ing. They are connected by children, by fortune, by serious considerations of community. Wise married women don't trouble themselves about infidelity in their husbands." Boswell: "To be sure there is a great difference between the offence of infidelity in a man and that of his wife." Johnson: "The difference is boundless. The man imposes no bastards upon his wife."-Boswell.

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 chamber-maid. 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."-Boswell.

OBTUSENESS TO NATURAL BEAUTY.

WE walked, in the evening, in Greenwich Park. He asked me I suppose, by way of trying my disposition-"Is not this very fine?" Having no exquisite relish of the beauties of nature, and being more delighted with "the busy hum of men," I answered, "Yes, sir, but not equal to Fleet Street." Johnson: "You are right, sir."—Boswell.

Some gentlemen of the neighborhood came to visit my father; but there was little conversation. One of them ask

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ed Dr. Johnson how he liked the Highlands. The question seemed to irritate him, for he answered, "How, sir, can you ask me what obliges me to speak unfavorably of a country where I have been hospitably entertained? Who can like the Highlands? I like the inhabitants very well." The gentleman asked no more questions.-Boswell.

Mr. Thrale loved prospects, and was mortified that his friend could not enjoy the sight of those different dispositions of wood and water, hill and valley, that travelling through England and France affords a man. But when he wished to point them out to his companion, "Never heed such nonsense," would be the reply; "a blade of grass is always a blade of grass, whether in one country or another. Let us, if we do talk, talk about something. Men and women are my subjects of inquiry: let us see how these differ from those we have left behind."-Mrs. Piozzi.

Mrs. Brooke expatiated on the accumulation of sublime and beautiful objects which form the fine prospect up the river St. Lawrence, in North America. "Come, madam" (says Dr. Johnson), "confess that nothing ever equalled your pleasure in seeing that sight reversed, and finding yourself looking at the happy prospect down the river St. Lawrence." The truth is, he hated to hear about prospects and views, and laying out ground, and taste in gardening. "That was the best garden," he said, "which produced most roots and fruits; and that water was most to be prized which contained most fish." He used to laugh at Shenstone most unmercifully for not caring whether there was anything good to eat in the streams he was so fond of. Walking in a wood when it rained was, I think, the only rural image which pleased his fancy.-Mrs. Piozzi.

BRUTE FORCE.

IT has been confidently related, with many embellishments, that Johnson one day knocked Osborne down in his shop with a folio, and put his foot upon his neck. The simple truth I had from Johnson himself. "Sir, he was impertinent to me, and I beat him. But it was not in his shop: it was in my own chamber."-Boswell.

Tom Osborne, the bookseller, was one of "that mercantile rugged race to which the delicacy of the poet is sometimes exposed," as the following anecdote will more fully evince: Mr. Johnson being engaged by him to translate a work of some consequence,* he thought it a respect which he owed his own talents, as well as the credit of his employer, to be as circumspect in the performance of it as possible. Osborne, irritated by what he thought an unnecessary delay, went one day into the room where Johnson was sitting, and abused him in the most illiberal manner. Among other things, he told Johnson "he had been much mistaken in his man; that he was recommended to him as a good scholar, and a ready hand; but that he doubted both; for that Tom such-a-one would have turned out the work much sooner; and that being the case, the probability was that by this here time the first edition would have moved off." Johnson heard him for some time unmoved; but at last, losing all patience, he seized a huge folio, which he was at that time consulting, and aiming a blow at the bookseller's head, succeeded so forcibly as to send him sprawling to the floor. Osborne alarmed the family with his cries; but Johnson, clapping his foot on his breast, would not let him stir till he had exposed him in that situation, and then left him with this triumphant ex

* All the other authorities who notice this event say that it was the Preface to the Catalogue of the Harleian Library.

pression: "Lie there, thou son of dulness, ignorance, and obscurity !"—Anonymous. (From a Life of Johnson, published by G. Kearsley, 1785.)

Boswell: "Foote has a great deal of humor." Johnson: "Yes, sir." Boswell: "He has a singular talent of exhibiting character." Johnson: "Sir, it is not a talent-it is a vice; it is what others abstain from. It is not comedy, which exhibits the character of a species, as that of a miser gathered from many misers: it is a farce, which exhibits individuals." Boswell: "Did not he think of exhibiting you, sir?" Johnson: "Sir, fear restrained him; he knew I would have broken his bones. I would have saved him the trouble of cutting off a leg; I would not have left him a leg to cut off."-Boswell.

Foote, who so successfully revived the old comedy, by exhibiting living characters, had resolved to imitate Johnson on the stage; expecting great profits from the ridicule. of so celebrated a man. Johnson being informed of his intention, and being at dinner at Mr. Thomas Davies's, the bookseller, from whom I had the story, he asked Mr. Davies "what was the common price of an oak stick;" and being answered sixpence, "Why, then, sir," said he, "give me leave to send your servant to purchase me a shilling one.' I'll have a double quantity; for I am told Foote means to take me off, as he calls it, and I am determined the fellow shall not do it with impunity." Davies took care to acquaint Foote of this, which effectually checked the wantonness of the mimic. Mr. Macpherson's menaces made Johnson provide himself with the same implement of defence; and had he been attacked, I have no doubt that, old as he was, he would have made his corporal prowess be felt as much as his intellectual.-Boswell.

No sooner did the strong and unequivocal declaration of

Johnson's opinion of the poems of Ossian appear,* than Mr. James Macpherson, the publisher of them, not only repelled the charge of forgery, but in the letter to the author of it threatened him with corporal chastisement. Whether Johnson was apprehensive that his adversary would put his threat in execution, or that he meant to show all who came to see him that he stood upon his guard, he provided himself with a weapon, both of the defensive and offensive kind. It was an oak-plant of a tremendous size; a plant, I say, and not a shoot or branch, for it had a root, which being trimmed to the size of a large orange, became the head of it. Its height was upward of six feet, and from about an inch in diameter at the lower end, increased to near three; this he kept in his bedchamber, so near the chair in which he constantly sat as to be within reach.— Sir John Hawkins (abridged).

He was once with Garrick at the representation of a play in Lichfield, when, having taken his seat in a chair placed on the stage, he had soon a call to quit it. A Scots officer, who had no good-will toward him, persuaded an innkeeper of the town to take it; and he did as he was bid. Johnson, on his return, finding his seat full, civilly told the intruder that by going out it was not his intention to give it up, and demanded it as his right. The innkeeper, encouraged by the officer, seemed resolved to maintain his situation. Johnson expostulated the matter with him, but, finding him obstinate, lifted up the chair, the man sitting in it, and with such a Herculean force flung both to the opposite side of the stage that the Scotsman cried out, "Damn him, he has broke his limbs !" but that not being the case, Johnson having thus emptied the chair, and Mr. Walmsley interposing, he resumed his seat in it, and with great composure sat out the play.-Sir John Hawkins (abridged).

* Johnson had published a very plain expression of his unbelief in their authenticity, in which he had charged Macpherson with forgery.