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to her gun with great courage, in defence of amorous ditties which Johnfon Etat. 6o. defpifed, till he at laft filenced her by faying, "My dear Lady, talk no more of this. Nonsense can be defended but by nonsense."

Mrs. Thrale then praised Garrick's talent for light gay poetry; and, as a fpecimen, repeated his fong in "Florizel and Perdita," and dwelt with pecu liar pleasure on this line:

"I'd smile with the fimple, and feed with the poor."

JOHNSON. "Nay, my dear Lady, this will never do. Poor David! Smile with the fimple! What folly is that! And who would feed with the poor that can help it? No, no; let me fmile with the wife, and feed with the rich." I repeated this fally to Garrick, and wondered to find his sensibility as a writer not a little irritated by it. To footh him, I observed, that Johnson spared none of us; and I quoted the paffage in Horace, in which he compares one who attacks his friends for the fake of a laugh, to a pushing ox that is marked by a bunch of hay put upon his horns; "fænum habet in cornu." "Aye, (faid Garrick, vehemently,) he has a whole mow of it."

Talking of history, Johnson faid, "We may know hiftorical facts to be true, as we may know facts in common life to be true. Motives are generally unknown. We cannot trust to the characters we find in history, unless when they are drawn by those who knew the perfons; as thofe, for inftance, by Salluft and by Lord Clarendon."

He would not allow much merit to Whitefield's oratory. "His popularity, Sir, (faid he,) is chiefly owing to the peculiarity of his manner. He would be followed by crowds were he to wear a night-cap in the pulpit, or were he to preach from a tree."

I know not from what fpirit of contradiction he burst out into a violent declamation against the Corficans, of whose heroism I talked in high terms. "Sir, (faid he,) what is all this rout about the Corficans? They have been at war with the Genoefe for upwards of twenty years, and have never yet taken their fortified towns. They might have battered down their walls and reduced them to powder in twenty years. They might have pulled the walls in pieces, and cracked the ftones with their teeth in twenty years." It was in vain to argue with him upon the want of artillery: he was not to be refifted for the moment.

On the evening of October 10, I prefented Dr. Johnson to General Paoli. I had greatly wished that two men, for whom I had the highest esteem, should

4

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meet. They met with a manly eafe, mutually confcious of their own abilities, and of the abilities of each other. The General spoke Italian, and Dr. Atat. 60. Johnson English, and understood one another very well, with a little aid of interpretation from me, in which I compared myself to an ifthmus which joins two great continents. Upon Johnson's approach, the General faid, " From what I have read of your works, Sir, and from what Mr. Bofwell has told me of you, I have long held you in great veneration." The General talked of languages being formed on the particular notions and manners of a people, without knowing which, we cannot know the language. We may know the direct fignification of fingle words; but by these no beauty of expreffion, no fally of genius, no wit is conveyed to the mind. All this must be by allufion to other ideas. "Sir, (faid Johnson,) you talk of language as if you had never done any thing else but study it, inftead of governing a nation." The General faid, "Questo e un troppo gran complimento," this is too great a compliment. Johnson answered, "I fhould have thought fo, Sir, if I had not heard you talk." The General asked him, what he thought of the spirit of infidelity which was fo prevalent. JOHNSON. "Sir, this gloom of infidelity, I hope, is only a tranfient cloud paffing through the hemifphere, which will foon be diffipated, and the fun break forth with his usual splendour." "You think then, (faid the General,) that they will change their principles like their clothes." JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, if they bestow no more thought on principles than on drefs, it must be fo." The General faid, that "a great part of the fashionable infidelity was owing to a defire of fhewing courage. Men who have no opportunities of fhewing it as to things in this life, take death and futurity as objects on which to display it." JOHNSON. "That is mighty foolish affectation. Fear is one of the paffions of human nature, of which it is impoffible to diveft it. You remember that the Emperour Charles V. when he read upon the tomb-ftone of a Spanish nobleman, Here lies one who never knew fear,' wittily faid, Then he never fnuffed a candle with his fingers."

He talked a few words of French to the General; but finding he did not do it with facility, he afked for pen, ink, and paper, and wrote the following

note:

"J'ai lu dans la geographie de Lucas de Linda un Pater-nofter écrit dans une langue toutafait differente de l'Italienne, et de toutes autres lefquelles fe derivent du Latin. L'auteur l'appelle linguam Corficæ rufticam; elle a peutetre paffe, peu a peu; mais elle a certainement prevalue autrefois dans les montagnes et dans la campagne. Le même auteur dit la même chofe en parlant de Sardaigne; qu'il y a deux langues dans l'Ifle, une des villes, l'autre de la campagne.'

Ss 2

The

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The General immediately informed him that the lingua ruftica was only in Etat. 60. Sardinia.

Dr. Johnson went home with me, and drank tea till late in the night. He faid, General Paoli had the loftiest port of any man he had ever seen. He denied that military men were always the best bred men. Perfect good breeding, he observed, confists in having no particular mark of any profeffion, but a general elegance of manners: whereas, in a military man, you can commonly distinguish the brand of a foldier, l'homme d'epee.

Dr. Johnson fhunned to-night any difcuffion of the perplexed question of fate and free will, which I attempted to agitate: "Sir, (faid he,) we know our will is free, and there's an end of't."

He honoured me with his company at dinner on the 16th of October, at my lodgings in Old Bond-street, with Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mr. Garrick, Dr. Goldfmith, Mr. Murphy, Mr. Bickerstaff, and Mr. Thomas Davies. Garrick played round him with a fond vivacity, taking hold of the breasts of his coat, and, looking up in his face with a lively archness, complimented him on the good health which he feemed then to enjoy; while the fage, fhaking his head, beheld him with a gentle complacency. One of the company not being come at the appointed hour, I propofed, as ufual upon fuch occafions, to order dinner to be ferved; adding, "Ought fix people to be kept waiting for one?" "Why yes, (anfwered Johnson, with a delicate humanity,) if the one will fuffer more by your fitting down, than the fix will do by waiting." Goldsmith, to divert the tedious minutes, ftrutted about, bragging of his drefs, and I believe was seriously vain of it, for his mind was wonderfully prone to fuch impreffions. "Come, come, (faid Garrick,) talk no more of that. You are, perhaps, the worst-eheh !"-Goldsmith was eagerly attempting to interrupt him, when Garrick went on, laughing: ironically, "Nay, you will always look like a gentleman; but I am talking of being well or ill dreft." "Well, let me tell you, (faid Goldsmith,) when my tailor brought home my bloom-coloured coat, he faid Sir, I have a favour to beg of you. When any body afks you who made your clothes, be pleased to mention John Phielby, at the Harrow, in Water-lane." JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, that was because he knew the strange colour would attract crouds to gaze at it, and thus they might hear of him, and fee how well he could make a coat even of so abfurd a colour."

After dinner, our conversation first turned upon Pope. Johnson faid, his characters of men were admirably drawn, thofe of women not fo well. He repeated to us, in his forcible melodious manner, the concluding lines of the

Dunciad

Dunciad. While he was talking loudly in praise of thofe lines, one of the company ventured to fay, "Too fine for fuch a poem :-a poem on what?" JOHNSON, (with a difdainful look,) "Why, on dunces. It was worth while being a dunce then. Ah, Sir, hadst thou lived in those days! It is not worth while being a dunce now, when there are no wits." Bickerstaff observed, as a peculiar circumftance, that Pope's fame was higher when he was alive than it was then. Johnfon faid, his Pastorals were poor things, though the versification was fine. He told us, with high fatisfaction, the anecdote of Pope's inquiring who was the authour of his "London," and faying he will be foon deterré. He obferved, that in Dryden's poetry there were paffages drawn from a profundity which Pope could never reach. He repeated some fine lines on love, by the former, (which I have now forgotten,) and gave great applaufe to the character of Zimri. Goldfmith faid, that Pope's character of Addison fhewed a deep knowledge of the human heart. Johnson faid, that the defcription of the temple, in "The Mourning Bride," was the finest poetical paffage he had ever read; he recollected none in Shakspeare equal to it.— "But, (faid Garrick, all alarmed for the god of his idolatry,') we know not the extent and variety of his powers. We are to fuppofe there are fuch paffages in his works. Shakspeare muft not fuffer from the badnefs of our memories." Johnson, diverted by this enthufiaftick jealoufy, went on with greater ardour: "No, Sir; Congreve has nature," (fmiling on the tragick eagerness of Garrick ;) but compofing himself, he added, "Sir, this is not comparing Congreve on the whole, with Shakspeare on the whole; but only maintaining that Congreve has one finer paffage than any that can be found in Shakspeare.. Sir, a man may have no more than ten guineas in the world, but he may have those ten guineas in one piece; and fo may have a finer piece than' a man who has ten thousand pounds: but then he has only one tenguinea piece. What I mean is, that you can fhew me no paffage where there is fimply a description of material objects, without any intermixture of moral notions, which produces fuch an effect." Mr. Murphy mentioned Shakspeare's description of the night before the battle of Agincourt; but it was observed, it had men in it. Mr. Davies fuggefted the fpeech of Juliet, in which she figures herself awaking in the tomb of her ancestors. Sorne one mentioned the defcription of Dover Cliff. JOHNSON. No, Sir; it fhould be all precipice, all vacuum. The crows impede your fall. The diminished appearance of the boats, and other circumftances, are all very good defcription; but do not imprefs the mind at once with the horrible idea of immense height. The impreffion is divided; you pass on by computation, from one ftage of

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Etat. 60.

the

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Etat. 60.

the tremendous space to another. Had the girl in "The Mourning Bride" faid, fhe could not caft her fhoe to the top of one of the pillars in the temple, it would not have aided the idea, but weakened it."

Talking of a Barrister who had a bad utterance, fome one, (to rouse Johnfon,) wickedly faid, that he was unfortunate in not having been taught oratory by Sheridan. JOHNSON. "Nay, Sir, if he had been taught by Sheridan, he would have cleared the room." GARRICK. "Sheridan has too much vanity to be a good man." We shall now fee Johnson's mode of defending a man; taking him into his own hands, and difcriminating. JOHNSON. "No, Sir. There is, to be fure, in Sheridan, fomething to reprehend, and every thing to laugh at; but, Sir, he is not a bad man. No, Sir; were mankind to be divided into good and bad, he would stand confiderably within the ranks of good. And, Sir, it must be allowed that Sheridan excels in plain declamation, though he can exhibit no character."

I should, perhaps, have fuppreffed this difquifition concerning a perfon of whofe merit and worth I think with respect, had he not attacked Johnson fo outrageously in his Life of Swift, and, at the same time, treated us his admirers as a set of pigmies. He who has provoked the lash of wit, cannot complain that he fimarts from it.

Mrs. Montague, a lady distinguished for having written an Effay on Shakfpeare, being mentioned;-REYNOLDS. "I think that effay does her honour.” JOHNSON. "Yes, Sir; it does her honour, but it would do nobody elfe honour. I have, indeed, not read it all. But when I take up the end of a web, and find it packthread, I do not expect, by looking further, to find embroidery. Sir, I will venture to say, there is not one fentence of true criticism in her book." GARRICK. "But, Sir, furely it fhews how much Voltaire has mistaken Shakspeare, which nobody else has done." JOHNSON. "Sir, nobody else has thought it worth while. And what merit is there in that? You may as well praise a schoolmaster for whipping a boy who has conftrued ill. No, Sir, there is no real criticism in it; none fhewing the beauty of thought, as formed on the workings of the human heart.”

The admirers of this Effay may be offended at the flighting manner in which Johnson spoke of it; but let it be remembered, that he gave his honest

opinion,

+ Of whom I acknowledge myself to be one, confidering it as a piece of the secondary or comparative fpecies of criticism, and not of that profound fpecies which alone Dr. Johnson would allow to be "real criticism." It is, befides, clearly and elegantly expreffed, and has done effectually what it profeffed to do, namely, vindicated Shakspeare from the mifreprefentations of Voltaire ;

and