"Knowledge, and truth, and virtue are his themes, And lofty hopes of divine liberty, Among his other distinguishing traits, is his imagination, a vigorous concentrated imagination, which shows itself everywherein passages, lines, and words. A few random passages will show what we mean. Notice the utter absence of detail, and the breadth and force, the suggestiveness of the whole : "A voice of many tones, sent up from streams That wander through the gloom; from woods unseen, Sway'd by the sweeping of the tides of air, From rocky chasms where darkness dwells all day, And hollows of the great invisible hills, The pomp that opes and shuts the day, The clouds that round him change and shine, Thence look the thoughtful stars, and there "The night storm on a thousand hills is loud, And the strong wind of day doth mingle sea and cloud." No other living poet has his imagination or half his compressed energy of conception and execution. And over all, and through | all his poetry, its life and soul, glows and lives a spirit of meditation and reflection, the very incarnation of truth and goodness. Religion, pure and undefiled, is the element of his genius, and the life of his poetry. To sum up his beauties and defects is no easy task, and we shall not attempt it. We have indicated, rather than shown, some of his peculiarities. As we have already stated, we consider Bryant our first and best national poet. Whether painting American scenery, or giving utterance to American thought, he is alike national, and alike excellent, equally removed from the fire and enthusiasm of a red-hot patriot, and the ice and indifference of a cold-blooded sage, with just enough earnestness and warm blood to make him manly and noble. While Bryant's writings live, to say nothing of those of Cooper and Hawthorne, we fail not of an American literature, though we would be glad to have more of it, and to have it as much better as talent, and genius, and religion, can make it. In the mean time, we shall read and love William Cullen Bryant. A POWERFUL MICROSCOPE. A GERMAN named Hassert, residing in Cincinnati, has invented a microscope which has a magnifying power of six hundred times. The Cincinnati Times, speaking of its extraordinary powers, says that the dust which, by contact with the wings of a butterfly, adheres to the finger, was shown to be a number of feathers; on these little feathers are observed longitudinal and transverse lines: but this has been, so far, the utmost that has been seen. This new microscope, however, shows that between each pair of longitudinal lines there are five or six rows of scales, like those of a fish, and appear to have the same form in all the feathers, differing only in size. A dust particle, taken from the back of the body of a sphinx, which is the largest of these feathers shown, measuring one-fifteenth of an inch in length, and one twohundredth of an inch in breadth, had one hundred and four longitudinal lines. Between each pair of lines, six rows of scales were visible, making the number of these little scales, laterally, six hundred and twenty-four; the number of scales longitudinally, downward, would be two thousand two hundred and twenty-eight: therefore, the entire number of these scales on this little feather amount to one million four hundred thousand, which gives the number of fourteen thousand million to one square inch. On a very minute particle of dust from the wing of a midge, measuring only one five-hundreth of an inch in length, and one-thousandth of an inch in width, the number of scales is found to be eighty-four thousand, which gives the enormous sum of forty-two thousand millions to one square inch. We observed, also, large sizes of the cat and common house flea, the eye of a fly, and the wing of a small bug, the latter presenting the most brilliant colors and beautiful shawl-pattern we ever beheld, with a magnificent border elaborately ornamented. A WISE PRIEST.-A German priest was walking in procession at the head of his commissioners, over cultivated fields, in order to procure a blessing upon the crops. When he came to one of unpromising appearance, he would pass on, saying, "Here prayers and singing will avail nothing; this must have some manure." IN HIS [Lichfield in 1730.] SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. PARENTAGE, CHILDHOOD, AND YOUTH. the register of St. Mary's parish, in the city of Lichfield, Staffordshire, England, under date of September 7th, (O. S.,) is a record of the baptism of SAMUEL, Son of Michael JOHNSON, gentleman, and Sarah Ford, his wife. The day of the birth of the.child thus initiated into the visible Church, is given as the same with that of his baptism, and the unusual haste of the ceremony is attributed to an apprehension that he would live but a little while, and that he might pass away very suddenly. It is said that he was born almost dead, and was unable so much as to cry for some time after he came into the world. The number of noted men who have had a similar commencement of life, is remarkable; among them may be named Newton, Adaison, Lord Littleton, Voltaire, Charles Wesley, and a host of others. Such was the beginning of the mundane career of the world-renowned Dr. Samuel Johnson. The title "gentleman" affixed to the name of his father, had not then lost all its original significance, though, much like the modern "Esquire," it was rather a negative designation than positively a title of honor. Michael Johnson was a respectable citizen of Lichfield, a bookseller and stationer by occupation. He also held the office of sheriff for some time-a post at that period of some distinction. He was a native of Derbyshire, but the family to have been much in advance of the common standard of his neighbors, both on account of the native vigor of his intellect, and the extent of his reading. But owing to an unhealthy condition of his nervous system, his mind was often ill-balanced, and strongly inclined to eccentricities. In all these particulars, it is thought his son inherited both his excellences and his defects. Dr. Johnson described his father as "a very pious and worthy man, but wrong-headed, positive, and affected with melancholy." As an instance of his eccentricity, it is related that when his workshop had so fallen to decay, that it might be entered at any part through the siding, he was none the less careful to see that it was locked every night, than he could have been, had the safety of his property depended on the fastening of the door. It is pretty well ascertained, however, that notwithstanding the acknowledged excellences of both of these worthy persons, they contributed but little to each other's happiness. It should not, perhaps, occasion surprise, that a marriage between parties who had spent so large a portion of their lives in celibacy, should not be productive of much connubial felicity. Their habits, both of thought and manners, were fixed and indurated before their union, and were necessarily dissimilar and unyielding; and, of course, a perpetual chafing was the result. "They seldom conversed," writes their son; "for my father could not bear to talk of his affairs, and my mother, being unacquainted with books, cared not to talk of anything else." The cares of life pressed heavily upon both of them-not that they were really poor, but were always afraid they should become so;-and at length this creature of the fancy assumed much of the nature of a reality. The dread of poverty, without reason, is a form of insanity that frequently afflicts minds not otherwise inclined to madness, and, as it is a very common form of mental derange The wife of Mr. Johnson was slight in her person, and of rather diminutive stature. She possessed good natural faculties, which were, however, but very little improved by cultivation. In temper and manners, she was mild and benevolent, but retiring, and rather addicted to home comforts than to more ostentatious enjoy-ment, so it is among the most incurable. ments. She thus merited, and received in a large degree, the respect and goodwill of those who knew her; and it is supposed that she was the original from which her son, in writing "The Vanity of Human Wishes," drew the picture of a virtuous and excellent woman, who, in her own narrow sphere, was still “The general favorite and the general friend." The marriage of the parents of Dr. Johnson occurred after both of them were somewhat advanced in years. His father was his senior by fifty-three years, and his mother by more than forty. They had only one other child, a son, named Nathaniel, born two years later, who died at the age of twenty-five. Very little further is known respecting him, as his renowned brother seldom spoke of him during his later life. It is said that the brothers were not much attached to each other, being perpetual rivals for maternal favors; and some have fancied that the reflections on domestic infelicities found in Rasselas are taken from realities seen in the family of the Lichfield bookseller, a conjecture, however, that rests on no sure evidence. "Of business," says Johnson, respecting his mother, "she had no distinct conception; and therefore her discourse was composed only of complaint, fear, and suspicion. She concluded that we were poor, because we lost by some of our trades; but the truth was, that my father having in the early part of his life contracted debts, never had trade sufficient to enable him to pay them and maintain his family.” Mrs. Johnson was nevertheless a woman of much real worth; for great infirmities are not incompatible with general goodness of character. Her piety was unaffected and constant; and to her influence and instructions must be ascribed those early and abiding impressions on the mind of her son, that determined the whole course of his life, and dictated the character of his productions. In after life, he related having received from her those great fundamental ideas of religion,— heaven and hell;-" the former, the place where good people go;" and the latter, "the place where bad people go." A careless reader would naturally form very inadequate conceptions of the amount of religious truth that these elementary ideas the early lives of their subjects, in which the future character of the man has been indicated in the actions of the child. Dr. Johnson's case is not an exception to this common rule. One of these "characteristic" incidents is thus stated: When Dr. Sacheverel was at Lichfield, Samuel Johnson was not quite three DR. SACHEVEREL PREACHING. years old. At that time he was observed in the cathedral, perched upon his father's shoulders, listening and gaping at the much celebrated preacher. The father, on being asked how he could possibly think of bringing such an infant to the church, and in the midst of so great a crowd, replied, "that it was impossible to keep him at home; for, young as he was, he believed he had caught the public spirit and zeal for Sacheverel, and would have stayed forever in the church, satisfied with beholding him."* A more probable story is told of him, illustrating that tenacity of memory and facility at learning in early childhood, that distinguished him in after life. "When he was a child in petticoats, (a rather indefinite date,) and had learned to read, his mother, one morning, put the Common Prayer Book into his hands, and directed him to commit to memory the collect for the day. She then went up stairs, leaving him to study it; but before she had reached the second floor, she heard him following her. On being asked what he wanted, he replied, that he was ready to say it; and accordingly, he rehearsed the whole, though (as she afterward thought) he could not have read it more than twice. The probability of this anecdote will not certainly be called in question, whatever may be said of its authenticity. Though Johnson inherited from his parents but a slender patrimony, he received from one or both of them, or from his nurse, a more enduring inheritance, in the shape of a malignant scrofula; which permanently disfigured his countenance, and affected both his sight and hearing. His physician, Dr. Swinfen, had might, without questioning any of these stateAny one not inclined to the marvelous ments, still think that the story affords but little evidence of either juvenile precocity or early bias of mind. But a reference to the dates of certain collateral events, casts some doubt the childhood of great men are usually as suspiAnecdotes of upon the statements. cious as they are marvelous. but little expectation that he could live to grow up, and used to say, when the disease had been conquered, that he had never known any child reared with so much difficulty. In compliance with the popular superstition, so long maintained among all classes of the English people, and so disingenuously indulged by princes, and cherished by courtiers, as to the curative power of the royal touch, in cases of "king's evil," this remedy was sought for young Johnson. His parents acted in this matter under the advice of Sir John Floyer, an eminent physician, then residing in Lichfield. He was taken to London during Lent of 1712, and was touched by Queen Anne. The touch, of course, availed nothing, and, in reference to his political principles, it used to be said, either of self-reliance, that he would repay her kindness with blows. Her regard for him, contrary to what is usually the case, continued long after he had ceased to be her pupil; and, when he was about to set out for Oxford, she came to take leave of him, and, in the simple goodness of her heart, presented him with a gingerbread, saying that he was the best scholar that she ever had. After quitting Dame Oliver, he attended an English school, kept by Mr. Thomas Brown, of whom the only thing that is known, is that he " published a Spelling Book, and dedicated it to the universe," but his chosen patron seems not to have appreciated the offering. At ten years old, he began to learn Latin of Mr. Hawkins, under-master of Lichfield Free School, whom he charac seriously or in satire, that he should have gone to Rome, to the Pretender. He was afterward submitted to a surgical operation for the removal of the scrofulous tumors, by which operation the lower part of his face was much sacrificed; and though the scrofulous eruptions were at length cured, the muscles of his face were long subject to spasms, by which his countenance was perpetually subject to violent and horrible contortions. Johnson received his first lessons, and advanced so far as to be able to read, under the instruction of Dame Oliver, who kept a school for little children in Lichfield. It seems that a good degree of affection existed between the preceptress and her pupil, though sometimes her solicitude for the safety and comfort of her little afflicted protégé, so offended his notions 66 terized as a man very skillful in his own little way." Two years were passed under Mr. Hawkins, and then he was transferred to the care of Mr. Hunter, the head master of the Seminary. Of this person, and of his method of governing, the pupil has left the following account :-"He was severe, wrong-headedly severe, and he did not distinguish between ignorance and negligence, for he would beat a boy equally for not knowing a thing, as for neglecting to know it." Yet Johnson confessed himself to have been greatly indebted to Mr. Hunter, especially for his proficiency in the Latin, in which he so greatly excelled. "He whipped me very well," he would say; "without that, I should have done nothing." Indeed, the pupil seems from his own experience of the benefits of this kind of discipline, to |