From Brighthelmstone Dr. Johnson wrote me the following letter; which they who may think that I ought to have suppressed, must have less ardent feelings than I have always

avowed.1

JOHNSON TO BOSWELL.

"Brighthelmstone, Sept. 9. 1769. "DEAR SIR,Why do you charge me with unkindness? I have omitted nothing that could do you good, or give you pleasure, unless it be that I have forborne to tell you my opinion of your Account of Corsica.' I believe my opinion, if you think well of my judgment, might have given you pleasure; but when it is considered how much vanity is excited by praise, I am not sure that it would have done you good. Your History is like other histories, but your Journal is, in a very high degree, curious and delightful. There is between the history and the journal that difference which

there will always be found between notions borrowed from without, and notions generated within. Your history was copied from books; your journal rose out of your own experience and observation. You express images which operated strongly upon yourself, and you have impressed them with great force upon your readers. I know not whether I could name any narrative by which curiosity is better excited, or better gratified.

I am glad that you are going to be married; and as I wish you well in things of less importance, wish you well with proportionate ardour in this crisis of your life. What I can contribute to your happiness, I should be very unwilling to withhold; for I have always loved and valued you, and shall love you and value you still more, as you become more regular and useful; effects which a happy marriage will hardly fail to produce.

"I do not find that I am likely to come back very soon from this place. I shall, perhaps, stay a fortnight longer; and a fortnight is a long time to a lover absent from his mistress. Would a fortnight ever have an end? I am, dear Sir, your most

affectionate humble servant,

SAM. JOHNSON."

After his return to town, we met frequently, and I continued the practice of making notes of his conversation, though not with so much assiduity as I wish I had done. At this time, indeed, I had a sufficient excuse for not being able to appropriate so much time to my journal; for General Paoli 2, after Corsica had been overpowered by the monarchy of France, was now no longer at the head of his brave countrymen; but, having with difficulty escaped from his native island, had sought an asylum in Great Britain; and it was my duty, as well as my pleasure, to attend much upon him. Such particulars of Johnson's conversation at this period as I have committed to writing, I shall here introduce, without any strict attention to methodical arrangement. Sometimes short notes of different days shall be blended together, and sometimes a day may seem important enough to be separately distinguished.

He said, he would not have Sunday kept with rigid severity and gloom, but with a gravity and simplicity of behaviour.+

I told him that David Hume had made a short_collection of Scotticisms. "I wonder," said Johnson," that he should find them." 5

He would not admit the importance of the question concerning the legality of general warrants. "Such a power," he observed," must be vested in every government, to answer particular cases of necessity; and there can be no just complaint but when it is abused, for which those who administer government must be answerable. It is a matter of such indifference, a matter about which the people care so very little, that were a man to be sent over Britain to offer them an exemption from it at a halfpenny a piece, very few would purchase it." This was a specimen of that laxity of talking, which I had heard him fairly acknowledge; for, surely, while the power of granting

1 In the Preface to my Account of Corsica, published in 1769, I thus express myself:

"He who publishes a book, affecting not to be an author, and professing an indifference for literary fame, may possibly impose upon many people such an idea of his consequence as he wishes may be received. For my part, I should be proud to be known as an author, and I have an ardent ambition for literary fame; for, of all possessions, I should imagine literary fame to be the most valuable. A man who has been able to furnish a book, which has been approved by the world, has established himself as a respectable character in distant society, without any danger of having that character lessened by the observation of his weaknesses. To preserve an uniform dignity among those who see us every day, is hardly possible; and to aim at it, must put us under the fetters of perpetual restraint. The author of an approved book may allow his natural disposition an easy play, and yet indulge the pride of superior genius, when he considers that by those who know him only as an author, he never ceases to be respected. Such an author, when in his hours of gloom and discontent, may have the consolation to think, that his writings are, at that very time, giving pleasure to numbers; and such an author may cherish the hope of being remembered after death; which has been a great object to the noblest minds in all ages." "BOSWELL.

2 Pascal Paoli was born in 1726, was appointed by his Countrymen Chief Magistrate and General in their resistance to the Genoese. He, after an honourable, and for a time successful defence, was at last overpowered by the French, and sought refuge in England in 1769, where he resided, till the French revolution seeming to afford an opportunity

to liberate his country from the yoke of France, he went thither, and was a principal promoter of its short-lived union to the British Crown. When this was dissolved, Paoli returned to England, and resided here till his death in 1807. CROKER.

3 21st Sept. 1769. General Paoli arrived at Mr. Hutchinson's, in Old Bond Street. 27th Sept. General Paoli was presented to his Majesty at St. James's.-Ann Reg. Mr. Boswell's ostentatious attendance on General Paoli, which was blazoned in all the newspapers, excited, at the time, a good deal of observation and rídicule. — CROKER.

4 Mrs. Piozzi says, "He ridiculed a friend who, looking out on Streatham Common from our windows one day, lamented the enormous wickedness of the times, because some birdcatchers were busy there one fine Sunday morning. "While half the Christian world is permitted," said he," to dance and sing, and celebrate Sunday as a day of festivity, how comes your puritanical spirit so offended with frivolous and empty deviations from exactness? Whoever loads life with unnecessary scruples, Sir," continued he, "provokes the attention of others on his conduct, and incurs the censure of singularity without reaping the reward of superior virtue." But though Dr. Johnson may have been induced by a spirit of contradiction or impatience, to say something of the kind here stated by Mrs. Piozzi, it is proper to observe, that he was, both in precept and practice, a decorous and generally a strict, though not a puritanical, observer of the Sabbath. -CROKER.

5 The first edition of Hume's History of England was full of Scotticisms, many of which he corrected in subsequent editions.- MALONE.

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On the 30th of September we dined together at the Mitre. I attempted to argue for the superior happiness of the savage life, upon the usual fanciful topics. JOHNSON. Sir, there can be nothing more false. The savages have no bodily advantages beyond those of civilised men. They have not better health; and as to care or mental uneasiness, they are not above it, but below it, like bears. No, Sir; you are not to talk such paradox: let me have no more on't. It cannot entertain, far less can it instruct. Lord Monboddo, one of your Scotch judges, talked a great deal of such nonsense. I suffered him; but I will not suffer you." BOSWELL. "But, Sir, does not Rousseau talk such nonsense?" JOHNSON. "True, Sir; but Rousseau knows he is talking nonsense, and laughs at the world for staring at him." Boswell. "How so, Sir?" JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, a man who talks nonsense so well, must know that he is talking nonsense. But I am afraid (chuckling and laughing) Monboddo does not know that he is talking nonsense." "12 BOSWELL. "Is it wrong, then, Sir, to affect singularity, in order to make people stare?" JOHNSON. "Yes, if you do it by propagating error: and, indeed, it is wrong in any way. There is in human nature

แ

This surely is paradox. See antè, p. 197. n. 1., the probable motive of this opinion as to the duration of parliaments: but did he reckon the power of the Commons over the public purse as nothing? and did he calculate how long the habeas corpus might exist, if the freedom of the press were destroyed, and the duration of parliaments unlimited ?— CROKER.

2 His lordship having frequently spoken in an abusive manner of Dr. Johnson, in my company, I, on one occasion, during the lifetime of my illustrious friend, could not refrain from retaliation, and repeated to him this saying. He has since published I don't know how many pages in one of his curious books. attempting, in much anger, but with pitiful effect, to persuade mankind that my illustrious friend was not the great and good man which they esteemed and ever will esteem him to be. - BOSWELL. Sir James Mackintosh told Mr. Markland that Lord Monboddo resented Boswell's account of his visit to Monboddo (post, sub Aug. 21. 1773) as a breach of hospitality, and retaliated on him by saying that "though he knew him to be a fool, he believed him to be a gentleman; now he knew that he was not a gentleman, and still a fool."- Boswell may have sometimes trespassed on the confidence of private life, but never with an ungentlemanly motive or feeling; and as to his being a fool, the reader holds in his hand a sufficient answer. CHOKER, 1846.

3 Mrs. Piozzi says, "Few people had a more settled reverence for the world than Dr. Johnson, or were less captivated by innovations on the long-received customs of common life. We met a friend driving six very small ponies, and stopped to admire them. Why does nobody,' said our Doctor, begin the fashion of driving six spavined horses, all STAVined of the same leg? it would have a mighty pretty ellect, and produce the distinction of doing something worse thas the common way." He hated the way of leaving a

a general inclination to make people stare; and every wise man has himself to cure of it, and does cure himself. If you wish to make people stare, by doing better than others, why, make them stare till they stare their eyes out. But consider how easy it is to make people stare, by being absurd. I may do it by going into a drawing-room without my shoes. You remember the gentleman in the Spectator,' [No. 576.] who had a commission of lunacy taken out against him for his extreme singularity, such as never wearing a wig, but a night-cap. Now, Sir, abstractedly, the nightcap was best: but, relatively, the advantage was over-balanced by making the boys run after him." 3

Talking of a London life, he said, "The happiness of London is not to be conceived but by those who have been in it. I will venture to say, there is more learning and science within the circumference of ten miles from where we now sit, than in all the rest of the kingdom." BOSWELL. "The only disadvantage is the great distance at which people live from one another." JOHNSON. "Yes, Sir; but that is occasioned by the largeness of it, which is the cause of all the other advantages." BOSWELL. "Sometimes I have been in the humour of wishing to retire to a desert." JOHNSON. "Sir, you have desert enough in Scotland."

Although I had promised myself a great deal of instructive conversation with him on the conduct of the married state, of which I had then a near prospect, he did not say much upon that topic. Mr. Seward heard him once say, 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

company without taking notice to the lady of the house that he was going; and did not much like any of the contrivances by which ease has been lately introduced into society instead of ceremony, which had more of his approbation. Cards, dress, and dancing, however, all found their advocates in Dr. Johnson, who inculcated, upon principle, the cultivation of those arts, which many a moralist thinks himself bound to reject, and many a Christian holds unfit to be practised. No person,' said he, one day, 'goes under-dressed till he thinks himself of consequence enough to forbear carrying the badge of his rank upon his back." And, in answer to the arguments urged by Puritans, Quakers, &c. against showy decorations of the human figure, I once heard him exclaim, 'Oh, let us not be found, when our Master calls us, ripping the lace off our waistcoats, but the spirit of contention from our souls and tongues! Let us all conform in outward customs, which are of no consequence, to the manners of those whom we live among, and despise such paltry distinctions. Alas! Sir,' continued he, a man who cannot get to heaven in a green coat, will not find his way thither the sooner in a grey one.'"- CROKER.

William Seward, Esq. F.R.S., editor of "Anecdotes of some Distinguished Persons, &c." in four volumes, 8vo., well known to a numerous and valuable acquaintance for his literature, love of the fine arts, and social virtues. I am indebted to him for several communications concerning Johnson.- BOSWELL. Mr. Seward was born in London in 1747, the son of a wealthy brewer, partner in the house of Calvert and Seward. He was educated at the Charter House and at Oxford, and died, April 24. 1799.-MALONE. Besides the" Anecdotes," he published "Biographiana," and "Literary Miscellanies." He must not be confounded with the Reverend Mr. Seward, the Canon of Lichfield. — CROKER.

be the worse wife for being learned; in which, from all that I have observed of Artemisias1, I humbly differed from him. That a woman should be sensible and well informed, I allow to be a great advantage; and think that Sir Thomas Overbury, in his rude versification, has very judiciously pointed out that degree of intelligence which is to be desired in a female companion :

"Give me, next good, an understanding wife,

By nature wise, not learned by much art; Some knowledge on her side will all my life More scope of conversation impart; Besides, her inborne virtue fortifie; They are most firmly good, who best know why."

When I censured a gentleman of my acquaintance for marrying a second time, as it showed a disregard of his first wife, he said, "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 disgust to marriage; but by taking a second wife he pays the highest compliment to the first, by showing that she made him so happy as a married man, that he wishes to be so a second time." So

ingenious a turn did he give to this delicate question. And yet, on another occasion, he owned that he once had almost asked a promise of Mrs. Johnson that she would not

marry again, but had checked himself. Indeed I cannot help thinking, that in his case 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 second marriage, why should she be precluded from a third, should she be so inclined? In Johnson's persevering fond appropriation of his Tetty, even after her decease, he seems totally to have overlooked the prior claim of the honest Birmingham trader.3 I presume that her having been married before had, at times, given him some uneasiness; for I remember his observing 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."

On the 6th of October I complied with this obliging invitation; and found, at an elegant villa, six miles from town, every circumstance that can make society pleasing. Johnson, though quite at home, was yet looked up to with an awe, tempered by affection, and seemed to be equally the care of his host and hostess. I rejoiced at seeing him so happy.

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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 necessay amongst you than with us, which makes so many of your people learn it. It is all here, must be cultivated with great care in gardening with you. Things which grow wild Scotland. Pray now (throwing himself back in his chair, and laughing), are you ever able to bring the sloe to perfection?"

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

servants. JOHNSON.

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Mrs. Thrale disputed 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 verses: and he repeated the song, "Alexis shunn'd his fellow swains," &c. in so ludicrous a manner, as to make us all wonder how any one could have been pleased with such fantastical stuff. Mrs. Thrale stood to her gun with great courage, in defence of amorous ditties, which Johnson despised, till he at last silenced her by saying, My dear lady, talk no more of this. Nonsense can be defended but by nonsense.

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

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

JOHNSON. "Nay, my dear lady, this will never do. Poor David! Smile with the simple!

- what folly is that? And who would feed with the poor that can help it? No, no; let me smile with the wise, and feed with the rich." I

find his sensibility as a writer not a little irri

3 Yet his inquisitive mind might have been struck by his friend Tom Hervey's startling application of the scriptural question to Sir Thomas Hanmer, relative to the lady who was the cause of their contention:-" In heaven, whose wife shall she be " Luke xx. 33. See antè, p. 183. n. 4.-CROKER. 4 See post, Sept. 23. 1777, his strange defence of Prior's delicacy. -CROKER.

Talking of history, Johnson said, “We may know historical 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 history, unless when they are drawn by those who knew the persons; as those, for instance, by Sallust and by Lord Clarendon."

He would not allow much merit to Whitfield's oratory. "His popularity, Sir," said he, "is chiefly owing to the peculiarity of his manner. He would be followed by crowds were he to wear a night-cap in the pulpit, or were he to preach from a tree."

I know not from what spirit of contradiction he burst out into a violent declamation against the Corsicans, of whose heroism I talked in high terms. "Sir," said he, "what is all this rout about the Corsicans? They have been at war with the Genoese 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 stones with their teeth in twenty years." It was in vain to argue with him upon the want of artillery: he was not to be resisted for the moment.

On the evening of October 10. I presented Dr. Johnson to General Paoli. I had greatly wished that two men, for whom I had the highest esteem, should meet. They met with a manly ease, mutually conscious of their own abilities, and of the abilities of each other. The General spoke Italian, and Dr. Johnson English, and understood one another very well, with a little aid of interpretation from me, in which I compared myself to an isthmus which joins two great continents. Upon Johnson's approach, the General said, "From what I have read of your works, Sir, and from what Mr. Boswell 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 the direct signification of single words; but by these no beauty of expression, no sally of genius, no wit is conveyed to the mind. All this must be by allusion to other ideas. "Sir," said Johnson, "you talk of language, as if you had never done any thing else but study it, instead of governing a nation." The General said, "Questo è un troppo gran complimento;" this is too great a compliment. Johnson answered, "I should have thought so, Sir, if I had not heard you talk." The General asked him what he thought of the spirit of infidelity which was so prevalent. JOHNSON. "Sir, this gloom of infidelity, I hope, is only a transient cloud passing through the hemisphere, which will soon be dissipated, and the sun break forth with his usual splendour." "You think then," said the General, "that they will change their principles like their clothes." JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, if they bestow no more thought on principles than on dress, it must be so." The General said, that "a great part of the fashionable infidelity was owing to a desire of showing courage. Men who have no opportunities of showing it as to things in this life, take death and futurity as objects on which to display it." JOHNSON. "That is mighty foolish affectation. Fear is one of the passions of human nature, of which it is impossible to divest it. You remember that the Emperor Charles V., when he read upon the tomb-stone of a Spanish nobleman,Here lies one who never knew fear,' wittily said, 'Then he never snuffed a candle with his fingers.'"

He talked a few words of French to the General; but finding he did not do it with facility, he asked for pen, ink, and paper, and wrote the following note:

"J'ai lu dans la géographie de Lucas de Linde un Puter-noster écrit dans une langue tout-à-fait différente de l'Italienne, et de toutes autres lesquelles se dérivent rusticam: elle a peut-être passé, peu à peu; taill du Latin, L'auteur Tappelle linguam Corsica elle a certainement prévalue autrefois dans les montagnes et dans la campagne. même chose en parlant de Sardaigne; qu'il y a drus langues dans l'Isle, une des villes, l'autre de la cam

pagne.

Le même auteur dit la

The General immediately informed him, that the lingua rustica was only in Sardinia.

Dr. Johnson went home with me, and drank tea till late in the night. He said, “General

This was what old Sir Robert Walpole probably meant, when his son Horace, wishing to amuse him one eveuing, after his fall, offered to read him some historical work. Any thing," said the old statesman, "but history-that must be false." Mr. Gibbon says, " Malheureux sort de l'histoire! Les spectateurs sont trop peu instruits, et les acteurs trop intéressés, pour que nous puissions compter sur les récits des uns ou des autres ! '' (Misc. Works, vol. iv. p. 410.) CROKER.

2 Boswell, in his "Journey to Corsica," published in 1768, 336, had anticipated this meeting, with apparent satisfaction: What an idea," he observes," may we not form of an interview between such a scholar and philosopher as