BOSWELL. "Then Hume is not the Oxford, but died. He remarked, that attacks on authors did them much service. "A man, who tells me my play is very bad, is less my enemy than he who lets it die in silence. A man, whose busi ness it is to be talked of, is much helped by being attacked." Gar rick, I observed, had often been so helped. JOHNSON. "Yes, Sir, though Garrick had more opportunities than almost any man, to keep the public in mind of him, by exhibiting himself to such numbers, he would not have had so much reputation, had he not been so much attacked. Every attack produces a defence; and so attention is engaged. There is no sport in mere praise, when people are all of a mind." worse for Beattie's attack?" has confuted him.' I do not say, but that there may be some attacks which will hurt an author. Though Hume suffered from Beattie, he was the better for other attacks." (He certainly could not include in that number those of Dr. Adams and Mr. Tytler). BOSWELL. Goldsmith is the better for attacks." JOHNSON. "Yes, Sir; but he does not think so yet. When Goldsmith and I published, each of us something, at the same time, we were given to understand that we might review each other. Goldsmith was for accepting the offer. I said, no; set reviewers at defiance. It was said to old Bentley, upon the attacks against him, 'Why, they'll write you down.' 'No, Sir,' he replied; depend upon it, no man was ever written down but by himself."" He observed to me afterwards, that the advantages authors derived from attacks were chiefly in subjects of taste, where you cannot confute, as so much may be said on either side. He told me he did not know who was the author of the "Adventures of a Guinea ;" but that the bookseller had sent the first volume to him in manuscript, to have his opinion if it should be printed; and he thought it should. The weather being now somewhat better, Mr. James M'Donald, 1 Dr. Beattie's "Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth" appeared in 1770. 2 Mr. Boswell adds this parenthesis, probably, because the gentlemen alluded to were friends of his; but if Dr. Johnson "did not mean to include them," whom did he mean? for they were certainly (after Beattie) Hume's most prominent antagonists.-C. a It is strange that Johnson should not have known that the "Adventures of a Guinea was written by a namesake of his own, Charles Johnson Being disqualified for the bar which was his profession, by a supervening deafnes he went to India, and made some for tune.-WALTER SCOTT. factor to Sir Alexander M'Donald, in Slate, insisted that all the company at Ostig should go to the house at Armidale, which Sir Alexander had left, having gone with his lady to Edinburgh, and be his guests, till we had an opportunity of sailing to Mull. We accordingly got there to dinner; and passed our day very cheerfully, being no less than fourteen in number. Saturday, Oct. 2.—Dr. Johnson said, that "a chief and his lady should make their house like a court. They should have a certain number of the gentlemen's daughters to receive their education in the family, to learn pastry and such things from the housekeeper, and manners from my lady. That was the way in the great families in Wales; at Lady Salisbury's, Mrs. Thrale's grandmother, and at Lady Philips's. I distinguish the families by the ladies, as I speak of what was properly their province. There were always six young ladies at Sir John Philips's; when one was married, her place was filled up. There was a large school-room, where they learned needlework and other things." I observed, that, at some courts in Germany, there were academies for the pages, who are the sons of gentlemen, and receive their education without any expense to their parents. Dr. Johnson said, that manners were best learnt at those "You are admitted with great facility to the prince's company, and yet must treat him with much respect. At a great court, you are at such a distance that you get no good." I said, "Very true: a man sees the court of Versailles, as if he saw it on a theatre." He said, "The best book that ever was written upon good breeding, "Il Cortegiano," by Castiglione, grew up at the little court of Urbino, and you should read it."1 I am glad always to have his opinion of books. At Mr. Macpherson's, he commended "Whitby's Commentary," and said, he had heard him called rather lax; but he did not perceive it. He had looked at a novel, called "The Man of the World," at Rasay, but thought there was nothing in it. He said to-day, while reading my Journal, "This will be a great treasure to us some years hence." courts. Count Castiglione was born at Mantua in 1478, and died in 1529, after having been employed by Ludovico Sforza, both as a soldier and a statesman. "Dr. Daniel Whitby, born 1688, died 1726. His celebrated Paraphrase and Commentary or the New Testament was first published in 1708. Though not, perhaps, so popular as the "Man of Feeling" of the same amiable author the "Man of the World" is a very pathetic tale-WALTER SCOTT. Talking of a very penurious gentleman of our acquaintance, he observed, that he exceeded L'Avare in the play. I concurred with him, and remarked that he would do well, if introduced in one of Foote's farces; that the best way to get it done would be to bring Foote to be entertained at his house for a week, and then it would be facit indignatio. JOHNSON. "Sir, I wish he had him. I, who have eaten his bread, will not give him to him; but I should be glad he came honestly by him." He said, he was angry at Thrale, for sitting at General Oglethorpe's without speaking. He censured a man for degrading him self to a non-entity. I observed, that Goldsmith was on the other extreme; for he spoke at ventures. JOHNSON. "Yes, Sir; Goldsmith, rather than not speak, will talk of what he knows himself to be ignorant, which can only end in exposing him." "I wonder," said I, "if he feels that he exposes himself. If he was with two tailors". "Or with two founders," said Dr. Johnson, interrupting me, “he would fall a talking on the method of making cannon, though both of them would soon see that he did not know what metal a cannon is made of." We were very social and merry in his room this forenoon. In the evening the company danced as usual. We performed, with much activity, a dance which, I suppose, the emigration from Sky has occasioned. They call it America. Each of the couples, after the common involutions and evolutions, successively whirls round in a circle, till all are in motion; and the dance seems intended to show how emigration catches, till a whole neighbourhood is set afloat. Mrs. M'Kinnon told me, that last year, when a ship sailed from Portree for America, the people on shore were almost distracted when they saw their relations go off; they lay down on the ground, tumbled, and tore the grass with their teeth. This year there was not a tear shed. The people on the shore seemed to think that they would soon follow. This indif ference is a mortal sign for the country. We danced to-night to the music of the bagpipe, which made us beat the ground with prodigious force. I thought it better to endeavour to conciliate the kindness of the people of Sky, by join ing heartily in their amusements, than to play the abstract scholar I looked on this tour to the Hebrides as a copartnership between Dr. Johnson and me. Each was to do all he could to promote its success ; and I have some reason to flatter myself, that my gayer exertions were of service to us. Dr. Johnson's immense fund of knowledge and wit was a wonderful source of admiration and delight to them; but they had it only at times; and they required to have the intervals agreeably filled up. and even little elucidations of his learned text. I was also fortunate enough frequently to draw him forth to talk, when he would otherwise have been silent. The fountain was at times locked up, till I opened the spring. It was curious to hear the Hebridians, when any dispute happened while he was out of the room, saying, "Stay till Dr. Johnson comes; say that to him!" Yesterday, Dr. Johnson said, "I cannot but laugh, to think of myself roving among the Hebrides at sixty. I wonder where I shall rove at fourscore !" This evening he disputed the truth of what is said as to the people of St. Kilda catching cold whenever strangers come. "How can there," said he, "be a physical effect without a physical cause?" He added, laughing, "the arrival of a ship full of strangers would kill them; for, if one stranger gives them one cold, two strangers must give them two colds; and so in proportion." I wondered to hear him ridicule this, as he had praised M'Aulay for putting it in his book; saying, that it was manly in him to tell a fact, however strange, if he himself believed it. He said, the evidence was not adequate to the improbability of the thing; that if a physician, rather disposed to be incredulous, should go to St. Kilda, and report the fact, then he would begin to look about him. They said, it was annually proved by Macleod's steward, on whose arrival all the inhabitants caught cold. jocularly remarked, "The steward always comes to demand something from them; and so they fall a coughing. I suppose the people in Sky all take a cold when(naming a certain person) comes." They said, he came only in summer. JOHNSON. "That is out of tenderness to you. Bad weather and he, at the same time, would be too much." He us. CHAPTER XIX. 1773. hnson leaves the Isle of Sky-A Storm-Driven into Col-His Appearance on a Sheltie- Sunday, Oct. 3-Joseph reported that the wind was still against Dr. Johnson said, “A wind, or not a wind? that is the question;" for he can amuse himself at times with a little play of words, or rather sentences. I remember when he turned his cup at Aberbrothick, where we drank tea, he muttered, Claudite jam rivus, pueri. I must again and again apologize to fastidious readers, for recording such minute particulars. They prove the scrupulous fidelity of my Journal. Dr. Johnson said it was a very exact picture of a portion of his life. While we were chatting in the indolent style of men who were to stay here all this day at least, we were suddenly roused at being told that the wind was fair, that a little fleet of herring-busses was passing by for Mull, and that Mr. Simpson's vessel was about to sail. Hugh M'Donald, the skipper, came to us, and was impatient that we should get ready, which we soon did. Dr. Johnson, with composure and solemnity, repeated the observation of Epictetus, that, as man has the voyage of death before him-whatever may be his employment, he should be ready at the master's call; and an old man should never be far from the shore, lest he should not be able to get himself ready." He rode, and I and the other gentle. men walked, about an English mile to the shore, where the vessel lay. Dr. Johnson said he should never forget Sky, and returned thanks for all civilities. We were carried to the vessel in a small boat which she had, and we set sail very briskly about one o'clock. |