12 Johnson's affection for Beauclerk. [A.D. 1780. person had advised him to go and hiss it, because she had attacked Shakspeare in her book called Shakspeare Illustrated'. JOHNSON. "And did not you tell him he was a rascal'?" GOLDSMITH. "No, Sir, I did not. Perhaps he might not mean what he said." JOHNSON. "Nay, Sir, if he lied, it is a different thing." Colman slily said, (but it is believed Dr. Johnson did not hear him,) "Then the proper expression should have been,—Sir, if you don't lie, you're a rascal." 'His affection for Topham Beauclerk was so great, that when Beauclerk was labouring under that severe illness which at last occasioned his death, Johnson said, (with a voice faultering with emotion,) "Sir, I would walk to the extent of the diameter of the earth to save Beauclerk."' 'One night at the CLUB he produced a translation of an Epitaph which Lord Elibank had written in English, for his Lady, and requested of Johnson to turn into Latin for him. Having read Domina de North et Gray, he said to Dyer, "You see, Sir, what barbarisms we are compelled to make use of, when modern titles are to be specifically mentioned in Latin inscriptions." When he had read it once aloud, and there had been a general approbation expressed by the company, he addressed himself to Mr. Dyer in particular, and said, “Sir, I beg to have your judgement, for I know confidence.' Baretti, in a marginal note, says that C L is 'Charlotte Lennox.' Perhaps **** stands for Cumberland. Miss Burney said that Mr. Cumberland is notorious for hating and envying and spiting all authors in the dramatic line.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, i. 272. 1 See ante, i. 296. ' In The Rambler, No. 195, Johnson describes rascals such as this man. They hurried away to the theatre, full of malignity and denunciations against a man whose name they had never heard, and a performance which they could not understand; for they were resolved to judge for themselves, and would not suffer the town to be imposed upon by scribblers. In the pit they exerted themselves with great spirit and vivacity; called out for the tunes of obscene songs, talked loudly at intervals of Shakespeare and Jonson,' &c. See ante, ii. 537. your Aetat. 71.] Mr. Samuel Dyer. 13 your nicety'." Dyer then very properly desired to read it over again; which having done, he pointed out an incongruity in one of the sentences. Johnson immediately assented to the observation, and said, "Sir, this is owing to an alteration of a part of the sentence, from the form in which I had first written it; and I believe, Sir, you may have remarked, that the making a partial change, without a due regard to the general structure of the sentence, is a very frequent cause of errour in composition." 'Johnson was well acquainted with Mr. Dossie, authour of a treatise on Agriculture'; and said of him, “Sir, of the objects which the Society of Arts have chiefly in view, the chymical effects of bodies operating upon other bodies, he knows more than almost any man." Johnson, in order to give Mr. Dossie his vote to be a member of this Society, paid up an arrear which had run on for two years. this occasion he mentioned a circumstance as characteristick On 1 Dr. Percy told Malone 'that they all at the Club had such a high opinion of Mr. Dyer's knowledge and respect for his judgment as to appeal to him constantly, and that his sentence was final.' Malone adds that he was so modest and reserved, that he frequently sat silent in company for an hour, and seldom spoke unless appealed to. Goldsmith, who used to rattle away upon all subjects, had been talking somewhat loosely relative to music. Some one wished for Mr. Dyer's opinion, which he gave with his usual strength and accuracy. 'Why," said Goldsmith, turning round to Dyer, whom he had scarcely noticed before, "you seem to know a good deal of this matter." "If I had not,” replied Dyer, "I should not, in this company, have said a word upon the subject."' Burke described him as a man of profound and general erudition; his sagacity and judgment were fully equal to the extent of his learning.' Prior's Malone, pp. 419, 424. Malone in his Life of Dryden, p. 181, says that Dyer was Junius. Johnson speaks of him as 'the late learned Mr. Dyer.' Works, viii. 385. Had he been alive he was to have been the professor of mathematics in the imaginary college at St. Andrews. Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 25. Many years after his death, Johnson bought his portrait to hang in 'a little room that he was fitting up with prints.' Croker's Boswell, p. 639. 2 * Memoirs of Agriculture and other Economical Arts, 3 vols., by Robert Dossie, London, 1768-82. of 14 Toleration. [A.D. 1780. of the Scotch. One of that nation, (said he,) who had been a candidate, against whom I had voted, came up to me with a civil salutation. Now, Sir, this is their way. An Englishman would have stomached it, and been sulky, and never have taken further notice of you; but a Scotchman, Sir, though you vote nineteen times against him, will accost you with equal complaisance after each time, and the twentieth time, Sir, he will get your vote.' 'Talking on the subject of toleration, one day when some friends were with him in his study, he made his usual remark, that the State has a right to regulate the religion of the people, who are the children of the State'. A clergyman having readily acquiesced in this, Johnson, who loved discussion, observed, " But, Sir, you must go round to other States than our own. You do not know what a Bramin has to say for himself. In short, Sir, I have got no further than this: Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down. for it. Martyrdom is the test"."" 'A man, he observed, should begin to write soon; for, if he waits till his judgement is matured, his inability, through want of practice to express his conceptions, will make the disproportion so great between what he sees, and what he can attain, that he will probably be discouraged from writing at all. As a proof of the justness of this remark, we may instance what is related of the great Lord Granville'; 1 See ante, ii. 16. ' Here Lord Macartney remarks, ‘A Bramin or any cast of the Hindoos will neither admit you to be of their religion, nor be converted to yours;-a thing which struck the Portuguese with the greatest astonishment, when they first discovered the East Indies.' BOSWELL. 3 See ante, ii. 287. • See ante, Aug. 30, 1780. " John, Lord Carteret, and Earl Granville, who died Jan. 2, 1763. It is strange that he wrote so ill; for Lord Chesterfield says (Misc. Works, iv. Appendix, p. 42) that he had brought away with him from Oxford, a great stock of Greek and Latin, and had made himself master of all the modern languages. He was one of the best speakers in the House of Lords, both in the declamatory and argumentative way.' that Aetat. 71.] Gray's ODES. 15 that after he had written his letter, giving an account of the battle of Dettingen, he said, "Here is a letter, expressed in terms not good enough for a tallow-chandler to have used."' 'Talking of a Court-martial that was sitting upon a very momentous publick occasion, he expressed much doubt of an enlightened decision; and said, that perhaps there was not a member of it, who in the whole course of his life, had ever spent an hour by himself in balancing probabilities'.' 'Goldsmith one day brought to the CLUB a printed Ode, which he, with others, had been hearing read by its authour in a publick room at the rate of five shillings each for admission. One of the company having read it aloud, Dr. Johnson said, "Bolder words and more timorous meaning, I think never were brought together.' 'Talking of Gray's Odes, he said, "They are forced plants raised in a hot-bed'; and they are poor plants; they are but cucumbers after all." A gentleman present, who had been running down Ode-writing in general, as a bad species of poetry, unluckily said, " Had they been literally cucumbers, they had been better things than Odes."—"Yes, Sir, (said Johnson,) for a hog."' 1 Walpole describes the partiality of the members of the court-martial that sat on Admiral Keppel in Jan. 1779. One of them' declared frankly that he should not attend to forms of law, but to justice.' So friendly were the judges to the prisoner that it required the almost unanimous voice of the witnesses in favour of his conduct, and the vile arts practised against him, to convince all mankind how falsely and basely he had been accused.' Walpole, referring to the members, speaks of 'the feelings of seamen unused to reason.' Some of the leading politicians established themselves at Portsmouth during the trial. Journal of the Reign of George III, ii. 329. 2 See ante, ii. 276. 3 He has a kind of 'In all Gray's Odes, there is a kind of cumbrous splendour which we wish away. . . . The mind of the writer seems to work with unnatural violence. Double, double, toil and trouble." strutting dignity, and is tall by walking on tiptoe. struggle are too visible, and there is too little appearance of ease and nature.' Johnson's Works, viii. 484-87. See ante, i. 466, and ii. 374, 383. His art and his 16 Lines on the Duke of Leeds. [A.D. 1780. 'His distinction of the different degrees of attainment of learning was thus marked upon two occasions. Of Queen Elizabeth he said, "She had learning enough to have given dignity to a bishop;" and of Mr. Thomas Davies he said, "Sir, Davies has learning enough to give credit to a clergyman'." 'He used to quote, with great warmth, the saying of Aristotle recorded by Diogenes Laertius'; that there was the same difference between one learned and unlearned, as between the living and the dead.' 'It is very remarkable, that he retained in his memory very slight and trivial, as well as important things'. As an instance of this, it seems that an inferiour domestick of the Duke of Leeds had attempted to celebrate his Grace's marriage in such homely rhimes as he could make; and this curious composition having been sung to Dr. Johnson he got it by heart, and used to repeat it in a very pleasant manner. Two of the stanzas were these: "When the Duke of Leeds shall married be To a fine young lady of high quality, She shall have all that's fine and fair, And have a house in St. James's-square." 'One evening, in the Haymarket Theatre, 'when Foote lighted the King to his chair, his majesty asked who [sic] the piece was written by? "By one of your Majesty's chaplains," said Foote, unable even then to suppress his wit; "and dull enough to have been written by a bishop."' Forster's Essays, ii. 435. See ante, i. 452, note 2. 2 Bk. v. ch. i. 'See ante, ii. 153, note; and Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 27, and Oct. 28. The correspondent of The Gentleman's Magazine [1792, p. 214] who subscribes himself SCIOLUS furnishes the following supplement :— 'A lady of my acquaintance remembers to have heard her uncle To |