that interview Richardson said little else than that Langton there lay in the room a translation of his Clarissa into German.

"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 out, Are we alive after all this satire?'

"He had a strong prejudice against the political character of Secker, one instance of which appeared 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."

"Of a certain noble lord', he said, 'Respect him you could not; for he had no mind of his own. 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 Du

1 [See ante, p. 347, an allusion to his over-civil lord.-ED.]

Langton halde'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.'

66

6

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

6

"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 3."

666

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

[Afterwards Sir Charles Blagden.-ED.]

2 [Here in the first edition ended Mr. Langton's Collectanea.-ED.]

3 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 infected. 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.

but pure misery, there never is any recourse to the Langton mention of it.'

666

"A man must be a poor beast, that should read

no more in quantity than he could utter aloud.'

66 6

6

Imlac, in Rasselas,' I spelt with a c at the end, because it is less like English, which should always have the Saxon k added to the c1?

66 6

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.

6

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 to 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

1 I hope the authority of the great master of our language will stop that curtailing innovation by which we see critic, public, &c. frequently written instead of critick, publick, &c.-BOSWELL. [Why should we not retrench an obvious superfluity? In the preceding age, public and critic were written publique and critique.-ED.]

2 [Johnson had, no doubt, his poor friend Smart in his recollection: see ante, vol. i. p. 406.—ED.]

Langton 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 woman1; 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.'

66 6 He may hold up that SHIELD against all his enemies,' was an observation on Homer, in reference

Sterne is of a direct contrary opinion. See his "Sentimental Journey;" article, The Mystery.-BOSWELL.

to his description of the shield of Achilles, made by Langton Mrs. Fitzherbert, wife to his friend Mr. Fitzherbert of Derbyshire, and respected by Dr. Johnson as a very fine one1. He had in general a very high opinion of that lady's understanding.

"An observation of Bathurst's may be mentioned, which Johnson repeated, appearing to acknowledge it to be well founded; namely, it was somewhat remarkable how seldom, on occasion of coming into the company of any new person, one felt any wish or inclination to see him again."

[As we now approach the period when his inti- ED. macy with Mrs. Thrale ceased, this seems to be a proper place for inserting, after the Collectanea of Mr. Langton, those anecdotes published by that lady which have not been introduced in other places of this work.]

Anec.

P. 17.

["To recollect and repeat the sayings of Dr. Piozzi Johnson, is almost all that can be done by the writers of his life; as his life, at least since my acquaintance with him, consisted in little else than talking, when he was not absolutely employed in some serious piece of work; and whatever work he did seemed so much below his powers of performance, that he appeared the idlest of all human beings; ever musing till he was called out to converse, and conversing till the fatigue of his friends, or the promptitude of his own temper to take offence, consigned him back again to silent meditation.

"Dr. Johnson indeed, as he was a very talking p. 160.

[This passage seems not very intelligible. Perhaps the observation might mean that Homer's description of the shield of Achilles was so masterly that it alone was sufficient to prove him a great poet, and to turn all the shafts of criticism. The reader cannot have failed to observe that many of these anecdotes are very obscurely expressed, and that different topics seem sometimes jumbled into one paragraph.-ED.]