"You must tell Mrs. Bofwell that I fufpected her to have written without your knowledge, and therefore did not return any anfwer, left a clandeftine correspondence should have been perniciously discovered. I will write to her foon. *. I am, dear Sir, "Moft affectionately yours, "Feb. 24, 1776. SAM. JOHNSON." Having communicated to Lord Hailes what Dr. Johnson wrote concerning the question which perplexed me fo much, his Lordship wrote to me, "Your fcruples have produced more fruit than I ever expected from them; an excellent differtation on general principles of morals and law." I wrote to Dr. Johnson on the 20th of February, complaining of melancholy, and expreffing a strong defire to be with him; informing him that the ten packets came all fafe; that Lord Hailes was much obliged to him, and said he had almost wholly removed his fcruples against entails. "DEAR SIR, To JAMES BOSWELL, Efq. "I HAVE not had your letter half an hour; as you lay fo much weight upon my notions, I fhould think it not just to delay my answer. "I am very forry that your melancholy fhould return, and fhould be forry likewife if it could have no relief but from my company. My counsel you may have when you are pleafed to require it; but of my company you cannot in the next month have much, for Mr. Thrale will take me to Italy, he says, on the first of April. "Let me warn you very earnestly against fcruples. I am glad that you are reconciled to your fettlement, and think it a great honour to have shaken Lord Hailes's opinion of entails. Do not, however, hope wholly to reason away your troubles; do not feed them with attention, and they will die imperceptibly away. Fix your thoughts upon your business, fill your intervals with company, and funfhine will again break in upon your mind. If you will come to me, you must come very quickly, and even then I know not but we may scour the country together, for I have a mind to fee Oxford and Lichfield before I fet out on this long journey. To this I can only add, that I am, dear Sir, "March 5, 1776. "Your most affectionate humble fervant, SAM. JOHNSON." 6 A letter to him on the interefting fubject of the family fettlement, which I had read. 1776. Ætat. 67. "VERY early in April we leave England, and in the beginning of the next week I shall leave London for a fhort time; of this I think it neceffary to inform you, that you may not be disappointed in any of your enterprises. I had not fully refolved to go into the country before this day. "Please to make my compliments to Lord Hailes; and mention very particularly to Mrs. Bofwell my hope that fhe is reconciled to, Sir, "Your faithful fervant, March 12, 1776. SAM. JOHNSON." Above thirty years ago, the heirs of Lord Chancellor Clarendon prefented the University of Oxford with the continuation of his Hiftory, and fuch other of his Lordship's manufcripts as had not been published, on condition that the profits arifing from their publication fhould be applied to the establishment of a Manege in the University. The gift was accepted in full convocation. A perfon being now recommended to Dr. Johnfon, as fit to fuperintend this propofed riding-fchool, he exerted himfelf with that zeal for which he was remarkable upon every fimilar occafion. But, on enquiry into the matter, he found that the fcheme was not likely to be foon carried into execution; the profits arifing from the Clarendon prefs being, from fome mifmanagement, very fcanty. This having been explained to him by a refpectable dignitary of the church, who had good means of knowing it, he wrote a letter upon the subject, which at once exhibits his extraordinary precision and acutenefs, and his warm attachment to his ALMA MATER. To the Reverend Dr. WETHERELL, Master of University-College, Oxford. "DEAR SIR, "FEW things are more unpleasant than the tranfaction of business with men who are above knowing or caring what they have to do; fuch as the truftees for Lord Cornbury's inftitution will, perhaps, appear, when you have read Dr. ******* 's letter. "The laft part of the Doctor's letter is of great importance. The complaint which he makes I have heard long ago, and did not know but it was 7 I fuppofe the complaint was, that the trustees of the Oxford prefs did not allow the London bookfellers a fufficient profit upon vending their publications. redreffed. redreffed. It is unhappy that a practice fo erroneous has not yet been altered; 1776. for altered it must be, or our prefs will be useless with all its privileges. The Etat. 67. book fellers, who, like all other men, have strong prejudices in their own favour, are enough inclined to think the practice of printing and felling books by any but themselves, an encroachment on the rights of their fraternity, and have need of stronger inducements to circulate academical publications than those of one another; for, of that mutual co-operation by which the general trade is carried on, the University can bear no part. Of thofe whom he neither loves nor fears, and from whom he expects no reciprocation of good offices, why should any man promote the intereft but for profit? I fuppose, with all our fcholaftick ignorance of mankind, we are ftill too knowing to expect that the bookfellers will erect themfelves into patrons, and buy and fell under the influence of a difinterested zeal for the promotion of learning. "To the booksellers, if we look for either honour or profit from our press, not only their common profit, but fomething more must be allowed; and if books, printed at Oxford, are expected to be rated at a high price, that price must be levied on the publick, and paid by the ultimate purchaser, not by the intermediate agents. What price fhall be fet upon the book, is, to the bookfellers, wholly indifferent, provided that they gain a proportionate profit by negociating the fale. Why books printed at Oxford should be particularly dear, I am, however, unable to find. We pay no rent; we inherit many of our inftruments and materials; lodging and victuals are cheaper than at London; and, therefore, workmanship ought, at leaft, not to be dearer. Our expences are naturally lefs than those of bookfellers; and, in moft cafes, communities are content with lefs profit than individuals. "It is, perhaps, not confidered through how many hands a book often paffes, before it comes into those of the reader; or what part of the profit each hand muft retain, as a motive for tranfmitting it to the next. "We will call our primary agent in London, Mr. Cadell, who receives our books from us, gives them room in his warehouse, and iffues them on demand; by him they are fold to Mr. Dilly, a wholesale bookfeller, who fends them into the country; and the laft feller is the country bookfeller. Here are three profits to be paid between the printer and the reader, or in the style of commerce, between the manufacturer and the confumer; and if any of these profits is too penuriously distributed, the procefs of commerce is interrupted. "We 1776. Atat. 67. "We are now come to the practical queftion, what is to be done? You will tell me, with reason, that I have said nothing, till I declare how much, according to my opinion, of the ultimate price ought to be diftributed through the whole fucceffion of fale. "The deduction, I am afraid, will appear very great: but let it be confidered before it is refufed. We must allow, for profit, between thirty and thirty-five per cent. between fix and seven fhillings in the pound; that is, for every book which cofts the laft buyer twenty fhillings, we must charge Mr. Cadell with fomething less than fourteen. We must fet the copies at fourteen shillings each, and fuperadd what is called the quarterly-book, or for every hundred books so charged we must deliver an hundred and four. "The profits will then stand thus: "Mr. Cadell, who runs no hazard, and gives no credit, will be paid for warehouse room and attendance by a fhilling profit on each book, and his chance of the quarterly-book. "Mr. Dilly, who buys the book for fifteen fhillings, and who will expect the quarterly-book if he takes five-and twenty, will fell it to his country cuftomer at fixteen and fix-pence, by which, at the hazard of lofs, and the certainty of long credit, he gains the regular profit of ten per cent. which is expected in the wholesale trade. "The country bookfeller, buying at fixteen and fix-pence, and commonly trusting a confiderable time, gains but three and fix-pence, and, if he trufts a year, not much more than two and fix-pence; otherwise than as he may, perhaps, take as long credit as he gives. "With lefs profit than this, and more you fee he cannot have, the country bookfeller cannot live; for his receipts are fmall, and his debts fometimes bad. "Thus, dear Sir, I have been incited by Dr. ******* 's letter to give you a detail of the circulation of books, which, perhaps, every man has not had opportunity of knowing; and which those who know it, do not, perhaps, always diftinctly confider. "March 12, 1776. "I am, &c. SAM. JOHNSON." 8 I am happy in giving this full and clear statement to the publick, to vindicate, by the authority of the greatest authour of his age, that refpectable body of men, the Bookfellers of London, from vulgar reflections, as if their profits were exorbitant, when, in truth, Dr. Johnfon has here allowed them more than they ufually demand. 1776. Having arrived in London late on Friday, the 15th of March, I haftened next morning to wait on Dr. Johnson, at his house; but found he was Etat. 67. removed from Johnson's-court, No. 7, to Bolt-court, No. 8, still keeping to his favourite Fleet-street. My reflection at the time upon this change as marked in my Journal, is, as follows, "I felt a foolish regret that he had left a court which bore his name; but it was not foolish to be affected with fome tenderness of regard for a place in which I had seen him a great deal, from whence I had often iffued a better and a happier man than when I went in, and which had often appeared to my imagination while I trod its pavement, in the folemn darkness of the night, to be facred to wifdom and piety.' Being informed that he was at Mr. Thrale's, in the Borough, I haftened thither, and found Mrs. Thrale and him at breakfast. I was kindly welcomed. In a moment he was in a full glow of converfation, and I felt myself elevated as if brought into another state of being. Mrs. Thrale and I looked to each other while he talked, and our looks expreffed our congenial admiration and affection for him. I fhall ever recollect this fcene with great pleasure. I exclaimed to her, "I am now, intellectually, Hermippus redivivus, I am quite reftored by him, by transfufion of mind." "There are many (she replied,) who admire and refpect Mr. Johnfon, but you and I love him." He seemed very happy in the near profpect of going to Italy with Mr. and Mrs. Thrale. "But (faid he,) before leaving England I am to take a jaunt to Oxford, Birmingham, my native city Lichfield, and my old friend, Dr. Taylor's, at Ashbourne, in Derbyshire. I fhall go in a few days, and you, Bofwell, fhall go with me." I was ready to accompany him; being willing even to leave London to have the pleasure of his conversation. I mentioned with much regret the extravagance of the representative of a great family in Scotland, by which there was danger of its being ruined; and as Johnson respected it for its antiquity, he joined with me in thinking it would be happy if this perfon fhould die. Mrs. Thrale feemed fhocked at this, as feudal barbarity; and faid, "I do not understand this preference of the estate to its owner; of the land to the man who walks upon that land.” JOHNSON. "Nay, Madam, it is not a preference of the land to its owner; it is the preference of a family to an individual. Here is an establishment in a country, which is of importance for ages not only to the chief but to his people; an establishment which extends upwards and downwards; that this fhould be deftroyed by one idle fellow is a fad thing." 3 He |