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1783.

Ætat. 74.

The Earl of Carline having written a tragedy entitled “The Father's Revenge,” some of his Lordship's friends applied to Mrs. Chapone, to prevail on Dr. Johnson to read and give his opinion of it, which he accordingly did, in a letter to that lady. Sir Joshua Reynolds having informed me that this letter was in Lord Carline's possession, though not fortunate enough. to have the honour of being known to his Lordship, trusting to the general courtesy of literature, I wrote to him, requesting the favour of a copy of it, and to be permitted to insert it in my life of Dr. Johnson. His Lordship was so good as to comply with my request, and has thus enabled me to enrich my work with a very fine piece of writing, which displays at once the critical skill and politeness of my illustrious friend; and perhaps the curiosity which it will excite, may induce the noble and elegant authour to gratify the world by the publication of a performance, of which Dr. Johnson has spoken in such terms.

To Mrs. CHAPONE.

* MADAM,

“ BY sending the tragedy to me a second time', I think that a very honourable distinction has been shewn me, and I did not delay the perusal, of which I am now to tell the effect.

" The construction of the play is not completely regular ; the stage is too often vacant, and the scenes are not sufficiently connected. This, however, would be called by Dryden only a mechanical defect; which takes away

little from the power of the poem, and which is seen rather than felt.

“ A rigid examiner of the diction might, perhaps, wish some words changed, and some lines more vigorousy terminated. But from such petty imperfections what writer was ever free?

" The general form and force of the dialogue is of more importance. It seems to want that quickness of reciprocation which characterises the English drama, and is not always sufficiently fervid or animated.

« Of the sentiments, I remember not one that I wished omitted. In the imagery I cannot forbear to distinguish the comparison of joy succeeding grief

• A few copies only of this tragedy have been printed, and given to the authour's friends.

i Dr. Johnson, having been very ill when the tragedy was firft fent to him, had declined the consideration of it.

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1783.

Ætat. 74.

to light rushing on the eye. accustomed to darkness. It seems to have all that can be desired to make it please. It is new, just, and delightful R.

“ With the characters, either as conceived or preserved, I have no fault to find; but was much inclined to congratulate a writer who, in defiance of prejudice and fashion, made the Archbishop a good man, and scorned all thoughtless applause, which a vicious churchman would have brought him.

“ The catastrophe is affecting. The Father and Daughter both culpable, both wretched, and both penitent, divide between them our pity and our sorrow.

“ Thus, Madam, I have performed what I did not willingly undertake, and could not decently refuse. The noble writer will be pleased to remember, that sincere criticism ought to raise no resentment, because judgement is not under the controul of will; but involuntary criticism, as it has still less of choice, ought to be more remote from possibility of offence. I am, &c. “ Nov. 28, 1783.

SA M. JOHNSON.”

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I consulted him on two questions, of a very different nature : one, whether : the unconftitutional influence exercised by the Peers of Scotland in the election : of the representatives of the Commons, by means of fictitious qualifications, ought not to be resisted ?-the other, What, in propriety and humanity, should be done with old horses unable to labour? I gave him fome account of

my life at Auchinleck; and expressed my satisfaction that the gentlemen of the county had, at two publick meetings, elected me their. Prefes, or. Chairman.

To James Boswell, Esq. a DEAR SIR,

“ LIKE all other men who have great friends, you begin to feel the pangs of neglected merit, and all the comfort that I can give you is, by 'telling you that you have probably more pangs to feel, and more neglect to fuffer. You have, indeed, begun to complain too soon; and I hope I am: the only confidant of your discontent. Your friends have not yet had leisure :

• • I could have borne my woes; that stranger Joy
“ Wounds while it fmiles :-The long-imprison'd wretch,

Emerging from the night of his damp cell,
“ Shrinks from the sun's bright beams; and that which flings-
" Gladness o'er all, to him is agony."

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to gratify personal kindness; they have hitherto been busy in strengthening
their ministerial interest. If a vacancy happens in Scotland, give them early
intelligence; and as you can serve Government as powerfully as any of your
probable competitors, you may make in some fort a warrantable claim.

“ Of the exaltations and depressions of your mind you delight to talk, and
I hate to hear. Drive all such fancies from you.

« On the day when I received your letter, I think, the foregoing page was written ; to which, one disease or another has hindered me from making

additions. I am now a little better. But sickness and solitude press me very heavily. I could bear sickness better, if I were relieved from solitude.

« The present dreadful confusion of the publick ought to make you wrap yourself up in your hereditary possessions, which, though less than you may wish, are more than you can want; and in an hour of religious retirement return thanks to God, who has exempted you from any strong temptation to faction, treachery, plunder, and disoyalty.

“ As your neighbours distinguish you by such honours as they can bestow, content yourself with your station, without neglecting your profesion. Your estate and the Courts will find you full employment; and your mind well occupied will be quiet.

“ The usurpation of the nobility, for they apparently usurp all the influence they gain by fraud, and misrepresentation, I think it certainly lawful, perhaps your duty to resist. What is not their own they have only by robbery.

“ Your question about the horses gives me more perplexity. I know not well what advice to give you. I can only recommend a rule which you do not want-give as little pain as you can. I suppose that we have a right to their service while their strength lasts; what we can do with them afterwards I cannot so easily determine. But let us consider. Nobody denies that man has a right first to milk the cow, and to sheer the sheep, and then to kill them for his table. May he not, by parity of reason, first work a horse, and then kill him the easiest way, that he may have the means of another horse, or food for cows and sheep? Man is influenced in both cases by different motives of self-interest. He that rejects the one must reject the other.

“ I am, &c. “ London, Dec. 24, 1783.

SAM. Johnson

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« A happy and pious Christmas; and many happy years to you, your
lady, and children.”

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The late ingenious Mr. Mickle, some time before his death, wrote me a 1783. letter concerning Dr. Johnson, in which he mentions, “I was upwards of Ætat. 74. twelve years acquainted with him, was frequently in his company, always talked with ease to him, and can truly say, that I never received from him one rough word.”

In this letter he relates his having, while engaged in translating the Lusiad, had a dispute of considerable length with Johnson, who, as, usual declaimed upon the misery and corruption of a sea life, and used this expression :-" It had been happy for the world, Sir, if your hero Gama, Prince Henry of Portugal, and Columbus, had never been born, or that their schemes had never gone farther than their own imaginations.”-“This sentiment, (says Mr. Mickle,) which is to be found in his · Introduction to the World displayed,' I, in my Differtation prefixed to the Lusiad, have controverted; and though authours are said to be bad judges of their own works, I am not ashamed to own to a friend, that that dissertation is my favourite above all that I ever attempted in prose. Next year, when the Lusiad was published, I waited on Dr. Johnson, who addressed me with one of his good-humoured smiles :-- Well, you have remembered our dispute about Prince Henry, and have cited me too. You have done your part very well indeed; you have made the best of your argument: but I am not convinced yet.'

« Before publishing the Lusiad, I sent Mr. Hoole a proof of that part of the introduction, in which I make mention of Dr. Johnson, yourself, and other wellwishers to the work, begging it might be shewn to Dr. Johnson. This was accordingly done; and in place of the simple mention of him which I had made, he dictated to Mr. Hoole the sentence as it now stands.

“ Dr. Johnson told me in 1772, that about twenty years before that time, he himself had a design to translate the Lusiad, of the merit of which he spoke highly, but had been prevented by a number of other engagements.”

Mr. Mickle reminds me in this letter of a conversation, when dining one day at Mr. Hoole’s with Dr. Johnson, when Mr. Nicol, the King's bookseller, and I attempted to controvert the maxim, “Better that ten guilty should escape, than one innocent person suffer;” and were answered by Dr. Johnson with great power of reasoning and eloquence. I am very sorry that I have no record of that day; but I well recollect my illustrious friend's having ably shewn, that unless civil institutions insure protection to the innocent, all the confidence which mankind should have in them would be lost,

I shall here mention what should properly have appeared in my account of last year, though the controversy was not closed till this. The Reverend Vol. II.

Mr.

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1783 Mr. Shaw, a native of one of the Hebrides, having entertained doubts of the
Ætat. 74. authenticity of the poems ascribed to Ollian, divested himself of national

bigotry; and having travelled in the Highlands and Inands of Scotland, and
also in Ireland, in order to furnish himself with materials for a Gaelick
Dictionary, which he afterwards compiled, was so fully satisfied that Dr.
Johnson was in the right upon the question, that he fairly published a pam-
phlet, stating his conviction, and the proofs and reasons on which it was
founded. A person at Edinburgh, of the name of Clark, answered this
pamphlet with much zeal, and much abuse of its authour. Johnson took
Mr. Shaw under his protection, and gave him his aslistance in writing a reply,
which has been admired by the best judges, and by many been considered
as conclusive. A few paragraphs, which sufficiently mark their great authour,
shall be felected.

“ My affertions are, for the most part, purely negative: I deny the
existence of Fingal, because in a long and curious peregrination through the
Gaelick regions I have never been able to find it. What I could not see
myself I suspect to be equally invisible to others; and I suspect with the more
reason, as among all those who have seen it no man can shew it.

“ Mr. Clark compares the obstinacy of those who disbelieve the genuineness of Oman to a blind man, who should dispute the reality of colours, and deny that the British troops are cloathed-in red. The blind man's doubt would be rational, if he did not know by experience that others have a power which he himself wants: but what perspicacity has Mr. Clark which Nature has with-held from me or the rest of mankind ?

« The true state of the parallel must be this. Suppose a man, with eyes like his neighbours, was told by a boasting corporal, that the troops, indeed, wore red clothes for their ordinary dress, but that every soldier had likewise a suit of black velvet, which he put on when the King reviews them. This he thinks strange, and desires to see the fine clothes, but finds nobody in forty thousand men that can produce either coat or waistcoat. One, indeed, has left them in his chest at Port Mahon; another has always heard that he ought to have velvet clothes lomewhere; and a third has heard somebody say, that foldiers ought to wear velvet. Can the enquirer be blamed if he goes away believing that a soldier's red coat is all that he has ?

“ But the most obdurate incredulity may be shamed or silenced by facts. To overpower contradictions, let the soldier shew his velvet coat, and the Fingalist the original of Oman.

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