ther business nor pleasure; much intended, | with him. and little done. My health is much broken; his guest. my nights afford me little rest. I have tried opium, but its help is counterbalanced with great disturbance; it prevents the spasms, but it hinders sleep. O God, have mercy on

This day a violent altercation arose between Johnson and Beauclerk, which having made much noise at the time, I think it proper, in order to prevent any future misrepresentation, to give a minute account of it.

"They are beings of his own creation; they | passed, and particularly with his prayer for are a compound of malignity and meanness, the mercy of Heaven. He said, in a solwithout any abilities; and are quite differ- emn fervid tone, "I hope he shall find ent from the Italian magician. King mercy 4." James says in his Dæmonology,' 'Magicians command the devils: witches are their servants.' The Italian magicians are elegant beings." RAMSAY. "Opera witches, not Drury-lane witches." Johnson observed, that abilities might be employed in a narrow sphere, as in getting money, which he said he believed no man could do without vigorous parts, though concentrated to a point. RAMSAY. "Yes, like a strong horse in a mill; he pulls better." Lord Graham, while he praised the beauty of Lochlomond, on the banks of which is his family seat, complained of the climate, and said he could not bear it. JOHNSON. Nay, my lord, don't talk so: you may bear it well enough. Your ancestors have borne it more years than I can tell." This was a handsome compliment to the antiquity of the house of Montrose. His lordship told me afterwards that he had only affected to complain of the climate, lest, if he had spoken as favourably of his country as he really thought, Dr. Johnson might have attacked it. Johnson was very courteous to Lady Margaret Macdonald. "Madam," said he, "when I was in the Isle of Sky 1, I heard of the people running to take the stones off the road, lest Lady Margaret's

66

horse should stumble."

Lord Graham commended Dr. Drummond at Naples as a man of extraordinary talents; and added, that he had a great love of liberty. JOHNSON. "He is young 2, my lord (looking to his lordship with an arch smile), all boys love liberty, till experience convinces them they are not so fit to govern themselves as they imagined. We are all agreed as to our own liberty; we would have as much of it as we can get; but we are not agreed as to the liberty of others: for in proportion as we take, others must lose. I believe we hardly wish that the mob should have liberty to govern

us.

When that was the case some time ago, no man was at liberty not to have canIdles in his windows." RAMSAY. "The result is, that order is better than confuJOHNSON. sion." "The result is, that order cannot be had but by subordination." On Friday, 16th April, I had been present at the trial of the unfortunate Mr. Hackman, who, in a fit of frantick jealous love, had shot Miss Ray, the favourite of a nobleman 3. Johnson, in whose company I dined to-day with some other friends, was much interested by an account of what

1 [See ante, vol. i. p. 412.—ED.]
2 [His lordship was twenty-four.-ED.]
3 John, sixth Earl of Sandwich.-ED.]

In talking of Hackman, Johnson argued, as Judge Blackstone had done, that his being furnished with two pistols was a proof that he meant to shoot two persons. Mr. Beauclerk said, "No; for that every wise man who intended to shoot himself took two pistols, that he might be sure of doing it at once. Lord -'s cook shot himself with one pistol, and lived ten days in great agony. Mr. .5, who loved buttered muffins, but durst not eat them because they disagreed with his stomach, resolved to shoot himself; and then he ate three buttered muffins for breakfast, before shooting himself, knowing that he should not be troubled with indigestion; he had two charged pistols; one was found lying charged upon the table by him, after he had shot himself with the other.""Well," said Johnson, with an air of triumph, "you see here one pistol was sufficient." Beauclerk replied smartly, "Because it happened to kill him." And either then or a very little afterwards, being piqued at Johnson's triumphant remark, added, "This is what you don't know, and I do." There was then a cessation of the dispute; and some minutes intervened, during which, dinner and the glass went on cheerfully; when Johnson suddenly and abruptly exclaimed, "Mr. Beauclerk, how came you to talk se petulantly to me, as This is what you don't know, but what I know?' thing I know, which you don't seem to know, that you are very uncivil." BEAUCLERK. "Because you began by being uncivil (which you always are).' The words in parentheses were, I believe, not heard by Dr. Johnson. Here again there was a cessation of arms. Johnson told me,

4 [See ante, vol. i. pp. 32, 33.—ED.]

5

One

["The Honourable [John Damer], son to the Lord [Milton, afterwards Earl of Dorchester], shot himself at three o'clock this morning, at the Bedford Arms, in Covent Garden. He was heir centric to be confined within the limits of any to 30,000l. a year, but of a turn rather too ec fortune. Coroner's verdict, Lunacy."-Gent. Mag. 15th Aug. 1776.-Though the editor was assured, from what he thought good authority, that Mr. Damer was here alluded to, he has since reason to suppose that another and more respectable name was meant, which, however, without more certainty, he does not venture to mention -ED.]

about the world with my wits ready to observe, and my tongue ready to talk. A man is seldom in a humour to unlock his bookcase, set his desk in order, and betake himself to serious study; but a retentive memory will do something, and a fellow shail have strange credit given him, if he can but recollect striking passages from different books, keep the authors separate in his head, and bring his stock of knowledge artfully into play: how else," added he, "do the gamesters manage when they play for more money than they are worth?" His Dictionary, however, could not, one would think, have been written by running up and down; but he really did not consider it as a great performance; and used to say, "That he might have done it easily in two years, had not his health received several shocks during the time."

that the reason why he waited at first some time without taking any notice of what Mr. Beauclerk said, was because he was thinking whether he should resent it. But when he considered that there were present a young lord and an eminent traveller, two men of the world, with whom he had never dined before, he was apprehensive that they might think they had a right to take such liberties with him as 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 towards Johnson). "Sir, you have known me twenty years, and however I" Alas, sir!" replied Johnson, "there are 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'n night 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."

Hawk.

p. 204

When Mr. Thrale, in consequence of this declaration, teased him in the year 1769 to give a new edition of it, because, said he, there are four or five gross faults:

four or five hundred faults, instead of four or five; but you do not consider that it would take me up three whole months' labour, and when the time was expired the work would not be done." When the booksellers set him about it, however, some years after, he went cheerfully to the business, said he was well paid, and that they deserved to have it done carefully.]

"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 1), he said, “What eminence he had was by a felicity of manner: he had no more learning than what he could not help.”

["I would never," said he, on Apoph. another occasion, "desire a young man to neglect his business for the purpose of pursuing his studies, because it On Saturday, April 24, I dined with him is unreasonable; I would only desire him to at Mr. Beauclerk's, with Sir Joshua Reyread at those hours when he would other-nolds, Mr. Jones (afterwards Sir William), wise be unemployed. I will not promise that he will be a Bentley; but if he be a lad of any parts, he will certainly make a sensible man."]

p. 40, 41.

Mr. Langton, Mr. Steevens, Mr. Paradise and Dr. Higgins. I mentioned that Mr. Wilkes had attacked Garrick to me, as az man who had no friend. JOHNSON. "I believe he is right, sir. O, o, ou piros-He had friends, but no friend 2. Garrick was

[Dr. Johnson had never, by his Piozzi, own account, been a close student, and used to advise young people ne--so diffused, he had no man to whom he wishver to be without a book in their pocket, to ed to unbosom himself. He found people be read at by-times when they had nothing always ready to applaud him, and that al else to do. "It has been by that means," said he one day to a boy at Mr. Thrale's, "that all my knowledge has been gained, except what I have picked up by running

1 [See ante, p. 109.-ED.]

2 See vol. i. p. 83. and p. 168 of this vol. BoSWELL.

pleasure is in general dangerous, and per nicious 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 1.

[To Sir J. Hawkins he said, Hawk. " Garrick, I hear, complains that I Apoph. am the only popular author of his p. 215. time who has exhibited no praise of him in print; but he is mistaken, Akenside has forborne to mention him. Some indeed are lavish in their applause of all who come within the compass of their recollection; yet he who praises every body praises nobody; when both scales are equally loaded, neither can preponderate."]

A celebrated wit2 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. I have been several times in company with him, but never perceived any strong power of wit. He produces a general ef fect by various means; he has a cheerful countenance and a gay voice. Besides, his trade is wit. It would be as wild in him to come into company without merriment, as for a highwayman to take the road without his pistols."

ways 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 every body all 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 cheerfulest 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 Talking of the effects of drinking, he was to make four-pence do as much as said, "Drinking may be practised with others made four-pence-halfpenny do. But great prudence; a man who exposes himwhen he had got money, he was very libe- self when he is intoxicated has not the art ral." I presumed to animadvert on his of getting drunk; a sober man who hap eulogy on Garrick, in his "Lives of the pens occasionally to get drunk, readily Poets." "You say, sir, his death eclipsed enough goes into a new company, which a the gaiety of nations." JOHNSON. "Iman who has been drinking should never could not have said more nor 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, and 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 panegyrick-son.-ED.] "and diminished the publick 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;

do. Such a man will undertake any thing; he is without skill in inebriation. I used to slink home when I had drunk too much. A man accustomed to self-examination will be conscious when he is drunk, though an habitual drunkard will not be conscious of it. I knew a physician, who for twenty years was not sober; yet in a pamphlet, which he wrote upon fevers, he appealed to Garrick and me for his vindication from a charge of drunkenness. A bookseller 3

[Most readers will agree with Mr. Boswell that this eulogium is not very happily expressed; yet it appears to have been satisfactory to Garrick's immediate friends, for it is inscribed on the cenotaph erected by Mrs. Garrick to his memory in Lichfield Cathedral. Harwood's History of Lichfield, p. 86.—Ed.]

George Selwyn is here meant; but he cannot [It has been suggested to the editor that Mr. trace any acquaintance between Selwyn and John

3This was Andrew Miller, of whom, when talking one day of the patronage the great sometimes affect to give to literature and literary men, Johnson said, " Andrew Miller is the Mecenas of the age."-Hawk. Apoph. p. 200.-ED.]

(naming him) who got a large fortune by trade was so habitually and equably drunk, that his most intimate friends never perceived that he was more sober at one time than another."

Soon after this time a little incident occurred, which I will not suppress, because I am desirous that my work should be, as much as is consistent with the strictest truth, an antidote to the false and injurious notions of his character, which have been given by others, and therefore I infuse every drop of genuine sweetness into my biographical cup.

"TO DR. JOHNSON.

Talking of celebrated and successful irregular practisers in physick, he said, Taylor was the most ignorant man I ever knew, but sprightly; Ward, the dullest. Taylor challenged me once to talk Latin with him," laughing. “I quoted some of Horace, which he took to be a part "South-Audley-street 4, Monday, 26th April. of my own speech. He said a few words "MY DEAR SIR,-I am in great pain with well enough.' BEAUCLERK. "I remem- an inflamed foot, and obliged to keep my ber, sir, you said, that Taylor was an in- bed, so am prevented from having the stance how far impudence could carry ig-pleasure to dine at Mr. Ramsay's to-day, norance." Mr. Beauclerk was very entertaining this day, and told us a number of short stories in a lively elegant manner, and with that air of the world which has I know not what impressive effect, as if there was something more than is expressed, or than perhaps we could perfectly understand. As Johnson and I accompanied Sir Joshua Reynolds in his coach, Johnson said, "There is in Beauclerk a predominance over his company, that one does not like. But he is a man who has lived so much in the world, that he has a short story on every occasion: he is always ready to talk, and is never exhausted."

3

which is very hard; and my spirits are sadly sunk. Will you be so friendly as to come and sit an hour with me in the evening? I am ever your most faithful and affectionate humble servant, "JAMES BOSWELL."

"TO MR. BOSWELL

"Harley-street "MR. 5 JOHNSON laments the absence of Mr. Boswell, and will come to him."

He came to me in the evening, and brought Sir Joshua Reynolds. I need scarcely say, that their conversation, while they sat by my bedside, was the most pleasing opiate to pain that could have been ad ministered.

Johnson being now better disposed to obtain information concerning Pope than he was last year 6, sent by me to my Lord Marchmont a present of those volumes of his "Lives of the Poets" which were at this time published, with a request to have permission to wait on him; and his lordship, who had called on him twice, obligingly appointed Saturday, the first of May, for receiving us.

Johnson and I passed the evening at Miss Reynolds's, Sir Joshua's sister. I mentioned that an eminent friend 2 of ours, talking of the common remark, that affection descends, said, that "this was wisely contrived for the preservation of mankind; for which it was not so necessary that there should be affection from children to parents, as from parents to children; nay, there would be no harm in that view though children should at a certain age eat their parents." JOHNSON. "But, sir, if this were known generally to be the case, parents On that morning Johnson came to me would not have affection for children." from Streatham, and after drinking chocoBOSWELL. "True, sir; for it is in expec- late at General Paoli's in South-Audleytation of a return that parents are so atten- street, we proceeded to Lord Marchmont's tive to their children; and I know a very in Curzon-street. His lordship met us at pretty instance of a little girl of whom her the door of his library, and with great father was very fond, who once, when he politeness said to Johnson, "I am not going was in a melancholy fit, and had gone to to make an encomium upon myself, by tellbed, persuaded him to rise in good humouring you the high respect I have for you, by saying, 'My dear papa, please to get up, and let me help you on with your clothes, that I may learn to do it when you are an old man.

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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. [His first 1 The Chevalier Taylor, the celebrated oculist. question, as he told Sir J. HawMALONE. kins, was, "What kind of a man was Mr. Pope in his conversation?"

[Probably Mr. Burke.-ED.]

[Wisely and mercifully; wisely to ensure the preservation and education of children, and mercifully to render less afflictive the loss of parents, which, in the course of nature, children must suffer.-ED.]

Hawk.
Apoph.
p. 200.
His