66

his Dictionary. He spoke very peevishly of the "Masque of Comus;" and when I urged, that there was a great deal of exquisite poetry in it, Yes," said he, "but it is like gold hid under a rock;" to which I made no reply; for indeed I did not well understand it.

430. Johnson in 1781.

Johnson grows in grace as he grows in years. He not only has better health and a fresher complexion than ever he had before (at least since I knew him), but he has contracted a gentleness of manners which pleases everybody. Some ascribe this to the good company to which he has of late been more accustomed than in the early part of his life. There may be something in this; but I am apt to think the good health he has enjoyed for a long time is the chief cause. Mr. Thrale appointed him one of his executors, and left him two hundred pounds: everybody says, he should have left him two hundred a year; which, from a fortune like his, would have been a very inconsiderable reduction.

431. Lives of the Poets.

I have been reading Johnson's Prefaces to the English edition of the Poets. There are many excellent things in them, particularly in the Lives of Milton, Dryden, and Waller. He is more civil to Milton than I expected, though he hates him for his blank verse and his politics. To the forced and unnatural conceits of Cowley, I think he is too favourable; and I heartily wish, that, instead of the poems of this poet, he had given us "The Faerie Queen" of Spenser, which is left out very absurdly.

432. Milton.

Johnson hated Milton from his heart; and he wished to be himself considered as a good Latin poet; which, however, he never was, as may be seen by his translation of Pope's "Messiah.'

433. Boswell's "Tour."

I have just gone through Boswell's book. He is very good to me, as Dr. Johnson always was; and I am very

grateful to both: but I cannot approve the plan of such a work. To publish a man's letters, or his conversation, without his consent, is not, in my opinion, quite fair; for how many things, in the hour of relaxation, or in friendly correspondence, does a man throw out, which he would never wish to hear of again; and what a restraint would it be on all social intercourse, if one were to suppose that every word one utters would be entered in a register! Mr. Boswell indeed says, that there are few men who need be under any apprehension of that sort. This is true; and the argument he founds on it would be good, if he had published nothing but what Dr. Johnson and he said and did; for Johnson, it seems, knew that the publication would be made, and did not object to it: but Mr. Boswell has published the sayings and doings of other people, who never consented to any such thing; and who little thought, when they were doing their best to entertain and amuse the two travellers, that a story would be made of it, and laid before the public. I approve of the Greek proverb that says, "I hate a bottle companion with a memory." If my friend, after eating a bit of mutton with me, should go to the coffee-house, and there give an account of everything that had passed, I believe I should not take it well.

PART XVIII.

ANECDOTES AND REMARKS,

BY THE RIGHT HON. WILLIAM WINDHAM. (*)

[To the kindness of Thomas Amyot, Esq., F.R.S., the Editor is indebted for the following Memoranda, extracted from Mr. Windham's Diary of the Conversations he had with Dr. Johnson during his visit at Ashbourne; where he arrived on the 30th of August, 1784, "leaving it," as he states, "with regret, at halfpast one on the 1st of September."]

434. Homer.

"THE source of everything, either in or out of nature, that can serve the purpose of poetry, is to be found in Homer; every species of distress, every modification of heroic character, battles, storms, ghosts, incantations, &c." 435. Odyssey.

"Dr. Johnson said, he had never read through the Odyssey completely in the original."

436. Johnson's first Declamation.

"Anecdote of his first declamation at College, that hav

(*) [In a letter to Dr. Brocklesby, dated September 2, Dr. Johnson says-" Windham has been here to see me: he came, I think, forty miles out of his way, and stayed about a day and a half; perhaps I make the time shorter than it was. Such conversation I shall not have again till I come back to the regions of literature; and there Windham is inter stellas Luna minores."]

ing neglected to write it till the morning of his being to repeat it, and having only one copy, he got part of it by heart, while he was walking into the Hall, and the rest he repeated as well as he could extempore."

437. The Ramei.

"Anecdote of his tutor, who told them that the Ramei, the followers of Ramus, were so called from Ramus, a bow."

66

438. Johnson's Idleness.

Description of himself as very idle and neglectful of his studies."

439. Latin.

"His opinion, that I could not name above five of my college acquaintance who read Latin with ease sufficient to make it pleasurable. The difficulties of the language overpower the desire of reading the author.

"That he read Latin with as much ease when he went to college as at present."

440. Ovid's Fasti.-Wotton.-Wood.

"Recommended the reading the Fasti of Ovid,-also Wotton, and Wood on Homer."

441. Death of Hercules.

"Commended Ovid's description of the death of Hercules-doubted whether Virgil would not have loaded the description with too many fine words."

442. Styles.

"Opinion that there were three ways in which writing might be unnatural;-by being bombastic and above nature -affected and beside it, fringing events with ornaments which nature did not afford or weak and below nature. That neither of the first would please long. That the third might indeed please a good while, or at least please many; because imbecility, and consequently a love of imbecility, might be found in many."

443. A Good Work.

"Baretti had told him of some Italian author, who said that a good work must be that with which the vulgar were pleased, and of which the learned could tell why it pleased -that it must be able to employ the learned, and detain the idle. Chevy Chase pleased the vulgar, but did not satisfy the learned; it did not fill a mind capable of thinking strongly. The merit of Shakspeare was such as the ignorant could take in, and the learned add nothing to."

444. "Stat magni nominis," &c.

"Stat magni nominis umbra he would construe as umbra quæ est magni nominis, i. e. celebrata.”

66

445. Rowe's Lucan.

Opinion of Rowe's translation of Lucan, that it would have been improved, if Rowe had had a couple of years to render it less paraphrastical."

446. Virgil.

"Vast change of the Latin language from the time of Virgil to Lucretius;-greater than known in any other, even the French. The story of Dido is in Ovid's Fasti, also of Mezentius. Virgil's invention therefore is less than supposed. • Take from his what is in Homer, what leave him?" "

do

you

447. Latin.

"The pretensions of the English to the reputation of writing Latin is founded not so much on the specimens in that way which they have produced, as on the quantity of talent diffused through the country."

448. Erasmus.

"Erasmus appears to be totally ignorant of science and natural knowledge. But one Italian writer is mentioned in Erasmus; whence Johnson conjectured that he did not understand Italian."

19