TO THE READING PUBLIC.

THE Age in which we live is essentially of a practical character, and the predominant principle influencing all classes is a marked desire for cheapness. Cheapness, however, is too often found without excellence, and hence this proposition to supply a deficiency at present existing in the popular literature of this country.

The volumes of the "NATIONAL ILLUSTRATED LIBRARY" are widely different in character, and each volume contains at least 320 crown octavo pages, illustrated according to the requirements of the subject matter, by from 50 to 100 illustrations, and strongly bound in ornamental cloth boards. Thus, for thirty shillings a-year, in the course of a short period, a Library of great extent and interest may be formed, which will furnish materials for instruction and amusement during the course of a long life.

The chief advantages which this series of works present, over all others— more especially the closely printed double column editions, and the new fashioned, though equally objectionable, Shilling Books, with their numerous errors, thin paper, and flimsy binding-are the following:

1. A carefully Revised Text.

2. Judicious Explanatory Foot Notes.
3. Engravings really illustrating the Text.

4. A new and legible Type.

5. Good Paper and Printing. 6. Strong neat Binding.

A portion of the Works intended to be published under the title of the "NATIONAL ILLUSTRATED LIBRARY" will consist of carefully edited reprints of such writers as present a true vitality in their pages, including many of those great masterpieces of the human mind, which having survived beyond the generation for which they were written, are now universally recognised as worthy to flourish so long as the English language is spoken, and an acquaintance with which is indispensably necessary to all who pretend to a taste for English Literature.

The series will also comprise original works, especially written by competent authors, upon all subjects of general interest, extending to those arising out of political movements, or from social advancement, which so frequently engross the national attention. These latter topics will be promptly treated of, that the

purchasers of this Library may be placed at once on a level with those who devote themselves to the gathering such information. In issuing the series, there will be no formal arrangement, but volumes on General Literature, History, Biography, Travels, Popular Science, and Fiction will follow each other: the whole comprising such a variety of illustrated works as shall form a complete and compendious Library for the Reading Public.

Many among those to whom this prospectus is addressed must have observed that one great feature of the present period is the conveyance of instruction by appealing to the eye. It will be readily understood that whole pages of narrative and long abstruse descriptions may be condensed into an illustration to be comprehended at a glance. Pictures fix indelibly on the mind circumstances that might otherwise escape the memory; and a liveliness of attention is thus excited, and a relief afforded to the mental faculties which is as agreeable to adults as to children. There can be no doubt that the pencil is destined for the future to perform as prominent a part in our popular literature as the pen, or that the diffusion of knowledge has already been greatly augmented by its powers.

In carrying out their undertaking it has been the endeavour of the projectors to bestow upon Half-crown Volumes for the many the same typographical accuracy, and the same artistic ability, hitherto almost exclusively devoted to high-priced books for the few. Supported by the co-operation of the Reading Public, no pains will be spared to provide every English home with a complete treasury of knowledge and entertainment in the volumes of the "NATIONAL ILLUSTRATED LIBRARY."

BIRTH AND INFANCY OF JOHNSON-ACCOUNT OF HIS PARENTS-ANECDOTES OF HIS CHILDHOOD-TAKEN TO LONDON TO RECEIVE THE ROYAL TOUCH FOR SCROFULA-SCHOOL DAYS AT LICHFIELD-HIS UNCLE CORNELIUS FORD, AND COUSIN THE REV. DR. FORD-SENT TO SCHOOL AT STOURBRIDGETRANSLATIONS AND ORIGINAL COMPOSITIONS WHILE AT THIS PLACE-RETURN HOME-ARRIVAL AT PEMBROKE COLLEGE, OXFORD-HIS TUTORLATIN TRANSLATION OF POPE'S "MESSIAH"-ATTACK OF HYPOCHONDRIARELIGIOUS IMPRESSIONS-COURSE OF READING-LOVE OF LITERATUREAFPARENT RECKLESSNESS-REAL STATE OF MIND-STRUGGLES WITH POVERTY-LEAVES THE UNIVERSITY.

AMUEL JOHNSON was born at Lichfield in Staffordshire, on the 18th of September, N.S. 1709; and his initiation into the Christian church was not delayed; for his baptism is recorded, in the register of St. Mary's parish in that city, to have been performed on the day of his birth: his father is there styled Gentleman, a circumstance of which an ignorant panegyrist has praised him for not being proud; when the truth is, that the

appellation of Gentleman, though now lost in the indiscriminate assumption of Esquire, was commonly taken by those who could not

74

BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON.

he now set up a private academy, for which purpose he hired a large house, well situated near his native city. In "The Gentleman's Magazine" for 1736, there is the following advertisement :—

"At EDIAL, near Lichfield, in Staffordshire, young gentlemen are boarded and taught the Latin and Greek languages, by SAMUEL JOHNSON."

But the only pupils that were put under his care were the celebrated David Garrick and his brother George, and a Mr.Offely, a young gentleman of good fortune who died early. As yet, his name had nothing of that celebrity which afterwards commanded the highest attention and respect of mankind. Had such an advertisement appeared after the publication of his "London," or his "Rambler," or his "Dictionary," how would it have burst upon the world! with what eagerness would the great and

wealthy have embraced an opportunity of putting their sons under the learned tuition of SAMUEL JOHNSON. The truth, however, is, that he was not so well qualified for being a teacher of elements, and a conductor in learning by regular gradations, as men of inferior powers of mind. His own acquisitions had been made by fits and starts, by violent irruptions into the regions of knowledge; and it could not be