p. 124.

H

Piozzi, ended in lasting animosity. “You may see," said he to Mrs. Piozzi' when the Poets' Lives were printed, "that dear Boothby is at my heart still. She would

: 29113

Mrs. Piozzi

he would n delight 191ted goin in that fellow Lyttelton's company in spite of all that I could do; and I cannot forgive even his memory the preference given by a mind like hers." heard Baretti say, that when this lady died, Dr. Johnson was almost distracted with his bret grief; that the friends about him had much ado to calm the violence of his emotions 1.]

Tuesday, September 16, Dr. Johnson having mentioned to me the extraordinary size and price of some cattle reared by Dr. Taylor, I rode out with our host, surveyed his farm, and was shown one cow which he Посттота had sold for a hundred and twenty guineas, and another for which he had been offered a hundred and thirty. Taylor thus described to me his old schoolfellow and friend, Johnson:" He is a man of a very clear head, great power of words, and a very gay imagination; but there is no disputing with him. He will not hear you, and, having a louder voice than you, must roar you down."

In the afternoon I tried to get Dr. Johnson to like the Poems of Mr. Hamilton of Bangour, which I had brought with me: I had been much pleased with them at a very early age: the impression still remained on my mind; it was confirmed by the opinion of my friend the Honourable Andrew Erskine, himself both a good poet and a good critick, who thought Hamilton as true a poet as ever wrote, and that his not having fame was unaccountable. Johnson, upon repeated occasions, while I was at Ashbourne, talked slightleution 211 not shoibh 001 6197 2.mood out fedt $ on the subject

[See, on subject of Miss Boothby, ante, vol. I. p. 51

p. 51, and post, TRE LAU on the account of the Life of Lyttelton, sub 1781, where the attachment between her and Dr. Johnson is more fully explained. See also the general appendix, where

a selection of the lady's letters and all Dr. Johnson's to her are given.ED.32

V.

2

• [See ante, v. ii. p. 278.

about Ne sit

HTT

of

ingly of Hamilton. He said there was no power thinking in his verses, nothing that strikes one, noin his thing better than what you generally find in maga zines; and that the highest praise they deserved was, that they were very well for a gentleman to hand his friends. He said the imitation of among ancillæ tibi amor, &c. was too solemn he read part of it at the beginning. He read the beautiful pathetick song, "Ah, the poor shepherd's mournful fate,” and did not seem to give attention to what I had been used to think tender elegant strains, but laughed at the rhyme, in Scotch pronunciation, wishes and blushes, reading wushes-and there he stopped. He owned that the epitaph on Lord Newhall was pretty well done. He read the "Inscription in a Summer-house," and a little of the Imitations of Horace's Epistles; but said he found nothing to When I urged that

7157

make him desire to read on. there were some good poetical passages in the book, "Where," said he, " will you find so large a collection without some?" I thought the description of Winter might obtain his approbation:

bad Idol" See Winter, from the frozen north,

Drives his iron chariot forth!

His grisly hand in icy chains

Fair Tweeda's silver flood constrains," &c.

He asked why an "iron chariot?" and said "icy chains was an old image. I was struck with the uncertainty of taste, and somewhat sorry that a poet whom I had long read with fondness was not approved by Dr. Johnson. I comforted myself with thinking that the beauties were too delicate for his robust perceptions. Garrick maintained that he had not a taste for the finest productions of genius: but I was sensible, that when he took the trouble to analyse critically, he generally convinced us that he was right. In the evening the Reverend Mr. Seward, of

Lichfield, who was passing through Ashbourne in his way home, drank tea with us. Johnson described him thus: "Sir, his ambition is to be a fine talker; so he goes to Buxton, and such places, where he niay find companies to listen to him. And, sir, he is a valetudinarian, one of those who are always mending themselves. I do not know a more disagreeable character than a valetudinarian, who thinks he may do any thing that is for his ease', and indulges him! self in the grossest freedoms: sir, he brings himself to the state of a hog in a sty."

54 75dto Dr. Taylor's nose happening to bleed, he said it was because he had omitted to have himself blooded four days after a quarter of a year's interval. ⠀› Dr. Johnson, who was a great dabbler in physick, disap! proved much of periodical bleeding. "For," said he, "you accustom yourself to an evacuation which nas ture cannot perform of herself, and therefore she cannot help you, should you from forgetfulness or any other cause omit it; so you may be suddenly suffocated. You may accustom yourself to other periodical evacuations, because, should you omit them, nature can supply the omission; but nature cannot open a vein to blood you 2." "I do not like to take an emetick," said Taylor, "for fear of break! ing some small vessels." "Poh!" said Johnson, “if you have so many things that will break, you had better break your neck at once, and there's an end on't. You will break no small vessels" (blowing Piozzi, with high derision). [Though Dr. Johnson was commonly affected even to agony at the thoughts of a friend's dying, he troubled himself very little with the complaints they might make to him about ill health. "Dear doctor," said he one day to a common Jud Boilday real Ledo

p. 144.

2

[See ante, p. 366, 27th March, 1776.-ED.] [Nature, however, may supply the evacuation by an hemorrhage. KEARNEY.]

p. 145.

acquaintance, who lamented the tender state of his Piozzi, inside, I do not be like the spider, and spin conversation thus incessantly out of thy own bowels."]

I mentioned to Dr. Johnson, that David Hume's persisting in his/infidelity when he was dying shocked me much. JOHNSON. "Why should it shock you, sir? Hume owned he had never read the New Testament with attention. Here then was a man who had been at no pains to inquire into the truth of religion, and had continually turned his mind the other way. It was not to be expected that the prospect of death would alter his way of thinking, unless God should send an angel to set him right." I said I had reason to believe that the thought of annihilation gave Hume no pain. JOHNSON, "It was not so, sir. He had a vanity in being thought easy, It is more probable that he should assume an appearance of tease, than that so very improbable a thing should be, as a man not afraid of going (as, in spite of his delusive theory, he cannot be sure but he may go) into an unknown state, and not being uneasy at leaving all he knew. And you are to consider, that upon his own principle of annihilation he had no motive to speak the truth" [He would never hear Hawk. Hume mentioned with any temper. A man," said p. 205. he, "who endeavoured to persuade, his friend, who had the stone, to shoot himself!" The horrour of death, which I had always observed in Dr. Johnson, appeared strong to-night.. I ventured to tell him, that I had been, for moments in my life, not afraid of death; therefore I could suppose another man in A that state of mind for a considerable space of time. He said, "he never had a moment in which death was not terrible to him." He added, that it had been observed, that scarce any man dies in publick but

66

A[Dr. Delap of Lewes, Sec ante, vol. i. p. 514; but it is there incorrectly stated that he was rector of Lewes ; he only resided there.-ED.]

Apoph.

with apparent resolution; from that desire of praise which never quits us. I said, Dr. Dodd seemed to be willing to die, and full of hopes of happiness.

Sir," said he, "Dr. Dodd would have given both his hands and both his legs to have liveda The better a man is, the more afraid is he of death, having a clearer view of infinite purity." He owned, that our being in an unhappy uncertainty as to our salvation was mysterious; and said, "Ah! we must wait till we are in another state of being to have many things explained to us.". Even the powerful mind of Johnson seemed foiled by futurity. But I thought, that the gloom of uncertainty in solemn religious speculation, being mingled with hope, was yet more consolatory than the emptiness of infidelity. A man can live in thick air, but perishes in an exhausted receiver. d", leruol"

*

Dr. Johnson was much pleased with a remark which I told him was made to me by General Paoli : That it is impossible not to be afraid of death and that those who at the time of dying are not afraid, are not thinking of death, but of applause, or something else, which keeps death out of their sight so that all men are equally afraid of death when they see it; only some have a power of turning their sight away from it better than others."vos • fummitasa

On Wednesday, September 17, Dr. Butter, physician at Derby, drank tea with us; and it was settled that Dr. Johnson and I should go on Friday and dine with him. Johnson said, "I am glad of this.' He seemed weary of the uniformity of life at Dr. Taylor's.

Talking of biography, I said, in writing a life,' a Iman's peculiarities should be mentioned, because they amark his characteras JOHNSON. Sir, there isono doubt as to peculiarities: the question is, whether a man's vices should be mentioned; for instance, whether it should be mentioned that Addison and