INTRODUCTORY NOTE SAMUEL JOHNSON (1709-1784), the great literary dictator of the latter part of the eighteenth century, was the son of a bookseller at Lichfield. After leaving Oxford, he tried teaching, but soon gave it up, and came to London in 1737, where he supported himself by his pen. After years of hardship he finally rose to the head of his profession, and a pension of £300 a year from George III. made his later years free from anxiety. Johnson attempted many forms of literature. In poetry his chief works were "London," an imitation of Juvenal, and "The Vanity of Human Wishes," a piece of dignified and impressive moralizing. Garrick produced his tragedy of "Irene” in 1749, but without much success. The great Dictionary appeared in 1755, and made an epoch in the history of English lexicography. From 1750 to 1752 he issued the "Rambler," which he wrote almost entirely himself. This periodical is regarded as the most successful of the imitations of the "Spectator," but the modern reader finds it heavy. The "Idler," a similar publication, appeared from 1758 to 1760. In 1759, when Johnson's mother died, he wrote his didactic romance of "Rasselas" in one week in order to defray the expenses of her illness and funeral. This was the most popular of his writings in his own day, and has been translated into many languages. In 1765 Johnson issued his edition of Shakespeare in eight volumes, a task in many respects inadequately performed, yet in the interpretation of obscure passages often showing Johnson's robust common sense and power of clear and vigorous expression. It is generally agreed that none of Johnson's various works is the equal of his conversation as reported in the greatest of English biographies, Boswell's "Life of Johnson." But the "Lives of the Poets," written as prefaces to a collection of the English poets, is his most permanently valuable production, and, though limited by the standards of his time, is full of acute criticism admirably expressed. The "Life of Addison" is one of the most sympathetic of the "Lives," and gives an excellent idea of Johnson's matter and manner. LIFE OF ADDISON 1672-1719 J OSEPH ADDISON was born on the first of May, 1672, at Milston, of which his father, Lancelot Addison, was then rector, near Ambrosbury in Wiltshire, and appearing weak and unlikely to live, he was christened the same day. After the usual domestick education, which, from the character of his father, may be reasonably supposed to have given him strong impressions of piety, he was committed to the care of Mr. Naish at Ambrosbury, and afterwards of Mr. Taylor at Salisbury. Not to name the school or the masters of men illustrious for literature is a kind of historical fraud, by which honest fame is injuriously diminished: I would therefore trace him through the whole process of his education. In 1683, in the beginning of his twelfth year, his father being made Dean of Lichfield, naturally carried his family to his new residence, and, I believe, placed him for some time, probably not long, under Mr. Shaw, then master of the school at Lichfield, father of the late Dr. Peter Shaw. Of this interval his biographers have given no account, and I know it only from a story of a barring-out, told me, when I was a boy, by Andrew Corbet of Shropshire, who had heard it from Mr. Pigot his uncle. The practice of barring-out, was a savage license, practised in many schools to the end of the last century, by which the boys, when the periodical vacation drew near, growing petulant at the approach of liberty, some days before the time of regular recess, took possession of the school, of which they barred the doors, and bade their master defiance from the windows. It is not easy to suppose that on such occasions the master would do more than laugh; yet, if tradition may be credited, he often struggled hard to force or surprise the garrison. The master, when Pigot was a school-boy, was barred-out at Lichfield, and the whole operation, as he said, was planned and conducted by Addison. To judge better of the probability of this story, I have enquired when he was sent to the Chartreux; but, as he was not one of those who enjoyed the founder's benefaction, there is no account preserved of his admission. At the school of the Chartreux, to which he was removed either from that of Salisbury or Lichfield, he pursued his juvenile studies under the care of Dr. Ellis, and contracted that intimacy with Sir Richard Steele which their joint labours have so effectually recorded. Of this memorable friendship the greater praise must be given to Steele. It is not hard to love those from whom nothing can be feared, and Addison never considered Steele as a rival; but Steele lived, as he confesses, under an habitual subjection to the predominating genius of Addison, whom he always mentioned with reverence, and treated with obsequi ousness. Addison, who knew his own dignity, could not always forbear to shew it, by playing a little upon his admirer; but he was in no danger of retort: his jests were endured without resistance or resentment. Steele, But the sneer of jocularity was not the worst. whose imprudence of generosity, or vanity of profusion, kept him always incurably necessitous, upon some pressing exigence, in an evil hour borrowed a hundred pounds of his friend, probably without much purpose of repayment; but Addison, who seems to have had other notions of an hundred pounds, grew impatient of delay, and reclaimed his loan by an execution. Steele felt with great sensibility the obduracy of his creditor; but with emotions of sorrow rather than of anger. In 1687 he was entered into Queen's College in Oxford, where, in 1689, the accidental perusal of some Latin verses gained him the patronage of Dr. Lancaster, afterwards provost of Queen's College; by whose recommendation he was elected into Magdalen College as a Demy, a term by which that society denominates those which are elsewhere called Scholars; young men, who partake of the founder's benefaction, and succeed in their order to vacant fellowships. Here he continued to cultivate poetry and criticism, and grew first eminent by his Latin compositions, which are indeed entitled to particular praise. He has not confined himself to the imitation of any ancient author, but has formed his style from the general language, such as a diligent perusal of the productions of different ages happened to supply. His Latin compositions seem to have had much of his fondness; for he collected a second volume of the Musæ Anglicanæ, perhaps for a convenient receptacle, in which all his Latin pieces are inserted, and where his Poem on the Peace has the first place. He afterwards presented the collection to Boileau, who from that time conceived, says Tickell, an opinion of the English genius for poetry. Nothing is better known of Boileau, than that he had an injudicious and peevish contempt of modern Latin, and therefore his profession of regard was probably the effect of his civility rather than approbation. Three of his Latin poems are upon subjects on which perhaps he would not have ventured to have written in his own language. The Battle of the Pigmies and Cranes; The Barometer; and A Bowling-green. When the matter is low or scanty, a dead language, in which nothing is mean because nothing is familiar, affords great conveniences; and by the sonorous magnificence of Roman syllables, the writer conceals penury of thought, and want of novelty, often from the reader, and often from himself. In his twenty-second year he first shewed his power of English poetry by some verses addressed to Dryden; and soon afterwards published a translation of the greater part of the Fourth Georgick upon Bees; after which, says Dryden, my latter swarm is hardly worth the hiving. About the same time he composed the arguments prefixed to the several books of Dryden's Virgil; and produced an Essay on the Georgicks, juvenile, superficial, and uninstructive, without much either of the scholar's learning or the critick's penetration. His next paper of verses contained a character of the |