of Johnson's was quoted, and thought to have at least equal excellence."

"As Johnson always allowed the extraordinary talents of Mr. Burke, so Mr. Burke was fully sensible of the wonderful powers of Johnson. Mr. Langton recollects having passed an evening with both of them, when Mr. Burke repeatedly entered upon topics which it was evident he would have illustrated with extensive knowledge and richness of expression; but Johnson always seized upon the conversation, in which, however, he acquitted himself in a most masterly manner. Mr. Burke and Mr. Langton were walking home, Mr. Burke observed that Johnson had been very great that night. Mr. Langton joined in this, but added, he could have wished to hear more from another person, plainly intimating that he meant Mr. Burke. Oh, no,' said Mr. Burke, 'it is enough for me to have rung the bell to him.""

As

"Beauclerk having observed to him of one of their friends, that he was awkward at counting money, 'Why, Sir,' said Johnson, 'I am likewise

count.

awkward at counting money. But then, Sir, the reason is plain : I have had very little money to "He had an abhorrence of affectation. Talking of old Mr. Langton, of whom he said, Sir, you will seldom see such a gentleman, such are his stores of literature, such his knowledge in divinity, and such his exemplary life; he added, and, Sir, he has no grimace, no gesticulation, no bursts of admiration on trivial occasions; he never embraces you with an overacted cordiality.'

Being in company with a gentleman who thought fit to maintain Dr. Berkeley's ingenious philosophy, that nothing exists but as perceived by some mind; when the gentleman was going away, Johnson said to him, 'Pray, Sir, don't leave us; for we may perhaps forget to think of you, and then you will cease to exist.'"*

Goldsmith, upon being visited by Johnson one day in the Temple, said to him, with a little jealousy of the appearance of his accommodation, I shall soon be in better chambers than these.' Johnson at the same time checked him, and paid him a handsome compliment, implying that a man of his talents should be above attention to such distinctions. 'Nay, Sir, never mind that. Nil te quæsiveris extra."

"At the time when his pension was granted to him, he said, with a noble literary ambition, Had this happened twenty years ago, I should have gone to Constantinople to learn Arabic, as Pococket did.""

"As an instance of the niceness of his taste, though he praised West's translation of Pindar, he pointed out the following passages as faulty, by expressing a circumstance so minute as to

Dr. Berkeley was the Bishop of Cloyne, and a metaphysical writer of great celebrity. His bold hypothesis of the non-existence of material objects in Nature otherwise than in the mind, excited extraordinary attention at the time. Pope ascribed to him "every virtue under heaven!" He was born at Kilerin, in Ireland, in 1684, and died in 1753.-ED.

t Dr. Edward Pococke was Hebrew Professor at Oxford, and a celebrated orientalist. He was born in 1604, and died in 1691,---ED.

detract from the general dignity which should prevail :

Down, then, from thy glittering nail.
Take, O muse, thy Dorian lyre."

"When Mr. Vesey was proposed as a member of the Literary Club, Mr. Burke began by saying that he was a man of gentle manners. Sir,' said Johnson, 'you need say no more. When you have said a man of gentle manners, you have said enough.""

"The late Mr. Fitzherbert told Mr. Langton that Johnson said to him, 'Sir, a man has no more right to say an uncivil thing, than to act one; no more right to say a rude thing to another than to knock him down.""

666

My dear friend Dr. Bathurst,' said he, with that his father, who was a West Indian planter, a warmth of approbation, 'declared, he was glad had left his affairs in total ruin, because having no estate he was not under the temptation of having slaves."

"Richardson had little conversation, except about his own works, of which Sir Joshua Reyglad to have them introduced. Johnson, when nolds said he was always willing to talk, and he carried Mr. Langton to see him, professed and used this illusive expression, Sir, I can that he could bring him out into conversation, But he failed; for in that intermake him rear.' view Richardson said little else than that there lay in the room a translation of his 'Clarissa' into German."t

"Once when somebody produced a newspaper, in which there was a letter of stupid abuse of Sir Joshua Reynolds, of which Johnson himself came in for a share, Pray,' said he, let us have it read aloud from beginning to end;' which being done, he with a ludicrous earnestness, and not directing his look to any particular person, called 'Are we alive after all this satire ?""

out

He had a strong prejudice against the political character of Secker, one instance of which ap

The Right Honourable Agmondesham Vesey was elected a member of the LITERARY CLUB in 1773, and died in 1784.-MALONE.

† A literary lady has favoured me with a characteristic anecdote of Richardson. One day at his country house at Northend, where a large company was assembled at dinner, a gentleman who was just returned from Paris, willing to please Mr. Richardson, mentioned to him a very flattering circumstance, that he had seen his observing that part of the company were engaged in Clarissa lying on the king's brother's table. Richardson talking to each other, affected then not to attend to it. But by and by, when there was a general silence, and he thought that the flattery might be fully heard, he addressed himself to the gentleman, "I think, Sir, you were saying something about-," pausing in a high flutter of expectation. The gentleman, provoked at his inordinate vanity, resolved not to indulge it, and with an exquisitely sly air of indifference answered, "A mere trifle, Sir, not worth repeating." The mortification of Richardson was visible, and he did not speak ten words more the whole day. Dr. Johnson was present, and appeared to enjoy it much.-BOSWELL.

Secker, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was originally educated with the view of becoming a dissenting minister, his family and connexions being Dissenters; but from conscientious scruples he eventually conformed to the Church of England, took orders, and obtained rapid preferment. He was successively elevated to the Sees of Bristol in 735, Oxford in 1737, and Canterbury in 1758, in which la situation he conducted himself with great

peared at Oxford, where he expressed great dissatisfaction at his varying the old established toast, Church and King.' 'The Archbishop of Canterbury,' said he (with an affected smooth smiling grimace), 'drinks Constitution in Church and State." Being asked what difference there was between the two toasts, he said, 'Why, Sir, you may be sure he meant something.' Yet when the life of that prelate, prefixed to his sermons by Dr. Porteus and Dr. Stinton, his chaplains, first came out, he read it with the utmost avidity, and said, "It is a life well written, and that well deserves to be recorded.'

own.

"Of a certain noble lord, he said, 'Respect him you could not; for he had no mind of his Love him you could not; for that which you could do with him, every one else could."" "Of Dr. Goldsmith, he said, 'No man was more foolish when he had not a pen in his hand, or more wise when he had.""

"He told, in his lively manner, the following literary anecdote:-'Green and Guthrie, an Irishman and a Scotchman, undertook a translation of Duhalde's History of China. Green said of Guthrie, that he knew no English, and Guthrie of Green, that he knew no French; and these two undertook to translate Duhalde's History of China. In this translation there was found "the twenty-sixth day of the new moon." Now, as the whole age of the moon is but twenty-eight days, the moon, instead of being new, was nearly as old as it could be. The blunder arose from their mistaking the word neuvième (ninth) for nouvelle or neuve (new).""

"Talking of Dr. Blagden's copiousness and precision of communication, Dr. Johnson said, Blagden, Sir, is a delightful fellow.""

On occasion of Dr. Johnson's publishing his pamphlet of 'The False Alarm,' there came out a very angry answer (by many supposed to be by Mr. Wilkes). Dr. Johnson determined on not answering it; but, in conversation with Mr. Langton, mentioned a particular or two, which, if he had replied to it, he might perhaps have inserted. In the answerer's pamphlet, it had been said with solemnity, 'Do you consider, Sir, that a House of Commons is to the people as a creature is to its Creator? To this question,' said Dr. Johnson, I could have replied that, in the first place, the idea of a Creator must be such as that he has a power to unmake or annihilate his creature.'

Then it cannot be conceived that a creature can make laws for its Creator.""*

"Depend upon it,' said he, that if a man talks of his misfortunes, there is something in them that is not disagreeable to him; for where there is nothing but pure misery, there never is any recourse to the mention of it.""

dignity and munificence. He was born at Sibthorpe, in Nottinghamshire, in 1693, and died in 1768. His Sermons, Charges, and other works have been published in 12 vols.-ED.

* His profound adoration of the GREAT FIRST CAUSE was such as to set him above that "Philosophy and vain deceit," with which men of narrow conceptions have been Imferted. I have heard him strongly maintain that "what is right is not so from any natural fitness, but because GOD wills it to be right;" and it is certainly so, because he has predisposed the relations of things so as that which he wills must be right.-BOSWELL.

"A man must be a poor beast, that should read no more in quantity than he could utter aloud.”

"Imlac in Rasselas,' I spelt with a c at the end, because it is less like English, which should always have the Saxon & added to the c.'

"Many a man is mad in certain instances, and goes through life without having it perceived: for example, a madness has seized a person of supposing himself obliged literally to pray continually; had the madness turned the opposite way, and the person thought it a crime ever to pray, it might not improbably have continued unobserved.

"He apprehended that the delineation of characters in the end of the first book of 'The Retreat of the Ten Thousand,' was the first instance of the kind that was known."

66 6

Supposing,' said he, a wife to be of a studious or argumentative turn, it would be very troublesome; for instance, if a woman should continually dwell upon the subject of the Arian heresy.'

"No man speaks concerning another, even suppose it be in his praise, if he thinks he does not hear him, exactly as he would if he thought he was within hearing."

""The applause of a single human being is of great consequence.' This he said to me with great earnestness of manner, very near the time of his decease, on occasion of having desired me to read a letter addressed to him from some person in the north of England, which, when I had done, and he asked me what the contents were, as I thought being particular upon it might fatigue him, it being of great length, I only told him in general that it was highly in his praise; and then he expressed himself as above."

"He mentioned with an air of satisfaction what Baretti had told him, that, meeting in the course of his studying English, with an excellent paper in 'The Spectator,' one of four that were written by the respectable dissenting minister, Mr. Grove, of Taunton, and observing the genius and energy of mind that it exhibits, it greatly quickened his curiosity to visit our country; as he thought, if such were the lighter periodical essays of our authors, their productions on more weighty occasions must be wonderful indeed."

"He observed once, at Sir Joshua Reynolds's, that a beggar in the street will more readily ask alms from a man, though there should be no marks of wealth in his appearance, than from even a well-dressed woman; * which he accounted for from the great degree of carefulness as to money that is to be found in women; saying farther upon it, that the opportunities in general that they possess of improving their condition are much fewer than men have; and adding, as he looked round the company, which consisted of men only, 'There is not one of us who does not think he might be richer, if he would use his endeavour.'"'

"He thus characterised an ingenious writer of his acquaintance:-'Sir, he is an enthusiast by rule."""

Sterne is of a direct contrary opinion. See his "Sen. timental Journey," Article, The Mystery.-BOSWELL.

"

CHAPTER XLVI.-1781.

IN 1781, Johnson at last completed his "Lives of the Poets," of which he gives this account:"Some time in March I finished 'The Lives of the Poets,' which I wrote in my usual way, dilatorily and hastily, unwilling to work, and working with vigour and haste." In a memorandum previous to this, he says of them :-"Written, I hope, in such a manner as may tend to the promotion of piety."

This is the work which, of all Dr. Johnson's writings, will perhaps be read most generally, and with most pleasure. Philology and biography were his favourite pursuits, and those who lived most in intimacy with him, heard him upon all occasions, when there was a proper opportunity, take delight in expatiating upon the various merits of the English Poets; upon the niceties of their characters, and the events of their progress through the world which they contribute to illuminate. His mind was so full of that kind of information, and it was so well arranged in his memory, that in performing what he had undertaken in this way, he had little more to do than to put his thoughts upon paper, exhibiting first each poet's life, and then subjoining a critical examination of his genius and works. But when he began to write, the subject swelled in such a manner, that, instead of prefaces to each poet of no more than a few pages, as he had originally intended,* he

His design is thus announced in his Advertisement: "The booksellers having determined to publish a body

produced an ample, rich, and most entertaining view of them in every respect. In this he resembled Quintilian, who tells us, that in the composition of his Institutions of Oratory, "Latius se tamen aperiente materiâ, plus quàm imponebatur oneris sponte suscepi." The booksellers, justly sensible of the great additional value of the copyright, presented him with another hundred pounds. over and above two hundred, for which his agreement was to furnish such prefaces as he thought fit.

This was, however, but a small recompense for such a collection of biography, and such principles and illustrations of criticism, as, if digested and arranged in one system by some modern Aristotle or Longinus, might form a code upon that subject, such as no other nation can show. As he was so good as to make me a present of the greatest part of the original and indeed only manuscript of this admirable work, I have an opportunity of observing with wonder the correctness with which he rapidly struck off such glowing composition. He may be assimilated to the Lady in Waller, who could impress with "Love at first sight:"

"Some other nymphs with colours faint,
And pencil slow, may Cupid paint,
And a weak heart in time destroy;
She has a stamp, and prints the boy."

and some anxiety in carrying on the work, we That he, however, had a good deal of trouble, see from a series of letters to Mr. Nichols, the printer, whose variety of literary inquiry and

of English Poetry, I was persuaded to promise them a preface to the works of each author; an undertaking, as it was then presented to my mind, not very tedious or difficult. My purpose was only to have allotted to every poet an advertisement, like that which we find in the French Miscellanies, containing a few dates, and a general character; but I have been led beyond my intention, I hope by the honest desire of giving useful pleasure."—

BOSWELL.

Thus :-" In the Life of Waller, Mr. Nichols will find a reference to the Parliamentary History, from which a long quotation is to be inserted. If Mr. Nichols cannot easily find the book, Mr. Johnson will send it from

Streatham."

"Clarendon is here returned."

"By some accident, I laid your note upon Duke up so safely, that I cannot find it. Your informations have been of great use to me. I must beg it again; with another list of our authors, for I have laid that with the other. I have sent Stepney's epitaph. Let me have the revises as soon as can be. Dec. 1778."

"I have sent Philips, with his epitaphs, to be inserted. The fragment of a preface is hardly worth the impression, but that we may seem to do something. It may be added to the Life of Philips. The Latin page is to be added to the Life of Smith. I shall be at home to revise the two sheets of Milton. March 1, 1779."

"Please to get me the last edition of Hughes's letters; and try to get Dennis upon Blackmore, and upon Cato, and anything of the same writer against Pope. Our materials

are defective."

"As Waller professed to have imitated Fairfax, do you think a few pages of Fairfax would enrich our edition? Few readers have seen it, and it may please them. But it is not necessary." "

"An account of the lives and works of some of the most eminent English poets. By, &c. The English Poets, biographically and critically considered, by SAM. JOHNSON-Let Mr. Nichols take his choice, or make

another to his mind. May, 1781."

"You somehow forgot the advertisement for the new edition. It was rot enclosed. Of Gay's letters I see not that any use can be made, for they give no information