On Friday, April 14, being Good-Friday, I repaired to him in the morning, according to my usual custom on this day, and breakfasted with him. I observed that he fasted so very strictly, that he did not even taste bread, and took no milk with his tea, I suppose because it is a kind of animal food. He entered upon the state of the nation, and thus discoursed: "Sir, the great misfortune now is, that government has too little power. All that it has to bestow, must of necessity be given to support itself; so that it cannot reward merit. No man, for instance, can now be made a Bishop for his learning and piety; his only chance for promotion is his being connected with fomebody who has parliamentary interest. Our several miniftries in this reign have outbid each other in conceffions to the people. Lord Bute, though a very honourable man, a man who meant well, a man who had his blood full of prerogative, was a theoretical statefman, -a book-minifter, and thought this country could be governed by the influence of the Crown alone. Then, Sir, he gave up a great deal. He advised the King to agree that the Judges should hold their places for life, instead of losing them at the accession of a new King. Lord Bute, I suppose, thought to make the King popular by this conceffion; but the people never minded it; and it was a most impolitick meafure. There is no reason why a Judge should hold his office for life, more than any other person in publick trust. A Judge may be partial otherwise than to the Crown: we have feen Judges partial to the populace. A Judge may become corrupt, and yet there may not be legal evidence against him. A Judge may become froward from age. A Judge may grow unfit for his office in many ways. It was desirable that there should be a possibility of being delivered from him by a new King. That is now gone by an act of parliament ex gratia of the Crown. Lord Bute advised the King to give up a very large fum of money, for which nobody thanked him. It was of consequence to the King, but nothing to the publick, among whom it was divided. When 3 From this too just observation there are some eminent exceptions. • The money arifing from the property of the prizes taken before the declaration of war, which were given to his Majesty by the peace of Paris, and amounted to upwards of 700,000l. and from the lands in the ceded islands, which were estimated at 200,000l. more. Surely, there was a noble munificence in this gift from a Monarch to his people. And let it be remembered, that during the Earl of Bute's administration, the King was gracioufly pleased to give up the hereditary revenues of the Crown, and to accept, instead of them, of the limited sum of 800,000l. a year; upon which Blackstone observes, that " The hereditary revenues, being put under the same management as the other branches of the publick patrimony, will produce more, and be better collected than heretofore; and the publick is a gainer of upwards of 100,000l. per annum, by this difinterested bounty of his Majesty." Book I. Chap. 8. p. 330. 1775 Ætat. 66. : 1 ! 482 1775. THE LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON. I say Lord Bute advised, I mean, that fuch acts were done when he was minister, Ætat. 66. and we are to suppose that he advised them.-Lord Bute shewed an undue partiality to Scotchmen. He turned out Dr. Nichols, a very eminent man, from being physician to the King, to make room for one of his countrymen, a man very low in his profession. He had **** *** and **** to go on errands for him. He had occafion for people to go on errands for him; but he should not have had Scotchmen; and, certainly, he should not have fuffered them to have access to him before the first people in England." I told him, that the admission of one of them before the first people in England, which had given the greatest offence, was no more than what happens at every minister's levee, where those who attend are admitted in the order that they have come, which is better than admitting them according to their rank; for if that were to be the rule, a man who has waited all the morning might have the mortification to see a peer, newly come, go in before him, and keep him waiting still. JOHNSON. "True, Sir; but **** should not have come to the levee, to be in the way of people of confequence. He faw Lord Bute at all times; and could have faid what he had to fay at any time, as well as at the levee. There is now no Prime Minister: there is only an agent for government in the House of Commons. We are governed by the Cabinet; but there is no one head there, as in Sir Robert Walpole's time." BOSWELL. "What then, Sir, is the use of Parliament?" JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, Parliament is a larger council to the King; and the advantage of fuch a council is, having a great number of men of property concerned in the legislature, who, for their own interest, will not confent to bad laws. And you must have observed, Sir, that administration is feeble and timid, and cannot act with that authority and resolution which is necessary. Were I in power, I would turn out every man who dared to oppose me. Government has the diftribution of offices, that it may be enabled to maintain its authority." "Lord Bute (he added,) took down too fast, without building up fomething new." BOSWELL. "Becaufe, Sir, he found a rotten building. The political coach was drawn by a set of bad horses: it was neceffary to change them." JOHNSON. "But he should have changed them one by one." I told him that I had been informed by Mr. Orme, that many parts of the East Indies were better mapped than the Highlands of Scotland. JOHNSON. "That a country may be mapped, it must be travelled over." "Nay, (faid I, meaning to laugh with him at one of his prejudices,) can't you say, it is not worth mapping?" As 1775 } As we walked to St. Clement's church, and faw several shops open upon this most folemn faft-day of the Christian world, I remarked, that one dif- Etat. 66. advantage arising from the immensity of London, was, that nobody was heeded by his neighbour; there was no fear of cenfure for not observing Good-Friday, as it ought to be kept, and as it is kept in country towns. He faid, it was, upon the whole, very well observed even in London. He, however, owned, that London was too large; but added, "It is nonsense to say the head is too big for the body. It would be as much too big, though the body were ever so large; that is to say, though the country were ever so extensive. It has no fimilarity to a head connected with a body." Dr. Wetherell, Master of University College, Oxford, accompanied us home from church; and after he was gone, there came two other gentlemen, one of whom uttered the common-place complaints, that by the increase of taxes, labour would be dear, other nations would undersell us, and our commerce would be ruined. JOHNSON, (smiling). "Never fear, Sir. Our commerce is in a very good state; and suppose we had no commerce at all, we could live very well on the produce of our own country." I cannot omit to mention, that I never knew any man who was less disposed to be querulous than Johnfon. Whether the subject was his own situation, or the state of the publick, or the state of human nature in general, though he saw the evils, his mind was turned to resolution, and never to whining or complaint. We went again to St. Clement's in the afternoon. He had found fault with the preacher in the morning for not choosing a text adapted to the day. The preacher in the afternoon had chofen one extremely proper: "It is finished." After the evening service, he said, "Come, you shall go home with me, and fit just an hour." "But he was better than his word; for after we had drunk tea with Mrs. Williams, he asked me to go up to his study with him, where we fat a long while together in a ferene undisturbed frame of mind, sometimes in filence, and sometimes converfing, as we felt ourselves inclined, or more properly speaking, as he was inclined; for during all the course of my long intimacy with him, my respectful attention never abated, and my wish to hear him was such, that I constantly watched every dawning of communication from that great and illuminated mind. In He observed, "All knowledge is of itself of some value. There is nothing so minute or inconfiderable, that I would not rather know it than not. the fame manner, all power, of whatever fort, is of itself defirable. A man would not fubmit to learn to hem a ruffle, of his wife, or his wife's maid; but if a mere with could attain it, he would rather wish to be able to hem a ruffle." 1 ! : 1775 He again advised me to keep a journal fully and minutely, but not to menÆtat. 66. tion fuch trifles as, that meat was too much or too little done, or that the weather was fair or rainy. He had, till very near his death, a contempt for the notion that the weather affects the human frame. I told him that our friend Goldsmith had faid to me, that he had come too late into the world, for that Pope and other poets had taken up the places in the Temple of Fame; fo that as but a few at any period can possess poetical reputation, a man of genius can now hardly acquire it. JOHNSON. "That is one of the most sensible things I have ever heard of Goldsmith. It is difficult to get literary fame, and it is every day growing more difficult. Ah, Sir, that should make a man think of fecuring happiness in another world, which all who try fincerely for it may attain. In comparison of that, how little are all other things! The belief of immortality is impressed upon all men, and all men act under an impression of it, however they may talk, and though, perhaps, they may be scarcely sensible of it." I faid, it appeared to me that fome people had not the least notion of immortality; and I mentioned a diftinguished gentleman of our acquaintance. JOHNSON. "Sir, if it were not for the notion of immortality, he would cut a throat to fill his pockets." When I quoted this to Beauclerk, who knew much more of the gentleman than we did, he said, in his acid manner, "He would cut a throat to fill his pockets, if it were not for fear of being hanged." Dr. Johnfon proceeded: "Sir, there is a great cry about infidelity; but there are, in reality, very few infidels. I have heard a person, originally a Quaker, but now, I am afraid, a Deist, say, that he did not believe there were, in all England, above two hundred infidels." He was pleased to say, "If you come to fettle here, we will have one day in the week on which we will meet by ourselves. That is the happiest conversation where there is no competition, no vanity, but a calm quiet interchange of fentiments." In his private register this evening is thus marked, "Bofwell fat with me till night; we had fome ferious talks." It alfo appears from the fame record, that after I left him he was occupied in religious duties, in "giving Francis, his servant, some directions for preparation to communicate; in reviewing his life, and refolving on better conduct." The humility and piety which he discovers on fuch occafions, is truly edifying. No faint, however, in the course of his religious warfare, was more fenfible of the unhappy failure of pious refolves, than Johnson. He faid one day, talking to an acquaintance on this fubject, "Sir, Hell is paved with good intentions." 5 Prayers and Meditations, p. 138. On 1775 On Sunday, April 16, being Easter-day, after having attended the folemn service at St. Paul's, I dined with Dr. Johnfon and Mrs. Williams. I main- Etat. 66. tained that Horace was wrong in placing happiness in Nil admirari, for that I thought admiration one of the most agreeable of all our feelings; and I regretted that I had loft much of my disposition to admire, which people generally do as they advance in life. JOHNSON. " Sir, as a man advances in life, he gets what is better than admiration,-judgement, to estimate things at their true value." I still insisted that admiration was more pleasing than judgement, as love is more pleasing than friendship. The feeling of friendship is like that of being comfortably filled with roaft-beef; love, like being enlivened with champagne. JOHNSON. "No, Sir; admiration and love are like being intoxicated with champagne; judgement and friendship like being enlivened. Waller has hit upon the fame thought with you': but I don't believe you have borrowed from Waller. I wish you would enable yourself to borrow more." He then took occafion to enlarge on the advantages of reading, and combated the idle fuperficial notion, that knowledge enough may be acquired in converfation. "The foundation (faid he,) must be laid by reading. General principles must be had from books, which, however, must be brought to the test of real life. In conversation you never get a system. What is faid upon a subject is to be gathered from a hundred people. The parts of a truth, which a man gets thus, are at fuch a distance from each other, that he never attains to a full view." On Tuesday, April 18, he and I were engaged to go with. Sir Joshua Reynolds to dine with Mr. Cambridge, at his beautiful villa on the banks of the Thames, near Twickenham. Dr. Johnson's tardiness was fuch, that Sir Joshua, who had an appointment at Richmond early in the day, was obliged to go by himself on horseback, leaving his coach to Johnson and me. Johnfon was in fuch good spirits, that every thing seemed to please him as we drove along. Our conversation turned on a variety of fubjects. He thought portraitpainting an improper employment for a woman. "Publick practice of any art, (he obferved,) and staring in men's faces, is very indelicate in a female." 6" Amoret's as sweet and good " Sacharissa's beauty's wine, I happened |