Of with all its privileges. The booksellers, who, like all other men, have strong prejudices in their own favour, are enough inclined to think the practice of printing and selling books by any but themselves an encroachment on the rights of their fraternity; and have need of stronger inducements to circulate academical publications than those of another; for, of that mutual co-operation by which the general trade is carried on, the University can bear no part. those whom he neither loves nor fears, and from whom he expects no reciprocation of good offices, why should any man promote the interest but for profit? I suppose, with all our scholastic ignorance of mankind, we are still too knowing to expect that the booksellers will erect themselves into patrons, and buy and sell under the influence of a disinterested zeal for the promotion of learning. 'To be booksellers, if we look for either honour or profit from our press, not only their common profit, but something more must be allowed; and if books printed at Oxford are expected to be rated at a high price, that price must be levied on the public, and paid by the ultimate purchaser, not by the intermediate agents. What price shall be set upon the book, is to the booksellers wholly indifferent, provided that they gain a proportionate profit by negotiating the sale. 'Why books printed at Oxford should be particularly dear, I am, however, unable to find. We pay no rent; we inherit many of our instruments and materials; lodging and victuals are cheaper than at London; and therefore workmanship ought, at least, not to be dearer. Our expenses are naturally less than those of booksellers; and in most cases communities are content with less profit than individuals, 'It is, perhaps, not considered through how many hands a book often passes, before it comes into those of the reader; or what part of the profit each hand must retain, as a motive for transmitting it to the next. 'We will call our primary agent in London, Mr. Cadell, who receives our books from us, gives them room in his warehouse, and issues them on demand; by him they are sold to Mr. Dilly, a wholesale bookseller, who sends them into the country; and the last bookseller is the country bookseller. Here are three profits to be paid between the printer and the reader, or in the style of commerce, between the manufacturer and the consumer; and if any of these profits is too penuriously distributed, the process of commerce is interrupted. 'We are now come to the practical question, What is to be done? You will tell me, with reason, that I have said nothing, till I declare how much, according to my opinion, of the ultimate price ought to be distributed through the whole succession of sale. 'The deduction, I am afraid, will appear very great; but let it be considered before it is refused. We must allow for profit between thirty and thirty-five per cent., between six and seven shillings in the pound; that is, for every book which costs the last buyer twenty shillings, we must charge Mr. Cadell with something less than fourteen. We must set the copies at fourteen shillings each, and superadd what is called the quarterly book, or for every hundred books so charged we must deliver an hundred and four. "The profits will then stand thus: 'Mr. Cadell, who runs no hazard, and gives no credit, will be paid for warehouse room and attendance by a shilling profit on each book, and his chance of the quarterly book. 'Mr. Dilly, who buys the book for fifteen shillings, and who will expect the quarterly book if he takes five-and-twenty, will send it to his country customer at sixteen and sixpence, by which, at the hazard of loss, and the certainty of long credit, he gains the regular profit of ten per cent. which is expected in the wholesale trade. The country bookseller, buying at sixteen and sixpence, and commonly trusting a considerable time, gains but three and sixpence; and if he trusts a year, not much more than two and sixpence; otherwise than as he may, perhaps, take as long credit as he gives. 'With less profit than this (and more you see he cannot have), the country bookseller cannot live; for his receipts are small, and his debts sometimes bad. 'Thus, dear sir, I have been incited by Dr. -'s letter to give you a detail of the circulation of books, which, perhaps, every man has not had opportunity of knowing; and which those who know it, do not perhaps always distinctly consider. -I am, etc., 'SAM. JOHNSON." Having arrived in London late on Friday, the 15th of March, I hastened next morning to wait on Dr. Johnson at his house; but found he was removed from Johnson's Court No. 7, to Bolt Street. My reflection at the time upon this Court No. 8, still keeping to his favourite Fleet change, as marked in my Journal, is as follows: 'I felt a foolish regret that he had left a court which bore his name ; but it was not foolish to be affected with some tenderness of regard for a place in which I had seen him a great deal, from whence I had often issued a better and a happier man than I went in, and which had often appeared to my imagination while I trod its pavement, in the solemn darkness of the night, 1 I am happy, in giving this full and clear statement to the public, to vindicate, by the authority of the greatest author of his age, that respectable body of men, the booksellers of London, from vulgar reflections, as if their profits were exorbitant, when in truth Dr. Johnson has here allowed them more than they usually demand.-BOSWELL. 2 He said, when in Scotland, that he was Johnson o that Ilk.-BOSWELL. to be sacred to wisdom and piety.' Being informed that he was at Mr. Thrale's, in the Borough, I hastened thither, and found Mrs. Thrale and him at breakfast. I was kindly welcomed. In a moment he was in a full glow of conversation, and I felt myself elevated as if brought into another state of being. Mrs. Thrale and I looked to each other while he talked, and our looks expressed our congenial admiration and affection for him. I shall ever recollect this scene with great pleasure. I exclaimed to her, 'I am now, intellectually, Hermippus redivivus, I am quite restored by him, by transfusion of mind.' 'There are many,' she replied, who admire and respect Mr. Johnson; but you and I love him.' He seemed very happy in the near prospect of going to Italy with Mr. and Mrs. Thrale. But,' said he, before leaving England I am to take a jaunt to Oxford, Birmingham, my native city Lichfield, and my old friend Dr. Taylor's at Ashbourne, in Derbyshire. I shall go in a few days, and you, Boswell, shall go with me.' I was ready to accompany him, being willing even to leave London to have the pleasure of his conversation. money produces good, it would be an advantage; I mentioned with much regret the extravagance of the representative of a great family in Scotland, by which there was danger of its being ruined; and as Johnson respected it for its antiquity, he joined with me in thinking it would be happy if this person should die. Mrs. Thrale seemed shocked at this, as feudal barbarity; and said, 'I do not understand this preference of the estate to its owner; of the land to the man who walks upon that land.' JOHNSON: 'Nay, madam, it is not a preference of the land to its owner; it is the preference of a family to an individual. Here is an establishment in a country, which is of importance for ages, not only to the chief, but to his people; an estab-is more valuable, the reciprocation of the peculishment which extends upwards and downwards;-that this should be destroyed by one idle fellow is a sad thing.' liar advantages of different countries. A merchant seldom thinks but of his own particular trade. To write a good book upon it, a man must have extensive views. It is not necessary to have practised, to write well upon a subject.' I mentioned law as a subject on which no man could write well without practice. JOHNSON : is to be got by the practice of the law, most of our writers upon it have been in practice; He said, 'Entails are good, because it is good to preserve in a country a series of men, to whom the people are accustomed to look up as to their leaders. But I am for leaving a quantity of land in commerce, to excite indus-Why, sir, in England, where so much money try, and keep money in the country; for if no land were to be bought in the country, there would be no encouragement to acquire wealth, because a family could not be founded there; or, if it were acquired, it must be carried away to another country where land may be bought. And although the land in every country will remain the same, and be as fertile where there is no money as where there is, yet all that portion of the happiness of civil life which is produced by money circulating in a country would be lost.' BOSWELL: Then, sir, would it be for the advantage of a country that all its lands were sold at once?' JOHNSON: 'So far, sir, as 1 The privilege of perpetuating in a family an estate and arms indefeasibly from generation to generation, is enjoyed by none of his Majesty's subjects except in Scotland, where the legal fiction of fine and recovery is unknown. It is a privilege so proud, that I should think it would be proper to have the exercise of it dependent on the royal prerogative. It seems absurd to permit the power of perpetuating their representation to men who, having had no eminent merit, have truly no name. The king, as the impartial father of his people, would never refuse to grant the privilege to those who deserved it.-BOSWELL. though Blackstone had not been much in practice when he published his Commentaries. But upon the continent, the great writers on law have not all been in practice: Grotius, indeed, was; but Puffendorff was not, Burlamaqui was not.' in Scotland itself. But the land-tax is but a small part of the numerous branches of public revenue, all of which Scotland pays precisely as England does. A French invasion made in Scotland would soon penetrate into England. He thus discoursed upon supposed obligation in settling estates :-'Where a man gets the unlimited property of an estate, there is no obligation upon him in justice to leave it to one person rather than to another. There is a motive of preference from kindness, and this kindness is generally entertained for the nearest relation. If I owe a particular man a sum of money, I am obliged to let that man have the next money I get, and cannot in justice let another have it; but if I owe money to no man, I may dispose of what I get as I please. There is not a debitum justitiæ to a man's next heir; there is only a debitum caritatis. It is plain, then, that I have morally a choice according to my liking. If I have a brother in want, he has a claim from affection to my assistance; but if I have also a brother in want, whom I like better, he has a preferable claim. The right of an heir-at-law is only this, that he is to have the succession to an estate in case no When we had talked of the great consequence which a man acquired by being employed in his profession, I suggested a doubt of the justice of the general opinion that it is improper in a lawyer to solicit employment; for why, I urged, should it not be equally allowable to solicit that as a means of consequence, as it is to solicit votes to be elected a member of Parliament? Mr. Strahan had told me that a countryman of his and mine, who had risen to eminence in the law, had, when first making his way, solicited him to get him employed in city causes. JOHNSON: Sir, it is wrong to stir up law-suits; but when once it is certain that a law-suit is to go on, there is nothing wrong in a lawyer's endeavouring that he shall have the benefit rather than another.' BOSWELL: 'You would not solicit employment, sir, if you were a lawyer.' JOHNSON: 'No, sir; but not because I should think it wrong, but because I should disdain it.' This was a good dis-other person is appointed to it by the owner. tinction, which will be felt by men of just pride. He proceeded: 'However, I would not have a lawyer to be wanting to himself in using fair means. I would have him to inject a little hint now and then, to prevent his being overlooked.' Lord Mountstuart's Bill for a Scotch militia, in supporting which his Lordship had made an able speech in the House of Commons, was now a pretty general topic of conversation. JOHNSON: As Scotland contributes so little land-tax towards the general support of the nation, it ought not to have a militia paid out of the general fund, unless it should be thought for the general interest that Scotland should be protected from an invasion, which no man can think will happen; for what enemy would invade Scotland, where there is nothing to be got? No, sir; now that the Scotch have not the pay of English soldiers spent among them, as so many troops are sent abroad, they are trying to get money another way, by having a militia paid. If they are afraid, and seriously desire to have an armed force to defend them, they should pay for it. Your scheme is to retain a part of your land-tax, by making us pay and clothe your militia.' BosWELL: You should not talk of we and you, sir; there is now an Union.' JOHNSON: 'There must be a distinction of interest, while the proportions of land-tax are so unequal. If Yorkshire should say, "Instead of paying our landtax, we will keep a greater number of militia," it would be unreasonable.' In this argument my friend was certainly in the wrong. The land-tax is as unequally proportioned between different parts of England, as between England and Scotland; nay, it is considerably unequal His right is merely preferable to that of the We got into a boat to cross over to Blackfriars ; and as we moved along the Thames, I talked to him of a little volume which, altogether unknown to him, was advertised to be published in a few days, under the title of Johnsoniana; or, Bon-mots of Dr. Johnson. JOHNSON: 'Sir, it is a mighty impudent thing.' BOSWELL : 'Pray, sir, could you have no redress if you were to prosecute a publisher for bringing out, under your name, what you never said, and ascribing to you dull, stupid nonsense, or making you swear profanely, as many ignorant relaters of your bon-mots do?' JOHNSON: 'No, sir, there will always be some truth mixed with the falsehood; and how can it be ascertained how much is true and how much is false? Besides, sir, what damages would a jury give me for having been represented as swearing?' BosWELL: I think, sir, you should at least disavow such a publication, because the world and posterity might with much plausible foundation say, "Here is a volume which was publicly advertised and came out in Dr. Johnson's own time, and by his silence was admitted by him to be genuine."' JOHNSON: 'I shall give myself no trouble about the matter.' He was perhaps above suffering from such spurious publications; but I could not help thinking, that many men would be much injured in their reputation by having absurd and vicious sayings imputed to them, and that redress ought in such cases to be given. He said, 'The value of every story depends on its being true. A story is a picture either of an individual or of human nature in general; if it S be false, it is a picture of nothing. For instance: suppose a man should tell that Johnson, before setting out for Italy, as he had to cross the Alps, sat down to make himself wings. This many people would believe; but it would be a picture of nothing. (naming a worthy friend of ours) used to think a story a story, till I showed him that truth was essential to it.' I observed, that Foote entertained us with stories which were not true; but that indeed it was properly not as narratives that Foote's stories pleased us, but as collections of ludicrous images. JOHNSON: | 'Foote is quite impartial, for he tells lies of everybody.' The importance of strict and scrupulous veracity cannot be too often inculcated. Johnson was known to be so rigidly attentive to it, that even in his common conversation the slightest circumstance was mentioned with exact precision. The knowledge of his having such a principle and habit made his friends have a perfect reliance on the truth of everything that he told, however it might have been doubted if told by many others. As an instance of this, I may mention an odd incident which he related as having happened to him one night in Fleet Street: A gentlewoman,' said he, 'begged I would give her my arm to assist her in crossing the street, which I accordingly did; upon which she offered me a shilling, supposing me to be the watchman. I perceived that she was somewhat in liquor. This, if told by most people, would have been thought an invention: when told by Johnson, it was believed by his friends as much as if they had seen what passed. We landed at the Temple Stairs, where we parted. room. Finding him still persevering in his abstinence from wine, I ventured to speak to him of it. JOHNSON: 'Sir, I have no objection to a man's drinking wine if he can do it in moderation. I found myself apt to go to excess in it, and therefore, after having been for some time without it, on account of illness, I thought it better not to return to it. Every man is to judge for himself, according to the effects which he experiences. One of the Fathers tells us he found fasting made him so peevish that he did not practise it.' Though he often enlarged upon the evil of intoxication, he was by no means harsh and unforgiving to those who indulged in occasional excess in wine. One of his friends, I well remember, came to sup at a tavern with him and some other gentlemen, and too plainly discovered that he had drunk too much at dinner. When one who loved mischief, thinking to produce a severe censure, asked Johnson a few days afterwards, 'Well, sir, what did your friend say to you, as an apology for being in such a situation?' Johnson answered: 'Sir, he said all that a man should say: he said he was sorry for it.' I heard him once give a very judicious practical advice upon this subject: A man who has been drinking wine at all freely should never go into a new company. With those who have partaken of wine with him he may be pretty well in unison; but he will probably be offensive or appear ridiculous to other people. He allowed very great influence to education. 'I do not deny, sir, but there is some original difference in minds; but it is nothing in comparison of what is formed by education. We may instance the science of numbers, which all minds are equally capable of attaining; yet we find a prodigious difference in the powers of different men in that respect after they are grown up, because their minds have been more or less exercised in it; and I think the same cause will explain the difference of excellence in other things, gradations admitting always some difference in the first principles.' This is a difficult subject; but it is best to are sure of what it can do, in increasing our mechanical force and dexterity. I found him in the evening in Mrs. Williams's We talked of religious orders. He said, 'It is as unreasonable for a man to go into a Carthusian convent for fear of being immoral, as for a man to cut off his hands for fear he should steal. There is indeed great resolution in the immediate act of dismembering himself; but when that is once done, he has no longer any merit for though it is out of his power to steal, yet he may all his life be a thief in his heart. So, when a man has once become a Car-hope that diligence may do a great deal. We thusian, he is obliged to continue so whether he chooses it or not. Their silence, too, is absurd. We read in the Gospel of the apostles being sent to preach, but not to hold their tongues. All severity that does not tend to increase good or prevent evil is idle. I said to the Lady Abbess of a convent, "Madam, you are here, not for the love of virtue, but the fear of vice." She said, "she should remember this as long as she lived." I thought it hard to give her this view of her situation, when she could not help it; and indeed I wondered at the whole of what he now said, because both in his Rambler and Idler he treats religious austerities with much solemnity of respect. I again visited him on Monday. He took occasion to enlarge, as he often did, upon the wretchedness of a sea-life. A ship is worse than a gaol. There is in a gaol better air, better company, better conveniency of every kind; and a ship has the additional disadvantage of being in danger. When men come to like a sea-life, they are not fit to live on land.' Then,' said I, 'it would be cruel in a father to breed his son to the sea.' JOHNSON: 'It would be cruel in a father who thinks as I do. Men go to sea before they know the unhappiness of that way of life; and when they have come to know it, they cannot escape from it, because it is then too late to choose another profession; as indeed is generally the case with men when they have once engaged in any particular way of life.' CHAPTER XXXV. 1776. ON Tuesday, March 19, which was fixed for our proposed jaunt, we met in the morning at the Somerset Coffeehouse in the Strand, where we were taken up by the Oxford coach. Johnson was accompanied by Mr. Gwyn, the architect; and a gentleman of Merton College, whom he did not know, had the fourth seat. We soon got into conversation; for it was very remarkable of Johnson, that the presence of a stranger had no restraint upon his talk. I observed that Garrick, who was about to quit the stage, would soon have an easier life. JOHNSON: 'I doubt that, sir.' BOSWELL: 'Why, sir, he will be Atlas with the burden off his back.' JOHNSON: But I know not, sir, if he will be so steady without his load. However, he should never play any more, but be entirely the gentleman and not partly the player; he should no longer subject himself to be hissed by a mob, or to be insolently treated by performers whom he used to rule with a high hand, and who would gladly retaliate.' BOSWELL: 'I think he should play once a year for the benefit of decayed actors, as it has been said he means to do.' JOHNSON: 'Alas, sir, he will soon be a decayed actor himself.' 6 Johnson expressed his disapprobation of ornamental architecture, such as magnificent columns supporting a portico, or expensive pilasters supporting merely their own capitals, 'because it consumes labour disproportionate to its utility.' For the same reason he satirized statuary. 'Painting,' said he, consumes labour not disproportionate to its effect; but a fellow will hack half a year at a block of marble to make something in stone that hardly resembles a man. The value of statuary is owing to its difficulty. You would not value the finest head cut upon a carrot.' Here he seemed to me to be strangely deficient in taste; for surely statuary is a noble art of imitation, and preserves a wonderful expression of the varieties of the human frame; and although it must be allowed that the circumstances of difficulty enhance the value of a marble head, we should consider that, if it requires a long time in the performance, it has a proportionate value in durability. Gwyn was a fine, lively, rattling fellow. Dr. Johnson kept him in subjection, but with a kindly authority. The spirit of the artist, however, rose against what he thought a Gothic attack, and he made a brisk defence. What, sir, you will allow no value to beauty in archi tecture or in statuary! Why should we allow it then in writing? Why do you take the trouble to give us so many fine allusions, and bright images, and elegant phrases? You might convey all your instruction without these ornaments.' Johnson smiled with complacency; but said, 'Why, sir, all these ornaments are useful, because they obtain an easier reception for truth; but a building is not at all more convenient for being decorated with superfluous carved work.' Gwyn at last was lucky enough to make one reply to Dr. Johnson which he allowed to be excellent. Johnson censured him for taking down a church which might have stood many years, and building a new one at a different place, for no other reason but that there might be a direct road to a new bridge; and his expression was, 'You are taking a church out of the way, that the people may go in a straight line to the bridge.' 'No, sir,' said Gwyn, ‘I am putting the church in the way, that the people may not go out of the way.' JOHNSON (with a hearty loud laugh of approbation): Speak no more. Rest your colloquial fame upon this.' Upon our arrival at Oxford, Dr. Johnson and I went directly to University College, but were disappointed on finding that one of the fellows, his friend Mr. Scott, who accompanied him from Newcastle to Edinburgh, was gone to the country. We put up at the Angel Inn, and passed the evening by ourselves in easy and familiar conversation. Talking of constitutional melancholy, he observed, 'A man so afflicted, sir, must divert distressing thoughts, and not combat with them.' BosWELL: 'May not he think them down, sir?' JOHNSON: 'No, sir. To attempt to think them down is madness. He should have a lamp constantly burning in his bed-chamber during the night, and if wakefully disturbed, take a book and read, and compose himself to rest. To have the management of the mind is a great art, and it may be attained in a considerable degree by experience and habitual exercise.' BOSWELL: Should not he provide amusements for himself? Would it not, for instance, be right for him to take a course of chemistry?' JOHNSON: 'Let him take a course of chemistry, or a course of ropedancing, or a course of anything to which he is inclined at the time. Let him contrive to have as many retreats for his mind as he can, as many things to which it can fly from itself. Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy is a valuable work. It is perhaps overloaded with quotation. But there is a great spirit and great power in what Burton says when he writes from his own mind.' Next morning we visited Dr. Wetherell, Master of University College, with whom Dr. Johnson conferred on the most advantageous mode of disposing of the books printed at the Claren |