our." I cannot allow any fragment whatever that floats in my memory concerning the great subject of this work to be lost. Though a small particular may appear trifling to some, it will be relished by others; whils every little spark adds something to the general blaze: and to please the true, candid, warm admirers of Johnson, and in any degree increase the splendour of his reputation, I bid defiance to the shafts of ridicule, or even of malignity. Showers of them have been discharged at my nal of a Tour to the Hebrides; " yet it sti!! sails unhurt along the stream of time, and, as an attendant upon Johnson, "Jour of Eglintoune, upon his having fallen, when amazing how he entered with perspicuity retreating from his lordship, who he believed and keenness upon every thing that ocwas about to seize his gun, as he had threat-curred in conversation. Most men, whom ened to do. He said he should have done I know, would no more think of discussing just as Campbell did. JOHNSON. "Who- a question about a bull-dog, than of atever would do as Campbell did, deserves to tacking a bull. be hanged; not that I could, as a juryman, have found him legally guilty of murder; but I am glad they found means to convict him." The gentleman farmer said, "A poor man has as much honour as a rich man; and Campbell had that to defend." Johnson exclaimed, "A poor man has no honThe English yeoman, not dismayed, proceeded: " Lord Eglintoune was a damned fool to run on upon Campbell, after being warned that Campbell would shoot him if he did." Johnson, who could not bear any thing like swearing, angrily replied, "He was not a damned fool: he only thought too well of Campbell. He did not believe Campbell would be such a damned scoundrel, as to do so damned a thing." His emphasis on damned, accompanied with frowning looks, reproved his opponent's want of decorum in his presence. Talking of the danger of being mortified by rejection, when making approaches to the acquaintance of the great, I observed "I am, however, generally for trying, 'Nothing venture, nothing have."" JOHNSON. "Very true, sir; but I have always been more afraid of failing than hopeful of success." And, indeed, though he had all just respect for rank, no man ever less courted the favour of the great. During this interview at Ashbourne, Johnson seemed to be more uniformly social, cheerful, and alert, than I had almost ever seen him. He was prompt on great occasions and on small. Taylor, who praised every thing of his own to excess, in short, "whose geese were all swans," as the proverb says, expatiated on the excellence of his bull-dog, which he told us was "perfectly well shaped." Johnson, after examining the animal attentively, thus repressed the vain-glory of our host:-" No, | sir, he is not well shaped; for there is not the quick transition from the thickness of the fore-part, to the tenuity-the thin part | -behind,-which a bull-dog ought to have." This tenuity was the only hard word that I heard him use during this interview, and it will be observed, he instantly put another expression in its place. Taylor said, a small bull-dog was as good as a large one. JOHNSON. "No, sir: for, in proportion to his size, he has strength: and your argument would prove, that a good bull-dog may be as small as a mouse." It was whom he would not, on his own responsibility, have found guilty. Lord Eglintoune was a friend of Mr. Boswell's, and the son of the lady who trcated Johnson with such flattering attention.See ante, vol. i. p. 455.-ED.] "Pursues the triumph, and partakes the gale." One morning after breakfast, when the sun shone bright, we walked out together, and "pored" for some time with placid indolence upon an artificial waterfall, which Dr. Taylor had made by building a strong dyke of stone across the river behind the garden. It was now somewhat obstructed by branches of trees and other rubbish, which had come down the river, and settled close to it. Johnson, partly from a desire to see it play more freely, and partly from that inclination to activity which will animate, at times, the most inert and sluggish mortal, took a long pole which was lying on a bank, and pushed down several parcels of this wreck with painful assiduity, while I stood quietly by, wondering to behold the sage thus curiously employed, and smiling with a humorous satisfaction each time when he carried his point. He worked till he was quite out of breath; and having found a large dead cat so heavy that he could not move it after several efforts, "Come,” said he (throwing down the pole), "you shall take it now;" which I accordingly did, and being a fresh man, soon made the cat tumble over the cascade. This may be laughed at as too trifling to record; but it is a small characteristic trait in the Flemish picture which I give of my friend, and in which, therefore, I mark the most minute particulars. And let it be remembered, that "Esop at play " is one of the instructive apologues of antiquity. I mentioned an old gentleman of our acquaintance whose memory was beginning to fail. JOHNSON. "There must be a diseased mind, where there is a failure of memory at seventy. A man's head, sir, must be morbid, if he fails so soon 1." My friend, [This is one of those violent and absurd as sertions into which Johnson was so often betrayed v. 10. being now himself sixty-eight, might think | continuance, the same views of any thing thus: but I imagine, that threescore It was most comfortable to me to experiPs. xc. and ten, the Psalmist's period of ence in Dr. Johnson's company a relief sound human life, in later ages, may from this uneasiness. His steady vigorous nave a failure, though there be no disease in mind held firm before me those objects which the constitution. my own feeble and tremulous imagination frequently presented in such a wavering state, that my reason could not judge well of them. Dr. Johnson advised me to-day to have as many books about me as I could; that I might read upon any subject upon which I had a desire for instruction at the time. "What you read then," said he, "you will remember; but if you have not a book immediately ready, and the subject moulds in your mind, it is a chance if you have again a desire to study it." He added, "if a man never has an eager desire for instruction, he should prescribe a task for himself. But it is better when a man reads from immediate inclination." Talking of Rochester's Poems, he said, he had given them to Mr. Steevens to castrate for the edition of the poets, to which he was to write prefaces. Dr. Taylor (the only time I ever heard him say any thing witty) 2 observed, that" if Rochester had been castrated himself, his exceptionable poems would not have been written." I asked if Burnet had not given a good Life of Rochester. JOHNSON. "We have a good Death; there is not much Life." I asked whether Prior's poems were to be printed entire: Johnson said they were. I mentioned Lord Hailes's censure of Prior, in his preface to a collection of "Sacred Poems," by various hands, published by him at Edinburgh a great many years ago, where he mentions "those impure tales which will be the eternal opprobrium of their ingenious authour." JOHNSON. “Sir," that you may carry to the fire, and hold Lord Hailes has forgot. There is nothing in Prior that will excite to lewdness. If Lord Hailes thinks there is, he must be more combustible than other people." I instanced the tale of " Paulo Purganti and his wife." JOHNSON. "Sir, there is nothing there, but that his wife wanted to be kissed, when poor Paulo was out of pocket. No, sir, Prior is a lady's book. No lady is ashamed to have it standing in her library 3", The hypochondriack disorder being mentioned, Dr. Johnson did not think it so common as I supposed. "Dr. Taylor," said he, "is the same one day as another. Burke and Reynolds are the same. Beauclerk, except when in pain, is the same. I am not so myself; but this I do not mention commonly." I complained of a wretched changefulness, so that I could not preserve, for any long by his private feelings and prejudices: the Psalmist says, and successive ages have proved, that the years of man are threescore years and ten; yet, because Johnson was now near seventy, he ventures to assert that any decay of the intellect at that age must be morbid.-ED.] This was unnecessary, for it had been done in the early part of the present century by Jacob Tonson.-MALONE. ? I am told that Horace, Earl of Orford, has a collection of Bon-Mots by persons who never said but one.-BOSWELL. 3 [What extraordinary" laxity of talk!" It is surprising enough that Mr. Boswell should have recorded any thing so indecent as these expressions; but that Johnson should have maintained such sentiments is very astonishing and very lamentable.-ED.] [He used to say, that no man read long together with a folio on his table. "Books," said he, Hawk. Apoph. p. 197-8. readily in your hand, are the most useful after all." He would say, "such books form the mass of general and easy reading." He was a great friend to books like the French Esprits d'un tel; for example, Beauties of Watts, &c. &c. : "at which," said he, " a man will often look and be tempted to go on, when he would have been frightened at books of a larger size, and of a more erudite appearance."] He repeated a good many lines of Horace's Odes while we were in the chaise; I remember particularly the Ode "Eheu fugaces." He said, the dispute as to the comparative excellence of Homer or Virgil 4 was inaccurate. "We must consider," said he, "whether Homer was not the greatest poet, though Virgil may have produced the finest poem 5. Virgil was indebted to Homer for the whole invention of the structure of an epick poem, and for many of his beauties.” He told me that Bacon was a favourite authour with him; but he had never read his works till he was compiling the English Dictionary, in which he said, I might ♦ I am informed by Mr. Langton, that a great many years ago he was present when this question was agitated between Dr. Johnson and Mr. Burke; and, to use Johnson's phrase, they "talked their best;" Johnson for Homer, Burke for Virgil. It may well be supposed to have been one of the ablest and most brilliant contests that ever was exhibited. How much must we regret that it has not been preserved!-BoswELL. 5 But where is the inaccuracy, if the admirers of Homer contend, that he was not only prior to Virgil in point of time, but superiour in excellence? -J. BOSWELI. see Bacon very often quoted. Mr. Seward recollects his having mentioned, that a dictionary of the English language might be compiled from Bacon's writings alone, and that he had once an intention of giving an edition of Bacon, at least of his English works, and writing the life of that great man. Had he executed this intention, there can be no doubt that he would have done it in a most masterly manner. Mallet's Life of Bacon has no inconsiderable merit as an acute and elegant dissertation relative to its subject; but Mallet's mind was not comprehensive enough to embrace the vast extent of Lord Verulam's genius and research. Dr. Warburton therefore observed, with witty justness, "that Mallet in his Life of Bacon had forgotten that he was a philosopher; and if he should write the Life of the Duke of Marlborough, which he had undertaken to do, he would probably forget that he was a general." he relieved me. I loved him much; yet, in talking of his general character, I may have said, though I do not remember that I ever did say so, that as his generosity proceeded from no principle, but was a part of his profusion, he would do for a dog what he would do for a friend: but I never applied this remark to any particular instance, and certainly not to his kindness to me. If a profuse man, who does not value his money, and gives a large sum to a prostitute, gives half as much, or an equally large sum to relieve a friend, it cannot be esteemed as virtue. This was all that I could say of that gentleman; and, if said at all, it must have been said after his death. Sir, I would have gone to the world's end to relieve him. The remark about the dog, if made by me, was such a sally as might escape one when painting a man highly." out, and I felt a tender concern at the thought of parting with him. He had, at this time, frankly communicated to me many particulars, which are inserted in this work in their proper places; and once, when I happened to mention that the expense of my jaunt would come to much more than I had computed, he said, "Why, sir, if the expense were to be an inconvenience, you would have reason to regret it; but, if you have had the money to spend, I know not that you could have purchased as much pleasure with it in any other way." On Tuesday, September 23, Johnson was Wishing to be satisfied what degree of remarkably cordial to me. It being necestruth there was in a story which a friend of sary for me to return to Scotland soon, I Johnson's and mine had told me to his dis-had fixed on the next day for my setting advantage, I mentioned it to him in direct terms; and it was to this effect: that a gentleman who had lived in great intimacy with him, shown him much kindness, and even relieved him from a spunging-house, having afterwards fallen into bad circumstances, was one day, when Johnson was at dinner with him, seized for debt, and carried to prison; that Johnson sat still undisturbed, and went on eating and drinking; | upon which the gentleman's sister, who was present, could not suppress her indignation: "What, sir," said she, “are you so unfeeling, as not even to offer to go to my brother in his distress; you who have been so much obliged to him?” And that Johnson answered, "Madam, I owe him no obligation; what he did for me he would have done for a dog." During this interview at Ashbourne, Johnson and I frequently talked with wonderful pleasure of mere trifles which had occurred in our tour to the Hebrides; for it had left a most agreeable and lasting impression upon his mind. Johnson assured me, that the story was He found fault with me for using the absolutely false; but, like a man conscious phrase to make money. "Don't you see," of being in the right, and desirous of com- said he, "the impropriety of it? To make pletely vindicating himself from such a money is to coin it: you should say get mocharge, he did not arrogantly rest on a ney." The phrase, however, is, I think, mere denial, and on his general character, pretty current. But Johnson was at all but proceeded thus: "Sir, I was very inti- times jealous of infractions upon the genumate with that gentleman, and was once ine English language, and prompt to repress relieved by him from an arrest; but I never colloquial barbarisms; such as pledging was present when he was arrested, never myself for undertaking; line for departknew that he was arrested, and I believe hement, or branch, as the civil line, the banknever was in difficulties after the time when ing line. He was particularly indignant against the almost universal use of the word idea, in the sense of notion or opinion, when it is clear, that idea can only signify something of which an image can be formed in the mind. We may have an idea or image of a mountain, a tree, a building; but we cannot surely have an idea or image of an argument or proposition. Yet we hear the sages of the law" delivering their ideas [It appears from part of the original journal in Mr. Anderdon's papers, that the friend who told the story was Mr. Beauclerk, and the gentleman and lady alluded to were Mr. (probably Henry) and Miss Harvey. There is reason to fear that Mr. Boswell's indiscretion in betraying Mr. Beauclerk's name a little impaired the cordiality between him and Dr. Johnson.-ED.] upon the question under consideration; " | ginning every period with a pompous acand the first speakers in parliament "entire- cent, and reading it with a whine, or with a ly coinciding in the idea which has been kind of spasmodic struggle for utterance; ably stated by an honourable member; " or and this, not from any natural infirmity, "reprobating an idea as unconstitutional, but from a strange singularity, in reading and fraught with the most dangerous con- on, in one breath, as if he had made a reso sequences to a great and free country." lution not to respire till he had closed the Johnson called this "modern cant." sentence."] In the evening our gentleman-farmer, and two others, entertained themselves and the company with a great number of tunes on the fiddle. Johnson desired to have "Let Ambition fire thy Mind" played over again, and appeared to give a patient attention to it; though he owned to me that he was ve I perceived that he pronounced the word heard, as if spelt with a double e, heerd, instead of sounding it herd, as is most usually done 2. He said, his reason was, that if it were pronounced herd, there would be a single exception from the English pronunciation of the syllable ear, and he thought it better not to have that excep-ry insensible to the power of musick. I told tion. him that it affected me to such a degree, as often to agitate my nerves painfully, pro He praised Grainger's "Ode on Solitude," in Dodsley's collection, and repeat-ducing in my mind alternate sensations of ed, with great energy, the exordium: Reyn. "O Solitude, romantick maid, Whether by nodding towers you tread; pathetic dejection, so that I was ready to shed tears; and of daring resolution, so that I was inclined to rush into the thickest part of the battle. "Sir," said he, "I should never hear of it, if it made me such a fool." Much of the effect of musick, I am satisfied, is owing to the association of ideas. That air, which instantly and irresistibly excites in the Swiss, when in a foreign land, the maladie du pais, has, I am told, no intrinsick power of sound. And I know from my own experience, that Scotch reels, observing, "This, sir, is very no- though brisk, make me melancholy, beble." ["I shall never forget," says cause I used to hear them in my early Miss Reynolds, to whom Johnson years, at a time when Mr. Pitt called for also repeated these verses, "the concor- soldiers, "from the mountains of the dance of the sound of his voice with the north," and numbers of brave Highlandgrandeur of those images; nor, indeed, the ers were going abroad, never to return. gothic dignity of his aspect, his look and Whereas the airs in "The Beggar's Opemanner, when repeating sublime passages. ra," many of which are very soft, never fail But what was very remarkable, though his to render me gay, because they are assocadence in reading poetry was so judicious-ciated with the warm sensations and high ly emphatical as to give additional force to the words uttered, yet in reading prose, particularly on common or familiar subjects, narrations, essays, letters, &c. nothing could be more injudicious than his manner, be spirits of London. This evening, while some of the tunes of ordinary composition were played with no great skill, my frame was agitated, and I was conscious of a generous attachment to Dr. Johnson, as my preceptor and friend, mixed with an affectionate regret that he was an old man, whom I should probably lose in a short time. I thought I could defend him at the point of him were in full glow. I said to him, "My my sword. My reverence and affection for dear sir, we must meet every year, if you Nay, don't quarrel with me." JOHNSON.." sir, you are more likely to quarrel with me, than I with you. My regard for you is greater almost than I have words to express; but I do not choose to be always re[In Dodsley's collection, and in Miss Rey-peating it: write it down in the first leaf of nold's Recollections, the two last lines are thus your pocket-book, and never doubt of it given: again." [I consider the pronunciation of this word, which Boswell justly makes an objection to, as provincial; but I think he must have misapprehended Dr. Johnson's "reason." There are many words, in which these three letters occur, that are pronounced similarly, e. g. earn, learn, &c.; nor would the single exception be an objection, as uniformity is not the jus et norma loquendi in English.-HALL.] 2 In the age of Queen Elizabeth this word was frequently written, as doubtless it was pronounced, hard.-MALONE. "Or Tadnor's marble wastes survey, Or in yon roofless cloister stray.' I talked to him of misery being "the doom of man," in this life, as displayed in But Bishop Percy, in his Reliques, vol. i. p. 264, his "Vanity of Human Wishes." Yet I corrects them as given in the text.—ED.] observed that things were done upon the supposition of happiness; grand houses were haps, be necessary, in order to preserve built, fine gardens were made, splendid pla- both men and angels in a state of rectitude, ces of publick amusement were contrived, that they should have continually before and crowded with company. JOHNSON. them the punishment of those who have "Alas, sir, these are only struggles for hap- deviated from it; but we hope that by some piness. When I first entered Ranelagh, it other means a fall from rectitude may be gave an expansion and gay sensation to my prevented. Some of the texts of Scripture mind, such as I never experienced any upon this subject are, as you observe, inwhere else. But, as Xerxes wept when he deed strong; but they may admit of a mitiviewed his immense army, and considered gated interpretation." He talked to me that not one of that great multitude would upon this awful and delicate question in a be alive a hundred years afterwards, so it gentle tone, and as if afraid to be decisive. went to my heart to consider that there was not one in all that brilliant circle that was not afraid to go home and think; but that the thoughts of each individual there would be distressing when alone." This reflection was experimentally just. The feeling of languor1, which succeeds the animation of gaiety, is itself a very severe pain; and when the mind is then vacant, a thousand disappointments and vexations rush in and excruciate. Will not many even of my fairest readers allow this to be true? I suggested, that being in love, and flattered with hopes of success; or having some favourite scheme in view for the next day, might prevent that wretchedness of which we had been talking. JOHNSON. "Why, sir, it may sometimes be so as you suppose; but my conclusion is in general but too true." While Johnson and I stood in calm conference by ourselves in Dr. Taylor's garden, at a pretty late hour in a serene autumn night, looking up to the heavens, I directed the discourse to the subject of a future state. My friend was in a placid aud most benignant frame of mind. "Sir," said he, "I do not imagine that all things will be made clear to us immediately after death, but that the ways of Providence will be explained to us very gradually." I ventured to ask him whether, although the words of some texts of Scripture seemed strong in support of the dreadful doctrine of an eternity of punishment, we might not hope that the denunciation was figurative, and would not literally be executed. JOHNSON. "Sir, you are to consider the intention of punishment in a future state. We have no reason to be sure that we shall then be no longer liable to offend against God. We do not know that even the angels are quite in a state of security; nay, we know that some of them have fallen. It may therefore, per 1 Pope mentions, "Stretch'd on the rack of a too easy chair." But I recollect a couplet quite apposite to my sub- After supper I accompanied him to his apartment, and at my request he dictated to me an argument in favour of the negro who was then claiming his liberty, in an action in the court of session in Scotland. He had always been very zealous against slavery in every form, in which I with all deference thought that he discovered" a zeal without knowledge." Upon one occasion, when in company with some very grave men at Oxford, his toast was, "Here's to the next insurrection of the negroes in the West Indies." His violent prejudice against our West Indian and American settlers appeared whenever there was an opportunity. Towards the conclusion of his "Taxation no Tyranny," he says, "how is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?" and in his conversation with Mr. Wilkes 2 he asked, "Where did Beckford and Trecothick learn English?" That Trecothick could both speak and write good English is well known. I myself was favoured with his correspondence concerning the brave Corsicans. And that Beckford could speak it with a spirit of honest resolution even to his majesty, as his "faithful lord mayor of London," is commemorated by the noble monument erected to him in Guildhall. The argument dictated by Dr. Johnson [will be found in the Appendix]. I record Dr. Johnson's argument fairly upon this particular case; where, perhaps, he was in the right. But I beg leave to enter my most solemn protest against his gen eral doctrine with respect to the slave trade. For I will resolutely say, that his unfavourable notion of it was owing to prejudice, and imperfect or false information. The wild and dangerous attempt which has for some time been persisted in to obtain an act of our legislature, to abolish so very important and necessary a branch of commercial interest, must have been crushed at once, had not the insignificance of the zealots who vainly took the lead in it made the vast body of planters, merchants, and others, whose immense properties are involved in that trade, reasonably enough suppose that there could be no danger. The encourage 2 See ante, p. 76.-BOSWELL. |