projects." BOSWELL. "He seems to amuse himself quite well; to have his attention fixed, and his tranquillity preserved, by very small matters. I have tried this; but it would not do with me." JOHNSON (laughing). "No, Sir; it must be born with a man to be contented to take up with little things. Women have a great advantage, that they may take up with little things without disgracing themselves; a man cannot, except with fiddling. Had I learnt to fiddle, I should have done nothing else." BoSWELL. "Pray, Sir, did you ever play on any musical instrument?" JOHNSON. No, Sir. I once bought me a flageolet; but I never made out a tune.' BOSWELL. "A flageolet, Sir!—so small an instrument? I should have liked to hear you play on the violoncello. That should have been your instrument." JOHNSON. "Sir, I might as well have played on the violoncello as another; but I should have done nothing else. No, Sir; a man would never undertake great things, could he be amused with small. I once tried knotting. Dempster's sister undertook to teach me; but I could not learn it." BOSWELL. "So, Sir; it will be related in pompous narrative, 'Once for his amusement he tried knotting; nor did this Hercules disdain the distaff." JOHNSON. "Knitting of stockings is a good amusement. As a freeman of Aberdeen, I should be a knitter of stockings." He asked me to go down with him and dine at Mr. Thrale's, at Streatham, to which I agreed. I had lent him "An Account of Scotland, in 1702," written by a man of various inquiry, an English chaplain to a regiment stationed there. JOHNSON. "It is sad stuff, Sir, miserably written, as books in general then were. There is now an elegance of style universally diffused. No man now writes so ill as Martin's Account of the Hebrides' is written. A man could not write so ill, if he should try. Set a merchant's clerk now to write, and he'll do better."

He talked to me with serious concern of a

certain female friend's 2 "laxity of narration, and inattention to truth." "I am as much vexed," said he, "at the ease with which she hears it mentioned to her, as at the thing itself. I told her, Madam, you are contented to hear every day said to you, what the highest of mankind have died for, rather than bear. You know, Sir, the highest of mankind have died rather than bear to be told they had uttered a falsehood. Do talk to her of it; I am weary." BOSWELL. "Was not Dr. John Campbell a very inaccurate man in his narrative, Sir? He once told me, that he drank thirteen bottles of port at a sitting." 3 JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, I do not know that Campbell ever lied with pen and ink; but you could not entirely depend on any thing he told you in conversation, if there was fact mixed with it. However, I loved Campbell; he was a solid orthodox man; he had a reverence for religion. Though defective in practice, he was religious in principle; and he did nothing grossly wrong that I have heard." 4

I told him that I had been present the day before, when Mrs. Montagu, the literary lady, sat to Miss Reynolds for her picture; and that she said, "she had bound up Mr. Gibbon's History without the last two offensive chapters; for that she thought the book so far good, as it gave, in an elegant manner, the substance of the bad writers medii avi, which the late Lord Lyttelton advised her to read." JOHNSON. "Sir, she has not read them; she shows none of this impetuosity 5 to me; she does not know Greek, and, I fancy, knows little Latin. She is willing you should think she knows them; but she does not say she does." BOSWELL. "Mr. Harris, who was present, agreed with her." JOHNSON. "Harris was laughing at her, Sir. Harris is a sound sullen scholar; he does not like interlopers. Harris, however, is a prig, and a bad prig.6 I looked into his book, and thought he did not understand

Mrs. Thrale. Dr. Johnson is here made to say, that he was" reary of chiding her on this subject." It is, however, remarkable that in all his letters to her written certainly with equal freedom and affection-there should be no allusion of this kind. Without accusing Mr. Boswell of saing what was not true, we may suspect that on these occasms he did not tell the whole truth; and that Dr. Johnson's expressions were answers to suggestions of his own; and to nable us to judge fairly of the answer, the suggestion itself *ould have been stated. This seems the more probable from Johnson's saying "Do talk to her of it; "which would have ten a violation of all decency and friendship (considering the relative situations of Mrs. Thrale, Dr. Johnson, and Mr. Boswell), if it did not allude to some particular fact of which Boswell himself had complained. CROKER.

'Lord Macartney observes upon this passage, "I have heard him tell many things, which, though embellished by their mode of narrative, had their foundation in truth; but I tever remember any thing approaching to this. If he had written it, I should have supposed some wag had put the gure of one before the three." I am, however, absolutely

certain that Dr. Campbell told me it, and I gave particular attention to it, being myself a lover of wine, and therefore curious to hear whatever is remarkable concerning drinking. There can be no doubt that some men can drink, without suffering any injury, such a quantity as to others appears incredible. It is but fair to add, that Dr. Campbell told me, he took a very long time to this great potation; and I have heard Dr. Johnson say, "Sir, if a man drinks very slowly, and lets one glass evaporate before he takes another, I know not how long he may drink." Dr. Campbell mentioned a colonel of militia who sat with him all the time, and drank equally. BOSWELL.

4 Dr. John Campbell died about two years before this conversation took place; December 1775.- MALONE.

5 Surely the word "impetuosity" must be a mistake. -CROKER.

6 What my friend meant by these words concerning the amiable philosopher of Salisbury, 1am at a loss to understand. A friend suggests, that Johnson thought his manner as a writer affected, while at the same time the matter did not compensate for that fault. In short, that he meant to make a remark quite different from that which a celebrated gentleman made on a very eminent physician: He is a coxcomb, but a satisfactory corcomb. - BOSWELL. The celebrated gentleman here alluded to was the late Right Hon. Willian Gerard Hamilton.- MALONE.

PP

his own system." BOSWELL. "He says plain things in a formal and abstract way, to be sure; but his method is good; for to have clear notions upon any subject, we must have recourse to analytic arrangement." JOHNSON. "Sir, it is what every body does, whether they will or no. But sometimes things may be made darker by definition. I see a cow. I define her, Animal quadrupes ruminans cornutum. But a goat ruminates, and a cow may have no horns. Cow is plainer." BOSWELL. "I think Dr. Franklin's definition of Man a good one-A tool-making animal."" JOHN"But many a man never made a tool; and suppose a man without arms, he could not make a tool."

SON.

Talking of drinking wine, he said, "I did not leave off wine because I could not bear it; I have drunk three bottles of port without being the worse for it. University College has witnessed this." BOSWELL. "Why, then, Sir, did you leave it off?" JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, because it is so much better for a man to be sure that he is never to be intoxicated, never to lose the power over himself. I shall not begin to drink wine again till I grow old, and want it." BOSWELL. "I think, Sir, you once said to me, that not to drink wine was a great deduction from life." | JOHNSON. "It is a diminution of pleasure, to be sure; but I do not say a diminution of happiness. There is more happiness in being rational." BOSWELL. "But if we could have pleasure always, should not we be happy? The greatest part of men would compound for pleasure." JOHNSON. Supposing we could have pleasure always, an intellectual man would not compound for it. The greatest part of men would compound, because the greatest part of men are gross." BOSWELL. "I allow there may be greater pleasure than from wine. I have had more pleasure from your conversation. I have, indeed; I assure you I have." JOHNSON. "When we talk of pleasure, we mean sensual pleasure. When a man says he had pleasure with a woman, he does not mean conversation, but something of a different nature. Philosophers tell you, that pleasure is contrary to happiness. Gross men prefer animal pleasure. So there are men who have preferred living among savages. Now, what a wretch must he be, who is content with such conversation as can be had among savages! You may remember an officer at Fort Augustus, who had served in America, told us of a woman whom they were obliged to bind, in order to get her back from savage life." BOSWELL. "She must have been an animal, a beast." JOHNSON. "Sir, she was a speaking cat."

I mentioned to him that I had become very weary in company where I heard not a single

1 See post, sub 17 April, 1778.-C.

2 He was now in his seventieth year. - CROKER.

intellectual sentence, except that "a man who had been settled ten years in Minorca was become a much inferior man to what he was in London, because a man's mind grows narrow in a narrow place." JOHNSON. “A man's mind grows narrow in a narrow place, whose mind is enlarged only because he has lived in a large place; but what is got by books and thinking is preserved in a narrow place as well as in a large place. A man cannot know modes of life as well in Minorca as in London; but he may study mathematics as well in Minorca." BOSWELL. "I don't know, Sir; if you had remained ten years in the Isle of Col, you would not have been the man that you now are." JOHNSON. "Yes, Sir, if I had been there from fifteen to twentyfive; but not if from twenty-five to thirtyfive." BOSWELL. "I own, Sir, the spirits which I have in London make me do every thing with more readiness and vigour. I can talk twice as much in London as any where else."

Of Goldsmith, he said, "He was not an agreeable companion, for he talked always for fame. A man who does so never can be pleasing. The man who talks to unburden his mind is the man to delight you. An eminent friend of ours3 is not so agreeable as the variety of his knowledge would otherwise make him, because he talks partly from ostentation"

Soon after our arrival at Thrale's, I heard one of the maids calling eagerly on another to go to Dr. Johnson. I wondered what this could mean. I afterwards learnt, that it was to give her a Bible, which he had brought from London as a present to her.

He was for a considerable time occupied in reading "Mémoires de Fontenelle," leaning and swinging upon the low gate into the court, without his hat.

I looked into Lord Kaimes's "Sketches of the History of Man ;" and mentioned to Dr. Johnson his censure of Charles V., for celebrating his funeral obsequies in his lifetime, which, I told him, I had been used to think a solemn and affecting act." JOHNSON. “Why, Sir, a man may dispose his mind to think so of that act of Charles; but it is so liable to ridicule, that if one man out of ten thousand laughs at it, he'll make the other nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine laugh too." I could not agree with him in this.

Sir John Pringle had expressed a wish that I would ask Dr. Johnson's opinion what were the best English sermons for style. I took an opportunity to-day of mentioning several to him. Atterbury?" JOHNSON, “Yes, Sir, one of the best." BOSWELL. "Tillotson ?" JOHNSON. "Why, not now. I should not advise a preacher at this day to imitate Tillot

3 Mr. Burke. CROKER.

son's style; though I don't know; I should be cautious of objecting to what has been applauded by so many suffrages.-South is one of the best, if you except his peculiarities, and his violence, and sometimes coarseness of language.-Seed has a very fine style; but he is not very theological.-Jortin's sermons are very elegant.Sherlock's style, too, is very elegant, though he has not made it his principal study. And you may add Smalridge. All the latter preachers have a good style. Indeed, nobody now talks much of style: every body composes pretty well. There are no such inharmonious periods as there were a hundred years ago. I should recommend Dr. Clarke's sermons, were he orthodox. However, it is very well known where he is not orthodox, which was upon the doctrine of the Trinity, as to which he is a condemned heretic; 80 one is aware of it." BosWELL. "I like Ogden's Sermons on Prayer very much, both for neatness of style and subtilty of reasoning." JOHNSON. "I should like to read all that Ogden has written." Boswell. "What I wish to know is, what sermons afford the best specimen of English pulpit eloquence." JOHNSON. "We have no sermons addressed to the passions, that are good for any thing; if you mean that kind of eloquence." A CLERGYMAN (whose name I do not recollect). "Were not Dodd's sermons addressed to the passions?" JOHNSON. "They were nothing, Sir, be they addressed to what they may."

At dinner, Mrs. Thrale expressed a wish to go and see Scotland. JOHNSON. "Seeing Scotland, Madam, is only seeing a worse England. It is seeing the flower gradually fade away to the naked stalk. Seeing the Hebrides, indeed, is seeing quite a different scene."

Our poor friend, Mr. Thomas Davies, was soon to have a benefit at Drury Lane Theatre,

as

some relief to his unfortunate circumstances. We were all warmly interested for his success, and had contributed to it. However, we thought there was no harm in having our joke, when he could not be hurt by it. I proposed that he should be brought on to speak a prologue upon the occasion; and I began to mutter fragments of what it might be; as, that when now grown old, he was obliged to cry "Poor Tom's a-cold;"—that he owned he had been driven from the stage by a Churchill, but that this was no disgrace, for a Churchill had beat the French;- that he had been satirised as "mouthing a sentence as curs mouth a bone," but he was now glad of a bone to pick. "Nay," said Johnson, "I would have him to say,

Mad Tom is come to see the world again.'"

Davies had become bankrupt in the preceding January, and his benefit took place 27th May, 1778, when he, after an interval of fifteen years, appeared in the character of Fainall, in the Way of the World. CROKER.

See, however, antè, p. 553., where his decision on this subject is more favourable to the absentee. - MALONE. This last opinion is the truer view of the subject. — CROKER.

He and I returned to town in the evening. Upon the road, I endeavoured to maintain in argument, that a landed gentleman is not under any obligation to reside upon his estate; and that by living in London he does no injury to his country. JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, he does no injury to his country in general, because the money which he draws from it gets back again in circulation; but to his particular district, his particular parish, he does an injury. All that he has to give away is not given to those who have the first claim to it. And though I have said that the money circulates back, it is a long time before that happens. Then, Sir, a man of family and estate ought to consider himself as having the charge of a district, over which he is to diffuse civility and happiness."

"2

Next day I found him at home in the morning. He praised Delany's "Observations on Swift;" said that his book and Lord Orrery's might both be true, though one viewed Swift more, and the other less, favourably; and that, between both, we might have a complete notion of Swift.

Talking of a man's resolving to deny himself the use of wine, from moral and religious considerations, he said, "He must not doubt about it. When one doubts as to pleasure, we know what will be the conclusion. I now no more think of drinking wine than a horse does. The wine upon the table is no more for me, than for the dog who is under the table."

3 Allan Ramsay, painter to his Majesty, who died 10th of August, 1784, in the seventy-first year of his age, much regretted by his friends. - BOSWELL. He was the son of the Scottish poet: and died at Dover, on his return from his fourth visit to Italy. The Biography places his birth in 1709, and the Gent. Mag. in 1713. Mr. Allan Cunningham (as well as Boswell) follows the latter date. — CROKER.

great care. I relished this much, as it brought fresh into my mind what I had viewed with great pleasure thirteen years before. The bishop, Dr. Johnson, and Mr. Cambridge joined with Mr. Ramsay, in recollecting the various lines in Horace relating to the subject.

Horace's journey to Brundusium being mentioned, Johnson observed, that the brook which he describes is to be seen now, exactly as at that time; and that he had often wondered how it happened, that small brooks, such as this, kept the same situation for ages, notwithstanding earthquakes, by which even mountains have been changed, and agriculture, which produces such a variation upon the surface of the earth. CAMBRIDGE. "A Spanish writer has this thought in a poetical conceit. After observing, that most of the solid structures of Rome are totally perished, while the Tiber remains the same, he adds, —

Lo que èra firme huió, solamente

Lo fugitivo permanece y dura.'” 1 JOHNSON. "Sir, that is taken from Janus Vitalis:

immota labescunt;

Et quæ perpetuò sunt agitata manent. The bishop said, it appeared from Horace's writings that he was a cheerful, contented man. JOHNSON. "We have no reason to believe that, my Lord. Are we to think Pope was happy, because he says so in his writings? We see in his writings what he wished the state of his mind to appear. Dr. Young, who pined for preferment, talks with contempt of it in his writings, and affects to despise every thing that he did not despise." BISHOP OF ST. ASAPH. "He was like other chaplains, looking for vacancies but that is not peculiar to the clergy. I remember, when I was with the army 3, after the battle of Lafeldt, the officers seriously grumbled that no general was killed." CAMBRIDGE. "We may believe Horace more, when

worst state that he can be in: for he has nothing to agitate him. He is then like the man in the Irish song 6 :

There lived a young man in Ballinacrazy,
Who wanted a wife for to make him uraisy.""

Goldsmith being mentioned, Johnson observed, that it was long before his merit came to be acknowledged: that he once complained to him in ludicrous terms of distress, "Whenever I write any thing, the public make a point to know nothing about it:" but that his "Traveller "7 brought him into high reputation. LANGTON. "There is not one bad line in that poem; not one of Dryden's careless verses." SIR JOSHUA. "I was glad to hear Charles Fox say, it was one of the finest poems in the English language." LANGTON. "Why were you glad? You surely had no doubt of this before." JOHNSON. "No; the merit of The Traveller' is so well established, that Mr. Fox's praise cannot augment it, nor his censure diminish it." SIR JOSHUA. "But his friends may suspect they had too great a partiality fr him." JOHNSON. "Nay, Sir, the partiality of his friends was always against him. was with difficulty we could give him a hearing. Goldsmith had no settled notions upon any subject; so he talked always at random. It seemed to be his intention to birt out whatever was in his mind, and see what would become of it. He was angry, too, when catched in an absurdity; but it did not prevent him from falling into another the next minute I remember Chamier, after talking with hir some time, said, 'Well, I do believe he wrote this poem himself; and, let me tell you, that is believing a great deal.' Chamier once asked him, what he meant by slow, the last word in the first line of The Traveller,'

4

Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow." Did he mean tardiness of locomotion? Gollsmith, who would say something without en sideration, answered, 'Yes.' I was sitting by. of locomotion; you mean that sluggishness and said, 'No, Sir, you do not mean tariness mind which comes upon a man in solitude Chamier believed then that I had written the line, as much as if he had seen me write it." Goldsmith, however, was a man, who, whaten er he wrote, did it better than any other inaa could do. He deserved a place in Westminster Abbey; and every year he lived would have