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is more learning and fcience within the circumference of ten miles from where Atat. 60. we now fit, than in all the rest of the kingdom." BOSWELL. "The only difadvantage is the great diftance at which people live from one another." JOHNSON. "Yes, Sir; but that is occafioned by the largeness of it, which is the cause of all the other advantages." BOSWELL. "Sometimes I have been in the humour of wishing to retire to a defart." JOHNSON. "Sir, you have defart enough in Scotland."

Although I had promised myself a great deal of inftructive converfation with him on the conduct of the married ftate, of which I had then a near profpect, he did not fay much upon that topick. Mr. Seward heard him once fay, that "a man has a very bad chance for happiness in that ftate, unless he marries a woman of very ftrong and fixed principles of religion." He maintained to me, contrary to the common notion, that a woman would not be the worse wife for being learned; in which, from all that I have observed of Artemifias, I humbly differed from him. That a woman should be sensible and well informed, I allow to be a great advantage; and think that Sir Thomas Overbury, in his rude verfification, has very judiciously pointed out that degree of intelligence which is to be defired in a female companion:

"Give me, next good, an understanding wife,

By Nature wife, not learned by much art; "Some knowledge on her fide will all my life. "More scope of converfation impart ;

"Befides, her inborne virtue fortifie;

"They are most firmly good, who beft know why."

When I cenfured a gentleman of my acquaintance for marrying a fecond time, as it fhewed a difregard of his firft wife, he said, "Not at all, Sir. On the contrary, were he not to marry again, it might be concluded that his first wife had given him a disgust to marriage; but by taking a second wife he pays the highest compliment to the firft, by fhewing that she made him fo happy as a married man, that he wishes to be fo a fecond time." So ingenious a turn did he give to this delicate queftion. And yet, on another occafion, he owned that he once had almost asked a promise of Mrs. Johnson that she would not marry again, but had checked himself. Indeed I cannot help thinking, that in his cafe the request would have been unreasonable; for

4"A Wife," a poem, 1614.

if Mrs. Johnson forgot, or thought it no injury to the memory of her first 1769. love, the husband of her youth and the father of her children,—to make a Etat. 60. fecond marriage, why should fhe be precluded from a third, fhould the be

fo inclined? In Johnson's perfevering fond appropriation of his Tetty, even after her decease, he seems totally to have overlooked the prior claim of the honest Birmingham trader. I prefume that her having been married before had, at times, given him fome uneafiness; for I remember his obferving upon the marriage of one of our common friends, "He has done a very foolish thing, Sir; he has married a widow, when he might have had a maid."

We drank tea with Mrs. Williams. I had laft year the pleasure of feeing Mrs. Thrale at Dr. Johnson's one morning, and had converfation enough with her to admire her talents, and to fhew her that I was as Johnsonian as herself. Dr. Johnson had probably been kind enough to speak well of me, for this evening he delivered me a very polite card from Mr. Thrale and her, inviting me to Streatham.

On the 6th of October I complied with this obliging invitation, and found, at an elegant villa, fix miles from town, every circumftance that can make fociety pleafing. Johnson, though quite at home, was yet looked up to with an awe, tempered by affection, and feemed to be equally the care of his host and hoftefs. I rejoiced at feeing him fo happy.

He played off his wit against Scotland with a good humoured pleasantry, which gave me, though no bigot to national prejudices, an opportunity for a little contest with him. I having faid that England was obliged to us for gardeners, almost all their good gardeners being Scotchmen,-JOHNSON.

Why, Sir, that is becaufe gardening is much more neceffary amongst you than with us, which makes fo many of your people learn it. It is all gardening with you. Things which grow wild here, must be cultivated with great care in Scotland. Pray now, (throwing himself back in his chair, and laughing,) are you ever able to bring the floe to perfection?"

I boasted that we had the honour of being the first to abolish the unhospitable, troublesome, and ungracious custom of giving vails to fervants. JOHNSON. "Sir, you abolished vails, because you were too poor to be able to give them."

Mrs. Thrale difputed with him on the merit of Prior. He attacked him powerfully; faid, he wrote of love like a man who had never felt it: his love verfes were college verfes: and he repeated the fong, "Alexis fhunn'd his fellow fwains," &c. in fo ludicrous a manner, as to make us all wonder how any one could have been pleafed with fuch fantastical stuff. Mrs. Thrale ftood S s

to

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to her gun with great courage, in defence of amorous ditties which Johnfon Etat. 60. defpifed, till he at laft filenced her by saying, "My dear Lady, talk no more of this. Nonfenfe can be defended but by nonfenfe."

Mrs. Thrale then praised Garrick's talent for light gay poetry; and, as a fpecimen, repeated his fong in "Florizel and Perdita," and dwelt with liar pleasure on this line:

"I'd smile with the fimple, and feed with the poor."

pecu.

JOHNSON. "Nay, my dear Lady, this will never do. Poor David! Smile with the fimple! What folly is that! And who would feed with the poor that can help it? No, no; let me fmile with the wife, and feed with the rich." I repeated this fally to Garrick, and wondered to find his fenfibility as a writer not a little irritated by it. To footh him, I obferved, that Johnson fpared none of us; and I quoted the paffage in Horace, in which he compares one who attacks his friends for the fake of a laugh, to a pushing ox that is marked by a bunch of hay put upon his horns: "fænum habet in cornu." Aye, (faid Garrick, vehemently,) he has a whole mow of it."

Talking of history, Johnson faid, "We may know hiftorical facts to be true, as we may know facts in common life to be true. Motives are generally unknown. We cannot truft to the characters we find in hiftory, unless when they are drawn by those who knew the perfons; as thofe, for instance, by Salluft and by Lord Clarendon."

He would not allow much merit to Whitefield's oratory. "His popularity, Sir, (faid he,) is chiefly owing to the peculiarity of his manner. He would be followed by crowds were he to wear a night-cap in the pulpit, or were he to preach from a tree."

I know not from what fpirit of contradiction he burft out into a violent declamation against the Corficans, of whofe heroifin I talked in high terms. «Sir, (faid he,) what is all this rout about the Corficans? They have been at war with the Genoefe for upwards of twenty years, and have never yet taken their fortified towns. They might have battered down their walls and reduced them to powder in twenty years. They might have pulled the walls in pieces, and cracked the ftones with their teeth in twenty years."

vain to argue with him upon the want of artillery: he was not to be refifted for the moment.

On the evening of October 10, I prefented Dr. Johnson to General Paoli. I had greatly wished that two men, for whom I had the highest esteem, should

4

meet.

1769.

meet. They met with a manly eafe, mutually confcious of their own abilities, and of the abilities of each other. The General spoke Italian, and Dr. Etat. 60. Johnson English, and understood one another very well, with a little aid of interpretation from me, in which I compared myself to an ifthmus which joins two great continents. Upon Johnson's approach, the General faid, "From what I have read of your works, Sir, and from what Mr. Boswell has told me of you, I have long held you in great veneration." The General talked of languages being formed on the particular notions and manners of a people, without knowing which, we cannot know the language. We may know the direct fignification of fingle words; but by these no beauty of expreffion, no fally of genius, no wit is conveyed to the mind. All this must be by allufion to other ideas. "Sir, (faid Johnson,) you talk of language as if you had never done any thing elfe but study it, instead of governing a nation." The General faid, "Questo e un troppo gran complimento," this is too great a compliment. Johnfon answered, "I fhould have thought fo, Sir, if I had not heard you talk." The General asked him, what he thought of the fpirit of infidelity which was fo prevalent. JOHNSON. "Sir, this gloom of infidelity, I hope, is only a tranfient cloud paffing through the hemifphere, which will foon be diffipated, and the fun break forth with his usual splendour." "You think then, (faid the General,) that they will change their principles like their clothes." JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, if they bestow no more thought on principles than on drefs, it must be fo." The General faid, that "a great part of the fashionable infidelity was owing to a defire of fhewing courage. Men who have no opportunities of fhewing it as to things in this life, take death and futurity as objects on which to display it." JOHNSON." That is mighty foolish affectation. Fear is one of the paffions of human nature, of which it is impoffible to divest it. You remember that the Emperour Charles V. when he read upon the tomb-ftone of a Spanish nobleman, Here lies one who never knew fear,' wittily faid, Then he never snuffed a candle with his fingers." He talked a few words of French to the General; but finding he did not do it with facility, he asked for pen, ink, and paper, and wrote the following

note:

"J'ai lu dans la geographie de Lucas de Linda un Pater-nofter écrit dans une langue toutafait differente de l'Italienne, et de toutes autres lefquelles fe derivent du Latin. L'auteur l'appelle linguam Corficæ rufticam; elle a peutetre passe, peu a peu ; mais elle a certainement prevalue autrefois dans les montagnes et dans la campagne. Le même auteur dit la même chofe en parlant de Sardaigne; qu'il y a deux langues dans l'Ifle, une des villes, l'autre de la campagne." Ss 2

-The

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The General immediately informed him that the lingua ruftica was only in Etat. 60. Sardinia.

Dr. Johnson went home with me, and drank tea till late in the night. He faid, General Paoli had the loftieft port of any man he had ever seen. He denied that military men were always the best bred men. Perfect good breeding, he observed, confifts in having no particular mark of any profeffion, but a general elegance of manners: whereas, in a military man, you can commonly distinguish the brand of a foldier, l'homme d'epee.

Dr. Johnson fhunned to-night any difcuffion of the perplexed question of fate and free will, which I attempted to agitate: "Sir, (faid he,) we know our will is free, and there's an end of't."

He honoured me with his company at dinner on the 16th of October, at my lodgings in Old Bond-street, with Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mr. Garrick, Dr. Goldsmith, Mr. Murphy, Mr. Bickerftaff, and Mr. Thomas Davies. Garrick played round him with a fond vivacity, taking hold of the breafts of his coat, and, looking up in his face with a lively archness, complimented him on the good health which he seemed then to enjoy; while the fage, fhaking his head, beheld him with a gentle complacency. One of the company not being come at the appointed hour, I propofed, as ufual upon fuch occafions, to order dinner to be ferved; adding, "Ought fix people to be kept waiting for one ?” "Why yes, (anfwered Johnfon, with a delicate humanity,) if the one will fuffer more by your fitting down, than the fix will do by waiting." Goldfmith, to divert the tedious minutes, ftrutted about, bragging of his dress, and I believe was seriously vain of it, for his mind was wonderfully prone to fuch impreffions. "Come, come, (faid Garrick,) talk no more of that. You are, perhaps, the worft-eheh!"-Goldsmith was eagerly attempting to interrupt him, when Garrick went on, laughing ironically, " Nay, you will always look like a gentleman; but I am talking of being well or ill dreft." "Well, let me tell you, (faid Goldsmith,) when my tailor brought home my bloom-coloured coat, he faid Sir, I have a favour to beg of you. When any body afks you who made your clothes, be pleased to mention John Phielby, at the Harrow, in Water-lane." JOHNSON. Why, Sir, that was because he knew the strange colour would attract crouds to gaze at it, and thus they might hear of him, and fee how well he could make a coat even of fo abfurd a colour."

After dinner, our converfation first turned upon Pope. Johnson faid, his characters of men were admirably drawn, thofe of women not fo well. He repeated to us, in his forcible melodious manner, the concluding lines of the

Dunciad.