Reyn.
MS.

written a paper in "The Spectator." He mentioned
particularly Mr. Ince, who used to frequent Tom's
coffee-house. "But," said Johnson, "
you must
consider how highly Steele speaks of Mr. Ince '."
He would not allow that the paper on carrying a boy
to travel, signed Philip Homebred, which was re-
ported to be written by the Lord Chancellor Hard-
wicke, had merit. He said, "it was quite vulgar,

and had nothing luminous."

Johnson mentioned Dr. Barry's System of Physick. "He was a man," said he, "who had acquired a high reputation in Dublin, came over to England, and brought his reputation with him, but had not great success. His notion was, that pulsation occasions death by attrition; and that, therefore, the way to preserve life is to retard pulsation. But we know that pulsation is strongest in infants, and that we increase in growth while it operates in its regular course; so it cannot be the cause of destruction." Soon after this, he said something very flattering to Mrs. Thrale, which I do not recollect; but it concluded with wishing her long life. "Sir," said I, "if Dr. Barry's system be true, you have now shortened Mrs. Thrale's life, perhaps some minutes, by accelerating her pulsation."

["DR. JOHNSON TO MISS REYNOLDS.

"11th April, 1776. "DEAREST MADAM,-To have acted, with regard to you, in a manner either unfriendly or disrespectful, would give me great pain; and, I hope, will be always very contrary to my intention. That I staid away was merely accidental. I have seldom dined from home; and I did not think my opinion necessary to your information in any proprieties of behaviour.

"The poor parents of the child are much grieved, and much

1 [In the 555th Number of the Spectator.-ED.]

2 Sir Edward Barry, Baronet. [He published a curious work on the Wines of the Ancients.-Ed.]

dejected. The journey to Italy is put off, but they go to Bath Reyn. on Monday. A visit from you will be well taken, and I think MS. your intimacy is such that you may very properly pay it in a morning. I am sure that it will be thought seasonable and kind, and I wish you not to omit it. I am, dear madam, your most humble servant, "SAM. JOHNSON."]

On Thursday, April 11, I dined with him at General Paoli's, in whose house I now resided, and where I had ever afterwards the honour of being entertained with the kindest attention as his constant guest, while I was in London, till I had a house of my own there. I mentioned my having that morning introduced to Mr. Garrick, Count Neni, a Flemish nobleman of great rank and fortune, to whom Garrick talked of Abel Drugger as a small part; and related, with pleasant vanity, that a Frenchman, who had seen him in one of his low characters, exclaimed, "Comment! je ne le crois pas. Ce n'est pas Monsieur Garrick, ce grand homme!" Garrick added, with an appearance of grave recollection, "If I were to begin life again, I think I should not play those low characters." Upon which I observed, "Sir, you would be in the wrong, for your great excellence is your variety of playing, your representing so well, characters so very different." JOHNSON. "Garrick, sir, was not in earnest in what he said: for, to be sure, his peculiar excellence is his variety; and, perhaps, there is not any one character which has not been as well acted by somebody else, as he could do it." BOSWELL. "Why then, sir, did he talk so?" JOHNSON. "Why, sir, to make you answer as you did." BOSWELL. "I don't know, sir; he seemed to dip deep into his mind for the reflection." JOHNSON. "He had not far to dip, sir; he had said the same thing, probably, twenty times before.”

Of a nobleman raised at a very early period to high office, he said, "His parts, sir, are pretty well for a

lord; but would not be distinguished in a man who had nothing else but his parts 1.'

199

He

A journey to Italy was still in his thoughts. said, "A man who has not been in Italy is always conscious of an inferiority, from his not having seen what it is expected a man should see. The grand

object of travelling is to see the shores of the Mediterranean. On those shores were the four great empires of the world; the Assyrian, the Persian, the Grecian, and the Roman. All our religion, almost all our law, almost all our arts, almost all that sets us above savages, has come to us from the shores of the Mediterranean." The general observed, that "THE MEDITERRANEAN would be a noble subject for a

poem."

We talked of translation. I said, I could not define it, nor could I think of a similitude to illustrate it; but that it appeared to me the translation of poetry could be only imitation. JOHNSON. "You may translate books of science exactly. You may also translate history, in so far as it is not embellished with oratory, which is poetical. Poetry, indeed, cannot be translated; and, therefore, it is the poets that preserve languages; for we would not be at the trouble to learn a language, if we could have all that is written in it just as well in a translation. But as the beauties of poetry cannot be preserved in any language except that in which it was originally written, we learn the language."

A gentleman maintained that the art of printing had hurt real learning, by disseminating idle writings. JOHNSON. "Sir, if it had not been for the art of printing, we should now have no learning at all; for books would have perished faster than they could have been transcribed." This observation seems not just,

Obvious as this allusion must have been at the time, neither the editor, y of the numerous persons who have favoured him with assistance and inon, can satisfactorily designate the nobleman here meant.-ED.]

considering for how many ages books were preserved by writing alone 1.

The same gentleman maintained, that a general diffusion of knowledge among a people was a disadvantage; for it made the vulgar rise above their humble sphere. JOHNSON. "Sir, while knowledge is a distinction, those who are possessed of it will naturally rise above those who are not. Merely to read and write was a distinction at first; but we see when reading and writing have become general, the common people keep their stations. And so, were higher attainments to become general, the effect would be the same."

"Goldsmith," he said, "referred every thing to vanity; his virtues and his vices too were from that motive. He was not a social man. He never exchanged mind with you.'

We spent the evening at Mr. Hoole's. Mr. Mickle, the excellent translator of "The Lusiad," was there. I have preserved little of the conversation of this evening. Dr. Johnson said, "Thomson had a true poetical genius, the power of viewing every thing in a poetical light. His fault is such a cloud of words sometimes, that the sense can hardly peep through. Shiels, who compiled 'Cibber's Lives of the Poets 3, was one day sitting with me. I took down Thomson, and read aloud a large portion of him, and then

39

The authour did not recollect that of the books preserved (and an infinite number was lost) all were confined to two languages. In modern times and modern languages, France and Italy alone produce more books in a given time than Greece and Rome: put England, Spain, Germany, and the northern kingdoms out of the question.-BLAKEWAY.

2 [This seems not easy to understand. Poor Goldsmith was social to a fault; how he behaved in society is another matter; and as to "exchanging mind," his chief defect was, that he had no reserve whatsoever, and opened whatever he had in his mind with the utmost confidence of indiscretion, [see passim]. Dr. Johnson, perhaps, meant that he was too much of an egotist, and thought too much of personal triumph in conversation, to be a man of agreeable social habits; yet we know that Johnson himself always considered conversation as a kind of gladiatorial exercise.-ED.}

3 See ante, note, p. 395, &c.

VOL. III.

D D

Hawk.

Apoph.

asked,-Is not this fine? Shiels having expressed the highest admiration-Well, sir, (said I), I have omitted every other line."

I related a dispute between Goldsmith and Mr. Robert Dodsley, one day when they and I were dining at Tom Davies's, in 1762. Goldsmith asserted, that there was no poetry produced in this age. Dodsley appealed to his own Collection, and maintained, that though you could not find a palace like Dryden's "Ode on St. Cecilia's Day," you had villages composed of very pretty houses; and he mentioned particularly "The Spleen." JOHNSON. "I think Dodsley gave up the question. He and Goldsmith said the same thing; only he said it in a softer manner than Goldsmith did; for he acknowledged there was no poetry, nothing that towered above the common mark. You may find wit and humour in verse, and yet no poetry. Hudibras' has a profusion of these; yet it is not to be reckoned a poem. The Spleen,' in Dodsley's Collection, on which you say he chiefly rested, is not poetry." BOSWELL. "Does not Gray's poetry, sir, tower above the common mark?" JOHNSON. "Yes, sir; but we must attend to the difference between what men in general cannot do if they would, and what every man may do if he would. Sixteen-string Jack' towered above the common mark.” BOSWELL. "Then, sir, what is poetry?" JOHNSON. “Why, sir, it is much easier to say what it is not. We all know what light is; but it is not easy to tell what it is."

[Gray, he said, on another occasion, was the very p. 214. Torré of poetry; he played his coruscations so spe

1 A noted highwayman, who, after having been several times tried and acquitted, was at last hanged. He was remarkable for foppery in his dress, and particularly for wearing a bunch of sixteen strings at the knees of his breeches. -BOSWELL.

"[A foreigner of that name, who, some years ago, exhibited a variety of splendid fire-works at Marybone Gardens.]