to be established in London, and proposed to be called "the Poors' Fund.” The Bill, although defended by Mr. Whitbread with great spirit and ability, was withdrawn before the third reading, and as the establishment of the existing plan of Savings' Banks soon after commenced, the scheme of 1807 was lost sight of for half a century. After the failure of the Dublin Bank, Dr. Hancock, of Trinity College, published a clever paper on Savings' Banks, in which he advocated the idea that the Government should, for the security of the public, take those establishments into their own hands, and work them as they worked the Money-Order branch of the Post-Office. This proposition was not adopted, and the Post-Office was not mentioned again as a possible aid to Savings' Banks until 1858, when one of the members of the Select Committee of the House of Commons which sat that year unsuccessfully moved a resolution to the effect, that the Postmaster-General should be requested to give Savings' Banks all possible facilities for the transmission of their money through the Post-Office. In September, 1859, a gentleman named Sikes, who is connected with the Huddersfield Savings' Bank, wrote a Letter to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pointing out many of the defects of the existing Savings' Banks, and the absence of those facilities for depositing and withdrawing money which the requirements of the people demanded. Mr. Sikes took up the idea of Mr. Whitbread and Dr. Hancock, and proposed that every Money-Order Office in the United Kingdom should be authorized to receive savings for transmission to a Central Government Bank to be set up in London. The money was to be transmitted by means of Money-Orders, and withdrawals were to be paid by the same means. "Interest Notes," bearing interest at 24 per cent. per annum, were to be issued for each deposit, and a rather slow and complex system was proposed for carrying the scheme into effect. It should, however, be observed, that according to this plan no sum less than £1 could be taken. The scheme appears to have been in what may be termed a state of "suspended animation" for some months. The idea was evidently a good one; but the mode of carrying it out, proposed in Mr. Sikes's pamphlet, appears to have been unsatisfactory or unworkable, and the whole thing seemed likely to fall to the ground, when some of the practical officers of the Post-Office took the matter in hand, and produced the simple, efficacious, and highly popular plan embodied in the Bill which Mr. Gladstone has recently carried through the House of Commons with such

and ability.

perseverance

The measure, as it now stands, is intended to legalize the opening of a Savings' Bank at every Money-Order Office in England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, and to authorize Postmasters to receive any sums of money, not being less than one shilling, as Savings' Bank deposits. The Postmaster is to enter the amount of the deposit in a book to be supplied to the depositor; the deposit is to be reported the same day to the Postmaster-General in London; and by return of post, or at latest within ten days, the Postmaster

R

General must acknowledge the same, by sending a printed letter, by post, addressed to the depositor. The depositors are to be allowed interest at the rate of 23 per cent. per annum, and are to be allowed to withdraw the whole, or any portion of their money, by applying to the Central Office, on a form to be got at any Post-Office. Such is the comprehensive nature of this scheme, that a depositor may pay in his money at any Office in the three kingdoms, and withdraw it at any other of the 2,500 Money-Order Offices. No charges of any kind are levied by the Bill; and although the interest to be allowed is somewhat smaller than that paid by the existing Banks, yet the freedom from charges, and the facilities offered for depositing and withdrawing money, will more than compensate for the difference of interest. The present Banks, with but few exceptions, are only open at intervals, and for an hour or so at a time: the Money-Order Offices in the country, as a rule, are open from nine in the morning till six in the evening of every day but Sunday, and on Saturday many of them are open until eight at night. Only about 600 places possess Savings' Banks; but the Post-Office has a Money-Order Office in 2,500 places. The present Banks have very imperfect security to give depositors: the Post-Office Banks will have that perfect security which an Act of Parliament charging loss on the Consolidated Fund alone can give. The existing Banks expend one shilling on every transaction: the Chancellor of the Exchequer states that the Post-Office Banks will do their business at a cost of sevenpence. The existing Banks are a heavy loss to the country: the Post-office Banks will be a gain in all ways. The existing Banks partake largely of the nature of a charity, and therefore are repugnant to the spirit of independence which distinguishes English workmen, and is destructive of that feeling of self-reliance which we should encourage amongst those whose welfare we wish to promote.

From what we have already said about the extent of business transacted at the Post-Office, and the manner in which the Post-Office manages that business, there seems to be no reason to fear any failure there in carrying out this new and beneficent measure. Indeed, we are at a loss to know what other department of the Government service could undertake so gigantic a business, but to an establishment dealing with 544 millions of letters per annum, and transacting money business with thirteen millions of the public to the extent of upwards of twenty-six millions sterling, an addition of a million or two of Savings' Bank accounts will be a comparative trifle, which will, no doubt, be dealt with in the same quiet, unostentatious, and business-like manner in which its other millions are disposed of.

DR. JOHNSON AND MRS. THRALE.

Ir is a peculiar characteristic of most popular scribes of the present day, that they are accustomed to dwell with superlative delight over that period of literary history which is included between the dates of the birth and death of "dear old Samuel Johnson "-as he is facetiously or affectionately termed. The name of the oracular Doctor dances up and down the pages of contemporary periodicals, as a maudlin or comic will-o'-the-wisp, to beguile lazy and indiscreet readers. The period with which that name is inseparably associated is paraded as a pet theme for joking or philandering; a last resource, or grinding-machine, whence the ignorance or turpitude of a writer may issue in familiar gossip, funny chit-chat, and pleasant, playful sentimentality. The whole superficial life of that period has been brought home to us by the best of biographies. We can, as it were, talk theory with Burke, shout into Sir Joshua Reynolds' speaking-trumpet, hob-andnob with Garrick, and patronise Oliver Goldsmith. The society over which Johnson presided has been painted so vividly by Boswell, we are brought into such close communion with its members, we are so enamoured of its cockneyism, so fascinated by its conservatism and bel esprit-that we are apt to hold it at too high an estimate. Nature, in portioning out mankind, vouchsafed the world only one Johnson, and Boswell was his prophet; and it must be remembered that the reputation which is now almost a religion in belles lettres would have dwindled materially in the eyes of posterity, had the prophet never existed-and taken notes. Intellectual prodigy as he assuredly was, the Doctor owes half his immortality to the earnest and much-abused Scotchman who wrote his life. No man was ever so fortunate in his biographer; and, almost as a consequence, no society was ever so long-lived as that renewed in his biography by the elixir of hero-worship. So, fortified with the stray jottings of Boswell, Gigadibs now plays off on the public his squibs and whirligigs of pilfered erudition, and, catching the conversational tone of his subject, grows alarmingly good-natured and offensive. Men who, in the practical tone

On

of these times, find an excuse for pettifogging, are gratified that a past society when idealism was at an ebb in England, when Pope's rythmical paraphrase of Bolingbroke's prose was the beau ideal of the poetic-has been described in records so easily attainable and so quickly digested. the other hand, there are men who, bored with that society, perceive that it contained a good deal of emptiness and pinchbeck; or who fear that Boswell was so much prejudiced in favour of his hero, that he was apt, in his candid way, to exalt him at the expense of other reputations.

We matter-of-fact men and women of 1861 possess so little individuality-have been rendered so impersonal by the growth of anonymous journalism-that, in pure love of novelty, we refresh ourselves by exalting the minute individuality of deceased authors. The odious conversational tone which pervades our literature induces us to raise the man above the

work—to seize every queer idiosyncrasy of the former, at the expense, perhaps, of the perpetuity of the latter to make puppets and jumping-jacks of authors in their habit as they lived. In this spirit, we forget the works of Doctor Johnson, in his well-known personality; for it is astonishing how little real knowledge general readers have of the literary productions of a man whose name is familiar in their mouths as a household word. We remember his diction-not his Dictionary; his comedy of Boswelliana—not his "tragedy" of Irene. Many of us, being acquainted with him through Boswell only, have just such a knowledge of him as one who had never read Sartor Resartus might have of Mr. Carlyle, after hearing that gentleman talk at a dinner-party. Assuredly, ours is the way to form a gross and petty opinion of Johnson. In point of fact, he is to be estimated neither by his small-talk nor by his written books, but indirectly, by the influence his books and small-talk have had on English literature and the literary character. He was a man of extraordinary intellect and noble principles; a better-natured Goliath never breathed English air. Thrown on the world at an early age, friendless and penniless, hé managed by years of incessant labour to attain the proud position of literary dictator of his age. His sterling honesty and his vigorous mind, acting on a vast area of acquired knowledge, admirably fitted him to conduct a society which, if not dictated to sternly, was in danger of breaking out in excrescences of finicism. Every portion of the Doctor was thorough; he was a hater of cant in any shape-a self-asserting giant conspicuous in rugged strength. The medicine with which he counteracted finicism was,―cynicism: just such a remedy as Gifford used when he slaughtered the innocents, or Della Cruscans. He was a might and a meaning in literature; and it must be admitted that, in spite of some bad taste, and more tyranny, he fulfilled his functions most nobly. Literary men were led in those days to set too high a value on wealth, and to be led astray by the historical influence people of quality exercise over the imaginations of people of talent. There was precedent in plenty, for "toadyism" on the one side, and for patronage on the other. Johnson protested against the servile attitude of authors, when, after he had lived for years independently, and by his own pen, he wrote the immortal Letter to Chesterfield. The republic of letters commenced with him, in a literary despotism. Malgre his veneration for the head of the Church and State, he taught literary men to recognize the independence and sanctity of their vocation. He asserted the sacredness of literature, not only as a relaxation, but as a profession. He put a new construction on Grub Street, elevating it to the rank of a fourth estate. It is probably this circumstance which induces Grub Street, which he dignified, to render his memory a nuisance, and to venerate him at second-hand, through the table-talk and twaddle of his biographer.

It is simply possible that our excessive admiration for Johnson's personal qualities is a "toadyism" caught from Boswell,-whom we laugh at, though we unconsciously assume his servility, and who was not such a

donkey as some of us would make him out. Johnson the man-the oracle of Mrs. Thrale's tea-table, the sacer vates of the club-orgies-possessed a soft heart and a fiery temper. The adulation he received rendered him, in many respects, a bully; the native goodness of his nature kept him a philanthropist. But some of the peculiarities we admire in him, which at all events we love to allude to, were emphatically detestable. Why remind us that he ate like a glutton-was slovenly, and worse than slovenly in person? Is there anything lovable in dirt, anything admirable in gluttony? Is a man any more a genius because he lets his stockings draggle in the mire and wears a badly-adjusted wig? The good Doctor's hasty dogmatism often inflicted grievous wounds. Is the dogmatic man who insults his companions to be idolized for his dogmatism? In simple truth, the best cure for those writers who expatiate on Johnson's gluttony and dogmatism would be a day or two with Johnson in the flesh. Were that cure possible, we should have fewer spurious Boswells to expatiate on the dead man's follies and demerits.

Among other reputations which have suffered by our immeasurable belief in Johnson, is the reputation of poor Mrs. Thrale, who became Mrs. Piozzi by "marrying the music-master." Macaulay, with his lofty contempt for everybody but his heroes, convinced us that this lady was a heartless, frivolous, and changeable woman, and that the Doctor acted towards her with the forbearance of an angel. Mr. Hayward, therefore, publishes an admirable volume, full of new and authentic documents, with the view of rescuing her from the animadversions of Boswell and the summing-up of the great historian. He throws a totally new light on the intercourse of the lady and the author, supplies data which make Macaulay's fine comments look ridiculous, and prove that Mrs. Piozzi has been too hastily lynched by posterity. His book, of course, brings us back to the society we know so well; but it shows some members of that society under quite a novel aspect. It may not be amiss to hear what Mrs. Piozzi has to say for herself, now that Mr. Hayward has given her an opportunity of speaking in the first person.* We have been accustomed to condemn her as a flighty nondomesticated little blue-stocking, who was very well off in having a blunt man like the Doctor to abuse her to her face. It is something new to be told she was a patient, lovable little housewife, who held her own in society by pure force of character; that her first husband was an unfaithful man about town-her second husband a loving gentleman; and that she endured at Johnson's hands treatment which few women of courage would have failed to resent.

Johnson was introduced to the Thrale family in 1764 or 1765 (in the latter year according to Boswell, but in the former according to Mrs. Thrale). He was in his fifty-fifth or fifty-sixth year, at a time of life when

Autobiography, Letters, and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale). Edited, with Notes, and an Introductory Account of her Life and Writings, by A. Hayward, Esq., Q.C. 2 vols. London: Longmans, 1861.