"Snatches of reading,' said he,' will not make a Bentley or a Clarke. They are, however, in a certain degree advantageous. I would put a child into a library (where no unfit books are), and let him read at his choice. A child should not be discouraged from reading any thing that he takes a liking to, from a notion that it is above his reach. If that be the case, the child will soon find it out and desist; if not, he of course gains the instruction; which is so much the more likely to come, from the inclination with which he takes up the study.' "Though he used to censure carelessness with great vehemence, he owned, that he once, to avoid the trouble of locking up five guineas, hid them, he forgot where, so that he could not find them.

"A gentleman who introduced his brother to Dr. Johnson was earnest to recommend him to the doctor's notice, which he did by saying, 'When we have sat together some time, you'll find my brother grow very entertaining.' 'Sir,' said Johnson, 'I can wait.'

"When the rumour was strong that we should have a war, because the French would assist the Americans, he rebuked a friend with some asperity for supposing it, saying, 'No, Sir, national faith is not yet sunk so low.'

"In the latter part of his life, in order to satisfy himself whether his mental faculties were impaired, he resolved that he would try to learn a new language, and fixed upon the Low Dutch for that purpose, and this he continued till he had read about one half of Thomas à Kempis;' and, finding that there appeared no abatement of his power of acquisition, he then desisted, as thinking the experiment had been duly tried. Mr. Burke justly observed, that this was not the most vigorous trial, Low Dutch being a language so near to our own: had it been one of the languages entirely different, he might have been very soon satisfied.

"Mr. Langton and he having gone to see a freemason's funeral procession when they were at Rochester, and some solemn music being played on French horns, he said, 'This is the first time that I have ever been affected by musical sounds;' adding, ‘that the impression made upon him was of a melancholy kind.' Mr. Langton saying, that this effect was a fine one,-JOHNSON. Yes, if it softens the mind

The French horn, however, is so far from being melancholy per se, that when the strain is light, and in the field, there is nothing so cheerful! It was the funeral occasion, and probably the solemnity of the strain, that produced the plaintive effect here mentioned. BURNEY. Surely the barytone of the French horn is graver than the treble of the flageolet. "Johnson said of Music, that it was the only sensual pleasure without vice."— Hawkins's Apoph. — CROKER, 1847.

2 It should be remembered, that this was said twenty-five or thirty years ago, when lace was very generally worn. MALONE, 1799. But even with this explanation the meaning is not clear. Perhaps Johnson meant that Greek was an elegant ornament, like lace, of which every man gets and displays as much as he can. - CROKER.

3 See antè, p. 497. n. 2-C.

4 Dr. Johnson, in his Life of Cowley, says, that these are

so as to prepare it for the reception of salutary feelings, it may be good: but inasmuch as it is melancholy per se, it is bad.'

"Goldsmith had long a visionary project, that some time or other, when his circumstances should be easier, he would go to Aleppo, in order to acquire a knowledge, as far as might be, of any arts peculiar to the East, and introduce them into Britain. When this was talked of in Dr. Johnson's company, he said, Of all men, Goldsmith is the most unfit to go out upon such an inquiry; for he is utterly ignorant of such arts as we already possess, and consequently could not know what would be accessions to our present stock of mechanical knowledge. Sir, he would bring home a grinding barrow, which you see in every street in London, and think that he had furnished a wonderful improvement.'

"Greek, Sir,' said he, 'is like lace; every man gets as much of it as he can.'*

"When Lord Charles Hay, after his return from America, was preparing his defence to be offered to the court-martial which he had demanded, having heard Mr. Langton as high in expressions of admiration of Johnson as he usually was, he requested that Dr. Johnson might be introduced to him; and Mr. Langton having mentioned it to Johnson, he very kindly and readily agreed; and, being presented by Mr. Langton to his lordship, while under arrest, he saw him several times; upon one of which occasions Lord Charles read to him what he had prepared, which Johnson signified his approbation of, saying, 'It is a very good soldierly defence.' Johnson said that he had advised his lordship, that as it was in vain to contend with those who were in possession of power, if they would offer him the rank of lieutenant-general, and a government, it would be better judged to desist from urging his complaints. It is well known that his lordship died before the sentence was made known.3

"Johnson one day gave high praise to Dr. Bentley's verses in Dodsley's Collection, which he recited with his usual energy. Dr. Adam Smith, who was present, observed, in his decisive professorial manner, "Very well, very well.' Johnson, however, added, 'Yes, they are very well, Sir; but you may observe in what manner they are well. They are the forcible verses of a man of a strong mind, but

"the only English verses which Bentley is known to have written." I shall here insert them, and hope my readers will apply them.

"Who strives to mount Parnassus' hill,
And thence poetic laurels bring.
Must first acquire due force and skill,
Must fly with swan's or eagle's wing.

"Who Nature's treasures would explore,
Her mysteries and arcana know,
Must high as lofty Newton soar,
Must stoop as delving Woodward low.

"Who studies ancient laws and rites,
Tongues, arts, and arms, and history,
Must drudge, like Selden, days and nights,

And in the endless labour die.

And panting Time toil'd after him in vain,'

Johnson might have had in his

the eye passage

stance of Johnson's was quoted, and thought to have at least equal excellence.

"As Johnson always allowed the extraordinary talents of Mr. Burke, so Mr. Burke was fully sensible of the wonderful powers of Johnson. Mr. Langton recollects having passed an evening with both of them, when Mr. Burke repeatedly entered upon topics which it was evident he would have illustrated with extensive knowledge and richness of expression; but Johnson always seized upon the conversation, in which, however, he acquitted himself in a most masterly manner. As Mr. Burke and

She will outstrip all praise,
And make it halt behind her."

Johnson said nothing. Garrick then ventured to observe, I do not think that the happiest line in the praise of Shakspeare.' Johnson exclaimed (smiling), Prosaical rogues! next time I write, I'll make both time and space pant.' 2

·

"It is well known that there was formerly a rude custom for those who were sailing upon the Thames to accost each other as they passed in the most abusive language they could invent; generally, however, with as much satirical humour as they were capable of producing. Addison gives a specimen of this ribaldry in Number 383. of The Spectator,' when Sir Roger de Coverly and he are going to Springgarden.3 Johnson was once eminently successful in this species of contest. A fellow having attacked him with some coarse raillery, Johnson answered him thus, 'Sir, your wife, under pretence of keeping a house of ill fame, is a receiver of stolen goods." One evening when he and Mr. Burke and Mr. Langton were in company together, and the admirable scolding of Timon of Athens was mentioned, this in

observed that Johnson had been very great that night: Mr. Langton joined in this, but added, he could have wished to hear more from another person (plainly intimating that he meant Mr. Burke). 'Ó, no,' said Mr. Burke, it is enough for me to have rung the bell to him.'

"Beauclerk having observed to him of one of their friends, that he was awkward at counting money; Why, Sir,' said Johnson, I am likewise awkward at counting money. But then, Sir, the reason is plain; I have had very little money to count.'

"He had an abhorrence of affectation. Talking of old Mr. Langton, of whom he said, * Sir, you will seldom see such a gentleman, such are his stores of literature, such his knowledge in divinity, and such his exemplary life; he added, and, Sir, he has no grimace, no gesticulation, no bursts of admiration on trivial occasions he never embraces you with an overacted cordiality.'

"Being in company with a gentleman who thought fit to maintain Dr. Berkeley's ingenious philosophy, that nothing exists but as perceived by some mind; when the gentleman was going away, Johnson said to him, 'Pray, Sir, don't leave us; for we may perhaps forget

never to talk of what he understood. Beauclerk had for a short time a pretty high opinion of Smith's conversation. Garrick, after listening to him for a while, as to one of whom his expectations had been raised, turned slily to a friend, and whispered him, "What say you to this?-eh? Flabby, I think." BosWELL. I suppose these conversations occurred at the Club, to which Smith was admitted in 1775,- only Beauclerk, Gibbon, Jones, and Reynolds being present. — CROKER, 1847.

But I

21 am sorry to see in the "Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh," vol. ii., "An essay on the Character of Hamlet," written, I should suppose, by a very young man, though called" Reverend," who speaks with presumptuous petulance of the first literary character of his age. Amidst a cloudy confusion of words (which hath of late too often passed in Scotland for metaphysics), he thus ventures to criticise one of the noblest lines in our language: -"Dr. Johnson has remarked, that Time toiled after him in vain.' should apprehend that this is entirely to mistake the character. Time toils after every great man, as well as after Shakspeare. The workings of an ordinary mind keep pace, indeed, with time; they move no faster; they have their beginning, their middle, and their end; but superior natures can reduce these into a point. They do not, indeed, suppress them; but they suspend, or they lock them up in the breast" The learned society, under whose sanction' such gabble is ushered into the world, would do well to offer a premium to any one who will discover its meaning. BosWELL. The author of this essay was Mr. Thomas Robertson, afterwards D.D. and author of a" Life of Mary Queen of Scots."— CROKER, 1847. 3 Vauxhall. CROKER.

to think of you, and then you will cease to

exist.'

"Goldsmith, upon being visited by Johnson one day in the Temple, said to him with a little jealousy of the appearance of his accommodation, I shall soon be in better chambers than these.' Johnson at the same time checked him and paid him a handsome compliment, implying that a man of his talents should be above attention to such distinctions,-Nay, Sir, never mind that: Nil te quæsiveris extra."

"At the time when his pension was granted to him, he said, with a noble literary ambition, Had this happened twenty years ago, I should have gone to Constantinople to learn Arabic, as Pococke did.'

"As an instance of the niceness of his taste, though he praised West's translation of Pindar, he pointed out the following passages as faulty, by expressing a circumstance so minute as to detract from the general dignity which should prevail:

⚫ Down then from thy glittering nail,

Take, O Muse, thy Dorian lyre."

"When Mr. Vesey2 was proposed as a member of the Literary Club, Mr. Burke began by saying that he was a man of gentle manners. Šir, said Johnson, you need say no more. When you have said a man of gentle manners, you have said enough.'

"The late Mr. Fitzherbert told Mr. Langton that Johnson said to him, 'Sir, a man has no more right to say an uncivil thing, than to act one; no more right to say a rude thing to another than to knock him down.'

“My dear friend, Dr. Bathurst,' said he, with a warmth of approbation, declared he was glad that his father, who was a West India planter, had left his affairs in total ruin, because, having no estate, he was not under the temptation of having slaves.'

"Richardson had little conversation, except about his own works, of which Sir Joshua Reynolds said he was always willing to talk, and glad to have them introduced.3 Johnson, when he carried Mr. Langton to see him, professed that he could bring him out into conversation, and used this allusive expression, 'Sir, I can make him rear. But he failed; for in that interview Richardson said little else

1 Nec te quæsiveris extra.

Nor seek beyond yourself. - Persius, Sat. 1.7.-C.

2 The Right Hon. Agmondesham Vesey was elected a member of the Literary Club in 1773, and died August 11th, 1786. - MALONE. Yet he afterwards found that gentle manners alone were not enough;" for when Mrs. Piozzi once asked him concerning the conversational powers of Mr. Vesey, with whom she was unacquainted, He talked to me, said Johnson," one day at the Club concerning Catiline's conspiracy; so I withdrew my attention, and thought about Tom Thumb." - CROKER.

3 A literary lady has favoured me with a characteristic anecdote of Richardson. One day at his country house at Northend, where a large company was assembled at dinner, a gentleman, who was just returned from Paris, willing to please Mr. Richardson, mentioned to him a very flattering circumstance, that he had seen his Clarissa lying on the king's brother's table. Richardson, observing that part of

than that there lay in the room a translation of his Clarissa into German.

"Once when somebody produced a news, paper in which there was a letter of stupid abuse of Sir Joshua Reynolds, of which Johnson himself came in for a share, 'Pray,' said he, let us have it read aloud from beginning to end; which being done, he, with a ludicrous earnestness, and not directing his look to any particular person, called out, 'Are we alive after all this satire?'

"He had a strong prejudice against the political character of Secker, one instance of which appeared at Oxford, where he expressed great dissatisfaction at his varying the oldestablished toast, Church and king.' The Archbishop of Canterbury,' said he, with an affected, smooth, smiling grimace, drinks "Constitution in church and state." Being asked what difference there was between the two toasts, he said, 'Why, Sir, you may be sure he meant something.' Yet when the life of that prelate, prefixed to his sermons by Dr. Porteus and Dr. Stinton, his chaplains, first came out, he read it with the utmost avidity, and said, 'It is a life well written, and that well deserves to be recorded.'

"Of a certain noble lord, he said, 'Respect him you could not; for he had no mind of his own. Love him you could not; for that which you could do with him every one else could.'

"Of Dr. Goldsmith he said, "No man was more foolish when he had not a pen in his hand, or more wise when he had.'

"He told, in his lively manner, the following literary anecdote: -Green and Guthrie, an Irishman and a Scotchman, undertook a translation of Duhalde's History of China. Green said of Guthrie, that he knew no English, and Guthrie of Green, that he knew no French; and these two undertook to translate Duhalde's History of China. In this translation there was found, 'the twenty-sixth day of the new moon.' Now, as the whole age of the moon is but twenty-eight days, the moon, instead of being new, was nearly as old as it could be. The blunder arose from their mistaking the word neuvième, ninth, for nouvelle, or neuve, new.'

66

Talking of Dr. Blagden's copiousness and precision of communication, Dr. Johnson said, Blagden, Sir, is a delightful fellow.'

the company were engaged in talking to each other, affected then not to attend to it; but, by and by, when there was a general silence, and he thought that the flattery might be fully heard, he addressed himself to the gentleman: “I think, Sir, you were saying somewhat about "— pausing in a high flutter of expectation. The gentleman, provoked at his inordinate vanity, resolved not to indulge it, and with an exquisitely sly air of indifference, answered, "A mere triße, Sir, not worth repeating." The mortification of Richardson was visible, and he did not speak ten words more the whole day. Doctor Johnson was present, and appeared to enjoy it much. BoSWELL.

4 Probably Lord Cork. See antè, p. 555. 659. — CROKER. 5 Afterwards Sir Charles Blagden. Hannah More's account of him was, "Doctor Blagden is Secretary to the Royal Society, so modest, so sensible, and so knowing, that he exemplines Pope's line, Willing to teach, and yet not proud to know.'"-Life, vol. ii. p. 98. — CROKEB, 1835.

"On occasion of Dr. Johnson's publishing his pamphlet of The False Alarm,' there came out a very angry answer (by many supposed to be by Mr. Wilkes). Dr. Johnson determined on not answering it; but, in conversation with Mr. Langton, mentioned a particular or two, which, if he had replied to it, he might perhaps have inserted. In the answerer's pamphlet, it had been said with solemnity, 'Do you consider, Sir, that a house of commons is to the people as a creature is to its Creator?' 'To this question,' said Dr. Johnson, I could have replied, that, in the first place, the idea of a Creator must be such as that he has a power to unmake or annihilate his creature. Then it cannot be conceived that a creature can make laws for its Creator.''

"Imlac, in Rasselas,' I spelt with a c at the end, because it is less like English, which should always have the Saxon k added to the c.' 2 Many a man is mad in certain instances, and goes through life without having it perceived. For example, a madness has seized a person, of supposing himself obliged literally to pray continually 3: had the madness turned the opposite way, and the person thought it a crime ever to pray, it might not improbably have continued unobserved.'

"He apprehended that the delineation of characters in the end of the first book of the 'Retreat of the Ten Thousand' was the first instance of the kind that was known.

1 His profound adoration of the Great First Cause was such as to set him above that "philosophy and vain deceit " with which men of narrow conceptions have been infected. I have heard him strongly maintain that "what is right is not so from any natural fitness, but because God wills it to be right;" and it is certainly so, because he has predisposed the relations of things so, as that which he wills must be right. BoswELL.

I hope the authority of the great master of our language will.stop that curtailing innovation by which we see critic, public, &c. frequently written instead of critick, publick, &c. -BOSWELL. Why should we not retrench an obvious superfluity? In the preceding age public and critic were written publique and critique. find that Johnson himself, in a memorandum among Mr. Anderdon's papers, dated in 1784, writes" cubic feet.' -CROKER.

3 Johnson had, no doubt, his poor friend Smart in his recollection: see antè, p. 135. - CROKER.

with great earnestness of manner, very near the time of his decease, on occasion of having desired me to read a letter addressed to him from some person in the north of England; which when I had done, and he asked me what the contents were, as I thought being particular upon it might fatigue him, it being of great length, I only told him in general that it was highly in his praise; and then he expressed himself as above.

"He mentioned with an air of satisfaction what Baretti had told him; that, meeting in the course of his studying English with an excellent paper in The Spectator,' one of four that were written by the respectable dissenting minister, Mr. Grove of Taunton, and observing the genius and energy of mind that it exhibits, it greatly quickened his curiosity to visit our country; as he thought, if such were the lighter periodical essays of our authors, their productions on more weighty occasions must be wonderful indeed!

"He observed once, at Sir Joshua Reynolds's, that a beggar in the street will more readily ask alms from a man, though there should be no marks of wealth in his appearance, than from even a well-dressed woman €; which he accounted for from the great degree of carefulness as to money, that is to be found in women; saying farther upon it, that the opportunities in general that they possess of improving their condition are much fewer thar. men have; and adding, as he looked round the company, which consisted of men only, 'There is not one of us who does not think he might be richer, if he would use his endeavour.' "He thus characterised an ingenious writer of his acquaintance: Sir, he is an enthusiast by rule.'

"He may hold up that SHIELD against all his enemies,' was an observation on Homer, in reference to his description of the shield of Achilles, made by Mrs. Fitzherbert [p. 20.], wife to his friend Mr. Fitzherbert of Derbyshire, and respected by Dr. Johnson as a very fine one." He had in general a very high opinion of that lady's understanding.

"An observation of Bathurst's may be mentioned, which Johnson repeated, appearing to acknowledge it to be well founded; namely, it was somewhat remarkable how seldom, on oc

4 This observation confirms my suggestion, antè, p. 282. n. 5, and p. 364. n. 1, that we have suffered by Boswell's having written his Journal of the Tour to the Hebrides under Johnson's inspection.- CROKER, 1847.

5 No. 588.601. 626. 635. See antè, 10th April, 1776, Johnson's praise of that on Novelty, which is No. 626.; but I find in the Biographical Preface to the Spectator, this praise attributed (I know not why) to No. 588.- CROKER, 1847.

6 Sterne is of a direct contrary opinion. See his "Sentimental Journey;" article, The Mystery.— BOSWELL.

7 Meaning, I suppose, that Homer's description of the shield of Achilles was so masterly that it alone was sufficient to prove him a great poet, and to turn all the shafts of criti. cism. But the reader cannot have failed to observe that many of the anecdotes in Mr. Langton's Collectanea, are very obscurely expressed, and that different topics seem sometimes jumbled into one paragaph. — CROKER.

way,

IN 1781, Johnson at last completed his "Lives of the Poets," of which he gives this account: "Some time in March I finished the Lives of the Poets,' which I wrote in my usual dilatorily and hastily, unwilling to work, and working with vigour and haste." In a memorandum previous to this, he says of them: 'Written, I hope, in such a manner as may tend to the promotion of piety." - (Pr. and Med., pp. 174. 190.)

This is the work which, of all Dr. Johnson's writings, will perhaps be read most generally,

1 There were many points in which Johnson did not resemble Demonax, who was high-born and rich, very mild in his manners, gentle in argument and even in his reprimands, and lived to a great age in uninterrupted health; but in some other particulars Lucian's character seems applicable to Johnson; and indeed his tract resembles (in little) Boswell's own work, being a collection of observations on several topics, moral, critical, and religious, made by a philsopher of strong sense, ready wit, and fearless veracity; and the character which Lucian ascribes to the conversation of Demonax appears to me not unlike (making due allowance for the difference of ancient and modern habits and topics) the style of that of Dr. Johnson.-CROKER.

2 This facility of writing, and this dilatoriness ever to write, Dr. Johnson always retained, from the days that he lay a-bed and dictated his first publication to Mr. Hector, to the moment he made me copy out those variations in Pope's Homer which are printed in the Lives of the Poets. And now,' said he, when I had finished it for him, I fear not Mr. Nichols [the printer] of a pin.'-Piozzi. The first livraison

and with most pleasure. Philology and biography were his favourite pursuits, and those who lived most in intimacy with him, heard him upon all occasions, when there was a proper opportunity, take delight in expatiating upon the various merits of the English poets: upon the niceties of their characters, and the events of their progress through the world which they contributed to illuminate. His mind was so full of that kind of information, and it was so well arranged in his memory, that in performing what he had undertaken in this way, he had little more to do than to put his thoughts upon paper; exhibiting first each poet's life, and then subjoining a critical examination of his genius and works. But when he began to write, the subject swelled in such a manner, that instead of prefaces to each poet, of no more than a few pages, as he had origi nally intended, he produced an ample, rich, and most entertaining view of them in every respect. In this he resembled Quintilian, who tells us, that in the composition of his "Institutions of Oratory," "Latiùs se tamen aperiente materiâ, plus quàm imponebatur oneris sponte suscepi."' The booksellers, justly sensible of the great additional value of the copyright, presented him with another hundred pounds, over and above two hundred, for which his agreement was to furnish such prefaces as he thought fit.+

99

for such a collection of biography, and such This was, however, but a small recompence principles and illustrations of criticism, as, if digested and arranged in one system, by some modern Aristotle or Longinus, might form a code upon that subject, such as no other nation can show. As he was so good as to make me a present of the greatest part of the original, and indeed only, manuscript of this admirable work, I have an opportunity of observing with wonder the correctness with which he rapidly struck off such glowing composition. He may be assimilated to the lady in Waller, who could impress with "love at first sight:"

"Some other nymphs with colours faint,
And pencil slow, may Cupid paint,
And a weak heart in time destroy :
She has a stamp, and prints the boy."

was published in 1779. This edition of the Poets was in sixty volumes, small octavo.- CROKER.

3 His design is thus announced in his advertisement: "The booksellers having determined to publish a body of English poetry, I was persuaded to promise them a preface to the works of each author; an undertaking, as it was then presented to my mind, not very tedious or difficult. My purpose was only to have allotted to every poet an advertisement, like that which we find in the French Miscellanies,' containing a few dates, and a general character; but I have been led beyond my intention. I hope by the honest desire of giving useful pleasure. - BOSWELL.

The bargain was for two hundred guineas, and the booksellers spontaneously added a third hundred; on this occasion Dr. Johnson observed to me," Sir, I always said the booksellers were a generous set of men. Nor, in the present instance, have I reason to complain. The fact is, not that they have paid me too little, but that I have written too much." The Lives" were soon published in a separate edition; when, for a very few corrections, he was presented with another hundred guineas. — NICHOLS. Antè, p. 531. n. 1.-C.