1763. it; but fo are you, Sir: and I am forry to fay it, better paid than I am, for doing fomething Etat. 54 not fo neceffary. For mankind could do better without your books, than without my fhoes.' Thus, Sir, there would be a perpetual struggle for precedence, were there no fixed invariable. rules for the distinction of rank, which creates no jealoufy, as it is allowed to be accidental." I He faid, Dr. Jofeph Warton was a very agreeable man, and his "Effay on the Genius and Writings of Pope," a very pleafing book. wondered that he delayed fo long to give us the continuation of it. JOHNSON. Why, Sir, I suppose he finds himself a little disappointed, in not having been able to perfuade the world to be of his opinion as to Pope." We have now been favoured with the concluding volume, in which, to ufe a parliamentary expreffion, he has explained, fo as not to appear quite fo adverse to the opinion of the world concerning Pope, as was at firft thought; and we muft all agree, that his work is a moft valuable acceffion to English literature. A writer of deferved eminence being mentioned, Johnson faid, "Why, Sir, he is a man of good parts, but being originally poor, he has got a love of mean company and low jocularity; a very bad thing, Sir. To laugh is good, as to talk is good. But you ought no more to think it enough if you laugh, than you are to think it enough if you talk. You may laugh in as many ways as you talk; and furely every way of talking that is practifed cannot be efteemed." I spoke 1763. Etat. 54. I fpoke of Sir James Macdonald as a young man of most distinguished merit, who united the highest reputation at Eton and Oxford, with the patriarchal fpirit of a great Highland Chieftain. I ́mentioned that Sir James had faid to me, that he had never feen Mr. Johnson, but he had a great respect for him, though at the fame time it was mixed with fome degree of terrour. JOHNSON. "Sir, if he were to be acquainted with me, it might leffen both.” The mention of this gentleman led us to talk of the Western Iflands of Scotland, to vifit which he expreffed a wish that then appeared to me a very romantick fancy, which I little thought would be afterwards realifed. He told me, that his father had put Martin's account of those islands into his hands when he was very young, and that he was highly pleased with it; that he was particularly ftruck with the St. Kilda man's notion that the high church of Glasgow had been hollowed out of a rock; a circumstance to which old Mr. Johnfon had directed his attention. He faid, he would go to the Hebrides with me, when I returned from my travels, unlefs fome very good companion fhould offer when I was absent, which he did not think probable; adding, "There are few people to whom I take fo much to as you." And when I talked of my leaving England, he faid with a very affectionate air, " My dear Boswell, I should be very unhappy at parting, did I think we were not to meet again."-I cannot too often remind my readers, that although fuch inftances of his kindness are doubtless very flattering to me, yet I hope my recording them will be ascribed to a 1763. better motive than to vanity; for they afford un- Etat. 54 questionable evidence of his tenderness and complacency, which fome, while they were forced to acknowledge his great powers, have been fo ftrenuous to deny. He maintained, that a boy at fchool was the happiest of human beings. I fupported a different opinion, from which I have never yet varied, that a man is happier; and I enlarged upon the anxiety and fufferings which are endured at fchool. JOHNSON. "Ah! Sir, a boy's being flogged is not fo severe as a man's having the hifs of the world against him. Men have a folicitude about fame; and the greater fhare they have of it, the more afraid they are of lofing it." I filently asked myfelf, "Is it poffible that the great SAMUEL JOHNSON really entertains any fuch apprehenfion, and is not confident that his exalted fame is established upon a foundation never to be fhaken?" He this evening drank a bumper to Sir David Dalrymple," as a man of worth, a scholar, and a wit.""I have (faid he) never heard of him except from you; but let him know my opinion of him for as he does not fhew himself much in the world, he should have the praise of the few who hear of him." On Tuesday, July 26, I found Mr. Johnson alone. It was a very wet day, and I again complained of the difagreeable effects of fuch weather. JOHNSON. Sir, this is all imagination, which phyficians encourage; for man lives in air, as a fifh lives in water; fo that if the atmosphere prefs heavy 6 heavy from above, there is an equal resistance from your We talked of the education of children; and I asked him what he thought was beft to teach them firft. JOHNSON. "Sir, it is no matter what you teach them firft, any more than what leg you fhall put into breeches first. Sir, you may stand difputing which is best to put in first, but in the mean time your breech is bare. Sir, while you are confidering which of two things you should teach your child firft, another boy has learnt them both." On Thursday, July 28, we again fupped in private at the Turk's Head coffee-house. JOHNSON. "Swift has a higher reputation than he deferves. His excellence is ftrong fenfe; for, his humour, though very well, is not remarkably good. I doubt whether the Tale of a Tub' be his; for he never owned it, and it is much above his usual manner". " poet Thomfon, I think, had as much of the about him as moft writers. Every thing appeared to him through the medium of his favourite purfuit.. This opinion was given by him more at large at a subse quent period. See "Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides,” 3d edit. p. 32. He He could not have viewed thofe two candles burn ing but with a poetical eye." "Has not a great deal of wit, Sir?" JOHNSON. "I do not think fo, Sir. He is, indeed, continually attempting wit, but he fails. And I have no more pleafure in hearing a man attempting wit and failing, than in feeing a man trying to leap over a ditch and tumbling into it." He laughed heartily, when I mentioned to him a faying of his concerning Mr. Thomas Sheridan, which Foote took a wicked pleasure to circulate. Why, Sir, Sherry is dull, naturally dull; but it must have taken him a great deal of pains to become what we now fee him. Such an excess of stupidity, Sir, is not in Nature."-" So (faid he,) I allowed him all his own merit." He now added, "Sheridan cannot bear me. I bring his declamation to a point. I afk him a plain queftion, What do you mean to teach?' Befides, Sir, what influence can Mr. Sheridan have upon the language of this great country, by his narrow exertions. Sir, it is burning a farthing candle at Dover, to fhew light at Calais." Talking of a young man who was uneafy from thinking that he was very deficient in learning and knowledge, he said, "A man has no reason to complain who holds a middle place, and has many below him; and perhaps he has not fix of his years above him ;-perhaps not one. Though he may not know any thing perfectly, the general mass of knowledge that he has acquired is confiderable, Time will do for him all that is wanting." VOL.I. Ec The 1763. ཟིན་ཐ་ཆད། མ Etat. 54. |