of England, during a period hardly second in brilliancy, and superior in importance, even to the Augustan age of Anne.'-vol. i. pp. xxv-xxx. The editor preserves in a note, in which shape we also subjoin* it, a curious letter which he found in Miss Reynolds' papers, addressed by Boswell to Sir Joshua, on the subject of the portrait, above mentioned. And whilst we are thus on the subject of poverty, we may as well give, from the editor's manuscript additions, one of Johnson's letters to Miss Lucy Porter. "Goff Square, July 12, 1749. "DEAR MISS,-I am extremely obliged to you for your letter, which I would have answered last post, but that ilness † prevented me. I have been often out of order of late, and have very much neglected my affairs. You have acted very prudently with regard to Levett's affair, which will, I think, not at all embarrass me, for you may promise him, that the mortgage shall be taken up at Michaelmas, or at least, sometime between that and Christmas; and if he requires to have it done sooner, I will endeavour I make no doubt, by that time, of either doing it myself, or persuading some of my friends to do it for me. "Please to acquaint him with it, and let me know if he be satisfied. When he once called on me, his name was mistaken, and therefore I did not see him; but finding the mistake, wrote to him the same day, but never heard more of him, though I entreated him to let me know where to wait on him, You frighted me, you little gipsy, with your black wafer, for I had forgot you were in mourning, and was afraid your letter brought me ill news of my mother, whose death is one of the few calamities on which I think with terrour. I long to know how she does, and how you all do. Your poor mamma is come home, but very weak; yet I hope she "London, 7th June, 1785. "MY DEAR SIR.-The debts which I contracted in my father's lifetime will not be cleared off by me for some years. I therefore think it unconscientious to indulge myself in any expensive article of elegant luxury. But in the mean time, you may die, or I may die; and I should regret very much that there should not be at Auchinleck my portrait painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds, with whom I have the felicity of living in social intercourse. "I have a proposal to make to you. I am for certain to be called to the English bar next February. Will you now do my picture, and the price shall be paid out of the first fees which I receive as a barrister, in Westminster Hall. Or if that fund should fail, it shall be paid at any rate in five years hence, by myself or my representatives. "If you are pleased to approve of this proposal, your signifying your concurrence underneath, upon two duplicates, one of which shall be kept by each of us, will be a sufficient voucher of the obligation. I ever am, with very sincere regard, my dear Sir, your faithful and affectionate humble servant, "JAMES BOSWELL." She is now up stairs, will grow better, else she shall go into the country. and knows not of my writing. I am, dear Miss, your most humble servant, "SAM. JOHNSON.'" -vol. i. pp. 175, 176. In the fifth volume of Richardson's Correspondence, quoted by Mr. Croker, a much more pitiable proof occurs of the straights to which poor Johnson was sometimes put in his money affairs. It would appear that he had been at this time chiefly dependent for his support, upon his contributions to magazines and reviews. ["DR. JOHNSON TO MR. RICHARDSON. "Tuesday, 19th Feb. 1756. "DEAR SIR,—I return you my sincerest thanks for the favour which you were pleased to do me two nights ago. "Be pleased to accept of this little book, which is all that I have published this winter. The inflammation is come again into my eye, so that I can write very little. I am, Sir, your most obliged and most humble servant, SAM. JOHNSON."'] ["To MR. RICHARDSON. "Gough Square, 16th March, 1756. "SIR,-I am obliged to entreat your assistance; I am now under an arrest for five pounds eighteen shillings. Mr. Strahan, from whom I should have received the necessary help in this case, is not at home, and I am afraid of not finding Mr. Millar. If you will be so good as to send me this sum, I will very gratefully repay you, and add it to all former obligations. I am, Sir, your most obedient and most humble Servant, "SAM. JOHNSON.' "Sent six guineas. Witness William Richardson.] -vol. i. pp. 289, 290. From a passage or two in Boswell's Life, upon the subject of religion, doubts have been entertained as to Johnson's orthodoxy (if such a phrase be correctly applicable to the doctrines of the ever-varying Church of England.) He is reported to have spoken so highly of the Roman Catholic faith, that some persons have inferred that he preferred it to any other. "He had a respect," says Boswell, "for the old religion.' "Sir William Scott informs me, that he heard Johnson say, 'A man who is converted from protestantism to popery may be sincere, he parts with nothing; he is only super-adding to what he already had. But a convert from popery to protestantism, gives up so much of what he has held as sacred as any thing that he retains; there is so much laceration of mind in such a conversion, that it can hardly be sincere and lasting."" Miss Seward, who has written some strange things about Johnson, and whose credit stands very low indeed with Mr. Croker, is quite indignant when she meets with any of Johnson's popish inclinations. It was a frequent practice with him, after the death of his wife, whom he called by the fond name of Tetty, to pray for the repose of her soul, "conditionally if it were lawful." Mr. Croker, while he shews up her bigotry, is equally anxious, however, to remove this imputation, as he ignorantly considers it, from the Doctor's memory. His note upon the subject is amusing. 'Miss Seward, with equal truth and taste, thus expresses herself, concerning these and similar passages. "Those pharisaic meditations, with their popish prayers for old Tetty's soul; their contrite parade about lying in bed on a morning; drinking creamed tea on a fast day; snoring at sermons; and having omitted to ponder well Bel and the Dragon, and Tobit and his Dog." And in another letter, she does not scruple to say that Mr. Boswell confessed to her his idea that Johnson was a Roman Catholic in his heart." Miss Seward's credit is by this time so low, that it is hardly necessary to observe how improbable it is, that Mr. Boswell could have made any such confession. Dr. Johnson thought charitably of the Roman Catholics, and defended their religion from the coarse language of our political tests, which call it impious and idolatrous (post, 26th Oct. 1769;) but he strenuously disclaimed all participation in the doctrines of that church (see post, 3rd May, 1773: 5th of April, 1776; 10th Oct. 1779; 3rd June, 1784.) Lady Knight (the mother of Miss Cornelia Knight, the accomplished author of Marcus Flaminius and other ingenious works,) made the following communication to Mr. Hoole, which may be properly quoted on this point: "Dr. Johnson's political principles ran high, both in church and state: he wished power to the king and to the heads of the church, as the laws of England have established; but I know he disliked absolute power; and I am very sure of his disapprobation of the doctrines of the church of Rome; because about three weeks before we came abroad, he said to my Cornelia, 'you are going where the ostentatious pomp of church ceremonies attracts the imagination; but if they want to persuade you to change, you must remember, that by increasing your faith, you may be persuaded to become a Turk.' If these were not the words, I have kept up to the express meaning.'" Mrs. Piozzi also says, "though beloved by all his Roman Catholic acquaintance, yet was Mr. J:hnson a most unshaken Church-of-England man; and I think, or at least I once did think, that a letter written by him to Mr. Barnard, the king's librarian, when he was in Italy collecting books, contained some very particular advice to his friend to be on his guard against the seductions of the Church of Rome." And, finallywhich may perhaps be thought more likely to express his real sentiments than even a more formal assertion-when it was proposed (see post, 30th April, 1773,) that monuments of eminent men should in future be erected in St. Paul's, and when some one in conversation suggested to begin with Pope, Johnson observed, "Why, Sir, as Pope was a Roman Catholic, I would not have his to be first."-ED.'-vol. i. p. 214. It is well known that Johnson sometimes indulged his personal prejudices in the definitions which he gave to words in his Dictionary. Thus "pension," he defined, (before he received one himself however,)" an allowance made to any one without an equivalent. In England it is generally understood to mean pay given to a state hireling, for treason to his country." His hatred of the Scotch breaks out in his definition of "oats,"-" a grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people." Some family circumstances, which Mr. Croker has traced with his wonted perseverance, and from which it appears that Johnson's father, who had been a tanner at Lichfield, had been treated or threatened with severity by the Excise authorities, were manifestly in the great Lexicographer's mind, when he explained the word, "Excise," as "a hateful tax levied upon commodities, and adjudged, not by the common judges of property, but wretches hired by those to whom excise is paid." Boswell relates, that the Excise Commissioners being greatly offended by this severe reflection, consulted the then Attorney-General, Mr. Murray, (afterwards Lord Mansfield,) upon the propriety of prosecuting its author, and though he correctly states the purport of the opinion given by that eminent lawyer, he expresses his disappointment that, "the secrecy of office" did not permit him to obtain a copy of it. Mr. Croker has been enabled to supply this defect, through the kindness of Sir F. H. Doyle, now Deputy-Chairman of the Board of Excise, who gave him a copy both of the case and opinion, which we insert as a remarkable literary curiosity. "Case for the opinion of Mr. Attorney-General. "Mr. Samuel Johnson has lately published a book entitled A Dictionary of the English language, in which the words are deduced from their originals, and illustrated in their different significations by examples from the best writers. To which are prefixed, a History of the Language and an English Grammar.' "Under this title, ExCISE, are the following words: 6 66 6 EXCISE, n. s. (Accijs, Dutch; Excisum, Latin.) A hateful tax levied upon commodities, and adjudged not by the common judges of property, but wretches hired by those to whom excise is paid. """The people should pay a ratable tax for their shoes, and an excise for every thing which they should eat.-HAYWARD. "Ambitious now to take excise Of a more fragrant paradise.-CLEAVELAND. With hundred rows of teeth, the shark exceeds, And on all trades, like cassawar, she feeds.—MARVEL. """Can hire large houses, and oppress the poor, by farmed excise.— DRYDEN'S Juvenal, Sat. 3d.' "The author's definition being observed by the Commissioners of Excise, they desire the favour of your opinion. "Qu. Whether it will not be considered as a libel, and if so, whether it is not proper to proceed against the author, printers, and publishers thereof, or any and which of them by information, or how otherwise?" "I am of opinion that it is a libel. But under all the circumstances, I should think it better to give him an opportunity of altering his definition; and, in case he do not, to threaten him with an information. "29th Nov. 1755. "W. MURRAY." -vol. i. p. 281. VOL. 11. (1831.) No. III. 2 H We have seen that Mr. Croker can also occasionally indulge in the expression of his own religious opinions, when speaking of those of Dr. Johnson. We suspect that if the Doctor had not been a high Tory, he would not have had the late secretary of the Admiralty for his illustrator. It is, however, but justice to that gentleman to observe, that his political tendencies very seldom break out, and never in an offensive form. In turning over the notes to the second volume, we find one very neatly expressed, coinciding with the often repeated doctrine of Johnson, "that so far from its being true that men are naturally equal, no two people can be half an hour together, but one shall acquire an evident superiority over the other.' The note is in these terms, No mistake was ever greater, in terms, or in substance, than that which affirms the natural equality of mankind. Men, on the contrary, are born so very unequal in capacities and powers, mental and corporeal, that it requires laws and the institutions of civil society to bring them to a state of moral equality. Social equality,—that is, equality in property, power, rank, and respect,-if it were miraculously established, could not maintain itself a week.' The readers of Boswell will recollect the celebrated interview which Johnson had with George III. Mr. Croker remarks it as a singularity, which, however obvious, had not been before observed, that the Doctor, who had been also in the presence of Queen Anne, and of George II., and who saw George IV. when a child, at the Queen's house, when he went to pay a visit to Mrs. Percy, thus saw four of the five last sovereigns, whose reigns already include a period of more than a hundred and twenty five years. When Johnson, on his tour to the Hebrides, visited Edinburgh, Boswell mentions his going to see, among the lions of the place, the old parliament house. Sir Walter Scott supplies a note to this passage, to the effect that it was on this occasion that Mr. Henry Erskine, after being presented to the Doctor by Boswell, and having made his bow, slipped a shilling into Boswell's hand, whispering that it was for the sight of his bear! One or two anecdotes from the manuscript recollections of Johnson, by Miss Reynolds, will bear repetition. 666 "Of Goldsmith's Traveller he used to speak in terms of the highest commendation. A lady I remember, who had the pleasure of hearing Dr. Johnson read it from the beginning to the end on its first coming out, to testify her admiration of it, exclaimed, I never more shall think Dr. Goldsmith ugly.' In having thought so, however, she was by no meaus singular; an instance of which I am rather inclined to mention, because it involves a remarkable one of Dr. Johnson's ready wit: for this lady, one evening being in a large party, was called upon after supper for her toast, and seeming embarrassed, she was desired to give the ugliest man she knew; and she immediately named Dr. Goldsmith, on which a lady on the other side of the table rose up and reached across to shake hands with her, expressing some desire of being better acquainted with |