he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

Burns died in his thirty-eighth year. At that age what had Johnson done to be for ever remembered? He had written Irene, London, and the Life of Savage. Of Irene the world makes little account-it contains many just and noble sentiments-but it is a Tragedy without tears. The Life is an eloquent lie, told in the delusion of a friendship sealed by participated sorrows. LONDON is a satire of the true moral vein-more sincerely indignant with the vices it withers than its prototype in Juvenalwith all the vigor, without any of the coarseness of Dryden— with "the pointed propriety of Pope," and versification almost as musical as his, while not so monotonous-an immortal strain. But had he died in 1747, how slight had been our knowledge— our interest how dull-in the "Life and Writings of Samuel Johnson!" How slight our knowledge! We should never have known that in childhood he showed symptoms "of that jealous independence of spirit and impetuosity of temper which never forsook him"-as Burns in the same season had showed that "stubborn sturdy something in his disposition" which was there to the last ;-That he displayed then "that power of memory for which he was all his life eminent to a degree almost incredible"-as Burns possessed that faculty-so thought Murdochin more strength than imagination;-That he never joined the other boys in their ordinary diversions "but would wander away into the fields talking to himself"-like Burns walking miles "to pay his respects to the Leglen wood ;"-That when a boy he was immoderately fond of reading romances of chivalryas Burns was of Blind Harry ;-That he fell into "an inattention to religion or an indifference about it in his ninth year," and after his fourteenth "became a sort of lax talker against religion, for he did not much think about it, and this lasted till he went to Oxford, where it would not be suffered"—just as the child Burns was remarkable for an "enthusiastic idiot piety," and had pleasure during some years of his youth in puzzling his companions on points in divinity, till he saw his folly, and without getting his mouth shut, was mute;-That on his return home from Stourbridge school in his eighteenth year "he had no set

tled plan of life, nor looked forward at all, but merely lived from day to day "—like Burns who, when a year or two older in his perplexity, writes to his father that he knows not what to do, and is sick of life;―That his love of literature was excited by accidentally finding a folio of Petrarch-as Burns's love of poetry was by an octavo Shenstone ;-That he thereon became a gluttonous book-devourer-as Burns did—“no book being so voluminous as to slacken his industry, or so antiquated as to damp his researches ;"-That in his twentieth year he felt himself "overwhelmed with a horrible hypochondria, with perpetual irritation, fretfulness, and impatience, and with a dejection, gloom, and despair which rendered existence misery "—-as Burns tells us he was afflicted-even earlier-and to the last-" with a constitutional melancholy or hypochondriasm that made me fly to solitude ❞—with horrid flutterings and stoppages of the heart that often almost choked him, so that he had to fall out of bed into a tub of water to allay the anguish ;—That he was at Pembroke College "caressed and loved by all about him as a gay and frolicsome fellow "-while "ah! Sir, I was mad and violent—it was bitterness which they mistook for frolic "—just as Burns was thought to be "with his strong appetite for sociality as well from native hilarity as from a pride of observation and remark," though when left alone desponding and distracted ;-That he was generally seen lounging at the College gate, with a circle of students round him, whom he was entertaining with wit, and keeping from their studies, if not spiriting them up to rebellion against the College discipline, which in his maturer years he so much extolled "-as Burns was sometimes seen at the door of a Public ridiculing the candles of the Auld Light and even spiriting the callants against the Kirk itself, which we trust he looked on more kindly in future years;-That he had to quit college on his father's bankruptcy soon followed by death, as Burns in similar circumstances had to quit Lochlea;-"That in the forlorn state of his circumstances, Etat. 23, he accepted of an offer to be employed as usher in the school of Market-Bosworth," where he was miserable—just as Burns was at the same age, not indeed flogging boys but flailing barns, "a poor insignificant devil, unnoticed and unknown, and stalking up and down fairs and mar

kets:-That soon after "he published proposals for printing by subscription the Latin Poems of Politian at two shillings and sixpence, but that there were not subscribers enough to secure a sufficient sale, so the work never appeared, and probably never was executed —as Burns soon after issued proposals for printing by subscription on terms rather higher "among others the Ordination, Scotch Drink, the Cottar's Saturday Night, and an Address to the Deil," which volume ere long was published accordingly and had a great sale;-That he had, "from early youth, been sensible to the influence of female charms, and when at Stourbridge school was much enamored of Olivia Lloyd, a young Quaker, to whom he wrote a copy of verses "—just as Burns was-and did—in the case of Margaret Thomson, in the kale-yard at Kirkoswald, and of many others;-That his "juvenile attachments to the fair sex were however very transient, and it is certain that he formed no criminal connection whatever; Mr. Hector, who lived with him in the utmost intimacy and social freedom, having assured me that even at that ardent season his conduct was strictly virtuous in that respect "-just so with Burns who fell in love with every lass he saw 66 come wading barefoot all alane," while his brother Gilbert gives us the same assurance of his continence in all his youthful loves ;That "in a man whom religious education has saved from licentious indulgences, the passion of love when once it has seized him is exceeding strong, and this was experienced by Johnson when he became the fervent admirer of Mrs. Porter after her first husband's death "'—as it was unfortunately too much the case with Burns, though he did not marry a widow double his own age-but one who was a Maid till she met Rob Mossgiel— and some six years younger than himself;-That unable to find subsistence in his native place, or anywhere else, he was driven by want to try his fortune in London, "the great field of genius and exertion, where talents of every kind have the fullest scope, and the highest encouragement," on his way thither, "riding and tying" with Davie Garrick-just as Burns was impelled to make an experiment on Edinburgh, journeying thither on foot, but without any companion in his adventure ;-that after getting on there indifferently well, he returned "in the course of the

next summer to Lichfield, where he had left Mrs. Johnson," and stayed there three weeks, his mother asking him whether, when in London, "He was one of those who gave the wall or those who took it "--just as Burns returned to Mauchline, where he had left Mrs. Burns, and remained in the neighborhood about the same period of time, his mother having said to him on his return, "O, Robert;"-That he took his wife back with him to London, resolving to support her the best way he could, by the cultiva tion of the fields of literature, and chiefly through an engage. ment as gauger and supervisor to Cave's Magazine-as Burns, with similar purposes, and not dissimilar means, brought his wife to Ellisland, then to Dumfries;-That partly from necessity and partly from inclination, he used to perambulate the streets of the city at all hours of the night, and was far from being prim or precise in his company, associating much with one Savage at least who had rubbed shoulders with the gallows-just as Burns on Jenny Geddes and her successor kept skirring the country at all hours, though we do not hear of any of his companions having been stabbers in brothel-brawls ;-That on the publication of his "London," that city rang with applause, and Pope pronounced the author-yet anonymous-a true poet, who would soon be deterré, while General Oglethorpe became his patron, and such a prodigious sensation did his genius make, that in the fulness of his fame, Earl Gower did what he could to set him on the way of being elevated to a schoolmastership in some small village in Shropshire or Staffordshire, "of which the certain sal. ary was sixty pounds a-year, which would make him happy for life" --so said English Earl Gower to an Irish Dean called Jonathan Swift-just as Burns soon after the publication of "Tam o'Shanter," was in great favor with Captain Grose—though there was then no need for any poet to tell the world he was one, as he had been “deterré a year or two before, and by the unexampled exertions of Grahame of Fintry, the Earl of Glencairn being oblivious or dead, was translated to the diocese of Dumfries, where he died in the thirty-eighth year of his age; the very year, we believe, of his, in which Johnson issued the prospectus of his Dictionary ;—and here we leave the Lexicographer for a

moment to himself, and let our mind again be occupied for a moment exclusively by the Exciseman.

You will not suppose that we seriously insist on this parallel as if the lines throughout ran straight; or that we are not well aware that there was far from being in reality such complete correspondence of the circumstances-much less the characters of the men. But both had to struggle for their very lives-it was sink or swim-and by their own buoyancy they were borne up. In Johnson's case, there is not one dark stain on the story of all those melancholy and memorable years. Hawkins indeed more than insinuates that there was a separation between him and his wife, at the time he associated with Savage, and used with that profligate to stroll the streets; and that she was "harbored by a friend near the Tower;" but Croker justly remarks—“That there never has existed any human being, all the details of whose life, all the motives of whose actions, all the thoughts of whose mind, have been so unreservedly brought before the public; even his prayers, his most secret meditations, and his most scrupulous self-reproaches, have been laid before the world; and there is not to be found, in all the unparalleled information thus laid before us, a single trace to justify the accusation which Hawkins so wantonly and so odiously, and it may be assumed, so falsely makes." However, he walked in the midst of evil-he was familiar with the faces of the wicked -the guilty, as they were passing by, he did not always shun, as if they were lepers; he had a word for them-poor as he was, a small coin-for they were of the unfortunate and forlorn, and his heart was pitiful. So was that of Burns. Very many years Heaven allotted to the Sage, that virtue might be instructed by wisdom-all the good acknowledge that he is great-and his memory is hallowed for evermore in the gratitude of Christendom. In his prime it pleased God to cut off the Poet-but his genius too has left a blessing to his own people—and has diffused noble thoughts, generous sentiments, and tender feelings over many lands, and most of all among them who more especially feel that they are his brethren, the Poor who make the Rich, and like him are happy, in spite of its hardships, in their own condition. Let the imperfections of his character then be spared, if it be even