aphorism. Sketches of character, rules of conduct, literary criticism, and questions of morals and religion, were his favourite topics. The conversation which had no bearing upon man of the passing generation he considered lost to both pleasure and instruction. He expressed a hope that he might never hear of the Punic war while he lived, and when Mr. Vesey began to talk to him about Catiline's conspiracy, 'I withdrew,' he said, 'my attention, and thought of Tom Thumb.' There was one quality for which he was noted, whatever the subject on which he spokethe minutest regard to truth. His own scrupulosity had made him particularly sensible of the general laxity. Nothing but experience,' he said, 'could enable any one to conceive that so many groundless reports should be propagated as every man of eminence might hear of himself.' He imputed the deviations from accuracy rather to carelessness than to falsehood, and he might have added, to the disposition to supply the want of knowledge by conjecture, and from a little that is known to infer a great deal that is not. He had thus grown to be extremely incredulous, and if the narration partook at all of the marvellous he would break in with a significant look and decisive tone, and exclaim, 'It is not so; do not tell this again.' Hogarth once remarked of him, that, not contented with believing the Bible, he believed nothing but the Bible, and said, like the Psalmist, 'in his haste, that all men were liars.' He was especially mistrustful of the tales of travellers. When a friend repeated to him some extraordinary facts related by the companions of Captain Cook, Johnson replied, 'I never knew before how much I was respected by these gentlemen; they told me none of these things.' He dined in company with Bruce, and Boswell found, on questioning him the same evening, that he gave no credence to the traveller's testimony. In this he was not peculiar. Horace Walpole was present when Bruce was asked what description of musical instruments were used in Abyssinia? I think,' he answered, I saw one lyre there.' 'Yes,' said Selwyn, in a whisper, and there is one less since he left the country.' The rudeness of which Johnson was sometimes guilty to the narrators of wonders solely arose from the excess of his incredulity. He firmly believed that he was rebuking falsehood, and serving the cause of good morals.

In the same way he would violate the common forms of society to mark his horror of sceptics. The Abbé Raynal was introduced to him and offered his hand. Johnson drew back and refused to take it: 'I will not,' he said to a friend who expostulated with him, 'shake hands with an infidel.' He would more easily pardon bad practice than bad principles. He had a strong feeling

feeling against schismatics, and never grew more hot than when the discussion turned upon the points at issue between them and the Church. As he walked at Oxford in New Inn Hall Garden, Sir Robert Chambers picked up snails and threw them over the wall into the adjoining premises. Johnson roughly rebuked him for so unneighbourly an act. 'My neighbour,' pleaded Sir Robert, is a dissenter.' 'If so,' rejoined Johnson, toss away, toss away as hard as you can.' This was more than half a jest, for it was a common habit with him to indulge in humorous exaggeration, but a slight incident recorded by him in one of the pious entries in his diary is a serious and significant indication of his sentiments. Seeing a poor girl at the sacrament in a bedgown I gave her privately a crown though I saw Hart's Hymns in her hand.' Hart was a Presbyterian, and notwithstanding that the girl was attending the Communion in the Church of England, it is plain from Johnson's though' that he thought the mere fact of her reading Presbyterian hymns, which she probably valued for their piety, without the least knowledge of the ecclesiastical principles of their author, was a reason against the extension of his bounty to her. All distinctions were forgotten by him at the spectacle of distress, and that her possession of this book should have passed through his mind as a motive for checking his benevolence is a curious evidence of the strength of his convictions. His distaste, however, for their opinions did not prevent his partiality for individuals. He had friends among men of all parties, both political and religious.

He was as stout and energetic in his creed respecting the State as in matters which affected the Church. He was a Tory opposed to constitutional changes, and the licence of the mob. But those who have represented him as a bigot to abuses have not read his works. In many respects he was in advance of his age, or at least must be ranked among the foremost men in it. Years before Wilberforce had opened his lips 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.' Boswell, who shared the common opinions of the time, boldly avers that he showed more zeal than knowledge' on the subject, and that to adopt his notions would be robbery of the planters,' 'cruelty to the African savages,' and in a word would be

'To shut the gates of mercy on mankind.'

As early, again, as 1751 Johnson published a paper in the 'Rambler,' in which he urged with unanswerable arguments a mitigation

mitigation of our bloody criminal code, and showed that humanity and policy alike demanded the change. A little later, in the Idler,' he demonstrated the cruelty of allowing creditors blinded by interest and inflamed by resentment to imprison at their private pleasure debtors guiltless of fraud, and whose only crime was misfortune. His own poverty and the arrests to which he had been subjected, together with the inhumanity he must have seen practised towards his obscure associates, had put him in a position to know and feel the injustice of the system. But in no shape did oppression find a friend in him, and he was not more zealous for order and authority than he was hostile to the ills which laws had caused and laws could cure.

The 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 preeminence, 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 intellectual humility to those who are his inferiors in mind and knowledge, when he always spoke of his own attainments 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 he exercised without gold or silver when he was living himself upon fourpence halfpenny a day, and the honesty and independence 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 difficulties or the retention of uprightness under temptation, there is no more memorable in

stance

stance 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.

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ART. VIII.—1. The English Bread-Book for Domestic Use, adapted to Families of every Grade, &c.; with Notices of the present System of Adulteration and its Consequences, &c. By Eliza Acton, Author of Modern Cookery.' London, 1857. 2. Rapport sur le Procédé de Panification de M. Mège Mouriès. Par MM. Chevreul, Dumas, Payen, Peloun, et Peligot. Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Sciences. Paris, Janvier, 1857.

3. On some Points in the Composition of the Wheat-Grain, its Products in the Mill, and Bread. By J. B. Lawes, F.R.S., &c., and J. H. Gilbert, Ph. D., &c. London, 1857.

4. Pharmaceutical Journal. Articles on Alum in Bread. London, May, 1857.

5. Report of the Medical Officers of Health for the District of Holborn. March 16, 1857.

6. Géographie Botanique Raisonnée. Par M. Adolp. Decandolle. Paris, 1855.

7. Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England. London, 1854.

8. Annales des Sciences Naturelles. 4me Série. Paris, 1854-6. 9. Micrographic Dictionary. By Dr. J. W. Griffiths and Professor Henfrey. Articles Yeast,' Vinegar Plant,' Fermentation.' London, 1856.

Ν

'IN the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the earth.' This was the fiat pronounced to the first man who tasted of the tree of knowledge, and learned to distinguish good and evil. Originally a curse, it has become in the present state of the world a blessing. Only in those countries where it is literally in force does the human race strive to raise itself above the beasts of the field. In the banana-plains or the bread-fruit islands of the tropics, where man has not to wrest from the stubborn soil the natural gifts of the Creator, the immunity appears to carry with it the seeds of decay and dissolution. The cultivation of corn and the manufacture of bread form the occupation of large sections of the population of all highly civilized nations; and so intimate is the dependence

of

of the remaining classes upon this industry, that a considerable share of many great political changes may be traced up to its varying conditions. Bread, however, albeit it has more than once afforded a war-cry in struggles of no little magnitude among ourselves, is now so accessible to those who are willing to labour, that the questions chiefly discussed at present relate rather to its quality than its quantity. We hear with some surprise from time to time, from over sea, of bread sold in towns below the cost price; and the visitor to Paris views with wonder the prisonlike bars which commonly protect the bakers' shops; but the questions of government and political economy indicated in this state of things have little bearing on our English life.

The improvement which, in the lapse of centuries, has taken place in the condition of the people is strikingly exhibited in the history of their diet. In the reign of Queen Elizabeth wheat was nearly confined to the rich. Even their households were frequently fed on bread made from rye or barley. Of all joints,' says the proverb, 'commend me to the shin of beef, which contains marrow for the master, meat for the mistress, gristle for the servants, and bone for the dogs.' These distinctions have long since ceased. The servant no longer eats gristle for meat or rye for bread. The peasant in old times was often reduced to a loaf concocted of beans, peas, oats, and acorns; and because these were also the food of animals, there was a common saying, 'that hunger sets his first foot in the horse's manger.' At the present hour wheat is the sole grain used for bread throughout England, and beans are only employed in limited quantities, either fraudulently to adulterate flour, or in some instances to improve it when the quality is bad.

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These adulterations have of late excited great attention. The question is not new. Smollett, in his Humphry Clinker,' had told the same tale in 1770 as has been repeated after the lapse of three quarters of a century. It is thus that he describes the atmosphere, victuals, and drink of London:

"I am pent up in frowsy lodgings, where there is not room enough to swing a cat, and I breathe the steams of endless putrefaction. If I would drink water I must quaff the mawkish contents of an open aqueduct exposed to all manner of defilement, or swallow that which comes from the river Thames, impregnated with all the filth of London and Westminster. The concrete is composed of the drugs, minerals, and poisons used in mechanics and manufactures, enriched with the putrefying carcases of beasts and men, and mixed with the scourings of all the wash-tubs, kennels, and common sewers within the bills of mortality. As to the intoxicating potion sold for wine, it is a vile, unpalatable, and pernicious sophistication, balderdashed with cyder, corn spirit, and

the