severely felt." BOSWELL. "I own, sir, I have not so much feeling for the distress of others as some people have, or pretend to have: but I know this, that I would do all in my power to relieve them.' JOHNSON. "Sir, it is affectation to pretend to feel the distress of others as much as they do themselves. It is equally so, as if one should pretend to feel as much pain while a friend's leg is cutting off, as he does. No, sir; you have expressed the rational and just nature of sympathy. I would have gone to the extremity of the earth to have preserved this boy."

He was soon quite calm. The letter was from Mr. Thrale's clerk, and concluded, "I need not say how much they wish to see you in London." "We shall hasten back from Taylor's."

He said,

Mrs. Lucy Porter and some other ladies of the place talked a great deal of him when he was out of the room, not only with veneration but affection. It pleased me to find that he was so much beloved in his native city.

Mrs. Aston, whom I had seen the preceding night, and her sister, Mrs. Gastrel, a widow lady, had each a house, and garden, and pleasure-ground, prettily situated upon Stowhill, a gentle eminence, adjoining to Lichfield. Johnson walked away to dinner there, leaving me by myself without any apology; I wondered at this want of that facility of manners, from which a man has no difficulty in carrying a friend to a house where he is intimate; I felt it very unpleasant to be thus left in solitude in a country town, where I was an entire stranger, and began to think myself unkindly deserted; but I was soon relieved, and convinced that my friend, instead of being deficient in delicacy, had conducted the matter with perfect propriety, for I received the following note ́in his handwriting:

"Mrs. Gastrel, at the lower house on Stowhill, desires Mr. Boswell's company to dinner at two.”

I accepted of the invitation, and had here another proof how amiable his character was in the opinion of those who knew him best. I was not informed, till afterwards, that Mrs. Gastrel's husband was the clergyman who, while he lived at Stratford-uponAvon, where he was proprietor of Shakspeare's garden, with gothic barbarity cut down his mulberry-tree 1, and, as Dr. Johnson told me, did it to vex his neighbours. His lady, I have reason to believe, on the same authority, participated in the guilt of what the enthusiasts of our immortal bard deem almost a species of sacrilege.

After dinner Dr. Johnson wrote [the following] letter to Mrs. Thrale, on the death of her son:

["TO MRS. THRALE.

66 Lichfield, 25th March, 1776. "DEAR MADAM,-This letter will not, I hope, reach you many days before me; in a distress which can be so little relieved, nothing remains for a friend but to come and partake it. Poor, dear, sweet, little boy! When I read the letter this day to Mrs. Aston, she said, ‘Such a death is the next to translation.' Yet, however I may convince myself of this, the tears are in my eyes, and yet I could not love him as you loved him, nor reckon upon him for a future comfort as you and his father reckoned upon him.

"He is gone, and we are going! We could not have enjoyed him long, and shall not long be separated from him. He has probably escaped many such pangs as you are now feeling.

Nothing remains, but that with humble confidence we resign ourselves to Almighty Goodness, and fall down, without irreverent murmurs, before the Sovereign Distributor of Good and Evil, with hope that though sorrow endureth for a night, yet joy may come in the morning.

"I have known you, madam, too long to think that you want

1 See an accurate and animated statement of Mr. Gastrel's barbarity, by Mr. Malone, in a note on "Some Account of the Life of William Shakspeare,' prefixed to his admirable edition of that poet's works, vol. i. p. 118.—BOSWELL.

Letters,

v, i.

p. 307.

Letters, v. i. p. 307.

1. P.

any/arguments for submission to the Supreme Will; nor can
my consolation have any effect, but that of showing that I
that I wish

for

to comfort you. What can be done yout do ff.

;

Remember first, that your child is happy; and then, that he is
safe, not only from the ills of this world, but from those more
formidable dangers which extend their mischief to eternity.
You have brought into the world a rational being; have seen
him happy during the little life that has been granted to him
and can have no doubt but that his happiness is now.
"When you have obtained by prayer such tranquillity as
nature will admit, force your attention, as you can, upon your
accustomed duties and accustomed entertainments. You can do
no more for our dear boy, but you must not therefore think less
on those whom your attention may make fitter for the place to
which he is gone. I am, dearest, dearest madam, your most
affectionate humble servant,
“SAM. JOHNSON."]

I said this loss would be very distressing to Thrale, but she would soon forget it, as she had so many things to think of. JOHNSON."No, sir, Thrale will forget it first. She has many things that she may think of. He has many things that he must think of." This was a very just remark upon the different effects of those light pursuits which occupy a vacant and easy mind, and those serious engagements which arrest attention, and keep us from brooding over grief.

He observed of Lord Bute, "It was said of Augustus, that it would have been better for Rome that he had never been born, or had never died. So it would have been better for this nation if Lord Bute had never been minister, or had never resigned.".

In the evening we went to the Town-hall, which was converted into a temporary theatre, and saw "Theodosius," with "The Stratford Jubilee." I was happy to see Dr. Johnson sitting in a conspicuous part of the pit, and receiving affectionate homage from all his acquaintance. We were quite gay and merry. I afterwards mentioned to him that I con

demned myself for being so, when poor Mr. and Mrs. Thrale were in such 1- anda ofeo de foi distress. JOHNSON. You are

I

volgut aqued gr

you b be gay in the

wrong, sir; twenty years hence Mr. and Mrs. Thrale will not suffer much pain from the death of their son. Now, sir, you are to consider, that distance of place, as well as distance of time, operates upon the human feelings. I would not have presence of the distressed, because it would shock them ; but you may be gay at a distance. Pain for the loss of a friend, or of a relation whom we love, is occasioned by the want which we feel. In time the vacuity is filled with something else; or sometimes the vacuity closes up of itself.”

1

Mr. Seward and Mr. Pearson', another clergyman here, supped with us at our inn, and after they left us, we sat up late as we used to do in London;

Here I shall record some fragments of my friend's conversation during this jaunt.

f

Marriage, sir, is much more necessary to a man than to a woman: for he is much less able to supply himself with domestick comforts. You will recollect my saying to some ladies the other day, that I had often wondered why young women should marry, as they have so much more freedom, and so much more attention paid to them while unmarried, than when married. I indeed did not mention the strong reason for their marrying the mechanical reason." BosWELL Why that is a strong one. But does not imagination make it much more important than it is din reality? Is it not, to a certain degree, a delusion vin us as well as in women?" JOHNSON." Why yes, 26w I ".95' "AzoboodT

SO

of her

Porter's

wa

Hoy bonis was the gentleman we manuscripts to this edition property hind that Miss Porter addressed, in the presence of Dr. Johnson, that two-edged reproof, which Dr. Johnson repeated to Mrs. Piozzi. Mr. Pearson having opposed Miss Porter in some argument, she was offended, and exclaimed, "Mr. Pearson, are just like Dr. Johnson-you contradict every word one speaks. "IL Piozzi, p. 172. ED.10. Contrad 7119P

66

sir; but it is a delusion that is always beginning again." BOSWELL. "I don't know but there is upon the whole more misery than happiness produced by that passion." JOHNSON. "I don't think so, sir."

1

"Never speak of a man in his own presence. It is always indelicate, and may be offensive."

"Questioning is not the mode of conversation' among gentlemen. It is assuming a superiority, and it is particularly wrong to question a man concerning himself. There may be parts of his former life which he may not wish to be made known to other persons, or even brought to his own recollection."

"A man should be careful never to tell tales of himself to his own disadvantage. People may be amused and laugh at the time, but they will be remembered, and brought out against him upon some subsequent occasion.”

"Much may be done if a man puts his whole mind to a particular object. By doing so, Norton 2 has made himself the great lawyer that he is allowed to be."

I mentioned an acquaintance of mine, a sectary, who was a very religious man, who not only attended regularly on publick worship with those of his communion, but made a particular study of the Scriptures, and even wrote a commentary on some parts of them, yet was known to be very licentious in indulging himself with women; maintaining that men are to be saved by faith alone, and that the Christian religion had not prescribed any fixed rule for the intercourse

[This very just observation explains why the conversation of princes, and of those who ape princes, consists of so large a proportion of questions. The badauds of all nations used to wonder at Buonaparte's active curiosity and desire of knowledge from the multitude of his questions, while in fact he was only "playing at KING."-ED.]

2 Sir Fletcher Norton, afterwards speaker of the house of commons, and in 1782 created Baron Grantly.-MALONE.