In the case of a clergyman's daughter, who had been reduced to misery through an unfortunate marriage, he writes to the Rev. Dr. Hamilton, "in favor of one who has very little ability to speak for herself." He had known her for many years, and concludes his letter: "Her case admits of little deliberation she is turned out of her lodging into the street. What my condition allows me to do for her, I have already done; and having no friend, she can have recourse only to the parish." On this, and other notes of a charitable nature, addressed to this clergyman, to whom he says, You do every thing that is liberal and kind," the son of Dr. Hamilton observes, "They are of no farther interest, than as showing the goodness of Johnson's heart, and the spirit with which he entered into the cause and interests of an individual in distress, when he was almost on the bed of sickness and death himself."

It appears from another note at this time, that Johnson had, on the application of Miss Reynolds, frequently relieved other poor persons than those with whose misery or poverty he had himself become acquainted. Neither did loss of character altogether prevent the flowing forth of his charity. Boswell records : His generous humanity to the miserable was almost beyond example. The following instance is well attested coming home late one night, he found a poor woman lying in the street, so much exhausted that she could not walk; he took her upon his back, and carried her to his house, where he discovered that she was one of those wretched females who had fallen into the lowest state of vice, poverty and disease. Instead of harshly upbraiding her, he had her taken care of with all tenderness for a long time, at a considerable expense, till she was restored to health, and endeavored to put her into a virtuous way of living."* This is

In the Rambler (No. 107, vol. ii. p. 213) we find these remarks from the pen of Dr. Johnson:

"It can not be doubted but that numbers follow this dreadful course of life, with shame, horror, and regret; but where can they hope for refuge? 'The world is not their friend, nor the world's law.' Their sighs, and tears, and groans, are criminal in the eyes of their tyrants, the bully and the bawd, who fatten on their misery, and threaten them with want or a jail if they show the least design of escaping from their

as it should be, for the Almighty himself is kind to the unthankful and the evil. The sterner moralist may confine himself to too narrow an idea of duty, and so act upon it until no room for mercy be left in his mind; and if mercy were shut out, where would any of the human race be? We are all transgressors, but God is kind to us-God is provoked every day, but every day He is forgiving us. If the Almighty preferred a harsh sense of duty and justice rather than a loving one of mercy and forgiveness, where should we be? Oh let us ever remember with the moralizing poet, that,

"The right too rigid hardens into wrong!"

It is when an offense has been committed, when the of fender is before us, and when his transgression and trespass have placed him entirely in our power-it is then alone that mercy can be shown and we should be careful how we let slip the gracious opportunity afforded to us. Certainly we must prefer those who are of the household of faith, and who live holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, by the grace of God: yet never let us be tempted to cast those of another sort quite away. Let us be sure it is the safest and noblest part to be helpers of all. Who knows but what our temporal kindness may win the heart of a wicked man; and while we "give an alms, we may, in some sense, bestow a heaven too?" Our charity must not feed vice, and we should take care lest we be imposed on; but still, we should be especially heedful how we become the executioners of distress and want upon any man, though he be as evil as he is needy nay, we must positively seek to do him good. "Happy

bondage. 'To wipe all tears from off all faces,' is a task too hard for mortals; but to alleviate misfortunes is often within the most limited power: yet the opportunities which every day affords of relieving the most wretched of human beings are overlooked and neglected, with equal disregard of policy and goodness."

This paper bears the date of March 26, 1751; but it is not possible to ascertain the precise period in which this act of humanity occurred. It happened during the time of Mrs. Desmoulins's sojourn at his hospitable house, and probably several years after the article in the Rambler was written.

I," exclaims a sound divine, "if I may so cheaply bestow a double life of body and of soul." Alas, and alas! there is much the very reverse of this passing daily and hourly in the world; and too many, if not hardened, yet become tied and bound by too strong a chain to their sins.

The same kind of ill-feeling is apparent, too often, among religious disputants-there is no charity bestowed on an antagonist. Bishop Sanderson has an admirable sermon* on the want of charity in Papists and Puritans toward Churchof-England-men-" as if," he says of the latter, "all but themselves were scarce to be owned either as brethren, or professors, or Christians or saints, or godly men:" all which names they appropriate to themselves!

Sanderson's Sermons, p. 63, preached in 1633.

CHAPTER VI.

CONTINUED INSTANCES.

IN prosecuting the great work of his English Dictionary, Dr. Johnson employed six amanuenses, and "to all these painful laborers," says Boswell, he showed a never ceasing kindness, so far as they stood in need of it." For Sheils, who died of a consumption, "he had much tenderness ;” but of his kindness to Macbean we have the fullest account. For him Johnson wrote a preface to a work on ancient Geography; and very many years afterward obtained admission for him as a poor brother into the Charter House, by an application to Lord Thurlow; and here we find him again writing to the Rev. Dr. Vyse, as he had before done in the case of De Groot, the nephew, or grandson, of Grotius. He states that he is one of his old friends, a man of great learning, and “being a modest scholar, will escape embarrassment” (in attending before the Archbishop), "if you are so kind as to introduce him, by which you will do a kindness to a man of great merit," &c. Nearly four years after this deed of charity, he writes, “ A message came to me yesterday to tell me that Macbean is dead, after three days of illness. He was one of those who, as Swift says, stood as a screen between me and death. He has, I hope, made a good exchange. He was very pious: he was very innocent: he did no ill and of doing good a continual tenor of distress allowed him few opportunities: he was very highly esteemed in the Charter House." Macbean was indeed poor, for after being several years librarian to the Duke of Argyle, he was left without a shilling it is gratifying to observe that Johnson lost not sight of him after he had entered this welcome asylum. The screen between me and death must allude to his being the oldest surviving friend of Dr. Johnson's-and Johnson died in the same year. The death of each friend of our early years

must be a memento mori to us, but when it comes to the last remaining one, the fact which the warning serves to remind us of must be nigh at hand. Would that Johnson could have, at this time, spoken in the language of Cicero, when, on lamenting the death of Scipio, he found other consolation than in the remembrance of his beloved friend's virtues! "Were I totally deprived," he says, "of these soothing reflections, my age, however, would afford me great consolation: as I can not, by the common course of nature, long be separated from him."

On one

Johnson's charity commenced with his earliest years of manhood and only ceased with his death. Boyse, the poet, one of his very early companions, was assisted by him. occasion Johnson collected a sum to redeem his friend's clothes from the hands of the pawnbroker; and "the sum," said Johnson, "was collected by sixpences, at a time when to me sixpence was a serious consideration." His very last words on his death-bed were those of kindness and blessing to one of his fellow mortals.

One of the most extraordinary and continued acts of kindness in Dr. Johnson's life, was that which opened his house as a residence to several persons of indigent circumstances. Let us first tell the case of Mrs. Williams. She was the daughter of a Welsh physician, and excited the compassion of Dr. Johnson, on coming to London to have an operation performed on her eyes. He took her into his house for the greater convenience in this performance, and, on its failure (for she became totally blind), he never desired, so long as he was in possession of a house, that she should depart from under its roof. Sir John Hawkins, Lady Knight, Miss Hawkins, and Boswell, all speak highly of her talent and pleasing conversation; and so great was her judgment, that the former asserts, " Johnson, in many exigencies, found her an able counselor, and seldom showed his wisdom more than when he hearkened to her advice." In return, however, the knight asserts, she received inestimable advantages from her intercourse with Johnson. He himself says of her, "Her curiosity was universal, her knowledge was very extensive, and she sustained forty years of misery with steady fortitude." Han