The Life of Samuel Johnson

He said, ‘Dr. Mead lived more in the broad sunshine of life than almost any man.’

The disaster of General Burgoyne’s army was then the common topic of conversation. It was asked why piling their arms⁸⁷⁷ was insisted upon as a matter of such consequence, when it seemed to be a circumstance so inconsiderable in itself. JOHNSON. ‘Why, Sir, a French authour says, “Il y a beaucoup de puerilites dans la guerre.”⁸⁷⁸ All distinctions are trifles, because great things can seldom occur, and those distinctions are settled by custom. A savage would as willingly have his meat sent to him in the kitchen, as eat it at the table here; as men become civilized, various modes of denoting honourable preference are invented.’

He this day made the observations upon the similarity between Rasselas and Candide, which I have inserted in its proper place, when considering his admirable philosophical Romance. He said Candide he thought had more power in it than any thing that Voltaire had written.

He said, ‘the lyrical part of Horace never can be perfectly translated; so much of the excellence is in the numbers and the expression. Francis has done it the best; I’ll take his, five out of six, against them all.’

On Sunday, May 17, I presented to him Mr. Fullarton, of Fullarton, who has since distinguished himself so much in India, to whom he naturally talked of travels, as Mr. Brydone accompanied him in his tour to Sicily and Malta. He said, ‘The information which we have from modern travellers is much more authentick than what we had from ancient travellers; ancient travellers guessed; modern travellers measure. The Swiss admit that there is but one errour in Stanyan. If Brydone were more attentive to his Bible, he would be a good traveller.’

He said, ‘Lord Chatham was a Dictator; he possessed the power of putting the State in motion; now there is no power, all order is relaxed.’ BOSWELL. ‘Is there no hope of a change to the better?’ JOHNSON. ‘Why, yes, Sir, when we are weary of this relaxation. So the City of London will appoint its Mayors again by seniority.’ BOSWELL. ‘But is not that taking a mere chance for having a good or a bad Mayor?’ JOHNSON. ‘Yes, Sir; but the evil of competition is greater than that of the worst Mayor that can come; besides, there is no more reason to suppose that the choice of a rabble will be right, than that chance will be right.’

On Tuesday, May 19, I was to set out for Scotland in the evening. He was engaged to dine with me at Mr. Dilly’s, I waited upon him to remind him of his appointment and attend him thither; he gave me some salutary counsel, and recommended vigorous resolution against any deviation from moral duty. BOSWELL. ‘But you would not have me to bind myself by a solemn obligation?’ JOHNSON. (much agitated,) ‘What! a vow – O, no, Sir, a vow is a horrible thing, it is a snare for sin. The man who cannot go to Heaven without a vow – may go–’ Here, standing erect, in the middle of his library, and rolling grand, his pause was truly a curious compound of the solemn and the ludicrous; he half-whistled in his usual way, when pleasant, and he paused, as if checked by religious awe. Methought he would have added – to Hell – but was restrained. I humoured the dilemma. ‘What! Sir, (said I,) In celum jusseris ibit?’⁸⁷⁹ alluding to his imitation of it, –

‘And bid him go to Hell, to Hell he goes.’

I had mentioned to him a slight fault in his noble Imitation of the Tenth Satire of Juvenal, a too near recurrence of the verb spread, in his description of the young Enthusiast at College: –

‘Through all his veins the fever of renown,

Spreads from the strong contagion of the gown;

O’er Bodley’s dome his future labours spread,

And Bacon’s mansion trembles o’er his head.’

He had desired me to change spreads to burns, but for perfect authenticity, I now had it done with his own hand.^a I thought this alteration not only cured the fault, but was more poetical, as it might carry an allusion to the shirt by which Hercules was inflamed.

We had a quiet comfortable meeting at Mr. Dilly’s; nobody there but ourselves. Mr. Dilly mentioned somebody having wished that Milton’s Tractate on Education should be printed along with his Poems in the edition of The English Poets then going on. JOHNSON. ‘It would be breaking in upon the plan; but would be of no great consequence. So far as it would be any thing, it would be wrong. Education in England has been in danger of being hurt by two of its greatest men, Milton and Locke. Milton’s plan is impracticable, and I suppose has never been tried. Locke’s, I fancy, has been tried often enough, but is very imperfect; it gives too much to one side, and too little to the other; it gives too little to literature. – I shall do what I can for Dr. Watts; but my materials are very scanty. His poems are by no means his best works; I cannot praise his poetry itself highly; but I can praise its design.’

My illustrious friend and I parted with assurances of affectionate regard.

I wrote to him on the 25th of May, from Thorpe in Yorkshire, one of the seats of Mr. Bosville, and gave him an account of my having passed a day at Lincoln, unexpectedly, and therefore without having any letters of introduction, but that I had been honoured with civilities from the Reverend Mr. Simpson, an acquaintance of his, and Captain Broadley, of the Lincolnshire Militia; but more particularly from the Reverend Dr. Gordon, the Chancellor, who first received me with great politeness as a stranger, and when I informed him who I was, entertained me at his house with the most flattering attention; I also expressed the pleasure with which I had found that our worthy friend Langton was highly esteemed in his own county town.

‘TO DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON

‘MY DEAR SIR, ‘Edinburgh, June 18, 1778.

‘… Since my return to Scotland, I have been again at Lanark, and have had more conversation with Thomson’s sister. It is strange that Murdoch, who was his intimate friend, should have mistaken his mother’s maiden name, which he says was Hume, whereas Hume was the name of his grandmother by the mother’s side. His mother’s name was Beatrix Trotter,^a a daughter of Mr. Trotter, of Fogo, a small proprietor of land. Thomson had one brother, whom he had with him in England as his amanuensis; but he was seized with a consumption, and having returned to Scotland, to try what his native air would do for him, died young. He had three sisters, one married to Mr. Bell, minister of the parish of Strathaven; one to Mr. Craig, father of the ingenious architect, who gave the plan of the New Town of Edinburgh; and one to Mr. Thomson, master of the grammar-school at Lanark. He was of a humane and benevolent disposition; not only sent valuable presents to his sisters, but a yearly allowance in money, and was always wishing to have it in his power to do them more good. Lord Lyttelton’s observation, that “he loathed much to write,” was very true. His letters to his sister, Mrs. Thomson, were not frequent, and in one of them he says, “All my friends who know me, know how backward I am to write letters; and never impute the negligence of my hand to the coldness of my heart.” I send you a copy of the last letter which she had from him; she never heard that he had any intention of going into holy orders. From this late interview with his sister, I think much more favourably of him, as I hope you will. I am eager to see more of your Prefaces to the Poets; I solace myself with the few proof-sheets which I have.

‘I send another parcel of Lord Hailes’s Annals, which you will please to return to me as soon as you conveniently can. He says, “he wishes you would cut a little deeper;” but he may be proud that there is so little occasion to use the critical knife. I ever am, my dear Sir, your faithful and affectionate, humble servant, ‘JAMES BOSWELL.’

Mr. Langton has been pleased, at my request, to favour me with some particulars of Dr. Johnson’s visit to Warley-camp, where this gentleman was at the time stationed as a Captain in the Lincolnshire militia. I shall give them in his own words in a letter to me.

‘It was in the summer of the year 1778, that he complied with my invitation to come down to the Camp at Warley, and he staid with me about a week; the scene appeared, notwithstanding a great degree of ill health that he seemed to labour under, to interest and amuse him, as agreeing with the disposition that I believe you know he constantly manifested towards enquiring into subjects of the military kind. He sate, with a patient degree of attention, to observe the proceedings of a regimental court-martial, that happened to be called, in the time of his stay with us; and one night, as late as at eleven o’clock, he accompanied the Major of the regiment in going what are styled the Rounds, where he might observe the forms of visiting the guards, for the seeing that they and their sentries are ready in their duty on their several posts. He took occasion to converse at times on military topicks, one in particular, that I see the mention of, in your Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, which lies open before me,^a as to gun-powder; which he spoke of to the same effect, in part, that you relate.

‘On one occasion, when the regiment were going through their exercise, he went quite close to the men at one of the extremities of it, and watched all their practices attentively; and, when he came away, his remark was, “The men indeed do load their muskets and fire with wonderful celerity.” He was likewise particular in requiring to know what was the weight of the musquet balls in use, and within what distance they might be expected to take effect when fired off.

‘In walking among the tents, and observing the difference between those of the officers and private men, he said that the superiority of accommodation of the better conditions of life, to that of the inferiour ones, was never exhibited to him in so distinct a view. The civilities paid to him in the camp were, from the gentlemen of the Lincolnshire regiment, one of the officers of which accommodated him with a tent in which he slept; and from General Hall, who very courteously invited him to dine with him, where he appeared to be very well pleased with his entertainment, and the civilities he received on the part of the General;^b the attention likewise, of the General’s aide-de-camp, Captain Smith, seemed to be very welcome to him, as appeared by their engaging in a great deal of discourse together. The gentlemen of the East York regiment likewise on being informed of his coming, solicited his company at dinner, but by that time he had fixed his departure, so that he could not comply with the invitation.’

‘TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.

‘DEAR SIR, – I have received two letters from you, of which the second complains of the neglect shewn to the first. You must not tye your friends to such punctual correspondence. You have all possible assurances of my affection and esteem; and there ought to be no need of reiterated professions. When it may happen that I can give you either counsel or comfort, I hope it will never happen to me that I should neglect you; but you must not think me criminal or cold if I say nothing when I have nothing to say.

‘You are now happy enough. Mrs. Boswell is recovered; and I congratulate you upon the probability of her long life. If general approbation will add anything to your enjoyment, I can tell you that I have heard you mentioned as a man whom everybody likes. I think life has little more to give.

‘–⁸⁸¹ has gone to his regiment. He has laid down his coach, and talks of making more contractions of his expence: how he will succeed I know not. It is difficult to reform a household gradually; it may be better done by a system totally new. I am afraid he has always something to hide. When we pressed him to go to –,⁸⁸² he objected the necessity of attending his navigation; yet he could talk of going to Aberdeen, a place not much nearer his navigation. I believe he cannot bear the thought of living at – in a state of diminution; and of appearing among the gentlemen of the neighbourhood shorn of his beams.⁸⁸³ This is natural, but it is cowardly. What I told him of the encreasing expence of a growing family seems to have struck him. He certainly had gone on with very confused views, and we have, I think, shown him that he is wrong; though, with the common deficience of advisers, we have not shown him how to do right.

I wish you would a little correct or restrain your imagination, and imagine that happiness, such as life admits, may be had at other places as well as London. Without asserting^a Stoicism, it may be said, that it is our business to exempt ourselves as much as we can from the power of external things. There is but one solid basis of happiness; and that is, the reasonable hope of a happy futurity. This may be had every where.

I do not blame your preference of London to other places, for it is really to be preferred, if the choice is free; but few have the choice of their place, or their manner of life; and mere pleasure ought not to be the prime motive of action.

‘Mrs. Thrale, poor thing, has a daughter. Mr. Thrale dislikes the times, like the rest of us. Mrs. Williams is sick; Mrs. Desmoulins is poor. I have miserable nights. Nobody is well but Mr. Levett. I am, dear Sir, your most, &c.

‘London, July 3, 1778.’ ‘SAM. JOHNSON.’

In the course of this year there was a difference between him and his friend Mr. Strahan; the particulars of which it is unnecessary to relate. Their reconciliation was communicated to me in a letter from Mr. Strahan, in the following words: –

‘The notes I shewed you that passed between him and me were dated in March last. The matter lay dormant till July 27, when he wrote to me as follows:

TO WILLIAM STRAHAN, ESQ.

“SIR, – It would be very foolish for us to continue strangers any longer. You can never by persistency make wrong right. If I resented too acrimoniously, I resented only to yourself. Nobody ever saw or heard what I wrote. You saw that my anger was over, for in a day or two I came to your house. I have given you longer time; and I hope you have made so good use of it, as to be no longer on evil terms with, Sir, your, &c.

“SAM. JOHNSON.”

‘On this I called upon him; and he has since dined with me.’

After this time, the same friendship as formerly continued between Dr. Johnson and Mr. Strahan. My friend mentioned to me a little circumstance of his attention, which, though we may smile at it, must be allowed to have its foundation in a nice and true knowledge of human life. ‘When I write to Scotland, (said he,) I employ Strahan to frank my letters,⁸⁸⁴ that he may have the consequence of appearing a Parliament-man among his countrymen.’

TO CAPTAIN LANGTON,^a Warley-camp

‘DEAR SIR, – When I recollect how long ago I was received with so much kindness at Warley Common, I am ashamed that I have not made some enquiries after my friends.

‘Pray how many sheep-stealers did you convict? and how did you punish them? When are you to be cantoned in better habitations? The air grows cold, and the ground damp. Longer stay in the camp cannot be without much danger to the health of the common men, if even the officers can escape.

‘You see that Dr. Percy is now Dean of Carlisle; about five hundred a year, with a power of presenting himself to some good living. He is provided for.

‘The session of the club is to commence with that of the Parliament. Mr. Banks desires to be admitted; he will be a very honourable accession.

‘Did the King please you? The Coxheath men,⁸⁸⁵I think, have some reason to complain: Reynolds says your camp is better than theirs.

‘I hope you find yourself able to encounter this weather. Take care of your own health; and, as you can, of your men. Be pleased to make my compliments to all the gentlemen whose notice I have had, and whose kindness I have experienced. I am, dear Sir, your most humble servant,

‘October 31, 1778.’ ‘SAM. JOHNSON.’

I wrote to him on the 18th of August, the 18th of September, and the 6th of November; informing him of my having had another son born, whom I had called James; that I had passed some time at Auchinleck; that the Countess of Loudoun, now in her ninety-ninth year, was as fresh as when he saw her, and remembered him with respect; and that his mother by adoption, the Countess of Eglintoune, had said to me, ‘Tell Mr. Johnson I love him exceedingly;’ that I had again suffered much from bad spirits; and that as it was very long since I heard from him, I was not a little uneasy.

The continuance of his regard for his friend Dr. Burney, appears from the following letters: –

‘TO THE REVEREND DR. WHEELER, Oxford

‘DEAR SIR, – Dr. Burney, who brings this paper, is engaged in a History of Musick; and having been told by Dr. Markham of some MSS. relating to his subject, which are in the library of your College, is desirous to examine them. He is my friend; and therefore I take the liberty of intreating your favour and assistance in his enquiry: and can assure you, with great confidence, that if you knew him he would not want any intervenient solicitation to obtain the kindness of one who loves learning and virtue as you love them.

‘I have been flattering myself all the summer with the hope of paying my annual visit to my friends; but something has obstructed me: I still hope not to be long without seeing you. I should be glad of a little literary talk; and glad to shew you, by the frequency of my visits, how eagerly I love it, when you talk it. I am, dear Sir, your most humble servant,

‘London, November 2, 1778.’ ‘SAM. JOHNSON.’

‘TO THE REVEREND DR. EDWARDS, Oxford

‘SIR, – The bearer, DR. BURNEY, has had some account of a Welsh Manuscript in the Bodleian library, from which he hopes to gain some materials for his History of Musick; but, being ignorant of the language, is at a loss where to find assistance. I make no doubt but you, Sir, can help him through his difficulties, and therefore take the liberty of recommending him to your favour, as I am sure you will find him a man worthy of every civility that can be shewn, and every benefit that can be conferred.

‘But we must not let Welsh drive us from Greek. What comes of Xenophon? If you do not like the trouble of publishing the book, do not let your commentaries be lost; contrive that they may be published somewhere. I am, Sir, your humble servant,

‘London, November 2, 1778.’ ‘SAM. JOHNSON.’

These letters procured Dr. Burney great kindness and friendly offices from both of these gentlemen, not only on that occasion, but in future visits to the university. The same year Dr. Johnson not only wrote to Dr. Joseph Warton in favour of Dr. Burney’s youngest son, who was to be placed in the college of Winchester, but accompanied him when he went thither.

We surely cannot but admire the benevolent exertions of this great and good man, especially when we consider how grievously he was afflicted with bad health, and how uncomfortable his home was made by the perpetual jarring of those whom he charitably accommodated under his roof. He has sometimes suffered me to talk jocularly of his group of females, and call them his Seraglio. He thus mentions them, together with honest Levett, in one of his letters to Mrs. Thrale:^a ‘Williams hates every body; Levett hates Desmoulins, and does not love Williams; Desmoulins hates them both; Poll^b loves none of them.’

‘TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.

‘DEAR SIR, – It is indeed a long time since I wrote, and I think you have some reason to complain; however, you must not let small things disturb you, when you have such a fine addition to your happiness as a new boy, and I hope your lady’s health restored by bringing him. It seems very probable that a little care will now restore her, if any remains of her complaints are left.

‘You seem, if I understand your letter, to be gaining ground at Auchinleck, an incident that would give me great delight.…

‘When any fit of anxiety, or gloominess, or perversion of mind, lays hold upon you, make it a rule not to publish it by complaints, but exert your whole care to hide it; by endeavouring to hide it, you will drive it away. Be always busy.

‘THE CLUB is to meet with the Parliament; we talk of electing Banks, the traveller; he will be a reputable member.

‘Langton has been encamped with his company of militia on Warley-common; I spent five days amongst them; he signalized himself as a diligent officer, and has very high respect in the regiment. He presided when I was there at a court-martial; he is now quartered in Hertfordshire; his lady and little ones are in Scotland. Paoli came to the camp and commended the soldiers.

‘Of myself I have no great matter to say, my health is not restored, my nights are restless and tedious. The best night that I have had these twenty years was at Fort-Augustus. I hope soon to send you a few lives to read. I am, dear Sir, your most affectionate,

‘November 21, 1778.’ ‘SAM. JOHNSON.’

About this time the Rev. Mr. John Hussey, who had been some time in trade, and was then a clergyman of the Church of England, being about to undertake a journey to Aleppo, and other parts of the East, which he accomplished, Dr. Johnson, (who had long been in habits of intimacy with him,) honoured him with the following letter: –

TO MR. JOHN HUSSEY

‘DEAR SIR, – I have sent you the Grammar, and have left you two books more, by which I hope to be remembered; write my name in them; we may perhaps see each other no more, you part with my good wishes, nor do I despair of seeing you return. Let no opportunities of vice corrupt you; let no bad example seduce you; let the blindness of Mahometans confirm you in Christianity. GOD bless you. I am, dear Sir, your affectionate humble servant,

‘December 29, 1778.’ ‘SAM. JOHNSON.’

Johnson this year expressed great satisfaction at the publication of the first volume of Discourses to the Royal Academy, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, whom he always considered as one of his literary school. Much praise indeed is due to those excellent Discourses, which are so universally admired, and for which the authour received from the Empress of Russia a gold snuff-box, adorned with her profile in bas relief, set in diamonds; and containing what is infinitely more valuable, a slip of paper, on which are written with her Imperial Majesty’s own hand, the following words: ‘Pour le Chevalier Reynolds en te´moignage du contentement que j’ai ressen-tie à la lecture de ses excellens discours sur la peinture.’⁸⁸⁶

In 1779, Johnson gave the world a luminous proof that the vigour of his mind in all its faculties, whether memory, judgement, or imagination, was not in the least abated; for this year came out the first four volumes of his Prefaces, biographical and critical, to the most eminent of the English Poets,∗ published by the booksellers of London. The remaining volumes came out in the year 1780.⁸⁸⁷ The Poets were selected by the several booksellers who had the honorary copy right, which is still preserved among them by mutual compact, notwithstanding the decision of the House of Lords against the perpetuity of Literary Property. We have his own authority,^a that by his recommendation the poems of Blackmore, Watts, Pomfret, and Yalden, were added to the collection. Of this work I shall speak more particularly hereafter.

On the 22nd of January, I wrote to him on several topicks, and mentioned that as he had been so good as to permit me to have the proof sheets of his Lives of the Poets, I had written to his servant, Francis, to take care of them for me.

‘MR. BOSWELL to DR. JOHNSON

‘MY DEAR SIR, ‘Edinburgh, Feb. 2, 1779.

‘Garrick’s death is a striking event; not that we should be surprised with the death of any man, who has lived sixty-two years; but because there was a vivacity in our late celebrated friend, which drove away the thoughts of death from any association with him. I am sure you will be tenderly affected with his departure; and I would wish to hear from you upon the subject. I was obliged to him in my days of effervescence in London, when poor Derrick was my governour; and since that time I received many civilities from him. Do you remember how pleasing it was, when I received a letter from him at Inverary, upon our first return to civilized living after our Hebridean journey? I shall always remember him with affection as well as admiration.

‘On Saturday last, being the 30th of January, I drank coffee and old port, and had solemn conversation with the Reverend Mr. Falconer, a nonjuring bishop, a very learned and worthy man. He gave two toasts, which you will believe I drank with cordiality, Dr. Samuel Johnson, and Flora Macdonald. I sat about four hours with him, and it was really as if I had been living in the last century. The Episcopal Church of Scotland, though faithful to the royal house of Stuart, has never accepted of any conge´ d’e´lire,⁸⁸⁸ since the Revolution; it is the only true Episcopal Church in Scotland, as it has its own succession of bishops. For as to the episcopal clergy who take the oaths to the present government, they indeed follow the rites of the Church of England, but, as Bishop Falconer observed, “they are not Episcopals; for they are under no bishop, as a bishop cannot have authority beyond his diocese.” This venerable gentleman did me the honour to dine with me yesterday, and he laid his hands upon the heads of my little ones. We had a good deal of curious literary conversation, particularly about Mr. Thomas Ruddiman, with whom he lived in great friendship.

‘Any fresh instance of the uncertainty of life makes one embrace more closely a valuable friend. My dear and much respected Sir, may God preserve you long in this world while I am in it. I am ever, your much obliged, and affectionate humble servant, ‘JAMES BOSWELL.’

On the 23rd of February I wrote to him again, complaining of his silence, as I had heard he was ill, and had written to Mr. Thrale, for information concerning him; and I announced my intention of soon being again in London.

‘TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.

‘DEAR SIR, – Why should you take such delight to make a bustle, to write to Mr. Thrale that I am negligent, and to Francis to do what is so very unnecessary. Thrale, you may be sure, cared not about it; and I shall spare Francis the trouble, by ordering a set both of the Lives and Poets to dear Mrs. Boswell,^a in acknowledgement of her marmalade. Persuade her to accept them, and accept them kindly. If I thought she would receive them scornfully, I would send them to Miss Boswell, who, I hope, has yet none of her mamma’s ill-will to me.

‘I would send sets of Lives, four volumes, to some other friends, to Lord Hailes first. His second volume lies by my bedside; a book surely of great labour, and to every just thinker of great delight. Write me word to whom I shall send besides; would it please Lord Auchinleck? Mrs. Thrale waits in the coach. I am, dear Sir, &c.,

‘March 13, 1779.’ ‘SAM. JOHNSON.’

This letter crossed me on the road to London, where I arrived on Monday, March 15, and next morning at a late hour, found Dr. Johnson sitting over his tea, attended by Mrs. Desmoulins, Mr. Levett, and a clergyman,⁸⁸⁹ who had come to submit some poetical pieces to his revision. It is wonderful what a number and variety of writers, some of them even unknown to him, prevailed on his good-nature to look over their works, and suggest corrections and improvements. My arrival interrupted for a little while the important business of this true representative of Bayes;⁸⁹⁰ upon its being resumed, I found that the subject under immediate consideration was a translation, yet in manuscript, of the Carmen Seculare of Horace, which had this year been set to musick, and performed as a publick entertainment in London, for the joint benefit of Monsieur Philidor and Signor Baretti. When Johnson had done reading, the authour asked him bluntly, ‘If upon the whole it was a good translation?’ Johnson, whose regard for truth was uncommonly strict, seemed to be puzzled for a moment, what answer to make, as he certainly could not honestly commend the performance: with exquisite address he evaded the question thus, ‘Sir, I do not say that it may not be made a very good translation.’ Here nothing whatever in favour of the performance was affirmed, and yet the writer was not shocked. A printed Ode to the Warlike Genius of Britain, came next in review; the bard was a lank bony figure, with short black hair; he was writhing himself in agitation, while Johnson read, and shewing his teeth in a grin of earnestness, exclaimed in broken sentences, and in a keen sharp tone, ‘Is that poetry, Sir? – Is it Pindar?’ JOHNSON. ‘Why, Sir, there is here a great deal of what is called poetry.’ Then, turning to me, the poet cried, ‘My muse has not been long upon the town, and (pointing to the Ode) it trembles under the hand of the great critick.’ Johnson, in a tone of displeasure, asked him, ‘Why do you praise Anson?’ I did not trouble him by asking his reason for this question. He proceeded, ‘Here is an errour, Sir; you have made Genius feminine.’ ‘Palpable, Sir; (cried the enthusiast,) I know it. But (in a lower tone,) it was to pay a compliment to the Duchess of Devonshire, with which her Grace was pleased. She is walking across Coxheath, in the military uniform, and I suppose her to be the Genius of Britain.’ JOHNSON. ‘Sir, you are giving a reason for it; but that will not make it right. You may have a reason why two and two should make five; but they will still make but four.’

Although I was several times with him in the course of the following days, such it seems were my occupations, or such my negligence, that I have preserved no memorial of his conversation till Friday, March 16, when I visited him. He said he expected to be attacked on account of his Lives of the Poets. ‘However (said he,) I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an authour is to be silent as to his works. An assault upon a town is a bad thing; but starving it is still worse; an assault may be unsuccessful; you may have more men killed than you kill; but if you starve the town, you are sure of victory.’

Talking of a friend of ours⁸⁹¹ associating with persons of very discordant principles and characters; I said he was a very universal man, quite a man of the world. JOHNSON. ‘Yes, Sir; but one may be so much a man of the world as to be nothing in the world. I remember a passage in Goldsmith’s Vicar of Wakefield, which he was afterwards fool enough to expunge: “I do not love a man who is zealous for nothing.”’ BOSWELL. ‘That was a fine passage.’ JOHNSON. ‘Yes, Sir; there was another fine passage too, which he struck out: “When I was a young man, being anxious to distinguish myself, I was perpetually starting new propositions. But I soon gave this over; for, I found that generally what was new was false.”’ I said I did not like to sit with people of whom I had not a good opinion. JOHNSON. ‘But you must not indulge your delicacy too much; or you will be a tete-à-tete man all your life.’

During my stay in London this spring, I find I was unaccountably negligent in preserving Johnson’s sayings, more so than at any time when I was happy enough to have an opportunity of hearing his wisdom and wit. There is no help for it now. I must content myself with presenting such scraps as I have. But I am nevertheless ashamed and vexed to think how much has been lost. It is not that there was a bad crop this year; but that I was not sufficiently careful in gathering it in. I, therefore, in some instances can only exhibit a few detached fragments.

Talking of the wonderful concealment of the authour of the celebrated letters signed Junius; he said, ‘I should have believed Burke to be Junius, because I know no man but Burke who is capable of writing these letters; but Burke spontaneously denied it to me. The case would have been different had I asked him if he was the authour; a man so questioned, as to an anonymous publication, may think he has a right to deny it.’

He observed that his old friend, Mr. Sheridan, had been honoured with extraordinary attention in his own country, by having had an exception made in his favour in an Irish Act of Parliament concerning insolvent debtors. ‘Thus to be singled out (said he,) by a legislature, as an object of publick consideration and kindness, is a proof of no common merit.’

At Streatham, on Monday, March 29, at breakfast he maintained that a father had no right to control the inclinations of his daughters in marriage.

On Wednesday, March 31, when I visited him, and confessed an excess of which I had very seldom been guilty; that I had spent a whole night in playing at cards, and that I could not look back on it with satisfaction; instead of a harsh animadversion, he mildly said, ‘Alas, Sir, on how few things can we look back with satisfaction.’

On Thursday, April 1, he commended one of the Dukes of Devonshire for ‘a dogged veracity.’ He said too, ‘London is nothing to some people; but to a man whose pleasure is intellectual, London is the place. And there is no place where œconomy can be so well practised as in London. More can be had here for the money, even by ladies, than any where else. You cannot play tricks with your fortune in a small place; you must make an uniform appearance. Here a lady may have well-furnished apartments, and elegant dress, without any meat in her kitchen.’

I was amused by considering with how much ease and coolness he could write or talk to a friend, exhorting him not to suppose that happiness was not to be found as well in other places as in London; when he himself was at all times sensible of its being, comparatively speaking, a heaven upon earth. The truth is, that by those who from sagacity, attention, and experience, have learnt the full advantage of London, its pre-eminence over every other place, not only for variety of enjoyment, but for comfort, will be felt with a philosophical exultation. The freedom from remark and petty censure, with which life may be passed there, is a circumstance which a man who knows the teazing restraint of a narrow circle must relish highly. Mr. Burke, whose orderly and amiable domestic habits might make the eye of observation less irksome to him than to most men, said once very pleasantly, in my hearing, ‘Though I have the honour to represent Bristol, I should not like to live there; I should be obliged to be so much upon my good behaviour.’ In London, a man may live in splendid society at one time, and in frugal retirement at another, without animadversion. There, and there alone, a man’s own house is truly his castle, in which he can be in perfect safety from intrusion whenever he pleases. I never shall forget how well this was expressed to me one day by Mr. Meynell: ‘The chief advantage of London (said he,) is, that a man is always so near his burrow.’

He said of one of his old acquaintances,⁸⁹² ‘He is very fit for a travelling governour. He knows French very well. He is a man of good principles; and there would be no danger that a young gentleman should catch his manner; for it is so very bad, that it must be avoided. In that respect he would be like the drunken Helot.’⁸⁹³

A gentleman⁸⁹⁴ has informed me, that Johnson said of the same person, ‘Sir, he has the most inverted understanding of any man whom I have ever known.’

On Friday, April 2, being Good-Friday, I visited him in the morning as usual; and finding that we insensibly fell into a train of ridicule upon the foibles of one of our friends,⁸⁹⁵ a very worthy man, I, by way of a check, quoted some good admonition from The Government of the Tongue⁸⁹⁶ that very pious book. It happened also remarkably enough, that the subject of the sermon preached to us to-day by Dr. Burrows, the rector of St. Clement Danes, was the certainty that at the last day we must give an account of ‘the deeds done in the body;’ and, amongst various acts of culpability he mentioned evil-speaking. As we were moving slowly along in the crowd from church, Johnson jogged my elbow, and said, ‘Did you attend to the sermon?’ ‘Yes, Sir, (said I,) it was very applicable to us.’ He, however, stood upon the defensive. ‘Why, Sir, the sense of ridicule is given us, and may be lawfully used. The authour of The Government of the Tongue would have us treat all men alike.’

In the interval between morning and evening service, he endeavoured to employ himself earnestly in devotional exercises; and, as he has mentioned in his Prayers and Meditations,^a gave me Les Pensees de Pascal, that I might not interrupt him. I preserve the book with reverence. His presenting it to me is marked upon it with his own hand, and I have found in it a truly divine unction. We went to church again in the afternoon.

On Saturday, April 3, I visited him at night, and found him sitting in Mrs. Williams’s room, with her, and one⁸⁹⁷ who he afterwards told me was a natural son of the second Lord Southwell. The table had a singular appearance, being covered with a heterogeneous assemblage of oysters and porter for his company, and tea for himself. I mentioned my having heard an eminent physician,⁸⁹⁸ who was himself a Christian, argue in favour of universal toleration, and maintain, that no man could be hurt by another man’s differing from him in opinion. JOHNSON. ‘Sir, you are to a certain degree hurt by knowing that even one man does not believe.’

On Easter-day, after solemn service at St. Paul’s, I dined with him: Mr. Allen the printer was also his guest. He was uncommonly silent; and I have not written down any thing, except a single curious fact, which, having the sanction of his inflexible veracity, may be received as a striking instance of human insensibility and inconsideration. As he was passing by a fishmonger who was skinning an eel alive, he heard him ‘curse it, because it would not lye still.’

On Wednesday, April 7, I dined with him at Sir Joshua Reynolds’s. I have not marked what company was there. Johnson harangued upon the qualities of different liquors; and spoke with great contempt of claret, as so weak, that ‘a man would be drowned by it before it made him drunk.’ He was persuaded to drink one glass of it, that he might judge, not from recollection, which might be dim, but from immediate sensation. He shook his head, and said, ‘Poor stuff! No, Sir, claret is the liquor for boys; port, for men; but he who aspires to be a hero (smiling,) must drink brandy. In the first place, the flavour of brandy is most grateful to the palate; and then brandy will do soonest for a man what drinking can do for him. There are, indeed, few who are able to drink brandy. That is a power rather to be wished for than attained. And yet, (proceeded he,) as in all pleasure hope is a considerable part, I know not but fruition comes too quick by brandy. Florence wine I think the worst; it is wine only to the eye; it is wine neither while you are drinking it, nor after you have drunk it; it neither pleases the taste, nor exhilarates the spirits.’ I reminded him how heartily he and I used to drink wine together, when we were first acquainted; and how I used to have a head-ache after sitting up with him. He did not like to have this recalled, or, perhaps, thinking that I boasted improperly, resolved to have a witty stroke at me: ‘Nay, Sir, it was not the wine that made your head ache, but the sense that I put into it.’ BOSWELL. ‘What, Sir! will sense make the head ache?’ JOHNSON. ‘Yes, Sir, (with a smile,) when it is not used to it.’ – No man who has a true relish of pleasantry could be offended at this; especially if Johnson in a long intimacy had given him repeated proofs of his regard and good estimation. I used to say, that as he had given me a thousand pounds in praise, he had a good right now and then to take a guinea from me.

On Thursday, April 8, I dined with him at Mr. Allan Ramsay’s, with Lord Graham and some other company. We talked of Shakspeare’s witches. JOHNSON. ‘They are beings of his own creation; they are a compound of malignity and meanness, without any abilities; and are quite different from the Italian magician. King James says in his Dæmonology, ‘Magicians command the devils: witches are their servants. The Italian magicians are elegant beings.’ RAMSAY. ‘Opera witches, not Drury-lane witches.’ Johnson observed, that abilities might be employed in a narrow sphere, as in getting money, which he said he believed no man could do, without vigorous parts, though concentrated to a point. RAMSAY. ‘Yes, like a strong horse in a mill; he pulls better.’

Lord Graham, while he praised the beauty of Lochlomond, on the banks of which is his family seat, complained of the climate, and said he could not bear it. JOHNSON. ‘Nay, my Lord, don’t talk so: you may bear it well enough. Your ancestors have borne it more years than I can tell.’ This was a handsome compliment to the antiquity of the House of Montrose. His Lordship told me afterwards, that he had only affected to complain of the climate; lest, if he had spoken as favourably of his country as he really thought, Dr. Johnson might have attacked it. Johnson was very courteous to Lady Margaret Macdonald. ‘Madam, (said he,) when I was in the Isle of Sky, I heard of the people running to take the stones off the road, lest Lady Margaret’s horse should stumble.’

Lord Graham commended Dr. Drummond at Naples, as a man of extraordinary talents; and added, that he had a great love of liberty. JOHNSON. ‘He is young, my Lord; (looking to his Lordship with an arch smile,) all boys love liberty, till experience convinces them they are not so fit to govern themselves as they imagined. We are all agreed as to our own liberty; we would have as much of it as we can get; but we are not agreed as to the liberty of others: for in proportion as we take, others must lose. I believe we hardly wish that the mob should have liberty to govern us. When that was the case some time ago, no man was at liberty not to have candles in his windows.’⁸⁹⁹ RAMSAY. ‘The result is, that order is better than confusion.’ JOHNSON. ‘The result is, that order cannot be had but by subordination.’

On Friday, April 16, I had been present at the trial of the unfortunate Mr. Hackman, who, in a fit of frantick jealous love, had shot Miss Ray, the favourite of a nobleman.⁹⁰⁰ Johnson, in whose company I dined to-day, with some other friends, was much interested by my account of what passed, and particularly with his prayer for the mercy of heaven. He said, in a solemn fervid tone, ‘I hope he shall find mercy.’

This day a violent altercation arose between Johnson and Beauclerk, which having made much noise at the time, I think it proper, in order to prevent any future misrepresentation, to give a minute account of it.

In talking of Hackman, Johnson argued, as Judge Blackstone had done, that his being furnished with two pistols was a proof that he meant to shoot two persons. Mr. Beauclerk said, ‘No; for that every wise man who intended to shoot himself, took two pistols, that he might be sure of doing it at once. Lord – –’s⁹⁰¹ cook shot himself with one pistol, and lived ten days in great agony. Mr. –,⁹⁰² who loved buttered muffins, but durst not eat them because they disagreed with his stomach, resolved to shoot himself; and then he eat three buttered muffins for breakfast, before shooting himself, knowing that he should not be troubled with indigestion: he had two charged pistols; one was found lying charged upon the table by him, after he had shot himself with the other.’ ‘Well, (said Johnson, with an air of triumph,) you see here one pistol was sufficient.’ Beauclerk replied smartly, ‘Because it happened to kill him.’ And either then, or a very little afterwards, being piqued at Johnson’s triumphant remark, added, ‘This is what you don’t know, and I do.’ There was then a cessation of the dispute; and some minutes intervened, during which, dinner and the glass went on cheerfully; when Johnson suddenly and abruptly exclaimed, ‘Mr. Beauclerk, how came you to talk so petulantly to me, as “This is what you don’t know, but what I know”? One thing I know, which you don’t seem to know, that you are very uncivil.’ BEAUCLERK. ‘Because you began by being uncivil, (which you always are.)’ The words in parenthesis were, I believe, not heard by Dr. JOHNSON. Here again there was a cessation of arms. Johnson told me, that the reason why he waited at first some time without taking any notice of what Mr. Beauclerk said, was because he was thinking whether he should resent it. But when he considered that there were present a young Lord and an eminent traveller,⁹⁰³ two men of the world with whom he had never dined before, he was apprehensive that they might think they had a right to take such liberties with him as Beauclerk did, and therefore resolved he would not let it pass; adding, that ‘he would not appear a coward.’ A little while after this, the conversation turned on the violence of Hackman’s temper. Johnson then said, ‘It was his business to command his temper, as my friend, Mr. Beauclerk, should have done some time ago.’ BEAUCLERK. ‘I should learn of you, Sir.’ JOHNSON. ‘Sir, you have given me opportunities enough of learning, when I have been in your company. No man loves to be treated with contempt.’ BEAUCLERK. (with a polite inclination towards Johnson,) ‘Sir, you have known me twenty years, and however I may have treated others, you may be sure I could never treat you with contempt.’ JOHNSON. ‘Sir, you have said more than was necessary.’ Thus it ended; and Beauclerk’s coach not having come for him till very late, Dr. Johnson and another gentleman⁹⁰⁴ sat with him a long time after the rest of the company were gone; and he and I dined at Beauclerk’s on the Saturday se’nnight⁹⁰⁵ following.

After this tempest had subsided, I recollect the following particulars of his conversation: –

‘I am always for getting a boy forward in his learning; for that is a sure good. I would let him at first read any English book which happens to engage his attention; because you have done a great deal when you have brought him to have entertainment from a book. He’ll get better books afterwards.’

‘Mallet, I believe, never wrote a single line of his projected life of the Duke of Marlborough. He groped for materials; and thought of it, till he had exhausted his mind. Thus it sometimes happens that men entangle themselves in their own schemes.’

‘To be contradicted, in order to force you to talk, is mighty unpleasing. You shine, indeed; but it is by being ground.’

Of a gentleman who made some figure among the Literati of his time, (Mr. Fitzherbert,) he said, ‘What eminence he had was by a felicity of manner; he had no more learning than what he could not help.’

On Saturday, April 24, I dined with him at Mr. Beauclerk’s, with Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mr. Jones, (afterwards Sir William,) Mr. Langton, Mr. Steevens, Mr. Paradise, and Dr. Higgins. I mentioned that Mr. Wilkes had attacked Garrick to me, as a man who had no friend. ‘I believe he is right, Sir. $$ – He had friends, but no friend.^a Garrick was so diffused, he had no man to whom he wished to unbosom himself. He found people always ready to applaud him, and that always for the same thing: so he saw life with great uniformity.’ I took upon me, for once, to fight with Goliath’s weapons, and play the sophist. – ‘Garrick did not need a friend, as he got from every body all he wanted. What is a friend? One who supports you and comforts you, while others do not. Friendship, you know, Sir, is the cordial drop, “to make the nauseous draught of life go down:”⁹⁰⁶ but if the draught be not nauseous, if it be all sweet, there is no occasion for that drop.’ JOHNSON. ‘Many men would not be content to live so. I hope I should not. They would wish to have an intimate friend, with whom they might compare minds, and cherish private virtues.’ One of the company mentioned Lord Chesterfield, as a man who had no friend. JOHNSON. ‘There were more materials to make friendship in Garrick, had he not been so diffused.’ Bo swell. ‘Garrick was pure gold, but beat out to thin leaf. Lord Chesterfield was tinsel.’ JOHNSON. ‘Garrick was a very good man, the cheerfullest man of his age; a decent liver in a profession which is supposed to give indulgence to licentiousness; and a man who gave away, freely, money acquired by himself. He began the world with a great hunger for money; the son of a half-pay officer, bred in a family, whose study was to make four-pence do as much as others made four-pence halfpenny do. But, when he had got money, he was very liberal.’ I presumed to animadvert on his eulogy on Garrick, in his Lives of the Poets. ‘You say, Sir, his death eclipsed the gaiety of nations.’ JOHNSON. ‘I could not have said more nor less. It is the truth; eclipsed, not extinguished; and his death did eclipse; it was like a storm.’ BOSWELL. ‘But why nations? Did his gaiety extend farther than his own nation?’ JOHNSON. ‘Why, Sir, some exaggeration must be allowed. Besides, nations may be said – if we allow the Scotch to be a nation, and to have gaiety, – which they have not. You are an exception, though. Come, gentlemen, let us candidly admit that there is one Scotchman who is cheerful.’ BEAUCLERK. ‘But he is a very unnatural Scotchman.’ I, however, continued to think the compliment to Garrick hyperbolically untrue. His acting had ceased some time before his death; at any rate he had acted in Ireland but a short time, at an early period of his life, and never in Scotland. I objected also to what appears an anticlimax of praise, when contrasted with the preceding panegyrick, – ‘and diminished the public stock of harmless pleasure!’ – ‘Is not harmless pleasure very tame?’ JOHNSON. ‘Nay, Sir, harmless pleasure is the highest praise. Pleasure is a word of dubious import; pleasure is in general dangerous, and pernicious to virtue; to be able therefore to furnish pleasure that is harmless, pleasure pure and unalloyed, is as great a power as man can possess.’ This was, perhaps, as ingenious a defence as could be made; still, however, I was not satisfied.

A celebrated wit⁹⁰⁷ being mentioned, he said, ‘One may say of him as was said of a French wit, Il n’a de l’esprit que contre Dieu.⁹⁰⁸ I have been several times in company with him, but never perceived any strong power of wit. He produces a general effect by various means; he has a cheerful countenance and a gay voice. Besides his trade is wit. It would be as wild in him to come into company without merriment, as for a highwayman to take the road without his pistols.’

Talking of the effects of drinking, he said, ‘Drinking may be practised with great prudence; a man who exposes himself when he is intoxicated, has not the art of getting drunk; a sober man who happens occasionally to get drunk, readily enough goes into a new company, which a man who has been drinking should never do. Such a man will undertake any thing; he is without skill in inebriation. I used to slink home, when I had drunk too much. A man accustomed to self-examination will be conscious when he is drunk, though an habitual drunkard will not be conscious of it. I knew a physician⁹⁰⁹ who for twenty years was not sober; yet in a pamphlet, which he wrote upon fevers, he appealed to Garrick and me for his vindication from a charge of drunkenness. A bookseller⁹¹⁰ (naming him,) who got a large fortune by trade, was so habitually and equably drunk, that his most intimate friends never perceived that he was more sober at one time than another.’

Talking of celebrated and successful irregular practisers in physick; he said, ‘Taylor was the most ignorant man I ever knew; but sprightly. Ward the dullest. Taylor challenged me once to talk Latin with him; (laughing). I quoted some of Horace, which he took to be a part of my own speech. He said a few words well enough.’ BEAUCLERK. ‘I remember, Sir, you said that Taylor was an instance how far impudence could carry ignorance.’ Mr. Beauclerk was very entertaining this day, and told us a number of short stories in a lively elegant manner, and with that air of the world which has I know not what impressive effect, as if there were something more than is expressed, or than perhaps we could perfectly understand. As Johnson and I accompanied Sir Joshua Reynolds in his coach, Johnson said, ‘There is in Beauclerk a predominance over his company, that one does not like. But he is a man who has lived so much in the world, that he has a short story on every occasion; he is always ready to talk, and is never exhausted.’

Johnson and I passed the evening at Miss Reynolds’s, Sir Joshua’s sister. I mentioned that an eminent friend of ours,⁹¹¹ talking of the common remark, that affection descends, said, that ‘this was wisely contrived for the preservation of mankind; for which it was not so necessary that there should be affection from children to parents, as from parents to children; nay, there would be no harm in that view though children should at a certain age eat their parents.’ JOHNSON. ‘But, Sir, if this were known generally to be the case, parents would not have affection for children.’ BOSWELL. ‘True, Sir; for it is in expectation of a return that parents are so attentive to their children; and I know a very pretty instance of a little girl⁹¹² of whom her father was very fond, who once when he was in a melancholy fit, and had gone to bed, persuaded him to rise in good humour by saying, “My dear papa, please to get up, and let me help you on with your clothes, that I may learn to do it when you are an old man.”’

Soon after this time a little incident occurred, which I will not suppress, because I am desirous that my work should be, as much as is consistent with the strictest truth, an antidote to the false and injurious notions of his character, which have been given by others, and therefore I infuse every drop of genuine sweetness into my biographical cup.

‘TO DR. JOHNSON

‘MY DEAR SIR, – I am in great pain with an inflamed foot, and obliged to keep my bed, so am prevented from having the pleasure to dine at Mr. Ramsay’s to-day, which is very hard; and my spirits are sadly sunk. Will you be so friendly as to come and sit an hour with me in the evening. I am ever your most faithful, and affectionate humble servant,

‘South Audley-street, ‘JAMES BOSWELL.’

Monday, April 26.’

‘TO MR. BOSWELL

‘Mr. Johnson laments the absence of Mr. Boswell, and will come to him. – Harley-street.’

He came to me in the evening, and brought Sir Joshua Reynolds. I need scarcely say, that their conversation, while they sate by my bedside, was the most pleasing opiate to pain that could have been administered.

Johnson being now better disposed to obtain information concerning Pope than he was last year,^a sent by me to my Lord Marchmont a present of those volumes of his Lives of the Poets which were at this time published, with a request to have permission to wait on him; and his Lordship, who had called on him twice, obligingly appointed Saturday, the first of May, for receiving us.

On that morning Johnson came to me from Streatham, and after drinking chocolate at General Paoli’s, in South-Audley-street, we proceeded to Lord Marchmont’s in Curzon-street. His Lordship met us at the door of his library, and with great politeness said to Johnson, ‘I am not going to make an encomium upon myself, by telling you the high respect I have for you, Sir.’ Johnson was exceedingly courteous; and the interview, which lasted about two hours, during which the Earl communicated his anecdotes of Pope, was as agreeable as I could have wished. When we came out, I said to Johnson, that considering his Lordship’s civility, I should have been vexed if he had again failed to come. ‘Sir, (said he,) I would rather have given twenty pounds than not have come.’ I accompanied him to Streatham, where we dined, and returned to town in the evening.

On Monday, May 3, I dined with him at Mr. Dilly’s; I pressed him this day for his opinion on the passage in Parnell, concerning which I had in vain questioned him in several letters, and at length obtained it in due form of law.

CASE for DR. JOHNSON’S Opinion;

3rd of May, 1779.

‘PARNELL, in his Hermit, has the following passage:

‘To clear this doubt, to know the world by sight,

To find if books and swains report it right:

(For yet by swains alone the world he knew,

Whose feet came wand’ring o’er the nightly dew.)’

Is there not a contradiction in its being first supposed that the Hermit knew both what books and swains reported of the world; yet afterwards said, that he knew it by swains alone?

‘I think it an inaccuracy. – He mentions two instructors in the first line, and says he had only one in the next.’^a

This evening I set out for Scotland.

‘TO MRS. LUCY PORTER, in Lichfield

‘DEAR MADAM, – Mr. Green has informed me that you are much better; I hope I need not tell you that I am glad of it. I cannot boast of being much better; my old nocturnal complaint still pursues me, and my respiration is difficult, though much easier than when I left you the summer before last. Mr. and Mrs. Thrale are well; Miss has been a little indisposed; but she is got well again. They have since the loss of their boy had two daughters; but they seem likely to want a son.

‘I hope you had some books which I sent you. I was sorry for poor Mrs. Adey’s death, and am afraid you will be sometimes solitary; but endeavour, whether alone or in company, to keep yourself cheerful. My friends likewise die very fast; but such is the state of man. I am, dear love, your most humble servant, ‘May 4, 1779.’ ‘SAM. JOHNSON.’

He had, before I left London, resumed the conversation concerning the appearance of a ghost at Newcastle upon Tyne, which Mr. John Wesley believed, but to which Johnson did not give credit. I was, however, desirous to examine the question closely, and at the same time wished to be made acquainted with Mr. John Wesley; for though I differed from him in some points, I admired his various talents, and loved his pious zeal. At my request, therefore, Dr. Johnson gave me a letter of introduction to him.

‘TO THE REVEREND MR. JOHN WESLEY

‘SIR, – Mr. Boswell, a gentleman who has been long known to me, is desirous of being known to you, and has asked this recommendation, which I give him with great willingness, because I think it very much to be wished that worthy and religious men should be acquainted with each other. I am, Sir, your most humble servant,

‘May 3, 1779.’ ‘SAM. JOHNSON.’

Mr. Wesley being in the course of his ministry at Edinburgh, I presented this letter to him, and was very politely received. I begged to have it returned to me, which was accordingly done. His state of the evidence as to the ghost did not satisfy me.

I did not write to Johnson, as usual, upon my return to my family, but tried how he would be affected by my silence. Mr. Dilly sent me a copy of a note which he received from him on the 13th of July, in these words: –

‘TO MR. DILLY

‘SIR, – Since Mr. Boswell’s departure I have never heard from him; please to send word what you know of him, and whether you have sent my books to his lady. I am, &c.,

‘SAM. JOHNSON.’

My readers will not doubt that his solicitude about me was very flattering.

‘TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.

‘DEAR SIR, – What can possibly have happened, that keeps us two such strangers to each other? I expected to have heard from you when you came home; I expected afterwards. I went into the country and returned; and yet there is no letter from Mr. BOSWELL. No ill I hope has happened; and if ill should happen, why should it be concealed from him who loves you? Is it a fit of humour, that has disposed you to try who can hold out longest without writing? If it be, you have the victory. But I am afraid of something bad; set me free from my suspicions.

‘My thoughts are at present employed in guessing the reason of your silence: you must not expect that I should tell you any thing, if I had any thing to tell. Write, pray write to me, and let me know what is, or what has been the cause of this long interruption. I am, dear Sir, your most affectionate humble servant,

‘July 13, 1779.’ ‘SAM. JOHNSON.’

‘TO DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON

‘MY DEAR SIR, ‘Edinburgh, July 17, 1779.

‘What may be justly denominated a supine indolence of mind has been my state of existence since I last returned to Scotland. In a livelier state I had often suffered severely from long intervals of silence on your part; and I had even been chid by you for expressing my uneasiness. I was willing to take advantage of my insensibility, and while I could bear the experiment, to try whether your affection for me would, after an unusual silence on my part, make you write first. This afternoon I have had very high satisfaction by receiving your kind letter of inquiry, for which I most gratefully thank you. I am doubtful if it was right to make the experiment; though I have gained by it. I was beginning to grow tender, and to upbraid myself, especially after having dreamt two nights ago that I was with you. I and my wife, and my four children, are all well. I would not delay one post to answer your letter; but as it is late, I have not time to do more. You shall soon hear from me, upon many and various particulars; and I shall never again put you to any test. I ever am, with veneration, my dear Sir, your much obliged, and faithful humble servant,

‘JAMES BOSWELL.’

On the 22nd of July, I wrote to him again; and gave him an account of my last interview with my worthy friend, Mr. Edward Dilly, at his brother’s house at Southill, in Bedfordshire, where he died soon after I parted from him, leaving me a very kind remembrance of his regard.

I informed him that Lord Hailes, who had promised to furnish him with some anecdotes for his Lives of the Poets, had sent me three instances of Prior’s borrowing from Gombauld, in Recueil des Poetes, tome 3. Epigram To John I owed great obligation, p. 25. To the Duke of Noailles, p. 32. Sauntering Jack and Idle Joan, p. 25.

My letter was a pretty long one, and contained a variety of particulars; but he, it should seem, had not attended to it; for his next to me was as follows: –

‘TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.

‘MY DEAR SIR, – Are you playing the same trick again, and trying who can keep silence longest? Remember that all tricks are either knavish or childish; and that it is as foolish to make experiments upon the constancy of a friend, as upon the chastity of a wife.

‘What can be the cause of this second fit of silence, I cannot conjecture; but after one trick, I will not be cheated by another, nor will harass my thoughts with conjectures about the motives of a man who, probably, acts only by caprice. I therefore suppose you are well, and that Mrs. Boswell is well too; and that the fine summer has restored Lord Auchinleck. I am much better than you left me; I think I am better than when I was in Scotland.

‘I forgot whether I informed you that poor Thrale has been in great danger. Mrs. Thrale likewise has miscarried, and been much indisposed. Every body else is well; Langton is in camp. I intend to put Lord Hailes’s description of Dryden^a into another edition, and as I know his accuracy, wish he would consider the dates, which I could not always settle to my own mind.

‘Mr. Thrale goes to Brighthelmston, about Michaelmas, to be jolly and ride a hunting. I shall go to town, or perhaps to Oxford. Exercise and gaiety, or rather carelessness, will, I hope, dissipate all remains of his malady; and I likewise hope by the change of place, to find some opportunities of growing yet better myself. I am, dear Sir, your humble servant,

‘Streatham, Sept. 9, 1779.’ ‘SAM. JOHNSON.’

My readers will not be displeased at being told every slight circumstance of the manner in which Dr. Johnson contrived to amuse his solitary hours. He sometimes employed himself in chymistry, sometimes in watering and pruning a vine, and sometimes in small experiments, at which those who may smile, should recollect that there are moments which admit of being soothed only by trifles.^b

On the 20th of September I defended myself against his suspicion of me, which I did not deserve; and added, ‘Pray let us write frequently. A whim strikes me, that we should send off a sheet once a week, like a stage-coach, whether it be full or not; nay, though it should be empty. The very sight of your hand-writing would comfort me; and were a sheet to be thus sent regularly, we should much oftener convey something, were it only a few kind words.’

My friend Colonel James Stuart, second son of the Earl of Bute, who had distinguished himself as a good officer of the Bedfordshire militia, had taken a publick-spirited resolution to serve his country in its difficulties, by raising a regular regiment, and taking the command of it himself. This, in the heir of the immense property of Wortley, was highly honourable. Having been in Scotland recruiting, he obligingly asked me to accompany him to Leeds, then the head-quarters of his corps; from thence to London for a short time, and afterwards to other places to which the regiment might be ordered. Such an offer, at a time of the year when I had full leisure, was very pleasing; especially as I was to accompany a man of sterling good sense, information, discernment, and conviviality; and was to have a second crop, in one year, of London and JOHNSON. Of this I informed my illustrious friend, in characteristical warm terms, in a letter dated the 30th of September, from Leeds.

On Monday, October 4, I called at his house before he was up. He sent for me to his bedside, and expressed his satisfaction at this incidental meeting, with as much vivacity as if he had been in the gaiety of youth. He called briskly, ‘Frank, go and get coffee, and let us breakfast in splendour.’

During this visit to London I had several interviews with him, which it is unnecessary to distinguish particularly. I consulted him as to the appointment of guardians to my children, in case of my death. ‘Sir, (said he,) do not appoint a number of guardians. When there are many, they trust one to another, and the business is neglected. I would advise you to choose only one; let him be a man of respectable character, who, for his own credit, will do what is right; let him be a rich man, so that he may be under no temptation to take advantage; and let him be a man of business, who is used to conduct affairs with ability and expertness, to whom, therefore, the execution of the trust will not be burdensome.’

On Sunday, October 10, we dined together at Mr. Strahan’s. The conversation having turned on the prevailing practice of going to the East-Indies in quest of wealth; – JOHNSON. A man had better have ten thousand pounds at the end of ten years passed in England, than twenty thousand pounds at the end of ten years passed in India, because you must compute what you give for money; and a man who has lived ten years in India, has given up ten years of social comfort and all those advantages which arise from living in England. The ingenious Mr. Brown, distinguished by the name of Capability Brown, told me, that he was once at the seat of Lord Clive, who had returned from India with great wealth; and that he shewed him at the door of his bed-chamber a large chest, which he said he had once had full of gold; upon which Brown observed, “I am glad you can bear it so near your bed-chamber.”’

We talked of the state of the poor in London. – JOHNSON. ‘Saunders Welch, the Justice, who was once High-Constable of Holborn, and had the best opportunities of knowing the state of the poor, told me, that I under-rated the number, when I computed that twenty a week, that is, above a thousand a year, died of hunger; not absolutely of immediate hunger; but of the wasting and other diseases which are the consequences of hunger. This happens only in so large a place as London, where people are not known. What we are told about the great sums got by begging is not true: the trade is overstocked. And, you may depend upon it, there are many who cannot get work. A particular kind of manufacture fails: those who have been used to work at it, can, for some time, work at nothing else. You meet a man begging; you charge him with idleness: he says, “I am willing to labour. Will you give me work?” – “I cannot.” – “Why, then you have no right to charge me with idleness.”’

We left Mr. Strahan’s at seven, as Johnson had said he intended to go to evening prayers. As we walked along, he complained of a little gout in his toe, and said, ‘I shan’t go to prayers to-night; I shall go to-morrow: Whenever I miss church on a Sunday, I resolve to go another day. But I do not always do it.’ This was a fair exhibition of that vibration between pious resolutions and indolence, which many of us have too often experienced.

I went home with him, and we had a long quiet conversation.

I read him a letter from Dr. Hugh Blair concerning Pope, (in writing whose life he was now employed,) which I shall insert as a literary curiosity.^a

‘TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.

‘DEAR SIR, – In the year 1763, being at London, I was carried by Dr. John Blair, Prebendary of Westminster, to dine at old Lord Bathurst’s; where we found the late Mr. Mallet, Sir James Porter, who had been Ambassadour at Constantinople, the late Dr. Macaulay, and two or three more. The conversation turning on Mr. Pope, Lord Bathurst told us, that The Essay on Man was originally composed by Lord Bolingbroke in prose, and that Mr. Pope did no more than put it into verse: that he had read Lord Bolingbroke’s manuscript in his own hand-writing; and remembered well, that he was at a loss whether most to admire the elegance of Lord Bolingbroke’s prose, or the beauty of Mr. Pope’s verse. When Lord Bathurst told this, Mr. Mallet bade me attend, and remember this remarkable piece of information; as, by the course of Nature, I might survive his Lordship, and be a witness of his having said so. The conversation was indeed too remarkable to be forgotten. A few days after, meeting with you, who were then also in London, you will remember that I mentioned to you what had passed on this subject, as I was much struck with this anecdote. But what ascertains my recollection of it beyond doubt, is, that being accustomed to keep a journal of what passed when I was in London, which I wrote out every evening, I find the particulars of the above information, just as I have now given them, distinctly marked; and am thence enabled to fix this conversation to have passed on Friday, the 22nd of April, 1763.

‘I remember also distinctly, (though I have not for this the authority of my journal,) that the conversation going on concerning Mr. Pope, I took notice of a report which had been sometimes propagated that he did not understand Greek. Lord Bathurst said to me, that he knew that to be false; for that part of the Iliad was translated by Mr. Pope in his house in the country; and that in the mornings when they assembled at breakfast, Mr. Pope used frequently to repeat, with great rapture, the Greek lines which he had been translating, and then to give them his version of them, and to compare them together.

‘If these circumstances can be of any use to Dr. Johnson, you have my full liberty to give them to him. I beg you will, at the same time, present to him my most respectful compliments, with best wishes for his success and fame in all his literary undertakings. I am, with great respect, my dearest Sir, your most affectionate, and obliged humble servant,

‘Broughton Park, Sept. 21, 1779.’ ‘HUGH BLAIR.’

JOHNSON. ‘Depend upon it, Sir, this is too strongly stated. Pope may have had from Bolingbroke the philosophick stamina of his Essay; and admitting this to be true, Lord Bathurst did not intentionally falsify. But the thing is not true in the latitude that Blair seems to imagine; we are sure that the poetical imagery, which makes a great part of the poem, was Pope’s own. It is amazing, Sir, what deviations there are from precise truth, in the account which is given of almost every thing. I told Mrs. Thrale, “You have so little anxiety about truth, that you never tax your memory with the exact thing.” Now what is the use of the memory to truth, if one is careless of exactness? Lord Hailes’s Annals of Scotland are very exact; but they contain mere dry particulars. They are to be considered as a Dictionary. You know such things are there; and may be looked at when you please. Robertson paints; but the misfortune is, you are sure he does not know the people whom he paints; so you cannot suppose a likeness. Characters should never be given by an historian, unless he knew the people whom he describes, or copies from those who knew them.’

BOSWELL. ‘Why, Sir, do people play this trick which I observe now, when I look at your grate, putting the shovel against it to make the fire burn?’ JOHNSON. ‘They play the trick, but it does not make the fire burn. There is a better; (setting the poker perpendicularly up at right angles with the grate.) In days of superstition they thought, as it made a cross with the bars, it would drive away the witch.’

BOSWELL. ‘By associating with you, Sir, I am always getting an accession of wisdom. But perhaps a man, after knowing his own character – the limited strength of his own mind, should not be desirous of having too much wisdom, considering, quid valeant humeri⁹¹⁵ how little he can carry.’ JOHNSON. ‘Sir, be as wise as you can; let a man be aliis lcBtus, sapiens sibi:⁹¹⁶

“Though pleas’d to see the dolphins play,

I mind my compass and my way.”^a

You may be wise in your study in the morning, and gay in company at a tavern in the evening. Every man is to take care of his own wisdom and his own virtue, without minding too much what others think.’

He said, ‘Dodsley first mentioned to me the scheme of an English Dictionary; but I had long thought of it.’ BOSWELL. ‘You did not know what you were undertaking.’ JOHNSON. ‘Yes, Sir, I knew very well what I was undertaking, – and very well how to do it, – and have done it very well.’ BOSWELL. ‘An excellent climax! and it has availed you. In your Preface you say, “What would it avail me in this gloom of solitude?” You have been agreeably mistaken.’

In his Life of Milton he observes, ‘I cannot but remark a kind of respect, perhaps unconsciously, paid to this great man by his biographers: every house in which he resided is historically mentioned, as if it were an injury to neglect naming any place that he honoured by his presence.’ I had, before I read this observation, been desirous of shewing that respect to Johnson, by Various inquiries. Finding him this evening in a very good hum our, Iprevailed on him to give me an exact list of his places of residence, since he entered the metropolis as an authour, which I subjoin in a note.^b

I mentioned to him a dispute between a friend of mine and his lady, concerning conjugal infidelity, which my friend had maintained was by no means so bad in the husband, as in the wife. JOHNSON. ‘Your friend was in the right, Sir. Between a man and his Maker it is a different question: but between a man and his wife, a husband’s infidelity is nothing. They are connected by children, by fortune, by serious considerations of community. Wise married women don’t trouble themselves about infidelity in their husbands.’ BOSWELL. ‘To be sure there is a great difference between the offence of infidelity in a man and that of his wife.’ JOHNSON. ‘The difference is boundless. The man imposes no bastards upon his wife.’

Here it may be questioned whether Johnson was entirely in the right. I suppose it will not be controverted that the difference in the degree of criminality is very great, on account of consequences: but still it may be maintained, that, independent of moral obligation, infidelity is by no means a light offence in a husband; because it must hurt a delicate attachment, in which a mutual constancy is implied, with such refined sentiments as Massinger has exhibited in his play of The Picture. – Johnson probably at another time would have admitted this opinion. And let it be kept in remembrance, that he was very careful not to give any encouragement to irregular conduct. A gentleman,⁹¹⁸ not adverting to the distinction made by him upon this subject, supposed a case of singular perverseness in a wife, and heedlessly said, ‘That then he thought a husband might do as he pleased with a safe conscience.’ JOHNSON. ‘Nay, Sir, this is wild indeed (smiling;) you must consider that fornication is a crime in a single man; and you cannot have more liberty by being married.’

He this evening expressed himself strongly against the Roman Cath-olicks; observing, ‘In every thing in which they differ from us they are wrong.’ He was even against the invocation of Saints; in short, he was in the humour of opposition.

Having regretted to him that I had learnt little Greek, as is too generally the case in Scotland; that I had for a long time hardly applied at all to the study of that noble language, and that I was desirous of being told by him what method to follow; he recommended to me as easy helps, Sylvanus’s First Book of the Iliad; Dawson’s Lexicon to the Greek New Testament; and Hesiod, with Pasoris Lexicon at the end of it.

On Tuesday, October 12, I dined with him at Mr. Ramsay’s, with Lord Newhaven, and some other company, none of whom I recollect, but a beautiful Miss Graham,^a a relation of his Lordship’s, who asked Dr. Johnson to hob or nob with her. He was flattered by such pleasing attention, and politely told her, he never drank wine; but if she would drink a glass of water, he was much at her service. She accepted. ‘Oho, Sir! (said Lord Newhaven) you are caught.’ JOHNSON. ‘Nay, I do not see how I am caught; but if I am caught, I don’t want to get free again. If I am caught, I hope to be kept.’ Then when the two glasses of water were brought, smiling placidly to the young lady, he said, ‘Madam, let us reciprocate.’

Lord Newhaven and Johnson carried on an argument for some time, concerning the Middlesex election. Johnson said, ‘Parliament may be considered as bound by law as a man is bound where there is nobody to tie the knot. As it is clear that the House of Commons may expel, and expel again and again, why not allow of the power to incapacitate for that parliament, rather than have a perpetual contest kept up between parliament and the people.’ Lord Newhaven took the opposite side; but respectfully said, ‘I speak with great deference to you, Dr. Johnson; I speak to be instructed.’ This had its full effect on my friend. He bowed his head almost as low as the table, to a complimenting nobleman; and called out, ‘My Lord, my Lord, I do not desire all this ceremony; let us tell our minds to one another quietly.’ After the debate was over, he said, ‘I have got lights on the subject to-day, which I had not before.’ This was a great deal from him, especially as he had written a pamphlet^b upon it.

He observed, ‘The House of Commons was originally not a privilege of the people, but a check for the Crown on the House of Lords. I remember Henry the Eighth wanted them to do something; they hesitated in the morning, but did it in the afternoon. He told them, “It is well you did; or half your heads should have been upon Temple-bar.” But the House of Commons is now no longer under the power of the crown, and therefore must be bribed.’ He added, ‘I have no delight in talking of publick affairs.’

Of his fellow-collegian, the celebrated Mr. George Whitefield, he said, ‘Whitefield never drew as much attention as a mountebank does; he did not draw attention by doing better than others, but by doing what was strange. Were Astley to preach a sermon standing upon his head on a horse’s back, he would collect a multitude to hear him; but no wise man would say he had made a better sermon for that. I never treated Whitefield’s ministry with contempt; I believe he did good. He had devoted himself to the lower classes of mankind, and among them he was of use. But when familiarity and noise claim the praise due to knowledge, art, and elegance, we must beat down such pretensions.’

What I have preserved of his conversation during the remainder of my stay in London at this time, is only what follows: I told him that when I objected to keeping company with a notorious infidel,⁹¹⁹ a celebrated friend⁹²⁰ of ours said to me, ‘I do not think that men who live laxly in the world, as you and I do, can with propriety assume such an authority. Dr. Johnson may, who is uniformly exemplary in his conduct. But it is not very consistent to shun an infidel to-day, and get drunk to-morrow.’ JOHNSON. ‘Nay, Sir, this is sad reasoning. Because a man cannot be right in all things, is he to be right in nothing? Because a man sometimes gets drunk, is he therefore to steal? This doctrine would very soon bring a man to the gallows.’

After all, however, it is a difficult question how far sincere Christians should associate with the avowed enemies of religion; for in the first place, almost every man’s mind may be more or less ‘corrupted by evil communications;’⁹²¹ secondly, the world may very naturally suppose that they are not really in earnest in religion, who can easily bear its opponents; and thirdly, if the profane find themselves quite well received by the pious, one of the checks upon an open declaration of their infidelity, and one of the probable chances of obliging them seriously to reflect, which their being shunned would do, is removed.

He, I know not why, shewed upon all occasions an aversion to go to Ireland, where I proposed to him that we should make a tour. JOHNSON. ‘It is the last place where I should wish to travel.’ BOSWELL. ‘Should you not like to see Dublin, Sir?’ JOHNSON. ‘No, Sir; Dublin is only a worse capital.’ BOSWELL. ‘Is not the Giant’s-Causeway worth seeing?’ JOHNSON. ‘Worth seeing? yes; but not worth going to see.’

Yet he had a kindness for the Irish nation, and thus generously expressed himself to a gentleman from that country, on the subjectofan union which artful Politicians have often had in view – ‘Do not make an union with us, Sir. We should unite with you, only to rob you. We should have robbed the Scotch, if they had had any thing of which we could have robbed them.’

Of an acquaintance of ours, whose manners and every thing about him, though expensive, were coarse, he said, ‘Sir, you see in him vulgar prosperity.’

A foreign minister of no very high talents, who had been in his company for a considerable time quite overlooked, happened luckily to mention that he had read some of his Rambler in Italian, and admired it much. This pleased him greatly; he observed that the title had been translated, Il Genio errante, though I have been told it was rendered more ludicrously, Il Vagabondo; and finding that this minister gave such a proof of his taste, he was all attention to him, and on the first remark which he made, however simple, exclaimed, ‘The Ambassadour says well – His Excellency observes – ‘ And then he expanded and enriched the little that had been said, in so strong a manner, that it appeared something of consequence. This was exceedingly entertaining to the company who were present, and many a time afterwards it furnished a pleasant topick of merriment; ‘The Ambassadour says well,’ became a laughable term of applause, when no mighty matter had been expressed.

I left London on Monday, October 18, and accompanied Colonel Stuart to Chester, where his regiment was to lye for some time.

‘MR. BOSWELL to Dr. Johnson

‘MY dEAR SIR, ‘Chester, October 22, 1779.

‘It was not till one o’clock on Monday morning, that Colonel Stuart and I left London; for we chose to bid a cordial adieu to Lord Mountstuart, who was to set out on that day on his embassy to Turin. We drove on excellently, and reached Lichfield in good time enough that night. The Colonel had heard so preferable a character of the George, that he would not put up at the Three Crowns, so that I did not see our host Wilkins. We found at the George as good accommodation as we could wish to have, and I fully enjoyed the comfortable thought that I was in Lichfield again. Next morning it rained very hard; and as I had much to do in a little time, I ordered a post-chaise, and between eight and nine sallied forth to make a round of visits. I first went to Mr. Green, hoping to have had him to accompany me to all my other friends, but he was engaged to attend the Bishop of Sodor and Man, who was then lying at Lichfield very ill of the gout. Having taken a hasty glance at the additions to Green’s museum, from which it was not easy to break away, I next went to the Friery, where I at first occasioned some tumult in the ladies, who were not prepared to receive company so early: but my name, which has by wonderful felicity come to be so closely associated with yours, soon made all easy; and Mrs. Cobb and Miss Adye re-assumed their seats at the breakfast-table, which they had quitted with some precipitation. They received me with the kindness of an old acquaintance; and after we had joined in a cordial chorus to your praise, Mrs. Cobb gave me the high satisfaction of hearing that you said, “Boswell is a man who I believe never left a house without leaving a wish for his return.” And she afterwards added, that she bid you tell me, that if ever I came to Lichfield, she hoped I would take a bed at the Friery. From thence I drove to Peter Garrick’s, where I also found a very flattering welcome. He appeared to me to enjoy his usual cheerfulness; and he very kindly asked me to come when I could, and pass a week with him. From Mr. Garrick’s, I went to the Palace to wait on Mr. Seward. I was first entertained by his lady and daughter, he himself being in bed with a cold, according to his valetudinary custom. But he desired to see me; and I found him drest in his black gown, with a white flannel night-gown above it; so that he looked like a Dominican friar. He was good-humoured and polite; and under his roof too my reception was very pleasing. I then proceeded to Stow-hill, and first paid my respects to Mrs. Gastrell, whose conversation I was not willing to quit. But my sand-glass was now beginning to run low, as I could not trespass too long on the Colonel’s kindness, who obligingly waited for me; so I hastened to Mrs. Aston’s, whom I found much better than I feared I should; and there I met a brother-in-law of these ladies, who talked much of you, and very well too, as it appeared to me. It then only remained to visit Mrs. Lucy Porter, which I did, I really believe, with sincere satisfaction on both sides. I am sure I was glad to see her again; and, as I take her to be very honest, I trust she was glad to see me again; for she expressed herself so, that I could not doubt of her being in earnest. What a great key-stone of kindness, my dear Sir, were you that morning! for we were all held together by our common attachment to you. I cannot say that I ever passed two hours with more self-complacency than I did those two at Lichfield. Let me not entertain any suspicion that this is idle vanity. Will not you confirm me in my persuasion, that he who finds himself so regarded has just reason to be happy?

‘We got to Chester about midnight on Tuesday; and here again I am in a state of much enjoyment. Colonel Stuart and his officers treat me with all the civility I could wish; and I play my part admirably. Lætus aliis, sapiens sibi, the classical sentence which you, I imagine, invented the other day,⁹²² is exemplified in my present existence. The Bishop, to whom I had the honour to be known several years ago, shews me much attention; and I am edified by his conversation. I must not omit to tell you, that his Lordship admires, very highly, your Prefaces to the Poets. I am daily obtaining an extension of agreeable acquaintance, so that I am kept in animated variety; and the study of the place itself, by the assistance of books, and of the Bishop, is sufficient occupation. Chester pleases my fancy more than any town I ever saw. But I will not enter upon it at all in this letter.

‘How long I shall stay here, I cannot yet say. I told a very pleasing young lady,^a niece to one of the Prebendaries,⁹²³ at whose house I saw her, “I have come to Chester, Madam, I cannot tell how; and far less can I tell how I am to get away from it.” Do not think me too juvenile. I beg it of you, my dear Sir, to favour me with a letter while I am here, and add to the happiness of a happy friend, who is ever, with affectionate veneration, most sincerely yours,

‘JAMES BOSWELL.’

‘If you do not write directly, so as to catch me here, I shall be disappointed. Two lines from you will keep my lamp burning bright.’

‘TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.

‘DEAR SIR, – Why should you importune me so earnestly to write? Of what importance can it be to hear of distant friends, to a man who finds himself welcome wherever he goes, and makes new friends faster than he can want them? If, to the delight of such universal kindness of reception, any thing can be added by knowing that you retain my good-will, you may indulge yourself in the full enjoyment of that small addition.

‘I am glad that you made the round of Lichfield with so much success: the oftener you are seen, the more you will be liked. It was pleasing to me to read that Mrs. Aston was so well; and that Lucy Porter was so glad to see you.

‘In the place where you now are, there is much to be observed; and you will easily procure yourself skilful directors. But what will you do to keep away the black dog that worries you at home? If you would, in compliance with your father’s advice, enquire into the old tenures and old charters of Scotland, you would certainly open to yourself many striking scenes of the manners of the middle ages. The feudal system, in a country half-barbarous, is naturally productive of great anomalies in civil life. The knowledge of past times is naturally growing less in all cases not of publick record; and the past time of Scotland is so unlike the present, that it is already difficult for a Scotchman to image the œconomy of his grandfather. Do not be tardy nor negligent; but gather up eagerly what can yet be found.^a

‘We have, I think, once talked of another project, a History of the late insurrection in Scotland, with all its incidents. Many falsehoods are passing into uncontradicted history. Voltaire, who loved a striking story, has told what he could not find to be true.

‘You may make collections for either of these projects, or for both, as opportunities occur, and digest your materials at leisure. The great direction which Burton has left to men disordered like you, is this, Be not solitary; be not idle: which I would thus modify; – If you are idle, be not solitary; if you are solitary, be not idle.

‘There is a letter for you, from your humble servant,

‘London, October 27, 1779.’ ‘SAM. JOHNSON.’

‘TO DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON

‘MY dEAR SIR, ‘Carlisle, Nov. 7, 1779.

‘That I should importune you to write to me at Chester, is not wonderful, when you consider what an avidity I have for delight; and that the amor of pleasure, like the amor nummi,⁹²⁴ increases in proportion with the quantity which we possess of it. Your letter, so full of polite kindness and masterly counsel, came like a large treasure upon me, while already glittering with riches. I was quite enchanted at Chester, so that I could with difficulty quit it. But the enchantment was the reverse of that of Circe;⁹²⁵ for so far was there from being any thing sensual in it, that I was all mind. I do not mean all reason only; for my fancy was kept finely in play. And why not? – If you please I will send you a copy, or an abridgement of my Chester journal, which is truly a log-book of felicity.

‘The Bishop treated me with a kindness which was very flattering. I told him, that you regretted you had seen so little of Chester. His Lordship bade me tell you, that he should be glad to shew you more of it. I am proud to find the friendship with which you honour me is known in so many places.

‘I arrived here late last night. Our friend the Dean^a has been gone from hence some months; but I am told at my inn, that he is very populous (popular). However, I found Mr. Law, the Archdeacon, son to the Bishop, and with him I have breakfasted and dined very agreeably. I got acquainted with him at the assizes here, about a year and a half ago; he is a man of great variety of knowledge, uncommon genius, and I believe, sincere religion. I received the holy sacrament in the Cathedral in the morning, this being the first Sunday in the month; and was at prayers there in the evening. It is divinely cheering to me to think that there is a Cathedral so near Auchinleck; and I now leave Old England in such a state of mind as I am thankful to God for granting me.

‘The black dog that worries me at home I cannot but dread; yet as I have been for some time past in a military train, I trust I shall repulse him. To hear from you will animate me like the sound of a trumpet, I therefore hope, that soon after my return to the northern field, I shall receive a few lines from you.

‘Colonel Stuart did me the honour to escort me in his carriage to shew me Liverpool, and rom thence back again to Warrington, where we parted.^b In justice to my valuable wife, I must inform you she wrote to me, that as I was so happy, she would not be so selfish as to wish me to return sooner than business absolutely required my presence. She made my clerk write to me a post or two after to the same purpose, by commission from her; and this day a kind letter from her met me at the Post-Office here, acquainting me that she and the little ones were well, and expressing all their wishes for my return home. I am, more and more, my dear Sir, your affectionate and obliged humble servant, ‘JAMES BOSWELL.’

‘TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.

‘DEAR SIR, – Your last letter was not only kind but fond. But I wish you to get rid of all intellectual excesses, and neither to exalt your pleasures, nor aggravate your vexations, beyond their real and natural state. Why should you not be as happy at Edinburgh as at Chester? In culpa est animus, qui se non effugit usquam.⁹²⁶ Please yourself with your wife and children, and studies, and practice.

‘I have sent a petition^a from Lucy Porter, with which I leave it to your discretion whether it is proper to comply. Return me her letter, which I have sent, that you may know the whole case, and not be seduced to any thing that you may afterwards repent. Miss Doxy perhaps you know to be Mr. Garrick’s niece.

‘If Dean Percy can be popular at Carlisle, he may be very happy. He has in his disposal two livings, each equal, or almost equal in value to the deanery; he may take one himself, and give the other to his son.

‘How near is the Cathedral to Auchinleck, that you are so much delighted with it? It is, I suppose, at least an hundred and fifty miles off. However, if you are pleased, it is so far well.

‘Let me know what reception you have from your father, and the state of his health. Please him as much as you can, and add no pain to his last years.

‘Of our friends here I can recollect nothing to tell you. I have neither seen nor heard of Langton. Beauclerk is just returned from Brighthelmston, I am told, much better. Mr. Thrale and his family are still there; and his health is said to be visibly improved; he has not bathed, but hunted.

At Bolt-court there is much malignity, but of late little open hostility.^b I have had a cold, but it is gone.

‘Make my compliments to Mrs. Boswell, &c. I am, Sir, your humble servant,’

‘London, Nov. 13, 1779.’ ‘SAM. JOHNSON.’

On November 22, and December 21, I wrote to him from Edinburgh, giving a very favourable report of the family of Miss Doxy’s lover; – that after a good deal of enquiry I had discovered the sister of Mr. Francis Stewart, one of his amanuenses when writing his Dictionary; – that I had, as desired by him, paid her a guinea for an old pocket-book of her brother’s which he had retained; and that the good woman, who was in very moderate circumstances, but contented and placid, wondered at his scrupulous and liberal honesty, and received the guinea as if sent her by Providence. – That I had repeatedly begged of him to keep his promise to send me his letter to Lord Chesterfield, and that this memento, like Delenda est Carthago,⁹²⁸ must be in every letter that I should write to him, till I had obtained my object.

1780: yEtat. 71.] – 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.

‘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 distressed solitude, is, perhaps for want of habitual piety, to a gloomy acquiescence in necessity. Of two mortal beings, one must lose the other; but surely there is a higher and 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. I am, dear Sir, your most affectionate, and most humble servant,

‘January 20, 1780.’ ‘SAM. JOHNSON.’

‘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 –nee, ut soles, dabis joca.⁹²⁹ 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 Russian ambassador.^a

‘Dr. Percy, notwithstanding all the noise of the newspapers, has had no literary loss.^b 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 something 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;⁹³⁰ 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. Stewart 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,

‘April 8, 1780.’ ‘SAM. JOHNSON.’

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 intercourse. 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 passedatMrs. 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^a 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’s^b sore eyes have just released her; she had a long confinement, and could neither read nor write, so my master^c treated her very good-naturedly with the visits of a young woman in this town, a taylor’s daughter,⁹³¹ who professes musick, and teaches so as to give six lessons a day to ladies, at five and threepence 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 has got a good dawling^d companion to ride with him now…⁹³² 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 Mrs. 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,

‘Bath, Friday, April 28.’ H.L.T.’

‘DR. JOHNSON to MRS. THRALE

‘DEAREST MADAM, – Mr. Thrale never will live abstinently, till he can persuade himself to live by rule.^e… 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 unheeded, any difference in taste or opinion, and some difference where there is no restraint will commonly appear, 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 Letters⁹³³ 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 convenient. You would, by your own confession, want a companion; and she is par pluribus; conversing with her you may find variety in one.^a

‘London, May 1, 1780.’

On the 2nd 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 both 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 judgment, receives more and more confirmation by hearing what, 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.”

‘On 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;avery agreeable ingenious man; Dr. Warren, Mr. Pepys, the Master in Chancery, whomIbelieve 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 23, 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, Broome, and Gray, who were all of Cambridge, 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.⁹³⁵ 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 forwardbya 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: –^a

‘On Friday,^b the good Protestants met in Saint 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 sentinels, 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 conflagration 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 [June 9] 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 hunted 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 publisher 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 retaken; 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 under the protection of the King and the law. I thought that it would be agreeable 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^a 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 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 shall 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, speaking 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 haditoriginally inagreat 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 complacency 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:^a ‘I have had with me a brother of Boswell’s, a Spanish merchant,^a 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 years 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.⁹³⁶ 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,^b 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,^c that I am, Sir, your most humble servant,

‘Bolt-court, Fleet-street, ‘SAM. JOHNSON.’

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 sat 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.^a 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,^b and who think has a kindness or 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,

‘London, Aug. 21, 1780.’ ‘SAM. JOHNSON.’

This year he wrote to a young clergyman⁹³⁷ 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 peculiarity 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 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 burthen your mind with too much at once; do not exact from yourself at one effort of excogitation, 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,^a who was then a little rector in North amptonshire, 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 clergyman; 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,

‘Bolt-court, Aug. 30, 1780.’ ‘SAM. JOHNSON.’

My next letters to him were dated 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 confirms the pleasing hope of O! preclarum diem!⁹³⁸ 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 I had once been intentionally silent to try your regard, I gave you my word and honour that I would 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;^a 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 neighbourhood 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,

‘Southwark, Sept. 5, 1780.’ ‘HENRY THRALE.’

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.’^a

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 Lordship’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, October 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 favour 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,

‘October 17, 1780.’ ‘SAM. JOHNSON.’

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. 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,⁹³⁹ 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 the 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.⁹⁴⁰ 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 particulars of this nature, what Giannone said to a monk, who wanted what he called to convert him: “Tu sei santo, ma tu non sei filosofo.”⁹⁴¹ – 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 sat 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 anfractuosities⁹⁴² of the human mind, I know not if it may not be one, that there is a superstitious 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 authorities 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 merchant 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 wonderful 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.” 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.”’⁹⁴³

‘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 judgement 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 to him a letter of compliment which he had received 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.^a

‘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, $$. “Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace.”^b 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,⁹⁴⁴ 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.^a There might, indeed, be something in the contemptuous 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 ludicrous 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;⁹⁴⁵I 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;”⁹⁴⁶ (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 surprised 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.”’⁹⁴⁷

‘He would allow no settled indulgence of idleness upon principle, and always repelled every attempt to urge excuses for it. A friend one day suggested, 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:”⁹⁴⁸

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 person⁹⁴⁹ 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 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,⁹⁵⁰ 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 the making a partial change, without a due regard to the general structure of the sentence, is a very frequent cause of errour in composition.”’

‘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 salutation. 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 your own. You do not know what a Bramin has to say for himself.^a In short, Sir, I have got no further 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. Martyrdom 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 tallow-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 authour⁹⁵¹ in a publick room at the rate of five shillings each for admission. One of the company⁹⁵² 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 learning 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.’⁹⁵³

‘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 rhimes 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.^a

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 repeated by him, that it nearly comprized all the advantages 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 observation –For any thing I see, foreigners are fools.”’

‘He said, that once, when he had a violent tooth-ach, a Frenchman accosted him thus: – “Ah, Monsieur, vous etudiez trop.”’⁹⁵⁶

‘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.’⁹⁵⁷

‘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 apprehended, 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 ministering 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, though 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 exaggerating 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, therefore, 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 Lord –,⁹⁵⁸ 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 grammaticise his English.”’

‘A clergyman,⁹⁵⁹ 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,⁹⁶⁰ 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 partof that song which Ishould wish toexemplifyin myown life: –

‘May I govern my passions with absolute sway!’ ”’⁹⁶¹

‘Being asked if Barnes knew a good deal of Greek, he answered, “I doubt, Sir, he was unoculus inter cæcos.”’⁹⁶²

‘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 has in the world. Take up whatever topick you please, he is ready to meet you.”’

‘A gentleman,⁹⁶³ 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 Clenardus’s Greek Grammar, “Why, Sir, (said he,) who is there in this town who knows any thing of Clenardus 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,⁹⁶⁴ “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, however, 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 he 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 brother⁹⁶⁵ 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 entertaining.” – “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 continued 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 duly 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.’^a

‘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 by Mr. Langton to his Lordship, while under arrest, he saw him several times; upon one of which occasions Lord Charles read to him what he had prepared, which Johnson signified his approbation 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 sentence was made known.’

Johnson one day gave high praise to Dr. Bentley’s verses^a 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.”’^b

‘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.”⁹⁶⁹

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.”’^a

‘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 Coverly 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 him 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 Athens⁹⁷¹ 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 seized 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.”’

‘Beauclerk having observed to him of one of their friends, that he was aukward at counting money, “Why, Sir, (said Johnson,) I am likewise aukward at counting money. But then, Sir, the reason is plain; I have had very little money to count.”’

‘He had an abhorrence of affectation. Talking of old Mr. Langton, of whom he said, “Sir, you will seldom see such a gentleman, such are his stores of literature, such his knowledge in divinity, and such his exemplary life;” he added, “and Sir, he has no grimace, no gesticulation, no bursts of admiration on trivial occasions; he never embraces you with an overacted cordiality.”’

‘Being in company with a gentleman who thought fit to maintain Dr. Berkeley’s ingenious philosophy, that nothing exists but as perceived by some mind; when the gentleman was going away, Johnson said to him, “Pray, Sir, don’t leave us; for we may perhaps forget to think of you, and then you will cease to exist.”’

‘Goldsmith, upon being visited by Johnson one day in the Temple, said to him with a little jealousy of the appearance of his accommodation, “I shall soon be in better chambers than these.” Johnson at the same time checked him and paid him a handsome compliment, implying that a man of his talents should be above attention to such distinctions, – “Nay, Sir, never mind that. Nil te qucBsiveris extra.”’⁹⁷²

‘At the time when his pension was granted to him, he said, with a noble literary ambition, “Had this happened twenty years ago, I should have gone to Constantinople to learn Arabick, as Pococke did.”’

‘As an instance of the niceness of his taste, though he praised West’s translation of Pindar, he pointed out the following passage as faulty, by expressing a circumstance so minute as to detract from the general dignity which should prevail:

“Down then from thy glittering nail,

Take, O Muse, thy Dorian lyre.”’⁹⁷³

‘When Mr. Vesey was proposed as a member of the Literary Club, Mr. Burke began by saying that he was a man of gentle manners. “Sir, (said Johnson,) you need say no more. When you have said a man of gentle manners; you have said enough.”’

‘The late Mr. Fitzherbert told Mr. Langton that Johnson said to him, “Sir, a man has no more right to say an uncivil thing, than to act one; no more right to say a rude thing to another than to knock him down.”’

‘My dear friend Dr. Bathurst, (said he with a warmth of approbation,) declared he was glad that his father, who was a West-Indian planter, had left his affairs in total ruin, because having no estate, he was not under the temptation of having slaves.’

‘Richardson had little conversation, except about his own works, of which Sir Joshua Reynolds said he was always willing to talk, and glad to have them introduced. Johnson when he carried Mr. Langton to see him, professed that he could bring him out into conversation, and used this allusive expression, “Sir, I can make him rear.” But he failed; for in that interview Richardson said little else than that there lay in the room a translation of his Clarissa into German.’^a

‘Once when somebody produced a newspaper in which there was a letter of stupid abuse of Sir Joshua Reynolds, of which Johnson himself came in for a share, – “Pray,” said he, “let us have it read aloud from beginning to end;” which being done, he with a ludicrous earnestness, and not directing his look to any particular person, called out, “Are we alive after all this satire!”’

‘He had a strong prejudice against the political character of Secker, one instance of which appeared at Oxford, where he expressed great dissatisfaction at his varying the old established toast, “Church and King.” “The Archbishop of Canterbury,” said he (with an affected smooth smiling grimace,) “drinks, ‘Constitution in Church and State.’ ” Being asked what difference there was between the two toasts, he said, “Why, Sir, you may be sure he meant something.” Yet when the life of that prelate, prefixed to his sermons by Dr. Porteus and Dr. Stinton his chaplains, first came out, he read it with the utmost avidity, and said, “It is a life well written, and that well deserves to be recorded.”’

‘Of a certain noble Lord,⁹⁷⁴ he said, “Respect him, you could not; for he had no mind of his own. Love him you could not; for that which you could do with him, every one else could.”’

‘Of Dr. Goldsmith he said, “No man was more foolish when he had not a pen in his hand, or more wise when he had.”’

‘He told in his lively manner the following literary anecdote: “Green and Guthrie, an Irishman and a Scotchman, undertook a translation of Duhalde’s History of China. Green said of Guthrie, that he knew no English, and Guthrie of Green, that he knew no French; and these two undertook to translate Duhalde’s History of China. In this translation there was found “the twenty-sixth day of the new moon.” Now as the whole age of the moon is but twenty-eight days, the moon instead of being new, was nearly as old as it could be. Their blunder arose from their mistaking the word neuvieme ninth, for nouvelle or neuve, new.”’

‘Talking of Dr. Blagden’s copiousness and precision of communication, Dr. Johnson said, “Blagden, Sir, is a delightful fellow.”’

‘On occasion of Dr. Johnson’s publishing his pamphlet of The False Alarm, there came out a very angry answer⁹⁷⁵ (by many supposed to be by Mr. Wilkes). Dr. Johnson determined on not answering it; but, in conversation with Mr. Langton, mentioned a particular or two, which if he had replied to it, he might perhaps have inserted. In the answerer’s pamphlet, it had been said with solemnity, “Do you consider, Sir, that a House of Commons is to the people as a Creature is to its Creator?” To this question, said Dr. Johnson, I could have replied, that – in the first place – the idea of a Creator must be such as that He has a power to unmake or annihilate His creature.’

‘Then it cannot be conceived that a creature can make laws for its CREATOR.’^a

‘Depend upon it, said he, that if a man talks of his misfortunes, there is something in them that is not disagreeable to him; for where there is nothing but pure misery, there never is any recourse to the mention of it.’

‘A man must be a poor beast that should read no more in quantity than he could utter aloud.’

‘Imlac in Rasselas, I spelt with a c at the end, because it is less like English, which should always have the Saxon k added to the c.’^b

‘Many a man is mad in certain instances, and goes through life without having it perceived: for example, a madness has seized a person of supposing himself obliged literally to pray continually – had the madness turned the opposite way and the person thought it a crime ever to pray, it might not improbably have continued unobserved.’

‘He apprehended that the delineation of characters in the end of the first Book of the Retreat of the Ten Thousand⁹⁷⁷ was the first instance of the kind that was known.’

‘Supposing (said he,) a wife to be of a studious or argumentative turn, it would be very troublesome: for instance, – if a woman should continually dwell upon the subject of the Arian heresy.’⁹⁷⁸

‘No man speaks concerning another, even suppose it be in his praise, if he thinks he does not hear him, exactly as he would, if he thought he was within hearing.’

‘ “The applause of a single human being is of great consequence:” This he said to me with great earnestness of manner, very near the time of his decease, on occasion of having desired me to read a letter addressed to him from some person in the North of England; which when I had done, and he asked me what the contents were, as I thought being particular upon it might fatigue him, it being of great length, I only told him in general that it was highly in his praise; – and then he expressed himself as above.’

‘He mentioned with an air of satisfaction what Baretti had told him; that, meeting, in the course of his studying English, with an excellent paper in the Spectator, one of four that were written by the respectable Dissenting Minister, Mr. Grove of Taunton, and observing the genius and energy of mind that it exhibits, it greatly quickened his curiosity to visit our country; as he thought if such were the lighter periodical essays of our authours, their productions on more weighty occasions must be wonderful indeed!’

‘He observed once, at Sir Joshua Reynolds’s, that a beggar in the street will more readily ask alms from a man, though there should be no marks of wealth in his appearance, than from even a well-dressed woman;^a which he accounted for from the greater degree of carefulness as to money that is to be found in women; saying farther upon it, that the opportunities in general that they possess of improving their condition are much fewer than men have; and adding, as he looked round the company, which consisted of men only, – there is not one of us who does not think he might be richer if he would use his endeavour.’

‘He thus characterised an ingenious writer⁹⁷⁹ of his acquaintance: “Sir, he is an enthusiast by rule.”’

‘ “He may hold up that shield against all his enemies;” – was an observation on Homer, in reference to his description of the shield of Achilles,⁹⁸⁰ made by Mrs. Fitzherbert, wife to his friend Mr. Fitzherbert of Derbyshire, and respected by Dr. Johnson as a very fine one. He had in general a very high opinion of that lady’s understanding.’

‘An observation of Bathurst’s may be mentioned, which Johnson repeated, appearing to acknowledge it to be well founded, namely, it was somewhat remarkable how seldom, on occasion of coming into the company of any new person, one felt any wish or inclination to see him again.’

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, ‘$$, the best philosopher whom I have ever seen or known.’

1781: yEtat. 72.] – In 1781 Johnson at last completed his Lives of the Poets, of which he gives this account: ‘Some time in March I finished the Lives of the Poets, which I wrote in my usual way, dilatorily and hastily, unwilling to work, and working with vigour and haste.’^a In a memorandum previous to this, he says of them: ‘Written, I hope, in such a manner as may tend to the promotion of piety.’^b

This is the work which of all Dr. Johnson’s writings will perhaps be read most generally, and with most pleasure. Philology and biography were his favourite pursuits, and those who lived most in intimacy with him, heard him upon all occasions, when there was a proper opportunity, take delight in expatiating upon the various merits of the English Poets: upon the niceties of their characters, and the events of their progress through the world which they contributed to illuminate. His mind was so full of that kind of information, and it was so well arranged in his memory, that in performing what he had undertaken in this way, he had little more to do than to put his thoughts upon paper, exhibiting first each Poet’s life, and then subjoining a critical examination of his genius and works. But when he began to write, the subject swelled in such a manner, that instead of prefaces to each poet, of no more than a few pages, as he had originally intended,^c he produced an ample, rich, and most entertaining view of them in every respect. In this he resembled Quintilian, who tells us, that in the composition of his Institutions of Oratory, ‘Latius se tamen aperiente materiaˆ, plus quàm imponebatur oneris sponte suscepi.’⁹⁸¹ The booksellers, justly sensible of the great additional value of the copy-right, presented him with another hundred pounds, over and above two hundred, for which his agreement was to furnish such prefaces as he thought fit.

This was, however, but a small recompence for such a collection of biography, and such principles and illustrations of criticism, as, if digested and arranged in one system, by some modern Aristotle or Longinus, might form a code upon that subject, such as no other nation can shew. As he was so good as to make me a present of the greatest part of the original, and indeed only manuscript of this admirable work, I have an opportunity of observing with wonder the correctness with which he rapidly struck off such glowing composition. He may be assimilated to the Lady in Waller, who could impress with ‘Love at first sight:’

‘Some other nymphs with colours faint,

And pencil slow may Cupid paint,

And a weak heart in time destroy;

She has a stamp, and prints the boy.’⁹⁸²

That he, however, had a good deal of trouble, and some anxiety in carrying on the work, we see from a series of letters to Mr. Nichols the printer,^a whose variety of literary inquiry and obliging disposition, rendered him very useful to JOHNSON. Mr. Steevens appears, from the papers in my possession, to have supplied him with some anecdotes and quotations; and I observe the fair hand of Mrs. Thrale as one of his copyists of select passages. But he was principally indebted to my steady friend Mr. Isaac Reed, of Staple-inn, whose extensive and accurate knowledge of English literary history I do not express with exaggeration, when I say it is wonderful; indeed his labours have proved it to the world; and all who have the pleasure of his acquaintance can bear testimony to the frankness of his communications in private society.

It is not my intention to dwell upon each of Johnson’s Lives of the Poets, or attempt an analysis of their merits, which, were I able to do it, would take up too much room in this work; yet I shall make a few observations upon some of them, and insert a few various readings.

The Life of Cowley he himself considered as the best of the whole, on account of the dissertation which it contains on the Metaphysical Poets. Dryden, whose critical abilities were equal to his poetical, had mentioned them in his excellent Dedication of his Juvenal, but had barely mentioned them. Johnson has exhibited them at large, with such happy illustration from their writings, and in so luminous a manner, that indeed he may be allowed the full merit of novelty, and to have discovered to us, as it were, a new planet in the poetical hemisphere.

It is remarked by Johnson, in considering the works of a poet,^a that ‘amendments are seldom made without some token of a rent;’ but I do not find that this is applicable to prose.^b We shall see that though his amendments in this work are for the better, there is nothing of the pannus assutus;⁹⁸⁴ the texture is uniform: and indeed, what had been there at first, is very seldom unfit to have remained.

Various Readings^c in the Life of COWLEY.

‘All [future votaries of] that may hereafter pant for solitude.

‘To conceive and execute the [agitation or perception] pains and the pleasures of other minds.

‘The wide effulgence of [the blazing] a summer noon.’

In the Life of WALLER, Johnson gives a distinct and animated narrative of publick affairs in that variegated period, with strong yet nice touches of character; and having a fair opportunity to display his political principles, does it with an unqualified manly confidence, and satisfies his readers how nobly he might have executed a Tory History of his country.

So easy is his style in these Lives, that I do not recollect more than three uncommon or learned words; one, when giving an account of the approach of Waller’s mortal disease, he says, ‘he found his legs grow tumid;’ by using the expression his legs swelled, he would have avoided this; and there would have been no impropriety in its being followed by the interesting question to his physician, ‘What that swelling meant?’ Another, when he mentions that Pope had emitted proposals; when published or issued would have been more readily understood; and a third, when he calls Orrery and Dr. Delany, writers both undoubtedly veracious; when true, honest, or faithful, might have been used. Yet, it must be owned, that none of these are hard or too big words; that custom would make them seem as easy as any others; and that a language is richer and capable of more beauty of expression, by having a greater variety of synonimes.

His dissertation upon the unfitness of poetry for the aweful subjects of our holy religion, though I do not entirely agree with him, has all the merit of originality, with uncommon force and reasoning.

Various Readings in the Life of WALLER.

‘Consented to [the insertion of their names] their own nomination.

‘[After] paying a fine of ten thousand pounds.

‘Congratulating Charles the Second on his [coronation] recovered right.

‘He that has flattery ready for all whom the vicissitudes of the world happen to exalt, must be [confessed to degrade his powers] scorned as a prostituted mind.

‘The characters by which Waller intended to distinguish his writings are [elegance] sprightliness and dignity.

‘Blossoms to be valued only as they [fetch] foretell fruits.

‘Images such as the superficies of nature [easily] readily supplies.

‘[His] Some applications [are sometimes] may be thought too remote and unconsequential.

‘His images are [sometimes confused] not always distinct.’

Against his Life of Milton, the hounds of Whiggism have opened in full cry. But of Milton’s great excellence as a poet, where shall we find such a blazon⁹⁸⁵ as by the hand of Johnson? I shall select only the following passage concerning Paradise Lost:

‘Fancy can hardly forbear to conjecture with what temper Milton surveyed the silent progress of his work, and marked his reputation stealing its way in a kind of subterraneous current, through fear and silence. I cannot but conceive him calm and confident, little disappointed, not at all dejected, relying on his own merit with steady consciousness, and waiting without impatience the vicissitudes of opinion, and the impartiality of a future generation.’