honour me with very high praise of my "Life of Dr. Johnson." To have the fame of my illustrious friend, and his faithful biographer, echoed from the New World, is extremely flattering; and my grateful acknowledgements shall be wafted across the Atlantic. Mr. Abercrombie has politely conferred on me a considerable additional obligation, by transmitting to me copies of two letters from Dr. Johnson to American gentlemen. "Gladly, Sir, (says he,) would I have sent you the originals; but being the only relics of the kind in America, they are considered by the possessors of such inestimable value, that no possible consideration would induce them to part with them. In some future publication of yours relative to that great and good man, they may perhaps be thought worthy of insertion."

"SIR,

"TO MR. B- -D.

"THAT in the hurry of a sudden depar: ture you should yet find leisure to consult my convenience, is a degree of kindness, and an instance of regard, not only beyond my claims, but above my expectation. You are not mistaken in supposing that I set a high value on my American friends, and that you should confer a very valuable favour upon me by giving me an opportunity of keeping myself in their memory. "I have taken the liberty of troubling you with a packet, to which I wish a safe and speedy conveyance, because I wish a safe and speedy voyage to him that conveys it. I am, Sir,

"Your most humble servant,
"SAM. JOHNSON.

"London, Johnson's-court,
Fleet-street, March 4, 1773."

"TO THE REVEREND MR. WHITE.† "DEAR SIR,

"YOUR kindness for your friends accompanies you across the Atlantic. It was long since observed by Horace, that no ship could leave care behind; you have been attended in your voyage by other powers, by benevolence and constancy; and I hope care did not often shew her face in their company.

"I received the copy of Rasselas. The impression is not magnificent, but it flatters an author, because the printer seems to have expected that it would be scattered among the people. The little book has been well

• This gentleman, who now resides in America in a public character of considerable dignity, desired that his name might not be transcribed at full length.

+ Now Doctor White, and bishop of the Episcopal Church in Pennsylvania. During his first visit to England in 1771, as a candidate for holy orders, he was several times in company with Dr. Johnson, who expressed a wish to see the edition of Rasselas, which Dr. White told him had been printed in America. Dr. White, on his return, immediately sent him a copy.

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received, and is translated into Italian, French, German, and Dutch. It has now one honour more by an American edition. "I know not that much has happened since your departure that can engage your curiosity. Of all public transactions the whole world is now informed by the newspapers. Opposition seems to despond; and the dissenters, though they have taken advantage of unsettled times, and a government much enfeebled, seem not likely to gain any immunities.

"Dr. Goldsmith has a new comedy in rehearsal at Covent-Garden, to which the manager predicts ill success. I hope he will be mistaken. I think it deserves a very kind reception.

"I shall soon publish a new edition of my large Dictionary; I have been persuaded to revise it, and have mended some faults, but added little to its usefulness.

"No book has been published since your Faction only fills the town with pamphlets, departure, of which much notice is taken. and greater subjects are forgotten in the noise of discord.

how little I have to tell. Of myself I can "Thus have I written, only to tell you only add, that having been afflicted many weeks with a very troublesome cough, I am

now recovered.

"I take the liberty which you give me of will please to fill up the direction. I am, troubling you with a letter, of which you Sir,

"Your most humble servant,
"SAM. JOHNSON.

"Johnson's-court, Fleet-street,
London, March 4, 1773."

On Saturday, April 3, the day after my arrival in London this year, I went to his house late in the evening, and sat with Mrs. Williams till he came home. I found in the London Chronicle, Dr. Goldsmith's apology to the public for beating Evans, a bookseller, on account of a paragraph * in a smith thought impertinent to him and to a newspaper published by him, which Goldlady of his acquaintance. The apology was written so much in Dr. Johnson's manner, that both Mrs. Williams and I supposed it to be his; but when he came home, he soon undeceived us. When he said to Mrs. Wil

liams, "Well, Dr. Goldsmith's manifesto has got into your paper;" I asked him if Dr. Goldsmith had written it, with an air that made him see I suspected it was his, though subscribed by Goldsmith. JOHNSON: “Sir,

Dr. Goldsmith would no more have asked me to write such a thing as that for him, than he would have asked me to feed him

[The offence given, was a long abusive letter in the London Packet. A particular account of this transaction, and Goldsmith's Vindication (for such it was, rathan an Apology), may be found in the new life of that Poet, prefixed to his Miscellaneous Works, in 4 vols. 8vo. pp. 105-108. M.]

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with a spoon, or to do any thing else that denoted his imbecility. I as much believe that he wrote it, as if I had seen him do it. Sir, had he shown it to any one friend, he would not have been allowed to publish it. He has, indeed, done it very well; but it is a foolish thing well done. I suppose he has been so much elated with the success of his new comedy, that he has thought every thing that concerned him must be of importance to the public." BoSWELL: "I fancy, Sir, this is the first time that he has been engaged in such an adventure." JOHNSON: Why, Sir, I believe it is the first time he has beat; he may have been beaten before. This, Sir, is a new plume to him." I mentioned Sir John Dalrymple's "Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland," and his discoveries to the prejudice of Lord Russel and Algernon Sydney. JOHNSON: "Why, Sir, every body who had just notions of Government thought them rascals before. It is well that all mankind now see them to be rascals." BOSWELL: "But, Sir, may not those discoveries be true with out their being rascals." JOHNSON: "Consider, Sir, would any of them have been willing to have had it known that they intrigued with France? Depend upon it. Sir, he who does what he is afraid should be known, has something rotten about him. This Dalrymple seems to be an honest fellow; for he tells equally what makes against both sides. But nothing can be poorer than his mode of writing, it is the mere bouncing of a schoolboy: Great He! but greater She and such stuff."

I could not agree with him in this criticism; for though Sir John Dalrymple's style is not regularly formed in any respect, and one cannot help smiling sometimes at his affected grandiloquence, there is in his writing a pointed vivacity, and much of a gentlemanly spirit.

At Mr. Thrale's in the evening, he repeated his usual paradoxical declamation against action in public speaking. "Action can have no effect upon reasonable minds. It may augment noise, but it never can enforce argument. If you speak to a dog, you use action; you hold up you hand thus, because he is a brute; and in proportion as men are removed from brutes, action will bave the less influence upon them." MRS. TURALE: "What then, Sir, becomes of Demosthenes's saying? Action, action, action!" JOHNSON: "Demosthenes, Ma. dam, spoke to an assembly of brutes; to a barbarous people."

I thought it extraordinary, that he should deny the power of rhetorical action upon human nature, when it is proved by innumerable facts in all stages of society. Rea

[A bombastic ode of Oldham's on Ben Johnson, begins thus: "GREAT THOU!" which perhaps his namesake remembered. M.]

sonable beings are not solely reasonable. They have fancies which may be pleased, passions which may be roused.

Lord Chesterfield being mentioned, Johnson remarked, that almost all of that celebrated nobleman's witty sayings were puns. He, however, allowed the merit of good wit to his Lordship's saying of Lord Tyraw. ley and himself when both very old and infirm: "Tyrawley and I have been dead these two years; but we don't choose to have it known."

He talked with an approbation of an intended edition of the The Spectator," with notes; two volumes of which had been prepared by a gentleman eminent in the literary world, and the materials which be had collected for the remainder had been transferred to another hand. He observed. that all works which describe manners, require notes in sixty or seventy years, or less; and told us, he had communicated all he knew that could throw light upon "The Spectator." He said, “ Addison had made his Sir Andrew Freeport a true Whig, arguing against giving charity to beggars, and throwing out other such ungracious sentiments; but that he had thought better, and made amends by making him found hospital for decayed farmers." He called for the volume of "The Spectator," in which that account is contained, and read it aloud to us. He read so well, that every thing acquired additional weight and grace from his utterance.

The conversation having turned on modern imitations of ancient ballads, and some one having praised their simplicity, he treated them with that ridicule which he always displayed when that subject was

mentioned.

He disapproved of introducing Scripture phrases into secular discourse. This seemed to me a question of some difficulty. A Scripture expression may be used, like a highly classical phrase, to produce an instantaneous strong impression; and it may be done without being at all improper. Yet I own there is danger, that applying the language of our sacred book to ordinary subjects may tend to lessen our reverence for it. If therefore it be introduced at all, it should be with very great caution.

On Thursday, April 8, I sat a good part of the evening with him, but he was very silent. He said, "Burnet's History of his Own Times,' is very entertaining. The style, indeed, is mere chit-chat. I do not believe that Burnet intentionally lied; but he was so much prejudiced, that he took no pains to find out the truth. He was like a man who resolves to regulate his time by a certain watch; but he will not inquire whether the watch is right or not."

Though he was not disposed to talk, he was unwilling that I should leave him; and

when I looked at my watch, and told him it was twelve o'clock, he cried, “What's that to you and me ?" and ordered Frank to tell Mrs. Williams that we were coming to drink tea with her, which we did. It was settled that we should go to church together next day.

On the 9th of April, being Good Friday, I breakfasted with him on tea and crossbuns; Doctor Levet, as Frank called him, making tea. He carried me with him to the church of St. Clement Danes, where he had his seat; and his behaviour was, as I had imagined to myself, solemnly devout. I never shall forget the tremulous earnestness with which he pronounced the awful petition in the Litany: "In the hour of death, and at the day of judgment, good LORD deliver us.”

We went to church both in the morning and evening. In the interval between the two services we did not dine; but he read in the Greek New Testament, and I turned over several of his books.

In Archbishop Laud's Diary, I found the following passage, which I read to Dr. John

son:

1623. February 1, Sunday. I stood by the most illustrious Prince Charles,* at dinner. He was then very merry, and talked occasionally of many things with his attendants. Among other things, he said, that if he were necessitated to take any particular profession of life, he could not be a lawyer, adding his reasons: I cannot (saith he) defend a bad, nor yield in a good cause."" JOHNSON: "Sir, this is false reasoning; because every cause has a bad side: and a lawyer is not overcome, though the cause which he has endeavoured to support be determined against him."

I told him that Goldsmith had said to me a few days before, "As I take my shoes from the shoemaker, and my coat from the tailor, so I take my religion from the priest." I regretted this loose way of talking. JOHNSON: "Sir, he knows nothing; he has made up his mind about nothing."

To my great surprise he asked me to dine with him on Easter-day. I never supposed that he had a dinner at his house; for I had not then heard of any one of his friends having been entertained at his table. He told me, "I generally have a meat-pie on Sunday: it is baked at a public oven, which is very properly allowed, because one man can attend it; and thus the advantage is obtained of not keeping servants from church to dress dinners."

April 11, being Easter-Sunday, after having attended Divine Service at St. Paul's, I repaired to Dr. Johnson's. I had gratified my curiosity much in dining with JEAN JAQUES ROUSSEAU, while he lived in the

• Afterwards Charles I.

wilds of Neufchatel: I had as great a curiosity to dine with DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON, in the dusky recess of a court in Fleet-street. I supposed we should scarcely have knives and forks, and only some strange, uncouth, ill-drest dish: but I found every thing in very good order. We had no other company but Mrs. Williams and a young woman whom I did not know. As a dinner here was considered as a singular phenomenon, and as I was frequently interrogated on the subject, my readers may perhaps be desirous to know our bill of fare. Foote, I remember, in allusion to Francis, the negro, was willing to suppose that our repast was black broth. But the fact was, that we had a very good soup, a boiled leg of lamb and spinach, a veal pie, and a rice pudding.

Of Dr. John Campbell, the author, he said,, "He is a very inquisitive and a very able man, and a man of good religious principles, though I am afraid he has been deficient in practice. Campbell is radically right; and we may hope, that in time there will be good practice."

He owned that he thought Hawkesworth was one of his imitators, but he did not think Goldsmith was. Goldsmith, he said, had great merit. BOSWELL: "But Sir, he is much indebted to you for his getting so high in the public estimation." JOHNSON: "Why, Sir, he has perhaps got sooner to it by his intimacy with me."

Goldsmith, though his vanity often excited him to occasional competition, had a very high regard for Johnson, which he had at this time expressed in the strongest manner in the Dedication of his Comedy, entitled, "She Stoops to Conquer."*

Johnson observed, that there were very few books printed in Scotland before the Union. He had seen a complete collection of them in the possession of the Hon. Archibald Campbell, a non-juring bishop.t. I wish this collection had been kept entire. Many of them are in the library of the Faculty of Advocates at Edinburgh. I told Dr. Johnson that I had some intention to write the life of the learned and worthy Thomas Ruddiman. He said, "I should take pleasure in helping you to do honour to him. But his farewell letter to the faculty of Advocates, when he resigned the office of their Librarian, should have been in Latin."

I put a question to him upon a fact in common life, which he did not answer, nor have I found any one else who could.

"By inscribing this slight performance to you, I do not mean so much to compliment you as myself. It may do me some honour to inform the public, that I have lived many years in intimacy with you. It may

serve the interests of mankind also to inform them, that the greatest wit may be found in a character, without impairing the most unaffected piety."

See an account of this learned and respectable gentleman, and of his curious work on the Middle State, "Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides," 3d edit. p. 371.