to business, being hindered by sudden | ed my " Account of Corsica, with the Joursnatches." 910 He, however, furnished Mr. Adams with a Dedication [*] to the King of that ingenious gentleman's "Treatise on the Globes," conceived and expressed in such a manner as could not fail to be very grateful to a monarch, distinguished for his love of the sciences. This year was published a ridicule of his style, under the title of " Lexiphanes." Sir John Hawkins ascribes it to Dr. Kenrick; but its author was one Campbell, a Scotch purser in the navy. The ridicule consisted in applying Johnson's "words of large meaning" to insignificant matters, as if one should put the armour of Goliath upon a dwarf. The contrast might be laughable; but the dignity of the armour must remain the same in all considerate minds. This malicious drollery, therefore, it may easily be supposed, could do no harm to its illustrious object. 66 TO BENNET LANGTON, ESQ., ᎪᎢ MR. ROTHWELL'S, PERFUMER, IN NEW BONDSTREET, LONDON. "DEAR SIR, "THAT you have been all summer in London, is one more reason for which I regret my long stay in the country. I hope that you will not leave the town before my return. We have here only the chance of vacancies, in the passing carriages, and I have bespoken one that may, if it happens, bring me to town on the fourteenth of this month; but this is not certain. "It will be a favour if you communicate this to Mrs. Williams: I long to see all my friends. "I am, dear Sir, "Your most humble servant, "Lichfield, Oct. 10, 1767." It appears from his notes of the state of his mind, that he suffered great perturbation and distraction in 1768. Nothing of his writing was given to the public this year, except the Prologue [*] to his friend Goldsmith's comedy of The Good-natured Man." The first lines of this Prologue are strongly characteristical of the dismal gloom of his mind; which in his case, as in the case of all who are distressed with the same malady of imagination, transfers to others its own feelings. Who could suppose it was to introduce a comedy, when Mr. Bensley solemnly began, "Press'd with the load of life, the weary mind Surveys the general toil of human kind." But this dark ground might make Goldsmith's humour shine the more. In the spring of this year, having publish Prayers and Meditations, p. 73. † Ibid. p. 81. nal of a Tour to that Island," I returned to London, very desirous to see Dr. Johnson, and hear him upon the subject. I found he was at Oxford, with his friend Mr. Chambers, who was now Vinerian Professor, and lived in New Inn Hall. Having had no letter from him since that in which he criticised the Latinity of my Thesis, and having been told by somebody that he was offended at my having put into my book an extract of his letter to me at Paris, I was impatient to be with him, and therefore followed him to Oxford, where I was entertained by Mr. Chambers, with a civility which I shall ever gratefully remember. I found that Dr. Johnson had sent a letter to me to Scotland, and that I had nothing to complain of but his being more indifferent to my anxiety than I wished him to be. Instead of giving, with the circumstances of time and place, such fragments of his conversation as I preserved during this visit to Oxford, I shall throw them together in con tinuation. I asked him whether, as a moralist, he did not think that the practice of the law, in some degree, hurt the nice feeling of honesty. JOHNSON: "Why, no, Sir, if you act properly. You are not to deceive your clients with false representations of your opi nion: you are not to tell lies to a judge." BOSWELL: "But what do you think of supporting a cause which you know to be bad?" JOHNSON: "Sir, you do not know it to be good or bad till the judge determines it. I have said that you are to state facts fairly; so that your thinking, or what you call knowing, a cause to be bad, must be from reasoning, must be from your supposing your arguments to be weak and inconclusive. But, Sir, that is not enough. An argument which does not convince yourself, may convince the judge to whom you urge it and if it does convince him, why, then, Sir, you are wrong, and he is right. It is his business to judge; and you are not to be confident in your own opinion that a cause is bad, but to say all you can for your client, and then hear the judge's opinion." BOSWELL: "But, Sir, does not affecting a warmth when you have no warmth, and appearing to be clearly of one opinion when you are in reality of another opinion, does not such dissimulation impair one's honesty? Is there not some danger that a lawyer may put on the same mask in common life, in the intercourse with his friends ?" JOHNSON: "Why no, Sir. Every body knows you are paid for affecting warmth for your client; and it is, therefore, properly no dissimulation: the moment you come from the bar, you resume your usual behaviour. Sir, a man will no more carry the artifice of the bar into the common intercourse of society, than a man glow-worm; I am sorry I did not ask where it was to be found. Talking of the Russians and the Chinese, he advised me to read Bell's Travels. I asked him whether I should read Du Halde's Account of China. Why, yes, (said he,) as one reads such a book; that is to say, consult it." | He talked of the heinousness of the crime of adultery, by which the peace of families was destroyed. He said, "Confusion of progeny constitutes the essence of the crime; and therefore a woman who breaks her marriage vows, is much more criminal than a nan who does it. A man, to be sure, is criminal in the sight of Gon; but he does | not do his wife a material injury, if he does not insult her; if, for instance, from mere wantonness of appetite, he steals privately to her chambermaid. Sir, a wife ought not greatly to resent this. I would not receive home a daughter who had run away from her husband on that account. A wife should study to reclaim her husband by more attention to please him. Sir, a man will not, once in a hundred instances, leave his wife and go to a harlot, if his wife has not been negligent of pleasing." Here he discovered, that acute discrimination, that solid judgement, and that knowledge of human nature, for which he was upon all occasions remarkable. Taking care to keep in view the moral and religious duty, as understood in our nation, he shewed clearly from reason and good sense, the greater degree of culpability in the one sex deviating from it than the other; and, at the same time, inculcated a very useful lesson as to the way to keep him. I asked him, if it was not hard that one deviation from chastity should so absolutely ruin a young woman. JOHNSON: "Why no, Sir; it is the great principle which she is taught. When she has given up that principle, she has given up every notion of female honour and virtue, which are all included in chastity." A gentleman talked to him of a lady whom he greatly admired and wished to marry, but was afraid of her superiority of talents. "Sir, (said he,) you need not be afraid; marry her. Before a year goes about, you'll find that reason much weaker, and that wit not so bright." Yet the gentleman may be justified in his apprehension by one of Dr. Johnson's admirable sentences in his life of Waller: "He doubtless praised many whom he would have been afraid to marry; and, perhaps, married one whom he would have been ashamed to praise. Many qualities contribute to domestic happiness, upon which poetry has no colours to bestow: and many airs and sallies may delight imagination, which he who flatters thein never can approve." He praised Signor Baretti. "His account | of Italy is a very entertaining book; and, Sir, I know no man who carries his head higher in conversation than Baretti. There are strong powers in his mind. He has not, indeed, many hooks; but with what hooks he has, he grapples very forcibly." At this time I observed upon the dialplate of his watch a short Greek inscription, taken from the New Testament, Nu yàp pxera, being the first words of our SaVIOUR'S Solemn admonition to the improvement of that time which is allowed us to prepare for eternity; "the night cometh when no man can work." He sometime afterwards laid aside this dial-plate; and when I asked him the reason, he said, “ It might do very well upon a clock which a man keeps in his closet; but to have it upon his watch which he carries about with him, and which is often looked at by others, might be censured as ostentatious." Mr. Steevens is now possessed of the dial-plate inscribed as above. He remained at Oxford a considerable time ; I was obliged to go to London, where I received his letter, which had been returned from Scotland. 66 TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. " MY DEAR BOSWELL, "I HAVE Omitted a long time to write to you, without knowing very well why. I could now tell why I should not write; for who would write to men who publish the letters of their friends, without their leave? Yet I write to you in spite of my caution, to tell you that I shall be glad to see you, and that I wish you would empty your head of Corsica, which I think has filled it rather too long. But, at all events, I shall be glad very glad, to see you. “ I am, Sir, yours affectionately, Oxford, March 23, 1768. "TO MR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. "MY DEAR SIR, “ London, 26th April, 1768. "I HAVE received your last letter, which, though very short, and by no means compli mentary, yet gave me real pleasure, because it contains these words, I shall be glad, very glad, to see you.'-Surely you have no reason to complain of my publishing a sin gle paragraph of one of your letters; the temptation to it was so strong. An irrevocable grant of your friendship, and your dig nifying my desire of visiting Corsica with the epithet of a wise and noble curiosity,' are to me more valuable than many of the grants of kings. "But how can you bid me empty my head of Corsica ? My noble-minded friend, do you not feel for an oppressed nation bravely struggling to be free? Consider fairly what is the case. The Corsicans ne ver received any kindness from the Genoese. | They never agreed to be subject to them. They owe them nothing; and, when reduced to an abject state of slavery, by force, shall they not rise in the great cause of liberty, and break the galling yoke? And shall not every liberal soul be warm for them? Empty my head of Corsica! Empty it of honour, empty it of humanity, empty it of friendship, empty it of piety. No! while I live, Corsica and the cause of the brave islanders shall ever employ much of my attention, shall ever interest me in the sincerest man "MY DEAR Dear Love, "You have had a very great loss. To lose an old friend, is to be cut off from a great part of the little pleasure that this life allows. But such is the condition of our nature, that, as we live on, we must see those whom we love drop successively, and find our circle of relation grow less and less, till we are almost unconnected with the world; and then it must soon be our turn to drop into the grave. There is always this consolation, that we have one Protector who can never be lost but by our own fault, and every new experience of the uncertainty of all other comforts should determine us to fix our hearts where true joys are to be found. All union with the inhabitants of earth must in time be broken; and all the hopes that terminate here, must on [one] part or other end in disappointment. "I am glad that Mrs. Adey and Mrs. Cobb do not leave you alone. Pay my respects to them and the Sewards, and all my friends. When Mr. Porter comes, he will direct you. Let me know of his arrival, and I will write to him. "When I go back to London, I will take care of your reading-glass. Whenever I can do any thing for you, remember, my dear darling, that one of my greatest pleasures is to please you. "The punctuality of your correspondence I consider as a proof of great regard. When we shall see each other, I know not, but let us often think on each other, and think with tenderness. Do not forget me in your pray ers. I have for a long time back been very poorly; but of what use is it to complain? "Write often, for your letters always give great pleasure to, "My dear, your most affectionate Upon his arrival in London in May, he surprised me one morning with a visit at my lodging in Half-Moon-street, was quite sa tisfied with my explanation, and was in the kindest and most agreeable frame of mind. As he had objected to a part of one of his letters being published, I thought it right to take this opportunity of asking him explicitly, whether it would be improper to publish his letters after his death. His answer was, “Nay, Sir, when I am dead, you may do as you will." He talked in his usual style with a rough contempt of popular liberty. "They make a rout about universal liberty,, without considering that all that is to be valued, or indeed can be enjoyed by individuals, is private liberty. Political liberty is good only so far as it produces private liberty. Now, Sir, there is the liberty of the press, which you know is a constant topic. Suppose you and I, and two hundred more, were restrained from printing our thoughts: What then? What proportion would that restraint upon us bear to the private happiness of the nation?" This mode of representing the inconve niences of restraint as light and insignificant, was a kind of sophistry in which he delighted to indulge himself, in opposition to the extreme laxity for which it has been fashionable for too many to argue, when it is evident, upon reflection, that the very essence of government is restraint; and certain it is, that as government produces rational happiness, too much restraint is better than too little. But when restraint is unnecessary, and so close as to gall those who are subject to it, the people may and ought to remonstrate; and, if relief is not granted, to resist. Of this manly and spirited principle, no man was more convinced than Johnson himself. About this time, Dr. Kenrick attacked him, through my sides, in a pamphlet, entitled "An Epistle to James Boswell, Esq. occasioned by his having transmitted the moral Writings of Dr. Samuel Johnson to Pascal Paoli, General of the Corsicans." I was at first inclined to answer this pamphlet ; but Johnson, who knew that my doing so would only gratify Kenrick, by keeping alive what would soon die away of itself, would not suffer me to take any notice of it. His sincere regard for Francis Barber, his faithful negro servant, made him so desirous of his farther improvement, that he now placed him at a school at Bishop Stortford, in Hertfordshire. This humane attention does Johnson's heart much honour. Out of many letters which Mr. Barber received from his master, he has preserved three, which he kindly gave me, and which I shall insert according to their dates. 66 TO MR. FRANCIS BARBER. DEAR FRANCIS, "I HAVE been very much out of order. I am glad to hear that you are well, and design to come soon to you. I would have you Soon afterwards, he supped at the Crown and Anchor tavern, in the Strand, with a company whom I collected to meet him. They were Dr. Percy, now Bishop of Dromore, Dr. Douglas, now Bishop of Salisbury, Mr. Langton, Dr. Robertson the historian, Dr. Hugh Blair, and Mr. Thomas Davies, who wished much to be introduced to these eminent Scotch literati; but on the present occasion he had very little opportunity of hearing them talk, for with an excess of prudence, for which Johnson afterwards found fault with them, they hardly opened their lips, and that only to say something which they were certain would not expose them to the sword of Goliath; such was their anxiety for their fame when in the presence of Johnson. He was this evening in remarkable vigour of mind, and eager to exert himself in conversation, which he did with great readiness and fluency; but I am sorry to find that I have preserved but a small part of what passed. He allowed high praise to Thomson as a poet; but when one of the company said he was also a very good man, our moralist contested this with great warmth, accusing him of gross sensuality and licentiousness of manners. I was very much afraid that, in writing Thomson's life, Dr. Johnson would have treated his private character with a stern severity, but I was agreeably disappointed; and I may claim a little merit in it, from my having been at pains to send him authentic accounts of the affectionate and generous conduct of that poet to his sisters, one of whom, the wife of Mr. Thomson, schoolmaster at Lanark, I knew, and was presented by her with three of his letters, one of which Dr. Johnson has inserted in his life. He was vehement against old Dr. Mounsey, of Chelsea College, as "a fellow who swore and talked bawdy." "I have been often in his company (said Dr. Percy,) and never heard him swear or talk bawdy." Mr. Davies, who sat next to Dr. Percy, having after this had some conversation aside with him, made a discovery, which, in his zeal to pay court to Dr. Johnson, he eagerly proclaimed aloud from the foot of the table: "O, Sir, I have found out a very good reason why Dr. Percy never heard Mounsey swear or talk bawdy, for he never saw him [Messenger Mounsey, M.D. died at his apartments in Chelsea College, Dec. 26, 1788, at the great age of ninetyfive. An extraordinary direction in his will may be found in the GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE, vol 0, part ii. p. 1183. M.] but at the Duke of Northumberland's table." "And so, Sir, (said Dr. Johnson loudly to Dr. Percy,) you would shield this man from the charge of swearing and talking bawdy, because he did not do so at the Duke of Northumberland's table. Sir, you might as well tell us that you had seen him hold up his hand at the Old Bailey, and he neither swore nor talked bawdy; or that you had seen him in the cart at Tyburn, and he neither swore nor talked bawdy. And is it thus, Sir, that you presume to controvert what I have related?" Dr. Johnson's animadversion was uttered in such a manner, that Dr. Percy seemed to be displeased, and soon afterwards left the company, of which Johnson did not at that time take any notice. Swift having been mentioned, Johnson, as usual, treated him with little respect as an author. Some of us endeavoured to support the Dean of St. Patrick's, by various arguments. One in particular praised his "Conduct of the Allies." JOHNSON: "Sir, his Conduct of the Allies' is a performance of very little ability." "Surely, Sir, (said Dr. Douglas,) you must allow it has strong facts."+ JOHNSON: "Why yes, Sir; but what is that to the merit of the compo sition? In the Sessions-paper of the Old Bailey there are strong facts. Housebreaking is a strong fact; robbery is a strong fact; and murder is a mighty strong fact; but is great praise due to the historian of those strong facts? No, Sir; Swift has told what he had to tell, distinctly enough, but that is all. He had to count ten, and he has counted it right."-Then recollecting that Mr. Davies, by acting as an informer, had been the occasion of his talking somewhat too harshly to his friend Dr. Percy, for which, probably, when the first ebullition was over, he felt some compunction, he took an opportunity to give him a hit: so added, with a preparatory laugh, "Why, Sir, Tom Davies might have written The Conduct of the Allies." Poor Tom being thus suddenly dragged into ludicrous notice in presence of the Scottish Doctors, to whom he was ambitious of appearing to advantage, was grievously mortified. Nor did his pu nishment rest here; for upon subsequent occasions, whenever he, "statesmen all over," assumed a strutting importance, I used to hail him" the Author of the Conduct of the Allies." My respectable friend, upon reading this passage, observed, that he probably must have said not simply "strong facts," but "strong facts well arranged." His Lordship, however, knows too well the value of written documents, to insist on setting his recollection against my notes taken at the time. He does not attempt to traverse the record. The fact, perhaps, may have been, either that the additional words escaped me in the noise of a numerous company, or that Dr. Johnson, from his impetuosity, and eagerness to seize an opportunity to make a lively retort, did not allow Dr. Douglas to finish his sentence. See the hard drawing of him in Churchill's ROSCIAD When I called upon Dr. Johnson next morning, I found him highly satisfied with his colloquial prowess the preceding evening. "Well (said he), we had good talk.", BosWELL: Yes, Sir; you tossed and gored several persons." "TO THE REVEREND MR. THOMAS WARTON. "DEAR SIR, "MANY years ago, when I used to read in the library of your College, I promised to recompense the College for that permission, by adding to their books a Baskerville's The late Alexander Earl of Eglintoune, Virgil. I have now sent it, and desire you who loved wit more than wine, and men of to reposit it on the shelves in my name.+ genius more than sycophants, had a great "If you will be pleased to let me know admiration of Johnson; but from the rewhen you have an hour of leisure, I will markable elegance of his own manners, was, drink tea with you. I am engaged for the perhaps, too delicately sensible of the rough- afternoon, to-morrow and on Friday: all ness which sometimes appeared in Johnson's my mornings are my own.‡ behaviour. One evening about this time, when his Lordship did me the honour to sup at my lodgings with Dr. Robertson and several other men of literary distinction, he regretted that Johnson had not been educated with more refinement, and lived more in polished society. "No, no, my Lord (said Signior Baretti), do with him what you would, he would always have been a bear." "True (answered the Earl, with a smile), but he would have been a dancing bear." To obviate all the reflections which have "May 31, 1769." "I am, &c. "SAM. JOHNSON. I came to London in the autumn, and as much of his conversation as I could before having informed him that I was going to be married in a few months, I wished to have engaging in a state of life which would probably keep me more in Scotland, and prevent me seeing him so often as when I was a single man; but I found he was at Brighthelmstone with Mr. and Mrs. Thrale. I was very sorry that I had not his company with me at the Jubilee, in honour of Shakspeare, at Stratford-upon-Avon, the great poet's native town. Johnson's connexion both with Shakspeare and Garrick founded a double claim to his presence; and it would have been highly gratifying to Mr. Garrick. Upon this occasion I particularly lamented that he had not that warmth of friendship In 1769, so far as I can discover, the pub-for his brilliant pupil, which we may suppose lic was favoured with nothing of Johnson's composition, either for himself or any of his friends. His "Meditations" too strongly prove that he suffered much both in body and mind; yet was he perpetually striving against evil, and nobly endeavouring to advance his intellectual and devotional im gone round the world to Johnson's prejudice, By applying to him the epithet of a bear, let me impress upon my readers a just and happy saying of my friend Goldsmith, who knew him well: "Johnson, to be sure, has a roughness in his manner; but no man alive has a more tender heart. He has nothing of the bear but his skin." provement. Every generous and grateful heart must feel for the distresses of so emi nent a benefactor to mankind; and now that his unhappiness is certainly known, must respect that dignity of character which prevented him from complaining. His Majesty having the preceding year instituted the Royal Academy of Arts in London, Johnson had now the honour of being appointed Professor in Ancient Literature. In the course of the year he wrote some letters to Mrs. Thrale, passed some part of the summer at Oxford and at Lichfield, and when at Oxford he wrote the following letter: In which place he has been succeeded by Bennet Langton, Esq. When that truly religious gentleman was elected to this honorary Professorship, at the same time that Edward Gibbon, Esq. noted for introducing a kind of sneering infidelity into his Historical Writings, was elected Professor in Ancient History, in the room of Dr. Goldsmith, I observed that it brought to my mind, Wicked Will Whiston and good Mr. Ditton."I am now also of that admirable institution as Secretary for Foreign Correspondence, by the favour of the Academicians, and the approbation of the Sovereign. would have had a benignant effect on both. When almost every man of eminence in the literary world was happy to partake in this festival of genius, the absence of Johnson could not but be wondered at and regretted. The only trace of him there, was in the whimsical advertisement of a haberdasher, who sold Shaksperian ribands of various dyes; and, by way of illustrating their appropriation to the bard, introduced a line from the celebrated Prologue at the opening of Drury-lane theatre: "Each change of many-colour'd life he drew." From Brighthelmstone Dr. Johnson wrote me the following letter, which they who may think that I ought to have suppressed, must have less ardent feelings than I have always avowed:§ "It has this inscription in a blank-leaf: Hune librum D. D. Samuel Johnson, eo quod hic loci studiis interdum vacaret.' Of this library, which is an old Gothic room, he was very fond. On my observing to him that some of the modern libraries of the University were more commodious and pleasant for study, as being more spacious and airy, he replied, Sir, if a man has a mind to prance, he must study at Christ-Church and All-Souls."" + " During this visit he seldom or never dined out. He appeared to be deeply engaged in some literary work. Miss Williams was now with him at Oxford." In the Preface to my Account of Corsica, published in 1768, I thus express myself: "He who publishes a book affecting not to be an |