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he did not fay much upon that topick. Mr. Seward heard him once fay, that "a man has a very bad chance for happiness in that state, unless he marries a woman of very strong and fixed principles of religion." He maintained to me, contrary to the common notion, that a woman would not be the worse wife for being learned? in which, from all that I have obferved of Artemifias, I humbly differed from him. That a woman fhould be fenfible and well informed, I allow to be a great advantage; and think that Sir Thomas Overbury*, in his rude vefification, has very judicioufly pointed out that degree of intelligence which is to be defired in a female companion:

"Give me, next good, an understanding wife,

By Nature wife, not learned by much art; "Some knowledge on her fide will all my life "More fcope of converfation impart; "Befides, her inborne virtue fortifie;

"They are most firmly good, who beft know why."

When I cenfured a gentleman of my acquaintance for marrying a fecond time, as it fhewed a difregard of his firft wife, he faid, "Not at all, Sir. On the contrary, were he not to marry again, it might be concluded that his first wife had given him a difguft to marriage; but by taking a fecond wife he pays the higheft compliment to the firft, by fhewing that fhe made him fo happy as a married man, that he wishes to be fo a fecond time." So ingenious a turn did he give to this

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delicate question. And yet, on another occafion, he owned that he once had almost asked a promise of Mrs. Johnson that she would not marry again, but had checked himfelf. Indeed I cannot help thinking, that in his cafe the request would have been unreasonable; for if Mrs. Johnson forgot, or thought it no injury to the memory of her first love, the husband of her youth and the father of her children,-to make a fecond marriage, why should she be precluded from a third, should she be fo inclined? In Johnson's perfevering fond appropriation of his Tetty, even after her decease, he feems totally to have overlooked the prior claim of the honest Birmingham trader. I presume that her having been married before had, at times, given him fome uneafinefs; for I remember his obferving upon the marriage of one of our common friends," He has done a very foolish thing, Sir; he has married a widow, when he might have had a maid."

We drank tea with Mrs. Williams. I had laft year the pleasure of feeing Mrs. Thrale at Dr. Johnson's one morning, and had converfation enough with her to admire her talents, and to fhew her that I was as Johnfonian as herself. Dr. Johnfon had probably been kind enough to speak well of me, for this evening he delivered me a very polite card from Mr. Thrale and her, inviting me to Streatham.

On the 6th of October I complied with this obliging invitation, and found, at an elegant villa, fix miles from Town, every circumstance that can make fociety pleafing. Johnson, though quite at

home,

home, was yet looked up to with an awe, tempered by affection, and feemed to be equally the care of his hoft and hoftefs. I rejoiced at feeing him fo happy.

He played off his wit against Scotland with a good humoured pleasantry, which gave me, though no bigot to national prejudices, an opportunity for a little contest with him. I having said that England was obliged to us for gardeners, almost all their good gardeners being Scotchmen.-JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, that is because gardening is much more neceffary amongst you than with us, which makes fo many of your people learn it. It is all gardening with you. Things which grow wild here, must be cultivated with great care in Scotland. Pray now, (throwing himself back in his chair, and laughing,) are you ever able to bring the floe to perfection?"

I boasted that we had the honour of being the first to abolish the unhofpitable, troublesome, and ungracious cuftom of giving vails to fervants. JOHNSON. "Sir, you abolished vails, because you were too poor to be able to give them."

Mrs. Thrale difputed with him on the merit of Prior. He attacked him powerfully; said, he wrote of love like a man who had never felt it: his love verses were college verfes: and he repeated the fong, "Alexis fhunn'd his fellow fwains," &c, in fo ludicrous a manner, as to make us all wonder how any one could have been pleased with such fantastical stuff. Mrs. Thrale ftood to her gun with great courage, in defence of amorous ditties which Johnson despised, till he at last filenced her

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by

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Ætat. 60.

1769. by faying, "My dear Lady, talk no more of this. Nonsense can be defended but by nonsense."

Etat. 60.

Mrs. Thrale then praised Garrick's talent for light gay poetry; and, as a fpecimen, repeated his fong in Florizel and Perdita," and dwelt with peculiar pleasure on this line:

"I'd smile with the fimple, and feed with the poor."

JOHNSON. "Nay, my dear Lady, this will never do. Poor David! Smile with the fimple? What folly is that. And who would feed with the poor that can help it? No, no; let me fmile with the wife, and feed with the rich." I repeated this fally to Garrick, and wondered to find his fenfibility as a writer not a little irritated by it. To footh him, I obferved, that Johnson spared none of us; and I quoted the paffage in Horace, in which he compares one who attacks his friends for the fake of a laugh, to a pushing ox that is marked by a bunch of hay put upon his horns: " fænum habet in cornu." Aye, (faid Garrick, vehemently,)

he has a whole mow of it."

Talking of hiftory, Johnson said, "We may know hiftorical facts to be true, as we may know facts in common life to be true. Motives are generally unknown. We cannot trust to the characters we find in hiftory, unless when they are drawn by those who knew the perfons; as those, for inftance, by Salluft and by Lord Clarendon.”

He would not allow much merit to Whitefield's oratory. "His popularity, Sir, (faid he,) is chiefly owing to the peculiarity of his manner.

He

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He would be followed by crowds were he to wear a night-cap in the pulpit, or were he to preach from Etat. 60.

a tree."

I know not from what fpirit of contradiction he burst out into a violent declamation against the Corficans, of whofe heroifm I talked in high terms. "Sir, (faid he,) what is all this rout about the Corficans? They have been at war with the Genoefe for upwards of twenty years, and have never yet taken their fortified towns. They might have battered down their walls, and reduced them to powder in twenty years. They might have pulled the walls in pieces, and cracked the ftones with their teeth in twenty years." It was in vain to argue with him upon the want of artillery: he was not to be refifted for the moment.

On the evening of October 10, I prefented Dr. Johnfon to General Paoli. I had greatly wished that two men, for whom I had the highest esteem, fhould meet. They met with a manly eafe, mutually confcious of their own abilities, and of the abilities of each other. The General spoke Italian, and Dr. Johnfon English, and underflood one another very well, with a little aid of interpretation from me, in which I compared myself to an ifthmus which joins two great continents. Upon Johnfon's approach, the General faid, "From what I have read of your works, Sir, and from what Mr. Bofwell has told me of you, I have long held you in great veneration." The General

talked of languages being formed on the particular notions and manners of a people, without knowing which, we cannot know the language. We may

know

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