In the evening, a gentleman farmer, who was on a visit at Dr. Taylor's, attempted to dispute with Johnson in favour of Mungo Campbell, who shot Alexander, Earl of Eglintoune, upon his having fallen, when retreating from his lordship, who he believed was about to seize his gun, as he had threatened to do. He said he should have done just as Campbell did. JOHNSON. "Whoever would do as Campbell did, deserves to be hanged; not that I could, as a juryman, have found him legally guilty of murder; but I am glad they found means to convict him." The gentleman farmer said, "A poor man has as much honour as a rich man; and Campbell had that to defend." Johnson exclaimed, "A poor man has no honour." The English yeoman, not dismayed, proceeded : "Lord Eglintoune was a damned fool to run on upon Campbell, after being warned that Campbell would shoot him if he did." Johnson, who could not bear any thing like swearing, angrily replied, "He was not a damned fool: he only thought too well of Campbell. He did not believe Campbell would be such a damned scoundrel, as to do so damned a thing." His emphasis on damned, accompanied with frowning looks, reproved his opponent's want of decorum in his pre

Talking of the danger of being mortified by rejection, when making approaches to the acquaintance of the great, I observed, “I am, however, generally for trying: Nothing venture, nothing have.' JOHNSON. "Very true, Sir; but I have always been more afraid of failing, than hopeful of success." And, indeed, though he had all just respect for rank, no man ever less courted the favour of the great."

During this interview at Ashbourne, Johnson seemed to be more uniformly social, cheerful, and alert, than I had almost ever seen him. He was prompt on great occasions and on small. Taylor, who praised every thing of his own to excess, in short, "whose geese were all swans," as the proverb says, expatiated on the excellence of his bull-dog, which he told us was "perfectly well shaped." Johnson, after examining the animal attentively, thus repressed the vain-glory of our host:-"No, Sir, he is not well shaped; for there is not the quick transition from the thickness of the forepart, to the tenuity-the thin part-behind, which a bull-dog ought to have." This tenuity was the only hard word that I heard him use during this interview, and it will be observed, he instantly put another expression in its place. Taylor said, a small bull-dog was as

The expression attributed in the text to Johnson is, I think, one of the worst specimens of what he candidly called his laxity of talk, and I cannot but hope that Boswell's partiality to Lord Eglintoune has somewhat distorted it. Lord Eglintoune, it must be remembered, was an intimate friend and companion of Mr. Boswell's, and son of the lady who treated Johnson with such flattering atten. tion. Campbell terminated his own life in prison. It is

good as a large one. JOHNSON. "No, Sir; for, in proportion to his size, he has strength; and your argument would prove, that a good bulldog may be as small as a mouse." It was amazing how he entered with perspicuity and keenness upon every thing that occurred in conversation. Most men, whom I know, would no more think of discussing a question about a bull-dog, than of attacking a bull.

I cannot allow any fragment whatever that floats in my memory concerning the great subject of this work to be lost. Though a small particular may appear trifling to some, it will be relished by others; while every little spark adds something to the general blaze: and to please the true, candid, warm admirers of Johnson, and in any degree increase the splendour of his reputation, I bid defiance to the shafts of ridicule, or even of malignity. Showers of them have been discharged at my "Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides;" yet it still sails unhurt along the stream of time, and as an attendant upon Johnson,

"Pursues the triumph, and partakes the gale."

One morning after breakfast, when the sun shone bright, we walked out together, and "pored" for some time with placid indolence upon an artificial waterfall, which Dr. Taylor had made by building a strong dyke of stone across the river behind the garden. It was now somewhat obstructed by branches of trees and other rubbish, which had come down the river, and settled close to it. Johnson, partly from a desire to see it play more freely, and partly from that inclination to activity which will animate at times the most inert and sluggish mortal, took a long pole which was lying on a bank, and pushed down several parcels of this wreck with painful assiduity, while I stood quietly by, wondering to behold the sage thus curiously employed, and smiling with a humorous satisfaction each time when he carried his point. He worked till he was quite out of breath; and having found a large dead cat so heavy that he could not move it after several efforts, "Come," said he (throwing down the pole), "you shall take it now;" which I accordingly did, and being a fresh man, soon made the cat tumble over the cascade. This may be laughed at as too trifling to record; but it is a small characteristic trait in the Flemish picture which I give of my friend, and in which, therefore, I mark the most minute particulars. And let it be remembered, that " Esop at play" is one of the instructive apologues of antiquity. [Phæd. iii. 14.]

hard to believe (though there was every such appearance) that the government could have permitted him to be executed; for Lord Eglintoune was grossly the aggressor, and Campbell fired (whether by accident or design) when in the act of falling, as he retreated from Lord Eglintoune. -CROKER.

2 But no man more keenly resented any slight. Witness Lords Chesterfield, Lyttelton, and North.-CROKER, 1847.

I mentioned an old gentleman of our acquaintance whose memory was beginning to fail. JOHNSON. "There must be a diseased mind where there is a failure of memory at seventy. A man's head, Sir, must be morbid if he fails so soon." My friend, being now himself sixty-eight, might think thus: but I imagine, that threescore and ten, the Psalmist's period of sound human life in later ages, may have a failure, though there be no disease in the constitution.

*

Talking of Rochester's Poems, he said he had given them to Mr. Steevens to castrate for the edition of the poets, to which he was to write prefaces. *3 I asked if Burnet had not given a good life of Rochester. JOHNSON. "We have a good Death; there is not much Life." I asked whether Prior's poems were to be printed entire; Johnson said they were. I mentioned Lord Hailes's censure of Prior, in his preface to a collection of "Sacred Poems," by various hands, published by him at Edinburgh a great many years ago, where he mentions "those impure tales which will be the eternal opprobrium of their ingenious author." JOHNSON. "Sir, Lord Hailes has forgot. There is nothing in Prior that will excite to lewdness. If Lord Hailes thinks there is, he must be more combustible than other people." I instanced the tale of "Paulo Purganti and his wife." JOHNSON. "Sir, there is nothing there, but that his wife wanted to be kissed, when poor Paulo was out of pocket. No, Sir, Prior is a lady's book. No lady is ashamed to have it standing in her library."4

The hypochondriac disorder being mentioned, Dr. Johnson did not think it so common as I supposed. "Dr. Taylor," said he, "is the same one day as another. Burke and Reynolds are the same. Beauclerk, except when in pain, is the same. I am not so myself; but this I do not mention commonly."

I complained of a wretched changefulness, so that I could not preserve, for any long continuance, the same views of any thing. It was most comfortable to me to experience in Dr. Johnson's company a relief from this uneasiness. His steady, vigorous mind held firm before me those objects which my own feeble and tremulous imagination frequently pre

sented in such a wavering state, that my reason could not judge well of them.

Dr. Johnson advised me to-day to have as many books about me as I could; that I might read upon any subject upon which I had a desire for instruction at the time. "What you read then," said he, "you will remember; but if you have not a book immediately ready, and the subject moulds in your mind, it is a chance if you have again a desire to study it." He added, "If a man never has an eager desire for instruction, he should prescribe a task for himself. But it is better when a man reads from immediate inclination."

He repeated a good many lines of Horace's Odes while we were in the chaise; I remember particularly the Ode "Eheu fugaces."

He said, the dispute as to the comparative excellence of Homer or Virgil' was inaccurate. "We must consider," said he, "whether Homer was not the greatest poet, though Virgil may have produced the finest poem. Virgil was indebted to Homer for the whole invention of the structure of an epic poem, and for many of his beauties."

He told me, that Bacon was a favourite author with him; but he had never read his works till he was compiling the English Dictionary, in which, he said, I might see Bacon very often quoted. Mr. Seward recollects his having mentioned that a dictionary of the English language might be compiled from Bacon's writings alone, and that he had once an intention of giving an edition of Bacon, at least of his English works, and writing the life of that great man. Had he executed this intention, there can be no doubt that he would have done it in a most masterly manner. Mallet's Life of Bacon has no inconsiderable merit as an acute and elegant dissertation relative to its subject; but Mallet's mind was not comprehensive enough to embrace the vast extent of Lord Verulam's genius and research. Dr. Warburton therefore observed, with witty justness, "that Mallet in his Life of Bacon had forgotten that he was a philosopher; and if he should write the Life of the Duke of Marlborough, which he had undertaken to do, he would probably forget that he was a general.”

1 Probably Boswell's father, Lord Auchinleck, was meant; but this is one of those unreasonable assertions into which Johnson was so often betrayed by his private feelings and prejudices: the Psalmist says, and successive ages have proved, that the years of man are threescore years and ten; yet, because Johnson was now near seventy, he ventures to assert that any decay of the faculties at that age must be morbid. CROKER.

2 This was unnecessary, for it had been done in the early part of the present century by Jacob Tonson. - MALONE.

3 Here a coarse and bad joke of Dr. Taylor's is omitted. See antè, p. 176. n. 6. Boswell, in reference to this bad joke -the only one he says Taylor ever made adds, "I am told that Horace, Earl of Orford, has a collection of bon mots by persons who never made but one."-CROKER, 1847. 4 Again; what sad "laxity of talk" from one who angrily reproved Hannah More for having read Tom Jones (Life, i. 168.) It is surprising enough that Mr. Boswell should

have recorded any thing so indecent as these expressions; and I wish I could have omitted or veiled them; but I have not thought myself at liberty to do so in this case, and can only express my regret that Johnson should have been driven by a spirit of conversational contradiction to maintain such a paradox. - CROKER.

5 I am informed by Mr. Langton, that a great many years ago he was present when this question was agitated between Dr. Johnson and Mr. Burke; and, to use Johnson's phrase, they talked their best;" Johnson for Homer, Burke for Virgil. It may well be supposed to have been one of the ablest and most brilliant contests that ever was exhibited. How much must we regret that it has not been preserved ! -BOSWELL.

6 But where is the inaccuracy, if the admirers of Homer contend, that he was not only prior to Virgil in point of time, but superior in excellence?-J. BoswELL, jun.

Wishing to be satisfied what degree of truth there was in a story which a friend of Johnson's and mine had told me to his disadvantage, I mentioned it to him in direct terms; and it was to this effect;-that a gentleman who had lived in great intimacy with him, shown him much kindness, and even relieved him from a spunging-house, having afterwards fallen into bad circumstances, was one day, when Johnson was at dinner with him, seized for debt, and carried to prison; that Johnson sat still undisturbed, and went on eating and drinking; upon which the gentleman's sister, who was present, could not suppress her indignation; "What, Sir!" said she, are you so unfeeling, as not even to offer to go to my brother in his distress; you, who have been so much obliged to him?" And that Johnson answered, "Madam, I owe him no obligation; what he did for me he would have done for a dog."

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Johnson assured me, that the story was absolutely false; but, like a man conscious of being in the right, and desirous of completely vindicating himself from such a charge, he did not arrogantly rest on a mere denial, and on his general character, but proceeded thus:'Sir, I was very intimate with that gentleman, and was once relieved by him from an arrest; but I never was present when he was arrested, never knew that he was arrested, and I believe he never was in difficulties after the time when he relieved me. I loved him much; yet, in talking of his general character, I may have said, though I do not remember that I ever did say so, that as his generosity proceeded from no principle, but was a part of his profusion, he would do for a dog what he would do for a friend; but I never applied this remark to any particular instance, and certainly not to his kindness to me. If a profuse man, who does not value his money, and gives a large sum to a whore, gives half as much, or an equally large sum, to relieve a friend, it cannot be esteemed as virtue. This was all that I could say of that gentleman; and, if said at all, it must have been said after his death. Sir, I would have gone to the world's end to relieve him. The remark about the dog, if made by me, was such a sally as might escape one when painting a man highly."

On Tuesday, September 23., Johnson was remarkably cordial to me. It being necessary

1 It appears from part of the original journal in Mr. Anderdon's papers, that the friend who told the story was Mr. Beauclerk, and the gentleman and lady alluded to were Mr. (probably Henry) and Miss Harvey. There is reason to fear that Boswell's indiscretion in betraying Mr.Beauclerk's name impaired the cordiality between him and Dr. Johnson.CROKER, 1835.

2" To get money," would not always express the meaning; money may be gotten by inheritance or donation: "to make money" implies some degree of personal effort or attention; and Johnson himself admits it in this sense in his Dictionary. "To MAKE-to raise a profit from any thing," with an example from Shakespeare — “he made five marks ready money."— Croker, 1847.

3 In the age of Queen Elizabeth this word was frequently

for me to return to Scotland soon, I had fixed on the next day for my setting out, and I felt a tender concern at the thought of parting with him. He had, at this time, frankly communicated to me many particulars, which are inserted in this work in their proper places; and once, when I happened to mention that the expense of my jaunt would come to much more than I had computed, he said, "Why, Sir, if the expense were to be an inconvenience, you would have reason to regret it; but, if you have had the money to spend, I know not that you could have purchased as much pleasure with it in any other way."

During this interview at Ashbourne, Johnson and I frequently talked with wonderful pleasure of mere trifles which had occurred in our tour to the Hebrides; for it had left a most agreeable and lasting impression upon his

mind.

He found fault with me for using the phrase to make money. "Don't you see," said he, "the impropriety of it? To make money is to coin it; you should say get money." The phrase, however, is, I think, pretty current. But Johnson was at all times jealous of infractions upon the genuine English language, and prompt to repress colloquial barbarisms; such as pledging myself for undertaking; line for department or branch, as the civil line, the banking line. He was particularly indignant against the almost universal use of the word idea, in the sense of notion or opinion, when it is clear that idea can only signify something of which an image can be formed in the mind. We may have an idea or image of a mountain, a tree, a building; but we cannot surely have an idea or image of an argument or proposition. Yet we hear the sages of the law" delivering their ideas upon the question under consideration;" and the first speakers in parliament "entirely coinciding in the idea which has been ably stated by an honourable member;" or "reprobating an idea as unconstitutional, and fraught with the most dangerous consequences to a great and free country." Johnson called this "modern cant."

I perceived that he pronounced the word heard, as if spelt with a double e, heerd, instead of sounding it herd, as is most usually done.3 He said, his reason was, that if it were pronounced herd, there would be a single exception from the English pronunciation of the

written, as doubtless it was pronunced, hard. — MALONE. Doctor Hall thought Johnson's pronunciation a provincialism, and that Boswell must have misstated Johnson's reasons, as there are many words in which ear is not pronounced as eer, e. g. earn, learn; bear, pear, wear, tear, &c. Perhaps Johnson said eard, for the only two instances of that termination that I remember, afeard and beard, are generally pronounced after his fashion; and I recollect a sharp contro versy on the point, about the beginning of this century, when Mr. Kemble pronounced beard, berd. A better reason, however, would have been the analogy of the language, as heard is, no doubt, a contraction of heared; and feared, and such words, are pronounced fear'd, &c.: but uniformity is certainly not the jus et norma loquendi in English. - CROKER, 1846.

syllable ear, and he thought it better not to have that exception.

He praised Grainger's "Ode on Solitude," in Dodsley's collection, and repeated, with great energy, the exordium :

"O Solitude, romantic maid!

Whether by nodding towers you tread;
Or haunt the desert's trackless gloom,
Or hover o'er the yawning tomb;
Or climb the Andes' clifted side,
Or by the Nile's coy source abide:
Or, starting from your half-year's sleep,
From Hecla view the thawing deep :
Or, at the purple dawn of day,
Tadmor's marble wastes survey."

observing, "This, Sir, is very noble."

In the evening our gentleman-farmer, and two others, entertained themselves and the company with a great number of tunes on the fiddle. Johnson desired to have "Let Ambition fire thy Mind" played over again, and appeared to give a patient attention to it; though he owned to me that he was very insensible to the power of music. I told him that it affected me to such a degree, as often to agitate my nerves painfully, producing in my mind alternate sensations of pathetic dejection, so that I was ready to shed tears; and of daring resolution, so that I was inclined to rush into the thickest part of the battle. "Sir," said he, "I should never hear of it, if it made me such a fool."

Much of the effect of music, I am satisfied, is owing to the association of ideas. That air, which instantly and irresistibly excites in the Swiss, when in a foreign land, the maladie du païs', has, I am told, no intrinsic power of sound. And I know from my own experience, that Scotch reels, though brisk, make me melancholy, because I used to hear them in my early years, at a time when Mr. Pitt called for soldiers, "from the mountains of the north," and numbers of brave Highlanders were going abroad, never to return. Whereas the airs in "The Beggar's Opera," many of which are very soft, never fail to render me gay, because they are associated with the warm sensations and high spirits of London. This evening, while some of the tunes of ordinary composition were played with no great skill, my frame was agitated, and I was conscious of a generous attachment to Dr. Johnson, as my preceptor and friend, mixed with an affectionate regret that he was an old man, whom I should probably lose in a short time. I thought I could defend him at the point of my sword. My

1 The Ranz des Vaches-" an air," says Rousseau, "So dear to the Swiss, that it was forbidden, under the pain of death, to play it to the troops, as it immediately drew tears from them, and made them who heard it desert, or die of what is called the maladie du pais, so ardent a desire did it excite to return to their country. It is in vain to seek in this air for energetic accents capable of producing such astonishing effects, for which strangers are unable to account from the music, which is in itself uncouth and wild."WRIGHT.

reverence and affection for him were in full glow. I said to him, "My dear Sir, we must meet every year, if you don't quarrel with me." JOHNSON. "Nay, Sir, you are more likely to quarrel with me, than I with you. My regard for you is greater almost than I have words to express; but I do not choose to be always repeating it: write it down in the first leaf of your pocket-book, and never doubt of it again." I talked to him of misery being "the doom of man" in this life, as displayed in his " 'Vanity of Human Wishes."

"Yet hope not life from grief or danger free, Nor think the doom of man revers'd for thee." Yet I observed that things were done upon the supposition of happiness; grand houses were built, fine gardens were made, splendid places of public amusement were contrived, and crowded with company. JOHNSON. "Alas, Sir, these are only struggles for happiness. When I first entered Ranelagh, it gave an expansion and gay sensation to my mind, such as I never experienced any where else. But, as Xerxes wept when he viewed his immense army, and considered that not one of that great multitude would be alive a hundred years afterwards, so it went to my heart to consider that there was not one in all that brilliant circle that was not afraid to go home and think; but that the thoughts of each individual there would be distressing when alone." This reflection was experimentally just. The feeling of languor, which suceeeds the animation of gaiety, is itself a very severe pain; and when the mind is then vacant, a thousand disappointments and vexations rush in and excruciate. Will not many even of my fairest readers allow this to be true?

I suggested, that being in love, and flattered with hopes of success; or having some favourite scheme in view for the next day, might prevent that wretchedness of which we had been talking. JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, it may sometimes be so as you suppose; but my conclusion is in general but too true."

While Johnson and I stood in calm conference by ourselves in Dr. Taylor's garden, at a pretty late hour in a serene autumn night, looking up to the heavens, I directed the discourse to the subject of a future state. My friend was in a placid and most benignant frame of mind. Sir," said he, "I do not imagine that all things will be made clear to us immediately after death, but that the ways of Providence will be explained to us very

2 Pope mentions,

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"Stretch'd on the rack of a too easy chair."

But I recollect a couplet quite apposite to my subject in "Virtue, an Ethic Epistle," a beautiful and instructive poem, by an anonymous writer, in 1758; who, treating of pleasure in excess, says,

"Till languor, suffering on the rack of bliss,
Confess that man was never made for this."

BOSWELL.