to the skin, as he was in the habit of doing:— “Yes, sir, if he is sure he is to be well after he goes out of it. But if he is to grow blind after he goes out of the show-room, and never to see anything again, or if he does not know whither he is to go next, a man will not go cheerfully out of a show-room. No wise man will be contented to die if he thinks he is to go into a state of punishment. Nay, no wise man will be contented to die, if he thinks he is to fall into annihilation, for however unhappy any man’s existence may be, he would rather have it than not exist at all. No; there is no rational principle by which a man can die contented, but a trust in the mercy of God, through the merits of Jesus Christ.” The baldness of this statement, the resolute contempt of the author of it for the mere dress and ornament of language, throw not a little light upon the reason why, after the lapse of a hundred years, we still listen with so quick an interest and so personal an affection to all that is recorded of Johnson’s speech. The age in which we live cannot be entirely given up to priggishness and the dry rot of sentiment, so long as any considerable company in it are wont to hang upon Johnson’s lips, without being offended by his jocular brutality, his strenuous piety, or his unflinching enmity to affectation. Of course a class still exists, perhaps it never was more numerous than it now is, whose nerves and lungs can endure the strong light and tonic air of Johnson’s vigorous genius, and who rejoice to think that no one ever tamed their tiger-cat. To these such an anniversary as the present, not needed to remind them of one who is almost as real to them as any of their own relations, is yet valuable as giving them a landmark from which they may look back and judge the effect that distance has upon the apparent and relative size of such a figure. This can be the only excuse, in a brief note such as this must be, for dealing with facts and personages which are the absolute commonplaces of literary history. We may know our Boswell by heart, and be prepared to pass a searching examination in _Rasselas_ and in the _Rambler_, and yet be ready to listen for a moment with surprise to the voice which reminds us that a century has passed away since the great pontiff of literature died.