'But if they should be good, why not give them hearty praise?' JOHNSON: Why, madam, because I have not then got the better of my bad humour from having been shown them. You must consider, madam, beforehand, they may be bad as well as good. Nobody has a right to put another under such a difficulty that he must either hurt the person by telling the truth, or hurt himself by telling what is not true.' BOSWELL: A man often shows his writings to people of eminence, to obtain from them, either from their good nature, or from their not being able to tell the truth firmly, a commendation, of which he may afterwards avail himself.' JOHNSON: Very true, sir. Therefore the man who is asked by an author what he thinks of his work is put to the torture, and is not obliged to speak the truth; so that what he says is not considered as his opinion; yet he has said it, and cannot retract it; and this author, when mankind are hunting him with a canister at his tail, can say, "I would not have published had not Johnson, or Reynolds, or Musgrave, or some other good judge, commended the work." Yet I consider it as a very difficult question in conscience, whether one should advise a man not to publish a work if profit be his object; for the man may say, "Had it not been for you, I should have had the money." Now you cannot be sure; for you have only your own opinion, and the public may think very differently.' SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS: You must, upon such an occasion, have two judgments; one as to the real value of the work, the other as to what may please the general taste of the time.' JOHNSON: 'But you can be sure of neither; and therefore I should scruple much to give a suppressive vote. Both Goldsmith's comedies were once refused; his first by Garrick, his second by Colman, who was prevailed on at last, by much solicitation, nay a kind of force, to bring it on. His Vicar of Wakefield, I myself did not think would have had much success. It was written and sold to a bookseller, before his Traveller, but published after-so little expectation had the bookseller from it. Had it been sold after The Traveller, he might have had twice as much money for it, though sixty guineas was no mean price. The bookseller had the advantage of Goldsmith's reputation from The Traveller in the sale, though Goldsmith had it not in selling the copy.' SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS: The Beggars' Opera affords a proof how strangely people will differ in opinion about a literary performance. Burke thinks it has no merit.' JOHNSON: 'It was refused by one of the houses; but I should have thought it would succeed, not from any great excellence in the writing, but from the novelty, and the general spirit and gaiety of the piece, which keeps the audience always attentive, and dismisses them in good humour.'

We went to the drawing room, where was a considerable increase of company. Several of

us got round Dr. Johnson, and complained that he would not give us an exact catalogue of his works, that there might be a complete edition. He smiled, and evaded our entreaties. That he intended to do it, I have no doubt, because I have heard him say so; and I have in my possession an imperfect list, fairly written out, which he entitles Historia Studiorum. I once got from one of his friends a list, which there was pretty good reason to suppose was accurate, for it was written down in his presence by this friend, who enumerated each article aloud, and had some of them mentioned to him by Mr. Levett, in concert with whom it was made out; and Johnson, who heard all this, did not contradict it. But when I showed a copy of this list to him, and mentioned the evidence for its exactness, he laughed, and said, 'I was willing to let them go on as they pleased, and never interfered.' Upon which I read it to him, article by article, and got him positively to own or refuse; and then, having obtained certainty so far, I got some other articles confirmed by him directly, and afterwards, from time to time, made additions under his sanction.

His friend, Edward Cave, having been mentioned, he told us, 'Cave used to sell ten thou sand of The Gentleman's Magazine; yet such was then his minute attention and anxiety that the sale should not suffer the smallest decrease, that he would name a particular person who he heard had talked of leaving off the Magazine, and would say, "Let us have something good next month."

6

It was observed that avarice was inherent in some dispositions. JOHNSON: No man was born a miser, because no man was born to possession. Every man is born cupidus-desirous of getting; but not avarus-desirous of keeping.' BOSWELL: I have heard old Mr. Sheridan maintain, with much ingenuity, that a complete miser is a happy man: a miser who gives him. self wholly to the one passion of saving.' JOHNSON: That is flying in the face of all the world, who have called an avaricious man a miser, because he is miserable. No, sir, a man who both spends and saves money is the happiest man, because he has both enjoyments.'

The conversation having turned on Bon-mots, he quoted, from one of the Ana, an exquisite instance of flattery in a maid of honour in France, who being asked by the Queen what o'clock it was, answered, 'What your Majesty pleases.' He admitted that Mr. Burke's classical pun upon Mr. Wilkes's being carried on the shoulders of the mob,

Mr. Spottiswoode observed that Mr. Fraser, the engineer, who had lately come from Dunkirk, said that the French had the same fears of us. JOHNSON: It is thus that mutual cowardice keeps us in peace. Were one-half of mankind brave, and one-half cowards, the brave would be always beating the cowards. Were all brave, they would lead a very uneasy life; all would be continually fighting; but being all cowards, we go on very well.'

We talked of drinking wine. JOHNSON: 'I require wine only when I am alone. I have then often wished for it, and often taken it.' SPOTTISWOODE: 'What, by way of a companion, sir?' JOHNSON: To get rid of myself-to send myself away. Wine gives great pleasure, and every pleasure is of itself a good. It is a good, unless counterbalanced by evil. A man

may have a strong reason not to drink wine; and that may be greater than the pleasure. Wine makes a man better pleased with himself. I do not say that it makes him more pleasing to others. Sometimes it does. But the danger is, that while a man grows better pleased with

himself, he may be growing less pleasing to

others. Wine gives a man nothing. It neither gives him knowledge nor wit; it only animates a man, and enables him to bring out what a dread of the company has repressed. It only puts in motion what has been locked up in frost. But this may be good or it may be bad.' SPOTTISWOODE: 'So, sir, wine is a key which opens a box; but this box may be either full or empty?' JOHNSON: Nay, sir, conversation is the key; wine is a pick-lock, which forces open the box, and injures it. A man should cultivate his mind so as to have that confidence and readiness, without wine, which wine gives.' BOSWELL: "The great difficulty of resisting wine is from benevolence. For instance, a good worthy man asks you to taste his wine, which he has had twenty years in his cellar.' JOHNSON: Sir, all this notion about benevolence arises from a man's imagining himself to be of more importance to others than he really is. They don't care a farthing whether he drinks wine or not.' SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS: Yes, they do for the time.' JOHNSON: 'For the time! -if they care this minute, they forget it the next. And as for the good worthy manhow do you know he is good and worthy? No good and worthy man will insist upon another Ian's drinking wine. As to the wine twenty years in the cellar-of ten men, three say this, merely because they must say something; three

1 It is observed in Waller's Life, in The Biographia Britannica, that he drank only water; and that while he sat in a company who were drinking wine he had

the dexterity to accommodate his discourse to the pitch

of theirs as it sunk.' If excess in drinking be meant, the remark is acutely just. But surely a moderate use of wine gives a gaiety of spirits which water-drinkers

know not.- BOSWELL

are telling a lie, when they say they have had the wine twenty years; three would rather save the wine; one, perhaps, cares. I allow it is something to please one's company; and people are always pleased with those who partake pleasure with them. But after a man has brought himself to relinquish the great personal pleasure which arises from drinking! wine, any other consideration is a trifle. To please others by drinking wine, is something only, if there be nothing against it. I should, however, be sorry to offend worthy men: "Curst be the verse, how well soe'er it flow,

That tends to make one worthy man my foe." BosWELL: Curst be the spring, the water.' JOHNSON: 'But let us consider what a sad thing it would be, if we were obliged to drink or do anything else that may happen to be agreeable to the company where we are.' LANG

TON: By the same rule, you must join with a gang of cut-purses.' JOHNSON: 'Yes, sir; but yet we must do justice to wine; we must allow it the power it possesses. To make a man

pleased with himself, let me tell you, is doing

a very great thing:

"Si patriæ volumus, si Nobis rivere cari.""

I was at this time myself a water-drinker, upon trial, by Johnson's recommendation. JOHNSON: 'Boswell is a bolder combatant than Sir Joshua: he argues for wine without the help of wine; but Sir Joshua with it.' SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS: 'But to please one's com pany is a strong motive.' JOHNSON (who from drinking only water supposed everybody who drank wine to be elevated): 'I won't argue any more with you, sir. You are too far gote.' SIR JOSHUA: 'I should have thought so indeed, sir, had I made such a speech as you have now done.' JOHNSON (drawing himself in, and I really thought blushing): Nay, don't be angry. I did not mean to offend you.' SIR JOSHUA: 'At first the taste of wine was disagreeable to me; but I brought myself to drink it, that I might be like other people. The pleasure of drinking wine is so connected with pleasing your company, that altogether there is something of social goodness in it.' JOHNSON: 'Sir, this is only saying the same thing over again.' SI JOSHUA: No, this is new.' JOHNSON: 'You put it in new words, but it is an old thought This is one of the disadvantages of wine, it makes a man mistake words for thoughts' BOSWELL: I think it is a new thought; at least it is in a new attitude.' JOHNSON: 'Nay, sir, it is only in a new coat; or an old coat with a new facing. (Then laughing heartily)-It u the old dog in the new doublet. An extraordinary instance, however, may occur where a man's patron will do nothing for him, unless be will drink there may be a good reason for drinking.'

I mentioned a nobleman, who I believed was