our so stupendous world comes to light and is! O, had the Editor of this Magazine but a magic rod to turn all that not inconsiderable Intellect, which now deluges us with artificial fictitious soap-lather, and mere Lying, into the faithful study of Reality,-what knowledge of great, everlasting Nature, and of Man's ways and doings therein, would not every year bring us in! Can we but change one single soaplatherer and mountebank Juggler, into a true Thinker and Doer, that even tries honestly to think and do-great will be our reward.

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 ia We answer: Because they are foam; because there is no Reality in them. These Three Thousand men, women, and children, that make up the army of British Authors, do not, if we will well consider it, see any thing whatever; consequently have nothing that they can record and utter, only more or fewer things that they can plausibly pretend to record. The Universe, of Man and Nature, is still quite shut up from them; the "open secret" still utterly a secret; because no sympathy with Man or Nature, no love and free simplicity of 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 a kinds, hangs for ever painted in the retina these unfortunate persons: so that the starry ALL, with whatsoever it embraces, does but appear as some expanded magic lantern shadow of that same Image,—and naturally looks pitiful enough.

It is vain for these persons to allege that they are naturally without gift, naturally stupid and sightless, and so con 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 ertain faculty; were it but that of articulate speech, (say, in the Scottish, the Irish, the Cockney dialect, or even in "Governess-English,") 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, wo drous, worthy of belief; and in

But to return; or rather from this point to begin our journey! If now, what with Herr Sauerteig's Springwürzel, what with so much lu cubration 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 genuinely good Biographies have yet been accumulated in Literature; that in the whole world, 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, indifferent, or even bad attempts at Biography, fewer than any civilized people? Consider the French and Germans, with their Moreris, Bayles, Jördenses, Jüchers, 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!

With this question, as the answer might lead us far, and come out unflattering to patri otic sentiment, we shall not intermeddie; but turn rather, with greater pleasure, to the fact, that one excellent Biography is actually Eng lish;-and even now lies, in Five new Volumes, at our hand, soliciting a new consideration from us; such as, age after age (the Peren nial 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 eca venience, the purport of BIOGRAPHY in gene ral: then, with the blessed dew of May-day, and in unlimited convenience of space, shall all that we have written on Johnson, and Fes well's Johnson, and Croker's Boswell's Johnson, be faithfully laid before him.

BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON.*

[FRASER'S MAGAZINE, 1832.]

Esop's Fly, sitting on the axle of the cha- | these. Let us admit, too, that he has been very riot, has been much laughed at for exclaiming: diligent; seems to have made inquiries perseWhat a dust I do raise! Yet which of us, in veringly far and near; as well as drawn freely his way, has not sometimes been guilty of the from his own ample stores; and so tells us to like? Nay, so foolish are men, they often, stand- appearance quite accurately, much that he has ng at ease and as spectators on the highway, not found lying on the highways, but has had tɩ will volunteer to exclaim of the Fly (not being seek and dig for. Numerous persons, chiefly tempted to it, as he was) exactly to the same pur- of quality, rise to view in these Notes; when port: What a dust thou dost raise! Smallest of and also where they came into this world, remortals, when mounted aloft by circumstances, ceived office or promotion, died, and were come to seem great; smallest of phenomena buried (only what they did, except digest, reconnected with them are treated as important, maining often too mysterious,)-is faithfully and must be sedulously scanned, and com- enough set down. Whereby all that their vamented upon with loud emphasis. rious and doubtless widely-scattered Tombstones could have taught us, is here presented, at once, in a bound Book. Thus is an indubitable conquest, though a small one, gained over our great enemy, the all-destroyer Time; and as such shall have welcome.

the term, undersi and him, his sayings and his doings! This was indeed specially the problem which a Commentator and Editor had to solve: a complete solution of it should have ain in him, his whole mind should have beer 5lled and prepared with perfect insight into it: then, whether in the way of express Dissertation, of incidental Exposition and Indication, opportunities enough would have occurred of bringing out the same: what was dark in the figure of the Past had thereby been enlightened; Boswell had, not in show and word only, but in very fact, been made new again, readable to us who are divided from him, even as he was to those close at hand. Of all which very little has been attempted here; accomplished, we should say, next to nothing, or altogether nothing.

noble in old Samuel, was vulgar, base; that for him too there was no reality but in the Stomach; and except Pudding, and the finer species of pudding which is named Praise, life had no pabulum Why, for instance, when we know that Johnson loved his good Wife, and says expressly that their marriage was "a love-match on both sides,"-should two closed ps open to tell us only this: "Is it not pos▪ sible that the obvious advantage of having a woman of experience to superintend an estab lishment of this kind (the Edial School) may have contributed to a match so disproportionate in point of age-ED.?" Or again, when in the Text, the honest cynic speaks freely of his former poverty, and it is known that he once lived on fourpence halfpenny a-day,-need a Commentator advance, and comment thus:

truths to, or of, other men, let us recollect that he does not appear to have spared himself, on occasions in which he might be forgiven for doing so?" Why in short," continues the exasperated Reader, "should Notes of this species stand affronting me, when there might have been no Note at all?"-Gentle Reader, we answer, Be not wroth. What other could an honest Commentator do, than give thee the best he had? Such was the picture and theorem he had fashioned for himself of the world and of man's doings therein: take it, and draw wise inferences from it. If there did exist a Leader of Public Opinion, and Champion of Orthodoxy in the Church of Jesus of Nazareth, who reckoned that man's glory consisted in not being poor; and that Sage, and Prophet of his time, must needs blush because the world had paid him at that easy rate of fourpence halfpenny per diem,— was not the fact of such existence worth knowing, worth considering?

Excuse, no doubt, is in readiness for such" When we find Dr. Johnson tell unpleasant omission; and, indeed, for innumerable other failings; as where, for example, the Editor will punctually explain what is already sunclear; and then anon, not without frankness, declare frequently enough that "the Editor does not understand," that "the Editor cannot guess," while, for most part, the Reader cannot help both guessing and seeing. Thus, if Johnson say, in one sentence, that "English names should not be used in Latin verses;" and then, in the next sentence, speak blamingly of "Carteret being used as a dactyl," will the generality of mortals detect any puzzle there? Or again, where poor Boswell writes: "I always remember a remark made to me by a Turkish lady, educated in France: Ma foi, monsieur, notre bonheur depend de la façon que notre sang circule;'"-though the Turkish ladya here speaks English-French, where is the call for a Note like this: "Mr. Boswell no doubt fancied these words had some meaning, or he would hardly have quoted them; but what that meaning is the Editor cannot guess ?" The Editor is clearly no witch at a riddle.-For these and all kindred deficiencies, the excuse, as we said, is at hand; but the fact of their existence is not the less certain and regretable. Indeed, it, from a very early stage of the business, becomes afflictively apparent, how much the Editor, so well furnished with all external appliances and means, is from within unfurnished with means for forming to himself any just notion of Johnson, or of Johnson's Life; and therefore of speaking on that subject with much hope of edifying. Too lightly is it from the first taken for granted that Hunger, the great basis of our life, is also its apex and ultimate perfection; that as "Neediness and Greediness and Vain-glory" are the chief qualities of most men, so no man, not even a Johnson, acts or can think of acting on any other principle. Whatsoever, therefore, cannot be referred to the two former categories, (Need and Greed,) is without scruple ranged under the latter. It is here properly sentence under Boswell's guidance, thinking that our Editor becomes burdensome; and, to the weaker sort, even a nuisance. "What good is it," will such cry, "when we had still some faint shadow of belief that man was betler than a selfish Digesting-machine; what grod is it to poke in, at every turn, and explain how this and that which we thought

Of a much milder hue, yet to us practically of an all-defacing, and for the present enterprise quite ruinous character,-is another grand fundamental failing; the last we shall feel ourselves obliged to take the pain of specifying here. It is that our Editor has fatally, and almost surprisingly, mistaken the limits of an Editor's function; and so, instead of working on the margin with his Pen, to elucidate as best might be, strikes boldly into the body of the page with his Scissors, and there clips at discretion! Four Books Mr. C. had by him, wherefrom to gather light for the fifth, which was Boswell's. What does he do but now, in the placidest manner,-slit the whole five into slips, and sew these together into a sextum quid, exactly at his own cou venience; .giving Boswell the credit of the whole! By what art-magic, our readers ass, has he united them? By the simplest of all: by Brackets. Never before was the full virtue of the Bracket made manifest. You begin a

to be carried happily through it by the same: but no; in the middle, perhaps after your sem colon, and some consequent "for,"--starts up one of these Bracket-ligatures, and stitches you in from half a page, to twenty or thirty pages of a Hawkins, Tyers, Murphy, Pioz: so that often one must make the old sad re

dection," where we are we know, whither we' were far from common then, indeed, in such a are going no man knoweth!" It is truly said degree, were almost unexampled; not recognis also, There is much between the cup and the able therefore by every one; nay, apt even (so lip" but here the case is still sadder: for not strange had they grown) to be confounded with till after consideration can you ascertain, now the very vices they lay contiguous to, and had when the cup is at the lip, what liquor is it sprung out of. That he was a wine-bibber and you are imbibing; whether Boswell's French gross liver; gluttonously fond of whatever wine which you began with, or some Piozzi's would yield him a little solacement, were it ginger-beer, or Hawkins's entire, or perhaps only of a stomachic character, is undeniable some other great Brewer's penny-swipes or enough. That he was vain, heedless, a babeven alegar, which has been surreptitiously bler; had much of the sycophant, alternating substituted instead thereof. A situation almost with the braggadocio, curiously spiced too with original; not to be tried a second time! But, an all-pervading dash of the coxcomb; that he in fine, what ideas Mr. Croker entertains of a gloried much when the Tailor, by a court-suit, Literary whole and the thing called Book, and had made a new man of him; that he appeared how the very Printer's Devils did not rise in at the Shakspeare Jubilee with a riband, immutiny against such a conglomeration as this, printed "CORSICA BOSWELL," round his hat; and refuse to print it, may remain a problem. and in short, if you will, lived no day of his But now happily our say is said. All faults, life without doing and saying more than one the Moralists tell us, are properly shortcomings; pretentious ineptitude: all this unhappily is crimes themselves are nothing other than a evident as the sun at noon. The very look of not doing enough; a fighting, but with defective Boswell seems to have signified so much. In vigour. How much more a mere insufficiency, that cocked nose, cocked partly in triumph and this after good efforts, in handicraft prac- over his weaker fellow-creatures, partly to tice! Mr. Croker says: "The worst that can snuff up the smell of coming pleasure, and happen is that all the present Editor has scent it from afar; in those bag-cheeks, hangcontributed may, if the reader so pleases, be ing like half-filled wine-skins, still able to con rejected as surplusage." It is our pleasant duty tain more; in that coarsely protruded shelf to take with hearty welcome what he has mouth, that fat dewlapped chin; in all this, given; and render thanks even for what he who sees not sensuality, pretension, boisterous meant to give. Next and finally, it is our pain- imbecility enough; much that could not have ful duty to declare, aloud if that be necessary, been ornamental in the temper of a great man's that his gift, as weighed against the hard overfed great man, (what the Scotch name money which the Booksellers demand for flunky,) though it had been more natural there. giving it you, is (in our judgment) very greatly The under part of Boswell's face is of a low, the lighter. No portion, accordingly, of our almost brutish character. small floating capital has been embarked in the business, or shall ever be; indeed, were we in the market for such a thing, there is simply no Edition of Boswell to which this last would seem preferable. And now enough, and more than enough!

We have next a word to say of James Boswell. Boswell has already been much commented upon; but rather in the way of censure and vituperation, than of true recognition. He was a man that brought himself much before the world; confessed that he eagerly coveted fame, or if that were not possible, notoriety; of which latter as he gained far more than seemed his due, the public were incited, not only by their natural love of scandal, but by a special ground of envy, to say whatever ill of him could be said. Out of the fifteen millions that then lived, and had bed and board, in the British Islands, this man has provided us a greater pleasure than any other individual, at whose cost we now enjoy ourselves; perhaps has done us a greater service than can be specially attributed to more than two or three: yet, ungrateful that we are, no written or spoken eulogy of James Boswell anywhere exists; his recompense in solid pudding (so far as copyright went) was not excessive; and as for the empty praise, it has altogether been denied him. Men are unwiser than children; they do not know the hand that feeds.

Boswell was a person whose mean or bad' qualities lay open to the general eye; visible, palpable to the dullest. His good qualities gain, belonged not to the Time he lived in;

Unfortunately, on the other hand, what grea and genuine good lay in him was nowise so self-evident. That Boswell was a hunter after spiritual Notabilities, that he loved such, and longed, and even crept and crawled to be near them; that he first (in old Touchwood Auchinleck's phraseology)" took on with Paoli," and then being off with “the Corsican landlouper,” took on with a schoolmaster, "ane that keeped a schule, and ca'd it an academe;" that he did all this, and could not help doing it, we account a very singular merit. The man, once for all, had an open sense," an open loving heart, which so few have: where Excellence existed, he was compelled to acknowledge it; was drawn towards it, and (let the old sulphar brand of a Laird say what he liked) could not but walk with it,-if not as superior, if not as equal, then as inferior and lackey, better sc than not at all. If we reflect now that this love of Excellence had not only such an evil nature to triumph over; but also what an education and social position withstood it and weighed it down, its innate strength, victorions over all these things, may astonish us. Consider what an inward impulse there must have been, how many mountains of impediment hurled aside, before the Scottish Laird could, as humble servant, embrace the knees (the bosom was not permitted him) of the English Dominie! "Your Scottish Laird," says an English naturalist of these days," may be defined as the hungriest and vainest of all bipeds yet known." Boswell too was a Tory; of quite peculiarly feudal, genealogical, pragmatical temper, had