so, sir?" JOHNSON. "Why, sir, a mau who talks nonsense so well, must know that be is talking nonsense; but I am afraid (chuckling and laughing) Monboddo does not know that he is talking nonsense." BOSWELL. "Is it wrong then, sir, to affect singularity, in order to make people stare?" JOHNSON. "Yes, if you do it by propagating error: and, indeed, it is wrong in any way. There is in human nature a general inclination to make people stare; and every wise man has himself to cure of it, and does cure himself. If you wish to make people stare by doing better than others, why, make them stare till they stare their eyes out. But consider how easy it is to make people stare by being absurd. I may do it by going into a drawing-room without my shoes. You remember the gentleman in the Spectator, who had a commission of lunacy taken out against him for his extreme singularity, such as never wearing a wig, but a nightcap: now, sir, abstractedly, the nightcap was the best; but, relatively, the advantage was overbalanced by his making the boys run after him."

The modes of living in different countries, and the various views with which men travel in quest of new scenes, having been talked of, a learned gentleman, who holds a considerable office in the law, expatiated on the happiness of a savage life; and mentioned an instance of an officer who had actually lived for some time in the wilds of America, of whom, when in that state, he quoted this reflection with an air of admiration, as if it had been deeply philosophical: "Here am I, free and unrestrained, amidst the rude magnificence of nature, with this Indian woman by my side, and this gun,

with which I can procure food when I want it what more can be desired for human happiness?" It did not require much sagacity to foresee that such a sentiment would not be permitted to pass without due animadversion. JOHNSON. "Do not allow yourself, sir, to be imposed upon by such gross absurdity: it is sad stuff; it is brutish. If a bull could speak, he might as well exclaim, Here am I with this cow and this grass; what being can enjoy greater felicity?"

BOSWELL. "I am well assured that the people of Otaheite, who have the bread tree, the fruit of which serves them for bread, laughed heartily when they were informed of the tedious process necessary with us to have bread-ploughing, sowing, harrowing, reaping, threshing, grinding, baking.' JOHNSON. Why, sir, all ignorant savages will laugh when they are told of the advantages of civilized life. Were you to tell men, who live without houses, how we pile brick upon brick, and rafter upon rafter, and that after a house is raised to a certain height, a man tumbles off a scaffold, and breaks his neckhe would laugh heartily at our folly in building : but it does not follow that men are better without houses. No, sir, (holding up a slice of a good loaf,) this is better than the bread tree."

06

Dr. Johnson talked with approbation of one who had attained to the state of the philosophical wise man, that is, to have no want of any thing. BosWELL. Then, sir, the savage is a wise man." JOHNSON. "Sir, I do not mean simply being without, but not having a want." Boswell maintained against this proposition; that it was better to have fine clothes, for instance, than not to feel the want

of them.

JOHNSON. "No, sir; fine clothes are good only as they supply the wants of other means of procuring respect. Was Charles the Twelfth, think you, less respected for his coarse blue coat and black stock? And you find the king of Prussia dresses plain, because the dignity of his character is sufficient." Boswell here brought himself into a scrape; for he heedlessly said, "Would not you, sir, be the better for velvet embroidery?" JOHNSON. "Sir, you put an end to all argument when you introduce your opponent himself. Have you no better manners? There is your want."

He had been in company with Omai, a native of one of the South Sea Islands, was struck with the elegance of his behaviour, and accounted for it thus: "Sir, he had passed his time, while in England, only in the best company; so that all he had acquired of our manners was genteel. As a proof of this, sir, lord Mulgrave and he dined one day at Streatham; they sat with their backs to the light, fronting me, so that I could not see distinctly; and there was so little of the savage in Omai, that I was afraid to speak to either, lest I should mistake one for the other."

A gentleman expressed a wish to go and live three years at Otaheite, 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. JOHN. SON. "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 Otaheite 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 learned 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."

He maintained that a boy at school was the happiest of human beings. Boswell supported a different opinion that a man is happier; and enlarged upon the anxiety and sufferings which are endured at school. JOHNSON. "Ah! sir, a boy's being flogged is not so severe as a man's having the hiss of the world against him. Men have a solicitude about fame; and the greater share they have of it, the more afraid they are of losing it."

At another time, Boswell having mentioned Hume's notion, that all who are happy are equally happy; a little miss with a new gown at a dancingschool ball, a general at the head of a victorious army, and an orator, after having made an elo. quent speech in a great assembly. JOHNSON, "Sir, that all who are happy are equally happy, is not true. A peasant and a philosopher may be equally satisfied, but not equally happy. Hap piness consists in the multiplicity of agreeable consciousness. A peasant has not capacity for having equal happiness with a philosopher." This

question was very happily illustrated by the Rev. Mr. Robert Brown, at Utrecht: "A small drinking glass and a large one," said he, " may be equally full, but the large one holds more than the small."

Boswell maintained, that Horace was wrong in placing happiness in nil admirari, as he thought admiration one of the most agreeable of all our feelings; and regretted that he had lost much of his disposition to admire, which people generally do as they advance in life. JOHNSON. "Sir, as a man advances in life, he gets what is better than admiration judgment, to estimate things at their true value." BOSWELL. "But admiration is more pleasing than judgment, as love is more pleasing than friendship. The feeling of friendship is like that of being comfortably filled with roast beef; love, like being enlivened with champagne." JOHNSON. No, sir, admiration and love are like being intoxicated with champagne; judgment and friendship like being enlivened. Waller has hit upon the ́same thought with you: but I don't believe you have borrowed from Waller. I wish you would enable yourself to borrow more."

One afternoon, as he was driving rapidly along in a post-chaise, he said to Boswell," Life has not many things better than this." On another occasion, however, when he and this gentleman were returning to town, from the same excursion into the country, the latter says, "I enjoyed the luxury of our approach to London; that metropolis which we both loved so much for the high and varied intellectual pleasure which it furnishes. I experienced immediate happiness while whirled along with such a companion, and said to him, ‘Sir, you observed one day at general Oglethorpe's, that a man