enemies; at the same time it must be remembered, that this error proceeded from the same cause which produced many of his virtues. Friendships from warmth of temper too suddenly taken up, and too violent to continue, ended as they were like to do, in disappointment; enmity succeeded disappointment; his friends became his enemies; and those having been fostered in his bosom, well knew his sensibility to reproach, and they took care that he should be amply supplied with such bitter potions as they were capable of administering; their impotent efforts he ought to have despised, but he felt them; nor did he affect insensibility.

"GIB. And that sensibility probably shortened his life.

"JOHN. No, sir, he died of a disorder of which you or any other man may die, without being killed by too much sensibility.

"GIB. But you will allow, however, that this sensibility, those fine feelings, made him the great actor he was.

"JOHN. This is all cant, fit only for kitchen wenches and chambermaids: Garrick's trade was to represent passion, not to feel it. Ask Reynolds whether he felt the distress of Count Hugolino when he drew it.

"GIB. But surely he feels the passion at the moment he is representing it.

"JOHN. About as much as Punch feels. That Garrick himself gave into this foppery of feelings I can easily believe; but he knew at the same time that he lied. He might think it right as far as I know, to have what fools imagined he ought to have; but it is amazing that any one should be so ignorant as to think that an actor will risk his reputation by depending on the feelings that shall be excited in the presence of two hundred people, on the repetition of certain words which he has repeated two hundred times before in what actors call their study. No, sir, Garrick left nothing to chance; every gesture, every expression of countenance, and variation of voice, was settled in his closet before he set his foot upon the stage1."

[This is conformable with the opinion of Grimm and Diderot, and with the admission of Mr. Kemble; but it must not be understood too literally. A great actor prepares in his study, positions, attitudes, the particular mode of uttering certain passages, and even the tone which is to be adopted; and having once ascertained, both by thought and experience, what is best, he will naturally adhere to that, however often he may play the part; but it is equally certain, that there is a large portion of the merit of a great theatrical exhibition which is not reducible to any rule, and which depends, not only on the general powers of the performer, but on his health, his spirits, and other personal circumstances of the moment which may tend to encourage or restrain his powers. And it may be safely affirmed, that although no actor ever fancies himself Othello, or any actress Calista, yet that the unpremeditated emotions last alluded to constitute a great part of the charm which distinguishes on the stage excellence from mediocrity.—ED.]''' 17. Joa 31

[ARGUMENT against a prosecution by the Procurators of Edinburgh against the publisher of a libel, referred to in p. 504.] od bigok vi tutt

All injury is either of the person, the fortune, or the fame. Now it is a certain thing, it is proverbially known, that a jest breaks no bones. They never have gained half-a-crown less in the whole profession since this mischievous paragraph has appeared; and, as to their reputation, what is their reputation but an instrument of getting money If, therefore, they have lost no money, the question upon reputation may be answered by a very old position, De minimis non curát præetön endan lao ti

-

Whether there was, or was not, an animus injuriandi is not worth inquiring, if no injuria can be proved. But the truth is, there was no animus injuriandi. It was only an animus irritandi1, which, happening to be exercised upon a genus irritabile, produced unexpected violence of resentment. Their irritability arose only from an opinion of their own importance, and their delight in their new exaltation. What might have been borne by a procurator, could could not be borne by a solicitors Your lordships well know that honores mutant n 'mores. Titles and dignities, play strongly on the fancy. As a madman is apt to think himself grown suddenly great, so he that grows suddenly great is apt to borrow a little from the madman. To co-operate with their resentment would be to promote their frenzy; nor is it possible 49UH DOLL THew title of solicitor to guess to what they might proceed, if to the new should be added the elation of victory and triumph. ri 5 We consider your lordships as the protectors of our rights, and the guardians of our virtues; but believe it not included in your high office, that you should flatter our vices, or solace our vanity; and, as vanity only dictates this prosecution, it is humbly hoped your lordships will dismiss it.

A

beIf every attempt, however light or ludicrous, to lessen another's réputation, is to be punished by a judicial sentence, what punishment can be sufficiently severe for him who attempts to diminish the reputation of the supreme court of justice, by reclaiming upon a cause already determined, without any change in the state of the question? Does it not imply hopes that the judges will change their opinion? Is not uncertainty and inconstancy in the highest degree disreputable

1 Mr. Robertson altered this word to jocandi, he having found in Blackstone that to irritate is actionable.-BosWELL.

VOL. IV.

M M

to a court? Does it not suppose, that the former judgment was temerarious or negligent? Does it not lessen the confidence of the publick? Will it not be said that jus est aut incognitum aut vagum? and will not the consequence be drawn, misera est servitus? Will not the rules of action be obscure? Will not he who knows himself wronged to-day, hope that the courts of justice will think him right to-morrow? Surely, my lords, these are attempts of dangerous tendency, which the solicitors, as men versed in the law, should have foreseen and avoided. It was natural for an ignorant printer to appeal from the lord ordinary; but from lawyers, the descendants of lawyers, who have practised for three hundred years, and have now raised themselves to a higher denomination, it might be expected that they should know the reverence due to a judicial determination; and, having been once dismissed, should sit down in silence."

No. V.

CORRESPONDENCE1

Between Miss Boothby2 and Dr. Johnson. [Referred to in vol. i. p. 51, vol. iii. p. 516, vol. iv. p. 427.]

PREFACE

[Of Mr. Richard Wright, surgeon in Lichfield, the original editor of the little volume containing Dr. Johnson's notes of his early life, and the correspondence with Miss Boothby.]

It will be expected, that the editor of the following curious and interesting pages should give an account of the manner in which the original MSS. came into his possession.

[The Editor had originally intended to have given only a selection (see vol. iii. p. 516) of Miss Boothby's letters, but as the little volume in which they were pub lished, by R. Phillips, 1805, (see v. i. p. 51), is now become scarce; and as the whole, affair is a curious episode in Dr. Johnson's history, the Editor has, on reconsideration, preserved the entire correspondence.-ED.]

2 [Miss Hill Boothby was the daughter of Mr. Brook Boothby and his second lady, Elizabeth Fitzherbert. Mr. Boothby was the son of Sir William, the second baronet, by Miss Hill Brooke, and the father of Sir Brooke, the fourth baronet. Miss Boothby was above a year older than Dr. Johnson. Though her mother's name was Fitzherbert, she was but distantly related to the Tissington family, She was attached to Mrs. Fitzherbert by an enthusiastic and spiritualized friendship, and on her death Miss Boothby devoted herself to the care of her six children. The Rey, Richard Graves, author of the Spiritual Quixote, was for some time domestic chaplain at Tissington, and as my

Mr. Boswell, in his admirable Life of Dr. Johnson, thus observes : "The consideration of the numerous papers of which he was possessed seems to have struck Johnson's mind with a sudden anxiety; and, as they were in great confusion, it is much to be lamented that he had not intrusted some faithful and discreet person with the care and selection of them; instead of which he, in a precipitate manner, burnt masses of them, as I should apprehend, with little regard to discrimination. valuable articles, I am sure, we very have lost, which were two quarto volumes, containing a full, fair, and most particular account of his own life, from his earliest recollection'."

Two

It does not appear that the MS., from which the following short account of Dr. Johnson's Early Life is copied, was one of the two volumes to which Boswell alludes; although it is evident, from his enumeration of particular dates in the blank pages of the book, that he intended to have finished these Annals, according to this plan, with the same minuteness of description, in every circumstance and

event.

This volume was among that mass of papers which were ordered to be committed to the flames a few days before his death, thirty-two pages of which were torn out by himself and destroyed; the contents of those which remain are here given with fidelity and exactness.

venerable and amiable friend, Lord St. Helens, informs me, described in that novel the several members of that family, and their visiters, with great accuracy. It may be as well to preserve here the key which Lord St. Helens has given me to the characters introduced into the novel:

Even the inferior characters were drawn from the life. The jacobite barber was one Daniel Shipley; George, the butler, was John Latham; and Molly, the lady's maid, was Mary Etches, afterwards married to Latham; Wildgoose, the hero, was supposed to be a portrait of Mr. Graves's own brother; and Lord St. Helens adds, that although the author, to heighten the contrast between him and his brother, describes himself as a sporting parson, he was really no such thing, but, on the contrary, a worthy and conscientious parish priest. There is an account of him in the "Public Characters" for 1800 See ante, vol. iii. p. 212, where Mr. Graves is erroneously stated to have been a tutor in Mr. Fitzherbert's family. He was the minister of the parish, and acted as domestic chaplain.—ED.]

Post, vol. v. p. 316.—WRIGHT.

It certainly was not. Mr. Wright's book was, he tells us, half destroyed on the 1st Dec. 1784, and the two volumes alluded to were safe in Sir J. Hawkins's pocket on the 5th (post, vol. v. p. 336.) ED.]

Francis Barber, his black servant, unwilling that all the MSS. of his illustrious master should be utterly lost, preserved these relics from the flames. By purchase from Barber's widow they came into the possession of the editor 1.

Dr. Johnson's acquaintance with Miss Hill Boothby, aunt of Sir Brooke Boothby, commenced at Ashbourne, between the years 1737 and 1740, when he was upon a visit at Ashbourne to his friend Dr. Taylor 2. As an evidence of the value which he set upon the letters that he received from her, he numbered them, wrote the dates upon them, and had them bound together in one volume. His intimacy and correspondence with Miss H. Boothby were uninterruptedly continued till her death.

To say that these letters do credit to the understanding of that lady is faint praise. Dr. Johnson himself said of her, that “she had the best understanding he ever met with in any human beings."

As they betray no family secrets, but contain reflections upon serious and literary subjects, and display with what benevolent ardour Dr. Johnson valued her friendship, they form an interesting and proper appendage to this little tract. The Doctor's letters to Miss Boothby are printed in Mrs. Piozzi's Collection, and in Boswell's Life of him *.

[So far relates to the Early Life, which is contained in the first 32 pages of Mr. Wright's little volume, and which (except a few observations on some school books) is inserted in different parts of the first volume of this edition: what follows relates to the correspondence with Miss Boothby.-ED.]

2 [This statement is founded on the assertion of an anonymous lady, quoted by Mr. Boswell (ante, v. i. p. 51), of the correctness of which the Editor had already expressed his suspicion; but he now, on farther consideration, disbelieves most, if not all, the particulars of that statement. It appears certain that Dr. Johnson did not leave London between 1737 and 1740. Mrs. Fitzherbert was not married till 1744. The first of Miss Boothby's letters, dated 1753, seems to prove that her acquaintance with Dr. Johnson was then recent- it is certainly her first letter to him. Lord St. Helens does not recollect to have heard how Dr. Johnson's acquaintance with his parents began, but thinks it not improbable that Dr. Lawrence, who had married a Derbyshire lady, may have been the original link of acquaintance; and it appears likely, from several passages of these letters, that it was in his society that Miss Boothby, on coming to town in 1753, made Johnson's acquaintance. That the acquaintance was not made in early life, and in Derbyshire, seems clear, and that Johnson never was at Mr. Fitzherbert's seat is almost certain. If he had had any local knowledge of it, we should not find Miss Boothby telling him that she was "then at Tissington, near Ashbourne in Derbyshire;" nor is it probable, if Johnson had got acquainted with Miss Boothby while he was on a visit with Dr. Taylor at Ashbourne, that there should be no allusion to Dr. Taylor, or to Ashbourne, or to any such previous acquaintance in the whole of this correspondence. Indeed, it seems clear, from the history of Dr. Johnson's own life, that he had not been down to Staffordshire, or Derbyshire, from 1737 till after his mother's death in 1759, nor even, the Editor believes, till after the grant of his pension in 1762.—ED.]

3 [Another gross error of Mr. Wright: Johnson said this, not of Miss Boothby, but of Mrs. Fitzherbert. See ante, vol. i. p. 51.-ED.]

4 [Only one of his letters is published by Mr. Boswell," the merits of the others not being," said he, (ante, vol. iv. p. 426. n.) "so apparent." The truth probably was, that Boswell thought they were written in a style that might afford some scope to ridicule or misrepresentation against his revered friend.—ED.]