short notes of different days shall be blended together, and sometimes a day may seem important enough to be separately distinguished. He said, he would not have Sunday kept with rigid severity and gloom, but with a gravity and simplicity of behaviour. I told him that David Hume had made a short collection of Scotticisms. "I wonder," said Johnson, "that he should find them."* rants. He would not admit the importance of the question concerning the legality of general war"Such a power," he observed, "must be vested in every government, to answer particular cases of necessity; and there can be no just complaint but when it is abused, for which those who administer government must be answerable. It is a matter of such indifference, a matter about which the people care so very little, that were a man to be sent over Britain to offer them an exemption from it at a halfpenny apiece, very few would purchase it." This was a specimen of that laxity of talking, which I had heard him fairly acknowledge; for, surely, while the power of granting general warrants was supposed to be legal, and the apprehension of them hung over our heads, we did not possess that security of freedom, congenial to our happy constitution, and which, by the intrepid exertions of Mr. Wilkes, has been happily established. He said, "The duration of Parliament, whether for seven years or the life of the King, appears to me so immaterial, that I would not give half-acrown to turn the scale one way or the other. The habeas corpus is the single advantage which our government has over that of other countries. On the 30th of September we dined together at the Mitre. I attempted to argue for the superior happiness of the savage life, upon the usual fanciful topics. JOHNSON: "Sir, there can be nothing more false. The savages have no bodily advantages beyond those of civilized men. They have not better health; and as to care or mental uneasiness, they are not above it, but below it, like bears. No, Sir; you are not to talk such paradox: let me have no more on't. It cannot entertain, far less can it instruct. Lord Monboddo, one of your Scotch judges, talked a great deal of such nonsense. I suffered him, but I will not suffer you." BOSWELL: "But, Sir, does not Rousseau talk such nonsense?" JOHNSON: "True, Sir; but Rousseau knows he is talking nonsense, and laughs at the world for staring at him." BOSWELL: "How so, Sir?" JOHNSON: "Why, Sir, a man who talks nonsense so well, must know that he is talking nonsense. But I am afraid (chuckling and laughing) Monboddo does not know that he is talking nonsense."t BOSWELL: "Is it wrong then, Sir, to affect singularity, in The first edition of Hume's "History of England" was full of Scotticisms, many of which he corrected in subsequent editions.-MALONE. + His Lordship having frequently spoken in an abusive manner of Dr. Johnson in my company, I, on one occasion during the lifetime of my illustrious friend, could not refrain from retaliation, and repeated to him this saying. He has since published I don't know how inany pages in one of his curious books, attempting, in much anger, but with pitiful effect, to persuade mankind that my illustrious friend was not the great and good man which they esteemed and ever will esteem him to be.BOSWELL. order to make people stare?" JOHNSON: "Yes, if you do it by propagating error; and, indeed, it is wrong in any way. There is in human nature a general inclination to make people stare; and every wise man has himself to cure of it, and does cure himself. If you wish to make people stare by doing better than others, why make them stare till they stare their eyes out. But consider how easy it is to make people stare, by being absurd. I may do it by going into a drawing-room without my shoes. You remember the gentleman in 'The Spectator,' who had a commission of lunacy taken out against him for his extreme singularity, such as never wearing a wig, but a night-cap. Now, Sir, abstractedly, the night-cap was best: but, relatively, the advantage was overbalanced by his making the boys run after him."* Talking of a London life, he said, "The happiness of London is not to be conceived but by those who have been in it. I will venture to say, there is more learning and science within the circumference of ten miles from where we now sit, than in all the rest of the kingdom." BOSWELL: "The only disadvantage is the great distance at which people live from one another." JOHNSON : Yes, Sir; but that is occasioned by the largeness of it, which is the cause of all the other advantages." BOSWELL: "Sometimes I have been in the humour of wishing to retire to a desert." JOHNSON: "Sir, you have desert enough in Scotland.' a Although I had promised myself a great deal of instructive conversation with him on the conduct of the married state, of which I had then a near prospect, he did not say much upon that topic. Mr. Seward heard him once say, that": man has a very bad chance for happiness in that state, unless he marries a woman of very strong and fixed principles of religion." He maintained to me, contrary to the common notion, that a woman would not be the worse wife for being learned; in which, from all that I have observed of Artemisias, I humbly differed from him. That a woman should be sensible and well informed, I allow to be a great advantage; and think that Sir Thomas Overbury, in his rude versification,† has very judiciously pointed out that degree of intelligence which is to be desired in a female com. panion : "Give me, next good, an understanding wife, By Nature wise, not learned by much art; They are most firmly good, who best know why." When I censured a gentleman of my acquaintance for marrying a second time, as it showed a disregard of his first wife, he said, "Not at all, Sir. On the contrary, were he not to marry William Seward, Esq., F.R.S., editor of " Anecdotes of some Distinguished Persons," &c., in 4 vols. 8vo, well known to a numerous and valuable acquaintance for his literature, love of the fine arts, and social virtues. I am indebted to him for several communications concerning Johnson.-BOSWELL. Mr. Seward was born in London in 1747, the son of a wealthy brewer, partner in the house of Calvert and Seward. He was educated at the Charter-house and at Oxford, and died April 24, 1799.-MALONE. +"A Wife," a poem, 1614-BOSWELL. again, it might be concluded that his first wife had given him a disgust to marriage; but by taking a second wife he pays the highest compliment to the first, by showing that she made him so happy as a married man, that he wishes to be so a second time." So ingenious a turn did he give to this delicate question. And yet, on ano. ther occasion, he owned that he once had almost asked a promise of Mrs. Johnson that she would not marry again, but had checked himself. Indeed, I cannot help thinking, that in his case the request would have been unreasonable; for if Mrs. Johnson forgot, or thought it no injury to the memory of her first love-the husband of her youth and the father of her children-to make a second marriage, why should she be precluded from a third, should she be so inclined? In Johnson's persevering fond appropriation of his Tetty, even after her decease, he seems totally to have overlooked the prior claim of the honest Birmingham trader. I presume that her having been married before had, at times, given him some uneasiness; for I remember his observing upon the marriage of one of our common friends, "He has done a very foolish thing; he has married a widow, when he might have had a maid." We drank tea with Mrs. Williams. I had last year the pleasure of seeing Mrs. Thrale at Dr, Johnson's one morning, and had conversation enough with her to admire her talents, and to show her that I was as Johnsonian as herself. Dr. Johnson had probably been kind enough to speak well of me, for this evening he delivered me a very polite card from Mr. Thrale and her, inviting me to Streatham. On the 6th of October I complied with this obliging invitation, and found, at an elegant villa, six miles from town, every circumstance that can make society pleasing. Johnson, though quite at home, was yet looked up to with an awe, tempered by affection, and seemed to be equally the care of his host and hostess. I rejoiced at seeing him so happy. He played off his wit against Scotland with a good-humoured pleasantry, which gave me, though no bigot to national prejudices, an opportunity for a little contest with him. having said that England was obliged to us for gardeners, almost all their good gardeners being Scotchmen-JOHNSON: "Why, Sir, that is because gardening is much more necessary amongst you than with us, which makes so many of your people learn it. It is all gardening with you. Things which grow wild here, must be cultivated with great care in Scotland. Pray now," throwing himself back in his chair, and laughing, "are you ever able to bring the sloe to perfection?" I boasted that we had the honour of being the first to abolish the unhospitable, troublesome, and ungracious custom of giving veils to servants. JOHNSON: "Sir, you abolished veils because you were too poor to be able to give them." Mrs. Thrale disputed with him on the merit of Prior. He attacked him powerfully; said he wrote of love like a man who had never felt it: his love verses were college verses; and he repeated the song "Alexis shunn'd his fellow swains," &c., in so ludicrous a manner, as to make us all wonder how any one could have been pleased with such fantastical stuff. Mrs. Thrale stood to her gun with great courage in defence of amorous ditties, which Johnson despised, till he at last silenced her by saying, "My dear lady. talk no more of this. Nonsense can be defended but by nonsense.' Mrs. Thrale then praised Garrick's talents for light gay poetry; and, as a specimen, repeated his song in "Florizel and Perdita," and dwelt with peculiar pleasure on this line: "I'd smile with the simple, and feed with the poor." JOHNSON: "Nay, my dear lady, this will never do. Poor David! Smile with the simple. What folly is that? And who would feed with the poor that can help it? No, no; let me smile with the wise, and feed with the rich." I repeated this sally to Garrick, and wondered to find his sensibility as a writer not a little irritated by it. To soothe him I observed that Johnson spared none of us; and I quoted the passage in Horace, in which he compares one who attacks his friends for the sake of a laugh, to a pushing ox, that is marked by a bunch of hay put upon his horns: "fœnum habet in cornu. "Ay," ," said Garrick, vehemently, "he has a whole mow of it." Talking of history, Johnson said, "We may know know historical facts to be true, as we may facts in common life to be true. Motives are We cannot trust to the chagenerally unknown. racters we find in history, unless when they are drawn by those who knew the persons; as those, for instance, by Sallust and by Lord Clarendon." He would not allow much merit to Whitfield's oratory. "His popularity, Sir," said he, "is chiefly owing to the peculiarity of his manner. He would be followed by crowds were he to wear a night-cap in the pulpit, or were he to preach from a tree." I know not from what spirit of contradiction he burst out into a violent declamation against the Corsicans, of whose heroism I talked in high terms. "Sir," said he, "what is all this rout about the Corsicans? They have been at war with the Genoese for upwards of twenty years, and have never yet taken their fortified towns. They might have battered down their walls and reduced them to powder in twenty years. They might have pulled the walls in pieces, and cracked It the stones with their teeth in twenty years. was in vain to argue with him upon the want of artillery; he was not to be resisted for the moment. On the evening of October 10, I presented Dr. Johnson to General Paoli.* I had greatly wished Pascal Paoli was born at Stretta, in Corsica, followed his father into exile, and was educated at the Jesuit's College at Naples. His countrymen having elected him their generalissimo, he returned to Corsica, and acted vigorously and successfully against the encroachments of the Genoese; but on their transferring the island to the French monarchy, he was eventually overpowered by its having obtained a pension of 12007. a-year, he resided army, and sought refuge in England in 1769, where until 1789. The French Revolution having caused the island of Corsica to be recognised as a department of France, Paoli went to Paris in 1790, accompanied by deputies, and presented himself at the bar of the National Assembly, where he was received with enthusiasm, and took the oath of allegiance to the French government L that two men, for whom I had the highest esteem, should meet. They met with a manly ease, mutually conscious of their own abilities, and of the abilities of each other. The General spoke Italian, and Dr. Johnson English, and understood one another very well, with a little aid of interpretation from me, in which I compared myself to an isthmus which joins two great continents. Upon Johnson's approach, the General said, "From what I have read of your works, Sir, and from what Mr. Boswell has told me of you, I have long held you in great veneration.' The General talked of languages being formed on the particular notions and manners of a people, without knowing which, we cannot know the language. We may know the direct signification of single words; but by these no beauty of expression, no sally of genius, no wit is conveyed to the mind. All this must be by allusion to other ideas. Sir," said Johnson, "you talk of language, as if you had never done anything else but study it, instead of governing a nation." The General said, "Questo un troppo gran complimento:" this is too great a compliment. Johnson answered, "I should have thought so, Sir, if I had not heard you talk." The General asked him what he thought of the spirit of infidelity which was so prevalent. JOHNSON: "Sir, this gloom of infidelity, I hope, is only a transient cloud passing through the hemisphere, which will soon be dissipated, and the sun break forth with his usual splendour." "You think then," said the General, that they will change ther principles like their clothes." JOHNSON: "Why, Sir, if they bestow no more thought on principles than on dress, it must be so." The General said, that " a great part of the fashionable infidelity was owing to a desire of showing courage. Men who have no opportunities of showing it as to things in this life, take death and futurity as objects on which to display it." JOHNSON: That is mighty foolish affectation. Fear is one of the passions of human nature, of which it is impossible to divest it. You remember that the Emperor Charles V. when he read upon the tombstone of a Spanish nobleman, 'Here lies one who never knew fear,' wittily said, Then he never snuffed a candle with his fingers.' " He talked a few words of French to the General; but finding he did not do it with facility, he asked for pen, ink, and paper, and wrote the following note : " J'ai lu dans la géographie de Lucas de Linda un Pater-noster ecrit dans une langue tout-à-fait différente de l'Italienne, et de toutes autres lesquelles se dérivent du Latin. L'auteur l'appelle linguam Corsica rusticam: elle a peut-être passé, peu à peu; mais elle a certainement prévalu autrefois dans les montagnes et dans la campagne. Le même auteur The progress of the Revolution, however, disappointed the hopes he had conceived of ameliorating the condition of his country, and encouraged by assistance from Great Britain, ne abandoned his allegiance to France. The result was a short-lived annexation to the British territory, and the eventual return of Paoli to England in embarrassed circumstances. The Government restored to him his pension, and he resided in the metropolis until his death in 1857.-ED. dit la même chose en parlant de la Sardaigne; qu'il y a deux langues dans l'Isle, une des villes, l'autre de la campagne." The General immediately informed him that the lingua rustica was only in Sardinia. Dr. Johnson went home with me, and drank tea till late in the night. He said, General Paoli had the loftiest port of any man he had ever seen." He denied that military men were always the best bred men. "Perfect good breeding," he observed, "consists in having no particular mark of any profession, but a general elegance of manners; whereas, in a military man, you can commonly distinguish the brand of a soldier, l'homme d'épée." Dr. Johnson shunned to-night any discussion of the perplexed question of fate and free will, which I attempted to agitate: "Sir," said he, "we know our will is free, and there's an end on't." He honoured me with his company at dinner on the 16th of October, at my lodgings in Old Bond-street, with Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mr. Garrick, Dr. Goldsmith, Mr. Murphy, Mr. Bickerstaff, and Mr. Thomas Davies. Garrick played round him with a fond vivacity, taking hold of the breasts of his coat, and, looking up in his face with a lively archness, complimented him on the good health which he seemed then to enjoy ; while the sage, shaking his head, beheld him with a gentle complacency. One of the company not being come at the appointed hour, I proposed, as usual upon such occasions, to order dinner to be served; adding, "Ought six people to be kept waiting for one?" "Why, yes," answered Johnson, with a delicate humanity, "if the one will suffer more by your sitting down than the six will do by waiting." Goldsmith, to divert the tedious minutes, strutted about bragging of his dress, and I believe was seriously vain of it, for his mind was wonderfully prone to such impressions, "Come, come," said Garrick, "talk no more of that. You are perhaps the worst-ch, ch!" Goldsmith was eagerly attempting to interrupt him, when Garrick went on, laughing ironically, Nay, you will always look like a gentleman; but I am talking of being well or ill drest." "Well, let me tell you," said Goldsmith, "when my tailor brought home my bloom-coloured coat, he said, Sir, I have a favour to beg of you. When any: body asks you who made your clothes, be pleased to mention John Filby, at the Harrow, in Waterlane.' "" JOHNSON: "Why, Sir, that was because he knew the strange colour would attract crowds to gaze at it, and thus they might hear of him, and see how well be could make a coat even of so absurd a colour." After dinner our conversation first turned upon Pope. Johnson said, his characters of men were admirably drawn, those of women not so well. He repeated to us, in his forcible melodious While he was talking loudly in praise of those manner, the concluding lines of the Dunciad.* Mr. Langton informed me that he once related to Johnson (on the authority of Spence) that Pope himself admired those lines so much, that when he repeated them, his voice faltered; "and well it might, Sir," said Johnson, "for they are noble lines."-J. BOSWELL JUN. impression is divided; you pass on by computation, from one stage of the tremendous space to another. Had the girl in 'The Mourning Bride' said, she could not cast her shoe to the top of one of the pillars in the temple, it would not have aided the idea, but weakened it." Talking of a barrister who had a bad utterance, some one (to rouse Johnson) wickedly said, that he was unfortunate in not having been taught oratory by Sheridan. JOHNSON: "Nay, Sir, if he had been taught by Sheridan, he would have cleared the room." GARRICK: "Sheridan has too much vanity to be a good man."-We shall now see Johnson's mode of defending a man; taking him into his own hands, and discriminating. JOHNSON: "No, Sir. There is, to be sure, in Sheridan, something to reprehend and everything to laugh at; but, Sir, he is not a bad man. No, Sir; were mankind to be divided into good and bad, he would stand considerably within the ranks of good. And, Sir, it must be allowed that Sheridan excels in plain declamation, though he can exhibit no character." I should, perhaps, have suppressed this disquisition concerning a person of whose merit and worth I think with respect, had he not attacked Johnson so outrageously in his Life of Swift, and at the same time, treated us, his admirers, as a set of pigmies. He who has provoked the lash of wit, cannot complain that he smarts from it. lines, one of the company ventured to say, "Too fine for such a poem :-a poem on what?" JOHNSON (with a disdainful look): "Why, on dunces. It was worth while being a dunce then. Ah, Sir, hadst thou lived in those days! It is not worth while being a dunce now, when there are no wits." Bickerstaff observed, as a peculiar circumstance, that Pope's fame was higher when he was alive than it was then. Johnson said, his Pastorals were poor things, though the versification was fine. He told us, with high satisfaction, the anecdote of Pope's inquiring who was the author of his "London," and saying, he will be soon déterre. He observed, that in Dryden's poetry there were passages drawn from a profundity which Pope could never reach. He repeated some fine lines on love, by the former (which I have now forgotten), and gave great applause to the character of Zimri. Goldsmith said, that Pope's character of Addison showed a deep knowledge of the human heart. Johnson said, that the description of the temple, in "The Mourning Bride," was the finest poetical passage he had ever read; he recollected none in Shakspeare equal to it." But," said Garrick, all alarmed for "the God of his idolatry," "we know not the extent and variety of his powers. We are to suppose there are such passages in his works. Shakspeare must not suffer from the badness of our memories." Johnson, diverted by this enthusiastic jealousy, went on with great ardour: "No, Mrs. Montague, a lady distinguished for having Sir; Congreve has nature;" (smiling on the written an Essay on Shakspeare, being mentionedtragic eagerness of Garrick); but composing REYNOLDS: "I think that essay does her honour." himself, he added, "Sir, this is not comparing JOHNSON: "Yes, Sir; it does her honour, but Congreve on the whole with Shakspeare on the it would do nobody else honour. I have, indeed, whole; but only maintaining that Congreve has not read it all. But when I take up the end of a one finer passage than any that can be found in web, and find it packthread, I do not expect, by Shakspeare. Sir, a man may have no more than looking further, to find embroidery. Sir, I will ten guineas in the world, but he may have those venture to say, there is not one sentence of true ten guineas in one piece; and so may have a finer criticism in her book." GARRICK : "But, Sir, piece than a man who has ten thousand pounds: surely it shows how much Voltaire has mistaken but then he has only one ten-guinea piece.-What Shakspeare, which nobody else has done." JOHNI mean is, that you can show me no passage, SON: "Sir, nobody else has thought it worth while. where there is simply a description of material And what merit is here in that? You may as objects, without any intermixture of moral no-well praise a schoolmaster for whipping a boy who tions, which produces such an effect." Mr. Murphy mentioned Shakspeare's description of the night before the battle of Agincourt; but it was observed it had men in it. Mr. Davies suggested the speech of Juliet, in which she figures herself awakening in the tomb of her ancestors. Some one mentioned the description of Dover Cliff JOHNSON: "No, Sir; it should be all precipice all vacuum. The crows impede your fall. The diminished appearance of the boats, and other circumstances, are all very good description; but do not impress the mind at once with the horrible idea of immense height. The has construed ill. No, Sir, there is no real criticism in it: none showing the beauty of thought, as formed on the workings of the human heart." The admirers of this Essay* may be offended at the slighting manner in which Johnson spoke of it; but let it be remembered, that he gave his honest opinion unbiassed by any prejudice, or any proud jealousy of a woman intruding herself into the chair of criticism; for Sir Joshua Reynolds has told me, that when the Essay first came out, and it was not known who had written it, John Of whom I acknowledge myself to be one, consider. ing it as a piece of the secondary or comparative species of criticism; and not of that profound species which alone Dr. Johnson would allow to be "real criticism.' It is, besides, clearly and elegantly expressed, and has done effectually what it professed to do; namely, vindicated Shakspeare from the misrepresentations of Voltaire; and considering how many young people were misled by his witty, though false observations, Mrs. Montague's Essay was of service to Shakspeare with a certain class of readers, and is, therefore, entitled to praise. Johnson, I am assured, allowed the merit which I have stated, saying (with reference to Voltaire), "it is conclusive ad hominem."-BOSWELL. L2 son wondered how Sir Joshua could like it. At this time Sir Joshua himself had received no information concerning the author, except being assured by one of our most eminent literati, that it was clear its author did not know the Greek tragedies in the original. One day at Sir Joshua's table, when it was related that Mrs. Montague, in an excess of compliment to the author of a modern tragedy, had exclaimed, "I tremble for Shakspeare," Johnson said, "When Shakspeare has got for his rival, and Mrs. Montague for his defender, he is in a poor state indeed." " Johnson proceeded: "The Scotchman has taken the right method in his Elements of Criticism.' I do not mean that he has taught us anything; but he has told us old things in a new way.' MURPHY: "He seems to have read a great deal of French criticism, and wants to make it his own; as if he had been for years anatomising the heart of man, and peeping into every cranny of it." GOLDSMITH: It is easier to write that book than to read it." JOHNSON: "We have an example of true criticism in Burke's 'Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful; and, if I recollect, there is also Du Bos; and Bouhours, who shows all beauty to depend on truth. There is no great merit in telling how many plays have ghosts in them, and how this ghost is better than that. You must show how terror is impressed on the human heart. In the description of night in Macbeth, the beetle and the bat detract from the general idea of darkness,-inspissated gloom." Politics being mentioned, he said: "This petitioning is a new mode of distressing government, and a mighty easy one. I will undertake to get petitions either against quarter guineas or half guineas, with the help of a little hot wine. There must be no yielding to encourage this. The object is not important enough. We are not to blow up half a dozen palaces, because one cottage is burning." The conversation then took another turn. JOHNSON: "It is amazing what ignorance of certain points one sometimes finds in men of eminence. A wit about town, who wrote Latin bawdy verses, asked me, how it happened that England and Scotland, which were once two kingdoms, were now one; and Sir Fletcher Norton did not seem to know that there were such publications as the Reviews." "The ballad of Hardyknute has no great merit, if it be really ancient. People talk of nature. But mere obvious nature may be exhibited with very little power of mind." On Thursday, October 19, I passed the evening with him at his house. He advised me to complete a Dictionary of words peculiar to Scotland, of which I showed him a specimen. "Sir," said he, "Ray has made a collection of north country words. By collecting those of your country, you will do a useful thing towards the history of the language." He bade me also go on with collections which I was making upon the antiquities of It is unquestionably a modern fiction. It was written by Sir John Bruce, of Kinross, and first published at Edinburgh in folio, in 1719. See "Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry," vol ii., pp. 96, 111, 4th edit.MALONE. " " Scotland. "Make a large book-a folio." BosWELL: "But of what use will it be, Sir?" JOHNSON: "Never mind the use; do it." I complained that he had not mentioned Garrick in his Preface to Shakspeare: and asked him if he did not admire him. JOHNSON: "Yes, as 'a poor player, who frets and struts his hour upon the stage-as a shadow." BOSWELL: "But has he not brought Shakspeare into notice?" JOHNSON: "Sir, to allow that, would be to lampoon the age. Many of Shakspeare's plays are the worse for being acted: Macbeth, for instance.' BOSWELL: "What, Sir! is nothing gained by decoration and action? Indeed, I do wish that you had mentioned Garrick." JOHNSON: "My dear Sir, had I mentioned him, I must have mentioned many more: Mrs. Pritchard, Mrs. Cibber, -nay, and Mr. Cibber too: he, too, altered Shakspeare." BOSWELL: "You have read his apology, Sir?" JOHNSON: "Yes, it is very entertaining. But as for Cibber himself, taking from his conversation all that he ought not to have said, he was a poor creature. I remember when he brought me one of his Odes to have my opinion of it, I could not bear such nonsense, and would not let him read it to the end: so little respect had I for that great man! (laughing). Yet I remember Richardson wondering that I could treat him with familiarity." I mentioned to him that I had seen the execution of several convicts at Tyburn, two days before, and that none of them seemed to be under any concern. JOHNSON: "Most of them, Sir, have never thought at all." BOSWELL: "But is not the fear of death natural to man?" JOHNSON: "So much so, Sir, that the whole of life is but keeping away the thoughts of it." He then, in a low and earnest tone, talked of his meditating upon the awful hour of his own dissolution, and in what manner he should conduct himself upon that occasion: "I know not," said he, "whether I should wish to have a friend by me, or have it all between GOD and myself." Talking of our feeling for the distresses of others-JOHNSON: "Why, Sir, there is much noise made about it, but it is greatly exaggerated. No, Sir, we have a certain degree of feeling to prompt us to do good; more than that, providence does not intend. It would be misery to no purpose.' BOSWELL: "But suppose now, Sir, that one of your intimate friends were apprehended for an offence for which he might be hanged." JOHNSON: "I should do what I could to bail him, and give him any other assistance; but if he were once fairly hanged, I should not suffer.' BOSWELL: Would you eat your dinner that day, Sir?" JOHNSON: "Yes, Sir, and eat it as if he were eating with me. Why, there's Baretti, who is to be tried for his life to-morrow; friends have risen up for him on every side; yet if he should be hanged, none of them will eat a slice of plum pudding the less. Sir, that sympathetic feeling goes a very little way in depressing the mind." I told him that I had dined lately at Foote's, who showed me a letter which he had received from Tom Davies, telling him that he had not been able to sleep from the concern he felt on account of "this sad affair of Baretti," begging of him to try if he could suggest anything that might |