 15. 1775. I. Att. 66. The first effort of his pen in 1775 was proposals for publishing the works of Mrs. Charlotte Lennox in three volumes quarter. In his diary, January 2, I find this entry, wrote Charlotte's proposals. But indeed the internal evidence would have been quite sufficient. Her claim to the favour of the public was thus enforced. Most of the pieces, as they appeared singly, have been read with approbation, perhaps above their merits, but of no great advantage to the writer. She hopes, therefore, that she shall not be considered as too indulgent to vanity, or too studious of interest, if, from that labour which has hitherto been chiefly gainful to others, she endeavours to obtain at last some profit for herself and her children. She cannot decently enforce her claim by the praise of her own performances, nor can she suppose that, by the most artful and laboured address, any additional notice could be procured to a publication of which Her Majesty has condescended to be the patroness. He this year also wrote the preface to Barretti's easy lessons in Italian and English. To James Boswell Esquire. Dear sir, you never did ask for a book by the post till now, and I did not think on it. You see now, it is done, I sent one to the king, and I hear he likes it. I shall send a parcel into Scotland for presents, and intend to give to many of my friends. In your catalogue you left out Lord Affleck. Let me know as fast as you read it how you like it, and let me know if any mistake is committed, or anything important left out. I wish you could have seen the sheets. My compliments to Mrs. Boswell, and to Veronica, and to all my friends. I am, sir, your most humble servant, Sam Johnson. January 14, 1775. Mr. Boswell to Dr. Johnson. Edinburgh. January 19, 1775. Be pleased to accept of my best thanks for your journey to the Hebrides, which came to me by last night's post. I did really ask the favour twice, but you have been even with me by granting it so speedily. Be stat quiquito dat. Though ill of a bad cold, you kept me up the greatest part of the last night, for I did not stop till I had read every word of your book. I looked back to our first talking of a visit to the Hebrides, which was many years ago, when sitting by ourselves in the might at Avon in London I think about witching time of night, and then exalted in contemplating our scheme fulfilled, and a monumentum perene of it erected by your superior abilities. I shall only say that your book has afforded me a high gratification. I shall afterwards give you my thoughts on particular passages. In the meantime I hasten to tell you of your having mistaken two names which you will correct in London, as I shall do here, that the gentlemen who deserve the valuable compliments which you have paid them may enjoy their honors. In page 106 for Gordon read Merchison, and in page 357 for MacLaine read MacLeod. But I am now to apply to you for immediate aid in my profession, which you have never refused to grant when I requested it. I enclose you a petition for Dr. Memis, a physician at Aberdeen, in which Sir John Dalrymple has exerted his talents, and which I am to answer as counsel for the managers of the royal infirmary in that city. Mr. Job, the provost, who delivered to you your freedom, is one of my clients, and as a citizen of Aberdeen you will support him. The fact is shortly this. In a translation of the charter of the infirmary from Latin into English, made under the authority of the managers, the same phrase in the original is in one place rendered physician, but when applied to Dr. Memis is rendered doctor of medicine. The Dr. Memis complained of this before the translation was printed, but was not indulged with having it altered, and he has brought an action for damages on account of a supposed injury, as if the designation given to him was an inferior one tending to make it be supposed he is not a physician, and consequently to hurt his practice. My father has dismissed the action as groundless, and now he has appealed to the whole court. To James Boswellersquire. Dear sir, I long to hear how you like the book. It is, I think, much liked here. But MacPherson is very furious. Can you give me any more intelligence about him or his finger? Do what you can and do it quickly. His lord hails on our side. Pray let me know what I owed you when I left you, that I may send it to you. I am going to write about the Americans. If you have picked up any hints among your lawyers who are great masters of the law of nations, or if your own mind suggests anything, let me know. But, mum, it is a secret. I will send your parcel of books as soon as I can, but I cannot do as I wish. However, you find everything mentioned in the book which you recommend. Langton is here, and we are all that ever we were. He is a worthy fellow without malice, though not without resentment. Poor Bokelark is so ill that his life is thought to be in danger. Lady Di nurses him with very great acidity. Reynolds has taken too much to strong liquor, and seems to delight in his new character. This is all the news that I have. But as you love verses, I will send you a few which I made upon Inch Kenneth. But remember the condition you shall not show them, except Lord Hales, whom I love better than any man whom I know so little. If he asks you to transcribe them for him, you may do it. But I think he must promise not to let them be copied again, nor to show them as mine. I have at last sent back Lord Hales' sheets. I never think about returning them, because I alter nothing. You will see that I might as well have kept them. However, I am ashamed of my delay, and if I have the honour of receiving any more, promise punctually to return them by the next post. Make my compliments to dear Mrs. Boswell, and to Miss Veronica. I am, de Sir, yours most faithfully, Sam Johnson. January the 21st, 1775 Mr. Boswell to Dr. Johnson. Edinburgh, January the 27th, 1775 You rate our lawyers here too high when you call them great masters of the law of nations. As for myself, I am ashamed to say I have read little and thought little on the subject of America. I will be much obliged to you if you will direct me where I shall find the best information of what is to be said on both sides. It is a subject vast in its present extent and future consequences. The imperfect hints which now float in my mind tend rather to the formation of an opinion that our government has been precipitant and severe in the resolutions taken against the Bostonians. Well, do you know that I have no kindness for that race, but nations or bodies of men should, as well as individuals, have a fair trial, and not be condemned on character alone? Have we not expressed contract with our colonies which afford a more certain foundation of judgment than general political speculations on the mutual rights of states and their provinces or colonies? Pray, let me know immediately what to read, and I shall diligently endeavour to gather for you anything that I can find. Is Burke's speech on American taxation published by himself? Is it authentic? I remember to have heard you say that you had never considered East Indian affairs, though surely they are of much importance to Great Britain. Under the recollection of this, I shelter myself from the reproach of ignorance about the Americans. If you write upon the subject, I shall certainly understand it. But since you seem to expect that I should know something of it without your instruction, and that my own mind should suggest something, I trust you will put me in the way. What does Beckett mean by the originals of Fingle and other poems of Ocean which he advertises to have lain in his shop? To James Boswell, a squire. Dear sir, you sent me a case to consider in which I have no facts but what are against us, nor any principles on which to reason. It is vain to try to write thus without materials. The fact seems to be against you. At least I cannot know nor say anything to the contrary. I am glad that you like the book so well. I hear no more of MacPherson. I shall long to know what Lord Hales says of it. Lend it him privately. I shall send the parcel as soon as I can. Make my compliments to Mrs. Boswell. I am, sir, etc.—Sam Johnson, Jan. 28, 1775. As to MacPherson, I am anxious to have from yourself a full and pointed account of what has passed between you and him. It is confidently told here that before your book came out he sent to you to let you know that he understood you meant to deny the authenticity of Ocean's poems, that the originals were in his possession, that you might have inspection of them, and might take the evidence of people skilled in the earth's language, and that he hoped after this fair offer you would not be so uncandid as to assert that he had refused reasonable proof, that you paid no regard to his message but published your strong attack upon him, and then he wrote a letter to you in such terms as he thought suited to one who had not acted as a man of veracity. You may believe it gives me pain to hear your conduct represented as unfavourable, while I can only deny what is said on the ground that your character refutes it, without having any information to oppose. Let me, I beg it of you, be furnished with a sufficient answer to any calamity upon this occasion. Lord Hales writes to me, for we correspond more than we talk together, as to Fingal I see a controversy arising, and propose to keep out of its way. There is no doubt that I might mention some circumstances, but I do not choose to commit them to paper. What his opinion is, I do not know. He says, I am singularly obliged to Dr. Johnson for his accurate and useful criticisms. Had he given some strictures on the general plan of the work, it would have added much to his favours. He is charmed with your verses on Inch-Kenneth, says they are very elegant, but bids me tell you he doubts whether Legitima Sfacchion't pectora pura preques be according to the rubric. But that is your concern for, you know, he is a Presbyterian. To Dr. Lawrence, February the 7th, 1775. Sir, one of the scotch physicians is now prosecuting a corporation that in some public instrument have styled him Doctor of Medicine instead of Physician. Boswell desires, being advocate for the corporation, to know whether Doctor of Medicine is not a legitimate title, and whether it may be considered as a disadvantageous distinction. I am to write to-night, be pleased to tell me. I am, sir, your most, et cetera, Sam Johnson. To James Boswell, Esquire. My dear Boswell, I am surprised that knowing as you do the disposition of your countrymen to tell lies in favour of each other, you can be at all affected by any reports that circulate among them. MacPherson never in his life offered me a sight of any original or of any evidence of any kind, but thought only of intimidating me by noise and threats, till my last answer, that I would not be deterred from detecting what I thought a cheat, by the menaces of a ruffian, put an end to our correspondence. The state of the question is this. He and Doctor Blair, whom I consider as deceived, say that he copied the poem from old manuscripts. His copies, if he had them, and I believe him to have none, are nothing. Where are the manuscripts? They can be shown if they exist, but they were never shown. De non existentibus et non apparentibus, no man has a claim to credit upon his own word when better evidence, if he had it, may be easily produced. But so far as we can find the Urse language was never written till very lately for the purposes of religion. A nation that cannot write, or a language that was never written, has no manuscripts. But whatever he has he never offered to show. If old manuscripts should now be mentioned, I should, unless there were more evidence than can be easily had, suppose them another proof of scotch conspiracy in national falsehood. Do not censure the expression, you know it to be true. Dr. Memes' question is so narrow as to allow no speculation, and I have no facts before me but those which his advocate has produced against you. I consulted this morning the president of the London College of Physicians, who says that with us, Doctor of Physics, we do not say Doctor of Medicine, is the highest title that a practiser of physics can have, that doctor implies not only physician, but teacher of physics, that every doctor is legally a physician, but no man not a doctor, can practise physics but by licence particularly granted. The doctorate is a licence of itself. It seems to us a very slender cause of prosecution. I am now engaged, but in a little time I hope to do all you would have. My compliments to Madame Ann Veronica. I am, sir, your most humble servant, Sam Johnson. February the 7th, 1775. Not words were used by Mr. MacPherson in his letter to the venerable sage, I have never heard, but they are generally said to have been of a nature very different from the language of literary contest. Dr. Johnson's answer appeared in the newspapers of the day, and has since been frequently republished, but not with perfect accuracy. I give it as dictated to me by himself, written down in his presence, and authenticated by a note in his own handwriting, this, I think, is a true copy. Mr. James MacPherson. I received your foolish and impudent letter. Any violence offered me I shall do my best to repel, and what I cannot do for myself the law shall do for me. I hope I shall never be deterred from detecting what I think a cheat by the menaces of a ruffian. What would you have me retract? I thought your book an imposture. I think it an imposture still. For this opinion I have given my reasons to the public, which I hear dare you to refute. Your rage I defy. Your abilities, since your Homer, are not so formidable, and what I hear of your morals inclines me to pay regard not to what you shall say, but to what you shall prove. You may print this, if you will. Sam Johnson. Mr. MacPherson little knew the character of Dr. Johnson, if he supposed that he could be easily intimidated, for no man was ever more remarkable for personal courage. He had indeed an awful dread of death, or rather of something after death, and what rational man who seriously thinks of quitting all that he has ever known, and going into a new and unknown state of being can be without that dread. But his fear was from reflection, his courage natural. His fear in that one instance was the result of philosophical and religious consideration. He feared death, but he feared nothing else, not even what might occasion death. Many instances of his resolution may be mentioned. One day at Mr. Bo Clark's house in the country, when two large dogs were fighting, he went up to them and beat them till they separated. And at another time, when told of the danger there was that a gun might burst if charged with many balls, he put in six or seven and fired it off against a wall. Miss Langton told me that when they were swimming together near Oxford he cautioned Dr. Johnson against a pool which was reckoned particularly dangerous, upon which Johnson directly swam into it. He told me himself that one night he was attacked in the street by four men, to whom he would not yield but kept them all at bay till the watch came up, and carried both him and them to the roundhouse. In the playhouse at Lichfield, as Mr. Garrick informed me, Johnson having for a moment quitted a chair which was placed for him between the side scenes, a gentleman took possession of it, and when Johnson on his return civilly demanded his seat, rudely refused to give it up, upon which Johnson laid hold of it and tossed him and the chair into the pit. Foot, who so successfully revived the old comedy by exhibiting living characters, had resolved to imitate Johnson on the stage, expecting great profits from his ridicule of so celebrated a man. Johnson being informed of his intention, and being at dinner at Mr. Thomas Davies's, the bookseller from whom I had the story, he asked Mr. Davies what was the common price of an oak stick, and being answered sixpence, why then, sir, said he, give me leave to send your servant to purchase me a shilling one. I'll have a double quantity for I am told foot means to take me off, as he calls it, and I am determined the fellow shall not do it with impunity. Davies took care to acquaint foot of this, which effectually checked the wantonness of the mimic. Mr. MacPherson's menaces made Johnson provide himself with the same implement of defence, and had he been attacked, I have no doubt that old as he was, he would have made his corporal prowess be felt as much as his intellectual. His journey to the western islands of Scotland is a most valuable performance. It abounds in extensive philosophical views of society, and in ingenious sentiment and lively description. A considerable part of it indeed consists of speculations, which many years before he saw the wild regions which we visited together probably had employed his attention, though the actual sight of those scenes undoubtedly quickened and augmented them. Mr. Orm, the very able historian, agreed with me in this opinion which he thus strongly expressed. There are in that book thoughts which, by long revolution in the great mind of Johnson, have been formed and polished like pebbles rolled in the ocean. That he was, to some degree of excess, a true-born Englishman, so as to have entertained an undue prejudice against both the country and the people of Scotland, must be allowed, but it was a prejudice of the head and not of the heart. He had no ill will to the scotch, for if he had been conscious of that he would never have thrown himself into the bosom of their country, and trusted to the protection of its remote inhabitants with a fearless confidence. His remark upon the nakedness of the country, from its being denuded of trees, was made after having travelled two hundred miles along the eastern coast, where certainly trees are not to be found near the road, and he said it was a map of the road which he gave. His disbelief of the authenticity of the poems ascribed to Ocean, a Highland Bard, was confirmed in the course of his journey by a very strict examination of the evidence offered for it, and although their authenticity was made too much a national point by the scotch, there were many respectable persons in that country who did not concur in this, so that his judgment upon the question ought not to be decried, even by those who differ from him. As to myself, I can only say, upon a subject now become very uninteresting, that when the fragments of Highland poetry first came out, I was much pleased with their wild peculiarity, and was one of those who subscribed to enable their editor, Mr. MacPherson, then a young man, to make a search in the Highlands and Hebrides for a long poem in the earth's village, which was reported to be preserved somewhere in those regions. But when there came forth an epic poem in six books, with all the common circumstances of former compositions in that nature, and when upon an attentive examination of it there was found a perpetual recurrence of the same images which appear in the fragments, and when no ancient manuscript to authenticate the work was deposited in any public library, so that was insisted on as a reasonable proof, who could forbear to doubt. Johnson's grateful acknowledgments of kindnesses received in the course of this tour completely refute the brutal reflections which have been thrown out against him, as if he had made an ungrateful return, and his delicacy in sparing in his book those whom we find from his letters to Mrs. Thrale were just objects of his censure is much to be admired. His candour and amiable disposition is conspicuous from his conduct when informed by Mr. MacLeod of Rasse that he had committed a mistake which gave that gentleman some uneasiness. He wrote a MacCurteous and kind letter, and inserted in the newspapers an advertisement correcting the mistake. The observations of my friend Mr. Dempster, in a letter written to me soon after he had read Dr. Johnson's book, are so just and liberal that they cannot be too often repeated. There is nothing in the book from beginning to end that a scotchman need to take a miss. What he says of the country is true, and his observations on the people are what must naturally occur to a sensible, observing, and reflecting inhabitant of a convenient metropolis, where a man on thirty pounds a year may be better accommodated with all the little wants of life than Coll or Sir Allen. I am charmed with his researches concerning the earth's language and the antiquity of their manuscripts. I am quite convinced, and I shall rank Ocean and his fingers and oscars amongst the nursery tales, not the true history of our country, in all time to come. Upon the whole the book cannot displease, for it has no pretensions. The author neither says he is a geographer, nor an antiquarian, nor very learned in the history of Scotland, nor a naturalist, nor a fossilist. The manners of the people and the face of the country are all he attempts to describe or seems to have thought of. Much were it to be wished that they who have travelled into more remote, and of course more curious regions, had all possessed his good sense. Of the state of learning his observations on Glasgow University show he has formed a very sound judgment. He understands our climate, too, and he has accurately observed the changes, however slow and imperceptible to us, which Scotland has undergone, in consequence of the blessings of liberty and internal peace. Mr Knox, another native of Scotland, who has since made the same tour and published an account of it, is equally liberal. I have read, says he, his book, Again and Again, travelled with him from Berwick to Glenelg, through countries with which I am well acquainted, sailed with him from Glenelg to Rassay—Sky, Rum, Col, Mull, and Ecomkill—but have not been able to correct him in any matter of consequence. I have often admired the accuracy, the precision, and the justness of what he advances, respecting both the country and the people. The doctor has everywhere delivered his sentiments with freedom, and in many instances with a seeming regard for the benefit of the inhabitants and the ornament of the country. His remarks on the want of trees and hedges for shade, as well as for shelter to the cattle, are well founded and merit the thanks, not the illiberal censure of the natives. He also felt for the distress of the Highlanders, and explode with great propriety the bad management of the grounds and the neglect of timber in the Hebrides. Having quoted Johnson's just compliments on the Rassay family, he says, On the other hand, I found this family equally lavish in their incomiums upon the doctor's conversation, and his subsequent servilities to a young gentleman of that country, who, upon waiting upon him at London, was well received and experienced all the attention and regard that a warm friend could bestow. Mr. MacLeod, having also been in London, waited upon the doctor, who provided a magnificent and expensive entertainment in honour of his old Hebridean acquaintance. And talking of the military road by Fort Augustus, he says, By this road, though one of the most rugged in Great Britain, the celebrated Dr. Johnson passed from Inverness to the Hebride Isles. His observations on the country and people are extremely correct, judicious, and instructive. Mr. Titler, the acute and able vindicator of Mary, Queen of Scots, in one of his letters to Mr. James Elphinstone, published in that gentleman's forty years correspondence, says, I read Dr. Johnson's tour with very great pleasure—some few errors he has fallen into but of no great importance, and those are lost in the numberless beauties of his work. If I had leisure I could perhaps point out the most exceptional places, but at present I am in the country, and have not his book at hand. It is plain he meant to speak well of Scotland, and he has in my apprehension done us great honour, in the most capital article, the character of the inhabitants. His private letters, to Mrs. Thrail, written during the course of the journey, which therefore may be supposed to convey his genuine feelings at the time, abounded in such benign sentiments towards the people who showed him civilities, that no man whose temper is not very harsh and sour can retain a doubt of the goodness of his heart. It is painful to recollect with what ranker he was assailed by numbers of shallow, irritable North Britons on account of his supposed injurious treatment of their country and countrymen in his journey. Had there been any just ground for such a charge, would the virtuous and candid Dempster have given his opinion of the book in the terms which I have quoted? Would the patriotic Knox have spoken of it as he has done? Would Mr. Titler surely a scot, if ever scot there were, have expressed himself thus? And let me add that, citizen of the world, as I hold myself to be, I have a degree of predilection for my Natale Solum. Nay, I have that just sense of the merit of an ancient nation, which has been ever renowned for its valour, which in former times maintained its independence against a powerful neighbour, and in modern times has been equally distinguished for its ingenuity and industry and civilised life, that I should have felt a generous indignation at any injustice done to it. Johnson treated Scotland no worse than he did even his best friends, whose characters he used to give as they appeared to him, both in light and shade. Some people, who had not exercised their minds sufficiently, condemned him for censuring his friends. But Sir Joshua Reynolds, whose philosophical penetration and justness of thinking were not less known to those who lived with him than his genius in his art is admired by the world, explained his conduct thus. He was fond of discrimination, which he could not show without pointing out the bad as well as the good in every character, and as his friends were those whose characters he knew best, they afforded him the best opportunity for showing the acuteness of his judgement. He expressed to his friend Mr. Wyndham of Norfolk his wonder at the extreme jealousy of Scotch, and their resentment at having their country described by him as it really was, when to say that it was a country as good as England would have been a gross falsehood. None of us, said he, would be offended if a foreigner who was travelled here should say that vines and olives don't grow in England. And as to his prejudice against the Scotch, which I always ascribed to that nationality which he observed in them, he said to the same gentleman, when I find a Scotchman, to whom an Englishman is as a Scotchman, that Scotchman shall be as an Englishman to me. His intimacy with many gentlemen of Scotland, and his employing so many natives of that country as his eminuencies, prove that his prejudice was not virulent. And I have deposited in the British Museum, amongst other pieces of his writing, the following note in answer to one from me, asking if he would meet me at dinner at the mitre, though a friend of mine, a Scotchman, was to be there. Mr. Johnson does not see why Mr. Boswell should suppose a Scotchman less acceptable than any other man. He will be at the mitre. My much-valued friend Dr. Barnard, now Bishop of Killaloo, having once expressed to him an apprehension that if he should visit Ireland he might treat the people of that country more unfavourably than he had done the Scotch, he answered with strong, pointed, double-edged wit. Sir, you have no reason to be afraid of me. The Irish are not in a conspiracy to cheat the world by false representations of the merits of their countrymen. No, sir, the Irish are a fair people. They never speak well of one another. Johnson told me of an instance of Scottish nationality, which made a very unfavourable impression upon his mind. A Scotchman of some consideration in London solicited him to recommend, by the weight of his learned authority, to be master of an English school, a person of whom he who recommended him confessed he knew no more but that he was his countryman. Johnson was shocked at this unconscious conduct. All the miserable cavelings against his journey, in newspapers, magazines, and other fugitive publications, I can speak from certain knowledge only furnished him with sport. At last there came out a scurrilous volume, larger than Johnson's own, filled with malignant abuse, under a name real or fictitious, of some low man in an obscure corner of Scotland, though supposed to be the work of another Scotchman, who has found means to make himself well known both in Scotland and England. The effect which it had upon Johnson was to produce this pleasant observation to Mr. Seward, to whom he lent the book. This fellow must be a blockhead. They don't know how to go about their abuse. Who will read a five-shilling book against me? No, sir, if they had wit they should have kept pelting me with pamphlets. Mr. Boswell to Dr. Johnson, Edinburgh, February the 18th, 1775. You would have been very well pleased if you had dined with me to-day. I had for my guests Macquarie, young Maclayne of Colle, the successor of our friend, a very amiable man, though not marked with such active qualities as his brother, Mr. Maclayne of Torloy's Skynmal, a gentleman of Sir Allen's family, and two of the clan Grant, so that the Highland and Hebridean genius reigned. We had a great deal of conversation about you, and drank your health in a bumper. The toast was not proposed by me, which is a circumstance to be remarked, for I am now so connected with you that anything that I can say or do to your honour has not the value of an additional compliment. It is only giving you a guinea out of that treasure of admiration which already belongs to you, and which is no hidden treasure, for I suppose my admiration of you is co-existent with the knowledge of my character. I find that the Highlanders and Hebrideans in general are much fonder of your journey than the low country or hitherscotts. One of the Grants said to day that he was sure you were a man of good heart, and a candid man, and seemed to hope that he should be able to convince you of the antiquity of a good proportion of the poems of Ocean. After all that has passed I think the matter is capable of being proved to a certain degree. I am told that MacPherson got one old earth's manuscript from Clan Ranald, for the restitution of which he executed a formal obligation, and it is affirmed that the Gaelic, call it Urse or call it Irish, has been written in the Highlands and Hebrides for many centuries. It is reasonable to suppose that such of the inhabitants as acquired any learning possessed the art of writing as well as their Irish neighbours and Celtic cousins, and the question is, can sufficient evidence be shown of this? Those who are skilled in ancient writings can determine the age of manuscripts, or at least can ascertain the century in which they were written, and if men of veracity who are so skilled shall tell us that manuscripts in the possession of families in the Highlands and Isles are the works of a remote age, I think we should be convinced by their testimony. There is now come to this city Ranald MacDonald from the Isle of Egg, who has several manuscripts of Urse poetry which he wishes to publish by subscription. I have engaged to take three copies of the book, the price of which is to be six shillings, as I would subscribe for all the Urse that can be printed, be it old or new, that the language may be preserved. This man says that some of his manuscripts are ancient, and to be sure, one of them which was shown to me does appear to have the duskiness of antiquity. The inquiry is not yet quite hopeless, and I should think that the exact truth may be discovered if proper means be used. I am, et cetera, James Boswell. To James Boswell, Esquire. Dear sir, I am sorry that I could get no books for my friends in Scotland. Mr. Strand has at last promised to send two dozen to you. If they come, put the names of my friends into them, you may cut them out and paste them with a little starch in the book. You then are going wild about Ocean. Why do you think any part can be proved? The dusky manuscript of Egg is probably not fifty years old. If it be a hundred, it proves nothing. The tale of Clan Randall is no proof. Has Clan Randall told it? Can he prove it? There are, I believe, no Urse manuscripts. None of the old families had a single letter in Urse that we heard of. You said it is likely that they could write. The learned, if any learned there were, could—but knowing by that learning some written language, in that language they wrote, as letters had never been applied to their own. If there are manuscripts let them be shown, with some proof that they are not forged for the occasion. You say many can remember parts of Ocean. I believe all those parts are versions of the English. At least there is no proof of their antiquity. MacPherson is said to have made some translations himself, and having taught a boy to write it, ordered him to say that he had learnt it of his grandmother. The boy, when he grew up, told the story. This Mrs. Williams heard at Mr. Strand's table. Don't be credulous. You know how little a Highlander can be trusted. MacPherson is, so far as I know, very quiet. Is not that proof enough? Everything is against him. No visible manuscript, no inscription in the language, no correspondence among friends, no transaction of business of which a single scrap remains in the ancient families. MacPherson's pretenses that the character was Saxon. If he had not talked unskillfully of manuscripts he might have fought with oral tradition much longer. As to Mr. Grant's information I suppose he knows much less of the matter than ourselves. In the meantime the bookseller says that the sale is sufficiently quick. They printed four thousandths. Correct your copy wherever it is wrong and bring it up. Your friends will all be glad to see you. I think of going myself into the country about May. I am sorry that I have not managed to send the book sooner. I have left four for you, and do not restrict you absolutely to follow my directions in the distribution. You must use your own discretion. Make my compliments to Mrs. Boswell. I suppose she is now just beginning to forgive me. I am, dear sir, your humble servant, Sam Johnson, February the 25th, 1775. On Tuesday, March the 21st, I arrived in London, and on repairing to Dr. Johnson's before dinner found him in his study, sitting with Mr. Peter Garrick, the elder brother of David, strongly resembling him in countenance and voice, but of more sedate and placid manners. Johnson informed me that, though Mr. Bo Clark was in great pain, it was hoped he was not in danger, and that he now wished to consult Dr. Hebedon to try the effect of a new understanding. Both at this interview and in the evening at Mr. Thrales, where he and Mr. Peter Garrick and I met again, he was vehement on the subject of the Ossian controversy, observing, we do not know that there are any ancient earth manuscripts, and we have no other reason to disbelieve that there are men with three heads, but that we do not know that there are any such men. He also was outrageous upon his supposition that my countrymen loved Scotland better than truth, saying all of them, nay, not all, but droves of them would come up and attest anything for the honour of Scotland. He also persevered in his wild allegation that he questioned if there was a tree between Edinburgh and the English border older than himself. I assured him he was mistaken, and suggested that the proper punishment would be that he should receive a stripe at every tree above a hundred years old that was to be found within that space. He laughed and said, I believe I might submit to it for a banby. The doubts which, in my correspondence with him, I had ventured to state as to the justice and wisdom of the conduct of Great Britain towards the American colonies, while I at the same time requested that he would enable me to inform myself upon that momentous subject, he had altogether disregarded, and had recently published a pamphlet entitled, Taxation, No Tyranny, an Answer to the Resolutions and Address of the American Congress. He had long before indulged most unfavourable sentiments of our fellow subjects in America, for as early as 1769 I was told by Dr. John Campbell that he had said of them, Sir, there are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful for any thing we allow them short of hanging. Of this performance I avoided to talk with him, for I had now formed a clear and settled opinion that the people of America were well warranted to resist a claim that their fellow subjects in the mother country should have the entire command of their fortunes by taxing them without their own consent, and the extreme violence which it breathed appeared to me so unsuitable to the mildness of a Christian philosopher, and so directly opposite to the principles of peace which he had so beautifully recommended in his pamphlet respecting Falklands Islands, that I was sorry to see him appear in so unfavourable a light. Besides, I could not perceive in it that ability of argument or that felicity of expression for which he was, upon other occasions, so eminent. Positive assertion, sarcastical severity and extravagant ridicule which he himself reprobated as a test of truth, were united in this rhapsody. That this pamphlet was written at the desire of those who were then in power, I have no doubt, and indeed he owned to me that it had been revised and curtailed by some of them. He told me that they had struck out one passage which was to this effect, that the colonists could with no solidity argue from their not having been taxed while in their infancy, that they should not now be taxed. We do not put a calf into the plow, we wait till he is an ox. He said, they struck it out, either critically as to ludicrous, or politically as to exasperating, I cannot which. It was their business. If an architect says, I will build five stories, and the man who employs him says, I will have only three, the employer is to decide. Yes, sir, said I, in ordinary cases, but should it be so when the architect gives his skill and labour grotesque? Unfavourable, as I am constrained to say my opinion of this pamphlet was, yet, since it was congenial with the sentiments of numbers at that time, and as everything relating to the writings of Dr. Johnson is of importance in literary history, I shall therefore insert some passages which were struck out, it does not appear why, either by himself or those who revised it, they appear printed in a few proof-leaves of it in my possession, marked with corrections in his own handwriting, I shall distinguish them by italics. In the paragraph where he says the Americans were incited to resistance by European intelligence from men whom they thought their friends, but who were friends only to themselves, there followed, and made by their selfishness the enemies of their country, and the next paragraph ran thus, on the original contrivers of mischief, rather than on those whom they have deluded, let an insulted nation pour out its vengeance. The paragraph which came next was in these words. Unhappy is that country in which men can hope for advancement by favouring its enemies. The tranquility of stable government is not always easily preserved against the machinations of single innovators, but what can be the hope of quiet when factions hostile to the legislature can be openly formed and openly avowed? After the paragraph which now concludes the pamphlet, there followed this, in which he certainly means the great Earl of Chatham and glances at a certain popular Lord Chancellor. If, by the fortune of war, they drive us utterly away, what they will do next can only be conjectured. If a new monarchy is erected, they will want a king. He who first takes into his hand the scepter of America should have a name of good omen. William has been known both as conqueror and deliverer, and perhaps England, however contempt, might yet supply them with another William. Wigs, indeed, are not willing to be governed, and it is possible that King William may be strongly inclined to guide their measures. But wigs have been cheated like other mortals, and suffer their leader to become their tyrant under the name of their protector. What more they will receive from England, no man can tell. In their rudiments of empire they may want a Chancellor. Then came this paragraph. Their numbers are, at present, not quite sufficient for the greatness which, in some form of government or other, is to rival the ancient monarchies, but by Dr. Franklin's rule of progression they will in a century and a quarter be more than equal to the inhabitants of Europe. When the wigs of America are thus multiplied, let the princes of the earth tremble in their palaces. If they should continue to double and to double, their own hemisphere would not contain them. But let not our boldest apunas of authority look forward with delight to this futurity of wiggism. How it ended, I know not, as it is cut off abruptly at the foot of the last of these proof pages. His pamphlets in support of the measures of administration were published on his own account, and he afterwards collected them into a volume with the title of Political Tracts by the author of the Rambler, with this motto. These pamphlets drew upon him numerous attacks. Against the common weapons of literary warfare he was hardened, but there were two instances of animadversion which I communicated to him, and from what I could judge both from his silence and his looks, appeared to me to impress him much. One was a letter to Samuel Johnson, occasioned by his late political publications. It appeared previous to his taxation no tyranny, and was written by Dr. Joseph Towers. In that performance Dr. Johnson was treated with the respect due to so eminent a man, while his conduct as a political writer was boldly and pointedly arraigned, as inconsistent with the character of one who, if he did employ his pen upon politics, it might reasonably be expected should distinguish himself not by party violence and ranker, but by moderation and by wisdom. It concluded thus, I would, however, wish you to remember, should you again address the public under the character of a political writer, that luxurience of imagination or energy of language will ill-compensate for the want of candour, of justice, and of truth, and I shall only add, that should I hereafter be disposed to read, as I here to fore have done, the most excellent of all your performances, the Rambler, the pleasure which I have been accustomed to finding it will be much diminished by the reflection that the writer of so moral, so elegant, and so valuable a work, was capable of prostituting his talents in such productions as the false alarm, the thoughts on the transactions respecting Falklands Islands, and the Patriot. I am willing to do justice to the merit of Dr. Towers, of whom I will say that, although I abhor his wiggish democratical notions and propensities, for I will not call them principles, I esteem him as an ingenious, knowing, and very convivial man. The other instance was a paragraph of a letter to me, from my old and most intimate friend, the Reverend Mr. Temple, who wrote the character of Grey, which had the honour to be accepted, both by Mr. Mason and Dr. Johnson, in their accounts of that poet. The words were, How can your great—I will not say your pious, but your moral friend—support the barbarous measures of administration, which they have not the face to ask even their infidel pension a hume to defend. However confident of the rectitude of his own mind, Johnson may have felt sincere uneasiness that his conduct should be erroneously imputed to unworthy motives by good men, and that the influence of his valuable writings should, on that account, be in any degree obstructed or lessened. He complained to a right honourable friend of distinguished talents and very elegant manners, with whom he maintained a long intimacy and whose generosity towards him will afterwards appear, that his pension having been given to him as a literary character, he had been applied to by administration to write political pamphlets, and he was even so much irritated that he declared his resolution to resign his pension. His friend showed him the impropriety of such a measure, and he afterwards expressed his gratitude, and said he had received good advice. To that friend he once signified a wish to have his pension secured to him for his life, but he neither asked nor received from government any reward whatsoever for his political labours. On Friday, March 24th, I met him at the Literary Club, where were Mr. Bo Clark, Mr. Langton, Mr. Coleman, Dr. Percy, Mr. Veasey, Sir Charles Bunbury, Dr. George Fordice, Mr. Stevens, and Mr. Charles Fox. Before he came in we talked of his journey to the western islands, and of his coming away willing to believe the Second Sight, which seemed to excite some ridicule. I was then so impressed with the truth of many of the stories of it which I had been told, that I avowed my conviction, saying, he is only willing to believe, I do believe. The evidence is enough for me, though not for his great mind. What will not fill a quart bottle will fill a pint bottle. I am filled with belief. Are you? said Coleman, and cork it up. I found his journey the common topic of conversation in London at this time wherever I happened to be. At one of Lord Mansfield's formal Sunday evening conversations, strangely called Leveze, his lordship addressed me. We've all been reading your travels, Mr. Boswell. I answered, I was but the humble attendant of Dr. Johnson. The chief justice replied, with that air and manner which none who ever saw and heard him can forget. He speaks ill of nobody but Ocean. Johnson was in high spirits this evening at the club, and talked with great animation and success. He attacked swift, as he used to do upon all occasions. The tale of a tub is so much superior to his other writings that one can hardly believe he was the author of it. There is in it such a vigor of mind, such a swarm of thoughts, so much of nature and art and life. I wondered to hear him say of Gulliver's travels, when once you have thought of big men and little men, it is very easy to do all the rest. I endeavoured to make a stand for swift, and tried to rouse those who were much more able to defend him, but in vain. Johnson at last of his own accord allowed very great merit to the inventory of articles found in the pocket of the man-mountain, particularly the description of his watch, which it was conjectured was his God, as he consulted it upon all occasions. He observed that, swift put his name to but two things, after he had a name to put, the plan for the improvement of the English language, and the last drapeyer's letter. From swift there was an easy transition to Mr. Thomas Sheridan. Johnson. Sheridan was a wonderful admirer of the tragedy of Douglas, and presented its author with a gold medal. Some years ago, at a coffee-house in Oxford, I called to him, Mr. Sheridan, Mr. Sheridan, how come you to give a gold medal to home for writing that foolish play? This, you see, was wanton and insolent, but I meant to be wanton and insolent. A medal has no value but as a stamp of merit, and was Sheridan to assume to himself the right of giving that stamp? If Sheridan was magnificent enough to bestow a gold medal as an honorary reward of dramatic excellence, he should have requested one of the universities to choose the person on whom it should be conferred. Sheridan had no right to give a stamp of merit. It was counterfeiting Apollo's coin. On Monday, March 27th, I breakfasted with him at Mr. Strahan's. He told us that he was engaged to go that evening to Mrs. Abingdon's benefit. She was visiting some ladies whom I was visiting, and begged that I would come to her benefit. I told her I could not hear, but she insisted so much on my coming that it would have been brutal to have refused her. This was a speech quite characteristical. He loved to bring forward his having been in the gay circles of life, and he was perhaps a little vain of the solicitations of this elegant and fashionable actress. He told us the play was to be the hypocrite, altered from Sibir's non-dura so as to satirize the Methodists. I do not think, said he, the character of the hypocrite just applicable to the Methodists, but it was very applicable to the non-duras. I once said to Dr. Madden, a clergyman of Ireland who was a great wig, that perhaps a non-dura would have been less criminal in taking the oaths imposed by the ruling power than refusing them, because refusing them necessarily laid him under a most irresistible temptation to be more criminal. For a man must live, and if he precludes himself from the support furnished by the establishment, will probably be reduced to very wicked shifts to maintain himself. Boswell. I should think, sir, that a man who took the oaths contrary to his principles was a determined wicked man, because he was sure he was committing perjury, whereas a non-dura might be insensibly led to do what was wrong without being so directly conscious of it. Johnson. Why, sir? A man who goes to bed, to his patron's wife, is pretty sure that he is committing wickedness. Boswell. Did the non-during clergyman do so, sir? Johnson. I am afraid many of them did. I was startled at his argument, and could by no means think it convincing. Had not his own father complied with the requisition of government, as to which he once observed to me when I pressed him upon it, that, sir, he was to settle with himself, he would probably have thought more unfavourably of a Jacobite who took the oaths, had he not resembled my father as he swore. Mr. Strion talked of launching into the great ocean of London, in order to have a chance for rising into eminence, and observing that many men were kept back from trying their fortunes there because they were born to a competency, said, small certainties of the bane of men of talents, which Johnson confirmed. Mr. Strion put Johnson in mind of a remark which he had made to him. There are few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting money. The more one thinks of this, said Strion, the juster it will appear. Mr. Strion had taken a poor boy from the country as an apprentice upon Johnson's recommendation. Johnson, having inquired after him, said, Mr. Strion, let me have five guineas on account, and I'll give this boy one. Nay, if a man recommends a boy and does nothing for him, it is sad work. Call him down. I followed him into the courtyard behind Mr. Strion's house, and there I had a proof of what I had heard in profess, that he talked alike to all. Some people tell you that they let themselves down to the capacity of their hearers. I never do that. I speak uniformly, in as intelligible a manner as I can. Well, my boy, how do you go on? Pretty well, sir, but they're afraid I ain't strong enough for some parts of the business. Johnson, why I shall be sorry for it, when you consider how with a little mental power and corporeal labour a printer can get a guinea a week, it is a very desirable occupation for you. Do you hear? Take all the pains you can, and if this does not do, we must think of some other way of life for you. There's a guinea. Here was one of the many, many instances of his active benevolence. At the same time the slow and sonorous solemnity with which, while he bent himself down, he addressed a little, thick, short-legged boy, contrasted with the boy's awkwardness and awe, could not but excite some ludicrous emotions. I met him at Drury Lane Playhouse in the evening. Sir Joshua Reynolds, at Mrs. Abbington's request, had promised to bring a body of wits to her benefit, and having secured forty places in the front boxes, had done me the honour to put me in the group. Johnson sat on the seat directly behind me, and, as he could neither see nor hear at such a distance from the stage, he was wrapped up in grave abstraction, and seemed quite a cloud amidst all the sunshine of glitter and gaiety. I wondered at his patience in sitting out a play of five acts, and a farce of two. He said very little, but after the prologue to Bon-Ton had been spoken, which he could hear pretty well from the more slow and distinct utterance, he talked of prologue writing, and observed, Dryden has written prologues superior to any that David Garrick has written, but David Garrick has written more good prologues than Dryden has done. It is wonderful that he has been able to write such a variety of them. At Mr. Bo Clark's, where I subbed, was Mr. Garrick, whom I made happy with Johnson's praise of his prologues, and, I suppose, in gratitude to him, he took up one of his favourite topics, The Nationality of the Scotch, which he maintained in a pleasant manner, with the aid of a little poetical fiction. Come, come, don't deny it. They are really national. Why, now, the Adams are as liberal-minded men as any in the world, but, I don't know how it is, all their workman a Scotch. You are to be sure wonderfully free from that nationality, but so it happens that you employ the only Scotch shoe-black in London. He imitated the manner of his old master with ludicrous exaggeration, repeating with pauses and half-whistlings interjected. Looking downwards all the time, and while pronouncing the four last words, absolutely touching the ground was a kind of contorted gesticulation. Garrick, however, when he pleased, could imitate Johnson very exactly, for that great actor with his distinguished powers of expression which was so universally admired, possessed also an admirable talent of mimicry. He was always jealous that Johnson spoke likely of him. I recollect his exhibiting him to me one day, as if saying, Davy has some convivial pleasantry about him, but is a futile fellow. Which he uttered perfectly with the tone and air of Johnson. I cannot too frequently request of my readers, while they peruse my account of Johnson's conversation, to endeavour to keep in mind his deliberate and strong utterance. His mode of speaking was indeed very impressive, and I wish it could be preserved as music is written, according to the very ingenious method of Mr. Steele, who was shown how the recitation of Mr. Garrick and other eminent speakers might be transmitted to posterity in score. Next day I dined with Johnson and Mr. Thrales. He attacked Gray, calling him a dull fellow. Boswell, I understand he was reserved, and might appear dull in company, but surely he was not dull in poetry. Johnson, sir, he was dull in company, dull in his closet, dull everywhere. He was dull in a new way, and that made many people think him great. He was a mechanical poet. He then repeated some ludicrous lines, which have escaped my memory, and said, Is not that great, like his odes? Mrs. Thrale maintained that his odes were melodious, upon which he exclaimed, Weave the warp and weave the woof. I added in a solemn tone, The winding sheet of Edward's race. There is a good line. I, said he, and the next line is a good one, pronouncing it contemptuously, Give ample verge and room enough. No, sir, there are but two good stanzas in Gray's poetry, which are in his elegy and a country churchyard. He then repeated the stanza, For who to dumb forgetfulness of prey, et cetera, mistaking one word, For, instead of precincts, he said confines. He added, The other stanza, I forget. A young lady, who had married a man much her inferior in rank, being mentioned, A question arose how a woman's relations should behave to her in such a situation, and, while I recapitulate the debate and recollect what has since happened, I cannot but be struck, in a manner, that delicacy forbids me to express. While I contended that she ought to be treated with an inflexible steadiness of displeasure, Mrs. Thrale was all for mildness and forgiveness, and, according to the vulgar phrase, making the best of a bad bargain. Johnson! Madam, we must distinguish! Were I a man of rank, I would not let a daughter starve, who had made a mean marriage, but having voluntarily degraded herself from the station which she was originally entitled to hold, I would support her only in that which she herself had chosen, and I would not put her on a level with my other daughters. You are to consider, madam, that it is our duty to maintain the subordination of civilised society, and when there is a gross and shameful deviation from rank, it should be punished so as to deter others from the same perversion. After frequently considering this subject, I am more and more confirmed in what I then meant to express, and which was sanctioned by the authority and illustrated by the wisdom of Johnson, and I think it of the utmost consequence to the happiness of society, to which subordination is absolutely necessary. It is weak and contemptible and unworthy in a parent to relax in such a case. It is sacrificing general advantage to private feelings. And let it be considered, that the claim of a daughter who has acted thus to be restored to her former situation is either fantastical or unjust. If there be no value in the distinction of rank, what does she suffer by being kept in the situation to which she has descended? If there be a value in that distinction, it ought to be steadily maintained. If indulgence be shown to such conduct, and the offenders know that in a longer or shorter time they shall be received as well as if they had not contaminated their blood by a base alliance, the great check upon that inordinate caprice which generally occasions low marriages will be removed, and the fair and comfortable order of improved life will be miserably disturbed. Lord Chesterfield's letters being mentioned, Johnson said, It was not to be wondered at, that they had so great a sale, considering that they were the letters of a statesman, a wit, one who had been so much in the mouths of mankind, one long accustomed virum walletare per ora. On Friday March 31st I supped with him and some friends at a tavern. One of the company attempted, with too much forwardness, to rally him on his late appearance at the theatre, but had reason to repent of his temerity. Why, sir, did you go to Mrs. Abbington's benefit? Did you see? Johnson, no, sir. Did you hear? Johnson, no, sir. Why then, sir, did you go? Johnson, because, sir, she is a favourite of the public, and when the public cares the thousandth part for you that it does for her, I will go to your benefit too. Next morning I won a small bet from Lady Diana Bo-Clark by asking him, as to one of his particularities, which her ladyship laid I doth not do, it seems that he had been frequently observed at the club to put into his pocket the civil oranges, after he had squeezed the juice of them into the drink which he made for himself. Bo-Clark and Garek talked of it to me, and seemed to think that he had a strange unwillingness to be discovered. We could not divine what he did with them, and this was the bold question to be put. I saw on his table the spoils of the preceding night some fresh peels nicely scraped and cut into pieces. Oh, sir, said I, I now partly see what you do with the squeezed oranges which you put into your pocket at the club. Johnson, I have a great love for them. Boswell, and pray, sir, what do you do with them? You scrape them, it seems, very neatly, and what next? Johnson, let them dry, sir. Boswell, and what next? Johnson, nay, sir, you shall know their fate no further. Boswell, then the world must be left in the dark, it must be said, assuming a mock solemnity. He scraped them, and let them dry, but what he did with them next he never could be prevailed upon to tell. Johnson, nay, sir, you should say it even more emphatically. He could not be prevailed upon, even by his dearest friends, to tell. He had this morning received his diploma as Doctor of Laws from the University of Oxford. He did not vaunt of his new dignity, but I understood he was highly pleased with it. I shall here insert the progress and completion of that high academic honour in the same manner as I have traced his obtaining that as Master of Arts. To the Reverend Dr. Fothergill, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford, to be communicated to the heads of houses and proposed in convocation. Mr. Vice-Chancellor and gentlemen, the honour of the degree of MA by diploma formally conferred upon Mr. Samuel Johnson, in consequence of his having eminently distinguished himself by the publication of a series of essays excellently calculated to form the manners of the people, and in which the cause of religion and morality has been maintained and recommended by the strongest powers of argument and elegance of language, reflected an equal degree of lustre upon the university itself. The many learned labours which have since that time employed the attention and displayed the abilities of that great man, so much to the advancement of literature and the benefit of the community, render him worthy of more distinguished honours in the Republic of Letters, and I persuade myself that I shall act agreeably to the sentiments of the whole university, in desiring that it may be proposed in convocation to confer on him the degree of Doctor in Civil Law by diploma, to which I readily give my consent, and am, Mr. Vice-Chancellor and gentlemen, your affectionate friend and servant North Downing Street, March the 23rd, 1775. Diploma Readers' Note The text of the diploma and Johnson's reply to it in Latin are here printed. They are read at the end of this audio section. End of Note He revised some sheets of Lord Hales's Annals of Scotland, and wrote a few notes on the margin with red ink, which he bad me tell his lordship did not sink into the paper and might be wiped off with a wet sponge, so that he did not spoil his manuscript. I observed to him that there were very few of his friends so accurate as that I could venture to put down in writing what they told me as his sayings. Johnson, why should you write down my sayings? Boswell, I write them when they are good. Johnson, nay, you may as well write down the sayings of any one else that are good. But where, I might with great propriety have added, can I find such? I visited him by appointment in the evening, and we drank tea with Mrs. Williams. He told me that he had been in the company of a gentleman whose extraordinary travels had been much the subject of conversation, but I found that he had not listened to him with that full confidence, without which there is little satisfaction in the society of travellers. I was curious to hear what opinion so Abel, a judge of Johnson, had formed of his abilities, and I asked if he was not a man of sense. Johnson, why, sir, he is not a distinct relator, and I should say he is neither abounding nor deficient in sense. I did not perceive any superiority of understanding. Boswell, but will you not allow him a nobleness of resolution in penetrating into distant regions? Johnson, that, sir, is not to the present purpose. We are talking of his sense. A fighting cock has a nobleness of resolution. Next day, Sunday, April the 2nd, I dined with him at Mr. Hools. We talked of Pope. Johnson. He wrote his duncead for fame. That was his primary motive. Had it not been for that, the dunces might have railed against him till they were weary without his troubling himself about them. He delighted to vex them, no doubt, but he had more delight in seeing how well he could vex them. The odes to obscurity and oblivion, in ridicule of cool mason and warm gray, being mentioned, Johnson said, they are Cullman's best things. Upon its being observed that it was believed these odes were made by Cullman and Lloyd jointly. Johnson, nayser, how can two people make an ode? Perhaps one made one of them and one the other. I observed that two people had made a play, and quoted the anecdote of Beaumont and Fletcher, who were brought under suspicion of treason, because while concerting the plan of a tragedy while sitting together at a tavern, one of them was overheard saying to the other, I'll kill the king. Johnson, the first of these odes is the best, but they are both good. They exposed a very bad kind of writing. Boswell, surely, sir, Mr. Mason's Elfride is a fine poem. At least you will allow there are some good passages in it. Johnson, there are now and then some good imitations of Milton's bad manner. I often wondered at his low estimation of the writings of Gray and Mason. Of Gray's poetry I have in a former part of this work expressed my high opinion, and for that of Mr. Mason I have ever entertained a warm admiration. His Elfride is exquisite, both in political description and moral sentiment, and his Caracticus is a noble drama. Nor can I omit paying my tribute of praise to some of his smaller poems, which I have read with pleasure, and which no criticism shall persuade me not to like. If I wondered at Johnson's not tasting the works of Mason and Gray, still more have I wondered that they are not tasting his works, that they should be insensible to his energy of diction, to his splendour of images and comprehension of thought. Tastes may differ as to the violin, the flute, the hope-boy, in short all the lesser instruments, but who can be insensible to the powerful impressions of the majestic organ? His taxation no tyranny being mentioned, he said, I think I have not been attacked enough for it. Attack is the reaction. I never think I have hit hard unless it rebounds. Boswell, I don't know, sir, what you would be at. Five or six shots of small arms in every newspaper, and repeated cannonading in pamphlets, might, I think, satisfy you. But, sir, you'll never make out this match of which we have talked, with a certain political lady, since you are so severe against her principles. Johnson, nay, sir, I have the better chance for that. She is like the Amazons of old. She must be courted by the sword. But I have not been severe upon her. Boswell, yes, sir, you have made her ridiculous. Johnson, that was already done, sir. To endeavour to make her ridiculous is like blacking the chimney. I put him in mind that the landlord at Ellen in Scotland said that he heard he was the greatest man in England next to Lord Mansfield. I, sir, said he. The exception defined the idea. A Scotchman could go no farther. The force of nature could no farther go. Lady Miller's collection of verses by fashionable people which were put into her vars at Bath Eastern Villa near Bath, in competition for honorary prizes, being mentioned, he held them very cheap. Burime said he is a mere conceit and an old conceit now. I wonder how people were persuaded to write in that manner for this lady. I named a gentleman of his acquaintance who wrote for the vars. Johnson, he was a blockhead for his pains. Boswell, the Duchess of Northumberland, wrote— Johnson, sir, the Duchess of Northumberland may do what she pleases. Nobody will say anything to a lady of her high rank, but I should be apt to throw blanks of verses in his face. I talked of the cheerfulness of Fleet Street, owing to the constant quick succession of people which we perceive passing through it. Johnson, why, sir, Fleet Street has a very animated appearance, but I think the full tide of human existence is at Charing Cross. He made the common remark on the unhappiness which men who have led a busy life experience when they retire in expectation of enjoying themselves at ease, and that they generally languish for want of their habitual occupation and wish to return to it. He mentioned, as strong an instance of this as can well be imagined, an eminent tallow-chandler in London, who had acquired a considerable fortune, gave up the trade in favour of his foreman, and went to live at a country house near town. He soon grew weary and paid frequent visits to his old shop, where he desired they might let him know their melting days, and he would come and assist them, which he accordingly did. Here, sir, was a man to whom the most disgusting circumstance in the business to which he had been used was a relief from idleness. Appendix, Diploma awarding Johnson his Doctorate in Civil Law and his reply, read by Justin Brett. Cancelarios, Magistri and Scolares Universitatis Occenienzis, Omnibus, at Quoes presentes Literai per venerant Salutem in Domino Sempitanam. Skiatis, Virum Ulustrem, Samuel M. Johnson, in Omni Humaniorum Literarum Genere Eruditum, Omnium Quesientiarum Comprehensione Venicissimum, Scriptis Suis, at Popularia Morez Formando, Soma Verborum Elegancia, Accententiarum Gravitate Composites, Ita Olim in Clarusse, Ott Dignus Videreto, cui ab Academia sua Exemia, Quaidam Laudis Primea Deferento, Quico in Venerabile Magistrorum Odinem, Soma Comdignitate Co-Optareto. Comvero, Eundem Clarusimum Virum, Tod Posteia, Tanticoe Labores, In Patria Pricetim, Lingua Onanda, Et Stabilenda, Felecitae, Impensi, Ita Insigniverant, But in Literarum Republica, Prinkeps, Jam et Primarius Yore Habeato, Nos, Cancelarios, Magistri et Scolares Universitatis Occenienzis, Quatalis Veri Merita, Parionoris Remuneratione, Exaiquento, Et Pepetum Sua Simulaudis, Nos, Trai, Coherga Literas, Propensissima e Voluntatis Ecstet Monumentum, Insolemni Convocatione, Doctorum et Magistrorum Regentiem et Nun Regentium, Pradictum Samuel M. Johnson, Doctorem, Indiore Sivili, Reinunciavimus et Constituimus, Eium, Quervietute, Preicentis Diplomatis Singulis Yorebus, Priveligiis et Honoribus, Et Istum Gradum Quacua Pertinentibus, Frui et Gaudere Yossimus, In Cuius Rei, Testimonium Commune Universitatis Occenienzis, Sigilum Preicentibus Aponifekimus, Datum, Indomo Nostrae Convocationes, D. A. Trichissimo Mencis Martii, Anodomini Milessimo, Septingentesimo, Septuagesimo Quinto, Vero Reverendo, Tomae Fothergill, Sacrai Theologiae Professori, Universitatis Occenienzis, Vicecancelario, Salutem Floremam, D. Kitt, Sam Johnson. Multis Noun Est Opus, Ut Testimonium Quotee Preicidee, Occenienzis Nomen Meium Posteris Commendaron, Quali animo a caperim Compertum faciam, Nemo Sibi Placens Noun Leteto, Nemo Sibi Noun Placet, Quivobis Literarum Arbitris Placere Potuit. Hock Tamin Habet, Incomodi Tantum Beneficium, Quodmihi Noun Quam Post Haksine Vestrae Formae Detrimento Velabili Keat Velkesare, Semper Quersit Timendum, Ne Quodmihi Tam Eximiai Laudi Est, Vobis Aliquando Fiat Oprobrio, Vale. Septem Eda Isapreles An Odomini Milesimo Septinguentesimo Septuagesimo Quinto Vol. 2 by James Boswell Section 17, 1775 Continued On Wednesday, April 5, I dined with him at Monsieur's Dillies, with Mr. John Scott of Amwell, the Quaker, Mr. Langton, Mr. Miller, now Sir John, and Dr. Thomas Campbell, an Irish clergyman, whom I took the liberty of inviting to Mr. Dillies' table, having seen him at Mr. Thrales, and been told that he had come to England chiefly with a view to see Dr. Johnson, for whom he entertained the highest veneration. He has since published a Philosophical Survey of the South of Ireland, a very entertaining book, which has, however, one fault, that it assumes the fictitious character of an Englishman. We talked of public speaking. Johnson, we must not estimate the man's powers by his being able or not able to deliver his sentiments in public. Isaac Hawkins Brown, one of the first wits of this country, got into Parliament and never opened his mouth. For my own part, I think it is more disgraceful never to try to speak than to try it and fail, as it is more disgraceful not to fight than to fight and be beaten. This argument appeared to me fallacious, for if a man has not spoken it may be said that he would have done very well if he had tried, whereas if he has tried and failed there is nothing to be said for him. Why then, I asked, is it thought disgraceful for a man not to fight and not disgraceful not to speak in public? Johnson, because there may be other reasons for a man's not speaking in public, than want of resolution, he may have nothing to say, laughing. Whereas, sir, you know courage is reckoned the greatest of all virtues, because unless a man has that virtue he has no security for preserving any other. He observed that the statutes against bribery were intended to prevent upstarts with money from getting into Parliament, adding that if he were a gentleman of landed property he would turn out all his tenants who did not vote for the candidate whom he supported. Langton, would not that, sir, be checking the freedom of election? Johnson, sir, the law does not mean that the privilege of voting should be independent of old family interest of the permanent property of the country. On Thursday, April 6th, I dined with him at Mr. Thomas Davith's, with Mr. Hickey, the painter, and my old acquaintance Mr. Moody, the player. Dr. Johnson, as usual, spoke contemptuously of Collie Sibber. It is wonderful that a man who for forty years had lived with the great and the witty should have acquired so ill the talents of conversation, and he had but half to furnish for one half of what he said was opeths. He, however, allowed considerable merit to some of his comedies, and said there was no reason to believe that the careless husband was not written by himself. Davith said he was the first dramatic writer who introduced gentile ladies upon the stage. Johnson refuted this observation by instancing several such characters in comedies before his time. Davith is, trying to defend himself from a charge of ignorance, I mean gentile moral characters. I think, said Hickey, gentility and morality are inseparable. Puzzle, by no means, sir, the gentilist characters are often the most immoral. Does not Lord Chesterfield give precepts for uniting wickedness and the graces? A man indeed is not gentile when he gets drunk, but most vices may be committed very gentilely. A man may debauch his friend's wife gentilely. He may cheat at cards gentilely. Hickey, I do not think that is gentile. Puzzle, sir, it may not be like a gentleman, but it may be gentile. Johnson, you are meaning two different things. One means exterior grace, the other honour. It is certain that a man may be very immoral with exterior grace. Lovelace in Clarissa is a very gentile and a very wicked character. Tom Harvey, who died to the day, though a vicious man, was one of the gentilist men that ever lived. Tom Davies' instance, Charles II. Johnson, taking fire at any attack upon that prince for whom he had an extraordinary partiality, Charles II was licentious in his practice, but he always had a reverence for what was good. Charles II knew his people, and rewarded merit. The church was at no time better filled than in his reign. He was the best king we have had from his time till the reign of his present majesty, except James II, who was a very good king, but unhappily believed that it was necessary for the salvation of his subjects that they should be Roman Catholics. He had the merit of endeavouring to do what he thought was for the salvation of the souls of his subjects till he lost a great empire. We, who thought that we should not be saved if we were Roman Catholics, had the merit of maintaining our religion at the expense of submitting ourselves to the government of King William, for it could not be done otherwise, to the government of one of the most worthless scoundrels that ever existed. No. Charles II was not such a man as, naming another king, he did not destroy his father's will. He took money indeed from France, but he did not betray those over whom he ruled. He did not let the French fleet pass ours. George I knew nothing, and desired to know nothing, did nothing, and desired to do nothing, and the only good thing that is told of him is that he wished to restore the crown to its hereditary successor. He roared with prodigious violence against George II. When he ceased, Moody interjected in an Irish tone and with a comic look, ah, poor George II. I mentioned that Dr. Thomas Campbell had come from Ireland to London principally to see Dr. Johnson. He seemed angry at this observation. Davis, why, you know, sir, there came a man from Spain to see Livy, and Corelli came to England to see Purcell, and when he heard he was dead, went directly back again to Italy. Johnson, I should not have wished to be dead to disappoint Campbell, had he been so foolish as you represent him, but I should have wished to have been a hundred miles off. This was apparently perverse, and I do believe it was not his real way of thinking. He could not but like a man who came so far to see him. He laughed with some complacency when I told him Campbell's odd expression to me concerning him, that having seen such a man was a thing to talk of a century hence, as if he could live so long. We got into an argument whether the judges who went to India might with propriety engage in trade. Johnson warmly maintained that they might, for why he urged should not judges get riches as well as those who deserve them less. I said they should have sufficient salaries, and have nothing to take off their attention from the affairs of the public. Johnson, no judge, sir, can give his whole attention to his office, and it is very proper that he should employ what time he has to himself to his own advantage in the most profitable manner. Then, sir, said Davis, who enlivened the dispute by making it somewhat dramatic, he may become an insurer, and when he is going to the bench he may be stopped. Your lordship cannot go yet, here is a bunch of invoices, several ships are about to sail. Johnson, sir, you may as well say a judge should not have a house, for there may come and tell him your lordship's house is on fire, and so, instead of minding the business of his court, he is to be occupied in getting the engine with the greatest speed. There is no end of this. Every judge who has land trades to a certain extent in corn or in cattle, and in the land itself, undoubtedly. His steward acts for him, and so do clerks for a great merchant. A judge may be a farmer, but he is not to gull his own pigs. A judge may play a little at cards for his own amusement, but he is not to play at marbles or at chuck-farthing in the piazza. No, sir, there is no profession to which a man gives a very great proportion of his time. It is wonderful, when a calculation is made, how little the mind is actually employed in the discharge of any profession. No man would be a judge, upon the condition of being totally a judge. The best employed lawyer has his mind at work for but a small proportion of his time. A great deal of his occupation is merely mechanical. I once wrote for a magazine. I made a calculation that if I should write but a page a day at the same rate, I should in ten years write nine volumes in folio of an ordinary size and print. Boswell, such as Cartes' history. Johnson, yes, sir. When a man writes from his own mind, he writes very rapidly. The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading, in order to write. A man will turn over half a library to make one book. I argued warmly against the judge's trading, and mentioned Hale as an instance of a perfect judge who devoted himself entirely to his office. Johnson. Hale, sir, attended to other things besides law. He left a great estate. Boswell. That was, because what he got, accumulated without any exertion and anxiety on his part. While the dispute went on, Moody once tried to say something upon our side. Tom Davis clapped him on the back to encourage him. Bo Clark, to whom I mentioned this circumstance, said that he could not conceive a more humiliating situation than to be clapped on the back by Tom Davis. We spoke of Rolt, to whose dictionary of commerce Dr. Johnson wrote the preface. Johnson. Old Gardner the bookseller employed Rolt and Smart to write a monthly miscellany, called The Universal Visitor. There was a formal written contract which Alan the printer saw. Gardner thought, as you do of the judge, they were bound to write nothing else, they were to have, I think, a third of the profits of this sixpenny pamphlet, and the contract was for ninety-nine years. I wish I had thought of giving this to Thurlow in the cause about literary property. What an excellent instance would it have been of the oppression of booksellers towards poor authors, smiling. Davis, jealous for the honour of the trade, said Gardner was not properly a bookseller. Johnson, nay, sir, he certainly was a bookseller. He had served his time regularly, was a member of the station as company, kept a shop in the face of mankind, purchased copyright, and was a bibliophile, sir, in every sense. I wrote for some months in The Universal Visitor for poor Smart, while he was mad, not there knowing the terms on which he was engaged to write, and thinking I was doing him good. I hoped his wits would soon return to him. Mine returned to me, and I wrote in The Universal Visitor no longer. Friday, April the 7th, I dined with him at a tavern with a numerous company. Johnson. I have been reading Twices' Travels in Spain, which had just come out. They are as good as the first book of travels that you will take up. They are as good as those of Kiesler or Blainville, nay, as Addison's, if you accept the learning. They are not so good as brightones, but they are better than pocochs. I have not, indeed, cut the leaves yet, but I have read in them where the pages are open, and had not supposed that what is in the pages which are closed is worse than what is in the open pages. It would seem, he added, that Addison had not acquired much Italian learning, for we do not find it introduced into his writings. The only instance that I recollect is his quoting, I mentioned Addison's having borrowed many of his classical remarks from Leandra Alberti. Mr. Bo Clark said, it was alleged that he had borrowed also from another Italian author. Johnson, why, sir? All who go to look for what the classics have said of Italy must find the same passages, and I should think it would be one of the first things the Italians would do on the revival of learning to collect all that the Roman authors have said of their country. Ossian being mentioned, Johnson, supposing the Irish and Urse languages to be the same, which I do not believe, yet, as there is no reason to suppose that the inhabitants of the Highlands and Hebrides ever wrote their native language, it is not to be credited that a long poem was preserved among them. If we had no evidence of the art of writing being practised in one of the counties of England, we should not believe that a long poem was preserved there, though in the neighbouring counties with the same language as spoken the inhabitants could write. Bo Clark, the ballad of Lily Bolero was once in the mouths of all the people of this country, and is said to have had a great effect in bringing about the revolution, yet I question whether anybody can repeat it now, which shows how improbable it is that much poetry should be preserved by tradition. One of the companies suggested an internal objection to the antiquity of the poetry said to the Ossians that we do not find the wolf in it, which must have been the case had it been of that age. The mention of the wolf had led Johnson to think of other wild beasts, and whilst the Joshua Reynolds and Mr. Langton were carrying on a dialogue about something which engaged them earnestly, he in the midst of it broke out Penent tells of Bears. What he added, I have forgotten. They went on, which he being dull of hearing did not perceive, or if he did was not willing to break off his talk, so he continued to vociferate his remarks, and Bear, like a word in a catch, as Bo Clark said, was repeatedly heard at intervals, which coming from him who, by those who did not know him, had been so often assimilated to that ferocious animal, while we who were sitting around could hardly stifle laughter, produced a very ludicrous effect. Silence having ensued, he proceeded, we are told that the black Bear is innocent, but I should not like to trust myself with him. Mr. Gibbon muttered in a low tone of voice, I should not like to trust myself with you. This piece of sarcastic pleasantry was a prudent resolution, if applied to a competition of abilities. Patriotism having become one of our topics, Johnson suddenly uttered in a strong determined tone an apathem at which many will start. Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. But let it be considered that he did not mean a real and generous love of our country, but that pretended patriotism which so many, in all ages and countries, have made a cloak for self-interest. I maintain that certainly all patriots were not scoundrels. Being urged, not by Johnson, to name one exception, I mentioned an eminent person whom we all greatly admired. Johnson, sir, I do not say that he is not honest, but we have no reason to conclude from his political conduct that he is honest. Were he to accept of a place from this ministry, he would lose that character of firmness which he has, and might be turned out of his place in a year. This ministry is neither stable nor grateful to their friends as Sir Robert Walpole was, so that he may think it more for his interest to take his chance of his party coming in. Mrs. Pritchard being mentioned, he said, her playing was quite mechanical. It is wonderful how little mind she had. Sir, she had never read the tragedy of Macbeth all through. She no more thought of the play out of which her part was taken, than a shoemaker thinks of the skin out of which the piece of leather of which he is making a pair of shoes is cut. On Saturday May the 8th I dined with him at Mr. Thrales, where we met the Irish Dr. Campbell. Johnson had sucked the night before at Mrs. Abbington's with some fashionable people whom he named, and he seemed much pleased with having made one in so elegant a circle. Nor did he omit to peek his mistress a little with jealousy of her housewifery, for he said with a smile, Mrs. Abbington's jelly, my dear lady, was better than yours. Mrs. Thrale, who frequently practised a coarse mode of flattery by repeating his bon-mau in his hearing, told us that he had said a certain celebrated actor was just fit to stand at the door of an auction-room with a long pole and cry, Pray, gentlemen, walk in. And that a certain author, upon hearing this, had said that another still more celebrated actor was fit for nothing better than that, and would pick your pocket after you came out. Johnson, nay, my dear lady, there is no wit in what our friend added, there is only abuse. You may as well say of any man that he will pick a pocket. Besides, the man who is stationed at the door does not pick people's pockets, that is done within by the auctioneer. Mrs. Thrale told us that Tom Davies repeated in a very bald manner the story of Dr. Johnson's first repartee to me, which I have related exactly. He made me say, I was born in Scotland, instead of I come from Scotland, so that Johnson saying, that, sir, is what a great many of your countrymen cannot help, had no point, or even meaning, and that upon this being mentioned to Mr. Fitz Herbert, he observed, it is not every man that can carry a bon mot. On Monday, April the 10th, I dined with him at General Oglethorpe's, with Mr. Langton and the Irish Doctor Campbell, whom the general had obligingly given me leave to bring with me. This learned gentleman was thus gratified with a very high intellectual feast, by not only being in company with Dr. Johnson, but with General Oglethorpe, who had been so long a celebrated name both at home and abroad. I must, again and again, in treat of my readers not to suppose that my imperfect record of conversation contains the whole of what was said by Johnson, or other eminent persons who lived with him. What I have preserved, however, has the value of the most perfect authenticity. He this day enlarged upon Pope's melancholy remark, Man never is, but always to be, blessed. He asserted that the present was never a happy state to any human being, but that as every part of life of which we are conscious, was at some point of time a period yet to come, in which felicity was expected, there was some happiness produced by hope. Being pressed upon this subject, and asked if he really was of opinion that, though in general happiness was very rare in human life, a man was not sometimes happy in the moment that was present, he answered, never but when he is drunk. He urged General Oglethorpe to give the world his life. He said, I know no man whose life would be more interesting, if I were furnished with materials, I should be very glad to write it. Mr. Scott of Amwell's Elegies were lying in the room. Dr. Johnson observed, they are very well, but such as twenty people might write. Upon this I took occasion to controvert Horace's maxim, mediocribus esse poetis, known di, known homines, non conquessere columni. For here I observed, was a very middle-rate poet who pleased many readers, and therefore poetry of a middle sort was entitled to some esteem, nor could I see why poetry should not, like everything else, have different gradations of excellence and consequently of value. Johnson repeated the common remark that, as there is no necessity for our having poetry at all, it being merely a luxury and instrument of pleasure, it can have no value unless when exquisite in its kind. I declared myself not satisfied. Why then, sir, said he, Horace and you must settle it. He was not much in the humour of talking. No more of his conversation for some days appears in my journal, except that when a gentleman told him he had bought a suit of lace for his lady, he said, Well, sir, you have done a good thing and a wise thing. I have done a good thing, said the gentleman, but I do not know that I have done a wise thing. Johnson, yes, sir, no money is better spent than what is laid out for domestic satisfaction. A man is pleased that his wife is dressed as well as other people, and a wife is pleased that she is dressed. On Friday, April the fourteenth, being Good Friday, I repaired to him in the morning, according to my usual custom on that day, and breakfasted with him. I observed that he fasted so very strictly that he did not even taste bread, and took no milk with his tea, I suppose because it is a kind of animal food. He ended upon the state of the nation, and thus discoursed, Sir, the great misfortune now is that government has too little power. All that it has to bestow must of necessity be given to support itself, so that it cannot reward merit. No man, for instance, can now be made a bishop for his learning and piety. His only chance for promotion is his being connected with somebody who has parliamentary interest. Our several ministries in this reign have outbid each other in concessions to the people. Lord Butte, 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 Butte, I suppose, thought to make the king popular by this concession, but the people never minded it, and it was a most impolitic measure. There is no reason why a judge should hold his office for life more than any other person in public 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 froad from age. A 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-gracier of the crown. Lord Butte advised the king to give up a very large sum of money, for which nobody thanked him. It was of consequence to the king, but nothing to the public among whom it was divided. When I say Lord Butte advised, I mean that such acts were done when he was minister, and we are to suppose that he advised them. Lord Butte 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 own countrymen, a man very low in his profession. He had blank and blank 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 levy, 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 appear newly come, go in before him, and keep him waiting still. Johnson, true, sir, but blank, should not have come down to the levy, to be in the way of people of consequence. He saw Lord Butte at all times, and could have said what he had to say at any time as well as at the levy. 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 larger 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, that administration is feeble and timid, and cannot act with that authority and resolution which is necessary. Where I am 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 Butte, 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 that I had been informed by Mr. Orm 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. 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 so the body were ever so large. That is to say, though the country were ever so extensive. It has no similarity to a head connected with the body. Dr. Weatherill, master of University College Oxford, accompanied us home from church, and after he was gone there came two other gentlemen, one of whom uttered the commonplace 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 quarrelous than Johnson, whether the subject was his own situation, or the state of the public, 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. Clements 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 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 Alfred 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. Ah, sir, that should make a man think of securing happiness in another world, which all who try sincerely for it may attain. In comparison of that, how little are all other things. The belief of immortality is impressed upon all men, and all men act under an impression of it, however they may talk, and though perhaps they may be scarcely sensible of it. I said it appeared to me that some people had not the least notion of immortality, and I mentioned a distinguished gentleman of our acquaintance. Johnson Sir, if it were not for the notion of immortality, he would cut a throat to fill his pockets. When I quoted this to Berklarke, who knew much more of the gentleman than we did, he said in his acid manner, he would cut a throat to fill his pockets if it were not for fear of being hanged. Dr. Johnson proceeded, Sir, there is a great cry about infidelity, but there are in reality very few infidels. I have heard a person, originally a Quaker, but now I am afraid a Daist, say that he did not believe there were in all England above 200 infidels. He was pleased to say, if you come to settle here, we will have one day in the week on which we will meet by ourselves. That is the happiest conversation where there is no competition, no vanity, but a calm, quiet interchange of sentiments. In his private register this evening, as thus marked, Boswell sat with me till night. We had some serious talk. It also appears from the same record that after I left him he was occupied in religious duties, in giving Francis his servant some directions for preparation to communicate, in reviewing his life and resolving in better conduct. The humility and priority which he discovers on such occasions is truly edifying. No saint, however, in the course of his religious warfare was more sensible of the unhappy failure of Pius Resolves than Johnson. He said one day, talking to an acquaintance on this subject, Sir, hell is paved with good intentions. On Sunday, April 16, being Easter day, after having attended the solemn services in Paul's, I dined with Dr. Johnson and Mrs. Williams. I maintained that Horace was wrong in placing happiness in Neil Admirare, for that I thought admiration was one of the most agreeable of all our feelings, and I regretted that I had lost much of my disposition to admire, which people generally do as they advance in life. Johnson. Sir, as a man advances in life, he gets what is better than admiration, judgment, to estimate things at their true value. I still insisted that admiration was more pleasing than judgment, as love is more pleasing than friendship. The feeling of friendship is like that of being comfortably filled with roast beef, love like being enlivened with champagne. Johnson. No, sir, admiration and love are like being intoxicated with champagne, judgment and friendship like being enlivened. Waller has hit upon the same thought with you, but I don't believe you have borrowed it from Waller. I wish you would enable yourself to borrow more. He then took occasion to enlarge on the advantages of reading, and combated the idle superficial notion that knowledge enough may be acquired in conversation. The foundation, said he, must be laid by reading. General principles must be had from books, which, however, must be brought to the test of real life. In conversation you never get a system. What is said upon a subject is to be gathered from a hundred people. The parts of a truth which a man gets thus, are at such a distance from each other that he never attains to a full view. To Bennet Langton, Esquire. Dear sir, I have inquired more minutely about the medicine for the rheumatism, which I am sorry to hear that you still want. The receipt is this. Take equal quantities of flour of sulphur and flour of mustard seed. Make them an electury with honey or treacle, and take a bolus as big as a nutmeg several times a day, as you can bear it, drinking after it a quarter of a pint of the infusion of the root of lovage. Lovage in Re's nomenclature is levisticum, perhaps the botanists may know the Latin name. Of this medicine I pretend not to judge. There is all the appearance of its efficacy, which a single instance can afford. The patient was very old, the pain very violent, and the relief, I think, speedy and lasting. My opinion of alternative medicine is not high, but quid tentase nocipit. If it does harm, or does no good, it may be omitted. But that it may do good, you have, I hope, reason to think is desired by, sir, your most affectionate, humble servant, Sam Johnson, April 17th, 1775.