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Porter told me that when he was first introduced to her mother his appearance was very forbidding; he was then lean and lank, so that his immense structure of bones was hideously striking to the eye, and the scars of the scrofula were deeply visible. He also wore his hair, which was straight and stiff, and separated behind; and he often had seemingly convulsive starts and odd gesticulations, which tended to excite at once surprise and ridicule. Mrs. Porter was so much

looked all these external disadvantages, and said to her daughter, 'This is the most sensible man that I ever saw in my life.'

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"His juvenile attachments to the fair sex engaged by his conversation that she overwere very transient. * "In a man whom religious education has secured from licentious indulgences, the passion of love, when once it has seized him, is Though Mrs. Porter was double the age exceedingly strong; being unimpaired by of Johnson, and her person and manner, as dissipation, and totally concentrated in one described to me by the late Mr. Garrick, object. This was experienced by Johnson were by no means pleasing to others, she when he became the fervent admirer of Mrs. must have had a superiority of understandPorter, after her first husband's death. Missing and talents, as she certainly inspired him

VOL. II-1

with a more than ordinary passion; and she having signified her willingness to accept of his hand, he went to Lichfield to ask his mother's consent to the marriage, which he could not but be conscious was a very imprudent scheme, both on account of their disparity of years and her want of fortune. But Mrs. Johnson knew too well the ardor of her son's temper, and was too tender a parent to oppose his inclinations.

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"I know not for what reason the marriage ceremony was not performed at Birmingham; but a resolution was taken that it should be at Derby, for which place the bride and bridegroom set out on horseback, I suppose in very good humor. But, though Mr. Topham Beauclerk used archly to mention Johnson's having told him with much gravity, Sir, it was a love marriage on both sides,' I have had from my illustrious friend the following curious account of their journey to church upon the nuptial morn [9th July]: Sir, she had read the old romances, and had got into her head the fantastical notion that a woman of spirit should use her lover like a dog. So, sir, at the first she told me that I rode too fast, and she could not keep up with me; and when I rode a little slower, she passed me, and complained I lagged behind. I was not to be made the slave of caprice; and I resolved to begin as I meant to end. I, therefore, pushed on briskly, till I was out of her sight. The road lay between two hedges, so I was sure she could not miss it; and I contrived that she should soon come up with me. When she did, I observed her to be in tears.' "This, it must be allowed, was a singular beginning of connubial felicity; but there is no doubt that Johnson, though he thus showed a manly firmness, proved a most affectionate and indulgent husband to the last moment of Mrs. Johnson's life; and in his Prayers and Meditations' we find very remarkable evidence that his regard and fondness for her never ceased, even after her death."

Boswell says of the birth of this renowned writer that he

"Was born at Lichfield, in Staffordshire, on the 18th of September, N. s., 1709, and his initiation into the Christian Church was not delayed, for his baptism is recorded in the register of St. Mary's parish in that city to have been performed on the day of his birth;

his father is there styled gentleman, a circumstance of which an ignorant panegyrist has praised him for not being proud; when the truth is, that the appellation of gentleman, though now lost in the indiscriminate assumption of esquire, was commonly taken by those who could not boast of gentility. His father was Michael Johnson, a native of Derbyshire, of the same extraction, who settled in Lichfield as a bookseller and stationer. His mother was Sarah Ford, descended from an ancient race of substantial yeomanry in Warwickshire. They were well advanced in years when they married, and never had more than two children, both sons-Samuel, their first born, who lived to be such an illustrious character; and Nathaniel, who died in his twenty-fifth year. She was a woman of distinguished understanding, which, however, was not much cultivated, as we may gather from Dr. Johnson's own account of his early years. My father and mother,' says Johnson, 'had not much happiness from each other. They seldom conversed; for my father could not bear to talk of his affairs; and my mother, being unacquainted with books, cared not to talk of any thing else. Had my mother been more literate, they had been better companions.'

"There is a circumstance in the life of his father somewhat romantic, but so well authenticated as to deserve mention. A young woman of Leek, in Staffordshire, while he served his apprenticeship there, conceived a violent passion for him; and, though it met with no favorable return, followed him to Lichfield, where she took lodgings opposite to the house in which he lived, and indulged her hopeless flame. When he was informed that it so preyed upon her mind that her life was in danger, he with a generous humanity went to her, and offered to marry her, but it was then too late, her vital power was exhausted; and she thus painfully illustrated that a woman can die for love.

"Of the power of Dr. Johnson's memory, for which he was all his life eminent to a degree almost incredible, the following early instance is recorded as told in his presence at Sheffield, in 1770, by his stepdaughter, Mrs. Lucy Porter, and related to her by his mother:-When he was a child in petticoats, and learned to read, Mrs. Johnson

one morning put the Common Prayer Book | it,' he replied; and repeated it distinctly, though he could not not have read it more than twice.

into his hands, pointing to the collect for the day, and said, 'Sam, you must get this by heart.' She went up stairs, leaving him to study; but by the time she had reached the second floor she heard him following her. 'What's the matter? said she. I can say

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"After his marriage he set up a private academy, for which purpose he hired a large house well situated near his native city. In the Gentleman's Magazine for 1736 there is the following advertisement :

"At Edial, near Lichfield, in Staffordshire, young gentlemen are boarded and taught the Latin and Greek languages by Samuel Johnson.'

"But the only pupils that were put under his care were the celebrated David Garrick and his brother George, and a Mr. Offely, a young gentleman of good fortune, who died early. As yet his name had nothing of that celebrity which afterwards commanded the highest attention and respect of mankind. Had such an advertisement appeared after the publication of his 'London,' his 'Rambler,' or his Dictionary,' how would it have burst upon the world! With what eagerness would the great and

wealthy have embraced an opportunity of putting their sons under the learned tuition of Samuel Johnson!"

From "The Tribune."

SONNET.

How two strong elements strive in the soul;
Not right and wrong, which should be clear to

sense

But inner truths, and outer evidence! The inner, firm, as loadstone to the pole, While booming facts, like wild sea billows roll,

Athwart belief-which is the soul's defence,On which is built its freedom,-innocence,Reason, which should, hand-locked with Faith, control.

This inner sense, the poet's richest gift,-
A half-veil'd madness to the worldly eye,-
Men still confound with idle fantasy,
Which has no power so to dilate, uplift,
And bind the soul in lofty reverie,
Filling with spirit-truth, that cannot die.

From "Fraser's Magazine."

THE BEST OF THREE;

OR, THE OFFICER'S CHARGER.

AN unmilitary spectator, gazing upon a regiment of cavalry on the march, is apt to suppose that, like a body of chess-men in a box, it has but to be packed up, and dispatched in any direction at a moment's notice. He sees each individual private, looking straight between the ears of his charger, surrounded by his own and his horse's paraphernalia-which personal property the faithful pair carry about with them like a snail does her shell, in all their wanderings. Being a civilian, the delighted gazer has, of course, an immense idea of military punctuality and quickness; so, forgetting the difficulty with which he sets his own family in motion, to perform a journey from Ramsgate to Southampton, he fondly supposes that the blast of a trumpet, sounding "boots and saddles," is sufficient to move any number of squadrons, baggage, horses, sick men, officers'-mess-establishments, and other impedimenta, at a moment's warning, to Lisbon, Gibraltar, Quebec, or Aliwal.

Little does he know the confusion created in a barrack-yard by the arrival of "the route”—the hurrying to and fro of orderlies, corporals, serjeants, and trumpeters-the grave and steady bustle of the colonel, and and his admiring imitator, the regimental serjeant-major-the hurried arrangements of the doctor, probably a married man, with a host of children-the frantic state of the adjutant, and calm despair of the riding master, invariably a stalwart warrior, whose corpulent proportions it appears impossible for any horse to carry-the captains completely engrossed in the affairs of their respective troops, and the movement of their own baggage the lieutenants thinking of "the girls that we left behind us"-and the cornets (happy dogs!) with the true elasticity of youth, swamping all their cares for the present, and regrets for the past, in golden anticipations of the future. We will pass over the difficulties of the mess-man, important as that functionary must unquestionably be; nor will we dwell upon the labors of bât-men and servants, packing up baggage, and stowing the most ingenious inventions into the smallest given space; or the discomforts of the handful of women,

whose privilege it is to follow a regiment on service. It is enough to know that, out of this chaos of confusion, spring the elements of order and arrangement, and that, in twenty-four hours at the outside, every thing is ready for the road, the rail, the transport, or the field. Add to all this, the knowledge that the corps thus set in motion is about to leave home on active service, where promotion and distinction are as surely awaiting the survivors, as grape and musketry, round shot and sabre-cuts, are in store for those whose fate it may be never to see merry England again, and some idea may be formed of the excitement prevailing in the cavalry barracks at York one fine spring morning early in the present century, on the receipt of "the route" for the Peninsula by the gallant ―th Dragoons.

Ah! I was young in those days, and would not have exchanged my lieutenancy in that distinguished regiment, with my aspirations for military glory, and hopes for the future -no not for a dukedom in possession. Like Mazeppa,

I was a goodly stripling then;

At seventy years I so may say; and with youth, strength, health, and, above all, hope, with the world, not of reality, but of boyhood's dreams, all before me, could any position in life be more enviable than mine? I am old now, and, like all old men, somewhat inclined to overrate the advantages of youth. But I must strive to curb the garrulity which is so apt to steal on with increasing years, and tell my story in the off-hand fashion of the present day. It is not fair to lay hold of my courteous reader by the button, and inflict on him the unnecessary twaddle that shall dub me "bore."

Well; the gallant -th were quartered at York, and "a glorious summer" we made it for the "sons of York," ay, and the daughters, too. Balls, pic-nics, races, theatricals, all the autumn-more balls, more theatricals, capital-hunting, famous shooting, all the winter. Yorkshire has ever been celebrated for the kindness and hospitality of its inhabitants. It still keeps up its character in that respect, as I am informed on all hands; but in those days I can vouch for every man's home being literally "his castle ;" and truly we were free of them all.

Amongst the many from whom my brother officers and myself were sure of a hearty

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