1773.

Etat, 64.

works which defcribe manners, require notes in fixty or seventy years, or lefs; and told us, he had communicated all he knew that could throw light upon "The Spectator." He said, "Addifon had made his Sir Andrew Freeport a true Whig, arguing against giving charity to beggars, and throwing out other fuch ungracious fentiments but that he had thought better, and made amends by making him found an hofpital for decayed farmers." He called for the volume of "The Spectator," in which that account is contained, and read it aloud to us. He read fo well, that every thing acquired additional weight and grace from his ut

terance.

;

The converfation having turned on modern imitations of ancient ballads, and fome one having praised their fimplicity, he treated them with that ridicule which he always difplayed when that subject was mentioned.

He disapproved of introducing fcripture phrases into fecular difcourfe. This feemed to me a queftion of fome difficulty. A fcripture expreffion may be used, like a highly claffical phrase, to produce an instantaneous ftrong impreffion; and it may be done without being at all improper. Yet I own there is danger, that applying the language of our facred book to ordinary fubjects may tend to leffen our reverence for it. If therefore it be introduced at all, it should be with very great caution,

On Thursday, April 8, I fat a good part of the evening with him, but he was very filent. He faid, "Burnet's Hiftory of his own Times,' iş

1

very entertaining. The ftyle, indeed, is mere 1773. chit-chat. I do not believe that Burnet intention- Etat, 64. ally lyed; but he was fo much prejudiced, that he took no pains to find out the truth. He was like a man who refolves to regulate his time by a certain watch; but will not inquire whether the watch is right or not."

Though he was not difpofed to talk, he was unwilling that I fhould leave him; and when I looked at my watch, and told him it was twelve o'clock, he cried, "What's that to you and me?" and ordered Frank to tell Mrs. Williams that we were coming to drink tea with her, which we did. It was fettled that we should go to church together next day.

On the 9th of April, being good Friday, I breakfasted with him on tea and cross-buns; Doctor Levet, as Frank called him, making the tea. He carried me with him to the church of St. Clement Danes, where he had his feat; and his behaviour was, as I had imaged to myself, folemnly devout. I never shall forget the tremulous earneftness with which he pronounced the aweful petition in the Litany: "In the hour of death, and at the day of judgement, good LORD deliver us,

We went to church both in the morning and evening. In the interval between the two fervices we did not dine; but he read in the Greek New Teftament, and I turned over feveral of his books.

In Archbishop's Laud's Diary, I found the fol lowing paffage, which I read to Dr. Johnson:

F 4

"1623,

"1623. February 1, Sunday. I ftood by the most illuftrious Prince Charles3, at dinner. He was then very merry, and talked occafionally of many things with his attendants. Among other things, he said, that if he were neceffitated to take any particular profeffion of life, he could not be a lawyer, adding his reafons: I cannot (faith he,) defend a bad, nor yield in a good caufe." JOHNSON. "Sir, this is false reasoning; because every caufe has a bad fide: and a lawyer is not overcome, though the cause which he has endeavoured to fupport be determined against him."

I told him that Goldfmith had faid to me a few days before, "As I take my shoes from the fhoemaker, and my coat from the taylor, so I take my religion from the priest." I regretted this loofe way of talking. JOHNSON. Sir, he knows nothing; he has made up his mind about nothing."

To my great furprize, he asked me to dine with him on Eafter-day. I never fuppofed that he had a dinner at his houfe; for I had not then heard of any one of his friends having been entertained at his table. He told me, He told me, "I generally have a meat pye on Sunday: it is baked at a publick oven, which is very properly allowed, because one man can attend it; and thus the advantage is obtained of not keeping fervants from church to drefs dinners."

April 11, being Eafter-Sunday, after having attended Divine Service at St. Paul's, I repaired to Dr. Johnson's. I had gratified my curiofity much

2 Afterwards Charles I.

in dining with JEAN JAQUES ROUSSEAU, while he lived in the wilds of Neufchatel: I had as great a curiofity to dine with DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON, in the dufky recefs of a court in Fleet-ftreet. I fuppofed we should scarcely have knives and forks, and only some strange, uncouth, ill-drest dish: but I found every thing in very good order. We had no other company but Mrs. Williams and a young woman whom I did not know. As a dinner here was confidered as a fingular phænomenon, and as I was frequently interrogated on the fubject, my readers may perhaps be defirous to know our bill of fare. Foote, I remember, in allufion to Francis, the negro, was willing to fuppofe that our repaft was black broth. But the fact was, that we had a very good foup, a boiled leg of lamb and fpinach, a veal pye, and a rice pudding.

Of Dr. John Campbell, the authour, he said, "He is a very inquifitive and a very able man, and a man of good religious principles, though I am afraid he has been deficient in practice. Campbell is radically right; and we may hope, that in time there will be good practice."

He owned that he thought Hawkesworth was one of his imitators, but he did not think Goldfmith was. Goldsmith, he said, had great merit. BOSWELL. "But, Sir, he is much indebted to you for his getting fo high in the publick estimation." JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, he has, perhaps, got fooner to it by his intimacy with me."

Goldfmith, though his vanity often excited him to occafional competition, had a very high regard for Johnson, which he at this time expreffed in the strongest

1773.

Etat. 64.

1773. ftrongest manner in the Dedication of his comedy, entitled, "She ftoops to conquer *.”

Etat. 64.

Johnfon obferved, that there were very few books printed in Scotland before the Union. He had feen a complete collection of them in the poffeffion of the Honourable Archibald Campbell, a non-juring Bishop". I with this collection had been kept entire. Many of them are in the library of the Faculty of Advocates at Edinburgh. I told Dr. Johnfon that I had fome intention to write the life of the learned and worthy Thomas Ruddiman. He faid, "I fhould take pleasure in helping you to do honour to him. But his farewell letter to the Faculty of Advocates, when he refigned the office of their Librarian, fhould have been in Latin,"

I put a queftion to him upon a fact in common life, which he could not answer, nor have I found any one else who could. What is the reason that women fervants, though obliged to be at the expenfe of purchafing their own clothes, have much lower wages than men fervants, to whom a great proportion of that article is furnished, and when in fact our female house fervants work much harder than the male?

may

"By infcribing this flight performance to you, I do not mean fo much to compliment you as myself. It do me fome honour to inform the publick, that I have lived many years in intimacy with you. It may ferve the interefts of mankind also to inform them, that the greatest wit may be found in a character, without impairing the moft unaffected piety."

5 See an account of this learned and respectable gentleman, and of his curious work on the Middle State, "Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides," 3d edit, p. 371.

He