TO MR. FRANCIS BARBER.

"DEAR FRANCIS,

"May 28, 1768.

"I have been very much out of order. I am glad to hear that you are well, and design to come soon to you. I would have you stay at Mrs. Clapp's for the present, till I can determine what we shall do. Be a good boy. My compliments to Mrs. Clapp and to Mr. Fowler. I am yours affectionately, "SAM. JOHNSON."

Soon afterwards, he supped at the Crown and Anchor tavern, in the Strand, with a company whom I collected to meet him. They were, Dr. Percy now Bishop of Dromore, Dr. Douglas now Bishop of Salisbury, Mr. Langton, Dr. Robertson the Historian, Dr. Hugh Blair, and Mr. Thomas Davies, who wished much to be introduced to these eminent Scotch literati ; but on the present occasion he had very little opportunity of hearing them talk; for, with an excess of prudence, for which Johnson afterwards found fault with them, they hardly opened their lips, and that only to say something which they were certain would not expose them to the sword of Goliath; such was their anxiety for their fame when in the presence of Johnson. He was this evening in remarkable vigour of mind, and eager to exert himself in conversation, which he did with great readiness and fluency; but I am sorry to find that I have preserved but a small part of what passed.

He allowed high praise to Thomson as a poet; but when one of the company said he was also a very good man, our moralist contested this with great warmth, accusing him of gross sensuality and licentiousness of manners. I was very much afraid that, in writing Thomson's life, Dr. Johnson would have treated his private character with a stern severity, but I was agreeably disappointed; and I may claim a little merit in it, from my having been at pains to send him authentic accounts of the affectionate and generous conduct of that poet to his sisters, one of whom, the wife of Mr. Thomson, schoolmaster at Lanark, I knew, and was presented by her

with three of his letters, one of which Dr. Johnson has inserted in his life.

He was vehement against old Dr. Mounsey, of Chelsea College, as " a fellow who swore and talked bawdy." "I have been often in his company," said Dr. Percy, "and never heard him swear or talk bawdy." Mr. Davies, who sat next to Dr. Percy, having after this had some conversation aside with him, made a discovery which, in his zeal to pay court to Dr. Johnson, he eagerly proclaimed aloud from the foot of the table: "Oh, Sir, I have found out a very good reason why Dr. Percy never heard Mounsey swear or talk bawdy; for he tells me he never saw him but at the Duke of Northumberland's table." "And so, Sir," said Dr. Johnson loudly to Dr. Percy, "you would shield this man from the charge of swearing and talking bawdy, because he did not do so at the Duke of Northumberland's table. Sir, you might as well tell us that you had seen him hold up his hand at the Old Bailey, and he neither swore nor talked bawdy; or that you had seen him in the cart at

1 Messenger Mounsey, M.D., died at his apartments in Chelsea College, Dec. 26, 1788, at the age of ninety-five. An extraordinary direction in his will may be found in the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. 50, p. ii., p. 1183.Malone.

The direction was, that his body should not suffer any funeral ceremony, but undergo dissection, and, after that operation, be thrown into the Thames, or where the surgeon pleased. It is surprising that this coarse and crazy humourist should have been an intimate friend and favourite of the elegant and pious Mrs. Montagu.-Croker.

In the following strange, and, although it relates to his own body, we may say brutal letter to Mr. Cruickshank, dated May 12, 1787, now in the Museum of the College of Surgeons, Mounsey says:-"Mr. Thomson Foster, surgeon, in Union Court, Broad Street, has promised to open my carcass, and see what is the matter with my heart, arteries, and kidneys. He is gone to Norwich, and may not return before I am [dead]. Will you be so good as to let me send it to you, or, if he comes, will you like to be present at the dissection? Let me see you to-morrow, between eleven and one or two, or any day. I am now very ill, and hardly see to scrawl this, and feel as if I should live [but] two days-the sooner the better. I am, though unknown to you, your respectful humble servant, MESSENGER MOUNSEY." His body was accordingly dissected by Mr. Foster, and preparations were deposited in the Museum of St. Thomas's Hospital.-Wright.

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Tyburn, and he neither swore nor talked bawdy. And is it thus, Sir, that you presume to controvert what I have related?" Dr. Johnson's animadversion was uttered in such a manner, that Dr. Percy seemed to be displeased, and soon afterwards left the company, of which Johnson did not at that time take any notice.

Swift having been mentioned, Johnson, as usual, treated him with little respect as an author. Some of us endeavoured to support the Dean of St. Patrick's by various arguments. One, in particular, praised his "Conduct of the Allies." JOHNSON. "Sir, his 'Conduct of the Allies' is a performance of very little ability." "Surely, Sir," said Dr. Douglas, "you must allow it has strong facts." JOHNSON. "Why yes, Sir; but what is that to the merit of the composition? In the Sessions-paper of the Old Bailey there are strong facts. Housebreaking is a strong fact; robbery is a strong fact; and murder is a mighty strong fact: but is great praise due to the historian of those strong facts? No, Sir, Swift has told what he had to tell distinctly enough, but that is all. He had to count ten, and he has counted it right." Then recollecting that Mr. Davies, by acting as an informer, had been the occasion of his talking somewhat too harshly to his friend Dr. Percy, for which, probably, when the first ebullition was over, he felt some compunction, he took an opportunity to give him a hit: so added, with a preparatory laugh, "Why, Sir, Tom Davies might have written 'The Conduct of the Allies.'" Poor Tom, being thus suddenly dragged into ludicrous notice in presence of the Scottish doctors, to whom he was ambitious

1 My respectable friend, upon reading this passage, observed, that he probably must have said not simply "strong facts," but "strong facts well arranged." His Lordship, however, knows too well the value of written documents to insist on setting his recollection against my notes taken at the time. He does not attempt to traverse the record. The fact, perhaps, may have been, either that the additional words escaped me in the noise of a numerous company, or that Dr. Johnson, from his impetuosity, and eagerness to seize an opportunity to make a lively retort, did not allow Dr. Douglas to finish his sentence. [Note added in the second edition, vol. i. p. 523.--Editor.]

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of appearing to advantage, was grievously mortified. Nor did his punishment rest here; for upon subsequent occasions, whenever he, "statesman all over," assumed a strutting importance, I used to hail him--" the Author of the Conduct of the Allies."

When I called upon Dr. Johnson next morning, I found him highly satisfied with his colloquial prowess the preceding evening. "Well," said he, "we had good talk." BOSWELL. "Yes, Sir; you tossed and gored several persons."

2

The late Alexander Earl of Eglintoune, who loved wit more than wine, and men of genius more than sycophants, had a great admiration of Johnson; but, from the remarkable elegance of his own manners, was perhaps too delicately sensible of the roughness which sometimes appeared in Johnson's behaviour. One evening about this time, when his lordship did me the honour to sup at my lodgings with Dr. Robertson and several other men of literary distinction, he regretted that Johnson had not been educated with more refinement, and lived more in polished society. "No, no, my lord,” said Signor Baretti, "do with him what you would, he would always have been a bear." "True," answered the earl, with a smile, "but he would have been a dancing bear."

To obviate all the reflections which have gone round the world to Johnson's prejudice, by applying to him the epithet of a bear, let me impress upon my readers a just and happy saying of my friend Goldsmith, who knew him well :-" Johnson, to be sure, has a roughness in his manner; but no man

1 See the hard drawing of him in Churchill's Rosciad.

2 Tenth earl, who was shot, in 1769, by Mungo Campbell, whose fowlingpiece Lord Eglintoune attempted to seize. To this nobleman Boswell was indebted, as he himself said, for his early introduction to the circle of the great, the gay, and the ingenious. Boswell thus mentions himself in a tale called The Cub at Newmarket, published in 1762 :

"Lord Eglintoune, who loves, you know,

A little dish of whim or so,

By chance a curious cub had got,

On Scotia's mountains newly caught."-Gent. Mag.

-Croker.

alive has a more tender heart. He has nothing of the bear but his skin."

In 1769, so far as I can discover, the public was favoured with nothing of Johnson's composition, either for himself or any. of his friends. His "Meditations" too strongly prove that he suffered much both in body and mind; yet was he perpetually striving against evil, and nobly endeavouring to advance his intellectual and devotional improvement. Every generous and grateful heart must feel for the distresses of so eminent a benefactor to mankind; and now that his unhappiness is certainly known, must respect that dignity of character which prevented him from complaining.

His Majesty having the preceding year instituted the Royal Academy of Arts in London, Johnson had now the honour of being appointed Professor in Antient Literature. In the course of the year he wrote some letters to Mrs. Thrale, passed some part of the summer at Oxford and at Lichfield, and when at Oxford he wrote the following letter:

TO THE REVEREND MR. THOMAS WARTON.

"DEAR SIR,

"May 31, 1769.

"Many years ago, when I used to read in the library of your College, I promised to recompense the college for that permission, by adding to their books a Baskerville's Virgil. I have now sent it, and desire you to reposit it on the shelves in my name."'

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1 In which place he has been succeeded by Bennet Langton, Esq. When that truly religious gentleman was elected to this honorary Professorship, at the same time that Edward Gibbon, Esq., noted for introducing a kind of sneering infidelity into his historical writings, was elected Professor in Ancient History, in the room of Dr. Goldsmith, I observed that it brought to my mind, "Wicked Will Whiston and good Mr. Ditton.”—I am now also of that admirable institution, as Secretary for Foreign Correspondence, by the favour of the Academicians, and the approbation of the sovereign. [Note in second edition, vol. i., p. 525.-Editor.]

2 It has this inscription in a blank leaf :-" Hunc librum D.D. Samuel Johnson eo quod hic loci studiis interdum vacaret." Of this library, which is an old Gothic room, he was very fond. On my observing to him that some of the modern libraries of the University were more commodious and