multiplied, let the princes of the earth tremble in their palaces. If they should continue to double and to double, their own hemisphere would not contain them. But let not our boldest oppugners of authority look forward with delight to this futurity of Whiggism."

How it ended I know not, as it is cut off abruptly at the foot of the last of these proof

pages.

His pamphlets in support of the measures of administration were published on his own account, and he afterwards collected them into a volume, with the title of "Political Tracts, by the Author of the Rambler," with this motto:

"Fallitur egregio quisquis sub principe credit Servitium; nunquam libertas gratior extat Quam sub rege pio." - Claudianus.'

These pamphlets drew upon him numerous attacks. Against the common weapons of literary warfare he was hardened; but there were two instances of animadversion which I communicated to him, and from what I could judge, both from his silence and his looks, appeared to me to impress him much.2

One was,

"A Letter to Dr. Samuel John

son, occasioned by his late political Publications." It appeared previous to his "Taxation no Tyranny," and was written by Dr. Joseph Towers. In that performance, Dr. Johnson was treated with the respect due to so eminent a man, while his conduct as a political writer was boldly and pointedly arraigned, as inconsistent with the character of one, who, if he did empley his pen upon politics,

"it might reasonably be expected should distinguish himself, not by party violence and rancour, but by moderation and by wisdom."

"I would, however, wish you to remember, should you again address the public under the character of a political writer, that luxuriance of imagination or energy of language will ill compen sate for the want of candour, of justice, and of truth. And I shall only add, that should I hereafter be disposed to read, as I heretofore have done, the most excellent of all your performances, The Rambler,' the pleasure which I have been accustomed to find in it will be much diminished by the reflection that the writer of so moral, so elegant,

1 "He errs who deems obedience to a prince Slav'ry a happier freedom never reigns Than with a pious Monarch."— Stil. iii. 113. — C.

2 Mr. Boswell, by a very natural prejudice, construes Johnson's silence and looks into something like a concurrence in his own sentiments; but it does not appear that Johnson ever abated one jot of the firmuess and decision of his opinion on these questions. See his conversation passim, and his letter to John Wesley, post, Feb. 6. 1776. — CROKER. 3 Dr. Joseph Towers, a miscellaneous writer, and a preacher among the Unitarians, was born in 1737, and died 1799. WRIGHT.

4 Boswell is here very inconsistent; for, abhorring Dr. Towers's Whiggish democratical notions and propensities, how can he allow any weight to his opinions in a case which called these propensities into full effect; and above

I am willing to do justice to the merit of Dr. Towers, of whom I will say, that although I abhor his Whiggish democratical notions and propensities (for I will not call them principles), I esteem as an ingenious, knowing, and very convivial man.

The other instance was a paragraph of a letter to me, from my old and most intimate friend the Rev. Mr. Temple, who wrote the character of Gray, which has had the honour to be adopted both by Mr. Mason and Dr. Johnson in their accounts of that poet. The words were,

"How can your great, I will not say your pious, but your moral friend, support the barbarous mea sures of administration, which they have not the face to ask even their infidel pensioner Hume to defend?"

However confident of the rectitude of his own mind, Johnson may have felt sincere uneasiness that his conduct should be erroneously and that the influence of his valuable writings imputed to unworthy motives by good mer; should on that account be in any degree ob

structed or lessened.

of distinguished talents and very elegant manHe complained to a right honourable friend'

ners,

with whom he maintained a long intimacy, and whose generosity towards him will afterwards appear, that his pension having been given to him as a literary character, he had been applied to by administration to write po litical pamphlets; and he was even so mu irritated, that he declared his resolution to resign his pension. His friend showed him the impropriety of such a measure, and he afterwards expressed his gratitude, and said he tal received good advice. To that friend he on signified a wish to have his pension secured him for his life; but he neither asked nor received from government any reward whatsoever for his political labours.

On Friday, March 24., I met him at the LITERARY CLUB, where were Mr. Beauclerk. Mr. Langton, Mr. Colman, Dr. Percy, Mr. Vesey, Sir Charles Bunbury, Dr. George For

all, how could he suppose that Dr. Johnson, with his know feelings and opinions, could be influenced by a person 2017 fessing such doctrines? - CROKER

5 Mr. Gerard Hamilton. Johnson was certainly # satisfied with Lord North, and some complaint of that he may have made to Mr. Hamilton-but that he ever al Boswell seems to insinuate, confessed that his pole pamphlets did not convey his own real option! tirely discredit, not only from a consideration of Jensor own character and principles, but from the evidence of all a other friends persons who knew him more intimately Mr. Hamilton Mrs. Thrale, Mr. Murphy, Sir J. Hav Mr. Tyers who all declare that his political pampl expressed the opinions which in private he always ma tained. Mr. Boswell, we have seen, was of the walde egër until he took up the adverse side of the political questi and then he hints at Johnson's uneasiness" and "e plaints." CROKER.

dyce, Mr. Steevens, and Mr. Charles Fox. Before he came in, he talked of his "Journey to the Western Islands," and of his coming away, "willing to believe the second sight," which seemed to excite some ridicule. I was then so impressed with the truth of many of the stories of which I had been told, that I avowed my conviction, saying, "He is only willing to believe: I do believe. The evidence is enough for me, though not for his great mind. What will not fill a quart bottle will fill a pint bottle. I am filled with belief." "Are you? said Colman; "then cork it up." I found his “Journey " the common topic of conversation in London at this time, wherever I happened to be. At one of Lord Mansfield's formal Sunday evening conversations, strangely called Levées, his lordship addressed me, "We have all been reading your travels, Mr. Boswell." I answered, I was but the humble attendant of Dr. Johnson." The Chief-Justice replied, with that air and manner which none, who ever saw and heard him, can forget, "He speaks ill of nobody but Ossian."

Johnson was in high spirits this evening at the club, and talked with great animation and success. He attacked Swift, as he used to do upon all occasions. "The Tale of a Tub' is so much superior to his other writings, that one can hardly believe he was the author of it3: there is in it such a vigour of mind, such a swarm of thoughts, so much of nature, and art, and life." I wondered to hear him say of Gulliver's Travels," - "When once you have thought of big men and little men, it is very easy to do all the rest." I endeavoured to make a stand for Swift, and tried to rouse those who were much more able to defend him; but in vain. Johnson at last, of his own accord, allowed very great merit to the inventory of articles found in the pocket of "the Man Mountain," particularly the description of his watch, which it was conjectured was his God, as he consulted it upon all occasions. He observed, that Swift put his name to but two things (after he had a name to put), "The Plan for the Improvement of the English Language," and the last "Drapier's Letter."

From Swift, there was an easy transition to

"Journey," ed. 1785, p. 256.-BOSWELL. Boswell, however, changed his own opinion before he printed his Tour. See ante, p. 349. — CROKER.

It is not easy to guess how the air and manner, even of Lord Mansfield, could have set off such an unmeaning expression as this. Johnson denied the authenticity of the poems attributed to Ossian, but that was not speaking ill of Ossian, in the sense which Mr. Boswell evidently gives to the phrase. CROKER.

This doubt has been much agitated on both sides, I think without good reason. See Addison's " Freeholder," May 4th, 1714, An Apology for the Tale of a Tub," Dr. Hawkesworth's Preface to Swift's Works," and Swift's "Letter to Tooke the Printer," and Tooke's" Answer" in that collection; Sheridan's" Life of Swift;" Mr. Courtenay's note

p. 3. of his " Political Review of the Literary and Moral Character of Dr. Johnson ;" and Mr. Cooksey's" Essay on the Life and Character of John, Lord Somers, Baron of Evesham." Dr. Johnson here speaks only to the internal emdence. I take leave to differ from him, having a very high estination of the powers of Dr. Swift. His "Sentiments of a Church-of-England-man;" his "Sermon on the Trinity,"

Mr. Thomas Sheridan. JOHNSON. "Sheridan is a wonderful admirer of the tragedy of Douglas, and presented its author with a gold medal. Some years ago, at a coffee-house in Oxford, I called to him, Mr. Sheridan, Mr. Sheridan, how came you to give a gold medal to Home, for writing that foolish play?' This, you see, was wanton and insolent; but I meant to be wanton and insolent. A medal has no value but as a stamp of merit. And was Sheridan to assume to himself the right of giving that stamp? If Sheridan was magnificent enough to bestow a gold medal as an honorary reward of dramatic excellence, he should have requested one of the Universities to choose the person on whom it should be conferred. Sheridan had no right to give a stamp of merit: it was counterfeiting Apollo's coin." 4

On Monday, March 27., I breakfasted with him at Mr. Strahan's. He told us, that he was engaged to go that evening to Mrs. Abington's benefit. "She was visiting some ladies whom I was visiting, and begged that I would come to her benefit. I told her I could not hear: but she insisted so much on my coming, that it would have been brutal to have refused her." This was a speech quite characteristical. He loved to bring forward his having been in the gay circles of life; and he was, perhaps, a little vain of the solicitations of this elegant and fashionable actress. He told us the play was to be "The Hypocrite," altered from Cibber's "Nonjuror," so as to satirise the Methodists. "I do not think," said he, "the character of the Hypocrite justly applicable to the Methodists, but it is very applicable to the Nonjurors. I once said to Dr. Madan [Madden], a clergyman of Ireland, who was a great Whig, that perhaps a Nonjuror would have been less criminal in taking the oaths imposed by the ruling power, than refusing them; because refusing them necessarily laid him under almost an irresistible temptation to be more criminal; for a man must live, and if he precludes himself from the support furnished by the establishment will probably be reduced to very wicked shifts to maintain himself." 5 BOSWELL. "I should think, Sir, that a man who took the oaths con

and other serious pieces, prove his learning as well as his acuteness in logic and metaphysics; and his various compo sitions of a different cast exhibit not only wit, humour, and ridicule, but a knowledge "of nature, and art, and life;' a combination, therefore, of those powers, when (as the Apology" says) the author was young, his invention at the height, and his reading fresh in his head," might surely produce The Tale of a Tub." BOSWELL. See antè, p. 154. n. 1. and 277. n. 2. a refutation of Johnson's strange paradoxes about Swift and the Tale of a Tub. — CROKER.

4 The medal was presented in 1757, and Mr. Whyte, the friend of Sheridan, (antè, p. 166. n. 1.) gives its history thus: "When Sheridan undertook to play Douglas in Dublin, he had liberally written to Home, promising him the profits of the third night. It happened, however, that these profits fell very short, and Sheridan was rather perplexed what to do. At first, he thought of offering the author a piece of plate, but, on the suggestion of Mr. Whyte, the idea of a medal was adopted ;" and it had, said Whyte, "the additional value of being conveyed to Mr. Home by the hands of Lord Macartney and Lord Bute."- CROKER. 5 This was not merely a cursory remark; for in his Life

trary to his principles was a determined wicked man, because he was sure he was committing perjury whereas a Nonjuror might be insensibly led to do what was wrong without being so directly conscious of it." JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, a man who goes to bed to his patron's wife is pretty sure that he is committing wickedness. BOSWELL. "Did the nonjuring clergymen do so, Sir ?" JOHNSON. "I am afraid many of them did." 1

I was startled at this argument, and could by no means think it convincing. Had not his own father complied with the requisition of government 2, (as to which he once observed to me, when I pressed him upon it, "That, Sir, he was to settle with himself,") he would probably have thought more unfavourably of a Jacobite who took the oaths:

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had he not resembled My father as he swore

Mr. Strahan talked of launching into the great ocean of London, in order to have a chance for rising into eminence; and observing that many men were kept back from trying their fortunes there, because they were born to a competency, said, "Small certainties are the bane of men of talents;" which Johnson confirmed. Mr. Strahan put Johnson in mind of a remark which he had made to him: "There are few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting money." "The more one thinks of this," said Strahan, "the juster it will appear."

Mr. Strahan had taken a poor boy from the country as an apprentice, upon Johnson's recommendation. Johnson having inquired after him, said, "Mr. Strahan, let me have five guineas on account, and I'll give this boy one. Nay, if a man recommends a boy, and does nothing for him, it is sad work. Call him down."

I followed him into the court-yard3, behind Mr. Strahan's house; and there I had a proof of what I heard him profess, that he talked alike to all. "Some people tell you that they let themselves down to the capacity of their

of Fenton, he observes, "With many other wise and virtuous men, who, at that time of discord and debate (about the beginning of this century), consulted conscience, well or ill formed, more than interest, he doubted the legality of the government; and refusing to qualify himself for public em. ployment, by taking the oaths required, left the University without a degree." This conduct Johnson calls "perverseness of integrity." The question concerning the morality of taking oaths, of whatever kind, imposed by the prevailing power at the time, rather than to be excluded from all consequence, or even any considerable usefulness in society, has been agitated with all the acuteness of casuistry. It is related, that he who devised the oath of abjuration profligately boasted, that he had framed a test which should damm one half of

the nation, and starve the other." Upon minds not exalted to inflexible rectitude, or minds in which zeal for a party is predominant to excess, taking that oath against conviction may have been palliated under the plea of necessity, or ventured upon in heat, as upon the whole producing more good than evil. At a county election in Scotland, many years ago, when there was a warm contest between the friends of the Hanoverian succession, and those against it, the oath of abjuration having been demanded, the freeholders upon one side rose to go away. Upon which a very sanguine

hearers. I never do that. I speak uniformly, in as intelligible a manner as I can."

"Well, my boy, how do you go on?" "Pretty well, Sir; but they are afraid I ar' n't strong enough for some parts of the business." JOHNSON. "Why, I shall be sorry for it; for, when you consider with how little mental power and corporeal labour a printer can get a guinea a week, it is a very desirable occupation for you. Do you hear-take all the pains you can; and if this does not do, we must think of some other way of life for you. There's a guinea."

Here was one of the many, many instances! of his active benevolence. At the same time, the slow and sonorous solemnity with which, while he bent himself down, he addressed a little thick short-legged boy, contrasted with the boy's awkwardness and awe, could not but excite some ludicrous emotions.

I met him at Drury Lane playhouse in the evening. Sir Joshua Reynolds, at Mrs. Abington's request, had promised to bring a body of wits to her benefit; and having secured forty places in the front boxes, had done me the honour to put me in the group. Johnson sat on the seat directly behind me; and as he could neither see nor hear at such a distance from the stage, he was wrapped up in grave abstraction, and seemed quite a cloud, amidst all the sunshine of glitter and gaiety. I wondered at his patience in sitting out a play of five acts, and a farce of two. He said verv little; but after the prologue to "Bon Ton" had been spoken, which he could hear pretty well from the more slow and distinct utterance, he talked on prologue-writing, and observed, | "Dryden has written prologues superior to any that David Garrick has written; but David Garrick has written more good prologues than Dryden has done. It is wonder-1 ful that he has been able to write such variety | of them."

At Mr. Beauclerk's, where I supped, was Mr. Garrick, whom I made happy with Johnson's praise of his prologues; and I suppose in gratitude to him, he took up one of his favourite

gentleman, one of their number, ran to the door to t them, calling out with much earnestness, ** Stay, stay, wy friends, and let us swear the rogues out of it!"-Bes@11%

1 What evidence is there of this being the prevaring in of the nonjuring clergy beyond Cibber's comedy, which, whichE evidence as it would be at best, is next to none at al this occasion for Cibber's play was a mere adapts Molière's Tartuffe ? - CROKER.

2 Dr. Harwood sent me the following extract from the book containing the proceedings of the corporation of Latfield: "19th July, 1712. Agreed that Mr. Michael Johnsam be and he is hereby elected a magistrate and brother of their incorporation; a day is given him to Thursday nex take the oath of fidelity and allegiance, and the cat magistrate. Signed, &c."—" 25th of July, 1712 son took the oath of allegiance, and that he believed them was no transubstantiation in the sacrament of the Land i Supper, before, &c."— CROKER.

t

3 In New Street, near Gough Square, in Fleet Strot whither, in February, 1770, the king's printing home wa removed from what is still called Printing Honor Square Blackfriars, and near which this volume is now printing be Mr. Spottiswoode, Mr. Strahan's very respectable grandso and successor. CROKER.

topics, the nationality of the Scotch, which he maintained in a pleasant manner, with the aid of a little poetical fiction. "Come, come, don't deny it: they are really national. Why, now, the Adams are as liberal-minded men as any in the world: but, I don't know how it is, all their workmen are Scotch. You are, to be sure, wonderfully free from that nationality; but so it happens, that you employ the only Scotch shoeblack in London."

He imitated the manner of his old master with ludicrous exaggeration; repeating, with pauses and half-whistlings interjected,

"Os homini sublime dedit, cælumque tueri Jussit, -et erectos ad sidera tollere vultus," "2 looking downwards all the time, and, while pronouncing the four last words, absolutely touching the ground with a kind of contorted gesticulation.3

sive 5; and I wish it could be preserved as music is written, according to the very ingenious method of Mr. Steele 6, who has shown how the recitation of Mr. Garrick, and other eminent speakers, might be transmitted to posterity in score."

Next day [March 28.] I dined with Johnson at Mr. Thrale's. He attacked Gray, calling him "a dull fellow." BOSWELL. "I understand he was reserved, and might appear dull in company; but surely he was not dull in poetry." JOHNSON. "Sir, he was dull in company, dull in his closet, dull every where. He was dull in a new way, and that made many people think him GREAT. He was a mechanical poet." He then repeated some ludicrous lines, not that GREAT, like his Odes?' which have escaped my memory, and said, "Is Mrs. Thrale, maintained that his Odes were melodious; upon which he exclaimed,

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4

I cannot too frequently request of my readers, while they peruse my account of Johnson's conversation, to endeavour to keep in mind his deliberate and strong utterance. His mode of speaking was indeed very impres

--

1 The architects of the Adelphi. CROKER. "Man looks aloft, and with erected eyes Beholds his own hereditary skies.' Dryden. Ov. Met. i. 13. This exhibition of Johnson's downward look and gesticulations while reciting os sublime and tollere vultus, resembles one which Lord Byron describes :-" Mr. Grattan's manners in private life were odd, but natural. Curran used to take him off, bowing to the very ground, and thanking God that he had no peculiarity of gesture or appearance,' in a way irresistibly ridiculous." Moore's Byron, i. 405.- CROKER. 3 Mr. Whyte has related an anecdote of Johnson's violence of gesticulation, which, without so much other evidence, one could have hardly believed. "The house on the right at the bottom of Beaufort Buildings was occupied by Mr. Chamberlaine, Mrs. Sheridan's eldest brother (an eminent surgeon), by whom Johnson was often invited in a snug way with the family party. At one of those social meetings Johnson as usual sat next the lady of the house; the dessert still conthuing, and the ladies in no haste to withdraw, Mrs. Chamberlaine had moved a little back from the table, and was carelessly dangling her foot backwards and forwards as she sat, enjoying the feast of reason and the flow of soul.' Johnson, the while, in a moment of abstraction, was con. vulsively working his hand up and down, which the lady observing, she roguishly edged her foot within his reach, and, as might partly have been expected, Johnson clenched hold of it, and drew off her shoe'; she started, and hastily exclaimed. O, fie! Mr. Johnson!' The company at first knew not what to make of it: but one of them, perceiving the joke, tittered. Johnson, not improbably aware of the trick, apologised. Nay, Madam, recollect yourself; I know not that I have justly incurred your rebuke; the emotion was involuntary, and the action not intentionally rude.'"Whyte's Miscel. Nova, p. 50. See antè, p. 166. n. I.-CROKER.

Very natural, even in a less sensitive creature than Garrick; but on this occasion at least Garrick had the good sense to turn the edge of Johnson's sarcasms by an easy galety.CROKER.

My noble friend Lord Pembroke said once to me at Wilton, with a happy pleasantry and some truth, "that Dr.

The winding-sheet of Edward's race.' There is a good line.-"Ay,” said he, "and the next line is a good one (pronouncing it contemptuously),

Give ample verge and room enough.'—" No, Sir, there are but two good stanzas in Gray's poetry, which are in his 'Elegy in a Country Churchyard.' He then repeated the

stanza,

"For who to dumb forgetfulness a prey," &c. mistaking one word; for instead of precincts he

Johnson's sayings would not appear so extraordinary, were it not for his bow-wow way." The sayings themselves are generally of sterling merit; but, doubtless, his manner was an addition to their effect; and therefore should be attended to as much as may be. It is necessary, however, to guard those who were not acquainted with him against overcharged imitations or caricatures of his manner, which are frequently attempted, and many of which are second-hand copies from the late Mr. Henderson, the actor, who, though a good mimic of some persons, did not represent Johnson correctly. -BOSWELL. Boswell had originally told this bow-wow anecdote in the Tour; (antè, p. 269.) and it is worth observ. ing, as an instance of Horace Walpole's aristocratic morgue, that he thought this remark of Lord Pembroke's the best thing' in that extraordinary volume. The whole passage is worth quoting "Have you got Boswell's most absurd enormous book? The best thing in it is a bon-mot of Lord Pembroke. The more one learns of Johnson, the more preposterous assemblage he appears of strong sense, of the lowest bigotry and prejudices, of pride, brutality, fretfulness, and vanity; and Boswell is the ape of most of his faults, without a grain of his sense. It is the story of a mountebank and his zany." Letter to Conway, Oct. 6. 1785. — CROKER.

See" Prosodia Rationalis; or, an Essay towards establishing the Melody and Measure of Speech, to be expressed and perpetuated by peculiar Symbols. London, 1779."BOSWELL.

7 I use the phrase in score, as Dr. Johnson has explained it in his Dictionary. "A song in SCORE, the words with the musical notes of a song annexed." But I understand that in scientific propriety it means all the parts of a musical composition noted down in the characters by which it is exhibited to the eye of the skilful. - BOSWELL. It was declamation that Steele pretended to reduce to notation by new characters. This he called the melody of speech, not the harmony, which the term in score implies. - BURNEY. The true meaning of the term score is, that when music, in different parts for different voices or instruments, is written on the same page, the bars, instead of being drawn only across each stave, are, to lead the eyes of the several performers, scored from the top to the bottom of the pages. - CROKER.

8

Ample room and verge enough." - P. C.

said confines. He added, "The other stanza I forget.'

1

A young lady who had married a man much her inferior in rank being mentioned, a question arose how a woman's relations should behave to her in such a situation; and, while I recapitulate the debate, and recollect what has since happened, I cannot but be struck in a manner that delicacy 2 forbids me to express. While I contended that she ought to be treated with an inflexible steadiness of displeasure, Mrs. Thrale was all for mildness and forgiveness, and, according to the vulgar phrase, "making the best of a bad bargain." JOHNSON. "Madam, we must distinguish. Were I a a man of rank, I would not let a daughter starve who had made a mean marriage; but having voluntarily degraded herself from the station which she was originally entitled to hold, I would support her only in that which she herself had chosen; and would not put her on a level with my other daughters. You are to consider, Madam, that it is our duty to maintain the subordination of civilised society; and when there is a gross and shameful deviation from rank, it should be punished so as to deter others from the same perversion."

After frequently considering this subject, I am more and more confirmed in what I then meant to express, and which was sanctioned by the authority and illustrated by the wisdom of Johnson; and I think it of the utmost consequence to the happiness of society, to which subordination is absolutely necessary. It is weak and contemptible, and unworthy, in a parent to relax in such a case. It is sacrificing general advantage to private feelings. And let it be considered that the claim of a daughter who has acted thus, to be restored to her former situation, is either fantastical or unjust. If there be no value in the distinction of rank, what does she suffer by being kept in the situation to which she has descended? If there be a value in that distinction, it ought to be steadily maintained. If indulgence be shown to such conduct, and the offenders know that in a longer or shorter time they shall be received as well as if they had not contaminated their blood by a base alliance, the great check upon that inordinate caprice which generally occasions low marriages will be removed, and the fair and comfortable order of improved life will be miserably disturbed.

Lord Chesterfield's Letters being mentioned, Johnson said, "It was not to be wondered at that they had so great a sale, considering that

1 No doubt Lady Susan Fox, eldest daughter of the first Earl of Ilchester, born in 1743, who, in 1773, married Mr. William O'Brien, an actor. She died in 1827 - CROKER. 2 Mr. Boswell's delicacy to Mrs. Piozzi is quite exemplary! but after all, there is nothing which he has insinuated or said too bad for such a lamentable weakness as she was guilty of in her marriage with Mr. Piozzi, and for the, I believe, insane folly of some of her subsequent conduct. CROKER. 3" To flutter famous through the mouths of men." Virg. Georg. iii. 9.- C.

On Friday, 31st March, I supped with him and some friends at a tavern. One of the company 5 attempted, with too much forwardness, to rally him on his late appearance at the theatre; but had reason to repent of his temerity. “Why, Sir, did you go to Mrs. Abington's benefit? Did you see?" JOHNSON. "No, Sir." " Did you hear?" JOHNSON. "No, Sir." 'Why then, Sir, did you go?" JOHNSON. "Because, Sir, she is a favourite of the public; and when the public cares a thousandth part for you that it does for her, I will go to your benefit too."

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Next morning I won a small bet from Lady Diana Beauclerk, by asking him as to one of his particularities, which her Ladyship laid I durst not do. It seems he had been frequently observed at the club to put into his pocket the Seville oranges, after he had squeezed the juice of them into the drink which he made for himself. Beauclerk and Garrick talked of it to me, and seemed to think that he had a strange unwillingness to be discovered. We could not divine what he did with them; and this was the bold question to be put. I saw on his table, the spoils of the preceding night, some fresh peels nicely scraped and cut into pieces. "O, Sir," said I, "I now partly see what you do with the squeezed oranges which you put into your pocket at the club." JOHNSON. I have a great love for them." BOSWELL "And pray, Sir, what do you do with them? scrape them it seems, very neatly, and what next?" JOHNSON. "Let them dry, Sir." BosWELL. "And what next?" JOHNSON. "Nay. Sir, you shall know their fate no further." BosWELL. "Then the world must be left in ' the dark. It must be said (assuming a mock solemnity) he scraped them, and let them dry, but what he did with them next he never could be prevailed upon to tell." JOHNSON. Nay, Sir, you should say it more emphatically:-he could not be prevailed upon, even by his dearest friends, to tell."6

66

You

He had this morning received his diploma as Doctor of Laws from the University of Oxford. He did not vaunt of his new dignity, but I understood he was highly pleased with it. I shall here insert the progress and completion of that high academical honour, in the same manner as I have traced his obtaining that of Master of Arts.

4 The Club. - CROKER.

5 Mr. Boswell himself. - CROKER.

6 The following extract of one of his letters to Miss Boothly probably explains the use to which he put these orange peela

"Give me leave, who have thought much on medicine, de propose to you an easy and, I think, very probable remedy for Indigestion, &c. Take an ounce of dried orange peel, finely powdered, divide it into scruples, and take one scruple at a time in any manner: the best way is, perhaps, to drink it in a glass of hot red port, or to eat it first, and drink the wine after it," &c. Lett. Dec. 31. 1755. - CROKIN.