him an injury; and, if he is overcome, you share his guilt.' P. 'And, when once overcome, it is easier for him to be got the better of again.' BoswELL: 'Yes, you are his seducer; you have debauched him. I have known a man resolved to put friendship to the test, by asking a friend to lend him money, merely with that view, when he did not want it.' JOHNSON : 'That is very wrong, sir. Your friend may be a narrow man, and yet have many good qualities; narrowness may be his only fault. Now you are trying his general character as a friend by one particular singly, in which he happens to be defective, when, in truth, his character is composed of many particulars.'

E. 'I understand the hogshead of claret which this society was favoured with by our friend the Dean, is nearly out; I think he should be written to, to send another of the same kind. Let the request be made with a happy ambiguity of expression, so that we may have the chance of his sending it also as a present.' JOHNSON: 'I am willing to offer my services as secretary on this occasion.' P. 'As many as are for Dr. Johnson being secretary hold up your hands. Carried unanimously.' BoswELL: 'He will be our Dictator.' JOHNSON: 'No, the company is to dictate to me. I am only to write for wine; and I am quite disinterested, as I drink none; I shall not be suspected of having forged the application. I am no more than humble scribe.' E. 'Then you shall prescribe.' BOSWELL: 'Very well. The first play of words today.' J. 'No, no; the bulls in Ireland.' JOHNSON: 'Were I your Dictator you should have no wine. It would be my business cavere ne quid detrimenti

Respublica caperet, and wine is dangerous. Rome was ruined by luxury' (smiling). E. 'If you allow no wine as Dictator, you shall not have me for your master of horse.'

On Saturday, April 4, I drank tea with Johnson at Dr. Taylor's, where he had dined. He entertained us with an account of a tragedy written by a Dr. Kennedy (not the Lisbon physician). 'The catastrophe of it (said he), was that a King, who was jealous of his Queen with his prime minister, castrated himself.1 This tragedy was actually shown about in manuscript to several people, and amongst others, to Mr. Fitzherbert, who repeated to me two lines of the Prologue:

""Our hero's fate we have but gently touch'd;

The fair might blame us, if it were less couch'd."

It is hardly to be believed what absurd and indecent images men will introduce into their writings, without being sensible of the absurdity and indecency. I remember Lord Orrery told me that there was a pamphlet written against Sir Robert Walpole, the whole of which was an allegory on the Phallic obscenity. The Duchess of Buckingham asked Lord Orrery who this person was? He answered he did not know. She said she would send to Mr. Pulteney, who, she supposed, could inform her. So then to prevent her from making herself ridiculous, Lord Orrery sent her

1 The reverse of the story of Combabus, on which Mr. David Hume told Lord Macartney that a friend of his had written a tragedy. It is, however, possible that I may have been inaccurate in my perception of what Dr. Johnson related, and that he may have been talking of the same ludicrous tragical subject that Mr. Hume had mentioned.

[The story of Combabus, which was originally told by Lucian, may be found in Bayle's Dictionary.-M.]

Grace a note, in which he gave her to understand what was meant.'

He was very silent this evening; and read in a variety of books: suddenly throwing down one and taking up another.

He talked of going to Streatham that night. TAYLOR: 'You'll be robbed if you do; or you must shoot a highwayman. Now I would rather be robbed than do that; I would not shoot a highwayman.' JOHNSON : 'But I would rather shoot him in the instant when he is attempting to rob me, than afterwards swear against him at the Old Bailey to take away his life, after he has robbed me. I am surer I am right in the one case than in the other. I may be mistaken as to the man when I swear; I cannot be mistaken if I shoot him in the act. Besides, we feel less reluctance to take away a man's life when we are heated by the injury, than to do it at a distance of time by an oath, after we have cooled.' BoswELL: 'So, sir, you would rather act from the motive of private passion, than that of public advantage?' JOHNSON: Nay, sir, when I shoot the highwayman, I act from both.' BoswELL: 'Very well, very well. There is no catching him.' JOHNSON: At the same time, one does not know what to say. For perhaps one may, a year after, hang himself from uneasiness for having shot a highwayman.1

1 The late Duke of Montrose was generally said to have been uneasy on that account; but I can contradict the report from his Grace's own authority. As he used to admit me to very easy conversation with him, I took the liberty to introduce the subject. His Grace told me, that when riding one night near London, he was attacked by two highwaymen on horseback, and that he instantly shot one of them, upon which the other galloped off; that his servant, who was very well mounted, proposed to pursue him and take him, but that his Grace said, 'No, we have had blood enough: hope the man may live to repent.' His Grace, upon my presuming to put the question, assured me that his mind was not at all clouded by what he had thus done in self-defence. VOL. IV.

Few minds are fit to be trusted with so great a thing.' BOSWELL: 'Then, sir, you would not shoot him?' JOHNSON: 'But I might be vexed afterwards for that too.'

Thrale's carriage not having come for him, as he expected, I accompanied him some part of the way home to his own house. I told him that I had talked of him to Mr. Dunning a few days before, and had said, that in his company we did not so much interchange conversation, as listen to him; and that Dunning observed upon this, 'One is always willing to listen to Dr. Johnson': to which I answered, 'That is a great deal from you, sir.' 'Yes, sir (said Johnson), a great deal indeed. Here is a man willing to listen, to whom the world is listening all the rest of the year.' BOSWELL: 'I think, sir, it is right to tell one man of such a handsome thing, which has been said of him by another. It tends to increase benevolence.' JOHNSON: 'Undoubtedly it is right, sir.'

On Tuesday, April 7, I breakfasted with him at his house. He said, 'nobody was content.' I mentioned to him a respectable person in Scotland whom he knew; and I asserted that I really believed he was always content. JOHNSON: 'No, sir, he is not content with the present; he has always some new scheme, some new plantation, something which is future. You know he was not content as a widower, for he married again.' BOSWELL: 'But he is not restless.' JOHNSON: 'Sir, he is only locally at rest. A chemist is locally at rest; but his mind is hard at work. This gentleman has done with external exertions. It is too late for him to engage in distant projects.' BOSWELL: 'He seems to amuse himself quite well; to

have his attention fixed, and his tranquillity preserved by very small matters. I have tried this, but it would not do with me.' JOHNSON (laughing): 'No, sir; it must be born with a man to be contented to take up with little things. Women have a great advantage that they may take up with little things, without disgracing themselves; a man cannot, except with fiddling. Had I learned to fiddle, I should have done nothing else.' BOSWELL: 'Pray, sir, did you ever play on any musical instrument?' JOHNSON: 'No, sir. I once bought me a flageolet; but I never made out a tune.' BOSWELL: 'A flageolet, sir !—so small an instrument?1 I should have liked to hear you play on the violoncello. That should have been your instrument.' JOHNSON: 'Sir, I might as well have played on the violoncello as another; but I should have done nothing else. No, sir; a man would never undertake great things could he be amused with small. I once tried knotting. Dempster's sister undertook to teach me; but I could not learn it.' BoswELL: 'So, sir; it will be related in pompous narrative, "Once for his amusement he tried knotting; nor did this Hercules disdain the distaff." JOHNSON: 'Knitting of stockings is a good amusement. As a freeman of Aberdeen I should be a knitter of stockings.' He asked me to go down with him and dine at Mr. Thrale's at Streatham, to which I agreed. I had lent him An Account of Scotland in 1702, written by a man of various inquiry, an English chaplain to a regiment

1 When I told this to Miss Seward she smiled, and repeated with admirable readiness from Acis and Galatea: