ing literary anecdote: "Green and Guthrie, an Irishman and a Scotchman, undertook a translation of Duhalde's History of China. Green said of Guthrie, that he knew no English; and Guthrie of Green, that he knew no French; and these two undertook to translate Duhalde's History of China.' In this translation there was found the twenty-sixth day of the new moon.' Now as the whole age of the moon is but twenty-eight days, the moon, instead of being new, was nearly as old as it could be. Their blunder arose from their mistaking the word neuvième ninth, for nouvelle or neuve new.'

Of Guthrie, however, Johnson said, "He is a man of parts. He has no great regular fund of knowledge; but by reading so long, and writing so long, he no doubt has picked up a good deal."

Talking of Dr. Blagden's copiousness and precision of communication, Dr. Johnson said, "Blagden, Sir, is a delightful fellow."

Johnson praised the Earl of Carlisle's Poems, which his Lordship had published with his name, as not disdaining to be a candidate for literary fame. He was of opinion, that when a man of rank appeared in that character, he deserved to have his merit handsomely allowed. In this he was more liberal than Mr. William Whitehead, in his Elegy to. Lord Villiers,' in which, under

the pretext of "superior toils demanding all their care," he discovers a jealousy of the great paying their court to the Muses:

"Who dare excel, thy fost'ring aid afford,

"Their arts, their magick powers, with honours due
"Exalt; but be thyself what they record."

The subject of quotation being once introduced, Mr. Wilkes (who was present) censured it as pedantry. Johnson said, "No, Sir, it is a good thing; there is a community of mind in it. Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world."-WILKES. "Upon the continent they all quote the vulgate Bible. Shakspeare is chiefly quoted here; and we quote also Pope, Prior, Butler, Waller, and sometimes Cowley."

Johnson one day gave an entertaining account of Bet Flint, a woman of the town, who, with some eccentrick talents and much effrontery, forced herself upon his acquaintance." Bet (said he) wrote her own Life in verse which she brought to me, wishing that I would furnish her

* The Doctor, whose memory was wonderfully retentive, remembered the first four lines of this curious production to be, "When first I drew my vital breath, "A little minikin I came upon earth; "And then I came from a dark abode, "Into this gay and gaudy world.”

with a preface to it (laughing). I used to say of her that she was generally, slut and drunkard;— occasionally, prostitute and thief. She had, however, genteel lodgings, a spinnet on which she played, and a boy that walked before her chair. Poor Bet was taken up on a charge of stealing a counterpane, and tried at the Old Bailey. Chief Justice ***** who loved a wench, summed up favourably, and she was acquitted. After which, Bet said, with a gay and satisfied air, "Now that the counterpane is my own, I shall make a petticoat of it."

Speaking of Homer, whom he venerated as the prince of poets, Johnson remarked, that the advice given to Diomed by his father, when he sent him to the Trojan war, was the noblest exhortation that could be instanced in any heathen writer, and comprised in a single line:

Διεν αριστεύειν και υπείροχον εμμεναι άλλων,

which is translated by Dr. Clarke thus: semper appetere præstantissima, & omnibus aliis antecellere.

On the licence jocularly allowed to historians as to the truth of their relations, Johnson said, "There are inexcusable lies, and consecrated lies. For instance, we are told that on, the arrival of the news of the unfortunate battle of

Fontenoy, every heart beat, and every eye was in tears. Now we know that no man eat his dinner the worse, but there should have been all this concern; and to say there was (smiling) may be reckoned a consecrated lie."

He once advised Mr. Boswell to complete a Dictionary of words peculiar to Scotland, of which he had shewn him a specimen. "Sir (said he), Ray has made a collection of northcountry words. By collecting those of your country, you will do a useful thing towards the history of the language." He bade him also go on with collections which he 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."

At another time Johnson observed,." It is amazing what ignorance of certain points one sometimes finds in men of eminence. A wit about town 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."

He loved, he said, the old black letter books; they were rich in matter, though their style was inelegant.

In a conversation which took a philosophical

turn, Johnson said, "Human experience, which is constantly contradicting theory, is the great test of truth. A system, built upon the discoveries of a great many minds, is always of more strength than what is produced by the mere workings of any one mind, which of itself can do little. There is not so poor a book in the world that would not be a prodigious effort were it wrought out entirely by a single mind, without the aid of prior investigators. The French writers are superficial, because they are not scholars, and so proceed upon the mere power of their own minds; and we see how very little power they have."

He was of opinion, that the English nation cultivated both their soil and their reason better than any other people; but admitted that the French, though not the highest, perhaps in any department of literature, yet in every department were very high. Intellectual preeminence, he observed, was the highest superiority; and every nation derived their highest reputation from the splendor and dignity of their writers. -Voltaire, he said, was a good narrator, and his principal merit consisted in a happy selection and arrangement of circumstances.

Speaking of the French novels, compared with Richardson's, he said they might be pretty baubles, but a wren was not an eagle.