I used to slink home when I had drunk too much. A man accustomed to self-examination will be conscious when he is drunk, though an habitual drunkard will not be conscious of it. I knew a physician', who for twenty years was not sober; yet in a pamphlet, which he wrote upon fevers, he appealed to Garrick and me for his vindication from a charge of drunkenness. A bookseller (naming him), who got a large fortune by trade, was so habitually and equably drunk, that his most intimate friends never perceived that he was more sober at one time than another."

Talking of celebrated and successful irregular practisers in physic, he said, “Taylor 3 was the most ignorant man I ever knew, but sprightly; Ward, the dullest. Taylor challenged me once to talk Latin with him," laughing. "I quoted some of Horace, which he took to be a part of my own speech. He said a few words well enough." BEAUCLERK. "I remember, Sir, you said, that Taylor was an instance how far impudence could carry ignorance." Mr. Beauclerk was very entertaining this day, and told us a number of short stories in a lively elegant manner, and with that air of the world which has I know not what impressive effect, as if there were something more than is expressed, or than perhaps we could perfectly understand. As Johnson and I accompanied Sir Joshua Reynolds in his coach, Johnson said, "There is in Beauclerk a predominance over his company, that one does not like. But he is a man who has lived so much in the world, that he has a short story on every occasion: he is always ready to talk, and is never exhausted."

Johnson and I passed the evening at Miss Reynolds's, Sir Joshua's sister. I mentioned that an eminent friend of ours, talking of the common remark, that affection descends, said, that "this was wisely contrived for the preservation of mankind; for which it was not so necessary that there should be affection from children to parents, as from parents to children; nay, there would be no harm in that view, though children should at a certain age eat their parents." JOHNSON. "But, Sir, if this were known generally to be the case, parents would not have affection for children." BOSWELL. True, Sir; for it is in expectation of a return that parents are so attentive to their children; and I know a very pretty instance of a little girl of whom her father was very fond, who once, when he was in a melancholy fit, and had gone to bed, persuaded him

Dr. James, the inventor of the celebrated fever powders. -WRIGHT.

This was Andrew Millar, of whom, when talking one day of the patronage the great sometimes affect to give to literature and literary men, Johnson said, "Andrew Millar is the Maecenas of the age." Hawk. Apoph. p. 200.- CROKER.

The Chevalier Taylor, the celebrated oculist.-MALONE. 4 Dr. Joshua Ward, the celebrated quack, first began to practise physic about the year 1733, and combated, for some tion, the united efforts of wit, learning, argument, and ridicule He died in 1761. WRIGHT.

to rise in good humour by saying, 'My dear papa, please to get up, and let me help you on with your clothes, that I may learn to do it when you are an old man.""

Soon after this time a little incident occurred, which I will not suppress, because I am desirous that my work should be, as much as is consistent with the strictest truth, an antidote to the false and injurious notions of his character, which have been given by others, and therefore I infuse every drop of genuine sweetness into my biographical cup.

BOSWELL TO JOHNSON.

"South Audley Street, Monday, April 2 "MY DEAR SIR, — I am in great pain with an inflamed foot, and obliged to keep my bed, so am prevented from having the pleasure to dine at Mr. Ramsay's to-day, which is very hard; and my spirits are sadly sunk. Will you be so friendly as to come and sit an hour with me in the evening? I am ever yours, &c., JAMES BOSWELL."

JOHNSON TO BOSWELL.

"Harley Street "MR. JOHNSON laments the absence of Mr. Boswell, and will come to him."

He came to me in the evening, and brought Sir Joshua Reynolds. I need scarcely say, that their conversation, while they sat by my bedside, was the most pleasing opiate to pain that could have been administered.

Johnson being now better disposed to obtain | information concerning Pope than he was last year [p. 613.], sent by me to my Lord Marchmont a present of those volumes of his "Lives of the Poets" which were at this time published, with a request to have permission to wait on him; and his lordship, who had called on him twice, obligingly appointed Saturday, the 1st of May, for receiving us.

On that morning Johnson came to me from Streatham, and after drinking chocolate at General Paoli's in South Audley Street, we proceeded to Lord Marchmont's in Curzon Street. His lordship met us at the door of his library, and with great politeness said to Johnson, "I am not going to make an encomium upon myself, by telling you the high respect I have for you, Sir." Johnson was exceedingly courteous; and the interview, which lasted about two hours, during which the earl communicated his anecdotes of Pope, was as agreeable as I could have wished.10 "When we came out, I said to Johnson, “that, considering

his lordship's civility, I should have been vexed if he had again failed to come." "Sir," said he, "I would rather have given twenty pounds than not have come." I accompanied him to Streatham, where we dined, and returned to town in the evening.

On Monday, May 3., I dined with him at Mr. Dilly's. I pressed him this day for his opinion on the passage in Parnell, concerning which I had in vain questioned him in several letters, and at length obtained it in due form of law.

- Mr. Green has informed me

that you are much better; I hope I need not tell you that I am glad of it. I cannot boast of being much better; my old nocturnal complaint still pursues me, and my respiration is difficult, though much easier than when I left you the summer be

May 3. 1779.

passage:

To clear this doubt, to know the world by sight,

To find if books and swains report it right (For yet by swains alone the world he knew, Whose feet came wand'ring o'er the nightly dew).'

"Is there not a contradiction in its being first supposed that the Hermit knew both what books and swains reported of the world; yet afterwards said, that he knew it by swains alone ?"

"I think it an inaccuracy. He mentions two instructors in the first line, and says he had only

one in the next.”1

This evening I set out for Scotland.

[JOHNSON TO MRS. ASTON. "May 4. 1779.

"DEAR MADAM, When I sent you the little books, I was not sure that you were well enough to take the trouble of reading them, but have lately heard from Mr. Greeves that you are much recovered. I hope you will gain more and more strength, and live many and many years, and I shall come again to Stowhill, and live as I used to do, with you and dear Mrs. Gastrell.

"I am not well: my nights are very troublesome, and my breath is short; but I know not that it grows much worse. I wish to see you. Mrs. Harvey has just sent to me to dine with her, and I have promised to wait on her to-morrow.

"Mr. Green comes home loaded with curiosities, and will be able to give his friends new entertainment. When I come, it will be great en

kind of a man was Mr. Pope in his conversation?" His lordship answered, "That if the conversation did not take something of a lively or epigrammatic turn, he fell asleep, or, perhaps, pretended to be so." - CROKER.

"I do not," says Mr. Malone, "see any difficulty in this passage, and wonder that Dr. Johnson should have acknow. ledged it to be inaccurate. The Hermit, it should be observed, had no actual experience of the world whatsoever: all his knowledge concerning it had been obtained in two ways; from books, and from the relations of those country swains who had seen a little of it. The plain meaning, therefore, is, To clear his doubts concerning Providence, and to obtain some knowledge of the world by actual experience; to see whether the accounts furnished by books, or by the oral communications of swains, were just representations of it;'[I say strains,] for his oral or viva voce information had been obtained from that part of mankind alone, &c. The word alone here does not relate to the whole of the preceding line, as has been supposed, but, by a common licence, to

son.

Pemb. MSS.

He had, before I left London, resumed the conversation concerning the appearance of a ghost at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, which Mr. John Wesley believed, but to which Johnson did not give credit. I was, however, desirous to examine the question closely, and at the same time wished to be made acquainted with Mr. John Wesley; for though I differed from him in some points, I admired his various talents, and loved his pious zeal. At my request, therefore, Dr. Johnson gave me a letter of introduction to him.

the words, of all mankind, which are understood, and of which it is restrictive." Mr. Malone, it must be owned, has shown much critical ingenuity in his explanation of this passage. His interpretation, however, seems to me much too recondite. The meaning of the passage may be certain enough; but surely the expression is confused, and one part of it contradictory to the other. - BOSWELL.

It is odd enough that these critics did not think it worth their while to consult the original for the exact words on which they were exercising their ingenuity. Parnell's words are not, "if books AND swains," but, "if books OR swains,” which might mean, not that books and swains agreed, but that they differed, and that the Hermit's doubt was excited by the difference between his instructors. There is, no doubt, a clumsy ambiguity in the expression, but the meaning obviously is that, of men, he knew swains only. - CROKER. 2 Mr. Green, it will be recollected, had a museum at Lichfield. CROKER.

him, and was very politely received. I begged to have it returned to me, which was accordingly done. His state of the evidence as to the ghost did not satisfy me.'

[JOHNSON TO MRS. THRALE. (Extracts.)

Lichfield, May 29. 1779. "I have now been here a week, and will try to give you my journal, or such parts of it as are fit, in my mind, for communication.

"On Friday, We set out about twelve, and lay at Daventry.

"On Saturday, We dined with Rann at Coventry. He intercepted us at the town's end. I saw Tom Johnson, who had hardly life to know that I was with him. I hear he is since dead. In the evening I came to Lucy, and walked to Stowhill. Mrs. Aston was gone, or going to bed. I did not see her.

"Sunday. After dinner I went to Stowhill, and was very kindly received. At night I saw my old friend Brodhurst - you know him- the playfellow of my infancy, and gave him a guinea.

Wednesday, Thursday. — I had a few visits, from Peter Garrick among the rest, and dined at Stowhill. My breath very short.

66

- Mrs. Aston took me out in her

Friday. I dined at Stowhill. Saturday. chaise, and was very kind. I dined with Mrs. Cobb, and came to Lucy, with whom I found, as I had done the first day, Lady Smith and Miss Vyse."

Ashbourne, June 14. 1779. "Your account of Mr. Thrale's illness is very terrible; but when I remember that he seems to have it peculiar to his constitution that whatever distemper he has, he always has his head affected- I am less frighted. The seizure was, I think, not apoplectical, but hysterical, and therefore not dangerous to life. I would have you, however, consult such physicians as you think you can best trust. Bromfield seems to have done well, and, by his practice, seems not to suspect an apoplexy. That is a solid and fundamental comfort. I remember Dr. Marsigli, an Italian physician, whose seizure was more violent than Mr. Thrale's, for he fell down helpless; but his case was not considered as of much danger, and he went safe home, and is now a professor at Padua. His fit was considered as only hysterical."

Ashbourne, June 17. 1779." It is certain that your first letter did not alarm me in proportion to the danger, for indeed it did not describe the

1 Dr. Johnson made this year his annual excursion into the midland counties, of which he, as usual, gave Mrs. Thrale an account in several letters; but his visit was shortened by the alarming illness of Mr. Thrale. - CROKER.

2 A serious apoplectic attack, which was the precursor of another of the same nature, which terminated his existence in the course of the ensuing year. CROKER.

3 To assist in keeping the patient's mind easy, he considerately wrote him the next letter.- CROKER, 1847.

danger as it was. I am glad that you have Heberden; and hope his restoratives and his preservatives will both be effectual. In the preservatives, dear Mr. Thrale must concur ; yet what can he reform? or what can he add to his regularity and temperance? He can only sleep less. We will do, however, all we can. I go to Lich field to-morrow, with intent to hasten to Streatham.

"Both Mrs. Aston and Dr. Taylor have had strokes of the palsy. The lady was sixty-eight, and at that age has gained ground upon it; the doctor is, you know, not young, and he is quite cant arm. well, only suspicious of every sensation in the pee. I hope my dear master's case is yet will be more perfect. Let him keep his thoughts slighter, and that, as his age is less, his recovery diverted, and his mind easy."

-Letters.

JOHNSON TO THRALE.

"Lichfield, June 23. 1779. "DEAR SIR,- To show you how well I think of your health, I have sent you an hundred pounds to keep for me. It will come within one day of quarter-day, and that day you must give me. I came by it in a very uncommon manner', and would not confound it with the rest.

"My wicked mistress talks as if she thought i possible for me to be indifferent or negligent about your health or hers. If I could have done any good, I had not delayed an hour to come to you, and I will come very soon to try if my advice can be of any use, or my company of any entertain

ment.s

"What can be done, you must do for yourself. Do not let any uneasy thought settle in your mind. Cheerfulness and exercise are your great remedies. Nothing is for the present worth your anxiety. Vivere læti is one of the great rules of

health.

I believe it will be good to ride often, but never to weariness; for weariness is itself a temporary resolution of the nerves, and is therefore to be avoided. Labour is exercise continued to fatigue; exercise is labour used only while it produces pleasure.

"Above all, keep your mind quiet. Do not think with earnestness even of your health, but think on such things as may please without too much agitation; among which, I hope, is, dear Sir, your, &c., SAM. JOHNSON." -Letters.

faction by receiving your kind letter of inquiry, for which I most gratefully thank you. I am doubtful if it was right to make the experiment; though I have gained by it. I was beginning to grow tender, and to upbraid myself, especially after having dreamt two nights ago that I was with you. I, and my wife, and my four children, are all well. I would not delay one post to answer your letter; but as it is late, I have not time to do more. shall soon hear from me, upon many and various particulars; and I shall never again put you to any I am, with veneration, my dear Sir, your, test. JAMES BOSWELL."

Commons. field.

· Philip Astley..

Infidels. - Irish Union. "The Ambassador says well."

I DID not write to Johnson, as usual, upon my return to my family; but tried how he would be affected by my silence. Mr. Dilly sent me a copy of a note which he received from him on the 13th of July, in these words;

JOHNSON TO DILLY.

"SIR, Since Mr. Boswell's departure, I have never heard from him. Please to send word what you know of him, and whether you have sent my books to his lady. I am, &c.,

"SAM. JOHNSON."

You

On the 22d of July, I wrote to him again; and gave him an account of my last interview with my worthy friend, Mr. Edward Dilly, at his brother's house at Southill in Bedfordshire, where he died soon after I parted from him, leaving me a very kind remembrance of his regard.

I informed him that Lord Hailes, who had promised to furnish him with some anecdotes for his "Lives of the Poets," had sent me three instances of Prior's borrowing from Gombauld, in Recueil des Poètes, tome 3. Epigram "To John I owed great obligation," p. 25. the Duke of Noailles," p. 32. Jack and idle Joan," p. 35.

JOHNSON TO BOSWELL.

"July 13. 1779. “DEAR SIR, —What can possibly have happened, that keeps us two such strangers to each other? I expected to have heard from you when you came home; I expected afterwards. I went into the country and returned; and yet there is no letter from Mr. Boswell. No ill, I hope, has happened; and if ill should happen, why should it be concealed from him who loves you? Is it a fit of humour, that has disposed you to try who can hold out longest without writing? If it be, you have the victory. But I am afraid of something bad; set me free from my suspicions.

"My thoughts are at present employed in guessing the reason of your silence: you must not expect that I should tell you any thing, if I had any thing to tell. Write, pray write to me, and let me know what is or what has been the cause of this long interruption. I am, dear Sir, your most affectionate humble servant, SAM. JOHNSON."

BOSWELL TO JOHNSON.

“Edinburgh, July 17. 1779.

“My dear Sir, — What may be justly denominated a supine indolence of mind has been my state of existence since I last returned to Scotland. In a livelier state I had often suffered severely from long intervals of silence on your part; and I had even been chid by you for expressing my uneasi. ness. I was willing to take advantage of my in

sensibility, and while I could bear the experiment, to try whether your affection for me would, after an unusual silence on my part, make you write first. This afternoon I have had a very high satis

JOHNSON TO BOSWELL.

"Streatham, Sept. 9. 1779. "MY DEAR SIR,- Are you playing the same trick again, and trying who can keep silence longest? Remember that all tricks are either knavish or childish; and that it is as foolish to make experiments upon the constancy of a friend, as upon the chastity of a wife.

"What can be the cause of this second fit of silence, I cannot conjecture; but after one trick, I will not be cheated by another, nor will harass my thoughts with conjectures about the motives of a man who, probably, acts only by caprice. I therefore suppose you are well, and that Mrs. Boswell is well too, and that the fine summer has restored Lord Auchinleck. I am much better than you left me; I think I am better than when I was in Scotland.

"I forgot whether I informed you that poor Thrale has been in great danger. Mrs. Thrale likewise has miscarried, and been much indisposed. Every body else is well. Langton is in camp. I into another edition, and, as I know his accuracy, intend to put Lord Hailes's description of Dryden1 wish he would consider the dates, which I could not always settle to my own mind.

Michaelmas, to be jolly and ride a-hunting. I shall "Mr. Thrale goes to Brighthelmstone, about go to town, or perhaps to Oxford.

Exercise and

1 Which I communicated to him from his Lordship, but it has not yet been published. I have a copy of it. - BOSWELL. The few notices concerning Dryden, which Lord Hailes had collected, Mr. Boswell afterwards gave me. MALONE.

[" September, 1779. "On the 17th, Mr. Chamier took me away with him from Streatham. I left the servants a guinea for my health, and was content enough to escape into a house where my birth-day, not being known, could not be mentioned. I sat up till midnight was past, and the day of a new year-a very awful day began. I prayed to God, who had safely brought me to the beginning of another year, but could not perfectly recollect the prayer, and supplied it. Such desertions of memory I have always When I arose on the 18th, I think I prayed again, then walked with my friend into his grounds. When I came back, after some time passed in the library, finding myself oppressed by sleepiness, I retired to my chamber, where by lying down, and a short imperfect slumber, I was refreshed, and prayed as the night before. I then dined and trifled in the parlour and library, and was freed from a scruple about Horace. At last I went to bed, having first composed a prayer.

had.

19th, Sunday. I went to church and attended the service. I found at church a time to use my prayer, ‹ O Lord, have mercy, &c.'” 2 — Prayers and Med., p. 222.]

My readers will not be displeased at being told every slight circumstance of the manner in which Dr. Johnson contrived to amuse his solitary hours. He sometimes employed himself in chemistry, sometimes in watering and pruning a vine, sometimes in small experiments, at which those who may smile should recollect that there are moments which admit of being soothed only by trifles.3

On the 20th of September I defended myself against his suspicion of me, which I did not deserve; and added, "Pray let us write frequently. A whim strikes me, that we should send off a sheet once a week, like a stagecoach, whether it be full or not; nay, though it should be empty. The very sight of your handwriting would comfort me; and were a sheet to be thus sent regularly, we should much oftener convey something, were it only a few kind words.

1 It appears by the extract from his Prayers and Meditations, that he went for a few days with his friend Antony Chamier, (antè, 521. n. 3.) to his villa, near Epsom: glad "to escape to a house where his birthday (18th Sept.) could not be mentioned. - CROKER, 1847.

I do not find any prayer in the printed collection beginning with these precise words. CROKER, 1847.

3 In one of his manuscript Diaries, there is the following entry, which marks his curious minute attention:-" July 26. 1768. I shaved my nail by accident in whetting the knife, about an eighth of an inch from the bottom, and about a fourth from the top. This I measure that I may know the growth of nails; the whole is about five eighths of an inch." Another of the same kind appears August 7. 1779:" Partem brachii dextri carpo proximam et cutem pectoris circa mamillam dextram rasi, ut notum fieret quanto temporis pili renovarentur." And," August 15. 1783-I cut from the vine forty-one leaves, which weighed five ounces and a half, and eight scruples: I lay them upon my bookcase, to see what weight they will lose by drying. -BOSWELL. "Dr. Johnson was always exceeding fond of chemistry; and we made up a sort of laboratory

My friend, Colonel James Stuart, second son of the Earl of Bute, who had distinguished himself as a good officer of the Bedfordshire militia, had taken a public-spirited resolution to serve his country in its difficulties, by rais ing a regular regiment, and taking the com mand of it himself. This, in the heir of the immense property of Wortley, was highly honourable. Having been in Scotland recruiting, he obligingly asked me to accompany him to Leeds, then the head-quarters of his corps; from thence to London for a short time, and afterwards to other places to which the regi ment might be ordered. Such an offer, at a time of the year when I had full leisure, was very pleasing; especially as I was to accompany a man of sterling good sense, information, discernment, and conviviality, and was to bave a second crop, in one year, of London and Johnson. Of this I informed my illustrious friend in characteristical warm terms in a letter dated the 30th of September, from Leeds.

On Monday, October 4., I called at his house before he was up. He sent for me to his bedside, and expressed his satisfaction at this incidental meeting, with as much vivacity as if he had been in the gaiety of youth. He called briskly, Frank, go and get coffee, and let us breakfast in splendour."

During this visit to London, I had several interviews with him, which it is unnecessary to distinguish particularly. I consulted him as to the appointment of guardians to my children in case of my death. "Sir," said he, "do not appoint a number of guardians. When there are many, they trust one to another, and the business is neglected. I would advise you to | choose only one: let him be a man of respectable character, who, for his own credit, will do what is right; let him be a rich man, so that he may be under no temptation to take advan tage; and let him be a man of business, who is used to conduct affairs with ability and expertness, to whom, therefore, the execution of the trust will not be burthensome."

[JOHNSON TO MRS. THRALE. "Oct. 8. 1779. — On Sunday the gout left my ankles, and I went very commodiously to church.

at Streatham one summer, and diverted ourselves with draw ing essences and colouring liquors. But the danger in which Mr. Thrale found his friend one day, when I had driven to Loudon, and he had got the children and servants assembled round him to see some experiments performed, put an end to all our entertainment; as Mr. Thrale was persuaded that hu short sight would have occasioned his destruction in a | moment by bringing him close to a fierce and violent dame. Indeed, it was a perpetual miracle that he did not set himself on fire reading abed, as was his constant custom, when quite unable even to keep clear of mischief with our best belp: and accordingly the foretops of all his wigs were burned by the candle down to the very network. Future experiments in chemistry, however, were too dangerous, and Mr. Thrale insisted that we should do no more towards inding the philosopher's stone.'"- Piozzi. - CROKER.

4 Colonel Stuart assumed successively the names of Wartley and Mackenzie, but was best known as Mr. Stuart Wortley He was the father of the first Lord Wharncliffe, and died in 1814. We cannot but smile at Boswell's hyperbolical applasse

of his friend's heroism. - CROKER.

L