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conducive to the happiness of society. There is a reciprocal pleasure in governing and being governed."

"Dr. Goldsmith is one of the first men we now have as an author, and he is a very worthy man too. He has been loose in his principles, but he is coming right."

I mentioned Mallet's tragedy of "Elvira," which had been acted the preceding winter at Drury-lane, and that the Hon. Andrew Erskine', Mr. Dempster 2, and myself, had joined in writing a pamphlet, entitled "Critical Strictures," against it; that the mildness of Dempster's disposition had, however, relented; and he had candidly said, "We have hardly a right to abuse this tragedy; for, bad as it is, how vain should either of us be to write one not near so good!" JOHNSON. "Why no, Sir; this is not just reasoning. You may abuse a tragedy, though you cannot write one. You may scold a carpenter who has made you a bad table, though you cannot make a table. It is not your trade to make tables."

When I talked to him of the paternal estate to which I was heir, he said, "Sir, let me tell you, that to be a Scotch landlord, where you have a number of families dependent upon you, and attached to you, is, perhaps, as high a situation as humanity can arrive at. A merchant upon the 'Change of London, with a hundred thousand pounds, is nothing; an English Duke, with an immense fortune, is nothing he has no tenants who consider themselves as under his patriarchal care, and who will follow him to the field upon an emergency."

His notion of the dignity of a Scotch landlord had been formed upon what he had heard of the Highland chiefs; for it is long since a Lowland landlord has been so curtailed in his feudal authority, that he has little more influence over his tenants than an English landlord; and of late years most of the Highland chiefs have destroyed, by means too well known, the princely power which they once enjoyed.*

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man of inferior talents to yours may furnish us with useful observations upon that country." His supposing me, at that period of life, capable of writing an account of my travels that would deserve to be read, elated me not a little.

I appeal to every impartial reader whether this faithful detail of his frankness, complacency, and kindness to a young man, a stranger, and a Scotchman, does not refute the unjust opinion of the harshness of his general demeanour. His occasional reproofs of folly, impudence, or impiety, and even the sudden sallies of his constitutional irritability of temper, which have been preserved for the poignancy of their wit, have produced that opinion among those who have not considered that such instances, though collected by Mrs. Piozzi into a small volume 5, and read over in a few hours, were, in fact, scattered through a long series of years: years, in which his time was chiefly spent in instructing and delighting mankind by his writings and conversation, in acts of piety to GOD, and good-will to men.

I complained to him that I had not yet acquired much knowledge, and asked his advice as to my studies. He said, "Don't talk of study now. I will give you a plan; but it will require some time to consider of it." "It is very good in you," I replied, "to allow me to be with you thus. Had it been foretold to me some years ago that I should pass an evening with the author of the RAMBLER, how should I have exulted!" What I then expressed, was sincerely from the heart. He was satisfied that it was, and cordially answered, "Sir, I am glad we have met. I hope we shall pass many evenings, and mornings too, together." We finished a couple of bottles of port, and sat till between one and two in the morning.

He wrote this year in the Critical Review the account of "Telemachus, a Mask," by the Rev. George Graham, of Eton College. The subject of this beautiful poem was particularly interesting to Johnson, who had much exHe proceeded: "Your going abroad, perience of "the conflict of opposite prinSir, and breaking off idle habits, may be of ciples," which he describes as "the contention great importance to you. I would go where between pleasure and virtue; a struggle which there are courts and learned men. There is a will always be continued while the present good deal of Spain that has not been peram-system of nature shall subsist; nor can hisbulated. I would have you go thither. A tory or poetry exhibit more than pleasure

to desist from his purpose. Johnson entertained no resentment against him, and they were ever after friends.". CROKER.

1 Third son of the fifth Earl of Kellie, born in 1739, died 1793. He published in 1763 some letters and poems addressed to Mr. Boswell. - CROKER.

* George Dempster, of Dunnichen, secretary to the Order of the Thistle, and long M. P. for the Fife district of boroughs. He was a man of talents and very agreeable manners. Burns mentions him more than once with eulogy. Mr. Dempster retired from parliament in 1790, and died in 1818, in his 86th year. CROKER.

3 The Critical Review, in which Mallet himself sometimes wrote, characterised this pamphlet as "the crude efforts of envy, petulance, and self-conceit." There being thus three

epithets, we, the three authors, had a humorous contention how each should be appropriated. - BOSWELL.

4 Boswell alludes, principally at least, to the substitution of sheep farming for the old black-cattle system in the Highlands and islands of Scotland, in consequence of which, fewer hands being required on the chiefs' estates, a large portion of their clansmen were driven into exile in America. We shall hear more of these affairs in the course of the Hebridean journal, post. - LOCKHART.

5 Mr. Boswell here, and elsewhere, hints blame against Mrs. Piozzi for repeating Johnson's conversational asperities. Any one who examines the two works will find that Boswell relates ten times as many as the lady. No one would honestly relate Johnson's conversation without giving such sallies. — CROKER.

6 See post, 18th Feb. 1777.-C.

triumphing over virtue, and virtue subjugating pleasure."

As Dr. Oliver Goldsmith will frequently appear in this narrative, I shall endeavour to make my readers in some degree acquainted with his singular character. He was a native of Ireland, and a contemporary with Mr. Burke, at Trinity College, Dublin, but did not then give much promise of future celebrity.' He, however, observed to Mr. Malone, that "though he made no great figure in mathematics, which was a study in much repute there, he could turn an Ode of Horace into English better than any of them." He afterwards studied physic at Edinburgh, and upon the continent 2; and, I have been informed, was enabled to pursue his travels on foot, partly by demanding at Universities to enter the lists as a disputant, by which, according to the custom of many of them, he was entitled to the premium of a crown, when, luckily for him, his challenge was not accepted; so that, as I once observed to Dr. Johnson, he disputed his passage through Europe. He then came to England, and was employed successively in the capacities of an usher to an academy, a corrector of the press, a reviewer, and a writer for a newspaper. He had sagacity enough to cultivate assiduously the acquaintance of Johnson, and his faculties were gradually enlarged by the contemplation of such a model. To me and many others it appeared that he studiously copied the manner of Johnson, though, indeed, upon a smaller scale.

At this time I think he had published nothing with his name, though it was pretty generally known that one Dr. Goldsmith was the author of "An Inquiry into the present State of Polite Learning in Europe," and of "The Citizen of the World," a series of letters

1 Goldsmith got a premium at a Christmas examination in Trinity College, Dublin, which I have seen. KEARNEY. The Christmas premium is the most honourable, being the first of the academic year: at the other three examinations, the one who has already had a premium can only have a certificate that he had been the best answerer. - MALONE. Dr. Kearney must have been under some misconception; as it seems certain that Oliver Goldsmith never obtained any premium. CROKER.

2 With no great success, it seems, from his being in 1758 rejected by the College of Surgeons, as not qualified for an Hospital Mate. Prior's Life, ii. 282. CROKER.

3 The story of George Primrose in the Vicar of Wakefield contains many circumstances of his own personal history. ---CROKER, 1846.

4 He had also published in 1759, "The Bee; being Essays on the most interesting Subjects." MALONE.

See his Epitaph in Westminster Abbey, written by Dr. Johnson.- BOSWELL.

6 In allusion to this, Mr. Horace Walpole, who admired his writings, said he was "an inspired idiot; " and Garrick described him as one

"for shortness call'd Noll,

Who wrote like an angel, and talk'd like poor Poll." Sir Joshua Reynolds mentioned to me, that he frequently heard Goldsmith talk warmly of the pleasure of being liked, and observe how hard it would be if literary excellence should preclude a man from that satisfaction, which he per ceived it often did, from the envy which attended it; and therefore Sir Joshua was convinced that he was intentionally more absurd, in order to lessen himself in social intercourse, trusting that his character would be sufficiently supported by his works. If it indeed was his intention to appear absurd

supposed to be written from London by a Chinese.* No man had the art of displaying with more advantage, as a writer, whatever literary acquisitions he made. "Nihil quod tetigit non ornavit.” 5 His mind resembled a fertile, but thin soil. There was a quick, but not a strong vegetation, of whatever chanced to be thrown upon it. No deep root could be struck. The oak of the forest did not grow there; but the elegant shrubbery and the fragrant parterre appeared in gay succession. It has been generally circulated and believed that he was a mere fool in conversation"; but, in truth, this has been greatly exaggerated. He had, no doubt, a more than common share of that hurry of ideas which we often find in his countrymen, and which sometimes produces a laughable confusion in expressing them. He was very much what the French call un étourdi; and from vanity and an eager desire of being conspicuous wherever he was, he frequently talked carelessly without knowledge of the subject, or even without thought. His person was short, his countenance coarse and vulgar, his deportment that of a scholar awkwardly affecting the easy gentleman. Those who were in any way distinguished, excited envy in him to so ridiculous an excess, that the instances of it are hardly credible. When accompanying two beautiful_young ladies with their mother on a tour in France, he was seriously angry that more attention was paid to them than to him; and once, at the exhibition of the Fantoccini in London, when those who sat next him observed with what dexterity a puppet was made to toss a pike, he could not bear that it should have such praise, and exclaimed with some warmth, "Pshaw! I can do it better myself." 8

He, I am afraid, had no settled system of

in company, he was often very successful. But, with due deference to Sir Joshua's ingenuity, I think the conjecture too refined. BOSWELL.

7 Miss Hornecks, one of whom is now married to Henry Bunbury, Esq., and the other to Colonel Gwyn. - BosWELL. Mrs. Gwyn survived to favour my first edition with some communications, and died in 1840, within a few days of having completed her 88th year. Mr. Prior, with his usual good-natured anxiety to whitewash Goldsmith, tells us that he has the authority of one of the ladies (no doubt Mrs. Gwyn) for saying that Goldsmith's alleged jealousy of the attention paid to them was a mere pleasantry. I cannot, however, think that he makes out his case. The fact of Goldsmith's having made the absurd complaint is admitted but, says Mr. Prior's informant, "it was in mere playfulness, and I was shocked many years afterwards to see it in print, as a proof of his envious disposition." The good-natured construction which the kind old lady was willing, after a lapse of above sixty years, to put on Goldsmith's behaviour, she did not express in her previous communication with me, though it had afforded so obvious an opportunity of correcting the alleged injustice; and after all, it can be only matter of opinion whether the vexation so seriously exhibited by Goldsmith was real or assumed: and the lady went on, according to Mr. Prior, to state another circumstance, which proves Goldsmith's absurd vanity almost as strongly as the fact which she extenuates. "Of Paris," said she, he soon grew tired, the celebrity of his name not ensuring him that attention from its literary circles which the applause he received at home induced him to expect." Prior's Life, ii. 291.— CROKER, 1846.

8 He went home with Mr. Burke to supper; and broke his shin by attempting to exhibit to the company how much better he could jump over a stick than the puppets. BOSWELL

any sort, so that his conduct must not be strictly scrutinised; but his affections were social and generous, and when he had money he gave it away very liberally. His desire of imaginary consequence predominated over his attention to truth. When he began to rise into notice he said he had a brother who was Dean of Durham'; a fiction so easily detected, that it is wonderful how he should have been so inconsiderate as to hazard it. He boasted to me at this time of the power of his pen in commanding money, which I believe was true in a certain degree, though in the instance he gave he was by no means correct. He told me that he had sold a novel for four hundred pounds. This was his "Vicar of Wakefield." But Johnson informed me, that he had made the bargain for Goldsmith, and the price was sixty pounds. "And, Sir," said he, "a sufficient price too, when it was sold; for then the fame of Goldsmith had not been elevated, as it afterwards was, by his 'Traveller;' and the bookseller had such faint hopes of profit by his bargain, that he kept the manuscript by him a long time, and did not publish it till after the Traveller' had appeared. Then, to be sure, it was accidentally worth more money."

1 I am willing to hope that there may have been some mistake as to this anecdote, though I had it from a dignitary of the church. Dr. Isaac Goldsmith, his near relation, was Dean of Cloyne in 1747. BOSWELL.

It may not be improper to annex here Mrs. Piozzi's account of this transaction, in her own words, as a specimen of the extreme inaccuracy with which all her anecdotes of Dr. Johnson are related, or rather discoloured and dis. torted:

"I have forgotten the year, but it could scarcely, I think, be later than 1765 or 1766, that he was called abruptly from our house after dinner, and, returning in about three hours, said he had been with an enraged author, whose landlady pressed him for payment within doors, while the bailiffs beset him without; that he was drinking himself drunk with Maderia, to drown care, and fretting over a novel, which, when finished, was to be his whole fortune; but he could not get it done for distraction, nor could he step out of doors to offer it for sale. Mr. Johnson, therefore, sent away the bottle, and went to the bookseller, recommending the performance, and desiring some immediate relief; which when he brought back to the writer, he called the woman of the house directly to partake of punch, and pass their time in merriment." Anecdotes, p. 119. BOSWELL.

Johnson sometimes repeated the same anecdote with dif ferent circumstances. Here the greatest discrepancy between the two stories is the time of the day at which it happened; and, unluckily, the admitted fact of the bottle of Madeira seems to render Mrs. Piozzi's version the more probable of the two. If, according to Mr. Boswell's account, Goldsmith had, in the morning, changed Johnson's charitable guinea for the purpose of getting a bottle of Madeira, we cannot wonder that Mrs. Piozzi represents him as " drinking himself drunk with Madeira;" but there is a more serious objection to Mrs. Piozzi's story. She says, Johnson left her table to go and sell the novel; now the novel was sold in 1761-four years before Johnson's acquaintance with the Thrales, though it was not published till March, 1766. The Traveller appeared December, 1764. It may be doubtful whether the sale was not later than 1761, but it certainly was long before his acquaintance with the Thrales. Steevens tells a not dissimilar story of Johnson himself, who "confessed to have been sometimes in the power of bailiffs. Richardson, the author of Clarissa, was his constant friend on such occasions. I remember writing to him,' said Johnson, from a sponging house; and was so sure of my deliverance through his kindness and liberality, that, before his reply was brought, I knew I could afford to joke with the rascal who had me in custody, and did so, over a pint of adulterated wine, for which, at that instant, I had no money to pay.'" London Mag, vol lv. p. 253. — CROKER.

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Anecdotes, p.119. Life, 420.-BOSWELL. How Mr.Boswell,

Mrs. Piozzi and Sir John Hawkins 3 have strangely mis-stated the history of Goldsmith's situation and Johnson's friendly interference, when this novel was sold. I shall give it authentically from Johnson's own exact narration:

"I received one morning a message from poor Goldsmith that he was in great distress, and, as it was not in his power to come to me, begging that I would come to him as soon as possible. I sent him a guinea, and promised to come to him directly. I accordingly went as soon as I was dressed, and found that his landlady had arrested him for his rent, at which he was in a violent passion. I perceived that he had already changed my guinea, and had got a bottle of Madeira and a glass before him. I put the cork into the bottle, desired he would be calm, and began to talk to him of the means by which he might be extricated. He then told me that he had a novel ready for the press, which he produced to me. I looked into it, and saw its merit; told the landlady I should soon return; and, having gone to a bookseller, sold it for sixty pounds. I brought Goldsmith the money, and he discharged his rent, not without rating his landlady in a high tone for having used him so ill." +

who affects such extreme accuracy, should say that Hawkins has strangely mis-stated this affair, is very surprising; what Hawkins says (Life, p. 420.), is merely that, under a pressing necessity, he wrote the Vicar of Wakefield, and sold it to Newberry for 407. Hawkins's account is not in any respect inconsistent with Boswell's; and the difference between the prices stated, even if Hawkins be in error, is surely not suf ficient to justify the charge of a strange mis-statement.— CROKER.

4 Goldsmith was small of stature, and of mean aspect. Miss Reynolds says that the greatest triumph of her brother's pencil was in giving something of an intellectual air to Gold. smith, but even this portrait seems mean and vulgar. Hawkins and other writers tell a variety of anecdotes of Goldsmith's imprudence and absurdity, which his last biographer, Mr. Prior, is, with an amiable partiality, disposed to question; but of the substantial truth of which there can be, I think, no reasonable doubt.

Colonel O'Moore, of Cloghan Castle in Ireland, told me an amusing instance of the mingled vanity and simplicity of Goldsmith, which (though, perhaps, coloured a little, as anecdotes too often are) is characteristic at least of the opinion which his best friends entertained of Goldsmith. One afternoon, as Colonel O'Moore and Mr. Burke were walking to dine with Sir Joshua Reynolds, they observed Goldsmith (also on his way to Sir Joshua's) standing near a crowd of people, who were staring and shouting at some foreign women in the windows of one of the hotels in LeicesterSquare. "Observe Goldsmith," said Mr. Burke to O'Moore, "and mark what passes between him and me by-and-by at Sir Joshua's." They passed on, and arrived before Goldsmith, who came soon after, and Mr. Burke affected to receive him very coolly. This seemed to vex poor Goldsmith, who begged Mr. Burke would tell him how he had had the misfortune to offend him. Burke appeared very reluctant to speak; but, after a good deal of pressing, said, "that he was really ashamed to keep up an intimacy with one who could be guilty of such monstrous indiscretions as Goldsmith had just exhibited in the square." Goldsmith, with great earnestness, protested he was unconscious of what was meant. "Why," said Burke, "did you not exclaim, as you were looking up at those women, what stupid beasts the crowd must be for staring with such admiration at those painted Jezebels; while a man of your talents passed by unnoticed?" Goldsmith was horror-struck, and said, "Surely, surely, my dear friend, I did not say so?" "Nay," replied Burke, "if you had not said so, how should I have known it?" "That's true," answered Goldsmith, with great humility: "I am very sorry-it was very foolish: I do recollect that something of the kind passed through my mind, but I did not think I had uttered it.' -CROKER.

CHAPTER XVI.

1763.

Suppers at the Mitre. Dr. John Campbell.
Churchill. - Bonnell Thornton.— Burlesque "Ode

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Dr. John Campbell, the celebrated political and biographical writer, being mentioned, Johnson said, "Campbell is a man of much knowledge, and has a good share of imagination. His Hermippus Redivivus' is very entertaining, as an account of the Hermetic philosophy, and as furnishing a curious history of the extravagancies of the human mind. If at Home."- Pity. — Style of Hume.· it were merely imaginary, it would be nothing Inequality of Mankind. Constitutional Goodness. Mira- at all. Campbell is not always rigidly careful cles. - Acquaintance of Young People. - Hard of truth in his conversation; but I do not Reading. Melancholy. Mrs. Macaulay. believe there is any thing of this carelessness Warton's Essay on Pope. Sir James Macdonald. in his books. Campbell is a good man, a pious Projected Tour to the Hebrides. School-boy man. I am afraid he has not been in the Happiness. inside of a church for many years 2; but he never passes a church without pulling off his hat. This shows that he has good principles. I used to go pretty often to Cambpell's on a Sunday evening 3, till I began to consider that the shoals of Scotchmen who flocked about him might probably say, when any thing of mine was well done, 'Ay, ay, he has learnt this of CAWMELL!'"

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My next meeting with Johnson was on Friday the 1st of July, when he and I and Dr. Goldsmith supped at the Mitre. I was before this time pretty well acquainted with Goldsmith, who was one of the brightest ornaments of the Johnsonian school. Goldsmith's respectful attachment to Johnson was then at its height; for his own literary reputation had not yet distinguished him so much as to excite a vain desire of competition with his great master. He had increased my admiration of the goodness of Johnson's heart, by incidental remarks in the course of conversation; such as, when I mentioned Mr. Levett, whom he entertained under his roof, "He is poor and honest, which is recommendation enough to Johnson;" and when I wondered that he was very kind to a man of whom I had heard a very bad character1, "He is now become miserable, and that insures the protection of Johnson."

Goldsmith attempting this evening to maintain, I suppose from an affectation of

1 This is so ambiguously worded, that it is necessary to observe, that the "bad character" was not Levett. CROKER.

On

I am inclined to think that he was misinformed as to this circumstance. I own I am jealous for my worthy friend Dr. John Campbell. For though Milton could without remorse absent himself from public worship, I cannot the contrary, I have the same habitual impressions upon my mind, with those of a truly venerable judge, who said to Mr. Langton, "Friend Langton, if I have not been at church on Sunday, I do not feel myself easy." Dr. Campbell was a sincerely religious man. Lord Macartney, who is eminent for his variety of knowledge, and attention to men of talents, and knew him well, told me, that when he called on him in a morning, he found him reading a chapter in the Greek New Testament, which he informed his lordship was his constant practice. The quantity of Dr. Campbell's composition is almost incredible, and his labours brought him large profits. Dr. Joseph Warton told me that Johnson said of him, "He is the richest author that ever grazed the common of literature." BOSWELL.

Mr. Boswell quotes this dictum as if it was evidence only of Dr. Campbell's wealth; he probably did not see that it

He talked very contemptuously of Churchill's poetry, observing, that "it had a temporary currency, only from its audacity of abuse, and being filled with living names, and that it would sink into oblivion.' I ventured to hint that he was not quite a fair judge, as Churchill had attacked him violently. JOHNSON. "Nay, Sir, I am a very fair judge. He did not attack me violently till he found I did not like his poetry; and his attack on me shall not prevent me from continuing to say what I think of him, from an apprehension that it may be ascribed to resentment. No, Sir, I called the fellow a blockhead at first, and I will call him a blockhead still. However, I will acknowledge that I have a better opinion

characterised his celebrated friend, by no very complimentary allusion, as grazing the common of literature. The strange story of Campbell's" pulling off his hat whenever he passed a church, though he had not been for many years inside one," must have arisen from some error. Johnson could hardly have seriously told such an absurdity. It is well known, that the members of the kirk of Scotland do not think it necessary to uncover on entering places of worship, though the lower classes sometimes show a kind of superstitious veneration for burial-places: perhaps Dr. Campbell may, in conversation with Johnson, have alluded to those circumstances, and thus given occasion to this misapprehension. His "Lives of the Admirals" is the only one of his almost innumerable publications that is now called for. He was born in 1708, and died in 1775. CROKER.

3 "Campbell's residence for some years before his death was the large new-built house situate at the north-west corner of Queen Square, Bloomsbury, whither, particularly on a Sunday evening, great numbers of persons of the first eminence for science and literature were accustomed to resort for the enjoyment of conversation." Hawkins, p. 210.-P. CUNNINGHAM.

of him now than I once had; for he has shewn progress of time, when my mind was, as it more fertility than I expected. To be sure, were, strongly impregnated with the Johnsonian he is a tree that cannot produce good fruit: heather, I could, with much more facility and only bears crabs. But, Sir, a tree that produces exactness, carry in my memory and commit a great many crabs is better than a tree which to paper the exuberant variety of his wisdom produces only a few." and wit.

In this depreciation of Churchill's poetry I could not agree with him. It is very true that the greatest part of it is upon the topics of the day, on which account, as it brought him great fame and profit at the time, it must proportionably slide out of the public attention as other occasional objects succeed. But Churchill had extraordinary vigour both of thought and expression. His portraits of the players will ever be valuable to the true lovers of the drama; and his strong caricatures of several eminent men of his age, will not be forgotten by the curious. Let me add, that there is in his works many passages which are of a general nature; and his "Prophecy of Famine" is a poem of no ordinary merit. It is, indeed, falsely injurious to Scotland; but therefore may be allowed a greater share of invention. Bonnell Thornton had just published a burlesque "Ode on St. Cecilia's Day," adapted to the ancient British music, viz. the salt-box, the Jew's harp, the marrow-bones and cleaver, the hum-strum or hurdygurdy, &c. Johnson praised its humour, and seemed much diverted with it. He repeated the following passage:

"In strains more exalted the salt-box shall join, And clattering and battering and clapping combine;

With a rap and a tap, while the hollow side

sounds,

Up and down leaps the flap, and with rattling

rebounds." 1

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1 In 1769 I set for Smart and Newbery, Thornton's burlesque Ode on St. Cecilia's day. It was per orined at Ranelagh in masks, to a very crowded audience, as I was told; for I then resided in Norfolk. Beard sang the salt-box song, which was admirably accompanied on that instrument by Brent, the fencing-master and father of Miss Brent, the celebrated singer; Skeggs on the broomstick, as bassoon; and a remarkable performer on the Jew's harp. -"Buzzing twangs the iron lyre." Cleavers were cast in bell-metal for this entertainment. All the performers of the old woman's Oratory, employed by Foote, were, I believe, employed at Ranelagh on this occasion. — BURNEY. In the original

At this time Miss Williams, as she was then called, though she did not reside with him in the Temple under his roof, but had lodgings in Bolt-court, Fleet-street, had so much of his attention, that he every night drank tea with her before he went home, however late it might be, and she always sat up for him. This, it may be fairly conjectured, was not alone a proof of his regard for her; but of his own unwillingness to go into solitude, before that unseasonable hour at which he had habituated himself to expect the oblivion of repose. Dr. Goldsmith, being a privileged man, went with him this night, strutting away, and calling to me with an air of superiority, like that of an esoteric over an exoteric disciple of a sage of antiquity, "I go to Miss Williams." I confess, I then envied him this mighty privilege, of which he seemed so proud; but it was not long before I obtained the same mark of distinction.

On Tuesday the 5th of July, I again visited Johnson. He told me he had looked into the poems of a pretty voluminous writer,__Mr. (now Dr.) John Ogilvie, one of the Presbyterian ministers of Scotland, which had lately come out, but could find nothing in them. BOSWELL. "Is there not imagination in them, Sir?" JOHNSON. is in them, what was imagination, but it is no "Why, Sir, there in the echo. And his diction, too, is not his more imagination, in him, than sound is sound own. We have long ago seen white-robed innocence, and flower-bespangled meads."

Talking of London, he observed, “Sir, if you wish to have a just notion of the magnitude of this city, you must not be satisfied with seeing its great streets and squares, but must survey the innumerable little lanes and courts. It is not in the showy evolutions of buildings, but in the multiplicity of human habitations which are crowded together, that the wonderful immensity of London consists." I have often amused myself with thinking how different a place London is to different people. They, whose narrow minds are contracted to the consideration of some one particular pursuit, view it only through that medium. A politician thinks of it merely as the seat of go

edition of this ode now before me, the date on the title-page is 1749, a mistake, no doubt, for 1769. For the use to which Dr. Burney put it, as a burlesque vehicle for music, it is very well; but as a literary production, it seems without object or meaning. It has not even the low merit of being a parody; the best line is that on the Jew's harp, above quoted"Buzzing twangs the iron lyre."- CROKER.

2 The ancient philosophers were supposed to have two sets of tenets-one, the exoteric, external, or public doctrines -the other, the esoteric, the internal, or secret doctrines, which were reserved for the more favoured few. CROker.

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