"I remember being present when he showed himself to be so corrupted, or at least something so different from what I think right, as to maintain, that a member of parliament should go along with his party, right or wrong. Now, Sir, this is so remote from native virtue, from scholastic virtue, that a good man must have undergone a great change before he can reconcile himself to such a doctrine. It is maintaining that you may lie to the public; for you lie when you call that right which you think wrong, or the reverse. A friend of ours, who is too much an echo of that gentleman, observed, that a man who does not stick uniformly to a party, is only waiting to be bought. Why then, said I, he is only waiting to be what that gentleman is already." We talked of the king's coming to see Goldsmith's new play. "I wish he would," said Goldsmith: adding, however, with an affected indifference, "Not that it would do me the least good." JOHNSON. "Well then, Sir, let us say it would do him good (laughing). No, Sir, this affectation will not pass;—it is mighty idle. In such a state as ours, who would not wish to please the chief magistrate?" GOLDSMITH. "I do wish to please him. I remember a line in Dryden,— 'And every poet is the monarch's friend.' It ought to be reversed." JOHNSON. "Nay, there are finer lines in Dryden on this subject: 'For colleges on bounteous Kings depend, And never rebel was to arts a friend.'" General Paoli observed, that successful rebels might. MARTINELLI." Happy rebellions." GOLDSMITH. "We have no such phrase." GENERAL PAOLI. "But have you not the thing?" GOLDSMITH. "Yes; all our happy revolutions. They have hurt our constitution, and will hurt it, till we mend it by another HAPPY REVOLUTION."—I never before discovered that my friend Goldsmith had so much of the old prejudice in him. Burke, vol. i., p. 232. This supposition being correct, the other was no doubt Sir Joshua Reynolds.-Croker. General Paoli, talking of Goldsmith's new play said, “Il a fait un compliment très-gracieux à une certaine grande dame; meaning a duchess of the first rank.1 I expressed a doubt whether Goldsmith intended it, in order that I might hear the truth from himself. It, perhaps, was not quite fair to endeavour to bring him to a confession, as he might not wish to avow positively his taking part against the Court. He smiled and hesitated. The General at once relieved him, by this beautiful image: "Monsieur Goldsmith est comme la mer, qui jette des perles et beaucoup d'autres belles choses, sans s'en apperçevoir." GOLDSMITH. GOLDSMITH. "Très-bien dit, et très-élégamment." A person was mentioned, who it was said could take down. in short-hand the speeches in parliament with perfect exactness. JOHNSON. "Sir, it is impossible. I remember one Angel, who came to me to write for him a preface or dedication to a book upon short-hand, and he professed to write as fast as a man could speak. In order to try him, I took down a book, and read while he wrote; and I favoured him, for I read more deliberately than usual. I had proceeded but a very little way, when he begged I would desist, for he could. not follow me." Hearing now for the first time of this preface or dedication, I said, "What an expense, Sir, do you put us to in buying books, to which you have written prefaces or dedications." JOHNSON. "Why, I have dedicated to the royal family all round; that is to say, to the last generation of the royal family." GOLDSMITH. "And perhaps, Sir, not one sentence of wit in a whole dedication." JOHNSON. "Perhaps not, The lady was Anne Luttrell, sister of Lord Carhampton, widow of Mr. Horton, whose marriage with the Duke of Cumberland had recently made a great noise, and was marked with the severe disapprobation of the king. The "compliment" no doubt was Hastings' speech to Miss Neville, in the second act, when he proposes to her to fly "to France, where, even among slaves, the laws of marriage are respected." The audience the first night applied this to the Duke of Cumberland, who happened to be present, with a burst of applause; but this, though it could not have pleased the king, did not prevent his ordering the play on its tenth night.-Croker. * Stenography, or Short-hand Improved. Lond. 1758. 2 Sir." BOSWELL. "What then is the reason for applying to a particular person to do that which any one may do as well?" JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, one man has greater readiness at doing it than another." I spoke of Mr. Harris,' of Salisbury, as being a very learned man, and in particular an eminent Grecian. JOHNSON. "I am not sure of that. His friends give him out as such, but I know not who of his friends are able to judge of it." GOLDSMITH. "He is what is much better: he is a worthy humane man." JOHNSON. "Nay, Sir, that is not to the purpose of our argument: that will as much prove that he can play upon the fiddle as well as Giardini,' as that he is an eminent Grecian." GOLDSMITH. "The greatest musical performers have but small emoluments. Giardini, I am told, does not get above seven hundred a year." JOHNSON. "That is indeed but little for a man to get, who does best that which so many endeavour to do. There is nothing, I think, in which the power of art is shown so much as in playing on the fiddle. In all other things we can do something at first. Any man will forge a bar of iron, if you give him a hammer; not so well as a smith, but tolerably. A man will saw a piece of wood, and make a box, though a clumsy one; but give him a fiddle and a fiddlestick, and he can do nothing." 1 On Monday, April 19, he called on me with Mrs. Williams, James Harris was born in the Close, Salisbury, July 20, 1709, and died there, December 22, 1780. In 1744 he published Three Treatises: the first concerning Art; the second concerning Music, Painting, and Poetry; the third concerning Happiness; in 1751, Hermes, the best known of his writings; in 1775, Philosophical Arrangements; and there appeared, in 1781, a posthumous work, Philological Enquiries, 2 vols., 8vo. All of these were collected, and published in 2 vols., 4to, 1801, with an account of his life and character by his son, the first Earl of Malmesbury. Chalmers' Biog. Dict.-Editor. 2 Felix Giardini, an Italian violinist and composer, was born at Turin, 1716, and died at Moscow, 1796. He came to London in 1744, and acquired a considerable fortune by his teaching and concerts, which he lost by undertaking the management of the Italian Opera. He then went to Moscow with the hope of retrieving his losses, and died there 1796. Didot, Biog. Gener.-Editor. in Mr. Strahan's coach, and carried me out to dine with Mr. Elphinston, at his academy at Kensington. A printer having acquired a fortune sufficient to keep his coach, was a good topic for the credit of literature. Mrs. Williams said, that another printer, Mr. Hamilton, had not waited so long as Mr. Strahan, but had kept his coach several years sooner. JOHNSON. "He was in the right. Life is short. The sooner that a man begins to enjoy his wealth, the better." Mr. Elphinston talked of a new book that was much admired, and asked Dr. Johnson if he had read it. JOHNSON. "I have looked into it." "What," said Elphinston, "have you not read it through?" Johnson, offended at being thus pressed, and so obliged to own his cursory mode of reading, answered tartly, "No, Sir; do you read books through?" He this day again defended duelling, and put his argument upon what I have ever thought the most solid basis; that if public war be allowed to be consistent with morality, private war must be equally so. Indeed we may observe what strained arguments are used to reconcile war with the Christian religion. But, in my opinion, it is exceedingly clear that duelling, having better reasons for its barbarous violence, is more justifiable than war, in which thousands go forth without any cause of personal quarrel, and massacre each other. On Wednesday, April 21, I dined with him at Mr. Thrale's. A gentleman attacked Garrick for being vain. JOHNSON. "No wonder, Sir, that he is vain; a man who is perpetually flattered in every mode that can be conceived. So many bellows have blown the fire, that one wonders he is not by this time become a cinder." BOSWELL. "And such bellows too! Lord Mansfield with his cheeks like to burst: Lord Chatham like an Eolus. I have read such notes from them to him, as were 1 Lord Chatham addressed to him, while on a visit at Mount Edgecumbe, the pretty lines : "Leave, Garrick, leave the landscape, proudly gay, Yet there no wonders your quick eye can meet, enough to turn his head." JOHNSON. "True. When he whom every body else flatters, flatters me, I then am truly happy." MRS. THRALE. "The sentiment is in Congreve, I think." JOHNSON. "Yes, Madam, in 'The Way of the World: ' 'If there's delight in love, 'tis when I see That heart which others bleed for, bleed for me.' No, Sir, I should not be surprised though Garrick chained the ocean and lashed the winds." BOSWELL. "Should it not be, Sir, lashed the ocean and chained the winds?" JOHNSON. "No, Sir; recollect the original :— 'In Corum atque Eurum solitus sævire flagellis This does very well, when both the winds and the sea are personified, and mentioned by their mythological names, as in Juvenal; but when they are mentioned in plain language, the application of the epithets suggested by me is the most obvious; and accordingly my friend himself, in his imitation of the passage which describes Xerxes, has "The waves he lashes, and enchains the wind." 2 The modes of living in different countries, and the various views with which men travel in quest of new scenes, having been talked of, a learned gentleman who holds a considerable Save should you deem it wonderful to find Come, taste the simple life of patriarchs old, Who, rich in rural peace, ne'er thought of pomp or gold." 1 "The proud Barbarian, whose impatient ire With stripes, ne'er suffered from the Æolian God, 2 The Vanity of Human Wishes. 3 -Croker. Juv. x. 182. Gifford.-Croker. I presume Mr., afterwards Sir W. W. Pepys, a Master in Chancery, a |