trade in favour of his foreman, and went to live at a country-house near town. He soon grew weary, and paid frequent visits to his old shop, where he desired they might let him know their melting-days, and he would come and assist them; which he accordingly did. Here, Sir, was a man, to whom the most disgusting circumstance in the business to which he had been used, was a relief from idleness."

On Wednesday, April 5, I dined with him at Messieurs Dilly's, with Mr. John Scott of Amwell, the Quaker; Mr. Langton; Mr. Miller (now Sir John ;) and Dr. Thomas Campbell, an Irish Clergyman, whom I took the liberty of inviting to Mr. Dilly's table, having seen him at Mr. Thrale's, and been told that he had come to England chiefly with a view to see Dr. Johnson, for whom he entertained the highest veneration. has since published "A Philosophical Survey of the South of Ireland," a very entertaining book, which has, however, one fault : -that it assumes the fictitious character of an Englishman.

Dr. Johnson, as usual, spoke contemptu- ! He took money, indeed, from France: but ously of Colley Cibber. "It is wonderful he did not betray those over whom he ruled. that a man, who for forty years had lived He did not let the French fleet pass ours. with the great and witty, should have ac- George the First knew nothing, and desired quired so ill the talents of conversation: and to know nothing; did nothing, and desired he had but half to furnish; for one half of to do nothing; and the only good thing that what he said was oaths." He, however, is told of him is, that he wished to restore allowed considerable merit to some of his the crown to its hereditary successor." He comedies, and said there was no reason to roared with prodigious violence against believe that the "Careless Husband" was George the Second." When he ceased, Moonot written by himself. Davies said, he dy interjected, in an Irish tone, and with a was the first dramatic writer who introduced comic look, "Ah! poor George the Second." genteel ladies upon the stage. Johnson refuted his observation by instancing several such characters in comedies before his time. DAVIES (trying to defend himself from a charge of ignorance :)" I mean genteel moral characters." "I think (said Hicky) gentility and morality are inseparable." BOSWELL: "By no means, Sir. The genteelest characters are often the most immoral. Does not Lord Chesterfield give precepts for uniting wickedness and the graces? A man, indeed, is not genteel when he gets drunk; but most vices may be committed very genteelly: a man may debauch his friend's wife genteelly; he may cheat at cards genteelly." HICKY: "I do not think that is genteel." BOSWELL: "Sir, it may not be like a gentleman, but it may be genteel." JOHNSON: "You are meaning two different things. One means exterior grace; the other, honour. It is certain that a man may be very immoral with exterior grace. Lovelace, in ، Clarissa, is a very genteel and a very wicked character. Tom Hervey, who died t'other day, though a vicious man, was one of the genteelest men that ever lived." Tom Davies instanced Charles the Second. JOHNSON (taking fire at any attack upon that Prince, for whom he had an extraordinary partiality :) "Charles the Second was licentious in his practice; | but he always had a reverence for what was good. Charles the Second knew his people, and rewarded merit. The Church was at no time better filled than in his reign. He was the best King we have had from his time till the reign of his present Majesty, except James the Second, who was a very good King, but unhappily believed that it was necessary for the salvation of his sub. jects that they should be Roman Catholics. He had the merit of endeavouring to do what he thought was for the salvation of the souls of his subjects, till he lost a great empire. We, who thought that we should not be saved if we were Roman Catholics, had the merit of maintaining our religion, at the expense of submitting ourselves to the government of King William, for it could not be done otherwise,-to the government of one of the most worthless scoundrels that ever existed.. No; Charles the Second was not such a man as (naming another king.) He did not destroy his father's will.

I mentioned that Dr. Thomas Campbell had come from Ireland to London, princi pally to see Dr. Johnson. He seemed angry at this observation. DAVIES: "Why, you know, Sir, there came a man from Spain to see Livy ; and Corelli came to England to see Purcell,+ and, when he heard he was dead, went directly back again to Italy." JOHNSON: "I should not have wished to be dead to disappoint Campbell, had he been so foolish as you represent him; but I should have wished to have been a hundred miles off." This was apparently perverse; and I do believe it was not his real way of thinking; he could not but like a man who came so far to see him. He laughed with some complacency, when I told him Campbell's odd expression to me concerning him: "That having seen such a man, was a thing to talk of a century hence,"-as if he could live so | long.

We got into an argument whether the Judges who went to India might with propriety engage in trade. Johnson warmly maintained that they might, "For why (he urged) should not Judges get riches, as well as those who deserve them less?" I said, they should have sufficient salaries, and have nothing to take off their attention from the affairs of the public. JOHNSON: "No Judge, Sir, can give his whole attention to his office; and it is very proper that he should employ what time he has to himself, to his own advantage, in the most profitable manner." "Then, Sir (said Davies, who enlivened the dispute by making it somewhat dramatic,) he may become an insurer; and when he is going to the bench, he may be stopped,-Your Lordship cannot go yet ; here is a bunch of invoices; several ships are about to sail.'" JOHNSON: "Sir, you may as well say a Judge should not have a house; for they may come and tell him, 'Your Lordship's house is on fire;' and so, instead of minding the business of his court, he is to be occupied in getting the engine with the greatest speed. There is no end of this. Every Judge who has land, trades to a certain extent in corn or in cattle; and in the land itself undoubtedly his steward acts for him, and so do clerks for

Plin. Epist. Lib. ii. Ep. 3.

t [Mr. Davies was here mistaken. Corelli never was in England. B.]

We spoke of Rolt, to whose Dictionary of Commerce Dr. Johnson wrote the Preface. JOHNSON: "Old Gardner, the bookseller, employed Rolt and Smart to write a monthly miscellany, called The Universal Visitor.' There was a formal written contract, which Allen the Printer saw. Gardner thought as you do of the Judge. They were bound to write nothing else; they were to have, I think, a third of the profits of his sixpenny pamphlet; and the contract was for ninetynine years. I wish I had thought of giving this to Thurlow, in the cause about Literary Property. What an excellent instance would it have been of the oppression of booksellers towards poor authors!"+ (smiling.) Davies, Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides," (p. 323, 34 edit.), zealous for the honour of the Trade, said,

of the counties of England, we should not | for his interest to take his chance of his parbelieve that a long poem was preserved there; ty coming in.” though, in the neighbouring counties, where Mrs. Pritchard being mentioned, he said, the same language was spoken, the inhabi-"Her playing was quite mechanical. It is tants could write." BEAUCLERK: “The wonderful how little mind she had. Sir, ballad of Lilliburlero was once in the mouths she had never read the tragedy of Macbeth of all the people of this country, and is said all through. She no more thought of the to have had a great effect in bringing about play out of which her part was taken, than the Revolution. Yet I question whether a shoemaker thinks of the skin, out of which any body can repeat it now; which shews the piece of leather, of which he is making how improbable it is that much poetry a pair of shoes, is cut " should be preserved by tradition."

One of the company suggested an internal bjection to the antiquity of the poetry said to be Ossian's, that we do not find the wolf in it, which must have been the case had it been of that age.

The mention of the wolf had led Johnson to think of other wild beasts; and while Sir Joshua Reynolds and Mr. Langton were carrying on a dialogue about something which engaged them earnestly, he, in the midst of it, broke out, "Pennant tells of Bears-"[what he added, I have forgotten.] They went on, which he being dull of hearing did not perceive, or, if he did, was not willing to break off his talk; so he continued to vociferate his remarks, and Bear (" like a word in a catch," as Beauclerk said) was repeatedly heard at intervals, which, coming from him who, by those who did not know him, had been so often assimilated to that ferocious animal, while we who were sitting around could hardly stifle laughter, produced a very ludicrous effect. Silence having ensued, he proceeded: "We are told, that the black bear is innocent; but I should not like to trust myself with him." Mr. Gibbon muttered, in a low tone of voice, "I should not like to trust myself with you." This piece of sarcastic pleasantry was a prudent resolution, if applied to a competition of abilities.

Patriotism having become one of our topics, Johnson suddenly uttered, in a strong determined tone, an apophthegm, at which many will start: "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." But let it be considered, that he did not mean a real and generous love of our country, but that pretended patriotism which so many, in all ages and countries, have made a cloak for self-interest. I maintained that, certainly, all patriots were not scoundrels. Being urged (not by Johnson) to name one exception, I mentioned an eminent person, whom we all greatly admired. JOHNSON: "Sir, I do not say that he is not honest; but we have no reason to conclude, from his political conduct that he is honest. Were he to accept a place from this ministry, he would lose that character of firmness which he has, and might be turned out of his place in a year. This ministry is neither stable, nor grateful to their friends, as Sir Robert Walpole was: so that he may think it more

On Saturday, May 8, I dined with him at Mr. Thrale's, where we met the Irish Dr. Campbell. Johnson had supped the night before at Mrs. Abington's, with some fashionable people whom he named; and he seemed much pleased with having made one in so elegant a circle. Nor did he omit to pique his mistress a little with jealousy of her housewifery; for he said (with a smile,) "Mrs. Abington's jelly, my dear lady, was better than yours."

Mrs. Thrale, who frequently practised a coarse mode of flattery, by repeating his bonmots in his hearing, told us that he had said, a certain celebrated actor was just fit to stand at the door of an auction-room with a long pole, and cry, "Pray, gentlemen, walk in ;" and that a certain author, upon hearing this, had said, that another still more cele brated actor was fit for nothing better than that, and would pick your pocket after you came out. JOHNSON: "Nay, my dear lady, there is no wit in what our friend added: there is only abuse. You may as well say of any man that he will pick a pocket. Be sides, the man who is stationed at the door does not pick people's pockets; that is done within by the auctioneer."

Mrs. Thrale told us, that Tom Davies repeated, in a very bald manner, the story of Dr. Johnson's first repartee to me, which I have related exactly. He made me say, "I was born in Scotland," instead of "I come from Scotland;" so that Johnson's saying, "That, Sir, is what a great many of your countrymen cannot help," had no point, or even meaning: and that, upon this being mentioned to Mr. Fitzherbert, he observed. "It is not every man that can carry a bon mot."

On Monday, April 10, I dined with him at General Oglethorpe's, with Mr. Langton and the Irish Dr. Campbell, whom the General had obligingly given me leave to bring with me. This learned gentleman was thus gratified with a very high intellectual feast, by not only being in company with Dr. Johnson, but with General Oglethorpe, who had been so long a celebrated name both at home and abroad.†

Page 116.

Let me here be allowed to pay my tribute of most sincere gratitude to the memory of that excellent person, my intimacy with whom was the more valuable to me, because my first acquaintance with him was unex

merely a luxury, an instrument of pleasure, it can have no value, unless when exquisite in its kind." I declared myself not satis"Why, then, Sir, (said he,) Horace and you must settle it." He was not much in the humour of talking.

I must, again and again, intreat of my readers not to suppose that my imperfect record of conversation contains the whole of what was said by Johnson, or other emi-fied. nent persons who lived with him. What I have preserved, however, has the value of the most perfect authenticity.

He this day enlarged upon Pope's melancholy remark,

"Man never is, but always to be blest." He asserted, that the present was never a happy state to any human being; but that, as every part of life, of which we are conscious, was at some point of time a period yet to come, in which felicity was expected, there was some happiness produced by hope. Being pressed upon this subject, and asked if he really was of opinion, that though, in general, happiness was very rare in human life, a man was not sometimes happy in the moment that was present, he answered, "Never, but when he is drunk.”

He urged General Oglethorpe to give the world his Life. He said, "I know no man whose Life would be more interesting. If I were furnished with materials, I should be very glad to write it."*

Mr. Scott of Amwell's Elegies were lying in the room. Dr. Johnson observed, "They are very well; but such as twenty people might write." Upon this, I took occasion to controvert Horace's maxim,

"

mediocribus esse poetis Non Di, non homines, non concessere columnæ."

for here (I observed) was a very middle-rate poet, who pleased many readers, and there. fore poetry of a middle sort was entitled to some esteem; nor could I see why poetry should not, like every thing else, have different gradations of excellence, and consequently of value. Johnson repeated the common remark, that "as there is no necessity for our having poetry at all, it being

No more of his conversation for some days appears in my journal, except that when a gentleman told him he had bought a suit of lace for his lady, he said, “Well, Sir, you have done a good thing and a wise thing." "I have done a good thing, (said the gentle. man,) but I do not know that I have done a wise thing." JOHNSON: "Yes, Sir; no money is better spent than what is laid out for domestic satisfaction. A man is pleas ed, that his wife is drest as well as other people; and a wife is pleased, that she is drest."

On Friday, April 14, being Good-Friday, I repaired to him in the morning, according to my usual custom on that day, and breakfasted with him. I observed that he fasted so very strictly, that he did not even taste bread, and took no milk with his tea; I sup pose, because it is a kind of animal food.

He entered upon the state of the nation, and thus discoursed: "Sir, the great misfortune now is, that government has too little power. All that it has to bestow must of necessity be given to support itself; so that it cannot reward merit. No man, for instance, can now be made a Bishop for his learning and piety; his only chance for promotion is his being connected with someseveral ministers in this reign have out-bid body who has parliamentary interest. Our each other in concessions to the people. Lord Bute, though a very honourable man,

his blood full of prerogative, was a theo-a man who meant well,-a man who had

retical statesman-a book-minister, and thought this country could be governed by the influence of the Crown alone. Then, Sir, he gave up a great deal. He advi sed the King to agree that the Judges should hold their places for life, instead of losing them at the accession of a new acquainted with you." I was not a little flattered to be King. Lord Bute, I suppose, thought to

pected and unsolicited. Soon after the publication of my "Account of Corsica," he did ine the honour to call on me, and approaching me with a frank courteous air, said, "My name, Sir, is Oglethorpe, and I wish to be

thus addressed by an eminent man, of whom I had read in Pope, from my early years,

"Or, driven by strong benevolence of soul,

Will fly, like Oglethorpe, from pole to pole." I was fortunate enough to be found worthy of his good opinion, insomuch, that I not only was invited to make one in the many respectable companies whom he entertained at his table, but had a cover at his hospitable board every day when I happened to be disengaged; and in his society I never failed to enjoy learned and animated conversation, seasoned with genuine sentiments of virtue and religion.

make the King popular by his concession; but the people never minded it; and it was a most impolitic measure. There is no realife, more than any other person in public son why a Judge should hold his office for than to the Crown: we have seen Judges trust. A Judge may be partial otherwise partial to the populace. A Judge may be come corrupt, and yet there may not be legal evidence against him. A Judge may become froward from age. A Judge may grow unfit for his office in many ways. It was desirable that there should be a possibi

The General seemed unwilling to enter upon it at this time: but upon a subsequent occasion he communicated to me a number of particulars, which I have committed to writing; but I was not sufficiently dili gent in obtaining more from him, not apprehending that his friends were so soon to lose him: for, notwith-lity of being delivered from him by a new standing his great age, he was very healthy and vigo rous, and was at last carried off by a violent fever, which is often fatal at any period of life.

1 De Art. Poet. v. 372.

From this too just observation there are some eminent exceptions.