n, perhaps having caused them by the good words he spoke to her, he
took her home to the house of his wife and children, and never left her
until he had found the means of restoring her to honesty and labour. O you
fine gentlemen! you Marches, and Selwyns, and Chesterfields, how small you
look by the side of these great men! Good-natured Carlisle plays at
cricket all day, and dances in the evening "till he can scarcely crawl",
gaily contrasting his superior virtue with George Selwyn's "carried to bed
by two wretches at midnight with three pints of claret in him". Do you
remember the verses--the sacred verses--which Johnson wrote on the death of
his humble friend, Levett?

Well tried through many a varying year,
See Levett to the grave descend;
Officious, innocent, sincere,
Of every friendless name the friend.

In misery's darkest cavern known,
His useful care was ever nigh,
Where hopeless anguish poured the groan,
And lonely want retired to die.

No summons mocked by chill delay,
No petty gain disdained by pride,
The modest wants of every day
The toil of every day supplied.

His virtues walked their narrow round,
Nor made a pause, nor left a void:
And sure the Eternal Master found
His single talent well employed.

Whose name looks the brightest now, that of Queensberry the wealthy duke,
or Selwyn the wit, or Levett the poor physician?

I hold old Johnson (and shall we not pardon James Boswell some errors for
embalming him for us?) to be the great supporter of the British Monarchy
and Church during the last age--better than whole benches of bishops,
better than Pitts, Norths, and the great Burke himself. Johnson had the
ear of the nation: his immense authority reconciled it to loyalty, and
shamed it out of irreligion. When George III talked with him, and the
people heard the great author's good opinion of the sovereign, whole
generations rallied to the king. Johnson was revered as a sort of oracle;
and the oracle declared for Church and King. What a humanity the old man
had! He was a kindly partaker of all honest pleasures: a fierce foe to all
sin, but a gentle enemy to all sinners. "What, boys, are you for a
frolic?" he cries, when Topham Beauclerc comes and wakes him up at
midnight: "I'm with you," And away he goes, tumbles on his homely old
clothes, and trundles through Covent Garden with the young fellows. When
he used to f