was happy in an instant," a happiness that often dreaming hits on, that reason and sanity could not so prosperously be delivered of." There was, methought, in that unearthly retirement, Rousseau confessing himself to a small circle in a most eternal style," under the shade of melancholy boughs:" Rabelais was laughing unceasingly at the very shadows of men. Gibbon was meditating the decline and fall of a fallen world, and Burke mouthing out impetuous and eloquent exclamations against the internal policies of the shades. There was Fielding observing all things, and Goldsmith walking about in a smile, and in his peach-blossomed coat. "All the men that ever lived were there." I roamed at first confusedly and delightedly for some hours, listening to this philosopher, hearkening to that poet, laughing now at a wit, then shuddering at a bitter satirist. I stopped to see old Walton angling in the perpetual and beautiful waters, and catching etherial barbel with heavenly tackle. I paused to look on, while Congreve and Voltaire were playing a game at magic bowls, and alternately, as the proverb hath it, getting rubbers; and I saw Milton and Jeremy Taylor knocking down airy nine-pins with ideal balls. In this world of endless change, wonder, and amusement, I wandered, till I was quieted by fatigue and variety; and then having found a snug party of long established chatterers, I sat me down, and indulged in a delightful and spirited conversation. As I had just left the upper air, the talk naturally took a turn towards the living authors, and I was surprised to find, from so many works falling in to the shades, that they were thoroughly read and known in these dim abodes. My companions were those, of whom the Johnson's club was formed. Sir Joshua Reynolds sat next me, but his colour seemed to have faded. Boswell was next to Reynolds, and Garrick next to Boswell. The old doctor sat in a most majestic and cumbrous attitude, en veloped in an old cloudy wig. I fancied myself sitting at the club, and the conversation, running on various topics, amused me agreeably. I was so well pleased with Dr Johnson, and listened so earnestly, that Boswell, who watched me closely, took me

VOL. V.

aside, and slipping a manuscript into my hands, whispered, "Here is a record of the great man's talk on those poets who live yet above us. Read it alone. It is the breathing of immortality. It is as fine as all that comes from our immortal lexicogra pher." My curiosity to read this paper soon led me from the club, which I left in deep talk, from which I dare to say it hath not yet arisen. Under a quiet shade I read as follows. It bears evident marks of having been written by Boswell, as part of a supplement to the life of Johnson. "Doctor Johnson and myself were! first at the club to-night. He looked unusually morose; and I ventured to remark to him, that something must have ruffled his temper. He looked angry. I said, "Nay, Sir, I do not mean that you are dull, but that you are serious." His features relaxedfrom their severity. "Well, Bozzy, Bozzy, but I do not wish to be subjected to the charge of immoderate dissatisfaction. Inordinate gloom is burthensome, and I do not like to be accused of bearing it. I am serious, but not dull: Do not give me cause to think you dull, without being se rious." I did not charge you, Sir," I replied," with inordinate gloom." "Sir, you commented painfully on the aberrations of my temper. Sir ! I do not like to be remarked upon." "I only observed"-" Sir, you only observed what humanity should have. blotted from your tongue. It is cruelty to observe upon those metamorphoses of the features, which betray pain of heart. Do not, Sir, accustom yourself to keep watch over the irritability of the mind; you will, one day or other, write mine down as a tempestuous temper, and fill a logbook with the storms you have raised." I felt hurt that I had annoyed this amiable man with my idle questions, and petty observations. I therefore took his hand in mine, and assured him, that "I did not mean"No, no," interrupted he, "I know you did not, I knew you did not: you never mean any thing. Never, Bozzy, never." Thus ended our little difference, which only impressed me with a deeper sense of the amiability and sense of my illustrious friend. I ventured to ask him (for I had long treasured the question in my own mind, from a pardonable curiosity to

know what so lofty a man would say of himself) what he thought of his own fame. I waited anxiously for his answer. "Sir, I think it is universal, and I am satisfied. But you have held the trumpet to Fame's mouth. I have signalized my mind; you have immortalized my body. I have shewn the vigours of the human intellect, and have pointed out the frailties of human passion. You have told the world all about my love of my tea and my cat. You have shewn me equally doating on the Indian beverage and the whiskered quadruped. Sir, I loved my cat." Here Sir Joshua Reynolds joined us. He entered with a copy of an obscure pamphlet, called the "Catalogue Raisonnée" in his hand. He asked Dr Johnson if he had read it. "I have, Sir. It is the essence of weakness. It is the only tribute which Folly could pay to the immortality of Genius. But, Sir, it is a cloud which will steal over modern art, and darken it in the eyes of the world.""I see," said Sir Joshua, 'that much ribaldry is thrown over all the possessors of old pictures.' "Sir," rejoined the Doctor, "if painters abuse their patrons, particularly trade painters, the patrons will abandon the painters. Rich men are not lavish on their calumniators. Abuse will never scare away fame! neither will insolence procure it. Sir, I take it that the author of the book is a fool and a licensed painter." I hinted to the great critic that it was not quite right to join the two names. "Sir,' said he to me hastily, "the author has joined the two names, not I. He wantons in all the cant of the art, and feels not one atom of its inspiration; he may be an academician, and I think he is." But," said I, " Is there not some wit in the pamphlet ?" "No, Sir. The author is not one of Shakespeare's fools. He is not a fool and a wit at the same time. He says a great deal, and nothing to the purpose. His weakness is a weapon in the hands of his intemperance. He enriches his folly with his indecency. Sir, the pamphlet is a witless pamphlet." Sir. Joshua agreed with the doctor in de spising the thing, and I agreed with both."What think you, Sir, of Camp bell ás a poet ?". I put this question to him with some alarm, knowing that Campbell was a Scotchman, and knowing the good and amiable man's

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antipathy to the Scotch. He answered, "I think Campbell a poet. He has written little, but he has written well. He succeeds in the lofty, and excels in the pathetic. I read his 'Gertrude of Wyoming' lately, and think it a pleasing poem. He has made Pennsylvania a pretty place, Sir."-"Do you think, Sir," said I," that he should write oftener?"-" Yes, Sir, unless he thinks he should write worse. He seems to me an idle raan, which is not national in him. But Campbell is a poet, and I like him well." Sir Joshua asked the great man if he had read any of Moore's works. "I have read them, Sir, and I like their fancies vastly; but they are too classical for the young, and too luxurious for the old; they confuse youth with a mystic depravity, and stimulate age with amorous recollections."-" But," said Sir Joshua, "you speak now of his early poems; there is surely great feeling and unblemished fancy in his later productions."-" His Irish Melodies are, indeed, the melodies of Ireland. They are national, Sir, Moore is a patriot as well as a poet. makes me love his country. But he should not continue to circulate the melodious immoralities of his boyhood. When once the Muse forfeits her chastity, she stains her beauty, and insults her own comeliness. Moore, Sir, writes such songs as will sing of themselves; all other writers write such as no one can sing." I observed, that Moore appeared to have read the old Theological writers well. "Sir, he has ; and in his boyish books he tacked the notes of old Divinity on the verses of young Desire. Sir, he made Anacreon and Martin Luther join hands, and dance a reel together. He made Beda hold a candle to the Devil." Sir Joshua Reynolds thought that Moore was more powerful in the fanciful than in the pathetic. I ventured to support the same opinion. "You are both wrong. Moore is as commanding in his pathos as he is captivating in his fancy. He would sooner make me weep than dance. He goes deep into the heart-if a man has one." I spoke of his sociality.

He

Sir," said the great moralist, "Moore is a sprightly man." I ob served that it was said he sang well. "Sir," said the Doctor angrily" that has nothing to do with the nature of his poetry. Singing is not genius.

Moore's immortality will not depend on his own voice, but on the voice of distant ages. You stray from the argument.' I was silent for a time after this rebuke from the illustrious man, and felt hurt that I had hazarded an opinion which Dr Johnson disapproved. But Sir Joshua Reynolds spoke of Crabbe as a powerful writer of the pathetic. "Aye! Crabbe was known to me when I was mortal. He is a stern and vigorous chronicler of the poor. But he becomes poor from his society. His lines are very pleasant to me, for I remember his name with affection. Crabbe will never be universally liked; he writes too plainly for the fanciful, and too purely for the voluptuous. His muse walks about on the earth; she has no wings. Some of his descriptions of simple rustic beauty would have suited your pencil, my friend. You paint children in a pretty manner." Sir Joshua said that he was fearful of painting from poetry, after his failure in Dante. "True, Sir; I did not like your attack on Ugolino. Dante had done you no harm, and you owed him no grudge." Here I mentioned the name of Rogers, and spoke of my admiration of it." Bozzy, Bozzy you are admiring Goldsmith, and don't know it. Rogers is an elegant poacher on the manor, of which Goldy is the lord. The pleasures of memory are melancholy things to me. He might as well call them the comforts of unhappiness. The past becomes a shadow, and shadows have no brightness. Rogers pleases without informing, and pains without improving. Sir, you may like Rogers, but you must not love him."" But surely, Sir, he is very graceful and very classical."-" Yes, Sir; but so is a dancing Apollo in an Italian ballet: you are amused, but never instructed. Rogers writes good polished notes, but his verses are gloomy and hollow: he puts brass-headed nails on a coffin: He clouds the future with the shadows of the past. He is eternally melodious, but never sublime. His poetry is sickly with perpetual sweetness, and doleful from its superabundance of pleasure. He has the fault of never being faulty, and weighs you down with insufferable correctness. Sir, Rogers is not a great poet; he is a pretty rhymster, Sir."-" What think you, Doctor, of Southey? Is he not a

great poet?" I felt that I had put a lucky question to him, for his features bespoke the workings of his mind. "Southey, Sir, is a vast writer. He inundates one with a deluge of prose and verse. I would not be the Muse of this bard for all the honours she may get. Her place is a place of allwork. Southey, Sir, is a Court poet; and I now think that a man cannot speak freely and truly there at the same time. He has genius, but he wants moderation. His mind thinks more than his hand can write; and he thinks he is thinking when he is not. His hand writes much more than posterity will read." Sir Joshua thought that his gerius was "beautiful, and singularly wild, and original."-"Yes, Sir; it is beautiful from its originality, and original from its singular wildness. To write mád improbabilities is as easy as lying.' But posterity will question their worth, and reject the faulty accordingly. The Curse of Kehama is à pleasant fiction, and the lies are well gilded; the Lay of the Laureate is not so pleasant a one. Southey will never succeed when he lavishes divinity on a review, and enthusiasm on a potentate."-"But surely, Sir, (Í was very careful how I crossed the great moralist with any unlucky opinion;) but surely the rapidity with which Mr Southey writes may be taken as a pretty good proof of the genuine feeling that actuates him?" "No, Sir; the velocity of his pen is no evidence of its vigour. A dove flies swiftly, but it is not a powerful bird. Care never accompanies perpetual quickness, and perfection must depend upon care."" Yet surely, Sir," said I, "you will allow that a poet must be inspired who writes so freely?"- "No, Sir, I will not. Haste is not inspiration. Our friend here, Sir Joshua, might paint fifty pictures in a day; but no one would care fifty pence about them. Sir, a man must not be a spendthrift of his intellect, or he will very soon be brainless."-"Why there may yet -"Come, come, no more of this useless contention. Southey will not write better, though he write faster, and though you argue in his favour." I did not choose now to push the conversation on this subject any further, as I well knew the great critic's ob stinacy of thinking. I still feel, how

ever, that I had the best of the argument, though from circumstances it may not appear so. I now asked Dr Johnson if he admired Gifford ?"Gifford is an arrogant man; but he is well read, and the editor of a Tory Review. He has translated Juvenal, and is a good satirical shoemaker; but his third and tenth satires are not equal to mine. Sir, he is the whipper-in of a whole pack of hungry writers." Sir Joshua did not admire his petulance. Sir, you will never find a flogger to be an amiable man. The ferocity of his employment makes him flinty and rugged. He lashes others into agony, and himself into madness." I hazarded an opinion that Gifford wrote little feeling poems well; but the Doctor turned sharply to me, "Not he, Sir. He writes lying poems to pretty women, and persuades himself that he is tender. Sir, he cares not one jot about Anna, though he ventilates his poetry with her name. Gifford is a satirist, and would have us believe that he is also an amorist. Love poetry should not read like a court calendar or an army list. Sir, he does not translate so well as I do." -"Do you think," said I, "he will live after death?"-" It is not for me to judge (and here an awful seriousness crept over the good man's countenance) who will live and who will not. Death, Sir, may come unawares to the name as well as the body. I do not like to talk of death now, even though I have done with it. Rogers, when he comes here, will make it one of his pleasures of memory.""-Sir Joshua, But you cannot fear where there is no danger?"-" Yes, Sir, I can; I fear from custom."- But," said I,- Sir, I won't talk of death." As the subject was evidently unpleasant to him, I changed it by speaking of Walter Scott. Sir Joshua, I have always admired the richness of Scott's descriptions, and really look on him as the painter of poets. He colours richly, and from Nature." -Johnson, "Walter Scott is a pretty poet, Sir; but he puts too many trees into his scenery, for Scotch scenery. He makes a Tivoli of the Highlands." I remarked that he ought to be a little ornamental. "But, Sir, you may dress up a truth so finely that it will look like a lie. Walter is, however, a fine writer; he reminds one of chivalrous times, and I love him for

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it. I have read his Lay, and think it a good thing."-Sir Joshua, "Have you read Marmion? The battle is full of fire.”—Johnson, “So a battle ought to be: Walter Scott makes a stupendous battle. Marmion, Sir, is a magnificent rascal." I observed that it was a bold character.-Johnson, "Sir, you might as well talk of the character of a highwayman: Marmion is a bold black villain: you must not say character. Macheath is as good a character: he is Marmion without his fine clothes and name.”— Sir Joshua, "Scott risks his fame, I think, by editing."-Johnson, “He does, Sir! He writes too much to win an untarnished fame. He sacrifices worth to quantity, which will injure his immortality."-Sir Joshua, "I think Walter Scott amongst poets is what Westall is amongst painters,

an elegant mannerist."-Johnson, "Sir! I remember the features of Walter's heroes so well, that I should know one, if I saw him in a crowd of other robbers in Cheapside. Marmion, and Bertram, and William of Deloraine, are brothers. They are black-bearded ruffians, and do not know their letters." Here Burke joined us, and I looked forward to a lively conversation. I asked Dr Johnson what he thought of Amos Cottle? "Sir, I never heard of him." It was visible that Dr Johnson was much gratified at seeing Burke enter, for his eyes sparkled with an uncommon vivacity, and his limbs became restless with pleasure. Burke, "Well, Doctor, there seems to be something like a calm in the political world, which we have left."-Johnson, "Sir, after the tempests which have flourished, such a calm was to be coveted. Repose is the natural follower of immoderate agitation. Nations have their hours of sleep."-Burke, " But sleep betokens internal serenity; and it cannot be expected that England should be wholly at rest yet."-Johnson, "Yes, Sir, she may be. Vio lent exertion provokes a perfect inactivity. Expended strength must be replenished; and repose is replenishment."-Burke, "But if a nation has. over-exerted itself, the repose is dangerous and wearisome. I should think this might be seen, in little, in the human body, which may, by excessive labour, even subdue its capability of enjoying rest."-Johnson," Site