Sept. 16.] Burke's joking and eloquence. 243 there. He is the beetle in the mire'.' I still adhered to my metaphor,- But he soars as the hawk.' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir; but he catches nothing.' M'Leod asked, what is the particular excellence of Burke's eloquence? JOHNSON. Copiousness and fertility of allusion; a power of diversifying his matter, by placing it in various relations. Burke has great information, and great command of language; though, in my opinion, it has not in every respect the highest elegance.' BOSWELL. Do you think, Sir, that Burke has read Cicero much? JOHNSON. I don't believe it, Sir. Burke has great knowledge, great fluency of words, and great promptness of ideas, so that he can speak with great illustration on any subject that comes before him. He is neither like Cicero, nor like Demosthenes', nor like any one else, but speaks as well as he can.' In the 65th page of the first volume of Sir George Mackenzie, Dr. Johnson pointed out a paragraph beginning with Aristotle, and told me there was an error in the text, which he bade me try to discover. I was lucky enough to hit it at once. As the passage is printed, it is said that the devil answers even in engines. I corrected it to-ever in ænigmas. 'Sir, (said he,) you are a good critick. This would have been a great thing to do in the text of an ancient authour.' THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 16. Last night much care was taken of Dr. Johnson, who was still distressed by his cold. He had hitherto most strangely slept without a night-cap. Miss M'Leod made him a large flannel one, and he was prevailed with to drink a little brandy when he was going to bed. He has great virtue in not drinking wine or any fermented liquor, because, as 'Some years later he said that 'when Burke lets himself down to jocularity he is in the kennel.' Ante, iv. 318. 2 Cicero and Demosthenes, no doubt, were brought in by the passage about Nicholson. Mackenzie continues:- Hic primus nos a Syllogismorum servitute manumisit et Aristotelem Demostheni potius quam Ciceroni forum concedere coegit.' P. 6. he 244 Natural goodness. 6 [Sept. 16. he acknowledged to us, he could not do it in moderation'. Lady M'Leod would hardly believe him, and said, 'I am sure, Sir, you would not carry it too far.' JOHNSON. Nay, madam, it carried me. I took the opportunity of a long illness to leave it off. It was then prescribed to me not to drink wine; and, having broken off the habit, I have never returned to it'.' In the argument on Tuesday night, about natural goodness, Dr. Johnson denied that any child was better than another, but by difference of instruction; though, in consequence of greater attention being paid to instruction by one child than another, and of a variety of imperceptible causes, such as instruction being counteracted by servants, a notion was conceived, that of two children, equally well educated, one was naturally much worse than another. He owned, this morning, that one might have a greater aptitude to learn than another, and that we inherit dispositions from our parents. I inherited, (said he,) a vile melancholy from my father, which has made me mad all my life, at least not sober'.' Lady M'Leod wondered he should tell this. 'Madam, (said I,) he knows that with that madness he is superior to other men." I have often been astonished with what exactness and perspicuity he will explain the process of any art. He this morning explained to us all the operation of coining, and, at night, all the operation of brewing, so very clearly, that Mr. M'Queen said, when he heard the first, he thought he had been bred in the Mint; when he heard the second, that he had been bred a brewer. I was elated by the thought of having been able to entice such a man to this remote part of the world. A ludicrous, yet just image presented itself to my mind, which I expressed to the company. I compared myself to a dog who has got hold of a large piece of meat, and runs away with it to a corner, where he may devour it in peace, without any fear 1 See ante, ii. 498 and iv. 172, note 2. • See ante, i. 500. 2 See ante, i. 120. • See ante, 1. 75. of Sept. 16.] Boswell defends his forwardness. 245 of others taking it from him. 'In London, Reynolds, Beauclerk, and all of them, are contending who shall enjoy Dr. Johnson's conversation. We are feasting upon it, undisturbed, at Dunvegan.' It was still a storm of wind and rain. Dr. Johnson however walked out with M'Leod, and saw Rorie More's cascade in full perfection. Colonel M'Leod, instead of being all life and gaiety, as I have seen him, was at present grave, and somewhat depressed by his anxious concern about M'Leod's affairs, and by finding some gentlemen of the clan by no means disposed to act a generous or affectionate part to their Chief in distress, but bargaining with him as with a stranger. However, he was agreeable and polite, and Dr. Johnson said, he was a very pleasing man. My fellow-traveller and I talked of going to Sweden', and, while we were settling our plan, I expressed a pleasure in the prospect of seeing the king. JOHNSON. 'I doubt, Sir, if he would speak to us.' Colonel M'Leod said, I am sure Mr. Boswell would speak to him.' But, seeing me a little disconcerted by his remark, he politely added, and with great propriety.' Here let me offer a short defence of that propensity in my disposition, to which this gentleman alluded. It has procured me much happiness. I hope it does not deserve so hard a name as either forwardness or impudence. If I know myself, it is nothing more than an eagerness to share the society of men distinguished either by their rank or their talents, and a diligence to attain what I desire. If a man is praised for seeking knowledge, though mountains and seas are in his way, may he not be pardoned, whose ardour, in the pursuit of the same object, leads him to encounter difficulties as great, though of a different kind? After the ladies were gone from table, we talked of the Highlanders not having sheets; and this led us to consider 1 On Sept. 13, 1777, Johnson wrote: Boswell shrinks from the Baltick expedition, which, I think, is the best scheme in our power.' Ante, iii. 152, note 1. See ante, ii. 67, note I. the 246 Johnson's imaginary seraglio. [Sept. 16. All animal the advantage of wearing linen. JOHNSON. substances are less cleanly than vegetable. Wool, of which flannel is made, is an animal substance; flannel therefore is not so cleanly as linen. I remember I used to think tar dirty; but when I knew it to be only a preparation of the juice of the pine, I thought so no longer. It is not disagreeable to have the gum that oozes from a plum-tree upon your fingers, because it is vegetable; but if you have any candle-grease, any tallow upon your fingers, you are uneasy till you rub it off. I have often thought, that if I kept a seraglio, the ladies should all wear linen gowns,-or cotton; I mean stuffs made of vegetable substances. I would have no silk; you cannot tell when it is clean: It will be very nasty before it is perceived to be so. Linen detects its own dirtiness.' To hear the grave Dr. Samuel Johnson, 'that majestick teacher of moral and religious wisdom,' while sitting solemn in an arm-chair in the Isle of Sky, talk, ex cathedra, of his keeping a seraglio', and acknowledge that the supposition had often been in his thoughts, struck me so forcibly with ludicrous contrast, that I could not but laugh immoderately. He was too proud to submit, even for a moment, to be the object of ridicule, and instantly retaliated with such keen sarcastick wit, and such a variety of degrading images, of every one of which I was the object, that, though I can bear such attacks as well as most men, I yet found myself so much the sport of all the company, that I would gladly expunge from my mind every trace of this severe retort. Talking of our friend Langton's house in Lincolnshire, he said, 'the old house of the family was burnt. A temporary building was erected in its room; and to this day they have been always adding as the family increased. It is like a shirt made for a man when he was a child, and enlarged always as he grows older.' We talked to-night of Luther's allowing the Landgrave of Hesse two wives, and that it was with the consent of the 1 See ante, iii. 418. Sept. 17.] Cunning. 247 wife to whom he was first married. JOHNSON. 'There was no harm in this, so far as she was only concerned, because volenti non fit injuria. But it was an offence against the general order of society, and against the law of the Gospel, by which one man and one woman are to be united. No man can have two wives, but by preventing somebody else from having one.' FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 17. After dinner yesterday, we had a conversation upon cunning. M'Leod said that he was not afraid of cunning people; but would let them play their tricks about him like monkeys. But, (said I,) they'll scratch;' and Mr. M'Queen added, 'they'll invent new tricks, as soon as you find out what they do.' JOHNSON. Cunning has effect from the credulity of others, rather than from the abilities of those who are cunning. It requires no extraordinary talents to lie and deceive'.' This led us to consider whether it did not require great abilities to be very wicked. JOHNSON. 'It requires great abilities to have the power of being very wicked; but not to be very wicked. A man who has the power, which great abilities procure him, may use it well or ill; and it requires more abilities to use it well, than to use it ill. Wickedness is always easier than virtue; for it takes the short cut to every thing. It is much easier to steal a hundred pounds, than to get it by labour, or any other way. Consider only what act of wickedness requires great abilities to commit it, when once the person who is to do it has the power; for there is the distinction. It requires great ''Every man wishes to be wise, and they who cannot be wise are almost always cunning . . . nor is caution ever so necessary as with associates or opponents of feeble minds.' The Idler, No. 92. In a letter to Dr. Taylor Johnson says:- To help the ignorant commonly requires much patience, for the ignorant are always trying to be cunning.' Notes and Queries, 6th S. v. 462. Churchill, in The Journey (Poems, ed. 1766, ii. 327), says:— "Gainst fools be guarded; 'tis a certain rule, abilities |