have become fully satisfied of its excellence in all cases. At that time, school-masters were not expected to be wiser than Soloman, and the sole efficiency of the rod, in school discipline, had not then been seriously called in question. Nor did subsequent observation and reflection change his views in this matter. The impulse of fear and reverence for authority, he believed to be quite as effective, and much more healthful in its operations, than that of emulation. "The rod," he would say, "produces an effect which terminates in itself; a child is afraid of being whipped, and gets his task, and there's an end on 't; whereas, by exciting emulation and comparisons of superiority, you lay the foundation of lasting mischief." It is pretty evident that this is a subject that admits of something being said on both sides.

At school, and with his juvenile associates, as in later associations, Johnson was always the first among his fellows. His great size and strength were probably the charter by which he asserted and enforced his claims. But in a well-governed school, superior parts and scholarship avail no less than physical prowess; and when, as in that case, these characteristics are found in the same individual, his priority is cheerfully conceded on all hands. Nor was he disposed to decline the position thus assigned him he seemed indeed to accept it as a matter of course. An instance illustrative of these statements, is given by one who was at this time his school-fellow, and perhaps an actor in the scene he records :-Three boys would come in the morning to conduct him to school, when, one taking him

BEARING JOHNSON TO SCHOOL.

upon his shoulders, and the others supporting him on either side, they would bear him off in triumph. It is probable that Johnson's defective vision and constitutional inactivity, rendered such attentions from his associates the more agreeable. His unrivaled superiority in scholarship was yielded by a kind of tacit consent; the highest praise that any other boy could hope for, was to be compared favorably with him. "He seemed," says one who knew him at that period, " to learn by intuition; for, though indolence and procrastination were inherent in his constitution, whenever he made an exertion he did more than any one else."

When Johnson was nearly fifteen years old, he went to spend some time with his cousin, Cornelius Ford, a clergyman, then residing on a living near the borders of Staffordshire. Ford, though wholly desti

tute of the qualities of heart that are indispensable to a proper discharge of the duties of his office, was a man of much wit and learning, and possessed a heart of extreme, though reckless, benevolence. He is generally supposed to have been the original of the "Parson" in Hogarth's "Modern Midnight Conversation." He soon detected the mental superiority of his young kinsman, and interested himself in his behalf. Some of the instructions given by him to his young friend, indicate his acquaintance with life and manners, and probably were practically useful to their subject. "Obtain," says Ford, "some general principles of every science: he who can talk only on one subject, or act only in one department, is seldom wanted, and perhaps never wished for; while a man of general knowledge can often benefit, always please." How fully the history of Dr. Johnson illustrates and proves the advantages of the course here recom

On his return, on account of some unexplained difficulty as to his re-entering Mr. Hunter's school, he was placed in the school of Stourbridge, in Worcestershire, of which Mr. Wentworth was master, to whom he became an assistant as well as a pupil. Of his connection with this school and its master, Johnson remarked, in after life:-" Mr. Wentworth was a very able man, but an idle man, and to me very severe; but I cannot blame him much. I was then a big boy; he saw I did not reverence him, and that he should get no honor by me. I had brought enough with me, to carry me through; and all I should get at his school would be ascribed to my own labor, or to my former master. Yet he taught me a great deal." He remained at this school a little over a year, and then returned home.

The next two years were loitered away about Lichfield, without purpose or effort. His father, embarrassed by his declining affairs, seems to have been at a loss what to do with him. The son discovered an almost total inadaptation for business, and was scolded by the father for his want of application. He had no settled plan of life, nor did he appear to take much thought for the future, but floated carelessly along, regardless as to whither the tide of affairs might carry him. He however read a great deal-not for the sake of instruction, but for occupation and amusement. He had no plan by which books were chosen, but read whatever fancy directed him to, or accident brought under his notice. By clambering to the upper shelf in his father's store, in search of some apples, that he suspected his brother had hidden behind the books, he was brought into contact with a folio volume of Petrarch, and this accident led to the perusal of the volume, and of course, to an appreciating acquaintance with the great restorer of learning. Of his attainments during these two years of comparative idleness, he remarked :-" In this irregular manner I had looked into a great many books which were not commonly known at the University, where they seldom read any books but what are put into their hands by the tutors; so that when I came to Oxford, I was said, by my tutor, to be the best qualified that he had ever known to come there." To such a mind

about a bookstore, could not be wholly lost. With his prodigious memory and powers of analysis, it may be doubted, whether an extensive course of desultory reading was less valuable than a more systematic method of study would have been. It is certain that in no other portion of his juvenile history, did he foreshadow his future self so faithfully as in this. It was probably through despair of ever making him even a respectable tradesman, that the elder Johnson, notwithstanding his limited means, determined to give his son a university education. To meet directly the expense of such an undertaking, was beyond his ability; but an expedient was found out and adopted.

The son of a neighboring gentleman, Mr. Andrew Corbett, who had been a schoolmate of Johnson's, was about to proceed to the university, when it was arranged that the two lads should accompany each other, and be at Mr. Corbett's expense, and that Johnson should act as assistant to his more favored companion. He was accordingly entered a commoner of Pembroke College, on the 31st of October, 1728, being then in his nineteenth year. This was an occasion of much interest to the elder Johnson, in whom a father's hopes and fears conflicted violently as to this son. He knew something of his son's aptitude for learning, and also his utter want of adaptation for getting forward in the world by any of the humbler but more available methods. He also knew his constitutional inertness, and yet had not failed to perceive that his whole soul was instinct with an energy which emulation could call into activity. Having accompanied him to Oxford, Mr. Johnson found means to have him introduced to Mr. Jorden, who was to be his tutor, to whom he commended the youth as "a good scholar and poet, and a writer of Latin verses." His figure and manners were strongly rustic, and seemed but faintly to second the encomiums given by his father. He demeaned himself with much modesty in the presence of the learned persons to whom he was thus suddenly introduced, and for some time kept a respectful silence; but at length some new turn in the conversation aroused him, when joining in it, he quoted Macrobius so appropriately as to equally surprise and delight his learned auditors.

Of his career in college, but very partial accounts remain. His tutor was a man of many excellences, but of only moderate abilities; and Johnson, with that kind of superciliousness that sometimes affects young men of real or fancied superiority, conceived and manifested great contempt for him. He had never subjected himself to any systematic discipline, and when he came to college he continued to pursue much the same listless and impulsive course. Among his favorite amusements, was sliding upon the ice that overlaid Christ Church meadow, during the winter; and when this exercise invited him, the lectures of his tutor were quite neglected. Having been called to account and mulcted for his delinquencies, he complained bitterly to his tutor, that he had "sconced him two-pence for nonattendance at a lecture not worth a penny." In later years, Johnson expressed great respect and esteem for his former tutor; though he confessed that he profited but little by his instructions, and that it was his moral worth, rather than his learning, that commanded his respect.

A slight incident gave the first occasion for the exhibition of the superiority of his genius. Having failed to produce a required college exercise for the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot, which was observed with great solemnity at Pembroke College, he handed his tutor an apology for his

neglect, written in Latin verse, in which he feigned that the muse had visited him in his sleep, and forbidden him meddling with politics. This unmeaning production gave Jorden a very exalted opinion of both his genius and attainments. He accordingly asked him to produce for the following Christmas exercise, a Latin translation of Pope's Messiah. With this requirement he complied; and such was the character of the production, that it procured him much applause, and established his reputation for scholarship in the college. It is reported that when this version of his most celebrated ode was shown to Pope, he expressed a very high approbation of it, declaring that it would be a question for posterity, which was the original and which the translation.

While Johnson was yet residing at Oxford, he began to give decided indications of a morbid condition of the brain and nervous system. His father had long been remarkable for certain peculiarities of manner, which were thought to arise from, or to be in some way connected with, his physical constitution; and this tendency of the system seems to have been inherited by the son, in even an aggravated degree. To this cause may doubtless be ascribed the aimless impulsiveness that had hitherto characterized him, and which followed him in some form as long as he lived. During his

which, in his mature years, he so much extolled." He formed but few, if any, intimate friendships while in the university, though he always retained a high regard for Pembroke College.

His religious history during this period of his life, is too important to be passed over unnoticed. We have seen that deep and salutary impressions were made upon his mind at a very early period, by the instructions of his mother. These instructions were followed by others as judged suitable; but it would seem not always with equally good success. His mother confined him at home on Sundays, (after Church probably,) and compelled him to read the "Whole Duty of Man," with which he was very little interested, and from which very little good was obtained. His experience in this matter, taught him the necessity of so mingling incidental allurements with grave religious instructions, that those should prove incentives to attention while these shall make their solutary impressions on the heart.

At nine years old a mere incident led him to become a neglecter of public worship. Their own parish church being shut up for some time, undergoing repairs, the family were left to seek accommodations elsewhere; but rather than do this, young Johnson chose to spend the Sabbath in the fields, reading. A dislike to the duty of attending church was thus formed, that continued to trouble him, long after duty had become his sole rule of action in all such matters.

Of a somewhat later period of his life he remarks, "I became a sort of lax talker against religion, for I did not much think against it; and this lasted till I went to Oxford, where it would not be suffered. At Oxford a change was effected in his views which resulted at length in a complete revolution in his character, by reading Law's "Serious Call to a Holy Life." He began reading the book without any serious purpose; but soon found it more than a match for his sophistry. His pride of intellect would not allow him to abandon the contest; and so he continued to read, and unconsciously to be overcome by the eloquence of divine truth.

"This instance," remarks one of Johnson's biographers, " of such a mind being first disposed, by an unexpected incident, to think with anxiety of the momentous VOL. I, No. 5.—CC

concerns of eternity, and of what he should do to be saved,' may forever be placed in opposition to the superficial and sometimes profane contempt that has been thrown upon those occasional impressions which it is certain many Christians have experienced." Dr. Johnson stands forth not only a witness of the adaptation of the Christian faith to the most exalted understandings, but also of the power of divine grace to arrest, by feeble means, the erring spirit, and lead it into captivity to itself. From this time his mind took that decidedly religious tendency which thenceforward became a distinguishing trait in his character.

The whole period, from Johnson's entrance at college to his final removal, extended over nearly three years; but of this time a considerable portion was spent at home. Two causes united to interrupt his course at the university, the mental disease already alluded to, and pecuniary embarrassment, which, after the departure of young Corbett, near the close of the second year, pressed heavily upon him, and aggravated his "vile melancholy." His name was removed from the books of Pembroke College, October 8, 1731, though his connection with that body had virtually terminated some months before. A cloud rests upon this period of Johnson's history, that none of his biographers have seemed willing to penetrate. One of them has remarked that "there are here two important years of his life to be accounted for; and that they were not pleasantly or profitably spent, may be inferred from the silence of Johnson and all his friends about them." It is painfully interesting to contemplate such a proud intellect whirling over the vortex of madness, and thence towering upward to its own empyrean.

A TEACHER BY EXAMPLE.-I once escaped at table the well-meant persecutions of the kind-hearted wife of a medical friend, from whom, ever and anon, came the inquiry of what I would take next? This had been so often repeated, that I had begun to look round, fearing that my character, as a teacher by example, might suffer, and replied that, "If she pleased, I would take breath." It was saucy and ungrateful, but it was good-naturedly received and understood. - Sir James Eyre.