great Sam, that he was physically-lazy. Riding boyback to school gave me the first glimmering of it. Afterwards, the fact that his favourite, indeed, only diversion in winter, was being drawn on the ice by a barefooted boy, who pulled him along by a garter fixed around him -no easy task for the shivering barefooter, as Sam was not only "great" intellectually, but physically. His defective sight prevented him from enjoying the common sports of boys, if this is any excuse for what would seem to be a piece of selfishness on his part. Perhaps to his inability for active sports we may ascribe his appetite for romances in his leisure hours-a practice which he afterwards deeply regretted, because, as he declared, it unsettled his mind, and stood very much in the way of his decision upon any profession in life.

At the age of twenty, Samuel's disease took the form of an overpowering melancholy, which, I am sorry to say, never wholly left him during his life. In every possible way the poor fellow struggled against it, by study, by reading, by going into company, by sitting up late at night till he was sure of losing himself in sleep. This melancholy took the form of great fear of death. He could not bear to hear the word "death" mentioned in his presence. I think, however, it was "dying" he feared, not "death." I think he feared physical pain and suffering, not another state of existence; for all his ideas of that were pleasant and happy, like those of a child going home to his parents, whom, though he may have sinned against, he tenderly loves, and constantly implores forgiveness from. A more kind-hearted man than Samuel Johnson never lived, with all his bluntness, which, after all, is much preferable to the smooth tongue which rolls deceit, like a sweet morsel, in honeyed words. He had also this noble 4 trait: he was quick to ask forgiveness 12

VI.-Moffatt's Ex. Reader.

where his blunt words had wounded. He did not think either his dignity or his manliness 5 compromised by confessing himself in the wrong. I want you to notice this particularly, because small narrow minds think it "mean and poor-spirited" to do this, even when convinced that they are wrong. This blunt, rough, ordinary-looking, ill-dressed old man (for he lived, after all, to be an old man) had a kingly heart. I could tell you many instances of his kindness to the poor and unfortunate; of his devoted love for his wife, who died many years before him, and whose memory he sacredly and lovingly cherished. He numbered among his friends many great and talented people, who were attracted to him by the good qualities I have named, as also by his brilliant and intellectual conversation. Royalty, too, paid him special honour; and in his latter days, when money was not so plentiful as it should have been in the pocket of a man to whom the world owes so much, the highest people in the land most assiduously endeavoured to make his descent to the grave easy, by travel, change of scene, and more comfortable accommodation than he could otherwise have had. Rough as Dr. Johnson was reputed to be, he was a great favourite with ladies. No dandy could outdo him in a neat, graceful compliment to them, and no insect could sting sharper than he if they disgusted him with their nonsense and folly. Nice, honest, sham-hating old man! I am glad that the Saviour he loved smiled so lovingly on him at the last, that he fearlessly crossed the dark waves he had dreaded, to lay that weary head upon His bosom. FANNY FERN.

'pigmy, properly as large as the fist; a very small person; a dwarf. "little pitcher" proverb, "Little pitchers should have little ears." physically, naturally; bodily. 'trait, stroke; touch; point of character. compromised, damaged; wounded; stained,

5

ON the fourth day of creation, when the sun, after a glorious, but solitary course, went down in the evening, and darkness began to gather over the face of the unin habited globe, already arrayed in the exuberance of vegetation, and prepared by the diversity of land and water for the abode of uncreated animals and man,star, single and beautiful, stepped forth into the firmament. Trembling with wonder and delight in new-found existence, she looked abroad, and beheld nothing in heaven or on earth resembling herself. But she was not long alone; now one, then another, here a third, and there a fourth resplendent companion had joined her, till light after light stealing through the glooom, in the lapse of an hour the whole hemisphere was brilliantly bespangled.

The planets and stars, with a superb comet flaming in the 2 zenith, for awhile contemplated themselves and each other: and every one, from the largest to the least, was so perfectly well pleased with himself, that he imagined the rest only partakers of his felicity; he being the central luminary of his own universe, and all the hosts of heaven beside displayed around him, in graduated splendour. Nor were any undeceived in regard to themselves, though all saw their associates in their real situations and relative proportions (self-knowledge being the last knowledge acquired either in the sky or below it), till, bending over the ocean in their turns, they discovered what they supposed at first to be a new heaven, peopled with beings of their own species. But, when they perceived further

that no sooner had any one of their company touched the horizon than he instantly disappeared, they then recognized themselves in their individual forms, reflected beneath, according to their places and configurations above, from seeing others, whom they previously knew, reflected in like manner.

By an attentive but mournful self-examination in that mirror, they slowly learned humility; but every one learned it only for himself, none believing what others insinuated respecting their own inferiority, till they reached the western slope, from whence they could identify their true visages in the nether element. Nor was this very surprising: stars being only visible points, without any distinction of limbs-each was all eye; and though he could see others most correctly, he could neither see himself nor any part of himself, till he came to reflection. The comet, however, having a long train of brightness, streaming sun-ward, could review that, and did review it with 3 ineffable self-complacency. Indeed, after all pretensions to precedence, he was at length acknowledged king of the hemisphere, if not by the universal assent, by the silent envy of all his rivals.

But the object which attracted most attention, and astonishment too, was a slender thread of light that scarcely could be discerned through the blush of evening, and vanished soon after night-fall, as if ashamed to appear in so scanty a form, like an unfinished work of creation. It was the moon, the first new moon. Timidly she looked around upon the glittering multitude that crowded the dark serenity of space, and filled it with life and beauty. Minute indeed they seemed to her, but perfect in symmetry, and formed to shine for ever; while she was unshapen, incomplete, and 5 evanescent. In her humility, she was glad to hide herself from their keen

4

glances in the friendly bosom of the ocean, wishing for immediate extinction.

When she was gone, the stars looked one at another with inquisitive surprise, as much as to say, "What a figure!" It was so evident that they all thought alike, and thought contemptuously of the apparition (though at

first they almost doubted whether they should not be frightened), that they soon began to talk freely concerning her of course not with audible accents, but in the language of intelligent sparkles, in which stars are accustomed to converse with telegraphic precision from one end of heaven to the other, and which no dialect on earth so nearly resembles, as the language of the eyes; the only