'Never speak of a man in his own presence. It is always indelicate, and may be offensive.'

'Questioning is not the mode of conversation among gentlemen[1385]. It is assuming a superiority, and it is particularly wrong to question a man concerning himself. There may be parts of his former life which he may not wish to be made known to other persons, or even brought to his own recollection.'

'A man should be careful never to tell tales of himself to his own disadvantage. People may be amused and laugh at the time, but they will be remembered, and brought out against him upon some subsequent occasion.'

'Much may be done if a man puts his whole mind to a particular object. By doing so, Norton[1386] has made himself the great lawyer that he is allowed to be.'

I mentioned an acquaintance of mine[1387], a sectary, who was a very religious man, who not only attended regularly on publick worship with those of his communion, but made a particular study of the Scriptures, and even wrote a commentary on some parts of them, yet was known to be very licentious in indulging himself with women; maintaining that men are to be saved by faith alone, and that the Christian religion had not prescribed any fixed rule for the intercourse between the sexes. JOHNSON. 'Sir, there is no trusting to that crazy piety.'

I observed that it was strange how well Scotchmen were known to one another in their own country, though born in very distant counties; for we do not find that the gentlemen of neighbouring counties in England are mutually known to each other. Johnson, with his usual acuteness, at once saw and explained the reason of this; 'Why, Sir, you have Edinburgh, where the gentlemen from all your counties meet, and which is not so large but they are all known. There is no such common place of collection in England, except London, where from its great size and diffusion, many of those who reside in contiguous counties of England, may long remain unknown to each other.'

On Tuesday, March 26, there came for us an equipage properly suited to a wealthy well-beneficed clergyman;—Dr. Taylor's large roomy post-chaise, drawn by four stout plump horses, and driven by two steady jolly postillions, which conveyed us to Ashbourne; where I found my friend's schoolfellow living upon an establishment perfectly corresponding with his substantial creditable equipage: his house, garden, pleasure-grounds, table, in short every thing good, and no scantiness appearing. Every man should form such a plan of living as he can execute completely. Let him not draw an outline wider than he can fill up. I have seen many skeletons of shew and magnificence which excite at once ridicule and pity. Dr. Taylor had a good estate of his own, and good preferment in the church[1388], being a prebendary of Westminster, and rector of Bosworth. He was a diligent justice of the peace, and presided over the town of Ashbourne, to the inhabitants of which I was told he was very liberal; and as a proof of this it was mentioned to me, he had the preceding winter distributed two hundred pounds among such of them as stood in need of his assistance. He had consequently a considerable political interest in the county of Derby, which he employed to support the Devonshire family; for though the schoolfellow and friend of Johnson, he was a Whig. I could not perceive in his character much congeniality of any sort with that of Johnson, who, however, said to me, 'Sir, he has a very strong understanding[1389].' His size, and figure, and countenance, and manner, were that of a hearty English 'Squire, with the parson super-induced: and I took particular notice of his upper servant, Mr. Peters, a decent grave man, in purple clothes, and a large white wig, like the butler or major domo of a Bishop.

Dr. Johnson and Dr. Taylor met with great cordiality; and Johnson soon gave him the same sad account of their school-fellow, Congreve, that he had given to Mr. Hector[1390]; adding a remark of such moment to the rational conduct of a man in the decline of life, that it deserves to be imprinted upon every mind: 'There is nothing against which an old man should be so much upon his guard as putting himself to nurse[1391].' Innumerable have been the melancholy instances of men once distinguished for firmness, resolution, and spirit, who in their latter days have been governed like children, by interested female artifice.

Dr. Taylor commended a physician who was known to him and Dr. Johnson, and said, 'I fight many battles for him, as many people in the country dislike him.' JOHNSON. 'But you should consider, Sir, that by every one of your victories he is a loser; for, every man of whom you get the better, will be very angry, and resolve not to employ him; whereas if people get the better of you in argument about him, they'll think, "We'll send for Dr. ——[1392] nevertheless."' This was an observation deep and sure in human nature.

Next day we talked of a book[1393] in which an eminent judge was arraigned before the bar of the publick, as having pronounced an unjust decision in a great cause. Dr. Johnson maintained that this publication would not give any uneasiness to the judge. 'For (said he,) either he acted honestly, or he meant to do injustice. If he acted honestly, his own consciousness will protect him; if he meant to do injustice, he will be glad to see the man who attacks him, so much vexed,'

Next day, as Dr. Johnson had acquainted Dr. Taylor of the reason for his returning speedily to London, it was resolved that we should set out after dinner. A few of Dr. Taylor's neighbours were his guests that day.

Dr. Johnson talked with approbation of one who had attained to the state of the philosophical wise man, that is, to have no want of any thing. 'Then, Sir, (said I,) the savage is a wise man.' 'Sir, (said he,) I do not mean simply being without,—but not having a want.' I maintained, against this proposition, that it was better to have fine clothes, for instance, than not to feel the want of them. JOHNSON. 'No, Sir; fine clothes are good only as they supply the want of other means of procuring respect. Was Charles the Twelfth, think you, less respected for his coarse blue coat and black stock[1394]? And you find the King of Prussia dresses plain, because the dignity of his character is sufficient.' I here brought myself into a scrape, for I heedlessly said, 'Would not you, Sir, be the better for velvet and embroidery?' JOHNSON. 'Sir, you put an end to all argument when you introduce your opponent himself. Have you no better manners? There is your want.' I apologised by saying, I had mentioned him as an instance of one who wanted as little as any man in the world, and yet, perhaps, might receive some additional lustre from dress.



APPENDIX A. (Page 17.)

In the Bodleian is the following autograph record by Johnson of Good Friday, March 28, Easter Sunday, March 30, and May 4, 1766, and the copy of the record of Saturday, March 29. They belong to the series published by the Rev. Mr. Strahan under the title of Prayers and Meditations, but they are not included in it.

'Good Friday, March 28, 1766.—On the night before I used proper Collects, and prayed when I arose in the morning. I had all the week an awe upon me, not thinking on Passion week till I looked in the almanack. I have wholly forborne M [? meat] and wines, except one glass on Sunday night.

'In the morning I rose, and drank very small tea without milk, and had nothing more that day.

'This was the day on which Tetty died. I did not mingle much men [? mention] of her with the devotions of this day, because it is dedicated to more holy subjects. I mentioned her at church, and prayed once solemnly at home. I was twice at church, and went through the prayers without perturbation, but heard the sermons imperfectly. I came in both times at the second lesson, not hearing the bell.

'When I came home I read the Psalms for the day, and one sermon in Clark. Scruples distract me, but at church I had hopes to conquer them.

'I bore abstinence this day not well, being at night insupportably heavy, but as fasting does not produce sleepyness, I had perhaps rested ill the night before. I prayed in my study for the day, and prayed again in my chamber. I went to bed very early—before eleven.

'After church I selected collects for the Sacraments.

'Finding myself upon recollection very ignorant of religion, I formed a purpose of studying it.

'I went down and sat to tea, but was too heavy to converse.

'Saturday, 29.—I rose at the time now usual, not fully refreshed. Went to tea. A sudden thought of restraint hindered me. I drank but one dish. Took a purge for my health. Still uneasy. Prayed, and went to dinner. Dined sparingly on fish [added in different ink] about four. Went to Simpson. Was driven home by my physick. Drank tea, and am much refreshed. I believe that if I had drank tea again yesterday, I had escaped the heaviness of the evening. Fasting that produces inability is no duty, but I was unwilling to do less than formerly.

'I had lived more abstemiously than is usual the whole week, and taken physick twice, which together made the fast more uneasy.

'Thus much I have written medically, to show that he who can fast long must have lived plentifully.

'Saturday, March 29, 1766.—I was yesterday very heavy. I do not feel myself to-day so much impressed with awe of the approaching mystery. I had this day a doubt, like Baxter, of my state, and found that my faith, though weak, was yet faith. O God! strengthen it.

'Since the last reception of the sacrament I hope I have no otherwise grown worse than as continuance in sin makes the sinner's condition more dangerous.

'Since last New Year's Eve I have risen every morning by eight, at least not after nine, which is more superiority over my habits than I have ever before been able to obtain. Scruples still distress me. My resolution, with the blessing of God, is to contend with them, and, if I can, to conquer them.

'My resolutions are— 'To conquer scruples. 'To read the Bible this year. 'To try to rise more early. 'To study Divinity. 'To live methodically. 'To oppose idleness. 'To frequent Divine worship.

'Almighty and most merciful Father! before whom I now appear laden with the sins of another year, suffer me yet again to call upon Thee for pardon and peace.

'O God! grant me repentance, grant me reformation. Grant that I may be no longer distracted with doubts, and harassed with vain terrors. Grant that I may no longer linger in perplexity, nor waste in idleness that life which Thou hast given and preserved. Grant that I may serve Thee in firm faith and diligent endeavour, and that I may discharge the duties of my calling with tranquillity and constancy. Take not, O God, Thy holy Spirit from me: but grant that I may so direct my life by Thy holy laws, as that, when Thou shalt call me hence, I may pass by a holy and happy death to a life of everlasting and unchangeable joy, for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

'I went to bed (at) one or later; but did not sleep, tho' I knew not why.

'Easter Day, March 30, 1766.—I rose in the morning. Prayed. Took my prayer book to tea; drank tea; planned my devotion for the church. I think prayed again. Went to church, was early. Went through the prayers with fixed attention. Could not hear the sermon. After sermon, applied myself to devotion. Troubled with Baxter's scruple, which was quieted as I returned home. It occurred to me that the scruple itself was its own confutation.

'I used the prayer against scruples in the foregoing page in the pew, and commended (so far as it was lawful) Tetty, dear Tetty, in a prayer by herself, then my other friends. What collects I do not exactly remember. I gave a shilling. I then went towards the altar that I might hear the service. The communicants were more than I ever saw. I kept back; used again the foregoing prayer; again commended Tetty, and lifted up my heart for the rest. I prayed in the collect for the fourteen S. after Trinity for encrease of Faith, Hope, and Charity, and deliverance from scruples; this deliverance was the chief subject of my prayers. O God, hear me. I am now to try to conquer them. After reception I repeated my petition, and again when I came home. My dinner made me a little peevish; not much. After dinner I retired, and read in an hour and a half the seven first chapters of St. Matthew in Greek. Glory be to God. God grant me to proceed and improve, for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen.

'I went to Evening Prayers, and was undisturbed. At church in the morning it occurred to me to consider about example of good any of my friends had set me. This is proper, in order to the thanks returned for their good examples.

'My attainment of rising gives me comfort and hope. O God, for Jesus Christ's sake, bless me. Amen.

'After church, before and after dinner, I read Rotheram on Faith.

'After evening prayer I retired, and wrote this account.

'I then repeated the prayer of the day, with collects, and my prayer for night, and went down to supper at near ten.

'May 4,—66. I have read since the noon of Easter day the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark in Greek.

'I have read Xenophon's Cyropaidia.'

BODLEIAN LIBRARY. SELECT AUTOGRAPHS. (MONTAGU.)

* * * * *



APPENDIX B. (Page 312.)

Johnson's sentiments towards his fellow-subjects in America have never, so far as I know, been rightly stated. It was not because they fought for liberty that he had come to dislike them. A man who, 'bursting forth with a generous indignation, had said:—"The Irish are in a most unnatural state; for we see there the minority prevailing over the majority"' (ante, ii. 255), was not likely to wish that our plantations should be tyrannically governed. The man who, 'in company with some very grave men at Oxford, gave as his toast, "Here's to the next insurrection of the negroes in the West Indies"' (post, iii. 200), was not likely to condemn insurrections in general. The key to his feelings is found in his indignant cry, 'How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?' (Ib) He hated slavery as perhaps no man of his time hated it. While the Quakers, who were almost the pioneers in the Anti-slavery cause, were still slave-holders and slave-dealers, he lifted up his voice against it. So early as 1740, when Washington was but a child of eight, he had maintained 'the natural right of the negroes to liberty and independence.' (Works, vi. 313.) In 1756 he described Jamaica as 'a place of great wealth and dreadful wickedness, a den of tyrants and a dungeon of slaves.' (Ib vi. 130.) In 1759 he wrote:—'Of black men the numbers are too great who are now repining under English cruelty.' (Ib iv. 407.) In the same year, in describing the cruelty of the Portuguese discoverers, he said:—'We are openly told that they had the less scruple concerning their treatment of the savage people, because they scarcely considered them as distinct from beasts; and indeed, the practice of all the European nations, and among others of the English barbarians that cultivate the southern islands of America, proves that this opinion, however absurd and foolish, however wicked and injurious, still continues to prevail. Interest and pride harden the heart, and it is in vain to dispute against avarice and power.' (Ib v. 218.) No miserable sophistry could convince him, with his clear mind and his ardour for liberty, that slavery can be right. 'An individual,' he wrote (post, iii. 202), 'may, indeed, forfeit his liberty by a crime; but he cannot by that crime forfeit the liberty of his children.' How deeply he felt for the wrongs done to helpless races is shown in his dread of discoverers. No man had a more eager curiosity, or more longed that the bounds of knowledge should be enlarged. Yet he wrote:—'I do not much wish well to discoveries, for I am always afraid they will end in conquest and robbery.' (Croker's Boswell, p. 248.) In his Life of Savage, written in 1744, he said (Works, viii. 156):—'Savage has not forgotten ... to censure those crimes which have been generally committed by the discoverers of new regions, and to expose the enormous wickedness of making war upon barbarous nations because they cannot resist, and of invading countries because they are fruitful.... He has asserted the natural equality of mankind, and endeavoured to suppress that pride which inclines men to imagine that right is the consequence of power.' He loved the University of Salamanca, because it gave it as its opinion that the conquest of America by the Spaniards was not lawful (ante, i. 455). When, in 1756, the English and French were at war in America, he said that 'such was the contest that no honest man could heartily wish success to either party.... It was only the quarrel of two robbers for the spoils of a passenger' (ante, i. 308, note 2). When, from political considerations, opposition was raised in 1766 to the scheme of translating the Bible into Erse, he wrote:—'To omit for a year, or for a day, the most efficacious method of advancing Christianity, in compliance with any purposes that terminate on this side of the grave, is a crime of which I know not that the world has yet had an example, except in the practice of the planters of America—a race of mortals whom, I suppose, no other man wishes to resemble' (ante, ii. 27). Englishmen, as a nation, had no right to reproach their fellow-subjects in America with being drivers of negroes; for England shared in the guilt and the gain of that infamous traffic. Nay, even as the Virginian delegates to Congress in 1774 complained:—'Our repeated attempts to exclude all further importations of slaves from Africa by prohibition, and by imposing duties which might amount to prohibition, have hitherto been defeated by his Majesty's negative—thus preferring the immediate advantages of a few British corsairs to the lasting interests of the American States, and to the rights of human nature, deeply wounded by this infamous practice.' Bright's Speeches, ed. 1869, i. 171. Franklin (Memoirs, ed. 1818, iii. 17), writing from London in 1772, speaks of 'the hypocrisy of this country, which encourages such a detestable commerce by laws for promoting the Guinea trade; while it piqued itself on its virtue, love of liberty, and the equity of its courts in setting free a single negro.' From the slightest stain of this hypocrisy Johnson was free. He, at all events, had a right to protest against 'the yelps' of those who, while they solemnly asserted that among the unalienable rights of all men are liberty and the pursuit of happiness, yet themselves were drivers of negroes.



FOOTNOTES:

[1] Had he been 'busily employed' he would, no doubt, have finished the edition in a few months. He himself had recorded at Easter, 1765: 'My time has been unprofitably spent, and seems as a dream that has left nothing behind.' Pr. and Med., p. 61.

[2] Dedications had been commonly used as a means of getting money by flattery. I. D'Israeli in his Calamities of Authors, i. 64, says:—'Fuller's Church History is disgraced by twelve particular dedications. It was an expedient to procure dedication fees; for publishing books by subscription was an art not yet discovered.' The price of the dedication of a play was, he adds, in the time of George I, twenty guineas. So much then, at least, Johnson lost by not dedicating Irene. However, when he addressed the Plan of his Dictionary to Lord Chesterfield (ante, i. 183) he certainly came very near a dedication. Boswell, in the Hypochondriack, writes:—'For my own part, I own I am proud enough. But I do not relish the stateliness of not dedicating at all. I prefer pleasure to pride, and it appears to me that there is much pleasure in honestly expressing one's admiration, esteem, or affection in a public manner, and in thus contributing to the happiness of another by making him better pleased with himself.' London Mag. for 1782, p. 454. His dedications were dedications of friendship, not of flattery or servility. He dedicated his Tour to Corsica to Paoli, his Tour to the Hebrides to Malone, and his Life of Johnson to Sir Joshua Reynolds. Goldsmith, in like manner, distrest though he so often was, dedicated his Traveller to his brother, the Deserted Village to Sir Joshua, and She Stoops to Conquer to Johnson.

[3] A passage in Boswell's letter to Malone of Jan. 29, 1791 (Croker's Boswell, p. 829), shows that it is Reynolds of whom he is writing. 'I am,' he writes, 'to cancel a leaf of the first volume, having found that though Sir Joshua certainly assured me he had no objection to my mentioning that Johnson wrote a dedication for him, he now thinks otherwise. In that leaf occurs the mention of Johnson having written to Dr. Leland, thanking the University of Dublin for their diploma.' In the first edition, this mention of the letter is followed by the passage above about dedications. It was no doubt Reynolds's Dedication of his Discourses to the King in the year 1778 that Johnson wrote. The first sentence is in a high degree Johnsonian. 'The regular progress of cultivated life is from necessaries to accommodations, from accommodations to ornaments.'

[4] 'That is to say,' he added, 'to the last generation of the Royal Family.' See post, April 15, 1773. We may hope that the Royal Family were not all like the Duke of Gloucester, who, when Gibbon brought him the second volume of the Decline and Fall, 'received him with much good nature and affability, saying to him, as he laid the quarto on the table, "Another d——d thick, square book! Always scribble, scribble, scribble! Eh! Mr. Gibbon?"' Best's Memorials, p. 68.

[5] Such care was needless. Boswell complained (post, June 24, 1774), that Johnson did not answer his letters, but only sent him returns.

[6] 'On one of the days that my ague disturbed me least, I walked from the convent to Corte, purposely to write a letter to Mr. Samuel Johnson. I told my revered friend, that from a kind of superstition agreeable in a certain degree to him as well as to myself, I had, during my travels, written to him from Loca Solennia, places in some measure sacred. That, as I had written to him from the tomb of Melancthon (see post, June 28, 1777), sacred to learning and piety, I now wrote to him from the palace of Pascal Paoli, sacred to wisdom and liberty.' Boswell's Tour to Corsica, p. 218. How delighted would Boswell have been had he lived to see the way in which he is spoken of by the biographer of Paoli: 'En traversant la Mditerrane sur de frles navires pour venir s'asseoir au foyer de la nationalit Corse, des hommes graves tels que Boswel et Volney obissaient sans doute un sentiment bien plus lev qu' au besoin vulgaire d'une puerile curiosit.' Histoire de Pascal Paoli, par A. Arrighi, i. 231. By every Corsican of any education the name of Boswell is known and honoured. One of them told me that it was in Boswell's pages that Paoli still lived for them. He informed me also of a family which still preserved by tradition the remembrance of Boswell's visit to their ancestral home.

[7] The twelve following lines of this letter were published by Boswell in his Corsica (p. 219) without Johnson's leave. (See post, March 23, 1768.) Temple, to whom the book had been shewn before publication, had, it should seem, advised Boswell to omit this extract. Boswell replied:—'Your remarks are of great service to me ... but I must have my great preceptor, Mr. Johnson, introduced.' Letters of Boswell, p. 122. In writing to excuse himself to Johnson (post, April 26, 1768), he says, 'the temptation to publishing it was so strong.'

[8] 'Tell your Court,' said Paoli to Boswell, 'what you have seen here. They will be curious to ask you. A man come from Corsica will be like a man come from the Antipodes.' Boswell's Corsica, p. 188. He was not indeed the first 'native of this country' to go there. He found in Bastia 'an English woman of Penrith, in Cumberland. When the Highlanders marched through that country in the year 1745, she had married a soldier of the French picquets in the very midst of all the confusion and danger, and when she could hardly understand one word he said.' Ib, p. 226. Boswell nowhere quotes Mrs. Barbauld's fine lines on Corsica. Perhaps he was ashamed of the praise of the wife of 'a little Presbyterian parson who kept an infant boarding school.' (See post, under Dec. 17, 1775.) Yet he must have been pleased when he read:—

'Such were the working thoughts which swelled the breast Of generous Boswell; when with nobler aim And views beyond the narrow beaten track By trivial fancy trod, he turned his course From polished Gallia's soft delicious vales,' &c.

Mrs. Barbauld's Poems, i. 2.

[9] Murphy, in the Monthly Review, lxxvi. 376, thus describes Johnson's life in Johnson's Court after he had received his pension. 'His friend Levett, his physician in ordinary, paid his daily visits with assiduity; attended at all hours, made tea all the morning, talked what he had to say, and did not expect an answer; or, if occasion required it, was mute, officious, and ever complying.... There Johnson sat every morning, receiving visits, hearing the topics of the day, and indolently trifling away the time. Chymistry afforded some amusement.' Hawkins (Life, p. 452), says:—'An upper room, which had the advantages of a good light and free air, he fitted up for a study. A silver standish and some useful plate, which he had been prevailed on to accept as pledges of kindness from some who most esteemed him, together with furniture that would not have disgraced a better dwelling, banished those appearances of squalid indigence which, in his less happy days, disgusted those who came to see him.' Some of the plate Johnson had bought. See post, April 15, 1781.

[10] It is remarkable, that Mr. Gray has employed somewhat the same image to characterise Dryden. He, indeed, furnishes his car with but two horses, but they are of 'ethereal race':

'Behold where Dryden's less presumptuous car, Wide o'er the fields of glory bear Two coursers of ethereal race, With necks in thunder cloath'd, and long resounding pace.'

Ode on the Progress of Poesy. BOSWELL. In the 'Life of Pope (Works, viii. 324) Johnson says:—'The style of Dryden is capricious and varied; that of Pope is cautious and uniform. Dryden obeys the motions of his own mind; Pope constrains his mind to his own rules of composition. Dryden is sometimes vehement and rapid; Pope is always smooth, uniform, and gentle.'

[11] In the original laws or kings.

[12]

'The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.'

Paradise Lost, i. 254.

'Caelum, non animum, mutant qui trans mare current.'

Horace, Epis. i. II. 27. See also ante, i. 381. note 2.

[13] 'I once inadvertently put him,' wrote Reynolds, 'in a situation from which none but a man of perfect integrity could extricate himself. I pointed at some lines in The Traveller which I told him I was sure he wrote. He hesitated a little; during this hesitation I recollected myself, that, as I knew he would not lie, I put him in a cleft-stick, and should have had but my due if he had given me a rough answer; but he only said, 'Sir, I did not write them, but that you may not imagine that I have wrote more than I really have, the utmost I have wrote in that poem, to the best of my recollection, is not more than eighteen lines. [Nine seems the actual number.] It must be observed there was then an opinion about town that Dr. Johnson wrote the whole poem for his friend, who was then in a manner an unknown writer.' Taylor's Reynolds, ii. 458. See also post, April 9, 1778. For each line of The Traveller Goldsmith was paid 11-1/4d. (ante, i. 193, note), Johnson's present, therefore, of nine lines was, if reckoned in money, worth 8/5-1/4.

[14] See ante, i. 194, note.

[15] Respublica et Status Regni Hungariae. Ex Officina Elzeviriana, 1634, p. 136. This work belongs to the series of Republics mentioned by Johnson, post, under April 29, 1776.

[16] '"Luke" had been taken simply for the euphony of the line. He was one of two brothers, Dosa.... The origin of the mistake [of Zeck for Dosa] is curious. The two brothers belonged to one of the native races of Transylvania called Szeklers or Zecklers, which descriptive addition follows their names in the German biographical authorities; and this, through abridgment and misapprehension, in subsequent books came at last to be substituted for the family name.' Forster's Goldsmith, i. 370. The iron crown was not the worst of the tortures inflicted.

[17] See post, April 15, 1781. In 1748 Johnson had written (Works, v. 231): 'At a time when so many schemes of education have been projected.... so many schools opened for general knowledge, and so many lectures in particular sciences attended.' Goldsmith, in his Life of Nash (published in 1762), describes the lectures at Bath 'on the arts and sciences which are frequently taught there in a pretty, superficial manner so as not to tease the understanding while they afford the imagination some amusement.' Cunningham's Goldsmith's Works, iv 59.

[18] Perhaps Gibbon had read this passage at the time when he wrote in his Memoirs:—'It has indeed been observed, nor is the observation absurd, that, excepting in experimental sciences which demand a costly apparatus and a dexterous hand, the many valuable treatises that have been published on every subject of learning may now supersede the ancient mode of oral instruction.' Gibbon's Misc. Works, i. 50. See post, March 20, 1776, note.

[19] See ante, i. 103.

[20] Baretti was in Italy at the same time as Boswell. That they met seems to be shewn by a passage in Boswell's letter (post, Nov. 6, 1766). Malone wrote of him:—'He appears to be an infidel.' Prior's Malone, p. 399.

[21] Lord Charlemont records (Life, i. 235) that 'Mrs. Mallet, meeting Hume at an assembly, boldly accosted him in these words:—"Mr. Hume, give me leave to introduce myself to you; we deists ought to know each other." "Madame," replied Hume, "I am no deist. I do not style myself so, neither do I desire to be known by that appellation."' Hume, in 1763 or 1764, wrote to Dr. Blair about the men of letters at Paris:—'It would give you and Robertson great satisfaction to find that there is not a single deist among them.' J. H. Burton's Hume, ii. 181. There was no deist, I suppose, because they were all atheists. Romilly (Life, i. 179) records the following anecdote, which he had from Diderot in 1781:—'Hume dna avec une grande compagnie chez le Baron d'Holbach. Il tait assis ct du Baron; on parla de la religion naturelle. "Pour les Athes," disait Hume, "je ne crois pas qu'il en existe; je n'en ai jamais vu." "Vous avez t un peu malheureux," rpondit l'autre, "vous voici table avec dix-sept pour la premire fois."' It was on the same day that Diderot related this that he said to Romilly, 'Il faut sabrer la thologie.'

[22] 'The inference upon the whole is, that it is not from the value or worth of the object which any person pursues that we can determine his enjoyment; but merely from the passion with which he pursues it, and the success which he meets with in his pursuit. Objects have absolutely no worth or value in themselves. They derive their worth merely from the passion. If that be strong and steady and successful, the person is happy. It cannot reasonably be doubted but a little miss, dressed in a new gown for a dancing-school ball, receives as complete enjoyment as the greatest orator, who triumphs in the splendour of his eloquence, while he governs the passions and resolutions of a numerous assembly.' Hume's Essays, i. 17 (The Sceptic). Pope had written in the Essay on Man (iv. 57):

'Condition, circumstance, is not the thing; Bliss is the same in subject or in King.'

See also post, April 15, 1778.

[23] In Boswelliana, p. 220, a brief account is given of his life, which was not altogether uneventful.

[24] We may compare with this what he says in The Rambler, No. 21, about the 'cowardice which always encroaches fast upon such as spend their time in the company of persons higher than themselves.' In No. 104 he writes:—'It is dangerous for mean minds to venture themselves within the sphere of greatness.' In the court that Boswell many years later paid to Lord Lonsdale, he suffered all the humiliations that the brutality of this petty greatness can inflict. Letters of Boswell, p. 324. See also post, Sept. 22, 1777.

[25] See Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 19, 1773.

[26] Johnson (Works, ix. 107) thus sums up his examination of second-sight:—'There is against it, the seeming analogy of things confusedly seen, and little understood; and for it, the indistinct cry of natural persuasion, which may be, perhaps, resolved at last into prejudice and tradition. I never could advance my curiosity to conviction; but came away at last only willing to believe.' See also post, March 24, 1775. Hume said of the evidence in favour of second-sight—:'As finite added to finite never approaches a hair's breadth nearer to infinite, so a fact incredible in itself acquires not the smallest accession of probability by the accumulation of testimony.' J. H. Burton's Hume, i. 480.

[27] 'I love anecdotes,' said Johnson. Boswell's Hebridge, Aug. 16, 1773. Boswell said that 'Johnson always condemned the word anecdotes, as used in the sense that the French, and we from them, use it, as signifying particulars.' Letters of Boswell, p. 311. In his Dictionary, he defined 'Anecdotes Something yet unpublished; secret history.' In the fourth edition he added: 'It is now used, after the French, for a biographical incident; a minute passage of private life.'

[28] See ante, July 19, 1763.

[29] Boswell, writing to Wilkes in 1776, said:—'Though we differ widely in religion and politics, il y a des points ou nos ames sont animes, as Rouseau said to me in his wild retreat.' Almon's Wilkes, iv. 319.

[30] Rousseau fled from France in 1762. A few days later his arrest was ordered at Geneva. He fled from Neufchatel in 1763, and soon afterwards he was banished from Berne. Nonev. Biog. Gen., Xlii. 750. He had come to England with David Hume a few weeks before this conversation was held, and was at this time in Chiswick. Hume's Private Corres., pp. 125, 145.

[31] Rousseau had by this time published his Nouvelle Helloise and Emile.

[32] Less than three months after the date of this conversation Rousseau wrote to General Conway, one of the Secretaries of State, thanking him for the pension which George III proposed secretly to confer on him. Hume's Private Corres., p. 165. Miss Burney, in her preface to Evelina, a novel which was her introduction to Johnson's strong affection, mentioning Rousseau and Johnson, adds in a footnote:— 'However superior the capacities in which these great writers deserve to be considered, they must pardon me that, for the dignity of my subject, I here rank the authors of Rasselas and Elose as novelists.'

[33] Rousseau thus wrote of himself:

'Dieu est juste; il veut que je souffre; et il sait que je suis innocent. Voil le motif de ma confiance, mon coeur et ma raison me crient qu'elle ne me trompera pas. Laissons donc faire les hommes et la destine; apprenons souffrir sans murmure; tout doit la fin rentrer dans Fordre, et mon tour viendra tt ou tard.' Rousseau's Works, xx. 223.

[34] 'He entertained me very courteously,' wrote Boswell in his Corsica, p. 140.

[35] In this preference Boswell pretended at times to share. See post, Sept. 30, 1769.

[36] Johnson seems once to have held this view to some extent; for, writing of Savage's poem On Public Spirit, he says (Works, viii. 156):—'He has asserted the natural equality of mankind, and endeavoured to suppress that pride which inclines men to imagine that right is the consequence of power.' See also post, Sept. 23, 1777, where he asserts:—'It is impossible not to conceive that men in their original state were equal.' For the opposite opinion, see ante, June 25, 1763.

[37] 'Qui mores hominum multorum vidit et urbes.' 'Manners and towns of various nations viewed.' FRANCIS. Horace, Ars Poetica, 1. 142.

[38] By the time Boswell was twenty-six years old he could boast that he had made the acquaintance of Voltaire, Rousseau, and Paoli among foreigners; and of Adam Smith, Robertson, Hume, Johnson, Goldsmith, Garrick, Horace Walpole, Wilkes, and perhaps Reynolds, among Englishmen. He had twice at least received a letter from the Earl of Chatham.

[39] In such passages as this we may generally assume that the gentleman, whose name is not given, is Boswell himself. See ante, i. 4, and post, Oct. 16, 1769.

[40] See post, 1780, in Mr. Langton's 'Collection,' where this assertion is called 'his usual remark.'

[41] See post, April 15, 1778.

[42] These two words may be observed as marks of Mr. Boswell's accuracy. It is a jocular Irish phrase, which, of all Johnson's acquaintances, no one probably, but Goldsmith, would have used.—CROKER.

[43] See ante, May 24, 1763.

[44] Johnson's best justification for the apparent indolences of the latter part of his life may be found in his own words: 'Every man of genius has some arts of fixing the attention peculiar to himself, by which, honestly exerted, he may benefit mankind.... To the position of Tully, that if virtue could be seen she must be loved, may be added, that if truth could be heard she must be obeyed.' The Rambler, No. 87. He fixed the attention best by his talk. For 'the position of Tully,' see post, March 19, 1776.

[45] See ante, i. 192, and post, May 1, 1783. Goldsmith wrote The Traveller and Deserted Village on a very different plan. 'To save himself the trouble of transcription, he wrote the lines in his first copy very wide, and would so fill up the intermediate space with reiterated corrections, that scarcely a word of his first effusions was left unaltered.' Goldsmith's Misc. Works, i. 113.

[46] Mrs. Thrale in a letter to Dr. Johnson, said:—'Don't sit making verses that never will be written.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 183. Baretti noted opposite this in the margin of his copy: 'Johnson was always making Latin or English verses in his mind, but never would write them down.'

[47] Burke entered Parliament as member for Wendover borough on Jan. 14th, 1766. William Burke, writing to Barry the artist on the following March 23, says:—'Ned's success has exceeded our most sanguine hopes; all at once he has darted into fame. He is full of real business, intent upon doing real good to his country, as much as if he was to receive twenty per cent. from the commerce of the whole empire, which he labours to improve and extend.' Barry's Works, i. 42.

[48] It was of these speeches that Macaulay wrote:—'The House of Commons heard Pitt for the last time and Burke for the first time, and was in doubt to which of them the palm of eloquence should be assigned. It was indeed a splendid sunset and a splendid dawn.' Macaulay's Essays (edition 1874), iv. 330.

[49] See post, March 20, 1776.

[50] Boswell has already stated (ante, Oct. 1765) that Johnson's Shakespeare was 'virulently attacked' by Kenrick. No doubt there were other attacks and rejoinders too.

[51] Two days earlier he had drawn up a prayer on entering Novum Museum. Pr. and Med., p. 69.

[52] See post, 1780, in Mr. Langton's Collection.

[53] Dictionarium Saxonico et Gothico-Latinum. London, 1772. Lye died in 1767. O. Manning completed the work.

[54] See Appendix A.

[55] Mr. Langton's uncle. BOSWELL.

[56] The place of residence of Mr. Peregrine Langton. BOSWELL.

[57] Mr. Langton did not disregard this counsel, but wrote the following account, which he has been pleased to communicate to me:

'The circumstances of Mr. Peregrine Langton were these. He had an annuity for life of two hundred pounds per annum. He resided in a village in Lincolnshire; the rent of his house, with two or three small fields, was twenty-eight pounds; the county he lived in was not more than moderately cheap; his family consisted of a sister, who paid him eighteen pounds annually for her board, and a niece. The servants were two maids, and two men in livery. His common way of living, at his table, was three or four dishes; the appurtenances to his table were neat and handsome; he frequently entertained company at dinner, and then his table was well served with as many dishes as were usual at the tables of the other gentlemen in the neighbourhood. His own appearance, as to clothes, was genteelly neat and plain. He had always a post-chaise, and kept three horses.

'Such, with the resources I have mentioned, was his way of living, which he did not suffer to employ his whole income: for he had always a sum of money lying by him for any extraordinary expences that might arise. Some money he put into the stocks; at his death, the sum he had there amounted to one hundred and fifty pounds. He purchased out of his income his household-furniture and linen, of which latter he had a very ample store; and, as I am assured by those that had very good means of knowing, not less than the tenth part of his income was set apart for charity: at the time of his death, the sum of twenty-five pounds was found, with a direction to be employed in such uses.

'He had laid down a plan of living proportioned to his income, and did not practise any extraordinary degree of parsimony, but endeavoured that in his family there should be plenty without waste; as an instance that this was his endeavour, it may be worth while to mention a method he took in regulating a proper allowance of malt liquor to be drunk in his family, that there might not be a deficiency, or any intemperate profusion: On a complaint made that his allowance of a hogshead in a month, was not enough for his own family, he ordered the quantity of a hogshead to be put into bottles, had it locked up from the servants, and distributed out, every day, eight quarts, which is the quantity each day at one hogshead in a month; and told his servants, that if that did not suffice, he would allow them more; but, by this method, it appeared at once that the allowance was much more than sufficient for his small family; and this proved a clear conviction, that could not be answered, and saved all future dispute. He was, in general, very diligently and punctually attended and obeyed by his servants; he was very considerate as to the injunctions he gave, and explained them distinctly; and, at their first coming to his service, steadily exacted a close compliance with them, without any remission; and the servants finding this to be the case, soon grew habitually accustomed to the practice of their business, and then very little further attention was necessary. On extraordinary instances of good behaviour, or diligent service, he was not wanting in particular encouragements and presents above their wages; it is remarkable that he would permit their relations to visit them, and stay at his house two or three days at a time.

[58] Of his being in the chair of THE LITERARY CLUB, which at this time met once a week in the evening. BOSWELL. See ante, Feb. 1764, note.

[59] See post, Feb. 1767, where he told the King that 'he must now read to acquire more knowledge.'

[60] The passage omitted alluded to a private transaction. BOSWELL.

[61] The censure of my Latin relates to the Dedication, which was as follows:

VIRO NOBILISSIMO, ORNATISSIMO, JOANNI, VICECOMITI MOUNTSTUART, ATAVIS EDITO REGIBUS EXCELSAE FAMILLAE DE BUTE SPEI ALTERAE; LABENTE SECULO, QUUM HOMINES NULLIUS ORIGINIS GENUS AEQUARE OPIBUS AGGREDIUNTUR, SANGUINIS ANTIQUI ET ILLUSTRIS SEMPER MEMORI, NATALIUM SPLENDOREM VIRTUTIBUS AUGENTI:

AD PUBLICA POPULI COMITIA JAM LEGATO;

IN OPTIMATIUM VERO MAGN BRITANNI SENATU, JURE HREDITARIO, OLIM CONSESSURO:

VIM INSITAM VARIA DOCTRINA PROMOVENTE, NEC TAMEN SE VENDITANTE, PRDITO:

PRISCA FIDE, ANIMO LIBERRIMO, ET MORUM ELEGANTIA INSIGNI:

IN ITALI VISITAND ITINERE, SOCIO SUO HONORATISSIMO, HASCE JURISPRUDENT PRIMITIAS DEVINCTISSIM AMICITI ET OBSERVANTI MONUMENTUM, D. D. C Q.

JACOBUS BOSWELL. BOSWELL.

[62] See ante, i. 211.

[63] See post, May 19, 1778.

[64] This alludes to the first sentence of the _Promium_ of my Thesis. 'JURISPRUDENT studio nullum uberius, nullum generosius: in legibus enim agitandis, populorum mores, variasque fortun vices ex quibus leges oriuntur, contemplari simul solemus_' BOSWELL.

[65] 'Mr. Boswell,' says Malone, 'professed the Scotch and the English law; but had never taken very great pains on the subject. His father, Lord Auchinleck, told him one day, that it would cost him more trouble to hide his ignorance in these professions than to show his knowledge. This Boswell owned he had found to be true.' European Magazine, 1798, p. 376. Boswell wrote to Temple in 1775:—'You are very kind in saying that I may overtake you in learning. Believe me though that I have a kind of impotency of study.' Letters of Boswell, p. 181.

[66] This is a truth that Johnson often enforced. 'Very few,' said the poet; 'live by choice: every man is placed in his present condition by causes which acted without his foresight, and with which he did not always willingly co-operate.' Rasselas, chap. 16. 'To him that lives well,' answered the hermit, 'every form of life is good; nor can I give any other rule for choice than to remove from all apparent evil.' Ib, chap. 21. 'Young man,' said Omar, 'it is of little use to form plans of life.' The Idler, No. 101.

[67] 'Hace sunt quae nostra liceat te voce moneri.' Aeneid, iii. 461.

[68] The passage omitted explained the transaction to which the preceding letter had alluded. BOSWELL.

[69] See ante, June 10, 1761.

[70] Mr. Croker says:—'It was by visiting Chambers, when a fellow of University College, that Johnson became acquainted with Lord Stowell [at that time William Scott]; and when Chambers went to India, Lord Stowell, as he expressed it to me, seemed to succeed to his place in Johnson's friendship.' Croker's Boswell, p. 90, note. John Scott (Earl of Eldon), Sir William Jones and Mr. Windham, were also members of University College. The hall is adorned with the portraits of these five men. An engraving of Johnson is in the Common Room.

[71] It is not easy to discover anything noble or even felicitous in this Dedication. Works, v. 444.

[72] See ante, i. 148.

[73] See ante, i. 177, note 2.

[74] See ante, i. 158.

[75] See ante, i. 178, note 2.

[76] This poem is scarcely Johnson's, though all the lines but the third in the following couplets may be his.

Whose life not sunk in sloth is free from care, Nor tost by change, nor stagnant in despair; Who with wise authors pass the instructive day And wonder how the moments stole away; Who not retired beyond the sight of life Behold its weary cares, its noisy strife.'

[77] Johnson's additions to these three poems are not at all evident.

[78] In a note to the poem it is stated that Miss Williams, when, before her blindness, she was assisting Mr. Grey in his experiments, was the first that observed the emission of the electrical spark from a human body. The best lines are the following:—

Now, hoary Sage, purse thy happy flight, With swifter motion haste to purer light, Where Bacon waits with Newton and with Boyle To hail thy genius, and applaud thy toil; Where intuition breaks through time and space, And mocks experiment's successive race; Sees tardy Science toil at Nature's laws, And wonders how th' effect obscures the cause. Yet not to deep research or happy guess Is owed the life of hope, the death of peace.'

[79] A gentleman, writing from Virginia to John Wesley, in 1735, about the need of educating the negro slaves in religion, says:—'Their masters generally neglect them, as though immortality was not the privilege of their souls in common with their own.' Wesley's Journal, II. 288. But much nearer home Johnson might have found this criminal enforcement of ignorance. Burke, writing in 1779, about the Irish, accuses the legislature of 'condemning a million and a half of people to ignorance, according to act of parliament.' Burke's Corres. ii. 294.

[80] See post, March 21, 1775, and Appendix.

[81] Johnson said very finely:—'Languages are the pedigree of nations.' Boswell's Hebrides, Sept. 18, 1773.

[82] The Rev. Mr. John Campbell, Minister of the Parish of Kippen, near Stirling, who has lately favoured me with a long, intelligent, and very obliging letter upon this work, makes the following remark:—'Dr. Johnson has alluded to the worthy man employed in the translation of the New Testament. Might not this have afforded you an opportunity of paying a proper tribute of respect to the memory of the Rev. Mr. James Stuart, late Minister of Killin, distinguished by his eminent Piety, Learning and Taste? The amiable simplicity of his life, his warm benevolence, his indefatigable and successful exertions for civilizing and improving the Parish of which he was Minister for upwards of fifty years, entitle him to the gratitude of his country, and the veneration of all good men. It certainly would be a pity, if such a character should be permitted to sink into oblivion.' BOSWELL.

[83] Seven years later Johnson received from the Society some religious works in Erse. See post, June 24, 1774. Yet in his journey to the Hebrides, in 1773 (Works, ix. 101), he had to record of the parochial schools in those islands that 'by the rule of their institution they teach only English, so that the natives read a language which they may never use or understand,'

[84] This paragraph shews Johnson's real estimation of the character and abilities of the celebrated Scottish Historian, however lightly, in a moment of caprice, he may have spoken of his works. BOSWELL.

[85] See ante, i. 210.

[86] This is the person concerning whom Sir John Hawkins has thrown out very unwarrantable reflections both against Dr. Johnson and Mr. Francis Barber. BOSWELL. See post, under Oct. 20, 1784. In 1775, Heely, it appears, applied through Johnson for the post that was soon to be vacant of 'master of the tap' at Ranelagh House. 'He seems,' wrote Johnson, in forwarding his letter of application, 'to have a genius for an alehouse.' Piozzi Letters, i. 210. See also post, Aug. 12, 1784.

[87] See an account of him in the European Magazine, Jan. 1786. BOSWELL. There we learn that he was in his time a grammar-school usher, actor, poet, the puffing partner in a quack medicine, and tutor to a youthful Earl. He was suspected of levying blackmail by threats of satiric publications, and he suffered from a disease which rendered him an object almost offensive to sight. He was born in 1738 or 1739, and died in 1771.

[88] It was republished in The Repository, ii. 227, edition of 1790.

[89] The Hon. Thomas Hervey, whose Letter to Sir Thomas Hanmer in 1742 was much read at that time. He was the second son of John, first Earl of Bristol, and one of the brothers of Johnson's early friend Henry Hervey. He died Jan. 20, 1775. MALONE. See post, April 6, 1775.

[90] See post, under Sept. 22, 1777, for another story told by Beauclerk against Johnson of a Mr. Hervey.

[91] Essays published in the Daily Gazetteer and afterwards collected into two vols. Gent. Mag. for 1748, P. 48.

[92] Mr. Croker regrets that Johnson employed his pen for hire in Hervey's 'disgusting squabbles,' and in a long note describes Hervey's letter to Sir Thomas Hanmer with whose wife he had eloped. But the attack to which Johnson was hired to reply was not made by Hanmer, but, as was supposed, by Sir C. H. Williams. Because a man has wronged another, he is not therefore to submit to the attacks of a third. Williams, moreover, it must be remembered, was himself a man of licentious character.

[93] Buckingham House, bought in 1761, by George III, and settled on Queen Charlotte. The present Buckingham Palace occupies the site. P. CUNNINGHAM. Here, according to Hawkins (Life, p. 470), Johnson met the Prince of Wales (George IV.) when a child, 'and enquired as to his knowledge of the Scriptures; the prince in his answers gave him great satisfaction.' Horace Walpole, writing of the Prince at the age of nineteen, says (Journal of the Reign of George III, ii. 503):—'Nothing was coarser than his conversation and phrases; and it made men smile to find that in the palace of piety and pride his Royal Highness had learnt nothing but the dialect of footmen and grooms.'

[94] Dr. Johnson had the honour of contributing his assistance towards the formation of this library; for I have read a long letter from him to Mr. Barnard, giving the most masterly instructions on the subject. I wished much to have gratified my readers with the perusal of this letter, and have reason to think that his Majesty would have been graciously pleased to permit its publication; but Mr. Barnard, to whom I applied, declined it 'on his own account.' BOSWELL. It is given in Mr. Croker's edition, p. 196.

[95] The particulars of this conversation I have been at great pains to collect with the utmost authenticity from Dr. Johnson's own detail to myself; from Mr. Langton who was present when he gave an account of it to Dr. Joseph Warton, and several other friends, at Sir Joshua Reynolds's; from Mr. Barnard; from the copy of a letter written by the late Mr. Strahan the printer, to Bishop Warburton; and from a minute, the original of which is among the papers of the late Sir James Caldwell, and a copy of which was most obligingly obtained for me from his son Sir John Caldwell, by Sir Francis Lumm. To all these gentlemen I beg leave to make my grateful acknowledgements, and particularly to Sir Francis Lumm, who was pleased to take a great deal of trouble, and even had the minute laid before the King by Lord Caermarthen, now Duke of Leeds, then one of his Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State, who announced to Sir Francis the Royal pleasure concerning it by a letter, in these words: 'I have the King's commands to assure you, Sir, how sensible his Majesty is of your attention in communicating the minute of the conversation previous to its publication. As there appears no objection to your complying with Mr. Boswell's wishes on the subject, you are at full liberty to deliver it to that gentleman, to make such use of in his Life of Dr. Johnson, as he may think proper.' BOSWELL. In 1790, Boswell published in a quarto sheet of eight pages A conversation between His Most Sacred Majesty George III. and Samuel Johnson, LLD. Illustrated with Observations. By James Boswell, Esq. London. Printed by Henry Baldwin, for Charles Dilly in the Poultry. MDCCXC. Price Half-a-Guinea. Entered in the Hall-Book of the Company of Stationers. It is of the same impression as the first edition of the Life of Johnson.

[96] After Michaelmas, 1766. See ante, ii. 25.

[97] See post, May, 31, 1769, note.

[98] Writing to Langton, on May 10, of the year before he had said, 'I read more than I did. I hope something will yet come on it.' Ante, ii. 20.

[99] Boswell and Goldsmith had in like manner urged him 'to continue his labours.' See ante, i. 398, and ii. 15.

[100] Johnson had written to Lord Chesterfield in the Plan of his Dictionary (Works, v. 19), 'Ausonius thought that modesty forbade him to plead inability for a task to which Caesar had judged him equal:—Cur me posse negem posse quod ille pufat?' We may compare also a passage in Mme. D'Arblay's Diary (ii. 377):—'THE KING. "I believe there is no constraint to be put upon real genius; nothing but inclination can set it to work. Miss Burney, however, knows best." And then hastily returning to me he cried; "What? what?" "No, sir, I—I—believe not, certainly," quoth I, very awkwardly, for I seemed taking a violent compliment only as my due; but I knew not how to put him off as I would another person.'

[101] In one part of the character of Pope (Works, viii. 319), Johnson seems to be describing himself:—'He certainly was in his early life a man of great literary curiosity; and when he wrote his Essay on Criticism had for his age a very wide acquaintance with books. When he entered into the living world, it seems to have happened to him as to many others, that he was less attentive to dead masters; he studied in the academy of Paracelsus, and made the universe his favourite volume.... His frequent references to history, his allusions to various kinds of knowledge, and his images selected from art and nature, with his observations on the operations of the mind and the modes of life, show an intelligence perpetually on the wing, excursive, vigorous, and diligent, eager to pursue knowledge, and attentive to retain it.' See ante, i. 57.

[102] Johnson thus describes Warburton (Works, viii. 288):—'About this time [1732] Warburton began to make his appearance in the first ranks of learning. He was a man of vigorous faculties, a mind fervid and vehement, supplied by incessant and unlimited enquiry, with wonderful extent and variety of knowledge.' Cradock (Memoirs, i. 188) says that 'Bishop Kurd always wondered where it was possible for Warburton to meet with certain anecdotes with which not only his conversation, but likewise his writings, abounded. "I could have readily informed him," said Mrs. Warburton, "for, when we passed our winters in London, he would often, after his long and severe studies, send out for a whole basketful of books from the circulating libraries; and at times I have gone into his study, and found him laughing, though alone."' Lord Macaulay was, in this respect, the Warburton of our age.

[103] The Rev. Mr. Strahan clearly recollects having been told by Johnson, that the King observed that Pope made Warburton a Bishop. 'True, Sir, (said Johnson,) but Warburton did more for Pope; he made him a Christian:' alluding, no doubt, to his ingenious Comments on the Essay on Man. BOSWELL. The statements both of the King and Johnson are supported by two passages in Johnson's Life of Pope, (Works, viii. 289, 290). He says of Warburton's Comments:—'Pope, who probably began to doubt the tendency of his own work, was glad that the positions, of which he perceived himself not to know the full meaning, could by any mode of interpretation be made to mean well.... From this time Pope lived in the closest intimacy with his commentator, and amply rewarded his kindness and his zeal; for he introduced him to Mr. Murray, by whose interest he became preacher at Lincoln's Inn; and to Mr. Allen, who gave him his niece and his estate, and by consequence a bishoprick.' See also the account given by Johnson, in Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 21, 1773. Bishop Law in his Revised Preface to Archbishop King's Origin of Evil (1781), p. xvii, writes:—'I had now the satisfaction of seeing that those very principles which had been maintained by Archbishop King were adopted by Mr. Pope in his Essay on Man; this I used to recollect, and sometimes relate, with pleasure, conceiving that such an account did no less honour to the poet than to our philosopher; but was soon made to understand that anything of that kind was taken highly amiss by one [Warburton] who had once held the doctrine of that same Essay to be rank atheism, but afterwards turned a warm advocate for it, and thought proper to deny the account above-mentioned, with heavy menaces against those who presumed to insinuate that Pope borrowed anything from any man whatsoever.' See post, Oct. 10, 1779.

[104] In Gibbon's Memoirs, a fine passage is quoted from Lowth's Defence of the University of Oxford, against Warburton's reproaches. 'I transcribe with pleasure this eloquent passage,' writes Gibbon, 'without inquiring whether in this angry controversy the spirit of Lowth himself is purified from the intolerant zeal which Warburton had ascribed to the genius of the place.' Gibbon's Misc. Works, i. 47. See BOSWELL'S Hebrides, Aug. 28, 1773.

[105] See post, April 15, 1773, where Johnson says that Lyttelton 'in his History wrote the most vulgar Whiggism,' and April 10, 1776. Gibbon, who had reviewed it this year, says in his Memoirs (Misc. Works, i. 207): 'The public has ratified my judgment of that voluminous work, in which sense and learning are not illuminated by a ray of genius.'

[106] Hawkins says of him (Life, p. 211):—'He obtained from one of those universities which would scarce refuse a degree to an apothecary's horse a diploma for that of doctor of physic.' He became a great compiler and in one year earned 1500. In the end he turned quack-doctor. He was knighted by the King of Sweden 'in return for a present to that monarch of his Vegetable System.' He at least thrice attacked Garrick (Murphy's Garrick, pp. 136, 189, 212), who replied with three epigrams, of which the last is well-known:—

'For Farces and Physic his equal there scarce is; His Farces are Physic, his Physic a Farce is.'

Horace Walpole (Letters iii. 372), writing on Jan. 3, 1761, said:—'Would you believe, what I know is fact, that Dr. Hill earned fifteen guineas a week by working for wholesale dealers? He was at once employed on six voluminous works of Botany, Husbandry, &c., published weekly.' Churchill in the Rescind thus writes of him:—

'Who could so nobly grace the motley list, Actor, Inspector, Doctor, Botanist? Knows any one so well—sure no one knows— At once to play, prescribe, compound, compose?'

Churchill's Poems, i. 6. In the Gent. Mag. xxii. 568, it is stated that he had acted pantomime, tragedy and comedy, and had been damned in all.

[107] Mr. Croker quotes Bishop Elrington, who says, 'Dr. Johnson was unjust to Hill, and showed that he did not understand the subject.' Croker's Boswell, p. 186.

[108] D'Israeli (Curiosities of Literature, ed. 1834, i. 201) says that 'Hill, once when he fell sick, owned to a friend that he had over-fatigued himself with writing seven works at once, one of which was on architecture and another on cookery.' D'Israeli adds that Hill contracted to translate a Dutch work on insects for fifty guineas. As he was ignorant of the language, he bargained with another translator for twenty-five guineas. This man, who was equally ignorant, rebargained with a third, who perfectly understood his original, for twelve guineas.

[109] Gibbon (Misc. Works, v. 442), writing on Dec. 20, 1763, of the Journal des Savans, says:—'I can hardly express how much I am delighted with this journal; its characteristics are erudition, precision, and taste.... The father of all the rest, it is still their superior.... There is nothing to be wished for in it but a little more boldness and philosophy; but it is published under the Chancellor's eye.'

[110] Goldsmith, in his Present State of Polite Learning (ch. xi.), published in 1759, says;—'We have two literary reviews in London, with critical newspapers and magazines without number. The compilers of these resemble the commoners of Rome, they are all for levelling property, not by increasing their own, but by diminishing that of others.... The most diminutive son of fame or of famine has his we and his us, his firstlys and his secondlys, as methodical as if bound in cow-hide and closed with clasps of brass. Were these Monthly Reviews and Magazines frothy, pert, or absurd, they might find some pardon, but to be dull and dronish is an encroachment on the prerogative of a folio.'

[111] See post, April 10, 1766.

[112] Mr. White, the Librarian of the Royal Society, has, at my request, kindly examined the records of the Royal Society, but has not been able to discover what the 'circumstance' was. Neither is any light thrown on it by Johnson's reviews of Birch's History of the Royal Society and Philosophical Transactions, vol. xlix. (ante, i. 309), which I have examined.

[113] 'Were you to converse with a King, you ought to be as easy and unembarrassed as with your own valet-de-chambre; but yet every look, word, and action should imply the utmost respect. What would be proper and well-bred with others much your superior, would be absurd and ill-bred with one so very much so.' Chesterfield's Letters, iii. 203.

[114] Imlac thus described to Rasselas his interview with the Great Mogul:—'The emperor asked me many questions concerning my country and my travels; and though I cannot now recollect anything that he uttered above the power of a common man, he dismissed me astonished at his wisdom, and enamoured of his goodness.' Rasselas, chap. ix. Wraxall (Memoirs, edit. of 1884, i. 283) says that Johnson was no judge of a fine gentleman. 'George III,' he adds, 'was altogether destitute of these ornamental and adventitious endowments.' He mentions 'the oscillations of his body, the precipitation of his questions, none of which, it was said, would wait for an answer, and the hurry of his articulation.' Mr. Wheatley, in a note on this passage, quotes the opinion of 'Adams, the American Envoy, who said, the "King is, I really think, the most accomplished courtier in his dominions."'

[115] 'Dr. Warton made me a most obsequious bow.... He is what Dr. Johnson calls a rapturist, and I saw plainly he meant to pour forth much civility into my ears. He is a very communicative, gay, and pleasant converser, and enlivened the whole day by his readiness upon all subjects.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, ii. 236. It is very likely that he is 'the ingenious writer' mentioned post, 1780, in Mr. Langton's 'Collection,' of whom Johnson said, 'Sir, he is an enthusiast by rule.' Mr. Windham records that Johnson, speaking of Warton's admiration of fine passages, said:—'His taste is amazement' (misprinted amusement). Windham's Diary, p. 20. In her Memoirs of Dr. Burney (ii. 82), Mme. D'Arblay says that Johnson 'at times, when in gay spirits, would take off Dr. Warton with the strongest humour; describing, almost convulsively, the ecstasy with which he would seize upon the person nearest to him, to hug in his arms, lest his grasp should be eluded, while he displayed some picture or some prospect.' In that humourous piece, Probationary Odes for the Laureateship (p. xliii), Dr. Joseph is made to hug his brother in his arms, when he sees him descend safely from the balloon in which he had composed his Ode. Thomas Warton is described in the same piece (p. 116) as 'a little, thick, squat, red-faced man.' There was for some time a coolness between Johnson and Dr. Warton. Warton, writing on Jan. 22, 1766, says:—'I only dined with Johnson, who seemed cold and indifferent, and scarce said anything to me; perhaps he has heard what I said of his Shakespeare, or rather was offended at what I wrote to him—as he pleases.' Wooll's Warton, p. 312. Wooll says that a dispute took place between the two men at Reynolds's house. 'One of the company overheard the following conclusion of the dispute. JOHNSON. "Sir, I am not used to be contradicted." WARTON. "Better for yourself and friends, Sir, if you were; our admiration could not be increased, but our love might."' Ib p. 98.

[116] The Good-Natured Man, post p. 45.

[117] 'It has been said that the King only sought one interview with Dr. Johnson. There was nothing to complain of; it was a compliment paid by rank to letters, and once was enough. The King was more afraid of this interview than Dr. Johnson was; and went to it as a schoolboy to his task. But he did not want to have the trial repeated every day, nor was it necessary. The very jealousy of his self-love marked his respect; and if he thought the less of Dr. Johnson, he would have been more willing to risk the encounter.' Hazlitt's Conversations of Northcote, p. 45. It should seem that Johnson had a second interview with the King thirteen years later. In 1780, Hannah More records (Memoirs, i. 174):—'Johnson told me he had been with the King that morning, who enjoined him to add Spenser to his Lives of the Poets.' It is strange that, so far as I know, this interview is not mentioned by any one else. It is perhaps alluded to, post, Dec., 1784, when Mr. Nichols told Johnson that he wished 'he would gratify his sovereign by a Life of Spenser.'

[118] It is proper here to mention, that when I speak of his correspondence, I consider it independent of the voluminous collection of letters which, in the course of many years, he wrote to Mrs. Thrale, which forms a separate part of his works; and as a proof of the high estimation set on any thing which came from his pen, was sold by that lady for the sum of five hundred pounds. BOSWELL.

[119] He was away from the London 'near six months.' See ante, ii. 30.

[120] On August 17 he recorded:—'I have communicated with Kitty, and kissed her. I was for some time distracted, but at last more composed. I commended my friends, and Kitty, Lucy, and I were much affected. Kitty is, I think, going to heaven.' Pr. and Med., p. 75.

[121] Pr. and Med., pp. 77 and 78. BOSWELL.

[122] Pr. and Med., p. 73. BOSWELL. On Aug. 17, he recorded:—'By abstinence from wine and suppers I obtained sudden and great relief, and had freedom of mind restored to me, which I have wanted for all this year, without being able to find any means of obtaining it.' Ib p. 74.

[123] Hawkins, in his second edition (p. 347) assigns it to Campbell, 'who,' he says, 'as well for the malignancy of his heart as his terrific countenance, was called horrible Campbell.'

[124] See ante, i. 218.

[125] The book is as dull as it is indecent. The 'drollery' is of the following kind. Johnson is represented as saying:—'Without dubiety you misapprehend this dazzling scintillation of conceit in totality, and had you had that constant recurrence to my oraculous dictionary which was incumbent upon you from the vehemence of my monitory injunctions,' &c. p. 2.

[126] Pr. and Med., p. 81. BOSWELL. 'This day,' he wrote on his birthday, 'has been passed in great perturbation; I was distracted at church in an uncommon degree, and my distress has had very little intermission.... This day it came into my mind to write the history of my melancholy. On this I purpose to deliberate; I know not whether it may not too much disturb me.' See post, April 8, 1780.

[127] It is strange that Boswell nowhere quotes the lines in The Good-Natured Man, in which Paoli is mentioned. 'That's from Paoli of Corsica,' said Lofty. Act v. sc. i.

[128] In the original, 'Pressed by.' Boswell, in thus changing the preposition, forgot what Johnson says in his Plan of an English Dictionary (Works, v. 12):—'We say, according to the present modes of speech, The soldier died of his wounds, and the sailor perished with hunger; and every man acquainted with our language would be offended with a change of these particles, which yet seem originally assigned by chance.'

[129] Boswell, writing to Temple on March 24, says:—'My book has amazing celebrity; Lord Lyttelton, Mr. Walpole, Mrs. Macaulay, and Mr. Garrick have all written me noble letters about it. There are two Dutch translations going forward.' Letters of Boswell, p. 145. It met with a rapid sale. A third edition was called for within a year. Dilly, the publisher, must have done very well by it, as he purchased the copyright for one hundred guineas. Ib, p. 103. 'Pray read the new account of Corsica,' wrote Horace Walpole to Gray on Feb. 18, 1768 (Letters, v. 85). 'The author is a strange being, and has a rage of knowing everybody that ever was talked of. He forced himself upon me at Paris in spite of my teeth and my doors.' To this Gray replied:—'Mr. Boswell's book has pleased and moved me strangely; all, I mean, that relates to Paoli. He is a man born two thousand years after his time! The pamphlet proves, what I have always maintained, that any fool may write a most valuable book by chance, if he will only tell us what he heard and saw with veracity.' In The Letters of Boswell (p. 122) there is the following under date of Nov. 9, 1767:—'I am always for fixing some period for my perfection, as far as possible. Let it be when my account of Corsica is published; I shall then have a character which I must support.' In April 16 of the following year, a few weeks after the book had come out, he writes:—'To confess to you at once, Temple, I have since my last coming to town been as wild as ever.' (p. 146.)

[130] Boswell used to put notices of his movements in the newspapers, such as—'James Boswell, Esq., is expected in town.' Public Advertiser, Feb. 28, 1768. 'Yesterday James Boswell, Esq., arrived from Scotland at his lodgings in Half-Moon Street, Piccadilly.' Ib March 24, 1768. Prior's Goldsmith, i. 449.

[131] Johnson was very ill during this visit. Mrs. Thrale had at the same time given birth to a daughter, and had been nursed by her mother. His thoughts, therefore, were turned on illness. Writing to Mrs. Thrale, he says:—'To roll the weak eye of helpless anguish, and see nothing on any side but cold indifference, will, I hope, happen to none whom I love or value; it may tend to withdraw the mind from life, but has no tendency to kindle those affections which fit us for a purer and a nobler state.... These reflections do not grow out of any discontent at C's [Chambers's] behaviour; he has been neither negligent nor troublesome; nor do I love him less for having been ill in his house. This is no small degree of praise.' Piozzi Letters, i. 13.

[132] See ante, ii. 3, note.

[133] The editor of the Letters of Boswell justly says (p. 149):—'The detail in the Life of Johnson is rather scanty about this period; dissipation, the History of Corsica, wife-hunting, ... interfered perhaps at this time with Boswell's pursuit of Dr. Johnson.'

[134] See Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 15, 1773, for a discussion of the same question. Lord Eldon has recorded (Life, i. 106), that when he first went the Northern Circuit (about 1776-1780), he asked Jack Lee (post, March 20, 1778), who was not scrupulous in his advocacy, whether his method could be justified. 'Oh, yes,' he said, 'undoubtedly. Dr. Johnson had said that counsel were at liberty to state, as the parties themselves would state, what it was most for their interest to state.' After some interval, and when he had had his evening bowl of milk punch and two or three pipes of tobacco, he suddenly said, 'Come, Master Scott, let us go to bed. I have been thinking upon the questions that you asked me, and I am not quite so sure that the conduct you represented will bring a man peace at the last.' Lord Eldon, after stating pretty nearly what Johnson had said, continues:—'But it may be questioned whether even this can be supported.'

[135] Garrick brought out Hugh Kelly's False Delicacy at Drury Lane six days before Goldsmith's Good-Natured Man was brought out at Covent Garden. 'It was the town talk,' says Mr. Forster (Life of Goldsmith, ii. 93), some weeks before either performance took place, 'that the two comedies were to be pitted against each other.' False Delicacy had a great success. Ten thousand copies of it were sold before the season closed. (Ib p. 96.) 'Garrick's prologue to False Delicacy,' writes Murphy (Life of Garrick, p. 287), 'promised a moral and sentimental comedy, and with an air of pleasantry called it a sermon in five acts. The critics considered it in the same light, but the general voice was in favour of the play during a run of near twenty nights. Foote, at last, by a little piece called Piety in Pattens, brought that species of composition into disrepute.' It is recorded in Johnson's Works (1787), xi. 201, that when some one asked Johnson whether they should introduce Hugh Kelly to him, 'No, Sir,' says he, 'I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.' See post, beginning of 1777.

[136] The Provoked Husband, or A Journey to London, by Vanbrugh and Colley Cibber. It was brought out in 1727-8. See post, June 3, 1784.

[137] See ante, i. 213.

[138] April 6, 1772, and April 12, 1776.

[139] Richardson, writing on Dec. 7, 1756, to Miss Fielding, about her Familiar Letters, says:—'What a knowledge of the human heart! Well might a critical judge of writing say, as he did to me, that your late brother's knowledge of it was not (fine writer as he was) comparable to yours. His was but as the knowledge of the outside of a clock-work machine, while yours was that of all the finer springs and movements of the inside.' Richardson Corres. ii. 104. Mrs. Calderwood, writing of her visit to the Low Countries in 1756, says:—'All Richison's [Richardson's] books are translated, and much admired abroad; but for Fielding's the foreigners have no notion of them, and do not understand them, as the manners are so entirely English.' Letters, &c., of Mrs. Calderwood, p. 208

[140] In The Provoked Husband, act iv. sc. 1.

[141] By Dr. Hoadley, brought out in 1747. 'This was the first good comedy from the time of The Provoked Husband in 1727.' Murphy's Garrick, p. 78.

[142] Madame Riccoboni, writing to Garrick from Paris on Sept. 7, 1768, says:—'On ne supporterait point ici l'indcence de Ranger. Les trsindcens Franaisdeviennent dlicats sur leur thtre, mesure qu'ils le sont moins dans leur conduite.' Garrick's Corres. ii. 548.

[143] 'The question in dispute was as to the heirship of Mr. Archibald Douglas. If he were really the son of Lady Jane Douglas, he would inherit large family estates; but if he were supposititious, then they would descend to the Duke of Hamilton. The Judges of the Court of Session had been divided in opinion, eight against seven, the Lord President Dundas giving the casting vote in favour of the Duke of Hamilton; and in consequence of it he and several other of the judges had, on the reversal by the Lords, their houses attacked by a mob. It is said, but not upon conclusive authority, that Boswell himself headed the mob which broke his own father's windows.' Letters of Boswell, p. 86. See post, April 27, 1773, and Boswell's Hebrides, Oct. 24-26, 1773. Mr. J. H. Burton, in his Life of Hume (ii. 150), says:—'Men about to meet each other in company used to lay an injunction on themselves not to open their lips on the subject, so fruitful was it in debates and brawls.' Boswell, according to the Bodleian catalogue, was the author of Dorando, A Spanish Tale, 1767. In this tale the Douglas cause is narrated under the thinnest disguise. It is reviewed in the Gent. Mag. for 1767, p. 361.

[144] See post, under April 19, 1772, March 15, 1779, and June 2, 1781.

[145] Revd. Kenneth Macaulay. See Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 27, 1773. He was the great-uncle of Lord Macaulay.

[146] Martin, in his St. Kilda (p. 38), had stated that the people of St. Kilda 'are seldom troubled with a cough, except at the Steward's landing. I told them plainly,' he continues, 'that I thought all this notion of infection was but a mere fancy, at which they seemed offended, saying, that never any before the minister and myself was heard to doubt of the truth of it, which is plainly demonstrated upon the landing of every boat.' The usual 'infected cough,' came, he says, upon his visit. Macaulay (History of St. Kilda, p. 204) says that he had gone to the island a disbeliever, but that by eight days after his arrival all the inhabitants were infected with this disease. See also post, March, 21, 1772, and Boswell's Hebrides, Oct. 2, 1773.

[147] See ante, July 1, 1763.

[148] Post, March 21, 1772.

[149] This is not the case. Martin (p. 9) says that the only landing place is inaccessible except under favour of a neap tide, a north-east or west wind, or with a perfect calm. He himself was rowed to St. Kilda, 'the inhabitants admiring to see us get thither contrary to the wind and tide' (p. 5).

[150] That for one kind of learning Oxford has no advantages, he shows in a letter that he wrote there on Aug. 4, 1777. 'I shall inquire,' he says, 'about the harvest when I come into a region where anything necessary to life is understood.' Piozzi Letters, i. 349. At Lichfield he reached that region. 'My barber, a man not unintelligent, speaks magnificently of the harvest;' Ib p. 351.

[151] See post, Sept. 14, 1777.

[152] See ante, i. 116.

[153] The advancement had been very rapid. 'When Dr. Robertson's career commenced,' writes Dugald Stewart in his Life of that historian (p. 157), 'the trade of authorship was unknown in Scotland.' Smollet, in Humphry Clinker, published three years after this conversation, makes Mr. Bramble write (Letter of Aug. 8):—'Edinburgh is a hot-bed of genius. I have had the good fortune to be made acquainted with many authors of the first distinction; such as the two Humes [David Hume and John Home, whose names had the same pronunciation], Robertson, Smith, Wallace, Blair, Ferguson, Wilkie, &c.' To these might be added Smollett himself, Boswell, Reid, Beattie, Kames, Monboddo. Henry Mackenzie and Dr. Henry began to publish in 1771. Gibbon, writing to Robertson in 1779, says:—'I have often considered with some sort of envy the valuable society which you possess in so narrow a compass.' Stewart's Robertson, p. 363.

[154] See post, April 30, 1773, where Johnson owned that he had not read Hume. J.H. Burton (Life of Hume, ii. 129), after stating that 'Hume was the first to add to a mere narrative of events an enquiry into the progress of the people, &c.,' says:—'There seems to be no room for the supposition that he had borrowed the idea from Voltaire's Essai sur les Moeurs. Hume's own Political Discourses are as close an approach to this method of inquiry as the work of Voltaire; and if we look for such productions of other writers as may have led him into this train of thought, it would be more just to name Bacon and Montesquieu.'

[155] See post, May 8 and 13, 1778.

[156] See post, April 30, 1773, April 29, 1778, and Oct. 10, 1779.

[157] An Essay on the Future Life of Brutes. By Richard Dean, Curate of Middleton, Manchester, 1767. The 'part of the Scriptures' on which the author chiefly relies is the Epistle to the Romans, viii. 19-23. He also finds support for his belief in 'those passages in Isaiah where the prophet speaks of new Heavens, and a new Earth, of the Lion as eating straw like the Ox, &c.' Vol. ii. pp. x, 4.

[158] The words that Addison's Cato uses as he lays his hand on his sword. Act v. sc. 1.

[159] I should think it impossible not to wonder at the variety of Johnson's reading, however desultory it may have been. Who could have imagined that the High Church of England-man would be so prompt in quoting Maupertuis, who, I am sorry to think, stands in the list of those unfortunate mistaken men, who call themselves esprits forts. I have, however, a high respect for that Philosopher whom the Great Frederick of Prussia loved and honoured, and addressed pathetically in one of his Poems,—

'Maupertuis, cher Maupertuis, Que notre vie est peu de chose!'

There was in Maupertuis a vigour and yet a tenderness of sentiment, united with strong intellectual powers, and uncommon ardour of soul. Would he had been a Christian! I cannot help earnestly venturing to hope that he is one now. BOSWELL. Voltaire writing to D'Alembert on Aug. 25, 1759, says:—'Que dites-vous de Maupertuis, mort entre deux capucins?' Voltaire's Works, lxii. 94. The stanza from which Boswell quotes is as follows:—

'O Maupertuis, cher Maupertuis, Que notre vie est peu de chose! Cette fleur, qui brille aujourd'hui Demain se fane peine close; Tout prit, tout est emport Par la dure fatalit Des arrts de la destine; Votre vertu, vos grands talents Ne pourront obtenir du temps Le seul dlai d'une journe.' _La vie est un Songe. Euvres de Frdric II (edit. 1849), x. 40.

[160] Johnson does not give Conglobulate in his Dictionary; only conglobe. If he used the word it is not likely that he said 'conglobulate together.'

[161] Gilbert White, writing on Nov. 4, 1767, after mentioning that he had seen swallows roosting in osier-beds by the river, says:—'This seems to give some countenance to the northern opinion (strange as it is) of their retiring under water.' White's Selborne, Letter xii. See also post, May 7, 1773.

[162] Travels from St. Petersburgh in Russia to divers parts of Asia. By John Bell, Glasgow, 1763: 4to. 2 vols.

[163] I. D'Israeli (Curiosities of Literature, ed. 1834, i. 194) ranks this book among Literary Impostures. 'Du Halde never travelled ten leagues from Paris in his life; though he appears by his writings to be familiar with Chinese scenery.' See ante, i. 136.

[164] See post, Oct. 10, 1779.

[165] Boswell, in his correspondence with Temple in 1767 and 1768, passes in review the various ladies whom he proposes to marry. The lady described in this paragraph—for the 'gentleman' is clearly Boswell—is 'the fair and lively Zelide,' a Dutch-woman. She was translating his Corsica into French. On March 24, 1768, he wrote, 'I must have her.' On April 26, he asked his father's permission to go over to Holland to see her. But on May 14 he forwarded to Temple one of her letters. 'Could,' he said, 'any actress at any of the theatres attack me with a keener—what is the word? not fury, something softer. The lightning that flashes with so much brilliance may scorch, and does not her esprit do so?' Letters of Boswell, pp. 144-150.

[166] In the original it is some not many. Johnson's Works, vii. 182.

[167] An account of the Manners and Customs of Italy, by Joseph Baretti, London, 1768. The book would be still more entertaining were it not written as a reply to Sharp's Letters on Italy. Post under April 29, 1776.

[168] Mrs. Piozzi wrote of him: 'His character is easily seen, and his soul above disguise, haughty and insolent, and breathing defiance against all mankind; while his powers of mind exceed most people's, and his powers of purse are so slight that they leave him dependent on all. Baretti is for ever in the state of a stream damned up; if he could once get loose, he would bear down all before him.' Hayward's Piozzi, ii. 335.

[169] According to Hawkins (Life, p. 460), the watch was new this year, and was, he believed, the first Johnson ever had.

[170] St. John, ix. 4. In Pr. and Med., p. 233, is the following:—'Ejaculation imploring diligence. "O God, make me to remember that the night cometh when no man can work."' Porson, in his witty attack on Sir John Hawkins, originally published in the Gent. Mag. for 1787, quotes the inscription as a proof of Hawkins's Greek. 'Nux gar erchetai. The meaning is (says Sir John) For the night cometh. And so it is, Mr. Urban.' Porson Tracts, p. 337.

[171] He thus wrote of himself from Oxford to Mrs. Thrale:—'This little dog does nothing, but I hope he will mend; he is now reading Jack the Giant-killer. Perhaps so noble a narrative may rouse in him the soul of enterprise.' Piozzi Letters, i. 9.

[172] See ante, ii. 3

[173] Under the same date, Boswell thus begins a letter to Temple:—'Your moral lecture came to me yesterday in very good time, while I lay suffering severely for immorality. If there is any firmness at all in me, be assured that I shall never again behave in a manner so unworthy the friend of Paoli. My warm imagination looks forward with great complacency on the sobriety, the healthfulness, and the worth of my future life.' Letters of Boswell, p. 147

[174] Johnson so early as Aug. 21, 1766, had given him the same advice (ante, ii. 22). How little Boswell followed it is shewn by his letter to the Earl of Chatham, on April 8, 1767, in which he informed him of his intention to publish his Corsica, and concluded:—'Could your Lordship find time to honour me now and then with a letter? I have been told how favourably your Lordship has spoken of me. To correspond with a Paoli and with a Chatham is enough to keep a young man ever ardent in the pursuit of virtuous fame.' Chatham Corres., iii. 246. On the same day on which he wrote to Johnson, he said in a letter to Temple, 'Old General Oglethorpe, who has come to see me, and is with me often, just on account of my book, bids me not marry till I have first put the Corsicans in a proper situation. "You may make a fortune in the doing of it," said he; "or, if you do not, you will have acquired such a character as will entitle you to any fortune."' Letters of Boswell, p. 148. Four months later, Boswell wrote:—'By a private subscription in Scotland, I am sending this week 700 worth of ordnance [to Corsica] ... It is really a tolerable train of artillery.' Ib p. 156. In 1769 he brought out a small volume entitled British Essays in favour of the Brave Corsicans. By Several Hands. Collected and published by James Boswell, Esq.

[175] From about the beginning of the fourteenth century, Corsica had belonged to the Republic of Genoa. In the great rising under Paoli, the Corsicans would have achieved their independence, had not Genoa ceded the island to the crown of France.

[176] Boswell, writing to Temple on May 14 of this year, says:—'I am really the great man now. I have had David Hume in the forenoon, and Mr. Johnson in the afternoon of the same day, visiting me. Sir J. Pringle and Dr. Franklin dined with me to-day; and Mr. Johnson and General Oglethorpe one day, Mr. Garrick alone another, and David Hume and some more literati another, dine with me next week. I give admirable dinners and good claret; and the moment I go abroad again, which will be in a day or two, I set up my chariot. This is enjoying the fruit of my labours, and appearing like the friend of Paoli.' Letters of Boswell, p. 151.

[177] See post, April 12, 1778, and May 8, 1781.

[178] The talk arose no doubt from the general election that had just been held amid all the excitement about Wilkes. Dr. Franklin (Memoirs, iii. 307), in a letter dated April 16, 1768, describes the riots in London. He had seen 'the mob requiring gentlemen and ladies of all ranks as they passed in their carriages, to shout for Wilkes and liberty, marking the same words on all their coaches with chalk, and No. 45 on every door. I went last week to Winchester, and observed that for fifteen miles out of town there was scarce a door or window shutter next the road unmarked; and this continued here and there quite to Winchester.'

[179] In his Vindication of the Licensers of the Stage, he thus writes:—'If I might presume to advise them [the Ministers] upon this great affair, I should dissuade them from any direct attempt upon the liberty of the press, which is the darling of the common people, and therefore cannot be attacked without immediate danger.' Works, v. 344. On p. 191 of the same volume, he shows some of the benefits that arise in England from 'the boundless liberty with which every man may write his own thoughts.' See also in his Life of Milton, the passage about Areopagitica, Ib vii. 82. The liberty of the press was likely to be 'a constant topic.' Horace Walpole (Memoirs of the Reign of George III, ii. 15), writing of the summer of 1764, says:—'Two hundred informations were filed against printers; a larger number than had been prosecuted in the whole thirty-three years of the last reign.'

[180] 'The sun has risen, and the corn has grown, and, whatever talk has been of the danger of property, yet he that ploughed the field commonly reaped it, and he that built a house was master of the door; the vexation excited by injustice suffered, or supposed to be suffered, by any private man, or single community, was local and temporary; it neither spread far nor lasted long.' Johnson's Works, vi. 170. See also post, March 31, 1772. Dr. Franklin (Memoirs, iii. 215) wrote to the Abb Morellet, on April 22, 1787:—'Nothing can be better expressed than your sentiments are on this point, where you prefer liberty of trading, cultivating, manufacturing, &c., even to civil liberty, this being affected but rarely, the other every hour.'

[181] See ante, July 6, 1763.

[182] See ante, Oct. 1765.

[183] 'I was diverted with Paoli's English library. It consisted of:—Some broken volumes of the Spectatour and Tatler; Pope's Essay on Man; Gulliver's Travels; A History of France in old English; and Barclay's Apology for the Quakers. I promised to send him some English books... I have sent him some of our best books of morality and entertainment, in particular the works of Mr. Samuel Johnson.' Boswell's Corsica, p. 169.

[184] Johnson, as Boswell believed, only once 'in the whole course of his life condescended to oppose anything that was written against him.' (See ante, i. 314.) In this he followed the rule of Bentley and of Boerhaave. 'It was said to old Bentley, upon the attacks against him, "why, they'll write you down." "No, Sir," he replied; "depend upon it, no man was ever written down but by himself."' Boswell's Hebrides, Oct. 1 1773. Bentley shewed prudence in his silence. 'He was right,' Johnson said, 'not to answer; for, in his hazardous method of writing, he could not but be often enough wrong.' Boswell's Hebrides, Sept. 10, 1773. 'Boerhaave was never soured by calumny and detraction, nor ever thought it necessary to confute them; "for they are sparks," said he, "which, if you do not blow them, will go out of themselves."' Johnson's Works, vi. 288. Swift, in his Lines on Censure which begin,—

'Ye wise instruct me to endure An evil which admits no cure.'

ends by saying:—

'The most effectual way to baulk Their malice is—to let them talk.' Swift's Works, xi. 58.

Young, in his Second Epistle to Pope, had written:—

'Armed with this truth all critics I defy; For if I fall, by my own pen I die.'

Hume, in his Auto. (p. ix.) says:—'I had a fixed resolution, which I inflexibly maintained, never to reply to any body.' This is not quite true. See J. H. Burton's Life of Hume, ii. 252, for an instance of a violent reply. The following passages in Johnson's writings are to the same effect:—'I am inclined to believe that few attacks either of ridicule or invective make much noise, but by the help of those that they provoke.' Piozzi Letters ii. 289. 'It is very rarely that an author is hurt by his critics. The blaze of reputation cannot be blown out, but it often dies in the socket.' Ib p. 110. 'The writer who thinks his works formed for duration mistakes his interest when he mentions his enemies. He degrades his own dignity by shewing that he was affected by their censures, and gives lasting importance to names, which, left to themselves would vanish from remembrance.' Johnson's Works, vii. 294. 'If it had been possible for those who were attacked to conceal their pain and their resentment, the Dunciad might have made its way very slowly in the world.' Ib viii. 276. Hawkins (Life of Johnson, p. 348) says that, 'against personal abuse Johnson was ever armed by a reflection that I have heard him utter:—"Alas! reputation would be of little worth, were it in the power of every concealed enemy to deprive us of it."' In his Parl. Debates (Works, x. 359), Johnson makes Mr. Lyttelton say:—'No man can fall into contempt but those who deserve it.' Addison in The Freeholder, No. 40, says, that 'there is not a more melancholy object in the learned world than a man who has written himself down.' See also Boswell's Hebrides, near the end.

[185] Barber had entered Johnson's service in 1752 (ante, i. 239). Nine years before this letter was written he had been a sailor on board a frigate (ante, i. 348), so that he was somewhat old for a boy.

[186] Boswell, writing to Temple on May 14 of this year; says:—'Dr. Robertson is come up laden with his Charles V.—three large quartos; he has been offered three thousand guineas for it.' Letters of Boswell, p. 152.

[187] In like manner the professors at Aberdeen and Glasgow seemed afraid to speak in his presence. See Boswell's Hebrides, Aug 23 and Oct 29, 1773. See also post, April 20, 1778.

[188] See ante, July 28, 1763.

[189] Johnson, in inserting this letter, says (Works, viii. 374):—'I communicate it with much pleasure, as it gives me at once an opportunity of recording the fraternal kindness of Thomson, and reflecting on the friendly assistance of Mr. Boswell, from whom I received it.' See post, July 9, 1777, and June 18, 1778.

[190] Murphy, in his Life of Garrick, p. 183, says that Garrick once brought Dr. Munsey—so he writes the name—to call on him. 'Garrick entered the dining-room, and turning suddenly round, ran to the door, and called out, "Dr. Munsey, where are you going?" "Up stairs to see the author," said Munsey. "Pho! pho! come down, the author is here." Dr. Munsey came, and, as he entered the room, said in his free way, "You scoundrel! I was going up to the garret. Who could think of finding an author on the first floor?"' Mrs. Montagu wrote to Lord Lyttelton from Tunbridge in 1760:—'The great Monsey (sic) came hither on Friday ... He is great in the coffee-house, great in the rooms, and great on the pantiles.' Montagu Letters, iv. 291. In Rogers's Table-Talk, p. 271, there is a curious account of him.

[191] See ante, July 26, 1763.

[192] My respectable friend, upon reading this passage, observed, that he probably must have said not simply, 'strong facts,' but 'strong facts well arranged.' His lordship, however, knows too well the value of written documents to insist on setting his recollection against my notes taken at the time. He does not attempt to traverse the record. The fact, perhaps, may have been, either that the additional words escaped me in the noise of a numerous company, or that Dr. Johnson, from his impetuosity, and eagerness to seize an opportunity to make a lively retort, did not allow Dr. Douglas to finish his sentence. BOSWELL.