less zealous, exertions in the same cause I suggested, that whatever return we might, receive, we should still have the consolation of being like Butler's steady and generous royalist,

"True as the dial to the sun,

Although it be not shone upon 4.”

We were well entertained and very happy at Dr. Nowell's, where was a very agreeable company; and we drank " Church and King" after dinner, with true Tory cordiality.

When praying for the conversion of sin- | is not promoted." I told this to Dr. Nowners, and of himself in particular, he says, ell; and asserting my humbler, though not • LORD, thou wilt not leave thy chief work undone." JOHNSON. "I do not approve of figurative expressions in addressing the Supreme Being; and I never use them. Taylor gives a very good advice: Never lie in your prayers; never confess more than you really believe; never promise more than you mean to perform.' "" I recollected this precept in his "Golden Grove; " but his example for prayer contradicts his precept. Dr. Johnson and I went in Dr. Adams's coach to dine with Dr. Nowell, Principal of St. Mary Hall, at his villa at Iffley, on the banks of the Isis, about two miles from Oxford. While we were upon the road, I had the resolution to ask Johnson whether he thought that the roughness of his manner had been an advantage or not, and if he would not have done more good if he had been more gentle. I proceeded to answer myself thus: "Perhaps it has been of advantage, as it has given weight to what you said; you could not, perhaps, have talked with such authority without it." JOHN"No, sir; I have done more good as Obscenity and impiety have always been repressed in my company 1." WELL. "True, sir; and that is more than can be said of every bishop. Greater liberties have been taken in the presence of a bishop, though a very good man, from his being milder, and therefore not commanding such awe. Yet, sir, many people who might have been benefited by your conversation have been frightened away. A worthy friend of ours has told me, that he has often been afraid to talk to you." JOHNSON. "Sir, he need not have been afraid, if he had any thing rational to say 2. If he had not, it was better he did not talk."

SON.

I am.

We talked of a certain clergyman 5 of extraordinary character, who, by exerting his talents in writing on temporary topicks, and displaying uncommon intrepidity, had raised himself to affluence. I maintained that we ought not to be indignant at his success; for merit of every sort was entitled to reward. JOHNSON. "Sir, I will not allow this man to have merit. No, sir; what he has is rather the contrary: I will, indeed, allow him courage, and on this account we so far give him credit. We have more respect for a man who robs boldly on the Bos-highway, than for a fellow who jumps out of a ditch, and knocks you down behind your back. Courage is a quality so necessary for maintaining virtue, that it is always respected, even when it is associated with vice."

I censured the coarse invectives which were become fashionable in the House of Commons, and said, that if members of parliament must attack each other personally in the heat of debate, it should be done more genteelly. JOHNSON. "No, sir; that would be much worse. Abuse is not so dangerous when there is no vehicle of wit and delicacy, no subtle conveyance. The difference between coarse and refined abuse

4 [Hud. c. ii. 1. 175.-ED.]

5

Dr. Nowell is celebrated for having preached a sermon before the House of Commons, on the 30th of January, 1772, full of high Tory sentiments, for which he was thanked as usual, and printed it at their [Rev. Henry Bate, who, in 1784, took the request; but, in the midst of that turbulence name of Dudley, was created a baronet in 1815, and faction which disgraced a part of the and died in 1824, without issue. He became first present reign, the thanks were afterwards known to the world for rather an unclerical exordered to be expunged 3. This strange hibition of personal prowess in a Vauxhall squabconduct sufficiently exposes itself; and Dr. ble (see Lond. Mag. for 1773, p. 461); he was Nowell will ever have the honour which is afterwards actively connected with the public due to a lofty friend of our monarchical con-peared in the Morning Herald, (Post) of which press; and in consequence of something that apstitution. Dr. Johnson said to me, "" Sir, the court will be very much to blame if he flect on Lady Strathmore, he was involved in a he was the proprietor, which was supposed to reduel (or pretended duel, Gent. Mag. 1810, p. 183, 1828, p. 496) with Mr. George Robinson Stoney, who soon after married the lady, and took the name of Bowes. It is singular that these remarkable events of his early life are not alluded to in the ample biography of the Gent. Mag. (vol. xciv. p. 273. 638). He was afterwards high in the church, and an active and respectable magistrate.—ED.]

1 [See ante, p. 64.-ED.]

2 The words of Erasmus (as my learned friend Archdeacon Kearney observes to me) may be applied to Johnson: "Qui ingenium, sensum, dictionem hominis noverant, multis non offenduntur, quibus graviter erant offendendi, qui hæc ignorarunt." MALONE.

3 [See ante, vol. i. p. 282, note.-ED.]

From the subject of death we passed to discourse of life, whether it was upon the whole more happy or miserable. Johnson 2 See an account of him, in a sermon by the was decidedly for the balance of misery 4: Reverend Mr. Agutter.-BOSWELL. [He was a young man of very extraordinary abilities, but of in confirmation of which I maintained that strange habits and manners. He had attracted no man would choose to lead over again the the notice of many of the first characters in Ox-life which he had experienced. Johnson ford, who paid him much attention. He was supposed to be well read in books which no one else reads. He took his bachelor's degree, but never got out into the world, having died in college in 1778. He was, I think, sent to college by Dean Tucker, and his funeral sermon was preached by Mr. Agutter, Fellow of Magdalen, on the text "Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians."—HALL]

with very few who would. I have hearding in the master's house, and having the Mr. Burke make use of a very ingenious and plausible argument on this subject: "Every man," said he, "would lead his life over again; for every man is willing to go on and take an addition to his life, which, as he grows older, he has no reason to think will be better, or even so good as what has preceded." I imagine, however, the truth is that there is a deceitful hope that the next part of life will be free from the pains, and anxieties, and sorrows, which we have already felt. We are for wise purposes "Condemned to Hope's delusive Mine," as Johnson finely says; and I may also quote the celebrated lines of Dryden, equally philosophical and poetical: "When I consider life, 't is all a cheat;

[A very eminent physician of the present day (1831) is reported to have publickly stated, that "he always kept in view his duty to preserve a patient's life as long as possible, and that for that 1 Aurengzebe, Act iv. Scene 1.-BOSWELL. reason he did not communicate to the patient him Yet there is no doubt that a man may appear self the extent of danger that impended over him." very gay in company, who is sad at heart. His J. H. MARKLAND. [Warburton says merriment is like the sound of drums and trum- the terror of such a sentence may impede the docpets in a battle, to drown the groans of the wound- tor's endeavours to save, the pronouncing it would ed and dying.---BOSWELL. be very indiscreet."-Lett. to Hurd, p. 392.ED.]

him. Of all lying, I have the greatest abhorrence of this, because I believe it has been frequently practised on myself."

much more poetical than the other.

them highly, and repeated them with a noble animation. In the twelfth line, instead of" one establish'd fame," he repeated" one I cannot help thinking that there is much unclouded flame," which he thought was weight in the opinion of those who have the reading in former editions; but I beheld that truth, as an eternal and immuta-lieve was a flash of his own genius. It is ble principle, ought upon no account whatever to be violated, from supposed previous or superiour obligations, of which every man being to judge for himself, there is great danger that we too often, from partial motives, persuade ourselves that they exist; and probably whatever extraordinary instances may sometimes occur, where some evil may be prevented by violating this noble principle, it would be found that human happiness would, upon the whole, be more perfect were truth universally preserved.

In the notes to the "Dunciad," we find the following verses addressed to Pope1: "While malice, Pope, denies thy page

Its own celestial fire;

While criticks, and while bards in rage,
Admiring, won't admire:

"While wayward pens thy worth assail,
And envious tongues decry;

These times, though many a friend bewail,
These times bewail not I.

"But when the world's loud praise is thine,
And spleen no more shall blame;
When with thy Homer thou shalt shine
In one establish'd fame!

"When none shall rail, and every lay
Devote a wreath to thee;
That day (for come it will) that day
Shall I lament to see.'

The annotator calls them "amiable verses. -BOSWELL. [The annotator was Pope himself. -ED.]

2 Lewis's verses addressed to Pope (as Mr. Bindley suggests to me) were first published in a collection of Pieces in verse and prose on occasion of "The Dunciad,' " 8vo. 1732. They are there called an Epigram. Grongar Hill," the same gentleman observes, was first printed in Savage's Miscellanies, as an Ode (it is singular that Johnson should not have recollected this), and was reprinted in the same year (1726), in Lewis's Miscellany, in the form it now bears. In that Miscellany (as the Reverend Mr. Blakeway observes to me)," the beautiful poem, 'Away, let nought to love displeasing,' &c. (reprinted in Percy's Reliques, vol. i. b. iii. No. 14), first appeared."

On Monday, 14th June, and Tuesday, 15th, Dr. Johnson and I dined, on one of them, I forget which; with Mr. Mickle, translator of the "Lusiad," at Wheatley, a very pretty country place a few miles from Oxford; and on the other with Dr.Wetherell, Master of University College. From Dr. Wetherell's he went to visit Mr. Sackville Parker, the bookseller; and when he returned to us gave the following account. of his visit, saying, "I have been to see my old friend, Sack. Parker; I find he has married his maid; he has done right. She had lived with him many years in great confidence, and they had mingled minds; I do not think he could have found any wife that would have made him so happy. The woman was very attentive and civil to me; she pressed me to fix a day for dining with them, and to say what I liked, and she would be sure to get it for me. Poor Sack! he is very ill indeed 3. We parted as never to

It is there said to be a translation from the ancient British. Lewis was authour of " Philip of Macedon," a tragedy, published in 1727, and dedicated to Pope: and in 1730 he published a second volume of miscellaneous poems. As Dr. Johnson settled in London not long after the verses addressed to Pope first appeared, he probably then obtained some information concerning their authour, David Lewis, whom he has described as an usher of Westminster-school: yet the Dean of Westminster, who has been pleased, at my request, to make some inquiry on this subject, has not found any vestige of his having ever been employed in this situation. A late writer ("Environs of London," iv. 171,) supposed that the following inscription in the churchyard of the church of Low Leyton, in Essex, was intended to commemorate this poet: "Sacred to the memory of David Lewis, Esq. who died the 8th day of April, 1760, aged 77 years; a great favourite of the Muses, as his many excellent pieces in poetry sufficiently testify.

'Inspired verse may on this marble live,

But can no honour to thy ashes give.' "... Also Mary, the wife of the above-named David Lewis, fourth daughter of Newdigate Owsley, Esq. who departed this life the 10th of October, 1774, aged 90 years." But it appears to me improbable that this monument was erected for the authour of the Verses to Pope, and of the tragedy already mentioned: the language both of the dedication prefixed to that piece, and of the dedication addressed to the Earl of Shaftsbury, and prefixed to the Miscellanies, 1730, denoting a person who moved in a lower sphere than this Essex squire seems to have done.-MALONE.

3 He died at Oxford in his eighty-ninth year, Dec. 10, 1796.-MALONE.

your friends as much as you do now. You may dine at a club every day, and sup with one of the members every night; and you may be as much at publick places as one who has seen them all would wish to be. But you must take care to attend constantly in Westminster Hall; both to mind your business, as it is almost all learnt there, (for nobody 2 reads now), and to show that you want to have business. And you must not be too often seen at publick places, that competitors may not have it to say, 'He is always at the play-house or at Ranelagh, and never to be found at his chambers.' And, sir, there must be a kind of solemnity in the manner of a professional man. I have nothing particular to say to you on the subject. All this I should say to any one; I should have said it to Lord Thurlow twenty years ago."

meet again. It has quite broken me down." | business as business lays hold ́of ́you. This pathetick narrative was strangely di- | When not actually employed, you may see versified with the grave and earnest defence of a man's having married his maid. I could not but feel it as in some degree ludicrous. In the morning of Tuesday, 15th June, while we sat at Dr. Adams's, we talked of a printed letter from the reverend Herbert Croft, to a young gentleman who had been his pupil, in which he advised him to read to the end of whatever books he should begin to read. JOHNSON. "This is surely a strange advice; you may as well resolve that whatever men you happen to get acquainted with, you are to keep to them for life. A book may be good for nothing; or there may be only one thing in it worth knowing; are we to read it all through? These Voyages, (pointing to the three large volumes of Voyages to the South Sea' which were just come out) who will read them through? A man had better work his way before the mast than read them through; they will be eaten by rats and mice, before they are read through; There can be little entertainment in such books; one set of savages is like another." BOSWELL. "I do not think the people of Otaheite can be reckoned savages." JOHNSON "Don't cant in defence of savages." BOSWELL. "They have the art of navigation.' JOHNSON. "A dog or cat can swim." Boswell. "They carve very ingeniously." JOHNSON. "A cat can scratch, and a child with a nail can scratch." I perceived this was none of the mollia tempora fandi ; so desisted.

6

Upon his mentioning that when he came to college he wrote his first exercise twice over, but never did so afterwards: Miss ADAMS. "I suppose, sir, you could not make them better?" JOHNSON. "Yes, madam, to be sure, I could make them better. Thought is better than no thought." Miss ADAMS. "Do you think, sir, you could make your Rambler better?" JOHNSON. "Certainly I could." BosWELL. "I'll lay a bet, sir, you cannot." JOHNSON. "But I will, sir, if I choose. I shall make the best of them you shall pick out, better." BoSWELL. "But you may add to them. I will not allow of that." JOHNSON. "Nay, sir, there are three ways of making them better; putting out, adding, or correcting."

The profession may probably think this representation of what is required in a barrister who would hope for success, to be much too indulgent; but certain it is, that as "The wits of Charles found easier ways to fame," some of the lawyers of this age who have risen high have by no means thought it absolutely necessary to submit to that long and painful course of study which a Plowden, a Coke, and a Hale, considered as requisite. My respected friend, Mr. Langton, has shown me, in the hand-writing of his grandfather, a curious account of a conversation which he had with Lord Chief Justice Hale 3, in which that great man tells him, "That for two years after he came to the inn of court, he studied sixteen hours a day; however, his lordship added, that by this intense application he almost brought himself to his grave, though he were of a very strong constitution, and after reduced himself to eight hours; but that he would not advise any body to so much; that he thought six hours a day, with attention and constancy, was sufficient; that a man must use his body as he would his horse, and his stomach; not tire him at once, but rise with an appetite."

On Wednesday, 16th June, Dr. Johnson and I returned to London; he was not well to-day, and said very little, employing him

During our visit at Oxford, the following conversation passed between him and me on [This is very loose talk. Johnson himself, the subject of my trying my fortune at the probably from constitutional nervous irritation, English bar. Having asked whether a was impatient of reading steadily, and his extraorvery extensive acquaintance in London, dinary quickness at catching up, and his tenacity which was very valuable, and of great ad-in retaining what he hastily read, led him to doubt vantage to a man at large, might not be that other men could be more studious.-Er.] prejudicial to a lawyer, by preventing him from giving sufficient attention to his business? JOHNSON. "Sir, you will attend to

3 [This interesting conversation will be found

at length in Seward's " Anecdotes of distinguished
Persons," iv. 489. It was contributed by Mr
Langton to the editor of that work.—J. H. MARK-
LAND.]