1778,

there are men who have preferred living among favages. Now what a Etat. 69.

wretch must he be, who is content with such conversation as can be had among savages! You may remember an officer at Fort Augustus, who had ferved in America, told us of a woman whom they were obliged to bind, in order to get her back from savage life.” Boswell. “She must have been an animal, a beast.” Johnson. “Sir, she was a speaking cat."

I mentioned to him that I had become very weary in a company where I heard not a single intellectual sentence, except that “a man who had been settled ten years in Minorca was become a much inferiour man to what he was in London, because a man's mind grows narrow in a narrow place.” Johnson. “A man's mind grows narrow in a narrow place, whose mind is enlarged only because he has lived in a large place : but what is got by books and thinking is preserved in a narrow place as well as in a large place. A man cannot know modes of life as well in Minorca as in London ; but he may study mathematicks as well in Minorca.” Boswell. “I don't know, Sir : if you had remained ten years in the Isle of Col, you would not have been the man that you now are. JOHNSON. “Yes, Sir, if I had been there from fifteen to twenty-five; but not if from twenty-five to thirty-five.” Boswell. “I own, Sir, the spirits which I have in London make me do every thing with more readiness and vigour. I can talk twice as much in London as any where else.”

Of Goldsmith he said, “He was not an agreeable companion, for he talked always for fame. A man who does so never can be pleasing. The man who talks to unburthen his mind is the man to delight you. An eminent friend of ours is not so agreeable as the variety of his knowledge would otherwise make him, because he talks partly from ostentation."

Soon after our arrival at Thrale's, I heard one of the maids calling eagerly on another, to go to Dr. Johnson. I wondered what this could mean. I afterwards learnt, that it was to give her a Bible which he had brought from London as a present to her.

He was for a considerable time occupied in reading “ Memoires de Fontenelle ;” leaning and swinging upon the low gate into the court, without his hat.

I looked into Lord Kames's “ Sketches of the History of Man ;” and mentioned to Dr. Johnson his censure of Charles the Fifth, for celebrating his funeral obsequies in his life-tiine, which, I told him, I had been used to think a folemn and affecting act. Johnson. “ Why, Sir, a man may dispose his mind to think so of that act of Charles; but it is so liable to

1778.

Ætat. 691

now.

ridicule, that if one man out of ten thousand laughs at it, he'll make the
other nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine laugh too.” I could not
agree with him in this.

Sir John Pringle had expressed a wish that I would ask Dr. Johnson's
opinion what were the best English sermons for style. I took an oppor-
tunity to-day of mentioning several to him. Atterbury ?

Atterbury ? JOHNSON.

Johnson. “ Yes,
Sir, one of the beít.”

Boswell. “ Tillotson?” Johnson. " Why not

BOSWELL
I should not advise a preacher at this day to imitate Tillotson's style;
though I don't know; I should be cautious of objecting to what has been
applauded by so many suffrages.--South is one of the best, if you except his
peculiarities, and his violence, and sometimes coarseness of language.--Seed
has a very fine style; but he is not very theological. --Jortin's sermons are
very elegant.--Sherlock's style too is very elegant, though he has not
made it his principal study. And you may add Smallridge. All the latter
preachers have a good style. Indeed, nobody now talks much of style :
Every body composes pretty well. There are no such unharmonious periods
as there were a hundred years ago. I should recommend Dr. Clarke's
sermons, were he orthodox. However, it is very well known where he was
not orthodox, which was upon the doctrine of the Trinity, as to which he
is a condemned heretick; fo one is aware of it.” Boswell. “ I like Ogden's
sermons on prayer very much, both for neatness of style and subtilty of
reasoning.” JOHNSON. “I should like to read all that Ogden has written.”
Boswell." “ What I wish to know is, what sermons afford the best specimen
of English pulpit eloquence.” Johnson. “We have no sermons addressed
to the parlions that are good for any thing; if you mean that kind of
eloquence.” A CLERGYMAN. (whose name I do not recollect) “ Were not
Dodd's sermons addressed to the passions ?” Johnson.“ They were nothing,
Sir, be they addressed to what they may.”

At dinner, Mrs. Thrale expressed a wish to go and see Scotland. Johnson.
“ Seeing Scotland, Madam, is only seeing a worse England. It is seeing the
flower gradually fade away to the naked stalk. Seeing the Hebrides, indeed,
is seeing quite a different scene.”

Our poor friend, Mr. Thomas Davies, was soon to have a benefit at Drurylane theatre, as some relief to his unfortunate circumstances. We were all warmly interested for his success, and had contributed to it. However, we thought there was no harm in having our joke when he could not be hurt by it. I proposed that he should be brought on to speak a Prologue upon the occasion; and I began to mutter fragments of what it might be: as, that when Vol. II.

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now

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Etat. 69.

now grown old, he was obliged to cry, “ Poor Tom's a-cold;”--that he

" owned he had been driven from the stage by a Churchill, but that this was no disgrace, for a Churchill had beat the French ;—that he had been fatyrised as “ mouthing a sentence as curs mouth a bone,” but he was now glad of a bone to pick.-—"Nay, (faid Johnson,) I would have him to say,

Mad Tom is come to see the world again."

a

He and I returned to town in the evening. Upon the road I endeavoured to maintain, in argument, that a landed gentleman is not under any obligation to reside upon his estate ; and that by living in London he does no injury to his country. Johnson. “Why, Sir, he does no injury to his country in general, because the money which he draws from it gets back again in circulation ; but to his particular district, his particular parish, he does an injury. All that he has to give away is not given to those who have the first claim to it. And though I have said that the money circulates back, it is a long time before that happens. Then, Sir, a man of family and estate ought to consider himself as having the charge of a district, over which he is to diffuse civility and happiness.”

· Next day I found him at home in the forenoon. He praised Delaney's “ Observations on Swift ;” said that his book and Lord Orrery's might both be true, though one viewed Swift more, and the other less favourably; and that, between both, we might have a complete notion of Swift.

Talking of a man's resolving to deny himself the use of wine, from moral and religious considerations, he said, “ He must not doubt about it. When one doubts as to pleasure, we know what will be the conclusion. I now no more think of drinking wine, than a horse does. The wine

The wine upon the table is no more for me, than for the dog that is under the table.”

On Thursday, April 9, I dined with him at Sir Joshua Reynolds's, with the Bishop of St. Asaph, (Dr. Shipley,) Mr. Allan Ramsay, Mr. Gibbon, Mr. Cambridge, and Mr. Langton. Mr. Ramsay had lately returned from Italy, and entertained us with his observations upon Horace's villa, which he had examined with great care. I relished this much, as it brought fresh into my mind what I had viewed with great pleasure thirteen years before. The Bishop, Dr. Johnson, and Mr. Cambridge, joined with Mr. Ramsay, in recollecting the various lines in Horace relating to the subject.

Horace's journey to Brundufium being mentioned, Johnson observed, that the brook which he describes is to be seen now, exactly as at that time ;

a

and that he had often wondered how it happened, that small brooks, such as 1778. this, kept the same situation for ages, notwithstanding earthquakes, by which dcat.on.

69 even mountains have been changed, and agriculture, which produces such a variation upon the surface of the earth. CAMBRIDGE. “A Spanish writer has this thought in a poetical conceit. After observing that most of the folid structures of Rome are totally perished, while the Tiber remains the fame, he adds,

'Lo que era Firme huió i solamente,

Lo Fugitivo permanece i dura.” JOHNSON. “Sir, that is taken from Janus Vitalis :

immota labefcunt ; Et quæ perpetuò fiunt agitata manent.” The Bishop faid, it appeared from Horace's writings that he was a cheerful contented man. Johnson. “We have no reason to believe that, my Lord.

. Are we to think Pope was happy, because he says so in his writings? We fee in his writings what he wilhed the state of his mind to appear. Dr. Young, who pined for preferment, talks with contempt of it in his writings, and affects to despise every thing that he did not despise.” Bishop of Sr. Asaph. “He was like other chaplains, looking for vacancies: but that is not peculiar to the clergy. I remember when I was with the army, after the battle of Lafeldt, the officers seriously grumbled that no General was killed.” CAMBRIDGE.“ We may believe Horace more when he says,

• Rome Tibur amem ventosus Tibure Romam." BOSWELL. “ How hard is it that man can never be at rest.” Ramsay. “ It is not in his nature to be at rest. When he is at rest he is in the worst state that he can be in, for he has nothing to agitate him. He is then like the man in the Irish song,

There was an old fellow at Ballanacrazy,

Who wanted a wife for to make him unaisy.” . Goldsmith being mentioned, Johnson observed that it was long before his merit came to be acknowledged. That he once complained to him, in. ludicrous terms of distress, “ Whenever I write any thing, the publick make e point to know nothing about it:" but that his “ Traveller" brought him into high reputation. LANGTON, “ There is not one bad line in that poem ;,

pd 2

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not

1778.

Ætat, 69.

not one of Dryden's careless verses.” Sir JOSHUA. “ I was glad to hear Charles Fox fay it was one of the finest poems in the English language.” LANGTON. “ Why was you glad ? You surely had no doubt of this before.” Johnson. “ No; the merit of "The Traveller' is so well established, that Mr. Fox's praise cannot augment it, nor his censure diminish it.” Sir Joshua. “But his friends may suspect they had a too great partiality for him.” Johnson. " Nay, Sir, the partiality of his friends was all against him. It was with difficulty we could give him a hearing. Goldsmith had no settled notions upon any subject; so he talked always at random. It seemed to be his intention to blurt out whatever was in his mind, and see what would become of it. He was angry too when catched in an absurdity; but it did not prevent him from falling into another the next minute. I remember Chamier, after talking with him for some time, said, “Well, I do believe he wrote this poem himself: and, let me tell you, that is believing, a great deal.' Chamier once asked him what he meant by. Now, the last word. in the first line of · The Traveller,'

a

Remote, unfriended, melancholy, Now.?"

Did he mean tardiness of locomotion?. Goldsmith, who would say something without consideration, answered, “Yes.' I was sitting by, and said, “No, Sir; you do not mean tardiness of locomotion; you mean, that nug-. gishness of mind which comes upon a man in solitude.' Chamier believed then that I had written the line, as much as if he had seen me write its Goldsmith, however, was a man, who, whatever he wrote, did it better than: any other man could do. He deserved a place in Westminster-Abbey, and every year he lived, would have deserved it better. He had, indeed; been at : no pains to fill his mind with knowledge. He transplanted it from one place to another; and it did not settle in his mind; so he could not tell: what was ; in his own books."

We talked of living in the country. Johnson. “ No wife man will go to live in the country, unless he has something to do which can be better done in the country. For instance :. if he is to shut himself up for a year to study a science, it is better to look out to the fields, than to an opposite wall.. Then, if a man walks out in the country, there is nobody to keep him from walking in again: but if a man walks out in London, he is not sure when he : shall walk in again. A great city is, to be sure, the school for studying life ; and.“ The proper study of mankind is man,' as Pope observes.”. BOSWELL.. 4.

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