and digest them, he undoubtedly could have expanded them into a very entertaining narrative.

[Mrs. Piozzi has preserved a few Piozzi, anecdotes of this tour. "Mr. Thrale p. 76, 77. loved prospects, and was mortified that his friend could not enjoy the sight of those different dispositions of wood and water, hill and valley, that travelling through England and France affords a man. But when he wished to point them out to his companion, Never heed such nonsense,' would be the reply: a blade of grass is always a blade of grass, whether in one country or another. Let us, if we do talk, talk about something: men and women are my subjects of inquiry; let us see how these differ from those we have left behind.'

"When we were at Rouen together, he took a great fancy to the Abbé Roffette, with whom he conversed about the destruction of the order of jesuits, and condemned it loudly, as a blow to the general power of the church, and likely to be followed with many and dangerous innovations, which might at length become fatal to religion itself, and shake even the foundation of Christianity. The gentleman seemed to wonder and delight in his conversation; the talk was all in Latin, which both spoke fluently, and Dr. Johnson pronounced a long eulogium upon Milton with so much ardour, eloquence, and ingenuity, that the abbé rose from his seat and embraced him. My husband seeing them apparently so charmed with the company of each other, politely invited the abbé to England, intending to oblige his friend; who, instead of thanking, reprimanded him severely before the man, for such a sudden burst of tenderness towards a person he could know nothing at all of; and thus put a sudden finish to all his own and Mr. Thrale's entertainment, from the company of the Abbé Roffette.

"When at Versailles the people showed us the theatre. As we stood on the stage looking at some machinery for playhouse purposes-Now we are here, what shall we act, Dr. Johnson?-The Englishman at Paris?' 'No, no,' replied he; we will try to act Harry the Fifth.' His dislike of the French was well known to both nations, I believe; but he applauded the number of their books and the graces of their style.

They have few sentiments,' said he, but they express them neatly; they have little meat too, but they dress it well.""]

When I met him in London the following year, the account which he gave me of his French tour, was, "Sir, I have seen all the visibilities of Paris, and around it; but to have formed an acquaintance with the people there would have required more time than I could stay. I was just beginning to creep into acquaintance by means of Colonel Drumgould, a very high man, sir, head of

L'Ecole Militaire, a most complete character, for he had first been a professor of rhetorick, and then became a soldier. And, sir, I was very kindly treated by the English Benedictines, and have a cell appropriated to me in their convent."

He observed, "The great in France live very magnificently, but the rest very miserably. There is no happy middle state as in England1. The shops of Paris are mean; the meat in the market is such as would be sent to a gaol in England; and Mr. Thrale justly observed, that the cookery of the French was forced upon them by necessity; for they could not eat their meat, unless they added some taste to it. The French are an indelicate people; they will spit upon any place. At Madame [Du Bocage's,] a literary lady of rank, the footman took the sugar in his fingers, and threw it into my coffee. I was going to put it aside; but hearing it was made on purpose for me, I e'en tasted Tom's fingers. The same lady would needs make tea à l'Angloise. The spout of the teapot did not pour freely; she bade the footman blow | into it 2. France is worse than Scotland in every thing but climate. Nature has done more for the French; but they have done less for themselves than the Scotch have done 3."

1 [See ante, p. 13.—ED.]

en

2 [Nay, she actually performed the operation herself. Mrs. Piozzi says, "I recollect one fine lady in France, who entertained us very splendidly, put her mouth to the teapot, and blew in the spout when it would not pour freely. My maid Peggy would not have touched the tea after such an operation."-Letters, v. ii. p. 247. Miss Reynolds's "Recollections" preserve this story as told her by Baretti, who was of the party: "Going one day to drink tea with Madame du Bocage, she happened to produce ar old china teapot, which Mrs. Strickland, who made the tea, could not make pour: 'Souflez, soufez, madame, dedans,' cried Madame du Bocage, 'il se rectifie immediatement; essayez, je vous prie.' The servant then thinking that Mrs. took up the teapot to rectify it, and Mrs. StrickStrickland did not understand what his lady said, land had quite a struggle to prevent his blowing into the spout. Madame du Bocage all this while had not the least idea of its being any impropriety, and wondered at Mrs. Strickland's stupidity. She came over to the latter, caught up the teapot, and blew into the spout with all her might; then finding it pour, she held it up in triumph, and re peatedly exclaimed, Voilà, voilà, j'ai regagne Phonneur de ma theiér.' She had no sugar-tongs, and said something that showed she expected Mrs. Strickland to use her fingers to sweeten the cups. 'Madame, je n'oserois. Oh mon Dieu! quel grand quan-quan les Anglois font de peu de chose."-ED.]

3 In a letter to a friend, written a few days after his return from France, he says, "The

It happened that Foote was at Paris at the same time with Dr. Johnson, and his description of my friend while there was abundantly ludicrous. He told me, that the French were quite astonished at his figure and manner, and at his dress, which he obstinately continued exactly as in London; -his brown clothes, black stockings, and plain shirt. He mentioned, that an Irish gentleman said to Johnson, "Sir, you have not seen the best French players." JOHNSON. "Players, sir! I look on them as no better than creatures set upon tables and joint stools, to make faces and produce laughter, like dancing dogs." "But, sir, you will allow that some players are better than others?" JOHNSON. 66 Yes, sir, as some dogs dance better than others."

Reyn. [In the same spirit, but of more Recoll. vehemence and greater injustice, were his statements to Sir Joshua and Miss Reynolds, who has noted them in her Recollections.

66

JOHNSON. "The French, sir, are a very silly people. They have no common life. Nothing but the two ends, beggary and nobility. Sir, they are made up in every thing of two extremes. They have no common sense, they have no common manners, no common learning-gross ignorance, or les belles lettres." A LADY. [Mrs. Thrale]. Indeed, even in their dresstheir frippery finery, and their beggarly coarse linen. They had, I thought, no politeness; their civilities never indicated more good-will than the talk of a parrot, indiscriminately using the same set of superlative phrases, "à la merveille!" to every one alike. They really seemed to have no expressions for sincerity and truth." JOHNSON. 66 They are much behind-hand, stupid, ignorant creatures. At Fontainbleau I saw a horse-race-every thing was wrong; the heaviest weight was put upon the weakest horse, and all the jockeys wore French have a clear air and a fruitful soil; but their mode of common life is gross and incommodious, and disgusting. I am come home convinced that no improvement of general use is to be found among them."-MALONE.

1 Mr. Foote seems to have embellished a little in saying that Johnson did not alter his dress at Paris; as in his journal is a memorandum about white stockings, wig, and hat. In another place we are told that "during his travels in France he was furnished with a French-made wig of handsome construction." That Johnson was not inattentive to his appearance is certain, from a circumstance related by Mr. Steevens, and inserted by Mr. Boswell, between June 15 and June 22, 1784.-J. BLAKEWAY. Mr. Blakeway's observation is further confirmed by a note in Johnzon's diary (quoted by Sir John Hawkins, "Life of Johnson," p. 517), by which it appears that he had laid out thirty pounds in clothes for his French journey.-MALONE.

the same colour coat 2." A GENTLEMAN. "Had you any acquaintance in Paris?" JOHNSON. "No, I did not stay long enough to make any 3. I spoke only Latin, and I could not have much conversation. There

is no good in letting the French have a superiority over you every word you speak. Baretti was sometimes displeased with us for not liking the French." MISS REYNOLDS. "Perhaps he had a kind of partiality for that country, because it was in the way to Italy, and perhaps their manners resembled the Italians." JOHNSON. "No. He was the showman, and we did not like his show; that was all."]

While Johnson was in France, he was generally very resolute in speaking Latin. It was a maxim with him that a man should not let himself down by speaking a language which he speaks imperfectly. Indeed, we must have often observed how in

2 ["On telling Mr. Baretti of the proof that Johnson gave of the stupidity of the French in the management of their horse-races; that all the jockeys wore the same colour coat, &c., he said that was 'like Johnson's remarks-He could not see.'--But it was observed that he could inquire

-'yes,' and it was by the answers he received that he was misled, for he asked what did the first jockey wear? answer, green; what the second? green; what the third? green, which was true; but, then, the greens were all different greens,and very easily distinguished.-Johnson was perpetually making mistakes; so, on going to Fontainbleau, when we were about three-fourths of the way, he exclaimed with amazement, that now we were between Paris and the King of France's court, and yet we had not met one carriage coming from thence, or even one going thither! On which all the company in the coach burst out a laughing, and immediately cried out, ‘Look, look, there is a coach gone by, there is a chariot, there is a postchaise!" I dare say we saw a hundred carriages, at least, that were going to or coming from Fontainbleau."-Baretti in Miss Reynolds's Recollections. It should be added, however, that Miss Reynolds thought that Baretti returned from this tour with some dislike of Johnson, and Johnson not without some coolness towards Baretti, on account, as Baretti said, of Madame du Bocage having paid more attention to him than to Johnson; but this latter assertion could not be true, for Johnson, in his letter to Mr. Levet (ante, p. 9), speaks highly and cordially of Baretti many days after the supposed offence. Miss Reynolds adds that the final rupture between Johnson and Baretti was occasioned by "a most audacious falsehood that the latter told Johnson, that he had beaten Omiah at chess, at Sir Joshua's; for the reverse was the fact." This produced contradiction, dispute, and a violent quarrel, which never was completely made up.-ED.]

3 [This accounts (not quite satisfactorily, perhaps, in a moral view) for the violent prejudices and consequent misrepresentations which his conversation on his return exhibited.—ED.]

feriour, how much like a child a man appears, who speaks a broken tongue. When Sir Joshua Reynolds, at one of the dinners of the royal academy, presented him to a Frenchman of great distinction, he would not deign to speak French, but talked Latin, though his excellency did not understand it, owing, perhaps, to Johnson's English pronunciation: yet upon another occasion he was observed to speak French to a Frenchman of high rank, who spoke English; and being asked the reason, with some expression of surprise, he answered, "because I think my French is as good as his English." Though Johnson understood French perfectly, he could not speak it readily, as I have observed at his first interview with General Paoli, in 1769; yet he wrote it, I imagine, pretty well, as appears from some of his letters in Mrs. Piozzi's collection, of which I shall transcribe

one:

"A MADAME LA COMTESSE DE

1. "16th May, 1771.

"Qui, madame, le moment est arrivé, et il faut que je parte. Mais pourquoi faut il partir? Est ce que je m'ennuye? Je m'ennuyerai ailleurs. Est ce que je cherche ou quelque plaisir, ou quelque soulagement? Je ne cherche rien, je n'espere rien. Aller voir ce que j'ai vù, etre un peu rejoué 2, un peu degouté, me resouvenir que la vie se passe, et qu'elle se passe en vain, me plaindre de moi, m'endurcir aux dehors; voici le tout de ce qu'on compte pour les delices de l'année. Que Dieu vous donne, madame, tous les agrémens de la vie, avec un esprit qui peut en jour sans s'y livrer trop 3."

He spoke Latin with wonderful fluency and elegance. When Pere Boscovich 4 was

1 [See ante, vol. i. p. 44, where it is conjectured that this note was addressed to Madame de Boufflers, which the editor now sees reason to doubt. The date in Mrs. Piozzi's collection, where it first appeared, was 16th May, 1771. In Mr. Boswell's first edition it became 16th July, 1771; and in all the later editions, by a more elaborate error, 16th July, 1775. These two latter dates are manifest mistakes. Madame de Boufflers' visit was in 1769, and in the May of 1771 Johnson was in London, without any intention of leaving it-so that the editor is wholly at a loss to guess to whom or on what occasion he letter was written. Perhaps it was an exercise.-ED.]

2 [This letter, notwithstanding some faults, is very tolerable French; rejoué is probably a printer's error for rejoui, and peut should be puisse.-ED.]

3 [Here followed the anecdote relative to Madame de Boufflers, transferred to v. i. p. 88. -ED.]

4

[See ante, vol. i. p. 170. Boscovich was a

Mur.

m England, Johnson dined in company with him at Sir Joshua Reynolds's, and at Dr. Douglas's, now Bishop of Salisbury. Upon both occasions that celebrated foreigner expressed his astonishment at Johnson's Latin conversation. [The conversation at Dr. Douglas's was at first mostly in Life,p French. Johnson, though thorough- 91. ly versed in that language, and a professed admirer of Boileau and La Bruyere, did not understand its pronunciation, nor could he speak it himself with propriety. For the rest of the evening the talk was in Latin. Boscovich had a ready current flow of that flimsy phraseology with which a priest may travel through Italy, Spain, and Germany. Johnson scorned what he called colloquial barbarisms. It was his pride to speak his best. He went on, after a little practice, with as much facility as if it was his native tongue. One sentence Mr. Murphy remembered. Observing that Fontenelle at first opposed the Newtonian philosophy, and_embraced it afterwards, his words were: Fontinellus, ni fallor, in extremà senectute, fuit transfuga ad castra Newtonianas.] When at Paris, Johnson thus characterised Voltaire to Freron the journalist: "Vir est acerrimi ingenii et paucarum literarum.”

"TO DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON.

"Edinburgh, 5th Dec. 1775. "MY DEAR SIR,-Mr. Alexander Mac lean, the young laird of Col, being to set out to-morrow for London, I give him this letter to introduce him to your acquaintance. The kindness which you and I experienced from his brother, whose unfortunate death we sincerely lament, will make us always desirous to show attention to any branch of the family. Indeed, you have so much of the true Highland cordiality, that I am sure you would have thought me to blame if I

jesuit, born at Ragusa in 1711, who first introduced the Newtonian philosophy into Italy. He visited London in 1760, and was there elected into the Royal Society. He died in 1787.-ED.]

5 [This phrase seems rather too pompous for the occasion. Johnson had probably in his mind a passage in Seneca, quoted in Menagiana (v. ii. p. 46), " Sénéque voulant dire qu'il profitait de ce qu'il y avait de bon dans les auteurs dit, 'Solon sæpe in aliena castra transire; non tanquam transfuga, sed tanquam explorator ;" and this is rendered the more probable because in the same volume of the Menagiana, and within a few pages of each other, are found two other Latin quotations, which Johnson has made use of, the one from Thuanus, " Fami non famæ scribere existimatus Xylandrus." See ante, vol. i. p. 83, n. The other from J. C. Scaliger, "Homo ex alieno ingenio poeta, ex suo tantum ver sificator:" which is the motto Johnson prefixed te his version of the Messiah: ante, v. i. p. 21 ED.]

had neglected to recommend to you this Hebridean prince, in whose island we were hospitably entertained. I ever am, with respectful attachment, my dear sir, your most obliged and most humble servant,

"JAMES BOSWELL."

Mr. Maclean returned with the most agreeable accounts of the polite attention with which he was received by Dr. John

son.

In the course of the year Dr. Burney informs me that "he very frequently met Dr. Johnson at Mr. Thrale's, at Streatham, where they had many long conversations, often sitting up as long as the fire and candles lasted, and much longer than the patience of the servants subsisted."

A few of Johnson's sayings, which that gentleman recollects, shall here be inserted. "I never take a nap after dinner but when I have had a bad night, and then the nap takes me."

Burney.

"The writer of an epitaph should not be considered as saying nothing but what is strictly true. Allowance must be made for some degree of exaggerated praise. In lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath." "There is now less flogging in our great schools than formerly, but then less is learned there; so that what the boys get at one end they lose at the other."

"More is learned in publick than in private schools, from emulation; there is the collision of mind with mind, or the radiation of many minds pointing to one centre. Though few boys make their own exercises, yet if a good exercise is given up, out of a great number of boys, it is made by somebody."

"I hate by-roads in education. Education is as well known, and has long been as well known as ever it can be. Endeavouring to make children prematurely wise is useless labour. Suppose they have more knowledge at five or six years old than other children, what use can be made of it? It will be lost before it is wanted, and the waste of so much time and labour of the teacher can never be repaid. Too much is expected from precocity, and too little performed. Miss1 was an instance of early cultivation, but in what did it terminate? In marrying a little presbyterian parson, who keeps an infant boardingschool, so that all her employment now is, 'To suckle fools, and chronicle small beer.' She tells the children,This is a cat, and that is a dog, with four legs, and a tail; see there! you are much better than a cat or a

1 [Miss Letitia Aiken, who married Mr. Barauld, and published "Easy Lessons for Children.-ED.]

"After having talked slightingly of musick, he was observed to listen very attentively while Miss Thrale played on the harpsichord; and with eagerness he called to her, Why don't you dash away like Burney?' Dr. Burney upon this said to him, I believe, sir, we shall make a musi cian of you at last.' Johnson with candid complacency replied, 'Sir, I shall be glad to have a new sense given to me.""

"He had come down one morning to the breakfast-room, and been a considerable time by himself before any body appeared. When on a subsequent day he was twitted by Mrs. Thrale for being very late, which he generally was, he defended himself by alluding to the extraordinary morning, when he had been too early. Madam, I do not like to come down to vacuity."

6

999

"Dr. Burney having remarked that Mr. Garrick was beginning to look old, he said, Why, sir, you are not to wonder at that; no man's face has had more wear and tear.'

ED.

[Mrs. Montagu's recent kindness to Miss Williams was not lost on Johnson. His letters to that lady became more elaborately respectful, and his subsequent mention of her took, as we shall see. a high tone of panegyric 2.]

["DR. JOHNSON TO MRS. MONTAGu.

"15th Dec. 1775 Montag MSS.

"MADAM,-Having, after my return from a little ramble to France, passed some time in the country, I did not hear, till I was told by Miss Reynolds, that you were in town; and when I did hear it, I heard likewise that you were ill. To have you detained among us by sickness is to enjoy your presence at too dear a rate. I suffer myself to be flattered with hope that only half the intelligence is now true, and that you are now so well as to be able to leave us, and so kind as not to be willing. I am, madam, your most humble servant, "SAM. JOHNSON."]

["DR. JOHNSON TO MRS. MONTagu.

"17th Dec. 1775.

"MADAM,-All that the esteem Montag and reverence of mankind can give MSS. you has been long in your possession, and the little that I can add to the voice of nations will not inuch exalt; of that litt.e, however, you are, I hope, very certain.

"I wonder, madam, if you remember

2 [See ante. v. i. p. 152, and vol. i. p. 405,
n. and post, sub 26th April, 1776.-FD.]