NORTH SHORE BREEZE 
MANCHESTER, MASS., FRIDAY, APRIL 9, 1909. 
ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE 
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
BY D. F. LAMSON. 
Samuel Johnson, the colossus of Eng- 
lish literature, was born in 1709, and 
died in the 76th year of his age. The 
house in which he first saw the light is 
still shown in Lichfield. As a child he 
was sickly, and was touched for scrofula 
by Queen Anne. His education includ- 
ed a fair knowledge of Latin, but he was 
deficient in Greek. In college he was 
poor, even to raggedness, but too proud 
to accept as a gift a pair of shoes, which 
he kicked down stairs in his wrath; he 
had scant respect for the college author- 
ities, and was rough and boorish though 
kind to a fault to those more unfortunate 
than himself. He left college after three 
years unable to pay his debts, and for 
thirty years he knew not the meaning of 
competence. His poverty and make- 
shifts no doubt served to increase his 
natural oddities and whimsical habits 
which have amused every reader of his 
life, and which gave some justification to 
his own saying that he had been mad all 
his days. 
He tried teaching and failed, and after 
marrying a widow with children as old 
as himself, went up to London asa liter- 
ary adventurer. Authors at this time 
lived a life of drudgery and neglect, and 
the shifts to which they were reduced 
were often alike painful and ludicrous. 
After doing hack work for some years, 
he at last discovered his powers and_ be- 
came a literary magnate and dictator. 
For eight years he toiled at his Diction- 
ary, a monumental work in his day, 
which haslong since been superseded. 
Had he left no other work, we might 
there have traced a great intellect, a 
genuine man; it had in it a clearness of 
definition, a solidity and honesty that be- 
speak our admiration, and its use of 
quotations limited as was its scope was 
then something original. He wrote the 
Rambler and Idler, periodicals now al- 
most unknown but helping to mould pub- 
lic opinion and educate taste in their day; 
Rasselas, a heavy and prosy attempt at 
fiction, which however had great vogue 
at the time; and the Journey to the 
Hebrides, still readable and entertaining. 
Johnson had no love for natural scenery; 
he held that the most beautiful landscape 
was ‘‘capable of improvement by the 
addition of a good inn in the fore- 
ground;”’ Fleet street was to him the 
centre of the universe; he could not un- 
Continued to page 16 
“THE ANVIL CHORUS.” 
Rev. L. H. Ruge Hails the Exit of “ Thespi- 
ans of the Hammer Act and Sees Dawn 
of Brighter Days for the Country.” 
“© Exit the anvil chorus’’ was the topic 
of the Rev. L. H. Ruge’s sermon in the 
Congregational Church, Manchester, 
last Sunday morning. His texts were: - 
‘“Be strong and of good courage.’’— 
Joshua r., 9. 
“* Tift up the hands which hang down, 
and the feeble knees, and make straight 
paths for your feet, lest that which is 
lame be turned out of the way; but let it 
rather be healed.’’—Hebrews xu., 12- 
ies 
The preacher said, in part: 
‘“ Look up the definition of ‘ exit’ and 
you will see the force of the subject. It 
means the departure of an actor from the 
stage, as at the conclusion of an act or 
scene. Come, it’s time, you persistent, 
melancholy Thespians of the hammer 
act, to get off the stage. One would 
think, by the way some magazine scrib- 
blers are still at it that reflex action had 
resulted from so much sledge-swinging. 
Exit—the chorus, the curtain is down, 
the audience is clamoring for the next 
act. Only the rag-tag exponents of a 
cheap morality are dawdling behind. 
Exit—the doleful motley. 
‘“We have all imagined ourselves 
Cromwells, who was called “the ham- 
merer, and all crowded into the chorus. 
The show has had a Jong run but the 
season Is over. 
“© “To the poor Indian’ even digs up 
his rusty tomahawk, so tainted is the at- 
mosphere with the epidemic of hammer- 
ing; but the hammer and tomahawk be- 
long to the same class; burnthem ‘The 
Wall street hunt is over, Roosevelt is off 
for Africa. Off to the jungle with you, 
knights of the holy sledge, and stay along 
while, please, until the national pulse is 
normal again. 
‘“Theré is something farcical about 
the reform epoch. ‘This national disil- 
lusionment seems to be accepted by us as 
the final standard of patriotism. How 
we pity the past periods of prosperity. 
How happy we are that we are innocent 
lambs no longer and belong to the bear 
species now. Weare so glad weare no 
longer victims of hope and dreams and 
air,castles. Wewrap our gloom about 
us and enjoy the cnill fogs as a_ virtue. 
We say we are enamored of the white 
light, but we are in rapport with the 
darkness and count it noble. How we 
rejoice in the incredibility of God and his 
power in the world and in the credibility 
THE FIRST CHILD, 
Rev. Theodore L.. Frost, pastor of 
the First Baptist church, Manchester, 
delivered his first sermon in the series of 
“The First- Things,’’ last Sunday on 
““ The First Child.”” Mr. Frost chose 
for his text Gen. 4:1, “‘I have gotten a 
man with the help of Jehovah.’’  Fol- 
lowing is a brief outline of the sermon: 
“*Sometime after Adam and Eve had 
been driven from their beautiful home in 
the garden of Eden, a little baby boy 
came into their home. What did this 
child inherit? We must go back to the 
first sin. The first human pair violated 
their contract with God. Man did not 
confine himself of his own tree, but took 
hold of God’s tree. He became unjust 
with his Maker. Asa result this spirit 
of sin has come down through the ages 
and the whole human race has been pol- 
luted and made foul on account of that 
act of injustice. An act is something 
peculiar to the individual life and 
cannot be transmitted but the spirit which 
prompts acts can be handed down. 
Adam and Eve did not hand down their 
evil action, but the spirit. So Adam and 
Eve transmitted to Cain a sin-stained 
nature. ‘This little child had an inherit- 
ance in their sin. 
‘© Cain not only inherited sin, but he 
inherited a strong body. How many 
are born with weak bodies, unable to 
fight the physical battle of life. Cain al- 
so inherited a clear, strong mind. He 
was born just outside of Paradise, so 
there must have been some good quali- 
ties in him. It was too bad that he came 
to such a wreck and ruin. 
“Then, notice Cain’s occupation. 
Adam’s occupation was farming, and so 
it was natural that Cain should become a 
farmer. His parents had considerable 
wisdom, and they did not bring up their 
child in idleness. “They. taught him 
how to work. He had his share in the 
domestic economy and he was taught 
how to till the soil. 
‘© Cain hada strong rebellious nature 
and he wanted to do something. But, 
he went at it inthe wrong way. Hewas 
determined that he should conquer the 
Continued to Page 16 
of the devil and his power. 
*“’The work of hammering has been 
well done, but it is done for a while. 
The bad boy has been well whaled, but 
for pity’s sake don’t break his back. It 
looks at times as if the nation’s industrial 
back was broken. Exit the big stick.’ 
