'Of all conversers however (added he), the late Hawkins Browne was the most delightful with whom I ever was in company his talk was at once so elegant, so apparently artless, so pure, and so pleasing, it seemed a perpetual stream of sentiment, enlivened by gaiety, and sparkling with images'.' When I asked Dr. Johnson, who was the best man he had ever known? 'Psalmanazar,' was the unexpected reply: he said, likewise, 'that though a native of France, as his friend imagined, he possessed more of the English language than any one of the other foreigners who had separately fallen in his way. Though there was much esteem however, there was I believe but little confidence between them; they conversed merely about general topics, religion and learning, of which both were undoubtedly stupendous examples; and, with regard to true Christian perfection, I have heard Johnson say, 'that George Psalmanazar's piety, penitence, and virtue exceeded almost what we read as wonderful even in the lives of saints'.'

I forget in what year it was that this extraordinary person lived and died at a house in Old-street 3, where Mr. Johnson was witness to his talents and virtues, and to his final preference of the church of England, after having studied, disgraced, and adorned so many forms of worship.

'Isaac Hawkins Browne,' said Johnson, 'one of the first wits of this country, got into Parliament and never opened his mouth.' Life, ii. 339. 'Dr. Johnson told us that Browne drank freely for thirty years, and that he wrote his poem De Animi Immortalitate in some of the last of these years.' Ib. v. 156. 'The pretty Mrs. Cholmondely said she was soon tired of him, because the first hour he was so dull there was no bearing him; the second he was so witty there was no bearing him; the third he was so drunk there was no bearing him.' Hayward's Piozzi, i. 294. See Letters, ii. 324, n. 1, for his gluttony, and Campbell's British Poets for specimens of his verses.

The name he went by, was

'Once talking of George Psalmanazar, whom he reverenced for his piety, he said :-" I should as soon think of contradicting a Bishop."' Life, iv. 274.

I have examined Psalmanazar's penitence in Appendix A to vol. iii. of the Life.

3 He died in Ironmonger Row, Old Street, on May 3, 1763. Gentleman's Magazine, 1763, p. 257.

4

He belonged only to the Church of Rome and the Church of England, though he invented an awkward show of worship, turning his face to the rising or setting sun, and pleased to be taken notice of for so doing." Life, iii. 447.

not

not supposed by his friend to be that of his family, but all enquiries were vain; his reasons for concealing his original were penitentiary; he deserved no other name than that of the impostor, he said. That portion of the Universal History' which was written by him, does not seem to me to be composed with peculiar spirit, but all traces of the wit and the wanderer were probably worn out before he undertook the work.-His pious and patient endurance of a tedious illness, ending in an exemplary death, confirmed the strong impression his merit had made upon the mind of Mr. Johnson. It is so very difficult (said he, always) for a sick man not to be a scoundrel 3. Oh! set the pillows soft, here is Mr. Grumbler o'coming: Ah! let no air in for the world, Mr. Grumbler will be here presently.'

This perpetual preference is so offensive where the privileges of sickness are besides supported by wealth, and nourished by dependence, that one cannot much wonder that a rough mind is revolted by them. It was however at once comical and touchant" (as the French call it), to observe Mr. Johnson so habitually watchful against this sort of behaviour, that he was often ready to suspect himself of it; and when one asked him gently, how he did? Ready to become a scoundrel, Madam (would commonly be the answer): with a little more spoiling you will, I think, make me a complete rascal ".

His desire of doing good was not however lessened by his aversion to a sick chamber: he would have made an ill man well

' Mrs. Piozzi means, I suppose, 'penitential.' To his concealment he thought himself obliged, he says, 'out of respect to his country and family.' The excuse seems unsatisfactory, for he tells enough to shew that he came from the South of France, while for his family there was no need of care. It was, he writes, 'ancient but decayed,' and he was the only surviving child. Of his father and mother he had heard nothing since he started on the career of a pious rogue. They must

by any expence or fatigue of his own, sooner than any of the canters. Canter indeed was he none: he would forget to ask people after the health of their nearest relations, and say in excuse, That he knew they did not care: why should they? (says he :) every one in this world has as much as they can do in caring for themselves, and few have leisure really to think of their neighbours distresses, however they may delight their tongues with talking of them '.'

The natural depravity of mankind and remains of original sin were so fixed in Mr. Johnson's opinion, that he was indeed a most acute observer of their effects; and used to say sometimes, half in jest half in earnest, that they were the remains of his old tutor Mandeville's instructions 3. As a book however, he took care always loudly to condemn the Fable of the Bees, but not without adding, 'that it was the work of a thinking man.'

I have in former days heard Dr. Collier of the Commons * loudly condemned for uttering sentiments, which twenty years after I have heard as loudly applauded from the lips of Dr. Johnson, concerning the well-known writer of that celebrated work but if people will live long enough in this capricious world, such instances of partiality will shock them less and less, by frequent repetition. Mr. Johnson knew mankind, and wished to mend them: he therefore, to the piety and pure religion, the untainted integrity, and scrupulous morals of my earliest and most disinterested friend, judiciously contrived to join a cautious

attention to the capacity of his hearers, and a prudent resolution not to lessen the influence of his learning and virtue, by casual freaks of humour, and irregular starts of ill-managed merriment. He did not wish to confound, but to inform his auditors'; and though he did not appear to solicit benevolence, he always wished to retain authority, and leave his company impressed with the idea, that it was his to teach in this world, and theirs to learn. What wonder then that all should receive with docility from Johnson those doctrines, which propagated by Collier they drove away from them with shouts! Dr. Johnson was not grave however because he knew not how to be merry. No man loved laughing better, and his vein of humour was rich, and apparently inexhaustible 2; Though Dr. Goldsmith said once to him, We should change companions oftener, we exhaust one another, and shall soon be both of us worn out 3. Poor Goldsmith was to him indeed like the earthen pot to the iron one in Fontaine's fables; it had been better for him perhaps, that they had changed companions oftener; yet no experience of his antagonist's strength hindered him from continuing the contest *. He used to remind me always of that verse in Berni,

Il pover uomo che non sen' èra accorto,
Andava combattendo-ed era morto.

Mr. Johnson made him a comical answer one day, when seeming to repine at the success of Beattie's Essay on Truth - Here's such a stir (said he) about a fellow that has written one book,

and I have written many.' Ah, Doctor (says his friend), there go two-and-forty sixpences you know to one guinea'.

They had spent an evening with Eaton Graham2 too, I remember hearing it was at some tavern; his heart was open, and he began inviting away; told what he could do to make his college agreeable, and begged the visit might not be delayed. Goldsmith thanked him, and proposed setting out with Mr. Johnson for Buckinghamshire in a fortnight; 'Nay hold, Dr. Minor (says the other), I did not invite you 3.

Many such mortifications arose in the course of their intimacy to be sure, but few more laughable than when the newspapers had tacked them together as the pedant and his flatterer in Love's Labour lost. Dr. Goldsmith came to his friend, fretting and foaming, and vowing vengeance against the printer, &c. till Mr. Johnson, tired of the bustle, and desirous to think of something else, cried out at last, 'Why, what would'st thou have, dear Doctor! who the plague is hurt with all this nonsense? and how is a man the worse I wonder in his health, purse, or character, for being called Holofernes?' I do not know (replies the other) how you may relish being called Holofernes, but I do not like at least to play Goodman Dull3.

Dr. Johnson was indeed famous for disregarding public abuse. When the people criticised and answered his pamphlets, papers, &c. 'Why now, these fellows are only advertising my book (he would say); it is surely better a man should be abused than

''Le maréchal de Rochefort, capitaine des gardes-du-corps, mourut. Il était le favori de M. de Louvois, qui à la mort de M. de Turenne l'avait fait faire maréchal de France avec les autres, dont le Français, fertile en bons mots, disait que le roi avait changé une pièce d'or en monnaie.' Mémoires du Duc de Saint-Simon, ed. 1829, iii. 386.

2 Rev. George Graham of Eton College.

3 See Life, v. 97, for Johnson's account of this incident.

Love's Labour's Lost.

5 Prior in his Life of Goldsmith, ii. 283, quotes the article in which the two men had been thus ridiculed. It is found, he says, in the St. James's Chronicle, June 14, 1770. This number is not in the British Museum.

forgotten.