and made an apology, he behaved with the most friendly gentleness.

While I remained in London this year, Johnson and I dined together at several places. I recollect a placid day at Dr. Butter's, who had now removed from Derby to Lower Grosvenor Street, London; but of his conversation on that and other occasions during this period, I neglected to keep any regular record, and shall therefore insert here some miscellaneous articles which I find in my Johnsonian notes.

His disorderly habits, when “ making provision for the day that was passing over him," appear from the following anecdote, communicated to me by Mr. John Nichols :-" In the year 1763, a young bookseller, who was an apprentice to Mr. Whiston, waited on him with a subscription to his Shakspeare:' and observing that the Doctor made no entry in any book of the subscriber's name, ventured diffidently to ask, whether he would please to have the gentleman's address, that it might be properly inserted in the printed list of subscribers. I shall print no List of Subscribers,' said Johnson, with great abruptness: but almost immediately recollecting himself, added, very complacently, 'Sir, I have two very cogent reasons for not printing any list of subscribers;-one, that I have lost all the names, -the other, that I have spent all the money.'

But not a brilliant blaze, I own;

Of the dull smoke I'm yet ashamed:

I was a dreary ruin grown,

And not enlighten'd, though inflamed.

Victim at once to wine and love,

I hope, MARIA, you'll forgive;

While I invoke the powers above,

That henceforth I may wiser live.

The lady was generously forgiving, returned me an obliging answer, and I thus obtained an Act of Oblivion, and took care never to offend again.

Johnson could not brook appearing to be worsted in argument, even when he had taken the wrong side, to show the force and dexterity of his talents. When, therefore, he perceived that his opponent gained ground, he had recourse to some sudden mode of robust sophistry. Once when I was pressing upon him with visible advantage, he stopped me thus:-"My dear Bóswell, let's have no more of this; you'll make nothing of it. I'd rather have you whistle a Scotch tune."

Care, however, must be taken to distinguish between Johnson when he "talked for victory," and Johnson when he had no desire but to inform and illustrate." One of Johnson's principal talents (says an eminent friend of his) was shown in maintaining the wrong side of an argument, and in a splendid perversion of the truth. -If you could contrive to have his fair opinion on a subject, and without any bias from personal prejudice, or from a wish to be victorious in argument, it was wisdom itself, not only convincing, but overpowering."

He had, however, all his life habituated himself to consider conversation as a trial of intellectual vigour and skill; and to this, I think, we may venture to ascribe that unexampled richness and brilliancy which appeared in his own. As a proof at once of his eagerness for colloquial distinction, and his high notion of this eminent friend, he once addressed him thus: ", we now have been several hours together; and you have said but one thing for which I envied you."

He disliked much all speculative desponding. considerations, which tended to discourage men from diligence and exertion. He was in this like

2

[The late Right Hon. William Gerrard Hamilton. M.]

Dr. Shaw, the great traveller, who, Mr. Daines Barrington told me, used to say, "I hate a cui bono man." Upon being asked by a friend what he should think of a man who was apt to say non est tanti;—“That he's a stupid fellow, sir (answered Johnson): What would these tanti men be doing the while?" When I, in a lowspirited fit, was talking to him with indifference of the pursuits which generally engage us in a course of action, and inquiring a reason for taking so much trouble; "Sir (said he, in an animated tone), it is driving on the system of life."

He told me that he was glad that I had, by General Oglethorpe's means, become acquainted with Dr. Shebbeare. Indeed that gentleman, whatever objections were made to him, had knowledge and abilities much above the class of ordinary writers, and deserves to be remembered as a respectable name in literature, were it only for his admirable "Letters on the English Nation,' under the name of "Battista Angeloni, a Jesuit."

Johnson and Shebbeare3 were frequently named together, as having in former reigns had no predilection for the family of Hanover. The authour of the celebrated "Heroick Epistle to Sir William Chambers" introduces them in one line, in a list of those "who tasted the sweets of his present Majesty's reign." Such was Johnson's candid relish of the merit of that satire, that he allowed Dr. Goldsmith, as he told me, to read it to him from beginning to end, and did not refuse his praise to its execution.

Goldsmith could sometimes take adventurous liberties with him, and escape unpunished. Beauclerk told me that when Goldsmith talked of a project for having a third Theatre in London

3 I recollect a ludicrous paragraph in the newspapers, that the King had pensioned both a He-bear and a She-bear.

solely for the exhibition of new plays, in order to deliver authours from the supposed tyranny of managers, Johnson treated it slightingly, upon which Goldsmith said, "Ay, ay, this may be nothing to you, who can now shelter yourself behind the corner of a pension;" and Johnson bore this with good humour.

Johnson praised the Earl of Carlisle's Poems, which his Lordship had published with his name, as not disdaining to be a candidate for literary fame. My friend was of opinion, that when a man of rank appeared in that character, he deserved to have his merit handsomely allowed'. In this I think he was more liberal than Mr. William Whitehead, in his "Elegy to Lord Villiers," in which under the pretext of "superior toils, de

4 Men of rank and fortune, however, should be pretty well assured of having a real claim to the approbation of the publick, as writers, before they venture to stand forth. Dryden, in his preface to "All for Love," thus expresses himself:

"Men of pleasant conversation (at least esteemed so) and endued with a trifling kind of fancy, perhaps helped out by a smattering of Latin, are ambitious to distinguish themselves from the herd of gentlemen by their poetry:

'Rarus enim fermè sensus communis in illa
Fortuna.'-

And is not this a wretched affectation, not to be contented with what fortune has done for them, and sit down quietly with their estates, but they must call their wits in question, and needlessly expose their nakedness to publick view? Not considering that they are not to expect the same approbation from sober men which they have found from their flatterers after the third bottle: If a little glittering in discourse has passed them on us for witty men, where was the necessity of undeceiving the world? Would a man who has an ill title to an estate, but yet is in possession of it, would he bring it out of his own accord to be tried at Westminster? We who write, if we want the talents, yet have the excuse that we do it for a poor subsistence; but what can be urged in their defence who, not having the vocation of poverty to scribble, out of mere wantonness take pains to make themselves ridiculous? Horace was certainly in the right where he said, 'That no man is satisfied with his own condition.' A poet is not pleased because he is not rich; and the rich are discontented because the poets will not admit them of their number."

manding all their care," he discovers a jealousy of the great paying their court to the Muses:

Who dare excel, thy fostering aid afford;

Their arts, their magick powers, with honours due
Exalt; but be thyself what they record."

Johnson had called twice on the Bishop of Killaloe before his Lordship set out for Ireland, having missed him the first time. He said, “It would have hung heavy on my heart if I had not seen him. No man ever paid more attention to another than he has done to me"; and I have neglected him, not wilfully, but from being otherwise occupied. Always, sir, set a high value on spontaneous kindness. He whose inclination prompts him to cultivate your friendship of his own accord will love you more than one whom you have been at pains to attach to you.

Johnson told me, that he was once much pleased to find that a carpenter, who lived near him, was very ready to show him some things in his business which he wished to see: "It was paying (said he) respect to literature.”

I asked him, if he was not dissatisfied with

5 This gave me very great pleasure; for there had been once a pretty smart altercation between Dr. Barnard and him, upon a question whether a man could improve himself after the age of forty-five; when Johnson, in a hasty humour, expressed himself in a manner not quite civil. Dr. Barnard made it the subject of a copy of pleasant verses, in which he supposed himself to learn different perfections from different men. They concluded with delicate irony:

"Johnson shall teach me how to place

In fairest light each borrow'd grace;
From him I'll learn to write :
Copy his clear familiar style,
And by the roughness of his file
Grow, like himself, polite."

I know not whether Johnson ever saw the Poem, but I had occasion to find that as Dr. Barnard and he knew each other better, their mutual regard increased.

VOL. IV.

G