certainly was not without considerable merit, he wrote with so little regard to decency, and principles, and decorum, and in so hasty a manner, that his reputation was neither extensive nor lasting. I remember one evening, when some of his works were mentioned, Dr. Goldsmith said he had never heard of them; upon which Dr. Johnson observed, "Sir, he is one of the many who have made themselves publick, without making themselves known1." A young student of Oxford, of the name of Barclay, wrote an answer to Kenrick's review of Johnson's Shakspeare. Johnson was at first angry that Kenrick's attack should have the credit of an answer. But afterwards, considering the young man's good intention, he kindly noticed him, and probably would have done more, had not the young man died. In his preface to Shakspeare, Johnson treated Voltaire very contemptuously, observing, upon some of his remarks, "These are the petty cavils of petty minds." Voltaire, in revenge, made an attack upon Johnson, in one of his numerous literary sallies which I remember to have read; but there being no general index to his voluminous works, have searched in vain, and therefore cannot quote it. Voltaire was an antagonist with whom I thought Johnson should not disdain to contend. I pressed him to answer. He said, he perhaps might; but he never did. ED. [He appears, in the course of this summer, to have paid a visit to Dr. Warton, at Winchester, and, on the publication of his Shakspeare, he addressed to him the following letter:] ["DR. JOHNSON TO DR. WARton. Wool's p. 309. "9th Oct. 1765. "DEAR SIR,-Mrs. Warton uses Life of me hardly in supposing that I could Warton, forget so much kindness and civility as she showed me at Winchester. I remember, likewise, our conversation about St. Cross 2. The desire of seeing her again will be one of the motives that will bring me into Hampshire. "I have taken care of your book; being so far from doubting your subscription, that I think you have subscribed twice: you once paid your guinea into my own hand in the garret in Gough-square. When you light on your receipt, throw it on the fire; if you find a second receipt, you may have a second book. "SIR,-I am sorry that your kindness to me has brought upon you so much trouble, though you have taken care to abate that sorrow, by the pleasure which I receive from your approbation. I defend my criticism in the same manner with you. We must confess the faults of our favourite, to gain credit to our praise of his excellencies. He that claims, either in himself or for another, the honours of perfection, will surely injure the reputation which he designs to assist. "Be pleased to make my compliments to your family. I am, sir, your most obliged and most humble servant, 224 sity of mental labour. He had discharged In 1764 and 1765 it should seem that Dr. Johnson was so busily employed with his edition of Shakspeare as to have had little leisure for any other literary exertion, or, indeed, even for private correspondence 1. He did not favour me with a single letter for more than two years, for which it will appear that he afterwards apologised. Notwithstanding his long silence, I never omitted to write to him, when I had any thing worthy of communicating. I generally kept copies of my letters to him, that I might have a full view of our correspondence, and never be at a loss to understand any reference in his letters. He kept the greater part of mine very carefully; and a short time before his death was attentive enough to seal them up in bundles, and order them to be delivered to me, which was accordingly done. Amongst them I found one, of which I had not made a copy, and which I own I read with pleasure at the distance of almost twenty years. It is dated November, 1765, at the Palace of Paoli, in Corte, the capital of Corsica, and is full of generous enthusiasm. After giving a sketch of what I had seen and heard in that island, it proceeded thus: "Idare to call this a spirited tour. I dare to challenge your approbation." This letter produced the following answer, which I found on my arrival at Paris. "A MR. BOSWELL, chez Mr. Waters, Banquier à Paris. "Johnson's-court, Fleet-street, 14 Jan. 1766. “DEAR SIR,—Apologies are seldom of any use. We will delay the reasons, good or bad, which have made me such a sparing and ungrateful correspondent. Be assured, for the present, that nothing has lessened either the esteem or love with which I dismissed you at Harwich.-Both have been [This trait is amusing: Mr. Boswell concludes that because Johnson did not, for two years, write to him, he wrote to nobody, and was exclusively occupied with his Shakspeare, though we have seen, that, in those years, he found time to pay visits to his friends in Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire, and at Cambridge and Winchester. He also visited Brighton. If Mr. Boswell had been those two years in London, there can be no doubt that he would have found Johnson by no means absorbed in Shakspeare.-Ed. | increased by all that I have been told of you by yourself, or others; and when you return, you will return to an unaltered, and, I hope, unalterable friend. "All that you have to fear from me is No man the vexation of disappointing me. loves to frustrate expectations which have been formed in his favour; and the pleasure which I promise myself from your journals and remarks is so great, that perhaps no degree of attention or discernment will be sufficient to afford it. "Come home, however, and take your I long to see you, and to hear chance. you; and hope that we shall not be so long separated again. Come home, and expect such welcome as is due to him, whom a wise and noble curiosity has led, where perhaps no native of this country ever was before. "I have no news to tell you that can deserve your notice; nor would I willingly lessen the pleasure that any novelty may give you at your return. I am afraid we shall find it difficult to keep among us a mind which has been so long feasted with variety. But let us try what esteem and kindness can effect. "As your father's liberality has indulged you with so long a ramble, I doubt not but you will think his sickness, or even his desire to see you, a sufficient reason for hastening your return. The longer we live, and the more we think, the higher value we learn to put on the friendship and tenderness of parents and of friends. Parents we can have but once; and he promises himself too much, who enters life with the expectation of finding many friends. Upon some motive, I hope, that you will be here soon; and am willing to think that it will be an inducement to your return, that it is sincerely desired by, dear sir, your affectionate humble servant, "SAM. JOHNSON." Pearson. MSS. ["DR. JOHNSON TO MRS. LUCY PORTER. [The reasons which confined him to London, during the session of parliament, may be suspected to have had some connexion with his engagement in politicks with Hamilton; and it must be confessed, that Mr. Hamilton's declaration, (ante, p. 218), that he could not explain what these allusions meant, looks like the evasion of a question which that gentleman did not wish, perhaps did not feel himself authorised, to answer unreservedly. It seems clear, that Johnson was employed by or with Hamilton in some course of political occupation, which obliged unwilling to sell it, yet hardly know why. | If it can be let, it should be repaired, and I purpose to let Kitty have part of the rent while we both live; and wish that you would get it surveyed, and let me know how much money will be necessary to fit it for a tenant. I would not have you stay longer than is convenient, and I thank you for your care of Kitty. "Do not take my omission amiss. I am sorry for it, but know not what to say. You must act by your own prudence, and I shall be pleased. Write to me again; I do not design to neglect you any more. It is great pleasure for me to hear from you; but this whole affair is painful to me. I wish you, my dear, many happy years. Give my respects to Kitty. I am, dear madam, your most affectionate humble servant, "SAM. JOHNSON."] | Hawk. p. 452-4. I returned to London in February, and found Dr. Johnson in a good house in Johnson's-court, Fleet-street, in which he had accommodated Miss Williams with an apartment on the ground floor, while Mr. Levett occupied his post in the garret: his faithful Francis was still attending upon him. [An upper room, which had the advantages of a good light and free air, he fitted up for a study, and furnished with books, chosen with so little regard to editions or their external appearance, as showed they were intended for use, and that he disdained the ostentation of learning. Here he was in a situation and circumstances that enabled him to enjoy the visits of his friends, and to receive them in a manner suitable to the rank and condition of many of them. A silver standish, and some useful plate, which he had been prevailed on to accept as pledges of kindness from some who most esteemed him, together with furniture that would not have disgraced a better dwelling, banished those appearances of squalid indigence, which, in his less happy days, disgusted those who came to see him. In one of his Mem. of "I only dined with Johnson, who diaries he noted down a resolution to take a Dr. W. seemed cold and indifferent, and seat in the church: this he might possibly scarce said any thing to me; per- do about the time of this removal. The haps he has heard what I said of his Shak-church he frequented was that of St. Clemspeare, or rather was offended at what I wrote to him—as he pleases. Of all solemn coxcombs, Goldsmith is the first; yet sensible-but affects to use Johnson's hard words in conversation. We had a Mr. Dyer who is a scholar and a gentleman. Garrick is entirely off from Johnson, and cannot, he says, forgive him his insinuating that he withheld his old editions, which were always open to him, nor I suppose his never mentioning him in all his works."] Ed. [We find in a letter from Dr. Warton to his brother some account of Johnson and his society at this period. "DR. WARTON TO MR. WARTON. p. 312. "22d Jan. 1766. him to be in town during the session of parliament, and which Johnson thought likely to be of such continuance and importance, as to require his preparing for entering upon it by the solemnity of a prayer.-ED.] [This slight coolness between Johnson and Joseph Warton was probably not serious. A subsequent difference, which arose out of a dispute at Sir Joshua Reynolds's table, was more lasting. -ED.] 2 Samuel Dyer, Esq. a most learned and ingenious member of the Literary Club, for whose understanding and attainments Dr. Johnson had great respect. He died September 14, 1772. A more particular account of this gentleman may be found in a note on the Life of Dryden, p. 186, prefixed to the edition of that great writer's prose works, in four volumes, 8vo. 1800: in which his character is vindicated, and the very unfavourable and unjust representation of it, given by Sir John Hawkins in his Life of Johnson, p. 222-232, is minutely examined.-MALONE. [Johnson paid Dyer a degree of deference he showed to nobody else.-ED.] ent Danes, which, though not his parish 3 He [As Boswell does not contradict this statement, it must be presumed to be true, and is therefore admitted into the text; but it will be seen that, many years after this, and even when labouring under his last fatal illness, Johnson had some scruples about the use of opium. Perhaps, if we are to give credit to Hawkins's assertion, these later scruples may have arisen from his hav take in large quantities, the effect whereof | To men remote from power, but rarely known, was generally such an exhilaration of his Leave reason, faith, and conscience, all our own. spirits as he sometimes suspected for intoxication. He received me with much kindness. The fragments of our first conversation, which I have preserved, are these: I told him that Voltaire, in a conversation with me, had distinguished Pope and Dryden thus:-" Pope drives a handsome chariot, with a couple of neat trim nags; Dryden a coach, and six stately horses 1." JOHNSON. "Why, sir, the truth is, they both drive coaches and six; but Dryden's horses are either galloping or stumbling: Pope's go at a steady even trot 2." He said of Goldsmith's "Traveller," which had been published in my absence, “There has not been so fine a poem since Pope's time." And here it is proper to settle, with authentick precision, what has long floated in publick report, as to Johnson's being himself the authour of a considerable part of that poem. Much, no doubt, both of the sentiments and expression were derived from conversation with him3, and it was certainly submitted to his friendly revision: but in the year 1783, he at my request marked with a pencil the lines which he had furnished, which are only line 420th, "To stop too fearful, and too faint to go;" and the concluding ten lines, except the last couplet but one, which I distinguish by the Italic character: "How small of all that human hearts endure, ing formerly made too frequent use of this fascinating palliative.-ED.] It is remarkable that Mr. Gray has employed somewhat the same image to characterize Dryden. He indeed furnishes his car with but two horses; but they are of " ethereal race:" "Behold where Dryden's less presumptuous car, Wide o'er the fields of glory bear Two coursers of ethereal race, [pace." With necks in thunder clothed, and long resounding Ode on the Progress of Poesy.-BosWELL. 2 [Johnson, in the life of Pope, has made a comparison between him and Dryden, in the spirit of this correction of Voltaire's metaphor. It is one of the most beautiful critical passages in our language, and was probably suggested to Johnson's mind by this conversation, although he did not make use of the same illustration.-ED.] 3 [This rests on no authority whatever, and may well be doubted. The Traveller is a poem which, in a peculiar degree, seems written from the personal observation and feelings of its author. -ED.] He added, "These are all of which I can be sure." They bear a small proportion to the whole, which consists of four hundred and thirty-eight verses. Goldsmith, in the couplet which he inserted 4, mentions Luke as a person well known, and superficial readers have passed it over quite smoothly; while those of more attention have been as much perplexed by Luke as by Lydiat, in "The Vanity of Human Wishes." The truth is, that Goldsmith himself was in a mistake. In the " Respublica Hungarica," there is an account of a desperate rebellion in the year 1514, headed by two brothers, of the name of Zeck, George and Luke," When it was quelled, George, not Luke, was punished by his head being encircled with a red hot iron crown: "coronâ candescente ferrea coronatur." The same severity of torture was exercised on the Earl of Athol, one of the murderers of King James I. of Scotland 5. Dr. Johnson at the same time favoured me by marking the lines which he furnished to Goldsmith's "Deserted Village," which are only the last four: "That trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay, Talking of education, "People have nowadays (said he) got a strange opinion that every thing should be taught by lectures. Now, I cannot see that lectures can do so much good as reading the books from which the lectures are taken. I know nothing that can be best taught by lectures, except where experiments are to be shown. You may teach chymistry by lectures:you might teach making shoes by lectures!" At night I supped with him at the Mitre tavern, that we might renew our social intimacy at the original place of meeting. But there was now a considerable difference in his way of living. Having had an illness 6, in which he was advised to leave off wine, he had, from that period, continued 4 [This is a strange way of speaking of the lines of an author in his own poem-Johnson's were rather the insertion; and it must be observed that they could only have been alterations of, or substitutions for other lines, conveying, though perhaps in less effective language, the same or similar sentiments.-ED.] On the iron crown, see Mr. Steevens's note 7, on act iv. scene i. of Richard III. It seems to be alluded to in Macbeth, act iv. scene i.: "Thy crown does sear," &c. See also Gough's Camden; vol. iii. p. 396,-BLAKEWAY. 6 [Probably the severe fit of hypochondria referred to ante, vol. i p 501.-ED.] to abstain from it, and drank only water or lemonade. I told him that a foreign friend of his1, whom I had met with abroad, was so wretchedly perverted to infidelity, that he treated the hopes of immortality with brutal levity; and said, "As man dies like a dog, let him lie like a dog." JOHNSON. "If he dies like a dog, let him lie like a dog." I added, that this man said to me, "I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am." JOHNSON. "Sir, he must be very singular in his opinion, if he thinks himself one of the best of men; for none of his friends think him so." He said, "No honest man could be a Deist; for no man could be so after a fair examination of the proofs of Christianity." I named Hume. JOHNSON. "No, sir; Hume owned to a clergyman in the bishoprick of Durham, that he had never read the New Testament with attention."-I mentioned Hume's notion, that all who are happy are equally happy; a little miss with a new gown at a dancing-school ball, a general at the head of a victorious army, and an orator after having made an eloquent speech in a great assembly. JOHNSON. "Sir, that all who are happy are equally happy, is not true. A peasant and a philosopher may be equally satisfied but not equally happy. Happiness consists in the multiplicity of agreeable consciousness. A peasant has not capacity for having equal happiness with a philosopher." I remember this very question very happily illustrated in opposition to Hume, by the Rev. Mr. Robert Brown, at Utrecht. "A small drinking-glass and a large one (said he) may be equally full, but the large one holds more than the small 2." 1 [Probably Baretti.-ED.] 2 Bishop Hall, in discussing this subject, has the same image: "Yet so conceive of these heavenly degrees, that the least is glorious. So do these vessels differ, that all are full."-Epistles, Dec. ii. cap. 6. "Of the different degrees of heavenly glory." This most learned and ingenious writer, however, was not the first who suggested this image; for it is found also in an old book entitled "A Work worth the reading," by Charles Gibbon, 4to. 1591. In the fifth dialogue of this work, in which the question debated is, "whether there be degrees of glorie in heaven, or difference of paines in hell," one of the speakers observes, that "no doubt in the world to come (where the least pleasure is unspeakable), it cannot be but that he which hath bin most afflicted here shall conceive and receive more exceeding joy than he which hath bin touched with lesse tribulation: and yet the joyes of heaven are fitlie compared to vessels filled with licour, of all quantities; for everie man shall have his full measure there.' By" all quantities," this writer (who seems to refer to a still more ancient 66 Dr. Johnson was very kind this evening, and said to me, "You have now lived fiveand-twenty years, and you have employed them well." "Alas, sir, (said I), I fear not. Do I know history? Do I know mathematicks? Do I know law?" JOHNSON, Why, sir, though you may know no science so well as to be able to teach it, and no profession so well as to be able to follow it, your general mass of knowledge of books and men renders you very capable to make yourself master of any science, or fit yourself for any profession." I mentioned that a gay friend had advised me against being a lawyer, because I should be excelled by plodding blockheads. JOHNSON. Why, sir, in the formulary and statutory part of law, a plodding blockhead may excel; but in the ingenious and rational part of it, a plodding blockhead can never excel." 66 3 I talked of the mode adopted by some to rise in the world, by courting great men 3, and asked him whether he had ever submitted to it. JOHNSON. "Why, sir, I never was near enough to great men, to court them. You may be prudently attached to great men, and yet independent. You are not to do what you think wrong; and, sir, you are to calculate, and not pay too dear for what you get. You must not give a shilling's worth of court for sixpence worth of good. But if you can get a shilling's worth of good for sixpence worth of court, you are a fool if you do not pay court." He said, "If convents should be allowed at all, they should only be retreats for persons unable to serve the publick, or who have served it. It is our first duty to serve society 4; and after we have done that, we authour than himself), I suppose, means different quantities.-MALONE. [All these illustrations, like most physical illustrations of moral subjects, are imperfect. A little miss and a great general are not full of the same liquor: the peasant's cup may be as full as the philosopher's, but one may be full of water and the other of wine. Moral and intellectual feelings are not to be estimated by quantity only, but by the quality also.-ED.] 3 [See ante, p. 50.—ED.] 4 [This observation has given offence, as if it seemed to sanction the postponement of the care of our salvation, until we should have performed all our duties to society; which would be, in fact, an adjournment sine die. But Dr. Johnson was talking of monastic retirement, and, from the context, as well as from his own practice, it is clear that he must have meant, that an entire abstraction from the world, and an exclusive dedication to recluse devotion, was not justifiable as long as any of our duties to society were unperformed. Bishop Taylor, who will not be suspected of worldliness, has a sentiment not dissimilar: "If our youth be chaste and temperate, moderate and industrious, proceeding, through a prudent and sober manhood, to a religious old age, then we |