Sir Joshua Reynolds observed, with great truth, that Johnson considered Garrick to be as it were his property. He would allow no man either to blame or to praise Garrick in his presence, without contradicting him.

Having fallen into a very serious frame of mind, in which mutual expressions of kindness passed between us, such as would be thought too vain in me to repeat, I talked with regret of the sad inevitable certainty that one of us must survive the other. JOHNSON. "Yes, Sir, that is an affecting consideration. I remember Swift, in one of his letters to Pope, says, "I intend to come over, that we may meet once more; and when we must part, it is what happens to all human beings." BOSWELL. "The hope that we shall see our departed friends again must support the mind." JOHNSON. "Why, yes, Sir." 1 BOSWELL. "There is a strange unwillingness to part with life, independent of serious fears as to futurity. A reverend friend of ours (naming him) tells me, that he feels an uneasiness at the thoughts of leaving his house, his study, his books." JOHNSON. "This is foolish in *** A man need not be uneasy on these grounds; for, as he will retain his consciousness, he may say with the philosopher, Omnia mea mecum porto." BosWELL. "True, Sir: we may carry our books in our heads; but still there is something painful in the thought of leaving for ever what has given us pleasure. I remember, many years ago, when my imagination was warm, and I happened to be in a melancholy mood, it distressed me to think of going into a state of being in which Shakspeare's poetry did not exist. A lady whom I then much admired, a very amiable woman, humoured my fancy, and relieved me by saying, 'The first thing you will meet in the other world, will be an elegant copy of Shakspeare's works presented to you.'" Dr. Johnson smiled benignantly at this, and did not appear to disapprove of the notion.

We went to St. Clement's church again in the afternoon, and then returned and drank tea and coffee in Mrs. Williams's room; Mrs. Desmoulins doing the honours of the tea-table. I observed that he would not even look at the proof-sheet of his "Life of Waller" on Good Friday.

Mr. Allen, the printer, brought a book on agriculture, which was printed, and was soon to be published. It was a very strange performance, the authour having mixed in it his own thoughts upon various topicks, along with his remarks on plowing, sowing, and other farming operations. He seemed to be an absurd profane fellow, and had introduced in his book many sneers at religion, with equal 1 [See on the same subiect, ante, p. 5.—M.]

ignorance and conceit. Dr. Johnson permitted me to read some passages aloud. One was that he resolved to work on Sunday, and did work, but he owned he felt some weak compunction; and he had this very curious reflection :-"I was born in the wilds of Christianity, and the briars and thorns still hang about me." Dr. Johnson could not help laughing at this ridiculous image, yet was very angry at the fellow's impiety. "However, (said he,) the Reviewers will make him hang himself." He, however, observed, "that formerly there might have been a dispensation obtained for working on Sunday in the time of harvest." Indeed in ritual observances, were all the ministers of religion what they should be, and what many of them are, such a power might be wisely and safely lodged with the Church.

On Saturday, April 14, I drank tea with him. He praised the late Mr. Duncombe,1 of Canterbury, as a pleasing man. "He used to come to me; I did not seek much after him. Indeed I never sought much after any body." BOSWELL. "Lord Orrery, I suppose." JOHNSON. "No, Sir; I never went to him but when he sent for me." BOSWELL. "Richardson?" JOHNSON. "Yes, Sir. But I sought after George Psalmanazar the most. I used to go and sit with him at an alehouse in the city."

I am happy to mention another instance which I discovered of his seeking after a man of merit. Soon after the Honourable Daines Barrington had published his excellent "Observations on the Statutes," Johnson waited on that worthy and learned gentleman; and, having told him his name, courteously said, "I have read your book, Sir, with great pleasure, and wish to be better known to you." Thus began an acquaintance, which was continued with mutual regard as long as Johnson lived.

Talking of a recent seditious delinquent, he said, "They should set him in the pillory, that he may be punished in a way that would disgrace him." I observed, that the pillory does not always disgrace. And I mentioned an instance of a gentleman, who I thought was not dishonoured by it. JOHNSON. "Ay, but he was, Sir. He could not mouth and strut as he used to do, after having been there. People are not willing to ask a man to their tables, who has stood in the pillory."

The gentleman who had dined with us at Dr. Percy's came in. 1 [William Duncombe, Esq. He married the sister of John Hughes, the poet; was the authour of two tragedies, and other ingenious productions; and died Feb. 26,

79.-M.]

1769, aged 7966. The worthy authour died many years after Johnson, March 13,

1800, aged about 74.-M.]

See p. 421 of this volume.

Johnson attacked the Americans with intemperate vehemence of abuse. I said something in their favour; and added, that I was always sorry, when he talked on that subject. This, it seems, exasperated him; though he said nothing at the time. The cloud was charged with sulphureous vapour, which was afterwards to burst in thunder. We talked of a gentleman who was running out his fortune in London; and I said, "We must get him out of it. All his friends must quarrel with him, and that will soon drive him away." JOHNSON. "Nay, Sir, we'll send you to him. If your company does not drive a man out of his house, nothing will." This was a horrible shock, for which there was no visible cause. I afterwards asked him, why he had said so harsh a thing. JOHNSON. "Because, Sir, you made me angry about the Americans." BOSWELL. "But why did you not take your revenge directly?" JOHNSON. (smiling) "Because, Sir, I had nothing ready. A man cannot strike till he has his weapons." This was a candid and pleasant confession.

He shewed me to-night his drawing-room, very genteelly fitted up; and said, "Mrs. Thrale sneered, when I talked of my having asked you and your lady to live at my house. I was obliged to tell her, that you would be in as respectable a situation in my house as in hers. Sir, the insolence of wealth will creep out." BOSWELL. "She has a little both of the insolence of wealth, and the conceit of parts." JOHNSON. "The insolence of wealth is a wretched thing; but the conceit of parts has some foundation. To be sure, it should not be. But who is without it?" BOSWELL." BOSWELL." Yourself, Sir." Yourself, Sir." JOHNSON. Why, I play no tricks: I lay no traps." BoSWELL. "No, Sir. You are six feet high, and you only do not stoop."

We talked of the numbers of people that sometimes have composed the households of great families. I mentioned that there were a hundred in the family of the present Earl of Eglintoune's father. Dr. Johnson seeming to doubt it, I began to enumerate. "Let us see my Lord and my Lady two." JOHNSON. "Nay, Sir, if you are to count by twos, you may be long enough." BOSWELL. "Well, but now I add two sons and seven daughters, and a servant for each, that will make twenty; so we have the fifth part already." JOHNSON. "Very true. You get at twenty pretty readily; but you will not so easily get further on. We grow to five feet pretty readily; but it is not so easy to grow to seven."

EDITORIAL NOTES

Page

1. Sir A. Macdonald succeeded his brother, Sir James. Johnson and Boswell visited him in Skye. See Tour to the Hebrides, Sept. 2.

2. John Dunning (1731-1783), lawyer and politician, created Lord Ashburton in 1782.

2. Acertain prosperous Member of Parliament. Henry Dundas (1742-1811). Successively Lord Advocate, Secretary of State, First Lord of the Admiralty, and Viscount Melville, whose accent and many of whose phrases were to the last peculiarly national."-Croker.

3. Sir Gilbert Elliot (1722-1777), third Baronet, wrote the ballad beginning "My sheep I neglected," referred to by Sir W. Scott in the notes to the Lay of the Last Minstrel (note xix).

3. For Hugh Hume (1708-1794), third Earl of Marchmont, Pope's friend and executor, and for his relations with Johnson, see post, May 12, 1778.

7. Owen Ruffhead's (1723-1769) Life of Pope appeared in 1769. 7. The French statesman. Louis XIV.

8. Ranelagh, so called because its site was that of a villa of Viscount Ranelagh, near Chelsea, a place of entertainment, of which the principal room was a Rotunda of great dimensions. The Pantheon, in Oxford Street, was built in 1772, after Wyatt's designs, as a kind of town Ranelagh, but partook more of the shape of a theatre.-Croker. The Pantheon was destroyed by fire in 1792, and Ranelagh was pulled down a few years later.

9. Sir Adam Ferguson of Kelkerran, Bart., member of Parliament for Ayrshire from 1774 to 1780.-Croker.

10. A schoolmaster of his acquaintance. Mr. Elphinston.

12. Hon. Thomas Erskine (1750-1823) "entered the navy as a midshipman in 1764, and the army as an ensign in the Royals in 1768. He was called to the Bar in 1779 [1778]; appointed a King's Counsel in 1783; and, in 1806, Lord Chancellor of England."—Croker. 13. His travels. Thomas Coryate's (1577-1617). Coryat's Crudities. Hastily gobled up in Five Moneths Travells in France, Savoy, Italy, etc., published in 1611.

15, note.

450

The meaning is that "Parthenopaeus had, in the centre of his shield, the domestic sign-Atalanta killing the Aetolian boar." -Croker.