resolution, and one tremendous cannonade raged from van to Every ship was desperately engaged with an opponent, and Earl Howe fought the French Admiral Villaret Joyeuse, who sailed on board the Montague, of 120 guns. Thus awfully sustained, the vigour of the contest endured for two hours, when the French Admiral bore away, and was followed, in great confusion, by every vessel in his fleet which could make sail. Those that were disabled by the fire of this short but decisive battle, were abandoned to the mercy of the British, who made capture of seven vessels of the line, and, as soon as the smoke cleared away, saw another sink. The force of the French consisted of 26, while that of the English amounted to 25 sail of the line; and the loss of the latter was 281 killed, and 781 wounded; while the damage on board the seven ships captured, alone, reached the number of 690 killed and 790 wounded. On the morning of the 13th instant Earl Howe was seen with his prizes in the offing near Portsmouth: he landed during the day, and received the applauses of a crowded populace, and the military honours of the fort and garrison. In the course of the same month, the King, Queen, and Royal Family, proceeded in their state barges, to pay him a visit on board the Queen Charlotte, where his Majesty held a naval levee, and, in testimony of his congratulatory approbation, presented the conquering Admiral with a sword studded to the hilt with diamonds, and valued at the sum of three thousand guineas. In acknowledging the gra ciousness of his sovercign upon this occasion, Howe gave anothe striking proof of the generous modesty of the British sailor, by turning towards his crew when he had to return thanks, and nobly exclaiming-'Twas not I, but these brave fellows, that gained the victory. Arrived in London, his lordship next enjoyed the satisfaction of receiving the thanks of both Houses of Parliament, and the Common Council of London, who presented him with the freedom of the city in a gold snuff-box. Who fell gloriously, in the Memorable Victory This Monument was erected at the Public Expense He continued to hold the command of the Channel fleet until the month of May, 1795, when the feeble state of his health compelled him to strike his flag. He resumed the duties of a command, however, during the following year, and sailed at the head of the western squadron; but no opportunities of action, and no unusual difficulties, presented themselves before him. At home however, the length and merit of his services were noticed by his appointment to be General of the Marines, and Admiral of the Fleet; and upon the occurrence of a vacancy in the Order of the Garter, he was still farther honoured by being enrolled amongst the knights under its ensign. Though now retired to domestic life, and formally separated from the cares of office, still another opportunity occurred in which his old age was to be powerfully employed in the service of his country. In 1797, a desperate mutiny broke out on board the fleet; every officer was thrown into chains, the crews menaced the most awful measures, and the greatest alarm spread over the nation. In this emergency, Earl Howe was again called upon by the Government; and nothing could be more consistent than to require that great man to compose internal dissensions, who had so often and so successfully overcome foreign hostility. Beloved by the fleet, he had no fear from their exasperation, and consequently proceeded calmly on board of the revolted vessels at the very moment that they were preparing to hang their Admiral and Captains up by the yard arm. Unarmed he went amongst them, and the intrepidity of the action roused every generous feeling which distinguishes the British sailor, and he was received with shouts of congratulation. His experience had already suggested to the ministry the most pru dent measures to be adopted, for the purposes of mutual conciliation, and his personal address here succeeded in softening down every symptom of exasperation. In short the fleet he had so repeatedly conducted to glory on the sea, he now led back in loyalty to the land. The popularity of this exemplary conduct he lived not long to enjoy; a mortal illness seized upon his debilitated frame, in the month of September, 1799, and he expired full of glory, and fondly surnamed the Father of the Fleet, leaving two daughters to deplore his loss. SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. DR. JOHNSON'S monument stands against the north-east pier in St. Paul's Cathedral: it is a single statue, in an attitute of deep thought, chiselled with strong freedom, but no very pleasing effect. The costume is Roman and inappropriate; it was erected in 1775; and is the work of John Bacon, the sculptor, who received 1100 guineas for the labour. Dr. Parr wrote the Latin epitaph, of which the following is a translation: *To Samuel Johnson, A Grammarian and Critic Most learnedly read in the English authors, For the brilliancy of his periods, and the weight of his words, And a singular example of the best of men ; Who lived 75 years, two months, and fourteen days, Died on the Ides of December, in the year of Christ, 1784, * A. £ 2. SAMUELI JOHNSON, Grammatico. Et. Critico Scriptorum. Anglicorum. Litterate. Perito, Homini. Optimo. Et. Singularis. Exempli, Decessit. Idib. Decembr. Ann. Christ. clɔ. lɔcc. lxxxiiil And was buried in the Church of St. Peter, in Westminster, On the 13th kalend of January, in the year of Christ, 1785; His friends and literary companions By a pecuniary subscription Provided the erection of this monument. Samuel Johnson was born on the 7th of September, 1709, at Litchfield, in which place his father was a bookseller, and must have enjoyed reputation, for he more than once filled the duties of Chief Magistrate. At eight years of age young Sam entered the grammar-school of his native city, then taught by Mr. Hunter, and at fifteen, after an interval spent under the tuition of Cornelius Ford, a cousin and a minister, he passed into Mr. Wentworth's academy, at Stourbridge, for two years. Returning home he stopped with his father for two years, during which he was so far initiated into business, that he made a good humoured boast, when an old man, of being able to bind a book. It is related that the progress of his acquirements up to this period of his life was slow, but that his memory was admirably retentive, and his investigation deep; so that whatever he undertook to acquire he mastered thoroughly. In 1728, Mr. Corbet, a country gentleman of fortune in the neighbourhood, sent the future critic to Pembroke College, Oxford, as a companion for his son; but the boon eventually proved defective, and led to much personal degradation. His first disgust was provoked by Mr. Jourden, the tutor he was appointed to, a man of narrow mind, and poor information, faults rendered still more disagreeable by a bad temper. Johnson soon detected his deficiences, and naturally despised him as a superior; and no sooner was he exposed to the sallies of his humour, than he retorted even with insolence. It was to these as the more probable circumstances, that Johnson's biographers should have attributed that negligence of study and contempt of discipline for which he soon Sepult. In. Ed. Sanct. Petr. Westinonasterieus. Pecunia. Conlata H. M. Faciend. Curaver. became censurable. Indeed it is hard to think what other impressions could have been made in such a case upon a mind vigorous and expansive as his must have been at the age of twenty. This adversity of things was still farther increased after the lapse of two years, by young Corbet's departure from the University, an event which subjected him to severer trials, inasmuch as his pecuniary resources were almost exclusively drawn from this friend, and entirely ceased with his absence. There are few examples of more injurious cruelty to be found in life, than where some hasty impulse of ill-weighed generosity excites a person of wealth to exalt a youth from his natural sphere, because, at a first view, it does not appear provided with those essentials which may be the best and most favourable for the developement of his budding talents. To work any early improvement in the station of another, without maturely considering how the means are to come which will be imperatively required for the enlarged views and increased comforts that must ensue, is a miserable piece of imprudence; and when the strong appetite for them is once confirmed, and a second nature established, then to throw back the grieving object of giddy patronage upon all the wants and vexations of primitive poverty, rendered doubly galling by the transitory experience he has had of better things, and the memory of kinder hopes, is a social outrage almost involving moral assassination. Yet such was the extreme of embarrassment, both in feelings and facts, to which Johnson was now reduced. It was out of his father's power to make him any thing like a competent allowance for his support, so that after struggling through another year, in debt to his tutor, and so poor that he generally lounged about with his feet worn through his shoes and stockings, and his thread-bare coat ripping into pieces; he started from the seat of religion and learning in all the recklessness of broken fortune, and returned to the home from which he had been so wretchedly diverted. In 1731 his father died, and he inherited a sum of 201. Thus straitened, he attempted the office of usher in the grammar. school at Market Bosworth, but was soon compelled, by the in solence of the patron, to throw it up in disgust. About this juncture the invitation of an old schoolfellow, Mr. Hector, who was practising as a surgeon at Birmingham, led him to that busy |