1766. Ætat. 57. fo great, that perhaps no degree of attention or difcernment will be fufficient to afford it. "Come home, however, and take your chance. I long to fee you, and to. hear you; and hope that we fhall not be fo long feparated again. Come home, and expect fuch a welcome as is due to him, whom a wife and noble curiosity has led, where perhaps no native of this country ever was before. "I have no news to tell you that can deferve your notice; nor would I willingly leffen the pleasure that any novelty may give you at your return.. I am afraid we shall find it difficult to keep among us a mind which has been fo long feafted with variety. But let us try what esteem and kindnefs can effect.. "As your father's liberality has indulged you with fo long a raible, I doubt not but you will think his fickness, or even his defire to fee you, a fufficient reafon for haftening your return. The longer we live, and the more we think, the higher value we learn to put on the friendship and tenderness of parents and of friends. Parents we can have but once; and he promises himself too much, who enters life with the expectation of finding many friends. Upon fome motive, I hope, that you will be here foon; and am willing to think that it will be an inducement to your return, that it is fincerely defired by, dear Sir, I returned to London in February, and found Dr. Johnson in a good house in Johnson's-court, Fleet-street, in which he had accommodated Mifs Williams with an apartment on the ground floor, while Mr. Levett occupied his post in: the garret his faithful Francis was still attending upon him. He received me with much kindness. The fragments of our first conversation, which I have preserved, are these: I told him that Voltaire, in a converfation with me, had. diftinguished Pope and Dryden thus:-" Pope drives a handsome chariot, with. a couple of neat trim nags; Dryden a coach, and six stately horses." JOHNSON.. "Why, Sir, the truth is, they both drive coaches and fix; but Dryden's horfes are either galloping or ftumbling: Pope's go at a steady even trot"." 7 It is remarkable, that Mr. Gray has employed fomewhat the fame image to characterife Dryden. He, indeed, furnishes his car with but two horses; but they are of ethereal race: "Behold where Dryden's lefs prefumptuous car, "Wide o'er the fields of glory bear "Two courfers of ethereal race, "With necks in thunder cloath'd, and long-refounding pace." Ode on the Progrefs of Poefy. He He faid of Goldfimith's Traveller, which had been published in my absence, "There has not been fo fine a poem fince Pope's time." And here it is proper to fettle, with authentick precifion, what has long floated in publick report, as to Johnfon's being himself the authour of a confiderable part of that poem. Much, no doubt, both of the sentiments and expreffion, were derived from converfation with him; and it was certainly fubmitted to his friendly revifion: but in the year 1783, he, at my request, marked with a pencil the lines which he had furnished, which are only line 420, "To ftop too fearful, and too faint to go;" and the concluding ten lines, except the last couplet but one, which I distinguifh by the Italick character: "How fmall of all that human hearts endure, "That part which kings or laws can cause or cure. "Our own felicity we make or find; "With fecret courfe, which no loud ftorms annoy, "The lifted axe, the agonizing wheel, "Luke's iron crown, and Damien's bed of steel, "To men remote from power, but rarely known, "Leave reason, faith, and confcience, all our own." He added, "These are all of which I can be fure." They bear a small proportion to the whole, which confifts of four hundred and thirty-eight verfes. Goldsmith, in the couplet which he inferted, mentions Luke as a person well known, and fuperficial readers have paffed it over quite fmoothly; while those of more attention have been as much perplexed by Luke, as by Lydiat, in "The Vanity of human Wishes." The truth is, that Goldsmith himself was in a mistake. In the "Refpublica Hungarica," there is an account of a desperate rebellion in the year 1514, headed by two brothers, of the name of Zeck, George and Luke. When it was quelled, George, not Luke, was punished by his head being encircled with a red hot iron crown: " corona condefcente ferreá coronatur." The fame severity of torture was exercised on the Earl of Athol, one of the murderers of King James I. of Scotland. 1766. Etat. 57. 1766. Etat. 57 Dr. Johnfon at the fame time favoured me by marking the lines which he furnished to Goldfmith's "Deferted Village," which are only the four laft: "That trade's proud empire haftes to swift decay, Talking of education, "People have now a-days, (faid he,) got a strange opinion that every thing fhould be taught by lectures. Now, I cannot fee that lectures can do fo much good as reading the books from which the lectures. are taken. I know nothing that can be beft taught by lectures, except where experiments are to be fhewn. You may teach chymistry by lectures.-You might teach making of fhoes by lectures!" At night I fupped with him at the Mitre tavern, that we might renew our focial intimacy at the original place of meeting. But there was now a confiderable difference in his way of living. Having had an illness, in which he was advised to leave off wine, he had, from that period, continued to abstain from it, and drank only water, or lemonade. I told him that a foreign friend of his, whom I had met with abroad, was fo wretchedly perverted to infidelity, that he treated the hopes of immortality with brutal levity; and faid, "As man dies like a dog, let him lie like a dog." JOHNSON. "If he dies like a dog, let him lie like a dog." I added, that this man said to me, "I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am." JOHNSON. "Sir, he must be very fingular in his opinion, if he thinks himself one of the beft of men; for none of his friends think him fo." He faid, "No honeft man could be a Deift; for no man could be fo after a fair examination of the proofs of Chriftianity." I named Hume. JOHNSON. "No, Sir; Hume owned to a clergyman in the bishoprick of Durham, that he had never read the New Teftament with attention." I mentioned Hume's notion, that all who are happy are equally happy; a little mifs with a new gown at a dancing-school ball, a general at the head of a victorious army, and an orator, after having made an eloquent speech in a great affembly. JOHNSON. "Sir, that all who are happy, are equally happy, is not true. A peafant and a philofopher may be equally satisfied, but not equally happy. Happinefs confifts in the multiplicity of agreeable confcioufnefs. A peafant has not capacity for having equal happiness with a philofopher." I remember this very queftion very happily illuftrated in opposition to Hume, Hume, by the Reverend Mr. Robert Brown, at Utrecht. "A fmall drinking 1766. glass and a large one, (said he,) may be equally full; but the large one holds Etat. 57. more than the small." Dr. Johnson was very kind this evening, and faid to me, "You have now lived five-and-twenty years, and you have employed them well." "Alas, Sir, (faid I,) I fear not. Do I know hiftory? Do I know mathematicks? Do I know law?" JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, though you may know no science fo well as to be able to teach it, and no profeffion fo well as to be able to follow it, your general mass of knowledge of books and men renders you very capable to make yourself master of any science, or fit yourself for any profeffion." I mentioned that a gay friend had advised me against being a lawyer, because I fhould be excelled by plodding blockheads. JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, in the formulary and ftatutory part of law, a plodding blockhead may excel; but in the ingenious and rational part of it a plodding blockhead can never excel." I talked of the mode adopted by fome to rife in the world, by courting great men, and asked him whether he had ever fubmitted to it. JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, I never was near enough to great men to court them. You may be prudently attached to great men, and yet independent. You are not to do what you think wrong; and, Sir, you are to calculate and not pay too dear for what you get. You must not give a fhilling's worth of court for fix-pence worth of good. But if you can get a fhilling's worth of good for fix-pence worth of court, you are a fool if you do not pay court." He faid, "If convents fhould be allowed at all, they fhould only be retreats for perfons unable to ferve the publick, or who have ferved it. It is our first duty to ferve fociety, and, after we have done that, we may attend wholly to the falvation of our own fouls. A youthful paffion for abstracted devotion fhould not be encouraged." I introduced the fubject of fecond fight, and other myfterious manifestations; the fulfilment of which, I suggested might happen by chance. JOHNSON. "Yes, Sir; but they have happened fo often, that mankind have agreed to think them not fortuitous." I talked to him a great deal of what I had feen in Corfica, and of my intention to publish an account of it. He encouraged me by faying, "You cannot go to the bottom of the fubject; but all that you tell us will be new to Give us as many anecdotes as you can." us. Our next meeting at the Mitre was on Saturday the 15th of February, when I prefented to him my old and moft intimate friend, the Reverend Mr. Temple, then 1766. Etat. 57. then of Cambridge. I having mentioned that I had paffed fome time with Rouffeau in his wild retreat, and having quoted fome remark made by Mr. Wilkes, with whom I had spent many pleafant hours in Italy, Johnson said, (farcastically,) “It seems, Sir, you have kept very good company abroad, Rouffeau and Wilkes!" Thinking it enough to defend one at a time, I said nothing as to my gay friend, but answered with a smile, “ My dear Sir, you don't call Rouffeau bad company. Do you really think him a bad man?” JOHNSON. "Sir, if you are talking jeftingly of this, I don't talk with you. If you mean to be serious, I think him one of the worst of men; a rascal, who ought to be hunted out of fociety, as he has been. Three or four nations have expelled him; and it is a fhame that he is protected in this country." BOSWELL. "I don't deny, Sir, but that his novel may, perhaps, do harm; but I cannot think his intention was bad." JOHNSON. "Sir, that will not do. We cannot prove any man's intention to be bad. You may shoot a man through the head, and fay you intended to miss him; but the Judge will order you to be hanged. An alledged want of intention, when evil is committed, will not be allowed in a court of justice. Rouffeau, Sir, is a very bad man. I would fooner fign a sentence for his tranfportation, than that of any felon who has gone from the Old Bailey these many years. Yes, I fhould like to have him work in the plantations." BOSWELL. "Sir, do you think him as bad a man as Voltaire?" JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, it is difficult to fettle the proportion of iniquity between them." This violence feemed very strange to me, who had read many of Rouffeau's animated writings with great pleasure, and even edification, had been much pleased with his fociety, and was just come from the Continent, where he was very generally admired. Nor can I yet allow that he deferves the very severe cenfure which Johnson pronounced upon him. His abfurd preference of favage to civilifed life, and other fingularities, are proofs rather of a defect in his understanding, than of any depravity in his heart. And notwithstanding the unfavourable opinion which many worthy men have expreffed of his "Profeffion de Foi du Vicaire Savoyard," I cannot help admiring it as the performance of a man full of fincere reverential fubmiffion to Divine Mystery, though beset with perplexing doubts; a state of mind to be viewed with pity rather than with anger. On his favourite fubject of subordination, Johnson said, "So far is it from being true that men are naturally equal, that no two people can be half an hour together, but one fhall acquire an evident fuperiority over the other." I mentioned |