Chapter 4

[88] Yet W.G. Hamilton said:--'Burke understands everything but gaming and music. In the House of Commons I sometimes think him only the second man in England; out of it he is always the first.' Prior's _Burke_, p. 484. See _ante_, ii. 450. Bismarck once 'rang the bell' to old Prince Metternich. 'I listened quietly,' he said, 'to all his stories, merely jogging the bell every now and then till it rang again. That pleases these talkative old men.' DR. BUSCH, quoted in Lowe's _Prince Bismarck_, i. 130.

[89] See _ante_, i. 470, for his disapproval of 'studied behaviour.'

[90] Johnson had perhaps Dr. Warton in mind. _Ante_, ii. 41, note 1.

[91] See _ante_, i. 471, and iii. 165.

[92] 'Oblivion is a kind of annihilation.' Sir Thomas Browne's _Christian Morals_, sect. xxi.

[93] 'Nec te quaesiveris extra.' Persius, _Sat_. i. 7. We may compare Milton's line,

'In himself was all his state.' _Paradise Lost_, v. 353.

[94] See _ante,_ iii. 269.

[95] 'A work of this kind must, in a minute examination, discover many imperfections; but West's version, so far as I have considered it, appears to be the product of great labour and great abilities.' Johnson's _Works,_ viii. 398.

[96] See Boswell's _Hebrides,_ Aug. 25, 1773.

[97] See _ante,_ i. 82, and ii. 228.

[98] See _ante,_ i. 242.

[99] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, under Nov. 11.

[100] A literary lady has favoured me with a characteristick anecdote of Richardson. One day at his country-house at Northend, where a large company was assembled at dinner, a gentleman who was just returned from Paris, willing to please Mr. Richardson, mentioned to him a very flattering circumstance,--that he had seen his _Clarissa_ lying on the King's brother's table. Richardson observing that part of the company were engaged in talking to each other, affected then not to attend to it. But by and by, when there was a general silence, and he thought that the flattery might be fully heard, he addressed himself to the gentleman, 'I think, Sir, you were saying something about,--' pausing in a high flutter of expectation. The gentleman provoked at his inordinate vanity, resolved not to indulge it, and with an exquisitely sly air of indifference answered, 'A mere trifle Sir, not worth repeating.' The mortification of Richardson was visible, and he did not speak ten words more the whole day. Dr. Johnson was present, and appeared to enjoy it much. BOSWELL.

[101]

'E'en in a bishop I can spy desert; Seeker is decent, Rundel has a heart.'

Pope, _Epil. to Sat_. ii. 70. Horace Walpole wrote on Aug. 4,1768 (Letters, v. 115):--'We have lost our Pope. Canterbury [Archbishop Seeker] died yesterday. He had never been a Papist, but almost everything else. Our Churchmen will not be Catholics; that stock seems quite fallen.'

[102] Perhaps the Earl of Corke. _Ante_, iii. 183.

[103] Garrick perhaps borrowed this saying when, in his epigram on Goldsmith, speaking of the ideas of which his head was full, he said:--

'When his mouth opened all were in a pother, Rushed to the door and tumbled o'er each other, But rallying soon with all their force again, In bright array they issued from his pen.'

Fitzgerald's _Garrick_, ii. 363. See _ante_, ii. 231.

[104] See _ante_, i. 116, and ii. 52.

[105] Horace Walpole (_Letters_, ix. 318) writes of Boswell's _Life of Johnson:_--'Dr. Blagden says justly, that it is a new kind of libel, by which you may abuse anybody, by saying some dead person said so and so of somebody alive.'

[106] See _ante_, ii. III. In the _Gent. Mag._ 1770, p. 78, is a review of _A Letter to Samuel Johnson, LL.D._, 'that is generally imputed to Mr. Wilkes.'

[107] 'Do you conceive the full force of the word CONSTITUENT? It has the same relation to the House of Commons as Creator to creature.' _A Letter to Samuel Johnson, LL.D._, p. 23.

[108] His profound admiration of the GREAT FIRST CAUSE was such as to set him above that 'Philosophy and vain deceit' [_Colossians_, ii. 8] with which men of narrower conceptions have been infected. I have heard him strongly maintain that 'what is right is not so from any natural fitness, but because GOD wills it to be right;' and it is certainly so, because he has predisposed the relations of things so as that which he wills must be right. BOSWELL. Johnson was as much opposed as the Rev. Mr. Thwackum to the philosopher Square, who 'measured all actions by the unalterable rule of right and the eternal fitness of things.' _Tom Jones_, book iii. ch. 3.

[109] In _Rasselas_ (ch. ii.) we read that the prince's look 'discovered him to receive some solace of the miseries of life, from consciousness of the delicacy with which he felt, and the eloquence with which he bewailed them.' See _ante_, April 8, 1780.

[110] I hope the authority of the great Master of our language will stop that curtailing innovation, by which we see _critic, public_, &c., frequently written instead of _critick, publick_, &c. BOSWELL. Boswell had always been nice in his spelling. In the Preface to his _Corsica_, published twenty-four years before _The Life of Johnson_, he defends his peculiarities, and says:--'If this work should at any future period be reprinted, I hope that care will be taken of my orthography.' Mr. Croker says that in a memorandum in Johnson's writing he has found '_cubic_ feet.'

[111] 'Disorders of intellect,' answered Imlac, 'happen much more often than superficial observers will easily believe. Perhaps, if we speak with rigorous exactness, no human mind is in its right state.' _Rasselas_, ch. 44.

[112] See _ante_, i. 397, for Kit Smart's madness in praying.

[113] Yet he gave lessons in Latin to Miss Burney and Miss Thrale. Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 243. In Skye he said, 'Depend upon it, no woman is the worse for sense and knowledge.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 19.

[114] See _ante_, iii, 240.

[115] Nos. 588, 601, 626 and 635. The first number of the _Spectator_ was written by Addison, the last by Grove. See _ante_, iii. 33, for Johnson's praise of No. 626.

[116] Sterne is of a direct contrary opinion. See his _Sentimental Journey_, Article, 'The Mystery.' BOSWELL. Sterne had been of the same opinion as Johnson, for he says that the beggar he saw 'confounded all kind of reasoning upon him.' 'He passed by me,' he continues, 'without asking anything--and yet he did not go five steps farther before he asked charity of a little woman--I was much more likely to have given of the two. He had scarce done with the woman, when he pulled his hat off to another who was coming the same way.--An ancient gentleman came slowly--and, after him, a young smart one--He let them both pass, and asked nothing; I stood observing him half an hour, in which time he had made a dozen turns backwards and forwards, and found that he invariably pursued the same plan.' _Sentimental Journey_, ed. 1775, ii. 105.

[117] Very likely Dr. Warton. _Ante_, ii. 41.

[118] I differ from Mr. Croker in the explanation of this ill-turned sentence. The _shield_ that Homer may hold up is the observation made by Mrs. Fitzherbert. It was this observation that Johnson respected as a very fine one. For his high opinion of that lady's understanding, see _ante_, i. 83.

[119] In _Boswelliana_ (p. 323) are recorded two more of Langton's Anecdotes. 'Mr. Beauclerk told Dr. Johnson that Dr. James said to him he knew more Greek than Mr. Walmesley. "Sir," said he, "Dr. James did not know enough of Greek to be sensible of his ignorance of the language. Walmesley did."' See _ante_, i. 81. 'A certain young clergyman used to come about Dr. Johnson. The Doctor said it vexed him to be in his company, his ignorance was so hopeless. "Sir," said Mr. Langton, "his coming about you shows he wishes to help his ignorance." "Sir," said the Doctor, "his ignorance is so great, I am afraid to show him the bottom of it."'

[120] Dr. Francklin. See _ante_, iii. 83, note 3. Churchill attacked him in _The Rosciad_ (Poems, ii. 4). When, he says, it came to the choice of a judge,

'Others for Francklin voted; but 'twas known, He sickened at all triumphs but his own.'

[121] See _ante_, iii. 241, note 2.

[122] _Pr. and Med_. p.190. BOSWELL.

[123] _Ib_. 174. BOSWELL.

[124] 'Mr. Fowke once observed to Dr. Johnson that, in his opinion, the Doctor's literary strength lay in writing biography, in which he infinitely exceeded all his contemporaries. "Sir," said Johnson, "I believe that is true. The dogs don't know how to write trifles with dignity."'--R. Warner's _Original Letters_, p. 204.

[125] His design is thus announced in his _Advertisement_: 'The Booksellers having determined to publish a body of English Poetry, I was persuaded to promise them a Preface to the works of each authour; an undertaking, as it was then presented to my mind, not very tedious or difficult.

'My purpose was only to have allotted to every poet an Advertisement, like that [in original _those_] which we find in the French Miscellanies, containing a few dates, and a general character; but I have been led beyond my intention, I hope by the honest desire of giving useful pleasure.' BOSWELL.

[126] _Institutiones_, liber i, Prooemium 3.

[127] 'He had bargained for two hundred guineas, and the booksellers spontaneously added a third hundred; on this occasion Dr. Johnson observed to me, "Sir, I always said the booksellers were a generous set of men. Nor, in the present instance, have I reason to complain. The fact is, not that they have paid me too little, but that I have written too much." The _Lives_ were soon published in a separate edition; when, for a very few corrections, he was presented with another hundred guineas.' Nichols's _Lit. Anec._ viii. 416. See _ante_, iii. 111. In Mr. Morrison's _Collection of Autographs_ &c., vol. ii, 'is Johnson's receipt for 100_l_., from the proprietors of _The Lives of the Poets_ for revising the last edition of that work.' It is dated Feb. 19, 1783. 'Underneath, in Johnson's autograph, are these words: "It is great impudence to put _Johnson's Poets_ on the back of books which Johnson neither recommended nor revised. He recommended only Blackmore on the Creation, and Watts. How then are they Johnson's? This is indecent."' The poets whom Johnson recommended were Blackmore, Watts, Pomfret, and Yalden. _Ante_, under Dec. 29, 1778.

[128] Gibbon says of the last five quartos of the six that formed his _History_:--'My first rough manuscript, without any intermediate copy, has been sent to the press.' _Misc. Works_, i. 255. In the _Memoir of Goldsmith_, prefixed to his _Misc. Works_, i. 113, it is said:--'In whole quires of his _Histories_, _Animated Nature_, &c., he had seldom occasion to correct or alter a single word.' See _ante_, i. 203.

[129] From Waller's _Of Loving at First Sight_. Waller's _Poems, Miscellanies_, xxxiv.

[130] He trusted greatly to his memory. If it did not retain anything exactly, he did not think himself bound to look it up. Thus in his criticism on Congreve (_Works_, viii. 31) he says:--'Of his plays I cannot speak distinctly; for since I inspected them many years have passed.' In a note on his _Life of Rowe_, Nichols says:--'This _Life_ is a very remarkable instance of the uncommon strength of Dr. Johnson's memory. When I received from him the MS. he complacently observed that the criticism was tolerably well done, considering that he had not read one of Rowe's plays for thirty years.' _Ib_. vii. 417.

[131] Thus:--'In the _Life of Waller_, Mr. Nichols will find a reference to the _Parliamentary History_ from which a long quotation is to be inserted. If Mr. Nichols cannot easily find the book, Mr. Johnson will send it from Streatham.'

'Clarendon is here returned.'

'By some accident, I laid _your_ note upon Duke up so safely, that I cannot find it. Your informations have been of great use to me. I must beg it again; with another list of our authors, for I have laid that with the other. I have sent Stepney's Epitaph. Let me have the revises as soon as can be. Dec. 1778.'

'I have sent Philips, with his Epitaphs, to be inserted. The fragment of a preface is hardly worth the impression, but that we may seem to do something. It may be added to the _Life of Philips_. The Latin page is to be added to the _Life of Smith_. I shall be at home to revise the two sheets of Milton. March 1, 1779.'

'Please to get me the last edition of Hughes's _Letters_; and try to get _Dennis upon Blackmore_, and upon Calo, and any thing of the same writer against Pope. Our materials are defective.'

'As Waller professed to have imitated Fairfax, do you think a few pages of Fairfax would enrich our edition? Few readers have seen it, and it may please them. But it is not necessary.'

'An account of the Lives and works of some of the most eminent English Poets. By, &c.--"The English Poets, biographically and critically considered, by SAM. JOHNSON."--Let Mr. Nichols take his choice, or make another to his mind. May, 1781.'

'You somehow forgot the advertisement for the new edition. It was not inclosed. Of Gay's _Letters_ I see not that any use can be made, for they give no information of any thing. That he was a member of the Philosophical Society is something; but surely he could be but a corresponding member. However, not having his life here, I know not how to put it in, and it is of little importance.'

See several more in _The Gent. Mag._, 1785. The Editor of that Miscellany, in which Johnson wrote for several years, seems justly to think that every fragment of so great a man is worthy of being preserved. BOSWELL. In the original MS. in the British Museum, _Your_ in the third paragraph of this note is not in italics. Johnson writes his correspondent's name _Nichols_, _Nichol_, and _Nicol_. In the fourth paragraph he writes, first _Philips_, and next _Phillips_. His spelling was sometimes careless, _ante_, i. 260, note 2. In the _Gent. Mag._ for 1785, p. 10, another of these notes is published:--'In reading Rowe in your edition, which is very impudently called mine, I observed a little piece unnaturally and odiously obscene. I was offended, but was still more offended when I could not find it in Rowe's genuine volumes. To admit it had been wrong; to interpolate it is surely worse. If I had known of such a piece in the whole collection, I should have been angry. What can be done?' In a note, Mr. Nichols says that this piece 'has not only appeared in the _Works_ of Rowe, but has been transplanted by Pope into the _Miscellanies_ he published in his own name and that of Dean Swift.'

[132] He published, in 1782, a revised edition of Baker's_ Biographia Dramatica_. Baker was a grandson of De Foe. _Gent. Mag._ 1782, p. 77.

[133] Dryden writing of satiric poetry, says:--'Had I time I could enlarge on the beautiful turns of words and thoughts, which are as requisite in this as in heroic poetry itself; of which the satire is undoubtedly a species. With these beautiful turns I confess myself to have been unacquainted, till about twenty years ago, in a conversation which I had with that noble wit of Scotland, Sir George Mackenzie, he asked me why I did not imitate in my verses the turns of Mr. Waller, and Sir John Denham. ... This hint, thus seasonably given me, first made me sensible of my own wants, and brought me afterwards to seek for the supply of them in other English authors. I looked over the darling of my youth, the famous Cowley.' Dryden's _Works_, ed. 1821, xiii. III.

[134] In one of his letters to Nichols, Johnson says:--'You have now all Cowley. I have been drawn to a great length, but Cowley or Waller never had any critical examination before.' _Gent. Mag._ 1785, p.9.

[135] _Life of Sheffield_. BOSWELL. Johnson's _Works_, vii. 485.

[136] See, however, p.11 of this volume, where the same remark is made and Johnson is there speaking of _prose_. MALONE.

[137]

'Purpureus, late qui splendeat unus et alter Assuitur pannus.'

'... Shreds of purple with broad lustre shine Sewed on your poem.'

FRANCIS. Horace, _Ars Poet_. 15.

[138] The original reading is enclosed in crochets, and the present one is printed in Italicks. BOSWELL.

[139] I have noticed a few words which, to our ears, are more uncommon than at least two of the three that Boswell mentions; as, 'Languages divaricate,' _Works_, vii. 309; 'The mellifluence of Pope's numbers,' _ib._ 337; 'A subject flux and transitory,' _ib._ 389; 'His prose is pure without scrupulosity,' _ib._ 472; 'He received and accommodated the ladies' (said of one serving behind the counter), _ib._ viii. 62; 'The prevalence of this poem was gradual,' _ib._ p. 276; 'His style is sometimes concatenated,' _ib._ p. 458. Boswell, on the next page, supplies one more instance--'Images such as the superficies of nature readily supplies.'

[140] See _ante_, iii. 249.

[141] Veracious is perhaps one of the 'four or five words' which Johnson added, or thought that he added, to the English language. _Ante_, i. 221. He gives it in his _Dictionary_, but without any authority for it. It is however older than his time.

[142] See Johnson's _Works_, vii. 134, 212, and viii. 386.

[143] Horace Walpole (_Letters_, vii. 452) writes of Johnson's '_Billingsgate on Milton_.' A later letter shows that, like so many of Johnson's critics, he had not read the _Life_. _Ib_. p. 508.

[144] _Works_, vii. 108.

[145] Thirty years earlier he had written of Milton as 'that poet whose works may possibly be read when every other monument of British greatness shall be obliterated.' _Ante_, i. 230. See _ante_, ii. 239.

[146] Earl Stanhope (_Life of Pitt_, ii. 65) describes this Society in 1790, 'as a Club, till then of little note, which had a yearly festival in commemoration of the events of 1688. It had been new-modelled, and enlarged with a view to the transactions at Paris, but still retained its former name to imply a close connection between the principles of 1688 in England, and the principles of 1789 in France.' The Earl Stanhope of that day presided at the anniversary meeting on Nov. 4, 1789. Nov. 4 was the day on which William III. landed.

[147] See _An Essay on the Life, Character, and writings of Dr. Samuel Johnson_, London, 1787; which is very well written, making a proper allowance for the democratical bigotry of its authour; whom I cannot however but admire for his liberality in speaking thus of my illustrious friend:--

'He possessed extraordinary powers of understanding, which were much cultivated by study, and still more by meditation and reflection. His memory was remarkably retentive, his imagination uncommonly vigorous, and his judgement keen and penetrating. He had a strong sense of the importance of religion; his piety was sincere, and sometimes ardent; and his zeal for the interests of virtue was often manifested in his conversation and in his writings. The same energy which was displayed in his literary productions was exhibited also in his conversation, which was various, striking, and instructive; and perhaps no man ever equalled him for nervous and pointed repartees.'

'His _Dictionary_, his moral Essays, and his productions in polite literature, will convey useful instruction, and elegant entertainment, as long as the language in which they are written shall be understood.' BOSWELL.

[148] Boswell paraphrases the following passage:--'The King, with lenity of which the world has had perhaps no other example, declined to be the judge or avenger of his own or his father's wrongs; and promised to admit into the Act of Oblivion all, except those whom the Parliament should except; and the Parliament doomed none to capital punishment but the wretches who had immediately co-operated in the murder of the King. Milton was certainly not one of them; he had only justified what they had done.' Johnson's _Works_, vii. 95.

[149] 'Though fall'n on evil days, On evil days though fall'n and evil tongues, In darkness, and with dangers compast round.' _Paradise Lost_, vii. 26.

[150] Johnson's _Works_, vii. 105.

[151] 'His political notions were those of an acrimonious and surly republican.' _Ib_. p. 116.

[152] 'What we know of Milton's character in domestick relations is, that he was severe and arbitrary.' _Ib._ p. 116.

[153] 'His theological opinions are said to have been first, Calvinistical; and afterwards, perhaps when he began to hate the Presbyterians, to have tended towards Arminianism.... He appears to have been untainted by any heretical peculiarity of opinion.' _Ib._ p. 115.

[154] Mr. Malone things it is rather a proof that he felt nothing of those cheerful sensations which he has described: that on these topicks it is the _poet_, and not the _man_, that writes. BOSWELL.

[155] See _ante_, i. 427, ii. 124, and iv. 20, for Johnson's condemnation of blank verse. This condemnations was not universal. Of Dryden, he wrote (_Works_, vii. 249):--'He made rhyming tragedies, till, by the prevalence of manifest propriety, he seems to have grown ashamed of making them any longer.' His own _Irene_ is in blank verse; though Macaulay justly remarks of it:--'He had not the slightest notion of what blank verse should be.' (Macaulay's _Writings and Speeches_, ed. 1871, p. 380.) Of Thomson's _Seasons_, he says (_Works_, vii. 377):--'His is one of the works in which blank verse seems properly used.' Of Young's _Night Thoughts_:--'This is one of the few poems in which blank verse could not be changed for rhyme but with disadvantage.' _Ib_. p. 460. Of Milton himself, he writes:--'Whatever be the advantages of rhyme, I cannot prevail on myself to wish that Milton had been a rhymer; for I cannot wish his work to be other than it is; yet, like other heroes, he is to be admired rather than imitated.' _Ib_. vii. 142. How much he felt the power of Milton's blank verse is shewn by his _Rambler_, No. 90, where, after stating that 'the noblest and most majestick pauses which our versification admits are upon the fourth and sixth syllables,' he adds:--' Some passages [in Milton] which conclude at this stop [the sixth syllable] I could never read without some strong emotions of delight or admiration.' 'If,' he continues, 'the poetry of Milton be examined with regard to the pauses and flow of his verses into each other, it will appear that he has performed all that our language would admit.' Cowper was so indignant at Johnson's criticism of Milton's blank verse that he wrote:--'Oh! I could thresh his old jacket till I made his pension jingle in his pocket.' Southey's _Cowper_, iii. 315.

[156] One of the most natural instances of the effect of blank verse occurred to the late Earl of Hopeton. His Lordship observed one of his shepherds poring in the fields upon Milton's _Paradise Lost_; and having asked him what book it was, the man answered, 'An't please your Lordship, this is a very odd sort of an authour: he would fain rhyme, but cannot get at it.' BOSWELL. 'The variety of pauses, so much boasted by the lovers of blank verse, changes the measures of an English poet to the periods of a declaimer; and there are only a few skilful and happy readers of Milton, who enable their audience to perceive where the lines end or begin. "Blank verse," said an ingenious critick, "seems to be verse only to the eye."' Johnson's _Works_, vii. 141. In the _Life of Roscommon_ (_ib_. p. 171), he says:--'A poem frigidly didactick, without rhyme, is so near to prose, that the reader only scorns it for pretending to be verse.'

[157] Mr. Locke. Often mentioned in Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_.

[158] See vol. in. page 71. BOSWELL.

[159] It is scarcely a defence. Whatever it was, he thus ends it:-'It is natural to hope, that a comprehensive is likewise an elevated soul, and that whoever is wise is also honest. I am willing to believe that Dryden, having employed his mind, active as it was, upon different studies, and filled it, capacious as it was, with other materials, came unprovided to the controversy, and wanted rather skill to discover the right than virtue to maintain it. But inquiries into the heart are not for man; we must now leave him to his judge.' Works, vii. 279.

[160] In the original _fright_. _The Hind and the Panther_, i. 79.

[161] In this quotation two passages are joined. _Works_, vii. 339, 340.

[162] 'The deep and pathetic morality of the _Vanity of Human Wishes_' says Sir Walter Scott, 'has often extracted tears from those whose eyes wander dry over the pages of professed sentimentality.' CROKER. It. drew tears from Johnson himself. 'When,' says Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 50), 'he read his own satire, in which the life of a scholar is painted, he burst into a passion of tears. The family and Mr. Scott only were present, who, in a jocose way, clapped him on the back, and said:--"What's all this, my dear Sir? Why you, and I, and Hercules, you know, were all troubled with melancholy." He was a very large man, and made out the triumvirate with Johnson and Hercules comically enough. The Doctor was so delighted at his odd sally, that he suddenly embraced him, and the subject was immediately changed.'

[163] In Disraeli's _Curiosities of Literature_, ed. 1834, iv. 180, is given 'a memorandum of Dr. Johnson's of hints for the _Life of Pope_.'

[164] _Works_, viii. 345.

[165] 'Of the last editor [Warburton] it is more difficult to speak. Respect is due to high place, tenderness to living reputation, and veneration to genius and learning; but he cannot be justly offended at that liberty of which he has himself so frequently given an example, nor very solicitous what is thought of notes which he ought never to have considered as part of his serious employments.' _Works_, v. 140. See _post_, June 10,1784.

[166] The liberality is certainly measured. With much praise there is much censure. _Works_, viii. 288. See _ante_, ii. 36, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 23.

[167] Of Johnson's conduct towards Warburton, a very honourable notice is taken by the editor of _Tracts by Warburton and a Warburtonian, not admitted into the Collection of their respective Works_. After an able and 'fond, though not undistinguishing,' consideration of Warburton's character, he says, 'In two immortal works, Johnson has stood forth in the foremost rank of his admirers. By the testimony of such a man, impertinence must be abashed, and malignity itself must be softened. Of literary merit, Johnson, as we all know, was a sagacious but a most severe judge. Such was his discernment, that he pierced into the most secret springs of human actions; and such was his integrity, that he always weighed the moral characters of his fellow-creatures in the "balance of the sanctuary." He was too courageous to propitiate a rival, and too proud to truckle to a superiour. Warburton he knew, as I know him, and as every man of sense and virtue would wish to be known,--I mean, both from his own writings, and from the writings of those who dissented from his principles, or who envied his reputation. But, as to favours, he had never received or asked any from the Bishop of Gloucester; and, if my memory fails me not, he had seen him only once, when they met almost without design, conversed without much effort, and parted without any lasting impressions of hatred or affection. Yet, with all the ardour of sympathetic genius, Johnson has done that spontaneously and ably, which, by some writers, had been before attempted injudiciously, and which, by others, from whom more successful attempts might have been expected, has not _hitherto_ been done at all. He spoke well of Warburton, without insulting those whom Warburton despised. He suppressed not the imperfections of this extraordinary man, while he endeavoured to do justice to his numerous and transcendental excellencies. He defended him when living, amidst the clamours of his enemies; and praised him when dead, amidst the _silence of his friends_.'

Having availed myself of this editor's eulogy on my departed friend, for which I warmly thank him, let me not suffer the lustre of his reputation, honestly acquired by profound learning and vigorous eloquence, to be tarnished by a charge of illiberality. He has been accused of invidiously dragging again into light certain writings of a person respectable by his talents, his learning, his station and his age, which were published a great many years ago, and have since, it is said, been silently given up by their authour. But when it is considered that these writings were not _sins of youth_, but deliberate works of one well-advanced in life, overflowing at once with flattery to a great man of great interest in the Church, and with unjust and acrimonious abuse of two men of eminent merit; and that, though it would have been unreasonable to expect an humiliating recantation, no apology whatever has been made in the cool of the evening, for the oppressive fervour of the heat of the day; no slight relenting indication has appeared in any note, or any corner of later publications; is it not fair to understand him as superciliously persevering? When he allows the shafts to remain in the wounds, and will not stretch forth a lenient hand, is it wrong, is it not generous to become an indignant avenger? BOSWELL. Boswell wrote on Feb. 16, 1789:--'There is just come out a publication which makes a considerable noise. The celebrated Dr. Parr, of Norwich, has--wickedly, shall we say?--but surely wantonly--published Warburton's _Juvenile Translations and Discourse on Prodigies_, and Bishop Kurd's attacks on Jortin and Dr. Thomas Leland, with his _Essay on the Delicacy of Friendship_.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 275. The 'editor,' therefore, is Parr, and the 'Warburtonian' is Hurd. Boswell had written to Parr on Jan. 10, 1791:--'I request to hear by return of post if I may say or guess that Dr. Parr is the editor of these tracts.' Parr's _Works_, viii. 12. See also _ib_. iii. 405.

[168] In Johnson's _Works_ (1787), xi. 213, it is said, that this meeting was 'at the Bishop of St. ----'s [Asaph's]. Boswell, by his 'careful enquiry,' no doubt meant to show that this statement was wrong. Johnson is reported to have said:--' Dr. Warburton at first looked surlily at me; but after we had been jostled into conversation he took me to a window, asked me some questions, and before we parted was so well pleased with me that he patted me.'

[169] 'Warburton's style is copious without selection, and forcible without neatness; he took the words that presented themselves; his diction is coarse and impure; and his sentences are unmeasured.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 288.

[170] Churchill, in _The Duellist (Poems_ ed. 1766, ii. 85), describes Warburton as having

'A heart, which virtue ne'er disgraced; A head where learning runs to waste.'

[171] _Works_, viii. 230.

[172] 'I never,' writes Mrs. Piozzi, 'heard Johnson pronounce the words, "I beg your pardon, Sir," to any human creature but the apparently soft and gentle Dr. Burney.' Burney had asked her whether she had subscribed £100 to building a bridge. '"It is very comical, is it not, Sir?" said I, turning to Dr. Johnson, "that people should tell such unfounded stories." "It is," answered he, "neither comical nor serious, my dear; it is only a wandering lie." This was spoken in his natural voice, without a thought of offence, I am confident; but up bounced Burney in a towering passion, and to my much amaze put on the hero, surprising Dr. Johnson into a sudden request for pardon, and protestation of not having ever intended to accuse his friend of a falsehood.' Hayward's _Piozzi_, i. 312.

[173] In the original, '_nor_.' _Works_, viii. 311.

[174] In the original, '_either_ wise or merry.'

[175] In the original, '_stands upon record_'.

[176] _Works_, viii. 316. Surely the words 'had not much to say' imply that Johnson had heard the answer, but thought little of its wit. According to Mr. Croker, the repartee is given in Ruffhead's _Life of Pope_, and this book Johnson had seen. _Ante_, ii. 166.

[177] Let me here express my grateful remembrance of Lord Somerville's kindness to me, at a very early period. He was the first person of high rank that took particular notice of me in the way most flattering to a young man, fondly ambitious of being distinguished for his literary talents; and by the honour of his encouragement made me think well of myself, and aspire to deserve it better. He had a happy art of communicating his varied knowledge of the world, in short remarks and anecdotes, with a quiet pleasant gravity, that was exceedingly engaging. Never shall I forget the hours which I enjoyed with him at his apartments in the Royal Palace of Holy-Rood House, and at his seat near Edinburgh, which he himself had formed with an elegant taste. BOSWELL.

[178] _Ante_, iii. 392.

[179] Boswell, I think, misunderstands Johnson. Johnson said (_Works_,