.

extent is nothing against that; a mile may be as trim as a square yard. Your extent puts me in mind of the citizen's enlarged dinner, two pieces of roast-beef, and two puddings. There is no variety, no mind exerted in laying out the ground, no trees."-PERCY." He pretends to give the natural history of Northumberland, and yet takes no notice of the immense number of trees planted there of late."-J, "That, Sir, has nothing to do with the natural history: that is civil history. A man who gives the natural history of the oak, is not to tell how many caks have been planted in this place or that. A man who gives the natural history of the cow, is not to tell how many cows are milked at Islington. The animal is the same, whether milked in the Park or at Islington."-P. " Pennant does not describe well; a carrier who goes along the side of Lochlomond would describe it better."-J. "I think he describes very well."-P. "Itravelled after him.”—J. “And I travelled after him."-P." But, my good friend, you are shortsighted, and do not see so well as I do." The company wondered at Dr. Percy's venturing thus. Dr. Johnson said nothing at the time; but inflammable particles were collecting for a cloud to burst. In a little while Dr. Percy said something more in disparagement of Pennant. J. (pointedly)" This is the resentment of a nar

row mind, because he did not find every thing. in Northumberland.” — P. (feeling the stroke). "Sir, you may be as rude as you please.”—J. "Hold, Sir! Don't talk of rudeness; remember, Sir, you told me (puffing hard with passion struggling for a vent) I was short-sighted. We have done with civility. We are to be as rude as we please."-P. "Upon my honour, Sir, I did not mean to be uncivil."-J. "I cannot say so, Sir; I did mean to be uncivil, thinking you had been uncivil." Dr. Percy rose, ran up to him, and, taking him by the hand, assured him. affectionately that his meaning had been misunderstood; upon which a reconciliation immediately took place.-J." My dear Sir, I am willing you shall hang Pennant."-P. (resuming the former subject)" Pennant complains that the helmet is not hung out to invite to the hall of hospitality. Now I never heard that it was the custom to hang out a helmet.-J. “ Hang him up, hang him up."-BOSWELL. (humouring the joke)" Hang out his skull instead of a helmet, and you may drink ale out of it in your hall of Odin, as he is your enemy; that will be truly ancient. There will be Northern Antiquities."" -J. "He's a Whig, Sir; a sad dog, (smiling at his own violent expressions, merely for political difference of opinion). But he's the best tra

veller I ever read; he observes more things than any one else does."

He gave much praise to his friend Dr. Bur ney's elegant and entertaining Travels, and told Mr. Seward, that he had them in his eye, when writing his Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland.'

Dr. Dodd's poem entitled,

Thoughts in a

Prison,' appearing an extraordinary effort by a man who was in Newgate for a capital crime, Mr. Boswell was desirous to hear Johnson's opinion of it. To my surprize (says Mr. B.) he told me he had not read a line of it. I took up the book, and read a passage to him.-JOHNSON. "Pretty well, if you are previously disposed to like them." I read another passage, with which he was better pleased. He then took the book into his own hands, and having looked at the prayer at the end of it, he said, "What evidence is there that this was composed the night before he suffered? I do not believe it." He then read aloud where he prays for the King, &c. and observed," Sir, do you think that a man the night Lefore he is to be hanged cares for the succession of a royal family? Though he may have composed this prayer then. A man who has been canting all his life may cant to the last; and yet a man who has been refused a pardon after so

much petitioning would hardly be praying thus fervently for the King."

Mr. Boswell one day asked, "Was not Dr. John Campbell a very inaccurate man in his narrative, Sir? He once told me, that he drank thirteen bottles of port at a sitting."-JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, I do not know that Campbell ever lied with pen and ink; but you could not entirely depend on any thing he told you in conversation, if there was fact mixed with it. However, I loved Campbell: he was a solid orthodox man; he had a reverence for religion. Though defective in practice, he was religious in principle; and he did nothing grossly wrong that I have heard."

Mr. Boswell had lent Johnson, An Account of Scotland, in 1702,' written by a man of various enquiry, an English Chaplain to a regiment stationed there." It is sad stuff, Sir (said the Doctor), miserably written, as books in general then were. There is now an elegance of style universally diffused. No man now writes so ill as Martin's Account of the Hebrides is written. A man could not write so ill, if he 'should try. Set a merchant's clerk now to write, and he'll do better."

"Thomas à Kempis (he observed) must be a good book, as the world has opened its arms to receive it. It is said to have been printed, in

one language or other, as many times as there have been months since it first came out. I always was struck with this sentence in it: Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be.'

He said, the critics had done too much honour tó Sir Richard Blackmore, by writing so much against him. In his Creation' he had been helped by various wits, a line by Phillips and a line by Tickell; so that by their aid, and that of others, the poem had been made out.

"Lord Chesterfield's Letters to his Son' (he thought) might be made a very pretty book. Take out the immorality, and it should be put into the hands of every young gentleman. An elegant manner and easiness of behaviour are acquired gradually and imperceptibly. No man 'can say I'll be genteel.' There are ten genteel women for one genteel man, because they are more restrained. A man without some degree of restraint is insufferable: but we are all less restrained than women. Were a woman sitting in 'company to put out her legs before her as most men do, we should be tempted to kick them in." "I read (said he) Sharpe's Letters on Italy? over again when I was at Bath. There is a great

deal of matter in them."

Johnson usually spoke with contempt of Col