Such specimens of the easy and playful conversation of the great Dr. Samuel Johnson are, I think, to be prized; as exhibiting the little varieties of a mind so enlarged and so powerful when objects of consequence required its exertions, and as giving us a minute knowledge of his character and modes of thinking.

LETTER 98.

TO BENNET LANGTON, Esq.

At Langton.

"Johnson's Court, Fleet Street, March 9, 1766. "DEAR SIR,-What your friends have done, that from your departure till now nothing has been heard of you, none of us are able to inform the rest; but as we are all neglected alike, no one thinks himself entitled to the privilege of complaint.

"I should have known nothing of you or of Langton, from the time that dear Miss Langton' left us, had not I met Mr. Simpson, of Lincoln, one day in the street, by whom I was informed that Mr. Langton. your mamma, and yourself, had been all ill, but that you were all recovered.

"That sickness should suspend your correspondence, I did not wonder; but hoped that it would be renewed at your recovery.

"Since you will not inform us where you are, or how you live, I know not whether you desire to know anything of us. However, I will tell you that THE CLUB subsists; but we have the loss of Burke's company since he has been engaged in public business, in which he has gained more reputation than perhaps any man at his [first] appearance ever gained before. He made two speeches in the House for repealing the Stamp Act, which were publicly commended by Mr. Pitt, and have filled the town with wonder.

"Burke is a great man by nature, and is expected soon to attain civil greatness, I am grown greater too, for I have maintained the newspapers these many weeks; and what is greater still, I have risen every morning since New year's day, at about eight: when I was up, have, indeed, done but little; yet it is no slight advancement to obtain, for so many hours more, the consciousness of being.

"I wish you were in my new study; I am now writing the first letter in it. I think it looks very pretty about me.

'Dyer is constant at THE CLUB; Hawkins is remiss; I am not over dili1 Mr. Langton's eldest sister.

2 Mr. Burke came into Parliament under the auspices of the Marquess of Rockingham, in the year 1765.

Probably with criticisms on his Shakspeare.-C.

4 Samuel Dyer, Esq., a most learned and ingenious member of the "Literary Club," for whose understanding and attainments Dr. Johnson had great respect. He died Sept. 14, 1772. A more particular account of this gentleman may be found in a Note on the Life of Dryden, p. 186, prefixed to the edition of that great writer's Prose Works, in four volumes, 8vo., 1800: in which his character is vindicated, and the very unfavourable repre

gent; Dr. Nugent, Dr Goldsmith, and Mr. Reynolds are very constant. Mr
Lye' is printing his Saxon and Gothic Dictionary; all THE CLUB subscribes.
"You will pay my respects to all my Lincolnshire friends. I am, dear Sir,
most affectionately yours,
"SAM. JOHNSON."

LETTER 99.

TO BENNET LANGTON, ESQ.
At Langton.

"Johnson's Court, Fleet Street, May 10, 1766.

3

"DEAR SIR,-In supposing that I should be more than commonly affected by the death of Peregrine Langton,' you were not mistaken; he was one of those whom I loved at once by instinct and by reason. I have seldom indulged nore hope of anything than of being able to improve our acquaintance to friendship. Many a time have I placed myself again at Langton, and imagined the pleasure with which I should walk to Partney in a summer morning; but this is no longer possible. We must now endeavour to preserve what is left us,—his example of piety and economy. I hope you make what inquiries you can, and write down what is told you. The little things which distinguish domestic characters are soon forgotten: if you delay to inquire, you will have no information; if you neglect to write, information will be vain.

"His art of life certainly deserves to be known and studied. He lived in plenty and elegance upon an income which, to many, would appear indigent, and to most, scanty. How he lived, therefore, every man has an interest in knowing. His death, I hope, was peaceful; it was surely happy.

"I wish I had written sooner, lest, writing now, I should renew your grief, but I would not forbear saying what I have now said.

"This loss is, I hope, the only misfortune of a family to whom no misfortune at all should happen, if my wishes could avert it. Let me know how you all Has Mr. Langton got him the little horse that I recommended? It go on. would do him good to ride about his estate in fine weather.

"Be pleased to make my compliments to Mrs. Langton, and to dear Miss Langton, and Miss Di, and Miss Juliet, and to everybody else.

4

"THE CLUB holds very well together. Monday is my night. I continue to rise tolerably well, and read more than I did. I hope something will yet come on it. I am, Sir, your most affectionate servant, SAM. JOHNSON."

sentation of it, given by Sir John Hawkins in his Life of Johnson, pp. 222, 232, is minutely examined-M.

1 Edward Lye was born in 1704. He published the Etymologicum Anglicanum of Junius. His great work is that referred to above, which he was printing; but he did not live to see the publication. He died in 1767, and the Dictionary was published, in 1772, by the Rev. Owen Manning, author of the History and Antiquities of Suri ey.-C.

2 Mr. Langton's uncle.

3 The place of residence of Mr. Peregrine Langton.

↑ Of his being in the chair of the Literary Club, which at this time met once a week in the evening.

CHAPTER XXI.

1765-1767.

Boswell's Thesis-Study of the Law-Rash Vows-Streatham -Oxford-London Improve ments--Dedications-Mrs. Williams's Miscellanies-Mr. William Drummond-Translation of the Bible into the Gaelic-Case of Heely-Dr. Robertson-Cuthbert Shaw-"Tom Hervey " -Johnson's Interview with King George III.-Warburton and Lowth-Lord Lyttleton's History-Dr. Hill-Literary Journals-Visit to Lichfield-Death of Catherine ChambersLexiphanes-Mrs. Aston.

AFTER I had been some time in Scotland, I mentioned to him in a letter that "On my first return to my native country, after some years of absence, I was told of a vast number of my acquaintance who were all gone to the land of forgetfulness, and I found myself like a man stalking over a field of battle, who every moment perceives some one lying dead." I complained of irresolution, and mentioned my having made a vow as a security for good conduct. I wrote to him again without being able to move his indolence : nor did I hear from him till he had received a copy of my inaugural Exercise, or Thesis in Civil Law, which I published at my admission as an Advocate, as is the custom in Scotland. He then wrote to me as follows:

LETTER 100.

TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.

London, August 10, 1766.

"DEAR SIR,-The reception of your Thesis put me in mind of my debt to you. Why did you . ? I will punish you for it, by telling you that In the beginning, Spei alteræ, not to urge that

your Latin wants correction.

The passage omitted alluded to a private transaction.

2 This censure of my Latin relates to the dedication, which was as follows:-" Viro nobilissimo ornatissimo, Joanni, Vicecomiti Mountstuart, atavis edito regibus, excelsæ familiæ de Bute spei altera; labente seculo, quum homines nullius originis genus æquare opibus aggrediunter, sanguinis antiqui et illustris semper memori, natalium splendorem virtutibu augenti: ad publica populi comitia jam legato; in optimatium vero Magnæ Britanniæ senati, Jure hæreditario, olim onsessuro: vim insitam variâ doctrinâ promovente nec tamen se ver

it snould be prime, is not grammatical; alteræ should be alteri. In the next line you seem to use genus absolutely, for what we call family, that is, for illustrious extraction, I doubt without authority. Homines nullius originis, for nullis orti majoribus, or nullo loco nati, is, as I am afraid, barbarous.--Rud diman is dead.

"I have now vexed you enough, and will try to please you. Your resolu. tion to obey your father I sincerely approve; but do not accustom yourself to enchain your volatility by vows; they will sometime leave a thorn in your mind, which you will, perhaps, never be able to extract or eject. Take this warning; it is of great importance.

"The study of the law is what you very justly term it, copious and generous; and in adding your name to its professors, you have done exactly what i always wished, when I wished you best. I hope that you will continue to pursue it vigorously and constantly. You gain, at least, what is no small advantage, security from those troublesome and wearisome discontents, which are always obtruding themselves upon a mind vacant, unemployed, and undetermined.

"You ought to think it no small inducement to diligence and perseverance, that they will please your father. We all live upon the hope of pleasing some. body, and the pleasure of pleasing ought to be greatest, and at last always will be greatest, when our endeavours are exerted in consequence of our duty.

"Life is not long, and too much of it must not pass in idle deliberation how it shall be spent: deliberation which those who begin it by prudence, and continue it with subtilty, must, after long expense of thought, conclude by chance. To prefer one future mode of life to another, upon just reasons, requires faculties which it has not pleased our creator to give us.

"If, therefore, the profession you have chosea has some unexpected incon veniences, console yourself by reflecting that no profession is without them; and that all the importunities and perplexities of business are softness and luxury, compared with the incessant cravings of vacancy, and the unsatisfactory expedients of idleness.

'Hæc sunt quæ nostrâ potui te voce monere;
Vade, age.'

"As to your History of Corsica, you have no materials which others have not, or may not have. You have, somehow or other, warmed your imagina tion. I wish there were some cure, like the lover's leap, for all heads of which some single idea has obtained an unreasonable and irregular possession.

ditante, prædito: priscâ fide, animo liberrimo, et morum elegantiâ insigni: in Italiæ visitandæ itinere socio suo honoratissimo: hasce jurisprudentiæ primitias, devinctissimæ amicitia et observantiæ, monumentum, D. D. C. Q. Jacobus Boswell."

This alludes to the first sentence of the Prooemium of my Thesis. "Jurisprudentiæ studic pullum uberius, nullum generosius: in legibus enim agitandis, populorum mores, variasque fortunæ vices ex quibus leges oriuntur, contemplari simul solemus.”

Mind your own affairs, and leave the Corsicans to theirs.—I am, dear Sir, your most humble servant,

LETTER 101.

"SAM. JOHNSON."

TO DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON.

"Auchinlech, Nov. 6, 1766.

"MUCH ESTEEMED AND DEAR SIR,-I plead not guilty to "Having thus, I hope, cleared myself of the charge brought against me, I presume you will not be displeased if I escape the punishment which you have decreed for me unheard. If you have discharged the arrows of criticism against an innocent man, you must rejoice to find they have missed him, or have not been pointed so as to wound him.

"To talk no longer in allegory, I am, with all deference, going to offer a few observations in defence of my Latin, which you have found fault with. “You think I should have used spei primæ instead of spei alteræ. Spes is, indeed, often used to express something on which we have a future depend. ence, as in Virg. Eclog. i. l. 14.

6

modo namque gemellos

Spem gregis, ah! silice in nudâ connixa reliquit:"

and in Georg. iii. 1. 473.—

'Spemque gregemque simul,'

for the lambs and the sheep. Yet it is also used to express anything on which we have a present dependence, and is well applied to a man of distinguished influence,―our support, our refuge, our præsidium, as Horace calls Mæcenas. So, Æneid xii. 1. 57, Queen Amata addresses her son-in-law, Turnus :~~' spes tu nunc una :' and he was then no future hope, for she adds,

Te penes;'

decus imperiumque Latini

which might have been said of my Lord Bute some years ago. Now I consider the present Earl of Bute to be 'Excelsæ familiæ de Bute spes prima ;' and my Lord Mountstuart, as his eldest son, to be 'spes altera. So in Æneid xii. 1. 168, after having mentioned Pater Æneas, who was the present spes, the reigning spes, as my German friends would say, the spes prima, the poet adds,―

'Et juxta Ascanius, magnæ spes altera Romæ.'

"You think alteræ ungrammatical, and you tell me it should have been altert.

The passage omitted explained the transaction to which the preceding letter had alluded.