style, under the title of "Lexiphanes." Sir John Hawkins ascribes it to Dr. Kenrick; but its author was one Campbell, a Scotch purser in the navy. The ridicule consisted in applying Johnson's "words of large meaning" to insignificant matters, as if one should put the armour of Goliath upon a dwarf. The contrast might be laughable; but the dignity of the armour must remain the same in all considerate minds. This malicious drollery, therefore, it may easily be supposed, could do no harm to its illustrious object. JOHNSON TO LANGTON, At Mr. Rothwell's, Perfumer, in New Bond Street. "Lichfield, Oct. 10. 1767. "DEAR SIR,That you have been all summer in London is one more reason for which I regret my long stay in the country, I hope that you will not leave the town before my return. We have here only the chance of vacancies in the passing carriages, and I have bespoken one that may, if it happens, bring me to town on the fourteenth of this month; but this is not certain. It will be a favour if you communicate this to Mrs. Williams: I long to see all my friends. I am, dear Sir, your most humble servant, SAM. JOHNSON." [JOHNSON TO MRS. ASTON.3 "Nov. 17. 1767. "MADAM,- If you impute it to disrespect or inattention, that I took no leave when I left Lichfield, you will do me great injustice. I know you too well not to value your friendship. When I came to Oxford I inquired after the product of our walnut-tree, but it had, like other trees this year, but very few nuts, and for those few I came too late. The tree, as I told you, Madam, we cannot find to be more than thirty years old, and, upon measuring it, I found it, at about one foot from the ground, seven feet in circumference, and at the height of about seven feet, the circumference is tive feet and a half; it would have been, I believe, still bigger, but that it has been lopped. The nuts are small, such as they call single nuts; whether this nut is of quicker growth than better I have not yet inquired; such as they are, I hope to send them next year. It may have been malicious, but it certainly is not droll. It is so overcharged, as to have neither resemblance nor pleasantry. Hawkins, in his second edition, (published long Hoswell) had corrected his error, and attributed it to CHOKER. Archibald Campbell, son of Professor Campbell Archibald Campbell, of St. Andrew's, was also author of "The Sale of Authors; a Dialogue, in imitation of Lucian." ANDERNON * We have just seen that he was detained till the 18th. * CHOKER. 4 Elizabeth, one of the younger daughters of Sir Thomas Some letters of Johnson to Aston see ask, p. 20, n. 4. Mys. Aston, cominimicated to me after that note was first printed, are in a uniform spirit of tenderness and respect, and, even if of no other value, afford an additional proof of the Inaccuracy of Miss Seward. A bundle of her letters were destroyed by Johnson just before his death, with a strong expression of regard and regret for the writer.- CROKER. It appears that he visited, with the Thrales, (though Mr. Boswell never mentions it,) Mr. Brooke of Town-malling, of whose primitive house and manners we find some account In the Lettera. Some "You know, dear Madam, the liberty I took of hinting, that I did not think your present mode of life very pregnant with happiness. Reflection has not yet changed my opinion. Solitude excludes pleasure, and does not always secure peace. communication of sentiments is commonly necessary to give vent to the imagination, and discharge the mind of its own flatulencies. Some lady surely might be found, in whose conversation you might delight, and in whose fidelity you might repose. The World, says Locke, has people of all sorts. You will forgive me this obtrusion of my opinion; I am sure I wish you well. "Poor Kitty has done what we have all to do, and Lucy has the world to begin anew: I hope she will find some way to more content than I left her possessing. "Be pleased to make my compliments to Mrs. Hinckley and Miss Turton. I am, Madam, your most obliged and most humble servant, -Parker MSS. “SAM. JOHNSON."] "Dr. Johnson to Mrs. Thrale, 23d August, 1777.-" It was very well done by Mr. Brooke to send for you. His house is one of my favourite places. His water is very commodious, and the whole place has the true old appearance of a little country town." "Mrs. Thrale to Dr. Johnson, 13th September, 1777.— "Come, here is news of Town-Malling, the quiet oldfashioned place in Kent, that you liked so, because it was agreeable to your own notions of a rural life. I believe we were the first people, except the master of it, who had, for many years, taken delight in the old coach without springs, the two roasted ducks in one dish, the fortified Bower. garden, and fir-trees cut in figures. A spirit of innovation has however reached even there at last. The roads are mended; no more narrow shaded lanes, but clear open turn. pike trotting. A yew hedge, or an eugh hedge if you will, newly cut down too by his nephew's desire. Ah! those nephews. And a wall pulled away, which bore incomparable fruit to call in the country - is the phrase. Mr. Thrale is wicked enough to urge on these rough reformers: how it will end I know not. For your comfort, the square canals still drop into one another, and the chocolate is still made in the life. How the last year has past, I am unwilling to terrify myself with thinking. This day has been past in great perturbation: I was distracted at church in an uncommon degree, and my distress has had very little intermission. I have found myseif somewhat relieved by reading, which I therefore intend to practise when I am able. This day it came into my mind to write the history of my melancholy. On this I purpose to deliberate; I know not whether it may not too much disturb me." Nothing of his writings was given to the public this year, except the Prologue to his friend Goldsmith's comedy of "The Goodnatured Man.” The first lines of this Prologue are strongly characteristical of the dismal gloom of his mind; which in his case, as in the case of all who are distressed with the same malady of imagination, transfers to others its own feelings. Who could suppose it was to introduce a comedy, when Mr. Bensley solemnly began, "Press'd with the load of life, the weary mind Surveys the general toil of human kind." But this dark ground might make Goldsmith's humour shine the more.' In the spring of this year, having published my "Account of Corsica, with the Journal of 3 Tour to that Island," I returned to London, very desirous to see Dr. Johnson, and hear him upon the subject. I found he was at Oxford, with his friend Mr. Chambers, who was now Vinerian Professor, and lived in New-Inn Hall. Having had no letter from him since that in which he criticised the Latinity of my Thesis, and having been told by somebody that he was offended at my having put into my book an extract of his letter to me at Paris, I was impatient to be with him, and therefore followed him to Oxford, where I was entertained by Mr. Chambers, with a civility which I shall ever gratefully remember. I found that Dr. Johnson had sent a letter to me to Scotland, and that I had nothing to complain of but his being more indifferent to my anxiety than I wished him to be. Instead of giving, with the circumstances of time and place, such fragments of his conversation as I preserved during this visit to Oxford, I shall throw them together in continuation. I asked him whether, as a moralist, he did not think that the practice of the law, in some JOHNSON. "Why no, Sir, if you act properly. degree, hurt the nice feeling of honesty. You are not to deceive your clients with false representations of your opinion: you are not BOSWELL. "But to tell lies to a Judge." what do you think of supporting a cause which you know to be bad?" JOHNSON. "Sir, you do not know it to be good or bad till the Judge determines it. I have said that you are to state facts fairly: so that your thinking, or what you call knowing, a cause to be bad, must be from reasoning, must be from your supposing your arguments to be weak and inconclusive. But, Sir, that is not enough. An argument which does not convince yourself, may convince the judge to whom you urge it : and if it does convince him, why, then, Sir, you are wrong, and he is right. It is his business to judge; and you are not to be confident in your own opinion that a cause is bad, but to say all you can for your client, and then hear the judge's opinion." BOSWELL. "But, Sir, does not affecting a warmth when you have no warmth, and appearing to be clearly of one opinion when you are in reality of another opinion, does not such dissimulation impair one's honesty? Is there not some danger that a lawyer may put on the same mask in common life, in the intercourse with his friends?" JOHNSON. "Why no, Sir. Every body knows you are paid for affecting warmth for your client; and it is, therefore, properly no dissimulation: the moment you come from the bar you resume your usual behaviour. Sir, a man will no more carry the artifice of the bar into the common intercourse of society, than a man who is paid for tumbling upon his hands will continue to tumble upon his hands when he should walk on his feet."3 room by a maid, who curtsies as she presents every cup. Dear old Daddy Brooke looks well, and even handsome, at eighty-one years old; while I saw his sister, who is ninety-strangely, all (I mean) that relates to Paoli. He is a man four years old and calls him Frankey, eat more venison at a sitting than Mr. Thrale. These are the proper contemplations of this season. May my daughter and my friend but enjoy life as long, and use it as innocently as these sweet people have done. The sight of such a family consoles one's heart."-CROKER. In this prologue, after the line-"And social sorrow loses half its pain," the following couplet was inserted :— Amidst the toils of this returning year, So the prologue appeared in the Public Advertiser. Goldsmith probably thought that the lines printed in Italic characters might give offence, and therefore prevailed on Johnson to omit them. The epithet little, which perhaps the author thought might diminish his dignity, was also changed to anrious. - MALONE. Goldsmith was low in stature, a circumstance often alluded to by his contemporaries.- CHOKER. 2 "Mr. Boswell's book I was going to recommend to you when I received your letter: it has pleased and moved me born two thousand years after his time! The pamphlet proves what I have always maintained, that any fool may write a most valuable book by chance, if he will only tell us what he beard and saw with veracity. Of Mr. Boswell's truth I have not the least suspicion, because I am sure he could invent nothing of this kind. The true title of this part of his work is, a Dialogue between a Green-Goose and a Hero. Gray to Horace Walpole, Feb. 25. 1768.-CROKER, 1846. 3 See post, Aug. 15. 1773, where Johnson has supported the same agument. J. BosWELL, jun. Cicero touches this question more than once, but never with much confidence. "Atqui etiam hoc præceptum officii diligenter tenendum est, ne quem unquam innocentem judicio capitis arcessas; id, ením, sine scelere fieri nullo pacto potest. Nec tamen, ut hoc fugiendum est, ita habendum est religioni, nocentem aliquando, modo ne nefarium impiumque, defendere. Vult hoc multitudo, patitur consuetudo, fert etiam humanitas. Judicis est semper in causas verum sequi, patroni nonnunquam verisimile, etiamsi minus sit verum, defendere." (De Off. 1. 2. c. 14.) We might have expected a less conditional and apologetical defence of his own profession from the great philosophical orator.—CROKER. Johnson proceeded: "Even Sir Francis Wronghead is a character of manners, though drawn with great humour." He then repeated, very happily, all Sir Francis's credulous account to Manly of his being with "the great man," and securing a place. I asked him, if "The Suspicious Husband " 5 did not furnish a well-drawn character, that of Ranger. JOHNsex. "No, Sir; Ranger is just a rake, a mere rae, and a lively young fellow, but no character. Talking of some of the modern plays, he Fielding would make him, is an amiable memsaid, "False Delicacy" was totally void of ber of society, and may be led on by more character. He praised Goldsmith's "Good-regulated instructors, to a higher state of natured Man;" said it was the best comedy ethical perfection.3 that had appeared since "The Provoked Husband," and that there had not been of late any such character exhibited on the stage as that of Croaker. I observed it was the Suspirius of his Rambler [No. 59.]. He said, Goldsmith had owned he had borrowed it from thence. "Sir," continued he," there is all the difference in the world between characters of nature and characters of manners; and there is the difference between the characters of Fielding and those of Richardson. Characters of manners are very entertaining; but they are to be understood, by a more superficial observer than characters of nature, where a man must dive into the recesses of the human heart." It always appeared to me, that he estimated the compositions of Richardson too highly 2, and that he had an unreasonable prejudice against Fielding. In comparing those two writers, he used this expression; "that there was as great a difference between them, as between a man who knew how a watch was made, and a man who could tell the hour by looking on the dial-plate." This was a short and figurative state of his distinction between drawing characters of nature and characters only of manners. But I cannot help being of opinion, that the neat watches of Fielding are as well constructed as the large clocks of Richardson, and that his dial-plates are brighter. Fielding's characters, though they do not expand themselves so widely in dissertation, are as just pictures of human nature, and I will venture to say, have more striking features, and nicer touches of the pencil; and, though Johnson used to quote with approbation a saying of Richardson's, "that the virtues of Fielding's heroes were the vices of a truly good man," I will venture to add, that the moral tendency of Fielding's writings, though it does not encourage a strained and rarely possible virtue, is ever favourable to honour and honesty, and cherishes the benevolent and generous affections. He who is as good as The great Douglas Cause was at this time a very general subject of discussion. I found be had not studied it with much attention, but had only heard parts of it occasionally. He, however, talked of it, and said, "I am of opinion that positive proof of fraud should not be required of the plaintiff, but that the Judges should decide according as probability shall appear to preponderate, granting to the defendant the presumption of filiation to be strong in his favour. And I think too, that a good deal of weight should be allowed to the dying declarations, because they were spontaneous. There is a great difference between | what is said without our being urged to it, sed what is said from a kind of compulsion. If I praise a man's book without being asked my opinion of it, that is honest praise, to which one may trust. But if an author asks me if I like his book, and I give him something like praise, it must not be taken as my real opinion." "I have not been troubled for a long time with authors desiring my opinion of their works. I used once to be sadly plagued with a man who wrote verses, but who literally had no other notion of a verse, but that it consisted of ten syllables. Lay your knife and your fork across your plate, was to him a verse: Lay your knife and your fōrk across your plate. As he wrote a great number of verses, be sometimes by chance made good ones, though. he did not know it."7 He renewed his promise of coming to Sect 1 By Hugh Kelly, the poetical staymaker: he died, an. ætat. 38, Feb. 3. 1777. — CROKER. 2 See post, April 6. 1772.-C. 3" Johnson," says Hawkins, was inclined, as being personally acquainted with Richardson, to favour the opinion of his admirers; but he seemed not firm in it, and could at any time he talked into a disapprobation of all fictitious relations, of which he would frequently say, they took no hold of the mind"-CROKER. 4 In The Provoked Husband, begun by Sir John Vanbrugh, and finished by Colley Cibber. — WRIGHT. By Dr. Benjamin Hoadly. Garrick's inimitable performance of Ranger was the main support of the plece during its first run. George 11. was so well pleased with this comedy, that he sent the author one hundred pounds Wright. Horace Walpole gives as a reason of George the Second's favour, that one of the causes of suspicion against the innocent heroine (the finding Ranger's hat) was the same with one of those alleged against his mother, the Electress Dorothea - the hat of Count Konigsmark (the same who caused the murder of Mr. Thynne) having been found 6 Boswell, who was counsel on the side of Mr. Diss. 7 Dr. Johnson did not like that his friends shentë land, and going with me to the Hebrides, but said he would now content himself with seeing one or two of the most curious of them. He said, "Macaulay, who writes the account of St. Kilda, set out with a prejudice against prejudice, and wanted to be a smart modern thinker; and yet he affirms for a truth, that when a ship arrives there all the inhabitants are seized with a cold." Dr. John Campbell, the celebrated writer', took a great deal of pains to ascertain this fact, and attempted to account for it on physical principles, from the effect of effluvia from human bodies. Johnson, at another time [March 21. 1772], praised Macaulay for his "magnanimity," in asserting this wonderful story, because it was well attested. A lady of Norfolk, by a letter [Oct. 2. 1773], to my friend Dr. Burney, has favoured me with the following solution: « Now for the explication of this seeming mystery, which is so very obvious as, for that reason, to have escaped the penetration of Dr. Johnson and his friend, as well as that of the author. Reading the book with my ingenious friend, the late Rev. Mr. Christian of Docking - after ruminating a little, The cause,' says he, is a natural one. The situation of St. Kilda renders a north-east wind indispensably necessary before a stranger can land. The wind, not the stranger, occasions an epidemic cold. If I am not mistaken, Mr. Macaulay is dead; if living, this solution might please him, as I hope it will Mr. Boswell, in return for the many agreeable hours his works have afforded us.' Johnson expatiated on the advantages of Oxford for learning. "There is here, Sir," said he, "such a progressive emulation. The students are anxious to appear well to their tutors; the tutors are anxious to have their pupils appear well in the college; the colleges are anxious to have their students appear well in the university; and there are excellent rules of discipline in every college. That the rules are sometimes ill observed may be true, but is nothing against the system. The members of an university may, for a season, be unmindful of their duty. I am arguing for the excellency of the institution." Of Guthrie, he said, "Sir, he is a man of parts. He has no great regular fund of knowledge; but by reading so long, and writing so long, he no doubt has picked up a good Lichfield, but had grown very weary before he left it. BosWELL. "I wonder at that, Sir; it is your native place." JOHNSON. Why so is Scotland your native place." His prejudice against Scotland appeared remarkably strong at this time. When I talked of our advancement in literature, "Sir," said he, "you have learnt a little from us, and you think yourselves very great men. Hume would never have written history, had not Voltaire written it before him. He is an echo of Voltaire." BOSWELL. "But, Sir, we have lord Kames." JOHNSON. "You have lord Kames. Keep him; ha, ha, ha! We don't envy you him. Do you ever see Dr. Robertson? BOSWELL. "Yes, Sir." JOHNSON. "Does the dog talk of me?" BOSWELL. Indeed, Sir, he does, and loves you.” Thinking that I now had him in a corner, and being solicitous for the literary fame of my country, Dr. Robertson's History of Scotland. I pressed him for his opinion on the merit of But to my surprise, he escaped. -"Sir, I love Robertson, and I won't talk of his book." 66 It is but justice both to him and Dr. Robertson to add, that though he indulged himself in this sally of wit, he had too good taste not to be fully sensible of the merits of that admirable work.3 An essay, written by Mr. Dean, a divine of the Church of England, maintaining the future life of brutes, by an explication of certain parts of the Scriptures, was mentioned, and the doctrine insisted on by a gentleman who seemed fond of curious speculation; Johnson, who did not like to hear of any thing concerning a future state which was not authorised by the regular canons of orthodoxy, discouraged this talk; and being offended at its continuation, he watched an opportunity to give the gentleman a blow of reprehension. So, when the poor speculatist, with a serious metaphysical pensive face, addressed him, "But really, Sir, when we see a very sensible dog, we don't know what to think of him;" Johnson, rolling with joy at the thought which beamed in his eye, turned quickly round, and replied, “True, Sir: and when we see a very foolish fellow, we don't know what to think of him." He then rose up, strided to the fire, and stood for some time laughing and exulting. I told him that I had several times, when in Italy, seen the experiment of placing a scorpion within a circle of burning coals; that it ran sisted in repeating these assertions. Dr. Johnson, on every occasion, seems to have expressed a great contempt for Dr. Robertson's works very unjustly indeed; but, however Mr. Boswell might lament Johnson's prejudice, he was not justified in thus repeatedly misstating the fact. See antè, p. 179., post, sub 19th April, 1772, where Boswell suppresses, and 30th April, 1773, where he again misrepresents Johnson's opinions of Dr. Robertson. - CROKER. 4"An Essay on the Future Life of Brute Creatures, by Richard Dean, curate of Middleton." This work is reviewed in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1768, p. 177., in a style very like Johnson's; and a story of "a very sensible dog" is noticed with censure. So that it may probably have been Johnson's. ROKER. 1 round and round in extreme pain; and finding no way to escape, retired to the centre, and, like a true Stoic philosopher, darted its sting into its head, and thus at once freed itself from its woes. "This must end 'em." I said, this was a curious fact, as it showed deliberate suicide in a reptile. Johnson would not admit the fact. He said, Maupertuis was of opinion that it does not kill itself, but dies of the heat; that it gets to the centre of the circle, as the coolest place; that its turning its tail in upon its head is merely a convulsion, and that it does not sting itself. He said he would be satisfied if the great anatomist Morgagni, after dissecting a scorpion on which the experiment had been tried, should certify that its sting had penetrated into its head. He seemed pleased to talk of natural philosophy.2 "That woodcocks," said he, "fly over the northern countries is proved, because they have been observed at sea. Swallows certainly sleep all the winter. A number of them conglobulate together, by flying round and round, and then all in a heap throw themselves under water, and lie in the bed of a river."3 He told us, one of his first essays was a Latin poem upon the glow-worm; I am sorry I did not ask where it was to be found. Talking of the Russians and the Chinese, he advised me to read Bell's Travels. I asked him whether I should read Du Halde's Account of China. "Why yes," said he, "as one reads such a book; that is to say, consult it." He talked of the heinousness of the crime of adultery, by which the peace of families was destroyed. He said, "Confusion of progeny constitutes the essence of the crime; and therefore a woman who breaks her marriage vows is much more criminal than a man who does it. A man, to be sure, is criminal in the sight of God; but he does not do his wife a very material injury, if he does not insult her; if, for instance, from mere wantonness of appetite, he steals privately to her chambermaid. Sir, a wife ought not greatly to resent this. I would not receive home a daughter who had run away from her husband on that account. A wife should study to reclaim her husband by more attention to please him. Sir, a man will not, once in a hundred instances, leave his wife and go to a harlot, if his wife has not been negligent of pleasing." Here he discovered that acute discrimination, that solid judgment, and that knowledge of human nature, for which he was upon all occasions remarkable. Taking care to keep in view the moral and religious duty, as understood in our nation, he showed clearly, from reason and good sense, the greater degree of culpability in the one sex deviating from it than the other; and, at the same time, inculcated a very useful lesson as to the way to keep him. I asked him if it was not hard that one deviation from chastity should so absolutely ruin a young woman. JOHNSON. "Why no, Sir; it is the great principle which she is taught. When she has given up that principle, she has given up every notion of female honour and virtue, which are all included in chastity." A gentleman talked to him of a lady whom he greatly admired and wished to marry, but was afraid of her superiority of talents. "Sir," said he, "you need not be afraid; marry her. Before a year goes about, you'll find that reason much weaker, and that wit not so bright." Yet the gentleman may be justified in his apprehension by one of Dr. Johnson's admirable sentences in his Life of Waller : "He doubtless praised many whom he would have been afraid to marry; and, perhaps, married one whom he would have been ashamed to praise. Many qualities contribute to domestic happiness, upon which poetry has no colours to bestow; and many airs and sallies may delight imagination, which he who flatters them never can approve." "His account He praised Signor Baretti. of Italy is a very entertaining book; and, Sir, I know no man who carries his head higher in conversation than Baretti. There are strong powers in his mind. He has not, indeed, many hooks; but with what hooks he has, he grapples very forcibly." At this time I observed upon the dial-plate of his watch a short Greek inscription, taken from the New Testament, Nu yap epXETALS, being the first words of our Saviour's solemn 1 I should think it impossible not to wonder at the variety of Johnson's reading, however desultory it might have been. Who could have imagined that the High Church of Englandman would be so prompt in quoting Maupertuis, who, I am sorry to think, stands in the list of those unfortunate mistaken men, who call themselves esprits forts. I have, however, a high respect for that philosopher, whom the great Frederic of Prussia loved and honoured, and addressed pathetically in one of his poems, "Maupertuis, cher Maupertuis, There was in Maupertuis a vigour and yet a tenderness of sentiment, united with strong intellectual powers, and uncommon ardour of soul. Would he had been a Christian! I cannot help earnestly venturing to hope that he is one now. BOSWELL. Maupertuis died in 1759, at the age of 62, in the arms of the Bernoulli, très chrétiennement. — BURNEY. Mr. Boswell seems to contemplate the possibility of a post mortem conversion to Christianity. - CROKER. 2 Natural history. CROKER. 3 This story has been entirely exploded. — LOCKHART. 4 John Bell, of Antermony, who published at Glasgow, in 1763, Travels from St. Petersburgh, in Russia, to divers Parts of Asia. - CROKER. 5 Probably Boswell himself. - CROKER. 6 John ix. 4. I know not why Boswell calls them the first words: on the contrary, they are expletive of the former part of the admonition. Hawkins says that this watch (made for Johnson by Mudge and Dutton in 1768) was the first he ever possessed; but he adds that the Greek inscription was made unintelligible by the mistake of inscribing for This Mr. Steevens denied; and he certainly bequeathed to his niece a watch hearing, as I am informed the correct inscription: but from the evidence of Hawkins, one of Johnson's executors, and from the known propensity of Stee vens to what is leniently called mystification, I conclude that |