that we seemed all to stand in awe of: there was a good dinner, and during that important time Johnson was deaf to all impertinence. However, after the wine had passed rather freely, the young gentleman was resolved to bait him, and venture out a little further: now, Dr. Johnson, do not look so glum, but be a little gay and lively, like others. What would you give, old gentleman, to be as young and sprightly as I am? Why, sir,' said he, I think I would almost be content to be as foolish.' 70s it will al

"Johnson (it is well known) professed to recruit his acquaintance with younger persons, and, in his latter days, I, with a few others, was more frequently honoured by his notice, At times he was very gloomy, and would exclaim, stay with me, for it is a comfort to me'-a comfort that any feeling mind would wish to administer to a man so kind, though at times so boisterous, when he seized your hand, and repeated, Ay, sir, but to die and go we know not where,' &c.-here his morbid melancholy prevailed, and Garrick never spoke so impressively to the heart. Yet, to see him in the evening (though he took nothing stronger than lemonade), a stranger would have concluded that our morning account was a fabrication. No hour was too late to keep him from the tyranny of his own gloomy thoughts. h

"A gentleman venturing to say to Johnson, Sir, I wonder some times that you condescend so far as to attend a city club. Sir, the great chair of a full and pleasant club is, perhaps, the throne of human felicity?'

"I had not the honour to be at all intimate with Johnson till about the time he began to publish his Lives of the Poets,' and how he got through that arduous labour is, in some measure, still a mystery to me: he must have been greatly assisted by booksellers. I had some time before lent him Euripides with Milton's manuscript notes: this, though he did not minutely examine (see Joddrel's Euripides), yet he very handsomely returned it, and mentioned it in his 'Life of Milton.' "In the course of conversation one day I dropped out to him that Lord Harborough (then the Rev.) was in possession of a very Lavery valuable collection of manuscript poems, and that amongst them there were two or three in the hand-writing of King James I.; that they were bound up handsomely in folio, and were entitled Sackville's Poems.' These he solicited me to borrow for him, and Lord Harborough very kindly intrusted them to me for his perusal. At that time he had become careless about his books, and frequently

[The original MS. is still extant, and it appears that he had very little assistance, and none at all from the booksellers.

2

ED.]

["His Euripides is, by Mr. Cradock's kindness, now in my hands: the margin is sometimes noted, but I have found nothing remarkable."Life of Milton. ED.] 3 [Rev. Robert Sherrard, who became on the death of his elder brother, in 1770, fourth Earl of Harborough.-ED.] /

very melancholy. Not finding any acknowledgment about them, I wrote to him, and received the annexed note, 'that he knew nothing about them.' 19th agettes by op v

“20th January, 1783.

ff Mr. Johnson is very glad of any intelligence, and much obliged by Mr. Cradock's favour and attention. The book he has now sent shall be taken care of; but of a former book mentioned in the note, Mr. Johnson has no remembrance, and can hardly think he ever received it, though bad health may possibly have made him negligent. 64.6 To

Cradock.'

This gave me no small concern, and I mentioned it to Steevens, who immediately said, You ought not to have lent it to him: he knows nothing about it! I saw the book you describe lie under his old inkstand, and could not think what it was: it is there now.' However, I never regained it till after his death, when reading the melancholy account at Marseilles I became alarmed about the book, and instantly wrote to Sir Joshua Reynolds, who found it directly in the place mentioned by Mr. Steevens, and it was safely returned to Lord Harborough, with due excuses and acknowledgments. I was not equally fortunate in regard to some other papers I had procured for the doctor in regard to Gray and others, and particularly the French translation of the Merchant of Venice. Something had been said before him about a note of Mason's, relative to the mistake of a translator, and the explanation of the word bowling-green, when I entertained him with a more laughable instance of a mistake in regard to the passage of the return of my ship Andrew (monAndrew), in the Merchant of Venice' (act i. sc. 1). This,' says the translator, is in England a very merry fellow, who plays tricks at a celebrated annual fair held there, and frequently, by his buffooneries, brings home to his employers very extensive gains. This book, merely owing to his infirmities, likewise, I never received again,

I

"Sometimes trifles diverted him, and relieved his melancholy, but there could be no possible guess how an anecdote would be received. Speaking of Sterne's Sermons-Sir, the fellow mixes the light with the serious 1; else in some parts, Dr. Johnson, I was surprised to find you had attended to them at all.' 'Sir, I was in a stage-coach; I should not have read them had I been at large 2 And directly Brod bar id sod

A [This is made nonsense by the omission of some words. It is correctly given (ante, vol. ii. p. 210.) from the Memoirs; but the editor of the Gentleman's Magazine has here made Mr. Cradock a party in a conversation, which in the Memoirs he himself professes to have had at second hand only. ED.] ..!

2 [Here again there is a variation from, if not a falsification of, the Memoirs. Mr. Cradock there says that it was Sterne himself that he amused with this story; nor does he pretend that he was the person who lent the book, but relates it as an anecdote told him by a friend. So that Dr. Johnson and the rhinocerous laugh seem to be mere interpolations. In short, these anecdotes, even after the revision, are very poor authority indeed. ED.]

afterwards Harris's Hermes was mentioned. I think the book is too abstruse; it is heavy. It is; but a work of that kind must be 1tis; " heavy. A rather dull man of my acquaintance asked me,' said I, to lend him some book to entertain him, and I offered him Harris's Hermes, and as I expected, from the title, he took it for a novel; when he returned it, I asked him how he liked it, and what he thought of it? "Why, to speak the truth," says he, "I was not much diverted; I think all these imitations of Tristram Shandy fall far short of the original!". This had its effect, and almost produced from Johnson a rhinocerous laugh.

"One of Dr. Johnson's rudest speeches was to a pompous gentleman coming out of Lichfield cathedral, who said, Dr. Johnson, we have had a most excellent discourse to-day That may be,' said Johnson; but it is impossible that you should know itum 97

"Of his kindness to me during the last years of his most valuable life, I could enumerate many instances. One slight circumstance; if any were wanting, would give an excellent proof of the goodness of his heart, and that to a person whom he found in distress in such a case he was the very last man that would have given even the least momentary uneasiness to any one, had he been aware of its gaidaids

The last time I saw Dr. Johnson was just before I went to France: he said, with a deep sigh, I wish I was going with you? He had just then, been disappointed of going to Italy. Of allomen I ever knew, Dr. Johnson was the most instructive.ups dove moquet 100 % Word ɔof „umentol "l vigo Jusom I tud vad'

.4 29d of nog dot pat neufyat ten ɔns nog teat asaroltagg readi 197ed year no y tadi bas,29 No. III em deid to daut voy teḍt to-adol, mee dui tremum is ek but coz i di b'se ti grived to fiber, >ed os es abusingem TWO DIALOGUES bus motsnitzaborg no mob-iw edt b9z9.07.0 vakia pathomie oft bogaz In imitation of Dr. Johnson's style of conversation, aby www as evisano SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS 1. tival sit in boerjodod busen

tow boord Referred to in p. 169.]

vliess

[The following jeu d'esprit was written by Sir Joshua Reynolds to illustrate a remark which he had made, "That Dr. Johnson considered Gar

Joshua

ladyship his niece,

to some was

[These dialogues were printed in 1816 from the MS. of Sir Lady Thomond; they were not published, but distributed by friends of Dr. Johnson and Sir Joshua. The copy which old, with and of Johnson, taneously transmitted to him by Mrs. Gwynn, the friend of Goldsmith and whose early beauty is celebrated in the first part of this work (vol. i. p. 423), and who is still distinguished for her amiable character and high mental accomplishments. Lady Thomond, in the prefatory note, calls this a "jeu d'esprit," but the editor was informed by the late Sir George Beaumont, who knew all the parties, and to whom Reynolds himself gave a copy of it, that if the words jeu d'esprit were to be understood to imply that it was altogether an invention of Sir Joshua's, the term would be erroneous.

The

rick as his property, and would never suffer any one to praise or abuse d him but himself." In the first of these supposed dialogues, Sir Joshua + himself, by high encomiums upon Garrick, is represented as drawing down upon him Johnson's censure; in the second, Mr. Gibbon, by taking the opposite side, calls forth his praise.]

-92 oqR. JOHNSON AND SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

›W“REYNOLDS. Let me alone, I'll bring him out. (Aside.) I have been thinking, Dr. Johnson, this morning, on a matter that has puzzled me very much; it is a subject that I dare say has often passed in your thoughts; and though I cannot, I dare say you have made up your mind upon itɔ

to “JOHNSON Tilly fally! what is all this preparation, what is all this mighty matter?eiba

Fes BRY Why, it is a very weighty matter. The subject I have been thinking upon is, predestination and freewill, two things I cannot reconcile together for the life of me; in my opinion, Dr. Johnson, freewill and foreknowledge cannot be reconciled.

15 JOHN: Sir, it is not of very great importance what your opinion is upon such a question.

'REY. But I meant only, Dr. Johnson, to know your opinion.

"JOHN. No, sir, you meant no such thing; you meant only to show these gentlemen that you are not the man they took you to be, but that you think of high matters sometimes, and that you may have the credit of having it said that you held an argument with Sam Johnson on predestination and freewill; a subject of that magnitude as to have engaged the attention of the world, to have perplexed the wisdom of man for these two thousand years; a subject on which the fallen angels, who had yet not lost all their original brightness, find themselves in wandering mazes lost. That such a subject could be discussed in the levity of convivial conversation, is a degree of absurdity beyond what is easily conceivable.

REY. It is so, as you say, to be sure; I talked once to our friend Garrick upon this subject, but I remember we could make nothing of it.

JOHN. O noble pair!

substance, and many of the expressions, of the dialogues did really occur; Sir Joshua did little more than collect, as if into two conversations, what had been uttered at many, and heighten the effect by the juxta-position of such discordant opinions. We cannot, however, but observe how very faint, one might almost say feeble, is Sir Joshua's dialogues when compared with the characteristic fire and dramatic spirit of Mr. Boswell. ED.] mut booters*ack

"REY. Garrick was a clever fellow, Dr. J.; Garrick, take him altogether, was certainly a very great man.

"JOHN. Garrick, sir, may be a great man in your opinion, as far as I know, but he was not so in mine; little things are great to little

“REY. I have heard you say, Dr. Johnson

"JOHN. Sir, you never heard me say that David Garrick was a great man; you may have heard me say that Garrick was a good repeater-of other men's words-words put into his mouth by other men; this makes but a faint approach towards being a great man.TM) "REY. But take Garrick upon the whole, now, in regard to conversation* on ob KHOL? "JOHN. Well, sir, in regard to conversation, I never discovered in the conversation of David Garrick any intellectual energy, any wide grasp of thought, any extensive comprehension of mind, or that he possessed any of those powers to which great could, with any degree of propriety, be applied

"REY. But still

spond to asɔɖ2 167 «JOHN. Hold, sir, I have not done there are, to be sure, in the laxity of colloquial speech, various kinds of greatness; a man may be a great tobacconist, a man may be a great painter, he may be likewise a great mimick; now you may be the one, and Garrick the other, and yet neither of you be great men. acapat Orgæ If no tag bis "REY. But Dr. Johnson "JOHN. Hold, sir, I have often lamented how dangerous it is to investigate and to discriminate character, to men who have no discriminative powers. 21 #7 5*8- 97# 9W „bitui

"REY. But Garrick, as a companion, I heard you say no longer ago than last Wednesday, at Mr. Thrale's table 20 I borghi "JOHN. You tease me, sir. Whatever you may have heard me say, no longer ago than last Wednesday, at Mr. Thrale's table, I tell you I do not say so now; besides, as I said before, you may not have understood me, you misapprehended me, you may not have heard me. "REY. I am very sure I heard you.

"JOHN. Besides, besides, sir, besides,-do you not know, are you so ignorant as not to know, that it is the highest degree of rudeness to quote a man against himself?

"REY. But if you differ from yourself, and give one opinion to day——

"JOHN. Have done, sir; the company you see are tired, as well as myself."