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THE LIFE OF

SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D.

TESTIMONIA

JOHNSON

"Few men have the gifts of Johnson, who, to great vigour and resource of intellect, when it was fairly roused, united a rare common-sense and a conscientious regard for veracity, which preserved him from flippancy or extravagance in writing."-CARDINAL NEWMAN.

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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."-LORD MACAULAY.

"Johnson, in the eighteenth century, and as Man of Letters, was one of such; and, in good truth, the bravest of the brave.' What mortal could have more to war with? Yet, as we saw, he yielded not, faltered not; he fought, and even, such was his blessedness, prevailed. Whoso will understand what it is to have a man's heart, may find that, since the time of John Milton, no braver heart had beat in any English bosom than Samuel Johnson now bore."-THOMAS CARLYLE.

'The names of many greater writers are inscribed on the walls of Westminster Abbey; but scarcely anyone lies there whose heart was more acutely responsive during life to the deepest and tenderest of human emotions. In visiting that strange gathering of departed heroes and statesmen and philanthropists and poets, there are many whose words and deeds have a far greater influence upon our imaginations; but there are very few whom, when all has been said, we can love so heartily as Samuel Johnson."-SIR LESLIE STEPHEN.

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The Original of this portrait, which was painted for M. Thrale in 1773.

is now in the National Gallery.

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SIR ISAAC PITMAN & SONS, LTD., 1 AMEN CORNER, E.C.

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