where pass over with indifference, because | could eat the wind, with ever new disappointthe Painter was not a Man. Think of this; ment. much lies in it. The Vatican is great; yet poor to Chimborazo or the Peake of Teneriffe: its dome is but a foolish Big-endian or Littleendian chip of an egg-shell, compared with that star-fretted Dome where Arcturus and Orion glance for ever; which latter, notwithstanding, who looks at, save perhaps some necessitous star-gazer bent to make Almanacs, some thick-quilted watchman, to see what weather it will prove? The Biographic interest is wanting: no Michael Angelo was He who built that "Temple of Immensity;" therefore do we, pitiful Littlenesses as we are, turn rather to wonder and to worship in the little toybox of a Temple built by our like.

Again, consider the whole class of Fictitious Narratives; from the highest category of epic or dramatic Poetry, in Shakspeare and Homer, down to the lowest of froth Prose in the Fashionable Novel. What are all these but so many mimic Biographies? Attempts, here by an inspired Speaker, there by an uninspired Babbler, to deliver himself, more or less ineffectually, of the grand secret wherewith all hearts labour oppressed: The significance of Man's Life;-which deliverance, even as traced in the unfurnished head, and printed at the Minerva Press, finds readers. For, observe, though there is a greatest Fool, as a superlative in every kind; and the most Foolish Still more decisively, still more exclusively man in the Earth is now indubitably living does the Biographic interest manifest itself, as and breathing, and did this morning or lately we descend into lower regions of spiritual eat breakfast, and is even now digesting the communication; through the whole range of same; and looks out on the world, with his what is called Literature. Of History, for ex- dim horn-eyes, and inwardly forms some unample, the most honoured, if not honourable speakable theory thereof: yet where shall the species of composition, is not the whole pur- authentically Existing be personally met with! port biographic? "History," it has been said, Can one of us, otherwise than by guess, know "is the essence of innumerable Biographies." that we have got sight of him, have orally Such, at least, it should be: whether it is, communed with him? To take even the narmight admit of question. But, in any case, rower sphere of this our English metropolis, what hope have we in turning over those old can any one confidently say to himself, that he interminable Chronicles, with their garrulities has conversed with the identical, individual, and insipidities; or still worse, in patiently ex- Stupidest man now extant in London? No amining those modern Narrations, of the Phi-Tone. Deep as we dive in the Profound, there losophic kind, where "Philosophy, teaching by Experience," must sit like owl on housetop, seeing nothing, understanding nothing, uttering only, with solemnity enough, her perpetual most wearisome hoo-hoo-what hope have we, except for the most part fallacious one of gaining some acquaintance with our fellow-creatures, though dead and vanished, yet dear to us; how they got along in those old days, suffering and doing; to what extent, and under what circumstances, they resisted the Devil and triumphed over him, or struck their colours to him, and were trodden under foot by him; how, in short, the perennial Battle went, which men name Life, which we also in these new days, with indifferent fortune, have to fight, and must bequeath to our sons and grandsons to go on fighting,-till the Enemy one day be quite vanquished and abolished, or else the great Night sink and part the combatants; and thus, either by some Millennium or some new Noah's Deluge, the Volume of Universal History wind itself up! Other hope, in studying such Books, we have none: and that it is a deceitful hope, who that has tried knows not? A feast of widest Biographic insight is spread for us; we enter full of hungry anticipation: alas! like so many other feasts, which Life invites us to, a mere Ossian's "feast of shells,”—the food and liquor being all emptied out and clean gone, and only the vacant dishes and deceitful emblems thereof left! Your modern Historical Restaurateurs are indeed little better than high-priests of Famine; that Here, however, in regard to "Fictitious Biokeep choicest china dinner-sets, only no din-graphies," and much other matter of like sort, ner to serve therein. Yet such is our Biogra- which the greener mind in these days inditeth, phic appetite, we run trying from shop to we may as well insert some singular senshop, with ever new hope; and, unless we tences on the importance and significance of

is ever a new depth opens: where the ultimate bottom may lie, through what new scenes of being we must pass before reaching it, (except that we know it does lie somewhere, and might by human faculty and opportunity be reached,) is altogether a mystery to us. Strange, tantalizing pursuit! We have the fullest assurance, not only that there is a Stupidest of London men actually resident, with bed and board of some kind, in London; but that several persons have been or perhaps are now speaking face to face with him: while for us, chase it as we may, such scientific blessedness will too probably be for ever denied!-But the thing we meant to enforce was this comfortable fact, that no known Head was so wooden, but there might be other heads to which it were a genius and Friar Bacon's Oracle. Of no given Book, not even of a Fashionable Novel, can you predicate with certainty that its vacuity is absolute; that there are not other vacuities which shall partially replenish themselves therefrom, and esteem it a plenum. How knowest thou, may the distressed Novelwright exclaim, that I, here where I sit, am the Foolishest of existing mortals; that this my Longear of a Fictitious Biography shall not find one and the other, into whose still longer ears it may be the means, under Providence, of instilling somewhat? We answer, None knows, none can certainly know: therefore, write on, worthy Brother, even as thou canst, as it has been given thee.

Reality, as they stand written for us in Professor | far that your 'Machinery' is avowedly mechaGottfried Sauerteig's Esthetische Springwürzel: nical and unbelieved,-what is it else, if we a Work, perhaps, as yet new to most English dare tell ourselves the truth, but a miserable, readers. The Professor and Doctor is not a meaningless Deception kept up by old use and man whom we can praise without reservation; neither shall we say that his Springwürzel (a sort of magical pick-locks, as he affectedly names them) are adequate to "start" every bolt that locks up an æsthetic mystery; nevertheless, in his crabbed, one-sided way, he sometimes hits masses of the truth. We endeavour to translate faithfully, and trust the reader will find it worth serious perusal :

"The significance, even for poetic purposes," says Sauerteig," that lies in REALITY, is too apt to escape us; is perhaps only now beginning to be discerned. When we named Rousseau's Confessions an elegiaco-didactic Poem, we meant more than an empty figure of speech; we meant an historical scientific fact.

wont alone? If the gods of an Iliad are to us no longer authentic Shapes of Terror, heartstirring, heart-appalling, but only vague-glit tering Shadows,-what must the dead Pagan gods of an Epigoniad be, the dead-living Pagan-Christian gods of a Lusiad, the concreteabstract, evangelical-metaphysical gods of a Paradise Lost? Superannuated lumber! Cast raiment, at best; in which some poor mime, strutting and swaggering, may or may not set forth new noble Human Feelings, (again a Reality,) and so secure, or not secure, our pardon of such hoydenish masking, for which, in any case, he has a pardon to ask.

"True enough, none but the earliest Epic Poems can claim this distinction of entire cre"Fiction, while the feigner of it knows that dibility, of Reality: after an Iliad, a Shaster, a he is feigning, partakes, more than we suspect, Koran, and other the like primitive perform. of the nature of lying; and has ever an, in some ances, the rest seem, by this rule of mine, to be degree, unsatisfactory character. All Mytho- altogether excluded from the list. Accordingly, logies were once Philosophies; were believed: what are all the rest from Virgil's Eneid downthe Epic Poems of old time, so long as they wards, in comparison ?-Frosty, artificial, hecontinued epic, and had any complete impres- terogeneous things; more of gumflowers than siveness, were Histories, and understood to be of roses; at best, of the two mixed incoherently narratives of facts. In so far as Homer em- together: to some of which, indeed, it were ployed his gods as mere ornamental fringes, hard to deny the title of Poems; yet to no one and had not himself, or at least did not expect of which can that title belong in any sense even his hearers to have, a belief that they were resembling the old high one it, in those old days, real agents in those antique doings; so far did conveyed,-when the epithet 'divine' or 'sahe fail to be genuine; so far was he a partially cred,' as applied to the uttered Word of man, hollow and false singer; and sang to please only was not a vain metaphor, a vain sound, but a a portion of man's mind, not the whole thereof. real name with meaning. Thus, too, the farther "Imagination is, after all, but a poor matter we recede from those early days, when Poetry, when it must part company with Understand- as true Poetry is always, was still sacred or ing, and even front it hostilely in flat contradiction. Our mind is divided in twain: there is contest; wherein that which is weaker must needs come to the worse. Now of all feelings, states, principles, call it what you will, in man's mind, is not Belief the clearest, strongest; against which all others contend in vain Belief is, indeed, the beginning and first condition of all spiritual Force whatsoever: only in so far as Imagination, were it but momentarily, is believed, can there be any use or meaning in it, any enjoyment of it. And what is momentary Belief? The enjoyment of a moment. Whereas a perennial Belief were enjoyment perennially, and with the whole united soul.

"It is thus that I judge of the Supernatural in an Epic Poem; and would say, the instant it had ceased to be authentically supernatural, and become what you call 'Machinery;' sweep it out of sight (schaff'es mir vom Halse)! Of a truth, that same 'Machinery,' about which the critics make such hubbub, was well named Machinery; for it is in very deed mechanical, nowise inspired or poetical. Neither for us is there the smallest æsthetic enjoyment in it; save only in this way: that we believe it to have been believed, by the Singer or his Hearers; into whose case we now laboriously struggle to transport ourselves; and so, with stinted enough result, catch some reflex of the Reality, which for them was wholly real, and visible face to face. Whenever it has come so

divine, and inspired, (what ours, in great part, only pretends to be,)-the more impossible becomes it to produce any, we say not true Poetry, but tolerable semblance of such; the hollower, in particular, grow all manner of Epics; till at length, as in this generation, the very name of Epic sets men a-yawning, the announcement of a new Epic is received as a public calamity.

"But what if the impossible being once for all quite discarded, the probable be well adhered to; how stands it with fiction then? Why, then, I would say, the evil is much mended, but nowise completely cured. We have then, in place of the wholly dead modern Epic, the partially living modern Novel; to which latter it is much easier to lend that above-mentioned, so essential 'momentary credence,' than to the former: indeed infinitely easier: for the former being flatly incredible, no mortal can for a moment credit it, for a moment enjoy it. Thus, here and there, a Tom Jones, a Meister, a Crusoe, will yield no little solacement to the minds of men: though still immeasurably less than a Reality would, were the significance thereof as impressively unfolded, were the genius that could so unfold it once given us by the kind Heavens. Neither say thou that proper Realities are wanting: for Man's Life, now as of old, is the genuine work of God; wherever there is a Man, a God also is revealed, and all that is Godlike a whole epitome of the Infinite, with its meanings, lies enfolded in the Life of every

Man. Only, alas, that the Seer to discern this | Truth, what we can call a Revelation; which

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last does undoubtedly transcend all other poetic efforts, nor can Herr Sauerteig be too loud in its praises. But, on the other hand, whether such effort is still possible for man, Herr Sauerteig and the bulk of the world are probably at issue, and will probably continue so till that same "Revelation" or new "Invention of Reality," of the sort he desiderates, shall itself make its appearance.

same Godlike, and with fit utterance unfold it for us, is wanting, and may long be wanting! Nay, a question arises on us here, wherein the whole German reading-world will eagerly Join: Whether man can any longer be so interested by the spoken Word, as he often was in those primeval days, when, rapt away by its inscrutable power, he pronounced it, in such dialect as he had, to be transcendental, (to transcend all measure,) to be sacred, prophetic, Meanwhile, quitting these airy regions, let and the inspiration of a god! For myself, I, any one bethink him how impressive the (ich meines Ortes,) by faith or by insight, do smallest historical fact may become, as conheartily understand that the answer to such trasted with the grandest fictitious event; what question will be, Yea! For never, that I could an incalculable force lies for us in this consiin searching find out, has Man been, by Time deration: The Thing which I here hold imaged which devours so much, deprivated of any fa- in my mind did actually occur; was, in very culty whatsoever that he in any era was pos- truth, an element in the system of the All, sessed of. To my seeming, the babe born yester- whereof I too form part; had therefore, and day has all the organs of Body, Soul, and Spirit, has, through all time, an authentic being; is and in exactly the same combination and entire-not a dream, but a reality! We ourselves can ness, that the oldest Pelasgic Greek, or Meso- remember reading in Lord Clarendon, with feelpotamian Patriarch, or Father Adam himself ings perhaps somehow accidentally opened to Could boast of. Ten fingers, one heart with it, certainly with a depth of impression venous and arterial blood therein, still belong strange to us then and now,-that insignifito man that is born of woman: when did he cant looking passage, where Charles, after the lose any of his spiritual Endowments either: battle of Worcester, glides down, with Squire above all, his highest spiritual Endowment, that Careless, from the Royal Oak, at night-fall, of revealing Poetic Beauty, and of adequately being hungry: how, "making a shift to get receiving the same? Not the material, not the over hedges and ditches, after walking at least susceptibility is wanting; only the poet, or long eight or nine miles, which were the more series of Poets, to work on these. True, alas grievous to the King by the weight of his too true, the Poet is still utterly wanting, or all boots, (for he could not put them off, when he but utterly: nevertheless have we not centuries cut off his hair, for want of shoes,) before enough before us to produce him in? Him and morning they came to a poor cottage, the owner much else!-I, for the present, will but predict whereof being a Roman Catholic was known to Carethat chiefly by working more and more on less." How this poor drudge, being knocked REALITY, and evolving more and more wisely up from his snoring, "carried them into a litits inexhaustible meanings; and, in brief, speak-tle barn full of hay, which was a better lodging forth in fit utterance whatsoever our whole soul believes, and ceasing to speak forth what thing soever our whole soul does not believe,will this high emprise be accomplished, or approximated to."

These notable, and not unfounded, though partial and deep-seeing rather than wide-seeing observations on the great import of REALITY, considered even as a poetic material, we have inserted the more willingly, because a transient feeling to the same purpose may often have suggested itself to many readers; and, on the whole, it is good that every reader and every writer understand, with all intensity of conviction, what quite infinite worth lies in Truth; how all-pervading, omnipotent, in man's mind, is the thing we name Belief. For the rest, Herr Sauerteig, though one-sided, on this matter of Reality, seems heartily persuaded, and is not perhaps so ignorant as he looks. It cannot be unknown to him, for example, what noise is made about "Invention;" what a supreme rank this faculty is reckoned to hold in the poetic endowment. Great truly is Invention; nevertheless, that is but a poor exercise of it with which Belief is not concerned. "An Irishman with whisky in his head," as poor Byron said, will invent you, in this kind, till there is enough and to spare. Nay, perhaps, if we consider well, the highest exercise of Invention has, in very deed, nothing to do with Fiction; but is an invention of new

ing than he had for himself;" and by and by, not without difficulty, brought his Majesty "a piece of bread and a great pot of butter-milk," saying candidly that "he himself lived by his daily labour, and that what he had brought him was the fare he and his wife had:" on which nourishing diet his Majesty, "staying upon the haymow," feeds thankfully for two days; and then departs, under new guidance, having first changed clothes down to the very shirt and "old pair of shoes," with his landlord; and so as worthy Bunyan has it, “goes on his way, and sees him no more."* Singular enough if we will think of it! This then was a genuine flesh-and-blood Rustic of the year 1651: he did actually swallow bread and butter-milk (not having ale and bacon,) and do field labour; with these hob-nailed "shoes" has sprawled through mud-roads in winter, and, jocund or not, driven his team a-field in summer; he made bargains; had chafferings and higglings, now a sore heart, now a glad one; was born; was a son, was a father;— toiled in many ways, being forced to it, till the strength was all worn out of him: and then— lay down "to rest his galled back," and sleep there till the long-distant morning!-How comes it, that he alone of all the British_rustics who tilled and lived along with him, on whom the blessed sun on that same “fifth

* History of the Rebellion, iii. 625.

day of September" was shining, should have | for himself what it is that gives such pitiful inchanced to rise on us; that this poor pair of cidents their memorableness; his aim likewise clouted Shoes, out of a million million hides is, above all things, to be memorable. Half the that have been tanned, and cut, and worn, effect, we already perceive, depends on the should still subsist, and hang visibly together? object, on its being real, on its being really seen. We see him but for a moment; for one mo- The other half will depend on the observer; ment, the blanket of the Night is rent asun- and the question now is: How are real objects der, so that we behold and see, and then to be so seen; on what quality of observing, or closes over him-for ever. of style in describing, does this so intense pictorial power depend? Often a slight circumstance contributes curiously to the result: some little, and perhaps to appearance accidental, feature is presented; a light-gleam, which instantaneously excites the mind, and urges it to complete the picture, and evolve the meaning thereof for itself. By critics, such light-gleams and their almost magical influence have frequently been noted: but the power to produce such, to select such features as will produce them, is generally treated as a knack, or trick of the trade, a secret for being "graphic;" whereas these magical feats are, in truth, rather inspirations; and the gift of performing them, which acts unconsciously, without forethought, and as if by nature alone, is properly a genius for description.

One grand, invaluable secret there is, however, which includes all the rest, and, what is comfortable, lies clearly in every man's power: To have an open, loving heart, and what follows from the possession of such! Truly has it been said, emphatically in these days ought it to be repeated: A loving heart is the beginning of all Knowledge. This it is that opens the whole mind, quickens every faculty of the intellect to do its fit work, that of knowing; and therefrom, by sure consequence, of vividly uttering forth. Other secret for being "graphic" is there none, worth having: but this is an all-sufficient one. See, for example, what a small Boswell can do! Hereby, indeed, is the whole man made a living mirror, wherein the wonders of this everwonderful Universe are, in their true light, (which is ever a magical, miraculous one,) represented, and reflected back on us. It has been said, "the heart sees farther than the head:" but, indeed, without the seeing heart there is no true seeing for the head so much as possible; all is mere oversight, hallucination, and vain superficial phantasmagoria, which can permanently profit no one.

So too, in some Boswell's Life of Johnson, how indelible, and magically bright, does many a little Reality dwell in our remembrance! There is no need that the personages on the scene be a King and Clown; that the scene be the Forest of the Royal Oak, " on the borders of Staffordshire:" need only that the scene lie on this old firm Earth of ours, where we also have so surprisingly arrived; that the personages be men, and seen with the eyes of a man. Foolish enough, how some slight, perhaps mean and even ugly incident-if real, and well presented-will fix itself in a susceptive memory, and lie ennobled there; silvered over with the pale cast of thought, with the pathos which belongs only to the Dead. For the Past is all holy to us; the Dead are all holy, even they that were base and wicked while alive. Their baseness and wickedness was not They, was but the heavy unmanageable Environment that lay round them, with which they fought unprevailing: they (the ethereal God-given Force that dwelt in them, and was their Self) have now shuffled off that heavy Environment, and are free and pure: their life-long Battle, go how it might, is all ended, with many wounds or with fewer; they have been recalled from it, and the once harsh-jarring battle-field has become a silent awe-inspiring Golgotha, and Gottesacker-Field of God!-Boswell relates this in itself smallest and poorest of occurrences: "As we walked along the Strand to-night, arm in arm, a woman of the town accosted us in the usual enticing manner. 'No, no, my girl,' said Johnson; it won't do.' He, however, did not treat her with harshness, and we talked of the wretched life of such women." Strange power of Reality! Not even this poorest of occurrences, but now, after seventy years are come and gone, has a meaning for us. Do but consider that it is true; that it did in very deed occur! That unhappy Outcast, with all her Here, too, may we not pause for an instant, sins and woes, her lawless desires, too com- and make a practical reflection? Considering plex mischances, her wailings and her riot- the multitude of mortals that handle the Pen ings, has departed utterly: alas! her siren in these days, and can mostly spell, and write finery has got all besmutched; ground, gene- without daring violations of grammar, the rations since, into dust and smoke, of her de- question naturally arises: How is it, then, that graded body, and whole miserable earthly no Work proceeds from them, bearing any existence, all is away: she is no longer here, stamp of authenticity and permanence; of but far from us, in the bosom of Eternity, worth for more than one day? Ship-loads of whence we too came, whither we too are Fashionable Novels, Sentimental Rhymes, bound! Johnson said, "No, no, my girl; it Tragedies, Farces, Diaries of Travel, Tales by won't do ;" and then "we talked ;"-and here- flood and field, are swallowed monthly into the with the wretched one, seen but for the twink- bottomless Pool; still does the Press toil: inling of an eye, passes on into the utter Dark-numerable Paper-makers, Compositors, Printness. No high Calista, that ever issued from ers' Devils, Bookbinders, and Hawkers grown Story-teller's brain, will impress us more deeply than this meanest of the mean; and for a good reason: That she issued from the Maker of Men.

It is well worth the Artist's while to examine

hoarse with loud proclaiming, rest not from their labour; and still, in torrents, rushes on the great array of Publications, unpausing, to their final home; and still Oblivion, like the Grave, cries: Give! Give! How is it that of

all these countless multitudes, no one can attain | stead of one Boswell and one White, the world to the smallest mark of excellence, or produce will rejoice in a thousand,-stationed on their ought that shall endure longer than "snow- thousand several watch-towers, to instruct us flake on the river," or the foam of penny-beer? by indubitable documents, of whatsoever in We answer: Because they are foam; because our so stupendous world comes to light and is! there is no Reality in them. These Three O, had the Editor of this Magazine but a Thousand men, women, and children, that magic rod to turn all that not inconsiderable make up the army of British Authors, do not, Intellect, which now deluges us with artificial if we will well consider it, see any thing what- fictitious soap-lather, and mere Lying, into the ever; consequently have nothing that they can faithful study of Reality,-what knowledge of record and utter, only more or fewer things great, everlasting Nature, and of Man's ways that they can plausibly pretend to record. The and doings therein, would not every year bring Universe, of Man and Nature, is still quite us in! Can we but change one single soapshut up from them; the " open secret" still latherer and mountebank Juggler, into a true utterly a secret; because no sympathy with Thinker and Doer, that even tries honestly to Man or Nature, no love and free simplicity of think and do great will be our reward. heart has yet unfolded the same. Nothing but a pitiful Image of their own pitiful Self, with its vanities, and grudgings, and ravenous hunger of all kinds, hangs for ever painted in the retina of these unfortunate persons: so that the starry ALL, with whatsoever it embraces, does but appear as some expanded magiclantern shadow of that same Image, and naturally looks pitiful enough.

one cannot find, going strictly to work, above some dozen, or baker's dozen, and those chiefly of very ancient date? Lamentable; yet, after what we have just seen, accountable. Another question might be asked: How comes it that in England we have simply one good Biography, this Boswell's Johnson; and of good,

fewer than any civilized people? Consider the French and Germans, with their Moreris, Bayles, Jördenses, Jöchers, their innumerable Mémoires, and Schilderungen, and Biographies Universelles; not to speak of Rousseans, Goethes, Schubarts, Jung-Stillings: and then contrast with these our poor Birches, and Kippises and Pecks,-the whole breed of whom, moreover, is now extinct!

But to return; or rather from this point to begin our journey! If now, what with Herr Sauerteig's Springwürzel, what with so much lucubration of our own, it have become apparent how deep, immeasurable is the "worth that lies in Reality," and farther, how exclusive the interest which man takes in the Histories of Man, may it not seem lamentable, that so few It is vain for these persons to allege that genuinely good Biographies have yet been accuthey are naturally without gift, naturally stu-mulated in Literature; that in the whole world, pid and sightless, and so can attain to no knowledge of any thing; therefore, in writing of any thing, must needs write falsehoods of it, there being in it no truth for them. Not so, good Friends. The stupidest of you has a certain faculty; were it but that of articulate speech, (say, in the Scottish, the Irish, the Cockney dialect, or even in "Governess-Eng-indifferent, or even bad attempts at Biography, lish,") and of physically discerning what lies under your nose. The stupidest of you would perhaps grudge to be compared in faculty with James Boswell; yet see what he has produced! You do not use your faculty honestly; your heart is shut up; full of greediness, malice, discontent; so your intellectual sense cannot be open. It is vain also to urge that James Boswell had opportunities; saw great men and great things, such as you can never hope to look on. What make ye of Parson White in Selborne? He had not only no great men to look on, but not even men; merely sparrows and cock-chafers: yet has he left us a Biography of these; which, under its title Natural History of Selborne, still remains valuable to us; which has copied a little sentence or two faithfully from the inspired volume of Nature, and so is itself not without inspiration. Go ye and do likewise. Sweep away utterly all frothiness and falsehood from your heart; struggle unweariedly to acquire, what is possible for every god-created Man, a free, open, humble soul: speak not at all, in any wise, till you have somewhat to speak; care not for the reward of your speaking, but simply and with undivided mind for the truth of your speaking: then be placed in what section of Space and of Time soever, do but open your eyes, and they shall actually see, and bring you real knowledge, wondrous, worthy of belief; and in

With this question, as the answer might lead us far, and come out unflattering to patriotic sentiment, we shall not intermeddle; but turn rather, with greater pleasure, to the fact, that one excellent Biography is actually English ;-and even now lies, in Five new Volumes, at our hand, soliciting a new consideration from us; such as, age after age (the Perennial showing ever new phases as our position alters,) it may long be profitable to bestow on it;-to which task we here, in this age, gladly address ourselves.

First, however, Let the foolish April-fool day pass by; and our Reader, during these twenty-nine days of uncertain weather that will follow, keep pondering, according to convenience, the purport of BIOGRAPHY in general: then, with the blessed dew of May-day, and in unlimited convenience of space, shall all that we have written on Johnson, and Boswell's Johnson, and Croker's Boswell's Johnson, be faithfully laid before him.