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 not accustomed to write verse; for there is some uncouthness in the expression."'1

'Drinking tea one day at Garrick's with Mr. Langton, he was questioned if he was not somewhat of a heretic as to Shakspeare; said Garrick, "I doubt he is a little of an infidel." "Sir," | said Johnson, "I will stand by the lines I have written on Shakspeare in my Prologue at the opening of your theatre." Mr. Langton suggested that, in the line,

"And panting Time toil'd after him in vain," Johnson might have had in his eye the passage in The Tempest, where Prospero says of Miranda,

-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."

'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 No. 383 of the Spectator, when Sir Roger de Coverley and he are going to Spring Garden. 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 bawdy-house, 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 instance of Johnson's was quoted, and thought to have at least equal excellence.'

The difference between Johnson and Smith is apparent even in this slight instance. Smith was a man of extraordinary application, and had his mind crowded with all manner of subjects; but the force, acuteness, and vivacity of Johnson were not to be found there. He had book-making so much in his thoughts, and was so chary of what might be turned to account in that way, that he once said to Sir Joshua Reynolds, that he made it a rule, when in company, 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.

'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 Mr. Langton were walking home, Mr. Burke 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. "Oh, 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 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."'

'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 Indian 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. Johnson, when he carried Mr. Langton to see him, professed that he could bring him out into conversation, and used this illusive expression, "Sir, I can make him rear." But he failed; for in that interview Richardson said little else than that there lay in the room a translation of his Clarissa into German.' 2

'Once, when somebody produced a newspaper 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 old

1 The Right Honourable Agmondesham Vesey was elected a member of the LITERARY CLUB in 1773, and died in 1784.-MALONE.

2 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 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 something 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 trifle, sir, not worth repeating." The mortification of Richardson was visible, and he did not speak ten words more the whole day. Dr. Johnson was present, and appeared to enjoy it much. -BOSWELL.

established 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. Porteous 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).”

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

'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."'1

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.

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 originally 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, Latius 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.

This was, however, but a small recompense for such a collection of biography, and such 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.'

That he, however, had a good deal of trouble and some anxiety in carrying on the work, we see from a series of letters to Mr. Nichols, the printer, whose variety of literary inquiry and obliging disposition rendered him useful to John

son.

Mr. Steevens appears, from the papers in my possession, to have supplied him with some anecdotes and quotations; and I observe the fair hand of Mrs. Thrale as one of his copyists of select passages. But he was principally indebted to my steady friend, Mr. Isaac Reed, of

1 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.

Staple Inn, whose extensive and accurate knowledge of English literary history I do not express with exaggeration, when I say it is wonderful ; indeed, his labours have proved it to the world; and all who have the pleasure of his acquaintance can bear testimony to the frankness of his communications in private society.

It is not my intention to dwell upon each of Johnson's Lives of the Poets, or attempt an analysis of their merits, which, were I able to do it, would take up too much room in this work; yet I shall make a few observations upon some of them, and insert a few various readings.

The Life of Cowley he himself considered as the best of the whole, on account of the dissertation which it contains on the Metaphysical Poets. Dryden, whose critical abilities were equal to his poetical, had mentioned them in his excellent dedication of his Juvenal, but had barely mentioned them. Johnson has exhibited them at large, with such happy illustration from their writings, and in so luminous a manner, that indeed he may be allowed the full merit of novelty, and to have discovered to us, as it were, a new planet in the poetical hemisphere.

It is remarked by Johnson, in considering the works of a poet,' that amendments are seldom made without some token of a rent;' but I do not find that this is applicable to prose. We shall see that though his amendments in this work are for the better, there is nothing of the pannus assutus; the texture is uniform and indeed, what had been there at first is very seldom unfit to have remained.

:

Various Readings3 in the Life of COWLEY. 'All [future votaries of] that may hereafter pant for solitude.

'To conceive and execute the [agitation or perception] pains and the pleasures of other minds.

"The wide effulgence of [the blazing] a summer noon.'

In the Life of Waller, Johnson gives a distinct and animated narrative of public affairs in that variegated period, with strong yet nice touches of character; and having a fair opportunity to display his political principles, does it with an unqualified manly confidence, and satisfies his readers how nobly he might have executed a Tory history of his country.

So easy is his style in these Lives, that I do not recollect more than three uncommon or

1 Life of Sheffield.-BOSWELL

2 See however ante, where the same remark is made, and Johnson is there speaking of prose. In his Life of Dryden, his observations in the opera of King Arthur furnish a striking instance of the truth of this remark. -MALONE.

3 The original reading is enclosed in crotchets, and the present one is printed in italics.-BOSWELL

learned words: one, when giving an account of the approach of Waller's mortal disease, he says, 'he found his legs grow tumid.' By using the expression his legs swelled, he would have avoided this; and there would have been no impropriety in its being followed by the interesting question to his physician, 'What that swelling meant?' Another, when he mentions that Pope had emitted proposals; when published, or issued, would have been more readily understood. And a third, when he calls Orrery and Dr. Delany writers both undoubtedly veracious; when true, honest, or faithful might have been used. Yet it must be owned that none of these are hard or too big words: that custom would make them seem as easy as any others; and that a language is richer and capable of more beauty of expression by having a greater variety of synonymes.

His dissertation upon the unfitness of poetry for the awful subjects of our holy religion, though I do not entirely agree with him, has all the merit of originality, with uncommon force and reasoning.

Various Readings in the Life of WALLER. 'Consented to [the insertion of their names]

their own nomination.

'[After] paying a fine of ten thousand pounds. 'Congratulating Charles the Second on his [coronation] recovered right.

'He that has flattery ready for all whom the vicissitudes of the world happen to exalt, must be [confessed to degrade his powers] scorned as a prostituted mind.

'The characters by which Waller intended to distinguish his writings are [elegance] sprightliness and dignity.

'Blossoms to be valued only as they [fetch] foretell fruits.

'Images such as the superficies of nature [easily] readily supplies.

"[His] Some applications [are sometimes] may be thought too remote and unconsequential. 'His images are [sometimes confused] not always distinct.'

Indeed, even Dr. Towers, who may be considered as one of the warmest zealots of the Revolution Society itself, allows that Johnson has spoken in the highest terms of the abilities of that great poet, and has bestowed on his principal poetical compositions the most honourable encomiums.'

That a man, who venerated the church and monarchy as Johnson did, should speak with a just abhorrence of Milton as a politician, or rather as a daring foe to good polity, was surely to be expected; and to those who censure him, I would recommend his commentary on Milton's celebrated complaint of his situation, when, by the lenity of Charles the Second-'a lenity of which,' as Johnson well observes, the world has had perhaps no other example '-he, who had written in justification of the murder of his sovereign, was safe under an Act of Oblivion: 'No sooner is he safe than he finds himself in danger, fallen on evil days and evil tongues, with darkness and with dangers compassed round. This darkness, had his eyes been better employed, had undoubtedly deserved compassion; but to add the mention of danger was ungrateful and unjust. He was fallen, indeed, on evil days; the time was come in which regicides could no longer boast their wickedness. But of evil tongues for Milton to complain, required impudence at least equal to his other powers ;Milton, whose warmest advocates must allow that he never spared any asperity of reproach or brutality of insolence.'

6

I have, indeed, often wondered how Milton, an acrimonious and surly Republican,' 'a man who in his domestic relations was so severe and arbitrary,' and whose head was filled with the hardest and most dismal tenets of Calvinism, should have been such a poet; should not only have written with sublimity, but with beauty, and even gaiety; should have exquisitely painted the sweetest sensations of which our nature is

capable; imaged the delicate raptures of connubial love; nay, seemed to be animated with all the spirit of revelry. It is a proof that in the human mind the departments of judgment and imagination, perception and temper, may sometimes be divided by strong partitions; and that the light and shade in the same character may be kept so distinct as never to be blended."

In the Life of Milton, Johnson took occasion to maintain his own and the general opinion of the excellence of rhyme over blank verse in English poetry; and quotes this apposite illustration of it by an ingenious critic,' that it seems to be verse only to the eye. The gentleman

3

Johnson's Life of Millon.-BOSWELL.

2 Mr. Malone thinks it is rather a proof that he felt nothing of those cheerful sensations which he has described; that on these topics it is the poet, and not the man, that writes.-BoSWELL.

3 One of the most natural instances of the effect of blank verse occurred to the late Earl of Hopeton. His