I was afraid might prevent me from meeting him; and that my wife had been affected with complaints which threatened a consumption, but was now better.

TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.

'OXFORD, Aug. 4, 1777. 'DEAR SIR,-Do not disturb yourself about our interviews; I hope we shall have many; nor think it anything hard or unusual that your design of meeting me is interrupted. We have both endured greater evils, and have greater evils to expect.

'Mrs. Boswell's illness makes a more serious

distress. Does the blood rise from her lungs

or from her stomach? From little vessels

broken in the stomach there is no danger. Blood from the lungs is, I believe, always frothy, as mixed with wind. Your physicians know very well what is to be done. The loss of such a lady would, indeed, be very afflictive, and I hope she is in no danger. Take care to keep her mind as easy as is possible.

sup

'I have left Langton in London. He has been down with the militia, and is again quiet at home, talking to his little people, as, I pose, you do sometimes. Make my compliments to Miss Veronica. The rest are too young for ceremony.

'I cannot but hope that you have taken your country house at a very seasonable time, and that it may conduce to restore or establish Mrs. Boswell's health, as well as provide room and exercise for the young ones. That you and your lady may both be happy, and long enjoy your happiness, is the sincere and earnest wish of, dear sir, your most, etc., 'SAM. JOHNSON.'

MR. BOSWELL TO DR. JOHNSON. [Informing him that my wife had continued to grow better, so that my alarming apprehensions were relieved; and that I hoped to disengage myself from the other embarrassment which had occurred, and therefore requesting to know particularly when he intended to be at Ashbourne.]

'TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.

'Aug. 30, 1777. "DEAR SIR,-I am this day come to Ashbourne, and have only to tell you that Dr. Taylor says you shall be welcome to him, and you know how welcome you will be to me. Make haste to let me know when you may be expected.

'Make my compliments to Mrs. Boswell, and tell her I hope we shall be at variance no more. -I am, dear sir, your most humble servant, 'SAM. JOHNSON.'

This young lady, the author's eldest daughter, and at this time about five years old, died in London, of a consumption, four months after her father, Sept. 26, 1793.-MALONE.

ASHBOURNE, Sept. 1, 1777.

'DEAR SIR,-On Saturday I wrote a very short letter, immediately upon my arrival hither, to show you that I am not less desirous of the interview than yourself. Life admits not of delays; when pleasure can be had, it is fit to catch it: every hour takes away part of the things that please us, and perhaps part of our disposition to be pleased. When I came to Lichfield, I found my old friend Harry Jackson dead. It was a loss, and a loss not to be repaired, as he was one of the companions of my childhood. I hope we may long continue to gain friends; but the friends which merit or usefulness can procure us are not able to supply the place of old acquaintance, with whom the days of youth may be retraced, and those images revived which gave the earliest delight. If you and I live to be much older, we shall take great delight in talking over the Hebridean Journey.

'In the meantime, it may not be amiss to contrive some other little adventure, but what it can be I know not; leave it, as Sydney says, "To virtue, fortune, time, and woman's breast; "1 for I believe Mrs. Boswell must have some part in the consultation.

'One thing you will like. The Doctor, so far as I can judge, is likely to leave us enough to ourselves. He was out to-day before I came down, and, I fancy, will stay out to dinner. I have brought the papers about poor Dodd, to show you, but you will soon have despatched them."

'Before I came away, I sent poor Mrs. Williams into the country, very ill of a pituitous defluxion, which wastes her gradually away, and which her physician declares himself unable to stop. I supplied her, as far as could be desired, with all conveniences to make her excursion and abode pleasant and useful. But I am afraid she can only linger a short time in a morbid state of weakness and pain.

'The Thrales, little and great, are all well, and purpose to go to Brighthelmstone at Michaelmas. They will invite me to go with them, and perhaps I may go, but I hardly think I

1' Who doth desire that chaste his wife should bee,
First be he true, for truth doth truth deserve;
Then be he such, as she his worth may see,
And, alwaies one, credit with her preserve;
Not toying kynd, nor causelessly unkynd,

Not stirring thoughts, nor yet denying right,
Not spying faults, nor in plaine errors blind,
Never hard hand, nor ever rayns [reins] too light;
As far from want, as far from vain expence,
Th' one doth enforce, the t'other doth entice;
Allow good companie, but drive from thence
All filthie mouths that glorie in their vice:
This done, thou hast no more but leave the rest
To nature, fortune, time, and woman's breast.'

-Sidney's Arcadia.

cover.

us!

'Write to me, and let us know when we may expect you. I am, dear sir, your most humble servant, 'SAM. JOHNSON.'

· MR. BOSWELL TO DR. JOHNSON.
'EDINBURGH, Sept. 9, 1777.

[After informing him that I was to set out next day, in order to meet him at Ashbourne.]

What think you of purchasing this island, and endowing a school or college there, the master to be a clergyman of the Church of England? How venerable would such an institution make the name of DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON in the Hebrides! I have, like yourself, a wonderful pleasure in recollecting our travels in those islands. The pleasure is, I think, greater than it reasonably should be, considering that we had not much either of beauty or elegance to charm our imaginations, or of rude novelty to astonish. Let us, by all means, have another expedition. I shrink a little from our scheme of going up the Baltic.' I am sorry you have already been

Ireland, of which I have seen but little? We shall try to strike out a plan when we are at Ashbourne.-I am ever, your most faithful, humble servant, 'JAMES BOSWELL.'

'I am sorry for poor Mrs. Williams's situation. You will, however, have the comfort of reflecting on your kindness to her. Mr. Jack son's death, and Mrs. Aston's palsy, are gloomy circumstances. Yet surely we should be habituated to the uncertainty of life and health. When my mind is unclouded by melancholy, I consider the temporary distresses of this state of being as "light afflictions" by stretching my mental view into that glorious after-existence, when they will appear to be as nothing. But present pleasures and present pains must be felt. I lately read Rasselas over again with great satisfaction.

'Since you are desirous to hear about Macquarry's sale, I shall inform you particularly. The gentleman who purchased Ulva is Mr. Campbell of Auchnaba; our friend Macquarry was proprietor of two-thirds of it, of which the rent was £156, 5s. 14d. This parcel was set up at £4,069, 5s. 1d., but it sold for no less than £5,540. The other third of Ulva, with the island of Staffa, belonged to Macquarry of Ormaig. Its rent, including that of Staffa, £83, 12s. 2d. -set up at £2,178, 16s. 4d.-sold for no less than-£3,540. The Laird of Coll wished to purchase Ulva, but he thought the price too high. There may, indeed, be great improvements made there, both in fishing and agriculture; but the interest of the purchase-money exceeds the rent so very much, that I doubt if the bargain will be profitable. There is an island called Little Colonsay, of £10 yearly rent, which I am informed has belonged to the Macquarrys of Ulva for many ages, but which was lately claimed by the Presbyterian Synod of Argyle, in consequence of a grant made to them by Queen Anne. It is believed that their claim will be dismissed, and that Little Colonsay will also be

'TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.

6

ASHBOURNE, Sept. 11, 1777. 'DEAR SIR,-I write to be left at Carlisle, as you direct me; but you cannot have it. Your letter, dated Sept. 6, was not at this place till this day, Thursday, Sept. 11; and I hope you will be here before this is at Carlisle." However, what you have not going, you may have returning; and as I believe I shall not love you less after our interview, it will then be as true

It appears that Johnson, now in his sixty-eighth year, was seriously inclined to realise the project of our going up the Baltic, which I had started when we were in the Isle of Skye; for he thus writes to Mrs. Thrale; Letters, vol. i. p. 366:

'ASHBOURNE, Sept. 13, 1777. 'Boswell, I believe, is coming. He talks of being here to-day: I shall be glad to see him; but he shrinks from the Baltic expedition, which, I think, is the best scheme in our power. What we shall substitute, I know not. He wants to see Wales; but, except the woods of Bachycraigh, what is there in Wales that can fill the hunger of ignorance, or quench the thirst of curiosity? We may, perhaps, form some scheme or other; but, in the phrase of Hockley in the Hole, it is pity he has not a better bottom.'

Such an ardour of mind and vigour of enterprise is admirable at any age, but more particularly so at the advanced period at which Johnson was then arrived. I am sorry now that I did not insist on our executing that scheme. Besides the other objects of curiosity and observation, to have seen my illustrious friend received, as he probably would have been, by a prince so eminently distinguished for his variety of talents and

acquisitions as the late King of Sweden; and by the Empress of Russia, whose extraordinary abilities, information, and magnanimity astonish the world, would have afforded a noble subject for contemplation and record. This reflection may possibly be thought too visionary by the more sedate and cold-blooded part of earnest, unavailing regret.—BOSWELL. my readers; yet I own I frequently indulge it with an

2 It so happened, the letter was forwarded to my house at Edinburgh.-BosWELL.

as it is now, that I set a very high value upon your friendship, and count your kindness as one of the chief felicities of my life. Do not fancy that an intermission of writing is a decay of kindness. No man is always in a disposition to write; nor has any man at all times something to say.

'That distrust which intrudes so often on your mind is a mode of melancholy which, if it be the business of a wise man to be happy, it is foolish to indulge; and if it be a duty to preserve our faculties entire for their proper use, it is criminal. Suspicion is very often an useless pain. From that, and all other pains, I wish you free and safe; for I am, dear sir, most affectionately yours, 'SAM. JOHNSON.'

On Sunday evening, Sept. 14, I arrived at Ashbourne, and drove directly up to Dr. Taylor's door. Dr. Johnson and he appeared before I got out of the post-chaise, and welcomed me cordially.

I told them that I had travelled all the preceding night, and gone to bed at Leek in Staffordshire; and that when I rose to go to church in the afternoon I was informed there had been an earthquake, of which, it seems, the shock had been felt in some degree at Ashbourne. JOHNSON: Sir, it will be much exaggerated in public talk: for, in the first place, the common people do not accurately adapt their thoughts to the objects; nor, secondly, do they accurately adapt their words to their thoughts: they do not mean to lie; but, taking no pains to be exact, they give you very false accounts. A great part of their language is proverbial. If anything rucks at all, they say it rocks like a cradle; and in this way they go on.'

The subject of grief for the loss of relations and friends being introduced, I observed that it was strange to consider how soon it in general wears away. Dr. Taylor mentioned a gentleman of the neighbourhood as the only instance he had ever known of a person who had endeavoured to retain grief. He told Dr. Taylor, that after his lady's death, which affected him deeply, he resolved that the grief, which he cherished with a kind of sacred fondness, should be lasting; but that he found he could not keep it long. JOHNSON: All grief for what cannot in the course of nature be helped soon wears away; in some sooner indeed, in some later; but it 1 never continues very long, unless where there is madness, such as will make a man have pride so fired in his mind, as to imagine himself a king; or any other passion in an unreasonable way: for all unnecessary grief is unwise, and therefore will not be long retained by a sound mind. If, indeed, the cause of our grief is occasioned by our own misconduct, if grief is mingled with remorse of conscience, it should be lasting.' BosWELL: But, sir, we do not approve of a man who very soon forgets the loss of a wife or a

friend.' JOHNSON: 'Sir, we disapprove of him, not because he soon forgets his grief; for the sooner it is forgotten the better, but because we suppose, that if he forgets his wife or his friend soon, he has not had much affection for them.'

I was somewhat disappointed in finding that the edition of the English Poets, for which he was to write Prefaces and Lives, was not an undertaking directed by him: but that he was to furnish a Preface and Life to any poet the booksellers pleased. I asked him if he would do this to any dunce's works, if they asked him. JOHNSON: Yes, sir, and say he was a dunce.' My friend seemed now not much to relish talking of this edition.

On Monday, September 15, Dr. Johnson observed that everybody commended such parts of his Journey to the Western Islands, as were in their own way. 'For instance,' said he, 'Mr. Jackson (the all-knowing) told me there was more good sense upon trade in it than he should hear in the House of Commons in a year, except from Burke. Jones commended the part which treats of language; Burke that which describes the inhabitants of mountainous countries.'

After breakfast, Johnson carried me to see the garden belonging to the school of Ashbourne, which is very prettily formed upon a bank, rising gradually behind the house. The Reve rend Mr. Langley, the head-master, accompanied

us.

While we sat basking in the sun upon a seat here, I introduced a common subject of complaint, the very small salaries which many curates have, and I maintained that no man should be invested with the character of a clergyman, unless he has a security for such an income as will enable him to appear respectable; that, therefore, a clergyman should not be allowed to have a curate, unless he gives him a hundred pounds a year; if he cannot do that, let him perform the duty himself. JOHNSON: To be sure, sir, it is wrong that any clergyman should be without a reasonable income; but as the church revenues were sadly diminished at the Reformation, the clergy who have livings cannot afford, in many instances, to give good salaries to curates, without leaving themselves too little; and if no curate were to be permitted unless he had a hundred pounds a year, their number would be very small, which would be a disadvantage, as then there would not be such choice in the nursery for the church, curates being candidates for the higher ecclesiastical offices, according to their merit and good behaviour.' He explained the system of the English hierarchy exceedingly well. 'It is not thought fit,' said he, to trust a man with the care of a parish till he has given proof as a curate that he shall deserve such a trust.' This is an excellent theory: and if the practice were according to it, the Church of England would be admirable indeed. However, as I have heard

Johnson told me that 'Taylor was a very sensible acute man, and had a strong mind; that he had great activity in some respects, and yet such a sort of indolence, that if you should put a pebble upon his chimney-piece, you would find it there, in the same state, a year afterwards.'

And here is a proper place to give an account of Johnson's humane and zealous interference in behalf of the Reverend Dr. William Dodd, formerly Prebendary of Brecon, and Chaplain in Ordinary to his Majesty; celebrated as a very popular preacher, an encourager of charitable institutions, and author of a variety of works, chiefly theological. Having unhappily contracted expensive habits of living, partly occasioned by licentiousness of manners, he in an evil hour, when pressed by want of money, and dreading an exposure of his circumstances, forged a bond, of which he attempted to avail himself to support his credit, flattering himself with hopes that he might be able to repay its amount without being detected. The person whose name he thus rashly and criminally presumed to falsify was the Earl of Chesterfield, to whom he had been tutor, and who he perhaps, in the warmth of his feelings, flattered himself would have generously paid the money in case of an alarm being taken, rather than suffer him to fall a victim to the dreadful consequences of violating the law against forgery, the most dangerous crime in a commercial country; but the unfortunate divine had the mortification to find that he was mistaken. His noble pupil appeared against him, and he was capitally convicted.

Johnson told me that Dr. Dodd was very little acquainted with him, having been but once in his company, many years previous to this period (which was precisely the state of my own acquaintance with Dodd); but in his distress he bethought himself of Johnson's persuasive power of writing, if haply it might avail to obtain for him the royal mercy. He did not apply to him directly, but, extraordinary as it may seem, through the late Countess of Harrington," who wrote a letter to Johnson, asking him to employ his pen in favour of Dodd. Mr. Allen, the prin

1 Mr. George Garrick.

2 Caroline, eldest daughter of Charles Fitzroy, Duke of Grafton, and wite of William, the second Earl of Harrington.-MALONE,

ter, who was Johnson's landlord and next neighbour in Bolt Court, and for whom he had much kindness, was one of Dodd's friends, of whom, to the credit of humanity, be it recorded that he had many who did not desert him, even after his infringement of the law had reduced him to the state of a man under sentence of death. Mr. Allen told me that he carried Lady Harrington's letter to Johnson, that Johnson read it walking up and down his chamber, and seemed much agitated; after which he said, 'I will do what I can ;' and certainly he did make extraordinary exertions.

He, this evening, as he had obligingly promised in one of his letters, put into my hands the whole series of his writings upon this melancholy occasion, and I shall present my readers with the abstract which I made from the collection; in doing which I studied to avoid copying what had appeared in print, and now make part of the edition of Johnson's Works, published by the booksellers of London, but taking care to mark Johnson's variations in some of the pieces there exhibited.

Dr. Johnson wrote, in the first place, Dr. Dodd's 'Speech to the Recorder of London,' at the Old Bailey, when sentence of death was about to be pronounced upon him.

He wrote, also, The Convict's Address to his unhappy Brethren,' a sermon delivered by Dr. Dodd in the chapel of Newgate. According to Johnson's manuscript, it began thus after the text, What shall I do to be saved? These were the words with which the keeper, to whose custody Paul and Silas were committed by their prosecutors, addressed his prisoners, when he saw them freed from the bonds by the perceptible agency of divine favour, and was therefore irresistibly convinced that they were not offenders against the laws, but martyrs to the truth.'

Dr. Johnson was so good as to mark for me with his own hand, on a copy of this sermon, which is now in my possession, such passages as were added by Dr. Dodd. They are not many. Whoever will take the trouble to look at the printed copy, and attend to what I mention, will be satisfied of this.

There is a short introduction by Dr. Dodd, and he also inserted this sentence, 'You see with what confusion and dishonour I now stand before you ;-no more in the pulpit of instruction, but on this humble seat with yourselves.' The notes are entirely Dodd's own, and Johnson's writing ends at the words, 'the thief whom He pardoned on the cross.' What follows was supplied by Dr. Dodd himself.

The other pieces mentioned by Johnson in the above-mentioned collection are two letters, one to the Lord Chanceller Bathurst (not Lord North, as is erroneously supposed), and one to Lord Mansfield ;-A Petition from Dr. Dodd to the King ;-A Petition from Mrs. Dodd to the Queen;-Observations of some length inserted

in the newspapers, on occasion of Earl Percy's having presented to his Majesty a petition for mercy to Dodd, signed by twenty thousand people, but all in vain. He told me that he had also written a petition from the City of London; 'but,' said he, with a significant smile, 'they mended it.'1

The last of these articles which Johnson wrote is 'Dr. Dodd's last solemn Declaration,' which he left with the sheriff at the place of execution. Here, also, my friend marked the variations on a copy of that piece now in my possession. Dodd inserted, 'I never knew or attended to the calls of frugality, or the needful minuteness of painful economy;' and in the next sentence he introduced the words which I distinguish by italics: My life for some few unhappy years past has been dreadfully erroneous.' Johnson's expression was hypocritical; but his remark on the margin is, 'With this he said he could not charge himself."

Having thus authentically settled what part of the Occasional Papers, concerning Dr. Dodd's miserable situation, came from the pen of Johnson, I shall proceed to present my readers with my record of the unpublished writings relating to that extraordinary and interesting matter.

I found a letter to Dr. Johnson from Dr. Dodd, May 23, 1777, in which The Convict's Address' seems clearly to be meant :

'I am so penetrated, my ever dear sir, with a sense of your extreme benevolence towards me, that I cannot find words equal to the sentiments of my heart.

1 Having unexpectedly, by the favour of Mr. Stone, of London Field, Hackney, seen the original in John

son's handwriting, of The Petition of the City of London in his Majesty in favour of Dr. Dodd, I now present it to my readers, with such passages as were omitted, enclosed in crotchets, and the additions or variations marked in italics:

'That William Dodd, Doctor of Laws, now lying under sentence of death in your Majesty's Jail of Newgate for the crime of forgery, has, for a great part of his life,

set a useful and laudable example of diligence in his calling (and, as we have reason to believe, has exercised his ministry with great fidelity and efficacy), which in many instances has produced the most happy effect. That he has been the first institutor, [or] and a very earnest and active promoter of several modes of useful charity, ad [that] therefore [he] may be considered as having ben on many occasions a benefactor to the public. That when they consider his past life, they are willing to suppose his late crime to have been not the

consequence of habitual depravity, but the suggestion rf some sudden and violent temptation.] [That] Your Petitioners, therefore, considering his case as, in some of its circumstances, unprecedented and peculiar, and | encouraged by your Majesty's known clemency, [they] most humbly recommend the said William Dodd to [his] your Majesty's most gracious consideration, in pes that he will be found not altogether [unfit] worthy to stand an example of Royal Mercy.'-Bos

WELL

'You are too conversant in the world to need the slightest hint from me, of what infinite utility the Speech on the awful day has been to me. I experience every hour some good effect from it. I am sure that effects still more salutary and important must follow from your kind and intended favour. I will labour-God being my helper-to do justice to it from the pulpit. I am sure, had I your sentiments constantly to deliver from thence, in all their mighty force and power, not a soul could be left unconvinced and unpersuaded.'

'May GOD ALMIGHTY bless and reward, with his choicest comforts, your philanthropic actions, and enable me at all times to express what I feel of the high and uncommon obligation which I owe to the first man in our times.'

On Sunday, June 22, he writes, begging Dr. Johnson's assistance in framing a supplicatory letter to his Majesty :

If his Majesty would be moved of his royal clemency to spare me and my family the horrors and ignominy of a public death, which the public itself is solicitous to waive, and to grant me in some silent distant corner of the globe to pass the remainder of my days in penitence and prayer, I would bless his clemency and be humbled.'

This letter was brought to Dr. Johnson when in church. He stooped down and read it, and wrote, when he went home, the following letter for Dr. Dodd to the King:

'SIR,--May it not offend your Majesty, that the most miserable of men applies himself to your clemency, as his last hope and his last refuge; that your mercy is most earnestly and humbly implored by a clergyman, whom your laws and judges have condemmed to the horror and ignominy of a public execution.

'I confess the crime, and own the enormity of its consequences, and the danger of its example. Nor have I the confidence to petition for impunity; but humbly hope that public security may be established, without the spectacle of a clergyman dragged through the streets, to a death of infamy, amidst the derision of the profligate and profane; and that justice may be satisfied with irrevocable exile, perpetual disgrace, and hopeless penury.

'My life, sir, has not been useless to mankind. I have benefited many. But my offences against GOD are numberless, and I have had little time for repentance. Preserve me, sir, by your prerogative of mercy, from the necessity of appearing unprepared at that tribunal, before which kings and subjects must stand at last together. Permit me to hide my guilt in some obscure corner of a foreign country, where, if I can ever

1 His speech at the Old Bailey, when found guilty.BOSWELL