99 agitated) "What! a vow-O, no, Sir, a vow is a 1778. horrible thing, it is a snare for sin. The man who Ætat. 69. cannot go to heaven without a vow-may go-." Here, standing erect in the middle of his library, and rolling grand, his pause was truly a curious compound of the solemn and the ludicrous; he half-whistled in his usual way, when pleasant, and he paused as if checked by religious awe.-Methought he would have added-to Hell-but was restrained. I humoured the dilemma." "What! Sir, (said I,) In cœlum jusseris ibit ?" alluding to his initation of it, "And bid him go to Hell, to Hell he goes." I had mentioned to him a slight fault in his noble "Imitation of the Tenth Satire of Juvenal," a too near recurrence of the verb spread, in his description of the young Enthusiast at College : "Through all his veins the fever of renown, He had desired me to change spreads to burns, but for perfect authenticity, I now had it done with his own hand." I thought this alteration not only cured the fault, but was more poetical, as it might carry an allusion to the shirt by which Hercules was inflamed. We had a quiet comfortable meeting at Mr. Dilly's; nobody there but ourselves. Mr. Dilly men The slip of paper on which he made the correction, is deposited by me in the noble library to which it relates, and to which I have presented other pieces of his hand-writing. Ætat. 69. 1778. tioned some body having wished that Milton's "Tractate on Education" should be printed along with his Poems in the edition of the English Poets then going on. JOHNSON. "It would be breaking in upon the plan; but would be of no great consequence. So far as it would be any thing, it would be wrong. Education in England has been in danger of being hurt by two of its greatest men, Milton and Locke. Milton's plan is impracticable, and I suppose has never been tried. Locke's, I fancy, has been tried often enough, but is very imperfect; it gives too much to one side, and too little to the other; it gives too little to literature-I shall do what I can for Dr. Watts; but my materials are very scanty. His poems are by no means his best works; I cannot praise his poetry itself highly; but I can praise its design." My illustrious friend and I parted with assurances of affectionate regard. I wrote to him on the 25th of May, from Thorpe, in Yorkshire, one of the seats of Mr. Bosville, and gave him an account of my having passed a day at Lincoln, unexpectedly, and therefore without having any letters of introduction, but that I had been honoured with civilities from the Rev. Mr. Simpson, an acquaintance of his, and Captain Broadley, of the Lincolnshire Militia; but more particularly from the Rev. Dr. Gordon, the Chancellor, who first received me with great politeness as a stranger, and, when I informed him who I was, entertained me at his house with the most flattering attention; I also expressed the pleasure with which I had found that our worthy friend, Langton, was highly esteemed in his own county town. 1778. TO DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. Ætat. 69. * MY DEAR SIR, "SINCE my return to Scotland, I have been again at Lanark, and have had more conversation with Thomson's sister. It is strange that Murdoch, who was his intimate friend, should have mistaken his mother's maiden name, which he says was Hume, whereas Hume was the name of his grandmother by the mother's side. His mother's name was Beatrix Trotter,' a daughter of Mr. Trotter of Fogo, a small proprietor of land. Thomson had one brother, whom he had with him in England as his amanuensis; but he was seized with a consumption, and having returned to Scotland, to try what his native air would do for him, died young. He had three sisters, one married to Mr. Bell, minister of the parish of Strathaven; one to Mr. Craig, father of the ingenious architect, who gave the plan of the New Town of Edinburgh; and one to Mr. Thomson, master of the grammar-school at Lanark. He was of a humane and benevolent disposition; not only sent valuable presents to his sisters, but a yearly allowance in money, and was always wishing to have it in his power to do them more good. Lord Lyttleton's observation, that he loathed much to write,' was very true. His letters to his sister Mrs. Thomson, were not frequent, and in one of them he says, "All my friends who know me, know how backward I am to write. 1 Dr. Johnson was by no means attentive to minute accuracy in his "Lives of the Poets;" for notwithstanding my having detected this mistake, he continued it. Etat. 69. 1778. letters; and never impute the negligence of my hand to the coldness of my heart." I send you a copy of the last letter which she had from him; she never heard that he had any intention of going into holy orders. From this late interview with his sister, I think much more favourably of him, as I hope you will. I am eager to see more of your Prefaces to the Poets I solace myself with the few proof-sheets which I have. : "I send another parcel of Lord Hailes's Annals,' which you will please to return to me as soon as you conveniently can. He says, he wishes you would cut a little deeper;' but he may be proud that there is so little occasion to use the critical knife. am, my dear Sir, "Your faithful and affectionate, "humble servant, I ever JAMES BOSWELL.” Mr. Langton has been pleased, at my request, to favour me with some particulars of Dr. Johnson's visit to Warley-camp, where this gentleman was at the time stationed as a Captain in the Lincolnshire militia. I shall give them in his own words in a let ter to me. "It was in the summer of the year 1778, that he complied with my invitation to come down to the Camp at Warley, and he staid with me about a week; the scene appeared, notwithstanding a great degree of ill health that he seemed to labour under, to interest and amuse him, as agreeing with the disposition that I believe you know he constantly manifested towards enquiring into subjects of the military kind. He sate, with a patient degree of attention, Ætat. 69. to observe the proceedings of a regimental court- 1778. martial, that happened to be called, in the time of his stay with us; and one night, as late as at eleven o'clock, he accompanied the Major of the regiment in going what are styled the Rounds, where he might observe the forms of visiting the guards, for the seeing that they and their sentries are ready in their duty on their several posts. He took occasion to converse at times on military topicks, once in particular, that I see the mention of, in your Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides,' which lies open before me, as to gun-powder; which he spoke of to the same effect, in part, that you relate. 2 "On one occasion, when the regiment were going through their exercise, he went quite close to the men at one of the extremities of it, and watched all their practices attentively; and, when he came away, his remark was, 'The men indeed do load their musquets and fire with wonderful celerity.' He was likewise particular in requiring to know what was the weight of the musket balls in use, and within what distance they might be expected to take effect when fired off. "In walking among the tents, and observing the difference between those of the officers and private men, he said, that the superiority of accommodation of the better conditions of life, to that of the inferiour ones, was never exhibited to him in so distinct a view. The civilities paid to him in the camp were, from the gentlemen of the Lincolnshire regiment, one of the officers of which accommodated him with a tent in which he slept; and from General Hal who very courteously invited him to dine with him, 2 Third Edition, p. 111. |