KNOWLES.

MRS.

man several times, mentioning something | nican and Ptolemaick systems."
about the right to an old house, advising
application to be made to an attorney, which
was done; and at the same time, saying the
attorney would do nothing, which proved
to be the fact. This,' says John, is a
proof that a ghost knows our thoughts.'
Now," laughing, "it is not necessary to
know our thoughts, to tell that an attorney
will sometimes do nothing. Charles Wes-
ley, who is a more stationary man, does not
believe the story. I am sorry that John did
not take more pains to inquire into the evi-
dence for it." MISS SEWARD (with an in-
credulous smile). "What, sir! about a
ghost!" JOHNSON (with solemn vehe-
mence). Yes, madam; this is a question
which, after five thousand years, is yet un-
decided; a question, whether in theology or
philosophy, one of the most important that
can come before the human understanding."
Mrs. Knowles mentioned, as a proselyte
to Quakerism, Miss
1, a young
lady well known to Dr. Johnson, for whom
he had shown much affection; while she
ever had, and still retained, a great respect
for him. Mrs. Knowles at the same time
took an opportunity of letting him know
"that the amiable young creature was sor-
ry at finding that he was offended at her
leaving the church of England, and embra-
cing a simpler faith;" and, in the gentlest
and most persuasive manner, solicited his
kind indulgence for what was sincerely a
matter of conscience. JOHNSON (frowning
very angrily). "Madam, she is an odious
wench. She could not have any proper
conviction that it was her duty to change
her religion, which is the most important of
all subjects, and should be studied with all
care, and with all the helps we can get.
She knew no more of the church which she
left, and that which she embraced, than she
did of the difference between the Coper-

"She had the New Testament

before her." JOHNSON. "Madam, she could not understand the New Testament, the most difficult book in the world, for which the study of a life is required." MRS. KONWLES. "It is clear as to essentials." JOHNSON. "But not as to controversial points. The heathens were easily converted, because they had nothing to give up; but we ought not, without very strong conviction indeed, to desert the religion in which we have been educated. That is the religion given you, the religion in which it may be said Providence has placed you. If you live conscientiously in that religion, you may be safe. But errour is dangerous indeed, if you err when you choose a religion for yourself." MRS. KNOWLES. "Must we then go by implicit faith?" JOHNSON. "Why, madam, the greatest part of our knowledge is implicit faith; and as to religion, have we heard all that a disciple of Confucius, all that a Mahometan, can say for himself?" He then rose again into passion, and attacked the young proselyte in the severest terms of reproach, so that both the ladies seemed to be much shocked.2

7 [Jane Harry. She was the illegitimate daughter, by a mulatto woman, of what Miss Seward calls (Lett. 1. 97) a planter in the East Indies, but in truth of a West Indian, who sent her over to England for her education. At the friend's house where she résided, Mrs. Knowles was a frequent visiter; and by degrees she converted this inexperienced and probably not very wise young creature to Quakerism. Miss Seward, with more than her usual inaccuracy, has made a romantic history of this lady; and, amongst other fables, states that she sacrificed a fortune of 100,0001. by her conscientious conversion. Mr. Markland has been so kind as to put into the editor's hands evidence from a highly respectable member of the father's family, which proves that Jane Harry's fortune was but 10007.; and so little was her father displeased at her conversion, that he rather approved of it, and gave her 10001. more. So vanishes another of Miss Seward's romances.-ED.]

Mrs. Knowles, not satisfied with the fame of her needle-work, the “sutile pictures" mentioned by Johnson, in which she has indeed displayed much dexterity, nay, with the fame of reasoning better than women generally do, as I have fairly shown her to have done, communicated to me a dialogue of considerable length, which, after many years had elapsed, she wrote down as having passed between Dr. Johnson and her at this interview. As I had not the least recollection of it, and did taken at the time, I could not, in consistency with not find the smallest trace of it in my "record " my firm regard to authenticity, insert it in my work. It has, however, been published in "The Gentleman's Magazine " for June, 1791 [v. lxi. p. 500]. It chiefly relates to the principles of the sect called Quakers; and no doubt the lady appears to have greatly the advantage of Dr. Johnson in argument, as well as expression. From what I have now stated, and from the internal evidence of the paper itself, any one who may have the curiosity to peruse it will judge whether it was wrong in me to reject it, however willing to gratify Mrs. Knowles.-BoSWELL. [Mrs. Knowles, to her own account of this conversation was desirous of adding Miss Seward's testimony; and Miss Seward, who had by this time become exceedingly hostile to Johnson's memory, and was a great admirer of Mrs. Knowles, was not unwilling to gratify her. She accordingly communicated to Mrs. Knowles her notes of the conversation (Lett. 6. 97), which, it may be fairly presumed, were not too partial to Johnson. But they nevertheless did not satisfy the fair disputant, who, as Miss Seward complains (Lett. 2. 179), was curiously dissatisfied with them, because they did not contain all that had passed, and as exhibiting her in a poor eclipsed

We remained together till it was pretty | late. Notwithstanding occasional explosions of violence, we were all delighted upon the whole with Johnson. I compared him at this time to a warm West Indian climate, where you have a bright sun, quick vegetation, luxuriant foliage, luscious fruits; but where the same heat sometimes produces thunder, lightning, and earthquakes in a terrible degree.

I told him that at a gentleman's house where there was thought to be such extravagance or bad management, that he was living much beyond his income, his lady 1 had objected to the cutting of a pickled mango, and that I had taken an opportunity to ask the price of it, and found it was only two shillings; so here was a very poor saving. JOHNSON. "Sir, that is the blundering economy of a narrow understanding. It is stopping one hole in a sieve."

April 17, being Good-Friday, I waited on Johnson, as usual. I observed at breakfast 1 expressed some inclination to publish that although it was a part of his abstemi- an account of my travels upon the contious discipline, on this most solemn fast, to nent of Europe, for which I had a variety take no milk in his tea, yet when Mrs. Des- of materials collected. JOHNSON. "I do moulins inadvertently poured it in, he did not say, sir, you may not publish your travnot reject it. I talked of the strange els; but I give you my opinion, that you indecision of mind, and imbecility in the would lessen yourself by it. What can you common occurrences of life, which we may tell of countries so well known as those upobserve in some people. JOHNSON. "Why, on the continent of Europe, which you have sir, I am in the habit of getting others to do visited?" BOSWELL. "But I can give things for me." BosWELL. What, sir! an entertaining narrative, with many incihave you that weakness?" JOHNSON. dents, anecdotes, jeux d'esprit, and re"Yes, sir. But I always think afterwards marks, so as to make very pleasant readI should have done better for myself."

ing." JOHNSON. "Why, sir, most mod

ern travellers in Europe who have publish

You

light;" and it is amusing to observe, that-ex-ed their travels have been laughed at: I cept on the words "odious wench" at the out- would not have you added to the number 2. set, in which all three accounts agree, and the The world is now not contented to be merewords "Inever desire to meet fools anywhere," ly entertained by a traveller's narrative; with which the ladies agree that the conversation they want to learn something. Now some ended-there is little accordance between them. of my friends asked me, why I did not give Had they been content to say that the violence some account of my travels in France. of Johnson was a disagreeable contrast to the quiet The reason is plain; intelligent readers had reasoning of the fair Quaker, they would proba- seen more of France than I had. bly have said no more than the truth; but when might have liked my travels in France, and they affect to give the precise dialogue in the very THE CLUB might have liked them; but, words of the speakers, and yet do not agree in almost any one expression or sentiment when upon the whole, there would have been neither preserve a word of what Mr. Boswell remore ridicule than good produced by them." ports and when both (but particularly Mrs. BOSWELL. "I cannot agree with you, sir. Knowles) attribute to Johnson the poorest and People would like to read what you say of feeblest trash-we may be forgiven for rejecting any thing. Suppose a face has been paintboth as fabulous, and the rather because Mr. Bos-ed by fifty painters before; still we love to well's note was written on the instant ("his custom ever in the afternoon "), while those of the 1 [We learn from Miss Hawkins (Mem. ii. ladies seem to have been made up many years 282), what might have been guessed from several after the event. It may however be suspected other passages, that the gentleman and lady here that Boswell was himself a little ashamed of John- alluded to were Mr. Langton and Lady Rothes. son's violence, for he evidently slurs over the lat- She goes on to say, that the anecdote not havter part of the conversation. But in the Doctor's ing a shadow of truth in it but the presence of the behalf it should be recollected that he had taken a mango at table, Lady Rothes, who knew the slangreat and affectionate interest in this young crea- der to be aimed at herself, asked Boswell how he ture, who had, as he feared, not only endangered could put together such a falsity. He replied, her spiritual welfare, but offended her friends, and affecting the tone of Johnson, Why, madam, it forfeited her fortune; and that he was forced into is no more than is done by landscape painters ; the discussion by the very person by whose unau- the landscape is from nature, and they put a tree thorized and underhand interference so much in the foreground as an embellishment.'"' mischief (as he considered it) had been done. Miss Hawkins could have heard Boswell's conLong as this note is, it must be added, that it ap- fession only at second-hand, we may, without pears in another part of Miss Seward's correspond-questioning her veracity, be permitted to disbeence (vol. ii. p. 383), that when a young Quaker lieve it altogether. Boswell never could have ady married a member of the church of England, made any such admission.-Er.] Mrs. Knowles did not hesitate to designate her as an APOSTATE, although she had not quitted her sect, but only married one who did not belong to it.-ED.]

As

2 I believe, however, I shall follow my own opinion; for the world has shown a very flattering partiality to my writings, on many occasions.BOSWELL.

see it done by Sir Joshua." JOHNSON. "True, sir; but Sir Joshua cannot paint a face when he has not time to look on it." BOSWELL. "Sir, a sketch of any sort by him is valuable. And, sir, to talk to you in your own style (raising my voice, and shaking my head), you should have given us your travels in France. I am sure I am right, and there's an end on 't."

happened. Mr. Edwards, who was a de-
cent-looking, elderly man, in gray clothes,
and a wig of many curls, accosted Johnson
with familiar confidence, knowing who he
was, while Johnson returned his salutation
with a courteous formality, as to a stranger.
But as soon as Edwards had brought to his
recollection their having been at Pembroke
College together nine-and-forty years ago,.
he seemed much pleased, asked where he
lived, and said he should be glad to see him
in Bolt-court. EDWARDS. Ah, sir! we
are old men now." JOHNSON (who never
liked to think of being old).. "Don't let
us discourage one another." EDWARDS.
"Why, Doctor, you look stout and hearty.
I am happy to see you so; for the newspa-
pers told us you were very ill." JOHNSON.
Ay, sir, they are always telling lies of us
old fellows.""

I said to him that it was certainly true, as my friend Dempster had observed in his letter to me upon the subject, that a great part of what was in his "Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland" had been in his mind before he left London. JOHNSON. "Why, yes, sir, the topicks were; and books of travels will be good in proportion to what a man has previously in his mind; his knowing what to observe; his power of" contrasting one mode of life with another. As the Spanish proverb says, ' He who would bring home the wealth of the Indies must carry the wealth of the Indies with him.' So it is in travelling; a man must carry knowledge with him, if he would bring home knowledge." BoswELL. "The proverb, I suppose, sir, means, he must carry a large stock with him to trade with." JOHNSON. "Yes, sir.".

66

Wishing to be present at more of so singular a conversation as that between two fellow-collegians, who had lived forty years in London without ever having chanced to meet, I whispered to Mr. Edwards that Dr. Johnson was going home, and that he had better accompany him now. So Edwards walked along with us, I eagerly assisting to 1 keep up the conversation. Mr. Edwards informed Dr. Johnson that he had practised long as a solicitor in Chancery, but that he now lived in the country upon a little farm, about sixty acres, just by Stevenage, in Hertfordshire, and that he came to London (to Barnard's Inn, No. 6) generally twice a week. Johnson appearing to be There was a very numerous congrega- in a reverie, Mr. Edwards addressed himtion to-day at St. Clement's church, which self to me, and expatiated on the pleasure Dr. Johnson said he observed with plea-of living in the country. BoSWELL. “ I

It was a delightful day; as we walked to St. Clement's church, I again remarked that Fleet-street was the most cheerful scene in the world. "Fleet-street," said I, "is in my mind more delightful than Tempé." JOHNSON. "Ay, sir, but let it be compared with Mull! "

sure.

And now I am to give a pretty full account of one of the most curious incidents in Johnson's life, of which he himself has made the following minute on this day:

"In my return from church, I was accosted by Edwards', an old fellow-collegian, who had not seen me since 17292. He knew me, and asked if I remembered one Edwards; I did not at first recollect the name, but gradually, as we walked along, recovered it, and told him a conversation that had passed at an alehouse between us. My purpose is to continue our acquaint

ance."

It was in Butcher-row that this meeting

[Oliver Edwards entered at Pembroke College only in June, 1729, so that he and Johnson could not have been long acquainted.-HALL.]

[This deliberate assertion of Johnson, that he had not seen Edwards since 1729, is a confirmation of the opinion derived by Dr. Hall from the dates in the college books, that Johnson did not return to Pembroke College after Christmas, 1729 -an important fact in his early history. See ante, vol. i. p. 27, n-ED.]

have no notion of this, sir. What you
have to entertain you is, I think, exhausted
in half an hour." EDWARDS.
"What!
don't you love to have hope realised? I see
my grass, and my corn, and my trees grow-
ing. Now, for instance, I am curious to
see if this frost has not nipped my fruit
trees." JOHNSON (who we did not imagine
was attending). "You find, sir, you have
fears as well as hopes." So well did he see
the whole, when another saw but the half
of a subject 3.

Dr. Johnson. I have tried too in my time to be a philosopher; but, I do n't know how, cheerfulness was always breaking in." Mr. Burke, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mr. Courtenay, Mr. Malone, and, indeed, all the eminent men to whom I have mentioned this, have thought it an exquisite trait of character. The truth is, that philosophy, like religion, is too generally supposed to be hard and severe, at least so grave as to exclude all gaiety.

the law long, sir, I presume you must be rich." EDWARDS. "No, sir; I got a good deal of money; but I had a number of poor relations to whom I gave a great part of it." JOHNSON. "Sir, you have been rich in the most valuable sense of the word.” EDWARDS. "But I shall not die rich." JOHNSON. "Nay, sure, sir,it is better to live rich than to die rich." EDWARDS. "I wish I had continued at college." JOHNSON. Why do you wish that, sir?" EDWARDS. "Because I think I should have EDWARDS. "I have been twice married, had a much easier life than mine has been. Doctor. You, I suppose, have never known I should have been a parson, and had a what it was to have a wife." JOHNSON. good living, like Bloxam and several oth- "Sir, I have known what it was to have a ers, and lived comfortably." JOHNSON. Wife, and (in a solemn, tender, faltering "Sir, the life of a parson, of a conscien- tone) I have known what it was to lose a tious clergyman, is not easy. I have al-wife. It had almost broke my heart." ways considered a clergyman as the father of a larger family than he is able to maintain. I would rather have Chancery suits upon my hands than the cure of souls. No, sir, I do not envy a clergyman's life as an easy life, nor do I envy the clergyman who makes it an easy life." Here taking himself up all of a sudden, he exclaimed, "O! Mr. Edwards, I'll convince you that I recollect you. Do you remember our drinking together at an alehouse near Pembroke gate? At that time, you told me of the Eton boy, who, when verses on our Saviour's turning water into wine were prescribed as an exercise, brought up a single line, which was highly admired:

[Matthew Bloxam entered at Pembroke College, March 25, 1729; M. A., July, 1735.HALL.]

2 This line has frequently been attributed to Dryden, when a King's scholar at Westminster. But neither Eton nor Westminster have in truth any claim to it, the line being borrowed, with a slight change (as Mr. Bindley has observed to me), from an epigram by Richard Crashaw, which was published in his Epigrammata Sacra," first printed at Cambridge, without the authour's name, in 1634, 8vo. The original is much more elegant than the copy, the water being personified, and the word on which the point of the epigram turns, being reserved to the close of the line:

"JOANN. 2.

Aquæ in vinum versæ.
Unde rubor vestris et non sua purpura lymphis?
Quæ rosa mirantes tam nova mutat aquas?
Numen, convivæ, præseus agnoscite numen,
Nympha pudica DEUм vidit, et erubuit."-MALONE.

EDWARDS. "How do you live, sir? For my part, I must have my regular meals, and a glass of good wine. I find I require it." JOHNSON. "I now drink no wine, sir. Early in life I drank wine; for many years I drank none. I then for some years drank a great deal." EDWARDS. "Some hogsheads, I warrant you." JOHNSON. "I then had a severe illness, and left it off, and I have never begun it again. I never felt any difference upon myself from eating one thing rather than another, nor from one kind of weather rather than another. There are people, I believe, who feel a difference; but I am not one of them. And as to regular meals, I have fasted from the Sunday's dinner to the Tuesday's dinner without any inconvenience. I believe it is best to eat just as one is hungry: but a man who is in business, or a man who has a family, must have stated meals. I am a straggler. I may leave this town and go to Grand Cairo, without being missed here, or observed there." EDWARDS. "Don't you eat supper, sir?" JOHNSON. "No, sir." ED

WARDS.

"For my part, now, I consider supper as a turnpike through which one must pass in order to get to bed 3."

JOHNSON. "You are a lawyer, Mr. Edwards. Lawyers know life practically. A bookish man should always have them to converse with. They have what he wants." EDWARDS. "I am grown old: I am sixtyfive." JOHNSON. "I shall be sixty-eight next birth-day. Come, sir, drink water, and put in for a hundred.".

Mr. Edwards mentioned a gentleman 4 who had left his whole fortune to Pembroke College. JOHNSON. "Whether to leave

3 I am not absolutely sure but this was my own suggestion, though it is truly in the character of Edwards.-BOSWELL.

* [This must have been the Rev. James Phipps, who had been a scholar of Pembroke, and who, in 1773, left his estates to the college to purchase livings for a particular foundation, and for other purposes.-HALL.]

shall here introduce it: "No saying of DR. JOHNSON's has been more misunderstood than his applying to MR. BURKE when he first saw him Mr. Edwards had said to me aside, that at his fine place at Beaconsfield, Non equidem Dr, Johnson should have been of a profes- invideo; miror magis. These two celebrated sion. I repeated the remark to Johnson, men had been friends for many years before Mr. that I might have his own thoughts on the Burke entered on his parliamentary career. They subject. JOHNSON. "Sir, it would have were both writers, both members of THE LITEbeen better that I had been of a profession. RARY CLUB; when, therefore, Dr. Johnson saw I ought to have been a lawyer." BOSWELL. Mr Burke in a situation so much more splendid "I do not think, sir, it would have been did not mean to express that he thought it a disbetter, for we should not have had the Eng-proportionate prosperity; but while he, as a philish Dictionary." JOHNSON. "But you would have had Reports." BOSWELL. “Ay; but there would not have been another

losopher, asserted an exemption from envy, non equidem invideo, he went on in the words of the poet, miror magis; thereby signifying, either that he was occupied in admiring what he was [Here followed the account of Mr. Tyers, glad to see, or, perhaps, that, considering the