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I deny that Canada is taken, and I can support my denial by pretty good arguments. The French are a much more numerous people than we; and it is not likely that they would allow us to take it. But the ministry have assured us, in all the formality of the Gazette, that it is taken.'-Very true. But the ministry have put us to an enormous expense by the war in America, and it is their interest to persuade us that we have got something for our money. 'But the fact is confirmed by thousands of men who were at the taking of it.'-Ay, but these men have still more interest in deceiving us. They don't want that you should think the French have beat them, but that they have beat the French. Now, suppose you should go over and find that it really is taken, that would only satisfy yourself: for when you come home we will not believe you. We will say, you have been bribed.— Yet, Sir, notwithstanding all these plausible objections, we have no doubt that Canada is really ours. Such is the weight of common testimony. How much stronger are the evidences of the Christian religion?"

JOHNSON: "Idleness is a disease which must be combated; but I would not advise a rigid adherence to a particular plan of study. I myself have never persisted in any plan for two days together. A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little good. A young man should read five hours in a day, and so may acquire a great deal of knowledge."

Boswell was now getting very bold, and even dared to banter his hero upon the abuse he had received in the matter of the Government pension.

JOHNSON (with a hearty laugh): "Why, Sir, it is a mighty foolish noise that they make. I have accepted of a pension as a reward which has been thought due to my literary merit ; and now that I have this pension, I am the same man in every respect that I have ever been; I retain the same principles. It is true that I cannot now curse (smiling) the house of Hanover; nor would it be decent for me to drink King James's health in the wine that King George gives me money to pay for. But, Sir, I think that the pleasure of cursing the house of Hanover, and drinking King

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James's health, are amply overbalanced by three hundred pounds a year."

In earlier days Johnson's Jacobitism had been a real feeling, but at this time it had long ceased to be anything more than a kind of poetic sentiment. One day, in those earlier times, when dining at old Mr. Langton's, with Miss Roberts, a niece of his host, as one of the company, the Doctor, with his usual gallantry and politeness where the fair sex was concerned, took the young lady by the hand, and said, "My dear, I hope you are a Jacobite." Mr. Langton looked hurt, and demanded an explanation.

JOHNSON: "Why, Sir, I meant no offence to your niece; I meant her a great compliment. A Jacobite, Sir, believes in the divine right of kings. He that believes in the divine right of kings believes in a Divinity. A Jacobite believes in the divine right of bishops. He that believes in the divine right of bishops, believes in the divine authority of the Christian religion. Therefore, Sir, a Jacobite is neither an Atheist nor a Deist. That cannot be said of a Whig; for Whiggism is a negation of all prin ciple."

Even then, it is clear, his Jacobite Toryism had been more talk than conviction. Years later, he was heard to say "that, after the death of a violent Whig, with whom he used to contend with great eagerness, he felt his Toryism much abated."

Boswell described to him a wild fellow from Scotland, who aped savagery, and spurned at all good old "use and wont."

JOHNSON: "There is nothing surprising in this, Sir. He wants to make himself conspicuous. He would tumble in a hog's-sty, as long as you looked at him and called to him to come out. But let him alone, never mind him, and he'll soon give it over.", BOSWELL: "The same person maintains that there is no distinction between virtue and vice."

JOHNSON: "Why, Sir, if the fellow does not think as he speaks, he is lying; and I see not what honour he can propose to himself from having the character of a liar. But if he does really think that there is no distinction between virtue and vice, why, Sir, when he leaves our houses let us count our spoons."

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One can hardly help fancying that this ferocious Scotchman. must have been entirely a creature of Boswell's own imagination, "got between sleep and wake," and brought forward to draw the Doctor out, and humour one of his supposed prejudices.

Johnson recommended his friend to keep a diary, and begged him to think nothing too small to find a place there. "There is nothing, Sir, too little for so little a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible." There is much food for thought in a little morsel like that. Mark its tenderness too.

Boswell was in ecstasies next morning when, waking, he found the conversation of the preceding evening still fresh in his memory. The talk, however, seems to have agreed with him better than the port-wine, for his "nerves" were always found to suffer from the unusual strain. But a word in season from a friend, to whom he retailed the last night's feast and bewailed the morning's headache, almost set him to rights. "One had better be palsied at eighteen than not keep company with such a man." Had the poor sufferer laid his complaint before the man who had directly or indirectly caused all the pain, he would have met with a retort similar to that which another gentleman had had to bear, who, having complained of headache while travelling with Johnson in a post-chaise, had been thus consoled: "At your age, Sir, I had no headache." Each man is the centre of his own universe, and we are often very unwilling, sometimes quite unable, to take long walks for sympathetic purposes to the dwellers about the circumference.

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CHAPTER XIII.

CONVERSATIONS-" ONE MORE UNFORTUNATE."
(1763.)

Tuesday, July 19th: JOHNSON'S House.

BEFORE sitting down to a very short talk, let us pay a visit to Johnson's library, under the guidance of Mr. Levett. It is contained in two garrets which had formerly been a bookseller's warehouse. The books are all covered with dust, and tumbling about in great confusion. The floor is littered with manuscript leaves, which our friend Boswell beholds with reverence-fancying they may be young unfledged Ramblers, or the faint beginnings of the great "Rasselas." Johnson whispers to us that he keeps his studious visits to this sacred spot secret and mysterious—not making even his servant aware of his whereabouts: for he desires strict retirement, and will not ask his servant to say "not at home" when he knows that his master is all the while snugly ensconced in this quiet corner. "A servant's strict regard for truth," says he, "must be weakened by such a practice. A philosopher may know that it is merely a form of denial: but few servants are such nice distinguishers. If I accustom a servant to tell a lie for me, have I not reason to apprehend that he will tell many lies for himself."

Descending to the lower regions, we say to ourselves that our visit to the garrets would have been well worth while had we seen nothing at all, and only heard this one manly deliverance. Yet Johnson sometimes chose to defend lying-one kind of it at least; as when, on another occasion, he said: "There are inexcusable lies and consecrated lies. For instance, we are told that on the arrival of the news of the unfortunate battle of Fontenoy, every

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heart beat, and every eye was in tears. Now we know that no man ate his dinner the worse, but there should have been all this concern; and to say there was (smiling) may be reckoned a consecrated lie."

SIR THOMAS ROBINSON: "The King of Prussia values himself upon three things; upon being a hero, a musician, and an author."

JOHNSON "Pretty well, Sir, for one man. As to his being an author, I have not looked at his poetry; but his prose is poor stuff. He writes just as you may suppose Voltaire's footboy to do, who has been his amanuensis. He has such parts as the valet might have, and about as much of the colouring of the style as might be got by transcribing his works."

This was afterwards repeated to Voltaire himself, who used to call Johnson "a superstitious dog," but who now, on the strength of this mutual feeling on the subject of the great king, exclaimed, "An honest fellow!"

Wednesday, July 20th: BOSWELL'S Lodgings.

JOHNSON "Pity is not natural to man. Children are always cruel. Savages are always cruel. Pity is acquired and improved by the cultivation of reason. We may have uneasy sensations from seeing a creature in distress, without pity: for we have not pity unless we wish to relieve them. When I am on my way to dine with a friend, and, finding it late, have bid the coachman. make haste, if I happen to attend when he whips his horses, I may feel unpleasantly that the animals are put to pain, but I do not wish him to desist. No, Sir, I wish him to drive on."

Speaking of Hume's style :

JOHNSON: "Why, Sir, his style is not English; the structure of his sentences is French. Now the French structure and the English structure may, in the nature of things, be equally good. But if you allow that the English language is established, he is wrong. My name might originally have been Nicholson, as well as Johnson; but were you to call me Nicholson now, you would call me very absurdly."