on this side, or that side the Tweed. (a) I countenanced and protected Merit, wherever it was to be found. It is my boast, that I was the first Minister who sought for it in the Mountains of the North - I called it forth, and drew into your service, a hardy and intrepid race of men, who were once dreaded as the inveterate Foes of the State. When I ceased to serve his Majesty as a Minister, it was not the country of the man, by which I was moved, but the man of the country who held Principles incompatible with Freedom. It is a long time, Mr. Speaker, since I have attended in Parliament. When the resolution was taken, in this House, to Tax America, I was ill in bed. If I could have endured to have been carried in my bed so great was the agitation of my mind, for the consequenses - I would have solicited some kind hand to have laid me down on this floor, to have borne my Testimony against it. It is my opinion, that this Kingdom has No Right to lay a Tax upon the Colonies. At the same time I assert the authority of this kingdom to be sovereign and supreme, in every circumstance of Government and Legislation whatsoever. Taxation is no part of the governing or legislative power: the Taxes are a voluntary gift and grant of the Commons alone. The concurrence of the Peers and the Crown, is necessary only as a Form of Law. This House represents the Commons of Great Britain. When in this House we give and grant, therefore, we give and grant what is our own; but can we give and grant the property of the Commons of America? It is an absurdity in terms ! There is an idea in some, that the Colonies are virtually represented in this House-I would fain know by whom? The idea of virtual representation, is the most contemptible that ever entered into the head of man: it does not deserve a serious refutation. The commons of America, represented in their several Assemblies, have invariably exercised this constitutional right, of giving and granting their own Money: they would have been Slaves, if they had not enjoyed it. At the same time, this Kingdom has ever possessed the power of Legislative and Commercial control. The Colonies acknowledge your Authority in all things with the sole exception, that you shall not take the Money out of their Pockets, without their consent.

CHATHAM.

(a) The river Tweed runs between England and Scotland.

MACBETH'S Soliloquy.

Is this a Dagger, which I see before me,

The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch (a) thee— I have thee not and yet I see thee still.

Art thou not, fatal vision! sensible

To feeling, as to sight? or art thou but
A Dagger of the mind; a false creation,
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?
I see thee yet in form as palpable

As this which now I draw. (Drawing his Dagger.)
Thou marshalest me the way that I was going,
And such an Instrument I was to use.

My Eyes are made the fools o' the Other senses
Or else, worth all the rest! I see thee still;

And on thy blade', (b) and dudgeon; (c) gouts of blood
Which was not so before. There's no such thing!

It is the bloody business which informs

Thus to my eyes.

Now o'er one half the world
Nature seems dead, and wicked (d) dreams abuse
The curtained sleep; now Witchcraft celebrates
Pale Hecate's offerings; and withered Murder,
Alarumed by his sentinel, the Wolf,

Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace,
With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design
Moves like a ghost. Thou sure and firm-set earth,
Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear
The very stones prate of my where-about, (e)
And take the present horror from the time,
Which now suits with it.

Whilst I threat, he lives;

(Bell rings.)

Words to the heat of Deeds too cold breath gives.
I go, and it is done; the Bell invites me.
Hear it not, Duncan! for it is a knell (ƒ)
That summons thee to Heaven, or to Hell.

SHAKESPEARE.

(a) Clutch, grasp, gripe; grypen. (b) Blade, lemmer. Dudgeon, handle, haft; handvatsel, heft.

(d) Wicked, troublesome, bad, evil; evil in effect, as medicinal things are called virtuous.

(e) Prate of my where-about

lest the very stones should tell, not

only where I am, but what I am about.

(f) Kaell, Doodklok.

LECTURE V.

An Examination of Compositions, in Prose.

JOHNSON.

Of all the men distinguished in this or any other age, Dr. Johnson has left upon posterity the strongest and most vivid impression, so far as person, manners, disposition, and conversation are concerned. We do but name him, or open a book which he has written, and the sound and action recal to the imagination at once his form, his merits, his peculiarities, nay, the very uncouthness of his gestures, and the deep impressive tone of his voice. We learn not only What he said, but How he said it, and have, at the same time, a shrewd guess of the secret motive Why he did so, and Whether he spoke in sport or in anger, in the desire of conviction, or for the love of debate. It was said of a noted wag, that his bons-mots did not give full satisfaction when published, because he could not print his face. But with respect to Dr. Johnson, this has been in some degree accomplished; and although the greater part of the present generation never saw him, yet he is, in our mind's eye, a personification as lively as that of Siddons in Lady Macbeth, or Kemble in Cardinal Wolsey.

All this, as the world well knows, arises from Johnson having found in James Boswell such a biographer, as no man but himself ever had, or ever deserved to have. The performance which chiefly resembles it in structure, is in the life of the philosopher Demophon, in Lucian; but that slight sketch is far inferior in detail and in vivacity to Boswell's Life of Johnson, which, considering the eminent persons to whom it relates, the quantity of miscellaneous information and entertaining gossip which it brings together, may be termed, without exception, the best parlour-window book that ever was written. &c.

Johnson's laborious and distinguished career terminated in 1783, when virtue was deprived of a steady supporter, society of a brilliant ornament, and literature of a successful cultivator. The latter part of his life was honored with

general applause, for none was more fortunate in obtaining and preserving the friendship of the wise and the worthy. Thus loved and venerated, Johnson might have been pronounced happy. But heaven, in whose eyes strength is weakness, permitted his faculties to be clouded occasionally with that morbid affection of the spirits, which disgraced his talents by prejudices, and his manners by rudeness.

When we consider the rank which Dr. Johnson held, not only in literature, but in society, we cannot help figuring him to ourselves as the benevolent giant of some fairy tale, whose kindnesses and courtesies are still mingled with a part of the rugged ferocity imputed to the fabulous Sons of Anak, or rather, perhaps, like a Roman Dictator, fetched from his farm, whose wisdom and heroism still relished of his rustic occupation. And there were times when, with all his wisdom, and all his wit, this rudeness of disposition, and the sacrifices and submissions which he unsparingly exacted, were so great, that even Mrs. Thrale seems, at length, to have thought that the honor of being Johnson's hostess was almost counterbalanced by the tax which he exacted on her time and patience.

The cause of those deficiencies in temper and manners, was no ignorance of what was to be done in society, or how far each individual ought to suppress his own wishes in favor of those with whom he associates; for, theoretically, no man understood the rules of good breeding better than Dr. Johnson, or could act more exactly in conformity with them, when the high rank of those with whom he was in company for the time required that he should do

But during the greater part of his life, he had been in a great measure a stranger to the higher society, in which such restraint became necessary; and it may be fairly presumed, that the indulgence of a variety of little selfish peculiarities, which it is the object of good breeding to suppress, became thus familiar to him. The consciousness of his own mental superiority in most companies which he frequented, contributed to his dogmatism; and when he had attained his eminence as a dictator in literature, like other potentates, he was not averse to a display of his authority: resembling, in this particular, Swift; and one or two other men of genius, who have had the bad taste to imagine that their talents elevated them above observance of the common rules of society. It must also be remarked, that in Johnson's time the Literary

society of London was much more confined than at present, and that he sat the Jupiter of a little circle, prompt, on the slightest contradiction, to lanch the thunders of rebuke and sarcasm. He was, in a word, despotic; and despotism will occasionally lead the best dispositions into unbecoming abuse of power. It is not likely that any one will again enjoy, or have an opportunity of abusing, the singular degree of submission which was rendered to Johnson by all arround him. The unreserved communications of friends, rather than the spleen of enemies, have occasioned his character being exposed in all its shadows, as well as its lights. But those, when summed and counted, amount only to a few narrow-minded prejudices concerning country and party, from which few ardent tempers remain entirely free, and some violences and solecisms in manners, which left his talents, morals, and benevolence, alike unimpeachable.

Sir W. SCOTT.

London; Feb. 1823.

Thirty-eight years are now elapsed since the death of Dr. Johnson; during which, his character and talents have been scrutinized with a severity unprecedented in literary biography. There never, indeed, was a man of distinction of whom more may be known by those who have had no opportunity of personal acquaintance: and perhaps never was a man whose failings, after having been exposed by imprudence or exaggerated by malice, were sooner forgotten in the esteem excited by his superior talents and steady virtues.

His early works came slowly into notice. They owed nothing to the tricks of popularity now so common; but their intrinsic merit gradually acquired for them a firm establishment. During his life, his individual pieces were frequently reprinted; and since his death, Six large editions of his collected works have been bought up by the Public. A Seventh, which has been loudly called for, is now completed, and with the recommendation of very important additions. What Lord Chesterfield said of Swift, may be as truely applied to our author, "Whoever in the three kingdoms has any books at all, has Johnson.”

ALEX. CHALMERS.

Adver. to Johnson's Works.