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and she would find company enough come to her, for everybody loves to have things which please the palate put in their way, without trouble or preparation.' Such was his attention to the minutiae of life and manners.

Indeed, such subterraneous courses of water are found in various parts of our globe.

Talking of Dr. Johnson's unwillingness to believe extraordinary things, I ventured to say, 'Sir, you come near Hume's argument against miracles, "That it is more probable witnesses should lie, or be mistaken, than that they should happen." JOHNSON: "Why, sir, Hume,

He thus characterized the Duke of Devonshire, grandfather of the present representative of that very respectable family: 'He was not a man of superior abilities, but he was a man strictly faith-taking the proposition simply, is right. But the

Christian revelation is not proved by the miracles alone, but as connected with prophecies, and with the doctrines in confirmation of which the

ful to his word. If, for instance, he had promised
you an acorn, and none had grown that year in
his woods, he would not have contented himself
with that excuse: he would have sent to Den-miracles were wrought.'
mark for it. So unconditional was he in keep-
ing his word-so high as to the point of honour.'
This was a liberal testimony from the Tory
Johnson to the virtue of a great Whig noble-

man.

Mr. Burke's Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol, on the affairs of America, being mentioned, Johnson censured the composition much, and he ridiculed the definition of a free government, viz., -For any practical purpose, it is what the people think so.'-'I will let the King of France govern me on those conditions,' said he; 'for it is to be governed just as I please.' And when Dr. Taylor talked of a girl being sent to a parish workhouse, and asked how much she could be obliged to work, 'Why,' said Johnson, 'as much as is reasonable: and what is that? as much as she thinks reasonable.'

Dr. Johnson obligingly proposed to carry me to see Ilam, a romantic scene, now belonging to a family of the name of Port, but formerly the seat of the Congreves. I suppose it is well described in some of the tours. Johnson described it distinctly and vividly, at which I could not but express to him my wonder; because, though my eyes, as he observed, were better than his, I could not by any means equal him in representing visible objects. I said, the difference between us in this respect was as that between a man who has a bad instrument, but plays well on it, and a man who has a good instrument, on which he can play very imperfectly.

He repeated his observation, that the differences among Christians are really of no consequence. For instance,' said he, 'if a Protestant objects to a Papist, "You worship images ;' the Papist can answer, "I do not insist on your doing it; you may be a very good Papist without it: I do it only as a help to my devotion."' I said, the great article of Christianity is the revelation of immortality. Johnson admitted it was.

In the evening, a gentleman-farmer, who was on a visit at Dr. Taylor's, attempted to dispute with Johnson in favour of Mungo Campbell, who shot Alexander, Earl of Eglintoune, upon his having fallen when retreating from his Lordship, who he believed was about to seize his gun, as he had threatened to do. He said he should have done just as Campbell did. JOHNSON : 'Whoever would do as Campbell did deserves to be hanged; not that I could, as a juryman, have found him legally guilty of murder; but I am glad they found means to convict him.' The gentleman-farmer said, 'A poor man has as much honour as a rich man, and Campbell had that to defend.' Johnson exclaimed, ‘A poor man has no honour.' The English yeoman, not dismayed, proceeded: 'Lord Eglintoune was a damned fool to run on upon Campbell, after being warned that Campbell would shoot him if he did.' Johnson, who could not bear anything like swearing, angrily replied, 'He was not a damned fool: he only thought too well of Campbell. He did not believe Campbell would be such a damned scoundrel, as to do so damned a thing.' His emphasis on damned,

opponent's want of decorum in his presence.

I recollect a very fine amphitheatre, surrounded with hills covered with woods, and walks neatly formed along the side of a rocky steep, on the quarter next the house, with re-accompanied with frowning looks, reproved his cesses under projections of rock, overshadowed with trees; in one of which recesses, we are told, Congreve wrote his Old Bachelor. We viewed a remarkable natural curiosity at Ilam; two rivers bursting near each other from the rock, not from immediate springs, but after having run for many miles under ground. Plott, in his History of Staffordshire (p. 69), gives an account of this curiosity; but Johnson would not believe it, though we had the attestation of the gardener, who said he had put in corks, where the river Manyfold sinks into the ground, and bad catched them in a net, placed before one of the openings where the water bursts out.

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Talking of the danger of being mortified by rejection, when making approaches to the acquaintance of the great, I observed, 'I am, however, generally for trying, "Nothing venture, nothing have." JOHNSON: Very true, sir; but I have always been more afraid of failing, than hopeful of success.' And, indeed, though he had all just respect for rank, no man ever less courted the favour of the great.

During this interview at Ashbourne, Johnson seemed to be more uniformly social, cheerful, and alert, than I had almost ever seen him. He was prompt on great occasions and on small.

to record; but it is a small characteristic trait in the Flemish picture which I give of my friend, and in which, therefore, I mark the most minute particulars. And let it be remembered, that Esop at play is one of the instructive apo

I mentioned an old gentleman of our acquaintance whose memory was beginning to fail. JOHNSON: 'There must be a diseased mind, where there is a failure of memory at seventy. A man's head, sir, must be morbid, if he fails so soon.' My friend, being now himself sixty-eight, might think thus: but I imagine that threescore and ten, the Psalmist's period of sound human life, in later ages may have a failure, though there be no disease in the constitution.

Taylor, who praised everything of his own to ex-
cess-in short, 'whose geese were all swans,' as
the proverb says-expatiated on the excellence
of his bull-dog, which he told us was 'perfectly
well-shaped.' Johnson, after examining the
animal attentively, thus repressed the vain-logues of antiquity.
glory of our host: No, sir, he is not well-
shaped; for there is not the quick transition
from the thickness of the forepart to the tenuity
-the thin part-behind, which a bull-dog ought
to have.' This tenuity was the only hard word
that I heard him use during this interview, and,
it will be observed, he instantly put another
expression in its place. Taylor said, a small
bull-dog was as good as a large one. JOHNSON:
'No, sir; for in proportion to his size he has
strength; and your argument would prove that
a good bull-dog may be as small as a mouse.'
It was amazing how he entered with perspicuity
and keenness upon everything that occurred
in conversation. Most men whom I know,
would no more think of discussing a question
about a bull-dog than of attacking a bull.

I cannot allow any fragment whatever that floats in my memory concerning the great subject of this work to be lost. Though a small particular may appear trifling to some, it will be relished by others; while every little spark adds something to the general blaze; and to please the true, candid, warm admirers of Johnson, and in any degree increase the splendour of his reputation, I bid defiance to the shafts of ridicule, or even of malignity. Showers of them have been discharged at my Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides; yet it still sails unhurt along the stream of time, and, as an attendant upon Johnson,

'Pursues the triumph, and partakes the gale." One morning after breakfast, when the sun shone bright, we walked out together, and 'pored' for some time with placid indolence upon an artificial waterfall, which Dr. Taylor had made by building a strong dyke of stone across the river behind the garden. It was now somewhat obstructed by branches of trees and other rubbish, which had come down the river, and settled close to it. Johnson, partly from a desire to see it play more freely, and partly from that inclination to activity which will animate at times the most inert and sluggish mortal, took a long pole which was lying on a bank, and pushed down several parcels of this wreck with painful assiduity, while I stood quietly by, wondering to behold the sage thus curiously employed, and smiling with a humorous satisfaction each time when he carried his point. He worked till he was quite out of breath; and having found a large dead cat, so heavy that he could not move it after several efforts, 'Come,' said he, throwing down the pole, 'you shall take it now;' which I accordingly did, and being a fresh man, soon made the cat tumble over the cascade. This may be laughed at as too trifling

Talking of Rochester's Poems, he said he had given them to Mr. Steevens to castrate' for the edition of the Poets, to which he was to write prefaces. Dr. Taylor (the only time I ever heard him say anything witty 2) observed, that 'if Rochester had been castrated himself, his exceptionable poems would not have been written.' I asked if Burnet had not given a good Life of Rochester. JOHNSON: 'We have a good Death: there is not much Life.' I asked whether Prior's Poems were to be printed entire; Johnson said they were. I mentioned Lord Hailes's censure of Prior, in his preface to a collection of Sacred Poems, by various hands, published by him at Edinburgh a great many years ago, where he mentions, 'those impure tales which will be the eternal opprobrium of their ingenious author.' JOHNSON: Sir, Lord Hailes has forgot. There is nothing in Prior that will excite to lewdness. If Lord Hailes thinks there is, he must be more combustible than other people.' I instanced the tale of Paulo Purganti and his Wife. JOHNSON: Sir, there is nothing there, but that his wife wanted to be kissed, when poor Paulo was out of pocket. No, sir, Prior is a lady's book. No lady is ashamed to have it standing in her library.'

The hypochondriac disorder being mentioned, Dr. Johnson did not think it so common as I supposed. 'Dr. Taylor,' said he, 'is the same one day as another. Burke and Reynolds are the same. Beauclerk, except when in pain, is the same. I am not so myself; but this I do not mention commonly.'

I complained of a wretched changefulness, so that I could not preserve, for any long continuance, the same views of anything. It was most comfortable to me to experience, in Dr. Johnson's company, a relief from this uneasiness. His steady, vigorous mind held firm before me those objects which my own feeble

1 This was unnecessary, for it had been done in the early part of the present century by Jacob Tonson.MALONE.

2 I am told that Horace Earl of Oxford has a col· lection of Bon-mots by persons who never said but one -BOSWELL.

and tremulous imagination frequently presented in such a wavering state that my reason could not judge well of them.

Dr. Johnson advised me to-day to have as many books about me as I could; that I might read upon any subject upon which I had a desire for instruction at the time. 'What you read then,' said he, 'you will remember; but if you have not a book immediately ready, and the subject moulds in your mind, it is a chance if you have again a desire to study it.' He added, 'If a man never has an eager desire for instruction, he should prescribe a task for himself. But it is better when a man reads from immediate inclination.'

He repeated a good many lines of Horace's Odes while we were in the chaise: I remember particularly the Ode Eheu, fugaces [1. ii. Od. xiv.].

He said, the dispute as to the comparative excellence of Homer or Virgil' was inaccurate. 'We must consider,' said he, 'whether Homer was not the greatest poet, though Virgil may have produced the finest poem.2 Virgil was indebted to Homer for the whole invention of the structure of an epic poem, and for many of his beauties.'

He told me that Bacon was a favourite author with him; but he had never read his works till he was compiling the English Dictionary, in which, he said, I might see Bacon very often quoted. Mr. Seward recollects his having mentioned, that a dictionary of the English language might be compiled from Bacon's writings alone, and that he had once an intention of giving an edition of Bacon, at least of his English works, and writing the life of that great man. Had he executed this intention, there can be no doubt that he would have done it in a most masterly manner. Mallet's Life of Bacon has no inconsiderable merit as an acute and elegant dissertation relative to its subject; but Mallet's mind was not comprehensive enough to embrace the vast extent of Lord Verulam's genius and research. Dr. Warburton therefore observed, with witty justness, 'that Mallet, in his Life of Bacon, had forgotten that he was a philosopher; and if he should write the life of the Duke of Marlborough, which he had undertaken to do, he would probably forget that he was a general.'

I am informed by Mr. Langton, that a great many years ago he was present when this question was agitated between Dr. Johnson and Mr. Burke; and, to use Johnson's phrase, they talked their best;' Johnson for Homer, Burke for Virgil. It may well be supposed to have been one of the ablest and most brilliant contests that ever was exhibited. How much must we regret that it has not been preserved !--BosWELL

But where is the inaccuracy, if the admirers of Homer contend that he was not only prior to Virgil in point of time, but superior in excellence?-J. BosWELL, jun.

Wishing to be satisfied what degree of truth there was in a story which a friend of Johnson's and mine had told me to his disadvantage, I mentioned it to him in direct terms; and it was to this effect: that a gentleman who had lived in great intimacy with him, shown him much kindness, and even relieved him from a spunginghouse, having afterwards fallen into bad circumstances, was one day, when Johnson was at dinner with him, seized for debt, and carried to prison; that Johnson sat still, undisturbed, and went on eating and drinking; upon which the gentleman's sister, who was present, could not suppress her indignation: 'What, sir,' said she, are you so unfeeling as not even to offer to go to my brother in his distress; you who have been so much obliged to him?' And that Johnson answered, Madam, I owe him no obligation; what he did for me, he would have done for a dog.'

Johnson assured me that the story was absolutely false; but like a man conscious of being in the right, and desirous of completely vindicating himself from such a charge, he did not arrogantly rest on a mere denial, and on his general character, but proceeded thus: "Sir, I was very intimate with that gentleman, and was once relieved by him from an arrest; but I never was present when he was arrested, never knew that he was arrested, and I believe he never was in difficulties after the time when he relieved me. I loved him much; yet, in talking of his general character, I may have said, though I do not remember that I ever did say so, that as his generosity proceeded from no principle, but was a part of his profusion, he would do for a dog what he would do for a friend; but I never applied this remark to any particular instance, and certainly not to his kindness to me. If a profuse man, who does not value his money, and gives a large sum to a whore, gives half as much, or an equally large sum, to relieve a friend, it cannot be esteemed as virtue. This was all that I could say of that gentleman, and, if said at all, it must have been said after his death. Sir, I would have gone to the world's end to relieve him. The remark about the dog, if made by me, was such a sally as might escape one when painting a man highly.'

On Tuesday, September 23, Johnson was remarkably cordial to me. It being necessary for me to return to Scotland soon, I had fixed on the next day for my setting out, and I felt a tender concern at the thought of parting with him. He had, at this time, frankly communicated to me many particulars, which are inserted in this work in their proper places; and once, when I happened to mention that the expense of my jaunt would come to much more than I had computed, he said, 'Why, sir, if the expense were to be an inconvenience, you would have reason to regret it; but if you have had

the money to spend, I know not that you could have purchased as much pleasure with it in any other way.'

During this interview at Ashbourne, Johnson and I frequently talked with wonderful pleasure of mere trifles which had occurred in our tour to the Hebrides; for it had left a most agreeable and lasting impression upon his mind. He found fault with me for using the phrase to make money. 'Don't you see,' said he, 'the impropriety of it? To make money is to coin it: you should say get money.' The phrase, however, is, I think, pretty current. But Johnson was at all times jealous of infractions upon the genuine English language, and prompt to repress colloquial barbarisms; such as pledging myself, for undertaking; line, for department, or branch, as the civil line, the banking line. He was particularly indignant against the almost universal use of the word idea in the sense of notion or opinion, when it is clear that idea can only signify something of which an image can be formed in the mind. We may have an idea or image of a mountain, a tree, a building; but we cannot surely have an idea or image of an argument or proposition. Yet we hear the sages of the law delivering their ideas upon the question under consideration;' and the first speakers in Parliament 'entirely coincided in the idea which has been ably stated by an honourable member:'-or 'reprobating an idea as unconstitutional, and fraught with the most dangerous consequences to a great and free country.' Johnson called this 'modern cant.'

I perceived that he pronounced the word heard as if spelt with a double e, heerd, instead of sounding it herd, as is most usually done.1 He said his reason was, that if it were pronounced herd, there would be a single exception from the English pronunciation of the syllable ear, and he thought it better not to have that exception.

He praised Grainger's Ode on Solitude, in Dodsley's collection, and repeated, with great energy, the exordium:

'O Solitude, romantic maid,

Whether by nodding towers you tread;
Or haunt the desert's trackless gloom,
Or hover o'er the yawning tomb;
Or climb the Andes' clifted side,
Or by the Nile's coy source abide;
Or, starting from your half-year's sleep,
From Hecla view the thawing deep;
Or, at the purple dawn of day,
Tadmor's marble waste survey-'

observing, 'This, sir, is very noble.'

In the evening our gentleman-farmer, and two others, entertained themselves and the company with a great number of tunes on the fiddle. Johnson desired to have 'Let ambition fire thy

1 In the age of Queen Elizabeth this word was frequently written, as doubtless it was pronounced, hard. -MALONE.

mind' played over again, and appeared to give a patient attention to it, though he owned to me that he was very insensible to the power of music. I told him that it affected me to such a degree, as often to agitate my nerves painfully, producing in my mind alternate sensations of pathetic dejection, so that I was ready to shed tears; and of daring resolution, so that I was inclined to rush into the thickest part of the battle. Sir,' said he, 'I should never hear it, if it made me such a fool.'

Much of the effect of music, I am satisfied, is owing to the association of ideas. That air, which instantly and irresistibly excites in the Swiss,' when in a foreign land, the maladie du pays, has, I am told, no intrinsic power of sound. And I know, from my own experience, that Scotch reels, though brisk, make me melancholy, because I used to hear them in my early years, at a time when Mr. Pitt called for soldiers 'from the mountains of the north,' and numbers of brave Highlanders were going abroad, never to return. Whereas the airs in The Beggar's Opera, many of which are very soft, never fail to render me gay, because they are associated with the warm sensations and high spirits of London. This evening, while some of the tunes of ordinary composition were played with no great skill, my frame was agitated, and I was conscious of a generous attachment to Dr. Johnson, as my preceptor and friend, mixed with an affectionate regret that he was an old man whom I should probably lose in a short time. Ithought I could defend him at the point of my sword. My reverence and affection for him were in full glow. I said to him, 'My dear sir, we must meet every year if you don't quarrel with me.' JOHNSON: Nay, sir, you are more likely to quarrel with me, than I with you. My regard for you is greater almost than I have words to express; but I do not choose to be always repeating it; write it down in the first leaf of your pocket-book, and never doubt of it again.'

I talked to him of misery being the 'doom of man' in this life, as displayed in his Vanity of Human Wishes. Yet I observed that things were done upon the supposition of happiness: grand houses were built, fine gardens were made, splendid places of public amusement were contrived, and crowded with company. JOHNSON: 'Alas, sir, these are all only struggles for happiWhen I first entered Ranelagh, it gave an expansion and gay sensation to my mind such as I never experienced anywhere else. But, as Xerxes wept when he viewed his immense army, and considered that not one of that great multitude would be alive a hundred years afterwards, so it went to my heart to consider that there was not one in all that brilliant

ness.

1 The 'Ranz des Vaches,' which so strongly affected the Swiss soldiers, when on foreign service, as to cause them to desert. Rousseau informs us that the air was forbidden under pain of death.

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circle that was not afraid to go home and think; but that the thoughts of each individual there would be distressing when alone.' This reflection was experimentally just. The feeling of languor' which succeeds the animation of gaiety, is itself a very severe pain; and when the mind is then vacant, a thousand disappointments and vexations rush in and excruciate. Will not many even of my fairest readers allow this to be true?

I suggested that being in love and flattered with hopes of success, or having some favourite scheme in view for the next day, might prevent that wretchedness of which we had been talking. JOHNSON: 'Why, sir, it may sometimes be as you suppose; but my conclusion is in general but too true.'

of Session in Scotland. He had always been very zealous against slavery in every form, in which I with all deference thought that he discovered 'a zeal without knowledge.' Upon one occasion, when in company with some very grave men at Oxford, his toast was, 'Here's to the next insurrection of the negroes in the West Indies.' His violent prejudice against our West Indian and American settlers appeared whenever there was an opportunity. Towards the conclusion of his Taxation no Tyranny, he says, 'How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?' and in his conversation with Mr. Wilkes, he asked, 'Where did Beckford and Trecothick learn English?' That Trecothick could both speak and write good English is well known. I myself was favoured with his correspondence concerning the brave Corsicans. And that Beckford could speak it with a spirit of honest resolution even to his Majesty, as his 'faithful Lord Mayor of London,' is commemorated by the noble monument erected to him in Guildhall.

The argument dictated by Dr. Johnson was as follows:

While Johnson and I stood in calm conference by ourselves in Dr. Taylor's garden, at a pretty late hour in a serene autumn night, looking up to the heavens, I directed the discourse to the subject of a future state. My friend was in a placid and most benignant frame of mind. 'Sir,' said he, 'I do not imagine that all things will be made clear to us immediately after death, but that the ways of Providence will be explained 'It must be agreed that in most ages many to us very gradually.' I ventured to ask him countries have had part of their inhabitants in whether, although the words of some texts of a state of slavery; yet it may be doubted whether Scripture seemed strong in support of the dread-slavery can ever be supposed the natural condiful doctrine of an eternity of punishment, we might not hope that the denunciation was figurative, and would not literally be executed. JOHNSON: 'Sir, you are to consider the intention of punishment in a future state. We have no reason to be sure that we shall then be no longer liable to offend against GOD. We do not know that even the angels are quite in a state of security; nay, we know that some of them have fallen. It may therefore, perhaps, be necessary, in order to preserve both men and angels in a state of rectitude, that they should have continually before them the punishment of those who have deviated from it: but we hope that by some other means a fall from rectitude may be prevented. Some of the texts of Scripture upon this subject are, as you observe, indeed strong; but they may admit of a mitigated interpretation.' He talked to me upon this awful and delicate question in a gentle tone, and as if afraid to be decisive.

After supper I accompanied him to his apartment, and at my request he dictated to me an argument in favour of the negro who was then claiming his liberty, in an action in the Court

1 Pope mentions,

'Stretch'd on the rack of a too easy chair.' But I recollect a couplet quite apposite to my subject in Virtue, an Ethic Epistle, a beautiful and instructive poem, by an anonymous writer, in 1758; who, treating of pleasure in excess, says,

'Till languor, suffering on the rack of bliss, Confess that man was never made for this.' -BOSWELL

tion of man. It is impossible not to conceive that men in their original state were equal; and very difficult to imagine how one would be subjected to another but by violent compulsion. An individual may, indeed, forfeit his liberty by a crime; but he cannot, by that crime, forfeit the liberty of his children. What is true of a criminal seems true likewise of a captive. A man may accept life from a conquering enemy on condition of perpetual servitude; but it is very doubtful whether he can entail that servitude on his descendants; for no man can stipulate without commission for another. The condition which he himself accepts, his son or grandson perhaps would have rejected. If we should admit, what perhaps may with more reason be denied, that there are certain relations between man and man which may make slavery necessary and just, yet it can never be proved that he who is now suing for his freedom ever stood in any of those relations. He is certainly subject by no law, but that of violence, to his present master, who pretends no claim to his obedience, but that he bought him from a merchant of slaves, whose right to sell him never was examined. It is said that, according to the constitutions of Jamaica, he was legally enslaved; these constitutions are merely positive, and apparently injurious to the rights of mankind, because whoever is exposed to sale is condemned to slavery without appeal, by whatever fraud or violence he might have been originally brought into the merchant's power. In our own times, princes have been sold by wretches to whose

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