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he shook his head, and answered, 'too wordy.' | I say such a one walked across the street; At another time, when one was reading if he really did so, I told a physical truth. his tragedy of Irene,' to a company at a If I thought so, though I should have been house in the country, he left the room and mistaken, I told a moral truth.' "§ somebody having asked him the reason of this, he replied," Sir, I thought it had been better." "

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"Of the Preface to Capel's Shakspeare, he said, 'If the man would have come to me, I would have endeavoured to endow his purposes with words;' for as it is, he doth gabble monstrously.'

"He related, that he had once in a dream a contest of wit with some other person, and that he was very much mortified by imagining that his opponent had the better of him. Now (said he,) one may mark here the effect of sleep in weakening the power of reflection; for had not my judgment failed me, I should have seen, that the wit of this supposed antagonist, by whose superiority I felt myself depressed, was as much furnished by me, as that which I thought I had been uttering in my own character.'"

"One evening in company, an ingenious and learned gentleman read to him a letter of compliment which he had received from one of the Professors of a Foreign University. Johnson, in an irritable fit, thinking there was too much ostentation, said, 'I never receive any of these tributes of applause from abroad. One instance I recollect of a foreign publication, in which mention is made of l'illustre Lockman.' "*

"Of Sir Joshua Reynolds, he said, 'Sir, I know no man who has passed through life with more observation than Reynolds.'"

"He repeated to Mr. Langton, with great energy in the Greek, our SAVIOUR'S gracious expression concerning the forgiveness of Mary Magdalen,† Η πίστις σου σέσωκέ σε ToDevov Eis eiphany. Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace.' He said, the manner of this dismission is exceedingly affecting.'"

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Huggins, the translator of Ariosto, and Mr. Thomas Warton, in the early part of his literary life, had a dispute concerning that poet, of whom Mr. Warton, in his Observations on Spenser's Fairy Queen,' gave some account which Huggins attempted to answer with violence, and said, 'I will militate no longer against his nescience. Huggins was master of the subject, but wanted expression. Mr. Warton's knowledge of it was then imperfect, but his manner lively and elegant. Johnson said, It appears to me, that Huggins has ball without powder, and Warton powder without ball."

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Talking of the Farce of High Life below Stairs," he said, 'Here is a Farce, which is really very diverting, when you see it acted; and yet one may read it, and not know that one has been reading any thing at all.'"

"He used at one time to go occasionally to the green-room of Drury-lane Theatre, where he was much regarded by the players, and was very easy and facetious with them. He had a very high opinion of Mrs. Clive's comic powers, and conversed more with her than with any of them. He said, 'Clive, Sir, is a good thing to sit by; she always understands what you say.' And she said of him, I love to sit by Dr. Johnson; he always entertains me.' One night, when

The Recruiting Officer' was acted, he said to Mr. Holland, who had been expressing an apprehension that Dr. Johnson would disdain the works of Farquhar; No, Sir, I think Farquhar a man whose writings have considerable merit."'"

"His friend Garrick was so busy in conducting the drama, that they could not have so much intercourse as Mr. Garrick used to profess an anxious wish that there should be.l There might, indeed, be something in the contemptuous severity as to the merit of acting, which this old preceptor nourished in himself, that would mortify Garrick after the great applause which he received from the audience. For though Johnson said of him, 'Sir, a man who has a nation to admire him every night, may well be expected to be somewhat elated; yet he would treat "He thus defined the difference between theatrical matters with a ludicrous slight. physical and moral truth: Physical truth, He mentioned one evening, I met David is, when you tell a thing as it actually is. coming off the stage, dressed in a woman's Moral truth, is, when you tell a thing sin-riding hood, when he acted in The Wonder; cerely and precisely as it appears to you. I came full upon him, and I believe he was not pleased.'"

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Secretary to the British Herring Fishery, remarkable for an extraordinary number of occasional verses, not of eminent merit.

[It does not appear that the woman forgiven was Mary Magdalen. K.] + Luke vii. 50.

[This account of the difference between moral and physical truth is in Locke's "Essay on Human Understanding," and many other books. K.]

[In a letter written by Johnson to a friend. in Jan. 1742-3, he says, "I never see Garrick." M.

"Once he asked Tom Davies, whom he saw drest in a fine suit of clothes, And what art thou to-night?' Tom answered, The Thane of Ross;' (which it will be recollected is a very inconsiderable character.) "O brave!' said Johnson."

"Of Mr. Longley, at Rochester, a gentleman of very considerable learning, whom Dr. Johnson met there, he said, 'My heart warms towards him. I was surprised to find in him such a nice acquaintance with the metre in the learned languages; though I was somewhat mortified that I had it not so much to myself, as I should have thought.'

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Talking of the minuteness with which people will record the sayings of eminent persons, a story was told, that when Pope was on a visit to Spence at Oxford, as they looked from the window they saw a gentleman commoner, who was just come in from riding, amusing himself with whipping at a post. Pope took occasion to say, That young gentleman seems to have little to do.' Mr. Beauclerk observed, Then, to be sure, Spence turned round and wrote that down; and went on to say to Dr. Johnson, Pope, Sir, would have said the same of you, if he had seen you distilling.' JOHNSON: Sir, if Pope had told me of my distilling, I would have told him of his grotto.""

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"He would allow no settled indulgence of idleness upon principle, and always repelled every attempt to urge excuses for it. A friend one day suggested, that it was not wholesome to study soon after dinner. JOHNSON: Ah, Sir, don't give way to such a fancy. At one time of my life I had taken it into my head that it was not wholesome to study between breakfast and dinner.'" "Mr. Beauclerk one day repeated to Dr. Johnson, Pope's lines,

'Let modest Foster, if he will, excel Ten metropolitans in preaching well.' Then, asked the Doctor, Why did Pope say this?' JOHNSON: Sir, he hoped it

would vex somebody.'

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"His affection for Topham Beauclerk was so great, that when Beauclerk was labouring under that severe illness which at last occasioned his death, Johnson said. (with a voice faltering with emotion,) Sir, I would walk to the extent of the diameter of the earth to save Beauclerk.'"

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"One night at the CLUB he produced a translation of an Epitaph, which Lord Eli. bank had written in English, for his lady, and requested of Johnson to turn it into Latin for him. Having read Domina de North et Gray, he said to Dyer,+ You see, Sir, what barbarism we are compelled to make use of, when modern titles are to be specifically mentioned in Latin inscriptions.' When he had read it once aloud, and there had been a general approbation expressed by the company, he addressed himself to Mr. Dyer in particular, and said, Sir, I beg to have your judgment, for I know your nicety.' Dyer then very properly desired to read it over again; which having done, he pointed out an incongruity in one of the sentences. Johnson immediately assented to the obser vation, and said, 'Sir, this is owing to an alteration of a part of the sentence, from the form in which I had first written it; and I believe, Sir, you may have remarked, that the making a partial change, without a due regard to the general structure of the sentence, is a very frequent cause of error in composition.'

"Johnson was well acquainted with Mr. Dossie, author of a treatise on Agriculture; and said of him, Sir, of the objects which the Society of Arts have chiefly in view, the chemical effects of bodies operating upon other bodies, he knows more than almost any man.' Johnson, in order to give Mr. Dossie his vote to be a member of this Society, paid up an arrear which had run os for two years. On this occasion he men tioned a circumstance, as characteristic of the Scotch. One of that nation, (said be.) who had been a candidate, against whom I had voted, came up to me with a civil salu"Dr. Goldsmith, upon occasion of Mrs. tation. Now, Sir, this is their way. An Lennox's bringing out a play, said to Dr. Englishman would have stomached it, and Johnson at the CLUB, that a person had ad- been sulky, and never have taken farther vised him to go and hiss it, because she had notice of you; but a Scotchman, Sir, though attacked Shakspeare in her book called you vote nineteen times against him, will Shakspeare Illustrated.' JOHNSON: And accost you with equal complaisance after did you tell him that he was a rascal?' each time, and the twentieth time, Sir, he GOLDSMITH: No, Sir, I did not. Per-will get your vote.'" haps he did not mean what he said.' JOINSON: Nay, Sir, if he lied, it is a different thing. Colman slily said, (but it is believed Dr. Johnson did not hear him,) Then the proper expression should have been,-Sir, if you don't lie, you are a rascal.'"

6

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[Probably "The Sisters," a comedy performed one

night only, at Covent Garden, in 1760. Dr. Goldsmith

wrote an excellent epilogue to it.-Mrs. Lennox, whose maiden name was Ramsay, died in London in distressed circumstances, in her eighty-fourth year, January 4, 1804 M.)

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Talking on the subject of toleration ene day when some friends were with him in his study, he made his usual remark, that the State has a right to regulate the religion of the people, who are the children of the state A clergyman having readily acquiesced in this, Johnson, who loved discussion, observed, But, Sir, you must go round to other states than our own. You do not

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[See p. 143. M.]

know what a Bramin has to say for himself. In short, Sir, I have got no farther than this every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it. Martyrdom is the test.'"

"A man, he observed, should begin to write soon; for, if he waits till his judgment is matured, his inability, through want of practice to express his conceptions, will make the disproportion so great between what he sees and what he can attain, that he will probably be discouraged from writing at all. As a proof of the justness of this remark, we may instance what is related of the great Lord Granville;+ that after he had written

his letter giving an account of the battle of Dettingen, he said, 'Here is a letter, expressed in terms not good enough for a tallow-chandler to have used.'"

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Talking of a Court-martial that was sitting upon a very momentous public occaened decision; and said, that perhaps there sion, he expressed much doubt of an enlight.

was not a member of it, who in the whole

course of his life, had ever spent an hour by himself in balancing probabilities."

"Goldsmith one day brought to the CLUB a printed Ode, which he, with others, had been hearing read by its author in a public room, at the rate of five shillings each for admission. One of the company having read it aloud, Dr. Johnson said, Bolder words and more timorous meaning, I think, never were brought together.'

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"Talking of Gray's Odes, he said, "They are forced plants, raised in a hotbed; and they are poor plants; they are but cucumbers after all." A gentleman present, who had been running down Ode-writing in ge. neral, as a bad species of poetry, unluckily said, Had they been literally cucumbers, they had been better things than Odes.'"Yes, Sir, (said Johnson) for a hog.'

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this, it seems that an inferior domestic of the Duke of Leeds had attempted to celebrate his grace's marriage in such homely rhymes as he could make: and this curious composition having been sung to Dr. Johnson, he got it by heart, and used to repeat it in a very pleasant manner. Two of the stanzas were these:

"When the Duke of Leeds shall married be
To a fine young lady of high quality,
How happy will that gentlewoman be
In his grace of Leeds's good company.
'She shall have all that's fine and fair,
And the best of silk and satin shall wear;
And ride in a coach to take the air,

He,

And have a house in St. James's Square.'‡ of Johnson, repeating such humble attempts To hear a man, of the weight and dignity at poetry, had a very amusing effect. however, seriously observed of the last stanza repeated by him, that it nearly comprised all the advantages that wealth can give."

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shewn the British Museum, was very trou"An eminent foreigner, when he was there, Sir, (said he,) is the difference beblesome with many absurd inquiries. Now tween an Englishman and a Frenchman. A Frenchman must be always talking, whenot; an Englishman is content to say nother he knows any thing of the matter or thing, when he has nothing to say.'

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His unjust contempt for foreigners was. Slaughter's coffee-house, when a number of indeed, extreme. One evening, at Old ters, he said, 'Does not this confirm old them were talking loud about little matMeynell's observation-For any thing I see, foreigners are fools 2"

"He said, that once, when he had a violent tooth-ache, a Frenchman accosted him thus: Ah, Monsieur, vous etudiez trop.""

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Having spent an evening at Mr. Langton's with the Reverend Dr. Parr, he was learned gentleman; and, after he was gone, much pleased with the conversation of that said to Mr. Langton, Sir, I am obliged to you for having asked me this evening. Parr

"His distinction of the different degrees of attainment for learning was thus marked upon two occasions. Of Queen Elizabeth he said,She had learning enough to have given dignity to a bishop; and of Mr. Thomas Davies he said, 'Sir, Davies has learning enough to give credit to a clergy-supplement:

man.'"

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"He used to quote, with great warmth, the saying of Aristotle recorded by Diogenes Laertius; that there was the same difference between one learned and unlearned, as between the living and the dead.'"

"It is very remarkable, that he retained in his memory very slight and trivial, as well as important things. As an instance of

Here Lord Macartney remarks, "A Bramin or any cast of the H'ndoos will neither admit you to be of their religion, nor be converted to yours:-a thing which struck the Portuguese with the greatest astonishment, when they first discovered the East Indies."

f[John, the first Earl Granville, who died January 2, 176 M.]

The correspondent of the Gentleman's Magazine who subscribes himself SCIOLUS, furnishes the following

A lady of my acquaintance remembers to have heard her uncle sing those homely stanzas more than forty-five years ago. He repeated the second thus:

She shall breed young lords and ladies fair,
And ride abroad in a coach and three pair,
And the best, &c.

And have a house, &c.'

And remembered a third which seems to have been the introductory one, and is believed to have been the only remaining one:

'When the Duke of Leeds shall have made his choice Of a charming young lady that's beautiful and wise, She'll be the happiest young gentlewoman under the skies,

As long as the sun and moon shall rise,
And how happy shall, &c.'"

It is with pleasure I add that this stanza could never be more truly applied than at this present time, [1792.)

is a fair man. I do not know when I have| had an occasion of such free controversy. It is remarkable how much of a man's life may pass without meeting with any instance of this kind of open discussion." "

"We may fairly institute a criticism between Shakspeare and Corneille, as they both had, though in a different degree, the lights of a latter age. It is not so just between the Greek dramatic writers and Shakspeare. It may be replied to what is said by one of the remarkers on Shakspeare, that though Darius's shade had prescience, it does not necessarily follow that he had all past particulars revealed to him.""

"Spanish plays, being wildly and improbably farcical, would please children here, as children are entertained with stories full of prodigies; their experience not being sufficient to cause them to be so readily startled at deviations from the natural course of life. The machinery of the Pagans is uninteresting to us: when a goddess appears in Homer or Virgil, we grow weary; still more so in the Grecian tragedies, as in that kind of composition a nearer approach to Nature is intended. Yet there are good reasons for reading romances; as-the fertility of invention, the beauty of style and expression, the curiosity of seeing with what kind of performances the age and country in which they were written was delighted: for it is to be apprehended, that at the time when very wild improbable tales were well received, the people were in a barbarous state, and so on the footing of children, as has been explained."

ought of absolute necessity to be faithful. A certain character (naming the person) as to the general cast of it, is well described by Garrick, but a great deal of the phraseology he uses in it, is quite his own, particularly in the proverbial comparisons, obstinate as a pig,' &c. but I don't know whether it might not be true of Lord —— -, that from a too great eagerness of praise and popularity, and a politeness carried to a ridiculous excess, he was likely, after asserting a thing in general, to give it up again in parts. For instance, if he had said Reynolds was the first of painters, he was capable enough of giving up, as objections might happen to be severally made, first, his outline, then the grace in form,-then the colouring,-and lastly, to have owned that he was such a mannerist, that the disposition of his pictures was all alike."

"For hospitality, as formerly practised, there is no longer the same reason; heretofore the poorer people were more numerous, and from want of commerce, their means of getting a livelihood more difficult; therefore the supporting them was an act of great benevolence; now that the poor can find maintenance for themselves, and their labour is wanted, a general undiscerning hospitality tends to ill, by withdrawing them from their work to idleness and drunkenness Then, formerly rents were received in kind, so that there was a great abundance of provisions in possession of the owners of the lands, which, since the plenty of money afforded by commerce, is no longer the case."

"Hospitality to strangers and foreigners in our country is now almost at an end, since, from the increase of them that come to us, there have been a sufficient number of people that have found an interest in providing inns and proper accommodations, which is in general a more expedient method for the entertainment of travellers. Where the travellers and strangers are few, more of that hospitality subsists, as it has not been worth while to provide places of accommodation. In Ireland there is still hospitality to strangers, in some degree; in Hungary and Poland probably more."

"It is evident enougn that no one who writes now can use the Pagan deities and mythology; the only machinery, therefore, seems that of ministering spirits, the ghosts of the departed, witches, and fairies, though these latter, as the vulgar superstition concerning them (which, while in its force, infected at least the imagination of those that had more advantage in education, though their reason set them free from it,) is every day wearing out, seem likely to be of little farther assistance in the machinery of poetry. As I recollect, Hammond introduces a hag or witch into one of his love elegies, "Colman, in a note on his translation of where the effect is unmeaning and disgust- Terence, talking of Shakspeare's learning, ing. asks, What says Farmer to this? What The man who uses his talent of ridicule, says Johnson Upon this he observed, in creating or grossly exaggerating the in-Sir, let Farmer answer for himself: I nestances he gives, who putes absurdities ver engaged in this controversy. I always that did not happen, or when a man was a said, Shakspeare had Latin enough to gramlittle ridiculous, describes him as having maticise his English."" been very much so, abuses his talents greatly. The great use of delineating absurdities is, that we may know how far human folly can go; the account, therefore,

⚫ [When the corporation of Norwich applied to Johnson to point out to them a proper master for their Grammar-school, he recommended Dr. Parr, on his ceasing to be usher to Sumner at Harrow. B.]

"A clergyman, whom he characterized as one who loved to say little oddities, was affecting one day, at a bishop's table, a sort of slyness and freedom not in character, and repeated, as if part of The Old Man's Wish,' a song by Dr. Walter Pope, a verse bordering on licentiousness. Johnson rebuked him in the finest manner, by first

shewing that he did not know the passage
he was aiming at, and thus humbling him:
And
'Sir, that is not the song: it is thus."
he gave it right. Then looking steadfastly
on him, Sir, there is a part of that song
which I should wish to exemplify in my own
life:

'May I govern my passions with absolute sway!'"
"Being asked if Barnes knew a good deal
of Greek, he answered, I doubt, Sir, be
was unoculus inter cæcos' "

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"He used frequently to observe, that men might be very eminent in a profession, without our perceiving any particular power of mind in them in conversation. strange (said he) that a man should see so far to the right, who sees so short a way to the left. Burke is the only man whose common conversation corresponds with the general fame which he has in the world. Take up whatever topic you please, he is ready to meet you.'

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"A gentleman, by no means deficient in literature, having discovered less acquaintance with one of the Classics than Johnson expected, when the gentleman left the room, he observed, 'You see, now, how little any body reads.' Mr. Langton happening to mention his having read a good deal in Clenardus's Greek Grammar, Why, Sir (said he,) who is there in this town who knows any thing of Clenardus but you and I? And, upon Mr. Langton's mentioning that he had taken the pains to learn by heart the Epistle of St. Basil, which is given in that Grammar as a praxis, 'Sir (said he,) I never made such an effort to attain Greek.'" "Of Dodsley's Public Virtue, a Poem,' he said, 'It was fine blank; (meaning to express his usual contempt for blank verse:) however, this miserable poem did not sell, and my poor friend Doddy said, Public Virtue was not a subject to interest the age.' "Mr. Langton, when a very young man, read Dodsley's Cleone, a Tragedy,' to him, not aware of his extreme impatience to be read to. As it went on he turned his face to the back of his chair, and put himself into various attitudes, which marked his uneasiness. At the end of an act, however, he said, 'Come, let's have some more, let's go

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the slaughter-house again, Lanky. But I am afraid there is more blood than brains.' Yet he afterwards said, 'When I heard you read it I thought higher of its power of language: when I read it myself, I was more sensible of its pathetic effect;'

• [Johnson, in his Life of Milton, after mentioning that great poet's extraordinary fancy that the world was in its decay, and that his book was to be written in an age too late for heroic poesy, thus concludes: "However inferior to the heroes who were born in better ages, he might still be great among his contemporaries, with the hope of growing every day greater in the dwindle of posterity; he might still be a giant among the pigmies, the one-eyed monarch of the blind." J. B.-O.]

and then he paid it a compliment which
many will think very extravagant. 'Sir
(said he,) if Otway had written this play, no
other of his pieces would have been remem-
bered.' Dodsley himself, upon this being
repeated to him, said, 'It was too much :' it
must be remembered, that Johnson always
appeared not to be sufficiently sensible of
the merit of Otway."+

"Snatches of reading (said he) will not
make a Bentley or a Clarke. They are,
however, in a certain degree advantageous.
I would put a child into a library (where no
unfit books are) and let him read at his
choice. A child should not be discouraged
from reading any thing that he takes a lik-
ing to, from a notion that it is above his
reach. If that be the case, the child will
soon find it out and desist; if not, he of
course gains the instruction; which is so
much the more likely to come, from the in-
clination with which he takes up the
study.'"

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Though he used to censure carelessness with great vehemence, he owned, that he once, to avoid, the trouble of locking up five guineas, hid them, he forgot where, so that he could not find them."

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"A gentleman who introduced his, brother to Dr. Johnson, was earnest to recommend him to the Doctor's notice, which he did by saying, When we have sat together some time, you'll find my brother grow very -Sir (said Johnson,) I can entertaining.wait.'"

"When the rumour was strong that we should have a war, because the French would assist the Americans, he rebuked a friend with some asperity for supposing it, saying, No, Sir, national faith is not yet sunk so low."

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"In the latter part of his life, in order to satisfy himself whether his mental faculties were impaired, he resolved that he would try to learn a new language, and fixed upon the Low Dutch, for that purpose, and this he continued till he had read about one half of Thomas à Kempis;' and finding that there appeared no abatement of his power of acquisition, he then desisted, as thinking the experiment had been duly tried. Mr. Burke justly observed, that this was not the most vigorous trial, Low Dutch being a language so near to our own; had it been one of the languages entirely different, he might have been very soon satisfied."

"Mr. Langton and he having gone to see a Freemason's funeral procession, when they were at Rochester, and some solemn music being played on French horns, he said, "This is the first time that I have ever been affected by musical sounds;' adding, that

t[This assertion concerning Johnson's insensibility to I once the pathetic powers of Otway, is too round. asked him, whether he did not think Otway frequently tender: when he answered, "Sir, he is all tenderness." B.]

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