clared his passion. The object of his affection heard unmoved his petition, and, in spite of the eloquence of her lover, was deaf to his entreaties. The disappointed demon attempted to rise; he tried in vain ; his weighty person, unaccustomed to such a position, was not so easily restored to a proper balance. The lady, fearing that some person might discover her admirer in this aukward situation, forgot her anger, and endeavoured with all her might to raise him from the ground: her strength was unequal to the task; and after several ineffectual struggles, both in the author and the lady, the latter was obliged to ring the bell, and to order her astonished servant to raise the prostrate scholar. The story, as might be expected, became public the following morning, and entertained for some days the gossipping circle of this little town.

But notwithstanding the general esteem which Mr. Gibbon entertained for the fair sex, and not-` withstanding this striking proof of daring gallantry, I have been assured by a person who enjoyed the confidence of that distinguished man, that the historian of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, though he has frequently described in glowing colours, and perhaps in some passages, with his lascivious freedom, the passion of love, was a stranger to its pleasures, and that he passed his life in a state of singular and rigid chastity.

Another story, though of a different kind, is equally characteristic. Mr. Gibbon, finding himself indisposed, sent for a physician: the doctor

judging from the appearance of his patient, that his illness, which was but slight, simply rose from a repletion, recommended abstinence. Three days after he received a letter from the historian, couched in pressing terms, but still in well-rounded sentences, requiring his immediate presence at his house. On his arrival there he found Mr. Gibbon dreadfully altered; his cheeks usually plump, had now fallen, his complexion sållow, and his person emaciated. The physician anxiously enquired the cause of this sudden and unexpected change.

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Sir," said his learned patient," to follow with religious exactitude, the ordinances of him whom I consult as my medical adviser, is a principle from which I have never yet ventured to depart; but at this instant, I am the victim of obedience, and of a doctrine which I still believe to be generally salutary. You will recollect, Sir, that when last I had the honour of seeing you, you admonished me to abstain from animal food. Three days have elapsed since I received your injunctions, and during that period, the only food which has passed these lips, has been a beverage of water-gruel. I have consequently become languid, and am now desirous of a mere nutritious aliment; but presuming not to interfere in a science which I do not understand, and having placed the direction of my health under the guidance of your professional skill, I have awaited, I will not say with impatience, the repetition of your visit. I now attend your orders." The physician, who had not called during this interval, simply because he con

ceived Mr. Gibbon had no occasion for further advice, now rang the bell, and instead of writing a prescription, ordered dinner to be instantly served. A good bouillion, and a bottle of Burgundy, soon restored the historian to health and spirits.

The same physician advised Mr. Gibbon to take occasionally a dose of medicine. The obedient scholar, adopting with literal precision the system recommended, wrote immediately a Latin letter to his apothecary, and directing, that on the first of every month, such a draught should be sent him as the doctor should direct; and accordingly, at such stated period, during the rest of his life, whether he were well or ill, he received the accustomed dose.

NECESSITY THE CHIEF INCENTIVE TO GENIUS.

"Necessitas non habet legem."

"There is no law in necessity."

SENECA,

Who would say that Johnson himself would have been such a champion in literature, such a front rank soldier in the fields of fame, if he had not been pressed into the service, and driven into glory with the bayonet of sharp necessity pointed at his back? If fortune had turned him into a field of clover, he would have laid down and rolled in it. The mere manual labour of writing would not have allowed his lassitude and love of ease to have taken the pen out of the inkhorn, unless the cravings of hunger had

reminded him, that he must fill the sheet before he saw the table-cloth. He might, indeed, have knocked down Osbourne for a blockhead, but he would not have knocked him down with a folio of his own writing. He would perhaps have been the dictator of a club, and whenever he sat down to conversation, there must have been that splash of strong bold thought about him, that we might still have had a collectanea after his death: but of prose, I guess not much; of works of labour none, of fancy perhaps something more, especially of poetry, which, under favour, I conceive, was not his tower of strength. I think we should have had his Rasselas at all events, for he was likely enough to have written to Voltaire, and brought the question to the test, if infidelity is any aid to wit. An orator he must have been; not improbably a parliamentarian, and if such, certainly an oppositionist; for he preferred to talk against the tide. He would indubitably have been no member of the Whig club, no partisan of Wilkes, no friend of Hume, no. believer in Macpherson; he would have put up prayers for early rising, and laid in bed all day, and with the most active resolution, possibly been the most indolent mortal living. He was a good man by nature, a great man by genius; we are now to enquire what he was by compulsion.

Johnson's first style was naturally energetic, his middle style was turgid to a fault, his latter style was fastened down, and harmonized into periods more tuneful and more intelligible. His exertion

was rapid, yet his mind was not easily provoked into exertion; the variety we find in his writings was not the variety of choice arising from the impulse of his proper genius, but tasks imposed upon him by the dealers of ink, and contracts on his part submitted to, in satisfaction of the pressing calls of hungry wants for, painful as it is to relate, I have heard that illustrious scholar assert (and he never varied from the truth of fact), that he subsisted himself for a considerable space of time upon the scanty pittance of fourpence halfpenny per day. How melancholy to reflect that his vast trunk and stimulating appetite were to be supported by what will barely feed the weaned infant! Less, much less, than Master Betty has earned in one night would have cheered the mighty mind, and maintained the athletic body of Samuel Johnson for a twelvemonth. Alas! I am not fit to paint his character, nor is there need for it. Etiam mortuus loquitur: every man who can buy a book has bought a Boswell; Johnson is known to all the reading world. I also knew him well, respected him highly, loved him sincerely: it was never my chance to see him in those moments of moroseness and ill humour, which are imputed to him, perhaps with truth, for who would slander him? But I am not warranted by an experience of those humours to speak of him otherwise than of a friend who always met me with kindness, and from whom I never separated without regret. When I sought his company he had no capricious excuses for withholding it, but lent himself to every invitation with cordiality, and