Beauclerk did, and therefore resolved he would not let it pass; adding, that he would not appear a coward.' A little while after this, the conversation turned on the violence of Hackman's temper. Johnson then said, 'It was his business to command his temper, as my friend Mr. Beauclerk should have done some time ago.' BEAUCLERK: 'I should learn of you, sir.' JOHNSON: 'Sir, you have given me opportunities enough of learning, when I have been in your company. No man loves to be treated with contempt.' BEAUCLERK (with a polite inclination toward Johnson): 'Sir, you have known me twenty years, and however I may have treated others, you may be sure I could never treat you with contempt.' JOHNSON: 'Sir, you have said more than was necessary.' Thus it ended; and Beauclerk's coach not having come for him till very late, Dr. Johnson and another gentleman sat with him a long time after the rest of the company were gone; and he and I dined at Beauclerk's on the Saturday se'nnight following. After this tempest had subsided, I recollect the following particulars of his conversation:'I am always for getting a boy forward in his learning, for that is a sure good. I would let him at first read any English book which happens to engage his attention; because you have done a great deal when you have brought him to have entertainment from a book. He'll get better books afterwards.'

'Mallet, I believe, never wrote a single line of his projected Life of the Duke of Marlborough. He groped for materials, and thought of it till he had exhausted his mind. Thus it sometimes happens that men entangle themselves in their own schemes.'

'To be contradicted in order to force you to talk is mighty unpleasing. You shine, indeed; but it is by being ground.'

Of a gentleman who made some figure among the Literati of his time (Mr. Fitzherbert), he said, 'What eminence he had was by a felicity of manner; he had no more learning than what he could not help.'

On Saturday, April 24, I dined with him at Mr. Beauclerk's, with Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mr. Jones (afterwards Sir William), Mr. Langton, Mr. Steevens, Mr. Paradise, and Dr. Higgins. I mentioned that Mr. Wilkes had attacked Garrick to me as a man who had no friend. JOHNSON: 'I believe he is right, sir. [Oi giao, où pino]-He had friends, but no friend. Garrick was so diffused, he had no man to whom he wished to unbosom himself. He found people always ready to applaud him, and that always for the same thing; so he saw life with great uniformity.' I took upon me, for once, to fight with Goliath's weapons, and play the sophist.'Garrick did not need a friend, as he got from everybody all that he wanted. What is a friend? One who supports you and comforts you, while others do not. Friendship, you

know, sir, is the cordial drop, "to make the nauseous draught of life go down;" but if the draught be not nauseous, if it be all sweet, there is no occasion for that drop.' JOHNSON: 'Many men would not be content to live so. I hope I should not. They would wish to have an intimate friend, with whom they might compare minds and cherish private virtues.' One of the company mentioned Lord Chesterfield as a man who had no friend. JOHNSON: There were more materials to make friendship in Garrick, had he not been so diffused.' BoSWELL: 'Garrick was pure gold, but beat out to thin leaf. Lord Chesterfield was tinsel.' JOHNSON: 'Garrick was a very good man, the most cheerful man of his age; a decent liver in a profession which is supposed to give indulgence to licentiousness; and a man who gave away, freely, money acquired by himself. He began the world with a great hunger for money; the son of a half-pay officer, bred in a family whose study was to make fourpence do as much as others made fourpence halfpenny do. But when he had got money he was very liberal.' I presumed to animadvert on his eulogy on Garrick in his Lives of the Poets. You say, sir, his death eclipsed the gaiety of nations.' JOHNSON: I could not have said more or less. It is the truth; eclipsed, not extinguished; and his death did eclipse: it was like a storm.' BosWELL: 'But why nations? Did his gaiety extend further than his own nation?' JOHNSON: Why, sir, some exaggeration must be allowed. Besides, nations may be said-if we allow the Scotch to be a nation-to have gaiety-which they have not. You are an exception, though. Come, gentlemen, let us candidly admit that there is one Scotchman who is cheerful.' BeauCLERK But he is a very unnatural Scotchman. I, however, continued to think the compliment to Garrick hyperbolically untrue, His acting had ceased some time before his death; at any rate he had acted in Ireland but a short time, at an early period of his life, and never in Scotland. I objected also to what appears an anti-climax of praise, when contrasted with the preceding panegyric, and diminished the public stock of harmless pleasure!' 'Is not harmless pleasure very tame?' JOHNSON: 'Nay, sir, harmless pleasure is the highest praise. Pleasure is a word of dubious import; pleasure is, in general, dangerous, and pernicious to virtue. To be able, therefore, to furnish pleasure that is harmless, pleasure pure and unalloyed, is as great a power as man can possess.' This was, perhaps, as ingenious a defence as could be made; still, however, I was not satisfied.

A celebrated wit being mentioned, he said, One may say of him as was said of a French wit, Il n'a de l'esprit que contre Dieu. been several times in company with him, but never perceived any strong power of wit. He

I have

for you, sir.' Johnson was exceedingly courteous, and the interview, which lasted about two hours, during which the earl communicated his anecdotes of Pope, was as agreeable as I could have wished. When we came out, I said to Johnson, that, considering his Lordship's civility, I should have been vexed if he had again failed to come. 'Sir,' said he, 'I would rather have given twenty pounds than not have come.' I accompanied him to Streatham, where we dined, and returned to town in the evening.

On Monday, May 3, I dined with him at Mr. Dilly's. I pressed him this day for his opinion on the passage in Parnell, concerning which I had in vain questioned him in several letters, and at length obtained it in due form of law:

'Case for DR. JOHNSON's opinion:

'3d of May 1779.

Mr. Wesley being in the course of his mini

passage:

"To clear this doubt, to know the world by sight, To find if books and swains report it right; (For yet by swains alone the world he knew, Whose feet came wandering o'er the nightly dew)." Is there not a contradiction in its being first supposed that the Hermit knew both what books and swains reported of the world; yet afterwards said that he knew it by swains alone?' 'I think it an inaccuracy. He mentions two instructors in the first line, and says he had only one in the next.'

This evening I set out for Scotland.

'TO MRS. LUCY PORTER, IN LICHFIELD.

'May 4, 1779. 'DEAR MADAM,-Mr. Green has informed me that you are much better; I hope I need not tell you that I am glad of it. I cannot boast of being much better; my old nocturnal complaint still pursues me, and my respiration is difficult, though much easier than when I left you the summer before last. Mr. and Mrs. Thrale are well; Miss has been a little indisposed, but she has got well again. They have since the loss of their boy had two daughters; but they seem likely to want a son.

'I hope you had some books which I sent you. I was sorry for poor Mrs. Adey's death, and am afraid you will be sometimes solitary; but endeavour, whether alone or in company, to keep yourself cheerful. My friends likewise die very fast; but such is the state of man.—I am, dear love, your most humble servant,

'SAM. JOHNSON.'

He had, before I left London, resumed the conversation concerning the appearance of a ghost at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, which Mr. John Wesley believed, but to which Johnson did not give credit. I was, however, desirous to examine the question closely, and at the same

'DEAR SIR,-What can possibly have happened that keeps us two such strangers to each other? I expected to have heard from you when you came home; I expected afterwards. I went into the country and returned, and yet there is no letter from Mr. Boswell. No ill, I hope, has happened; and if ill should happen, why should it be concealed from him who loves you? Is it a fit of humour, that has disposed you to try who can hold out longest without writing? If it be, you have the victory. But I am afraid of something bad; set me free from my suspicions.

'My thoughts are at present employed in guessing the reason of your silence: you must not expect that I should tell you anything, if

I had anything to tell. Write, pray write to me, and let me know what is or what has been the cause of this long interruption.—I am, dear sir, your most affectionate humble servant, 'SAM. JOHNSON.'

TO DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. EDINBURGH, July 17, 1779. 'MY DEAR SIR,-What may be justly denominated a supine indolence of mind has been my state of existence since I last returned to Scotland. In a livelier state I had often suffered

severely from long intervals of silence on your part; and I had even been chid by you for expressing my uneasiness. I was willing to take advantage of my insensibility, and, while I could bear the experiment, to try whether your affection for me would, after an unusual silence on my part, make you write first. This afternoon I have had very high satisfaction by receiving your kind letter of inquiry, for which I most gratefully thank you. I am doubtful if it was right to make the experiment; though I have gained by it. I was beginning to grow tender, and to upbraid myself, especially after having dreamt two nights ago that I was with you. I and my wife, and my four children, are all well. I would not delay one post to answer your letter: but, as it is late, I have not time to do more. You shall soon hear from me, upon many and various particulars; and I shall never again put you to any test.-I am, with veneration, my dear sir, your much obliged and faithful humble servant,

'JAMES BOSWELL.'

On the 22d of July I wrote to him again, and gave him an account of my last interview with my worthy friend Mr. Edward Dilly, at his brother's house at Southill, in Bedfordshire, where he died soon after I parted from him, leaving me a very kind remembrance of his regard.

I informed him that Lord Hailes, who had

promised to furnish him with some anecdotes for his Lives of the Poets, had sent me three instances of Prior's borrowing from Gombauld, in Recueil des Poètes, tome iii. Epigram 'To John I owed great obligation,' p. 25. To the Duke of Noailles,' p. 32. 'Sauntering Jack and Idle Joan,' p. 35.

My letter was a pretty long one, and contained a variety of particulars: but he, it should had not attended to it; for his next to seem, me was as follows:

TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. 'STREATHAM, Sept. 9, 1779. 'MY DEAR SIR,-Are you playing the same trick again, and trying who can keep silence longest? Remember that all tricks are either knavish or childish, and that it is as foolish to

make experiments upon the constancy of a friend as upon the chastity of a wife.

'What can be the cause of this second fit of silence I cannot conjecture; but after one trick I will not be cheated by another, nor will I harass my thoughts with conjectures about the motives of a man who probably acts only by caprice. I therefore suppose you are well, and that Mrs. Boswell is well too: and that the fine summer has restored Lord Auchinleck. I am much better than you left me; I think I am better than when I was in Scotland.

'I forgot whether I informed you that poor Thrale has been in great danger. Mrs Thrale likewise has miscarried, and been much indisposed. Everybody else is well; Langton is in camp. I intend to put Lord Hailes's description of Dryden into another edition, and, as I know his accuracy, wish he would consider the dates, which I could not always settle to my own mind.

'Mr. Thrale goes to Brighthelmstone about Michaelmas, to be jolly and ride a-hunting. I shall go to town, or perhaps to Oxford. Exercise and gaiety, or rather carelessness, will, I hope, dissipate all remains of his malady; and I likewise hope, by the change of place, to find some opportunities of growing yet better myself.-I am, dear sir, your humble servant,

'SAM. JOHNSON.'

My readers will not be displeased at being told every slight circumstance of the manner in which Dr. Johnson contrived to amuse his solitary hours. He sometimes employed himself in chemistry, sometimes in watering and pruning a vine, sometimes in small experiments, at which those who may smile should recollect that there are moments which admit of being soothed only by trifles.2

On the 20th of September, I defended myself against his suspicion of me, which I did not deserve; and added, 'Pray, let us write frequently. A whim strikes me, that we should

1 Which I communicated to him from his Lordship; but it has not yet been published. I have a copy of it. -BOSWELL.

The few notices concerning Dryden, which Lord Hailes had collected, the author afterwards gave me.

-MALONE.

2 In one of his manuscript Diaries there is the follow ing entry, which marks his curious minute attention: 'July 26, 1768. I shaved my nail by accident in whetting the knife, about an eighth of an inch from the bottom, and about a fourth from the top. This I measure that I may know the growth of nails; the whole is about five-eighths of an inch.' Another of the same kind appears :-'Aug. 7, 1779. Partem brachii dextri carpo proximam et cutem pectoris circa mamillam dextram rasi, ut notum fieret quanto temporis pili renovarentur.' And, Aug. 15, 1783. I cut from the vine 41 leaves, which weighed five oz. and a half and eight scruples. I lay them upon my bookcase, to see what weight they will lose by drying.'-BOSWELL

send off a sheet once a week, like a stage-coach, whether it be full or not; nay, though it should be empty. The very sight of your handwriting would comfort me; and were a sheet to be thus sent regularly, we should much oftener convey something, were it only a few kind words.'

My friend, Colonel James Stuart, second son of the Earl of Bute, who had distinguished himself as a good officer of the Bedfordshire militia, | had taken a public-spirited resolution to serve his country in its difficulties, by raising a regular regiment, and taking the command of it himself. This, in the heir of the immense property of Wortley, was highly honourable. Having been in Scotland recruiting, he obligingly asked me to accompany him to Leeds, then the headquarters of his corps; from thence to London for a short time, and afterwards to other places to which the regiment might be ordered. Such an offer, at a time of the year when I had full leisure, was very pleasing; especially as I was to accompany a man of sterling good sense, information, discernment, and conviviality; and was to have a second crop in one year of London and Johnson. Of this I informed my illustrious friend, in characteristical warm terms, in a letter dated the 30th of September, from Leeds.

On Monday, October 4, I called at his house before he was up. He sent for me to his bedside, and expressed his satisfaction at this incidental meeting, with as much vivacity as if he had been in the gaiety of youth. He called briskly, 'Frank, go and get coffee, and let us breakfast, in splendour.'

During this visit to London I had several interviews with him, which it is unnecessary to distinguish particularly. I consulted him as to the appointment of guardians to my children in case of my death. 'Sir,' said he, 'do not appoint a number of guardians. When there are many, they trust one to another, and the business is neglected. I would advise you to choose only one; let him be a man of respectable character, who, for his own credit, will do what is right; let him be a rich man, so that he may be under no temptation to take advantage; and let him be a man of business, who is used to conduct affairs with ability and expertness, to whom, therefore, the execution of the trust will not be burdensome.'

On Sunday, October 10, we dined together at Mr. Strahan's. The conversation having turned on the prevailing practice of going to the East Indies in quest of wealth ;-JOHNSON: A man had better have £10,000 at the end of ten years passed in England, than £20,000 at the end of ten years passed in India, because you must compute what you give for money; and the man who has lived ten years in India, has given up ten years of social comfort, and all those advantages which arise from living in England. The ingenious Mr. Brown, distinguished by the name

of "Capability Brown," told me that he was once at the seat of Lord Clive, who had returned from India with great wealth; and that he showed him at the door of his bed-chamber a large chest, which he said he had once had full of gold; upon which Brown observed, "I am glad you can bear it so near your bed-chamber." We talked of the state of the poor in London. JOHNSON: 'Saunders Welch, the justice, who was once high-constable of Holborn, and had the best opportunities of knowing the state of the poor, told me that I underrated the number, when I computed that twenty a week, that is, above a thousand a year, died of hunger; not absolutely of immediate hunger, but of the wasting and other diseases which are the consequences of hunger. This happens only in so large a place as London, where people are not known. What we are told about the great sums got by begging is not true; the trade is overstocked. And, you may depend upon it, there are many who cannot get work. A particular kind of manufacture fails; those who have been used to work at it, can for some time work at nothing else. You meet a man begging; you charge him with idleness; he says, "I am willing to labour. Will you give me work?"-"I cannot." "Why, then, you have no right to charge me with idleness."'

We left Mr. Strahan's at seven, as Johnson had said he intended to go to evening prayers. As we walked along he complained of a little gout in his toe, and said, 'I shan't go to prayers tonight; I shall go to-morrow: whenever I miss church on a Sunday, I resolve to go another day. But I do not always do it.' This was a fair exhibition of that vibration between pious resolutions and indolence which many of us have too often experienced.

I went home with him, and we had a long, quiet conversation.

I read him a letter from Dr. Hugh Blair concerning Pope (in writing whose life he was now employed), which I shall insert as a literary curiosity :

TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.

'BROUGHTON PARK, Sept. 21, 1779. 'DEAR SIR,-In the year 1763, being at London, I was carried by Dr. John Blair, Prebendary of Westminster, to dine at old Lord Bathurst's; where we found the late Mr. Mallet, Sir James Porter, who had been Ambassador at Constantinople, the late Dr. Macaulay, and two or three more. The conversation turning on Mr. Pope, Lord Bathurst told us that The Essay on Man was originally composed by Lord Bolingbroke in prose, and that Mr. Pope did no more than put it into verse: that he had read Lord Bolingbroke's manuscript in his own handwriting, and remembered well that he was at a loss whether most to admire the elegance of Lord Bolingbroke's prose or the beauty of Mr.