The Sun.
London, England, 1859-02-17 00:00:00

DR. JOIINSON'S EXQUISITE SENSIBILITY.

"He was thrown into an agony at the sight of an omelet
shortly after the death of Dr. Nugent, because it was the
dish they had had for supper the last time they met. He
cried when he read the letter which described the death of
Mr. Elphinston's mother. Tears were a tribute he often
paid. Miss Reynolds related to him some mournful story
of maternal affection, and she was interrupted by his sobs.
He wept as he told that Dr. Hodges, the physician who
remained in London during the plague when most of his
brother practitioners fled, died soon afterwards a prisoner
for debt. He burst into tears in repeating the Latin hymn
Dies irm,' and again when he recited the description of
the English from Goldsmith's Traveller.' He read
Beattie's Hermit' with similar emotion. There is a pathos
in these pieces which cannot be fully apprehended except
by minds refined by literary culture. Their power pro-
ceeds from an art which is lost upon untutored perceptions,
and their effect upon Johnson is at once a proof of the
acuteness of his feeling for poetry and the strength of his
human sensibilities."

Here, on the other hand, are equally impressive
tokens of

DR. JOHNSON'S BULL-DOG COURAGE.

" He was accustomed to maintain that the man who was
afraid of anything was a scoundrel. He feared death,' says
Boswell, ' but he feared nothing else—not even what might
occasion death.' Though his convulsive movements would
not enable him to guide a horse, and though he was so
short7sighted as hardly to be able to see a yard before him,
he would follow the hounds in a chase of fifty miles with
desperate daring, while the sportsmen shouted to him not
to ride over the dogs. He despised the occupation, and his
sole motive for engaging in it was his determination to
show himself as good a man as his neighbours. He laughed
at the notion of caring for horses running away with a
carriage. The event occurred when he was travelling in
France with - the Thrales, at a spot where the road was
bounded by a precipice. They narrowly escaped with.their
lives ; but he contmued to ridicule the• apprehensions of
his companions, and exultingly exclaimed that nothing
came of except that Thrale leaped from the vehicle into
a chalk-pit, and then walked out looking as white.' Hay-
ring heard it asserted that if a gun was loacled.with two
or three balls, there was a risk of its bursting, he put in
six or seven, and fired them off against a wall. The same
spirit of defiance led him, when he' was bathing near
Oxford, to swim straight into a pool .because he was cau-
tioned against it by Langton as particularly dangerous. He
protested that he was afraid of no dog in the world ; and as
.two fierce pointers were fighting at the house of his friend
Beauclerk, he cuffed their heads with his fists till they ran
howling away. He cared as little for men as for dogs.
Having left for a few minutes a chair which was placed for
him between the side-scenes of the theatre at Lichfield, a
gentleman took the seat, and refused to resign it, upon
which Johnson lifted up chair and gentleman together, and
flung them both into the pit. Foote had resolved to per-
ssnate him on the stage, and expected to derive large pro-
fits from the performance. Johnson purchased a stout
oaken cudgel, and declared that he would break the bones
of the satirist in the presence of the audience. The threat
was enough for Foote, who only ventured to ridicule the
unresisting. Johnson, it must be confessed, was no ordi-
nary antagonist. A gang of four persons once attacked
him at night in the street, and he kept all four at bay till
the arrival of the watch. He united skill to muscular
power, for he had learned to box from his uncle Andrew,
who was a professional prize-fighter. If not to be afraid of
anything is not to be a scoundrel, Johnson was certainly a
very honest fellow."
As for his genius—read this :

" Wit, in the estimation of his friends, was his most
shining quality. Rabelais and all the rest,' said Garrick,
' are nothing compared to him. You may be diverted by
them, but Johnson gives you a forcible hug, and shakes
laughter out of you whether you will or not."
As to the doctor's enlightenment the reviewer
justly observes—.

" In many respects he was in advance of his age, or at
least must be ranked amongst the foremost men in it. Years
before Wilberforce had opened his Bpi against the slave-
trade or slavery, Johnson in a company of potent, grave,
and reverend signiors' at Oxford gave for a toast, To the
next insurrection of the negroes in the West Indies."

Finally, here is the eloquent estimate given by the
Quarterly of the grand lesson taught to the world
by the Life and Works of this Great and Good
man—

7The history of Johnson teaches a lesson of resignation
to those who are straitened in their circumstances when a
man so good and gifted languished for considerably more
than half his life in abject penury; a lesson of perseverance
to those who are desponding, when a toilsome and desolate
road, which it took more than thirty years to traverse and
which seemed to have no other goal than the grave, led him
at last to competence and ease; a lesson of contentment
to those who do not possess his mental pre-eminence,
when Providence had coupled with, it a disorder which

saddened his days, and conjoined with the brightness
of the flame the smart of the burn; a lesson of intel-
lectual humility to those who are his inferiors in mind
and knowledge, when he always spoke of his own attain-
ments as slight, and a lesson of moral humility to those
who are not possessed of his worth, when, in spite of
his exemplary conduct and marvellous benevolence, he was
almost enraged if anybody spoke of him as good ; a lesson
of the supreme importance of religion to those whose piety
is less fervent than his when his repentance was so bitter
at the close, and present fame and future renown were
quite forgotten in the contemplation of eternity ; a lesson
to all of what can be effected in situations which appear to
afford no scope for the exertion of abilities or the practice of
virtues, when we see the learning he amassed in his youth
with scanty aid from books or instructors, the works he
wrote without ease or encouragement, the charities be
exercised without gold or silver when he was living himself
upon fourpence-halfpenny a day, and the honesty and inde-
pendence he maintained when not to lower his opinions or
sully his conscience was to condemn himself to fare as
coarse as that which was allotted for the punishment of
crime. Whether we desire an example to stimulate us to
the acquisition of knowledge under difficulites or the re-
tention of uprightness under temptation, there is no more
memorable instance of either than is presented by the life
and character of this illustrious man. And whatever be
the condition of him who seeks to profit by the story, none
can be so low but he is in a position as advantageous as
Johnson, and none can be so high but that with all his
helps he will have enough to do to emulate his model."
In a foot note, at page 229, the reviewer suggests'
the issue of a popular edition of Boswell's Johnson
in parts, and lo ! at once, in answer to this, there
arc already coming forth, simultaneously from the
press, in shilling instalments—Croker s edition,
published by Mr. Murray, and the illustrated
edition published by the Messrs. Routledge.
Besides this admirable paper on Johnson,
the Quarterly csntains eight other contributions.
These we have left ourselves scarcely room to
enumerate :—An anecdotal review of the " Corres-
pondence of Lord Cornwallis." An eulogistic
criticism on " Dyce's Shakspeare." A paper 011
the Consular Service." A second. and concluding
notice of Cardinal Wiseman's Four last Popes--'-
having reference peculiarly to Piiis VIII. and
Gregory XVI. A treatise on " Patents." An
essay on " Soldiers' Lodging, Food, and Dress." A
remark or two—anything but appetising—upon
the ,manufacture of " Bread." And finally that
astounding old-world-tor y diatribe against " Re•
form," to which we have already drawn attention in
our leading columns. Such is the new number of
the Quarterly.