In reporting one of the numerous attacks which Johnson made on Ossian, Boswell in the Life considerably weakens its force. He says that 'Dr. Blair asked Dr. Johnson whether he thought any man of a modern age could have written such poems? Johnson replied, "Yes, Sir, many men, many women, and many children."' In the 'Boswelliana' the story is thus told : 'Doctor Blair asked him if he thought any man could describe these barbarous manners so well if he had not lived at the time and seen them. 66 Any man, Sir," replied Mr. Johnson, "any man, woman, or child might have done it."

At the same time that he has weakened what Johnson said by changing 'any' into 'many,' he has made it in another way a greater exaggeration; for Johnson had not said (if we are to trust to the authority of' Boswelliana ') that any child could have written the poems, but that any child could have described the barbarous manners.

6

Here is another story which is certainly more pointed as given in the Life than as it thus stands in 'Boswelliana': Boswell told Mr. Samuel Johnson that a gentleman of their acquaintance maintained in public company that he could see no distinction between virtue and vice. "Sir," said Mr. Johnson, "does he intend that we should believe that he is lying, or that he is in earnest? If we

think him a liar, that is not honouring him very much. But if we think him in earnest, when he leaves our houses let us count our spoons.”

How much better is this told in the Life: 'Why, Sir, if the fellow does not think as he speaks, he is lying; and I see not what honour he can propose to himself from having the character of a liar. But if he does really think that there is no distinction between virtue and vice, why, Sir, when he leaves our houses let us count our spoons.'

Anyone who cares to study Boswell critically would find in a comparison of the other anecdotes not a little to interest him. But I will not run the risk of wearying my readers by quoting any more. I have, I hope, sufficiently shown that there are strong grounds for thinking that Boswell's merits, as a mere reporter of Johnson's talk, are not quite what they were thought to be.

As a writer, I have claimed for him, against the authority of one of the greatest writers of our age, a high place indeed. Macaulay, indeed, allows that 'his writings are likely to be read as long as the English exists, either as a living or as a dead language.' But while he grants him immortality, he refuses him greatness. Nay, even he belabours him with somewhat the same kind of fury as certain savage nations belabour their gods, who are at the

same time the object of their adoration. Johnson, he will allow, was both a great and a good man, but Boswell, who has made known to us and to all time both the greatness and the goodness of Johnson, was himself most mean and vile. And yet we might almost fancy the two friends as they wandered through the Elysian Fields, and were pleased with the report each new comer brought of the fame 'The Life of Samuel Johnson' has here on earth, saying with a slight change in the words of the poet :

And it seems as I retrace the story line by line,
That but half of it is his, and one half of it is mine.

I am fully aware of Boswell's failings and weaknesses as a man; but grievous though they were, they do not make me for a moment forget the great debt under which we all lie to the author of the immortal Life. It is not likely that I should forget. He has carried me through many an hour of sickness and depression, and in the days of my health and strength has supplied me with an occupation in which I have found an interest that never fails.

CHAPTER V.

THE MELANCHOLY OF JOHNSON AND COWPER.1

IN Cowper's Letters we find a criticism on Johnson's diary which, though of no great interest in itself, is curious enough when we consider the man by whom it was written. He had not seen the whole of the diary, but merely some extracts from it in one of the newspapers. He says 'It is certain that the publisher of it is neither much a friend to the cause of religion nor to the author's memory; for by the specimen of it that has reached us, it seems to contain only such stuff as has a direct tendency to expose both to ridicule. His prayers for the dead, and his minute account of the rigour with which he observed church fasts, whether he drank tea or coffee, whether with sugar or without, and whether one or two dishes of either, are the most important items to be found in this childish register of the great Johnson, supreme dictator in the

1 Reprinted (with alterations) from the Pall Mall Gazette, September 4, 1875.

chair of literature and almost a driveller in his closet-a melancholy witness to testify how much of the wisdom of this world may consist with almost infantine ignorance of the affairs of a better.' He goes on to refer to the diary of the Quaker of Huntingdon, over which Johnson himself, as was afterwards known from Boswell, had laughed so heartily; and he says that 'it contained much more valuable matter than the poor Doctor's journal seems to do.' To another correspondent he writes : 'Poor man! one would think, that to pray for his dead wife, and to pinch himself with church fasts, had been almost the whole of his religion. I am sorry that he, who was so manly an advocate for the cause of virtue in all other places, was so childishly employed, and so superstitiously too, in his closet.'

It is clear, I may notice in passing, that the extracts that Cowper had seen were not a fair sample of the whole diary. They had been selected, no doubt, to cast ridicule on Johnson's character, and the selection was only too easy. It is not with this point, however, that I intend to deal. As I was reading these letters-the letters of the best of English letter writers, if we may accept Southey's estimate-I could not but be affected with the melancholy state to which superstition had helped to reduce so fine a mind. In many points I was ever