DR. JOHNSON TO BOSWELL.

231

them, which was shown to me, does appear to have the duskiness of antiquity.

"The inquiry is not yet quite hopeless, and I should think that the exact truth may be discovered, if proper means be used. "I am, &c.,

"JAMES BOSWell."

"TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.

"Feb. 25, 1775.

"DEAR SIR,

"I am sorry that I could get no books for my friends in Scotland. Mr. Strahan has at last promised to send two dozen to you. If they come put the names of my friends into them: you may cut them out, and paste them with a little starch in the book.

"You, then, are going wild about Ossian. Why do you think any part can be proved? The dusky manuscript of Egg is probably not fifty years old; if it be an hundred, it proves nothing. The tale of Clanranald is no proof. Has Clanranald told it? Can he prove it? There are, I believe, no Erse manuscripts. None of the old families had a single letter in Erse that we heard of. You say it is likely that they could write. The learned, if any learned there were, could; but knowing, by that learning, some written language, in that language they wrote, as letters had never been applied to their own. If there are manuscripts, let them be shown, with some proof that they are not forged for the occasion. You say many can remember parts of Ossian. I believe all those parts are versions of the English; at least there is no proof of their antiquity.

"Macpherson is said to have made some translations himself; and having taught a boy to write it, ordered him to say that he had learned it of his grandmother. The boy, when he grew up, told the story. This Mrs. Williams heard at Mr. Strahan's table. Don't be credulous; you know how little a Highlander can be trusted. Macpherson is, so far as I know, very quiet. Is not that proof enough? Everything is against him. No visible manuscript no inscription in the language: no correspondence among friends no transaction of business, of which a single scrap

232

"TAXATION NO TYRANNY."

remains in the ancient families. Macpherson's pretence is, that the character was Saxon. If he had not talked unskilfully of manuscripts, he might have fought with oral tradition much longer. As to Mr. Grant's information, I suppose he knows much less of the matter than ourselves.

"In the meantime, the bookseller says that the sale is sufficiently quick. They printed four thousand. Correct your copy wherever it is wrong, and bring it up. Your friends will all be glad to see you. I think of going myself into the country about May.

"I am sorry that I have not managed to send the books sooner. I have left four for you, and do not restrict you absolutely to follow my directions in the distribution. You must use your own discretion.

"Make my compliments to Mrs. Boswell: I suppose she is now beginning to forgive me. I am, dear Sir, your humble

servant,

"SAM. JOHNSON."

Johnson this year wrote another political pamphlet, entitled "Taxation no Tyranny: an Answer to the Resolutions and Address of the American Congress." Like a previous one, published in 1774, and called "The Patriot," this pamphlet must be pronounced a blunder-in both a political and literary regard. We are willing to believe our Author sincere in his opinions upon this American question; but the Government policy was certainly a mistaken one, and Johnson's advocacy of it was in no way calculated to do him honour. To say that the language employed in these pamphlets is often violent, and that the writer's opponents are not always treated very gently, is simply to remind ourselves that it was Johnson who was fighting, and fighting on the wrong side. This fact must not, however, be overlooked, that almost all the thinkers in Great Britain might in those days have been quite fairly divided into two great classes-Whigs and Tories; and precisely what Johnson did and said on the Tory side, was being done and said by good and honest men on the Whig side. It was felt, in those times, as a kind of taint, and

THE ROOTS OF JOHNSON'S CHARACTER. 233

not, as now, a mark of fine distinction, to be classed as belonging to No Party. Yet it by no means follows that the roots of Johnson's character lay in his political sympathies; that he "gave up to a few what was meant for mankind." His highest life was lived, his noblest truths proclaimed, and his best deeds done, quite outside the walls of the British House of Commons. The ground over which Johnson travelled as a teacher and consoler to his generation covered all political machinery, and embraced all possible parliaments. Even in writing "The Patriot" and "Taxation no Tyranny," we may be sure he had not entirely forgotten the grand universal truth he had elsewhere announced:

"How small, of all that human hearts endure,

That part, which kings or laws can cause or cure.”

234

A LITTLE BIT OF ACTING.

CHAPTER XXV.

CONVERSATIONS-A FINE SCENE-JOHNSON AT THE THEATRE— LL.D.

(1775.)

ON Tuesday, March 21st, 1775, our invaluable friend Boswell once more arrived in London. We shall put ourselves under his wing for some time to come: with full confession of our indebted. ness to the man who occasionally sat up three or four nights in a week that he might faithfully report the conversations he had just heard.

BOSWELL [to the Doctor]: "There are very few of your friends, Sir, so accurate that I can venture to put down in writing what they tell me as your sayings."-JOHNSON: "Why should you write down my sayings?"-BOSWELL: "I write them down when they are good."-JOHNSON: "Nay, you may as well write down the sayings of any one else that are good."

But the Doctor's putting-away of his friend's worshipful regard must have been very much of a piece with Cæsar's waving aside of the popular crown as described by Casca: "He put it by once; but for all that, to my thinking, he would fain have had it." It was only a pretty bit of very natural affectation in both cases.

Friday, March 24th: Literary Club.

A large company assembled: the Doctor not yet present. They talked of the "Journey to the Western Islands," and of Johnson's leaving the Highlands half a believer in second-sight. Boswell avowed his own conviction of the truth of many of the stories told in corroboration of the doctrine, saying, "He is only willing to believe; I do believe. The evidence is enough for me, though not for his great mind. What will not fill a quart

JOHNSON ON SHERIDAN.

bottle will fill a pint bottle. I am filled with belief." you?" said Mr. Colman; "then cork it up."

235

"Are

The Doctor arrived in the best of spirits, and manifested the fact by a most vigorous attack upon Swift, leading on to an equally determined assault upon Sheridan. We give that on Sheridan.

JOHNSON: "Sheridan is a wonderful admirer of the tragedy of 'Douglas,' and presented its author with a gold medal. Some years ago, at a coffee-house in Oxford, I called to him, 'Mr. Sheridan, Mr. Sheridan, how came you to give a gold medal to Home, for writing that foolish play?' This, you see, was wanton and insolent; but I meant to be wanton and insolent. A medal has no value but as a stamp of merit. And was Sheridan to assume to himself the right of giving that stamp? If Sheridan was magnificent enough to bestow a gold medal as an honorary reward of dramatic excellence, he should have requested one of the Universities to choose the person on whom it should be conferred. Sheridan had no right to give a stamp of merit: it was counterfeiting Apollo's coin."

Monday, March 27th: MR. STRAHAN'S House.

Johnson mentioned that he was to go that evening to Mrs. Abington's benefit. "She was visiting some ladies whom I was visiting, and begged that I would come to her benefit. I told her I could not hear: but she insisted so much on my coming, that it would have been brutal to have refused her."

The Doctor was not loath to retail any little incidents that might give him the air of a gallant young fellow he was getting an old man now, it is true, but there was no necessity for ringing in till the final summons should arrive. Let him feel himself young as long as he can.

Mr. Strahan quoted a capital saying of the Doctor's: "There are few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting money;" and added, "The more one thinks of this, the juster it will appear."

Mr. Strahan had taken a poor boy from the country as an apprentice, upon Johnson's recommendation. Johnson, inquiring