"DEAR SIR,-I am sorry to write you a letter that will not please you, and yet it is at last what I resolve to do. This year must pass without an interview; the summer has been foolishly lost, like many other of my summers and winters. I hardly saw a green field, but staid in town to work, without working much.

ty I take, in soliciting your interposition with his grace the archbishop: my first petition was successful, and I therefore venture on a second.

"The matron of the Chartreux is about to resign her place, and Mrs. Desmoulins, a daughter of the late Dr. Swinfen 2, who was well known to your father, is desirous of succeeding her. She has been accustomed by keeping a boarding-school to the care of children, and I think is very likely to discharge her duty. She is in great distress, and therefore may properly receive the benefit of a charitable foundation. If you wish to see her, she will be willing to give an account of herself.

"Mr. Thrale's loss of health has lost him "If you shall be pleased, sir, to mention the election 1; he is now going to Bright- her favourably to his grace, you will do a helmstone, and expects me to go with him; great act of kindness to, sir, your most and how long I shall stay, I cannot tell. I obliged and most humble servant, do not much like the place, but yet I shall "SAM. JOHNSON." go and stay while my stay is desired. We must, therefore, content ourselves with knowing what we know as well as man can know the mind of man, that we love one another, and that we wish each other's happiness, and that the lapse of a year cannot lessen our mutual, kindness.

"I was pleased to be told that I accused Mrs. Boswell unjustly, in supposing that she bears me ill-will. I love you so much, that I would be glad to love all that love you, and that you love; and I have love very ready for Mrs. Boswell, if she thinks it worthy of acceptance. I hope all the young ladies and gentlemen are well.

"I take a great liking to your brother. He tells me that his father, received him kindly, but not fondly: however, you seem to have lived well enough at Auchinleck, while you staid. Make your father as happy as you can.

"You lately told me of your health: I can tell you in return, that my health has been for more than a year past better than it has been for many years before. Perhaps it may please God to give us some time together before we are parted. I am, dear sir, yours, most affectionately,

1

"SAM. JOHNSON."

"TO THE REVEREND DR. VYSE, AT

LAMBETH.

"30th Dec. 1780.

"SIR,-I hope you will forgive the liber

["Mrs. Thrale felt this very acutely. When, after Mr. Thrale's death, a friend of Mr. Henry Thornton, then a candidate for Southwark, canvassed Mrs. Thrale for her interest, she replied, "I wish your friend success, and think he will have it; he may probably come in for two

parliaments, but if he tries for a third, were he an ingel from heaven, the people of Southwark vould cry, Not this man, but Barabbas.'"----Miss Hawkins's Mem. vol. i. p. 66.-ED.]

Being disappointed in my hopes of meeting Johnson this year, so that I could hear none of his admirable sayings, I shall compensate for this want by inserting a collection of them, for which I am indebted to my worthy friend Mr. Langton, whose kind communications have been separately interwoven in many parts of this work. Very few articles of this collection were committed to writing by himself, he not having that habit; which he regrets, and which those who know the numerous opportunities he had of gathering the rich fruits of Johnsonian wit and wisdom, must ever regret. I however found, in conversation with him, that a good store of JOHNSONIANA was treasured in his mind; and I compared it to Herculaneum, or some old Roman field, which, when dug, fully rewards the labourer employed. The authenticity of every article is unquestionable. For the expression, I, who wrote them down in his presence, am partly answerable.

Langton.

"Theocritus is not deserving of very high respect as a writer; as to the pastoral part, Virgil is very evidently superiour. He wrote, when there had been a larger influx of knowledge into the world than when Theocritus lived. Theocritus does not abound in description, though living in a beautiful country: the manners painted are coarse and gross. Virgil has much more description, more sentiment, more of nature, and more of art. Some of the most excellent parts of Theocritus are, where Castor and Pollux, going with the other Argonauts, land on the Bebrycian coast, and there fall into a dispute with Amycus, the king of that country: which is as well conducted as Euripides could have done it; and the battle is well related. Af

terwards they carry off a woman, whose
two brothers come to recover her, and ex-
postulate with Castor and Pollux on their
injustice; but they pay no regard to the
brothers, and a battle ensues, where Cas-
tor and his brother are triumphant. The
ocritus seems not to have seen that the
brothers have their advantage in their ar-
gument over his Argonaut heroes. The
Sicilian Gossips' is a piece of merit.
"Callimachus is a writer of little excel-
lence. The chief thing to be learned from
him is his account of Rites and Mythology;
which, though desirable to be known for
the sake of understanding other parts of an-
cient authours, is the least pleasing or val-
uable part of their writings.

"John Gilbert Cooper related, that soon after the publication of his Dictionary, Garrick being asked by Johnson what people said of it, told him, that among other animadversions, it was objected that he cited authorities which were beneath the dignity of such a work, and mentioned Richardson. Nay,' said Johnson, I have done worse than that: I have cited thee, David.'

"Mattaire's account of the Stephani is a heavy book. He seems to have been a puzzle-headed man, with a large share of scholarship, but with little geometry or "Talking of expense, he observed, logick in his head, without method, and with what munificence a great merchant possessed of little genius. He wrote Latin will spend his money, both from his having verses from time to time, and published a it at command, and from his enlarged views set in his old age, which he called Seni- by calculation of a good effect upon the lia;' in which he shows so little learning whole. 'Whereas,' said he, ‘you will hardor taste in writing, as to make Carteret a ly ever find a country gentleman, who is dactyl1. In matters of genealogy it is not a good deal disconcerted at an unexnecessary to give the bare names as they pected occasion for his being obliged to lay are; but in poetry, and in prose of any ele-out ten pounds.' gance in the writing, they require to have inflection given to them. His book of the Dialects is a sad heap of confusion; the only way to write on them is to tabulate them with notes, added at the bottom of the page, and references.

"When in good humour, he would talk of his own writings with a wonderful frankness and candour, and would even criticise them with the closest severity. One day, having read over one of his Ramblers, Mr. Langton asked him, how he liked that paper; he shook his head, and answered, too wordy.' At another time, when one was reading his tragedy of Irene,' to a company at a house in the country, he left the room: and somebody having asked him the reason of this, he replied, Sir, I thought it had been better.'

"Talking of a point of delicate scrupulosity of moral conduct, he said to Mr Langton, 'Men of harder minds than ours will do many things from which you and I would shrink; yet, sir, they will, perhaps, do more good in life than we. But let us try to help one another. If there be a wrong twist, it may be set right. It is not probable that two people can be wrong the same way.'

It may be questioned, whether there is not some mistake as to the methods of employing the poor, seemingly on a supposition that there is a certain portion of work left undone for want of persons to do it; but if that is otherwise, and all the materials we have are actually worked up, or all the manufactures we can use or dispose of are already executed, then what is given to the poor, who are to be set at work, must be taken from some who now have it: as time must be taken for learning (accord ing to Sir William Petty's observation), a certain part of those very materials that, as it is, are properly worked up, must be spoiled by the unskilfulness of novices. We may apply to well-meaning, but misjudging persons in particulars of this nature, what Giannone said to a monk, who want-he ed what he called to convert him: Tu sei santo, ma tu non sei filosopho.' It is an unhappy circumstance that one might give away five hundred pounds a year to those that importune in the streets, and not do any good.

There is nothing more likely to betray

1 [The Editor does not understand this objection, nor the following observation.--ED.]

"Of the preface to Capel's Shakspeare, said, 'If the man would have come to me, I would have endeavoured to "endow his purposes with words;" for as it is, he doth "gabble monstrously 2." "

"He related that he had once in a dream a contest of wit with some other person,

2

[Prospero to Caliban.

"When thou wouldst gabble like a thing most brutish, I endowed thy purposes with words." Tempest, act i. scene 2.-ED.]

and that he was very much mortified by imagining that his opponent had the better of him. Now said he, one may mark here the effect of sleep in weakening the power of reflection; for had not my judgment failed me, I should have seen, that the wit of this supposed antagonist, by whose superiority I felt myself depressed, was as much furnished by me, as that which I thought I had been uttering in my own character.'

"One evening in company, an ingenious and learned gentleman read to him a letter of compliment which he had received from one of the professors of a foreign university. Johnson, in an irritable fit, thinking there was too much ostentation, said, 'I never receive any of these tributes of applause from abroad. One instance I recollect of a foreign publication, in which mention is made of l'illustre Lockman '.'

"Of Sir Joshua Reynolds, he said, 'Sir, I know no man who has passed through life with more observation than Reynolds.' "He repeated to Mr. Langton, with great energy, in the Greek, our Saviour's gracious expression concerning the forgiveness of Mary Magdalene 2, Ἡ πίστις σε σεσωκε σε πορεύου εις ειρήνην. Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace 3.' He said, 'The manner of this dismission is exceedingly affect ing.'

He thus defined the difference between physical and moral truth: Physical truth is, when you tell a thing as it actually is. Moral truth is, when you tell a thing sincerely and precisely as it appears to you. I say such a one walked across the street; if he really did so, I told a physical truth. If I thought so, though I should have been mistaken, I told a moral truth 4.?

1

Secretary to the British Herring Fishery, remarkable for an extraordinary number of occasional verses, not of eminent merit.-Bos WELL.

"Huggins 5, the translator of Ariosto and Mr. Thomas Warton, in the early part of his literary life, had a dispute concerning that poet, of whom Mr. Warton, in his 'Observations on Spenser's Fairy Queen,' gave some account which Huggins attempted to answer with violence, and said, 'I will militate no longer against his nescience.' Huggins was master of the subject, but wanted expression. Mr. Warton's knowledge of it was then imperfect, but his manner lively and elegant. Johnson said, It appears to me, that Huggins has ball without powder, and Warton powder without ball.

6

Talking of the farce of High Life below Stairs," he said, 'Here is a farce which is really very diverting when you see it acted, and yet one may read it and not know that one has been reading any thing at all.'

"He used at one time to go occasionally to the green-room of Drury-lane theatre, where he was much regarded by the players, and was very easy and facetious with them. He had a very high opinion of Mrs. Clive's comick powers, and conversed more with her than with any of them. He said, Clive, sir, is a good thing to sit by; she always understands what you say.' And she said of him, I love to sit by Dr. Johnson; he always entertains me.' One night, when The Recruiting Officer' was acted, he said to Mr. Holland, who had been expressing an apprehension that Dr. Johnson would disdain the works of Farquhar, No, sir, I think Farquhar a man whose writings have considerable merit.'

"His friend Garrick was so busy in conducting the drama, that they could not have so much intercourse as Mr. Garrick used to profess an anxious wish that there should be 6. There might indeed be something in the contemptuous severity as to the merit of acting, which his old preceptor [He was an indefatigable translator for the book-nourished in himself, that would mortify sellers, " having acquired a knowledge of the languages, as Dr. Johnson told Sir J. Hawkins, by living at coffee-houses frequented by foreigners." Mr. Tyers says, "that Lockman was a very worthy man, greatly beloved by his friends, and respected even by Pope;" and he adds, "that it is a pity that he who composed so many of the lives in the General Dictionary should himself not have one in the Biographia." -Rhapsody on Pope, p. 104.-ED.]

2 It does not appear that the woman forgiven was Mary Magdalene.-KEARNEY. [In the heading of this chapter, Luke vii. it is said, " he showeth by occasion of Mary Magdalene:" but it would rather appear by the following chapter, verse 2, that she is not the person here mentioned. ~HALL.]

3 Luke vii. 50.-BOSWELL.

4 This account of the difference between moral and physical truth is in Locke's " Essay on

Garrick after the great applause which he received from the audience. For though Johnson said of him, 'Sir, a man who has a nation to admire him every night may well be expected to be somewhat elated; yet he would treat theatrical matters with a ludicrous slight. He mentioned one even ing, I met David coming off the stage, drest in a woman's riding-hood, when he acted in The Wonder; I came full upon him, and I believe he was not pleased.'

"Once he asked Tom Davies, whom he saw drest in a fine suit of clothes, And

Human Understanding," and many other books.
-KEARNEY.

5 [See ante, vol. i. p. 165.-ED.]

6 In a letter written by Johnson to a friend in Jan. 1742-3, he says, "I never see Garrick."MALONE.

Sir, I beg to have your judgment, for I know your nicety.' Dyer then very properly desired to read it over again; which having done, he pointed out an incongruity in one of the sentences. Johnson immediately assented to the observation, and said, Sir, this is owing to an alteration of a part of a sentence from the form in which I had first written it; and I believe, sir, you may have remarked, that the making a partial change, without a due regard to the general structure of the sentence, is a very frequent cause of errour in composition 1."

p. 252.

In short, sir, I have got no further than this. every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it. Martyrdom is the test.'

"A man, he observed, should begin to write soon; for, if he waits till his judgment is matured, his inability, through want of practice, to express his conceptions, will make the disproportion so great between what he sees, and what he can attain, that he will probably be discouraged from writing at all. As a proof of the justness of [The endowments of Dyer were this remark, we may instance what is relatHawk. of a most valuable kind: keen pene-ed of the great Lord Granville 4; that after tration and deep erudition were the he had written his letter giving an account qualities that so distinguished his character, of the battle of Dettingen, he said, 'Here is that, in some instances, Johnson might al- a letter, expressed in terms not good enough most be said to have looked up to him. for a tallow-chandler to have used.' Dyer was a divine, a linguist, a mathematician, a metaphysician, a natural philosopher, a classical scholar, and a critic: this Johnson saw and felt, and never, but in defence of some fundamental and important truth, would he contradict him.]

"Talking of a court-martial that was sitting upon a very momentous publick occasion, he expressed much doubt of an enlightened decision; and said, that perhaps there was not a member of it, who, in the whole course of his life, had ever spent an hour by himself in balancing probabilities 5.

"Goldsmith one day brought to the Club a printed ode, which he, with others, had been hearing read by its authour in a publick room, at the rate of five shillings each for admission. One of the company having read it aloud, Dr. Johnson said, 'Bolder words and more timorous meaning, I think, never were brought together.'

"Talking of Gray's Odes, he said, "They are forced plants, raised in a hot-bed; and they are poor plants: they are but cucumbers after all.' A gentleman present, who had been running down ode-writing in general, as a bad species of poetry, unluckily said, 'Had they been literally cucumbers, they had been better things than odes.' "Yes, sir,' said Johnson, for a hog.'

"Johnson was well acquainted Langton. with Mr. Dossie, author of a Treatise on Agriculture 2; and said of him, Sir, of the objects which the Society of Arts have chiefly in view, the chymical effects of bodies operating upon other bodies, he knows more than almost any man.' Johnson, in order to give Mr. Dossie his vote to be a member of this society, paid up an arrear which had run on for two years. On this occasion he mentioned a circumstance, as characteristick of the Scotch. One of that nation,' said he, who had been a candidate, against whom I had voted, came up to me with a civil salutation. Now, sir, this is their way. An Englishman would have stomached it and been sulky, and never have taken further notice of you; but a Scotchman, sir, though you vote nineteen [At Sir Robert Cotton's, at Lle- Piozzi. times against him, will accost you with weny, one day at dinner, Mrs. equal complaisance after each time, and the Thrale, meaning to please Dr. twentieth time, sir, he will get your vote.' Johnson particularly with a dish of very "Talking on the subject of toleration, young peas, said, while he was eating them, one day when some friends were with him" Are not they charming?" Perhaps, in his study, he made his usual remark, that replied he," they would be so-to a pig 6." the state has a right to regulate the religion of the people, who are the children of the state. A clergyman having readily acquiesced in this, Johnson, who loved discussion, observed, But, sir, you must go round to other states than our own. You do not know what a Bramin has to for himself3.

say

1 [See post, a similar observation quoted in reference to Johnson's alterations in the "Lives of the Poets."--ED.]

2 [Dossie also published, in two vols. 8vo., what was then a very useful work, entitled "The Handmaid to the Arts," dedicated to the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, &c.-HALL.]

Here Lord Macartney remarks, "A Bramin,

66

p. 48, 157.

دو

or any cast of the Hindoos, will neither admit you to be of their religion, nor be converted to yours:-a thing which struck the Portuguese with the greatest astonishment when they first discovered the East Indies."-BOSWELL.

4 John, the first Earl Granville, who died Jan. 2, 1763.-MALONE.

5 [As Mr. Langton's anecdotes are not dated, it is not easy to determine what court-martial this was; probably-as Sir James Mackintosh suggests --Admiral Keppel's, in 1780.-Ed.] 6 [See ante, vol. i. p. 486, n. It should be observed that this answer was not, as is often erroneously stated, made to the lady of the house, but was a reproach (too rude, it must be admitted