During this interview at Ashbourne, Johnson and I frequently talked with wonderful pleasure of mere trifles which had occurred in our tour to the Hebrides; for it had left a most agreeable and lasting impression upon his mind.

But

He found fault with me for using the phrase to make money. "Don't you see (said he) the impropriety of it? To make money is to coin it: you should say get money." The phrase, however, is, I think, pretty current. Johnson was at all times jealous of infractions upon the genuine English language, and prompt to repress colloquial barbarism; such as pledging myself, for undertaking; line, for department, or branch, as, the civil line, the banking line. He was particularly indignant against the almost universal use of the word idea in the sense of notion, or opinion, when it is clear that idea can only signify something of which an image can be formed in the mind. We may have an idea or image of a mountain, a tree, a building; but we cannot surely have an idea or image of an argument or proposition. Yet we hear the sages of the law "delivering their ideas upon the question under consideration;" and the first speakers in parliament "entirely coinciding in the idea which has been ably stated by an honourable member;"-or "reprobating an idea unconstitutional, and fraught with the most dangerous consequences to a a great and free country." Johnson called this "modern cant."

I perceived that he pronounced the word heard, as if spelt with double e, heerd, instead

VOL. III.

of sounding it herd, as is most usually done. He said, his reason was, that if it were pronounced herd; there would be a single exception from the English pronunciation of the syllable ear, and he thought it better not to. have that exception.

He praised Granger's "Ode on Solitude," in Dodsley's collection, and repeated with great energy the exordium:

observing, "This, Sir, is very noble."

In the evening our gentleman-farmer, and two others, entertained themselves and the company with a great number, of, tunes on the fiddle. Johnson desired to have "Let, ambition fire thy mind," played over again, and appeared to give a patient attention to it; though he owned to me that he was very insensible to the power of musick. I told him that it affected me to such a degree, as often to agitate my nerves painfully, producing in my mind alternate sensations of pathetic dejection, so that I was ready to shed tears; and of daring resolution, so that, I was inclined to

rush into the thickest part of the battle. "Sir, (said he) I should never hear it, if it made me such a fool."

Much of the effect of musick, I am satisfied, is owing to the association of ideas. That air, which instantly and irresistibly excites in the Swiss, when in a foreign land, the maladie du pais, has, I am told, no intrinsick power of sound. And I know from my own experience, that Scotch reels, though brisk, make me malancholy, because I used to hear them in my my early years, at a time when Mr. Pitt called for soldiers "from the mountains of the north," and numbers of brave Highlanders were going abroad, never to return. Whereas the airs in "The Beggar's Opera," many of which are very soft, never fail to render me gay, because they are associated with the warm sensations, and high spirits, of London.

This evening, while some of the tunes of ordinary composition were played with no great skill, my frame was agitated, and I was conscious of generous attachment to Dr. Johnson, as my preceptor and friend, mixed with an affectionate regret that he was an old mau, whom I should probably lose in a short time. I thought I could defend him at the point of my sword. My reverence and affection for him were in full glow. I said to him, "My dear Sir, we must meet every year, if you don't quarrel with me." JOHNSON. Nay, Sir, you are more likely to quarrel with me, than I with you. My regard for you is greater almost than I have words to express; but I do not chuse to

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be always repeating it; write it down in the first leaf of your pocket book, and never doubt of it again.'

I talked to him of misery being "the doom of man," in this life, as displayed in his "Vanity of Human Wishes." Yet I observed that things were done upon the supposition of happiness; grand houses were built, fine gardens were made, splendid places of publick amusement were contrived, and crowded with company. JOHNSON. "Alas, Sir, these are all only struggles for happiness, When I first entered Ranelagh, it gave an expansion and gay sensation to my mind, such as I never experienced any where else. But, as Xerxes wept when he' viewed his immense army, and considered that not one of that great multitude would be alive a hundred years afterwards, so it went to my heart to consider that there was not one in all that brilliant circle, that was not afraid to go home and think; but that the thoughts of each individual there, would be distressing when alone." This reflection was experimentally just. The feeling of languor,* which succeeds the animation of gaiety, is itself a very severe pain; and when the mind is then vacant, a *Pope mentions,

"Stretch'd on the rack of a too easy chair."

But I recollect a couplet quite apposite to my subject in "Virtue, an Ethick Epistle," a beautiful and instructive poem, by an anonymous writer, in 1758; who, treating of pleasure in excess, says,

"Till languor, suffering on the rack of bliss,
"Confess that man was never made for this."

thousand disappointments and vexations rush in and excruciate. Will not many even of my fair readers allow this to be true?

I suggested, that being in love, and flattered with hopes of success; or having some favourite scheme in view for the next day, might prevent that wretchedness of which we had been talking. JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, it may sometimes be so as you suppose; but my conclusion is in general but too true."

While Johnson and I stood in calm conference by ourselves in Dr. Taylor's garden, at a pretty late hour in a serene autumu night, looking up to the heavens, I directed the discourse to the subject of a future state. My friend was in a placid and most benignant frame of mind. "Sir, (said he) I do not imagine that all things will be made clear to us immediately after death, but that the ways of Providence will be explained to us very gradually." 1 ventured to ask him whether, although the words of some texts of Scripture seemed strong in support of the dreadful doctrine of an eternity of punishment, we might not hope that the denunciation was figurative, and would not literally be executed. JOHNSON. "Sir, you are to consider the intention of punishment in a future state. We have no reason to be sure that we shall then be no longer liable to offend against God. We do not know that even the angels are quite in a state of security; nay, we know that some of them have fallen. It may, therefore, perhaps, be necessary, in order to preserve both men and angels in a state of rec