 LIFE OF JOHNSON VOL. II. 1772 CONTINUED On Saturday, April 11th, he appointed me to come to him in the evening, when he should be at leisure to give me some assistance for the defense of Hastie, the schoolmaster of Campbelltown, for whom I was to appear in the House of Lords. When I came I found him unwilling to exert himself. I pressed him to write down his thoughts upon the subject. He said, There's no occasion for my writing. I'll talk to you. He was, however, at last prevailed on to dictate to me while I wrote as follows. The charge is that he is used in moderate and cruel correction. Correction in itself is not cruel. Children, being not reasonable, can be governed only by fear. To impress this fear is therefore one of the first duties of those who have the care of children. It is the duty of a parent, and has never been thought inconsistent with parental tenderness. It is the duty of a master, who is in his highest exaltation when he is loco parentis. Yet, as good things become evil by excess, correction, by being immoderate, may become cruel. But when is correction immoderate? When it is more frequent or more severe than is required ad monendum et docendum, for reformation and instruction. No severity is cruel, which obstinacy makes necessary, for the greatest cruelty would be to desist and leave the scholar too careless for instruction and too much hardened for reproof. Locke, in his treatise of education, mentions a mother with applause who whipped an infant eight times before she had subdued it. For had she stopped at the seventh act of correction, her daughter, says he, would have been ruined. The degrees of obstinacy in young minds are very different, as different must be the degrees of persevering severity. A stubborn scholar must be corrected till he is subdued. The discipline of a school is military. There must be either unbounded license or absolute authority. The master who punishes not only consults the future happiness of him who is the immediate subject of correction, but he propagates obedience through the whole school and establishes regularity by exemplary justice. The victorious obstinacy of a single boy would make his future endeavours of reformation or instruction totally ineffectual. Obstinacy therefore must never be victorious. Yet it is well known that there sometimes occurs a sullen and hardy resolution that laughs at all common punishment and bids defiance to all common degrees of pain. Correction must be proportioned to occasions. The flexible will be reformed by gentle discipline, and the refactory must be subdued by harsher methods. The degrees of scholastic as a military punishment no stated rules can ascertain. It must be enforced till it overpowers temptation, till stubbornness becomes flexible and perverseness regular. Custom and reason have indeed set some bounds to scholastic penalties. The schoolmaster inflicts no capital punishments, nor enforces his edicts by either death or mutilation. The civil law has wisely determined that a master who strikes at a scholar's eye shall be considered as criminal. But punishments, however severe that produce no lasting evil, may be just and reasonable because they may be necessary. Such have been the punishments used by the respondent. No scholar has gone from him, either blind or lame, or with any of his limbs or powers injured or impaired. They were irregular, and he punished them. They were obstinate, and he enforced his punishment. But, however provoked, he never exceeded the limits of moderation, for he inflicted nothing beyond present pain, and how much of that was required, no man is so little able to determine as those who have determined against him the parents of the offenders. It has been said that he used unprecedented and improper instruments of correction. Of this accusation the meaning is not very easy to be found. No instrument of correction is more proper than another but as it is better adapted to produce present pain without lasting mischief. Whatever were his instruments, no lasting mischief has ensued, and, therefore, however unusual, in hands so cautious, they were proper. It has been objected that the respondent admits the charge of cruelty by producing no evidence to confute it. Let it be considered that his scholars are either dispersed at large in the world or continue to inhabit the place in which they were bred. Those who are dispersed cannot be found. Those who remain are the sons of his persecutors and are not likely to support a man to whom their fathers are enemies. If it be supposed that the enmity of their fathers proves the justice of the charge, it must be considered how often experience shows us that men who are angry on one ground will accuse on another, with how little kindness in a town of low trade a man who lives by learning is regarded, and how implicitly, where the inhabitants are not very rich, a rich man is hearkened to and followed. In a place like Campbelltown it is easy for one of the principal inhabitants to make a party. It is easy for that party to heat themselves with imaginary grievances. It is easy for them to oppress a man poorer than themselves, and natural to assert the dignity of riches by persisting in oppression. The argument which attempts to prove the impropriety of restoring him to the school by alleging that he has lost the confidence of the people is not the subject of juridical consideration, for he is to suffer, if he must suffer, not for their judgment, but for his own actions. It may be convenient for them to have another master, but it is a convenience of their own making. It would likewise be convenient for him to find another school, but this convenience he cannot obtain. The question is not what is now convenient, but what is generally right. If the people of Campbelltown be distressed by the restoration of the respondent, they are distressed only by their own fault, by turbulent passions, and by unreasonable desires, by tyranny which law has defeated, and by malice which virtue has surmounted. This, sir, said he, you are to turn in your mind and make the best use of it you can in your speech. Of our friend Goldsmith, he said, sir, he is so much afraid of being unnoticed that he often talks merely lest you should forget that he is in the company. Boswell, yes, he stands forward, Johnson, true, sir, but if a man is to stand forward, he should wish to do it not in an awkward posture, not in rags, not so as that he shall only be exposed to ridicule. Boswell, for my part I like very well to hear honest Goldsmith talk away carelessly. Johnson, why, yes, sir, but he should not like to hear himself. On Tuesday, April 14th, the decree of the Court of Sessions in the schoolmaster's cause was reversed in the House of Lords, after a very eloquence speech by Lord Mansfield, who showed himself in adept in school discipline, but I thought was too rigorous towards my client. On the evening of the next day I supped with Dr. Johnson at the crown and anchor tavern and the strand, in the company with Mr. Langton and his brother-in-law, Lord Binning. I repeated a sentence of Lord Mansfield's speech, of which by the aid of Mr. Longlands, the solicitor on the other side, who obligingly allowed me to compare his note with my own, I have a full copy. My Lord's severity is not the way to govern either boys or men. Nay, said Johnson, it is the way to govern them. I know not whether it be the way to mend them. I talked of the recent expulsion of six students from the University of Oxford, who were Methodists, and would not desist from publicly praying and exhorting Johnson. Sir, that expulsion was extremely just and proper. What have they to do at a university who are not willing to be taught, but will presume to teach? Where is religion to be learnt but at a university? Sir, they were examined and found to be mighty ignorant fellows. Maswell, but was it not hard, sir, to expel them, for I am told they were good beings? Johnson. I believe they might be good beings, but they were not fit to be in the University of Oxford. A cow is a very good animal in the field, but we turn her out of a garden. Lord Elibank used to repeat this as an illustration uncommonly happy. Desirous of calling Johnson forth to talk and exercise his wit, though I should myself be the object of it, I resolutely ventured to undertake the defense of convivial indulgence in wine, though he was not tonight in the most genial humour. After urging the common plausible topics, I at last had recourse to the maxim, in vino veritas. A man who is well warmed with wine will speak truth. Johnson. Why, sir, that may be an argument for drinking, if you suppose men in general to be liars, but, sir, I would not keep company with a fellow who lies as long as he is sober, and whom you must make drunk before you can get a word of truth out of him. Mr. Langton told us he was about to establish a school upon his estate, but it had been suggested to him that it might have a tendency to make the people less industrious. Johnson. No, sir, while learning to read and write is a distinction, the few who have that distinction may be the less inclined to work, but when everybody learns to read and write, it is no longer a distinction. A man who has a laced waistcoat is too fine a man to work, but if everybody had laced waistcoats, we should have people working in laced waistcoats. There are no people, whatever, more industrious, none who work more than our manufacturers, yet they have all learned to read and write. Sir, you must not neglect doing a thing immediately good from fear of a remote evil, from fear of its being abused. A man who has candles may sit up too late, which he would not do if he had not candles, but nobody will deny that the art of making candles, by which light is continued to us beyond the time that the sun gives us light, is of valuable art, and ought to be preserved. Boswell, but, sir, would it not be better to follow nature and go to bed and rise just as nature gives us light or withholds it? Johnson. No, sir, for then we should have no kind of equality in the partition of our time between sleeping and waking. It would be very different in different seasons and in different places. In some of the northern parts of Scotland, how little light is there in the depth of winter. We talked of Tacitus, and I hazarded, in opinion, that with all his merit for penetration, shrewdness of judgment and terceness of expression, he was too compact, too much broken into hints, as it were, and therefore too difficult to be understood. To my great satisfaction Dr. Johnson sanctioned this opinion. Tacitus, sir, seems to me rather to have made notes for an historical work than to have written a history. At this time it appears from his prayers and meditations that he had been more than commonly diligent in religious duties, particularly in reading the Holy Scriptures. It was passion week, that solemn season which the Christian world has appropriated to the commemoration of the mysteries of our redemption, and during which whatever embers of religion are in our breasts, will be kindled into pious warmth. I paid him short visits, both on Friday and Saturday, and seeing his large folio Greek testament before him, beheld him with a reverential awe, and would not intrude upon his time. While he was thus employed to such good purpose, and while his friends, in their intercourse with him, constantly found a vigorous intellect and a lively imagination, it is melancholy to read in his private register. My mind is unsettled, and my memory confused. I have of late turned my thoughts with a very useless earnestness upon past incidents. I have yet got no command over my thoughts. An unpleasing incident is almost certain to hinder my rest. What philosophic heroism was it in him to appear with such manly fortitude to the world, while he was inwardly so distressed? We may surely believe that the mysterious principle of being made perfect through suffering was to be strongly exemplified in him. On Sunday, April 19, being Easter Day, General Paoli and I paid him a visit before dinner. We talked of the notion that blind persons can distinguish colors by the touch. Johnson said that Professor Sanderson mentions his having attempted to do it, but that he found he was aiming at an impossibility, that to be sure a difference in the surface makes the difference of colors, but that difference is so fine that it is not sensible to the touch. The general mentioned jugglers and fraudulent game-sters who could know cards by the touch. Dr. Johnson said, the cards used by such persons must be less polished than ours commonly are. We talked of sounds. The general said, there was no beauty in a simple sound, but only in an harmonious composition of sounds. I presumed to differ from this opinion, and mentioned the soft and sweet sound of a fine woman's voice. Johnson, no, sir. If a serpent or a toad uttered it, you would think it ugly. Boswell, so would you think, sir, were a beautiful tune to be uttered by one of those animals. Johnson, no, sir. It would be admired. We have seen fine fiddlers whom we liked as little as toads. Talking on the subject of taste and the arts, he said that difference of taste was in truth difference of skill, Boswell. But, sir, is there not a quality called taste which consists merely in perception or in liking? For instance, we find people differ much as to what is the best style of English composition. Some think swift's the best, others prefer a fuller and grander way of writing. Johnson, sir, you must first define what you mean by style, before you can judge who has a good taste in style and who has a bad. The two classes of persons whom you have mentioned don't differ as to good and bad. They both agree that swift has a good, neat style. But one loves a neat style, another loves a style of more splendor. In like manner one loves a plain coat, another loves a laced coat. But neither will deny that each is good in its kind. While I remained in London this spring, I was with him at several other times, both by himself and in company. I dined with him one day at the crown and anchor tavern in the Strand with Lord Ellibank, Mr. Langton, and Dr. Van Satard of Oxford. Without specifying each particular day I have preserved the following memorable things. I regretted the reflection in his preface to Shakespeare against Garrick, to whom we cannot but apply the following passage. I collated such copies as I could procure and wished for more, but have not found the collectors of these rarities very communicative. I told him that Garrick had complained to me of it, and had vindicated himself by assuring me that Johnson was made welcome to the full use of his collection, and that he left the key of it with a servant with orders to have a fire and every convenience for him. I found Johnson's notion was that Garrick wanted to be courted for them, and that on the contrary Garrick should have courted him and sent him the plays of his own accord. But indeed considering the slovenly and careless manner in which books were treated by Johnson, it could not be expected that scarce and valuable editions should have been lent to him. A gentleman having to some of the usual arguments for drinking added this, you know, sir, drinking drives away care and makes us forget whatever is disagreeable. Would not you allow a man to drink for that reason? Johnson. Yes, sir, if he sat next you. I expressed a liking for Mr. Francis Osborn's works, and asked him what he thought of that writer. He answered, A conceited fellow. Were a man to write so now the boys would throw stones at him. He, however, did not alter my opinion of a favourite author, to whom I was first directed by his being quoted in the spectator, and in whom I have found much shrewd and lively sense, expressed indeed in a style somewhat quaint, which, however I do not dislike. His book has an air of originality. We figure to ourselves an ancient gentleman talking to us. When one of his friends endeavoured to maintain that a country gentleman might contrive to pass his life very agreeably, sir, he said, You cannot give me an instance of any man who is permitted to lay out his own time, contriving not to have tedious hours. This observation, however, is equally applicable to gentlemen who live in cities and are of no profession. He said, There is no permanent national character. It varies according to circumstances. Alexander the Great swept India. Now the Turks sweep Greece. A learned gentleman who, in the course of conversation, wished to inform us of this simple fact that the council upon the circuit at Shrewsbury were much bitten by fleas, took, I suppose, seven or eight minutes in relating it circumstantially. He, in a plenitude of phrase, told us that large bales of woolen cloth were lodged in the town hall, that by reason of this fleas nestled there in prodigious numbers, that the lodgings of the council were near to the town hall, and that those little animals moved from place to place with wonderful agility. Johnson sat in great impatience till the gentleman had finished his tedious narrative, and then burst out, playfully, however, it is a pity, sir, that you have not seen a lion, for a flea has taken you such a time that a lion must have served you a twelve-month. He would not allow Scotland to derive any credit from Lord Mansfield, for he was educated in England. Much, said he, may be made of a Scotchman if he be caught young. Talking of a modern historian, and a modern moralist, he said, there is more thought in the moralist than in the historian. There is but a shallow stream of thought in history. Boswell, but surely, sir, an historian has reflection. Johnson, why, yes, sir, and so has a cat when she catches a mouse for her kitten, but she cannot write like, fill in the blank, neither can fill in the blank. He said, I am very unwilling to read the manuscripts of authors and give them my opinion. If the authors who apply to me have money, I bid them boldly print without a name. If they have written in order to get money, I tell them to go to the booksellers and make the best bargain they can. Boswell, but, sir, if a bookseller should bring you a manuscript to look at... Johnson, why, sir, I would desire the bookseller to take it away. I mentioned a friend of mine who had resided long in Spain and was unwilling to return to Britain. Johnson, sir, he is attached to some woman. Boswell, I rather believe, sir, it is the fine climate which keeps him there. Johnson, nay, sir, how can you talk so? What is climate to happiness? Place me in the desert of Asia? Should I not be exiled? What proportion does climate bear to the complex system of human life? You may advise me to go live at Bologna and eat sausages. The sausages there are the best in the world, and they lose much by being carried. On Saturday, May 9th, Mr. Dempster and I had agreed to dine by ourselves at the British coffee-house. Johnson, on whom I happened to call in the morning, said he would join us, which he did, and we spent a very agreeable day, though I recollect but little of what passed. He said, Walpole was a minister given by the king to the people. Pitt was a minister given by the people to the king, as an adjunct. The misfortune of Goldsmith in conversation is this. He goes on, without knowing how he is to get off. His genius is great, but his knowledge is small. As they say of a generous man, it is a pity he is not rich. We may say of Goldsmith, it is a pity he is not knowing. He would not keep his knowledge to himself. Before leaving London this year, I consulted him upon a question purely of Scotch law. It was held of old and continued for a long period to be an established principle in that law that whoever intermeddled with the effects of a person deceased without the interposition of legal authority to guard against embezzlement should be subjected to pay all the debts of the deceased, as having been guilty of what was technically called vicious intromission. The court of session had gradually relaxed the strictness of this principle where the interference proved had been inconsiderable. In a case which came before that court in the preceding winter, I had labored to persuade the judges to return to the ancient law. It was my own sincere opinion that they ought to adhere to it, but I had exhausted all my powers of reasoning in vain. Johnson thought as I did, and in order to assist me in my application to the court for a revision, an alteration of the judgment, he dictated to me the following argument. This, we are told, is a law which has its force only from being the long practice of the court, and may therefore be suspended or modified as the court shall think proper. Concerning the power of the court to make or to suspend a law, we have no intention to inquire. It is sufficient for our purpose that every just law is dictated by reason, and that the practice of every legal court is regulated by equity. It is the quality of reason to be invariable and constant, and of equity to give to one man what, in the same case, is given to another. The advantage which humanity derives from law is this, that the law gives every man a rule of action and prescribes a mode of conduct which shall entitle him to the support and protection of society, that the law may be a rule of action, it is necessary that it be known, it is necessary that it be permanent and stable. The law is the measure of civil right, but if the measure be changeable, the extent of the thing measured never can be settled. To permit a law to be modified, at discretion, is to leave the community without law. It is to withdraw the direction of that public wisdom by which the deficiencies of private understanding are to be supplied. It is to suffer the rash and ignorant at discretion and then to depend for the legality of that action on the sentence of the judge. He that is thus governed lives not by law, but by opinion. Not by a certain rule to which he can apply his intention before he acts, but by an uncertain and variable opinion, which he can never know, but after he has committed the act on which that opinion shall be passed. He lives by a law, if a law it be, which he can never know before he has offended it. To this case may be justly applied that important principle, misera est servitus, ubi jus est out incognitum, out vagum. If intromission be not criminal till it exceeds a certain point, and that point be unsettled and consequently different in different minds, the right of intromission and the right of the creditor arising from it are all yura vaga, and by consequence are yura incognita, and the result can be no other than a misera servitus, an uncertainty concerning the event of action, a servile dependence on private opinion. It may be urged, and with great plausibility, that there may be intromission without fraud, which, however true, will by no means justify an occasional and arbitrary relaxation of the law. The end of the law is protection as well as vengeance. Indeed, vengeance is never used, but to strengthen protection. That society only is well governed, where life is freed from danger and from suspicion, where possession is so sheltered by salutary prohibitions that violation is prevented more frequently than punished. Such a prohibition was this, while it operated with its original force. The creditor of the deceased was not only without loss, but without fear. He was not to seek a remedy for an injury suffered, for injury was warded off. As the law has been sometimes administered, it lays us open to wounds because it is imagined to have the power of healing. To punish fraud when it is detected is the proper act of vindictive justice, but to prevent frauds and make punishment unnecessary is the great employment of legislative wisdom. To permit intromission and to punish fraud is to make law no better than a pitfall. To tread upon the brink is safe, but to come a step further is destruction. But surely it is better to enclose the gulf and hinder all access than by encouraging us to advance a little, to entice us afterwards a little further, and let us perceive our folly only by our destruction. As law supplies the weak with adventitious strength, it likewise enlightens the ignorant with extrinsic understanding. Law teaches us to know when we commit injury and when we suffer it. It fixes certain marks upon actions by which we are admonished to do or to forbear them. Quisibi bene temperat in liquities, says one of the Fathers, nun quam cadet in illiquita. He who never intromits at all will never intromit with fraudulent intentions. The relaxation of the law against vicious intromission has been very favorably represented by a great master of jurisprudence, whose words have been exhibited with unnecessary pomp and seem to be considered as irresistibly decisive. The great moment of his authority makes it necessary to examine his position. Some ages ago, says he, before the ferocity of the inhabitants of this part of the island was subdued, the utmost severity of the civil law was necessary to restrain individuals from plundering each other. Thus the man who intermeddled, irregularly, with the movables of a person deceased, was subjected to all the deaths of the deceased without limitation. This makes a branch of the law of Scotland, known by the name of vicious intromission, and so rigidly was this regulation applied in our courts of law that the most trifling movable abstracted malafide subjected the intermedler to the foregoing consequences, which proved in many instances a most rigorous punishment. But this severity was necessary in order to subdue the undisciplined nature of our people. It is extremely remarkable that in proportion to our improvement in manners this regulation has been gradually softened and applied by our sovereign court with a sparing hand. I find myself under a necessity of observing that this learned and judicious writer has not accurately distinguished the deficiencies and demands of the different conditions of human life, which, from a degree of savageness and independence in which all laws are vain, passes or may pass by innumerable gradations to a state of reciprocal benignity in which laws shall be no longer necessary. Men at first, wild and unsocial, living each man to himself, taking from the weak and losing to the strong. In their first coalitions of society much of this original savageness is retained. Of general happiness, the product of general confidence, there is yet no thought. Men continue to prosecute their own advantages by the nearest way, and the utmost severity of the civil law is necessary to restrain individuals from plundering each other. The restraints then necessary are restraints from plunder, from acts of public violence, from undisguised oppression, the ferocity of our ancestors as of all other nations produced not fraud, but rapine. They are not yet learned to cheat and attempted only to rob. As manners grow more polished with the knowledge of good, man attain likewise dexterity in evil. Open rapine becomes less frequent and violence gives way to cunning. Those who before invaded pastures and stormed houses now begin to enrich themselves by unequal contracts and fraudulent intromissions. It is not against the violence of ferocity but the circumventions of deceit that this law was framed. And I am afraid the increase of commerce and the incessant struggle for riches which commerce excites give us no prospect of an end speedily to be expected of artifice and fraud. It therefore seems to be no very conclusive reasoning which connects those two propositions. The nation is become less ferocious and therefore the laws against fraud and covain shall be relaxed. Whatever reason may have influenced the judges to a relaxation of the law it was not that the nation was grown less fierce, and I am afraid it cannot be affirmed that it is grown less fraudulent. Since this law has been represented as rigorously and unreasonably penal it seems not improper to consider what are the conditions and qualities that make the justice or propriety of a penal law. To make a penal law reasonable and just two conditions are necessary and two proper. It is necessary that the law should be adequate to its end, that if it be observed it shall prevent the evil against which it is directed. It is secondly necessary that the end of the law be of such importance as to deserve the security of a penal sanction. The other conditions of a penal law which though not absolutely necessary are to a very high degree fit are that to the moral violation of the law there are many temptations and that of the physical observance is great facility. All these conditions apparently concur to justify the law which we are now considering. Its end is the security of property, and property very often of great value. The method by which it effects the security is efficacious because it admits in its original rigor no gradations of injury, but keeps guilt and innocence apart by a distinct and definite limitation. He that intromits is criminal, he that intromits not is innocent. Of the two secondary considerations it cannot be denied that both are in our favor. The temptation to intromit is frequent and strong, so strong and so frequent as to require the utmost activity of justice and vigilance of caution, to withstand its prevalence and the method by which a man may entitle himself to legal intromission is so open and facile that to neglect it is proof of fraudulent intention. For why should a man omit to do, but for reasons which he will not confess, that which he can do so easily and that which he knows to be required by the law? If temptation were rare a penal law might be deemed unnecessary, if the duty enjoined by the law were of difficult performance, omission, though it could not be justified, might be pitied. But in the present case neither equity nor compassion operate against it. A useful and necessary law is broken, not only without a reasonable motive, but with all the inducements to obedience that can be derived from safety and facility. I therefore return to my original position that a law to have its effect must be permanent and stable. It may be said in the language of the schools, Lex known Recipit Myos et Minos, we may have a law, or we may have no law, but we cannot have half a law. We must either have a rule of action or be permitted to act by discretion and by chance. Deviations from the law must be uniformly punished, or no man can be certain when he shall be safe. That from the rigor of the original institution this court has sometimes departed cannot be denied, but as it is evident that such deviations as they make law uncertain make life unsafe, I hope that of departing from it there will now be an end, that the wisdom of our ancestors will be treated with due reverence, and that consistent and steady decisions will furnish the people with a rule of action and leave fraud and fraudulent intromissions no future hope of impunity or escape. With such comprehension of mind and such clearness of penetration did he thus treat a subject altogether new to him, without any other preparation than my having stated to him the arguments which had been used on each side of the question. His intellectual powers appeared with peculiar luster when tried against those of a writer of so much fame as Lord Keynes, and that too in his lordship's own department. This masterly argument, after being prefaced and concluded with some sentences of my own and garnished with the usual formularies, was actually printed and laid before the lords of session, but without success. My respected friend Lord Hales, one of that honourable body, had critical sagacity enough to discover a more than ordinary hand in the petition. I told him Dr. Johnson had favoured me with his pen. His lordship, with wonderful acumen, pointed out exactly where his composition began and where it ended. But that I may do impartial justice and conform to the great rule of courts, Suum Cui Cui Tribuito, I must add that their lordships in general, though they were pleased to call this a well-drawn paper, preferred the former very inferior petition which I had written, thus confirming the truth of an observation made to be my one of their number in a merry mood. My dear sir, give yourself no trouble in the composition of the papers you present to us, for indeed is casting pearls before swine. I renewed my solicitations that Dr. Johnson would this year accomplish his long intended visit to Scotland. To James Boswell Esquire. Dear sir, the regret has not been little with which I have missed a journey so pregnant with pleasing expectations as that in which I could promise myself not only the gratification of curiosity both rational and fanciful, but the delight of seeing those whom I love and esteem. But such has been the course of things that I could not come, and such has been I am afraid of the state of my body that it would not well have seconded my inclination. My body I think grows better, and I refer my hopes to another year, for I am very sincere in my design to pay the visit and take the ramble. In the meantime do not omit any opportunity of keeping up a favourable opinion of me in the minds of any of my friends. Beatty's book is, I believe, every day more liked. At least I like it more as I look more upon it. I am glad if you got credit by your cause, and am yet of opinion that our cause was good and that the determination ought to have been in your favour. Poor hasty, I think, had but his desserts. You promised to get me a little pindar. You may add to it a little anachron. The leisure which I cannot enjoy it will be a pleasure to hear that you employ upon the antiquities of the feudal establishment. The whole system of ancient tenures is gradually passing away, and I wish to have the knowledge of it preserved, adequate, and complete, for such an institution makes a very important part of the history of mankind. Do not forget a design so worthy of a scholar who studies the laws of his country and of a gentleman who may naturally be curious to know the condition of his own ancestors. I am, dear sir, yours with great affection, Sam Johnson, August 31, 1772. To Dr. Johnson, my dear sir, Edinburgh, December 25, 1772, I was much disappointed that you did not come to Scotland last autumn. However I must own that your letter prevents me from complaining. Not only because I am sensible that the state of your health was but too good an excuse, but because you write in a strain which shows that you have agreeable views of the scheme which we have so long proposed. I communicated to Beatty what you said of his book in your last letter to me. He writes to me thus, you judge very in supposing that Dr. Johnson's favourable opinion of any book must give me great delight. Indeed, it is impossible for me to say how much I am gratified by it, for there is not a man upon the earth whose good opinion I would be more ambitious to cultivate. His talents and his virtues I reverence more than any words can express, the extraordinary civilities, the paternal attentions I should rather say, and the many instructions I have had the honour to receive from him will be, to me, a perpetual source of pleasure in the recollection. Dum memor ipse mei, dum spiritus, haus reiget artus. I had still some thoughts, while the summer lasted, of being obliged to go to London on some little business, otherwise I should certainly have troubled him with the letter several months ago, and given some vent to my gratitude and admiration. This I intend to do as soon as I am left a little at leisure. Meantime, if you have occasion to write to him, I beg you will offer him my most respectful compliments, and assure him of the sincerity of my attachment and warmth of my gratitude. I am, et cetera, James Boswell. 1773 In 1773 his only publication was an edition of his folio Dictionary, with editions and corrections. Nor did he, so far as is known, furnish any productions of his fertile pen to any of his numerous friends or dependents, except the preface to his old Emanuensis McBean's Dictionary of Ancient Geography. His Shakespeare, indeed, which had been received with high approbation by the public, and gone through several editions, was this year republished by George Stevens Esquire, a gentleman not only deeply skilled in ancient learning and a very extensive reading in English literature, especially the early writers, but at the same time of acute discernment and elegant taste. It is almost unnecessary to say that, by his great and valuable editions to Dr. Johnson's work, he justly obtained considerable reputation. To James Boswell, Esquire. And Dr. Beatty rates the testimony which I was desirous of paying to his merit much higher than I should have thought it reasonable to expect. A new edition of my great dictionaries printed, from a copy which I persuaded to revise, but having made no preparation, I was able to do very little. Some superfluities I have expunged, and some faults I have corrected, and here and there have scattered a remark, but the main fabric of the work remains as it was. I had looked very little into it since I wrote it, and I think I found it full as often better as worse than I expected. Beretti and Davies have had a furious quarrel, a quarrel I think irreconcilable. Dr. Goldsmith has a new comedy which is expected in the spring. No name is yet given it. The chief diversion arises from a stratagem by which a lover is made to mistake his future father-in-law's house for an inn. This, you see, borders upon fars. The dialogue is quick and gay, and the incidents are so prepared as not to seem improbable. I'm sorry that you lost your cause of intermission, because I yet think the arguments on your side unanswerable. But you seem, I think, to say that you gained reputation even by your defeat, and reputation you will daily gain if you keep Lord Orkinleg's precept in your mind and endeavor to consolidate in your mind a firm and regular system of law instead of picking up occasional fragments. My health seems in general to improve, but I've been troubled for many weeks with a vexatious catar, which is sometimes sufficiently distressful. I've not found any great effects from bleeding and physics, and I'm afraid that I must expect help from brighter days and softer air. Write to me now and then, and whenever any good befalls you, make haste to let me know it, for no one will rejoice at it more than, dear sir, your most humble servant, Samuel Johnson. You continue to stand very high in the favor of Mrs. Thrill. While the former addition of my work was passing through the press, I was unexpectedly favored with a packet from Philadelphia, from Mr. James Abercrombie, a gentleman of that country, who is pleased to honor me with very high praise of my life of Dr. Johnson. To have the fame of my illustrious friend and his faithful biographer echoed from the New World is extremely flattering, and my grateful acknowledgments shall be wafted across the Atlantic. Mr. Abercrombie has politely confirmed on me a considerable additional obligation by transmitting to me copies of two letters from Dr. Johnson to American gentlemen. Gladly, sir, says he, would I have sent you the originals, but being the only relics of the kind in America they are considered by the possessors of such inestimable value that no possible consideration would induce them to part with them. In some future publication of yours relative to that great and good man they may perhaps be thought worthy of insertion. To Mr. B. D. Sir, that in the hurry of a sudden departure you should yet find leisure to consult my convenience, is a degree of kindness and an instance of regard, not only beyond my claims, but above my expectation. You are not mistaken in supposing that I set a high value on my American friends and that you should confer a very valuable favour upon me by giving me an opportunity of keeping myself in their memory. I have taken the liberty of troubling you with a packet to which I wish a safe and speedy conveyance because I wish a safe and speedy voyage to him that conveys it. I am, sir, your most humble servant, Samuel Johnson. London, Johnson's Court, Fleet Street, March 4, 773. To the Reverend Mr. White. Dear Sarah, your kindness for your friends accompanies you across the Atlantic. It was long since observed by Horace that no ship could leave care behind. You have been attended in your voyage by other powers, by benevolence and constancy, and I hope care did not often show her face in their company. I received a copy of Russell's. The impression is not magnificent, but it flatters an author because the printer seems to have expected that it would be scattered among the people. The little book has been well received and is translated into Italian, French, German and Dutch. It has now one honour more by an American edition. I know not that much has happened since your departure that can engage your curiosity. Of all public transactions the whole world is now informed by the newspapers. Opposition seems to despond and the dissenters, though they have taken advantage of unsettled times and the government much enfeebled seem not likely to gain any immunities. Dr. Goldsmith has a new comedy in rehearsal at Govan Garden to which the manager predicts ill success. I hope he will be mistaken. I think it deserves a very kind reception. I shall soon publish a new edition of my large Dictionary. I have been persuaded to revise it and have mended some faults but added little to its usefulness. No book has been published since your departure of which much notice is taken. Faction only fills the town with pamphlets and greater subjects are forgotten in the noise of discord. Thus have I written only to tell you how little I have to tell. Of myself I can only add that having been afflicted many weeks with a very troublesome cough I am now recovered. I take the liberty which you give me of troubling you with a letter of which you are pleased to fill up their direction. I am, sir, your most humble servant, Sam Johnson. Johnson's called Fleet Street, London, March 4, 1773. On Saturday, April 3, the day after my arrival in London this year, I went to his house later in the evening and sat with Mrs. Williams till he came home. I found in the London Chronicle Dr. Goldsmith's apology to the public for beating Evans, a bookseller on account of a paragraph in a newspaper published by him which Goldsmith thought impertinent to him and to a lady of his acquaintance. The apology was written so much in Dr. Johnson's manner that both Mrs. Williams and I supposed it to be his, but when he came home he soon undeceived us. When he said to Mrs. Williams, well, Dr. Goldsmith's manifesto has got into your paper, I asked him if Dr. Goldsmith had written it. With an air that made him see I suspected it was his, though subscribed by Goldsmith. Johnson? Sir, Dr. Goldsmith would no more have asked me to write such a thing as that for him than he would have asked me to feed him with a spoon or to do anything else that denoted his impossibility. I as much believe that he wrote it as if I'd seen him do it. Sir, had he shown it to any one friend he would not have been allowed to publish it. He has indeed done it very well, but it is a foolish thing well done. I suppose he has been so much elated with the success of his new comedy that he has thought everything that concerned him must be of importance to the public. Bosswell? I fancy, sir, this is the first time that he has been engaged in such an adventure. Johnson? Why, sir, I believe it is the first time he has beat. He may have been beaten before. This, sir, is a new plume to him. I mentioned Sir John Delrymple's memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland and his discoveries to the prejudice of Lord Russell and Algonon Sidney. Johnson? Why, sir, everybody who had just notions of government thought them rascals before. It is well that all mankind now see them to be rascals. Bosswell? But, sir, may not those discoveries be true without there being rascals? Johnson? Consider, sir, would any of them have been willing to have had it known that they intrigued with France? Depend upon it, sir. He who does what he is afraid should be known as something rotten about him. This Delrymple seems to be an honest fellow, for he tells equally what makes against both sides. But nothing can be poorer than his motive writing. It is the mere bouncing of a schoolboy. Great he, but greater she, and such stuff. I could not agree with him in this criticism, for though Sir John Delrymple's style is not regularly formed in any respect and one cannot help smiling sometimes in an affected, grand eloquence. There is, in his writing, a pointed vivacity and much of a gentlemanly spirit. At Mr. Thrills in the evening he repeated his usual paradoxical declamation against action in public speaking. Action can have no effect upon reasonable minds. It may augment noise, but it never can enforce argument. If you speak to a dog, you use action. You hold up your hand, thus, because he is a brute. And in proportion as men are removed from brutes, action will have the less influence upon them. Mrs. Thrills, what then, Sir, becomes of the mustanus as saying, action, action, action? Johnson, the mustanus, Madam, spoke to an assembly of brutes, to a barbarous people. I thought it extraordinary that he should deny the power of rhetorical action upon human nature when it is proved by innumerable facts in all stages of society. Reasonable beings are not solely reasonable. They have fancies which may be pleased, passions which may be roused. Lord Chesterfield being mentioned, Johnson remarked that almost all that celebrated nobleman's witty sayings were puns. He, however, allowed the merit of good wit to his lordship's saying of Lord Tiroly and himself, when both very old and infirm. Tiroly and I have been dead these two years, but we don't choose to have it known. He talked with approbation of an intended addition of the spectator with notes, two volumes of which had been prepared by a gentleman eminent in the literary world, and the materials which he had collected for their remainder had been transferred to another hand. He observed that all works which describe manas requiring notes in sixty or seventy years or less, and told us he had communicated all he knew that could throw light upon the spectator. He said Addison had made us Sir Andrew Feepord a true wig, arguing against giving charity to beggars and throwing out other such ungracious sentiments, but that he had thought better, and made amends by making him found in hospital for decayed farmers. He called for the volume of the spectator in which that account is contained and read it aloud to us. He read so well that everything acquired additional weight and grace from his utterance. The conversation having turned on modern imitations of ancient ballads and someone having praised their simplicity, he treated them with that ridicule which he always displayed when that subject was mentioned. He disapproved of introducing scripture phrases into secular discourse. This seemed to me a question of some difficulty. A scripture expression may be used like a highly classical phrase to produce an instantaneous strong impression, and it may be done without being at all improper. Yet I own there is danger that applying the language of our sacred book to ordinary subjects may tend to lessen our reverence for it. If therefore it be introduced at all, it should be with very great caution. On Thursday, April 8, I sat a good part of the evening with him, but he was very silent. He said, Burnett's history of his own times is very entertaining. The style, indeed, is mere chitchat. I do not believe that Burnett intentionally lied, but he was so much prejudiced that he took no pains to find out the truth. He was like a man who resolves to regulate his time by a certain watch, but will not inquire whether the watch is right or not. Though he was not disposed to talk, he was unwilling that I should leave him, and when I looked at my watch and told him it was twelve o'clock, he cried, What's that to you and me? And ordered Frank to tell Mrs. Williams that we were coming to drink tea with her, which we did. It was settled that we should go to church together next day. On the ninth of April, being Good Friday, I had breakfasted with him on tea and cross-pence. Dr. LeVette, as Frank called him, making the tea. He carried me with him to the church of St. Clement Danes, where he had his seat, and his behaviour was, as I had imagined to myself, solemnly devout. I never shall forget the tremulous onusness with which he pronounced the awful petition in the litany, in the hour of death, and at the day of judgment, Good Lord deliver us. We went to church both in the morning and evening, in the interval between the two services we did not dine, but he read in a Greek New Testament, and I turned over several of his books. In Archbishop Lorde's diary I found the following passage which I read to Dr. Johnson. 1623, February 1st, Sunday, I stood by the most illustrious Prince Charles at dinner. He was then very merry and talked occasionally of many things with his attendants. Among other things he said that if he were necessitated to take any particular profession of life, he could not be a lawyer. Adding his reasons, I cannot, said he, defend a bad, nor yield in a good cause. Johnson, sir, this is false reasoning, because every cause has a bad side, and a lawyer is not overcome, though the cause which he has endeavoured to support be determined against him. I told him that Goldsmith have said to me a few days before, as I take my shoes from the shoemaker and my coat from the tailor, so I take my religion from the priest. I regretted this loose way of talking. Johnson, sir, he knows nothing, he has made up his mind about nothing. To my great surprise he asked me to dine with him on Easter day. I never supposed that he had a dinner at his house, for I had not then heard of any one of his friends having been entertained at his table. He told me, I generally have a meat pie on Sunday. It is baked at a public oven, which is very properly allowed, because one man can attend it, and thus the advantage is obtained of not keeping servants from church to dress dinners. April 11 being Easter Sunday, after having attended divine service at St. Paul's, I repaired to Dr. Johnson's. I had gratified my curiosity much in dining with Jean-Jacques Rousseau while he lived in the wilds of Neuchâtel. I had as great a curiosity to dine with Dr. Samuel Johnson in the dusky recess of a court in Fleet Street. I supposed we should scarcely have knives and forks and only some strange uncouth, ill-dressed dish, but I found everything in very good order. We had no other company but Mrs. Williams and a young woman whom I did not know. As a dinner here was considered as a singular phenomenon, frequently interrogated on the subject, my readers may perhaps be desirous to know our bill of fare. Foot, I remember, in allusion to Francis, the negro, was willing to suppose that our repost was black broth. But the fact was that we had a very good soup, a boiled leg of lamb, and a spinach, a veal pie and a rice pudding. Of Dr. John Campbell, the author, he said, he's a very inquisitive and a very able man of good religious principles, though I am afraid he has been deficient in practice. Campbell is radically right and we may hope that in time there will be good practice. He owned that he thought Hawkesworth was one of his imitators, but he did not think Goldsmith was. Goldsmith, he said, had great merit. Bosswell, but, sir, he is much indebted to you for his getting so high in the public estimation. Johnson? Why, sir, may as perhaps got sooner to it by his intimacy with me. Goldsmith, though his vanity often excited him to occasional competition, had a very high regard for Johnson, which he had this time expressed in the strongest manner in the dedication of his comedy, entitled She Stoops to Conquer. Johnson observed that there were very few books printed in Scotland before the Union. He had seen a complete collection of them in the possession of the honourable Archibald Campbell, I wish this collection had been kept entire. Many of them are in the library of the Faculty of Advocates at Edinburgh. I told Dr. Johnson that I had some intention to write the life of the learned and worthy Thomas Ruderman. He said, I should take pleasure in helping you to do honour to him, but is farewell littered with the Faculty of Advocates when he resigned the office of their librarian should have been in Latin. I put a question to him upon effect in common life which he could not answer, nor have I found anyone else who could. What is the reason that women servants, though obliged to be at the expense of purchasing their own clothes, have much lower wages than men's servants, to whom a great proportion of that article is furnished, and when in fact our female house servants work much harder than the male? He told me that he had twelve or fourteen times attempted to keep a journal of his life, but never could persevere. He advised me to do it. The great thing to be recorded, said he, is the state of your own mind, and you should write down everything that you remember, for you cannot judge at first what is good or bad, and write immediately while the impression is fresh, for it will not be the same a week afterwards. I again solicited him to communicate to me the particulars of his early life. He said, you shall have them all for tuppence. I hope you shall know a great deal more of me before you write my life. He mentioned to me this day many circumstances which I wrote down when I went home, and have owned a woven in the former part of this narrative. On Tuesday, April 13, he and Dr. Goldsmith and I dined at General Oglethorpes. Goldsmith expatiated on the common topic that the race of our people was degenerated and that this was owing to luxury. Johnson Sir, in the first place I doubt the fact. I believe there are as many tall men in England now as ever there were. But secondly, supposing the stature of our people to be diminished, that is not owing to luxury. For Sir, consider to how very small a proportion of our people luxury can reach. Our soldiery surely are not luxuries who live on six pence a day, and the same remark will apply to almost all the other classes. Luxury, so far as it reaches the poor, will do good to the race of people. It will strengthen and multiply them. Sir, no nation was ever hurt by luxury. For, as I said before, it can reach but to a very few. I admit that the great increase of commerce and manufacturers hurts the military spirit of a people because it produces a competition for something else than martial honors, a competition for riches. It also hurts the bodies of the people. For you will observe there is no man who works at any particular trade but you may know him from his appearance to do so. One part or other of his body being more used than the rest, he is in some degree deformed. But, Sir, that is not luxury. A tailor sits cross-legged but that is not luxury. Goldsmith, come, you're just going to the same place by another road. Johnson, ne Sir, I say that is not luxury. Let us take a walk from Charing Cross to Whitechapel through, I suppose, the greatest series of shops in the world. What is there in any of these shops, if you accept gen shops, that can do any human being any harm? Goldsmith, well Sir, I'll accept your challenge. The very next shop to Northumberland House is a pickle shop. Johnson, well Sir, do we not know that a maid can in one afternoon make pickles sufficient to serve a whole family for a year? Ne, that five pickle shops can serve all the kingdom. Besides Sir, there is no harm done to anybody by the making of pickles We drank tea with the ladies and Goldsmith sung Tony Lumpkin's song in his comedy, She Stoops to Conquer and a very pretty one to an Irish tune which he had designed from his hard castle but as Mrs. Bulkley who played the part could not sing it was left out. He afterwards wrote it down for me by which means it was preserved and now appears amongst his poems. Dr. Johnson in his way home stopped at my lodgings in Piccadilly with me drinking tea a second time till a late hour. I told him that Mrs. McCauley said she wondered how he could reconcile his political principles with his moral his notions of inequality and subordination with wishing well to the happiness of all mankind who might live so agreeably had they all their portions of land and none to dominere over another. Johnson, why Sir, I reconcile my principles very well because mankind are happier in a state of inequality and subordination where they to be in this pretty state of equality they would soon degenerate into brutes they would become one butters nation their tails would grow Sir, all would be losers were all to work for all they would have no intellectual improvement all intellectual improvement arises from leisure all leisure arises from one working for another. Talking of the family of Stuart I said it just seemed that the family at present on the throne has now established as good a right as the former family by the long consent of the people and that to disturb this right might be considered as culpable at the same time I own that it is a very difficult question when considered with respect to the House of Stuart to oblige people to take oath as to dispute it right is wrong I know not whether I could take them but I do not blame those who do so conscientious and so delicate was he upon this subject which has occasioned so much clamour against him Talking of law cases he said the English reports in general are very poor only the half of what has been said is taken down and of that half much is mistaken whereas in Scotland the arguments on each side are deliberately put in writing to be considered by the court I think a collection of your cases upon subjects of importance with the opinions of the judges upon them would be valuable On Thursday April 15 I dined with him and Dr Goldsmith at General Paulies we found here Senor Martinelli of Florence author of a history of England in Italian printed at London I spoke of Alan Ramsey's gentle shepherd in the Scottish dialect as the best pastoral that had ever been written not only abounding with beautiful rural imagery and just and pleasing sentiments but being a real picture of his manners and I offered to teach Dr Johnson to understand it No sir said he I won't learn it, you shall retain your superiority by my not knowing it This brought on a question whether one man is lessened by another's acquiring an equal degree of knowledge with him Johnson asserted the affirmative I maintained that the position might be true in those kinds of knowledge which produce wisdom, power and force so as to enable one man to have but that a man is not in any degree lessened by others knowing as well as he would ends in mere pleasure eating fine fruits, drinking delicious wines, reading exquisite poetry The general observed that Martinelli was a wig Johnson, I am sorry for it it shows the spirit of the times he is obliged to temperize Boswell, I rather think sir that tourism prevails in this reign Johnson, I know not why you should think so sir you see your friend lord Liddleton, nobleman is obliged in his history to write the most vulgar wiggism An animated debate took place where the Martinelli should continue his history of England to the present day Goldsmith, to be sure he should Johnson, no sir he would give great offence he would have to tell of almost all the living grade what they do not wish told Goldsmith, it may perhaps be necessary for a native to be more cautious but a foreigner who comes among us without prejudice may be considered as holding the place of a judge and may speak his mind freely Johnson, sir a foreigner when he sends a work from the press ought to be on his guard against catching the error and mistaken enthusiasm of the people among whom he happens to be Goldsmith, sir he wants only to sell his history and to tell truth, one an honest the other, a laudable motive Johnson, sir they are both laudable motives it is laudable in a man to wish to live by his labours but he should write so as he may live by them and not so as he may be knocked on the head I would advise him to be at Calais before he publishes his history of the present age a foreigner who attaches himself to a political party in this country is in the worst state that can be imagined he is looked upon as a mere inter-medla a native may do it from interest Boswell or principal Goldsmith there are people who tell a hundred political lies every day and are not heard by it surely then one may tell truth with safety Johnson, sir in the first place he who tells a hundred lies has disarmed the force of his lies but besides a man had rather have a hundred lies told of him than one truth which he does not wish to be told Goldsmith, for my part I tell truth and shame the devil Johnson, yes sir but the devil will be angry I wish to shame the devil as much as you do but I should choose to be out of the reach of his claws Goldsmith, his claws can do you no harm when you have the shield of truth it having been observed that there was little hospitality in London Johnson, nay sir any man who has a name of pleasing will be very generally invited in London the man Stern I've been told has had engagements for three months Goldsmith and a very dull fellow Johnson why no sir Martinelli told us that for several years he lived much with Charles Townshend and that he ventured to tell him he was a bad joker Johnson, why sir thus much I can say upon the subject one day he and a few more agreed to go and to the country and each of them must have bring a friend in his carriage with him Charles Townshend asked Fitzherbert to go with him but told him you must find somebody to bring you back I can only carry you there Fitzherbert did not much like this arrangement he however consented observing sarcastically it will do very well for then the same jokes will serve you in returning as in going an eminent public character being mentioned Johnson, I remember being present when he showed himself to be so corrupted or at least something so different from what I think right as to maintain that the member of parliament should go along with his party right or wrong now sir this is so remote from native virtue from scholastic virtue that a good man must have undergone a great change before he can reconcile himself to such a doctrine it is maintaining that you may lie to the public for you lie when you call that right which you think wrong or the reverse a friend of ours who is too much an echo of that gentleman observed that a man who does not stick uniformly to a party is only waiting to be bought why then, said I he is only waiting to be what that gentleman is already we talked to the kings coming to see Goldsmith's new play I wish he would said Goldsmith adding however with an effect that indifferent not that it would do me the least good Johnson that I say it would do him good laughing no sir, this effectation will not pass it is mighty idle in such a state as ours who would not wish to please achieve magistrate Goldsmith I do wish to please him I remember a line in Dryden and every poet is the monarch's friend it ought to be reversed Johnson for colleges unbounded kings depend and never rebel was to arts a friend General Powley observed that successful rebels might martinley, happy rebellions Goldsmith we have no such phrase General Powley, but have you not the thing Goldsmith yes, all are happy revolutions they have heard our constitution and will heard it till we mend it by another happy revolution I never before discovered a friend Goldsmith had so much of the old prejudice in him General Powley, talking of Goldsmith's new play, said I expressed a doubt whether Goldsmith intended it in order that I might hear the truth from himself it perhaps was not quite fair to endeavour to bring him to a confession as he might not wished a vow positively his taking part against the court he smiled and hesitated the general at once relieved him by this beautiful image a person was mentioned who it was said could take down in shorthand the speeches in parliament with perfect exactness I remember one angel who came to me to write for him the preface or dedication to a book upon shorthand and he professed to write as fast as a man could speak in order to try him I took down a book and read while he wrote and I favoured him for I read more deliberately than usual I had proceeded but a very little way when he begged I would desist for he could not follow me hearing now for the first time of this preface or dedication what an expense sir do you put us to in buying books to which you have written prefaces or dedications Johnson why I have dedicated to the royal family all round let us to say to the last generation of the royal family Goldsmith and perhaps sir not one sentence of wit in a whole dedication Johnson perhaps not sir Boswell what then is the reason for applying to a particular person to do that which anyone may do as well Johnson one man has greater readiness at doing it than another I spoke of Mr. Harris of Salesbury as being a very learned man and in particular an eminent Grecian Johnson I am not sure of that his friends give him out as such but I know not who of his friends are able to judge of it Goldsmith he is what is much better he is a worthy humane man nay sir that is not to the purpose of our argument that will as much prove that he can play up on the fiddle as well as Giardini as that he is an eminent Grecian Goldsmith the greatest musical performance have put small em monuments Giardini I am told does not get above 700 a year Johnson that is indeed but little for a man to get who does best that which so many endeavour to do there is nothing I think in which the power is shown so much as in playing on the fiddle in all other things we can do something at first any man will forge a bar of iron if you give him a hammer not so well as a smith but tolerably a man will saw a piece of wood and make a box though a clumsy one but give him a fiddle and a fiddle stick and he can do nothing end of section 11