to be sacred to wisdom and piety.' Being informed that he was at Mr. Thrale's, in the Borough, I hastened thither, and found Mrs. Thrale and him at breakfast. I was kindly welcomed. In a moment he was in a full glow of conversation, and I felt myself elevated as if brought into another state of being. Mrs. Thrale and I looked to each other while he talked, and our looks expressed our congenial admiration and affection for him. I shall ever recollect this scene with great pleasure. I exclaimed to her, 'I am now, intellectually, Hermippus redivivus, I am quite restored by him, by transfusion of mind.' 'There are many,' she replied, 'who admire and respect Mr. Johnson; but you and I love him.'

He seemed very happy in the near prospect of going to Italy with Mr. and Mrs. Thrale. 'But,' said he, before leaving England I am to take a jaunt to Oxford, Birmingham, my native city Lichfield, and my old friend Dr. Taylor's at Ashbourne, in Derbyshire. I shall go in a few days, and you, Boswell, shall go with me.' I was ready to accompany him, being willing even to leave London to have the pleasure of his conversation.

I mentioned with much regret the extravagance of the representative of a great family in Scotland, by which there was danger of its being ruined; and as Johnson respected it for its antiquity, he joined with me in thinking it would be happy if this person should die. Mrs. Thrale seemed shocked at this, as feudal barbarity; and said, 'I do not understand this preference of the estate to its owner; of the land to the man who walks upon that land.' JOHNSON: 'Nay, madam, it is not a preference of the land to its owner; it is the preference of a family to an individual. Here is an establishment in a country, which is of importance for ages, not only to the chief, but to his people; an establishment which extends upwards and downwards;-that this should be destroyed by one idle fellow is a sad thing.'

money produces good, it would be an advantage; for then that country would have as much money circulating in it as it is worth. But to be sure this would be counterbalanced by disadvantages attending a total change of proprietors.' I expressed my opinion that the power of entailing should be limited thus: "That there should be one-third, or perhaps one-half, of the land of a country kept free for commerce; that the proportion allo.ed to be entailed should be parcelled out so that no family could entail above a certain quantity. Let a family, according to the abilities of its representatives, be richer or poorer in different generations, or always rich if its representatives be always wise; but let its absolute permanency be moderate. In this way we should be certain of there being always a number of established roots; and as in the course of nature there is in every age an extinction of some families, there would be continual openings for men ambitious of perpetuity to plant a stock in the entailed ground." JOHNSON: Why, sir, mankind will be better able to regulate the system of entails when the evil of too much land being locked up by them is felt, than we can do at present when it is not felt.' I mentioned Dr. Adam Smith's book on The Wealth of Nations, which was just published, and that Sir John Pringle had observed to me, that Dr. Smith, who had never been in trade, could not be expected to write well on that subject any more than a lawyer upon physic. JOHNSON: 'He is mistaken, sir; a man who has never been engaged in trade himself may undoubtedly write well upon trade, and there is nothing which requires more to be illustrated by philosophy than trade does. As to mere wealth, that is to say, money, it is clear that one nation or one individual cannot increase its store but by making another poorer; but trade procures what is more valuable, the reciprocation of the peculiar advantages of different countries. A merchant seldom thinks but of his own particular trade. To write a good book upon it, a man must have extensive views. It is not necessary to have practised, to write well upon a subject.' I mentioned law as a subject on which no man could write well without practice. JOHNSON :

be false, it is a picture of nothing. For instance: suppose a man should tell that Johnson, before setting out for Italy, as he had to cross the Alps, sat down to make himself wings. This many people would believe; but it would be a picture of nothing. (naming a worthy friend of ours) used to think a story a story, till I showed him that truth was essential to it.' I observed, that Foote entertained us with stories which were not true; but that indeed it was properly not as narratives that Foote's stories pleased us, but as collections of ludicrous images. JOHNSON: 'Foote is quite impartial, for he tells lies of everybody.'

The importance of strict and scrupulous veracity cannot be too often inculcated. Johnson was known to be so rigidly attentive to it, that even in his common conversation the slightest circumstance was mentioned with exact precision. The knowledge of his having such a principle and habit made his friends have a perfect reliance on the truth of everything that he told, however it might have been doubted if told by many others. As an instance of this, I may mention an odd incident which he related as having happened to him one night in Fleet Street: A gentlewoman,' said he, 'begged I would give her my arm to assist her in crossing the street, which I accordingly did; upon which she offered me a shilling, supposing me to be the watchman. I perceived that she was somewhat in liquor.' This, if told by most people, would have been thought an invention: when told by Johnson, it was believed by his friends as much as if they had seen what passed.

We landed at the Temple Stairs, where we parted.

I found him in the evening in Mrs. Williams's

room.

We talked of religious orders. He said, 'It is as unreasonable for a man to go into a Carthusian convent for fear of being immoral, as for a man to cut off his hands for fear he should steal. There is indeed great resolution in the immediate act of dismembering himself; but when that is once done, he has no longer any merit for though it is out of his power to steal, yet he may all his life be a thief in his heart. So, when a man has once become a Carthusian, he is obliged to continue so whether he chooses it or not. Their silence, too, is absurd. We read in the Gospel of the apostles being sent to preach, but not to hold their tongues. All severity that does not tend to increase good or prevent evil is idle. I said to the Lady Abbess of a convent, "Madam, you are here, not for the love of virtue, but the fear of vice." She said, "she should remember this as long as she lived." I thought it hard to give her this view of her situation, when she could not help it; and indeed I wondered at the whole of what he now said, because both in his Rambler and Idler he treats religious austerities with much solemnity of respect.

Finding him still persevering in his abstinence from wine, I ventured to speak to him of it. JOHNSON: 'Sir, I have no objection to a man's drinking wine if he can do it in moderation. I found myself apt to go to excess in it, and therefore, after having been for some time without it, on account of illness, I thought it better not to return to it. Every man is to judge for himself, according to the effects which he experiences. One of the Fathers tells us he found fasting made him so peevish that he did not practise it.'

Though he often enlarged upon the evil of intoxication, he was by no means harsh and unforgiving to those who indulged in occasional excess in wine. One of his friends, I well remember, came to sup at a tavern with him and some other gentlemen, and too plainly discovered that he had drunk too much at dinner. When one who loved mischief, thinking to produce a severe censure, asked Johnson a few days afterwards, 'Well, sir, what did your friend say to you, as an apology for being in such a situation?' Johnson answered: 'Sir, he said all that a man should say: he said he was sorry for it.'

I heard him once give a very judicious practical advice upon this subject: A man who has been drinking wine at all freely should never go into a new company. With those who have partaken of wine with him he may be pretty well in unison; but he will probably be offensive or appear ridiculous to other people.

He allowed very great influence to education. 'I do not deny, sir, but there is some original difference in minds; but it is nothing in comparison of what is formed by education. We may instance the science of numbers, which all minds are equally capable of attaining; yet we find a prodigious difference in the powers of different men in that respect after they are grown up, because their minds have been more or less exercised in it; and I think the same cause will explain the difference of excellence in other things, gradations admitting always some difference in the first principles.'

This is a difficult subject; but it is best to hope that diligence may do a great deal. We are sure of what it can do, in increasing our mechanical force and dexterity.

He took

I again visited him on Monday. occasion to enlarge, as he often did, upon the wretchedness of a sea-life. A ship is worse than a gaol. There is in a gaol better air, better company, better conveniency of every kind; and a ship has the additional disadvantage of being in danger. When men come to like a sea-life, they are not fit to live on land.'Then,' said I, 'it would be cruel in a father to breed his son to the sea.' JOHNSON: 'It would be cruel in a father who thinks as I do. Men go to sea before they know the unhappiness of that way of life; and when they have come to

know it, they cannot escape from it, because it is then too late to choose another profession; as indeed is generally the case with men when they have once engaged in any particular way of life.'

CHAPTER XXXV.

1776.

On Tuesday, March 19, which was fixed for our proposed jaunt, we met in the morning at the Somerset Coffeehouse in the Strand, where we were taken up by the Oxford coach. Johnson was accompanied by Mr. Gwyn, the architect; and a gentleman of Merton College, whom he did not know, had the fourth seat. We soon got into conversation; for it was very remarkable of Johnson, that the presence of a stranger had no restraint upon his talk. I observed that Garrick, who was about to quit the stage, would soon have an easier life. JOHNSON: 'I doubt that, sir.' BOSWELL: 'Why, sir, he will be Atlas with the burden off his back.' JOHNSON: But I know not, sir, if he will be so steady without his load. However, he should never play any more, but be entirely the gentleman and not partly the player; he should no longer subject himself to be hissed by a mob, or to be insolently treated by performers whom be used to rule with a high hand, and who would gladly retaliate.' BOSWELL: "I think he should play once a year for the benefit of decayed actors, as it has been said he means to do.' JOHNSON: 'Alas, sir, he will soon be a decayed actor himself."

Johnson expressed his disapprobation of ornamental architecture, such as magnificent columns supporting a portico, or expensive pilasters supporting merely their own capitals, 'because it consumes labour disproportionate to its utility.' For the same reason he satirized statuary. 'Painting,' said he, 'consumes labour not disproportionate to its effect; but a fellow will hack half a year at a block of marble to make something in stone that hardly resembles a nian. The value of statuary is owing to its difficulty. You would not value the finest head cut upon a carrot.' Here he seemed to me to be strangely deficient in taste; for surely statuary is a noble art of imitation, and preserves a wonderful expression of the varieties of the human frame; And although it must be allowed that the circumstances of difficulty enhance the value of a marble head, we should consider that, if it requires a long time in the performance, it has a proportionate value in durability.

Gwyn was a fine, lively, rattling fellow. Dr. Johnson kept him in subjection, but with a Kindly authority. The spirit of the artist, however, rose against what he thought a Gothic attack, and he made a brisk defence. 'What, sir, you will allow no value to beauty in archi

tecture or in statuary! Why should we allow it then in writing? Why do you take the trouble to give us so many fine allusions, and bright images, and elegant phrases? You might convey all your instruction without these ornaments.' Johnson smiled with complacency; but said, 'Why, sir, all these ornaments are useful, because they obtain an easier reception for truth; but a building is not at all more convenient for being decorated with superfluous carved work.'

Gwyn at last was lucky enough to make one reply to Dr. Johnson which he allowed to be excellent. Johnson censured him for taking down a church which might have stood many years, and building a new one at a different place, for no other reason but that there might be a direct road to a new bridge; and his expression was, 'You are taking a church out of the way, that the people may go in a straight line to the bridge.' 'No, sir,' said Gwyn, ‘I am putting the church in the way, that the people may not go out of the way.' JOHNSON (with a hearty loud laugh of approbation): 'Speak no more. Rest your colloquial fame upon this.'

Upon our arrival at Oxford, Dr. Johnson and I went directly to University College, but were disappointed on finding that one of the fellows, his friend Mr. Scott, who accompanied him from Newcastle to Edinburgh, was gone to the country. We put up at the Angel Inn, and passed the evening by ourselves in easy and familiar conversation. Talking of constitutional melancholy, he observed, 'A man so afflicted, sir, must divert distressing thoughts, and not combat with them.' BOSWELL: 'May not he think them down, sir?' JOHNSON: 'No, sir. To attempt to think them down is madness. He should have a lamp constantly burning in his bed-chamber during the night, and if wakefully disturbed, take a book and read, and compose himself to rest. To have the management of the mind is a great art, and it may be attained in a considerable degree by experience and habitual exercise.' BOSWELL: Should not he provide amusements for himself? Would it not, for instance, be right for him to take a course of chemistry?' JOHNSON: 'Let him take a course of chemistry, or a course of ropedancing, or a course of anything to which he is inclined at the time. Let him contrive to have as many retreats for his mind as he can, as many things to which it can fly from itself. Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy is a valuable work. It is perhaps overloaded with quotation. But there is a great spirit and great power in what Burton says when he writes from his

own mind.'

Next morning we visited Dr. Wetherell, Master of University College, with whom Dr. Johnson conferred on the most advantageous mode of disposing of the books printed at the Claren