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Gaming is a mode of transferring property | don.
without producing any intermediate good.
Trade gives employment to numbers, and
so produces intermediate good."

"Sir (said Johnson,) in a country so commercial as ours, where every man can do for himself, there is not so much occasion for that attachment. No man is thought the worse of here, whose brother was hanged 4. In uncommercial countries, many of the branches of a family must de

Mr. Erskine told us, that when he was in the island of Minorca, he not only read prayers, but preached two sermons to the regiment. He seemed to object to the pas-pend on the stock; so, in order to make the sage in scripture, where we are told that the angel of the Lord smote in one night forty thousand Assyrians 2 "Sir (said Johnson), you should recollect that there was a supernatural interposition; they were destroyed by pestilence. You are not to suppose that the angel of the Lord went about and stabbed each of them with a dagger, or knocked them on the head man by man."

After Mr. Erskine was gone, a discussion took place, whether the present Earl of Buchan, when Lord Cardross, did right to refuse to go secretary of the embassy to Spain, when Sir James Gray, a man of inferiour rank, went ambassadour. Dr. Johnson said, that perhaps in point of interest he did wrong; but in point of dignity he did well. Sir Alexander insisted that he was wrong; and said that Mr. Pitt intended it as an advantageous thing for him. "Why, sir, (said Johnson,) Mr. Pitt might think it an advantageous thing for him to make him a vintner, and get him all the Portugal trade; but he would have demeaned himself | strangely, had he accepted of such a situation. Sir, had he gone secretary while his inferiour was ambassadour, he would have been a traitor to his rank and family 3."

I talked of the little attachment which subsisted between near relations in Lon

[Lord Erskine was fond of this anecdote. He told it to the editor the first time that he had the honour of being in his company, and often repeated it with an observation, that he had been a sailor and a soldier, was a lawyer and a parson. The latter he affected to think the greatest of his efforts, and to support that opinion would quote the prayer for the clergy in the liturgy, from the expression of which he would (in no commendable spirit of jocularity) infer that the enlightening them was one of the "greatest marvels" which could be worked.-ED.]

2 One hundred and eighty-five thousand. See Isaiah, xxxvii. 36, and 2 Kings, xix. 35.-Ma

LONE.

3 [If this principle were to be admitted, the young nobility would be excluded from all the professions; for the superiors in the profession would frequently be their inferiors in personal rank. Would Johnson have dissuaded Lord Cardross from entering on the military profession, because at his outset he must have been commanded by a person inferior in personal rank? This, if ever it was a subject of real doubt, is now better understood, and young men of the highest rank think it no degradation to enter into the junior ranks of the military, naval, and diplomatic and official professions.-ED.]

head of the family take care of them, they are represented as connected with his reputation, that, self-love being interested, he may exert himself to promote their interest. You have first large circles, or clans; as commerce increases, the connexion is confined to families; by degrees, that too goes off, as having become unnecessary, and there being few opportunities of intercourse. One brother is a merchant in the city, and another is an officer in the guards; how little intercourse can these two have!"

I argued warmly for the old feudal system. Sir Alexander opposed it, and talked of the pleasure of seeing all men free and independent. JOHNSON. "I agree with Mr. Boswell, that there must be a high satisfaction in being a feudal lord; but we are to consider that we ought not to wish to have a number of men unhappy for the satisfaction of one." I maintained that numbers, namely, the vassals or followers, were not unhappy; for that there was a reciprocal satisfaction between the lord and them; he being kind in his authority over them; they being respectful and faithful to him.

On Thursday, April 9, I called on him to beg he would go and dine with me at the Mitre Tavern. He had resolved not to dine at all this day, I know not for what reason; and I was so unwilling to be deprived of his company, that I was content to submit to suffer a want, which was at first somewhat painful, but he soon made me himself, when he finds his intellectual incliforget it; and a man is always pleased with nations predominate.

He observed, that to reason philosophically on the nature of prayer was very unprofitable.

Talking of ghosts, he said, he knew one friend, who was an honest man and a sensible man, who told him he had seen a ghost

4 [Johnson would hardly have volunteered this illustration if there had been any grounds for the story told by Miss Seward and Dr. M'Nicol.-See ante, p. 11. n.; and, since that note was printed, Dr. Harwood has furnished additional grounds for disbelieving the story. Miss Seward says, that that the person hanged was “his uncle | Andrew," and Dr. M'Nicol says he was a native of Scotland." Now, in the parish register of Cubley, where Michael Johnson was born, we find the entries of the births of several persons of his family, between 1650 and 1700, and especially of" Andrew Johnson," the Doctor's uncle.-ED.]

to defend his honour." GOLDSMITH (turning to me). "I ask you first, sir, what would you do if you were affronted?" I answered, I should think it necessary to fight. Why then," replied Goldsmith, JOHNSON. Why, sir," that solves the question."

-old Mr. Edward Cave, the printer at St. John's Gate. He said, Mr. Cave did not like to talk of it, and seemed to be in great horrour whenever it was mentioned. BosWELL. "Pray, sir, what did he say was 23 JOHNSON. the appearance?

something of a shadowy being."

I mentioned witches, and asked him what they properly meant. JOHNSON. "Why, sir, they properly mean those who make use of the aid of evil spirits." BOSWELL. "There is, no doubt, sir, a general report and belief of their having existed." JOHNSON. "You have not only the general report and belief, but you have many voluntary solemn confessions." He did not affirm any thing positively upon a subject which it is the fashion of the times to laugh at as a matter of absurd credulity. He only seemed willing, as a candid inquirer after truth, however strange and inexplicable, to show that he understood what might be urged for it.

On Friday, April 10, I dined with him at General Oglethorpe's, where we found Dr. Goldsmith.

Armorial bearings having been mentioned, Johnson said they were as ancient as the siege of Thebes, which he proved by a passage in one of the tragedies of Euripides 2.

I started the question, whether duelling was consistent with moral duty. The brave old general fired at this, and said, with a lofty air," Undoubtedly a man has a right

1 See this curious question treated by him with most acute ability, post, 16th Aug. 1773.-Bos

WELL.

2 The passage to which Johnson alluded, is to be found (as I conjecture) in the PHENISSE, 1. 1120.

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"No, sir, it does not solve the question." It does not follow, that what a man would do is therefore right." I said, I wished to have it settled, whether duelling was contrary to the laws of christianity. Johnson immediately entered on the subject, and treated it in a masterly manner; and so far as I have been able to recollect, his thoughts were these: "Sir, as men become in a high degree refined, various causes of offence arise; which are considered to be of such importance, that life must be staked to atone for them, though in reality they are not so. A body that has received a very fine polish may be easily hurt. Before men arrive at this artificial refinement, if one tells his neighbour, he lies, his neighbour tells him, he lies; if one gives his neighbour a blow, his neighbour gives him a blow: but in a state of highly polished society, an affront is held to be a serious injury. It must, therefore, be resented, or rather a duel must be fought upon it; as men have agreed to banish from their society one who puts up with an affront without fighting a duel. Now, sir, it is never unlawful to fight in self-defence. He, then, who fights a duel, does not fight from passion against his antagonist, but out of self-defence; to avert the stigma of the world, and to prevent himself from being driven out of society. I could wish there was not that superfluity of refinement; but while such notions prevail, no doubt, a man may lawfully fight a

duel 3."

Let it be remembered, that this justification is applicable only to the person who receives an affront. All mankind must condemn the aggressor.

The general told us, that when he was a very young man, I think only fifteen, serving under Prince Eugene of Savoy, he was sitting in a company at table with a Prince of Wirtemberg. The prince took up a glass of wine, and, by a fillip, made some of it fly in Oglethorpe's face. Here was a nice dilemma. To have challenged him instantly might have fixed a quarrelsome character upon the young soldier: to have taken no notice of it might have been considered as cowThe ardice. Oglethorpe, therefore, keeping his eye upon the prince, and smiling all the time, as if he took what his highness had done in jest, said, "Mon prince-" I forget the

Και πρώτα μεν προσηγε, κ. τ. λ. Ο της κυναγου Παρθενοπαιος εκγονος, ΕΠΙΣΗΜ, έχων ΟΙΚΕΙΟΝ εν μέσω σωκεί. — J. BOSWELL. [The meaning is that "Parthenopaus had, in the centre of his shield, the domestic sign-Atalanta killing the Etolian boar; " but this, admitting that the story of Atalanta was the "armorial bearing" of Parthenopaus, would only prove them to be as ancient as Euripides, who flourished (442 A. C.) near 800 years after the siege of Thebes (1225 A. C.) Homer, whom the chronologists place 500 years before Euripides, describes a sculptured shield; and there can be little doubt that very soon after ingenuity had made a shield, taste would begin to decorate it. words "domestic sign are certainly very curious, yet probably mean no more than that he bore on his shield the representation of a family story. The better opinion seems to be that it was not till the visor concealed the face of the warrior, that the ornaments of the shields and crests became distinctive of individuals and families in that peculiar manner which we understand by the terms " armorial bearings.”—ED.]

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3 The frequent disquisitions on this subject bring painfully to recollection the death of Mr. Boswell's eldest son, Sir Alexander, who was killed in a duel in 1822.-ED.]

French words he used; the purport howev-| er was, "That's a good joke: but we do it much better in England;" and threw a whole glass of wine in the prince's face. An old general, who sat by, said, " Il a bien fait, mon prince, vous l'avez commencé:" and thus all ended in good-humour.

Dr. Johnson said, "Pray, general, give us an account of the siege of Belgrade." Upon which the general, pouring a little wine upon the table, described every thing with a wet finger. "Here we were, here were the Turks," &c. &c. Johnson listened with the closest attention.

A question was started, how far people who disagree in a capital point can live in friendship together. Johnson said they might. Goldsmith said they could not, as they had not the idem velle atque idem nolle—the same likings and the same aversions. JOHNSON. "Why, sir, you must shun the subject as to which you disagree. For instance, I can live very well with Burke: I love his knowledge, his genius, his diffusion, and affluence of conversation; but I would not talk to him of the Rockingham party 1." GOLDSMITH. "But, sir, when people live together who have something as to which they disagree, and which they want to shun, they will be in the situation mentioned in the story of Bluebeard. You may look into all the chambers but one.' But we should have the greatest inclination to look into that chamber, to talk of that subject." JOHNSON (with a loud voice). "Sir, I am not saying that you could live in friendship with a man from whom you differ as to some point; I am only saying that I could do it. You put me in mind of Sappho in

Ovid 2."

1 of which Mr. Burke was a leading member. -ED.]

2 Mr. Boswell's note here being rather short, as taken at the time (with a view perhaps to future revision,) Johnson's remark is obscure, and requires to be a little opened. What he said probably was, "You seem to think that two friends, to live well together, must be in a perfect harmony with each other; that each should be to the other, what Sappho boasts she was to her lover, and uniformly agree in every particular; but this is by no means necessary," &c. The words of Sappho alluded to, are omnique à parte placebam."-Ovid. Epist. Sapp. ad Phaonem. 1. 51. MALONE.

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Goldsmith told us, that he was now busy in writing a Natural History3; and that he might have full leisure for it, he had taken lodgings, at a farmer's house, near to the six mile-stone, on the Edgware-road, and had carried down his books in two returned post-chaises. He said, he believed the farmer's family thought him an odd character, similar to that in which the Spectator appeared to his landlady and her children: he was The Gentleman. Mr. Mickle 4, the translator of "The Lusiad," and I, went to visit him at this place a few days afterwards. He was not at home; but having a curiosity to see his apartment, we went in, and found curious scraps of descriptions of animals, scrawled upon the wall with a black lead pencil.

The subject of ghosts being introduced, Johnson repeated what he had told me of a friend of his 5, an honest man, and a man of sense, having asserted to him, that he had seen an apparition. Goldsmith told us, he was assured by his brother, the Reverend Mr. Goldsmith, that he also had seen one. General Oglethorpe told us, that Prendergast, an officer in the Duke of Marlborough's army, had mentioned to many of his friends, that he should die on a particular day; that upon that day a battle took place with the French; that after it was over, and Prendergast was still alive, his brother officers, while they were yet in the field, jestingly asked him, where was his prophecy now. Prendergast gravely answered, "I shall die, notwithstanding what you see." Soon afterwards, there came a shot from a French battery, to which the orders for a cessation of arms had

found who, on all points, invariably think alike. So Sappho in Ovid tells Phaon, that if he will not unite himself to any one who is not a complete resemblance of himself, it will be impossible for him to form any union at all.

The lines which I have quoted are thus expanded in Pope's Paraphrase, which, to say the truth, I suspect was at this moment more in Johnson's recollection than the original:

"If to no charms thou wilt thy heart resign But such as merit, such as equal thine, By none, alas! by noue, thou canst be moved, Phaon alone by Phaon must be loved." JAMES BOSWELL. 3 [Published soon after, under the title of a History of the Earth and of Animated Nature. -ED.]

^ [William Julius Mickle, the son of a Scotch clergyman, was born in 1734. He lived the life that poets lived in those days; that is, in difficulties and distress till 1779, when being appointed secretary to Commodore Johnson, he realized by prize agencies a moderate competence; he died in 1788. His translation of the Lusiad is still read; his original pieces are almost all forgotten.-ED.]

6 Mr. Cave. See ante, p. 294.

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[Here the date.] Sir John Friend meets me." (Here the very day on which he was killed was mentioned). Prendergast had been connected with Sir John Friend, who was executed for high treason. General Oglethorpe said, he was with Colonel Cecil, when Pope came and inquired into the truth of this story, which made a great noise at the time, and was then confirmed by the colonel.

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Of our friend Goldsmith he said, "Sir, he is so much afraid of being unnoticed, that he often talks merely lest you should forget that he is in the company." BosWELL. "Yes, he stands forward." JOHNSoN. "True, sir, but if a man is to stand forward, he should wish to do it not in an awkward posture, not in rags, not so as that he shall only be exposed to ridicule." BoswELL. "For my part, I like very well to hear honest Goldsmith talk away carelessly." JOHNSON. Why yes, sir; but he should not like to hear himself."

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On Tuesday, April 14, the decree of the On Saturday, April 11, he appointed me court of session in the schoolmaster's cause to come to him in the evening, when he was reversed in the house of lords, after a should be at leisure to give me some assist- very eloquent speech by Lord Mansfield, ance for the defence of Hastie, the school-who showed himself an adept in school dis master of Campbelltown, for whom I was to appear in the house of lords. When I came, I found him unwilling to exert himself. I pressed him to write down his thoughts upon the subject. He said, "There's no occasion for my writing. I'll talk to you." He was, however, at last prevailed on to dictate to me, while I wrote a [paper, which will be found in the appendix.]

Ed.

"This, sir," said he, "you are to turn in your mind, and make the best use of it you can in your speech."

1 Here was a blank, which may be filled up thus: "was told by an apparition;" the writer being probably uncertain whether he was asleep or awake, when his mind was impressed with the solemn presentiment with which the fact afterwards happened so wonderfully to correspond.-BosWELL. [My friend, Sir Henry Hardinge, secretary at war, is so kind as to inform me that it appears hat Colonel Sir Thomas Prendergast, of the twen

ty-second foot, was killed at Malplaquet, August 31, 1709, but no trace can be found of Colonel Ce

cil. There were one or two subalterns, of the name

of Cecil, at that time in the army, but it does not appear that they rose to the rank of field-officers. Is it not very strange, if this story made so great a noise, we should read of it nowhere else; and, as so much curiosity was excited, that the paper should not have been preserved, or, at least, so generally shown as to be mentioned by some other witness-the paper would have been exceedingly curious; but the hearsay that there had been such a paper is nothing, and indeed, in point of evidence, worse than nothing; for if a paper had existed, thousands must have seen it, and Oglethorpe himself does not state that even he saw it. At the time of the battle of Malplaquet, Oglethorpe was only eleven years old. Pope's inquiries were probably made when the story was recent. Is it likely that Oglethorpe at the age of eleven was present at Pope's interview with Colonel Cecil, and even if he were, what credit is to. be given to the recollections, after the lapse of sixty-three years, of what a boy of eleven had heard? Colonel Cecil was probably the well known Jacobite of that name.-ED.]

cipline, but I thought was too rigorous towards my client. On the evening of the next day I supped with Dr. Johnson, at the Crown and Anchor tavern, in the Strand, in company with Mr. Langton and his brother-in-law, Lord Binning 2. I repeated a sentence of Lord Mansfield's speech, of which, by the aid of Mr. Longlands, the solicitor on the other side, who obligingly allowed me to compare his note with my own, I have a full copy. "My lords, severity is not the way to govern either boys or men." "Nay," said Johnson, "it is the way to govern them. I know not whether it be the way to mend them."

I talked of the recent 3 expulsion of six students from the University of Oxford, who were methodists, and would not desist from publickly praying and exhorting. JOHNSON. "Sir, that expulsion was exto do at an university, who are not willing tremely just and proper. What have they to be taught, but will presume to teach? Where is religion to be learnt, but at an university? Sir, they were examined, and found to be mighty ignorant fellows." BOSWELL. "But, was it not hard, sir, to expel them, for I am told they were good beings?" JOHNSON. "I believe they might be good beings; but they were not fit to be in the University of Oxford. A cow is a very good animal in the field; but we turn her out of a garden." Lord Elibank used to repeat this as an illustration uncommonly happy.

Desirous of calling Johnson forth to talk, and exercise his wit, though I should myself be the object of it, I resolutely ventured

[Charles, Lord Binning, afterwards eighth Earl of Haddington, was the son of Mary Holt, who, by a first marriage with Mr. Lloyd, was the mother of Lady Rothes, Mr. Langton's wife.ED.]

3 [Not very recent, if he alluded to six members of St. Edmond Hall, who were expelled in May, 1768. See Gent. Mag. vol. xxxviii. p. 225.-ED.]

to undertake the defence of convivial indul- | this opinion. "Tacitus, sir, seems to me gence in wine, though he was not to-night rather to have made notes for an historical in the most genial humour. After urging work, than to have written a history 2." the common plausible topicks, I at last had recourse to the maxim, in vino veritas, a man who is well warmed with wine will speak truth. JOHNSON. "Why, sir, that may be an argument for drinking, if you suppose men in general to be liars. But, sir, I would not keep company with a fellow, who lies as long as he is sober, and whom you must make drunk before you can get a word of truth out of him1."

Mr. Langton told us, he was about to establish a school upon his estate, but it had been suggested to him, that it might have a tendency to make the people less industrious. JOHNSON. "No, sir. While learning to read and write is a distinction, the few who have that distinction may be the less inclined to work; but when every body learns to read and write, it is no longer a distinction. A man who has a laced waistcoat is too fine a man to work; but if every body had laced waistcoats, we should have people working in laced waistcoats. There are no people whatever more industrious, none who work more, than our manufacturers; yet they have all learnt to read and write. Sir, you must not neglect doing a thing immediately good, from fear of remote evil, from fear of its being abused. A man who has candles may sit up too late, which he would not do if he had not candles; but nobody will deny that the art of making candles, by which light is continued to us beyond the time that the sun gives us light, is a valuable art, and ought to be preserved." BosWELL. "But, sir, would it not be better to follow nature; and go to bed and rise just as nature gives us light or withholds it?" JOHNSON. "No, sir; for then we should have no kind of equality in the partition of our time between sleeping and waking. It would be very different in different seasons and in different places. In some of the northern parts of Scotland how little light is there in the depth of winter!" We talked of Tacitus, and I hazarded an opinion, that with all his merit for penetration, shrewdness of judgment, and terseness of expression, he was too compact, too much broken into hints, as it were, and therefore too difficult to be understood. To my great satisfaction, Dr. Johnson sanctioned

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At this time it appears from his " Prayers and Meditations," that he had been more than commonly diligent in religious duties, particularly in reading the holy scriptures. It was Passion Week, that solemn season which the Christian world has appropriated to the commemoration of the mysteries of our redemption, and during which, whatever embers of religion are in our breasts, will be kindled into pious warmth.

I paid him short visits both on Friday and Saturday, and seeing his large folio Greek Testament before him, beheld him with a reverential awe, and would not intrude upon his time. While he was thus employed to such good purpose, and while his friends in their intercourse with him constantly found a vigorous intellect and a lively imagination, it is melancholy to read in his private register :

"My mind is unsettled and my memory confused. I have of late turned my thoughts with a very useless earnestness upon past incidents. I have yet got no command over my thoughts; an unpleasing incident is almost certain to hinder my rest.”

What philosophick heroism was it in him to appear with such manly fortitude to the world, while he was inwardly so distressed! We may surely believe that the mys terious principle of being "made perfect through suffering," was to be strongly exemplified in him.

On Sunday, 19th April, being Easterday, General Paoli and I paid him a visit before dinner. We talked of the notion that blind persons can distinguish colours by the touch. Johnson said, that Professor Sanderson mentions his having attempted to do it, but that he found he was aiming at an impossibility; that to be sure a difference in the surface makes the difference of colours; but that difference is so fine, that it is not sensible to the touch. The General mentioned jugglers and fraudulent gamesters, who could know cards by the touch. Dr. Johnson said, "the cards used by such persons must be less polished than ours commonly are."

We talked of sounds. The general said, there was no beauty in a simple sound, but only in an harmonious composition of sounds. I presumed to differ from this opinion, and mentioned the soft and sweet

2 It is remarkable that Lord Monboddo, whom on account of his resembling Dr. Johnson in some particulars, Foote called an Elzevir edition of him, has, by coincidence, made the very same remark.-Origin and Progress of Language, vol. iii. 2d edit. p. 219,--Boswell.

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