he was married; else we should have shown | contending parties, and other disadvantahis lady more civilities. She is a very fine ges. It is enough to allow the people to rewoman. But how can you show civilities monstrate against the nomination of a minto a nonentity? I did not think he had ister for solid reasons." (I suppose he been married. Nay, I did not think about meant heresy or immorality.) it one way or other; but he did not tell us of his lady till late."

scribe the Bible; for the Mahometans ac knowledge Jesus Christ, as well as Moses, but maintain that God sent Mahomet as a still greater prophet than either."

been a temporary act, perhaps to have expired with the century. I am against abolishing it; because that would be declaring it wrong to establish it; but I should have no objection to make an act, continuing it for another century, and then letting it expire."

He disapproved of the royal marriage bill; "Because," said he, "I would not have the people think that the validity of marriage depends on the will of man, or that the right of a king depends on the will of man. I should not have been against making the marriage of any of the royal family, without the approbation of king and parliament, highly criminal 3."

gion, and how little difference there was in essential matters between ours and it. JOHNSON. "True, sir; all denominations of christians have really little difference in point of doctrine, though they may differ I mentioned the motion which had been widely in external forms. There is a pro- made in the house of commons, to abolish digious difference between the external the fast of the 30th of January 2. JOHNSON. form of one of your presbyterian churches" Why, sir, I could have wished that it had of Scotland, and the church in Italy; yet the doctrine taught is essentially the same." I mentioned the petition to parliament for removing the subscription to the thirtynine articles 1. JOHNSON. "It was soon thrown out. Sir, they talk of not making boys at the university subscribe to what they do not understand; but they ought to consider, that our universities were founded to bring up members for the church of England, and we must not supply our enemies with arms for our arsenal. No, sir, the meaning of subscribing is, not that they fully understand all the articles, but that they will adhere to the church of England. Now take it in this way, and suppose that they should only subscribe their adherence to the church of England, there would be still the same difficulty; for still the young men would be subscribing to what they do not understand. For if you should ask them, what do you mean by the church of England? Do you know in what it differs from the presbyterian church? from the Romish church? from the Greek church? from the Coptick church? they could not tell you. So, sir, it comes to the same thing." BOSWELL. "But, would it not be sufficient to subscribe the Bible?" JOHNSON. "Why, no, sir; for all sects will subscribe the Bible; nay, the Mahometans will sub

In the morning we had talked of old families, and the respect due to them. JOHNson. "Sir, you have a right to that kind of respect, and are arguing for yourself. I am for supporting the principle, and am disinterested in doing it, as I have no such right." BosWELL. "Why, sir, it is one more incitement to a man to do well." JOHNSON. "Yes, sir, and it is a matter of opinion very necessary to keep society to"gether. What is it but opinion, by which we have a respect for authority, that prevents us, who are the rabble, from rising up and pulling down you who are gentlemen from your places, and saying, 'We will be gentlemen in our turn?' Now, sir, that respect for authority is much more easily granted to a man whose father has had it, than to an upstart, and so society is more

[This was a petition drawn up by Mr. Francis Blackburn, who, though an archdeacon of the church of England, had published several works against her discipline and peculiar doctrines; the petition was presented on the 6th of February; and after an animated debate, rejected (not being even allowed to lie on the table) by 217 voices against 71. Mr. Gibbon thus notices this debate, in a letter to Lord Sheffield: "I congratulate you on the late victory of our dear mamma, the church of England. She had, last Thursday (6th February), seventy-one rebellious sons, who pretended to set aside her wall, on account of insanity, but two hundred and seventeen worthy champions, headed by Lord North, Burke, Hans Stanley, Charles Fox, Godfrey Clarke, &c. supported the validity of it with infinite humour. By the by, Charles Fox prepared himself for that holy war, by passing twenty-two hours in the pious exercise of hazard; his devotion only cost him 500l. per hour, in all 11,000l." Misc. Works, vol. ii. p. 74. The argument which seemed to make most effect in the house, was against requiring subscription from every youth entering the university, of whatever age, or intended for whatever profession. To this point Johnson's observation particularly alludes.-ED.]

2 [Doctor Nowell had preached, as usual, before the house on the 30th of Jan. and had been thanked for his sermon. Some days afterwards, Mr. Thos. Townshend complained of certain unconstitutional passages in the sermon; and on the 21st Feb. after a debate, the thanks were ordered to be expunged from the journals; and on the 2d March, Mr. Fred. Montague moved for leave to bring in a bill to repeal the observance of that day altogether. This motion was rejected by 125 to 97.-ED.]

3 [It is not very easy to understand Dr. Johnson's objection as above stated. Does not the validity of all marriages "depend on the will of man," that is, are there not in all civilized nations certain legal formule and conditions requisite to constitute a marriage? If all human institutions are to be disregarded, what is marriage? And as to the indefeasible rights of kings, see Johnson's opinions, ante, pp. 192, 195; and finally, if it be competent to the legislature to make an act highly criminal, does not that imply a competency to forbid it altogether?-Ev.]

easily supported." BOSWELL.

66

Perhaps, to consider that the manner and some particular phrases of a person do much to impress you with an idea of him, and you are not sure that he would say what the mimick says in his character." BosWELL. "I don't think Foote a good mimick, sir." JOHNSON. "No, sir; his imitations are not like. He gives you something different from himself, but not the character which he means to assume. He goes out of himself,

take off any person unless he is strongly marked, such as George Faulkner. He is like a painter who can draw the portrait of a man who has a wen upon his face, and who therefore is easily known. If a man hops upon one leg, Foote can hop upon one leg. But he has not that nice discrimination which your friend seems to possess. Foote is, however, very entertaining with a kind of conversation between wit and buffoonery."

sir, it might be done by the respect belonging to office, as among the Romans, where the dress, the toga, inspired reverence." JOHNSON. Why, we know very little about the Romans. But, surely, it is much easier to respect a man who has always had respect, than to respect a man who we know was last year no better than ourselves, and will be no better next year. In republicks there is no respect for authority, but a fear of pow-without going into other people. He cannot er." BOSWELL. "At present, sir, I think riches seem to gain most respect." JOHNSON. "No, sir, riches do not gain hearty respect; they only procure external attention. A very rich man, from low beginnings, may buy his election in a borough; but, cæteris paribus, a man of family will be preferred. People will prefer a man for whose father their fathers have voted, though they should get no more money, or even less. That shows that the respect for family is not merely fanciful, but has an actual operation. If gentlemen of family would allow the rich upstarts to spend their money profusely, which they are ready enough to do, and not vie with them in expense, the upstarts would soon be at an end, and the gentlemen would remain; but if the gentlemen will vie in expense with the upstarts, which is very foolish, they must be ruined. Piozzi,

p. 236.

[Indeed, though a man of obscure birth himself, Dr. Johnson's partiality to people of family was visible on every occasion; his zeal for subordination warm even to bigotry; his hatred to innovation, and reverence for the old feudal times, apparent, whenever any possible manner of showing them occurred.] I gave him an account of the excellent mimickry of a friend of mine in Scotland; observing, at the same time, that some people thought it a very mean thing. JOHNSON. Why, sir, it is making a very mean use of man's powers. But to be a good mimick requires great powers, great acuteness of observation, great retention of what is observed, and great pliancy of organs to represent what is observed. member a lady of quality in this town, Lady

66

On Monday, March 23, I found him busy, preparing a fourth edition of his folio Dictionary. Mr. Peyton, one of his original amanuenses, was writing for him. I put him in mind of a meaning of the word side, which he had omitted, viz. relationship; as father's side, mother's side. He inserted it. I asked him if humiliating was a good word. He said he had seen it frequently used, but he did not know it to be legitimate English. He would not admit civilization, but only civility. With great deference to him I thought civilization, from to civilize, better in the sense opposed to barbarity than civility; as it is better to have a distinct word for each sense, than one word with two senses, which civility is, in his way of using it.

He seemed also to be intent on some sort of chymical operation. I was entertained by observing how he contrived to send Mr. Peyton on an errand, without seeming to degrade him:-" Mr. Peyton, Mr. Peyton, will you be so good as to take a walk to Temple-Bar? You will there see a chymist's shop, at which you will be pleased to buy for me an ounce of oil of vitriol; I renot spirit of vitriol, but oil of vitriol. It will cost three half-pence." Peyton immediately went, and returned with it, and told him it cost but a penny.

-2, who was a wonderful mimick, and used to make me laugh immoderately. I have heard she is now gone mad." BosWELL. "It is amazing how a mimick can not only give you the gestures and voice of a person whom he represents; but even what a person would say on any particular subject." JOHNSON. "Why, sir, you are

1 [This friend was Mr. Cullen, advocate, son of the celebrated physician, afterwards a judge, by the name of Lord Cullen.

[The melancholy circumstance stated as to the lady, induces the editor to refrain from attempting to fill up this blank.--ED.]

[Of the death of this poor labourer in literature, of whom Mrs. Piozzi says that he had considerable talents, and knew many modern languages, Johnson gave himself the following pathetic account, in a letter to that lady:

but almost motionless, condemned by poverty | that my cousin, Colonel Grahan, of the to personal attendance, and by the necessi- Royal Highlanders, whom I met at Droghety of such attendance chained down to pov- da, told me they did. JOHNSON. "Sir, if erty-he probably thought often how light- the Highlanders understood Irish, why ly he should tread the path of life without translate the New Testament into Erse, as his burthen. Of this thought the admis- was lately done at Edinburgh, when there sion was unavoidable, and the indulgence is an Irish translation?" BoswELL. "Almight be forgiven to frailty and distress. though the Erse and Irish are both dialects His wife died at last, and before she was of the same language, there may be a good buried, he was seized by a fever, and is deal of diversity between them, as benow going to the grave. tween the different dialects in Italy." The. Swede went away, and Dr. Johnson continued his reading of the papers. I said, "I am afraid, sir, it is troublesome." " "Why, sir," said he, "I do not take much delight in it; but I'll go through it."

"Such miscarriages, when they happen to those on whom many eyes are fixed, fill histories and tragedies; and tears have been shed for the sufferings, and wonder excited by the fortitude of those who neither did nor suffered more than Peyton."]

I then reminded him of the schoolmaster's cause, and proposed to read to him the printed papers concerning it. "No, sir," said he, "I can read quicker than 1 can hear." So he read them to himself.

After he had read for some time, we were interrupted by the entrance of Mr. Kristrom, a Swede, who was tutor to some young gentlemen in the city. He told me that there was a very good History of Sweden, by Dalin. Having at that time an intention of writing the history of that country, I asked Dr. Johnson whether one might write a history of Sweden without going thither. "Yes, sir," said he, "one for common use."

We talked of languages. Johnson observed that Leibnitz had made some progress in a work, tracing all languages up to the Hebrew. "Why, sir," said he, you would not imagine that the French jour, day, is derived from the Latin dics, and yet nothing is more certain; and the intermediate steps are very clear. From dies, comes diurnus. Diu is, by inaccurate ears, or inaccurate pronunciation, easily confounded with giu; then the Italians form a substantive of the ablative of an

adjective, and thence giurno, or, as they make it, giorno; which is readily contracted into giour, or jour." He observed, that the Bohemian language was true Sclavorick. The Swede said, it had some similarity with the German. JOHNSON. "Why, sir, to be sure, such parts of Sclavonia as confine with Germany will borrow German words; and such parts as confine with Tartary will borrow Tartar words."

He said, he never had it properly ascertained that the Scotch Highlanders and the Irish understood each other 1. I told him

[In Mr. Anderson's Historical Sketches of the Native Irish, we find the following observations:-

"The Irish and Gaelic languages are the same, and formerly what was spoken in the Highlands

We went to the Mitre, and dined in the room where he and I first supped together. He gave me great hopes of my cause. "Sir," said he, "the government of a schoolmaster is somewhat of the nature of military government; that is to say, it must be arbitrary, it must be exercised by the will of one man, according to particular circumstances. You must show some learning upon this occasion. You must show, that a schoolmaster has a prescriptive right. to beat; and that an action of assault and

of Scotland was generally called Irish. Those who have attended to the subject must have observed, that the word Irish was gradually changed into Erse, denoting the language that is now generally called Gaelic." Mr. Anderson states that, when he was in Galway, in Ireland, in 1814, he found a vessel there from Lewis, one of the Hebrides, the master of which remarked to him that the people here spoke curious Gaelic, but he understood them easily, and commerce is actually carried on between the Highlanders and the Irish through the medium of their common language."—P. 133.

My friend, Colonel Meyrick Shawe, who pointed out Mr. Anderson's work to me, adds, “I can venture to say from my own experience, that were it not for the difference of pronunciation, the Irish and the Highlanders would be perfectly intelligible to each other; and even with that dis advantage, they become so in a short time. I have indeed met some Highlanders whom I could not understand at all; but there was a Captain Cameron in the same regiment with me (76th), who spoke with an accent more like the Irish than usual, whom I could understand perfectly when he spoke slow. There are, I am told, few words in Irish that are not intelligible to the Highlanders, but there are many in the Gaelic which an Irishman cannot understand. The Scotch, as I am told, and as is natural from their position, have many Pictish and other foreign words. The Irish have no Pictish words, but many Latin."

Sir Walter Scott also informs me, that "there is no doubt the languages are the same, and the difference in pronunciation and construction not very considerable. The Erse or Earish is the Irish; and the race called Scots came originally from Ulster.' --ED.]

[This, no doubt, may occasionally happen, and a lord chancellor sometimes disappoints the expectations not only of the country, but of those who make him; yet on the whole, it seems hard to discover how chancellors can be selected without some attention to political interests. A party coming into power generally makes the ablest and most prominent lawyer of its principles chancellor. There is reason to suppose that a man thus selected in the face of the public, and from an eminence to which he has raised himself, will be better fitted to discharge the various duties of that great office, than if chancellors were to be [The general tone of society is probably imchosen by some other standard. What, howev- proved in this respect, and barristers are more er, that other standard should or could be, Sir men of the world, and mix more in polite comAlexander Macdonald did not suggest, and prob-pany than at the times Sir A. Macdonald alluded ably never considered.-ED.]