The Arkansaw traveler., 1885-01-31
Ar. Johnson.
lDr. o. W. Holmes, In Atlantic. l


 have jasr lost my dear and honored contemporary of the last censury. A hundred years ago this day, December B, i7S4, died the admirable as:5 sys- ec be remembered Dr. Samuel Johnson. The year I7o9 was made ponderous and illustrious in English biography by hts birth. My own humble advent to the world of prosoplasm was in the year 1899 of the present century. Summer was just ending when those four letters. " son b." was written under tho date of my birth, August 7o. Autumn had just begun when my great pre-contemporary entered this un- christian universe and was made a member cs the christian church on the same day, for he was born and baptized on the 18th of September bond of relationship between the great English scholar and writer and myself Year by year and almost m onth by month my life has kept pace in this century with his life in the last century. had only to open nay Boswell at any time, and knew just what Johnson at my age, twenty or fifty or seventy, was thinking or doing what were his feelings about life :; what changes the years had wrought in his body, his mind, his feelings, his companionships, his reputation. It was for me kind of unison between two in- struments, both playing that old familiar air, " Life Zone a bassoon, if you will, and the other an oaten pipe, if you care to find an image for it, but still keeping pace with each other until the players both grew old and gray. At last the thinner thread of souad is heard by itself, and its deep accompaniment rolls out iss thunder no more.
 l feel lonely now that my great com- panion and friend of 90 many years has left me. feel more intimately acquainted with him than do whh mans of my living friends. 1 can hardly remember when l did not know him. can sec him in his great bushy wig, exactly like that of the Rev. Dr. Samuel Cooper (who died in December, I783) as Copley painted him-he hangs theie on my wall, over the revolving bookcase. His ample coat, too, with it's broad flaps and many buttons and generous cuffs, and beneath it the long, still more copiously buttoned waistcoat, arching in front of the fine crescentic, almost semi-lunar FAlstaffian prominence, involving no Less than a dozen of the above mentioned buttons, and the strong legs with their sturdy calves, fitting columns of support to the massive body and solid, capacious brain enthroned over it. can hear him with his heavy tread as he comes into the club, and gap is widened to make room tor his portly figure. "A fine day." says Sir Joshua. "Sir," he answers, Git seems propitious, but the atmosphere is humid and the skies nebulous," at which the great painter smiles, shifts his trumpet, and takes a pinch of snuff.
 Dear old massive, deep-voiced dog matist and hypochondriac Of the eight eenth century, how one would like to sit at some ghsstly club, between you and the bony, "mighty-mouthed," harsh-toned tcrmagant and dyspep,ic of the nineseenthi The growl of ihe Eng. lish mastif and the snari of the Scotch terrier would make duet which would enliven the shores of Lethe. ] wish could find our spiritualist's paper in the Portfolio, in which the two are brought together, but hardly know what ] shall find when it is op<oed.
 Yes, my life is little less precious to me since have lost my dear old friend {; and when tho funeral train moves to Westminstsr Abey next Sunday-for ] fell as if this were I7S4. and not 1884 -l seem to feel myself following the hearse, one Of the silent mourners.
 --S-0$--
 4 Bright Girl. .
 Lewiston IournaLi
 An Auburn lawyers little daughter goes to Sunday school, and is in class