1778.

Ætat. 69.

snuff-box, adorned with her profile in bas relief, set in diamonds; and containing what is infinitely more valuable, a Nip of paper, on which are written with her Imperial Majesty's own hand, the following words : “ Pour le Chevalier Reynolds en temoignage du contentement que j'ai ressentie à la lecture de ses excellens discours sur la peinture.'

In 1779, Johnson proceeded, at intervals, in writing his " Lives of the Poets.”

On the 22d of January, I wrote to him on several topicks, and mentioned that as he had been so good as to permit me to have the proof sheets of his “ Lives of the Poets,” I had written to his fervant, Francis, to take care of them

1779.

for me.

Mr. BOSWELL to Dr. Johnson.

« MY DEAR SIR,

Edinburgh, Feb. 2, 1779. * GARRICK's death is a striking event; not that we should be surprised with the death of any man, who has lived sixty-two years. But because there was a vivocity in our late celebrated friend, which drove away the thoughts of death from any association with him; I am sure you will be tenderly affected with his departure; and I would wish to hear from you upon the subject. I was obliged to him in my days of effervescence in London, when poor Derrick was my governour; and since that time I received many

civilities from him. Do you remember how pleasing it was, when I received a letter from him at Inverary, upon our first return to civilized living after our Hebridean journey. I shall always remember him with affection as well as admiration.

« On Saturday last, being the 30th of January, I drank coffee and old port, and had folemn conversation with the Reverend Mr. Falconer, a nonjuring bishop, a very learned and worthy man. He gave two toasts, which you will believe I drank with cordiality, Dr. Samuel Johnson, and Flora Macdonald. I sat about four hours with him, and it was really as if I had been living in the last century. The Episcopal Church of Scotland, though faithful to the royal house of Stuart, has never accepted of any congé d'élire, since the Revolution; it is the only true Episcopal Church in Scotland, as it has its own succession of bishops. For as to the episcopal clergy who take the oaths to the present government, they indeed follow the rites of the Church of England, but, as Bishop Falconer observed, they are not Episcopals; for they are under no bishop, as a bishop cannot have authority beyond his diocese.

« This

1779.

" This venerable gentleman, did me the honour to dine with me yesterday, and he laid his hands upon the heads of my little ones.

.

We had a good deal Ætat. 70. of curious literary conversation, particularly about Mr. Thomas Ruddiman, with whom he lived in great friendship.

“ Any fresh instance of the uncertainty of life makes one embrace more closely a valuable friend. My dear and much respected Sir, may God preserve you long in this world while I am in it. I am ever,

“ Your much obliged,
« And affectionate humble servant,

« James Boswell."

On the 23d of February I wrote to him again, complaining of his silence, as I had heard he was ill, and had written to Mr. Thrale for information concerning him; and I announced my intention of foon being again in London.

To JAMES Boswell, Esq. « DEAR SIR,

“ WHY should you take such delight to make a bustle, to write to Mr. Thrale that I am negligent, and to Francis to do what is so very unnecessary. Thrale, you may be sure, cared not about it; and I shall spare Francis the trouble, by ordering a set both of the Lives and Poets to dear Mrs. Boswell”, in acknowledgement of her marmalade. Persuade her to accept them, and accept them kindly. If I thought she would receive them scornfully, I would send them to Miss Boswell, who, I hope, has yet none of her mamma's illwill to me.

“ I would send sets of Lives, four volumes, to some other friends, to Lord Hailes first. His second volume lies by my bed-side; a book surely of great labour, and to every just thinker of great delight. Write me word to whom I shall send besides; would it please Lord Auchinleck? Mrs. Thrale waits

; in the coach,

“ I am, dear Sir, &c. " March 13, 1779.

SAM. Johnson."

This letter crossed me on the road to London, where I arrived on Monday, March 15, and next morning at a late hour, found Dr. Johnson fitting over

a

· He sent a fet elegantly bound and gilt, which was received as a very handsome present.
Vol. II,
оо

his

1779.

Ætat. 70.

a

his tea, attended by Mrs. Desmoulins, Mr. Levett, and a clergyman, who had come to submit some poetical pieces to his revision. It is wonderful what a number and variety of writers, some of them even unknown to him, prevailed on his good-nature to look over their works, and suggest corrections and improvements. My arrival interrupted for a little while, the important business of this true representative of Bayes; upon its being refumed, I found that the subject under immediate consideration was a translation, yet in manuscript, of the Carmen Seculare of Horace, which had this year been set to musick, and performed as a publick entertainment in London, for the joint benefit of Monsieur Philidor and Signor Baretti. When Johnson had done reading, the authour asked him bluntly, “If upon the whole it was a good tranNation?” Johnson, whose regard for truth was uncommonly strict, seemed to be puzzled for a moment, what answer to make, as he certainly could not honestly commend the performance: with exquisite address he evaded the question thus, “ Sir, I do not say that it may not be made a very good tranNation.” Here nothing whatever in favour of the performance was affirmed, and yet the writer was not shocked. A printed

" Ode to the Warlike Genius of Britain,” came next in review; the bard was a lank bony figure, with short black hair; he was writhing himself in agitation, while

, Johnson read, and shewing his teeth in a grin of earnestness, exclaimed in broken sentences, and in a keen sharp tone, “ Is that poetry, Sir?-Is it Pindar?” Johnson. “Why, Sir, there is here a great deal of what is called poetry.” Then turning to me, the poet cried, My muse has not been long; upon the town, and (pointing to the Ode) it trembles under the hand of the great critick.” Johnson in a tone of displeasure asked him, “

Why do you praise Anson?” I did not trouble him by asking his reason for this question. He proceeded, “ Here is an errour, Sir; you have made Genius feminine.”“ Palpable, Sir ; (cried the enthusiast) I know it. But (in a lower tone) it was to pay a compliment to the Duchess of Devonshire, with which her Grace was pleased. She is walking across Coxheath, in the military uniform, and. I suppose her to be the Genius of Britain.” Johnson. “ Sir you are giving a reason for it, but that will not make it right. You may have a reason why two and two should make five; but they will still make but four.”

Although I was several times with him in the course of the following days, such it seems were my occupations, or fuch my negligence, that I have preserved no memorial of his conversation till Friday, March 26, when I visited him. He said he expected to be attacked on account of his

« Lives

1779.

Ætat. 70.

a

a

* Lives of the Poets." “ However (said he) I would rather be attacked
than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an authour is to be silent
as to his works. An assault upon a town is a bad thing; but starving it is still
worse ; an assault may be unsuccessful; you may have more men killed than
you kill; but if you starve the town you are sure of a victory.”
Talking of a friend of our's associating with persons of very

discordant
principles and characters; I said he was a very universal man, quite a man
of the world. Johnson. “ Yes, Sir; but one may be so much a man of the
world as to be nothing in the world. I remember a passage in Goldsmith's
(Vicar of Wakefield,' which he was afterwards fool enough to expunge:
"I do not love a man who is zealous for nothing.” Boswell. “ That was
a fine passage." JOHNSON. “ Yes, Sir: there was another fine passage too,
which he struck out: When I was a young man, being anxious to distinguish
myself, I was perpetually starting new propositions. But I soon gave this
over; for, I found that generally what was new was false.” I said I did not
like to sit with people of whom I had not a good opinion. JOHNSON. “ But
you must not indulge your delicacy too much; or you will be a tête à tête man
all your life.”

During my stay in London, this spring, I find I was unaccountably negligent in preserving Johnson's sayings, more so than at any time when I was happy enough to have an opportunity of hearing his wisdom and wit. There is no help for it now. I must content myself with presenting fuch scraps as I have. But I am nevertheless ashamed and vexed to think how much has been lost. It is not that there was a bad crop this year; but that I was not sufficiently careful in gathering it in. I, therefore, in some instances can only exhibit a few detached fragments.

Talking of the wonderful concealment of the authour of the celebrated
letters signed funius ; he said, “I should have believed Burke to be
Junius, because I know no man but Burke who is capable of writing these
letters; but Burke spontaneously denied it to me. The case would have been

.
different had I asked him if he was the authour; a man so questioned, as to
an anonymous publication, may think he has a right to deny it.

He observed that his old friend, Mr. Sheridan, had been honoured with
extraordinary attention in his own country, by having had an exception made
in his favour in an Irish Act of Parliament concerning insolvent debtors.
“ To be thus singled out (said he) by a legislature, as an object of publick
confideration and kindness, is a proof of no common merit.”

1779.

Ætat, 70.

а

3

At Streatham, on Monday, March 29, at breakfast he maintained that a father had no right to control the inclinations of his daughters in marriage.

On Wednesday, March 31, when I visited him, and confessed an excess of which I had very seldom been guilty; that I had spent a whole night in playing at cards, and that I could not look back on it with satisfaction. Instead of a harsh animadversion, he mildly said, “ Alas, Sir, on how few things can, we look back with satisfaction.”

On Thursday, April 1, he commended one of the Dukes of Devonshire for « a dogged veracity ?.” He said too, “ London is nothing to some people; but to a man whose pleasure is intellectual, London is the place. And there is no place where æconomy can be so well practised as in London. More can be had here for the money, even by ladies, than any where else. You: cannot play tricks with your fortune in a small place ;: you must make an uniform appearance. Here a lady may have well-furnished apartments, and: elegant dress, without any meat in her kitchen.”

I was amused by considering with how much ease and coolness he could write or talk to a friend, exhorting him not to suppose that happiness was not, to be found as well in other places as in London ; when he himself was at all times sensible of its being, comparatively speaking, a heaven upon

earth. The truth is, that by those who from fagacity, attention, and experience, have, learnt the full advantage of London, its pre-eminence over every other place, not only for variety of enjoyment, but for comfort, will be felt with a philo-. sophical exultation. The freedom from remark and petty censure, with which life may be passed there, is a circircumstance which a man who knows. the teizing restraint of a narrow circle must relish highly. Mr. Burke, whose orderly and amiable domestick habits might make the eye of observation less irksome to him than to most men, said once very pleasantly, in my hearing,

Though I have the honour to represent Bristol, I should not like to live there; I should be obliged to be so much upon my good behaviour.” In London, a man may live in splendid society at one time, and in frugal retirement another, without animadversion. There, and there aļone, a man's own. house is truly his castle, in which he can be in perfect safety from intrusion. whenever he pleases. I never shall forget how well this was expressed to me one day by Mr. Meynell : “ The chief advantage of London (said he), is, that a man is always so near bis burrow.”.

He said of one of his old acquaintances, “ He is very fit for a travelling governour. He knows French very well. He is a man of good principles ;

a