not know that Campbell ever lied with pen and ink; but you could not entirely depend on anything that he told you in conversation, if there was fact mixed with it. However, I loved Campbell; he was a solid orthodox man; he had a reverence for religion. Though defective in practice, he was religious in principle; and he did nothing grossly wrong that I have heard."* I told him, that I had been present the day before when Mrs. Montagu, the literary lady, sat to Miss Reynolds for her picture; and that she said, "she had bound up Mr. Gibbon's History without the last two offensive chapters; for that she thought the book so far good, as it gave, in an elegant manner, the substance of the bad writers medii ævi, which the late Lord Lyttleton advised her to read." JOHNSON: "Sir, she has not read them: she shows none of this impetuosity to me she does not know Greek, and, I fancy, knows little Latin. She is willing you should think she knows them; but she does not say she does." BOSWELL: "Mr. Harris, who was present, agreed with her." JOHNSON: "Harris was laughing at her, Sir. Harris is a sound solid scholar; he does not like interlopers. Harris, however, is a prig, and a bad prig.† I looked into his book, and thought he did not understand his own system." BOSWELL: "He says plain things in a formal and abstract way, to be sure; but his method is good: for to have clear notions upon any subject, we must have recourse to analytic arrangement." JOHNSON: "Sir, it is what everybody does, whether they will or no. But sometimes things may be made darker by definition. I see a cow. I define her, Animal quadrupes ruminans cornutum. But a goat ruminates, and a cow may have no horns. Cow is plainer." BOSWELL: "I think Dr. Franklin's definition of Man a good one-'A tool-making animal."" JOHNSON: But many a man never made a tool: and suppose a man without arms, he could not make a tool."

Talking of drinking wine, he said, "I did not bellished by their mode of narrative, had their foundation in truth; but I never remember anything approaching to this. If he had written it, I should have supposed some

wag had put the figure of one before the three."-I am, however, absolutely certain that Dr. Campbell told me it, and I gave particular attention to it, being myself a lover of wine, and therefore curious to hear whatever is remarkable concerning drinking. There can be no doubt that some men can drink, without suffering any injury, such a quantity as to others appears incredible. It is but fair to add, that Dr. Campbell told me, he took a very long time to this great potation; and I have heard Dr. Johnson say, "Sir, if a man drinks very slowly, and lets one glass evaporate before he takes another, I know not how long he may drink." Dr. Campbell mentioned a Colonel of Militia who sat with him all the time and drank equally. BOSWELL.

Dr. John Campbell died about two years before this

conversation took place; Dec. 10, 1776.-MALONE.

What my friend meant by these words concerning the amiable philosopher of Salisbury, I am at a loss to understand. A friend suggests, that Johnson thought his manner as a writer affected, while at the same time the matter did not compensate for that fault. In short, that he meant to make a remark quite different from that which a celebrated gentleman made on a very eminent physician: "He is a coxcomb, but a satisfactory coxcomb."-BOSWELL.

The celebrated gentleman here alluded to, was the late Right Honourable William Gerard Hamilton.MALONE

leave off wine because I could not bear it! I have drunk three bottles of port without being the worse for it. University College has witnessed this." BOSWELL: Why then, Sir, did you leave it off?" JOHNSON : Why, Sir, because it is much better for a man to be sure that he is never to be intoxicated, never to lose the power over himself. I shall not begin to drink wine till grow old, and want it." BOSWELL: "I think, Sir, you once said to me, that not to drink wine was a great deduction from life." JOHNSON: "It is a diminution of pleasure, to be sure; but I do not say a diminution of happiness. There is more happiness in being rational." BOSWELL: "But if we could have pleasure always, should not we be happy? The greatest part of men would compound for pleasure." JOHNSON: "Supposing we could have pleasure always, an intellectual man would not compound for it. The greatest part of men would compound, because the greatest part of men are gross. BOSWELL: "I allow there may be greater pleasure than from wine. I have had more pleasure from your conversation. I have indeed; I assure you I have." JOHNSON: "When we talk of pleasure, we mean sensual pleasure. When a man says, he had pleasure with a woman, he does not mean conversation, but something of a very different nature. Philosophers tell you that pleasure is contrary to happiness. Gross men prefer animal pleasure. So there are men who have preferred living among savages. Now what a wretch must he be, who is content with such conversation as can be had among savages! You may remember an officer at Fort Augustus, who had served in America, told us of a woman whom they were obliged to bind, in order to get her back from savage life." BOSWELL: "She must have been an animal, a beast." JOHNSON: 'Sir, she was a speaking

cat.

I mentioned to him that I had become very weary in a company where I heard not a single intellectual sentence, except that "a man who had been settled ten years in Minorca was become a much inferior man to what he was in London, because a man's mind grows narrow in a narrow place." JOHNSON: "A man's mind grows narrow in a narrow place, whose mind is enlarged only because he has lived in a large place: but what is got by books and thinking, is preserved in a narrow place as well as in a large place. A man cannot know modes of life as well in Minorca as in London; but he may study mathematics as well in Minorca." Sir, if you had remained ten years in the Isle of BOSWELL: "I don't know, Col, you would not have been the man you now are." JOHNSON: "Yes, Sir, if I had been there five to thirty-five." BOSWELL: "I own, Sir, the from fifteen to twenty-five; but not if from twentyspirits which I have in London make me do everything with more readiness and vigour. I can talk twice as much in London as anywhere else."

Of Goldsmith, he said, "He was not an agreeable companion, for he talked always for fame. A man who does so never can be pleasing. The man who talks to unburden his mind is the man

to delight you. An eminent friend of ours is not so agreeable as the variety of his knowledge

with his observations upon Horace's villa, which he had examined with great care. I relished this much, as it brought fresh into my mind what I had viewed with great_pleasure thirteen years before. The Bishop, Dr. Johnson, and Mr. Cambridge joined with Mr. Ramsay in recollecting the various lines in Horace relating to the subject.

Horace's journey to Brundusium being mentioned, Sat. 1. i. 5, Johnson observed, that the brook which he describes is to be seen now, exactly as at that time: and that he had often wondered how it happened, that small brooks, such as this, kept the same situation for ages, notwithstanding earthquakes, by which even mountains have been changed, and agriculture, which produces such a variation upon the surface of the earth. CAMBRIDGE: "A Spanish writer has this thought in a poetical conceit." After observing that most of the solid structures of Rome are totally perished, while the Tiber remains the same, he adds,

Lo que erà firme huió, solamente
Lo Fugitivo permanece y dura.'”

JOHNSON: "Sir, that is taken from Janus Vitalis:

immota labescunt;

Et quæ perpetuò sunt agitata manent."" The Bishop said, it appeared from Horace's writings that he was a cheerful contented man. JOHNSON: "We have no reason to believe that, my Lord. Are we to think Pope was happy, because he says so in his writings? We see in his writings what he wished the state of his mind to appear. Dr. Young, who pined for preferment, talks with contempt of it in his writings, and affects to despise everything that he did not despise." BISHOP OF ST. ASAPH: "He was like other chaplains, looking for vacancies: but that is not peculiar to the clergy. I remember when I was with the army, after the battle of Lafeldt, the officers seriously grumbled that no general was killed." CAMBRIDGE: "We may believe Horace more, when he says,

Romæ Tibur amem ventosus, Tibure Romam;' than when he boasts of his consistency:

Me constare mihi scis, et discedere tristem, Quandocunque trahunt invisa negotia Romam."" BOSWELL: "How hard is it that man can never be at rest." RAMSAY: "It is not in his nature to be at rest. When he is at rest, he is in the worst state that he can be in; for he has nothing to agitate him. He is then like the man in the Irish song

"

"There is not one bad line in that poem--no one of Dryden's careless verses." SIR JOSHUA: "I was glad to hear Charles Fox say, it was one of the finest poems in the English language." LANGTON: "Why were you glad? You surely had no doubt of this before." JOHNSON: "No; the merit of 'The Traveller' is so well established, that Mr. Fox's praise cannot augment it, nor his censure diminish it," SIR JOSHUA: "But his friends may suspect they had too great a partiality for him." JOHNSON: 'Nay, Sir, the partiality of his friends was always against him. It was with difficulty we could give him a hearing. Goldsmith had no settled notions upon any sub. ject; so he talked always at random. It seemed to be his intention to blurt out whatever was in his mind, and see what would become of it. He was angry too, when caught in an absurdity; but it did not prevent him from falling into another the next minute. I remember Chamier,* after talking with him some time, said, 'Well, I do believe he wrote this poem himself: and, let me tell you, that is believing a great deal.' Chamier once asked him, what he meant by slow, the last word in the first line of 'The Traveller,'

'Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow. Did he mean tardiness of locomotion? Goldsmith, who would say something without consideration, answered, 'Yes.' I was sitting by, and said, 'No, Sir; you do not mean tardiness of locomotion; you mean that sluggishness of mind which comes upon a man in solitude.' Chamier believed then that I had written the line, as much as if he had seen me write it. Goldsmith, however, was a man, who, whatever he wrote, did it better than any other man could do. He deserved a place in Westminster Abbey; and every year he lived, would have deserved it better. He had indeed been at no pains to fill his mind with knowledge. He transplanted it from one place to another; and it did not settle in his mind; so he could not tell what was in his own books.

We talked of living in the country. JOHNSON: "No wise man will go to live in the country, unless he has something to do which can be better done in the country. For instance: if he is to shut himself up for a year to study a science, it is better to look out to the fields, than to an opposite wall. Then if a man walks out in the country, there is nobody to keep him from walking in again; but if a man walks out in London, he is not sure when he shall walk in again. A great city is, to be sure, the school for studying life; and the proper study of mankind is man,' as Pope observes.' BOSWELL: "I fancy London is the best place for society: though I have heard that the very first society of Paris is still beyond anything that we have here." JOHNSON: I question if in Paris such a company as is sitting round this table could be got together in less than half a-year. They talk in France of the felicity of men and women living together: the truth is, that there the men are not higher than the women, they know no more than the women do, and they

Sir,

Anthony Chamier, Esq., a member of the LITERARY CLUB, and Under-Secretary of State. He died Oct. 12 1780.-MALONE.

are not held down in their conversation by the presence of women." RAMSAY: "Literature is upon the growth; it is in its spring in France; here it is rather passée." JOHNSON: "Literature was in France long before we had it. Paris was the second city for the revival of letters: Italy had it first, to be sure. What have we done for literature, equal to what was done by the Stephani and others in France? Our literature came to us through France. Caxton printed only two books, Chaucer and Gower, that were not translations from the French; and Chaucer, we know, took much from the Italians. No, Sir, if literature be in its spring in France, it is a second spring; it is after a winter. We are now before the French in literature; but we had it long after them in Eng: land; any man who wears a sword and a powdered wig, is ashamed to be illiterate. I believe it is not so in France. Yet there is, probably, a great deal of learning in France, because they have such 1 number of religious establishments; so many men who have nothing else to do but to study. I do not know this; but I take it upon the common principles of chance. Where there are many

shooters, some will hit."

We talked of old age. Johnson (now in his seventieth year), said "It is a man's own fault, it is from want of use, if his mind grows torpid in old age. The bishop asked, if an old man does not lose faster than he gets. JOHNSON: "I think not, my Lord, if he exerts himself." One of the company rashly observed, that he thought it was happy for an old man that insensibility comes upon him. JOHNSON (with a noble elevation and disdain): "No, Sir, I should never be happy by being less rational.' BISHOP OF ST. ASAPH: "Your wish then, Sir, is yngaru didaμs." JOHNSON: "Yes, my Lord." His Lordship mentioned a charitable establishment in Wales, where people were maintained, and supplied with everything, upon the condition of their contributing the weekly produce of their labour; and he said they grew quite torpid for the want of property. JOHNSON: "They have no object for hope. Their condition cannot be better. It is rowing without a port."

One of the company asked him the meaning of the expression in Juvenal, unius lacerta. JOHNSON: I think it clear enough; as much ground as one may have a chance to find a lizard upon." Commentators have differed as to the exact meaning of the expression by which the poet intended to enforce the sentiment contained in the passage where these words occur. It is enough that they mean to denote even a very small possession, provided it be a man's own :

"Est aliquid, quocunque loco, quocunque recessu, Unius sese dominum fecisse lacerta."

This season there was a whimsical fashion in the newspapers of applying Shakspeare's words to describe living persons well known in the world; which was done under the title of "Modern Characters from Shakspeare;' many of which

To grow old in learning.

+ Juvenal, Sat. iii. 230.-Thus translated by Gifford :"And sure-in any corner we can getTo call one lizard ours, is something yet,"

were admirably adapted. The fancy took so much, that they were afterwards collected into a pamphlet. Somebody said to Johnson, across the table, that he had not been in those characters. "Yes," said he, "I have. I should have been sorry to be left out." He then repeated what had been applied to him,

"You must borrow me GARAGANTUA'S mouth."

Miss Reynolds not perceiving at once the meaning of this, he was obliged to explain it to her, which had something of an awkward and ludicrous effect. "Why, Madam, it has a reference to me, as using big words, which require the mouth of a giant to pronounce them. Garagantua is the name of a giant in Rabelais." BOSWELL: "But, Sir, there is another amongst them for

you :

He would not flatter Neptune for his trident, Or Jove for his power to thunder.'" JOHNSON: "There is nothing marked in that. No, Sir, Garagantua is the best." Notwithstanding this ease and good humour, when I, a little rick, which was received with applause, he asked, while afterwards, repeated his sarcasm on Ken"Who said that?" and on my suddenly answering Garagantua, he looked serious, which was a sufficient indication that he did not wish it to be kept up.

When we went to the drawing-room, there was a rich assemblage. Besides the company who had been at dinner, there were Mr. Garrick, Mr. Harris of Salisbury, Dr. Percy, Dr. Burney, the Honourable Mrs. Cholmondeley, Miss Hannah More, &c. &c.

tion.

traction for some time, I got into a corner with After wandering about in a kind of pleasing disJohnson, Garrick, and Harris. GARRICK (to Harris): "Pray, Sir, have you read Potter's Eschylus?" HARRIS: "Yes: and think it pretty." GARRICK (to Johnson): "And what think you, Sir, of it?" JOHNSON: "I thought what I read of it verbiage; but upon Mr. Harris's recommendation I will read a play. (To Mr. Harris.) Don't prescribe two.' "Mr. Harris sugWe must try its effect as an English poem; gested one, I do not remember which. JOHNSON: that is the way to judge of the merit of a translawho cannot read the original.' Translations are, in general, for people I mentioned the vulgar saying, that Pope's Homer was not a good it is the greatest work of the kind that has ever representation of the original." JOHNSON: Sir, been produced." BOSWELL: "The truth is, it is impossible perfectly to translate poetry. In a different languagel it may be the same tune, but it has not the same tone. Homer plays it on think heroic poetry is best in blank verse; yet it a bassoon; Pope on a flageolet." HARRIS: "I appears that rhyme is essential to English poetry, from our deficiency in metrical quantities. In my opinion, the chief excellence of our language is numerous prose." JOHNSON: "Sir William

This was Dr. Charles Burney, the musical composer, who was father of the great critic and scholar, and author of a "General History of Music." He was born at Shrewsbury in 1726, and died in 1814.-ED.