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come over to the Roman catholic faith: that he resisted all his grace's arguments for a considerable time, till one day he felt himself, as it were, instantaneously convinced, and with tears in his eyes ran into the duke's arms, and embraced the ancient religion; that he continued very steady in it for some time, and accompanied his grace to London one winter, and lived in his household; that there he found the rigid fasting prescribed by the church very severe upon him; that this disposed him to reconsider the controversy; and, having then seen that he was in the wrong, he returned to protestantism. Boswell talked of some time or other publishing this curious life. MRS. THRALE. "Į think you had as well let alone that publication. To discover such weakness exposes a man when he is gone." JOHNSON. "Nay, it is an honest picture of human nature. How often are the primary motives of our greatest actions as small as Sibbald's, for his re-conversion!" MRS. THRALE. "But may they not as well be forgotten?" JOHNSON. "No, madam, a man loves to review his own mind. That is the use of a diary, or journal." LORD TRimlesTOWN. "True, sir. As the ladies love to see themselves in a glass, so a man likes to see himself in his journal." BOSWELL. "A very pretty allusion." JOHNSON. "Yes, indeed." Boswell. "And as a lady adjusts her dress before a mirror, a man adjusts his character by looking at his journal." He adds, "I next year found the very same thought in Atterbury's Funeral Sermon on Lady Cutts ; where having mentioned her Diary, he says, In this glass she every day 'dressed her

mind.' This is a proof of coincidence, and not of plagiarism; for I had never read that sermon before."

Johnson said, "Bayle's Dictionary is a very use. ful work for those to consult, who love the biographical part of literature, which is what I love most."

As he had objected to a part of one of his letters being published, Boswell thought it right to take an opportunity of asking him explicitly, whether it would be improper to publish his letters after his death. His answer was, "Nay, sir, when I am dead, you may do as you will."

He said, "Goldsmith's life of Parnel is poor : not that it is poorly written, but that he had poor materials; for nobody can write the life of a man, but those who have eat, and drank, and lived in social intercourse with him." Boswell said, if it was not troublesome, and presuming too much, he would request him to tell him all the little circumstances of his life; what schools he attended when he came to Oxford, when he came to London, &c. He did not disapprove of his curiosity as to these particulars; but said, "They'll come out by degrees, as we talk together."

He censured Ruffhead's Life of Pope; and remarked, that "he knew nothing of Pope, and nothing of poetry." He praised Dr. Joseph Warton's Essay on Pope; but added, he supposed we should have no more of it, as the author had not been able to persuade the world to think of Pope as he did. BOSWELL. " Why, sir, should that prevent him from continuing his work? He is an ingenious counsel, who has made the most of his cause:

he is not obliged to gain it." JOHNSON. there is a difference when the cause is own making."

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At another time, he, Mr. Thomas Warton, and Boswell, talked of biography. JOHNSON." It is rarely well executed. They only who live with a man can write his life with any genuine exactness and discrimination; and few people who have lived with a man know what to remark about him. The chaplain of a late bishop, whom I was to assist in writing some memoirs of his lordship, could tell me scarcely any thing." BOSWELL. "Mr. Robert Dodsley's life should be written, as he was so much connected with the wits of his time, and by his literary merit had raised himself from the station of a footman." WARTON. " He published a little volume under the title of The Muse in Livery." JOHNSON. "I doubt whether Dodsley's brother would thank a man who should write his life; yet Dodsley himself was not unwilling that his original low condition should be recollected. When lord Lyttelton's Dialogues of the Dead came out, one of which is between Apicius, an ancient epicure, and Dartineuf, a modern epicure, Dodsley said to me, I knew Dartineuf well, for I was once his footman.' "

Biography led them to speak of Dr. John Campbell, who had written a considerable part of the Biographia Britannica. Johnson, though he valued him highly, was of opinion that there was not so much in his great work, A Political Survey of Great Britain, as the world had been taught to expect ; and had said to Boswell, that he believed Campbell's disappointment, on account of the bad

success of that work, had killed him. He this evening observed of it, "That work was his death." Mr. Warton, not adverting to his meaning, answered, "I believe so, from the great attention he bestowed on it." JOHNSON. "Nay, sir, he died of want of attention, if he died at all by that book."

Boswell said, "In writing a life, a man's peculiarities should be mentioned, because they mark his character." JOHNSON. "Sir, there is no doubt 5 as to peculiarities: the question is, whether a man's vices should be mentioned; for instance, whether it should be mentioned, that Addison and Parnell drank too freely: for people will probably more easily indulge in drinking from knowing this; so that more ill may be done by the example, than good by telling the whole truth." On this, Boswell remarks," Here was an instance of his varying from himself in talk; for when lord Hailes and he sat one morning calmly conversing, in my house at Edinburgh, I well remember that Dr. Johnson maintained, that if a man is to write A Panegyric, he may keep vices out of sight; but if he professes to write A Life, he must represent it 54really as it was;' and when I objected to the danger of telling that Parnell drank to excess, he said, that it would produce an instructive caution to avoid drinking, when it was seen, that even the learning and genius of Parnell could be debased by it.' And in the Hebrides, he maintained, as appears from my Journal, that a man's intimate friend should montion his faults, if he writes his life."

No. IX.

BONS MOTS.

WHEN Dr. Johnson had finished some part of his tragedy of Irene, he read what he had done to Mr. Walmsley, who objected to his having already brought his heroine into great distress; and asked him, "How can you possibly contrive to plunge her into deeper calamity?" Johnson, in sly allusion to the supposed oppressive proceedings of the court of which Mr. Walmsley was registrar, replied, Sir, I can put her into the spiritual

court!"

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Soon after Edwards's Canons of Criticism came out, Johnson was dining at Tonson the bookseller's, with Hayman the painter, and some more company. Hayman related to sir Joshua Reynolds, that the conversation having turned upon Edwards's book, the gentlemen praised it much, and Johnson allowed its merit: but when they went farther, and appeared to put that author upon a level with Warburton, "Nay," said Johnson," he has given him some smart hits to be sure; but there is no proportion between the two men ; they must not be named together. A fly, sir, may sting a stately horse, and make him wince; but one is but an insect, and the other is a horse still."

On the 6th of March, 1754, came out lord Bolingbroke's works, published by Mr. David Mallet, Johnson, hearing of their tendency, was roused with a just indignation, and pronounced this me

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