see it done by Sir Joshua." JOHNSON. "True, sir; but Sir Joshua cannot paint a face when he has not time to look on it." BOSWELL. "Sir, a sketch of any sort by him is valuable. And, sir, to talk to you in your own style (raising my voice, and shaking my head), you should have given | us your travels in France. I am sure I am right, and there's an end on 't." I said to him that it was certainly true, as my friend Dempster had observed in his letter to me upon the subject, that a great part of what was in his " Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland " had been in his mind before he left London. JOHNSON. "Why, yes, sir, the topicks were; and books of travels will be good in proportion to what a man has previously in his mind; his knowing what to observe; his power of contrasting one mode of life with another. As the Spanish proverb says, 'He who would bring home the wealth of the Indies must carry the wealth of the Indies with him.' So it is in travelling; a man must carry knowledge with him, if he would bring home knowledge." BoswELL. "The proverb, I suppose, sir, means, he must carry a large stock with him to trade with." JOHNSON. "Yes, sir." It was a delightful day; as we walked to St. Clement's church, I again remarked that Fleet-street was the most cheerful scene in the world. "Fleet-street," said I, "is in my mind more delightful than Tempé." JOHNSON. Ay, sir, but let it be compared with Mull!" There was a very numerous congregation to-day at St. Clement's church, which Dr. Johnson said he observed with plea sure. And now I am to give a pretty full account of one of the most curious incidents in Johnson's life, of which he himself has made the following minute on this day: "In my return from church, I was accosted by Edwards', an old fellow-collegian, who had not seen me since 17292. He knew me, and asked if I remembered one Edwards; I did not at first recollect the name, but gradually, as we walked along, recovered it, and told him a conversation that had passed at an alehouse between us. My purpose is to continue our acquaint ance." It was in Butcher-row that this meeting 1 [Oliver Edwards entered at Pembroke College only in June, 1729, so that he and Johnson could not have been long acquainted.-HALL.] 2 [This deliberate assertion of Johnson, that he had not seen Edwards since 1729, is a confirmation of the opinion derived by Dr. Hall from the dates in the college books, that Johnson did not return to Pembroke College after Christmas, 1729 -an important fact in his early history. See ante, vol. i. p. 27, n.—ED.] happened. Mr. Edwards, who was a decent-looking, elderly man, in gray clothes, and a wig of many curls, accosted Johnson with familiar confidence, knowing who he was, while Johnson returned his salutation with a courteous formality, as to a stranger. But as soon as Edwards had brought to his recollection their having been at Pembroke College together nine-and-forty years ago, he seemed much pleased, asked where he lived, and said he should be glad to see him in Bolt-court. EDWARDS. "Ah, sir! we are old men now." JOHNSON (who never liked to think of being old). "Don't let us discourage one another." EDWARDS. "Why, Doctor, you look stout and hearty. I am happy to see you so; for the newspapers told us you were very ill." JOHNSON. " Ay, sir, they are always telling lies of us old fellows." Wishing to be present at more of so singular a conversation as that between two fellow-collegians, who had lived forty years in London without ever having chanced to meet, I whispered to Mr. Edwards that Dr. Johnson was going home, and that he had better accompany him now. So Edwards walked along with us, I eagerly assisting to keep up the conversation. Mr. Edwards informed Dr. Johnson that he had practised long as a solicitor in Chancery, but that he now lived in the country upon a little farm, about sixty acres, just by Stevenage, in Hertfordshire, and that he came to London (to Barnard's Inn, No. 6) generally twice a week. Johnson appearing to be in a reverie, Mr. Edwards addressed himself to me, and expatiated on the pleasure of living in the country. BOSWELL. have no notion of this, sir. What you have to entertain you is, I think, exhausted in half an hour." EDWARDS. 66 What! don't you love to have hope realised? I see my grass, and my corn, and my trees growing. Now, for instance, I am curious to see if this frost has not nipped my fruit trees." JOHNSON (who we did not imagine was attending). "You find, sir, you have fears as well as hopes." So well did he see the whole, when another saw but the half of a subject 3. "I When we got to Dr. Johnson's house, and were seated in his library, the dialogue went on admirably. EDWARDS. "Sir, I remember you would not let us say prodigious at college. For even then, sir (turning to me), he was delicate in language, and we all feared him 4." JOHNSON (to Edwards). "From your having practised SON. to be a philosopher; but, I do n't know how, cheerfulness was always breaking in.” Mr. Burke, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mr. Courtenay, Mr. Malone, and, indeed, all the eminent men to whom I have mentioned this, have thought it an exquisite trait of character. The truth is, that philosophy, like religion, is too generally supposed to be hard and severe, at least so grave as to exclude all gaiety. EDWARDS. "I have been twice married, Doctor. You, I suppose, have never known what it was to have a wife." JOHNSON. "Sir, I have known what it was to have a wife, and (in a solemn, tender, faltering tone) I have known what it was to lose a wife. It had almost broke my heart." the law long, sir, I presume you must be | Dr. Johnson. I have tried too in my time rich." EDWARDS. "No, sir; I got a good deal of money; but I had a number of poor relations to whom I gave a great part of it." JOHNSON. "Sir, you have been rich in the most valuable sense of the word." | EDWARDS. "But I shall not die rich." JOHNSON. "Nay, sure, sir,it is better to live rich than to die rich." EDWARDS. "I wish I had continued at college." JOHN"Why do you wish that, sir?" EDWARDS. "Because I think I should have had a much easier life than mine has been. I should have been a parson, and had a good living, like Bloxam' and several others, and lived comfortably." JOHNSON. "Sir, the life of a parson, of a conscientions clergyman, is not easy. I have always considered a clergyman as the father of a larger family than he is able to maintain. I would rather have Chancery suits upon my hands than the cure of souls. No, sir, I do not envy a clergyman's life as an easy life, nor do I envy the clergyman who makes it an easy life." Here taking himself up all of a sudden, he exclaimed, "O! Mr. Edwards, I'll convince you that I recollect you. Do you remember our drink- | ing together at an alehouse near Pembroke gate? At that time, you told me of the Eton boy, who, when verses on our Saviour's turning water into wine were prescribed as an exercise, brought up a single line, which was highly admired: Vidit et erubuit lympha pudica Deum';' and I told you of another fine line in Camden's Remains;' an eulogy upon one of our kings, who was succeeded by his son, a prince of equal merit : Mira cano, Sol occubuit, nox nulla secuta est.' EDWARDS. "You are a philosopher, how little literature there is in the world."-BosWELL. [Matthew Bloxam entered at Pembroke College, March 25, 1729; M. A., July, 1735.HALL.] This line has frequently been attributed to Dryden, when a King's scholar at Westminster. But neither Eton nor Westminster have in truth any claim to it, the line being borrowed, with a slight change (as Mr. Bindley has observed to me), from an epigram by Richard Crashaw, which was published in his Epigrammata Sacra," first printed at Cambridge, without the authour's name, in 1634, 8vo. The original is much more elegant than the copy, the water being personified, and the word on which the point of the epigram turns, being reserved to the close of the line: "JOANN. 2. 66 EDWARDS. "How do you live, sir? For my part, I must have my regular meals, and a glass of good wine. I find I require it." JOHNSON. "I now drink no wine, sir. Early in life I drank wine; for many years I drank none. I then for some years drank a great deal." EDWARDS. "Some hogsheads, I warrant you." JOHNSON. "I then had a severe illness, and left it off, and I have never begun it again. I never felt any difference upon myself from eating one thing rather than another, nor from one kind of weather rather than another. There are people, I believe, who feel a difference; but I am not one of them. And as to regular meals, I have fasted from the Sunday's dinner to the Tuesday's dinner without any inconvenience. I believe it is best to eat just as one is hungry: but a man who is in business, or a man who has a family, must have stated meals. I am a straggler. I may leave this town and go to Grand Cairo, without being missed here, or observed there." EDWARDS. "Don't you eat supper, sir?" JOHNSON. "No, sir." EDWARDS. "For my part, now, I consider supper as a turnpike through which one must pass in order to get to bed 3." wards. Lawyers know life practically. A JOHNSON. "You are a lawyer, Mr. Edbookish man should always have them to converse with. They have what he wants." EDWARDS. "I am grown old: I am sixtyfive." JOHNSON. "I shall be sixty-eight next birth-day. Come, sir, drink water, and put in for a hundred." Mr. Edwards mentioned a gentleman 4 who had left his whole fortune to Pembroke College. JOHNSON. "Whether to leave 3 I am not absolutely sure but this was my own suggestion, though it is truly in the character of Edwards.-BOSWELL. 4 [This must have been the Rev. James Phipps, who had been a scholar of Pembroke, and who, in 1773, left his estates to the college to purchase livings for a particular foundation, and for other Aquæ in vinum versæ. one's whole fortune to a college be right, must depend upon circumstances. I would leave the interest of the fortune I bequeathed to a college to my relations or my friends, for their lives. It is the same thing to a college, which is a permanent society, whether it gets the money now or twenty years hence; and I would wish to make my relations or friends feel the benefit of it." This interview confirmed my opinion of Johnson's most humane and benevolent heart. His cordial and placid behaviour to an old fellow collegian, a man so different from himself; and his telling him that he would go down to his farm and visit him, showed a kindness of disposition very rare at an advanced age. He observed, "how wonderful it was that they had both been in London forty years, without having ever once met, and both walkers in the street too!" Mr. Edwards, when going away, again recurred to his consciousness of senility, and, looking full in Johnson's face, said to him, " You 'll find in Dr. Young, ‘O my coevals! remnants of yourselves.'' Johnson did not relish this at all; but shook his head with impatience. Edwards walked off seemingly highly pleased with the honour of having been thus noticed by Dr. Johnson. When he was gone, I said to Johnson, I thought him but a weak man. JOHNSON. 66 Why, yes, sir. Here is a man who has passed through life without experience: yet I would rather have him with me than a more sensible man who will not talk readily. This man is always willing to say what he has to say." Yet Dr. Johnson had himself by no means that willingness which he praised so much, and I think so justly: for who has not felt the painful effect of the dreary void, when there is a total silence in a company, for any length of time; or, which is as bad, or perhaps worse, when the conversation is with difficulty kept up by a perpetual effort? Johnson once observed to me, "Tom Tyers described me the best: Sir,' said he, you are like a ghost: you never speak till you are spoken to 1.'" who could have written the Dictionary. There have been many very good judges. Suppose you had been lord chancellor; you would have delivered opinions with more extent of mind, and in a more ornamented manner, than perhaps any chancellor ever did, or ever will do. But, I believe, causes have been as judiciously decided as you could have done." JOHNSON. "Yes, sir. Property has been as well settled." Johnson, however, had a noble ambition floating in his mind, and had, undoubtedly, often speculated on the possibility of his supereminent powers being rewarded in this great and liberal country by the highest honours of the state. Sir William Scott informs me, that upon the death of the late Lord Lichfield, who was chancellor of the University of Oxford, he said to Johnson, "What a pity it is, sir, that you did not follow the profession of the law! You might have been lord chancellor of Great Britain, and attained to the dignity of the peerage; and now that the title of Lichfield, your native city, is extinct, you might have had it." Johnson, upon this, seemed much agitated; and, in an angry tone, exclaimed, Why will you vex me by suggesting this, when it is too late?" But he did not repine at the prosperity of others. The late Dr. Thomas Leland told Mr. Courtenay that when Mr. Edmund Burke showed Johnson his fine house and lands near Beaconsfield, Johnson coolly said, "Non equidem invideo; miror magis 2." I am not entirely without suspicion that Johnson may have felt a little momentary envy; for no man loved the good things of this life better than he did; and he could not but be conscious that he deserved a much larger share of them than he ever had. I attempted in a newspaper to comnient on the above passage in the manner of Warburton, who must be allowed to have shown uncommon ingenuity, in giving to any authour's text whatever meaning he chose it should carry. As this imitation may amuse my readers, I shall here introduce it: "No saying of DR. JOHNSON's has been more misunderstood than his applying to MR. BURKE when he first saw him Mr. Edwards had said to me aside, that at his fine place at Beaconsfield, Non equidem Dr. Johnson should have been of a profes- invideo; mir magis. These two celebrated sion. I repeated the remark to Johnson, men had been friends for many years before Mr. that I might have his own thoughts on the Burke entered on his parliamentary career. They subject. JOHNSON. "Sir, it would have were both writers, both members of THE LITEbeen better that I had been of a profession. RARY CLUB; when, therefore, Dr. Johnson saw I ought to have been a lawyer." BOSWELL. Mr Burke in a situation so much more splendid "I do not think, sir, it would have been than that to which he himself had attained, he better, for we should not have had the Eng-proportionate prosperity; but while he, as a phidid not mean to express that he thought it a dislish Dictionary." JOHNSON. "But you losopher, asserted an exemption from envy, non would have had Reports." BOSWELL. Ay; but there would not have been another equidem invideo, he went on in the words of the poet, miror magis; thereby signifying, either that he was occupied in admiring what he was [Here followed the account of Mr. Tyers, glad to see, or, perhaps, that, considering the now transferred to v. i. p. 136.-ED.] general lot of men of superiour abilities, he Having fallen into a very serious frame of mind, in which mutual expressions of kindness passed between us, such as would be thought too vain in me to repeat, I talk Yet no man had a higher notion of the dignity of literature than Johnson, or was more determined in maintaining the respect which he justly considered as due to it. Of this, besides the general tenor of his con-ed with regret of the sad inevitable certainduct in society, some characteristical instances may be mentioned. He told Sir Joshua Reynolds, that once when he dined in a numerous company of booksellers, where the room, being small, the head of the table, at which he sat, was almost close to the fire, he persevered in suffering a great deal of inconvenience from the heat, rather than quit his place, and let one of them sit above him. Goldsmith, in his diverting simplicity, complained one day, in a mixed company, of Lord Camden."I met him," said he, "at Lord Clare's house in the country, and he took no more notice of me than if I had been an ordinary man." The company having laughed heartily, Johnson stood forth in defence of his friend. 66 Nay, gentlemen," said he, "Dr. Goldsmith is in the right. A nobleman ought to have made up to such a man as Goldsmith; and I think it is much against Lord Camden that he neglected him " Nor could he patiently endure to hear, that such respect as he thought due only to higher intellectual qualities should be bestowed on men of slighter, though perhaps more amusing, talents. I told him, that one morning, when I went to breakfast with Garrick, who was very vain of his intimacy with Lord Camden, he accosted me thus: "Pray now, did you did you meet a little lawyer turning the corner, eh?" "No, sir," said I "Pray what do you mean by the question?" "Why," replied Garrick, with an affected indifference, yet, as if standing on tip-toe, "Lord Camden has this moment left me. We have had a long walk together." JOHNSON. "Well, sir, Garrick talked very properly. Lord Camden was a little lawyer to be associating so familiarly with a player." Sir Joshua Reynolds observed, with great truth, that Johnson considered Garrick to be as it were his property. He would allow no man either to blame or to praise Garrick in his presence, without contradicting him 2. wondered that Fortune, who is represented as blind, should, in this instance, have been so just." -BOSWELL. 1 [See ante, vol. i. p. 273, n.-ED.] 2 [Sir Joshua Reynolds wrote two dialogues, in illustration of this position, in the first of which Johnson attacks Garrick in opposition to Sir Joshua, and in the other defends him against Gibbon. They were originally published in a periodical work, but are preserved in Miss Hawkins's Memoirs, v. ii. p. 110. Lord Farnborough has obligingly communicated to the Editor the evi ty that one of us must survive the other. JOHNSON. "Yes, sir, that is an affecting consideration. I remember Swift, in one of his letters to Pope, says, I intend to come over, that we may meet once more; and when we must part, it is what happens to all human beings."" BOSWELL. The hope that we shall see our departed friends again must support the mind." JOHNSON. Why, yes, sir 3." BOSWELL. "There is a strange unwillingness to part with life, independent of serious fears as to futurity. A reverend friend of ours 4 (naming him) tells me, that he feels an uneasiness at the thoughts of leaving his house, his study, his books." JOHNSON. "This is foolish in *****. A man need not be uneasy on these grounds: for, as he will retain his consciousness, he may say with the philosopher, Omnia mea mecum porto." BosWELL. "True, sir: we may carry our books in our heads; but still there is something painful in the thought of leaving for ever what has given us pleasure. I remember, many years ago, when my imagination was warm, and I happened to be in a melancholy mood, it distressed me to think of going into a state of being in which Shakspeare's poetry did not exist. A lady, who I then much admired, a very amiable woman, humoured my fancy, and relieved me by saying, The first thing you will meet with in the other world will be an elegant copy of Shakspeare's works presentto you."" Dr. Johnson smiled 5 benignantly at this, and did not appear to disapprove of the notion. Piozzi. p. 144. [Knowing the state of Dr. Johnson's nerves, and how easily they were affected, Mrs. Piozzi forbore reading in a new magazine, one day, the death of a Samuel Johnson who expired that month; but he, snatching up the book, saw it himself, and, contrary to her expectation, only said, "Oh! I hope death will now be glutted with Sam Johnsons, and let me alone for some time to come: I read of another namesake's departure last week."] We went to St. Clement's church again in the afternoon, and then returned and drank tea and coffee in Mrs. Williams's room; Mrs. Desmoulins doing the honours of the tea-table. I observed that he would not even look at a proof-sheet of his "Life of Waller " on Good-Friday. undoubtedly stupendous examples; and, with regard to true Christian_perfection, I have heard Johnson say, "That George Psalmanazar's piety, penitence, and virtue, exceeded almost what we read as wonderful even in the lives of saints." Mr. Allen, the printer, brought a book on This extraordinary person lived and died agriculture, which was printed, and was at a house in Old-street, where Dr. Johnsoon to be published. It was a very son was witness to his talents and virtues, strange performance, the authour having and to his final preference of the church of mixed in it his own thoughts upon various England, after having studied, disgraced, topicks, along with his remarks on plough- and adorned so many modes of worship. ing, sowing, and other farming operations. The name he went by was not supposed by He seemed to be an absurd profane fellow, his friend to be that of his family; but all and had introduced in his books many sneers inquiries were vain; his reasons for concealat religion, with equal ignorance and con- ing his original were penitentiary; he deceit. Dr. Johnson permitted me to read served no other name, than that of the Imsome passages aloud. One was that he re-postor, he said. That portion of the Unisolved to work on Sunday, and did work, but he owned he felt some weak compunction; and he had this very curious reflection: "I was born in the wilds of Christianity, and the briers and thorns still hang about me." Dr. Johnson could not help laughing at this ridiculous image, yet was very angry at the fellow's impiety. "However," said he, "the reviewers will make him hang himself." He, however, observed, "that formerly there might have been a dispensation obtained for working on Sunday in the time of harvest." Indeed in ritual observances, were all the ministers of religion what they should be, and what many of them are, such a power might be wisely and safely lodged with the church. versal History which was written by him does not seem to me to be composed with peculiar spirit; but all traces of the wit and the wanderer were probably worn out before he undertook the work. His pious and patient endurance of a tedious illness, ending in an exemplary death, confirmed the strong impression his merit had made upon the mind of Dr. Johnson.] Hawk Apoph. p. 206. where many persons went to talk with him. When Dr. Johnson was asked whether he ever contradicted Psalmanazar; "I should as soon,” said, “have thought of contradicting a bishop:" so high did he hold his character in the latter part of his life. When he was asked whether he ever mentioned Formosa before him, he said, " he was afraid to mention even China."] He had never, he said, seen the close of the life of any one that he wished so much his own to resemble, as that of Psalmanazar, for its purity and devotion. He told many anecdotes of him; and said, he was supposed, by his accent, to have been a Gascon; but that he spoke English with the city accent, and coarse On Saturday, 18th April, I drank tea enough. He for some years spent his evenwith him. He praised the late Mr. Dun-ings at a publick-house near Old-street, combe 2, of Canterbury, as a pleasing man. "He used to come to me; I did not seek Imuch after him. Indeed I never sought much after any body." BoswELL. “Lord Orrery, I suppose." JOHNSON. "No, sir; I never went to him but when he sent for me." BOSWELL. "Richardson?" JOHNSON. "Yes, sir: but I sought after George Psalmanazar the most. I used to go and sit with him at an ale-house in the city." Piozzi, [When Mrs. Piozzi asked Dr. Johnson who was the best man he had ever known? "Psalmanazar" was the unexpected reply. He said, like-lent wise, "that though a native of France, as his friend imagined, he possessed more of the English language than any other foreigner who had fallen in his way." Though there was much esteem, however, there was I believe but little confidence between them; they conversed merely about general topics, religion and learning, of which both were p. 134, 135. I am happy to mention another instance which I discovered of his seeking after a man of merit. Soon after the Honourable Daines Barrington had published his excel"Observations on the Statutes 3,' Johnson waited on that worthy and learned gentleman; and, having told him his name, courteously said, "I have read your book, sir, with great pleasure, and wish to be better known to you." Thus began an acquaintance, which was continued with mutual regard as long as Johnson lived. Talking of a recent seditious delinquent 4, 3 4to. 1766. The worthy authour died many years after Johnson, March 13, 1800, aged about 74.-MALONE. 4 [Mr. Horne Tooke, who had been in the preceding July convicted of a seditious libel. The |