a Scotchman ever sees, is the high road that leads him to England!" (1) This unexpected and pointed sally produced a roar of applause. After all, however, those who admire the rude grandeur of Nature cannot deny it to Caledonia.

On Saturday, July 9., I found Johnson surrounded with a numerous levée, but have not preserved any part of his conversation.

LETTER 86. TO MISS LUCY PORTER.

July 12. 1763. "MY DEAREST LOVE, I had forgot my debt to poor Kitty; pray let her have the note, and do what you can for her, for she has been always very good. I will help her to a little more money if she wants

(1) Mrs. Brooke* received an answer not unlike this, when expatiating on the accumulation of sublime and beautiful objects, which form the fine prospect up the river St. Lawrence in North America: "Come, madam, (says Dr. Johnson,) confess that. nothing ever equalled your pleasure in seeing that sight reversed; and finding yourself looking at the happy prospect DowN the river St. Lawrence." The truth is, he hated to hear about prospects and views, and laying out ground, and taste in gardening ::-"That was the best garden (he said), which produced most roots and fruits; and that water was most to be prized which contained most fish." He used to laugh at Shenstone most unmercifully for not caring whether there was any thing good to eat in the streams he was so fond of. Walking in a wood when it rained was, I think, the only rural image which pleased his fancy. He loved the sight of fine forest-trees, however, and detested Brighthelmstone Downs, "because it was a country so truly desolate (he said), that if one had a mind to hang one's self for desperation at being obliged to live there, it would be difficult to find a tree on which to fasten the rope.". Piozzi.

* Frances Moore, wife of the Rev. Mr. Brooke, Chaplain to the Forces in Canada, whither she accompanied him. She wrote two novels called "Emily Montague," and "Lady Julia Mandeville." She afterwards pro. duced several dramatic pieces, one of which, "Rosina," still keeps the stage. She is said to have been much esteemed by Johnson. She died in 1789.-C.

it, and will write. I intend that she shall have the use of the house as long as she and I live.

"That there should not be room for me at the house is some disappointment to me, but the matter is not very great. I am sorry you have had your head filled with building (1), for many reasons. It was not necessary to settle immediately for life at any one place; you might have staid and seen more of the world. You will not have your work done, as you do not understand it, but at twice the value. You might have hired a house at half the interest of the money for which you build it, if your house cost you a thousand pounds. You might have the Palace for twenty pounds, and make forty of your thousand pounds; so in twenty years you would have saved forty [four hundred ?] pounds, and still have had your thousand. I am, dear dear, yours, &c. SAM. JOHNSON."

On the 14th we had another evening by ourselves at the Mitre. It happening to be a very rainy night, I made some common-place observations on the relaxation of nerves and depression of spirits which such weather occasioned (2); adding, however, that it was good for the vegetable creation. Johnson, who, as we have already seen, denied that the temperature of the air had any influence on the human frame, answered, with a smile of ridicule, "Why, yes, Sir, it is good for vegetables, and for the animals who eat those vegetables, and for the animals who eat those animals." (3) This observation of his

(1) Miss Porter laid out nearly one third of her legacy in building a handsome house at Lichfield.-C.

(2) Johnson would suffer none of his friends to fill up chasms in conversation with remarks on the weather: "Let us not talk of the weather."-BURney.

(3) [See antè, p. 89.]

aptly enough introduced a good supper; and I soon forgot, in Johnson's company, the influence of a moist atmosphere. (1)

Feeling myself now quite at ease as his companion, though I had all possible reverence for him, I expressed a regret that I could not be so easy with my father, though he was not much older than Johnson, and certainly, however respectable, had not more learning and greater abilities to depress me. I asked him the reason of this. JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, I am a man of the world. I live in the world, and I take, in some degree, the colour of the world as it moves along. Your father is a judge in a remote part of the island, and all his notions are taken from the old world. Besides, Sir, there must always be a struggle between a father and son, while one aims at power and the other at independence." I said, I was afraid my father would force me to be a lawyer. JOHNSON. "Sir, you need not be afraid of his forcing you to be a laborious practising lawyer; that is not in his power. For, as the proverb says, 'One man may lead a horse to the water, but twenty cannot make him drink.' He may be displeased that you are not what he wishes you to be; but that displeasure will not go far. If he insists only on your having as much law as is necessary for a man of pro

(1) Though Dr. Johnson owed his very life to air and exercise given him when his organs of respiration could scarcely play, in the year 1766, yet he ever persisted in the notion, that neither of them had any thing to do with health. "People live as long," said he, "in Pepper Alley as on Salisbury Plain; and they live so much happier, that an inhabitant of the first would, if he turned cottager, starve his understanding for want of conversation, and perish in a state of mental inferiority."- Piozzi.

perty, and then endeavours to get you into parliament, he is quite in the right.”

He enlarged very convincingly upon the excellence of rhyme over blank verse in English poetry. I mentioned to him that Dr. Adam Smith, in his lectures upon composition, when I studied under him in the College of Glasgow, had maintained the same opinion strenuously, and I repeated some of his arguments. JOHNSON. "Sir, I was once in company with Smith, and we did not take to each other; but had I known that he loved rhyme as much as you tell me he does, I should have HUGGED him."

Talking of those who denied the truth of Christianity, he said, "It is always easy to be on the negative side. If a man were now to deny that there is salt upon the table, you could not reduce him to an absurdity. Come, let us try this a little further. I deny that Canada is taken, and I can support my denial by pretty good arguments. The French are a much more numerous people than we; and it is not likely that they would allow us to take

it. 'But the ministry have assured us, in all the formality of the Gazette, that it is taken.'-Very true. But the ministry have put us to an enormous expense by the war in America, and it is their interest to persuade us that we have got something

for our money. But the fact is confirmed by

thousands of men who were at the taking of it. Ay, but these men have still more interest in deceiving us. They don't want that you should think the French have beat them, but that they have beat

the French. Now suppose you should go over and find that it really is taken; that would only satisfy yourself; for when you come home we will not believe you. We will say, you have been bribed. -Yet, Sir, notwithstanding all these plausible objections, we have no doubt that Canada is really ours. Such is the weight of common testimony. How much stronger are the evidences of the Christian religion !"

"Idleness is a disease which must be combated; but I would not advise a rigid adherence to a particular plan of study. (1) I myself have never persisted in any plan for two days together. A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little good. A young man should read five hours in the day, and so may acquire a great deal of knowledge."

To a man of vigorous intellect and ardent curiosity like his own, reading without a regular plan may be beneficial; though even such a man must submit to it, if he would attain a full understanding of any of the sciences.

To such a degree of unrestrained frankness had he now accustomed me, that in the course of this evening I talked of the numerous reflections which had been thrown out against him on account of his having accepted a pension from his present Majesty. "Why, Sir, (said he, with a hearty laugh,) it is a

(1) See post, p. 286., his letter to Mr. George Strahan, May 25. 1765. - C.