suffered great perturbation and distraction in 1768.1 Nothing of his writing was given to the publick this year, except the Prologue * to his friend Goldsmith's comedy of "The Good-natured Man." The first lines of this Prologue are strongly characteristical of the dismal gloom of his mind; which, in his case, as in the case of all who are distressed with the same malady of imagination, transfers to others its own feelings. Who could suppose that it was to introduce a comedy, when Mr. Bensley solemnly began,

"Press'd with the load of life, the weary mind

Surveys the general toil of human kind."

but this dark ground might make Goldsmith's humour shine the

more.

In the spring of this year, having published my "Account of Corsica, with the Journal of a Tour to that Island," I returned to London, very desirous to see Dr. Johnson, and hear him upon the subject. I found he was at Oxford, with his friend Mr. Chambers, who was now Vinerian Professor, and lived in New Inn Hall. Having had no letter from him since that in which he criticised the Latinity of my Thesis, and having been told by somebody that he was offended at my having put into my book an extract of his letter to me at Paris, I was impatient to be with him, and therefore followed him to Oxford, where I was entertained by Mr. Chambers, with a civility which I shall ever gratefully remember. I found that Dr. Johnson had sent a letter to me to Scotland, and that I had nothing to complain of but his being more indifferent to my anxiety than I wished him to be. Instead of giving, with the circumstances of time and place, such fragments of his conversation as I preserved during this visit to Oxford, I shall throw them together in continuation.

I asked him whether, as a moralist, he did not think that the practice of the law, in some degree, hurt the nice feeling of honesty. JOHNSON. "Why no, Sir, if you act properly. You are not to deceive your clients with false representations of your

opinion you are not to tell lies to a judge." BOSWELL. "But what do you think of supporting a cause which you know to be bad?" JOHNSON. "Sir, you do not know it to be good or bad till the Judge determines it. I have said that you are to state facts fairly; so that your thinking, or what you call knowing a cause to be bad, must be from reasoning, must be from your supposing your arguments to be weak and inconclusive. But, Sir, that is not enough. An argument which does not convince yourself, may convince the Judge to whom you urge it: and if it does convince him, why then, Sir, you are wrong, and he is right. It is his business to judge; and you are not to be confident in your own opinion that a cause is bad, but to say all you can for your client, and then hear the Judge's opinion." BOSWELL. "But, Sir, does not affecting a warmth when you have no warmth, and appearing to be clearly of one opinion when you are in reality of another opinion, does not such dissimulation impair one's honesty? Is there not some danger that a lawyer may put on the same mask in common life, in the intercourse with his friends?" JOHNSON. "Why no, Sir. Every body knows you are paid for affecting warmth for your client; and it is, therefore, properly no dissimulation: the moment you come from the bar you resume your usual behaviour. Sir, a man will no more carry the artifice of the bar into the common intercourse of society, than a man who is paid for tumbling upon his hands will continue to tumble upon his hands when he should walk on his feet."

Talking of some of the modern plays, he said " False Delicacy" i was totally void of character. He praised Goldsmith's "Goodnatured Man;" said, it was the best comedy that had appeared since "The Provoked Husband," and that there had not been of late any such character exhibited on the stage as that of Croaker. I observed it was the Suspirius of his Rambler. He said, Goldsmith had owned he had borrowed it from thence. 66 Sir, (continued he,) there is all the difference in the world between characters of nature and characters of manners; and there is the difference between the characters of Fielding and those of Richardson. Characters of manners are very entertaining; but they are to be understood, by a more superficial observer, than characters of nature, where a man must dive into the recesses of the human heart."

It always appeared to me that he estimated the compositions of

Hugh Kelly's "sentimental" COmedy. See Mr. Forster's description of

the plot, "Life of Goldsmith," ü. 95.

Richardson too highly, and that he had an unreasonable prejudice against Fielding. In comparing those two writers, he used this expression; "that there was as great a difference between them as between a man who knew how a watch was made, and a man who could tell the hour by looking on the dial-plate." This was a short and figurative state of his distinction between drawing characters of nature and characters only of manners. But I cannot help being of opinion, that the neat watches of Fielding are as well constructed as the large clocks of Richardson, and that his dial-plates are brighter. Fielding's characters, though they do not expand themselves so widely in dissertation, are as just pictures of human nature, and I will venture to say, have more striking features, and nicer touches of the pencil; and though Johnson used to quote with approbation a saying of Richardson's, "that the virtues of Fielding's heroes were the vices of a truly good man," I will venture to add, that the moral tendency of Fielding's writings, though it does not encourage a strained and rarely possible virtue, is ever favourable to honour and honesty, and cherishes the benevolent and generous affections. He who is as good as Fielding would make him, is an amiable member of society, and may be led on by more regulated instructors, to a higher state of ethical perfection.

Johnson proceeded: "Even Sir Francis Wronghead' is a character of manners, though drawn with great humour." He then repeated, very happily, all Sir Francis's credulous account to Manly of his being with "the great man," and securing a place. I asked him if the " Suspicious Husband "did not furnish a well-drawn character, that of Ranger. JOHNSON. "No, Sir; Ranger is just a rake, a mere rake, and a lively young fellow, but no character."2

In the "Journey to London."

That Boswell had profited by the excellent dramatic lessons of his Mentor, is shown by some essays on the profession of a player, contributed to the London Magazine. In the present day, when the highest aim of acting and stage effect is mimicry, or what is termed realism, the following sagacious remarks are valuable, and founded on true principles.

"When I talk," he says, "of the mysterious power of a good player, I take it for granted that my proposition is not denied that a good player is, indeed, in a certain sense, the character that he represents during the time of his performance; and that this is truly the case, I

have been assured by that great ornament of the stage whom I have had occasion to mention several times in the course of these reflections.

"I am aware that my proposition that a player is really and truly the character in which he appears may be misrepresented; and I remember to have heard the most illustrious author of this age, whose conversation is thought by many even to excel his writings, exert his eloquence against this proposition, and, with the luxuriousness of humour for which he is distinguished, render it exceedingly ridiculous. 'If, Sir,' said he, 'Garrick believes himself to be every character that he represents, he is a madman, and ought to be confined. Nay, Sir, he

The great Douglas cause was at this time a very general subject of discussion. I found he had not studied it with much attention, but had only heard parts of it occasionally. He, however, talked of it, and said, "I am of opinion that positive proof of fraud should not be required of the plaintiff, but that the Judges should decide according as probability shall appear to preponderate, granting to the defendant the presumption of filiation to be strong in his favour. And I think too, that a good deal of weight should be allowed to the dying declarations, because they were spontaneous. There is a great difference between what is said without our being urged to it, and what is said from a kind of compulsion. If I praise a man's book without being asked my opinion of it, that is honest praise, to which one may trust. But if an authour asks me if I like his book, and I give him something like praise, it must not be taken as my real opinion.

"I have not been troubled for a long time with authours desiring my opinion of their works. I used once to be sadly plagued with a man who wrote verses, but who literally had no other notion of a verse, but that it consisted of ten syllables. Lay your knife and your fork across your plate, was to him a verse:

is a villain, and ought to be hanged. If, for instance, he believes himself to be Macbeth, he has committed murder, he is a vile assassin who, in violation of the laws of hospitality, as well as of other principles, has imbrued his hands in the blood of his king while he was sleeping under his roof. If, Sir, he has really been that person in his own mind, he has in his own mind been as guilty as Macbeth.'

"If I may be allowed to conjecture what is the nature of that mysterious power by which a player really is the character he represents, my notion is, he must have a kind of double feeling.

The feelings and passions of the character which he represents must take full possession, as it were, of the antechamber of his mind, while his own character remains in the innermost recess. This is experienced in some measure by the barrister who enters warmly into the cause of his client, while at the same time, when he examines himself coolly, he knows he is much in the wrong, and does not even wish to prevail; but during the time of his pleading, the genuine colour of his mind is laid over with a temporary glaring varnish, which flies off instantaneously when he has

finished his harangue. The double feeling which I have mentioned is experienced by many men in the common intercourse of life. Were nothing but the real character to appear society would not be half so safe and agreeable as we find it. It being necessary, then, in the intercourse of life to have such appearances, and dissimulations being to most people irksome and fatiguing, we insensibly, for our own ease, adopt feelings suitable to every occasion; and so, like players, are to a certain degree a different character from our own. It is needless to mention many instances of this: every man's experience must have furnished him with a variety of instances which will readily occur to him. He will recollect instances in every funeral that he has attended-every birthday entertainment at which he has been a guest-every country seat, the beauties of which have been shown him by its master-every party of pleasure in which he has shared. In short he can hardly recollect a scene of social life where he has not been conscious, more or less, of having been obliged to work himself into a state of feeling which he would not naturally have had."

Lay your knife and your fork, across your plāte.

As he wrote a great number of verses he sometimes by chance made good ones, though he did not know it."

He renewed his promise of coming to Scotland, and going with me to the Hebrides, but said he would now content himself with seeing one or two of the most curious of them. He said "Macaulay, who writes the account of St. Kilda, set out with a prejudice against prejudices, and wanted to be a smart modern thinker; and yet he affirms for a truth, that when a ship arrives there all the inhabitants are seized with a cold."

He expatiated on the advantages of Oxford for learning. "There is here, Sir, (said he,) such a progressive emulation. The students are anxious to appear well to their tutors; the tutors are anxious to have their pupils appear well in the college; the colleges are anxious to have their students appear well in the University; and there are excellent rules of discipline in every college. That the rules are sometimes ill observed, may be true; but is nothing against the system. The members of an University may, for a season, be unmindful of their duty. I am arguing for the excellency of the institution."

He has no

Of Guthrie he said, "Sir, he is a man of parts. great regular fund of knowledge; but by reading so long, and writing so long, he no doubt has picked up a gooa deal."

He said he had lately been a long while at Lichfield, but had grown very weary before he left it. BOSWELL. "I wonder at that, Sir; it is your native place." JOHNSON. "Why so is Scotland your native place."

His prejudice against Scotland appeared remarkably strong at this time. When I talked of our advancement in literature, “Sir, (said he,) you have learnt a little from us, and you think yourselves very great men. Hume would never have written History, had not

Cor. et Ad.-Line 10: After "cold," read as follows:-"Dr. John Campbell, the celebrated writer, took a great deal of pains to ascertain this fact, and attempted to account for it on physical principles, from the effect of effluvia from human bodies. Johnson at another time praised Macaulay for his magnanimity,' in asserting this wonderful story, because it was well attested. A lady of Norfolk, by a letter to my friend Dr. Burney, has favoured me with the following solution: Now for the explication of this seeming mystery, which is so very obvious as, for that reason, to have escaped the penetration of Dr. Johnson and his friend, as well as that of the authour. Reading the book with my ingenious friend, the late Reverend Mr. Christian of Docking-after ruminating a little, "The cause, (says he,) is a natural one. The situation of St. Kilda renders a North-East Wind indispensably necessary before a stranger can land. The wind, not the stranger, occasions an epidemick cold:" If I am not mistaken, Mr. Macaulay is dead, if living, this solution might please him, as I hope it will Mr. Boswell, in return for the many agreeable hours his works have afforded us.'”