he talked of Mrs. Thrale with much concern, saying, 'Sir, she has done everything wrong, since Thrale's bridle was off her neck;' and was proceeding to mention some circumstances which have since been the subject of public discussion, when he was interrupted by the arrival of Dr. Douglas, now Bishop of Salisbury. Dr. Douglas, upon this occasion, refuted a mistaken notion which is very common in Scotland, that the ecclesiastical discipline of the Church of England, though duly enforced, is insufficient to preserve the morals of the clergy, inasmuch as all delinquents may be screened by appealing to the Convocation, which being never authorized by the King to sit for the despatch of business, the appeal never can be heard. Dr. Douglas observed that this was founded upon ignorance; for that the bishops have sufficient power to maintain discipline, and that the sitting of the Convocation was wholly immaterial in this respect, it being not a court of judicature, but, like a parliament, to make canons and regulations as times may require. Johnson, talking of the fear of death, said, 'Some people are not afraid, because they look upon salvation as the effect of an absolute decree, and think they feel in themselves the marks of sanctification. Others, and those the most rational in my opinion, look upon salvation as conditional; and as they never can be sure that they have complied with the conditions, they are afraid.' In one of his little manuscript diaries, about this time, I find a short notice, which marks his amiable disposition more certainly than a thousand studied declarations:-'Afternoon spent cheerfully and elegantly, I hope without offence to GOD or man; though in no holy duty, yet in the general exercise and cultivation of benevolence.' On Monday, May 17, I dined with him at Mr. Dilly's, where were Colonel Vallancy, the Reverend Dr. Gibbons, and Mr. Capel Lofft, who, though a most zealous Whig, has a mind so full of learning and knowledge, and so much exercised in various departments, and withal so much liberality, that the stupendous powers of the literary Goliath, though they did not frighten this little David of popular spirit, could not but excite his admiration. There was also Mr. Braithwaite of the Post-office, that amiable and friendly man, who, with modest and unassuming manners, has associated with many of the wits of the age. Johnson was very quiescent to-day. Perhaps, too, I was indolent. I find nothing more of him in my notes, but that, when I mentioned that I had seen in the King's library sixty-three editions of my favourite Thomas à Kempis, amongst which it was in eight languages, Latin, German, French, Italian, Spanish, English, Arabic, and Armenian, -he said he thought it unnecessary to collect many editions of a book, which were all the same, except as to the paper and print; he would have the original, and all the translations, and all the editions which had any variations in the text. He approved of the famous collection of editions of Horace by Douglas, mentioned by Pope, who is said to have had a closet filled with them; and he added, 'Every man should try to collect one book in that manner, and present it to a public library.' On Tuesday, May 18, I saw him for a short time in the morning. I told him that the mob had called out, as the King passed, 'No Fox-no Fox,' which I did not like. He said, 'They were right, sir.' I said, I thought not; for it seemed to be making Mr. Fox the King's competitor. There being no audience, so that there could be no triumph in a victory, he fairly agreed with me. I said it might do very well, if explained thus: 'Let us have no Fox;' understanding it as a prayer to his Majesty not to appoint that gentleman minister. CHAPTER LX. 1784. ON Wednesday, May 19, I sat a part of the evening with Johnson, by ourselves. I observed, that the death of our friends might be a consolation against the fear of our own dissolution, because we might have more friends in the other world than in this. He perhaps felt this as a reflection upon his apprehension as to death; and said, with heat, 'How can a man know where his departed friends are, or whether they will be his friends in the other world? How many friendships have you known formed upon principles of virtue? Most friendships are formed by caprice or by chance, mere confederacies in vice or leagues in folly.' We talked of our worthy friend Mr. Langton. He said, 'I know not who will go to Heaven if Langton does not. Sir, I could almost say, Sit anima mea cum Langtono.' I mentioned a very eminent friend as a virtuous man. JOHNSON: 'Yes, sir, but has not the evangelical virtue of Langton. - -, I am afraid, would not scruple to pick up a wench.' He, however, charged Mr. Langton with what he thought want of judgment upon an interesting occasion. 'When I was ill,' said he, 'I desired he would tell me sincerely in what he thought my life was faulty. Sir, he brought me a sheet of paper, on which he had written down several texts of Scripture, recommending Christian charity. And when I questioned him what occasion I had given for such an animadversion, all that he could say amounted to this, -that I sometimes contradicted people in conversation. Now what harm does it do to any man to be contradicted?' BOSWELL: 'I suppose he meant the manner of doing it; roughly and harshly.' JOHNSON: 'And who is the worse for that?' BOSWELL: 'It hurts people of weaker nerves.' JOHNSON: 'I know no such weak nerved people.' Mr. Burke, to whom I related this conference, said, 'It is well if, when a man comes to die, he has nothing heavier upon his conscience than having been a little rough in conversation.' Johnson, at the time when the paper was presented to him, though at first pleased with the attention of his friend, whom he thanked in an earnest manner, soon exclaimed, in a loud and angry tone, 'What is your drift, sir?" Sir Joshua Reynolds pleasantly observed, that it was a scene for a comedy, to see a penitent get into a violent passion, and belabour his confessor.1 I have preserved no more of his conversation at the times when I saw him during the rest of this month, till Sunday, the 30th of May, when I met him in the evening at Mr. Hoole's, where there was a large company both of ladies and gentlemen. Sir James Johnston happened to say, that he paid no regard to the arguments of counsel at the bar of the House of Commons, because they were paid for speaking. JOHNSON: Nay, sir, argument is argument. You cannot help paying regard to their arguments, if they are good. If it were testimony, you might disregard it, if you knew that it were purchased. There is a beautiful image in Bacon, upon this subject: Testimony is like an arrow shot from a long bow; the force of it depends on the strength of the hand that draws it. Argument is like an After all, I cannot but be of opinion, that as Mr. Langton was seriously requested by Dr. Johnson to mention what appeared to him erroneous in the character of his friend, he was bound, as an honest man, to intimate what he really thought, which he certainly did in the most delicate manner: so that Johnson himself, when in a quiet frame of mind, was pleased with it. The texts suggested are now before me, and I shall quote a few of them:-'Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Matt. v. 5.-'I therefore, the prisoner of the LORD, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love.' Ephes. v. 1, 2.-'And above all these things, put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness. Col. iii. 14. Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not: charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up; doth not behave itself unseemly, is not easily provoked.' 1 Cor. xiii. 4, 5.-BOSWELL. 2 Dr. Johnson's memory deceived him. The passage referred to is not Bacon's, but Boyle's; and may be found, with a slight variation, in Johnson's Dictionary, under the word Crossbow. So happily selected are the greater part of the examples in that incomparable work, that if the most striking passages found in it were collected by one of our modern book-makers, under the title of The Beauties of Johnson's Dictionary, they would form a very pleasing and popular volume. -MALONE arrow from a cross-bow, which has equal force though shot by a child.' He had dined that day at Mr. Hoole's, and Miss Helen Maria Williams being expected in the evening, Mr. Hoole put into his hands her beautiful Ode on the Peace.1 Johnson read it over, and when this elegant and accomplished young lady 2 was presented to him, he took her by the hand in the most courteous manner, and repeated the finest stanza of her poem: this was the most delicate and pleasing compliment he could pay. Her respectable friend, Dr. Kippis, from whom I had this anecdote, was standing by, and was not a little gratified. Miss Williams told me, that the only other time she was fortunate enough to be in Dr. Johnson's company, he asked her to sit down by him, which she did; and upon her inquiring how he was, he answered, 'I am very ill indeed, madam. I am very ill even when you are near me; what should I be were you at a distance?' He had now a great desire to go to Oxford, as his first jaunt after his illness. We talked of it for some days, and I had promised to accompany him. He was impatient and fretful to-night, because I did not at once agree to go with him on Thursday. When I considered how ill he had been, and what allowance should be made for the influence of sickness upon his temper, I resolved to indulge him, though with some inconvenience to myself, as I wished to attend the musical meeting in honour of Handel, in Westminster Abbey, on the following Saturday. In the midst of his own diseases and pains, he was ever compassionate to the distresses of others, and actively earnest in procuring them aid, as appears from a note to Sir Joshua Reynolds, of June, in these words:---' I am ashamed to ask for some relief for a poor man, to whom, I hope, I have given what I can be expected to spare. The man importunes me, and the blow goes round. I am going to try another air on Thursday.' On Thursday, June 3, the Oxford post-coach took us up in the morning at Bolt Court. The other two passengers were Mrs. Beresford and her daughter, two very agreeable ladies from The peace made by that very able statesman, the Earl of Shelburne, now Marquis of Lansdowne, which may fairly be considered as the foundation of all the prosperity of Great Britain since that time.-BOSWELL In the first edition of my work, the epithet amiable was given. I was sorry to be obliged to strike it out; but I could not in justice suffer it to remain, after this young lady had not only written in favour of the savage anarchy with which France has been visited, but had (as I have been informed by good authority) walked without horror over the ground at the Tuileries when it was strewed with the naked bodies of the faithful Swiss guards, who were barbarously massacred for having bravely defended, against a crew of ruffians, the Monarch whom they had taken an oath to defend, From Dr. Johnson she could now expect, not endear ment, but repulsion.-BosWELL America; they were going to Worcestershire, where they then resided. Frank had been sent by his master the day before to take places for us; and I found from the way-bill that Dr. Johnson had made our names be put down. Mrs. Beresford, who had read it, whispered me, 'Is this the great Dr. Johnson?" I told her it was; so she was then prepared to listen. As she soon happened to mention in a voice so low that Johnson did not hear it, that her husband had been a member of the American Congress, I cautioned her to beware of introducing that subject, as she must know how very violent Johnson was against the people of that country. He talked a great deal. But I am sorry I have preserved little of the conversation. Miss Beresford was so much charmed, that she said to me aside, 'How he does talk! Every sentence is an essay.' She amused herself in the coach with knotting; he would scarcely allow this species of employment any merit. 'Next to mere idleness,' said he, 'I think knotting is to be reckoned in the scale of insignificance; though have mentioned, but that I would hasten back to him again. He was pleased that I had made this journey merely to keep him company. He was easy and placid with Dr. Adams, Mrs. and Miss Adams, and Mrs. Kennicot, widow of the learned Hebræan, who was here on a visit. He soon despatched the inquiries which were made about his illness and recovery, by a short and distinct narrative; and then assuming a gay air, repeated from Swift, 'Nor think on our approaching ills, Dr. Newton, the Bishop of Bristol, having been mentioned, Johnson, recollecting the manner in which he had been censured by that prelate, thus retaliated: 'Tom knew he should be dead before what he has said of me would appear. He durst not have printed it while he was alive.' DR. ADAMS: 'I believe his Dissertations on the Prophecies is his great work.' JOHNSON: 'Why, sir, it is Tom's great work; but how far it is great, or how much of it is Tom's, are other questions. I fancy a considerable part of it was I once attempted to learn knotting. Dempster's borrowed.' DR. ADAMS: 'He was a very suc sister,' looking to me, 'endeavoured to teach me it; but I made no progress.' I was surprised at his talking without reserve in the public post-coach of the state of his affairs. 'I have,' said he, 'about the world, I think, above a thousand pounds, which I intend shall afford Frank an annuity of seventy pounds a year.' Indeed, his openness with people at a first interview was remarkable. He said once to Mr. Langton, 'I think I am like Squire Richard in The Journey to London; I'm never cessful man.' JOHNSON: 'I don't think so, sir, He did not get very high. He was late in getting what he did get; and he did not get it by the best means. I believe he was a gross flatterer.' I fulfilled my intention by going to London, and returned to Oxford on Wednesday the 9th of June, when I was happy to find myself again in the same agreeable circle at Pembroke College, with the comfortable prospect of making some strange in a strange place. He was truly social. stay. Johnson welcomed my return with more He strongly censured what is much too common in England among persons of condition,-maintaining an absolute silence, when unknown to each other; as, for instance, when occasionally brought together in a room before the master or mistress of the house has appeared. 'Sir, that is being so uncivilised as not to understand the common rights of humanity.' At the inn where we stopped he was exceedingly dissatisfied with some roast mutton which he had for dinner. The ladies, I saw, wondered to see the great philosopher, whose wisdom and wit they had been admiring all the way, get into ill-humour from such a cause. He scolded the waiter, saying, 'It is as bad as bad can be; it is ill-fed, ill-killed, ill-kept, and ill-drest.' He bore the journey very well, and seemed to feel himself elevated as he approached Oxford, that magnificent and venerable seat of learning, orthodoxy, and Toryism. Frank came in the heavy coach, in readiness to attend him; and we were received with the most polite hospitality at the house of his old friend Dr. Adams, Master of Pembroke College, who had given us a kind invitation. Before we were set down, I communicated to Johnson my having engaged to return to London directly, for the reason I than ordinary glee. He talked with great regard of the Honourable Archibald Campbell, whose character he had given at the Duke of Argyll's table, when we were at Inverary; and at this time wrote out for me, in his own hand, a fuller account of that learned and venerable writer, which I have published in its proper place. Johnson made a remark this evening which struck me a good deal. 'I never,' said he, 'knew a nonjuror who could reason.'2 Surely he did not mean to deny that faculty to many of their writers-to Hickes, Brett, and other eminent divines of that persuasion; and did not recollect that the seven bishops, so justly celebrated for their magnanimous resistance of arbitrary power, were yet nonjurors to the new Government. The nonjuring clergy of Scotland, indeed, who, excepting a few, have lately, by a sudden stroke, cut off all ties of allegiance to the house of Stuart, and resolved to pray for our present lawful Sovereign by name, may be thought to have confirmed this remark; as it may be said, that the divine indefeasible hereditary right which they professed to believe, if ever true, must be equally true still. Many of my readers will be surprised, when I mention that Johnson assured me he had never in his life been in a nonjuring meeting-house. 1 Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides.-BosWELL. * The Rev. Mr. Agutter has favoured me with a note of a dialogue between Mr. John Henderson and Dr. Johnson on this topic, as related by Mr. Henderson, and it is evidently so authentic that I shall here insert it:-HENDERSON: 'What do you think, sir, of William Law?" JOHNSON: 'William Law, sir, wrote the best piece of Parenetic Divinity; but William Law was no reasoner.' HENDERSON: 'Jeremy Collier, sir?" JOHNSON: 'Jeremy Collier fought without a rival, and therefore could not claim the victory.' Mr. Henderson mentioned Kenn and Kettlewell, but some objections were made; at last he said, 'But, sir, what do you think of Lesley?' JOHNSON: 'Charles Lesley I had forgotten. Lesley was a reasoner, and a reasoner who was not to be reasoned against.'-BOSWELL. Next morning, at breakfast, he pointed out a passage in Savage's Wanderer, saying, 'These are fine verses.'-' If,' said he, 'I had written with hostility of Warburton in my Shakspeare, I should have quoted this couplet : "Here Learning, blinded first, and then beguiled, Looks dark as Ignorance, as Frenzy wild." You see they'd have fitted him to a T' (smiling). DR. ADAMS: 'But you did not write against Warburton.' JOHNSON: 'No, sir, I treated him with great respect both in my preface and in my notes.' Mrs. Kennicot spoke of her brother, the Rev. Mr. Chamberlayne, who had given up great prospects in the Church of England on his conversion to the Roman Catholic faith. Johnson, who warmly admired every man who acted from a conscientious regard to principle, erroneous or not, exclaimed fervently, 'GOD bless him.' Mrs. Kennicot, in confirmation of Dr. Johnson's opinion, that the present was not worse than former ages, mentioned that her brother assured her there was now less infidelity on the Continent than there had been; Voltaire and Rousseau were less read. I asserted, from good authority, that Hume's infidelity was certainly less read. JOHNSON: 'Allinfidel writers dropinto oblivion, when personal connections and the floridness of novelty are gone; though now and then a foolish fellow, who thinks he can be witty upon them, may bring them again into notice. There will sometimes start up a college joker, who does not consider that what is a joke in a college will not do in the world. To such defenders of religion I would apply a stanza of a poem which I remember to have seen in some old collection: "Henceforth be quiet and agree, The point is well, though the expression is not correct; one, and not thee, should be opposed to t'other. 1 I have inserted the stanza as Johnson repeated it from memory; but I have since found the poem itself, On the Roman Catholic religion he said, 'If you join the Papists externally, they will not interrogate you strictly as to your belief in their tenets. No reasoning Papist believes every article of their faith. There is one side on which a good man might be persuaded to embrace it. A good man of a timorous disposition, in great doubt of his acceptance with GOD, and pretty credulous, may be glad to be of a church where there are so many helps to get to Heaven. I would be a Papist if I could. I have fear enough; but an obstinate rationality prevents me. I shall never be a Papist, unless on the near approach of death, of which I have great terror. I wonder that women are not all Papists.' BOSWELL: 'They are not more afraid of death than men are.' JOHNSON: 'Because they are less wicked.' DR. ADAMS: 'They are more pious.' JOHNSON: 'No, hang 'em, they are not more pious. A wicked fellow is the most pious when he takes to it.' He'll beat you all at piety.' He argued in defence of some of the peculiar tenets of the Church of Rome. As to the giving the bread only to the laity, he said, 'They may think, that in what is merely ritual, deviations from the primitive mode may be admitted on the ground of convenience; and I think they are as well warranted to make this alteration, as we are to substitute sprinkling in the room of the ancient baptism.' As to the invocation of saints, he said, 'Though I do not think it authorized, it appears to me that the communion of saints in the Creed means the communion with the saints in Heaven, as connected with "the holy Catholic Church.""1 He admitted the influence of evil spirits upon our minds, and said, 'Nobody who believes the New Testament can deny it.' I brought a volume of Dr. Hurd the Bishop of Worcester's Sermons, and read to the company some passages from one of them, upon this text, 'Resist the Devil, and he will flee from you.'James iv. 7. I was happy to produce so judi in The Foundling Hospital for Wit, printed at London, 1749. It is as follows: 'EPIGRAM, occasioned by a religious dispute at Bath'On Reason, Faith, and Mystery high, Two wits harangue the table; By believes he knows not why, Nh swears 'tis all a fable. 'Peace, coxcombs, peace, and both agree: And dreads a friend like t'other. '-BoSWELL. 1 Walker, in his Divine Poesie, Canto first, has the same thought finely expressed : 'The Church triumphant, and the Church below, In songs of praise their present union show: Their joys are full, our expectation long; In life we differ, but we join in song; Angels and we, assisted by this art, May sing together, though we dwell apart.' -BOSWELL cious and elegant a supporter of a doctrine which, I know not why, should, in this world of imperfect knowledge, and therefore of wonder and mystery in a thousand instances, be contested by some with an unthinking assurance and flippancy. After dinner, when one of us talked of there being a great enmity between Whig and ToryJOHNSON: 'Why, not so much, I think, unless when they come into competition with each other. There is none when they are only common acquaintance, none when they are of different sexes. A Tory will marry into a Whig family, and a Whig into a Tory family, without any reluctance. But, indeed, in a matter of much more concern than political tenets, and that is religion, men and women do not concern themselves much about difference of opinion; and ladies set no value on the moral character of men who pay their addresses to them: the greatest profligate will be as well received as the man of the greatest virtue, and this by a very good woman, by a woman who says her prayers three times a day. Our ladies endeavoured to defend their sex from this charge; but he roared them down! 'No, no! a lady will take Jonathan Wild as readily as St. Austin, if he has threepence more; and, what is worse, her parents will give her to him. Women have a perpetual envy of our vices; they are less vicious than we, not from choice, but because we restrict them; they are the slaves of order and fashion; their virtue is of more consequence to us than our own, so far as concerns this world.' Miss Adams mentioned a gentleman of licentious character, and said, 'Suppose I had a mind to marry that gentleman, would my parents consent?' JOHNSON: 'Yes, they'd consent, and you'd go. You'd go, though they did not consent.' MISS ADAMS: 'Perhaps their opposing might make me go.' JOHNSON: 'Oh, very well; you'd take one whom you think a bad man, to have the pleasure of vexing your parents. You put me in mind of Dr. Barrowby, the physician, who was very fond of swine's flesh. One day, when he was eating it, he said, "I wish I was a Jew."-"Why so?" said somebody; "the Jews are not allowed to eat your favourite meat."Because," said he, "I should then have the gust of eating it, with the pleasure of sinning."" Johnson then proceeded in his declamation. Miss Adams soon afterwards made an observation that I do not recollect, which pleased him much; he said, with a good-humoured smile, 'That there should be so much excellence united with so much depravity is strange.' Indeed, this lady's good qualities, merit, and accomplishments, and her constant attention to Dr. Johnson, were not lost upon him. She happened to tell him that a little coffeepot, in which she had made him coffee, was the only thing she could call her own. He turned to her with complacent gallantry, 'Don't say so, my us. Dr. Wall, physician at Oxford, drank tea with Johnson had in general a peculiar pleasure in the company of physicians, which was certainly not abated by the conversation of this learned, ingenious, and pleasing gentleman. Johnson said, 'It is wonderful how little good Radcliffe's travelling fellowships have done. I know nothing that has been imported by them; yet many additions to our medical knowledge might be got in foreign countries. Inoculation, for instance, has saved more lives than war destroyed; and the cures performed by the Peruvian bark are innumerable. But it is in vain to send our travelling physicians to France, and Italy, and Germany; for all that is known there is known here: I'd send them out of Christendom; I'd send them among barbarous nations.' On Friday, June 11, we talked at breakfast of forms of prayer. JOHNSON: 'Iknow of no good prayers but those in the Book of Common Prayer.' DR. ADAMS (in a very earnest manner): 'I wish, sir, you would compose some family prayers." JOHNSON: 'I will not compose prayers for you, sir, because you can do it for yourself. But I have thought of getting together all the books of prayers which I could, selecting those which should appear to me the best, putting out some, inserting others, adding some prayers of my own, and prefixing a discourse on prayer.' We all now gathered about him, and two or three of us at a time joined in pressing him to execute this plan. He seemed to be a little displeased at the manner of our importunity, and in great agitation called out, ‘Do not talk thus of what is so awful. I know not what time GOD will allow me in this world. There are many things which I wish to do.' Some of us persisted, and Dr. Adams said, 'I never was more scrious about anything in my life.' JOHNSON: Let me alone, let me alone; I am overpowered.' And then he put his hands before his face, and reclined for some time upon the table. I mentioned Jeremy Taylor's using, in his forms of prayer, 'I am the chief of sinners,' and other such self-condemning expressions. 'Now,' said I, 'this cannot be said with truth by every |