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Reynolds, Dr. Burney, Dr. Johnson, and myself. We found ourselves very elegantly entertained at her house in the Adelphi, where I have passed many a pleasing hour with him "who gladdened life." She looked well, talked of her husband with complacency, and while she cast her eyes on his portrait, which hung over the chimney-piece, said, that "death was now the most agreeable object to her." The very semblance of David Garrick was cheering. Mr. Beauclerk, with happy propriety, inscribed under that fine portrait of him, which by Lady Diana's kindness is now the property of my friend Mr. Langton, the following passage from his beloved Shakspeare:

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A merrier man,

Within the limit of becoming mirth, I never spent an hour's talk withal. His eye begets occasion for his wit; For every object that the one doth catch The other turns to a mirth-moving jest ; Which his fair tongue (Conceit's expositor) Delivers in such apt and gracious words, That aged ears play truant at his tales, And younger hearings are quite ravished; So sweet and voluble is his discourse."1 We were all in fine spirits; and I whispered to Mrs. Boscawen, "I believe this is as much as can be made of life." In addition to a splendid entertainment, we were regaled with Lichfield ale, which had a peculiar appropriate value. Sir Joshua, and Dr. Burney, and I drank cordially of it to Dr. Johnson's health; and though he would not join us, he as cordially answered, "Gentlemen, I wish you all as well as you do me."

The general effect of this day dwells upon my mind in fond remembrance; but I do not find much conversation recorded. What I have preserved shall be faithfully given.

One of the company mentioned Mr. Thomas Hollis, the strenuous Whig, who used to send over Europe presents of democratical books, with their boards stamped with daggers and caps of liberty. Mrs. Carter said, "He was a bad man: he used to talk uncharitably." JOHNSON. "Poh! poh! Madam; who is the worse for being talked of very uncharitably? Besides, he was a dull poor creature as ever lived and I believe he would not have done harm to a man whom he knew to be of very opposite principles to his own. I remember

once at the Society of Arts, when an advertisement was to be drawn up, he pointed me out as the man who could do it best. This, you will observe, was kindness to me. I however slipt away, and escaped it."

Mrs. Carter having said of the same person, "I doubt he was an atheist :" JOHNSON. "I don't know that. He might, perhaps, have become one, if he had had time to ripen (smiling). He might have exuberated into an

atheist."

Sir Joshua Reynolds praised "Mudge's Sermons." JOHNSON. "Mudge's Sermons are good, but not practical. He grasps more sense than he can hold; he takes more corn than he can make into meal; he opens a wide prospect, but it is so distant, it is indistinct. I love 'Blair's Sermons.' Though the dog is a Scotchman, and a presbyterian, and every thing he should not be, I was the first to praise them. Such was my candour" (smiling). MRS. BOSCAWEN. "Such his great merit, to get the better of all your prejudices." JOHNSON. "Why, Madam, let us compound the matter; let us ascribe it to my candour, and his merit."

In the evening we had a large company in the drawing-room; several ladies, the Bishop of Killaloe (Dr. Barnard), Dr. Percy, Mr. Chamberlayne of the Treasury, &c. &c. Somebody said, the life of a mere literary man could not be very entertaining. JOHNSON. "But it certainly may. This is a remark which has been made, and repeated, without justice. Why should the life of a literary man be less entertaining than the life of any other man? Are there not as interesting varieties in such a life? As a literary life it may be very entertaining." BOSWELL. "But it must be better surely when it is diversified with a little active variety-such as his having gone to Jamaica; -or- - his having gone to the Hebrides." Johnson was not displeased at this.

Talking of a very respectable author, he told us a curious circumstance in his life, which was, that he had married a printer's devil. REYNOLDS. "A printer's devil, Sir! why, I thought a printer's devil was a creature with a black face and in rags." JOHNSON. "Yes, Sir. But I suppose he had her face washed, and put clean clothes on her." Then, looking very serious, and very earnest. "And she did not

1 Rosaline's character of Biron. Love's Labour's Lost, act 2. sc. 1. CROKER.

2 Boswell was right; four other such women or such men, it would have been difficult to collect. Hannah More gives two anecdotes only of this day, neither mentioned by Boswell. "Johnson was in full song, and I quarrelled with him sadly. I accused him of not having done justice to the Allegro' and 'Penseroso.' He spoke disparagingly of both. I praised Lycidas, which he absolutely abused, adding, that if Milton had not written Paradise Lost he would have only ranked among the minor poets. He was a Phidias that could cut a Colossus out of a rock, but could not cut heads out of cherry stones." Boswell brought to my mind my being made by Sir William Forbes the umpire in a trial of skill between Garrick and Boswell, which could most nearly imitate Johnson's manner. I remember I gave

it for Boswell in familiar conversation, and for Garrick in reciting poetry. Mrs. Boscawen shone with her usual mild lustre." Memoirs, i. 212.— CROKER, 1847.

3 See ante, p. 679., a more favourable opinion. - CROKER. 4 Edward Chamberlayne was, for a short time, Secretary of the Treasury under Lord Rockingham, an office which be unwillingly accepted; and, overwhelmed with its fancied responsibilities, he, on the 5th April, 1782, committed suicide by throwing himself out of one of the windows of the Treasury. He lived 36 hours, with his understanding clear, arranged his affairs with great coolness, did not reproach himself for sell murder, but expressed contrition that he had done business with Lord Rockingham on Good Friday! He was the brother of Mrs. Kennicott. See Hannah More's Memoirs, î. 245. — -CROKER, 1847.

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disgrace him; the woman had a bottom of good sense." The word bottom thus introduced was so ludicrous when contrasted with his gravity, that most of us could not forbear tittering and laughing; though I recollect that the Bishop of Killaloe kept his countenance with perfect steadiness, while Miss Hannah More slily hid her face behind a lady's back who sat on the same settee with her. His pride could not bear that any expression of his should excite ridicule, when he did not intend it: he therefore resolved to assume and exercise despotic power, glanced sternly around, and called out in a strong tone, "Where's the merriment?" Then collecting himself, and looking awful, to make us feel how he could impose restraint, and as it were searching his mind for a still more ludicrous word, he slowly pronounced, "I say the woman was fundamentally sensible;" as if he had said, Hear this now, and laugh if you dare. We all sat composed as at a funeral.1

He and I walked away together: we stopped a little while by the rails of the Adelphi, looking on the Thames, and I said to him with some emotion, that I was now thinking of two friends we had lost, who once lived in the buildings behind us, Beauclerk and Garrick. "Ay, sir, (said he, tenderly) and two such friends as cannot be supplied."

For some time after this day I did not see him very often, and of the conversation which I did enjoy, I am sorry to find I have preserved but little. I was at this time engaged in a variety of other matters which required exertion and assiduity, and necessarily occupied almost all my time.

One day, having spoken very freely of those who were then in power, he said to me, "Between ourselves, Sir, I do not like to give Opposition the satisfaction of knowing how much I disapprove of the ministry." And when I mentioned that Mr. Burke had boasted how quiet the nation was in George the Second's reign, when whigs were in power, compared with the present reign, when tories governed; “Why, sir," said he, "you are to consider that tories having more reverence for government, will not oppose with the same violence as whigs, who, being unrestrained by that principle, will oppose by any means."

This month he lost not only Mr. Thrale, but another friend, Mr. William Strahan, junior, printer, the eldest son of his old and constant friend, printer to his Majesty.

JOHNSON TO MRS. STRAHAN.

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amiable son: a man of whom I think it may be truly said, that no one knew him who does not lament him. I look upon myself as having a friend, another friend, taken from me.

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Comfort, dear Madam, I would give you, if I could; but I know how little the forms of consolation can avail. Let me, however, counsel you not to waste your health in unprofitable sorrow, but go to when we have all done all that we can, one friend Bath, and endeavour to prolong your own life. But must in time lose the other. I am, dear Madam, your most humble servant, SAM. JOHNSON."

On Tuesday, May 8., I had the pleasure of again dining with him and Mr. Wilkes, at Mr. Dilly's. No negotiation was now required to bring them together; for Johnson was so well satisfied with the former interview, that he was very glad to meet Wilkes again, who was this day seated between Dr. Beattie and Dr. Johnson; (between Truth and Reason, as General Paoli said, when I told him of it.) WILKES. "I have been thinking, Dr. Johnson, that there should be a bill brought into parliament that the controverted elections for Scotland should be tried in that country, at their own Abbey of Holyrood-house, and not here; for the consequence of trying them here is, that we have an inundation of Scotchmen, who come up and never go back again. Now, here is Boswell, who is come upon the election for his own county, which will not last a fortnight." JOHNSON. "Nay, Sir, I see no reason why they should be tried at all; for, you know, one Scotchman is as good as another." WILKES. "Pray, Boswell, how much may be got in a year by an advocate at the Scotch bar?" BOSWELL. "I believe, two thousand pounds." WILKES. "How can it be possible to spend that money in Scotland?" JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, the money may be spent in England; but there is a harder question. If one man in Scotland gets possession of two thousand pounds, what remains for all the rest of the nation?" WILKES. "You know, in the last war, the immense booty which Thurot carried off by the complete plunder of seven Scotch isles; he re-embarked with three and sixpence." Here again Johnson and Wilkes joined in extravagant sportive raillery upon the supposed poverty of Scotland, which Dr. Beattie and I did not think it worth our while to dispute.

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The subject of quotation being introduced, Mr. Wilkes censured it as pedantry. JOHNSON. "No, Sir, it is a good thing; there is a community of mind in it. Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world." WILKES. "Upon the continent they all quote the Vulgate Bible. Shakspeare is chiefly quoted here: and we quote also Pope, Prior, Butler, Waller, and sometimes Cowley."

We talked of letter-writing. JOHNSON. “It

2 In allusion to Dr. Beattie's Essay on Truth. - CROKER.

is now become so much the fashion' to publish letters, that, in order to avoid it, I put as little into mine as I can." BOSWELL. "Do what you will, Sir, you cannot avoid it. Should you even write as ill as you can, your letters would be published as curiosities:

Behold a miracle, instead of wit!

See two dull lines with Stanhope's pencil writ.'"

He gave us an entertaining account of Bet Flint, a woman of the town, who, with some eccentric talents and much effrontery, forced herself upon his acquaintance. "Bet," said he, "wrote her own Life in verse2, which she brought to me, wishing that I would furnish her with a preface to it (laughing). I used to say of her, that she was generally slut and drunkard; occasionally whore and thief. She had, however, genteel lodgings, a spinnet on which she played, and a boy that walked before her chair. Poor Bet was taken up on a charge of stealing a counterpane, and tried at the Old Bailey. Chief Justice [Willes], who loved a wench, summed up favourably, and she was acquitted. After which, Bet said, with a gay and satisfied air, 'Now that the counterpane is my own, I shall make a petticoat of it."4 Talking of oratory, Mr. Wilkes described it as accompanied with all the charms of poetical expression. JOHNSON. "No, Sir; oratory is the power of beating down your adversary's arguments, and putting better in their place." WILKES. "But this does not move the passions." JOHNSON. "He must be a weak man who is to be so moved." WILKES (naming a celebrated orator). "Amidst all the brilliancy of [Burke's] imagination, and the exuberance of his wit, there is a strange want of taste. It was observed of Apelles's Venus5, that her flesh seemed as if she had been nourished by roses his oratory would sometimes make one

1 It had been long growing into a fashion. Doctor Arbuthnot had, 60 years before, called the publication of posthumous letters, a new terror of death."CROKER, 1847.

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2 Johnson, whose memory was wonderfully retentive, remembered the first four lines of this curious production, which have been communicated to me by a young lady of his acquaintance:

"When first I drew my vital breath,
A little minikin I came upon earth;
And then I came from a dark abode,

Into this gay and gaudy world."- BOSWELL.

3 Johnson was here guilty, not merely of coarseness, but, it seems, of scandal; for James Boswell, junior, ascertained from the Sessions paper that Bet was tried at the Old Bailey in September, 1758, not by the Chief Justice here alluded to, but before Sir William Moreton, recorder; and she was acquitted not in consequence of any favourable summing up of the judge, but because the prosecutrix could not prove that the goods charged to have been stolen were her property. - MALONE.

4 This story and two or three others of the same stamp are wretchedly told in Madam D'Arblay's Memoirs, i. 88. But one is ready enough to join in the exclamation she attributed to Mrs. Thrale, "Bless me, Sir, how can all these vagabonds contrive to get at you, of all people?"- CROKER,

1847.

5 Mr. Wilkes mistook the objection of Euphranor to the Theseus of Parrhasius for a description of the Venus of Apelles. Vide Plutarch. "Bellone an pace clariores Athenienses " - KEARNEY. "Euphranor, comparing his own representation of Theseus with that by Parrhasius, said that the latter looked as if the hero had been fed on roses, but

suspect that he eats potatoes and drinks whiskey."

Mr. Wilkes observed, how tenacious we are of forms in this country; and gave as an instance, the vote of the House of Commons for remitting money to pay the army in America in Portugal pieces, when, in reality, the remittance is made not in Portugal money, but in our specie. JOHNSON. "Is there not a law, Sir, against exporting the current coin of the realm?" WILKES. " Yes, Sir; but might not the House of Commons, in case of real evident necessity, order our own current coin to be sent into our own colonies?" Here Johnson, with that quickness of recollection which distinguished him so eminently, gave the Middlesex patriot an admirable retort upon his own ground. "Sure, Sir, you don't think a resolution of the House of Commons equal to the law of the land. WILKES (at once perceiving the application). "God forbid, Sir."To hear what had been treated with such violence in "The False Alarm" now turned into pleasant repartee, was extremely agreeable. Johnson went on:-" Locke observes well, that a prohibition to export the current coin is impolitic; for when the balance of trade happens to be against a state, the current coin must be exported."

Mr. Beauclerk's great library was this season sold in London by auction. Mr. Wilkes said, he wondered to find in it such a numerous collection of sermons: seeming to think it strange that a gentleman of Mr. Beauclerk's character in the gay world should have chosen to have many compositions of that kind. JOHNSON.

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Why, Sir, you are to consider, that sermons make a considerable branch of English literature; so that a library must be very imperfect if it has not a numerous collection of sermons and in all collections, Sir, the desire

that his showed that he had lived on beef." Plut. Xgl. v. i. p. 346.CROKER.

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6 Mr. Wilkes probably did not know that there is in an English sermon the most comprehensive and lively account of that entertaining faculty for which he himself was so much admired. It is in Dr. Barrow's first volume, and fourteenth sermon, Against foolish Talking and Jesting." My eld acquaintance, the late Corbyn Morris, in his ingenious "Essay on Wit, Humour, and Ridicule," calls it "a profuse description of wit;" but I do not see how it could be cartailed, without leaving out some good circumstance of ciscrimination. As it is not generally known, and may perhaps dispose some to read sermons, from which they may receive real advantage, while looking only for entertainment, I shail here subjoin it.

"But first (says the learned preacher) it may be demanded, what the thing we speak of is? Or what this facetiousness (or wit, as he calls it before) doth import? To which questions I might reply, as Democritus did to him that asked the definition of a man, 'Tis that which we all see and know.' Any one better apprehends what it is by acquaintance than I can inform him by description. It is, indeed, a thing so versatile and multiform, appearing in so many shapes, so many postures, so many garbs, so variously apprehended by several eyes and judgments, that it seemeth no less hard to settle a clear and certain notion thereof, than to make a portrait of Proteus, or to define the figure of the fleeting air. Sometimes it leth in pat allusion to a known story, or in seasonable application of a trivial saying, or in forging an apposite tale; sometimes it playeth in words and phrases. taking advantage from the ambiguity of their sense, or the affinity of their sound: sometimes it is wrapt in a dress of humorous expression: sometimes it lurketh under an odd

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