The life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D: comprehending an account of his studies and numerous works, ... In two volumes. By James Boswell, Esq. ... [pt.2]

[ 1780] In 1780 the world was kept in impatience for the completion of his

"Lives of the Poets,"

upon which he was employed so far as his indolence allowed him to labour.

I wrote to him on January 1, and March 13, sending him my notes of Lord Marchmont's information concerning Pope;—complaining that I had not heard from him for almost four months, though he was two letters in my debt;—that I had suffered again from melancholy;—hoping that he had been in so much better company, (the Poets,) that he had not time to think of his distant friends; for if that were the case, I should have some recompence for my uneasiness;—that the state of my affairs did not admit of my coming to London this year;—and, begging he would return me Goldsmith's two poems, with his lines marked.

His friend Dr. Lawrence having now suffered the greatest affliction to which a man is liable, and which Johnson himself had felt in the most severe manner; Johnson wrote to him in an admirable strain of sympathy and pious consolation.

To Dr. LAWRENCE.

DEAR SIR,

AT a time when all your friends ought to shew their kindness, and with a character which ought to make all that know you your friends, you may wonder that you have yet heard nothing from me.

I have been hindered by a vexatious and incessant cough, for which within these ten days I have been bled once, fasted four or five times, taken physick five times, and opiates, I think, six. This day it seems to remit.

[ 1780. Aetat. 71.] The loss, dear Sir, which you have lately suffered, I felt many years ago, and know therefore how much has been taken from you, and how little help can be had from consolation. He that outlives a wife whom he has long loved, sees himself disjoined from the only mind that has the same hopes, and fears, and interest; from the only companion with whom he has shared much good or evil; and with whom he could set his mind at liberty, to retrace the past, or anticipate the future. The continuity of being is lacerated; the settled course of sentiment and action is stopped; and life stands suspended and motionless, till it is driven by external causes into a new channel. But the time of suspense is dreadful.

Our first recourse in this distressful solitude, is, perhaps for want of ha∣bitual piety, to a gloomy acquiescence in necessity. Of two mortal beings, one must lose the other; but surely there is a higher and a better comfort to be drawn from the consideration of that Providence which watches over all, and a belief that the living and the dead are equally in the hands of GOD, who will reunite those whom he has separated, or who sees that it is best not to reunite them.

I am, dear Sir, Your most affectionate, And most humble servant, SAM. JOHNSON.

Jan. 20, 1780.

To JAMES BOSWELL, Esq.

DEAR SIR,

WELL, I had resolved to send you the Chesterfield letter; but I will write once again without it. Never impose tasks upon mortals. To require two things is the way to have them both undone.

For the difficulties which you mention in your affairs I am sorry; but difficulty is now very general: it is not therefore less grievous, for there is less hope of help. I pretend not to give you advice, not knowing the state of your affairs; and general counsels about prudence and frugality would do you little good. You are, however, in the right not to increase your own perplexity by a journey hither; and I hope that by staying at home you will please your father.

Poor dear Beauclerk—nec, ut soles, dabis joca. His wit and his folly, his acuteness and maliciousness, his merriment and reasoning, are now over. Such another will not often be found among mankind. He directed himself to be buried by the side of his mother, an instance of tenderness which I

hardly expected. He has left his children to the care of Lady Di. and if she dies, of Mr. Langton, and of Mr. Leicester, his relation, and a man of good character. His library has been offered to sale to the Ruffian ambassador.

Dr. Percy, notwithstanding all the noise of the newspapers, has had no literary loss 2 2.1. Clothes and moveables were burnt to the value of about one hundred pounds; but his papers, and I think his books, were all preserved.

Poor Mr. Thrale has been in extreme danger from an apoplectical disorder, and recovered, beyond the expectation of his physicians; he is now at Bath, that his mind may be quiet, and Mrs. Thrale and Miss are with him.

Having told you what has happened to your friends, let me say some∣thing to you of yourself. You are always complaining of melancholy, and I conclude from those complaints that you are fond of it. No man talks of that which he is desirous to conceal, and every man desires to conceal that of which he is ashamed. Do not pretend to deny it; manifestum habemus furem; make it an invariable and obligatory law to yourself, never to mention your own mental diseases; If you are never to speak of them you will think on them but little, and if you think little of them, they will molest you rarely. When you talk of them, it is plain that you want either praise or pity; for praise there is no room, and pity will do you no good; therefore, from this hour speak no more, think no more about them.

Your transaction with Mrs. Stuart gave me great satisfaction; I am much obliged to you for your attention. Do not lose sight of her, your countenance may be of great credit, and of consequence of great advantage to her. The memory of her brother is yet fresh in my mind; he was an ingenious and worthy man.

Please to make my compliments to your lady, and to the young ladies. I should like to see them, pretty loves.

I am dear Sir, Yours, affectionately, SAM. JOHNSON.

April 8▪ 1780.

Mrs. Thrale being now at Bath with her husband, the correspondence between Johnson and her was carried on briskly. I shall present my readers with one of her original letters to him at this time, which will amuse them probably more than those well-written but studied epistles which she has inserted

in her collection, because it exhibits the easy vivacity of their literary inter∣course. It is also of value as a key to Johnson's answer, which she has printed by itself, and of which I shall subjoin extracts.

Mrs. THRALE to Dr. JOHNSON.

I HAD a very kind letter from you yesterday, dear Sir, with a most circumstantial date. You took trouble with my circulating letter, Mr. Evans writes me word, and I thank you sincerely for so doing: one might do mischief else not being on the spot.

Yesterday's evening was passed at Mrs. Montagu's: there was Mr. Melmoth; I do not like him though, nor he me; it was expected we should have pleased each other; he is, however, just Tory enough to hate the Bishop of Peterborough for Whiggism, and Whig enough to abhor you for Toryism.

Mrs. Montagu flattered him finely; so he had a good afternoon on't. This evening we spend at a concert. Poor Queeney's3 3.1 sore eyes have just released her; she had a long confinement, and could neither read nor write, so my master4 3.2 treated her very good-naturedly with the visits of a young woman in this town, a taylor's daughter, who professes musick, and teaches so as to give six lessons a day to ladies, at five and three-pence a lesson. Miss Burney says she is a great performer; and I respect the wench for getting her living so prettily; she is very modest and pretty mannered, and not seventeen years old.

You live in a fine whirl indeed, if I did not write regularly you would half forget me, and that would be very wrong, for I felt my regard for you in my face last night, when the criticisms were going on.

This morning it was all connoisseurship; we went to see some pictures painted by a gentleman artist, Mr. Taylor, of this place; my master makes one every where, and he has got a dawling companion to ride with him now. * * * * * * * *. He looks well enough, but I have no notion of health for a man whose mouth cannot be sewed up. Burney and I and Queeney teize him every meal he eats, and Mr. Montagu is quite serious with him; but what can one do? He will eat, I think, and if he does eat I know

he will not live; it makes me very unhappy, but I must bear it. Let me always have your friendship.

I am, most sincerely, dear Sir, Your faithful servant, H. L. T.

Bath, Friday, April 28.

Dr. JOHNSON to Mrs. THRALE.

DEAREST MADAM,

MR. THRALE never will live abstinently, till he can persuade himself to live by rule 5 4.1. * * * * * * * *. Encourage, as you can, the musical girl.

Nothing is more common than mutual dislike where mutual approbation is particularly expected. There is often on both sides a vigilance not over benevolent; and as attention is strongly excited, so that nothing drops un∣heeded, any difference in taste or opinion, and some difference where there is no restraint, will commonly appear, it immediately generates dislike.

Never let criticisms operate upon your face or your mind; it is very rarely that an authour is hurt by his criticks. The blaze of reputation cannot be blown out, but it often dies in the socket; a very few names may be considered as perpetual lamps that shine unconsumed. From the authour of 'Fitzosborne's Letters' I cannot think myself in much danger. I met him only once about thirty years ago, and in some small dispute reduced him to whistle; having not seen him since, that is the last impression. Poor Moore, the fabulist, was one of the company.

Mrs. Montagu's long stay, against her own inclination, is very con∣venient. You would, by your own confession, want a companion; and she is par pluribus; conversing with her you may find variety in one.

London, May 1, 1780.

On the 2d of May I wrote to him, and requested that we might have another meeting somewhere in the North of England, in the autumn of this year.

From Mr. Langton I received soon after this time a letter, of which I extract a passage, relative at once to Mr. Beauclerk and Dr. Johnson.

The melancholy information you have received concerning Mr. Beauclerk's death is true. Had his talents been directed in any sufficient degree as they ought, I have always been strongly of opinion that they were calculated to make an illustrious figure; and that opinion, as it had been in

part formed upon Dr. Johnson's judgement, receives more and more con∣firmation by hearing, that since his death, Dr. Johnson has said concerning them; a few evenings ago, he was at Mr. Vesey's, where Lord Althorpe, who was one of a numerous company there, addressed Dr. Johnson on the subject of Mr. Beauclerk's death, saying,

'Our CLUB has had a great loss since we met last.'

He replied,

'A loss, that perhaps the whole nation could not repair!'

The Doctor then went on to speak of his endowments, and particularly extolled the wonderful ease with which he uttered what was highly excellent. He said, that no man ever was so free when he was going to say a good thing, from a look that expressed that it was coming; or, when he had said it, from a look that expressed that it had come. At Mr. Thrale's, some days before, when we were talking on the same subject, he said, referring to the same idea of his wonderful facility,

'That Beauclerk's talents were those which he had felt himself more disposed to envy, than those of any whom he had known.'

At the evening I have spoken of above, at Mr. Vesey's, you would have been much gratified, as it exhibited an instance of the high importance in which Dr. Johnson's character is held, I think even beyond any I ever before was witness to. The company consisted chiefly of ladies, among whom were the Duchess Dowager of Portland, the Duchess of Beaufort, whom I suppose from her rank, I must name before her mother Mrs. Boscawen, and her elder sister Mrs. Lewson, who was likewise there; Lady Lucan, Lady Clermont, and others of note both for their station and understandings. Among the gentlemen were, Lord Althorpe, whom I have before named, Lord Macartney, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Lord Lucan, Mr. Wraxal, whose book you have probably seen, 'The Tour to the Northern Parts of Europe;' a very agreeable ingenious man; Dr. Warren, Mr. Pepys, the Master in Chancery, whom I believe you know, and Dr. Barnard, the Provost of Eton. As soon as Dr. Johnson was come in and had taken a chair, the company began to collect round him till they became not less than four if not five deep; those behind standing, and listening over the heads of those that were sitting near him. The conversation for some time was chiefly between Dr. Johnson and the Provost of Eton, while the others contributed occasionally their remarks. Without attempting to detail the particulars of the conversation, which perhaps if I did, I should spin my account out to a tedious length, I thought, my dear Sir, this general account of the respect with which our valued friend was attended to, might be acceptable.

To the Reverend Dr. FARMER.

SIR,

May 2••, 1780.

I KNOW your disposition to second any literary attempt, and therefore venture upon the liberty of entreating you to procure from College or University registers, all the dates, or other informations which they can supply relating to Ambrose Philips, Broom, and Gray, who were all of Cam∣bridge, and of whose lives I am to give such accounts as I can gather. Be pleased to forgive this trouble from, Sir,

Your most humble servant, SAM. JOHNSON.

While Johnson was thus engaged in preparing a delightful literary entertainment for the world, the tranquillity of the metropolis of Great-Britain was unexpectedly disturbed, by the most horrid series of outrage that ever disgraced a civilized country. A relaxation of some of the severe penal provisions against our fellow subjects of the Catholick communion had been granted by the legislature, with an opposition so inconsiderable, that the genuine mildness of Christianity, united with liberal policy, seemed to have become general in this island. But a dark and malignant spirit of persecution soon shewed itself, in an unworthy petition for the repeal of the wise and humane statute. That petition was brought forward by a mob, with the evident purpose of intimidation, and was justly rejected. But the attempt was accompanied and followed by such daring violence as is unexampled in history. Of this extraordinary tumult, Dr. Johnson has given the following concise, lively, and just account in his

"Letters to Mrs. Thrale 6 5.1:"

"On Friday, the good Protestants met in St. George's-Fields, at the summons of Lord George Gordon, and marching to Westminster, insulted the Lords and Commons, who all bore it with great tameness. At night the outrages began by the demolition of the mass-house by Lincoln's-Inn."

"An exact journal of a week's defiance of government I cannot give you. On Monday, Mr. Strahan, who had been insulted, spoke to Lord Mansfield, who had I think been insulted too, of the licentiousness of the populace; and his Lordship treated it as a very slight irregularity. On Tuesday night they pulled down Fielding's house, and burnt his goods in the street. They had

gutted on Monday Sir George Savile's house, but the building was saved. On Tuesday evening, leaving Fielding's ruins, they went to Newgate to demand their companions who had been seized demolishing the chapel. The keeper could not release them but by the Mayor's permission, which he went to ask; at his return he found all the prisoners released, and Newgate in a blaze. They then went to Bloomsbury, and fastened upon Lord Mansfield's house, which they pulled down; and as for his goods, they totally burnt them. They have since gone to Caen-wood, but a guard was there before them. They plundered some Papists, I think, and burnt a mass-house in Moorfields the same night."

"On Wednesday I walked with Dr. Scot to look at Newgate, and found it in ruins, with the fire yet glowing. As I went by, the Protestants were plundering the Sessions-house at the Old Bailey. There were not, I believe, a hundred; but they did their work at leisure, in full security, without senti∣nels, without trepidation, as men lawfully employed, in full day. Such is the cowardice of a commercial place. On Wednesday they broke open the Fleet, and the King's-bench, and the Marshalsea, and Wood-street Compter, and Clerkenwell Bridewell, and released all the prisoners."

"At night they set fire to the Fleet, and to the King's-bench, and I know not how many other places; and one might see the glare of conflagra∣tion fill the sky from many parts. The sight was dreadful. Some people were threatened: Mr. Strahan advised me to take care of myself. Such a time of terrour you have been happy in not seeing."

"The King said in council, 'That the magistrates had not done their duty, but that he would do his own;' and a proclamation was published, directing us to keep our servants within doors, as the peace was now to be preserved by force. The soldiers were sent out to different parts, and the town is now at quiet."

"The soldiers are stationed so as to be every where within call; there is no longer any body of rioters, and the individuals are haunted to their holes, and led to prison; Lord George was last night sent to the Tower. Mr. John Wilkes was this day in my neighbourhood, to seize the publishes of a seditious paper."

"Several chapels have been destroyed, and several inoffensive Papists have been plundered; but the high sport was to burn the gaols. This was a good rabble trick. The debtors and the criminals were all set at liberty; but of the criminals, as has always happened, many are already re-taken; and two

pirates have surrendered themselves, and it is expected that they will be pardoned."

"Government now acts again with its proper force; and we are all again under the protection of the King and the law. I thought that it would be agree∣able to you and my master to have my testimony to the publick security; and that you would sleep more quietly when I told you that you are safe."

"There has, indeed, been an universal panick, from which the King was the first that recovered. Without the concurrence of his ministers, or the assistance of the civil magistrate, he put the soldiers in motion, and saved the town from calamities, such as a rabble's government must naturally produce."

"The publick has escaped a very heavy calamity. The rioters attempted the Bank on Wednesday night, but in no great number; and like other thieves, with no great resolution. Jack Wilkes headed the party that drove them away. It is agreed, that if they had seized the Bank on Tuesday, at the height of the panick, when no resistance had been prepared, they might have carried irrecoverably away whatever they had found. Jack who was always zealous for order and decency, declares, that if he be trusted with power, he will not leave a rioter alive. There is, however, now no longer any need of heroism or bloodshed; no blue ribband is any longer worn."

Such was the end of this miserable sedition, from which London was delivered by the magnanimity of the Sovereign himself. Whatever some may maintain, I am satisfied that there was no combination or plan, either domestick or foreign; but that the mischief spread by a gradual contagion of frenzy, augmented by the quantities of fermented liquors, of which the deluded populace possessed themselves in the course of their depredations.

I should think myself very much to blame, did I here neglect to do justice to my esteemed friend Mr. Akerman, the keeper of Newgate, who has long discharged a very important trust with an uniform intrepid firmness, and at the same time a tenderness and a liberal charity, which entitle him to be recorded with distinguished honour.

Upon this occasion, from the timidity and negligence of magistracy on the one hand, and the almost incredible exertions of the mob on the other, the first prison of this great country was laid open, and the prisoners set free; but that Mr. Akerman, whose house was burnt, would have prevented all this, had proper aid been sent to him in due time, there can be no doubt.

Many years ago, a fire broke out in the brick part which was built as an addition to the old gaol of Newgate. The prisoners were in consternation and tumult, calling out,

"We shall be burnt—we shall be burnt! down with the gate—down with the gate!"

Mr. Akerman hastened to them, shewed himself at the gate, and having, after some confused vociferation of

"Hear him—hear him!"

obtained a silent attention, he then calmly told them, that the gate must not go down; that they were under his care, and that they should not be permitted to escape: but that he could assure them, they need not be afraid of being burnt, for that the fire was not in the prison, properly so called, which was strongly built with stone; and that if they would engage to be quiet, he himself would come in to them, and conduct them to the further end of the building, and would not go out till they gave him leave. To this proposal they agreed; upon which Mr. Akerman, having first made them fall back from the gate, went in, and with a determined resolution ordered the outer turnkey upon no account to open the gate, even though the prisoners (though he trusted they would not) should break their word, and by force bring himself to order it.

"Never mind me, (said he,) should that happen."

The prisoners peaceably followed him, while he conducted them through passages, of which he had the keys, to the extremity of the gaol, which was most distant from the fire. Having, by this very judicious conduct, fully satisfied them that there was no immediate risk, if any at all, he then addressed them thus:

"Gentlemen, you are now convinced that I told you true. I have no doubt that the engines will soon extinguish this fire: if they should not, a sufficient guard will come, and you shall all be taken out and lodged in the Compters. I assure you, upon my word and honour, that I have not a farthing insured. I have left my house that I might take care of you. I will keep my promise, and stay with you, if you insist upon it: but if you will allow me to go out and look after my family and property, I will be obliged to you."

Struck with his behaviour, they called out,

"Master Akerman, you have done bravely; it was very kind in you: by all means go and take care of your own concerns."

He did so accordingly, while they remained and were all preserved.

Johnson has been heard to relate the substance of this story with high praise, in which he was joined by Mr. Burke. My illustrious friend, speak∣ing of Mr. Akerman's kindness to his prisoners, pronounced this eulogy upon his character:—

"He who has long had constantly in his view the worst of mankind, and is yet eminent for the humanity of his disposition,

must have had it originally in a great degree, and continued to cultivate it very carefully."

In the course of this month my brother David waited upon Dr. Johnson, with the following letter of introduction, which I had taken care should be lying ready on his arrival in London.

To Dr. SAMUEL JOHNSON.

MY DEAR SIR,

Edinburgh, April 29, 1780.

THIS will be delivered to you by my brother David, on his return from Spain. You will be glad to see the man who vowed to

'stand by the old castle of Auchinleck, with heart, purse, and sword;'

that romantick family solemnity devised by me, of which you and I talked with com∣placency upon the spot. I trust that twelve years of absence have not lessened his feudal attachment; and that you will find him worthy of being introduced to your acquaintance.

I have the honour to be, with affectionate veneration,

my dear Sir,

Your most faithful humble servant, JAMES BOSWELL.

Johnson received him very politely, and has thus mentioned him in a letter to Mrs. Thrale 7 6.1:

"I have had with me a brother of Boswell's, a Spanish merchant 8 6.2, whom the war has driven from his residence at Valencia; he is gone to see his friends, and will find Scotland but a sorry place after twelve years residence in a happier climate. He is a very agreeable man, and speaks no Scotch."

To Dr. BEATTIE, at ABERDEEN.

SIR,

MORE years9 7.1 than I have any delight to reckon, have past since you and I saw one another; of this, however, there is no reason for making any reprehensory complaint, Sic fata ferunt. But methinks there might pass some small interchange of regard between us. If you say, that I ought to have written, I now write, and I write to tell you, that I have much kindness for you and Mrs. Beattie; and that I wish your health better, and

your life long. Try change of air, and come a few degrees Southwards; a softer climate may do you both good; winter is coming on; and London will be warmer, and gayer, and busier, and more fertile of amusement than Aberdeen.

My health is better; but that will be little in the balance, when I tell you that Mrs. Montagu has been very ill, and is I doubt now but weakly. Mr. Thrale has been very dangerously disordered; but is much better, and I hope will totally recover. He has withdrawn himself from business the whole summer. Sir Joshua and his sister are well; and Mr. Davies has had great success as an authour 1 7.2, generated by the corruption of a bookseller. More news I have not to tell you, and therefore you must be contented with hearing, what I know not whether you much wish to hear 2 7.3, that I am, Sir,

Your most humble servant, SAM. JOHNSON.

Bolt-court, Fleet-street, August 21, 1780.

To JAMES BOSWELL, Esq.

DEAR SIR,

I FIND you have taken one of your fits of taciturnity, and have resolved not to write till you are written to; it is but a peevish humour, but you shall have your way.

I have sate at home in Bolt-court, all the summer, thinking to write the Lives, and a great part of the time only thinking. Several of them, however, are done, and I still think to do the rest.

Mr. Thrale and his family have, since his illness, passed their time first at Bath, and then at Brighthelmston; but I have been at neither place. I would have gone to Lichfield, if I could have had time, and I might have had time, if I had been active; but I have missed much, and done little.

In the late disturbances, Mr. Thrale's house and stock were in great danger; the mob was pacified at their first invasion, with about fifty pounds in drink and meat; and at their second, were driven away by the soldiers. Mr. Strahan got a garrison into his house, and maintained them a fortnight; he was so frighted that he removed part of his goods. Mrs. Williams took shelter in the country.

I know not whether I shall get a ramble this autumn; it is now about the time when we were travelling. I have, however, better health than I had then, and hope you and I may yet shew ourselves on some part of Europe, Asia, or Africa 3 8.1. In the mean time let us play no trick, but keep each other's kindness by all means in our power.

The bearer of this is Dr. Dunbar, of Aberdeen, who has written and published a very ingenious book 4 8.2, and who I think has a kindness for me, and will when he knows you have a kindness for you.

I suppose your little ladies are grown tall; and your son is become a learned young man. I love them all, and I love your naughty lady, whom I never shall persuade to love me. When the Lives are done, I shall send them to complete her collection, but must send them in paper, as for want of a pattern, I cannot bind them to fit the rest.

I am, Sir, Yours most affectionately, SAM. JOHNSON.

London, Aug. 21, 1780.

This year he wrote to a young clergyman in the country, the following very excellent letter, which contains valuable advice to Divines in general:

DEAR SIR,

NOT many days ago Dr. Lawrence shewed me a letter, in which you make mention of me: I hope, therefore, you will not be displeased that I endeavour to preserve your good-will by some observations which your letter suggested to me.

You are afraid of falling into some improprieties in the daily service, by reading to an audience that requires no exactness. Your fear, I hope,

secures you from danger. They who contract absurd habits are such as have no fear. It is impossible to do the same thing very often, without some pecu∣liarity of manner: but that manner may be good or bad, and a little care will at least preserve it from being bad: to make it very good, there must, I think, be something of natural or casual felicity, which cannot be taught.

Your present method of making your sermons seems very judicious. Few frequent preachers can be supposed to have sermons more their own than yours will be. Take care to register, somewhere or other, the authours from whom your several discourses are borrowed; and do not imagine that you shall always remember, even what perhaps you now think it impossible to forget.

My advice, however, is, that you attempt, from time to time, an original sermon; and in the labour of composition, do not burden your mind with too much at once; do not exact from yourself, at one effort of excogi∣tation, propriety of thought and elegance of expression. Invent first, and then embellish. The production of something, where nothing was before, is an act of greater energy than the expansion or decoration of the thing produced. Set down diligently your thoughts as they rise, in the first words that occur; and, when you have matter, you will easily give it form: nor, perhaps, will this method be always necessary; for, by habit, your thoughts and diction will flow together.

The composition of sermons is not very difficult: the divisions not only help the memory of the hearer, but direct the judgement of the writer; they supply sources of invention, and keep every part in its proper place.

What I like least in your letter is your account of the manners of your parish; from which I gather, that it has been long neglected by the parson. The Dean of Carlisle 5 9.1, who was then a little rector in Northamptonshire, told me, that it might be discerned whether or no there was a clergyman resident in a parish, by the civil or savage manner of the people. Such a congregation as yours stands in much need of reformation; and I would not have you think it impossible to reform them. A very savage parish was civilised by a decayed gentlewoman, who came among them to teach a petty school. My learned friend Dr. Wheeler of Oxford, when he was a young man, had the care of a neighbouring parish for fifteen pounds a year, which he was never paid; but he counted it a convenience that it compelled him to make a sermon weekly. One woman he could not bring to the communion; and, when he reproved or exhorted her, she only answered, that she was no scholar. He was advised to set some good woman or man of the parish, a

little wiser than herself, to talk to her in language level to her mind. Such honest, I may call them holy artifices, must be practised by every clergy∣man; for all means must be tried by which souls may be saved. Talk to your people, however, as much as you can; and you will find, that the more frequently you converse with them upon religious subjects, the more willingly they will attend, and the more submissively they will learn. A clergyman's diligence always makes him venerable. I think I have now only to say, that in the momentous work you have undertaken, I pray GOD to bless you.

I am, Sir, Your most humble servant, SAM. JOHNSON.

Bolt-court, Aug. 30, 1780.

My next letters to him were of dates August 24, September 6, and October 1, and from them I extract the following passages:

My brother David and I find the long indulged fancy of our comfortable meeting again at Auchinleck, so well realised, that it in some degree con∣firms the pleasing hope of O! praeclarum diem! in a future state.

I beg that you may never again harbour a suspicion of my indulging a peevish humour, or playing tricks; you will recollect, that when I confessed to you, that when I had once been intentionally silent to try your regard, I gave you my word and honour that I should not do so again.

I rejoice to hear of your good state of health; I pray GOD to continue it long. I have often said, that I would willingly have ten years added to my life, to have ten taken from yours; I mean, that I would be ten years older, to have you ten years younger. But let me be thankful for the years during which I have enjoyed your friendship, and please myself with the hopes of enjoying it many years to come in this state of being, trusting always, that in another state, we shall meet never to be separated. Of this we can form no notion; but the thought, though indistinct, is delightful, when the mind is calm and clear.

The riots in London were certainly horrible; but you give me no account of your own situation, during the barbarous anarchy. A description of it by DR. JOHNSON would be a great painting 6 9.2; you might write another 'LONDON, A POEM.'

I am charmed with your condescending affectionate expression,

'let us keep each other's kindness by all the means in our power;'

my revered Friend! how elevating is it to my mind, that I am found worthy to be a

companion to Dr. Samuel Johnson! All that you have said in grateful praise of Mr. Walmsley, I have long thought of you; but we are both Tories, which has a very general influence upon our sentiments. I hope that you will agree to meet me at York, about the end of this month; or if you will come to Carlisle, that would be better still, in case the Dean be there. Please to consider, that to keep each other's kindness, we should every year have that free and intimate communication of mind which can be had only when we are together. We should have both our solemn and our pleasant talk.

I write now for the third time, to tell you that my desire for our meeting this autumn, is much increased. I wrote to 'Squire Godfrey Bosville, my Yorkshire Chief, that I should, perhaps, pay him a visit, as I was to hold a conference with Dr. Johnson, at York. I give you my word and honour that I said not a word of his inviting you; but he wrote to me as follows:

'I need not tell you I shall be happy to see you here the latter end of this month, as you propose; and I shall likewise be in hopes that you will persuade Dr. Johnson to finish the conference here. It will add to the favour of your own company, if you prevail upon such an associate, to assist your observations. I have often been entertained with his writings, and I once belonged to a club of which he was a member, and I never spent an evening there, but I heard something from him well worth remembering.'

We have thus, my dear Sir, good comfortable quarters in the neigh∣bourhood of York, where you may be assured we shall be heartily welcome. I pray you then resolve to set out; and let not the year 1780 be a blank in our social calendar, and in that record of wisdom and wit, which I keep with so much diligence, to your honour, and the instruction and delight of others.

Mr. Thrale had now another contest for the representation in parliament of the borough of Southwark, and Johnson kindly lent him his assistance, by writing advertisements and letters for him. I shall insert one, as a specimen: *

To the worthy ELECTORS of the Borough of SOUTHWARK.

GENTLEMEN,

A NEW Parliament being now called, I again solicit the honour of being elected for one of your representatives, and solicit it with the greater

confidence, as I am not conscious of having neglected my duty, or of having acted otherwise than as becomes the independent representative of independent constituents, superiour to fear, hope, and expectation, who has no private purposes to promote, and whose prosperity is involved in the prosperity of his country. As my recovery from a very severe distemper is not yet perfect, I have declined to attend the Hall, and hope an omission so necessary will not be harshly censured.

I can only send my respectful wishes, that all your deliberations may tend to the happiness of the kingdom, and the peace of the borough.

I am, Gentlemen, Your most faithful and obedient servant, HENRY THRALE.

Southwark, Sept. 5, 1780.

On his birth-day, Johnson has this note,

"I am now beginning the seventy-second year of my life, with more strength of body, and greater vigour of mind, than I think is common at that age."

But still he complains of sleepless nights and idle days, and forgetfulness, or neglect of resolutions. He thus pathetically expresses himself,

"Surely I shall not spend my whole life with my own total disapprobation 7 10.1."

Mr. Macbean, whom I have mentioned more than once, as one of Johnson's humble friends, a deserving but unfortunate man, being now oppressed by age and poverty, Johnson solicited the Lord Chancellor Thurlow, to have him admitted into the Charter-house. I take the liberty to insert his Lord∣ship's answer, as I am eager to embrace every occasion of augmenting the respectable notion which should ever be entertained of my illustrious friend:

To Dr. SAMUEL JOHNSON.

SIR

London, Oct. 24, 1780.

I HAVE this moment received your letter, dated the 19th, and returned from Bath.

In the beginning of the summer I placed one in the Chartreux, without the sanction of a recommendation so distinct, and so authoritative as yours of Macbean; and I am afraid, that according to the establishment of the House, the opportunity of making the charity so good amends will not soon recur. But whenever a vacancy shall happen, if you'll savour me with notice

of it, I will try to recommend him to the place, even though it should not be my turn to nominate.

I am, Sir, with great regard, Your most faithful And obedient servant, THURLOW.

To JAMES BOSWELL, Esq.

DEAR SIR,

I AM sorry to write you a letter that will not please you, and yet it is at last what I resolve to do. This year must pass without an interview; the summer has been foolishly lost, like many other of my summers and winters. I hardly saw a green field, but staid in town to work, without working much.

Mr. Thrale's loss of health has lost him the election; he is now going to Brighthelmston, and expects me to go with him, and how long I shall stay I cannot tell. I do not much like the place, but yet I shall go, and stay while my stay is desired. We must, therefore, content ourselves with knowing what we know as well as man can know the mind of man, that we love one another, and that we wish each other's happiness, and that the lapse of a year cannot lessen our mutual kindness.

I was pleased to be told that I accused Mrs. Boswell unjustly, in supposing that she bears me ill-will. I love you so much, that I would be glad to love all that love you, and that you love; and I have love very ready for Mrs. Boswell, if she thinks it worthy of acceptance. I hope all the young ladies and gentlemen are well.

I take a great liking to your brother. He tells me that his father received him kindly, but not fondly; however, you seem to have lived well enough at Auchinleck, while you staid. Make your father as happy as you can.

You lately told me of your health: I can tell you in return, that my health has been for more than a year past, better than it has been for many years before. Perhaps it may please GOD to give us some time together before we are parted.

I am, dear Sir, Yours, most affectionately, SAM. JOHNSON.

Oct. 17, 1780.

Being disappointed in my hopes of meeting Johnson this year, so that I could hear none of his admirable sayings, I shall compensate for this want by inserting a collection of them, for which I am indebted to my worthy friend Mr. Langton, whose kind communications have been separately interwoven in many parts of this work. A very few articles of this collection were committed to writing by himself, he not having that habit; which he regrets, and which those who know the numerous opportunities he had of gathering the rich fruits of Johnsonian wit and wisdom, must ever regret. I however found, in conversations with him, that a good store of Johnsoniana was treasured in his mind; and I compared it to Herculaneum, or some old Roman field, which, when dug, fully rewards the labour employed. The authenticity of every article is unquestionable. For the expression, I, who wrote them down in his presence, am partly answerable.

Theocritus is not deserving of very high respect as a writer; as to the pastoral part, Virgil is very evidently superiour. He wrote when there had been a larger influx of knowledge into the world than when Theocritus lived. Theocritus does not abound in description, though living in a beautiful country: the manners painted are coarse and gross. Virgil has much more description, more sentiment, more of Nature, and more of art. Some of the most excellent parts of Theocritus are, where Castor and Pollux, going with the other Argonauts, land on the Bebrycian coast, and there fall into a dispute with Amycus, the King of that country; which is as well conducted as Euripides could have done it; and the battle is well related. Afterwards they carry off a woman, whose two brothers come to recover her, and expostulate with Castor and Pollux on their injustice; but they pay no regard to the brothers, and a battle ensues, where Castor and his brother are triumphant. Theocritus seems not to have seen that the brothers have the advantage in their argument over his Argonaut heroes.—'The Sicilian Gossips' is a piece of merit.

Callimachus is a writer of little excellence. The chief thing to be learned from him is his account of Rites and Mythology; which, though desirable to be known for the sake of understanding other parts of ancient authours, is the least pleasing or valuable part of their writings.

Mattaire's account of the Stephani is a heavy book. He seems to have been a puzzle-headed man, with a large share of scholarship, but with little geometry or logick in his head, without method, and possessed of little genius. He wrote Latin verses from time to time, and published a set in his old age,

which he called 'Senilia;' in which he shews so little learning or taste in writing, as to make Carteret a dactyl.—In matters of genealogy it is necessary to give the bare names as they are; but in poetry, and in prose of any elegance in the writing, they require to have inflection given to them.—His book of the Dialects is a sad heap of confusion; the only way to write on them is to tabulate them with Notes, added at the bottom of the page, and references.

It may be questioned, whether there is not some mistake as to the methods of employing the poor, seemingly on a supposition that there is a certain portion of work left undone for want of persons to do it; but if that is otherwise, and all the materials we have are actually worked up, or all the manufactures we can use or dispose of are already executed, then what is given to the poor, who are to be set at work, must be taken from some who now have it, as time must be taken for learning, according to Sir William Petty's observation; a certain part of those very materials that, as it is, are properly worked up, must be spoiled by the unskilfulness of novices. We may apply to well-meaning, but misjudging persons in particular of this nature, what Giannone said to a monk, who wanted what he called to convert him: 'Tu se•• santo ma Tu non se•• Filosofo.'—It is an unhappy circumstance that one might give away five hundred pounds in a year to those that importune in the streets, and not do any good.

There is nothing more likely to betray a man into absurdity than condescension; when he seems to suppose his understanding too powerful for his company.

Having asked Mr. Langton if his father and mother had sate for their pictures, which he thought it right for each generation of a family to do, and being told they had opposed it, he said, 'Sir, among the infractuosities of the human mind, I know not if it may not be one, that there is a super∣stitious reluctance to sit for a picture.

John Gilbert Cooper related, that soon after the publication of his Dictionary, Garrick being asked by Johnson what people said of it, told him, that among other animadversions, it was objected that he cited authori∣ties which were beneath the dignity of such a work, and mentioned Richardson. 'Nay, (said Johnson,) I have done worse than that: I have cited thee, David.

Talking of expence, he observed, with what munificence a great mer∣chant will spend his money, both from his having it at command, and from his enlarged views by calculation of a good effect upon the whole. 'Whereas

(said he) you will hardly ever find a country gentleman who is not a good deal disconcerted at an unexpected occasion for his being obliged to lay out ten pounds.

When in good humour he would talk of his own writings with a won∣derful frankness and candour, and would even criticise them with the closest severity. One day, having read over one of his Ramblers, Mr. Langton asked him, how he liked that paper; he shook his head, and answered, 'too wordy.' And at another time, when one was reading his tragedy of 'Irene,' to a company at a house in the country, he left the room; and somebody having asked him the reason of this, he replied, 'Sir, I thought it had been better.

Talking of a point of delicate scrupulosity of moral conduct, he said to Mr. Langton, 'Men of harder minds than ours will do many things from which you and I would shrink; yet, Sir, they will, perhaps, do more good in life than we. But let us try to help one another. If there be a wrong twist, it may be set right. It is not probable that two people can be wrong the same way.

Of the Preface to Capel's Shakspeare, he said, 'If the man would have come to me, I would have endeavoured to 'endow his purposes with words;' for, as it is, 'he doth gabble monstrously.

He related, that he had once in a dream a contest of wit with some other person, and that he was very much mortified by imagining that his opponent had the better of him. 'Now (said he) one may mark here the effect of sleep in weakening the power of reflection; for had not my judge∣ment failed me, I should have seen, that the wit of this supposed antagonist, by whose superiority I felt myself depressed, was as much furnished by me, as that which I thought I had been uttering in my own character.

One evening in company, an ingenious and learned gentleman read a letter of compliment to him from one of the Professors of a foreign University. Johnson, in an irritable fit, thinking there was too much ostentation, said, 'I never receive any of these tributes of applause from abroad. One instance I recollect of a foreign publication, in which mention is made of l'illustre Lockman.

Of Sir Joshua Reynolds he said, 'Sir, I know no man who has passed through life with more observation than Reynolds.

He repeated to Mr. Langton, with great energy, in the Greek, our SAVIOUR'S gracious expression concerning the forgiveness of Mary Magdalen,

〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉. Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace 8 12.1.' He said, 'the manner of this dismission is exceedingly affecting.

He thus defined the difference between physical and moral truth; 'Physical truth, is, when you tell a thing as it actually is. Moral truth, is, when you tell a thing sincerely and precisely as it appears to you. I say such a one walked across the street; if he really did so I told a physical truth. If I thought so, though I should have been mistaken, I told a moral truth.

Huggins, the translator of Ariosto, and Mr. Thomas Warton, in the early part of his literary life, had a dispute concerning that poet, of whom Mr. Warton, in his 'Observations on Spencer's Fairy Queen,' gave some account, which Huggins attempted to answer with violence, and said,

'I will militate no longer against his nescience.'

Huggins was master of the subject, but wanted expression. Mr. Warton's knowledge of it was then imperfect, but his manner lively and elegant. Johnson said,

'It appears to me, that Huggins has ball without powder, and Warton powder without ball.

Talking of the Farce of 'High Life below Stairs,' he said,

'Here is a Farce, which is really very diverting when you see it acted; and yet one may read it, and not know that one has been reading any thing at all.

He used at one time to go occasionally to the green-room of Drury-lane Theatre, where he was much regarded by the players, and was very easy and facetious with them. He had a very high opinion of Mrs. Clive's comick powers, and conversed more with her than with any of them. He said,

'Clive, Sir, is a good thing to sit by, she always understands what you say.'

And she said of him,

'I love to sit by Dr. Johnson, he always entertains me.'

One night, when 'The Recruiting Officer' was acted, he said to Mr. Holland, who had been expressing an apprehension that Dr. Johnson would disdain the works of Farquhar;

'No, Sir, I think Farquhar a man whose writings have considerable merit.

His friend Garrick was so busy in conducting the drama, that they could not have so much intercourse as Mr. Garrick used to profess an anxious wish that there should be. There might indeed be something in the con∣temptuous severity as to the merit of acting, which his old preceptor nourished in himself, that would mortify Garrick after the great applause which he received from the audience. For though Johnson said of him,

'Sir, a man who has a nation to admire him every night, may well be expected to be somewhat elated;'

yet he would treat theatrical matters with a

Iudicrous slight. He mentioned one evening,

'I met David coming off the stage, drest in a woman's riding-hood, when he acted in The Wonder; I came full upon him, and I believe he was not pleased.

Once he asked Tom Davies, whom he saw drest in a fine suit of clothes,

'And what art thou to-night?'

Tom answered,

'The Thane of Ross;'

(which it will be recollected is a very inconsiderable character).

'O brave!'

said Johnson.

Of Mr. Longley, at Rochester, a gentleman of very considerable learning, whom Dr. Johnson met there, he said,

'My heart warms towards him. I was surprized to find in him such a nice acquaintance with the metre in the learned languages; though I was somewhat mortified that I had it not so much to myself, as I should have thought.

Talking of the minuteness with which people will record the sayings of eminent persons, a story was told, that when Pope was on a visit to Spence at Oxford, as they looked from the window they saw a Gentleman Commoner, who was just come in from riding, amusing himself with whipping at a post. Pope took occasion to say,

'That young gentleman seems to have little to do.'

Mr. Beauclerk observed,

'Then, to be sure, Spence turned round and wrote that down;'

and went on to say to Dr. Johnson,

'Pope, Sir, would have said the same of you, if he had seen you distilling.'

JOHNSON.

'Sir, if Pope had told me of my distilling, I would have told him of his grotto.

He would allow no settled indulgence of idleness upon principle, and always repelled every attempt to urge excuses for it. A friend one day sug∣gested, that it was not wholesome to study soon after dinner. JOHNSON.

'Ah, Sir, don't give way to such a fancy. At one time of my life I had taken it into my head that it was not wholesome to study between breakfast and dinner.

Mr. Beauclerk one day repeated to Dr. Johnson, Pope's lines,

'Let modest Foster, if he will, excel 'Ten metropolitans in preaching well:'

Then asked the Doctor,

'Why did Pope say this?'

JOHNSON.

'Sir, he hoped it would vex somebody.

Dr. Goldsmith, upon occasion of Mrs. Lennox's bringing out a play, said to Dr. Johnson at the CLUB, that a person had advised him to go and hiss it, because she had attacked Shakspeare in her book called 'Shakspeare

Illustrated.' JOHNSON.

'And did not you tell him that he was a rascal?'

GOLDSMITH.

'No, Sir, I did not. Perhaps he might not mean what he said.'

JOHNSON.

'Nay, Sir, if he lied it is a different thing.'

Colman slily said, (but it is believed Dr. Johnson did not hear him,)

'Then the proper expression should have been,—Sir, if you don't lie, you're a rascal.

His affection for Topham Beauclerk was so great, that when Beauclerk was labouring under that severe illness which at last occasioned his death, Johnson said, (with a voice faultering with emotion,)

'Sir, I would walk to the extent of the diameter of the earth to save Beauclerk.

One night at the CLUB he produced a translation of an Epitaph which Lord Elibank had written in English, for his Lady, and requested of Johnson to turn into Latin for him. Having read Domina de North et Gray, he said to Dyer,

'You see, Sir, what barbarisms we are compelled to make use of, when modern titles are to be specifically mentioned in Latin inscriptions.'

When he had read it once aloud, and there had been a general approbation expressed by the company, he addressed himself to Mr. Dyer in particular, and said,

'Sir, I beg to have your judgement, for I know your nicety.'

Dyer then very properly desired to read it over again; which, having done, he pointed out an incongruity in one of the sentences. Johnson immediately assented to the observation, and said,

'Sir, this is owing to an alteration of a part of the sentence, from the form in which I had first written it; and I believe, Sir, you may have remarked, that it is a very frequent cause of errour in composition, when one has made a partial change, without a due regard to the general structure of the sentence.

Johnson was well acquainted with Mr. Dossie, authour of a treatise on Agriculture; and said of him,

'Sir, of the objects which the Society of Arts have chiefly in view, the chymical effects of bodies operating upon other bodies, he knows more than almost any man.'

Johnson, in order to give Mr. Dossie his vote to be a member of this Society, paid up an arrear which had run on for two years. On this occasion he mentioned a circumstance, as characteristick of the Scotch.

'One of that nation, (said he,) who had been a candidate, against whom I had voted, came up to me with a civil saluta∣tion. Now, Sir, this is their way. An Englishman would have stomached it, and been sulky, and never have taken further notice of you: but a Scotchman, Sir, though you vote nineteen times against him, will accost you with equal complaisance after each time, and the twentieth time, Sir, he will get your vote.

Talking on the subject of toleration, one day when some friends were with him in his study, he made his usual remark, that the State has a right to regulate the religion of the people, who are the children of the State. A clergyman having readily acquiesced in this, Johnson, who loved discussion, observed,

'But, Sir, you must go round to other States than our own. You do not know what a Bramin has to say for himself. In short, Sir, I have got no farther than this. Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it. Martyr∣dom is the test.

A man, he observed, should begin to write soon; for, if he waits till his judgement is matured, his inability, through want of practice to express his conceptions, will make the disproportion so great between what he sees, and what he can attain, that he will probably be discouraged from writing at all. As a proof of the justness of this remark, we may instance what is related of the great Lord Granville; that after he had written his letter, giving an account of the battle of Dettingen, he said,

'Here is a letter, expressed in terms not good enough for a tollow-chandler to have used.

Talking of a Court-martial that was sitting upon a very momentous publick occasion, he expressed much doubt of an enlightened decision; and said, that perhaps there was not a member of it, who in the whole course of his life, had ever spent an hour by himself in balancing probabilities.

Goldsmith one day brought to the CLUB a printed Ode, which he, with others, had been hearing read by its authour in a publick room, at the rate of five shillings each for admission. One of the company having read it aloud, Dr. Johnson said,

'Bolder words, and more timorous meaning, I think never were brought together.

Talking of Gray's Odes, he said,

'They are forced plants, raised in a hot-bed; and they are poor plants; they are but cucumbers after all.'

A gentleman present, who had been running down Ode-writing in general, as a bad species of poetry, unluckily said,

'Had they been literally cucumbers, they had been better things than Odes.'

—

'Yes, Sir, (said Johnson,) for a hog.

His distinction of the different degrees of attainment of learning was thus marked upon two occasions. Of Queen Elizabeth he said,

'She had learn∣ing enough to have given dignity to a Bishop:'

and of Mr. Thomas Davies he said,

'Sir, Davies has learning enough to give credit to a clergyman.

He used to quote, with great warmth, the saying of Aristotle recorded by Diogenes Laertius; that there was the same difference between one learned and unlearned, as between the living and the dead.

It is very remarkable, that he retained in his memory very slight and trivial, as well as important things. As an instance of this, it seems that an inferiour domestick of the Duke of Leeds had attempted to celebrate his Grace's marriage in such homely rhymes as he could make; and this curious composition having been sung to Dr. Johnson he got it by heart, and used to repeat it in a very pleasant manner. Two of the stanzas were these:

'When the Duke of Leeds shall married be 'To a fine young lady of high quality, 'How happy will that gentlewoman be 'In his Grace of Leeds's good company.

'She shall have all that's fine and fair, 'And the best of silk and sattin shall wear; 'And ride in a coach to take the air, 'And have a house in St. James's-square.'

To hear a man, of the weight and dignity of Johnson, repeating such humble attempts at poetry, had a very amusing effect. He, however, seriously observed of the last stanza, that it nearly comprized all the advan∣tages that wealth can give.

An eminent foreigner, when he was shewn the British Museum, was very troublesome with many absurd inquiries.

'Now there, Sir, (said he,) is the difference between an Englishman and a Frenchman. A Frenchman must be always talking, whether he knows any thing of the matter or not: an Englishman is content to say nothing, when he has nothing to say.

His unjust contempt for foreigners was, indeed, extreme. One evening, at Old Slaughter's coffee-house, when a number of them were talking loud about little matters, he said,

'Does not this confirm old Meynell's observa∣tion—For any thing I see, foreigners are fools.

He said, that once, when he had a violent tooth-ache, a Frenchman accosted him thus: Ah, Monsieur, vous etudiez trop.

Having spent an evening at Mr. Langton's, with the Reverend Dr. Parr, he was much pleased with the conversation of that learned gentleman; and, after he was gone, said to Mr. Langton,

'Sir, I am obliged to you for having asked me this evening. Parr is a fair man. I do not know when I have had an occasion of such free controversy. It is remarkable how much

of a man's life may pass without meeting with any instance of this kind of open discussion.

We may fairly institute a criticism between Shakspeare and Corneille, as they both had, though in a different degree, the lights of a latter age. It is not so just between the Greek dramatick writers and Shakspeare. It may be replied to what is said by one of the remarkers on Shakspeare, that though Darius's shade had Prescience, it does not necessarily follow that he had all past particulars revealed to him.

Spanish plays, being wildly and improbably farcical, would please children here, as children are entertained with stories full of prodigies; their experience not being sufficient to cause them to be so readily startled at deviations from the natural course of life. The machinery of the Pagans is uninteresting to us: when a Goddess appears in Homer or Virgil, we grow weary; still more so in the Grecian tragedies, as in that kind of composition a nearer approach to Nature is intended. Yet there are good reasons for reading romances; as the fertility of invention, the beauty of style, and expression, the curiosity of seeing with what kind of performances the age and country in which they were written was delighted: for it is to be appre∣hended, that at the time when very wild improbable tales were well received, the people were in a barbarous state, and so on the footing of children, as has been explained.

It is evident enough that no one who writes now can use the Pagan deities and mythology; the only machinery, therefore, seems that of ministring spirits, the ghosts of the departed, witches, and fairies, though these latter, as the vulgar superstition concerning them (which, while in its force, infected at least the imagination of those that had more advantage in education, and only their reason set them free from it,) is every day wearing out, seem likely to be of little further assistance in the machinery of poetry. As I recollect Hammond introduces a hag or witch into one of his love elegies, where the effect is unmeaning and disgusting.

The man who uses his talent of ridicule in creating or grossly exag∣gerating the instances he gives, who imputes absurdities that did not happen, or when a man was a little ridiculous, describes him as having been very much so, abuses his talents greatly. The great use of delineating absurdities is, that we may know how far human folly can go; the account, there∣fore, ought of absolute necessity to be faithful. A certain character (naming the person) as to the general cast of it, is well described by Garrick, but a great deal of the phraseology he uses in it, is quite his own, particularly in

the proverbial comparisons, 'obstinate as a pig,' &c. but I don't know whether it might not be true of him, that from a too great eagerness for praise and popularity, and a politeness carried to a ridiculous excess, he was likely, after asserting a thing in general, to give it up again in parts. For instance, if he had said Reynolds was the first of painters, he was capable enough of giving up, as objections might happen to be severally made; first, his outline—then the grace in form—then the colouring—and lastly, to have owned that he was such a mannerist, that the disposition of his pictures was all alike.

For hospitality, as formerly practised, there is no longer the same reason; heretofore the poorer people were more numerous, and from want of commerce, their means of getting a livelihood more difficult; therefore the supporting them was an act of great benevolence; now that the poor can find maintenance for themselves and their labour is wanted, a general undiscerning hospitality tends to ill, by withdrawing them from their work to idleness and drunkenness. Then formerly rents were received in kind, so that there was a great abundance of provisions in possession of the owners of the lands, which since the plenty of money afforded by commerce is no longer the case.

Hospitality to strangers and foreigners in our country is now almost at an end, since from the increase of them that come to us, there have been a sufficient number of people that have found an interest in providing inns and proper accommodations, which is in general a more expedient method for the entertainment of travellers. Where the travellers and strangers are few, more of that hospitality subsists, as it has not been worth while to provide places of accommodation. In Ireland there is still hospitality to strangers, in some degree; in Hungary and Poland probably more.

Colman, in a note on his translation of Terence, talking of Shakspeare's learning, asks,

'What says Farmer to this?—What says Johnson?'

Upon this he observed,

'Sir, let Farmer answer for himself: I never engaged in this controversy. I always said, Shakspeare had Latin enough to grammatti∣cise his English.

A clergyman, whom he characterised as one who loved to say little oddities, was affecting one day, at a Bishop's table, a sort of slyness and freedom not in character, and repeated, as if part of 'The Old Man's Wish,' a song by Dr. Walter Pope, a verse bordering on licentiousness. Johnson rebuked him in the finest manner, by first shewing him that he did not know the passage he was aiming at, and thus humbling him:

'Sir, that is not the song: it is thus.'

And he gave it right. Then looking stedfastly on him,

'Sir, there is a part of that song which I should wish to exemplify in my own life: 'May I govern my passions with absolute sway.'

Being asked if Barnes knew a good deal of Greek, he answered,

'I doubt, Sir, he was unoculus inter caecos.

He used frequently to observe, that men might be very eminent in a profession, without our perceiving any particular power of mind in them in conversation.

'It seems strange (said he,) that a man should see so far to the right, who sees so short a way to the left. Burke is the only man whose common conversation corresponds with the general fame which he had in the world. Take up whatever topick you please, he is ready to meet you.

A gentleman, by no means deficient in literature, having discovered less acquaintance with one of the Classicks than Johnson expected, when the gentleman left the room he observed,

'You see, now, how little any body reads.'

Mr. Langton happening to mention his having read a good deal in Clinardus's Greek Grammar,

'Why, Sir, (said he,) who is there in this town who knows any thing of Clinardus but you and I?'

And upon Mr. Langton's mentioning that he had taken the pains to learn by heart the Epistle of St. Basil, which is given in that Grammar as a praxis,

'Sir, (said he,) I never made such an effort to attain Greek.

Of Dodsley's 'Publick Virtue: a Poem,' he said,

'It was fine blank; (meaning to express his usual contempt for blank verse): however, this miserable poem did not sell, and my poor friend Doddy said, Publick Virtue was not a subject to interest the age.

Mr. Langton, when a very young man, read Dodsley's 'Cleone: a Tragedy,' to him, not aware of his extreme impatience to be read to. As it went on he turned his face to the back of his chair, and put himself into various attitudes, which marked his uneasiness. At the end of an act, how∣ever, he said,

'Come let's have some more, let's go into the slaughter-house again, Lanky. But I am afraid there is more blood than brains.'

Yet he afterwards said,

'When I heard you read it, I thought higher of its power of language. When I read it myself, I was more sensible of its pathetick effect,'

and then paid it a compliment which many will think very extravagant.

'Sir, (said he,) if Otway had written this play, no other of his pieces would have been remembered.'

Dodsley himself, upon this being repeated to him, said,

'It was too much:'

it must be remembered, that Johnson always appeared not to be sufficiently sensible of the merit of Otway.

Snatches of reading (said he) will not make a Bentley or a Clarke. They are, however, in a certain degree advantageous. I would put a child into a library (where no unfit books are) and let him read at his choice. A child should not be discouraged from reading any thing that he takes a liking to, from a notion that it is above his reach. If that be the case, the child will soon find it out and desist; if not, he of course gains the instruction; which is so much the more likely to come, from the inclination with which he takes up the study.

Though he used to censure carelessness with great vehemence, he owned, that he once, to avoid the trouble of locking up five guineas, hid them, he forgot where, so that he could not find them.

A gentleman who introduced his brother to Dr. Johnson, was earnest to recommend him to the Doctor's notice, which he did by saying,

'When we have sat together some time, you'll find my brother grow very enter∣taining.'

—

'Sir, (said Johnson,) I can wait.

When the rumour was strong that we should have a war, because the French would assist the Americans; he rebuked a friend with some asperity for supposing it, saying,

'No, Sir, national faith is not yet sunk so low.

In the latter part of his life, in order to satisfy himself whether his mental faculties were impaired, he resolved that he would try to learn a new language, and fixed upon the Low Dutch, for that purpose, and this he con∣tinued till he had read about one half of 'Thomas à Kempis;' and finding that there appeared no abatement of his power of acquisition, he then desisted, as thinking the experiment had been duely tried. Mr. Burke justly observed, that this was not the most vigorous trial, Low Dutch being a language so near to our own; had it been one of the languages entirely different, he might have been very soon satisfied.

Mr. Langton and he having gone to see a Freemason's funeral procession, when they were at Rochester, and some solemn musick being played on French-horns, he said,

'This is the first time that I have ever been affected by musical sounds:'

adding,

'that the impression made upon him was of a melancholy kind.'

Mr. Langton saying, that this effect was a fine one. JOHNSON.

'Yes, if it softens the mind so as to prepare it for the reception of salutary feelings, it may be good. But inasmuch as it is melancholy per se, it is bad.

Goldsmith had long a visionary project, that some time or other when his circumstances should be easier, he would go to Aleppo, in order to acquire a knowledge as far as might be, of any arts peculiar to the East, and introduce them into Britain. When this was talked of in Dr. Johnson's company, he said, 'Of all men Goldsmith is the most unfit to go out upon such an inquiry, for he is utterly ignorant of such arts as we already possess, and consequently could not know what would be accessions to our present stock of mechanical knowledge. Sir, he would bring home a grinding-barrow, which you see in every street in London, and think that he had furnished a wonderful improvement.

Greek, Sir, (said he,) is like lace; every man gets as much of it as he can.

When Lord Charles Hay, after his return from America, was preparing his defence to be offered to the Court-Martial which he had demanded, having heard Mr. Langton as high in expressions of admiration of Johnson, as he usually was, he requested that Dr. Johnson might be introduced to him; and Mr. Langton having mentioned it to Johnson, he very kindly and readily agreed; and being presented to his Lordship, while under arrest, by Mr. Langton, he saw him several times; upon one of which occasions Lord Charles read to him what he had prepared, which Johnson signified his appro∣bation of, saying,

'It is a very good soldierly defence.'

Johnson said, that he had advised his Lordship, that as it was in vain to contend with those who were in possession of power, if they would offer him the rank of Lieutenant-General, and a government, it would be better judged to desist from urging his complaints. It is well known that his Lordship died before the trial came on.

Johnson one day gave high praise to Dr. Bentley's verses 9 12.2 in Dodsley's Collection, which he recited with his usual energy. Dr. Adam Smith, who

was present, observed in his decisive professorial manner,

'Very well—Very well.'

Johnson however added,

'Yes, they are very well, Sir, but you may observe in what manner they are well. They are the forcible verses of a man of a strong mind, but not accustomed to write verse; for there is some uncouthness in the expression.

Drinking tea one day at Garrick's with Mr. Langton, he was questioned if he was not somewhat of a heretick as to Shakspeare, said Garrick,

'I doubt he is a little of an infidel.'

—

'Sir (said Johnson,) I will stand by the lines I have written on Shakspeare, in my Prologue at the opening of your Theatre.'

Mr. Langton suggested, that in the line

'And panting Time toil'd after him in vain;'

Johnson might have had in his eye the passage in the 'Tempest,' where Prospero says of Miranda,

'—She will outstrip all praise, 'And make it halt behind her.'

Johnson said nothing. Garrick then ventured to observe,

'I do not think that the happiest line in the praise of Shakspeare.'

Johnson exclaimed (smiling)

'Prosaical rogues; next time I write, I'll make both time and space pant 1 12.3.

It is well known that there was formerly a rude custom for those who were sailing upon the Thames, to accost each other as they passed in the most abusive language they could invent, generally, however with as much satirical humour as they were capable of producing. Addison gives a specimen of this ribaldry, in Number 383 of 'The Spectator,' when Sir Roger de Coverley and he are going to Spring-garden. Johnson was once eminently successful in this species of contest; a fellow having attacked him with some coarse raillery, Johnson answered thus,

'Sir, your wife (under pretence of keeping a bawdy-house) is a receiver of stolen-goods.'

One evening when he and Mr. Burke, and Mr. Langton were in company together, and the admirable scolding of Timon of Athens was mentioned, this instance of Johnson's was quoted, and thought to have at least equal excellence.

As Johnson always allowed the extraordinary talents of Mr. Burke, so Mr. Burke was fully sensible of the wonderful powers of Johnson. Mr. Langton recollects having passed an evening with both of them, when Mr. Burke repeatedly entered upon topicks which it was evident he would have illustrated with extensive knowledge and richness of expression; but Johnson always seised upon the conversation, in which, however, he acquitted himself in a most masterly manner. As Mr. Burke and Mr. Langton were walking home, Mr. Burke observed that Johnson had been very great that night; Mr. Langton joined in this, but added, he could have wished to hear more from another person; (plainly intimating that he meant Mr. Burke).

'O, no (said Mr. Burke) it is enough for me to have rung the bell to him.

Talking of Dr. Blagden's copiousness and precision of communication, Dr. Johnson said,

'Blagden, Sir, is a delightful fellow.

This year the Reverend Dr. Franklin having published a translation of

"Lucian,"

inscribed to him the Demonax thus:

To DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON, the Demonax of the present age, this piece is inscribed by a sincere admirer of his respectable talents,

THE TRANSLATOR.

Though upon a particular comparison of Demonax and Johnson, there does not seem to be a great deal of similarity between them; this Dedication is a just compliment from the general character given by Lucian of the ancient Sage,

"〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, the best philosopher whom I have ever seen or known."

Notes

• 2 2.1

  By a fire in Northumberland-house, where he had an apartment, in which I have passed many an agreeable hour.
• 3 3.1

  A kind of nick-name given to Mrs. Thrale's eldest daughter, whose name being Fsther, she might be assimilated to a Queen.
• 4 3.2

  Mr. Thrale.
• 5 4.1

  I have taken the liberty to leave out a few lines.
• 6 5.1

  Vol. II. p. 143. et seq. I have selected passages from several letters, without mentioning dates.
• 7 6.1

  Vol. II. p. 163. Mrs. Piozzi has omitted the name, she best knows why.
• 8 6.2

  Now settled in London.
• 9 7.1

  I had been five years absent from London. BEATTIE.
• 1 7.2

  Meaning his entertaining

  "Memoirs of David Garrick, Esq."

  of which Johnson (as Davies informed me) wrote the first sentence; thus giving as it were, the key-note to the performance. It is, indeed, very characteristical of its authour, beginning with a maxim, and proceeding to illustrate.—

  "All excellence has a right to be recorded. I shall, therefore, think it superfluous to apologise for writing the life of a man, who by an uncommon assemblage of private virtues, adorned the highest eminence in a publick professi••n.'
• 2 7.3

  I wish he had omitted the suspicion expressed here, though I believe he meant nothing but jocularity; for though he and I differed sometimes in opinion, he well knew how much I loved and revered him. BEATTIE.
• 3 8.1

  It will, no doubt be remarked how he avoids the rebellious land of America. This puts me in mind of an anecdote, for which I am obliged to my worthy social friend, Governour Penn:

  "At one of Miss E. Hervey's assemblies, Dr. Johnson was following her up and down the room; upon which Lord Abingdon observed to her. 'Your great friend is very fond of you, you can go no where without him.—'Aye, (said she,) he would follow me to any part of the world.'—'Then (said the Earl,) ask him to go with you to America."
• 4 8.2

  "Essays on the History of Mankind."
• 5 9.1

  Dr. Percy, now Bishop of Dromore.
• 6 9.2

  I had not then seen his Letters to Mrs. Thrale.
• 7 10.1

  Prayers and Meditations, p. 185
• 8 12.1

  Luke vii. 50.
• 9 12.2

  Dr. Johnson, in his Life of Cowley, says, that these are

  "the only English verses which Bentley is known to have written."

  I shall here insert them, and hope my readers will apply them.

  "Who strives to mount Parnassus' hill, "And thence poetick laurels bring, "Must first acquire due force and skill, "Must fly with swan's or eagle's wing.

  "Who Nature's treasures would explore, "Her mysteries and arcana know; "Must high as lofty Newton soar, "Must stoop as delving Woodward low.

  "Who studies ancient laws and rites, "Tongues, arts, and arms, and history; "Must drudge, like Seldon, days and nights, "And in the endless labour die.

  "Who travels in religious jars, "(Truth mixt with errour, shades with rays)▪ "Like Whiston, wanting pyx or stars, "In ocean wide, or sinks or strays.

  "But grant our hero's hope, long toil "And comprehensive genius crown, "All sciences, all arts his spoil, "Yet what reward, or what renown?

  "Envy, innate in vulgar souls, "Envy steps in and stops his rise, "Envy with poison'd tarnish fouls "His lustre and his worth decries.

  "He lives inglorious or in want, "To College and old books confin'd; "Instead of learn'd he's call'd pedant, "Dunces advanc'd, he's left behind: "Yet left content a genuine Stoick he, "Great without patron, rich without South Sea."
• 1 12.3

  I am sorry to see in the

  "Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh,"

  Vol. II.

  "An Essay on the Character of Hamlet,"

  written, I should suppose, by a very young man, though called

  "Reverend;"

  who speaks with presumptuous petulance of the first literary character of his age. Amidst a cloudy confusion of words, (which hath of late too often passed in Scotland for Metaphysicks,) he thus ventures to criticise one of the noblest lines in our language:—

  "Dr. Johnson has remarked, that 'time toil'd after him in vain.' But I should apprehend, that this is entirely to mistake the character. Time toils after every great man, as well as after Shakspeare. The workings of an ordinary mind keep pace, indeed, with time; they move no faster; they have their beginning, their middle, and their end; but superiour natures can reduce these into a point. They do no not, indeed, suppress them; but they susp••nd, or they lock them up in the breast."

  The learned Society, under whose sanction such gabble is ushered into the world, would do well to offer a premium to any one who will discover its meaning.