tentious; some strain their powers for efforts of gaiety; fome write news, and fome write fecrets: but to make a letter without affection, without wifdom, without gaiety, without news, and without fecrets, is doubtless the great epiftolic style. There is a pleasure in correfponding with a friend, where doubt and miftruft have no place, and every thing is faid as it is thought. Thefe are the letters by which fouls are united, and by which minds, naturally in unifon, move each other, as they are moved themselves. Let me know where you are, how you got thither, how you live there, and every thing else that one friend loves to know of another.'

Such is the account of the Letters before us. No general queftions of science or criticifm are difcuffed in the course of this correfpondence: there is little that can be faid to be interefting; and yet we are obliged to Mrs. Piozzi for the publication. We here fee Dr. Johnfon, as it were, behind the curtain, and not preparing to figure on the ftage; retired from the eye of the world, and not knowing that what he was then doing would ever be brought to light. We fee him in his undress; that is, the undress of his mind, which, unlike that of his body, was never flovenly. It is true, that his words are now and then too gigantefque for familiar letters: he talks of waters, whose stream is obftructed by protuberances, and exasperated by reverberation; but pompous words were natural to him, as well in converfation as in the Rambler. He faid every thing as he thought, and always in his own ftyle. The value, therefore, of thefe Letters, is, that we have the man before us for near twenty years; we see him in health and in fickness, and in all the petty bufinefs of life. From himself, and in his own words, we are enabled to collect the trueft and beft information. The caricature of Sir John Hawkins may now give way to a better picture; better even than that which Sir JOSHUA REYNOLDS has given of HIMSELF, because Johnson, when he here gave his own picture, was not doing it by defign.

That his conftitution was bad, is too evident from the account of himself for twenty years before his death. The narrative of illness cannot be very pleafing: it contains repeated accounts of phyfic, valerian, opiates, bleeding, fafting, voraciousness, ftrawberries and cream, opium, the tea-pot, cuftard, and abstinence. Of this, much might have been fpared in the prefent edition; and we wonder it was not fpared, as Mrs. Piozzi, in one of her letters, fays, fhe will talk no more of her own ficknefs, becaufe fuch letters are no better than the labels affixed to vials by an apothecary's boy.

But Johnfon's character comes out fully in this collection. His temper, and the ebbs and flows of his fpirits, are thus defcribed. Talking of Baretti, he fays, To be frank, he thinks is to be cynical, and to be independent, rude. Forgive him; because of this behaviour, I am afraid, he learned part of me.'

In another place; Every man has his genius; and have not you obferved, that my genius is always in extremes; very noify, or very filent; very gloomy, or very merry; very four, or very kind? And would not you have me follow my genius, when it leads me fometimes to voracity, and fometimes to abftinence?'

That in a moral and religious man the fear of death should have been, at all times, fo predominant, has been matter of wonder with all who have heard of Johnson. We have this confirmed by his own account. We find, fcattered up and down in his letters, the following paffages, with others of the fame kind:

⚫ On death we cannot always be thinking, and I fuppofe we need not. The thought is very dreadful! I have lived a life, which I do not like to review: furely I fhall in time live better.-The return of my birth-day, if I remember it, fills me with thoughts which it seems to be the general care of humanity to efcape. I can now look back upon three score and four years, in which little has been done, and little has been enjoyed; a life diverfified by mifery; fpent part in the fluggishness of penury, and part under the violence of pain; in gloomy difcontent, or importunate diftrefs. But, perhaps, I am better than I fhould have been, if I had been lefs afflicted. I am hoping, and I am praying, that I may live better in the time to come, whether long or fhort, than I have yet lived; and in the folace of this hope I endeavour to repose.'

Mrs. Piozzi writes to him, that the is glad he is in motion: exercife, and fome difficulties, may keep the fancy from playing foolish tricks: She bids him remember, that Honesty and Hopeful got over the river better than Chriftian and Muchafraid, in the Pilgrim's Progrefs. But nothing could appeafe his fear of the king of terrors. He fays,

My two chemical friends died within this month: I have known Worthington long, and to die is dreadful! The frequency of death, to thofe who look on it in the leifure of Arcadia, is very dreadful. I am fpiritlefs, infirm, fleepless, and folitary; looking back with forrow, and forward with terror. You know I never thought confidence, with respect to futurity, any part of the character of a brave, a wife, or a good man. Bravery has no place where it can avail nothing. Wifdom impreffes ftrongly the confcioufnefs of thofe faults, of which it is itself perhaps an aggravation; and goodness always wifhing to be better, and imputing every deficiency to criminal negligence, and every fault to voluntary corruption, never dares to fuppofe the condition of forgivenefs fulfilled, nor what is wanting in the crime fupplied by penitence. Of him, who cannot rank himfelf among the best, fuch must be his dread of the approaching trial, as will leave him little attention to the opinions of thofe whom he is leaving for ever; and the ferenity that is not felt, it can be no virtue to feign.'

Such were the fcruples of Johnfon, and fuch the arguments by which he confirmed them! He fays to Mrs. Thrale, Write to. me no more about dying with grace: when you feel what I have felt

24

felt in approaching eternity, you will know the folly.' The Lady, however, ventures once more to advise him on the subject : If courage is a noble and generous quality, let us exert it to the laft, and at the laft. If faith is a Chriftian virtue, let us willingly receive and accept that fupport it will moft furely beftow; and do permit me to repeat thofe words, with which I know not why you were difpleafed: Let us leave behind us the best example that we can.' This is furely found philosophy, and it is to be regretted that Johnson did not, or perhaps from conftitutional defect could not, adopt it. His fcruples continued, and his fear of death haunted his imagination to the laft: it ftuck to his last fand.

Notwithstanding thefe gloomy apprehenfions, his mind was at times brightened with gaiety. Hear how he advifes Mrs. Thrale about mixing with the world, and going to the Regatta:

I have just had your fweet letter, and am glad that you are to be at the regatta. You know how little I love to have you left out of any fhining part of life. You will fee a fhow with philofophic faperiority, and therefore may fee it fafely. It is eafy to talk of fitting at home contented, when others are feeing or making fhows. But not to have been where it is fuppofed, and feldom fuppofed falfely, that all would go if they could; to be able to fay nothing, when every one is talking; to have no opinion, when every one is judg. ing; to hear exclamations of rapture, without power to deprefs; to Jiften to falfehoods, without right to contradict; is, after all, a state of temporary inferiority, in which the mind is rather hardened by ftubbornness, than fupported by fortitude. If the world be worth winning, let us enjoy it: if it is to be defpifed, let us defpife it by conviction. But the world is not to be defpifed, but as it is compared with fomething better. Company is in itfelf better than folitude, and pleafure better than indolence. Ex nihilo nibil fit, fays the moral as well as the natural philofopher. By doing nothing, and by knowing nothing, no power of doing good can be obtained. He muft mingle with the world that defires to be ufeful. Every new fcene impreffes new ideas, enriches the imagination, and enlarges the power of reafon, by new topics of comparifon. You that have feen the regatta will have images, which we who mifs it must want, and no intellectual images are without ufe. But when you are in this fcene of fplendor and gaiety, do not let one of your fits of negligence fleal upon you. Hoc age is the great rule, whether you are itating the expences of your family, learning fcience or duty from a folio, or floating on the Thames in a fancied drefs.'

It has been faid of Johnfon, that his fight was fo imperfect, as to make it probable that he never faw the face of his wife. But the following paffages were furely written by a man, who faw, and could diftinguish:

Our journey was, for many miles, along a military way, upon the banks of Lough Nefs, a water about eighteen miles long, but not I think half a mile broad. The rock, out of which the road was cut, was covered with birch trees, fern, and heath. The lake

below

below was beating its bank by a gentle wind, and the rocks beyond the water on the right ftood fometimes horrid and wild, and fometimes opened into a kind of bay, in which there was a spot of cultivated ground, yellow with corn. In another place, he says of a lady, She dreffes her head very high, and has manners fo lady-like, that I wish her head-drefs was lower.' And again, at Aberdeen, they fhewed their libraries, which were not very fplendid, but fome manufcripts were fo exquifitely penned, that I wished my dear mif

trefs to have feen them.'

Johnfon's benevolence and extenfive charity are well known, but feen, perhaps, in no inftance fo much as in his domeftic behaviour. His fituation in his own house, amidst his contentious inmates, was far from pleasant, as appears in his description of the people about him. We have tolerable concord at home, but no love. Williams hates every body: Levet hates Defmoulines, and does not love Williams. Defmoulines hates them both. Poll loves none of them.'-' Difcord and difcontent reign in my humble habitation, as in the palaces of monarchs. Mr. Levet and Mrs. Defmoulines have vowed eternal hate. Levet is the more infidious, and wants me to turn her out.'-' Difcord keeps her refidence in this habitation, but the has for fome time been filent: we have much malice, but no mifchief. Levet is rather a friend to Williams, because he hates Defmoulines more. A thing that he should hate more than Defmoulines, is not to be found. There is as much malignity amongst us, as can well fubfift without any thought of daggers or poifons.'-' Mrs. Williams and Mrs. Defmoulines have had a fcold, and Williams was going away, but I bid her not turn tail, and the came back, and rather got the upper hand. Mr. Levet, who thinks his ancient rights invaded, ftands at bay, fierce as ten furies.' And yet with thefe people Johnfon continued to live; they were poor, and he therefore endured them: he even continued to love both Williams and Levet to the last. What his benevolence was may be collected from the following fhort but beautiful defcription of a female, who had, it feems, a cancer in her breast: She called on me, on Saturday laft, with that fond and tender application, which is natural to mifery, when it looks at every body for that help which no body can give.'

That he had ftrong and lively fentiments of friendship and gratitude nobody can doubt, who reads the various paffages in the letters before us, where he expreffes his regard for the Thrale family, and his fenfe of their goodnefs.

To be without friendship, is to be without one of the first comforts of our prefent ftate. To have no affiftance from other minds in refolving doubts, in appeafing fcruples, in balancing deliberations, is a very wretched deftitution. Life has, upon the whole, fallen short, very short, of my early expectation: but the acquifition of

See also his description of the Staffordshire canal, Letter 34.

fuch

merely as a method of augmenting their wealth, to carry on bufinefs in this train. It is a long Memoir, and will be uninterefting to all readers, except those who wish to compare the internal ftate of that country with our own, or others. The commerce of grain was probably in the fame ftate, or nearly fo, in England, under Elizabeth, as it appears to be in France at this day. M. Parmentier here afferts, that flour properly ground, and forted, may be kept fweet, without trouble, in bags, for feveral years. In this refpect he is certainly in a great mistake.

M. Brouffonet, in the 6th Memoir, recommends Spanish broom, Spartium junceum Linn. as a ufeful food for fheep in winter; but from the following Memoir, by M. Thoret, it appears, that this fpecies of broom, like the other varieties of this plant, occafions certain difeafes among the fheep who feed freely upon it. We are likewife told in this Memoir, that the young hoots of Spanish broom yield a kind of filament of the nature of hemp, which may be made into ropes, but thefe ropes are not near fo ftrong as others of the fame kind made of hemp. If ever this plant fhould be cultivated for the fake of these filaments, probably it will be for the manufacture of coarse paper. We have never heard that this has been tried.

The eighth Memoir, by M. Chabert, treats of a disease to which sheep are liable, especially in warm climates, called le Fourchet; a kind of lamenefs in the feet, which proves fatal, if not relieved in time. M. Chabert gives an excellent anatomical defcription of the feat of this difeafe, its fymptoms, and method of cure. This difeafe is, fortunately for us, not very common in England.

M. le Baron de Courcet, in the 9th Memoir, favours the Public with fome obfervations on vegetation, in which we meet with nothing particularly interefting. He is of opinion, that deeprooting trees draw their nourishment chiefly, if not entirely, by the fibrous roots that run along the furface of the ground; and that the tap roots are only of ufe to keep the trees fteady. There is fome probability in this conjecture: experiments are here wanting.

The volume is concluded with mifcellaneous obfervations, made in the generality of Paris during the three months included in this volume-a valuable part of the publication.

Trimestre d'Hiver-or Winter Quarter, (Vol. III.) for the months of January, February, and March 1786.

This number is preceded by a difcourfe pronounced at the meeting of the Society, on the 30th of March 1786, by M. le Duc de Charoft. From this difcourfe we learn many particulars refpecting the efforts that have been made by the King and Government of France, for promoting the advancement of agriculture. Their zeal is great, and we hope it will not foon diminish.