition,
and diligent obedience. Let me repent of the sins of my past
life, and so keep Thy laws for the time to come, that when it
shall be Thy good pleasure to call me to another state, I may
find mercy in Thy sight. Let Thy Holy Spirit support me in the
hour of death, and, O Lord, grant me pardon in the day of
Judgment."

Besides the above, Dr. Johnson's celebrated letter to the author of "Ossian's Poems," in which he says, "I will not be deterred from detecting what I think to be a cheat by the menaces of a ruffian," was sold at this sale for twelve guineas.

SONETTO.

FROM THE ITALIAN OF BENEDETTO MENZINI.

I planted once a laurel tree,
And breathed to heaven an humble vow
That Phoebus' favorite it might be,
And shade and deck a poet's brow!
I prayed to Zephyr that his wing,
Descending through the April sky,
Might wave the boughs in early spring
And brush rude Boreas frowning by.
And slowly Phoebus heard the prayer,
And slowly, slowly, grew the tree,
And others sprang more fast and fair,
Yet marvel not that this should be;
For tardier still the growth of Fame--
And who is _he_ the crown may claim?

ETA

[From Household Words.]

A CHILD'S DREAM OF A STAR.

There was once a child, and he strolled about a good deal, and thought of a number of things. He had a sister, who was a child too, and his constant companion. These two used to wonder all day long. They wondered at the beauty of the flowers; they wondered at the height and blueness of the sky; they wondered at the depth of the bright water; they wondered at the goodness and the power of God who made the lovely world.

They used to say to one another, sometimes, Supposing all the children upon earth were to die, would the flowers, and the water, and the sky be sorry? They believed they would be sorry. For, said they, the buds are the children of the flowers, and the little playful streams that gambol down the hill-sides are the children of the water; and the smallest bright specks, playing at hide and seek in the sky all night, must surely be the children of the stars; and they would all be grieved to see their playmates, the children of men, no more.

There was one clear, shining star that used to come out in the sky before the rest, near the church spire, above the graves. It was larger and more beautiful, they thought, than all the others, and every night they watched for it, standing hand in hand at a window. Whoever saw it first, cried out, "I see the star!" And often they cried out both together, knowing so well when it would rise, and where. So they grew to be such friends with it, that, before lying down in their beds, they always looked out once again, to bid it good night; and when they were turning round to sleep, they used to say, "God bless the star!"

But while she was still very young, oh very, very young, the sister drooped, and came to be so weak that she could no longer stand in the window at night; and then the child looked sadly out by himself, and when he saw the star, turned round and said to the patient, pale face on the bed, "I see the star!" and then a smile would come upon the face, and a little, weak voice used to say, "God bless my brother and the star!"

And so the time came, all too soon! when the child looked out alone, and when there was no face on the bed; and when there was a little grave among the graves, not there before; and when the star made long rays down toward him, as he saw it through his tears.

Now, these rays were so bright, and they seemed to make such a shining way from earth to heaven, that when the child went to his solitary bed, he dreamed about the star; and dreamed that, lying where he was, he saw a train of people taken up that sparkling road by angels. And the star, opening, showed him a great world of light, where many more such angels waited to receive them.

All these angels, who were waiting, turned their beaming eyes upon the people who were carried up into the star; and some came out from the long rows in which they stood, and fell upon the people's necks, and kissed them tenderly, and went away with them down avenues of light, and were so happy in their company, that lying in his bed he wept for joy.

But there were many angels who did not go with them, and among them one he knew. The patient face that once had lain upon the bed was glorified and radiant, but his heart found out his sister among all the host.

His sister's angel lingered near the entrance of the star, and said to the leader among those who had brought the people thither:

"Is my brother come?"

And he said "No."

She was turning hopefully away, when the child stretched out his arms, and cried, "O, sister, I am here! Take me!" and then she turned her beaming eyes upon him, and it was night; and the star was shining into the room, making long rays down toward him as he saw it through his tears.

From that hour forth, the child looked out upon the star as on the Home he was to go to, when his time should come; and he thought that he did not belong to the earth alone, but to the star too, because of his sister's angel gone before.

There was a baby born to be a brother to the child; and while he was so little that he never yet had spoken word, he stretched his tiny form out on his bed, and died.

Again the child dreamed of the opened star, and of the company of angels, and the train of people, and the rows of angels with their beaming eyes all turned upon those people's faces.

Said his sister's angel to the leader:

"Is my brother come?"

And he said, "Not that one, but another."

As the child beheld his brother's angel in her arms, he cried, "O, sister, I am here! Take me!" And she turned and smiled upon him, and the star was shining.

He grew to be a young man, and was busy at his books, when an old servant came to him, and said,

"Thy mother is no more. I bring her blessing on her darling son!"

Again at night he saw the star, and all that former company. Said his sister's angel to the leader:

"Is my brother come?"

And he said, "Thy mother!"

A mighty cry of joy went forth through all the star, because the mother was reunited to her two children. And he stretched out his arms and cried, "O, mother, sister, and brother, I am here! Take me!" And they answered him, "Not yet," and the star was shining.

He grew to be a man, whose hair was turning gray, and he was sitting in his chair by the fireside, heavy with grief, and with his face bedewed with tears, when the star opened once again.

Said his sister's angel to the leader, "Is my brother come?"

And he said, "Nay, but his maiden daughter."

And the man who had been the child saw his daughter, newly lost to him, a celestial creature among those three, and he said, "My daughter's head is on my sister's bosom, and her arm is round my mother's neck, and at her feet there is the baby of old time, and I can bear the parting from her, God be praised!"

And the star was shining.

Thus the child came to be an old man, and his once smooth face was wrinkled, and his steps were slow and feeble, and his back was bent. And one night as he lay upon his bed, his children standing round, he cried, as he had cried so long ago,

"I see the star!"

They whispered one another, "He is dying."

And he said, "I am. My age is falling from me like a garment, and I move toward the star as a child. And O, my Father, now I thank thee that it has so often opened, to receive those dear ones who await me!"

And the star was shining; and it shines upon his grave.

LONGFELLOW.

The muse of Mr. Longfellow owes little or none of her success to those great national sources of inspiration which are most likely to influence an ardent poetic temperament. The grand old woods--the magnificent mountain and forest scenery--the mighty rivers--the trackless savannahs--all those stupendous and varied features of that great country, with which, from his boyhood, he must have been familiar, it might be thought would have stamped some of these characteristics upon his poetry. Such, however, has not been the case. Of lofty images and grand conceptions we meet with few, if any, traces. But brimful of life, of love, and of truth, the stream of his song flows on with a tender and touching simplicity, and a gentle music, which we have not met with since the days of our own Moore. Like him, too, the genius of Mr. Longfellow is essentially lyric; and if he has failed to derive inspiration from the grand features of his own country, he has been no unsuccessful student of the great works of the German masters of song. We could almost fancy, while reading his exquisite ballad of the "Beleaguered City," that Goethe, Schiller, or Uhland was before us; and yet, we must by no means be understood to insinuate that he is a mere copyist--quite the contrary. He has become so thoroughly imbued with the spirit of these exquisite models, that he has contrived to produce pieces marked with an individuality of their own, and noways behind them in point of poetical merit. In this regard he affords another illustration of the truth of the proposition, that the legendary lore and traditions of other countries have been very serviceable toward the formation of American literature.

About the year 1837, Longfellow, being engaged in making the tour of Europe, selected Heidelberg for a permanent winter residence. There his wife was attacked with an illness, which ultimately proved fatal. It so happened, however, that some time afterward there came to the same romantic place a young lady of considerable personal attractions. The poet's heart was touched--he became attached to her; but the beauty of sixteen did not sympathize with the poet of six-and-thirty, and Longfellow returned to America, having lost his heart as well as his wife. The young lady, also an American, returned home shortly afterward. Their residences, it turned out, were contiguous, and the poet availed himself of the opportunity of prosecuting his addresses, which he did for a considerable time with no better success than at first. Thus foiled, he set himself resolutely down, and instead, like Petrarch, of laying siege to the heart of his mistress through the medium of sonnets, he resolved to write a whole book; a book which would achieve the double object of gaining her affections, and of establishing his own fame. "Hyperion" was the result. His labor and his constancy were not thrown away: they met their due reward. The lady gave him her hand as well as her heart; and they now reside together at Cambridge, in the same house which Washington made his head-quarters when he was first appointed to the command of the American armies. These interesting facts were communicated to us by a very intelligent American gentleman whom we had the pleasure of meeting in the same place which was the scene of the poet's early disappointment and sorrow.--_Dublin University Magazine._

THE CHAPEL BY THE SHORE.

By the shore, a plot of ground
Clips a ruined chapel round,
Buttressed with a grassy mound;
Where Day, and Night, and Day go by
And bring no touch of human sound.

Washing of the lonely seas--
Shaking of the guardian trees--
Piping of the salted breeze--
Day, and Night, and Day go by,
To the endless tune of these.

Or when, as winds and waters keep
A hush more dead than any sleep,
Still morns to stiller evenings creep,
And Day, and Night, and Day go by
Here the stillness is most deep.

And the ruins, lapsed again
Into Nature's wide domain,
Sow themselves with seed and grain,
As Day, and Night, and Day go by,
And hoard June's sun and April's rain.

Here fresh funeral tears were shed;
And now the graves are also dead:
And suckers from the ash-tree spread,
As Day, and Night, and Day go by
And stars move calmly overhead.

[From Household Words.]

ILLUSTRATIONS OF CHEAPNESS.

THE LUCIFER MATCH.

Some twenty years ago the process of obtaining fire, in every house in England, with few exceptions, was as rude, as laborious, and as uncertain, as the effort of the Indian to produce a flame by the friction of two dry sticks.