cenotaph in Westminster Abbey. Nollekens was the sculptor; and
Johnson wrote the inscription. It is much to be lamented that
Johnson did not leave to posterity a more durable and a more
valuable memorial of his friend. A life of Goldsmith would have
been an inestimable addition to the Lives of the Poets. No man
appreciated Goldsmith's writings more justly than Johnson; no man
was better acquainted with Goldsmith's character and habits; and
no man was more competent to delineate with truth and spirit the
peculiarities of a mind in which great powers were found in
company with great weaknesses. But the lists of poets to whose
works Johnson was requested by the booksellers to furnish
prefaces ended with Lyttleton, who died in 1773. The line seems
to have been drawn expressly for the purpose of excluding the
person whose portrait would have most fitly closed the series.
Goldsmith, however, has been fortunate in his biographers.
Within a few years his life has been written by Mr Prior, by Mr
Washington Irving, and by Mr Forster. The diligence of Mr Prior
deserves great praise; the style of Mr Washington Irving is
always pleasing; but the highest place must, in justice, be
assigned to the eminently interesting work of Mr Forster.

...


SAMUEL JOHNSON.

(December 1856.)

Samuel Johnson, one of the most eminent English writers of the
eighteenth century, was the son of Michael Johnson, who was, at