desolate house behind Fleet Street, where the few and evil days which still remained to him were to run out. Here, in June, 1783, he had a paralytic stroke, from which, however, he recovered, and which does not appear to have at all impaired his intellectual faculties. But other maladies came thick upon him. His asthma tormented him day and night. Dropsical symptoms made their appearance. While sinking under a complication of diseases, he heard that the woman whose friendship had been the chief happiness of sixteen years of his life, had married an Italian fiddler; that all London was crying shame upon her; and that the newspapers and magazines were filled with allusions to the Ephesian matron and the two pictures in "Hamlet." He vehemently said that he would try to forget her existence. He never uttered her name. Every memorial of her which met his eye he flung into the fire. She, meanwhile, fled from the laughter and hisses of her countrymen and countrywomen to a land where she was unknown, hastened across Mont Cenis, and learned, while passing a merry Christmas of concerts and lemonade parties at Milan, that the great man with whose name hers is inseparably associated had ceased to exist. He had, in spite of much mental and much bodily affliction, clung vehemently to life. The feeling described in that fine but gloomy paper which closes the series of his Idlers seemed to grow stronger in him as his last hour drew near. He fancied that he should be able to draw his breath more easily in a southern climate, and would probably have set out for Rome or Naples but for his fear of the expense of the journey. That expense, indeed, he had the means of defraying; for he had laid up about two thousand pounds, the fruit of labors which had made the fortune of several publishers. But he was unwilling to break in upon this hoard, and he seems to have wished even to keep its existence a secret. Some of his friends hoped that the government might be induced to increase his pension to six hundred pounds a year, but this hope was disappointed, and he resolved to stand one English winter more. This winter was his last. His legs grew weaker; his breath grew shorter; the fatal water gathered fast, in spite of incisions which he, courageous against pain, but timid against death, urged his surgeons to make deeper and deeper. Though the tender care which had mitigated his sufferings during months of sickness at Streatham was withdrawn, he was not left desolate. The ablest physicians and surgeons attended him, and refused to accept fees from him. Burke parted from him with deep emotion. Windham sat much in the sick room, arranged the pillows, and sent his own servant to watch at night by the bed. Frances Burney, whom the old man had cherished with fatherly kindness, stood weeping at the door; while Langton, whose piety eminently qualified him to be an adviser and comforter at such a time, received the last pressure of his friend's hand within. When at length the moment, dreaded through so many years, came close, the dark cloud passed away from Johnson's mind. His temper became unusually patient and gentle; he ceased to think with terror of death, and of that which lies beyond death; and he spoke much of the mercy of God, and of the propitiation of Christ. In this serene frame of mind he died on the 13th of December, 1784. He was laid, a week later, in Westminster Abbey, among the eminent men of whom he had been the historian-Cowley and Dunham, Dryden and Congreve, Gay, Prior, and Addison. Since his death, the popularity of his works-the "Lives of the Poets," and, perhaps, the "Vanity of Human Wishes," excepted-has greatly diminished. His "Dictionary" has been altered by editors till it can scarcely be called his. An allusion to his Rambler or his Idler is not readily apprehended in literary circles. The fame even of "Rasselas " has grown somewhat dim. But though the celebrity of the writings may have declined, the celebrity of the writer, strange to say, is as great as ever. Boswell's book has done for him more than the best of his own books could do. The memory of other authors is kept alive by their works. But the memory of Johnson keeps many of his works alive. The old philosopher is still among us in the brown coat with the metal buttons and the shirt which ought to be at wash, blinking, puffing, rolling his head, drumming with his fingers, tearing his meat like a tiger and swallowing his tea in oceans. No human being who has been more than seventy years in the grave is so well known to us. And it is but just to say that our intimate acquaintance with what he would himself have called the anfractuosities of his intellect and of his temper, serves only to strengthen our conviction that he was both a great and a good man. SELECTIONS FROM BROWNING. EVELYN HOPE. I. Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead! Sit and watch by her side an hour. That is her bookshelf, this her bed; She plucked that piece of geranium-flower, Beginning to die too, in the glass. Little has yet been changed, I think— The shutters are shut, no light may pass Save two long rays through the hinge's chink. II. Sixteen years old when she died! Perhaps she had scarcely heard my nameIt was not her time to love: beside, Her life had many a hope and aim, Duties enough and little cares, And now was quiet, now astir- III. Is it too late, then, Evelyn Hope? And our paths in the world diverged so wide, IV. No, indeed! for God above Is great to grant, as mighty to make, And creates the love to reward the love,— I claim you still, for my own love's sake! Delayed it may be for more lives yet, Through worlds I shall traverse, not a fewMuch is to learn and much to forget Ere the time be come for taking you. V. But the time will come,-at last it will, When, Evelyn Hope, what meant, I shall say, In the lower earth, in the years long still, Why your hair was amber, I shall divine, In the new life to come in the old one's stead. VI. I have lived, I shall say, so much since then, Gained me the gains of various men, Ransacked the ages, spoiled the climes; VII. I loved you, Evelyn, all the while; My heart seemed full as it could hold There was place and to spare for the frank young smile So, hush! I will give you this leaf to keep See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand. There, that is our secret! Go to sleep; You will wake, and remember, and understand. MULÉYKEH. If a stranger passed the tent of Hóseyn, he cried, “A churl's!" pearls, -Holds but in light esteem the seed-sort, bears instead On his breast a moon-like prize, some orb which of night makes morn. "What if no flocks and herds enrich the son of Sinán ? They went when his tribe was mulct, ten thousand camels the due, Blood-value paid perforce for a murder done of old. 'God gave them, let them go! But never since time began, Muléykeh, peerless mare, owned master the match of you, And you are my prize, my Pearl: I laugh at men's land and gold!' "So in the pride of his soul laughs Hóseyn-and right, I say. Do the ten steeds run a race of glory? Outstripping all, Ever Muléykeh stands first steed at the victor's staff. Who started, the owner's hope, gets shamed and named, that day, 'Silence,' or, last but one, is The Cuffed,' as we use to call Whom the paddock's lord thrusts forth. Right, Hóseyn, I say, to laugh." "Boasts he Muléykeh the Pearl?" the stranger replies: “Be sure On him I waste nor scorn nor pity, but lavish both On Duhl, the son of Sheybán, who withers away in heart Lo, Duhl the son of Sheybán comes riding to Hóseyn's tent, Said Hóseyn "You feed young beasts a many, of famous breed, Like a yellowish wave's cream-crest. Your camels-go gaze on them! A year goes by: lo, back to the tent again rides Duhl. Said Hóseyn, "God gives each man one life, like a lamp, then gives |