ous subject, and she should like to hear it |
discussed. JOHNSON (Somewhat warmly).
"One would not go to such a place to hear
it, one would not be seen in such a place
-to give countenance to such a meeting."
I, however, resolved that I would go.
"But, sir," said she to Johnson, "I should
like to hear you discuss it." He seemed
reluctant to engage in it. She talked of
the resurrection of the human race in gene-
ral, and maintained that we shall be raised
with the same bodies. JOHNSON. Nay,
madam, we see that it is not to be the same
body; for the Scripture uses the illustration
of grain sown, and we know that the grain
which grows is not the same with what is
sown. You cannot suppose that we shall
rise with a diseased body; it is enough if
there be such a sameness as to distinguish
identity of person." She seemed desirous
of knowing more, but he left the question
in obscurity.

Of apparitions, he observed, "A total disbelief of them is adverse to the opinion of the existence of the soul between death and the last day; the question simply is, whether departed spirits ever have the power of making themselves perceptible to us: a man who thinks he has seen an apparition can only be convinced himself; his authority will not convince another; and his conviction, if rational, must be founded on being told something which cannot be known but by supernatural means."

home one evening to Kilmarnock, he heard himself called from a wood, by the voice of a brother who had gone to America; and the next packet brought accounts of that brother's death." Macbean asserted that this inexplicable calling was a thing very well known. Dr. Johnson said, that one day at Oxford, as he was turning the key of his chamber, he heard his mother distinctly call-Sam. She was then at Lichfield; but nothing ensued. This phenomenon is, I think, as wonderful as any other mysterious fact, which many people are very slow to believe, or rather, indeed, reject with an obstinate contempt.

p. 148.

[It is probably another version of the same story to which Mrs. Piozzi Piozzi, alludes, when she says, "that at Brighthelmstone once, when Johnson was not present, Mr. Beauclerk asserted that he was afraid of spirits; and I, who was secretly offended at the charge, asked him, the first opportunity I could find, what ground he had ever given to the world for such a report? 'I can,' replied he, 'recollect nothing nearer it, than my telling Dr. Lawrence many years ago, that a long time after my poor mother's death I heard her voice call Sam.' 'What answer did the doctor make to your story, sir?' said I.

None in the world,' replied he; and suddenly changed the conversation. Now as Dr. Johnson had a most unshaken faith, without any mixture of credulity, this story He mentioned a thing as not unfrequent, must either have been strictly true, or his of which I had never heard before,-being persuasion of its truth the effect of disorcalled, that is, hearing one's name pronounc-dered spirits. I relate the anecdote preed by the voice of a known person at a great distance, far beyond the possibility of being reached by any sound uttered by human organs. "An acquaintance, on whose veracity I can depend, told me, that walking

1 As this subject frequently recurs in these volumes, the reader may be led erroneously to suppose that Dr. Johnson was so fond of such discussions as frequently to introduce them. But the truth is, that the authour himself delighted in talking concerning ghosts and what he has frequently denominated the mysterious; and therefore took every opportunity of leading Johnson to converse on such subjects.---MALONE. The authour of this work was most undoubtedly fond of the mysterious, and perhaps upon some occasions may have directed the conversation to those topics, when they would not spontaneously have suggest ed themselves to Johnson's mind; but that he also had a love for speculations of that nature may be gathered from his writings throughout.-J. BOSWELL. [All this is very true, and we have seen (ante, vol. i. p. 437, n.) that Mr. Boswell had some faith in apparitions; but the conversation of this particular evening might have arisen amongst men not at all inclined to the mysterious, from the mention of the subject which was that night to be debated at Coachmakers'-hall.-ED.]

cisely as he told it me; but could not prevail on him to draw out the talk into length for farther satisfaction of my curiosity."]

Some time after this, upon his making a remark which escaped my attention, Mrs. Williams and Mrs. Hall were both together striving to answer him. He grew angry, and called out loudly, "Nay, when you both speak at once, it is intolerable." But checking himself, and softening, he said, "This one may say, though you are ladies." Then he brightened into gay humour, and addressed them in the words of one of the songs in "The Beggar's Opera,” "But two at a time there's no mortal can bear."

"What, sir," said I, "are you going to turn Captain Macheath?" There was something as pleasantly ludicrous in this between Macheath, Polly, and Lucy-and scene as can be imagined. The contrast Dr. Samuel Johnson, blind, peevish Mrs. Williams, and lean, lank, preaching Mrs. Hall, was exquisite.

I stole away to Coachmakers'-hall, and heard the difficult text of which we had talked, discussed with great decency, and some intelligence, by several speakers.

There was a difference of opinion as to the | tion to a splendid entertainment, we were appearance of ghosts in modern times, regaled with Lichfield ale, which had a pethough the arguments for it, supported by culiar appropriate value. Sir Joshua, and Mr. Addison's authority, preponderated. Dr. Burney, and I, drank cordially of it to The immediate subject of debate was em- Dr. Johnson's health; and though he barrassed by the bodies of the saints having would not join us, he as cordially answered, been said to rise, and by the question what" Gentlemen, I wish you all as well as you became of them afterwards :-did they re-do me." turn again to their graves? or were they The general effect of this day dwells uptranslated to heaven? Only one evange- on my mind in fond remembrance; but I list mentions the fact1, and the commenta- do not find much conversation recorded. tors whom I have looked at do not make What I have preserved shall be faithfully the passage clear. There is, however, no given. occasion for our understanding it farther than to know that it was one of the extraordinary manifestations of divine power which accompanied the most important event that ever happened.

On Friday, April 20, I spent with him one of the happiest days that I remember to have enjoyed in the whole course of my life. Mrs. Garrick, whose grief for the loss of her husband was, I believe, as sincere as wounded affection and admiration could produce, had this day, for the first time since his death, a select party of his friends to dine with her. The company was, Miss Hannah More, who lived with ner, and whom she called her chaplain; Mrs. Boscawen, Mrs. Elizabeth Carter, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Dr. Burney, Dr. Johnson, and myself. We found ourselves very elegantly entertained at her house in the Adelphi, where I have passed many a pleasing hour with him "who gladdened life." She looked well, talked of her husband with complacency, and while she cast her eyes on his portrait, which hung over the chimney-piece, said, that "death was now the most agreeable object to her." The very semblance of David Garrick was cheering. Mr. Beauclerk, with happy propriety, inscribed under that fine portrait of him, which by Lady Diana's kindness is now the property of my friend Mr. Langton, the following passage from his beloved Shakspeare:

-A merrier man,
Within the limit of becoming mirth,
I never spent an hour's talk withal.
His eye begets occasion for his wit;
For every object that the one doth catch
The other turns to a mirth-moving jest;
Which his fair tongue (Conceit's expositor)
Delivers in such apt and gracious words,
That aged ears play truant at his tales,
And younger hearings are quite ravished;
So sweet and voluble is his discourse "."
We were all in fine spirits; and I whis-
pered to Mrs. Boscawen, "I believe this is
as much as can be made of life." In addi-

1 St. Matthew, chap. xxvii. v. 52,

WELL.

2 [Rosaline's character of Biron. bour Lost, act 2, sc. 1.-ED.]

53.—Bos

Love's La

One of the company mentioned Mr. Thomas Hollis, the strenuous whig, who used to send over Europe presents of democratical books, with their boards stamped with daggers and caps of liberty. Mrs. Carter said, "He was a bad man: he used to talk uncharitably." JOHNSON. "Poh! poh! madam; who is the worse for being talked of very uncharitably? Besides, he was a dull poor creature as ever lived: and I believe he would not have done harm to a man whom he knew to be of very opposite principles to his own. I remember once at the Society of Arts, when an advertisement was to be drawn up, he pointed me out as the man who could do it best. This, you will observe, was kindness to me. however slipt away and escaped it."

I

Mrs. Carter having said of the same person, "I doubt he was an atheist :" JOHNSON. "I do n't know that. He might, perhaps, have become one, if he had had time to ripen (smiling). He might have exuberated into an atheist." ~

Sir Joshua Reynolds praised "Mudge's 3 Sermons.". JOHNSON. " Mudge's Sermons are good, but not practical. He grasps more sense than he can hold; he takes more corn than he can make into meal; he opens a wide prospect, but it is so distant, it is indistinct. I love Blair's Sermons. Though the dog is a Scotchman, and a presbyterian, and every thing he should not be, I was the first to praise them. Such was my candour" (smiling). MRS. BOSCAWEN. "Such his great merit, to get the better of all your prejudices." JOHNSON. Why, madam, let us compound the matter; let us ascribe it to my candour, and his merit.",

66

In the evening we had a large company in the drawing-room; several ladies, the Bishop of Killaloe, [Dr. Barnard] Dr. Percy, Mr. Chamberlayne of the treasury, &c. &c. Somebody said, the life of a mere literary man could not be very entertaining. JOHNSON. "But it certainly may. This is a remark which has been made, and reeated, without justice. Why should the tife of a literary man be less entertaining than the life of any other man? Are there 3 [See page 284 of this volume.-ED.]

not as interesting varieties in such a life? | to give Opposition the satisfaction of know

man is as good as another." WILKES. | favourably, and she was acquitted 2. After "Pray, Boswell, how much may be got in which, Bet said, with a gay and satisfied a year by an advocate at the Scotch bar?" air, 'Now that the counterpane is my own, BOSWELL. "I believe, two thousand I shall make a petticoat of it."" pounds." WILKES. "How can it be possible to spend that money in Scotland?" JOHNSON. 66 1 Why, sir, the money may be spent in England; but there is a harder question. If one man in Scotland gets possession of two thousand pounds, what remains for all the rest of the nation?" WILKES. "You know, in the last war, the immense booty which Thurot carried off by the complete plunder of seven Scotch isles; he re-embarked with three and sixpence." Here again Johnson and Wilkes joined in extravagant sportive raillery upon the supposed poverty of Scotland, which Dr. Beattie and I did not think it worth our while to dispute.

The subject of quotation being introduced, Mr. Wilkes censured it as pedantry. JOHN SON. "No, sir, it is a good thing; there is a community of mind in it. Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world." WILKES. "Upon the continent they all quote the vulgate Bible. Shakspeare is chiefly quoted here; and we quote also Pope, Prior, Butler, Waller, and sometimes Cowley."

We talked of letter-writing. JOHNSON. "It is now become so much the fashion to publish letters that, in order to avoid it, I put as little into mine as I can." BosWELL. "Do what you will, sir, you cannot avoid it. Should you even write as ill as you can, your letters would be published as curiosities :

'Behold a miracle! instead of wit,

Talking of oratory, Mr. Wilkes described it as accompanied with all the charms of poetical expression. JOHNSON. "No, sir; oratory is the power of beating down your adversary's arguments, and putting better in their place." WILKES. "But this does not move the passions." JOHNSON. "He must be a weak man who is to be so moved." WILKES (naming a celebrated orator). "Amidst all the brilliancy of's 3 imagination, and the exuberance of his wit, there is a strange want of taste. It was observed of Apelles's Venus 1, that her flesh seemed as if she had been nourished by roses: his oratory would sometimes make one suspect that he eats potatoes and drinks whiskey."

Mr. Wilkes observed, how tenacious we are of forms in this country, and gave as an instance, the vote of the house of commons for remitting money to pay the army in America in Portugal pieces, when, in reality, the remittance is made not in Portugal money, but in our specie. JOHNSON.

Is there not a law, sir, against exporting the current coin of the realm ?" WILKES. "Yes, sir; but might not the house of commons, in case of real evident necessity, order our own current coin to be sent into our own colonies?" Here Johnson, with that quickness of recollection which distinguished him so eminently, gave the Mid

2 The account which Johnson had received on this occasion was not quite accurate. Bet was tried at the Old Bailey in September, 1758, not by See two dull lines with Stanhope's pencil writ.'" the chief justice [Willes.-ED.] here alluded to He gave us an entertaining account of (who however tried another cause on the same day), Bet Flint, a woman of the town, who, with but before Sir William Moreton, recorder; and some eccentrick talents and much effronte-vourable summing up of the judge, but because she was acquitted, not in consequence of any fary, forced herself upon his acquaintance. "Bet," said he, "wrote her own Life in verse 1, which she brought to me, wishing that I would furnish her with a preface to it (laughing). I used to say of her, that she was generally slut and drunkard; Occasionally whore and thief. She had, however, genteel lodgings, a spinnet on which she played, and a boy that walked before her chair. Poor Bet was taken up on a charge of stealing a counterpane, and tried at the Old Bailey. Chief Justice [Willes,] who loved a wench, summed up

1 Johnson, whose memory was wonderfully retentive, remembered the first four lines of this curious production, which have been communicated to me by a young lady of his acquaintance:

"When first I drew my vital breath,

A little minikin I came upon earth;
And then I came from a dark abode,
Into this gay and gaudy world.”—BOSWELL

that the goods charged to have been stolen (a counthe prosecutrix, Mary Walthow, could not prove terpane, a silver spoon, two napkins, &c.) were her property. Bet does not appear to have lived at that time in a very genteel style; for she paid for her ready-furnished room in Meard's-court, Deanstreet, Soho, from which these articles were alleged to be stolen, only five shillings a week. Mr. James Boswell took the trouble to examine the sessions paper to ascertain these particulars.— MALONE.

3 [Mr. Burke's.--ED.]

4 [Mr. Wilkes mistook the objection of Eu phranor to the Theseus of Parrhasius for a description of the Venus of Appelles. Vide Plutarch. "Bellone an pace clariores Athenienses."

KEARNEY. ["Euphranor, comparing his own representation of Theseus with that by Parrhasius, said that the latter looked as if the hero had been fed on roses, but that his showed that he had lived on beef." Plut. Xyl. v. ii. p. 346.--ED.]