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trasts with the ordinary and more painful modes of acquiring property are so artfully displayed, that it requires a cool and strong judgment to resist so imposing an aggregate: yet, I own, I should be very sorry to have "The Beggar's Opera" suppressed; for there is in it so much of real London life, so much brilliant wit, and such a variety of airs, which, from early association of ideas, engage, soothe, and enliven the mind, that no performance which the theatre exhibits delights me more.

The late "worthy" Duke of Queensbury', as Thomson, in his "Seasons," justly characterizes him, told me, that when Gay showed him "The Beggar's Opera," his grace's observation was, "This is a very odd thing, Gay; I am satisfied that it is either a very good thing, or a very bad thing." It proved the former, beyond the warmest expectations of the authour, or his friends. Mr. Cambridge, however, showed us to-day, that there was good reason enough to doubt concerning its success. He was told by Quin, that during the first night of its appearance it was long in a very dubious state; that there was a disposition to damn it, and that it was saved by the song,

"Oh ponder well! be not severe !"

the audience being much affected by the innocent looks of Polly, when she came to those two lines, which exhibit at once a painful and ridiculous image,

"For on the rope that hangs my dear,
Depends poor Polly's life."

Quin himself had so bad an opinion of it, that he refused the part of Captain Macheath, and gave it to

1 [The third Duke of Queensbury, and second Duke of Dover; the patron of Gay and Thomson. He died in 1778, in the 80th year of his age.-ED.]

Walker, who acquired great celebrity by his grave yet animated performance of it.

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We talked of a young gentleman's marriage2 with an eminent singer, and his determination that she should no longer sing in publick, though his father was very earnest she should, because her talents would be liberally rewarded, so as to make her a good fortune. It was questioned whether the young gentleman who had not a shilling in the world, but was blest with very uncommon talents, was not foolishly delicate, or foolishly proud, and his father truly rational without being mean. Johnson, with all the high spirit of a Roman senator, exclaimed, “He resolved wisely and nobly to be sure. He is a brave man. Would not a gentleman be disgraced by having his wife singing publickly for hire? No, sir, there can be no doubt here **3"

Johnson arraigned the modern politicks of this country, as entirely devoid of all principle of whatever kind. "Politicks," said he, " are now nothing more than means of rising in the world. With this sole view do men engage in politicks, and their whole conduct proceeds upon it. How different in that respect is the state of the nation now from what it was in the time of Charles the First, during the

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[The gravity of the performance of Macheath seems a strange merit.-ED.] 2 [This, no doubt, alludes to Mr. R. B. Sheridan's refusal to allow his wife to sing in public. He rsinging at Oxford, at the installation of Lord North, as chancellor, in 1773, was put on the footing of obliging his lordship and the university; and when, on that occasion, several degrees were conferred "honoris causa," Lord North observed, that Sheridan's degree should be “uxoris causâ."-HALL.]

3 [An indelicate allusion is here omitted. ED.]

4 [In those troublesome times men were contending for fundamental principles, and were always zealous, and sometimes disinterested in proportion to the greatness of the public stake; but since the Revolution, and the extinction of the claims of the house of Stuart, the principles of our constitution are so generally admitted, that little is left to be contested for, except the hands by which affairs shall be administered: in such junctures, politics must become more of a profession, in which men will seek personal advancement, than when their private feelings were mixed up with questions of vital public importance.—ED.]

Usurpation, and after the Restoration, in the time of Charles the Second. Hudibras affords a strong proof how much hold political principles had then upon the minds of men. There is in Hudibras a great deal of bullion which will always last. But to be sure the brightest strokes of his wit owed their force to the impression of the characters, which was upon men's minds at the time; to their knowing them, at table and in the street; in short, being familiar with them; and above all, to his satire being directed against those whom a little while before they had hated and feared. The nation in general has ever been loyal, has been at all times attached to the monarch, though a few daring rebels have been wonderfully powerful for a time. The murder of Charles the First was undoubtedly not committed with the approbation or consent of the people. Had that been the case, parliament would not have ventured to consign the regicides to their deserved punishment 1. And we know what exuberance of joy there was when Charles the Second was restored. If Charles the Second had bent all his mind to it, had made it his sole object, he might have been as absolute as Louis the Fourteenth 2." A gentleman observed he would have done no harm if he had. JOHNSON. " Why, sir, absolute princes seldom do any harm. But they who are governed by them are governed by chance. There is no security for good government." CAMBRIDGE. "There have been many sad victims to

[The Editor concurs in Johnson's opinion as to the fact; but it seems to him, that the proof adduced is very inclusive, for if the execution of the regicides proves one state of the public mind, surely the execution of the king himself might be adduced to prove another.-ED.]

2 [Did Dr. Johnson forget the power of the public purse, placed in the hands of the house of commons, and all the arts, intrigues, and violence which Charles and his ministers tried, and tried in vain to evade, or resist that control? Did he also forget that there were juries in that reign? a jury might occasionally be packed or intimidated, but there still were juries!-Ev.]

absolute government." JOHNSON. "So, sir, have there been to popular factions." BOSWELL. "The question is, which is worst, one wild beast or many?

Johnson praised "The Spectator," particularly the character of Sir Roger de Coverley. He said, “Sir Roger did not die a violent death, as has been generally fancied. He was not killed; he died only because others were to die, and because his death afforded an opportunity to Addison for some very fine writing. We have the example of Cervantes making Don Quixote die. I never could see why Sir Roger is represented as a little cracked. It appears to me that the story of the widow was intended to have something superinduced upon it; but the superstructure did not come."

Somebody found fault with writing verses in a dead language, maintaining that they were merely arrangements of so many words, and laughed at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, for sending forth collections of them not only in Greek and Latin, but even in Syriack, Arabick, and other more unknown tongues. JOHNSON. "I would have as many of these as possible; I would have verses in every language that there are the means of acquiring. Nobody imagines that an university is to have at once two hundred poets: but it should be able to show two hundred scholars. Pierese's death was lamented, I think, in forty languages. And I would have had at every coronation, and every death of a king, every Gaudium, and every Luctus, universityverses, in as many languages as can be acquired. I would have the world to be thus told, Here is a school where every thing may be learnt.""

Having set out next day on a visit to the Earl of Pembroke, at Wilton, and to my friend, Mr. Temple,

at Mamhead, in Devonshire, and not having returned to town till the second of May, I did not see Dr. Johnson for a considerable time, and during the remaining part of my stay in London kept very imperfect notes of his conversation, which had I according to my usual custom written out at large soon after the time, much might have been preserved, which is now irretrievably lost. I can now only record some particular scenes, and a few fragments of his memorabilia. But to make some amends for my relaxation of diligence in one respect, I can present my readers with arguments upon two law cases, with which he favoured me1.

On Saturday, the sixth of May, we dined by ourselves at the Mitre, and he dictated to me [an argument, which will be found in the Appendix], to obviate the complaint already mentioned, which had been made in the form of an action in the court of session by Dr. Memis, of Aberdeen, that in the same translation of a charter in which physicians were mentioned, he was called doctor of medicine.

A few days afterwards, I consulted him upon a cause, Paterson and others against Alexander and others, which had been decided by a casting vote in the court of session, determining that the corporation of Stirling was corrupt, and setting aside the election of some of their officers, because it was proved that three of the leading men who influenced the majority had entered into an unjustifiable compact, of which, however, the majority were ignorant. He dictated to me, after a little consideration, some sentences upon the subject [which will also be found in the Appendix.]

[Most readers, it is suspected, will not think the compensation adequate.— En.] Ante, page 167.-BOSWELL.

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