I mentioned the advice given us by philosophers, to confole ourselves, when diftreffed or embarraffed, by thinking of those who are in a worse fituation than ourselves. This, I obferved, could not apply to all, for there must be some who have nobody worse than they are. JOHNSON. "Why to be fure, Sir, there are; but they don't know it. There is no being fo poor and fo contemptible, who does not think there is fomebody ftill poorer, and still more contemptible."

As my stay in London at this time was very fhort, I had not many opportunities of being with Dr. Johnfon; but I felt my veneration for him in no degree leffened, by my having seen multorum hominum mores et urbes. On the contrary, by having it in my power to compare him with many of the most celebrated perfons of other countries, my admiration of his extraordinary mind was increased and confirmed.

The roughness, indeed, which fometimes appeared in his manners, was more striking to me now, from my having been accustomed to the studied smooth complying habits of the Continent; and I clearly recognised in him, not without respect for his honeft confcientious zeal, the fame indignant and farcastical mode of treating every attempt to unhinge or weaken good principles.

One evening, when a young gentleman teized him with an account of the infidelity of his fervant, who, he faid, would not believe the fcriptures, because he could not read them in the original tongues, and be fure that they were not invented. "Why, foolish fellow, (faid Johnson,) has he any better authority for almost every thing that he believes?"-" Then the vulgar, Sir, never can know they are right, but muft fubmit themselves to the learned."JOHNSON. "To be fure, Sir. The vulgar are the children of the state, and must be taught like children."—" Then, Sir, a poor Turk must be a Mahometan, just as a poor Englishman must be a Christian?"-JOHNSON. Why yes, Sir; and what then? This now`is such stuff as I used to talk to my mother, when I first began to think myself a clever fellow; and fhe ought to have whipt me for it."

Another evening Dr. Goldsmith and I called on him, with the hope of prevailing on him to fup with us at the Mitre. We found him indisposed, and refolved not to go abroad. "Come then, (faid Goldsmith,) we will not go to the Mitre to-night, fince we cannot have the big man with us." Johnson then called for a bottle of port, of which Goldsmith and I partook, while our friend, now a water drinker fat by us. GOLDSMITH. "I think, Mr. Johnson, you don't go near the theatres now. You give yourself no more concern about a new play,

4

1766.

Etat. 57.

1766. play, than if you had never had any thing to do with the stage." JOHNSON. Why, Sir, our tastes greatly alter. The lad does not care for the child's rattle, and the old man does not care for the young man's whore." GOLDSMITH. "Nay, Sir; but your Mufe was not a whore." JOHNSON. "Sir, I do not think fhe was. But as we advance in the journey of life, we drop fome of the things which have pleased us; whether it be that we are fatigued and don't choose to carry fo many things any farther, or that we find other things which we like better." BOSWELL. "But, Sir, why don't you give us fomething in fome other way?" GOLDSMITH. "Ay, Sir, we have a claim upon you." JOHNSON. "No, Sir, I am not obliged to do any more. No man is obliged to do as much as he can do. A man is to have part of his life to himself. If a foldier has fought a good many campaigns, he is not to be blamed if he retires to ease and tranquillity. A phyfician, who has practised long in a great city, may be excused if he retires to a small town, and takes lefs practice. Now, Sir, the good I can do by my conversation bears the fame proportion to the good I can do by my writings, that the practice of a physician, retired to a small town, does to his practice in a great city." Boswell. “But I wonder, Sir, you have not more pleasure in writing than in not writing." JOHNSON. "Sir, you may wonder."

He talked of making verfes, and obferved, "The great difficulty is to know

when you have made good ones. When compofing, I have generally had

them in my mind, perhaps fifty at a time, walking up and down in my room; and then I have wrote them down, and often, from laziness, have written only half lines. I have written a hundred lines in a day. I remember I wrote a hundred lines of "The Vanity of human Wishes" in a day. Doctor, (turning to Goldsmith,) I am not quite idle; I made one line t'other day; but I made no more." GOLDSMITH. "Let us hear it; we'll put a bad one to it." JOHNSON. "No, Sir; I have forgot it."

Such fpecimens of the eafy and playful converfation of the great Dr. Samuel Johnfon are, I think, to be prized; as exhibiting the little varieties of a mind fo enlarged and fo powerful when objects of confequence required its exertions, and as giving us a minute knowledge of his character and modes of thinking.

After I had been fome time in Scotland, I mentioned to him in a letter that "On my first return to my native country, after fome years of abfence, I was told of a vast number of my acquaintance who were all gone to the land of forgetfulness, and I found myself like a man ftalking over a field of battle, who every moment perceives fome one lying dead." I complained of irrefolution,

and

and mentioned my having made a vow as a security for good conduct. I wrote to him again, without being able to move his indolence; nor did I hear from him till he had received a copy of my inaugural Exercife, or Thefis in Civil Law, which I published at my admiffion as an Advocate, as is the custom in Scotland. He then wrote to me as follows :

"DEAR SIR,

To JAMES BOSWELL, Efq.

"THE reception of your Thefis put me in mind of my debt to you. Why did you I will punish you for

* 8

it, by telling you that your Latin wants correction. In the beginning, Spei

The paffage omitted alluded to a private transaction.

This cenfure of my Latin relates to the Dedication, which was as follows:

1766.

1766.

tat. 57.

altera, not to urge that it should be prima, is not grammatical: altere should be alteri. In the next line you feem to use genus absolutely, for what we call family, that is, for illuftrious extraction, I doubt without authority, Homines nullius originis, for Nullis orti majoribus, or, Nullo loco nati, is, I am afraid, barbarous.-Ruddiman is dead.

"I have now vexed you enough, and will try to please you. Your refolution to obey your father I fincerely approve; but do not accuftom yourself to enchain your volatility by vows: they will fometime leave a thorn in your mind, which you will, perhaps, never be able to extract or eject. Take this warning, it is of great importance.

"The study of the law is what you very justly term it, copious and generous'; and in adding your name to its profeffors, you have done exactly what I always wifhed, when I wished you best. I hope that you will continue to pursue it vigorously and conftantly. You gain, at leaft, what is no small advantage, fecurity from thofe troublesome and wearifome difcontents, which are always obtruding themselves upon a mind vacant, unemployed, and undetermined.

"You ought to think it no small inducement to diligence and perfeverance, that they will please your father. We all live upon the hope of pleafing fomebody; and the pleasure of pleafing ought to be greatest, and at last always will be greatest, when our endeavours are exerted in confequence of our duty.

"Life is not long, and too much of it must not pass in idle deliberation how it shall be spent ; deliberation, which those who begin it by prudence, and continue it with fubtilty, muft, after long expence of thought, conclude by chance. To prefer one future mode of life to another, upon just reasons, requires faculties which it has not pleased our Creator to give us.

If, therefore, the profeffion you have chofen has fome unexpected inconveniencies, confole yourself by reflecting that no profeffion is without them; and that all the importunities and perplexities of business are softness and luxury, compared with the inceffant cravings of vacancy, and the unfatisfactory expedients of idleness.

This alludes to the firft fentence of the Proæmium of my Thefis. "JURISPRUDENTIÆ ftudio nullum uberius, nullum generofius: in legibus enim agitandis, populorum mores, variafque fortunæ vices ex quibus leges oriuntur, contemplari fimul folemus."

"As to your History of Corfica, you have no materials which others have 1766. not, or may not have. You have, fomehow or other, warmed your imagi- Etat. 57. nation. I wish there were fome cure, like the lover's leap, for all heads of which fome fingle idea has obtained an unreasonable and irregular poffeffion. Mind your own affairs, and leave the Corficans to theirs. I am, dear Sir, "Your most humble fervant,

"Having thus, I hope cleared myself of the charge brought against me, I prefume you will not be difpleafed if I escape the punishment which you have decreed for me unheard. If you have discharged the arrows of criticism against an innocent man, you must rejoice to find they have missed him, or have not been pointed so as to wound him.

"To talk no longer in allegory, I am, with all deference, going to offer a few observations in defence of my Latin, which you have found fault with. "You think I should have used fpei primæ, instead of fpei altere. Spes is, indeed, often used to exprefs fomething on which we have a future dependence, as in Virg. Eclog. i. 1. 14,

for the lambs and the sheep. Yet it is also used to express any thing on which we have a prefent dependence, and is well applied to a man of diftinguished influence, our support, our refuge, our præfidium, as Horace calls Macenas. So, Æneid xii. 1. 57, Queen Amata addresses her fon-in-law Turnus :- Spes tu nunc una;' and he was then no future hope,, for fhe adds,

The paffage omitted explained the tranfaction to which the preceding letter had alluded.