has thought it worth while. And what merit is there in that? You may as well praise a schoolmaster for whipping a boy who has construed ill. No, sir, there is no real criticism in it; none showing the beauty of thought, as formed on the workings of the human heart."

The admirers of this essay' may be offended at the slighting manner in which Johnson spoke of it: but let it be remembered, that he gave his honest opinion unbiassed by any prejudice, or any proud jealousy of a woman intruding herself into the chair of criticism; for Sir Joshua Reynolds has told me, that when the essay first came out, and it was not known who had written it, Johnson wondered how Sir Joshua could like it. At this time Sir Joshua himself had received no information concerning the authour, except being assured by one of our most eminent literati, that it was clear its authour did not. know the Greek tragedies in the original. One day at Sir Joshua's table, when it was related that Mrs. Montague, in an excess of compliment to the authour of a modern tragedy, had exclaimed, "I tremble for Shakspeare," Johnson said, "When Shakspeare has got for his rival, and Mrs. Montague for his defender, he is in a poor state indeed." [Yet on Piozzi, another occasion, when Mrs. Montague showed P. 158. him some China plates which had once belonged to Queen Elizabeth, he told her, "that they had no

Of whom I acknowledge myself to be one, considering it as a piece of the secondary or comparative species of criticism; and not of that profound species which alone Dr. Johnson would allow to be "real criticism." It is, besides, clearly and elegantly expressed, and has done effectually what it professed to do, namely, vindicated Shakspeare from the misrepresentations of Voltaire; and considering how many young people were misled by his witty, though false observations, Mrs. Montague's essay was of service to Shakspeare with a certain class of readers, and is, therefore, entitled to praise. Johnson, I am assured, allowed the merit which I have stated, saying (with reference to Voltaire), “it is conclusive ad hominem."-BOSWELL.

2 [Probably Mr. Jephson, the author of "Braganza," which appeared, with great and somewhat exaggerated applause, in 1775, to which date this latter conversation must therefore be referred.-ED.]

r. 158.

Piozzi, reason to be ashamed of their present possessor, who was so little inferior to the first '."]

2

JOHN

Johnson proceeded :-"The Scotchman has taken the right method in his Elements of Criticism.' I do not mean that he has taught us any thing; but he has told us old things in a new way." MURPHY. "He seems to have read a great deal of French criticism, and wants to make it his own; as if he had been for years anatomising the heart of man, and peeping into every cranny of it." GOLDSMITH. "It is easier to write that book, than to read it." SON. "We have an example of true criticism in Burke's ، Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful ;' and if I recollect, there is also Du Bos; and Bouhours, who shows all beauty to depend on truth. There is no great merit in telling how many plays have ghosts in them, and how this ghost is better than that. You must show how terrour is impressed on the human heart. In the description of night in Macbeth, the beetle and the bat detract from the general idea of darkness,-inspissated gloom."

3

Politicks being mentioned, he said, “This petitioning is a new mode of distressing government, and a mighty easy one. I will undertake to get petitions either against quarter guineas or half guineas, with the help of a little hot wine. There must be no yielding to encourage this. The object is not important enough. We are not to blow up half a dozen palaces, because one cottage is burning."

2 [It has been supposed, that the coolness between Mrs. Montagu and Dr. Johnson arose out of his treatment of Lord Lyttelton in the Lives of the Poets; but we see that he began to speak disrespectfully of her long before that publication; and, indeed, there is hardly any point of Dr. Johnson's conduct less respectable, than the contemptuous way in which he appears to have sometimes spoken of a lady, to whom he continued to address such extravagant compliments as that quoted in the text, and to write such flattering letters as we shall read in the course of this work.-ED.]

2 [Lord Kames. See ante, vol. i. p. 119 and 403.-Ev.]

3 A great number of petitions, condemnatory of the proceedings against Mr. Wilkes, and inflamed with all the violence of party, were at this period presented to the king. ED.]

The conversation then took another turn.

JOHN

SON. "It is amazing what ignorance of certain points one sometimes finds in men of eminence. A wit about town, who wrote loose Latin verses, asked me how it happened that England and Scotland, which were once two kingdoms, were now one: and Sir Fletcher Norton did not seem to know that there were such publications as the Reviews."

"The ballad of Hardyknute has no great merit, if it be really ancient'. People talk of nature. But mere obvious nature may be exhibited with very little power of mind."

On Thursday, October 19, I passed the evening with him at his house. He advised me to complete a Dictionary of words peculiar to Scotland, of which I showed him a specimen. "Sir," said he, "Ray has made a collection of north-country words. By collecting those of your country, you will do a useful thing towards the history of the language." He bade me also go on with collections which I was making upon the antiquities of Scotland. "Make a large book; a folio." BOSWELL. "But of what use will it be, sir?" JOHNSON. "Never mind the use: do it."

I complained that he had not mentioned Garrick in his Preface to Shakspeare; and asked him if he did not admire him. JOHNSON. "Yes, as a poor player, who frets and struts his hour upon the stage;' as a shadow." BOSWELL. "But has he not brought Shakspeare into notice?" JOHNSON. "Sir, to allow that, would be to lampoon the age. Many of Shakspeare's plays are the worse for being acted: Macbeth, for instance." BOSWELL. "What, sir, is nothing gained by decoration and action? Indeed, I do wish

It is unquestionably a modern fiction. It was written by Sir John Bruce of Kinross, and first published at Edinburgh in folio, 1719. See "Percy's Relics of ancient English Poetry," vol. ii. pp. 96. 111. Fourth edition.MALONE.

[See ante, vol. i. p. 493-En.]

that you had mentioned Garrick." JOHNSON. "My dear sir, had I mentioned him, I must have mentioned many more; Mrs. Pritchard, Mrs. Cibber,-nay, and Mr. Cibber too; he too altered Shakspeare." Boswell. "You have read his apology', sir?" JOHNSON. “Yes, it is very entertaining. But as for Cibber himself, taking from his conversation all that he ought not to have said, he was a poor creature. I remember when he brought me one of his Odes to have my opinion of it, I could not bear such nonsense, and would not let him read it to the end; so little respect had I for that great man! (laughing.) Yet I remember Richardson wondering that I could treat him with familiarity."

I mentioned to him that I had seen the execution of several convicts at Tyburn 2, two days before, and that none of them seemed to be under any concern. JOHNSON. "Most of them, sir, have never thought at all." BoSWELL. "But is not the fear of death natural to man?" JOHNSON. "So much so, sir, that the whole of life is but keeping away the thoughts of it." He then, in a low and earnest tone, talked of his meditating upon the awful hour of his own dissolution, and in what manner he should conduct himself upon that occasion:-"I know not (said he), whether I should wish to have a friend by me, or have it all between God and myself."

Talking of our feeling for the distresses of others: JOHNSON. "Why, sir, there is much noise made about it, but it is greatly exaggerated. No, sir, we have a certain degree of feeling to prompt us to do good; more than that, Providence does not intend. It would be misery to no purpose." BOSWELL. "But suppose now, sir, that one of your intimate

[The Memoirs of himself and of the stage, which Cibber published under the modest title of an Apology for his Life. See ante, vol. i. p. 410.—ED] 2 [Six unhappy men were executed at Tyburn on Wednesday the 18th (one day before). It was one of the irregularities of Mr. Boswell's mind to be passionately fond of seeing these melancholy spectacles.-ED.]

friends were apprehended for an offence for which he might be hanged." JOHNSON. "I should do what I could to bail him, and give him any other assistance; but if he were once fairly hanged, I should not suffer." BOSWELL. "Would you eat your dinner that day, sir?" JOHNSON. "Yes, sir, and eat it as if he were eating with me. Why, there's Baretti, who is to be tried for his life to-morrow; friends have risen up for him on every side; yet if he should be hanged, none of them will eat a slice of plum-pudding the less. Sir, that sympathetick feeling goes a very little way in depressing the mind."

I told him that I had dined lately at Foote's, who showed me a letter which he had received from Tom Davies, telling him that he had not been able to sleep from the concern he felt on account of "This sad affair of Baretti," begging of him to try if he could. suggest any thing that might be of service; and, at the same time, recommending to him an industrious young man who kept a pickle-shop. JOHNSON.

66

Ay, sir, here you have a specimen of human sympathy-a friend hanged, and a cucumber pickled. We know not whether Baretti or the pickleman has kept Davies from sleep: nor does he know himself'. And as to his not sleeping, sir: Tom Davies is a very great man; Tom has been upon the stage, and knows how to do those things: I have not been upon the stage, and cannot do those things." BOSWELL. "I have often blamed myself, sir, for not feeling for others, as sensibly as many say they do." JOHNSON. "Sir, don't be duped by them any more. You will find these very feeling people are not very ready to do you good. They pay you by feeling."

[It would seem that Davies's anxiety was more sincere than Johnson would represent. He says, in a letter to Granger, "I have been so taken up with a very unlucky accident that befell an intimate friend of mine, that for this last fortnight I have been able to attend to no business, though ever so urgent."— Granger's Letters, p. 28.—ED.]