DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON, the father of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Connecticut, and the first President of King's College, now Columbia College, in New-York, was one of the most interesting characters in our social history. His abilities, learning, activity, and influence, entitle him to be ranked in the class of Franklin (who was his friend and correspondent, and who printed, at his press in Philadelphia, several of his works), as a promoter of the highest civilization in the colonies. Except the Memoirs of Franklin, we have hitherto had no more attractive specimen of biography than the book known as Dr. Chandler's Life of Dr. Johnson. Franklin's Memoirs, it is well known, never came before the public in the form in which they were written, until a few years ago, and it has lately been discovered that Dr. Johnson's had suffered a similar disadvantage. Dr. Johnson amused himself in his old age by writing recollections of his life and times, which, after his death, were placed in the hands of Dr. Chandler, who changed them from the first to the third person, omitted many particulars which he did not deem it expedient to publish, and added others which the modesty of Dr. Johnson had not allowed him to write. The book thus made by Dr. Chandler was printed by his son-in-law, the late Bishop Hobart, who probably was not aware of its origin. But Dr. Johnson's MS. has now been discovered, and it will immediately be given to the public, under the supervision of the Rev. Mr. Pitkin, of Connecticut, who is adding to it many notes and illustrative documents. It is very much to be regretted that so little of the extensive correspondence of Dr. Johnson with the chief persons of his time in the literary and the religious world abroad, has been preserved; but the book will contain numerous letters by his more eminent contemporaries which have not appeared elsewhere. * * * * * Somebody has made the "discovery" that General Charles Lee, of the revolutionary army, was not unwilling to be considered the author of "Junius;" and two or three of our contemporaries have been busy with the subject of the internal and other evidence in the case. These critics are about as wise as the editor of an evening paper who published one of the old Washington forgeries, lately, as an important historical document. It was "characteristic," that the chief wrote so familiarly to his wife of affairs! In the same way, the history of the _Book of Mormon_ (originally composed as a religious novel by the Rev. Solomon Spaulding), appears as a curious and altogether new exposure! We shall not be surprised if the same journals advise us that Walter Scott wrote the Waverley Novels. * * * * * EMILIE GIRARDIN has a new book _L'Abolition de la Misere_, in which he proposes the entire abolition of suffering. He has "found the philosopher's stone." * * * * *