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was willing to suppose that our repast | was black broth. But the fact was, that we had a very good soup, a boiled leg of lamb and spinach, a veal pie1, and a rice pudding.

Of Dr. John Campbell, the authour, he said, "He is a very inquisitive and a very able man, and a man of good religious principles, though I am afraid he has been deficient in practice. Campbell is radically right; and we may hope, that in time there will be good practice?.'

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I put a question to him upon a fact in common life, which he could not answer, nor have I found any one else who could. What is the reason that women servants, though obliged to be at the expense of purchasing their own clothes, have much lower wages than men servants, to whom a great proportion of that article is furnished, and when in fact our female house servants work much harder than the male??

He told me that he had twelve or fourteen times attempted to keep a journal of He owned that he thought Hawkesworth his life, but never could persevere. He adwas one of his imitators, but he did not vised me to do it. "The great thing to be think Goldsmith 3 was. Goldsmith, he said, recorded, said he, "is the state of your own had great merit. BosWELL. "But, sir, mind; and you should write down every he is much indebted to you for his getting thing that you remember, for you cannot so high in the publick estimation." JOHN-judge at first what is good or bad; and write SON. Why, sir, he has perhaps got soon-immediately, while the impression is fresh, er to it by his intimacy with me." for it will not be the same a week afterwards."

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Goldsmith, though his vanity often excited him to occasional competition, had a very high regard for Johnson, which he had at this time expressed in the strongest manner in the Dedication of his comedy, entitled "She Stoops to Conquer 4."

Johnson observed, that there were very few books printed in Scotland before the Union. He had seen a complete collection of them in the possession of the Hon. Archibald Campbell, a nonjuring bishop 5. I wish this collection had been kept entire. Many of them are in the library of the faculty of advocates at Edinburgh. I told Dr. Johnson that I had some intention to write the life of the learned and worthy Thomas Ruddiman 6. He said, “I should take pleasure in helping you to do honour to him. But his farewell letter to the faculty of advocates, when he resigned the office of their librarian, should have been in Latin."

' [Mr. Boswell does not say whether the pie had the extraordinary addition of "plums and sugar," which, Mrs. Piozzi tells us were ingredients in Dr. Johnson's veal pies. See ante, P.

208.-ED.]

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[Sec ante, p. 189.-ED.] By inscribing this slight performance to you, I do not mean so much to compliment you as myself. It may do me some honour to inform the publick, that I have lived many years in intimacy with you. It may serve the interests of mankind also to inform them, that the greatest wit may be found in a character, without impairing the most unaffected piety."-BOSWELL.

5 See an account of this learned and respectable gentleman, and of his curious work on the Middle State, post, 25th Oct. 1773.-BOSWELL. [See ante, p. 86.—Ep.]

I again solicited him to communicate to me the particulars of his early life. He said, "You shall have them all for twopence. I hope you shall know a great deal more of me before you write my life." He mentioned to me this day many circumstances, which I wrote down when I went home, and have interwoven in the former part of this narrative.

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[The following is his own minute, but not uninteresting memorandum of this day: April 11, 1773. I had more distur bance in the night than has been customary for some weeks past. I rose before nine in the morning, and prayed and drank tea. I came, I think, to church in the beginning of the prayers. I did not distinctly hear the Psalms, and found that I had been reading the Psalms for Good Friday. I went through the Litany, after a short disturbance, with tolerable attention.

"After sermon, I perused my prayer in the pew, then went nearer the altar, and being introduced into another pew, used my prayer again, and recommended my rela tions, with Bathurst and [Miss] Boothby, then my wife again by herself. Then I went nearer the altar, and read the collects chosen for meditation. I prayed for Salisbury 8, and, I think, the Thrales. I then communicated with calmness, used the col lect for Easter Day, and returning to the first pew, prayed my prayer the third time. I came home again; used my prayer and the Easter Collect. Then went into the study to Boswell, and read the Greek Testament. Then dined, and when Boswell went away,

7 There is a greater variety of employments for men than for women: therefore the demand raises the price.-KEARNEY.

[Mrs. Salisbury, Mrs. Thrale's mother, then languishing with an illness, of which she died in a few weeks.-ED.]

ended the four first chapters of St. Matthew, | nay, that five pickle shops can serve all the and the Beatitudes of the fifth.

"I then went to Evening Prayers, and was composed.

"I gave the pew-keepers each five shillings and threepence."]

On Tuesday, April 13, he and Dr. Goldsmith and I dined at General Oglethorpe's. Goldsmith expatiated on the common topick, that the race of our people was degenerated, and that this was owing to luxury. JOHNSON. "Sir, in the first place, I doubt the fact. I believe there are as many tall men in England now, as ever there were. But, secondly, supposing the stature of our people to be diminished, that is not owing to luxury; for, sir, consider to how very small a proportion of our people luxury can reach. Our soldiery, surely, are not luxurious, who live on sixpence a day; and the same remark will apply to almost all the other classes. Luxury, so far as it reaches the poor, will do good to the race of people; it will strengthen and multiply them. Sir, no nation was ever hurt by luxury; for, as I said before, it can reach but to a very few. I admit that the great increase of commerce and manufactures hurts the military spirit of a people; because it produces a competition for something else than martial honours -a competition for riches. It also hurts the bodies of the people; for you will observe, there is no man who works at any particular trade, but you may know him from his appearance to do so. One part or the other of his body being more used than the rest, he is in some degree deformed: but, sir, that is not luxury. A tailor sits crosslegged; but that is not luxury." GOLDSMITH. "Come, you're just going to the same place by another road." JOHNSON. "Nay, sir, I say that is not luxury. Let us take a walk from Charing-cross to Whitechapel, through, I suppose, the greatest senes of shops in the world: what is there in any of these shops (if you except gin shops) that can do any human being any harm?" GOLDSMITH. "Well, sir, I'll accept your challenge. The very next shop to Northumberland-house is a pickle shop." JOHNSox. "Well, sir: do we not know that a maid can in one afternoon make pickles sufficient to serve a whole family for a year?

[There seems no reason whatever to believe the fact: old coffins and old armour do not designate a taller race of men. Pope tells us, that Colley Cibber obtained King Edward's armour from the Tower, and wore it in a theatrical procemon. The doors, windows, and ceilings of ald houses are not loftier than those of modern daya Other animals, too, cannot have degenerated in size by the luxury of man; and they seem, by all evidence, to have borne in old times the same proportion to the human figure that they now bear.-ED.]

kingdom? Besides, sir, there is no harm done to any body by the making of pickles, or the eating of pickles."

We drank tea with the ladies; and Goldsmith sung Toney Lumkin's song in his comedy, "She Stoops to Conquer," and a very pretty one, to an Irish tune2, which he had designed for Miss Hardcastle; but as Mrs. Bulkeley, who played the part, could not sing, it was left out. He afterwards wrote it down for me, by which means it was preserved, and now appears amongst his poems. Dr. Johnson, in his way home, stopped at my lodgings in Piccadilly, and sat with me, drinking tea a second time, till a late hour.

I told him that Mrs. Macaulay said, she wondered how he could reconcile his political principles with his moral: his notions of inequality and subordination with wishing well to the happiness of all mankind, who might live so agreeably, had they all their portions of land, and none to domineer over another. JOHNSON. “Why, sir, I reconcile my principles very well, because mankind are happier in a state of inequality and subordination. Were they to be in this pretty state of equality, they would soon degenerate into brutes; they would become Monboddo's nation; their tails would grow. Sir, all would be losers, were all to work for all: they would have no intellectual improvement. All intellectual improvement arises from leisure; all leisure arises from one working for another."

Talking of the family of Stuart, he said, "It should seem that the family at present on the throne has now established as good a right as the former family, by the long consent of the people; and that to disturb this right might be considered as culpable. At the same time I own, that it is a very difficult question, when considered with respect to the house of Stuart. To oblige people to take oaths as to the disputed right is wrong. I know not whether I could take them: but I do not blame those who do." So conscientious and so delicate was he upon this subject, which has occasioned so much clamour against him.

Talking of law cases, he said, "The English reports, in general, are very poor: only the half of what has been said is taken down; and of that half, much is mistaken. Whereas, in Scotland, the arguments on each side are deliberately put in writing,

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to be considered by the court. I think a collection of your cases upon subjects of importance, with the opinions of the judges upon them, would be valuable."

On Thursday, April 15, I dined with him and Dr. Goldsmith at General Paoli's. We found here Signor Martinelli, of Florence, authour of a History of England in Italian, printed at London.

I spoke of Allan Ramsay's "Gentle Shepherd," in the Scottish dialect, as the best pastoral that had ever been written; not only abounding with beautiful rural imagery, and just and pleasing sentiments, but being a real picture of manners; and I offered to teach Dr. Johnson to understand it. "No, sir," said he, "I won't learn it. You shall retain your superiority by my not knowing it."

This brought on a question whether one man is lessened by another's acquiring an equal degree of knowledge with him. Johnson asserted the affirmative. I maintained that the position might be true in those kinds of knowledge which produce wisdom, power, and force, so as to enable one man to have the government of others; but that a man is not in any degree lessened by others knowing as well as he what ends in mere pleasure:-" eating fine fruits, drinking delicious wines, reading exquisite poetry."

The General observed, that Martinelli was a whig. JOHNSON. "I am sorry for it. It shows the spirit of the times; he is obliged to temporise." BoswELL. "I rather think, sir, that toryism prevails in this reign." JOHNSON. "I know not why you should think so, sir. You see your friend Lord Lyttelton, a nobleman, is obliged in

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[Vincenzio Martinelli. He was an Italian, living chiefly among our nobility, many of whom he instructed in his native idiom. He is the authour of several works in Italian. His History of England, in two quarto volumes, is a mere compilation from Rapin. Two volumes of moral philosophy on La Vita Civile, &c. An octavo volume of his "Lettere Familiare" is rather amu

his history to write the most vulgar whiggism."

An animated debate took place whether Martinelli should continue his "History of England" to the present day. GOLDSMITH. "To be sure he should." JOHNSON. "No, sir; he would give great offence. He would have to tell of almost all the living great what they do not wish told." GOLDSMITH. "It may, perhaps, be necessary for a native to be more cautious; but a foreigner who comes among us without prejudice may be considered as holding the place of a judge, and may speak his mind freely." JOHNSON. "Sir, a foreigner, when he sends a work from the press, ought to be on his guard against catching the errour and mistaken enthusiasm of the people among whom he happens to be." GOLDSMITH. "Sir, he wants only to sell his history, and to tell truth; one an honest, the other a laudable motive." JOHNSON. "Sir, they are both laudable motives. It is laudable in a man to wish to live by his labours; but he should write so as he may live by them, not so as he may be knocked on the head. I would advise him to be at Calais before he publishes his history of the present age. A foreigner who attaches himself to a political party in this country, is in the worst state that can be imagined: he is looked upon as a mere intermeddler. A native may do it from interest." BOSWELL. "Or principle." GOLDSMITH. "There are people who tell a hundred political lies every day, and are not hurt by it. Surely, then, one may tell truth with safety." JOHNSON. "Why, sir. in the first place, he who tells a hundred lies has disarmed the force of his lies. But besides; a man had rather have a hundred lies told of him, than one truth which he does not wish should be told." GOLD

SMITH.

shame the devil." JOHNSON. "Yes, sir; "For my part, I'd tell truth, and but the devil will be angry. I wish to shame the devil as much as you do, but I should choose to be out of the reach of his claws." GOLDSMITH. "His claws can do you no harm, when you have the shield of truth."

It having been observed that there was little hospitality in London: JOHNSON. "Nay, sir, any man who has a name, or who has the power of pleasing, will be very generally invited in London. The man, Sterne, I have been told, has had engagements for three months." GOLDSMITH, " And a very dull fellow." JOHNSON. "Why, no, sir 2."

sing, for the complacency of the writer respecting his own importance, and the narratives of his visits to various noblemen, whose names spangle his pages. Having prefixed his portrait to his works, Badini, another Italian scribbler, well known in his day, mortified at the success of his more fashionable rival, published a quarto pamphlet, entitled, I think, "La Bilancia."" He also presented the portrait of Martinelli to the world, in a manner then perhaps novel. In a pair of scales, the head of Martinelli, weighed against a single feather, flies into the air. Martinelli disdained to reply to the scurrilities of his desperate compatriot, and to designate his low rank, and with an allu- * Sterne, as may be supposed, was no great fasion to the well known grievance of the Lazzaronivourite with Dr. Johnson; and a lady once venof Naples causticly observed that he left his assail- tured to ask him how he liked Yorick's sermons, ant to be tormented by another race of critics- "I know nothing about them, madam," was his Lo lascio a i suoi pidochi.—D'ISRAELI.] reply. But some time afterwards, forgetting him

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Martinelli told us, that for several years | lic; for you lie when you call that right which you think wrong, or the reverse. friend of ours who is too much an echo of that gentleman, observed, that a man who does not stick uniformly to a party, is only waiting to be bought. Why, then, said I, he is only waiting to be what that gentleman is already."

he lived much with Charles Townshend,
and that he ventured to tell him he was a
bad joker. JOHNSON. "Why, sir, thus
much I can say upon the subject. One day
he and a few more agreed to go and dine
in the country, and each of them was to
bring a friend in his carriage with him.
Charles Townshend asked Fitzherbert to
go with him, but told him, 'You must find
somebody to bring you back; I can only
carry you there.' Fitzherbert did not much
like this arrangement. He, however, con-
sented, observing sarcastically, 'It will do
very well; for then the same jokes will
serve you in returning as in going."'"

An eminent public character 1 being mentioned:-JOHNSON. "I remember being present when he showed himself to be so corrupted, or at least something so different from what I think right, as to maintain that a member of parliament should go along with his party, right or wrong. Now, sir, this is so remote from native virtue, from scholastick virtue, that a good man must have undergone a great change before he can reconcile himself to such a doctrine. It is maintaining that you may lie to the pubself, he severely censured them, and the lady very aptly retorted, "I understood you to say, sir, that you had never read them." "No, madam, I did read them, but it was in a stage-coach. I should never have deigned even to look at them had I been at large."-Crad. Mem. 208.—ED.] [The Editor once thought pretty confidently, that the "eminent public character" was Mr. Fox, and the friend of Johnson's, who had become too much the "echo" of the former, Mr. Barke; but Lord Wellesley and Sir James Mackintosh, who have been so kind as to favour the Editor with their advice on this and other points, think that Mr. Burke and Sir Joshua Reynolds were meant, doubting whether Mr. Fox was, in 1773, sufficiently prominent to be designated as "an eminent public character," whom Mr. Burke (whose reputation was then at its maturity) could be said to echo." Mr. Chalmers, on the whole, in lines to the same opinion, though he agrees with the Editor, that the distant and formal manner in which the eminent character is spoken of, and the allusion to his being " already bought," (that is, being already in office,) suit Mr. Fox better than Mr. Burke. All, however, agree that Mr. Burke was one of the persons meant; he always maintained the opinion alluded to, (see post,

We talked of the king's coming to see Goldsmith's new play 2.-"I wish he would," said Goldsmith; adding, however, with an affected indifference, "Not that it would do me the least good." JOHNSON. "Well, then, sir, let us say it would do him good (laughing). No, sir, this affectation will not pass;-it is mighty idle. In such a state as ours, who would not wish to please the chief magistrate?" GOLDSMITH. "I do wish to please him. I remember a line in Dryden,

'And

every poet is the monarch's friend.' It ought to be reversed." JOHNSON. "Nay, there are finer lines in Dryden on this subject:

• For colleges on bounteous kings depend, And never rebel was to arts a friend.' '' General Paoli observed, that successful rebels might. MARTINELLI. "Happy rebellions." GOLDSMITH. "We have no GENERAL PAOLI. such phrase." "But GOLDSMITH. have you not the thing? "Yes, all our happy revolutions. They have hurt our constitution, and will hurt it, till we mend it by another HAPPY REVOLUTION." I never before discovered that my friend Goldsmith had so much of the old prejudice in him.

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General Paoli, talking of Goldsmith's new play, said, "Il a fait un compliment très gracieux à une certaine grande dame;" meaning a duchess of the first rank 3.

I expressed a doubt whether Goldsmith intended it, in order that I might hear the truth from himself. It, perhaps, was not quite fair to endeavour to bring him to a confession, as he might not wish to avow He smiled and hesitated. The general at positively his taking part against the court. once relieved him by this beautiful image: "Monsieur Goldsmith est comme la mer, qui jette des perles et beaucoup d'autres belles choses, sans s'en appercevoir." GOLD

2 ["She Stoops to Conquer" was played on Monday, 15th March.-ED.]

15th August, 1778,) and was, indeed, the first who, m his Thoughts on the Present Discontents," openly avowed and advocated the principle of dable adherence to political connexions," put- 3 [The lady, no doubt, was the Duchess of ting." as Mr. Prior says, " to silence the hitherto Cumberland, whose marriage made a great noise common reproach applied to most public characters about this time. The "compliment" has esof being party-men." Life of Burke, vol. i. p. caped the Editor's observation, unless it be Has232. This is an instance," as Sir James Mack-tings's speech to Miss Neville, in the second act, intosh observes, “which proves that the task of elucidating Boswell has not been undertaken too SOOL"-ED.]

when he proposes to her to fly " to France, where, even among slaves, the laws of marriage are respected."-ED.]

SMITH.

ment."

"Très bien dit, et très élégam-ston, at his academy at Kensington. A

A person was mentioned, who it was said could take down in short-hand the speeches in parliament with perfect exactness. JOHNSON. "Sir, it is impossible. I remember one Angel, who came to me to write for him a preface or dedication to a book upon short-hand, and he professed to write as fast as a man could speak. In order to try him, I took down a book, and read while he wrote; and I favoured him, for I read more deliberately than usual. I had proceeded but a very little way, when he begged I would desist, for he could not follow me." Hearing now for the first time of this preface or dedication, I said, "What an expense, sir, do you put us to in buying books, to which you have written prefaces or dedications." JOHNSON. "Why I have dedicated to the royal family all round; that is to say, to the last generation of the royal family." GOLDSMITH. "And perhaps, sir, not one sentence of wit in a whole dedication." JOHNSON. "Perhaps not, sir." BoS WELL. "What then is the reason for applying to a particular person to do that which any one may do as well?" JOHNSON. "Why, sir, one man has greater readiness at doing it than another."

I spoke of Mr. Harris, of Salisbury, as being a very learned man, and in particular an eminent Grecian. JOHNSON. "I am not sure of that. His friends give him out as such, but I know not who of his friends are able to judge of it." GOLDSMITH. "He is what is much better: he is a worthy, humane man." JOHNSON. "Nay, sir, that is not to the purpose of our argument: that will as much prove that he can play upon the fiddle as well as Giardini, as that he is an eminent Grecian." GOLDSMITH. "The greatest musical performers have but small emoluments. Giardini, I am told, does not get above seven hundred a year." JOHNSON. "That is indeed but little for a man to get, who does best that which so many endeavour to do. There is nothing, I think, in which the power of art is shown so much as in playing on the fiddle. In all other things we can do something at first. Any man will forge a bar of iron, if you give him a hammer; not so well as a smith, but tolerably. A man will saw a piece of wood, and make a box, though a clumsy one; but give him a fiddle and a fiddle-stick, and he can do nothing." [To Mrs. Piozzi he observed of Mr. Harris's dedication to his Hermes, that, though but fourteen lines long, there were six grammatical faults in it.]

Piozzi, p. 46.

On Monday, April 19, he called on me with Mrs. Williams, in Mr. Strahan's coach, and carried me out to dine with Mr. Elphin

printer having acquired a fortune sufficient to keep his coach, was a good topick for the credit of literature. Mrs. Williams said, that another printer, Mr. Hamilton', had not waited so long as Mr. Strahan, but had kept his coach several years sooner. JOHNSON. "He was in the right. Life is short. The sooner that a man begins to enjoy his wealth, the better."

Mr. Elphinston talked of a new book that was much admired, and asked Dr. Johnson if he had read it. JOHNSON. "I have looked into it.” “What," said Elphinston, "have you not read it through?" Johnson, offended at being thus pressed, and so obliged to own his cursory mode of reading, answered tartly, "No, sir, do you read books through?"

He this day again defended duelling, and put his argument upon what I have ever thought the most solid basis; that if publick war be allowed to be consistent with morality, private war must be equally so. Indeed we may observe what strained arguments are used to reconcile war with the Christian religion. But, in my opinion, it is exceedingly clear that duelling having better reasons for its barbarous violence, is more justifiable than war in which thousands go forth without any cause of personal quarrel, and massacre each other.

On Wednesday, April 21, I dined with him at Mr. Thrale's. A gentleman attacked Garrick for being vain. JOHNSON. "No wonder, sir, that he is vain; a man who is perpetually flattered in every mode that can be conceived. So many bellows have blown the fire, that one wonders he is not by this time become a cinder." BOSWELL. "And such bellows too! Lord Mansfield with his cheeks like to burst: Lord Chatham like an Eolus 2. I have read such notes from them to him, as were enough to turn his head.” JOHNSON. "True. When he whom every body else flatters, flatters me, I then am truly happy." MRS. THRALE. "The sentiment is in Congreve, I think." JOHNson. "Yes, madam, in The Way of the World :'

'If there's delight in love, 'tis when I see

That heart which others bleed for, bleed for me.' No, sir, I should not be surprised though Garrick chained the ocean and lashed the winds." BOSWELL. "Should it not be, sir, lashed the ocean and chained the winds?" JOHNSON. "No, sir; recollect the original:

for three generations.—ED.]
[The Hamiltons were respectable publishers

2 Lord Chatham addressed to him those very

pretty lines, beginning,

"Leave, Garrick, leave the landscape, proudly gayi Dock, forts, and navies bright'ning all the bay."-ED.]

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