"He means that it is difficult to appropriate to particular persons qualities which are common to all mankind, as Homer has done."

WILKES. "We have no city-poet now: that is an office which has gone into disuse. The last was Elkanah Settle. There is something in names which one cannot help feeling. Now Elkanah Settle sounds so queer, who can expect much from that name? We should have no hesitation to give it for John

plication which my Lord of Worcester treats with so much contempt is, nevertheless, countenanced by authority which I find quoted by the learned Baxter in his edition of Horace," Difficile est propriè communia dicere, h. e. res vulgares disertis verbis enarrare, vel humile thema cum dignitate tractare. Difficile est communes res propriis explicare verbis. Vet. Schol." I was much disappointed to find that the great critick, Dr. Bentley, has no note upon this very difficult passage, as from his vigorous and illuminated mind I should have expected to receive more satisfaction than I have yet had. Sanadon thus treats of it: "Propriè communia dicere; c'est à dire, qu'il n'est pas aisé de former à ces personnages d'imagination, des caractères particuliers et cependant vraisemblables. Comme l'on a été le maître de les former tels qu'on a voulu, les fautes que l'on fait en cela sont moins pardonnables. C'est pourquoi Horace conseille de prendre toujours des sujets connus, tels que sont par exemple ceux que l'on peut tirer des poëmes d'Homère." And Dacier observes upon it, " Après avoir marqué les deux qualités qu'il faut donner aux personnages qu'on invente, il conseille aux poëtes tragiques, de n'user pas trop facilement de cette liberté qu'ils ont d'en inventer, car il est très difficile de réussir dans ces nouveaux caractères. Il est mal aisé, dit Horace, de traiter proprement, c'est à dire, convenablement des sujets communs; c'est à dire, des sujets inventés, et qui n'ont aucun fondement ni dans l'histoire ni dans la fable; et il les appelle communs, parcequ'ils sont en disposition à tout le monde, et que tout le monde a le droit de les inventer, et qu'ils sont, comme on dit, au premier occupant." See his observations at large on this expression and the following. After all, I cannot help entertaining some doubt whether the words Difficile est propriè communia dicere may not have been thrown in by Horace to form a separate article in a "choice of difficulties" which a poet has to encounter who chooses a new subject; in which case it must be uncertain which of the various explanations is the true one, and every reader has a right to decide as it may strike his own fancy. And even should the words be understood, as they generally are, to be connected both with what goes before and what comes after, the exact sense cannot be absolutely ascertained; for instance, whether propriè is meant to signify in an appropriated manner, as Dr. Johnson here understands it, or, as it is often used by Cicero, with propriety or elegantly. In short, it is a rare instance of a defect in perspicuity in an admirable writer, who, with almost every species of excellence, is peculiarly remarkable for that quality. The length of this note perhaps requires an apology. Many of my readers, I doubt not, will admit that a critical discussion of a passage in a favourite classick is very engaging.-BOSWELL. [This passage was the subject of an ingenious discussion between the young Marquis de Sevigné and M. Dacier, which will be found, together with Sanadon's and Dumarsais' opinions, in the last volume of the best edition of Madame de Sevigné's letters. It seems to result from the whole discussion that, in the ordinary meaning of the words, the passage is obscure, and that, to make sense, we must either alter the words, or assign to them an unusual interpretation. All commentators are agreed-by the help of the context-what the general meaning must be, but no one seems able verbum verbo reddere fidus interpres.-ED.]

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Dryden, in preference to Elkanah Settle, from the names only, without knowing their different merits." JOHNSON." I suppose, sir, Settle did as well for aldermen in his time, as John Home could do now. Where did Beckford and Trecothick learn English ?" Mr. Arthur Lee mentioned some Scotch who had taken possession of a barren part of America, and wondered why they should choose it. JOHNSON, Why, sir, all barrenness is comparative. The Scotch would not know it to be barren." BOSWELL. "Come, come; he is flattering the English. You have now been in Scotland, sir, and say if you did not see meat and drink enough there." JOHNSON. "Why, yes, sir; meat and drink enough to give the inhabitants sufficient strength to run away from home." All these quick and lively sallies were said sportively, quite in jest, and with a smile, which showed that he meant only wit. Upon this topick he and Mr. Wilkes could perfectly assimilate; here was a bond of union between them, and I was conscious that as both of them had visited Caledonia, both were fully satisfied of the strange narrow ignorance of those who imagine that it is a land of famine. But they amused themselves with persevering in the old jokes, When I claimed a superiority for Scotland over England in one respect, that no man can be arrested there for a debt merely because another swears it against him; but there must first be the judgment of a court of law ascertaining its justice; and that a seizure of the person, before judgment is obtained, can take place only if his creditor should swear that he is about to fly from the country, or, as it is technically expressed, is in meditatione fugæ. WILKes. "That, I should think, may be safely sworn of all the Scotch nation." JOHNSON (to Mr. Wilkes). "You must know, sir, I lately took my friend Bos

1

well, and showed him genuine civilised life in an English provincial town. I turned him loose at Lichfield, my native city, that he might see for once real civility; for you know he lives among savages in Scotland, and among rakes in London." WILKES. Except when he is with grave, sober, decent people, like you and me." JOHNSON (smiling). “And we

66

ashamed of him."

They were quite frank and easy. Johnson told the story of his asking Mrs. Macaulay to allow her footman to sit down with them, to prove the ridiculousness of the argument for the equality of mankind; and he said to me afterwards, with anod of satisfaction, "You saw Mr. Wilkes acquiesced.' Wilkes talked with all imaginable freedom of the ludicrous title given to the attorney-general, Diabolus regis; adding, "I have reason to know something about that officer; for I was prosecuted for a libel.” Johnson, who many people would have supposed must have been furiously angry at hearing this talked of so lightly, said not a word. He was now, indeed, "a good-humoured fellow."

After dinner we had an accession of Mrs. Knowles, the Quaker lady, well known for her various talents, and of Mr. Alderman Lee. Amidst some patriotick groans, somebody (I think the alderman) said, "Poor old England is lost." JOHNSON. "Sir, it is not so much to be lamented that old England is lost, as that the Scotch have found it." WILKES. "Had Lord Bute governed Scotland only, I should not have taken

·

[It is to this gentleman that allusion is supposed to be made in the following anecdote: "Some one mentioned a gentleman of that party for having be haved oddly on an occasion where faction was not concerned: Is he not a citizen of London, a native of North America, and a whig?' said Johnson. Let him be absurd, I beg of you: when a monkey is too like a man, it shocks one.' ”. Piozzi, p. 64.-ED.]

2 It would not become me to expatiate on this strong and pointed remark, in which a very great deal of meaning is condensed.-BoSWELL.

the trouble to write his eulogy, and dedicate MORTIMER' to him." 1

Mr. Wilkes held a candle to show a fine print of a beautiful female figure which hung in the room, and pointed out the elegant contour of the bosom with the finger of an arch connoisseur. He afterwards/in a conversation with me waggishly insisted, that all the time Johnson showed visible signs of a fervent admiration of the corresponding charms of the fair Quaker.

This record, though by no means so perfect as I could wish, will, serve to give a notion of a very curious interview, which was not only pleasing at the time, but had the agreeable and benignant effect of reconciling any animosity, and sweetening any acidity, which, in the various bustle of political contest, had been produced in the minds of two men, who, though widely different, had so many things in commonclassical learning, modern literature, wit and humour, and ready repartee-that it would have been much to be regretted if they had been for ever at a distance from each other.

Mr. Burke gave me much credit for this successful negotiation; and pleasantly said, "that there was nothing equal to it in the whole history of the corps diplomatique."

I attended Dr. Johnson home, and had the satisfaction to hear him tell Mrs. Williams how much he had been pleased with Mr. Wilkes's company, and what an agreeable day he had passed.

[The following is Dr. Johnson's own good-hu- ED. moured account to Mrs. Thrale of this meeting.

p. 325.

"For my part I begin to settle, and keep company with Letters, grave aldermen. I dined yesterday in the Poultry with Mr. vol. i Alderman Wilkes, and Mr. Alderman Lee, and Councillor Lee, his brother. There sat you the while thinking, 'What is John

p. 325.

Letters, son doing? What should he be doing? He is breaking jokes vol. i. with Jack Wilkes upon the Scotch. Such, madam, are the vicissitudes of things! And there was Mrs. Knowles, the Quaker, that works the sutile pictures1, who is a great admirer of your conversation."]

Letters, vol. i. p. 324.

I talked a good deal to him of the celebrated Margaret Caroline Rudd, whom I had visited, induced by the fame of her talents, address, and irresistible power of fascination 2. To a lady who disapproved of my visiting her, he said on a former occasion, "Nay, madam, Boswell is in the right; I should have ave visited her myself, were it not that they have now a trick of putting every thing into the newspapers. This evening he exclaimed, "I envy him his acquaintance with Mrs. Rudd."

I mentioned a scheme which I had of making a tour to the Isle of Man, and giving a full account of it; and that Mr. Burke had playfully suggested as a motto,

"The proper study of mankind is MAN."

JOHNSON. "Sir, you will get more by the book than the jaunt will cost you; so you will have your diversion for nothing, and add to your reputation."

["TO MRS. THRALE.

"14th May, 1776.

"[Boswell] goes away on Thursday very well satisfied with his journey. Some great men3 have promised to obtain him a place; and then a fig for his father and his new wife *."]

1 [Mrs. Piozzi had printed this "futile pictures." They were copies of pictures in needlework. ED.]

2 [See ante, p. 337. Her power of fascination was celebrated, because it was the fashion to suppose that she had fascinated her lover to the gallows. ED.] 3 [This place he never obtained, and the critical reader will observe several passages in this work, the tone of which may be attributed to his disappointment in this point. See ante, p. 317.-ED.]

4 [Lord Auchinleck had lately married Elizabeth Boswell, sister of Claude Irvine Boswell, afterwards a lord of session, by the title of Lord Balmuto. She seems to have been the grand-niece of her husband. Of this marriage there was no issue.. ED.]