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Timidity of Aberdeen Professors. [August 23.

We dined at Sir Alexander Gordon's. The Provost, Professor Ross, Professor Dunbar, Professor Thomas Gordon, were there. After dinner came in Dr. Gerard, Professor Leslie', Professor Macleod. We had little or no conversation in the morning; now we were but barren. The professors seemed afraid to speak'.

Dr. Gerard told us that an eminent printer' was very intimate with Warburton. JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, he has printed

3. A History of Sweden, ii. 179.

4. A Life of Thomas Ruddiman, ib. p. 248.

5. An edition of Walton's Lives, iii. 122.

6. A History of the Civil War in Great Britain in 1745 and 1746, ib. p. 184.

7. A Life of Sir Robert Sibbald, ib. p. 257.

8. An account of his own Travels, ib. p. 341.

9. A Collection, with notes, of old tenures and charters of Scotland, ib. p. 471, note 2.

10. A History of James IV.

II. 'A quarto volume to be embellished with fine plates, on the subject of the controversy (ante, ii. 421) occasioned by the Beggar's Opera. Murray's Johnsoniana, ed. 1836, p. 502.

Thomas Boswell received from James IV. the estate of Auchinleck. Ante, ii. 473. See post, Nov. 4.

'Mackintosh says, in his Life, i. 9:-'In October, 1780, I was admitted into the Greek class, then taught by Mr. Leslie, who did not aspire beyond teaching us the first rudiments of the language; more would, I believe, have been useless to his scholars.'

2 'Boswell was very angry that the Aberdeen professors would not talk.' Piozzi Letters, i. 118. Dr. Robertson and Dr. Blair, whom Boswell, five years earlier, invited to meet Johnson at supper, 'with an excess of prudence hardly opened their lips' (ante, ii. 72). At Glasgow the professors did not dare to talk much (post, Oct. 29). On another occasion when Johnson came in, the company' were all as quiet as a school upon the entrance of the head-master.' Ante, iii. 378.

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' Dr. Beattie says that this printer was Strahan. He had seen the letter mentioned by Gerard, and many other letters too from the Bishop to Strahan. They were,' he continues, 'very particularly acquainted.' He adds that 'Strahan was eminently skilled in composition, and had corrected (as he told me himself) the phraseology of both Mr. Hume and Dr. Robertson.' Forbes's Beattie, ed. 1824, P. 341.

some

August 23.]

Bishop Warburton's abuse.

105

some of his works, and perhaps bought the property of some of them. The intimacy is such as one of the professors here may have with one of the carpenters who is repairing the college.' 'But, (said Gerard,)I saw a letter from him to this printer, in which he says, that the one half of the clergy of the church of Scotland are fanaticks, and the other half infidels.' JOHNSON. 'Warburton has accustomed himself to write letters just as he speaks, without thinking any more of what he throws out'. When I read Warburton first, and observed his force, and his contempt of mankind, I thought he had driven the world before him; but I soon found that was not the case; for Warburton, by extending his abuse, rendered it ineffectual'.'

He told me, when we were by ourselves, that he thought it very wrong in the printer to shew Warburton's letter, as it was raising a body of enemies against him. He thought it foolish in Warburton to write so to the printer; and added, 'Sir, the worst way of being intimate, is by scribbling.' He called Warburton's Doctrine of Grace' a poor performance, and so he said was Wesley's Answer. 'Warburton, (he observed,) had laid himself very open. In particular, he was weak enough to say, that, in some disorders of the imagination, people had spoken with tongues, had spoken languages which they never knew before; a thing as absurd as to say,

'An instance of this is given in Johnson's Works, viii. 288 :—' Warburton had in the early part of his life pleased himself with the notice of inferior wits, and corresponded with the enemies of Pope. A letter was produced, when he had perhaps himself forgotten it, in which he tells Concanen, "Dryden, I observe, borrows for want of leisure, and Pope for want of genius; Milton out of pride, and Addison out of modesty."'

* 'Goldsmith asserted that Warburton was a weak writer. "Warburton," said Johnson, "may be absurd, but he will never be weak; he flounders well." Stockdale's Memoirs, ii. 64. See Appendix A.

The Doctrine of Grace; or the Office and Operations of the Holy Spirit vindicated from the Insults of Infidelity and the Abuses of Fanaticism, 1762.

* A Letter to the Bishop of Gloucester, occasioned by his Tract on the Office and Operations of the Holy Spirit, by John Wesley, 1762. that.

106

Locke's Latin verses.

[August 23.

that, in some disorders of the imagination, people had been known to fly.'

I talked of the difference of genius, to try if I could engage Gerard in a disquisition with Dr. Johnson; but I did not succeed. I mentioned, as a curious fact, that Locke had written verses. JOHNSON. I know of none, Sir, but a kind of exercise prefixed to Dr. Sydenham's Works', in which he has some conceits about the dropsy, in which water and burning are united; and how Dr. Sydenham removed fire by drawing off water, contrary to the usual practice, which is to extinguish fire by bringing water upon it. I am not sure that there is a word of all this; but it is such kind of talk'.'

' Malone records :-'I could not find from Mr. Walpole that his father [Sir Robert] read any other book but Sydenham in his retirement.' To his admiration of Sydenham his death was attributed; for it led him to treat himself wrongly when he was suffering from the stone. Prior's Malone, p. 387. Johnson wrote a Life of Sydenham. In it he ridicules the notion that 'a man eminent for integrity practised Medicine by chance, and grew wise only by murder.' Works, vi. 409. .

* All this, as Dr. Johnson suspected at the time, was the immediate invention of his own lively imagination; for there is not one word of it in Mr. Locke's complimentary performance. My readers will, I have no doubt, like to be satisfied, by comparing them; and, at any rate, it may entertain them to read verses composed by our great metaphysician, when a Bachelor in Physick.

AUCTORI, IN TRACTATUM EJUS DE FEBRIBUS.
Febriles æstus, victumque ardoribus orbem

Flevit, non tantis par Medicina malis.

Nam post mille artes, medicæ tentamina curæ,
Ardet adhuc Febris; nec velit arte regi.

Præda sumus flammis; solum hoc speramus ab igne,
Ut restet paucus, quem capit urna, cinis.

Dum quærit medicus febris caussamque, modumque,
Flammarum & tenebras, & sine luce faces;

Quas tractat patitur flammas, & febre calescens,
Corruit ipse suis victima rapta focis.

Qui tardos potuit morbos, artusque trementes,
Sistere, febrili se videt igne rapi.

Sic faber exesos fulsit tibicine muros;

Dum trahit antiquas lenta ruina domos.

Sed si flamma vorax miseras incenderit ædes,

We

August 23.]

Macpherson's FINGAL.

107

We spoke of Fingal'. Dr. Johnson said calmly, 'If the poems were really translated, they were certainly first written

Unica flagrantes tunc sepelire salus.

Fit fuga, tectonicas nemo tunc invocat artes;
Cum perit artificis non minus usta domus.
Se tandem Sydenham febrisque Scholæque furori
Opponens, morbi quærit, & artis opem.

Non temere incusat tectæ putedinis [putredinis] ignes;
Nec fictus, febres qui fovet, humor erit.
Non bilem ille movet, nulla hic pituita; Salutis

Quæ spes, si fallax ardeat intus aqua?

Nec doctas magno rixas ostentat hiatu,
Quis ipsis major febribus ardor inest.
Innocuas placide corpus jubet urere flammas,
Et justo rapidos temperat igne focos.
Quid febrim exstinguat, varius quid postulet usus,
Solari ægrotos, qua potes arte, docet.
Hactenus ipsa suum timuit Natura calorem,
Dum sæpe incerto, quo calet, igne perit:
Dum reparat tacitos male provida sanguinis ignes,
Prælusit busto, fit calor iste rogus.

Jam secura suas foveant præcordia flammas,
Quem Natura negat, dat Medicina modum.
Nec solum faciles compescit sanguinis æstus,
Dum dubia est inter spemque metumque salus;
Sed fatale malum domuit, quodque astra malignum
Credimus, iratam vel genuisse Stygem.

Extorsit Lachesi cultros, Pestique venenum
Abstulit, & tantos non sinit esse metus.

Quis tandem arte nova domitam mitescere Pestem
Credat, & antiquas ponere posse minas?
Post tot mille neces, cumulataque funera busto,
Victa jacet parvo vulnere dira Lues.
Ætheriæ quanquam spargunt contagia flammæ,
Quicquid inest istis ignibus, ignis erit.
Delapsæ cœlo flammæ licet acrius urant,

Has gelida exstingui non nisi morte putas?
Tu meliora paras victrix Medicina; tuusque,
Pestis quæ superat cuncta, triumphus eris [erit].
Vive liber, victis febrilibus ignibus; unus

Te simul & mundum qui manet, ignis erit.

J. LOCK, A.M. Ex. Aede Christi, Oxon. Boswell.

1 See ante, ii. 145, 340, 341.

down.

108

Johnson fatigued by Gordon.

[August 23. down. Let Mr. Macpherson deposite the manuscript in one of the colleges at Aberdeen, where there are people who can judge; and, if the professors certify the authenticity, then there will be an end of the controversy. If he does not take this obvious and easy method, he gives the best reason to doubt; considering too, how much is against it à priori.'

We sauntered after dinner in Sir Alexander's garden, and saw his little grotto, which is hung with pieces of poetry written in a fair hand. It was agreeable to observe the contentment and kindness of this quiet, benevolent man. Professor Macleod was brother to Macleod of Talisker, and brother-in-law to the Laird of Col. He gave me a letter to young Col. I was weary of this day, and began to think wishfully of being again in motion. I was uneasy to think myself too fastidious, whilst I fancied Dr. Johnson quite satisfied. But he owned to me that he was fatigued and teased by Sir Alexander's doing too much to entertain him. I said, it was all kindness. JOHNSON. 'True, Sir; but sensation is sensation.' BOSWELL. 'It is so: we feel pain equally from the surgeon's probe, as from the sword of the foe.'

We visited two booksellers' shops, and could not find Arthur Johnston's Poems'. We went and sat near an hour at Mr. Riddoch's. He could not tell distinctly how much education at the college here costs', which disgusted Dr.

''One of its ornaments [i. e. of Marischal College] is the picture of Arthur Johnston, who was principal of the college, and who holds among the Latin Poets of Scotland the next place to the elegant Buchanan.' Johnson's Works, ix. 12. Pope attacking Benson, who endeavoured to raise himself to fame by erecting monuments to Milton, and by printing editions of Johnston's version of the Psalms, introduces the Scotch Poet in the Dunciad:

'On two unequal crutches propped he came,
Milton's on this, on that one Johnston's name.'
Dunciad, bk. iv. 1. III.

Johnson wrote to Boswell for a copy of Johnston's Poems (ante, iii. 119) and for his likeness (ante, March 18, 1784).

2 Education is here of the same price as at St. Andrews, only the

Johnson.

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