He winces, gentle reader! you fee he winces! do but obferve his contortions! John Gilpin, fir! was a stoick to him-Softly, foftly, good Mr. Bofwell! tho' anxious enough to conceal your chagrin, you veritably take the matter too heinously. Vanity and prejudice apart, what might Pofterity fay to your strictures? they might say, here is a strong dash of prejudice, malevolence, crimination and abuse. . . . But where is the wit? We have Mr. Bofwell's word for it, and that is conclufive; for what obferver of lefs confummate fagacity could have made the discovery? and what fcholiaft of lefs confummate acumen could have conceived, in that fame luminous fally, any reference to a work, which was then a nonentity in the archives of literature? What a lofs to the nation in these perilous times HE was not Prime Minister!... Seriously, the lash, is a smart_metaphorical conceit, though in our humble apprehension somewhat awkwardly and ambiguously brought in. . . . . The lash! ay! the lash of wit; indeed, as one may say, a very pretty figure; in very admirable hands, and very cavalierly exercised; exercised by the said Mr. Boswell! Does the faid Mr. Bofwell apply it as a principal, or merely as a proxy? faving his modesty we rather think the latter; be that as it may, Sheridan, the reprobrated writer of Swift's Life, was not the aggreffor; and fuppofing him amenable, the correction, as before hinted, for we are compelled to reiterate, was inflicted by anticipatión. The provocation alledged was not even in embrio. The effect cannot precede its cause, and, at the date of the conversation referred to, his employers, the booksellers, had not even fuggested to Johnson the expediency of the Lives of the Poets containing his libel upon Swift, which Sheridan in the course of his fubfequent account of his friend and godfather incidentally takes up.

The

The occafion offered; it was not sought.*

But what of that, the great fubject of the memoirs, Mr. Bofwell was then writing, is the momentous confideration, and at all events must be supported; it behoved no lefs the wren on the eagle's wing to have an eye to his own fituation. Under fuch impreffions, it is not to be wondered at, that every nice offence of Sheridan's is exaggerated; fet in a notebook, learned and conned by rote to caft into his teeth; while the grofs fcurrilities of the man who daily enjoyed fo many hours of needful amufement under his hofpitable roof are selected for admiration, and exhibited with eclat. Fortunately ours is the age of reafon; the volume of nature, in legible characters lies open to inspection, where all men, no doubt equally competent, are readers. Hypothefes are framed, and to fhew their proficiency, or haply to escape the lash of wit, every abfurdity has its advocate. . . . Johnson, and his fatellite, Bofwell, are arraigned; if any man should cavil at our defence of the illuftrious pair, we deprecate his cenfure, and plead prescription and the fashion of the times.

In the affair under confideration, though neither the juftice or candour of the parties be confpicuous, on the principles of our new philofophy, the literary defpot may be cleared of imputation, and the fuppofed anachronisms of his biographer may be reconciled. . . . . Dr. Johnson paid a vifit to the Highlands, an incident that cannot be indifferent to our brethren of the North; there, as we maywell prefume, in the manner of one of our modern illuminati, or more opportunely from his trufty Achates, his humble attendant,' as he modeftly ftyles himself, who was native there, the fage acquired the myfterious faculty of SECOND

SIGHT,

The difquifition concerning Sheridan, vindictively brought forward by Bofwell, he dates Ann. 1769. Johnfon's Critique on the Life and Writings. of Swift, in his Account of the Poets, first appeared in 1779. Sheridan's Account of Swift not 'till 1784. See the Work, p. 449, &&

SIGHT,* and looking into the feeds of time, saw himself in a book to be written fome fifteen or twenty years to come, ycleped a writer of gigantic fame.' This, on the incontef tible authority of a grave historian, an eye witness of the fact, who, as we may well prefume, had no temptation to lying, his patron being dead and unable to pay for it; the hiftorian himself remarkable for the fame rare faculty of prescience, and so free from any partiality to Johnson, that he has even been accused of drawing him into very unfavourable, fituations, for the important end of swelling his Diary; this characteristic expreffion, a writer of gigantic fame,' I fay on the authority aforefaid, was an outrageous and unpardonable attack, which it was incumbent on a genius of the fage's athletic importance to repel. Corporeal notice, as meditated against the reprobated tranflator of Offian, might induce unfavourable constructions, and be attended with disagreeable confequences; poffibly inconvenient withal. In the inftant of deliberation things fuddenly took a new turn; Minerva, in the fhape of the master of Auchenleck, claps my philofopher on the back, and fuggefts a fure and fafer expedient, which was, in the fashionable phrafe of modern heroifm,§ to referve his fire and pay the fatirical

SECOND SIGHT. See Bofwell, vol. i. p. 472, vol. ii. pp. 5, 203.

+ Some faftidious commentator, verfed in obfolete lore, fifteen or twenty centuries hence, may be tempted to affert, that in this paffage our author had his eye on that impartial writer David Hume, who in fuch wife characterizes his admired fellow-labourer, Tacitus. The fame Tacitus who announceth certain native burghers in the German Sea; "many men, many women, and many children," fuch, as 'twas averred, could write the Poems of Offian, that hugely dismayed the Roman cohorts: He alio telleth of certain northern tribes wont to hear the hiffing of the waves when the Sun gets out of bed in a morning, and, on leading from the ftable, make a leg and with him a good journey !!!! Boswell, vol. ii. p. 171. See this hint taken up and fomewhat élucidated in the Appendix hereto fubjoined. No. I.

his nags

Duelling, here alluded to, is a weed of the feudal ages; the fpurious offspring of chivalry, and utterly unknown in the times when Minerva was in repute.

fatirical knave in his own coin. He accedes to the admo nition of the goddess, and in terrorem leaves in the hands of his ingenious biographer, a fquib'; to be kept in petto till the feafon meet for wreaking his revenge.

On this prefumption, so agreeable to reason and truth, the affair is naturally accounted for, and the Doctor clearly exculpated; nor can any juft exception poffibly lie to the position, save that in some respects it impugns the notion of co-partnership, and tends to defpoil Mr. Bofwell of the prerogative of wit. However to accommodate matters the best we can, as the gentleman, it is by this time pretty well understood, is no enemy to celebrity at fecond hand, the lash, we admit, is of his own manufacture, and without fraud or conteft decidedly his due; yet still a doubt remains that he never would have thought of it, if Johnson had not lent him a fpur.

The wit, a precious Morceau! which fo forcibly marks his hero's penetration, magnanimity, and liberality of mind, that faithful hiftorian confeffes he would have fuppreffed, but that Sheridan, naughty man! called him pigmy; and, after seven years dreaming on the atrocious scroll, like the fretful porcupine, he briftles up his poisoned quills against the person whofe worth and merit he affects to think of with refpect, and darts them at his shroud. Pity! that in the paroxyfm of his fury he overshot the mark, and back the devilish engine recoils upon himself. The hour of attack approaches; he appeals to the high tribunal of the public; his plea is over-ruled; there is a fsmall flaw in the indictment; the action will not lie; culprit did not attack the illuftrious fage; the illuftrious fage was the affailant; Sheridan only traverfed the record and took up the gauntlet for his friend Swift, when his friend's mouth

was

was stopped and could not do juftice to himself. Culprit did not call Mr. Bofwell pigmy; pigmy is not in the scroll; the paffages we have collated, and however suitable the term, the adoption of it is his own. Sheridan makes no invidious comparisons: fingles out no particular object; but in the way of contraft by corporal allusion, speaking of the junto, contents himself with faying "Little Men".... Qui capit ille facit. fure Mr. Bofwell is not a little writer; why of all mankind should he take it to himself? and why at that particular juncture fhould it gall him? Now, on the subject of Swift, compare Johnson and Sheridan, and say to whom justly appertains the epithet outrageous.*

...

The difquifition mentioned took plače, if bona fide it did take place, in 1769. Sheridan's Life of Swift did not appear till 1784, which was the first and only instance of his writhing, if writhing Mr. Bofwell will have it; but, from what has been proved, it is pretty plain others were writhing with a vengeance in the interim, and even long antecedent to that period betrayed fymptoms notorioufly fufpicious. Johnson, ftruck the first blow, and pursued it with unre lenting acrimony, roused on every frivolous occafion, wickedly fuggefted, as the text intimates, for the space of thirty years. What were his motives? dare we fay literary envy? Jealousy of a Brother's Fame? a weakness, admitting all his merits, of which that great man stands accused. Both were engaged in the same arduous task, though in fomewhat a different line, the cultivation and improvement of the English Tongue. Johnson was not an orator, and had but little intercourse with the graces; therefore thought flightingly

* Boswell, [Friday March 24, An. 1775] in his usual way, tells the world "Johnson was in high spirits this evening at the club, and talked with great animation and success. He attacked Swift, as he used to do upon all pccafions."Vol. ii. p. 203.-see the several accounts before adverted to.