On Easter-day we find the following emphatic prayer : "Almighty and most merciful Father, who seest all our miseries, and knowest all our necessities, look down upon me and pity me. Defend me from the violent incursion of evil thoughts, and enable me to form and keep such resolutions as may conduce to the discharge of the duties which thy providence shall appoint me; and so help me, by thy Holy Spirit, that my heart may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found, and that I may serve thee with pure affection and a cheerful mind. Have mercy upon me, O God, have mercy upon me! Years and infirmities oppress me; terror and anxiety beset me. Have mercy upon me, my Creator and my Judge! In all dangers protect me; in all perplexities relieve and free me; and so help me by thy Holy Spirit, that I may now so commemorate the death of thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ, as that, when this short and painful life shall have an end, I may, for his sake, be received to everlasting happiness. Amen." (P. 151.) While he was at church, the agreeable impressions upon his mind are thus commemorated :— "On Easter-day I was at church early, and there prayed over my prayer, and commended Tetty and my other friends. I was for some time much distressed, but at last obtained, I hope, from the God of Peace, more quiet than I have enjoyed for a long time. I had made no resolution, but as my heart grew lighter, my hopes revived, and my courage increased; and I wrote with my pencil in my Common Prayer-Book : 'Vita ordinanda. Theologiæ opera danda. Serviendum et lætandum."" Mr. Steevens, whose generosity is well known, joined Dr. Johnson in kind assistance to a female relation of Dr. Goldsmith, and desired that, on her return to Ireland, she would procure authentic particulars of the life of her celebrated relation. Concerning her is the following letter : "DEAR SIR, TO GEORGE STEEVENS, ESQ. "Feb. 25, 1777. "You will be glad to hear that, from Mrs. Goldsmith, whom we lamented as drowned, I have received a letter full of gratitude to us all, with promise to make the enquiries which we recommended to her. I would have had the honour of conveying this intelligence to Miss Caulfield, but that her letter is not at hand, and I know not the direction. You will tell the good news. I am, Sir, &c., "My state of epistolary accounts with you at present is extraordinary. The balance, as to number, is on your side. I am indebted to you for two letters: one dated the 16th of November, upon which very day I wrote to you, so that our letters were exactly exchanged; and one dated the 21st of December last. "My heart was warmed with gratitude by the truly kind contents of both of them; and it is amazing and vexing that I have allowed so much time to elapse without writing to you. But delay is inherent in me, by nature or by bad habit. I waited till I should have an opportunity of paying you my compliments on a new year. I have procrastinated till the year is no longer new. "Dr. Memis's cause was determined against him, with £40 costs. The lord president, and two other of the judges, dissented from the majority upon this ground: that although there may have been no intention to injure him by calling him Doctor of Medicine instead of Physician; yet, as he remonstrated against the designation before the charter was printed off, and represented that it was disagreeable, and even hurtful to him, it was ill-natured to refuse to alter it, and let him have the designation to which he was certainly entitled. My opinion is, that our court has judged wrong. The defendants were in malâ fide, to persist in naming him in a way that he disliked. You remember poor Goldsmith, when he grew important, and wished to appear Doctor Major, could not bear your calling him Goldy. Would it not have been wrong to have named him so in your 'Preface to Shakspeare,' or in any serious permanent writing of any sort? The difficulty is, whether an action should be allowed on such petty wrongs. De minimis non curat lex. "The negro cause is not yet decided. A memorial is preparing on the side of slavery. I shall send you a copy as soon as it is printed. Maclaurin is made happy by your approbation of his memorial for the black. Macquarry was here in the winter, and we passed an evening together. The sale of his estate cannot be prevented. "Sir Allan Maclean's suit against the Duke of Argyle, for recovering the ancient inheritance of his family, is now fairly before all our judges. I spoke for him yesterday, and Maclaurin to-day; Crosbie spoke to-day against him. Three more counsel are to be heard, and next week the cause will be determined. I send you the informations, or cases, on each side, which I hope you will read. You said to me, when we were under Sir Allan's hospitable roof, 'I will help you with my pen.' You said it with a generous glow; and though his Grace of Arygle did afterwards mount you upon an excellent horse, upon which 'you looked like a bishop,' you must not swerve from your purpose at Inchkenneth. I wish you may understand the points at issue, amidst our Scotch law principles and phrases." [Here followed a full state of the case, in which I endeavoured to make it as clear as I could to an Englishman who had no knowledge of the formularies and technical language of the law of Scotland.] "I shall inform you how the cause is decided here. But as it may be brought under the review of our judges, and is certainly to be carried by appeal to the House of Lords, the assistance of such a mind as yours will be of consequence. Your paper on Vicious Intromission is a noble proof of what you can do even in Scotch law. * "I have not yet distributed all your books, Lord Hailes and Lord Monboddo have each received one, and return you thanks. Monboddo dined with me lately, and, having drunk tea, we were a good while by ourselves; and as I knew that he had read the 'journey' superficially, as he did not talk of it as I wished, I brought it to him, and read aloud several passages; and then he talked so, that I told him he was to have a copy from the author. He begged that might be marked on it. **** I ever am, my dear Sir, your most faithful and affectionate humble servant, "JAMES BOSWELL." SIR ALEXANDER DICK TO DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. "Prestonfield, Feb. 17, 1777. "SIR, "I had yesterday the honour of receiving your book of your' Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland,' which you were so good as to send me, by the hands of our mutual friend Mr. Boswell of Auchinleck; for which I return you my most hearty thanks; and, after carefully reading it over again, shall deposit it in my little collection of choice books, next our worthy friend's 'Journey to Corsica.' As there are many things to admire in both performances, I have often wished that no travels or journey should be published but those undertaken by persons of integrity, and capacity to judge well, and describe faithfully and in good language, the situation, condition, and manners of the countries passed through. Indeed, our country of Scotland, in spite of the union of the crowns, is still in most places so devoid of clothing or cover from hedges and plantations, that it was well you gave your readers a sound Monitoire with respect to that circumstance. The truths you have told, and the purity of the language in which they are expressed, as your 'Journey' is universally read, may, and already appear to, have a very good effect. For a man of my acquaintance, who has the largest nursery for trees and hedges in the country, tells me, that of late the demand upon him for these articles is doubled, and sometimes tripled. I have, therefore, listed Dr. Samuel Johnson in some of my memorandums of the principal planters and favourers of the enclosures, under a name which I took the liberty to invent from the Greek, Pappadendrion. Lord Auchinleck and some few more are of the list. I am told that one gentleman in the shire of Aberdeen, viz. Sir Archibald Grant, has planted above fifty millions of trees on a piece of very wild ground at Monimusk: I must enquire if he has fenced them well, before he enters my list; for that is the soul of enclosing. I began myself to plant a little, our ground being too valuable for much, and that is now fifty years ago; and the trees, now in my seventy-fourth year, I look up to with reverence, and show them to my eldest son, now in his fifteenth year; and they are the full height of my country-house here, where I had the pleasure of receiving you, and hope again to have that satisfaction with our mutual friend, Mr. Boswell. I shall always continue, with the truest esteem, dear Doctor, &c., "ALEXANDER DICK."1 1 For a character of this very amiable man, see Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3rd ed. p. 36. "DEAR SIR, TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. "Feb. 18, 1777. "It is so long since I heard any thing from you,1 that I am not easy about it: write something to me next post. When you sent your last letter, every thing seemed to be mending; I hope nothing has lately grown worse. I suppose young Alexander continues to thrive, and Veronica is now very pretty company. I do not suppose the lady is yet reconciled to me; yet let her know that I love her very well, and value her very much. "Dr. Blair is printing some sermons. If they are all like the first, which I have read, they are sermones aurei, ac auro magis aurei. It is excellently written both as to doctrine and language. Mr. Watson's book 2 seems to be much esteemed. "Poor Beauclerk still continues very ill. Langton lives on as he used to do. His children are very pretty, and, I think, his lady loses her Scotch.3 Paoli I never see. "I have been so distressed by difficulty of breathing, that I lost, as was computed, six-and-thirty ounces of blood in a few days. I am better, but not well. "I wish you would be vigilant and get me Graham's 'Telemachus' that was printed at Glasgow, a very little book; and 'Johnstoni Poemata,' another little book, printed at Middleburgh. "Mrs. Williams sends her compliments, and promises that when you come hither she will accommodate you as well as ever she can in the old room. She wishes to know whether you sent her book to Sir 1 By the then course of the post, my long letter of the 14th had not yet reached him. 2 History of Philip the Second. Robert Watson, born at St. Andrew's, about 1730, was successively Professor of Logic, then of Rhetoric and belles lettres, and died, Principal, in 1780. He commenced also the History of Philip III., but completed only four books. It was finished by Dr. William Thomson and published in 4to, 1783.-Editor. 3 Lady Rothes was a native of England, but she had lived long in Scotland, and never, it is said, entirely lost the accent she had acquired there. -Croker. |