Francis Barber, whom he looked upon as particularly under his protection, and whom he had long treated as an humble friend. He appointed Sir Joshua Reynolds, Sir John Hawkins, and Dr. (Sir William) Scott his executors. His death attracted the public attention in an uncommon degree, and was followed by an unprecedented accumulation of literary honours, in the various forms of sermons, elegies, memoirs, lives, essays and anecdotes.

The religious, moral, political and literary character of Johnson, will be better understood by the account of his life, than by any laboured and critical comments. Yet it may not be superfluous here to attempt to collect from his several biographers, into one view his most prominent excellencies and distinguishing particularities.

Johnson's figure was large, robust, and unwieldy, from corpulency. His appearance was rendered strange and somewhat uncouth by sudden emotions, which appeared to a common observer to be involuntary and convulsive. But in the opinion of Sir Joshua Reynolds, they were the consequence of a depraved habit of accompanying his thoughts with certain untoward actions, which seemed as if they were meant to reprobate some parts of his past conduct. He had the use only of one eye; yet so much does the mind govern, and even supply the deficiency of organs, that his visual perceptions, as far as they extended, were uncommonly quick and accurate. So morbid was his temperament, that he never enjoyed the free and vigorous use of his limbs; and when he walked, it was like the straggling gait of one in fetters; and when he rode he had no command nor direction of his horse. That with such a constitution and habits of life, he should have lived seventy-five

years, is, as Mr. Boswell remarks, a proof that an inherent vividi vis is a powerful preservative of the human frame. In his dress he was singular and slovenly, and though he improved in some degree under the lectures of Mrs. Thrale, during his long residence in the family, yet he never could be said to have completely surmounted particularity.

He was fond of good company and good living, and to the last he knew of no method of regulating his appetite, but absolute restraint, or unlimited indulgence. Many a day,' says Mr. Boswell, did he fast, many a year refrain from wine; but when he did eat, it was voraciously, when he did drink, it was copiously. He could practise abstinence, but not temperance. In conversation it was generally admitted, that he was rude, intemperate, overbearing, and impatient of contradiction. Addicted to argument, and ambitious of victory, he was equally regardless of truth and fair reasoning in his approaches to conquest. 'There is no arguing with him,' said Goldsmith, alluding to a speech in one of Cibber's plays; for if his pistol misses fire, he knocks you down with the but end of it.'

He had accustomed himself to such accuracy in common conversation, that he at all times delivered himself with a force, choice, and elegance of expression; the effect of which was aided by his having a loud voice, and a slow and deliberate utterance. Though usually grave in his deportment, he possessed much wit and humour, and often indulged in colloquial pleasantry. Mrs. Piozzi says, that "if poetry was talked of, his quotations were the readiest, and had he not been eminent for more solid and brilliant qualities, mankind would have united to extol his extraordinary memory. His manner of re

peating deserves to be described, though at the same time it defeats all power of description; but whoever once heard him repeat an ode of Horace, would be long before they could endure to hear it repeated by another.'

Mr. Boswell very judiciously observes, that in proportion to the native vigour of the mind, the contradictory qualities will be the more prominent, and more difficult to be adjusted, and therefore we are not to wonder that Johnson exhibited an eminent example of this remark upon human nature. Though the vigour of his mind was almost beyond parallel ; yet from early prejudices, which all his learning and philosophy could never overcome, he was a zealous high-churchman: in his political sentiments a rank tory, and till his present Majesty's accession to the throne, a violent jacobite. His attachment to the University of Oxford, to which in his youth he owed no great obligations, led him unjustly to depreciate the merit of every person who studied at that of Cambridge. His aversion to whigs, dissenters and presbyterians was unconquerable, and his religious bigotry was such, that when at Edinburgh, as Dr. Towers mentions, in his essay on his life, &c. he would not go to hear Dr. Robertson preach, because he would not be present at a presbyterian assembly; though he with the learned world in general admitted that that eminent historiographer was a great ornament to literature, and thereby entitled to universal respect. He was so prone to superstition that he took off his hat in token of reverence, when he approached the place on which popish churches had formerly stood, and bowed before the monastic vestiges; nay further, he went so far as to express a serious concern, because he had put milk into his tea on a Good Friday.

He was solicitous to give authenticity to stories of apparations, and easy to credit the existence of a second sight, while he appeared scrupulous and sceptical as to particular facts.

These mental distempers are justly attributed to his melancholic temperament, and were fostered by solitary contemplation, till they had laid fetters upon the imagination too strong for reason to burst

through. To this cause we must attribute his mentioning secret transgressions, his constant fear of death, and his religious terrors, not very consistent with his strength of mind, or his conviction of the goodness of God. This at least seems to have been his own opinion of the progress of these diseases, as appears from his history of the Mad Astronomer in Rasselas, the description of whose mind he seems to have intended as a representation of his own.

But with all these defects, from a review of his life, it appears beyond a doubt that ne possessed many virtues, having been remarkably humane, charitable, affectionate and generous. To the warm and active benevolence of his heart, all his friends have borne testimony. He had nothing,' says Goldsmith, ' of the bear but his skin.' Misfortune had only to form her claim, in order to found her right to the use of his purse, or the exercise of his talents. His house was an asylum for the unhappy, beyond what a regard to personal convenience would have allowed, and his income was distributed in the support of his inmates, to an extent greater than general prudence would have permitted. Mrs. Piozzi in her anecdotes, remarks; that as his purse was ever open to alms-giving, so was his heart tender to those who wanted relief, and his soul susceptible of gratitude, and every kind impression.'

As a literary character Johnson has eminently distinguished himself as a philologist, a biographer, a critic, a moralist, a novelist, a political writer, and a poet.

As a philologist we need only to refer to his Dictionary of the English language, as its utility is universally acknowledged, and its popularity its best eulogium. The etymologies however, though they exhibit learning and judgment are not in every instance entitled to unqualified praise. The definitions exhibit astonishing proofs of acuteness of intellect and precsion of language. His introducing his own opinions and even prejudices, under general definitions of words; as Tory, Whig, Pension, Excise,&c. must be placed to the account of capricious and humorous indulgence.

Mr. Murphy, who has given a fair and candid estimate of the literary character of Johnson, remarks that, the Dictionary, though in some instances abuse has been loud, and in others malice has endeavoured to undermine its fame, still remains the Mount Atlas of English literature.

Though storms and tempests thunder on its brow, And oceans break their billows at its feet; It stands unmoved, and glories in its hight.'

As a biographer, his merit is certainly great. His narrative is in general vigorous, connected and perspicuous, and his reflections numerous, apposite and moral. But it must be owned that he neither dwells with pleasure nor success, upon those minuter anecdotes of his life, which oftner shew the genuine man, than actions of greater importance. Sometimes also