Aetat. 67.] Johnson's house in Bolt-court. 489 No. 7, to Bolt-court, No. 8', still keeping to his favourite Fleet-street. My reflection at the time upon this change as marked in my Journal, is as follows: I felt a foolish regret that he had left a court which bore his name'; but it was not foolish to be affected with some tenderness of regard for a place in which I had seen him a great deal, from whence I had often issued a better and a happier man than when I went in, and which had often appeared to my imagination while I trod its pavements, in the solemn darkness of the night, to be sacred to wisdom and piety'.' Being informed that he was at Mr. Thrale's, in the Borough, I hastened thither, and found Mrs. Thrale and him at breakfast. I was kindly welcomed. In a moment he was in a full glow of conversation, and I felt myself elevated as if brought into another state of being. Mrs. Thrale and I looked to each other while he talked, and our looks expressed our congenial admiration and affection for him. shall ever recollect this scene with great pleasure. I exclaimed to her, 'I am now, intellectually, Hermippus redivivus, I am quite restored by him, by transfusion of mind'' ''Behind the house was a garden which he took delight in watering; a room on the ground-floor was assigned to Mrs. Williams, and the whole of the two pair of stairs floor was made a repository for his books; one of the rooms thereon being his study. Here, in the intervals of his residence at Streatham, he received the visits of his friends, and to the most intimate of them sometimes gave not inelegant dinners.' Hawkins's Johnson, p. 531. He wrote to Mrs. Thrale on Aug. 14, 1780:- This is all that I have to tell you, except that I have three bunches of grapes on a vine in my garden: at least this is all that I will now tell of my garden.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 178. This house was burnt down in 1819. Notes and Queries, 1st S., v. 233. * He said, when in Scotland, that he was Johnson of that Ilk. BosSee post, April 28, 1778, note. WELL. See ante, ii. 263. See ante, i. 434. BOSWELL. Boswell refers to the work of Dr. Cohausen of Coblentz, Hermippus Redivivus. Dr. Campbell translated it (ante, i. 483), under the title of Hermippus Redivivus, or ine Sage's Triumph over Old Age and the Grave. Cohausen maintained that life might be prolonged to 115 years by breathing the breath of healthy young women. He founded his theory on a Roman inscrip 'There 490 Feudal barbarity. [A.D. 1776. 'There are many, (she replied,) who admire and respect Mr. Johnson; but you and I love him.' He seemed very happy in the near prospect of going to Italy with Mr. and Mrs. Thrale. But, (said he,) before leaving England I am to take a jaunt to Oxford, Birmingham, my native city Lichfield, and my old friend, Dr. Taylor's, at Ashbourn, in Derbyshire. I shall go in a few days, and you, Boswell, shall go with me.' I was ready to accompany him; being willing even to leave London to have the pleasure of his conversation. I mentioned with much regret the extravagance of the representative of a great family in Scotland, by which there was danger of its being ruined; and as Johnson respected it for its antiquity, he joined with me in thinking it would be happy if this person should die. Mrs. Thrale seemed shocked at this, as feudal barbarity; and said, 'I do not understand this preference of the estate to its owner; of the land to the man who walks upon that land.' JOHNSON. Nay, Madam, it is not a preference of the land to its owner, it is the preference of a family to an individual. Here is an establishment in a country, which is of importance for ages, not only to the chief but to his people; an establishment which extends upwards and downwards; that this should be destroyed by one idle fellow is a sad thing.' tion-Esculapio et Sanitati L. Colodius Hermippus qui vixit annos CXV. dies V. puellarum anhelitu.' He maintained that one of the most eligible conditions of life was that of a Confessor of youthful nuns. Lowndes's Bibl. Man. p. 488, and Gent. Mag. xiii. 279. I. D'Israeli (Curiosities of Literature, ed. 1834, ii. 102) describes Campbell's book as a 'curious banter on the hermetic philosophy and the universal medicine; the grave irony is so closely kept up, that it deceived for a length of time the most learned. Campbell assured a friend it was a mere jeu-d'-esprit. Lord E. Fitzmaurice (Life of Shelburne, iii. 447) says that Ingenhousz, a Dutch physician who lived with Shelburne, combated in one of his works the notion held by certain schoolmasters, that it was wholesome to inhale the air which has passed through the lungs of their pupils, closing the windows in order purposely to facilitate that operation.' He Aetat. 67.] The use of entails. 491 He said, 'Entails' are good, because it is good to preserve in a country, serieses of men, to whom the people are accustomed to look up as to their leaders. But I am for leaving a quantity of land in commerce, to excite industry, and keep money in the country; for if no land were to be bought in the country, there would be no encouragement to acquire wealth, because a family could not be founded there; or if it were acquired, it must be carried away to another country where land may be bought. And although the land in every country will remain the same, and be as fertile where there is no money, as where there is, yet all that portion of the happiness of civil life, which is produced by money circulating in a country, would be lost.' WELL. 'Then, Sir, would it be for the advantage of a country that all its lands were sold at once?' JOHNSON. 'So far, Sir, as money produces good, it would be an advantage; for, then that country would have as much money circulating in it as it is worth. But to be sure this would be counterbalanced by disadvantages attending a total change of proprietors.' Bos I expressed my opinion that the power of entailing should be limited thus: 'That there should be one third, or perhaps one half of the land of a country kept free for commerce; that the proportion allowed to be entailed, should be parcelled out so that no family could entail above a certain quantity. Let a family according to the abilities of its representatives, be richer or poorer in different generations, or always rich if its representatives be always wise: but let its absolute permanency be moderate. In this way we should be certain of there being always a number of established roots; and as in the course of nature, there is in every age an extinction of some families, there would be continual openings for men ambitious of perpetuity, to plant a stock in the entail ground'.' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, See Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 24. ' The privilege of perpetuating in a family an estate and arms indefeasibly from generation to generation, is enjoyed by none of his Majmankind |