MONTREUIL. [From A Sentimental Journey (1768)] When all is ready, and every article is disputed and paid for in the inn, unless you are a little soured by the adventure, there is always a 5 matter to compound at the door, before you can get into your chaise, and that is with the sons and daughters of poverty who surround you. Let no man say, 'let them go 10 to the devil''tis a cruel journey 'tis a cruel journey to send a few miserables, and they have had sufferings enow without it: I always think it better to take a few sous out in my hand; and I 15 would counsel every gentle traveller to do so likewise; he need not be so exact in setting down his motives for giving them. They will be registered elsewhere. 20 For my own part, there is no man gives so little as I do; for few, that I know, have so little to give; but as this was the first public act of my charity in France, I took the 25 more notice of it. 'A well-a-way!' said I, 'I have but eight sous in the world,' shewing them in my hand, 'and there are eight poor men and eight poor women for 'em.' 30 A poor tattered soul, without a shirt on, instantly withdrew his claim, by retiring two steps out of the circle, and making a disqualifying bow on his part. Had the whole 35 parterre cried out, Place aux dames, with one voice, it would not have conveyed the sentiment of a deference for the sex with half the effect. Just heaven! for what wise reasons 40 hast thou ordered it that beggary and urbanity, which are at such variance in other countries, should find a way to be at unity in this? I insisted upon presenting him 45 with a single sou, merely for his politesse. --- ere he could have asked one for himself; he stood by the chaise, a little 95 without the circle, and wiped a tear from a face which I thought had seen better days. 'Good God!' said I, and I have not a single sou left to give him' But you have a 100 thousand! cried all the powers of nature stirring within me So I no matter what gave him am ashamed to say how much, now and was ashamed to think how 105 little, then: so if the reader can form I SAMUEL JOHNSON. AMUEL JOHNSON (1709-1784) was SAMUE born at Lichfield, Staffordshire, where his father was a poor bookseller. He studied at the University of Oxford, but, for want of means, had to leave it without taking a degree. After a short experience as an usher at Market Bosworth School, he went to Birmingham, and began to do literary hack-work for a bookseller. In 1735 he married an elderly widow, and, with her help, set up a boarding-school near Lichfield. But, the school failing, he had again to look to his pen for a living, and resolved to try his fortune in London, where for the rest of his life (from 1737) he lived as a professional author. Though he soon found employment upon a periodical paper, he had, for many years, to struggle hard with poverty, till in 1762, after the accession of George III., he was granted a royal pension of 3001. a year. Honours were soon to follow: he received an honorary degree from two universities (Dublin and Oxford), became the centre of a literary Club' (founded in 1764), which included the most distinguished men of the time, and, during the last twenty years of his life, exercised a kind of literary dictatorship. With the Scotch lawyer James Boswell he contracted a warm friendship, which led to Boswell's Life of Johnson (1791), which is admittedly one of the greatest biographies in existence. Odd journeys to Scotland (1773), Wales, and France, were the only break in his long residence in London. He died there in 1784, and was honoured with a burial in Westminster Abbey. Johnson's fame rests not so much on his writings as on his impressive personality. For his manly character combined a rough demeanour, robust common sense, and sincere Tory and High-Church principles with a sturdy morality and a deep tenderness of feeling, and thus represented the ideal of the typical Englishman. As a professional author he was one of the first to win general recognition and respect for his profession. Leaving aside a great mass of miscellaneous writings, the following works of his require special notice. The famous Dictionary of the English Language (1755), on which he was engaged with five amanuenses for eight years, was a great advance upon its predecessors, and, in spite of many deficiencies, until lately, served as the basis for all subsequent English dictionaries. In imitation of the Spectator, Johnson started two literary periodicals, The Rambler (1750-1752) and The Idler (1758-1760), for which he wrote nearly all the essays himself. The didactic novel of Rasselass, Prince of Abyssinia (1759) was, with his contemporaries, the most popular of his writings, but it fails to attract the modern reader. In 1775 he published an edition of Shakspere, and an interesting account of his Scottish tour with Boswell under the title of A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland. The most permanent of his works are the biographical introductions known as The Lives of the Poets (1779-1781), which he wrote for a collection of the English poets undertaken by several London booksellers. His style is sometimes heavy and pompous. DICK SHIFTER'S RURAL EXCURSION. Dick Shifter was born in Cheapside, and, having passed reputably through all the classes of St. Paul's school, has been for some years a student in the Temple. He is of opinion that intense application dulls the faculties, and thinks it necessary to temper the severity of the law by books that engage the mind, but 10 do not fatigue it. He has therefore made a copious collection of plays, poems, and romances, to which he has recourse when he fancies himself tired with statutes and reports; 15 and he seldom inquires very nicely whether he is weary or idle. Dick has received from his favourite authors very strong impressions of a country life; and though his furthest 20 excursions have been to Greenwich on one side, and Chelsea on the other, he has talked for several years, with great pomp of language and elevation of sentiments, about a state 25 too high for contempt and too low for envy, about homely quiet and blameless simplicity, pastoral delights and rural innocence. His friends who had estates in 30 the country, often invited him to pass the summer among them, but something or other had always hindered him; and he considered that to reside in the house of another man was to 35 incur a kind of dependence inconsistent with that laxity of life which he had imaged as the chief good. This summer he resolved to be happy, and procured a lodging to be 40 taken for him at a solitary house, situated about thirty miles from London, on the banks of a small river with cornfields before it, and a hill on each side covered with wood. He 45 concealed the place of his retirement, that none might violate his obscurity, and promised himself many a happy day when he should hide himself among the trees, and contemplate the tumults and vexations of the town. 50 He stepped into the post-chaise with his heart beating and his eyes sparkling, was conveyed through many varieties of delightful prospects, saw hills and meadows, cornfields and 55 pasture succeed each other, and for four hours charged none of his poets with fiction or exaggeration. He was now within six miles of happiness; when, having never felt so much 60 agitation before, he began to wish his journey at an end, and the last hour was passed in changing his posture, and quarrelling with his driver. 65 An hour may be tedious, but cannot be long. He at length alighted at his new dwelling, and was received as he expected; he looked round upon the hills and rivulets, but his joints 70 were stiff and his muscles sore, and his first request was to see his bedchamber. He rested well, and ascribed the soundness of his sleep to the stillness 75 of the country. He expected from that time nothing but nights of quiet and days of rapture, and, as soon as he had risen, wrote an account of his new state to one of his friends 80 in the Temple. Dear Frank, I never pitied thee before. I am now as I could wish every man of wisdom and virtue to be, in the 85 regions of calm content and placid meditation; with all the beauties of nature soliciting my notice, and all the diversities of pleasure courting my acceptance; the birds are chirping 90 in the hedges, and the flowers bloom When he had sent away his letter, he walked into the wood with some inconvenience from the furze that pricked his legs, and the briers that 105 scratched his face. He at last sat down under a tree, and heard with great delight a shower, by which he was not wet, rattling among the branches: "This,' said he, 'is the true 110 image of obscurity; we hear of troubles and commotions, but never feel them.' His amusement did not overpower the calls of nature, and he therefore went back to order his dinner. 115 He knew that the country produces whatever is eaten or drunk, and, imagining that he was now at the source of luxury, resolved to indulge himself with dainties which he sup120 posed might be procured at a price next to nothing, if any price at all was expected; and intended to amaze the rustics with his generosity by paying more than they would ask. 126 Of twenty dishes which he named, he was amazed to find that scarcely one was to be had; and heard, with astonishment and indignation, that all the fruits of the earth were sold 130 at a higher price than in the streets of London. His meal was short and sullen; and he retired again to his tree, to inquire how dearness could be con135 sistent with abundance, or how fraud could be practised by simplicity. He was not satisfied with his own speculations, and, returning home early in the evening, went a while from window to window, and found that 140 he wanted something to do. He inquired for a newspaper, and was told that farmers never minded news, but that they could send for it from the ale-house. A messenger 145 was dispatched, who ran away at full speed, but loitered an hour behind the hedges, and at last coming back with his feet purposely bemired, instead of expressing the gratitude 150 which Mr. Shifter expected for the bounty of a shilling, said that the night was wet, and the way dirty, and he hoped that his worship would not think it much to give him half 155 a crown. Dick now went to bed with some abatement of his expectations; but sleep, I know not how, revives our hopes, and rekindles our desires. He 160 rose early in the morning, surveyed the landscape, and was pleased. He walked out, and passed from field to field, without observing any beaten path, and wondered that he had not 165 seen the shepherdesses dancing, nor heard the swains piping to their flocks. At last he saw some reapers and harvest-women at dinner. 'Here,' said he, 'are the true Arcadians,' and ad- 170 vanced courteously towards them, as afraid of confusing them by the dignity of his presence. They acknowledged his superiority by no other token than that of asking him for 175 something to drink. He imagined that he had now purchased the privilege of discourse, and began to descend to familiar questions, endeavouring to accommodate his dis- 180 course to the grossness of rustic understandings. The clowns soon found that he did not know wheat from rye, and began to despise him; one of the boys, by pretending to shew 185 him a bird's nest, decoyed him into a ditch; and one of the wenches sold him a bargain. This walk had given him no great 190 pleasure; but he hoped to find other rustics less coarse of manners, and less mischievous of disposition. Next morning he was accosted by an attorney, who told him that, unless he 195 made farmer Dobson satisfaction for trampling his grass, he had orders to indict him. Shifter was offended, but not terrified; and, telling the attorney that he was himself a lawyer, 200 talked so volubly of pettifoggers and barraters, that he drove him away. Finding his walks thus interrupted, he was inclined to ride, and, being pleased with the appearance of a 205 horse that was grazing in a neighbouring meadow, inquired the owner; who warranted him sound, and would not sell him but that he was too fine for a plain man. Shifter now began to be tired with rustic simplicity, and on the fifth day 225 took possession again of his chambers, and bade farewell to the regions of calm content and placid meditation. SHAKSPERE AND THE UNITIES. It will be thought strange that, in enumerating the defects of this writer, I have not yet mentioned his neglect of the unities; his violation 5 of those laws which have been instituted and established by the joint authority of poets and of critics. For his other deviations from the art of writing, I resign him to critic10 al justice, without making any other demand in his favour than that which must be indulged to all human excellence, that his virtues be rated with his failings; but, from the censure 15 which this irregularity may bring upon him, I shall with due reverence to that learning which I must oppose, adventure to try how I can defend him. action be so prepared as to be under- 25 30 In his other works he has well enough preserved the unity of action. He has not, indeed, an intrigue regularly perplexed and regularly unravelled; he does not endeavour to 35 hide his design only to discover it, for this is seldom the order of real events, and Shakspere is the poet of nature: but his plan has commonly what Aristotle requires, a beginning, 40 a middle, and an end; one event is concatenated with another, and the conclusion follows by easy consequence. There are perhaps some incidents that might be spared, as in 45 other poets there is much talk that only fills up time upon the stage; but the general system makes gra |