mote country town, would meet with such The same year he was again at Birmingham, where we trace him by an affair sufficiently trifling in itself, yet connected with the circumstances by which he at length rose from his present depression. A few years previous to that time the "Gentleman's Magazine" had been projected, and given to the public by Mr. Edward Cave. This man was a native EDWARD CAVE. tleman's Magazine. By great diligence and indomitable perseverance, seconded by a good degree of tact, the work became an interesting and attractive vehicle for facts, fancies, good-humored gossip, and fugitive literature. Encouraged by his success, the compiler now sought to give his magazine the character of a journal of polite literature. Being a great lover of poetry, though a very incompetent judge of that article, he offered a prize of fifty pounds for the best poem on " Life, Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell;" and supposing that so great a prize would call out all the great poets of the kingdom, he offered the allotment of the reward to the universities: but neither the great poets nor the universities would have anything to do with the business-greatly to the surprise, but not to the discouragement, of the indefatigable publisher. Cave's proposal came under Johnson's notice at Birmingham; but whether he entered the list of competitors for the prize is not known, though it is presumed he did not. He however addressed an anonymous letter to the publisher suggesting certain improvements in the conduct of the magazine, and proposing to supply him, "on reasonable terms," with "short literary dissertations, remarks on authors, ancient or modern, forgotten poems that deserve revival, and loose pieces worth preserving." The correctness of his taste and judgment, as to what a literary magazine should be, is very fully displayed in that letter. An answer was returned by the publisher, addressed as Johnson had desired; but it is not known that anything was done in the matter till some time afterward. of Newton, in Warwickshire; but during his childhood and youth his father resided at Rugby, following the trade of a shoemaker. The celebrated grammar school at Rugby was then, as it has continued to be, among the best in the kingdom; and as by the rules of the foundation he had a right to be instructed there, the opportunity was not neglected. Having thus obtained a good classical education, young Cave was apprenticed to a printer, and thus kept in close relation with literature and learned men. His mind naturally inclined to projects and untried expedients, in many of which he engaged, and most of them proved wholly abortive. Having acquired a large amount of information on all current topics. he at length fancied that he could make his knowledge available in the form of a monthly pamphlet, which with selfcomplacent assurance he called the Gen- reached a very deep depression; and one After the experiment at the school of Market-Bosworth, Johnson would not be very likely to incline strongly to the office of a school-teacher; but the stern demands of want seldom wait upon tastes or caprices. The mastership of the grammar school of Solihull, in Warwickshire, being vacant, his faithful friend, Mr. Walmsley, endeavored to procure the place for him; but the application was unsuccessful, on account of "the roughness of his manners," and "an involuntary habit of distorting his face." A similar attempt to obtain a more humble situation in the school at Brewood, met with no better success, and for the same reasons. His affairs had certainly may hesitate between pausing for a little while to sympathize with his sorrows, and hastening forward to consider the next portion of the story, by which the gloom of this dark picture gives place to the serio-comical exhibition that soon followed. From quite an early period of his youth Johnson had been susceptible to the influence of the "tender passion." While at Stourbridge school he became enamored of a young Quaker girl; but the affair resulted in nothing more than a few amatory verses. He had indeed exercised his muse in the same service before he left Lichfield, in a piece addressed to "a Young Lady [Miss Hickman] playing on a Spinet;" and while residing with Mr. Hector at Birmingham, he composed a little piece for that kind friend to be sent to a lady from whom Hector had received a "sprig of myrtle." But these were only superficial impressions made upon the surface of a susceptible heart, and they were as transitory as they were superficial. But in the early part of 1735, he became the victim of a deeper and more enduring influence, from which he was quite unable to free himself. His friend Porter, the mercer of Birmingham, had died not long after his first acquaintance with the family; and now, strange enough, Johnson became desperately enamored of his widow. Though both of them were persons of real respectability, and not very widely separated in their social positions, yet beyond this every thing seemed to forbid their union. Johnson wanting the means to obtain his daily bread, it seemed sheer madness for him to think of providing for a family, and Mrs. Porter had but little to bring to him. Then the disparity of their ages presented a scarcely less formidable obstacle she was almost fifty years old, and he short of twenty-seven. But such was the power of passion upon him, that all these things were neglected; and strange enough, his love was reciprocated with an equally blind impetuosity. A gossiping anecdote is told relative to the style of their courtship, which, though rather wanting in authenticity, is sufficiently characteristic. Johnson informed Mrs. Porter that "he was of mean extraction, had no money, and had had an uncle hanged." Mrs. Porter was not to be outdone in condescension; she replied, "that she valued no one more nor less for his descent; that she had no more money than himself; and that though she had not had a relation hanged, she had fifty that deserved hanging." Johnson therefore hastened to Lichfield to obtain his mother's consent to their marriage; and though she well knew the madness of the whole movement, she was too wise to offer a futile opposition to the foregone determination of her son. In matters of love and matrimony, personal appearances are subjects of some consideration; it may not be amiss, therefore, in this place to gratify the reader with such descriptions of the persons of the pair thus brought together, as are within reach. Of Johnson, we have the following account from Miss Porter, who, by his marriage, became his step-daughter: "When first he was introduced to my mother his appearance was most forbidding; he was lean and lank, so that his immense structure of bones was hideously striking to the eye, and the scars of the scrofula were deeply visible. He also wore his hair, which was straight and stiff, separated behind; and he often had, seemingly, convulsive starts and odd gesticulations, which tended to excite at once surprise and ridicule." The account of Mrs. Johnson is by Mr. Garrick, whom the love of mirth may be suspected to have led to some degree of exaggeration. He described her as 66 very fat, with an unusually full bust, with swelled cheeks of a florid red-the color produced by thick painting, and a liberal use of cordials. She was flaring and fantastic in her dress, and affected both in her speech and her general behavior." After all this, the reader will be ready to credit the declaration of Dr. Johnson, made to an intimate friend in the days of his greatness: "Sir, it was a love-marriage on both sides." For some unexplained reason, the marriage was solemnized at Derby, and not at Birmingham. The journey thither was performed by the happy pair on horseback, and on the way a somewhat curious case of lovers' quarrels occurred. Johnson thus related the affair to Boswell, who of course incorporated it into his biography of his "illustrious friend:"-" Sir, she had read the old romances, and had got into her head the fantastical notion that a woman of spirit should use her lover like a dog. So, sir, at first she told me that I rode too fast, and she could not keep up with me; and when I rode a little slower, she passed me, and complained that I lagged behind. I was not to be made the slave of caprice, and I resolved to begin as I meant to end; I therefore pushed on briskly, till I was fairly out of her sight. The road lay between two hedges, so I was sure she could not miss it; and I contrived that she should soon come up with me; when she did, I observed her to be in tears." This probably will be thought a singular beginning of a course of connubial felicity; but there is no doubt that Johnson was a most affectionate and indulgent husband as long as his wife survived, and that he mourned her loss, when she was taken away, with a deep and sincere sorrow. care: his oddities and awkwardness became subjects of merriment with them, and especially his clumsy caressings of his wife, whom he constantly designated his Tetty a provincial diminutive for Elizabeth. That Johnson was not successful as an instructor of youth can be matter of surprise to no one at all acquainted with the character of his mind. Great abilities are not only uncalled for in that business, especially where elementary instruction is to be given; they may, by leading the mind to other subjects, and by causing an overlooking of the difficulties through which common minds must force their way to knowledge, become a positive disqualification. The mind of the teacher needs to rest calmly in its occupation, while the theme of instruction fills the whole field of intellectual vision. Great gentleness of temper and inexhaustible patience are also indispensable; and to all these must be added certain habits of order and regularity, by which the requisite knowledge shall be always at hand, and ready to be communicated. It is almost useless to say, that Johnson lacked almost every one of these qualifications. However much he might respect the office of an instructor of youth, it was an office whose duties he could never successfully perform. After struggling against his multiplied embarrassments for a year and a half, he at length abandoned the enterprise as utterly hopeless. as the work advanced it was submitted to the friendly criticism of Mr. Walmsley, whose lively appreciation of the talents of the writer, and genial kindness of heart toward one so gifted and yet so depressed, caused him to take much interest in the unfinished production, and to recommend an attempt to have it brought forward on the London stage. And now Johnson was again unmoored upon the open ocean of life. The world was before him, but it offered very little to awaken his hopes and to elicit efforts to obtain the little that it had to offer. But a more potent influence was operating upon him, and impelling him to action. One may consent to forego the honors and pleasures of life, but the demands for daily sustenance are not so easily thrust aside; and when to one's own personal necessities are added those of the objects of the heart's warm affections, if there be any spirit in him, all the energies of a man will be called forth to battle against want and to bear up against despair. This was now Johnson's condition; how well he sustained himself in it will appear in the sequel. affecting in this wreck of humble power: it touched at least a new modification of the feelings with which we regard the remains of old time, which violence has battered, and nature has rendered lovely. From visions of knightly banquets, desperate defenses, regal sufferings, which the silent dignity of the "child of loud Of his literary occupations during his residence at Edial, we have but little information. The duties of his family and his school would necessarily afford all the employment that one so little inclined to activity might desire. It was also the be-throated war" revives, it is pleasant for ginning of his married life; and however ludicrous the idea may appear, he was unquestionably a most devoted and romantic lover, long after he had passed to the sober relation of a husband. It is probable, therefore, that literature received less of his attention during this period of his life, than during any previous term of the same length. It is known, however, that within this time he projected, and in part executed, the tragedy of Irene, of which a fuller account will be given in another place. He borrowed a Turkish history of Mr. Peter Garrick, elder brother of the actor, out of which to draw the materials; and once to muse over the vestiges of common men who made an attempt at perpetual succession-to feel the spirit of antiquity hallowing the poor remains of a place where authority, ever needed by man, once held its narrow sway-perhaps not less revered by the old or less feared by the young, than the wisdom which grew immortal in codes, or the power which was terrible in blood. Here, at all events, in old time, was humanity struggling for a date beyond the span of individual life— the ambition, the pride, the vanity of civic power; and here is dust, silence, and, therefore, interest for the human heart.-Sergeant Talfourd. THE ALCHEMISTS IN THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. URING the sixteenth and seventeenth DURING centuries, the search for the philosopher's stone was continued by thousands of the enthusiastic and the credulous; but a great change was introduced during this period. The eminent men who devoted themselves to the study totally changed its aspect, and referred to the possession of their wondrous stone and elixir, not only the conversion of the base into the precious metals, but the solution of all the difficulties of other sciences. They pretended that by its means man would be brought into closer communion with his Maker; that disease and sorrow would be banished from the world; and that "the millions of spiritual beings who walk the earth unseen," would be rendered visible, and become the friends, companions, and in structors of mankind. In the seventeenth century more especially, these poetical and fantastic doctrines excited the notice of Europe; and from Germany, where they had been first disseminated by Rosencreutz, spread into France and England, and ran away with the sound judgment of many clever but too enthusiastic searchers for the truth. Paracelsus, Dee, and many others of less note, were captivated by the grace and beauty of the new mythology, which was arising to adorn the literature of Europe. Most of the alchemists of the sixteenth century, although ignorant of the Rosicrucians as a sect, were, in some degree, tinctured with their fanciful tenets. CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. THIS alchemist has left a distinguished reputation. The most extraordinary tales were told and believed of his powers. He could turn iron into gold by his mere word. All the spirits of the air and demons of the earth were under his command, and bound to obey him in everything. He could raise from the dead the forms of the great men of other days, and make them appear, "in their habit as they lived," to the gaze of the curious who had courage enough to abide their presence. He was born at Cologne in 1486, and began at an early age the study of chemistry and philosophy. By some means or other, which have never been very clearly explained, he managed to impress his CORNELIUS AGRIPPA. cotemporaries with a great idea of his wonderful attainments. At the early age 'of twenty, so great was his reputation as an alchemist, that the principal adepts of Paris wrote to Cologne, inviting him to settle in France, and aid them with his experience in discovering the philosopher's stone. Honors poured upon him in thick succession; and he was highly esteemed by all the learned men of his time. Melancthon speaks of him with respect and commendation; Erasmus also bears testimony in his favor; and the general voice of his age proclaimed him a light of literature and an ornament to philosophy. He was made secretary to the Emperor Maximilian, who conferred upon him the title of chevalier, and gave him the honorary command of a regiment. He afterward became professor of Hebrew and the belles-lettres at the University of Dôle, in France; but quarreling with the Franciscan monks upon some knotty points of divinity, he was obliged to quit the town. He took refuge in London, where he taught Hebrew and cast nativities, for about a year. He was afterward invited by Margaret of Austria, governess of the Low Countries, to fix his residence in her dominions. He accepted, and by her influence was made historiographer to the Emperor Charles V. Unfortunately for Agrippa, he never had stability enough to remain long in one position, and offended his patrons by his restlessness and presumption. After the death of Margaret he was imprisoned at Brussels, on a charge |