Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 May 1886 — Johnson's Character. [ARTICLE]

Johnson's Character.

Boswell had liis many faults and his few virtues, but he was never accused of sacrificing truth to effect. He conld never lg* enticed to smooth down the asperities of his l>ero. r Hannah. .Mporc beggyl him to draw lift* less riylelv. Boswell roughly replied, "I will not cut of£hia claws nor make a tiger a eat to please anybody,” No man had more generous impulses and fruer sense of gratitude than Bos Well. In writing to Temple, who had volunteered to loan a thousand pounds to buy him a commission in tho Guards, he said: “Tour kindness fairly makes me shed tears. I am ever your old and affectionate friend here, and I trust hereafter.” Dr. Johnson’s life is the most striking illustration of rising from an humble origin to a splendid reputation. When lie arrived in London ho was poor and friendless, and for years remained in this state of beggary. With his great faculties and incessant toil ha could not procure the subsistence of a common laborer, but lie kept his courage when fie often lost hope. In his letter to Lord Chesterfield he said he was like a man struggling for life in the water. He Was possessed of rare magnanimity, of mpral greatness. Never did he complain of hardships and neglects, nor did he ever boast of difficulties he went through. He always his surly virtue and lofty independence, which noticing could bend. He would not admit a quotation in his dictionary from works which were dangerous to religion or morality. That was moral heroism, true repentance for undutiful*ness, in his going long afterwards to the stall his father had kept, in the full time of business, and standing there an hour with his head hare, exposed to the sneers of the crowd and the inclemency of the weather. "Slow rises worth by poverty depressed,” was surely his own case. He needed no smile of favor, no word of encouragement, no act of assistance to raise him to eminence. He had the spirit and light within him which -guided him upward and onward, with the full knowledge and convictions of his duties to God and man, and never was he found faltering or deterred from their performance. “He looked through nature up to nature’s God.” — L. (/. W., in Philadelphia Call.