even when a man's deceased relation was calumniated in a publication. Mr. Murray maintained there should be reparation, unless the author could justify himself by proving the fact. JOHNSON. "Sir, it is of so much more consequence that truth should be told, than that individuals should not be made uneasy, that it is much better that the law does not restrain writing freely concerning the characters of the dead. Damages will be given to a man who is calumniated in his lifetime, because he may be hurt in his worldly interest, or at least hurt in his mind: but the law does not regard that uneasiness which a man feels on having his ancestor calumniated. That is too nice. Let him deny what is said, and let the matter have a fair chance by discussion. But if a man could say nothing against a character but what he can prove, history could not be written; for a great deal is known of men of which proof cannot be brought. A minister may be notoriously known to take bribes, and yet you may not be able to prove it." Mr. Murray suggested that the author should be obliged to show some sort of evidence, though he would not require a strict legal proof; but Johnson firmly and resolutely opposed any restraint whatever, as adverse to a free investigation of the characters of mankind.'

covered the ludicrous error. But Mr. Nourse, the bookseller, who was the proprietor of the work, upon being applied to by Sir John Pringle, agreed very handsomely to have the leaf on which it was contained cancelled, and reprinted without it, at his own expense. - BOSWELL.

What Dr. Johnson has here said is undoubtedly good sense: yet I am afraid that law, though defined by Lord Coke" the perfection of reason," is not altogether with him; for it is held in the books, that an attack on the reputation even of a dead man may be punished as a libel, because tendtag to a breach of the peace. There is, however, I believe, no modern decided case to that effect. In the King's Bench, Trinity term, 1790, the question occurred on occasion of an indictment, The King v. Topham, who, as a proprietor of a newspaper entitled The World," was found guilty of a libel against Earl Cowper, deceased, because certain injurious charges against his lordship were published in that paper. An arrest of judgment having been moved for, the case was afterwards solemnly argued. My friend, Mr. Const, whom I delight in having an opportunity to praise, not only for his abilities, but his manners-a gentleman whose ancient German blood has been mellowed in England, and who may be truly said to unite the baron and the barrister. was one of the counsel for Mr. Topham. He displayed much learning and ingenuity upon the general question; which, however, was not decided, as the court granted an arrest chiefly on the informality of the indictment. No man has a higher reverence for the law of England than I have; but, with all deference, I cannot help thinking, that prosecution by indictment, if a defendant is never to be allowed to justify, must often be very oppressive, unless juries, whom I am more and more confirmed in holding to be judges of

CHAPTER LV.

1776.

Popish Corruptions. - Licensed Stews. Seduction. Gaming. Card-playing.

-"Jack Ellis.". Conjugal Obligations.-Law of Usury.- Beggars. Dr. Cheyne. Solitude. Joseph Simpson. Children.-Cowley.—Flatman's Poems.- Cibber's "Lives." Gray. · Akenside. Mason. The Reviews. Lord Lyttelton." The Spectator."Dr. Barry.-Dinner at General Paoli's. -"Abel Drugger." Italy. The Mediterranean.- Poetical Translation. Art of Printing. Education of the People. Thomson. -"Hudibras."— Purpose of Tragedy. 166 "Othello. John Dennis. Swearing. Wine-drinking. "Odes."

Cumberland's

On Thursday, 4th April, having called on Dr. Johnson, I said, it was a pity that truth was not so firm as to bid defiance to all attacks, so that it might be shot at as much as people chose to attempt, and yet remain unhurt. JOHNSON. Then, Sir, it would not be shot at. Nobody attempts to dispute that two and two make four but with contests concerning moral truth, human passions are generally mixed, and therefore it must be ever liable to assault and misrepresentation."

On Friday, 5th April, being Good Friday, after having attended the morning service at St. Clement's church, I walked home with Johnson. We talked of the Roman Catholic religion. JOHNSON. "In the barbarous ages, Sir, priests and people were equally deceived: but afterwards there were gross corruptions introduced by the clergy, such as indulgences to priests to have concubines, and the worship of images: not, indeed, inculcated, but knowingly permitted." He strongly censured the licensed

law as well as of fact, resolutely interpose. Of late an act of parliament has passed, declaratory of their full right to one as well as the other, in matter of libel; and the bill having been brought in by a popular gentleman [Mr. Fox], many of his party have in most extravagant terms declaimed on the wonderful acquisition to the liberty of the press. For my own part I ever was clearly of opinion that this right was inherent in the very constitution of a jury, and indeed in sense and reason inseparable from their important function. To establish it, therefore, by statute, is, I think, narrowing its foundation, which is the broad and deep basis of common law. Would it not rather weaken the right of primogeniture, or any other old and universally acknowledged right, should the legislature pass an act in favour of it? In my "Letter to the People of Scotland, against diminishing the number of the Lords of Session," published in 1785, there is the following passage, which, as a concise, and, I hope, a fair and rational state of the matter, I presume to quote: "The juries of England are judges of law as well as of fact in many civil and in all criminal trials. That my principles of resistance may not be misapprehended any more than my principles of submission, I protest that I should be the last man in the world to encourage juries to contradict rashly, wantonly, or perversely, the opinion of the judges. On the contrary, I would have them listen respectfully to the advice they receive from the bench, by which they may often be well directed in forming their own opinion; which, and not another's,' is the opinion they are to return upon their oaths. But where, after due attention to all that the judge has said, they are decidedly of a different opinion from him, they have not only a power and a right, but they are bound in conscience, to bring in a verdict accordingly."- Boswell.

stews at Rome. BOSWELL. "So then, Sir, you would allow of no irregular intercourse whatever between the sexes?" JOHNSON. "To be sure I would not, Sir. I would punish it much more than it is done, and so restrain it. In all countries there has been fornication, as in all countries there has been theft; but there may be more or less of the one, as well as of the other, in proportion to the force of law. All men will naturally commit fornication, as all men will naturally steal. And, Sir, it is very absurd to argue, as has been often done, that prostitutes are necessary to prevent the violent effects of appetite from violating the decent order of life; nay, should be permitted, in order to preserve the chastity of our wives and daughters. Depend upon it, Sir, severe laws, steadily enforced, would be sufficient against those evils, and would promote marriage."

I stated to him this case: "Suppose a man has a daughter, who he knows has been seduced, but her misfortune is concealed from the world, should he keep her in his house? Would he not, by doing so, be accessory to imposition? And, perhaps, a worthy, unsuspecting man, might come and marry this woman, unless the father inform him of the truth." JOHNSON. "Sir, he is accessory to no imposition. His daughter is in his house; and if a man courts her, he takes his chance. If a friend, or indeed if any man, asks his opinion whether he should marry her, he ought to advise him against it, without telling why, because his real opinion is then required. Or, if he has other daughters who know of her frailty, he ought not to keep her in his house. You are to consider the state of life is this; we are to judge of one another's characters as well as we can; and a man is not bound in honesty or honour to tell us the faults of his daughter or of himself. A man who has debauched his friend's daughter is not obliged to say to every body Take care of me; don't let me into your house without suspicion. I once debauched a friend's daughter. I may debauch yours.'

959

Mr. Thrale called upon him, and appeared to bear the loss of his son with a manly com

1A gentleman who, from his extraordinary stores of knowledge, has been styled omniscient. Johnson, I think very properly, altered it to all-knowing, as it is a verbum solenne, appropriated to the Supreme Being.- BOSWELL. Mr. Richard Jackson, a barrister, M.P. for New Romney, and F.R.S., had obtained, from the universality of his information on all topics, the appellation of" omniscient Jackson." He was an intimate friend of Lord Shelburne's, and became a lord of the treasury in his lordship's administration in 1782. He died May 6. 1787.- CROKER.

2 This was Mr.Joseph Fowke, of whom there is quoted in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1817, vii. p. 526., an account very erroneous both in facts and dates. The truth is, he went to India in 1736 as a writer, and served in several subordinate offices till he was appointed, in 1751, fifth member of Council at Madras. He had been, however, for some years a dissatisfied man, and in 1752 resigned the service and came to England, where he became acquainted with Johnson, and may have entertained hopes of going out again in some position which would have enabled him to take Johnson (then in very low circumstances) with him; but of this we have no trace, but what appears in the text. It was not till 1770, when assuredly Johnson could have had no thoughts of

posure. There was no affectation about him; and he talked, as usual, upon indifferent subjects. He seemed to me to hesitate as to the intended Italian tour, on which, I flattered myself, he and Mrs. Thrale and Dr. Johnson were soon to set out; and, therefore, I pressed it as much as I could. I mentioned that Mr. Beauclerk had said, that Baretti, whom they were to carry with them, would keep them so long in the little towns of his own district, that they would not have time to see Rome. I mentioned this to put them on their guard. JOHNSON. "Sir, we do not thank Mr. Beau clerk for supposing that we are to be directed by Baretti. No, Sir; Mr. Thrale is to go, by my advice, to Mr. Jackson' (the all-knowing), and get from him a plan for seeing the most that can be seen in the time that we have to travel. We must, to be sure, see Rome, Naples, Florence, and Venice, and as much more as we can." (Speaking with a tone of animation.)

When I expressed an earnest wish for his remarks on Italy, he said, "I do not see that I could make a book upon Italy; yet I should be glad to get two hundred pounds, or five hundred pounds, by such a work." This showed both that a journal of his tour upon the cotinent was not wholly out of his contemplation, and that he uniformly adhered to that strange opinion which his indolent disposition made him utter; "No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money." Numerous instances to refute this will occur to all who are versed in the history of literature.

2

He gave us one of the many sketches of character which were treasured in his mind, and which he was wont to produce quite unexpectedly in a very entertaining manner. “I lately," said he, "received a letter from the East Indies, from a gentleman whom I formerly knew very well; he had returned from that country with a handsome fortune, as it was reckoned, before means were found to acquire those immense sums which have been brought from thence of late: he was a scholar, and an agreeable man, and lived very prettily in London, till his wife died. After her death, he took to dissipation and gaming, and lost all

accompanying him, that he was permitted to return 21 à free merchant to Calcutta, where he soon mixed himself up with the opposition to Mr. Hastings, and he and his son Francis were indicted, with the celebrated and unfor tunate Nundcomar, for a conspiracy against Mr. Hastings, and found guilty. The letter and packet referred to in the text related of course to this affair. Joseph Fowke was afterwards re-appointed to office in India, but finally resigned the Company's service, and returned to England in 1790, when a vete of the House of Commons, moved by Mr. Burke, forced the reluctant Court of Directors to grant him a pension. He died in Bath, in 1806, æt. 84. In the account referred to he is made to state that Johnson told him that Lord Chesterfield had offered him 1007. if he would dedicate the Dictionary to his lordship, but that Johnson contemptuously decitted. "because he must have gilt a rotten post." Johnson could not have told this, for we know that he accepted 10%. from Lord Chesterfield for the dedication of the prospectus. See post, p. 524. I now more confidently believe th the general officer mentioned in p. 42. was General Fowke and that Johnson's zeal about him may have arisen from his relationship to Joseph Fowke. See ante, p. 106, n. 2.— CROKER, 1846.

he had. One evening he lost a thousand pounds to a gentleman whose name I am sorry I have forgotten. Next morning he sent the gentleman five hundred pounds, with an apology that it was all he had in the world. The gentleman sent the money back to him, declaring he would not accept of it; and adding, that if Mr. [Fowke] had occasion for five hundred pounds more, he would lend it to him. He resolved to go out again to the East Indies, and make his fortune anew. He got a considerable appointment, and I had some intention of accompanying him. Had I thought then as I do now, I should have gone: but at that time I had objections to quitting England."

It was a very remarkable circumstance about Johnson, whom shallow observers have supposed to have been ignorant of the world, that very few men had seen greater variety of characters; and none could observe them better, as was evident from the strong yet nice portraits which he often drew. I have frequently thought that, if he had made out what the French call une catalogue raisonnée of all the people who had passed under his observation, it would have afforded a very rich fund of instruction and entertainment. The suddenness with which his accounts of some of them started out in conversation was not less pleasing than surprising. I remember he once observed to me,It is wonderful, Sir, what is to be found in London. The most literary conversation that I ever enjoyed was at the table of Jack Ellis, a money-scrivener, behind the Royal Exchange, with whom I at one period used to dine generally once a week.”1

Volumes would be required to contain a list of his numerous and various acquaintance, none of whom he ever forgot; and could describe and discriminate them all with precision and vivacity. He associated with persons the most widely different in manners, abilities, rank, and accomplishments. He was at once the companion of the brilliant Colonel Forrester of the

1 This Mr. Ellis was, I believe, the last of that profession called scriveners, which is one of the London companies, but of which the business is no longer carried on separately, but is transacted by attorneys and others. He was a man of literature and talents. He was the author of a Hudibrastic version of Maphæus's Canto, in addition to the Eneid; of sone poems in Dodsley's collection, and various other small pieces; but, being a very modest man, never put his name to any thing. He showed me a translation which he had made of Ovid's Epistles, very prettily done. There is a good engraved portrait of him by Pether, from a picture by Fry, which hangs in the hall of the Scriveners' company. visited him October 4. 1790, in his ninety-third year, and found his judgment distinct and clear, and his memory, though faded so as to fail him occasionally, yet, as he assured me and I indeed perceived, able to serve him very well, after a little recollection. It was agreeable to observe, that he was free from the discontent and fretfulness which too often molest old age. Ile, in the summer of that year, walked to Rotherhithe, where he dined, and walked home in the evening. He died Dec. 31. 1791.- BOSWELL.

Lord Macartney, who, with his other distinguished quali ties, is remarkable also for an elegant pleasantry, told me that he met Johnson at Lady Craven's, and that he seemed jealous 6 any interference. So," said his lordship, smiling, “I kept back."- BoswELL.

This is somewhat 'exaggerated (see antè, p. 79. n. 1). His polite acquaintance did not extend much beyond the Circle of Mr. Thrale, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and the inembers

guards, who wrote "The Polite Philosopher," and of the awkward and uncouth Robert Levett; of Lord Thurlow, and Mr. Sastres, the Italian master; and has dined one day with the beautiful, gay, and fascinating Lady Craven2, and the next with good Mrs. Gardiner, the tallow-chandler, on Snow-hill.3

On my expressing my wonder at his discovering so much of the knowledge peculiar to different professions, he told me, "I learnt what I know of law chiefly from Mr. Ballow 4, a very able man. I learnt some too from Chambers; but was not so teachable then. One is not willing to be taught by a young man." When I expressed a wish to know more about Mr. Ballow, Johnson said, "Sir, I have seen him but once these twenty years. The tide of life has driven us different ways." I was sorry at the time to hear this; but whoever quits the creeks of private connections, and fairly gets into the great ocean of London, will, by imperceptible degrees, unvoidably experience such cessations of acquaintance.

66

My knowledge of physic," he added, “I learnt from Dr. James, whom I helped in writing the proposals for his Dictionary, and also a little in the Dictionary itself. I also learnt from Dr. Lawrence, but was then grown more stubborn."

A curious incident happened to-day, while Mr. Thrale and I sat with him. Francis announced that a large packet was brought to him from the post-office, said to have come from Lisbon, and it was charged seven pounds ten shillings. He would not receive it, supposing it to be some trick, nor did he even look at it. But upon inquiry afterwards he found that it was a real packet for him, from that very friend in the East Indies of whom he had been speaking [Mr. Joseph Fowke]; and the ship which carried it having come to Portugal, this packet with others had been put into the postoffice at Lisbon.

I mentioned a new gaming club 6, of which

of the club. Of English bishops he seems to have known only Shipley and Porteus, and, except by a few visits in his latter years at the basbleur assemblies of Mrs. Montagu, Mrs. Vesey, and Mrs. Ord, we do not trace him in any thing like fashionable society. This seems strange to us; for happily, in our day, a literary man of much less than Johnson's eminence would be courted into the highest and most brilliant circles. Lord Wellesley recollected, with regret, the little notice, compared with his posthumous reputation, which the fashionable world seemed to take of Johnson. He was known as a great writer; but his social and conversational powers were not so generally appreciated. CROKER.

4 There is an account of him in Sir John Hawkins's Life of Johnson, p. 244. Mr. Thomas Ballow was author of an excellent Treatise of Equity, printed anonymously in 1742, and lately republished, with very valuable additions, by John Fonblanque, Esq. Mr. Ballow died suddenly in London, July 26. 1782, aged seventy-five, and is mentioned in the Gentleman's Magazine for that year as a great Greek scholar, and famous for his knowledge of the old philosophy."— MA

LONE.

5 I have in vain endeavoured to find out what parts Johnson wrote for Dr. James; perhaps medical inen may.- BOSWELL. 6 Almack's. Lord Lauderdale informed me that Mr. Fox told him, that the deepest play he had ever known was about this period, between the year 1772 and the beginning of the American war. Lord Lauderdale instanced 50007. being staked on a single card at faro, and he talked of 70,0001. lost and won in a night.. -CROKER.

Mr. Beauclerk had given me an account, where the members played to a desperate extent. JOHNSON. 66 'Depend upon it, Sir, this is mere talk. Who is ruined by gaming? You will not find six instances in an age. There is a strange rout made about deep play; whereas you have many more people ruined by adventurous trade, and yet we do not hear such an outery against it." THRALE. "There may be few absolutely ruined by deep play; but very many are much hurt in their circumstances by it." JOHNSON. "Yes, Sir, and so are very many by other kinds of expense." I had heard him talk once before in the same manner; and at Oxford he said, "he wished he had learned to play at cards. The truth, however, is, that he loved to display his ingenuity in argument; and therefore would sometimes in conversation maintain opinions which he was sensible were wrong, but in supporting which, his reasoning and wit would be most conspicuous. He would begin thus: Why Sir, as to the good or evil of card playing- ""Now," said Garrick, "he is thinking which side he shall take." He appeared to have a pleasure in contradiction, especially when any opinion whatever was delivered with an air of confidence; so that there was hardly any topic, if not one of the great truths of religion and morality, that he might not have been incited to argue either for or against. Lord Elibank had the highest admiration of his powers. He once observed to me, "Whatever opinion Johnson maintains, I will not say that he convinces me; but he never fails to show me that he had good reasons for it." I have heard Johnson pay his lordship this high compliment: "I never was in Lord Elibank's company without learning something."

6

We sat together till it was too late for the afternoon service. Thrale said, he had come with the intention to go to church with us. We went at seven to evening prayers at St. Clement's church, after having drunk coffee; an indulgence which I understand Johnson yielded to on this occasion, in compliment to Thrale.3

On Sunday, April 7th, Easter-day, after having been at St. Paul's cathedral, I came to Dr. Johnson, according to my usual custom. It seemed to me, that there was always something particularly mild and placid in his

1 See ante, p. 405.-C.

Patrick Lord Elibank, who died in 1778. - BOSWELL.

3 This day he himself thus records: "Though for the past week I have had an anxious design of communicating to-day, I performed no particular act of devotion, till on Friday I went to church. I fasted, though less rigorously than at other times. I, by negligence, poured milk into the tea, and, in the afternoon, drank one dish of coffee with Thrale; yet at night, after a fit of drowsiness, I felt myself very much disordered by emptiness, and called for tea with peevish and impatient eagerness. My distress was very great." Pr. and Med. p. 145. CROKER.

4Yet with what different colours he paints his own state at this moment!" The time is again [come] at which, since the death of my poor dear Tetty, on whom God have mercy, I have annually commemorated the mystery of redemption,

manner upon this holy festival, the commemoration of the most joyful event in the history of our world, the resurrection of our Lord and Saviour, who, having triumphed over death and the grave, proclaimed immortality to mankind."

I repeated to him an argument of a lady of my acquaintance, who maintained, that her husband's having been guilty of numberless infidelities, released her from conjugal obligations, because they were reciprocal. JOHNSON. "This is miserable stuff, Sir. To the contract i of marriage, besides the man and wife, there is a third party - society; and if it be considered as a vow- God: and, therefore, it cannot be dissolved by their consent alone. Laws are not made for particular cases, but for men in general. A woman may be unhappy with her husband; but she cannot be freed from him without the approbation of the civil and ecclesiastical power. A man may be unhappy, because he is not so rich as another; but he is not to seize upon another's property | with his own hand." BOSWELL. "But, Sir, this lady does not want that the contract should be dissolved; she only argues that she may indulge herself in gallantries with equal freedom as her husband does, provided she takes care not to introduce a spurious issue into his family. You know, sir, what Macrobius has told of Julia.5 JOHNSON. lady of yours, Sir, I think, is very fit for a brothel."

"This

Mr. Macbean, author of the "Dictionary of Ancient Geography," came in. He mentioned that he had been forty years absent from Scotland. "Ah, Boswell!" said Johnson smiling, "what would you give to be forty years from Scotland?" I said, "I should not like to be so long absent from the seat of my ancestors." This gentleman, Mrs. Williams, and Mr. Levett dined with us.

Dr. Johnson made a remark, which both Mr. Macbean and I thought new. It was this; that "the law against usury is for the protec tion of creditors as well as debtors; for if there were no such check, people would be apt, from the temptation of great interest, to lend to desperate persons, by whom they would lose their money. Accordingly, there are instances of ladies being ruined, by having injudiciously sunk their fortunes for high annuities, which, after a few years, ceased to be

and annually purposed to amend my life. My reigning sin to which perhaps many others are appendant, is waste al time, and general sluggishness, to which I was always inclined, and, in part of my life, have been almost compelled by morbid melancholy and disturbance of mind. Melancholy has had in me its paroxysms and remissions, but I have DX improved the intervals, nor sufficiently resisted my naturai inclination, or sickly habits." He adds, however: In the morning I had at church some radiations of comfort "—Pr. and Med. p. 145. The habitual state of mind revealed in this and the preceding note, was no doubt the unsuspected cause of many of those peevish, unjust, and offensive observations which Johnson's biographers have too often to record. CROKER, 1846.

5 Nunquam enim nisi navi plenâ tollo vectorem."— Lib ii. c. v BOSWELL.

paid, in consequence of the ruined circumstances of the borrower."

Mrs. Williams was very peevish; and I wondered at Johnson's patience with her now, as I had often done on similar occasions. The truth is, that his humane consideration of the forlorn and indigent state in which this lady was left by her father induced him to treat her with the utmost tenderness, and even to be desirous of procuring her amusement, so as sometimes to incommode many of his friends, by carrying her with him to their houses, where, from her manner of eating, in consequence of her blindness, she could not but offend the delicacy of persons of nice sensations.

After coffee, we went to afternoon service in St. Clement's church. Observing some beggars in the street as we walked along, I said to him, I supposed there was no civilised country in the world where the misery of want in the lowest classes of the people was prevented. JOHNSON. "I believe, Sir, there is not; but it is better that some should be unhappy, than that none should be happy, which would be the case in a general state of equality."

When the service was ended, I went home with him, and we sat quietly by ourselves. He recommended Dr. Cheyne's books. I said, I thought Cheyne had been reckoned whimsical. So he was," said he," in some things; but there is no end of objections. There are | few books to which some objection or other may not be made." He added, "I would not have you read any thing else of Cheyne, but his book on Health, and his English Malady.'" Upon the question whether a man who had been guilty of vicious actions would do well to force himself into solitude and sadness? JOHNSON. "No, Sir, unless it prevent him from being vicious again. With some people, gloomy penitence is only madness turned upside down. A man may be gloomy, till, in order to be relieved from gloom, he has recourse again to criminal indulgences."

On Wednesday, 10th April, I dined with him at Mr. Thrale's, where were Mr. Murphy and some other company. Before dinner, Dr. Johnson and I passed some time by ourselves. I was sorry to find it was now resolved that the proposed journey to Italy should not take place this year. He said, "I am disappointed, to be sure; but it is not a great disappointment." I wondered to see

That he cordially assented to the reasons which operated on the minds of Mr. and Mrs. Thrale to postpone the journey, appears from his letter to the lady: April 9. 1776. Mr. Thrale's alteration of purpose is not weakness of resolution; it is a wise man's compliance with the change of things, and with the new duties which the change produces. Whoever expects me to be angry will be disappointed. I do not even grieve at the effect; I only grieve for the cause." His desire, however, to go abroad was, says Mrs. Piozzi, “very great; and he had a longing wish to leave some Latin verses at the Grand Chartreux (anta, p. 465, n. 4), as Gray had done."—

CROKER.

2 He probably may have had some idea of accompanying

him bear, with a philosophical calmness, what would have made most people peevish and fretful. I perceived that he had so warmly cherished the hope of enjoying classical scenes, that he could not easily part with the scheme; for he said, "I shall probably contrive to get to Italy some other way. But I won't mention it to Mr. and Mrs. Thrale, as it might vex them." I suggested that going to Italy might have done Mr. and Mrs. Thrale good. JOHNSON. "I rather believe not, Sir. While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till grief be digested, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it."

At dinner, Mr. Murphy entertained us with the history of Mr. Joseph Simpson, a schoolfellow of Dr. Johnson's, [p. 117.] a barrister at law, of good parts, but who fell into a dissipated course of life, incompatible with that success in his profession which he once had, and would otherwise have deservedly maintained; yet he still preserved a dignity in his deportment. He wrote a tragedy on the story of Leonidas, entitled "The Patriot." He read it to a company of lawyers, who found so many faults that he wrote it over again: so then there were two tragedies on the same subject and with the same title. Dr. Johnson told us, that one of them was still in his possession. This very piece was, after his death, published by some person who had been about him, and for the sake of a little hasty profit, was fallaciously advertised so as to make it be believed to have been written by Johnson himself.

I said, I disliked the custom which some people had of bringing their children into company, because it in a manner forced us to pay foolish compliments to please their parents. JOHNSON. "You are right, Sir. We may be excused for not caring much about other people's children, for there are many who care very little about their own children. It may be observed, that men who, from being engaged in business, or from their course of life in whatever way, seldom see their children, do not care much about them. I myself should not have had much fondness for a child of my own." MRS. THrale. Nay, Sir, how can you talk so?" JOHNSON. "At least, I never wished to have a child."

66

Mr. Murphy mentioned Dr. Johnson's having a design to publish an edition of Cowley. Johnson said, he did not know but he should; and expressed his disapprobation of Dr. Hurd,

his friend Mr. Saunders Welsh, who went to Italy in the May of this year. See antè, p. 458., and post, p. 567.-CROKER.

3 It seems strange that Mr. and Mrs. Thrale should have given a dinner to "company" on the 10th of April, in less than three weeks from the death of their poor boy, and that even Boswell's indiscretion, or Johnson's inattention, could have led to so painful a topic as "fondness for a child."— CROKER, 1847.

4 Yet Miss Hawkins tells us," that he was kind to children in his own way; my father seldom observed me with him without recollecting the lion dangling the kid."— Mem. i. 23. - CROKER.