If he is content to take his information from mate end of all the employments of manothers, he may get through his book with kind is to produce amusement. Garrick little trouble, and without much endanger- produces more amusement than any body." ing his reputation. But if he makes exper- BOSWELL. "You say, Dr. Johnson, that iments for so comprehensive a book as his, Garrick exhibits himself for a shilling. In there would be no end to them; his errone- this respect he is only on a footing with a ous assertions would then fall upon himself; lawyer, who exhibits himself for his fee, and and he might be blamed for not having even will maintain any nonsense or absurdimade experiments as to every particular." ty, if the case require it. Garrick refuses a The character of Mallet having been in-play or a part which he does not like; a troduced, and spoken of slightingly by lawyer never refuses." JOHNSON. "Why, Goldsmith: JOHNSON. Why, sir, Mallet sir, what does this prove? only that a lawhad talents enough to keep his literary repu- yer is worse; Boswell is now like Jack in tation alive as long as he himself lived; and The Tale of a Tub,' who, when he is that, let me tell you, is a good deal." GOLD- puzzled by an argument, hangs himself. SMITH. "But I cannot agree that it was He thinks I shall cut him down, but I'll So. His literary reputation was dead long let him hang (laughing vociferously). before his natural death. I consider an Sir JOSHUA REYNOLDS. "Mr. Boswell authour's literary reputation to be alive on- thinks that the profession of a lawyer bely while his name will ensure a good price ing unquestionably honourable, if he can for his copy from the booksellers. I will show the profession of a player to be more get you (to Johnson) a hundred guineas honourable, he proves his argument." for any thing whatever that you shall write, if you put your name to it." Dr. Goldsmith's new play, " She Stoops to Conquer," being mentioned; JOHNSON. "I know of no comedy for many years that has so much exhilarated an audience, that has answered so much the great end of comedy-making an audience merry." On Friday, April 30, I dined with him at Mr. Beauclerk's, where were Lord Charlemont, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and some more members of the LITERARY CLUB. whom he had obligingly invited to meet me, as I was this evening to be balloted for as candidate for admission into that distinguished society. Johnson had done me the honour to propose me, and Beauclerk was very zealous for me. Goldsmith being mentioned: JOHNSON. "It is amazing how little Goldsmith knows. He seldom comes where he is not more ignorant than any one else." Sir JOSHUA "Yet there is no man whose REYNOLDS. company is more liked." JOHNSON. "To be sure, sir. When people find a man of most distinguished abilities as a writer, their inferiour while he is with them, it must be highly gratifying to them. What Goldsmith comically says of himself is very true, Goldsmith having said that Garrick's compliment to the queen, which he introduced into the play of " The Chances," which he had altered and revised this year, was mean and gross flattery;-JOHNSON. "Why, sir, I would not write, I would not give solemnly, under my hand, a character beyond what I thought really true; but a speech on the stage, let it flatter ever so extravagantly, is formular. It has always been formular to flatter kings and queens; so much so, that even in our church-service we have our most religious king,' used indiscriminately, whoever is king. Nay, they he always gets the better when he argues even flatter themselves;- we have been gra- alone; meaning that he is master of a subciously pleased to grant.”” No modern ject in his study, and can write well upon flattery, however, is so gross as that of the it; but when he comes into company, grows Augustan age, where the emperour was dei- confused, and unable to talk. Take him as fied. Præsens Divus habebitur Augustus.' a poet, his Traveller' is a very fine performAnd as to meanness ”—(rising into warmth) ance; ay, and so is his Deserted Village,' -"how is it mean in a player,-a show- were it not sometimes too much the echo of man, a fellow who exhibits himself for a his Traveller.' Whether, indeed, we take shilling to flatter his queen? The attempt, him as a poet,-as a comick writer,-or as indeed, was dangerous; for if it had missed, an historian, he stands in the first class." what became of Garrick, and what became BosWELL. "An historian! My dear sir, of the queen? As Sir William Temple you surely will not rank his compilation says of a great general, it is necessary not of the Roman History with the works of only that his designs be formed in a master- other historians of this age?" JOHNSON. ly manner, but that they should be attend-"Why, who are before him?" BOSWELL. ed with success. Sir, it is right, at a time when the royal family is not generally liked, to let it be seen that the people like at least one of them." Sir JOSHUA REYNOLDS. "I do not perceive why the profession of a player should be despised; for the great and ulti VOL. I. 40 "Hume,-Robertson,-Lord Lyttelton." JOHNSON. (His antipathy to the Scotch beginning to rise). "I have not read Hume; but, doubtless, Goldsmith's 'History is better than the verbiage of Robertson, or the foppery of Dalrymple." BOSWELL. "Will you not admit the superiority of Robertson, | When we got to Temple-bar, he stopped in whose history we find such penetration, me, pointed to the heads upon it, and slily such painting?" JOHNSON. "Sir, you whispered me, put Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur ISTIS 3." Johnson praised John Bunyan highly. His Pilgrim's Progress' has great merit, both for invention, imagination, and the conduct of the story; and it has had the best evidence of its merit, the general and continued approbation of mankind. Few books, I believe, have had a more extensive sale. It is remarkable that it begins very much like the poem of Dante; yet there was no translation of Dante when Bunyan wrote. There is reason to think that he had read Spenser." must consider how that penetration and that painting are employed. It is not history, it is imagination. He who describes what he never saw, draws from fancy." Robertson paints minds as Sir Joshua paints faces in a history-piece: he imagines an heroick countenance. You must look upon Robertson's work as romance, and try it by that standard. History it is not. Besides, sir, it is the great excellence of a writer to into his book as much as his book will hold. Goldsmith has done this in his history. Now Robertson might have put twice as much into his book. Robertson is like a man who has packed gold in wool; the A proposition which had been agitated, wool takes up more room than the gold. that monuments to eminent persons should, No, sir; I always thought Robertson would for the time to come, be erected in St. Paul's be crushed by his own weight,-would be church, as well as in Westminster-abbey, buried under his own ornaments. Gold- was mentioned; and it was asked who should smith tells you shortly all you want to know: be honoured by having his monument Robertson detains you a great deal too long. first erected there. Somebody suggested No man will read Robertson's cumbrous de- Pope. JOHNSON. "Why, sir, as Pope was tail a second time; but Goldsmith's plain a Roman Catholick, I would not have his narrative will please again and again. I to be first. I think Milton's rather should would say to Robertson what an old tutor have the precedence 4. I think more highof a college said to one of his pupils: Readly of him now than I did at twenty. There over your compositions, and wherever you is more thinking in him and in Butler, than meet with a passage which you think is in any of our poets." particularly fine, strike it out.' Goldsmith's abridgement is better than that of Lucius Florus or Eutropius; and I will venture to say, that if you compare him with Vertot, in the same places of the Roman History, you will find that he excels Vertot. Sir, he has the art of compiling, and of saying every thing he has to say in a pleasing manner. He is now writing a Natural History, and will make it as entertaining as a Persian tale." Some of the company expressed a wonder why the authour of so excellent a book as "The Whole Duty of Man,' should conceal himself 5. JOHNSON. "There may be different reasons assigned for this, any one of which would be very sufficient. He may 3 In allusion to Dr. Johnson's supposed political principles, and perhaps his own.-BOSWELL. 4 Here is another instance of his high admiration of Milton as a poet, notwithstanding his just I cannot dismiss the present topick with- abhorrence of that sour republican's political prinout observing, that it is probable that Dr. ciples. His candour and discrimination are equalJohnson, who owned that he often " talked y conspicuous. Let us hear no more of his "injustice to Milton."-BOSWELL. [A monument for victory," rather urged plausible objec- to Milton in St. Paul's cathedral would be the tions to Dr. Robertson's excellent historical more appropriate from his having received his earworks, in the ardour of contest, than ex-ly education in the adjoining public school.— pressed his real and decided opinion; for it is not easy to suppose that he should so widely differ from the rest of the literary world1. JOHNSON. "I remember once being with Goldsmith in Westminster-abbey, While we surveyed the Poets' Corner I said to him, Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur istis 2.' 1 [Mr. Boswell's friendship for both Johnson and Robertson is here sorely perplexed; but there seems no ground for doubting that Johnson's "real and decided opinion" of Robertson was very low. He on every occasion repeats it with a very contemptuous consistency. See ante, p. 247.ED.] * Ovid. de Art. Amand. i. iii. v. 13.-BOSWELL. HALL.] 5 In a manuscript in the Bodleian Library several circumstances are stated, which strongly incline me to believe that Dr. Accepted Frewen, Archbishop of York, was the authour of this work. MALONE. [Accepted Frewen was Dean of Gloucester, installed 1731, loco Geo. Warburton. -HALL. See, on the subject of the authour of this celebrated and excellent work, Gent. Mag vol. xxiv. p. 26, and Ballard's Memoirs of Learned Ladies, p. 300. The late eccentric but learned Dr. Barrett, of Trinity College, Dublin, believed that Dr. Chapel, formerly provost of that college, was the author. This gentleman was librarian of his college, and a perfect Magliabechi in dirt and condition, see ante, p. 135. It is odd too that Magliabechi's portrait was exceedingly like Dr. Barrett.-ED] From have been a clergyman, and may have | Nay, Dryden, in his poem on the Royal thought that his religious counsels would Society, has these lines: have less weight when known to come from a man whose profession was theology. HeThen we upon our globe's last verge shall go, And see the ocean leaning on the sky; may have been a man whose practice was thence our rolling neighbours we shall know, not suitable to his principles, so that his And on the lunar world securely pry.'' character might injure the effect of his book, which he had written in a season of penitence. Or he may have been a man of rigid self-denial, so that he would have no reward for his pious labours while in this world, but refer it all to a future state." The gentlemen went away to their club, and I was left at Beauclerk's till the fate of I my election should be announced to me. sat in a state of anxiety which even the charming conversation of Lady Di BeauIn a clerk could not entirely dissipate. short time I received the agreeable intelligence that I was chosen. I hastened to the place of meeting, and was introduced to such a society as can seldom be found. Mr. Edmund Burke, whom I then saw for the first time, and whose splendid talents had long made me ardently wish for his acquaintance; Dr. Nugent, Mr. Garrick, Dr. Goldsmith, Mr. (afterwards Sir William) Jones, and the company with whom I had dined. Upon my entrance, Johnson placed himself behind a chair, on which he leaned as on a desk or pulpit, and with humorous formality gave me a charge, pointing out the conduct expected from me as a good member of this club. Goldsmith produced some very absurd verses which had been publickly recited to an audience for money. JOHNSON. "I can match this nonsense. There was a poem called Eugenio,' which came out some years ago, and concludes thus: And now, ye trifling, self-assuming elves, 1 [Dr. Johnson's memory here was not perfectly accurate: " Eugenio" does not conclude thus. 'There are eight more lines after the last of those quoted by him; and the passage which he meant to recite is as follows: "Say now, ye fluttering, poor, assuming elves, Stark full of pride, of folly, of-yourselves; Say, where's the wretch of all your impious crew Who dares confront his character to view? Behold Eugenio, view him o'er and o'er, Then sink into yourselves, and be no more." Mr. Reed informs me that the authour of Eugenio, Thomas Beech, a wine-merchant at Wrexham, in Denbighshire, soon after its publication, viz. 17th May, 1737, cut his own throat; and that it appears by Swift's Works, that the poem had been shown to him, and received some of his corrections. Johnson had read "Eugenio" on his first coming to town, for we see it mentioned in one of his letters to Mr. Cave, which has been inserted in this work.-BoswELL. Talking of puns, Johnson, who had a great contempt for that species of wit, deigned to allow that there was one good pun in “ Menagiana,” I think on the word corps 2. Much pleasant conversation passed, which Johnson relished with great good-humour. But his conversation alone, or what led to it, or was interwoven with it, is the business of this work. On Saturday, May 1, we dined by ourselves at our old rendezvous, the Mitre tavern. He was placid, but not much disposed to talk. He observed, that "The Irish mix better with the English than the Scotch do; their language is nearer to English; as a proof of which, they succeed very well as players, which Scotchmen do not. Then, sir, they have not that extreme nationality which we find in the Scotch. I will do you, Boswell, the justice to say, that you are the most unscottified of your countrymen. are almost the only instance of a Scotchman that I have known, who did not at every other sentence bring in some other Scotchman 3." You We drank tea with Mrs. Williams. I introduced a question which has been much For I formerly thought that I had, perhaps, mistaken the word, and imagined it to be corps, from its similarity of sound to the real one. an accurate and shrewd unknown gentleman, to whom I am indebted for some remarks on my work, observes on this passage, "Q. if not on the word fort? A vociferous French preacher said of Bourdaloue, Il prêche fort bien, et moi bien fort.'-Menagiana. See also Anecdotes Litteraires, article Bourdaloue." But my ingenious and obliging correspondent, Mr. Abercrombie of Philadelphia, has pointed out to me the following passage in "Menagiana ;" which renders the preceding conjecture unnecessary, and confirms my original statement: "Madame de Bourdonne, chanoinesse de Remiremont, venoit d'entendre un discours plein de feu et d'esprit, mais fort peu solide, et très irregulier. Une de ses amies, qui y prenoit intérêt pour l'orateur, lui dit en sortant,Eh bien, madame, que vous semble-t-il de ce que vous venez d'entendre? Qu'il y a d'esprit ?'- Il y a tant,' répondit Madame de Bourdonne, que je n'y ai pas vú de corps.' ”—Menagiana, tome ii. p. 64. Amsterd. 1713.-BOSWELL. 3 [Garrick, as Boswell himself tells us, used to rally him on his nationality, and there are abundant instances in these volumes to show that he was not exempt from that amiable prejudice. See ante, p. 24. 53. 189. 192. 197.-ED.] Piozzi p. 84, 85. agitated in the church of Scotland, whether | "My dear sir, never accustom your mind the claim of lay-patrons to present ministers to mingle virtue and vice. The woman's to parishes be well founded; and supposing a whore, and there's an end on 't." it to be well founded, whether it ought to [One evening, in the rooms at be exercised without the concurrence of the Brighthelmstone, however, he fell people? That church is composed of a se- into a comical discussion with that ries of judicatures: a presbytery, a synod, lady's first husband, happening to sit by and, finally, a general assembly; before all him, and choosing to harangue very loudly of which, this matter may be contended: about the nature, and use, and abuse, of and in some cases the presbytery having divorces. Many people gathered round refused to induct, or settle, as they call it, them to hear, what was said, and when Mr. the person presented by the patron, it has Thrale called him away, and told him to been found necessary to appeal to the gen- whom he had been talking, received an aneral assembly. He said, I might see the swer which Mrs. Thrale did not venture subject well treated in the "Defence of to write down.] Pluralities;" and although he thought that a patron should exercise his right with tenderness to the inclinations of the people of a parish, he was very clear as to his right. Then supposing the question to be pleaded before the general assembly, he dictated to me [the argument which will be found in the Appendix.] He described the father 2 of one of his friends thus: "Sir he was so exuberant a talker at publick meetings, that the gentlemen of his county were afraid of him. No business could be done for his declamation." He did not give me full credit when I mentioned that I had carried on a short Though I present to my readers Dr. conversation by signs with some EsquiJohnson's masterly thoughts on the subject, maux, who were then in London, particuI think it proper to declare, that notwith-larly with one of them who was a priest. standing I am myself a lay-patron, I do not entirely subscribe to his opinion. 1 On Friday, May 7, I breakfasted with him at Mr. Thrale's in the Borough. While we were alone, I endeavoured as well as I could to apologise for a lady 1 who had been divorced from her husband by act of parliament. I said, that he had used her very ill, had behaved brutally to her, and that she could not continue to live with him without having her delicacy contaminated; that all affection for him was thus destroyed; that the essence of conjugal union being gone, there remained only a cold form, a mere civil obligation; that she was in the prime of life, with qualities to produce happiness; that these ought not to be lost; and that the gentleman on whose account she was divorced had gained her heart while thus unhappily situated. Seduced, perhaps, by the charms of the lady in question, I thus attempted to palliate what I was sensible could not be justified; for when I had finished my harangue, my venerable friend gave me a proper check: [No doubt Lady Diana Spencer, eldest daughter, of Charles Duke of Marlborough, born in 1734, married in 1757 to Frederick Viscount Bolingbroke, from whom she was divorced in 1768, and married immediately after Mr. Topham Beauclerk. All that Johnson says is very true; but he would have been better entitled to hold such high language if he had not practically waved his right by living in that lady's private society. He should either, as a strict moralist, have refused her his countenance, or, as a man of honour and gratitude, been silent as to her frailties. He had no right to enjoy her society, and disparage her character.-ED.] He thought I could not make them understand me. No man was more incredulous as to particular facts which were at all extraordinary; and therefore no man was more scrupulously inquisitive, in order to discover the truth. I dined with him this day at the house of my friends, Messieurs Edward and Charles Dilly, booksellers in the Poultry: there were present, their elder brother, Mr. Dilly of Bedfordshire, Dr. Goldsmith, Mr. Langton, Mr. Claxton, Rev. Dr. Mayo, a dissenting minister, the Rev. Mr. Toplady, and my friend the Rev. Mr. Temple. Hawkesworth's compilation of the voyages to the South Sea being mentioned: JOHNSON. " Sir, if you talk of it as a subject of commerce, it will be gainful; if as a book that is to increase human knowledge, I believe there will not be much of that. Hawkesworth can tell only what the voyagers have told him; and they have found very little, only one new animal, I think." BosWELL. "But many insects, sir." JOHNSON. "Why, sir, as to insects, Ray reckons of British insects twenty thousand species. They might have staid at home and discovered enough in that way." Talking of birds, I mentioned Mr. Daines Barrington's ingenious Essay against the received notion of their migration. JOHNSON. "I think we have as good evidence for the migration of woodcocks as can be desired. We find they disappear at a certain time of the year, and appear again at a certain time of the year; and some of them, when weary in their flight, have been known to alight on the rigging of ships far [Old Mr. Langton.-ED.] out at sea." One of the company observed, that there had been instances of some of them found in summer in Essex. JOHNSON. "Sir, that strengthens our argument. Exceptio probat regulam. Some being found shows, that, if all remained, many would be found. A few sick or lame ones may be found." GOLDSMITH. "There is a partial migration of the swallows; the stronger ones migrate, the others do not." ry man has a right to liberty of conscience; BOSWELL. "I am well assured that the people of Otaheite who have the bread tree, the fruit of which serves them for bread, laughed heartily when they were informed of the tedious process necessary with us to have bread; ploughing, sowing, harrowing, reaping, threshing, grinding, baking." JOHNSON. "Why, sir, all ignorant savages will laugh when they are told of the advantages of civilized life. Were you to tell men who live without houses, howlished is by martyrdom. The magistrate we pile brick upon brick, and rafter upon rafter, and that after a house is raised to a certain height, a man tumbles off a scaffold, and breaks his neck; he would laugh heartily at our folly in building; but it does not follow that men are better without houses. No, sir (holding up a slice of a good loaf),|“But how is a man to act, sir? Though this is better than the bread tree." He repeated an argument, which is to be found in his "Rambler," against the notion that the brute creation is endowed with the faculty of reason: "Birds build by instinct; they never improve; they build their first nest as well as any one they ever build." GOLDSMITH. "Yet we see if you take away a bird's nest with the eggs in it, she will make a slighter nest and lay again." JOHNSON. "Sir, that is, because at first she has full time, and makes her nest deliberately. In the case you mention she is pressed to lay, and must therefore make her nest quickly, and consequently it will be slight." GOLDSMITH. "The nidification of birds is what is least known in natural history, though one of the most curious things in it." has a right to enforce what he thinks; and he who is conscious of the truth has a right to suffer. I am afraid there is no other way of ascertaining the truth, but by persecution on the one hand and enduring it on the other." GOLDSMITH. firmly convinced of the truth of his doctrine, may he not think it wrong to expose himself to persecution? Has he a right to do so? Is it not, as it were, committing voluntary suicide?" JOHNSON. "Sir, as to voluntary suicide, as you call it, there are twenty thousand men in an army who will go without scruple to be shot at, and mount a breach for five-pence a day." GOLDSMITH. "But have they a moral right to do this?" JOHNSON. Nay, sir, if you will not take the universal opinion of mankind, I have nothing to say. If mankind cannot defend their own way of thinking, I cannot defend it. Sir, if a man is in doubt whether it would be better for him to expose himself to martyrdom or not, he should not do it. He must be convinced that he has a delegation from heaven." GOLDSMITH. "I would I introduced the subject of toleration. consider whether there is the greater chance JOHNSON. "Every society has a right to of good or evil upon the whole. If I see preserve publick peace and order, and there- a man who has fallen into a well, I would fore has a good right to prohibit the propa- wish to help him out; but if there is a greatgation of opinions which have a dangerous er probability that he shall pull me in, than tendency 1. To say the magistrate has that I shall pull him out, I would not attempt this right, is using an inadequate word: it it. So were I to go to Turkey, I might is the society for which the magistrate is wish to convert the grand signior to the agent. He may be morally or theological-christian faith; but when I considered that ly wrong in restraining the propagation of opinions which he thinks dangerous, but he is politically right." MAYO. "I am of opinion, sir, that every man is entitled to liberty of conscience in religion; and that the magistrate cannot restrain that right." JOHNSON. "Sir, I agree with you. Eve [See ante, p. 229.-ED.] I should probably be put to death without effectuating my purpose in any degree, I should keep myself quiet." JOHNSON. "Sir, you must consider that we have perfect and imperfect obligations. Perfect obligations, which are generally not to do something, are clear and positive; as, Thou shalt not kill.' But charity, for instance, is not definable by limits. It is a duty to give |