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No. VII.

NATURAL HISTORY.

THE custom of eating dogs at Otaheite being mentioned, Goldsmith observed, that this was also a custom in China; that a dog-butcher is as common there as any other butcher; and that when he walks abroad, all the dogs fall on him. JOHNSON. "That is not owing to his killing dogs, sir. I remember a butcher at Lichfield, whom a dog that was in the house where I lived always attacked. It is the smell of carnage which provokes this, let the animals he has killed be what they may." GOLDSMITH." Yes, there is a general abhorrence in animals at the signs of massacre. If you put a tub full of blood into a stable the horses are like to go mad." JOHNSON. "I doubt that." GOLDSMITH. "Nay, sir, it is a fact well authenticated." THRale. "You had better prove it before you put it into your book on natural history. You may do it in my stable if you will." JOHNSON. "Nay, sir, I would not have him prove it. If he is content to take his information from others, he may get through his book with little trouble, and without much endangering his reputation; but if he makes experiments for so comprehensive a book as his, there would be no end to them: his erroneous assertions would then fall upon himself; and he might be blamed for not having made experiments as to every particular."

Boswell related, that he had, several times, when

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in Italy, seen the experiment of placing a scorpion within a circle of burning coals; that it ran round and round in extreme pain; and finding no way to escape, retired to the centre, and, like a true Stoic philosopher, darted its sting into its head, and thus at once freed itself from its woes. "This must end 'em." This, he observed, was a curious fact, as it showed deliberate suicide in a reptile. Johnson would not admit the fact. He said, Maupertuis was of opinion that it does not kill itself, but dies of the heat; that it gets to the centre of the circle as the coolest place; that its turning its tail in upon its head is merely in convulsion, and that it does not sting itself. He said he would be satisfied if the great anatomist Morgagni, after dissecting a scorpion, on which the experiment had been tried, should certify that its sting had penetrated into its head.

He seemed pleased to talk of natural philosophy. "That woodcocks," said he, " fly over the northern countries, is proved, because they have been observed at sea. Swallows certainly sleep all winter. A number of them conglobulate together, by flying round and round; and then, all in a heap, throw themselves under water, and lie in the bed of a river." He said, one of his first essays was a Latin poem upon the glow-worm.

Talking of birds, Boswell mentioned Mr. Daines Barrington's ingenious Essay against the received notion of their migration. JOHNSON. "I think we have as good evidence for the migration of woodcocks as can be desired. We find they disappear at a certain time of the year, and appear again at a certain time of the year; and some of them, when

weary in their flight, have been known to alight on the rigging of ships far out at sea." One of the company observed, that there had been instances of some of them found in summer in Essex. JOHN-'

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SON. Sir, that strengthens our argument. Exceptio probat regulam. Some being found, shows, that, if all remained, many would be found. A few sick or lame ones may be found." GOLDSMITH. "There is a partial migration of the swallows; the stronger ones migrate; the others do not."

Johnson repeated an argument, which is found in his Rambler, against the notion that the brute creation is endowed with the faculty of reason. "Birds build by instinct; they never improve; they build their first nest as well as any one they ever build." GOLDSMITH." Yet we see, if we take away a bird's nest with the eggs in it, she will make a slighter nest, and lay again." JOHNSON." Sir, that is because at first she has full time, and makes her nest deliberately. In the case you mention, she is pressed to lay, and must therefore make her nest quickly; and consequently it will be slight," GOLDSMITH. "The nidification of birds is what is least known in natural history, though one of the most curious things in it."

Boswell told him, that he heard Dr. Percy was writing the history of the wolf in Great Britain. JOHNSON. "The wolf, sir; why the wolf? Why does he not write of the bear, which we had formerly? Nay, it is said we had the beaver. Or why does he not write of the gray rat, the Hanover rat, as it is called, because it is said to have come into this country about the time that the family of Hanover came? I should like to see The History

of the Gray Rat, by Thomas Percy, D.D. Chaplain in Ordinary to his Majesty.'" (laughing immode. rately.) BOSWELL. "I am afraid a court chaplain could not decently write of the gray rat." JOHNSON. "Sir, he need not give it the name of the Hanover rat."

Mr. Seward mentioned the observations which he had made upon the strata of the earth in volcanoes, from which it appeared, that they were so very different in depth at different periods, that no calculation could be made as to the time required for their formation. This fully refuted an antemosaical remark introduced into captain Brydone's entertaining tour, from a kind of vanity, which is too common in those who have not sufficiently studied the most important of all subjects. Dr. Johnson, indeed, had said before, independent of this observation, "Shall all the accumulated evidence of the history of the world; shall the authority of what is unquestionably the most ancient writing-be overturned by an uncertain remark such as this?"

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No. VIII.

BIOGRAPHY.

"JOHNSON recommended to me," says Boswell, to keep a journal of my life, full and unreserved. He said it would be a very good exercise, aud would yield me great satisfaction, when the particulars were faded from my remembrance. I was uncommonly fortunate in having had a previous

coincidence of opinion with him upon this subject, for I had kept such a journal for some time; and it was no small pleasure to me to have this to tell him, and to receive his approbation. He counselled me to keep it private, and said, I might surely have a friend, who would burn it in case of my death. From this habit I have been enabled to give the world so many anecdotes, which would otherwise have been lost to posterity. I mentioned, that I was afraid I put into my journal too many little incidents. JOHNSON. There is nothing, sir, too little for so little a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible.'

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"He told me, that he had, twelve or fourteen times, attempted to keep a journal of his life, but never could persevere. He advised me to do it.

The great thing to be recorded,' said he,' is the state of your own mind; and you should write down every thing that you remember, for you cannot judge at first what is good or bad; and write immediately, while the impression is fresh, for it will not be the same a week afterwards.' "

Boswell mentioned, that he had in his possession the Life of sir Robert Sibbald, the celebrated Scottish antiquary, and founder of the Royal College of Physicians at Edinburgh, in the original manuscript, in his own hand-writing; and that it was, he believed, the most natural and candid account of himself that ever was given by any man. As an instance, he tells, that the duke of Perth, then chancellor of Scotland, pressed him very much to

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