"TO DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON.

on two points, the Middlesex election, and | then he will be almost as thankful for the the taxation of the Americans by the Brit-bill as I am for the letter that enclosed it. ish houses of representatives. There is a "If I do not lose, what I hope always to charm in the word parliament, so I avoid keep, my reverence for transcendent merit, it. As I am a steady and a warm tory, II shall continue to be, with unalterable regret that the king does not see it to be fidelity, madam, your most obliged, and better for him to receive constitutional sup- most humble servant, plies from his American subjects by the "SAM. JOHNSON."] voice of their own assemblies, where his royal person is represented, than through the medium of his British subjects. I am persuaded that the power of the crown, which I wish to increase, would be greater when in contact with all its dominions, than if the rays of regal bounty were to shine' upon America through that dense and troubled body a modern British parliament. But, enough of this subject; for your angry voice at Ashbourne upon it still sounds awful in my mind's ears.'-I ever am, my dear sir, your most affectionate humble servant, "JAMES BOSWELL."

"MADAM,-And so you are alarmMS. ed, naughty lady? You might know that I was ill enough when Mr. Thrale brought you my excuse. Could you think that I missed the honour of being at (your) table for any slight reason? But you (have) too many to miss any one of us, and I am (proud) to be remembered

at last.

"I am much better. A little cough (still) remains which will not confine me. Το houses (like yours) of great delicacy I am not willing to bring it.

"Now, dear madam, we must talk of business. Poor Davies, the bankrupt bookseller, is soliciting his friends to collect a small sum for the re-purchase of part of his household stuff. Several of them gave him five guineas. It would be an honour to him to owe part of his relief to Mrs. Montagu.

"Let me thank you, madam, once more for your inquiry; you have, perhaps, among your numerous train not one that values a kind word or a kind look more than, madam, your most humble servant,

"SAM. JOHNSON."

"DR. JOHNSON TO MRS. MONTAGU. "6th March, 1778.

"MADAM,-I hope Davies 2, who does not want wit, does not want gratitude, and

1 Alluding to a line in his " Vanity of Human Wishes," describing Cardinal Wolsey in a state

of elevation:

"Through him the rays of regal bounty shine." BOSWELL.

2 [Tom Davies, the bookseller, in whose behalf he more than once appealed to the charity of Mrs. Montagu.-ED.]

"Edinburgh, 12th March, 1778. "MY DEAR SIR,-The alarm of your late illness distressed me but a few hours; for on the evening of the day that it reached me, I found it contradicted in The London Chronicle,' which I could depend upon as authentick concerning you, Mr. Strahan being the printer of it. I did not see the paper in which the approaching extinction of a bright luminary' was announced. Sir William Forbes told me of it; and he says he saw me so uneasy, that he did not give me the report in such strong terms as he read it. He afterwards sent me a letter from Mr. Langton to him, which relieved me much. I am, however, not quite easy as I have not heard from you; and now I shall not have that comfort before I see you, for I set out for London to-morrow before the post comes in. I hope to be with you on Wednesday morning: and I ever am, with the highest veneration, my dear sir, your most obliged, faithful, and affectionate humble servant, "JAMES BOSWELL."

On Wednesday, March 18, I arrived in London, and was informed by good Mr. Francis, that his master was better, and was gone to Mr. Thrale's at Streatham, to which place I wrote. to him, begging to know when he would be in town. He was not expected for some time; but next day, having called on Dr. Taylor, in Dean'syard, Westminster, I found him there, and was told he had come to town for a few -hours. He met me with his usual kindness, but instantly returned to the writing of something on which he was employed when I came in, and on which he seemed much intent. Finding him thus engaged, I made my visit very short, and had no more of his conversation, except his expressing a serious regret that a friend of ours 3 was living at too much expense, considering how poor an appearance he made. "If," said he, "a man has splendour from his expense, if he spends his money in pride or in pleasure, he has value; but if he lets others spend it for him, which is most commonly the case, he has no advantage from

it."

On Friday, March 20, I found him at his own house, sitting with Mrs. Williams, and was informed that the room formerly allot

3 [Mr. Langton.-ED.]

however, Mrs. Thrale ventured to blame their ingratitude, and condemn their conduct, he would instantly set about softening the one and justifying the other; and finished commonly by telling her, that she knew not how to make allowances for situations she never experienced.]

ted to me was now appropriated to a chari-ed on one was wormwood to the rest. If, table purpose; Mrs. Desmoulins 1, and, I think, her daughter, and a Miss Carmichael, being all lodged in it. Such was his humanity, and such his generosity, that Mrs. Desmoulins herself told me he allowed her half a guinea a week. Let it be remembered, that this was above a twelfth part of his pension.

We retired from Mrs. Williams to anHis liberality, indeed, was at all periods other room. Tom Davies soon after joined of his life very remarkable. Mr. Howard, us. He had now unfortunately failed in his of Lichfield, at whose father's house John- circumstances, and was much indebted to son had in his early years been kindly re- Dr. Johnson's kindness for obtaining for ceived, told me, that when he was a boy at him many alleviations of his distress. Afthe Charter-house, his father wrote to him ter he went away, Johnson blamed his folly to go and pay a visit to Mr. Samuel John- in quitting the stage, by which he and his son, which he accordingly did, and found wife got five hundred pounds a year. I him in an upper room, of poor appearance. | said, I believed it was owing to Churchill's Johnson received him with much courte-attack upon him, ousness, and talked a great deal to him, as to a schoolboy, of the course of his education, and other particulars. When he afterwards came to know and understand the high character of this great man, he recollected his condescension with wonder. He added, that when he was going away, Mr. Johnson presented him with half a guinea; and this, said Mr. Howard, was at a time when he probably had not another.

ED.

Piozzi, p. 164.

66 He mouths a sentence as curs mouth a bone."

JOHNSON. "I believe so too, sir. But what a man is he who is to be driven from the stage by a line? Another line would have driven him from his shop!"

I told him that I was engaged as counsel at the bar of the house of commons to oppose a road-bill in the county of Stirling, and asked him what mode he would advise me to follow in addressing such an audiJOHNSON. "Why, sir, you must provide yourself with a good deal of extraneous matter, which you are to produce occasionally, so as to fill up the time; for you must consider, that they do not listen much. If you begin with the strength of your cause, it may be lost before they begin to listen. When you catch a moment of attention, press the merits of the question upon them.". He said, as to one point of the merits, that he thought "it would be a wrong thing to deprive the small landhold

[Johnson's patience was as much tried by these inmates as his gene-ence. rosity. The dissensions that the many odd inhabitants of his house chose to live in distressed and mortified him exceedingly. He really was sometimes afraid of going home, because he was so sure to be met at the door with numberless complaints; and he used to lament pathetically to Mrs. Thrale, and to Mr. Sastres, the Italian master, who was much his favourite, that they made his life miserable from the impossibility he found of making theirs happy, when every favour he bestow-ers of the privilege of assessing themselves

for making and repairing the high roads; 1 Daughter of Dr. Swinfen, Johnson's god- ty without a good reason, which was alit was destroying a certain portion of liberfather, and widow of Mr. Desmoulins, a writingmaster.-BoSWELL.

2 [In Malone's MS. notes, he, on more than one occasion, reprobates "the misrepresenta

tions," as he calls them, "of this mendacious lady," on the subject of Johnson's inmates and pensioners; and he particularly notices this passage, from which, he says, "it might be inferred that he had twenty in his house, whereas Mrs. Willia:ns, Mrs. Desmoulins occasionally, and Levett, with his two servants, composed the whole." This is the style in which Malone and Boswell usually treated Mrs. Piozzi; and, as generally happens, she is right, or, at least, justifiable in what she says. Surely, in this particular case, when we find that, besides Dr. Johnson, his house contained Mr. Levett, Mrs. Williams, Miss Carmichael, Mrs. Desmoulins, Miss Desmoulins, a negro, and a female servant, Mrs. Piozzi was justified in talking of his "many inmates."-ED.]

ways a bad thing." When I mentioned
this observation next day to Mr. Wilkes,
"What! does he talk of
he pleasantly said,
liberty? Liberty is as ridiculous in his
advice as to the best mode of speaking at
mouth as religion in mine." Mr. Wilkes's
the bar of the house of commons was not
more respectful towards the senate than that
of Dr. Johnson. "Be as impudent as you
can, as merry as you can, and say whatever
comes uppermost. Jack Lee 3 is the best

3 [Mr. Lee, afterwards solicitor-general in the Rockingham administration. "He was a man of strong parts, though of coarse manners, and who never hesitated to express in the coarsest language whatever he thought."-Wraxall's Mem. vol. ii. p. 237. He was particularly distinguished by the violence of his invective against the person

man of pleasing conversation, and was ac-
companied by a young gentleman, his son.
I mentioned that I had in my possession
the Life of Sir Robert Sibbald, the celebrat-
ed Scottish antiquary, and founder of the
royal college of physicians at Edinburgh,
in the original manuscript in his own hand
writing; and that it was, I believed, the
most natural and candid account of himself
that ever was given by any man. As an
instance, he tells that the Duke of Perth,
then chancellor of Scotland, pressed him
very much to come over to the Roman Cath-
olick faith that he resisted all his grace's
arguments for a considerable time, till one
day he felt himself, as it were, instantane-
ously convinced, and with tears in his eyes
ran into the duke's arms, and embraced the
ancient religion; that he continued very
steady in it for some time, and accompanied
his grace to London one winter, and lived
in his household; that there he found the
rigid fasting prescribed by the church very
severe upon him; that this disposed him to
reconsider the controversy; and having then
seen that he was in the wrong, he returned
to Protestantism. I talked of some time or
other publishing this curious life. MRS.
THRALE. "I think you had as well let
alone that publication. To discover such
weakness exposes a man when he is gone."
JOHNSON. "Nay, it is an honest picture
of human nature. How often are the pri-
mary motives of our greatest actions as
small as Sibbald's for his reconversion!"
MRS. THRALE. "But may they not as
well be forgotten?" JOHNSON. "No,
madam; a man loves to review his own
mind. That is the use of a diary or jour-
nal." LORD TRIMLESTOWN. 66 True, sir.
As the ladies love to see themselves in a
glass, so a man likes to see himself in his
journal." Boswell. "A very pretty al-
lusion." JOHNSON. "Yes, indeed." Bos-
WELL. “And as a lady adjusts her dress
before a mirrour, a man adjusts his charac-
ter by looking at his journal." I next year
found the very same thought in Atterbury's
"Funeral Sermon on Lady Cutts; "where,
having mentioned her Diary, he says, "In

! [Boswell seems much pleased with his own ingenuity, and the coincidence of thoughts between Bishop Atterbury and himself; but I don't quite understand his expression "a man adjusting his character." If he means that a man, by referring to his journal, as a lady to her looking-glass, improves his mind and conduct daily, I suspect there is more of fancy than truth in it. Men may consult their diaries and read their conduct in the day that is gone by; but, generally, to as little advantage as the person figured by St. James in a similar strain: "He beholds his natural face in a glass; he beholdeth himself and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was."-Chap. i. v. 23.-HALL.]

this glass she every day dressed her mind.” This is a proof of coincidence, and not of plagiarism; for I had never read that sermon before.

Next morning, while we were at breakfast, Johnson gave a very earnest recommendation of what he himself practise l with the utmost conscientiousness: I mean a strict attention to truth 2, even in the most minute particulars. "Accustom your children," said he, "constantly to this: if a thing happened at one window, and they, when relating it, say that it happened at another, do not let it pass, but instantly check them: you do not know where deviation from truth will end." BOSWELL." It may come to the door: and when once an account is at all varied in one circumstance, it may by degrees be varied so as to be totally different from what really happened." Our lively hostess, whose fancy was impapatient of the rein, fidgeted at this, and ventured to say, "Nay, this is too much. If Dr. Johnson should forbid me to drink tea, I would comply, as I should feel the restraint only twice a day; but little variations in narrative must happen a thousand times a day, if one is not perpetually watching." JOHNsoN. "Well, madam, and you ought to be perpetually watching. It is more from carelessness about truth, than from intentional lying, that there is so much falsehood in the world."

Essay

In his review of Dr. Warton's " on the Writings and Genius of Pope," Johnson has given the following salutary caution upon this subject: "Nothing but experience could evince the frequency of false information, or enable any man to conceive that so many groundless reports should be propagated as every man of eminence may hear of himself. Some men relate what they think as what they know ; some men of confused memories and habitual inaccuracy ascribe to one man what belongs to another; and some talk on without thought or care. A few men are sufficient to broach falsehoods, which are afterwards innocently diffused by successive relaters 3." Had he lived to read what Sir John Hawkins and Mrs. Piozzi have related concerning himself, how much would he have found his observation illustrated 4! He was indeed so much impressed with the prevalence of falsehood, voluntary or unintentional, that I never knew any person who, upon hearing an extraordinary circumstance told, discovered more of the incredulus odi. He would say with a significant look and decisive tone, " It is not so.

Do not tell this again." He inculcated | ent several eminent men, whom I shall not upon all his friends the importance of per- name, but distinguish their parts in the conpetual vigilance against the slightest degrees versation by different letters. of falsehood; the effect of which, as Sir Joshua Reynolds observed to me, has been, that all who were of his school are distinguished for a love of truth and accuracy, which they would not have possessed in the same degree if they had not been acquainted with Johnson.

Talking of ghosts, he said, "It is wonderful that five thousand years have now elapsed since the creation of the world, and still it is undecided whether or not there has ever been an instance of the spirit of any person appearing after death. All argument is against it; but all belief is for it." He said, "John Wesley's conversation is good, but he is never at leisure. He is always obliged to go at a certain hour. This is very disagreeable to a man who loves to fold his legs and have out his talk, as I do."

F. "I have been looking at this famous antique marble dog of Mr. Jennings, valued at a thousand guineas, said to be Alcibiades's dog." JOHNSON. "His tail then must be docked. That was the mark of Alcibiades's dog." E. "A thousand guineas! The representation of no animal whatever is worth so much. At this rate, a dead dog would indeed be better than a living lion." JOHNSON. "Sir, it is not the worth of the thing, but of the skill in forming it, which is so highly estimated. Every thing that enlarges the sphere of human powers, that shows man he can do what he thought he could not do, is valuable. The first man who balanced a straw upon his nose; Johnson 3, who rode upon three horses at a time; in short, all such men deserve the applause of mankind, not on account of the use of what they did, but of the dexterity which they exhibited." BOSWELL. "Yet a misapplication of time and assiduity is not to be encouraged. Addison, in one of his Spectators,' commends the judgment of a king, who, as a suitable reward to a man that by long perseverance had attained to the art of throwing a barley-corn through the eye of a needle, gave him a bushel of barley." JOHNSON. "He must have been a king of Scotland, where barley is scarce." F. The following plausible but over-prudent "One of the most remarkable antique counsel on this subject is given by an Italian wri- figures of an animal is the boar at Florter, quoted by "Rhedi de generatione insecta-ence." JOHNSON. "The first boar that rum," with the epithet of " divini poetæ.'

On Friday, April 3, I dined with him in London, in a company 2 where were pressometimes discoloured and misrepresented; and after all that Mr. Boswell and Mr. Malone have said of Mrs. Piozzi, nothing is proved-indeed nothing is asserted-(and the assertions are often disproved)-but verbal inaccuracies, such as saying "old woman" for "old man" and so forth. A majority of Mrs. Piozzi's anecdotes are confirmed by Mr. Boswell's own account.-ED.]

'Sempre a quel ver ch' a faccia di menzogna Dee l'uom chiudere le labbra quanto ei puote; Perchè senza colpa fa vergogna."-BOSWELL.

2 [THE CLUB. This seems to be the only instance in which Mr. Boswell has ventured to give in any detail the conversation of that society; and we see that on this occasion he has not mentioned the names, but has disguised the parties under what look like initials. All these letters, however-even with the names of the company before us-it is not easy to appropriate. It appears by the books of the Club, as Mr. Hatchett informs the editor, that the company on that evening consisted of Dr. Johnson, president, Mr. Burke, Mr. Boswell, Dr. George Fordyce, Mr. Gibbon, Dr. Johnson (again named), Sir Joshua Reynolds, Lord Upper Ossory, and Mr. R. B. Sheridan. In Mr. Boswell's account, the initial E. no doubt stands for Edmund Burke; F., in allusion to his family name of Fitzpatrick, probably means Lord Upper Ossory; but the appropriation of the other letters is very difficult. The editor suspects, from some circumstances of the conversation, and from the double entry of Johnson's name, that, although it was his night to be president, he was not actually in the chair-perhaps from having come too late. If this suspicion be correct, the initial P. wou'd mean President; but it would be still in doubt who the president VOL. II. 19

6

is well made in marble should be preserved as a wonder. When men arrive at a facility of making boars well, then the workmanship is not of such value; but they should however be preserved as examples, and as a greater security for the restoration of the art, should it be lost."

É. "We hear prodigious complaints at was. J. probably meant Sir Joshua Reynolds, and R. might be Richard B. Sheridan; for though some of the observations made by R. are not very like Mr. Sheridan's style, it must be recollected that he was at this period a very young man, and not yet in parliament. The medical observations, and the allusions to Holland, made by C., suggest that Dr. Fordyce, a physician who was educated in Holland, was meant, although the editor cannot surmise why he should have been designated by the letter C. If these conjectures be just, it would follow that P., the President, was Mr. Gibbon. Why Mr. Boswell did not adopt one uniform mode of designating his interlocutors, and why he has involved a simple matter in so much mystery, is unaccountable. The editor offers his explanation of the four last names merely as a conjecture, with which he himself is not entirely satisfied. Sir James Mackintosh and Mr. Chalmers are equally dubious.-ED.] 3 [See ante, v. i. p. 180.-ED.]