2

He would not allow me to praise a lady then at Bath; observing, "She does not gain upon me, Sir; I think her empty-headed." He was, indeed, a stern critic upon characters and manners. Even Mrs. Thrale did not escape his friendly animadversion at times. When he and I were one day endeavouring to ascertain, article by article, how one of our friends could possibly spend as much money in his family as he told us he did, she interrupted us by a lively extravagant sally, on the expense of clothing his children, describing it in a very ludicrous and fanciful manner. Johnson looked a little angry, and said, "Nay, Madam, when you are declaiming, declaim; and when you are calculating, calculate." At another time, when she said, perhaps affectedly, "I don't like to fly;"-JOHNSON. "With your wings, Madam, you must fly: but have a care, there are clippers abroad." How very well was this said, and how fully has experience proved the truth of it! But have they not clipped rather rudely, and gone a great deal closer than was necessary? 3

A gentleman expressed a wish to go and live three years at Otaheité, or New Zealand, in order to obtain a full acquaintance with people so totally different from all that we have ever known, and be satisfied what pure nature can do for man. JOHNSON. "What could you learn, Sir? What can savages tell, but what they themselves have seen? Of the past or the invisible they can tell nothing. The inhabitants of Otaheité and New Zealand are not in a state of pure nature; for it is plain they broke off from some other people. Had they grown out of the ground, you might have judged of a state of pure nature. Fanciful people may talk of a mythology being amongst them; but it must be invention. They have once had religion, which has been gradually debased. And what account of their religion can you suppose to be learnt from savages? Only consider, Sir, our own state: our religion is in a book; we have an order of men whose duty it is to teach it; we have one day in the week set apart for it, and this is in general pretty well observed: yet ask the first ten gross men you meet, and hear what they can tell of their religion."

On Monday, April 29., he and I made an excursion to Bristol, where I was entertained

Miss Williams (see antè, p. 458.) would naturally account for this defence of that lady's beneficence, but it seems also to have induced Johnson to speak of her intellectual powers in a strain of panegyric as excessive as his former depreciation; but I can scarcely believe that he ever could have spoken of her in such terms as the good-natured Miss Reynolds relates. "Sir," he would say, "that lady exerts more mind in conversation than any person I ever met with: Sir, she displays such powers of ratiocination - such radiations of intellectual excellence, as are amazing!"- CROKER.

This has been supposed to be Miss Hannah More; yet it seems hard to conceive in what wayward fancy he could call her "empty-headed." C., 1830. I am glad to find, from Hannah More's Letters, recently published, that my doubt was well founded. She was at this time in London, and could not have been the person meant. - CHOKER, 1835. 2 Mr. Langton. -CROKER.

with seeing him enquire upon the spot into the authenticity of "Rowley's poetry," as I had seen him enquire upon the spot into the authenticity of "Ossian's poetry." George Catcot, the pewterer, who was as zealous for Rowley as Dr. Hugh Blair was for Ossian (I trust my reverend friend will excuse the comparison), attended us at our inn, and with a triumphant air of lively simplicity, called out, "I'll make Dr. Johnson a convert." Dr. Johnson, at his desire, read aloud some of Chatterton's fabricated verses; while Catcot stood at the back of his chair, moving himself like a pendulum, and beating time with his feet, and now and then looking into Dr. Johnson's face, wondering that he was not yet convinced. We called on Mr. Barret, the surgeon, and saw some of the originals, as they were called, which were executed very artificially*; but from a careful inspection of them, and a consideration of the circumstances with which they were attended, we were quite satisfied of the imposture, which, indeed, has been clearly demonstrated from internal evidence, by several able critics.5

Honest Catcot seemed to pay no attention whatever to any objections, but insisted, as an end of all controversy, that we should go with him to the tower of the church of St. Mary, Redcliff, and view with our own eyes the ancient chest in which the manuscripts were found. To this Dr. Johnson good-naturedly agreed; and, though troubled with a shortness of breathing, laboured up a long flight of steps, till we came to the place where the wondrous chest stood. "There," said Catcot, with a bouncing confident credulity, "there is the very chest itself." After this ocular demonstration, there was no more to be said. He brought to my recollection a Scotch Highlander, a man of learning too, and who had seen the world, attesting, and at the same time giving his reasons for, the authenticity of Fingal: "I have heard all that poem when I was young." "Have you, Sir? Pray what have you heard?" "I have heard Ossian, Oscar, and every one of them."

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Johnson said of Chatterton, "This is the most extraordinary young man that has encountered my knowledge. It is wonderful how the whelp has written such things."

We were by no means pleased with our inn

at Bristol. "Let us see now," said I, "how we should describe it." Johnson was ready with his raillery. "Describe it, Sir? Why, it was so bad, that-Boswell wished to be in Scotland!"

After Dr. Johnson returned to London' [May 4th], I was several times with him at his house, where I occasionally slept, in the room that had been assigned for me. I dined with him at Dr. Taylor's [7th], at General Oglethorpe's [8th], and at General Paoli's [9th]. To avoid a tedious minuteness, I shall group together what I have preserved of his conversation during this period also, without specifying each scene where it passed, except one, which will be found so remarkable as certainly to deserve a very particular relation. Where the place or the persons do not contribute to the zest of the conversation, it is unnecessary to encumber my page with mentioning them. To know of what vintage our wine is, enables us to judge of its value, and to drink it with more relish: but to have the produce of each vine of one vineyard, in the same year, kept separate, would serve no purpose. To know that our wine (to use an advertising phrase) is "of the stock of an ambassador lately deceased," heightens its flavour: but it signifies nothing to know the bin where each bottle was once deposited.2 "Garrick," he observed, "does not play the part of Archer in the 'Beaux Stratagem' well. The gentleman should break through the footman, which is not the case as he does it."3

"Where there is no education, as in savage countries, men will have the upper hand of women. Bodily strength, no doubt, contributes to this; but it would be so, exclusive of that; for it is mind that always governs. When it comes to dry understanding, man has the better."

"The little volumes entitled, 'Respublica, which are very well done, were a bookseller's I work."

“There is much talk of the misery which we cause to the brute creation; but they are recompensed by existence. If they were not useful to man, and therefore protected by him, they would not be nearly so numerous." This argument is to be found in the able and benignant Hutchinson's "Moral Philosophy." But the question is, whether the animals who

It appears from his Letters, that being called up to advise Dr. Taylor in an ecclesiastical suit, (antè, p 508. n. 4.) he left Bath on Friday night, 3d May, and arrived in London by seven o'clock on Saturday. -CROKER.

This metaphor by no means reconciles us to the negligence which it is intended to excuse. Boswell's greatest merit is in his details. - CROKER.

3 Garrick, on the other hand, denied that Johnson was capable of distinguishing the gentleman from the footman. See antè, p. 490.- CROKER. - CROKER.

Accounts of the principal States of Europe. "A pretty book was made up from these letters by the late Dr. Trusler, entitled "Principles of Politeness."-Hall.

- CHOKER.

I one day," says Mrs. Piozzi," commended a young lady for her beauty and pretty behaviour," to whom she thought

endure such sufferings of various kinds, for the service and entertainment of man, would accept of existence upon the terms on which they have it. Madame de Sevigné, who, though she had many enjoyments, felt with delicate sensibility the prevalence of misery, complains of the task of existence having been imposed upon her without her consent.

"That man is never happy for the present is so true, that all his relief from unhappiness is only forgetting himself for a little while. Life is a progress from want to want, not from enjoyment to enjoyment."

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Though many men are nominally intrusted with the administration of hospitals and other public institutions, almost all the good is done by one man, by whom the rest are driven on; owing to confidence in him and indolence in them."

"Lord Chesterfield's Letters to his Son 5, I think, might be made a very pretty book. Take out the immorality, and it should be put into the hands of every young gentleman. An elegant manner and easiness of behaviour are acquired gradually and imperceptibly. No man can say, 'I'll be genteel.' There are ten genteel women for one genteel man, because they are more restrained. A man without some degree of restraint is insufferable; but we are all less restrained than women. a woman sitting in company to put out her legs before her as most men do, we should be tempted to kick them in." No man was a more attentive and nice observer of behaviour in those whose company he happened to be than Johnson, or, however strange it may seem to many, had a higher estimation of its refinements.6

Were

Lord Eliot informs me, that one day when Johnson and he were at dinner in a gentleman's house in London, upon Lord Chesterfield's Letters being mentioned, Johnson surprised the company by this sentence: "Every man of any education would rather be called a rascal, than accused of deficiency in the graces." Mr. Gibbon, who was present, turned to a lady who knew Johnson well, and lived much with him, and in his quaint manner, tapping his box, addressed her thus: "Don't you think, Madam (looking towards Johnson), that among all your acquaintance, you could find one exception ?" The lady smiled, and seemed to acquiesce."

99 7

no objections could have been made. "I saw her (says Dr. Johnson) take a pair of scissors in her left hand; and, although her father is now become a nobleman, and, as you say, excessively rich, I should, were I a youth of quality ten years hence, hesitate between a girl so neglected and a negro." Anecdotes. "The child who took a pair of scissors in her left hand is now a woman of quality, highly respected, and would cut us, I conclude, most deservedly, if more were said on the subject." Piozzi MS. I believe that the lady was the eldest daughter of Mr. Lyttelton, afterwards Lord Westcote, married to Sir Richard Hoare. She was born in Jamaica, and thence, perhaps, Johnson's strange allusion to the negro. - CROKER.

7 Colman, in his " Random Records," has given a lively sketch of the appearance and manners of Johnson and Gibbon in society:

"I read," said he, " Sharpe's Letters on Italy' over again, when I was at Bath. There is a great deal of matter in them."

"Mrs. Williams was angry that Thrale's family did not send regularly to her every time they heard from me while I was in the Hebrides. Little people are apt to be jealous: but they should not be jealous; for they ought to consider, that superior attention will necessarily be paid to superior fortune or rank. Two persons may have equal merit, and on that account may have an equal claim to attention; but one of them may have also fortune and rank, and so may have a double claim."

Talking of his notes on Shakspeare, he said, "I despise those who do not see that I am right in the passage, where as is repeated, and asses of great charge' introduced. That on To be, or not to be,' is disputable." A gentleman, whom I found sitting with him one morning, said, that in his opinion the character of an infidel was more detestable than that of a man notoriously guilty of an atrocious crime. I differed from him, because we are surer of the odiousness of the one, than of the error of the other. JOHNSON. "Sir, I agree with him; for the infidel would be guilty of any crime if he were inclined to it."

"Many things which are false are transmitted from book to book, and gain credit in the world. One of these is the cry against the evil of luxury. Now the truth is, that luxury produces much good. Take the luxury of buildings in London. Does it not produce real advantage in the conveniency and elegance of accommodation, and this all from the exertion of industry? People will tell you, with a melancholy face, how many builders are in gaol. It is plain they are in gaol, not for building; for rents are not fallen. A man gives half-a-guinea for a dish of green peas. How much gardening does this occasion? how many labourers must the competition to have such things early in the market keep in em

"The learned Gibbon was a curious counterbalance to the learned (may I not say less learned?) Johnson. Their man. ners and taste, both in writing and conversation, were as different as their habiliments. On the day I first sat down with Johnson, in his rusty brown suit, and his black worsted stockings, Gibbon was placed opposite to me in a suit of flowered velvet, with a bag and sword. Each had his measured phraseology; and Johnson's famous parallel between Dryden and Pope, might be loosely parodied, in reference to himself and Gibbon: Johnson's style was grand, and Gibbon's elegant: the stateliness of the former was sometimes pedantic, and the latter was occasionally finical. Johnson marched to kettle-drums and trumpets; Gibbon moved to flutes and hautboys: Johnson hewed passages through the Alps, while Gibbon levelled walks through parks and gardens. Mauled as I had been by Johnson, Gibbon poured balm upon my bruises by condescending, once or twice in the course of the evening, to talk with me: the great historian was light and playful, suiting his matter to the capacity of the boy but it was done more suo; - still his mannerism prevailed; still he tapped his snuff-box; still he smirked and smiled, and rounded his periods with the same air of good-breeding, as if he were conversing with men. His mouth, mellifluous as Plato's, was a round hole nearly In the centre of his visage." Vol. i. p. 121. - CROKER.

ployment? You will hear it said, very gravely, Why was not the half-guinea, thus spent in luxury, given to the poor? To how many might it have afforded a good meal?' Alas! has it not gone to the industrious poor, whom it is better to support than the ide poor? You are much surer that you are doing good when you pay money to those who work, as the recompense of their labour, than when you give money merely in charity. Suppose the ancient luxury of a dish of peacock's brains were to be revived, how many carcases would be left to the poor at a cheap rate! and as to the rout that is made about people who are ruined by extravagance, it is no matter to the nation that some individuals suffer. When so much general productive exertion is the consequence of luxury, the nation does not care though there are debtors in gaol: nay, they would not care though their creditors were there too."

The uncommon vivacity of General Ogle thorpe's mind, and variety of knowledge, having sometimes made his conversation seem too desultory; Johnson observed, “Oglethorpe, Sir, never completes what he has to say."

He on the same account made a similar remark on Patrick Lord Elibank; “Sir, there is nothing conclusive in his talk."

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When I complained of having dined at a splendid table without hearing one sentence of conversation worthy of being remembered, he said, "Sir, there seldom is any such conversa tion." BOSWELL. "Why then meet at table?” JOHNSON. Why, to eat and drink together, and to promote kindness; and, Sir, this is better done when there is no solid conversation: for when there is, people differ in opinion, and get into bad humour, or some of the company, who are not capable of such conversation, are left out, and feel themselves uneasy. It was for this reason Sir Robert Walpole said, he always talked grossly at his table, because in that all could join.

3

Being irritated by hearing a gentleman+ ask Mr. Levett a variety of questions concerning

1 Mr. Samuel Sharpe, a surgeon, who had travelled for his health, and whose representation of Italian manners was supposed to be tinged by the ill humour of a valetudinarian. Baretti took up the defence of his country, and a smart controversy ensued, which made some noise at the time.— CROKER.

It may be observed, that Mr. Malone, in his very valu able edition of Shakespeare, has fully vindicated Dr. Johns from the idle censures which the first of these notes has given rise to. The interpretation of the other passage, which Dr. Johnson allows to be disputable, he has clearly shown to be erroneous. BOSWELL. The first note is on a passage in Hamlet, act v. scene ii.. where Johnson detects an obscare quibble of which, I fear, Shakespeare is guilty. In the other, on the celebrated soliloquy, Johnson imagines, very absummly. that "To be, or not to be" is a question, not whether Hamst shall or not put an end to his existence here, but whether there be a future state. - CROKER.

3 See antè, p. 176. n. 6.-C. Thus Swift in his character of Sir Robert says,

"With favour and fortune fastidiously blest,
He is loud in his laugh and is coarse in his jest."
P. CUNNINGHAM.

4 Probably Mr. Boswell himself, who frequently practised this mode of obtaining information. CROKER.

him, when he was sitting by, he broke out, "Sir, you have but two topics, yourself and me. I am sick of both." "A man," said he, "should not talk of himself, nor much of any particular person. He should take care not to be made a proverb; and, therefore, should avoid having any one topic of which people can say, 'We shall hear him upon it.' There was a Dr. Oldfield', who was always talking of the Duke of Marlborough. He came into a coffeehouse one day, and told that his grace had spoken in the House of Lords for half an hour. Did he indeed speak for half an hour?' (said Belchier, the surgeon).—Yes.' And what did he say of Dr. Öldfield ?' — 'Nothing.' Why then, Sir, he was very ungrateful; for Dr. Oldfield could not have spoken for a quarter of an hour, without saying something of him.'"

1

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Every man is to take existence on the terms on which it is given to him. To some men it is given on condition of not taking liberties, which other men may take without much harm. One may drink wine, and be nothing the worse for it: on another, wine may have effects so inflammatory as to injure him both in body and mind, and perhaps make him commit something for which he may deserve to be hanged."

"Lord Hailes's 'Annals of Scotland' have not that painted form which is the taste of this age; but it is a book which will always sell, it has such a stability of dates, such a certainty of facts, and such a punctuality of citation. I never before read Scotch history with certainty." I asked him whether he would advise me to read the Bible with a commentary, and what commentaries he would recommend. JOHNSON. "To be sure, Sir, I would have you read the Bible with a commentary; and I would recommend Lowth and Patrick on the Old Testament, and Hammond on the New.”

During my stay in London this spring, I solicited his attention to another law case, in which I was engaged. In the course of a contested election for the borough of Dunfermline, which I attended as one of my friend Colonel (afterward Sir Archibald) Campbell's counsel, one of his political agents who was charged with having been unfaithful to his employer, and having deserted to the opposite party for a pecuniary reward— attacked very rudely in the newspapers the Rev. Mr. James Thomson, one of the ministers of that place, on account of a supposed allusion to him in one of his sermons. Upon this the minister, on a subsequent Sumlay, arraigned him by name from the pulpit with some severity; and the agent, after the sermon was over, rose up and asked

! This, I suppose, was Joshua Oldfield, D.D., the only contemporary of the Duke of Marlborough's, of that name and degree, that I know of. - CROKER, 1835.

24 Gallicism, which has, it appears, with so many others, become vernacular in Scotland. The French call a pulpit "La chaire de verité."-CROKER.

3 As a proof of Dr. Johnson's extraordinary powers of

the minister aloud, "What bribe he had received for telling so many lies from the chair of verity?"2 I was present at this very extraordinary scene. The person arraigned, and his father and brother, who also had a share both of the reproof from the pulpit and in the retaliation, brought an action against Mr. Thomson, in the Court of Session, for defamation and damages, and I was one of the counsel for the reverend defendant. The liberty of the pulpit was our great ground of defence; but we argued also on the provocation of the previous attack, and on the instant retaliation. The Court of Session, however, the fifteen judges, who are at the same time the jury, decided against the minister, contrary to my humble opinion; and several of them expressed themselves with indignation against him. He was an aged gentleman, formerly a military chaplain, and a man of high spirit and honour. Johnson was satisfied that the judgment was wrong, and dictated to me, in confutation of it, the following Argument. [See Appendix.]

When I read this to Mr. Burke, he was highly pleased, and exclaimed, "Well, he does his work in a workmanlike manner."

"3

Mr. Thomson wished to bring the cause by appeal before the House of Lords, but was dissuaded by the advice of the noble person who lately presided so ably in that most honourable house, and who was then attorney-general. As my readers will no doubt be glad also to read the opinion of this eminent man upon the same subject, I shall also insert it.[See Appendix.]

I am now to record a very curious incident in Dr. Johnson's life, which fell under my own observation; of which pars magna fui, and which I am persuaded will, with the liberalminded, be much to his credit.

My desire of being acquainted with celebrated men of every description had made me, much about the same time, obtain an introduction to Dr. Samuel Johnson and to John Wilkes, Esq. Two men more different could perhaps not be selected out of all mankind. They had even attacked one another with some asperity in their writings; yet I lived in habits of friendship with both. I could fully relish the excellence of each; for I have ever delighted in that intellectual chemistry, which can separate good qualities from evil in the same person.

Sir John Pringle, "mine own friend and my father's friend," between whom and Dr. Johnson I in vain wished to establish an acquaintance, as I respected and lived in intimacy with both of them, observed to me once, very ingeniously, "It is not in friendship as in ma

composition, it appears from the original manuscript of this excellent dissertation, of which he dictated the first eight paragraphs on the 10th of May, and the remainder on the 13th, that there are in the whole only seven corrections, or rather variations, and those not considerable. Such were at once the vigorous and accurate emanations of his mind. BosWELL.

L L