Prayers & Med. p.72,73. "August 2, 1767. I have been disturbed and unsettled for a long time, and have been without resolution to apply to study or to business, being hindered by sudden snatches. "I have for some days forborne wine and suppers. Abstinence is not easily practised in another's house; but I think it fit to try. "I was extremely perturbed in the night, but have had this day more ease than I expected. D[eo] gr[atia]. Perhaps this may be such a sudden relief as I once had by a good night's rest in Fetter-lane. "From that time, by abstinence, I have had more ease. I have read five books of Homer, and hope to end the sixth tonight. I have given Mrs. — a guinea. 66 By abstinence from wine and suppers, I obtained sudden and great relief, and had freedom of mind restored to me; which I have wanted for all this year, without being able to find my means of obtaining it." * He, however, furnished Mr. Adams with a dedication to the king of that ingenious gentleman's "Treatise on the Globes," conceived and expressed in such a manner as could not fail to be very grateful to a monarch, distinguished for his love of the sciences. This year was published a ridicule of his style, under the title of "Lexiphanes." Sir John Hawkins ascribes it to Dr. Kenrick; but its authour was one Campbell, a Scotch purser in the navy. The ridicule consisted in applying Johnson's "words of large meaning," to insignificant matters, as if one should put the armour of Goliath upon a dwarf. The contrast might be laughable; but the dignity of the armour must remain the same in all considerate minds. This malicious drollery', therefore, it may easily be supposed, could do no harm to its illustrious object. [It may have been malicious, but it certainly is not droll. It is so overcharged, as to have neither resemblance nor pleasantry.-ED.] "TO BENNET LANGTON, ESQ. At Mr. Rothwell's, perfumer, in New Bond-street, London. "Lichfield, 10th October, 1767. “DEAR SIR,—That you have been all summer in London is one more reason for which I regret my long stay in the country. I hope that you will not leave the town before my return. We have here only the chance of vacancies in the passing carriages, and I have bespoken one that may, if it happens, bring me to town on the fourteenth 1 of this month; but this is not certain. "It will be a favour if you communicate this to Mrs. Williams; I long to see all my friends. I am, dear sir, your most humble servant, "SAM. JOHNSON." ["TO MRS. ASTON 2. "17th November, 1767. "MADAM,-If you impute it to disrespect or inattention, that I took no leave when I left Lichfield, you will do me great injustice. I know you too well not to value your friendship. "When I came to Oxford I inquired after the product of our walnut-tree, but it had, like other trees this year, but very few nuts, and for those few I came too late. The tree, as I told you, madam, we cannot find to be more than thirty years old, and upon measuring it, I found it, at about one foot from the ground, seven feet in circumference, and at the height, of about seven feet; the circumference is five feet and a half; it would have been, I believe, still bigger but that it has been lopped. The nuts are small, such as they call single nuts; whether this nut is of quicker growth than better I have not yet inquired; such as they are I hope to send them next year. "You know, dear madam, the liberty I took of hinting, that I did not think your present mode of life very pregnant with happiness. Reflection has not yet changed my opinion. Solitude excludes pleasure, and does not always secure peace. Some communication of sentiments is commonly necessary to give vent to the imagination, and discharge the mind of its own flatulencies. Some lady surely might be found, in whose conver 1 [We have just seen that he was detained till the 18th.-ED.] [Elizabeth, one of the younger daughters of Sir Thomas Aston: see ante, vol. i. p. 52, n. Some letters of Johnson to Mrs. Aston, which have been communicated since that note was printed, are written with a uniform spirit of tenderness and respect, and, though of little other value, afford an additional proof of the inaccuracy of Miss Seward, who represents Dr. Johnson as stating to her a very unfavourable character of Mrs. Aston.-ED.] Parker MSS. Prayers & Med. P. 80. sation you might delight, and in whose fidelity you might repose. The world, says Locke, has people of all sorts. You will forgive me this obtrusion of my opinion; I am sure I wish you well. "Poor Kitty has done what we have all to do, and Lucy has the world to begin anew; I hope she will find some way to more content than I left her possessing. "Be pleased to make my compliments to Mrs. Hinckley and Miss Turton. I am, madam, your most obliged and most humble servant, "SAM. JOHNSON."] It appears from his notes of the state of his mind, that he suffered great perturbation and distraction in 1768. "Town-malling 1, in Kent, 18th Sept. 1768, at night. "I have now begun the sixtieth year of my life. How the last year has past, I am unwilling to terrify myself with thinking. This day has been past in great perturbation; I was distracted at church in an uncommon degree, and my distress has had very little intermission. I have found myself somewhat relieved by reading, which I therefore intend to practise when I am able. "This day it came into my mind to write the history of my [It appears that he visited, with the Thrales, Mr. Brooke of Town-malling, of whose primitive house and manners we find some account in the Letters. "Dr. Johnson to Mrs. Thrale, 23d August, 1777.-"It was very well done by Mr. Brooke to send for you. His house is one of my favourite places. His water is very commodious, and the whole place has the true old appearance of a little country town. I hope Miss goes, for she takes notice." "Mrs. Thrale to Dr. Johnson, 18th September, 1777.-"Come, here is news of Town-malling, the quiet old-fashioned place in Kent, that you liked so, because it was agreeable to your own notions of a rural life. I believe we were the first people, except the master of it, who had, for many years, taken delight in the old coach without springs, the two roasted ducks in one dish, the fortified flower garden, and fir-trees cut in figures. A spirit of innovation has however reached even there at last. The roads are mended; no more narrow shaded lanes, but clear open turnpike trotting. A yew hedge, or an eugh hedge if you will, newly cut down too by his nephew's desire. Ah! those nephews. And a wall pulled away, which bore incomparable fruit-to call in the country-is the phrase. Mr. Thrale is wicked enough to urge on these rough reformers, how it will end I know not. For your comfort, the square canals still drop into one another, and the chocolate is still made in the room by a maid, who curtsies as she presents every cup. Dear old Daddy Brooke looks well, and even handsome at eighty-one years old; while I saw his sister, who is ninety-four years old and calls him Frankey, eat more venison at a sitting than Mr. Thrale. These are the proper contemplations of this season. May my daughter and my friend but enjoy life as long, and use it as innocently as these sweet people have done. The sight of such a family consoles one's heart."- ED.] melancholy. On this I purpose to deliberate; I know not whether it may not too much disturb me." 66 Nothing of his writings was given to the public this year, except the Prologue to his friend Goldsmith's comedy of " The Good-natured Man." The first lines of this prologue are strongly characteristical of the dismal gloom of his mind; which in his case, as in the case of all who are distressed with the same malady of imagination, transfers to others its own feelings. Who could suppose it was to introduce a comedy, when Mr. Bensley solemnly began, "Press'd with the load of life, the weary mind But this dark ground might make Goldsmith's humour shine the more 1. In the spring of this year, having published my "Account of Corsica, with the Journal of a Tour to that Island," I returned to London, very desirous to see Dr. Johnson, and hear him upon the subject. I found he was at Oxford, with his friend Mr. Chambers, who was now Vinerian Professor, and lived in New-inn Hall. Having had no letter from him since that in which he criticised the Latinity of my Thesis, and having been told by somebody that he was offended at my having put into my book an extract of his letter to me at Paris, I was impatient In this prologue, as Mr. John Taylor informs me, after the fourth line"And social sorrow loses half its pain," the following couplet was inserted: "Amidst the toils of this returning year, So the prologue appeared in the Publick Advertiser (the theatrical gazette of that day), soon after the first representation of this comedy in 1768.-Goldsmith probably thought that the lines printed in italick characters, which, however, seem necessary, or at least improve the sense, might give offence, and therefore prevailed on Johnson to omit them. The epithet little, which perhaps the authour thought might diminish his dignity, was also changed to anxious.— MALONE. to be with him, and therefore followed him to Oxford, where I was entertained by Mr. Chambers, with a civility which I shall ever gratefully remember. I found that Dr. Johnson had sent a letter to me to Scotland, and that I had nothing to complain of but his being more indifferent to my anxiety than I wished him to be. Instead of giving, with the circumstances of time and place, such fragments of his conversation as I preserved during this visit to Oxford, I shall throw them together in continuation. I asked him whether, as a moralist, he did not think that the practice of the law, in some degree, hurt the nice feeling of honesty. JOHNSON. "Why no, sir, if you act properly. You are not to deceive your clients with false representations of your opinion: you are not to tell lies to a judge." BOSWELL. "But what do you think of supporting a cause which you know to be bad?" JOHNSON. "Sir, you do not know it to be good or bad till the judge determines it. I have said that you are to state facts fairly; so that your thinking, or what you call knowing, a cause to be bad, must be from reasoning, must be from your supposing your arguments to be weak and inconclusive. But, sir, that is not enough. An argument which does not convince yourself, may convince the judge to whom you urge it; and if it does convince him, why, then, sir, you are wrong, and he is right. It is his business to judge; and you are not to be confident in your own opinion that a cause is bad, but to say all you can for your client, and then hear the judge's opinion." BoSWELL. "But, sir, does not affecting a warmth when you have no warmth, and appearing to be clearly of one opinion when you are in reality of another opinion, does not such dissimulation impair one's honesty? Is there not some danger that a lawyer may put on the same |