happy constitution, and which, by the intrepid exertions of Mr. Wilkes, has been happily established. He faid, "The duration of Parliament, whether for feven years or for the life of the King, appears to me fo immaterial, that I would not give half a crown to turn the scale the one way or the other. The babeas corpus is the fingle 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 fuperiour happiness of the favage life, upon the ufual fanciful topicks. JOHNSON. "Sir, there can be nothing more falfe. The favages have no bodily advantages beyond thofe of civilifed men. They have not better health; and as to care or mental uneafinefs, they are not above it, but below it, like bears. No, Sir; you are not to talk fuch paradox: let me have no more of't. It cannot entertain, far lefs can it inftruct. Lord Monboddo, one of your Scotch Judges, talked a great deal of fuch nonfenfe. I fuffered him; but I will not fuffer you."-BOSWELL. "But, Sir, does not Rouffeau talk fuch nonfenfe?" JOHNSON. True, Sir; but Rouffeau knows he is talking nonfenfe, and laughs at the world for ftaring at him." Boswell. "How fo, Sir?" JOHNSON. Why, Sir, a man who talks nonfenfe fo well, must know that he is talking nonfenfe. But I am afraid, (chuckling and laughing,) Monboddo does not know that he is talking nonfenfe "." BOSWELL. "Is it wrong then, Sir, to affect fingularity, in order to make people stare?” JOHNSON. "Yes, if you do it by propagating errour: and, indeed, it is wrong in any way. There is in human nature a general inclination to make people ftare; and every wife man has himself to cure of it, and does cure himfelf. you wish to make people stare by doing better than others, why, make them ftare till they stare their eyes out. But confider how eafy it is to make people ftare, by being abfurd. I may do it by going into a drawing-room without my fhoes. You remember the gentleman in "The Spectator," who had a commiffion of lunacy taken out against him for his extreme fingularity, fuch as never wearing a wig, but a night-cap. Now, Sir, abftractedly, the night-cap was best; but, relatively, the advantage was overbalanced by his making the boys run after him." If 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 fay, there 3 His Lordship having frequently fpoken in an abufive manner of Dr. Johnfon, in my company, I on one occafion during the life-time of my illuftrious friend could not refrain from retaliation, and repeated to him this faying. 1769. Ætat. 60. 1769. is more learning and fcience within the circumference of ten miles from where Etat. 60. we now fit, than in all the reft of the kingdom." BOSWELL. "The only difadvantage is the great distance at which people live from one another." JOHNSON. "Yes, Sir; but that is occafioned by the largeness of it, which is the cause of all the other advantages." BOSWELL. "Sometimes I have been in the humour of wifhing to retire to a defart." JOHNSON. "Sir, you have defart enough in Scotland." Although I had promised myself a great deal of inftructive conversation with him on the conduct of the married state, of which I had then a near prospect, he did not fay much upon that topick. Mr. Seward heard him once fay, that "a 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 worfe wife for being learned; in which, from all that I have obferved of Artemifias, I humbly differed from him. That a woman should be fenfible and well informed, I allow to be a great advantage; and think that Sir Thomas Overbury, in his rude verfification, has very judiciously pointed out that degree of intelligence which is to be defired in a female companion: "Give me, next good, an understanding wife, By Nature wife, not learned by much art; "Some knowledge on her fide will all my life "More scope of converfation impart ; Befides, her inborne virtue fortifie; "They are most firmly good, who beft know why." When I cenfured a gentleman of my acquaintance for marrying a second time, as it fhewed a difregard of his first wife, he faid, "Not at all, Sir. On the contrary, were he not to marry 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 firft, by fhewing that fhe made him fo happy as a married man, that he wishes to be fo a fecond time." So ingenious a turn did he give to this delicate queftion. And yet, on another occafion, 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 "A Wife," a poem, 1614. 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 fecond marriage, why should fhe be precluded from a third, should she be fo inclined? In Johnson's perfevering fond appropriation of his Tetty, even after her decease, he feems totally to have overlooked the prior claim of the honest Birmingham trader. I prefume that her having been married before had, at times, given him fome uneasiness; for I remember his observing upon the marriage of one of our common friends, "He has done a very foolish thing, Sir; 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 fhew 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, fix miles from town, every circumftance that can make fociety pleasing. Johnson, though quite at home, was yet looked up to with an awe, tempered by affection, and feemed to be equally the care of his host and hoftefs. 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. I having faid 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 neceffary amongst you than with us, which makes fo 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 floe to perfection ?" I boasted that we had the honour of being the first to abolish the unhofpitable, troublesome, and ungracious cuftom of giving vails to fervants. JOHNSON. "Sir, you abolished vails, because you were too poor to be able to give them." Mrs. Thrale difputed with him on the merit of Prior. He attacked him powerfully; faid, he wrote of love like a man who had never felt it: his love verses were college verses: and he repeated the fong, "Alexis fhunn'd his fellow fwains," &c. in fo ludicrous a manner, as to make us all wonder how any one could have been pleased with such fantastical stuff. Mrs. Thrale stood S s 1769. Etat. 60. 1769. to her gun with great courage, in defence of amorous ditties which Johnfon Etat. 60. defpifed, till he at last filenced her by saying, " "My dear Lady, talk no more of this. Nonfenfe can be defended but by nonfenfe." Mrs. Thrale then praised Garrick's talent for light gay poetry; and, as a specimen, repeated his fong in "Florizel and Perdita," and dwelt with pecu liar pleasure on this line: "I'd fmile with the fimple, and feed with the poor." JOHNSON. "Nay, my dear Lady, this will never do. Poor David! Smile with the fimple! What folly is that! And who would feed with the poor that can help it? No, no; let me fimile with the wife, and feed with the rich." I repeated this fally to Garrick, and wondered to find his sensibility as a writer not a little irritated by it. To fcoth him, I obferved, that Johnson fpared none of us; and I quoted the paffage in Horace, in which he compares one who attacks his friends for the fake of a laugh, to a pushing ox that is marked by a bunch of hay put upon his horns: "fænum habet in cornu.” "Aye, (faid Garrick, vehemently,) he has a whole mow of it." Talking of hiftory, Johnson faid, "We may know hiftorical facts to be true, as we may know facts in common life to be true. Motives are generally unknown. We cannot trust to the characters we find in history, unless when they are drawn by those who knew the perfons; as thofe, for inftance, by Salluft and by Lord Clarendon." He would not allow much merit to Whitefield's oratory. "His popularity, Sir, (faid 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 fpirit of contradiction he burft out into a violent declamation against the Corficans, of whofe heroifm I talked in high terms. Sir, (faid he,) what is all this rout about the Corficans? They have been at war with the Genoefe 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 the ftones with their teeth in twenty years." It was in vain to argue with him upon the want of artillery: he was not to be refifted for the moment. On the evening of October 10, I prefented Dr. Johnson to General Paoli. I had greatly wished that two men, for whom I had the highest esteem, should meet. They met with a manly eafe, mutually confcious of their own abili 1769. ties, and of the abilities of each other. The General spoke Italian, and Dr. Ætat. 60. Johnson English, and understood one another very well, with a little aid of interpretation from me, in which I compared myself to an ifthmus which joins two great continents. Upon Johnfon's approach, the General faid, "From what I have read of your works, Sir, and from what Mr. Bofwell 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 fignification of fingle words; but by these no beauty of expreffion, no fally of genius, no wit is conveyed to the mind. All this must be by allufion to other ideas. "Sir, (faid Johnson,) you talk of language as if you had never done any thing elfe but ftudy it, inftead of governing a nation." The General faid, "Questo e un troppo gran complimento," this is too great a compliment. Johnfon answered, "I should have thought fo, Sir, if I had not heard you talk." The General asked him, what he thought of the spirit of infidelity which was fo prevalent. JOHNSON. "Sir, this gloom of infidelity, I hope, is only a tranfient cloud paffing through the hemifphere, which will foon be diffipated, and the fun break forth with his usual splendour." "You think then, (faid the General,) that they will change their principles like their clothes." JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, if they bestow no more thought on principles than on drefs, it must be fo." The General said, that "a great part of the fashionable infidelity was owing to a defire of fhewing courage. Men who have no opportunities of fhewing 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 paffions of human nature, of which it is impoffible to diveft it. You remember that the Emperour Charles V. when he read upon the tomb-ftone of a Spanish nobleman, Here lies one who never knew fear,' wittily faid, Then he never fnuffed 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 afked for pen, ink, and paper, and wrote the following note: J'ai lu dans la geographie de Lucas de Linda un Pater-nofter écrit dans une langue toutafait differente de l'Italienne, et de toutes autres lefquelles fe derivent du Latin. L'auteur l'appelle linguam Corficæ rufticam; elle a peutetre passe, peu a peu; mais elle a certainement prevalue autrefois dans les montagnes et dans la campagne. Le même auteur dit la même chofe en parlant de Sardaigne; qu'il y a deux langues dans l'Ile, une des villes, l'autre de la campagne." Ss 2 The |