it will be a proof that I have been fortunate in selecting the most striking incidents.'

“I suppose byThe Life of Robert Bruce,' his lordship means that part of his ‘Annals' which relates the history of that prince, and not a separate work.

• Shall we have ' A Journey to Paris ' from you in the winter? You will, I hope, at any rate, be kind enough to give me some account of your French travels very soon, for I am very impatient. What a different scene have you viewed this autumn, from that which you viewed in autumn 1773! I ever am, my dear Sir,

Your much obliged and
" Affectionate humble servant,

“JAMES BOSWELL.”

“TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. “ DEAR SIR,

November 16, 1775. “I am glad that the young laird is born, and an end, as I hope, put to the only difference that you can ever have with Mrs. Boswell. 1 I know that she does not love me ; but I intend to persist in wishing her well till I get the better of her.

“Paris is, indeed, a place very different from the Hebrides, but it is to a hasty traveller not so fertile of novelty, nor affords so many opportunities of remark. I cannot pretend to tell the public anything of a place better known to many of my readers than to myself. We can talk of it when we meet:

“I shall go next week to Streatham, from whence I purpose to send a parcel of the ‘History' every post. Concerning the character of Bruce, I can only say, that I do not see any great reason for writing it; but I shall not easily deny what Lord Hailes and you concur in desiring.

“I have been remarkably healthy all the journey, and hope you and your family have known only that trouble and danger which has so happily terminated. Among all the congratulations that you may receive, I hope you believe none more warm or sincere, than those of, dear Sir,

“Your most affectionate,

“ SAM. JOHNSON."

“TO MRS. LUCY PORTER, IN LICHFIELD.2 “ DEAR MADAM,

November 16, 1775. "This week I came home from Paris. I have brought you a little box, which I thought pretty ; but I know not whether it is properly a snuff-box, or a box for some other use. I will send it, when I can find an opportunity. I have been through the whole journey remarkably well. My fellow-travellers were the same whom you saw at Lichfield, only we took Baretti with us. Paris is not so fine a place as you would expect. The palaces and churches, however, are very splendid and magnificent ; and what would please you, there are many very fine pictures; but I do not think their way of life commodious or pleasant.

“Let me know how your health has been all this while. I hope the fine summer has given you strength sufficient to encounter the winter.

“ Make my compliments to all my friends; and if your fingers will let you, write to me, or let your maid write to me, if it be troublesome to you. I am, dear Madam,

Your most affectionate humble servant,

“ SAM. JOHNSON."

TO THE SAME.

66

“DEAR MADAM,

December, 1775. “Some weeks ago I wrote to you to tell you that I was just come home from a ramble, and hoped that I should have heard from you. I am afraid winter has laid hold on your fingers, and hinders you from writing. However, let somebody write, if you cannot, and tell me how you do, and a little of what has happened at Lichfield among our friends. I hope you are all well.

“When I was in France, I thought myself growing young, but am afraid that cold weather will take part of my new vigour from me. Let us, however, take care of ourselves, and lose no part of our health by negligence.

“I never knew whether you received the Commentary on the New Testament, and the Travels, and the glasses.

“Do, my dear love, write to me; and do not let us forget each other. This is the season of good wishes, and I wish you all good. I have not lately seen Mr. Porter, nor heard of him. Is he with you?

"Be pleased to make my compliments to Mrs. Adey, and Mrs. Cobb, and all my friends ; and when I can do any good, let me know. I am, dear Madam,

“Yours most affectionately,

SAM. JOHNSON.” It is to be regretted, that he did not write an account of his travels in France ; for as he is reported to have once said, that “he could write the life of a broomstick,”!? so, notwithstanding so many former travellers have exhausted almost every subject for remark in that great kingdom, his very accurate observation, and peculiar vigour of thought and illustration, would have produced a valuable work. During his visit to it, which lasted but about two months, he wrote notes or minutes of what he saw. He promised to show me them, but I neglected to put him in mind of it; and the greatest part of them has been lost, or, perhaps, destroyed in a precipitate burning of his papers a few days before his death, which must ever be lamented. One small paper-book, however, entitled “FRANCE II.,” has been preserved, and is in my possession. It is a diurnal register of his life and observations, from

" I look

was

own character in the world, or, rather as a convincing proof that Johnson's roughness was only external, and did not proceed from his heart, I insert the following dialogue. JOHNSON : “It is wonderful, Sir, how rare a quality good-humour is in life. We meet with very few good-humoured men.' I mentioned four of our friends, none of whom he would allow to be good-humoured. One was acid, another was muddy, and to the others he had objections which have escaped me. Then, shaking his head and stretching himself at ease in the coach, and smiling with much complacency, he turned to me and said, upon myself as a good-humoured fellow." The epithet fellow, applied to the great Lexicographer, the stately Moralist, the masterly Critic, as if he had been Sam Johnson, a mere pleasant companion, was highly diverting ; and this light notion of himself struck me with wonder. I answered, also smiling, “No, no, Sir; that will not do. You are goodnatured, but not good-humoured : you are irascible. You have not patience with folly and absurdity. I believe you would pardon them, if there were time to deprecate your vengeance ; but punishment follows so quick after sentence, that they cannot escape.”

I had brought with me a great bundle of Scotch magazines and newspapers, in which his “ Journey to the Western Islands attacked in every mode ; and I read a great part of them to him, knowing they would afford him entertainment. I wish the writers of them had been present: they would have been sufficiently vexed. One ludicrous imitation of his style, by Mr. Maclaurin, now one of the Scotch Judges, with the title of Lord Dreghorn, was distinguished by him from the rude mass. This,” said he, " is the best. But I could caricature my own style much better myself.” He defended his remark upon the general insufficieney of education in Scotland ; and confirmed to me the authenticity of his witty saying on the learning of the Scotch ;—“ Their learning is like bread in a besieged town: every man gets a little, but no man gets a full meal.” “ There is,” said he, “ in Scotland, a diffusion of learning, a certain portion of it widely and thinly spread. A merchant has as much learning as one of their clergy."

He talked of Isaac Walton's Lives, which was one of his most favourite books. Dr. Donne's Life, he said, was the most perfect of them. He observed, that " it was wonderful that Walton who was in a very low situation in life, should have been familiarly received by so many great men, and that at a time when the ranks of society were kept more separate than they are now.” He supposed that Walton had then given up his business as a linen-draper and sempster, and was only an author ;

1

him “ The Beggars' Opera,” his Grace's observation was,

“ This is a very odd thing, Gay ; I am satisfied that it is either a very good thing, or a very bad thing." It proved the former, beyond the warmest expectations of the author or his friends. Mr. Cambridge, however, showed us to-day, that there was good reason enough to doubt concerning its success. He was told by Quin, that during the first night of its appearance it was long in a very dubious state ; that there was a disposition to damn it, and that it was saved by the song,

“Oh ponder well! be not severe!” the audience being much affected by the innocent looks of Polly, when she came to those two lines, which exhibit at once a painful and ridiculous image,

“For on the rope that hangs my Dear,

Depends poor Polly's life.” Quin himself had so bad an opinion of it, that he refused the part of Captain Macheath, and gave it to Walker, who acquired great celebrity by his grave yet animated performance of it.

We talked of a young gentleman's marriage with an eminent singer, and his determination that she should no longer sing in public, though his father was very earnest she should, because her talents would be liberally rewarded, so as to make her a good fortune. It was questioned whether the young gentleman, who had not a shilling in the world, but was blest with very uncommon talents, was not foolishly delicate, or foolishly proud, and his father truly rational without being mean. JOHNSON, with all the high spirit of a Roman senator, exclaimed, “ He resolved wisely and nobly to be sure.

He is a brave man. Would not a gentleman be disgraced by having his wife singing publicly for hire ? No, Sir, there can be no doubt here. I know not if I should not prepare myself for a public singer, as readily as let my wife be one."

Johnson arraigned the modern politics of this country, as entirely devoid of all principle of whatever kind. Politics,” said he, “ are now nothing more than means of rising in the world. With this sole view do men engage in politics, and their whole conduct proceeds upon it. How different in that respect is the state of the nation now from what it was in the time of Charles the First, during the Usurpation, and after the Restoration, in the time of Charles the Second. Hudibras affords a strong proof how much hold political principles had then upon the minds of men. There is in Hudibras a great deal of bullion which will always last. But, to be sure, the brightest strokes of his wit owed their force to the impression of the characters, which was upon men's minds at the time; to their knowing them, at table and in the street ; in short, being familiar with them; and above all, to his satire being directed against those whom a little while before they had hated and feared. The nation in general has ever been loyal, has been at all times attached to the monarch, though a few daring rebels have been wonderfully powerful for a time. The murder of Charles the First was undoubtedly not committed with the approbation or consent of the people; had that been the case, Parliament would not have ventured to consign the regicides to their deserved punishment; and we know what exuberance of joy there was when Charles the Second was restored. If Charles the Second had bent all his mind to it, had made it his sole object, he might have been as absolute as Louis the Fourteenth.' A gentleman observed, he would have done no harm if he had. JOHNSON :

Why, Sir, absolute princes seldom do any harm. But they who are governed by them are governed by chance. There is no security for good government.” CAMBRIDGE : “ There have been many sad victims to absolute government.” JOHNSON : “So, Sir, have there been to popular factions.” BOSWELL: “The question is, which is worst, one wild beast or many ?”

Johnson praised “The Spectator,” particularly the character of Sir Roger de Coverley. He said, “ Sir Roger did not die a violent death, as has been generally fancied. He was not killed; he died only because others were to die, and because his death afforded an opportunity to Addison for some very fine writing. We have the example of Cervantes making Don Quixote die. I never could see why Sir Roger is represented as a little cracked. It appears to me that the story of the widow was intended to have something superinduced upon it; but the superstructure did not come.”

Somebody found fault with writing verses in a dead language, maintaining that they were merely arrangements of so many words, and laughed at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, for sending forth collections of them not only in Greek and Latin, but even in Syriac, Arabic, and other more unknown tongues. JOHNSON : “ I would have as many of these as possible ; I would have verses in every language that there are the means of acquiring. Nobody imagines that an University is to have at once two hundred poets ; but it should be able to show two hundred scholars. Peiresc's death was lamented, I think, in forty languages. And I would have had at every coronation, and every death of a king, every Gaudium, and every Luctus, Universityverses, in as many languages as can be acquired. I would have the world to be thus told, 'Here is a school where everything may be learnt.''

Having set out next day on a visit to the Earl of Pembroke, at Wilton, and to my friend, Mr. Temple, at Mamhead, in Devonshire, and pot having returned to town till the second of May, I did not see Dr. Johnson for a considerable time, and during the remaining part of my stay in London kept very imperfect notes of his conversation, which had 1, according to my usual custom, written out at large soon after the