History of Man.' In treating of severity of punishment, he mentions that of Madame Lapouchin, in Russia; but he does not give it fairly; for I have looked at Chappe d'Auteroche,1 from whom he has taken it. He stops where it is said that the spectators thought her innocent, and leaves out what follows,—that she nevertheless was guilty. Now this is being as culpable as one can conceive, to misrepresent fact in a book;" and for what motive? It is like one of those lies which people tell, one cannot see why. The woman's life was spared, and no punishment was too great for the favourite of an Empress who had conspired to dethrone her mistress." BOSWELL: "He was only giving a picture of the lady in her sufferings." JOHNSON: "Nay, don't endeavour to palliate this. Guilt is a principal feature in the picture.Kaimes is puzzled with a question that puzzled me when I was a very young man. Why is it that the interest of money is lower when money is plentiful; for five pounds has the same proportion of value to a hundred pounds when money is plentiful, as when it is scarce? A lady explained it to me. 'It is,' said she, 'because when money is plentiful there are so many more who have money to lend, that they bid down one another. Many have then a hundred pounds; and one says, Take mine rather than another's, and you shall have it at four per cent.'" BOSWELL: "Does Lord Kaimes decide the question?" JOHNSON: "I think he leaves it as he found it." BOSWELL: "This must have been an extraordinary lady who instructed you, Sir. May I ask who she was? 1 "Voyage en Sibérie," par M. l'Abbé Chappe d'Auteroche, 3 vols. fol., 1761.-ED. 2 On consulting the two authorities above mentioned, we find that Lord Kaimes (b. i., sketch v.) has given the details of this barbarous punishment almost in the very words of the Abbé Chappe, with the exception of one slight omission, which Johnson considers the height of culpability, but which appears quite unnecessary to the story. As the narrative, however, is short, and illustrative of early Russian barbarism, it is worth extracting. The omitted passage, of which Johnson so bitterly complains, is supplied within brackets: "No traveller who visited St. Petersburgh during the reign of the Empress Elizabeth can be ignorant of Madame Lapouchin, the great ornament of that Court. Her intimacy with a foreign Ambassador having brought her under suspicion of plotting against the government, she was condemned to undergo the punishment of the knout. At the place of execution she appeared in a genteel undress, which heightened her beauty. Of whatever indiscretion she might have been guilty, the sweetness of her countenance and her composure left not the spectators the slightest suspicion of guilt. [Abbé Chappe here remarks (to quote his own words): Tous ceux que j'ai consultés par la suite m'ont cependant assuré qu'elle étoit coupable.'] Her youth also, her beauty, her life and spirit pleaded for her, but all in vain; she was deserted by all, and abandoned to surly executioners, whom she beheld with astonishment, seeming to doubt whether such preparations were intended for her. The cloak that covered her bosom being pulled off, modesty took the alarm, and made her start back; she turned pale, and burst into tears. One of the executioners stripped her naked to the waist, seized her with both hands, and threw her on his back, raising her some inches from the ground. The other executioner, laying hold of her delicate limbs with his rough fists, put her in a posture for receiving the punishment. Then, laying hold of the knout, a sort of whip made of a leathern strap, he, with a single stroke, tore off a slip of skin from the neck downward, repeating his strokes till all the skin of her back was cut off in small slips. The executioner finished his task with cutting out her tongue! after which she was banished to Siberia."-ED, JOHNSON: "Molly Aston,' Sir, the sister of those ladies with whom you dined at Lichfield.- -I shall be at home to-morrow." BOSWELL: "Then let us dine by ourselves at the Mitre, to keep up the old custom 'the custom of the manor,' custom of the Mitre." JOHNSON: “Sir, so it shall be." On Saturday, May 9, we fulfilled our purpose of dining by ourselves at the Mitre, according to old custom. There was, on these occasions, a little circumstance of kind attention to Mrs. Williams, which must not be omitted. Before coming out, and leaving her to dine alone, he gave her her choice of a chicken, a sweetbread, or any other little nice thing, which was carefully sent to her from the tavern, ready-drest. Our conversation to-day, I know not how, turned, I think for the only time at any length during our long acquaintance, upon the sensual intercourse between the sexes, the delight of which he ascribed chiefly to imagination. "Were it not for imagination, Sir," said he, 66 a man would be as happy in the arms of a chambermaid as of a duchess. But such is the adventitious charm of fancy, that we find men who have violated the best principles of society, and ruined their fame and their fortune, that they might possess a woman of rank." It would not be proper to record the particulars of such a conversation in moments of unreserved frankness, when nobody was present on whom it could have any hurtful effect. That subject, when philosophically treated, may surely employ the mind in a curious discussion, and as innocently as anatomy; provided that those who do treat it keep clear of inflammatory incentives. "From grave to gay, from lively to severe," we were soon engaged in very different speculation, humbly and reverently considering and wondering at the universal mystery of all things, as our imperfect faculties can now judge of them. "There are," said he, " innumerable questions to which the inquisitive mind can in this state receive no Johnson had an extraordinary admiration of this lady, notwithstanding she was a violent Whig. In answer to her high-flown speeches for Liberty, he addressed to her the following Epigram, of which I presume to offer a translation: "Liber ut esse velim, suasisti, pulcra Maria, Ut manean liber, pulcra Maria, vale." (Adieu, Maria! since you'd have me free; For who beholds thy charms a slave must be.) A correspondent of "The Gentleman's Magazine," who subscribes himself SCIOLUS, to whom I am indebted for several excellent remarks, observes, "The turn of Dr. Johnson's lines to Miss Aston, whose Whig principles he had been combating, appears to me to be taken from an ingenious epigram in 'The Menagiana' (vol. iii. p. 367, edit. 1716), on a young lady who appeared at a masquerade, habillé en Jesuite, during the fierce contentions of the followers of Molinos and Jansenius concerning free-will:— "On s'étonne ici que Caliste Ote a chacun sa liberté, N'est ce pas une Janseniste?"-BOSWELL. answer: Why do you and I exist? Why was this world created? Since it was to be created, why was it not created sooner ?" On Sunday, May 10, I supped with him at Mr. Hoole's, with Sir Joshua Reynolds. I have neglected the memorial of this evening, so as to remember no more of it than two particulars; one, that he strenuously opposed an argument by Sir Joshua, that virtue was preferable to vice, considering this life only; and that a man would be virtuous were it only to preserve his character; and that he expressed much wonder at the curious formation of the bat, a mouse with wings, saying, that it was almost as strange a thing in physiology, as if the fabulous dragon could be seen. THE EARL OF MARCHMONT-" TRANSPIRE," AND "GET ABROAD"-PEERS THE JUDGES OF LAW-POPE-DIVORCES-EXTRAVAGANCE-PARSON FORD'S GHOST-HUMMUMS-VIRTUE AND VICE-LORD CHESTERFIELD'S SPEECHES WRITTEN BY JOHNSON-KAIMES'S SKETCHES -SIR GEORGE VILLIERS'S GHOST-JOHNSON'S CONDEMNATION OF FRENCH MANNERS— LORD CHARLEMONT-A COUNTRY LIFE-ON SUBORDINATION-REV. MR. HORNE-DR. MEAD-GENERAL BURGOYNE'S ARMY-"RASSELAS" AND "CANDIDE"- FRANCIS'S "HORACE"-MR. FULLARTON-LORD CHATHAM-EDUCATION-BOSWELL'S DEPARTURE FOR SCOTLAND-CORRESPONDENCE-THOMPSON'S SISTER-VISIT TO WARLEY CAMP-MR. LANGTON-DR. BURNEY-REV. J. HUSSEY-SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS'S "DISCOURSES." ON Tuesday, May 12, I waited on the Earl of Marchmont, to know if his lordship would favour Dr. Johnson with information concerning Pope, whose Life he was about to write. Johnson had not flattered himself with the hopes of receiving any civility from this nobleman : for he said to me, when I mentioned Lord Marchmont as one who could tell him a great deal about Pope, "Sir, he will tell me nothing." I had the honour of being known to his lordship, and applied to him of myself, without being commissioned by Johnson. His lordship behaved in the most polite and obliging manner, promised to tell all he recollected about Pope, and was so very courteous as to say, "Tell Dr. Johnson I have a great respect for him, and am ready to show it in any way I can. I am to be in the City to-morrow, and will call at his douse as I return." His lordship, however, asked, "Will he write 'the Lives of the Poets' impartially? He was the first that brought Whig and Tory into a dictionary. And what do you think of his definition of Excise! Do you know the history of his aversion to the word transpire?" Then taking down the folio dictionary, he showed it with this censure on its secondary sense: "To escape from secresy to notice; a sense lately innovated from France, without necessity." The truth was, Lord Bolingbroke, who left the Jacobites, first used it ; therefore it was to be condemned. He should have shown what word would do for it, if it was unnecessary. I afterwards put the question to Johnson. "Why, Sir," said he, "get abroad." BoswELL: "That, Sir, is using two words." JOHNSON: "Sir, there is no end of this. You may as well insist to have a word for old age." BOSWELL: "Well, Sir, Senectus." JOHNSON: "Nay, Sir, to insist always that there should be one word to express a thing in English, because there is one in another language, is to change the language." I availed myself of this opportunity to hear from his lordship many particulars both of Pope and Lord Bolingbroke, which I have in writing. I proposed to Lord Marchmont, that he should revise Johnson's "Life of Pope." "So," said his lordship, "you would put me in a dangerous situation. You know he knocked down Osborne, the bookseller." Elated with the success of my spontaneous exertion to procure material and respectable aid to Johnson for his very favourite work, "The Lives of the Poets," I hastened down to Mr. Thrale's, at Streatham, where he now was, that I might ensure his being at home next day; and after dinner, when I thought he would receive the good news in the best humour, I announced it eagerly: "I have been at work for you to-day, Sir. I have been with Lord Marchmont. He bade me tell you, he has a great respect for you, and will call on you to-morrow at one o'clock, and communicate all he knows about Pope." Here I paused, in full expectation that he would be pleased with this intelligence, would praise my active merit, and would be alert to embrace such an offer from a nobleman. But whether I had shown an over-exultation, which provoked his spleen, or whether he was seized with a suspicion that I had obtruded him on Lord Marchmont, and humbled him too much, or whether there was anything more than an unlucky fit of ill-humour, I know not; but to my surprise, the result was-JOHNSON: "I shall not be in town to-morrow. I don't care to know about Pope." MRS. THRALE (surprised as I was, and a little angry): I suppose, Sir, Mr. Boswell thought that as you are to write |