Our

with somebody who has parliamentary interest. several ministers in this reign have outbid each other in concessions to the people. Lord Bute, though a very honourable man, a man who meant well,--a man who had his blood full of prerogative,-was a theoretical 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 advised the king to agree that the judges should hold their places for life, instead of losing them at the accession of a new king. Lord Bute, I suppose, thought to make the king popular by this concession; but the people never minded it; and it was a most impolitick measure. There is no reason why a judge should hold his office for life, more than any other person in publick trust. A judge may be partial otherwise than to the crown; we have seen judges partial to the populace. A judge may become corrupt, and yet there may not be legal evidence against him. A judge may become froward from age. judge may grow unfit for his office in many ways. It was desirable that there should be a possibility of being delivered from him by a new king. That is now gone by an act of parliament ex gratia of the crown. Lord Bute advised the king to give up a very large sum of money 1, for which nobody thanked him. It was of consequence to the king, but nothing to the publick, among whom it was divided. When

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The money arising from the property of the prizes taken before the declaration of war, which were given to his majesty by the peace of Paris, and amounted to upwards of 700,000l., and from the lands in the coded islands, which were estimated at 200,000l. more. Surely, there was a noble munificence in this gift from a monarch to his people. And let it be remembered, that during the Earl of Bute's administration, the king was graciously pleased to give up the hereditary revenues of the crown, and to accept, instead of them, of the limited sum of 800,000l. a year; upon which Blackstone observes, that "The hereditary revenues, being put under the same management as the other branches of the publick patrimony, will produce more, and be better collected than heretofore; and the publick is a gainer of upwards of 100,000l. per annum, by this disinterested bounty of his majesty."-Com. book i. chap. viii. p. 330.-BoswELL.

I say Lord Bute advised, I mean, that such acts were done when he was minister, and we are to suppose that he advised them. Lord Bute showed an

undue partiality to Scotchmen. He turned out Dr. Nichols, a very eminent man, from being physician to the king, to make room for one of his countrymen, a man very low in his profession. He had ********** 3 and **** to go on errands for him. He had occasion for people to go on errands for him; but he should not have had Scotchmen; and, certainly, he should not have suffered them to have access to him before the first people in England."

I told him, that the admission of one of them before the first people in England, which had given the greatest offence, was no more than what happens at every minister's levee, where those who attend are admitted in the order that they have come, which is better than admitting them according to their rank : for if that were to be the rule, a man who has waited all the morning might have the mortification to see a peer, newly come, go in before him, and keep him waiting still. JOHNSON. "True, sir; but ***** should not have come to the levee, to be in the way of people of consequence. He saw Lord Bute at all times; and could have said what he had to say at

[Frank Nichols. He was of Exeter College; M.A., June, 1721; B.M., February, 1724; M.D., 1729. Died 1778, in the eightieth year of his age.HALL.]

[Probably Dr. Duncan, who was appointed physician to the king in 1760; and not, as has been surmised, Sir John Pringle, who was appointed physician to the queen in 1761.-ED.]

3 [The Editor was convinced that the first of these blanks meant Wedderburn, till he found that Sir James Mackintosh doubted it, from thinking that Wedderburn was already too high in the scale of society to be spoken of so contemptuously as Johnson here does; but, on a full consideration of all the circumstances, the Editor is finally satisfied that Wedderburn was here meant. The second blank, Sir James thinks, and the Editor agrees with him, means, certainly, Home, the author of Douglas. Boswell always puts a number of asterisks equal to the letters of the names he suppresses, and, in this case, the asterisks fit the names of Wedderburn and Home; and, moreover, we find Wedderburn and Home distinctly associated as satellites of Lord Bute, in Wilkes's celebrated dedication of Mortimer.-ED.]

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[Home.-ED.]

any time, as well as at the levee. There is now no prime minister: there is only an agent for government in the house of commons. We are governed by the cabinet; but there is no one head there since Sir Robert Walpole's time." BOSWELL. "What then, sir, is the use of parliament?" JOHNSON. 'Why, sir, parliament is a large council to the king; and the advantage of such a council is, having a great number of men of property concerned in the legislature, who, for their own interest, will not consent to bad laws. And you must have observed, sir, the administration is feeble and timid, and cannot act with that authority and resolution which is necessary. Were I in power, I would turn out every man who dared to oppose me. Government has the distribution of offices, that it may be enabled to maintain its authority."

"Lord Bute," he added, "took down too fast, without building up something new." BOSWELL. "Because, sir, he found a rotten building. The political coach was drawn by a set of bad horses; it was necessary to change them." JOHNSON. "But he should have changed them one by one."

I told him I had been informed by Mr. Orme, that many parts of the East Indies were better mapped than the Highlands of Scotland. JOHNSON. "That a country may be mapped, it must be travelled over." 66 Nay," said I, meaning to laugh with him at one of his prejudices, "can't you say, it is not worth mapping?"

As we walked to St. Clement's church, and saw several shops open upon this most solemn fast-day of the christian world, I remarked, that one disadvantage arising from the immensity of London was, that nobody was heeded by his neighbour; there was no fear of censure for not observing Good Friday, as it

ought to be kept, and as it is kept in country towns. He said, it was, upon the whole, very well observed even in London. He however owned that London was too large'; but added, "It is nonsense to say the head is too big for the body. It would be as much too big, though the body were ever so large; that is to say, though the country was ever so extensive. It has no similarity to a head connected with a body."

Dr. Wetherell, master of the University College, Oxford, accompanied us home from church; and after he was gone, there came two other gentlemen, one of whom uttered the common-place complaints, that by the increase of taxes, labour would be dear, other nations would undersell us, and our commerce would be ruined. JOHNSON (smiling). "Never fear, sir; our commerce is in a very good state; and suppose we had no commerce at all, we could live very well on the produce of our own country." I cannot omit to mention, that I never knew any man who was less disposed to be querulous than Johnson. Whether the subject was his own situation, or the state of the publick, or the state of human nature in general, though he saw the evils, his mind was turned to resolution, and never to whining or complaint.

We went again to St. Clement's in the afternoon. He had found fault with the preacher in the morning for not choosing a text adapted to the day. The preacher in the afternoon had chosen one extremely proper: "It is finished."

After the evening service, he said, "Come, you shall go home with me, and sit just an hour." But he was better than his word; for after we had drunk tea with Mrs. Williams, he asked me to go up to his

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[Yet how enormously the metropolis has increased in population and extent since the year 1775.—ED.]

study with him, where we sat a long while together in a serene undisturbed frame of mind, sometimes in silence, and sometimes conversing, as we felt ourselves inclined, or more properly speaking, as he was inclined; for during all the course of my long intimacy with him, my respectful attention never abated, and my wish to hear him was such, that I constantly watched every dawning of communication from that great and illuminated mind.

He observed, "All knowledge is of itself of some value. There is nothing so minute or inconsiderable, that I would not rather know it than not. In the same manner, all power, of whatever sort, is of itself desirable. A man would not submit to learn to hem a ruffle of his wife, or his wife's maid: but if a mere wish could attain it, he would rather wish to be able to hem a ruffle '."

He again advised me to keep a journal fully and minutely, but not to mention such trifles as that meat was too much or too little done, or that the weather was fair or rainy. He had till very near his death a contempt for the notion that the weather affects the human frame.

I told him that our friend Goldsmith had said to me that he had come too late into the world, for that Pope and other poets had taken up the places in the Temple of Fame; so that as but a few at any period can possess poetical reputation, a man of genius can now hardly acquire it. JOHNSON. "That is one of the most sensible things I have ever heard of Goldsmith. It is difficult to get literary fame, and it is every day growing more difficult 2. Ah, sir, that

[Johnson said that he had once attempted to learn knitting from Dempster's sister: post, 7th April, 1778.-ED.]

[With all due deference, it seems as silly as any thing that poor Goldsmith ever said. Literary fame was perhaps as cheaply earned in the last half of the eighteenth century as at any time in our history, and when Johnson