Oxford. His exercises in the university displayed, as they had done at school, superior powers; and his translation of Pope's Messiah into Latin verse, appeared so highly finished, that the poet spoke with the highest respect of his translator, and declared that posterity would doubt which poem was the original. Unhappily, Johnson had to struggle with poverty at college, and in consequence of the insolvency of his father, he left the university in 1731, without a degree. Returned to Lichfield, he found his prospects in life dreary and unpromising. After his father's death, his whole property amounted to only £20; and thus destitute, he willingly accepted the offer of an ushership at Bosworth school. The situation proved disagreeable, and in a few months he removed to Birmingham, where, under the patronage of a bookseller, he published his first literary labor, a translation of Lobo. In 1734, he returned to Lichfield; and the next year he married Mrs. Porter, a lady much older than himself, and not possessed of the most engaging manners, or the most fascinating person. she brought him £800 he began to fit up a house at Edial, near Lichfield, for the reception of pupils; but as he had only three scholars, among whom was David Garrick, the plan was dropped as utterly impracticable and ruinous. About this time, under the patronage of Mr. Walmsley, his earliest friend, he began his Irene; and in March, 1737, he first visited London, in company with his pupil, Garrick, like himself, in quest of employment, and equally doomed to rise to celebrity in his profession. In London he formed an acquaintanee with Cave, the printer of the "Gentleman's Magazine;" and his first performance in that work was a Latin Alcaic ode, inserted in March, 1738. Thus encouraged, he returned to Lichfield to fetch his wife; and from 1740 to 1743, he was laboriously employed in the service of this periodical work.

As

Though distinguished as an author, Johnson still felt the pressure of poverty, and therefore he applied for a school in Leicestershire; but though recommended by Lord Gower, he was disappointed, as he had not the requisite degree of M. A. His attempts to be admitted at Doctor's Commons, without academical honors, proved equally unsuccessful; and therefore he determined to depend on the efforts of his pen for subsistence. Besides his valuable contribution to the Gentleman's Magazine, he, in 1744, published the life of Savage, a work of great merit, which, in the elegant language of pathetic narration, exhibited the sufferings and the poverty of a friend, whose calamities he himself had shared and bewailed. He began, in 1747, his edition of Shakspeare, and published the plan of his English dictionary. This gigantic work was undertaken under the patronage of the booksellers; and the lexicographer engaged a house in Gough-square, where, with the assistance of six amanuenses, he proceded rapidly in the execution of his plan. This great work, so valuable to the nation, and so honorable to the talents of the author, appeared, May, 1755, in 2 vols., without a patron. Lord Chesterfield, who had at first favored the undertaking, but had afterwards neglected the author, endeavored, by a flattering recommendation of the work in "The World," to reconcile himself to his good opinion; but Johnson, with noble indignation, spurned at the mean artifice of his courtly patrou; and his celebrated letter reflected, with independent spirit and in severe language, against his selfish and ambitious views. The dictionary produced £1,575, but as the money had been advanced during the composition of the work, there was no solid advantage to be procured on the publication, and fame could ill satisfy the demands of creditors, and supply bread to the indigent author.

In 1749, the Irene had been brought forward on the stage, by the friendship of Garrick, but with no success. The 46 Rambler" was undertaken 20th March, 1750, and till the 17th March, 1752, a paper had regularly appeared every Tuesday and Saturday; and it is remarkable that, during the whole of that time, only five num bers were contributed by other authors. But these publications, popular as they were, still left Johnson in distressed circumstances; and in 1756, the year after the publishing of his dictionary, he was arrested for a debt of five guineas, from which the kindness of Richardson relieved him. In 1758, he began the Idler, and continued it for two years with little assistance; and on the death of his mother in 1759, that he might pay some decent respect to her funeral, and discharge her debts, he wrote his "Rasselas," and obtained for it, from the booksellers, the sum of £100. Happily, however, these high services to literature were not to pass unrewarded: in 1762, he was honorably presented by the king, on the representation of Mr. Wedderburne, with a pension of £300 per annum, without a stipulation of future exertions, but merely, as the grant expressed it, for the moral tendency of his writings, a character to which his Rambler was most fully entitled.

It is

In 1775, Johnson was complimented by the University of Oxford with the degree of LL. D. by diploma, as he had before received from them the degree of A. M., and the same honors from Trinity College, Dublin; and the circumstance reflected equal credit on those who bestowed, and on him who accepted the high distinction. In 1777, he began his "Lives of the Poets," which he finished in 1781, a work of great merit, and which exhibits, in the most pleasing manner, the soundness of the critic, the information of the biographer, and the benevolent views of the man. In 1781, the loss of his friend, Mr. Thrale, in whose hospitable house and society he had passed fifteen of the happiest years of his life, affected him much; he found his health gradually declining, from the united attacks of the dropsy, and of an asthma; and while he expressed a wish to remove to the milder climates of France and Italy, it is to be lamented that the applications of his friends for the increase of his pension proved abortive. During the progressive increase of his complaints, he divided his time in acts of devotion, and in classical recreations; and during his sleepless nights, he translated several of the Greek epigrams of the Anthologia into Latin verse. remarkable, that Johnson, whose pen was ever employed in recommending piety, and all the offices of the purest morality; and whose conduct and example in life exhibited the most perfect pattern of the Christian virtues; should, in the close of life, betray dreadful apprehensions of death. By degrees, indeed, the terrors which his imagination had painted to itself, disappeared; but still his example teaches us, that if the most virtuous and devout, view the approach of death with trembling and alarm, the unrepented sins of life have much to apprehend from the all-searching eye of God. Johnson expired on the 13th December, 1784, full of resignation, strong in faith, and joyful in hope of a happy resurrection. His remains were deposited in Westminster Abbey, near the grave of his friend Garrick; and the nation has paid honorable tribute to his memory, by erecting to him a monument in St. Paul's, with an elegant and nervous epitaph from the pen of Dr. Parr. By his wife, who died March, 1752, and was deeply lamented by him, Johnson had no issue. His works are very numerous, and all respectable.

the

In 1838, a statue of Dr. Johnson, nineteen feet high, was erected in the market place, Lichfield, opposite the house in which he was born. He is represented as sitting in an easy chair in deep thought, with his books about him. The pedestal is divided into compartments, in which are represented, in bold relief, three incidents of his life. In the first compartment, he is represented when at age of three years, on his father's shoulders, listening to Dr. Sachwerell preaching in Lichfield Cathedral; which is intended to show "his power in youth." In the second, he is borne to school on the shoulders of his fellows, indicating that "in youth he put forth the budding of his future powers." In the third, of which the annexed engraving is a copy, he is represented as doing penance in Uttoxeter market, where he stood, bare-headed, exposed to the storm, the same number of hours he had, forty years previous, compelled his father to stand there, when ill, by refusing to keep the book-stall for him: emblematic of "his moral greatness.'

EDWARD YOUNG, the author, born June, 1681, at Upham near Winchester, the residence of his father of the same name, who was chaplain to William and Mary, and Dean of Sarum. He was educated

at Winchester school, and, in 1703, though superannuated, removed to New College, Oxford, which he left five years after on being chosen fellow of All Souls. He took his degree of LL.D. 1719. He first appeared before the public 1712, as author of an epistle to Lord Lansdowne, in consequence of the unpopular creation of ten peers, in one day, by Queen Anne, and the next year he prefixed a recommendatory copy of verses to the Cato of Addison. Though distinguished in literary fame, he was prevailed upon by the Duke of Wharton, his father's friend, to abandon the prospect of two livings, from his college, worth £600 a year, and to engage in the tumult of a contested election, as a candidate at Cirencester, an event of which he was afterwards ashamed to the latest period of his life. He took orders, 1727, and soon after was appointed chaplain to the king, and he paid such respect to the decorum of his new profession, that he withdrew from the stage, his tragedy of the "Two Brothers," which was already in rehearsal. He afterwards was presented by his college, to the living of Welwyn, Herts, and in 1739, he married Lady Elizabeth Lee, daughter of the Earl of Lichfield, and widow of Colonel Lee, whom he had the misfortune to lose on the following year. To relieve himself from the heavy melancholy which this event brought upon him, he began his "Night Thoughts," but though in this work he seemed to bid adieu to the world, he afterwards engaged in politics, by the publication of " Reflections on the Public Situation of the Kingdom," and at the age of eighty, he solicited further patronage from Archbishop Secker, and was appointed clerk of the closet to the princess dowager. He died April, 1765. As a poet, Young is highly respectable, his "Night Thoughts" abound with many sublime passages, and they are written in a strain of true genuine morality, though occasionally obscure.

JOHN MILTON.

JOHN MILTON, the celebrated author of the "Paradise Lost," was descended from an ancient family at Milton, Oxfordshire. He was born December 9th, 1608, in Bread-street, London, where his father, a scrivener, was settled, and after receiving instruction from a private tutor, he went to St. Paul's school, and in 1625 removed to Christ College, Cambridge. When he left Cambridge he returned to his father, who had settled with a competent fortune at Horton, and in this retirement he laboriously devoted himself for five years to reading the purest classics in Greek and Latin. Here likewise he produced his "Comus," "L'Allegro," "Il Penseroso," and "Lycidas," poems of such intrinsic merit as would have transmitted his fame to the latest period of time, if he had written nothing besides. On his mother's death he obtained his father's permission to travel abroad, and in 1638 he embarked for the continent, attended by one servant. He visited various countries, and returned to England after an absence of fifteen months.

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In 1641, he published some pamphlets, in which he supported the republican principles of the times. In 1643, he married the daughter of

[This building, in which Milton finished his immortal poem of "Paradise Lost," presents very much the appearance as when he occupied it. Till within a few years since there was an old porch which stood before the door till it fell with age. Within its shade, Milton, it is said, used, in the fashion of olden time, to sit and entertain his friends by his instructive conversation.]

Mr. Powell, a justice of peace in Oxfordshire; but as she had been educated a firm royalist, this union proved unhappy, and after cohabiting with him about a month, she left him and would not return. Disgusted with this condnct, the poet thought that he might be permitted to take another wife; and he not only wrote some strong tracts in favor of divorce, but paid his addresses to another lady, of great wit and beauty. This had due effect; and his wife, after long despising his invitations, relented, and throwing herself at his feet, obtained his forgiveness and reconciliation in 1645.

The momentous events of the times gave full scope for the exertion of his literary abilities; he defended the trial and the execution of the king. His talents were too great to be neglected, and therefore he was appointed Latin secretary to the council of state. About this time he lost his eye-sight, which had been gradually decaying from his severe application to his studies; but he nevertheless continued zealous and active in the support of his principles. In 1652, his wife died, and some time after he married a second. But though patronized and raised to independence by the favor of Cromwell, and of Richard, Milton saw with terror the dissolution of his favorite republic approaching. Removing from Petty France, Westminster, where he had lived since 1652, he took a house in Holborn, and then removed to Jewin-street, where he took a third wife, and then settled in a house in Artillery-walk, Bunhill Fields. In this place, which was his last stage, he lived longer than in any other.

Though reduced in his circumstances by the restoration, he refused to accept the Latin secretaryship, which was honorably offered him by Charles II, and he devoted himself earnestly to the completion of his

great poem, on which he bestowed much labor. He was assisted in his literary pursuits by Thomas Ellwood, a quaker, who acted as an amanuensis, and daily visited him. In 1665, during the plague, the poet retired to a small house at St. Giles, Chalfont, Buckinghamshire.

The poet returned to London, 1666, and the "Paradise Lost" was first printed the following year, in ten books, afterwards swelled to twelve. Milton received for this great work only £15, and the money was paid by instalments. This matchless poem, which long remained unknown from the prejudices entertained against the author, gradually rose to notice, to fame, and immortality. Dryden had, indeed, recommended its great merits to the public; but it was not till the days of Addison that England became sensible of the greatness, of the beauties, and the sublimity of her poet. The critique of the "Spectator" opened the eyes of the nation, and, in banishing prejudice, liberally proved that however violent the publications of Milton were, however biased in his love of republican principles, yet his merits as a poet cannot be effected; he must shine as the greatest ornament of the British Isles, and, in the ranks of immortality, be placed by the side of Homer, of Virgil, and of Tasso. Milton died at his house near Bunhill Fields, in the beginning of November, 1674, and was buried near his father, in the chancel of St. Giles', Cripplegate, where a monument was erected to his memory, and another, with greater propriety, among the great departed dead of Westminster Abbey, raised, in 1737, by Mr. Benson.

The person of Milton was fair, so that he was called, at Cambridge, the lady of Christ College; his hair was light brown, and his features exact and pleasing. He was of the middle size, well proportioned, nervous, and active; but his constitution was tender, and his health consequently weak. In his mode of living he was economical, abstemious, and averse to strong liquors. Though he did not inherit much from his father, yet frugality maintained him in a respectable manner, and at his death he left about £1,500 besides the value of his household goods. He had no children except by the first of his three wives. Three daughters survived him, and of these the two youngest were well employed by him to read; and though they could read with ease eight different languages, yet they understood nothing but English, as their father used to say that one tongue was enough for a woman. In his religious opinions, Milton, in his early years, favored the Puritans, whose liberty of worship he greatly admired; but in the latter part of life, he professed no attachment to any particular sect, and he neither frequented any public place of worship, nor observed in his own house any of the religious rites of the times, though it is fully evident that he was sensible of the great truths of revelation, and hoped for salvation through a Redeemer.

John Locke

JOHN LOCKE, an illustrious philosopher, was born in 1632, at Wrington, near Bristol. He was educated at Westminster school, and, in 1651, was elected to Christ's Church, at Oxford. He distinguished himself in literature and also applied himself to the study of physic. Having cured Lord Ashley, afterwards the Earl of

John Locke's Signature.