Thus we past a most agreeable day, owing to good appetites and good humour; two hearty feeders, which will devour with satisfaction whatever food you place before them: whereas, without these, the elegance of 5 St. James's, the charde, the Perigord-pye, or the ortolan, the venison, the turtle, or the custard, may titillate the throat, but will never convey happiness to the heart, or cheerfulness to the countenance.

As the wind appeared still immovable, my wife 10 proposed my lying on shore. I presently agreed, tho' in defiance of an act of parliament, by which persons wandering abroad, and lodging in alehouses, are decreed to be rogues and vagabonds; and this too after having been very singularly officious in putting 15 that law in execution.

My wife having reconnoitred the house, reported, that there was one room in which were two beds. It was concluded, therefore, that she and Harriot should occupy one, and myself take possession of the other. 20 She added likewise an ingenious recommendation of this room, to one who had so long been in a cabin, which it exactly resembled, as it was sunk down with age on one side, and was in the form of a ship with gunnels to.

25

For my own part, I make little doubt but this apartment was an ancient temple, built with the materials of a wreck, and, probably, dedicated to Neptune, in honour of THE BLESSING sent by him to the inhabitants, such blessings having, in all ages, been very 30 common to them. The timber employed in it confirms this opinion, being such as is seldom used by any but ship-builders. I do not find, indeed, any

mention of this matter in Hearne ; but, perhaps, its antiquity was too modern to deserve his notice. Certain it is, that this island of Wight was not an early convert to Christianity; nay, there is some reason to doubt whether it was ever entirely converted. But I 5 have only time to touch slightly on things of this kind, which, luckily for us, we have a society whose peculiar profession it is to discuss and develope.

FROM Samuel Johnson,1 CHAPTER 1.

[The following extract illustrates good biographical narrative of medium fullness, written in a clear, direct style. The passage, which is based on Boswell, should be compared with the latter and with other long narratives, such as Lockhart's Life of Scott, and with short biographical sketches such as are found in any good newspaper. The passage sums up a discussion of Johnson's religious views, and gives a sketch of his mind as an introduction to the brief outline of his life which follows. The time is about six years.]

ON leaving the University, in 1731, the world was all before him. His father died in the end of the year, and Johnson's whole immediate inheritance was twenty pounds. Where was he to turn for daily bread? 5 Even in those days, most gates were barred with gold

and opened but to golden keys. The greatest chance for a poor man was probably through the Church. The career of Warburton, who rose from a similar position to a bishopric, might have been rivalled by 10 Johnson, and his connexions with Lichfield might, one would suppose, have helped him to a start. It would be easy to speculate upon causes which might have hindered such a career. In later life, he more than once refused to take orders upon the promise of a

'In the English Men of Letters, edited by Mr. John Morley.

living. Johnson, as we know him, was a man of the world; though a religious man of the world. He represents the secular rather than the ecclesiastical type. So far as his mode of teaching goes, he is rather a disciple of Socrates than of St. Paul or 5 Wesley. According to him, a " tavern-chair" was the "throne of human felicity," and supplied a better arena than the pulpit for the utterance of his message to mankind. And, though his external circumstances doubtless determined his method, there was much in 10 his character which made it congenial. Johnson's religious emotions were such as to make habitual reserve almost a sanitary necessity. They were deeply coloured by his constitutional melancholy. Fear of death and hell were prominent in his personal 15 creed. To trade upon his feelings like a charlatan would have been abhorrent to his masculine character; and to give them full and frequent utterance like a genuine teacher of mankind would have been to imperil his sanity. If he had gone through the excite- 20 ment of a Methodist conversion, he would probably have ended his days in a madhouse.

Such considerations, however, were not, one may guess, distinctly present to Johnson himself; and the offer of a college fellowship or of private patronage 25 might probably have altered his career. He might have become a learned recluse or a struggling Parson Adams. College fellowships were less open to talent then than now, and patrons were never too propitious to the uncouth giant, who had to force his way by 30 sheer labour, and fight for his own hand. Accordingly, the young scholar tried to coin his brains into money

by the most depressing and least hopeful of employments. By becoming an usher in a school, he could at least turn his talents to account with little delay, and that was the most pressing consideration. By one 5 schoolmaster he was rejected on the ground that his infirmities would excite the ridicule of the boys. Under another he passed some months of "complicated misery," and could never think of the school without horror and aversion. Finding this situation Io intolerable, he settled in Birmingham, in 1733, to be near an old schoolfellow, named Hector, who was apparently beginning to practise as a surgeon. Johnson seems to have had some acquaintances among the comfortable families in the neighbourhood; but his 15 means of living are obscure. Some small literary work came in his way. He contributed essays to a local paper, and translated a book of Travels in Abyssinia. For this, his first publication, he received five guineas. In 1734 he made certain overtures to 20 Cave, a London publisher, of the result of which I shall have to speak presently. For the present it is pretty clear that the great problem of self-support had been very inadequately solved.

Having no money and no prospects, Johnson natur25 ally married. The attractions of the lady were not very manifest to others than her husband. She was the widow of a Birmingham mercer named Porter. Her age at the time (1735) of the second marriage was forty-eight, the bridegroom being not quite twenty-six. 30 The biographer's eye was not fixed upon Johnson till after his wife's death, and we have little in the way of authentic description of her person and character.