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'that man spent his life in catching at an object, [literary eminence, which he had not power to grasp.'

"To find a substitution for violated morality, he said, was the leading feature in all perversions of religion.

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'He often used to quote, with great pathos, those fine lines of Virgil:

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Optima quæque dies miseris mortalibus ævi

Prima fugit; subeunt morbi, tristisque senectus,
Et labor, et duræ rapit inclementia mortis.

Speaking of Homer, whom he venerated as the prince of poets, Johnson remarked, that the advice given to Diomed by his father, when he sent him to the Trojan war, was the noblest exhortation that could be instanced in any heathen writer, and comprised in a single line :

Αΐεν ἀριστεύειν, καὶ ὑπείροχον ἔμμεναι ἄλλων:

which, if I recollect well, is translated by Dr. Clarke thus: 'semper appetere præstantissima, et omnibus aliis antecellere.'

"He observed, it was a most mortifying reflection for any man to consider, what he had done, compared with what he might have done.

"He said few people had intellectual resources sufficient to forego the pleasures of wine. They could not otherwise contrive how to fill the interval between dinner and supper.

"He went with me, one Sunday, to hear my old master, Gregory Sharpe, preach at the Temple.-In the prefatory prayer, Sharpe ranted about liberty, as a blessing most fervently to be implored, and its continuance prayed for. Johnson observed that our liberty was in no sort of danger: he would have done much better, to pray against our licentiousness.

• Dr. Maxwell's memory has deceived him. Glaucus is the person who received this counsel; and Clarke's translation of the passage, Il. vi. 1. 208, is as follows:

Ut semper fortissime rem gererem, et superior virtute essem aliis.-Boswell.

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"One evening at Mrs. Montagu's, where a splendid company was assembled, consisting of the most eminent literary characters, I thought he seemed highly pleased with the respect and attention that were shown him, and asked him, on our return home, if he was not highly gratified by his visit. No, sir,' said he, 'not highly gratified; yet I do not recollect to have passed many evenings with fewer objections.'

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"Though of no high extraction himself, he had much respect for birth and family, especially among ladies. He said, adventitious accomplishments may be possessed by all ranks; but one may easily distinguish the born gentlewoman.'

"He said, the poor in England were better provided for than in any other country of the same extent: he did not mean little cantons, or petty republics. 'Where a great proportion of the people,' said he, 'are suffered to languish in helpless misery, that country must be ill policed, and wretchedly governed: a decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilization'-Gentlemen of education, he observed, were pretty much the same in all countries; the condition of the lower orders, the poor especially, was the true mark of national discrimination.

"When the corn laws were in agitation in Ireland, by which that country has been enabled not only to feed itself, but to export corn to a large amount; sir Thomas Robinson observed, that those laws might be prejudicial to the corn trade of England. Sir Thomas,' said he, you talk the language of a savage: what, sir, would you prevent any people from feeding themselves, if by any honest means they can do it?'

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It being mentioned, that Garrick assisted Dr. Browne, the author of The Estimate, in some dramatick composition; No, sir,' said Johnson, he would no more suffer Garrick to write a line in his play, than he would suffer him to mount his pulpit.'

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Speaking of Burke, he said, it was commonly observed, he spoke too often in parliament; but nobody could

say he did not speak well, though too frequently and too familiarly P.

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Speaking of economy, he remarked, it was hardly worth while to save anxiously twenty pounds a year. If a man could save to that degree, so as to enable him to assume a different rank in society, then, indeed, it might answer some purpose.

P By "familiarly" Johnson must have meant frequently, not practically, since the general complaint against Burke s speeches was their lofty, didactic, or rather dictatorial character. In his life of R. B. Sheridan, Mr. Moore observes on Burke's manner of delivery as follows: "There was a something which those who have but read him can with difficulty conceive, that marred the impression of his most sublime and glowing displays. In vain did his genius put forth its superb plumage, glittering all over with the hundred eyes of fancy-the gait of the bird was heavy and awkward, and its voice seemed rather to scare than attract. Accordingly many of those masterly discourses which, in their present form, may proudly challenge comparison with all the written eloquence upon record, were, at the time when they were pronounced, either coldly listened to, or only welcomed as a signal and excuse for not listening at all. To such a length was the indifference carried, that, on the evening when he delivered his great speech on the nabob of Arcot's debts, so faint was the impression it produced upon the house, that Mr. Pitt and lord Grenville, as I have heard, not only consulted with each other as to whether it was necessary that they should take the trouble of answering it, but decided in the negative. Yet, doubtless, at the present moment, if lord Grenville, master as he is of all the knowledge that belongs to a statesman and a scholar, was asked to point out from the stores of his reading the few models of oratorical composition, to the perusal of which he could most frequently and with unwearied admiration return, this slighted and unanswered speech would be among the number." The interesting nature of the above quotation must atone for its length. A ludicrous instance of the weariness felt by Burke's auditors may be found in M'Cormick's life of that orator, p. 249.

Burke once remarked to sir Philip Francis, that he did not believe an Athenian audience could have understood the orations of Demosthenes had they been delivered in the condensed form in which we peruse them; but to the magic effect produced by Demosthenes's delivery every schoolboy remembers the testimony borne by his rival. Between the styles of Burke and Demosthenes there exists a greater similarity, perhaps, than between any other two orators removed from each other so widely by language, time, and country. But that practical speech which wins its reward in immediate effect, must surely be pronounced to have performed the legitimate office of eloquence more completely, than that which has to wait for its meed of applause from a future generation. But the great adversary of Philip "wielded at will the fierce democracy," and his "matchless eloquence" has not been surpassed in successive ages.-ED.

"He observed, a principal source of erroneous judgement was, viewing things partially, and only on one side; as, for instance, fortune-hunters, when they contemplated the fortunes singly and separately, it was a dazzling and tempting object; but when they came to possess the wives and their fortunes together, they began to suspect they had not made quite so good a bargain.

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Speaking of the late duke of Northumberland living very magnificently when lord lieutenant of Ireland, somebody remarked, it would be difficult to find a suitable successor to him: then, exclaimed Johnson, he is only fit to succeed himself.'

"He advised me, if possible, to have a good orchard. He knew, he said, a clergyman of small income, who brought up a family very reputably, which he chiefly fed with apple dumplings.

"He said, he had known several good scholars among the Irish gentlemen; but scarcely any of them correct in quantity. He extended the same observation to Scotland.

"Speaking of a certain prelate, who exerted himself very laudably in building churches and parsonage-houses; 'Howeyer,' said he, I do not find that he is esteemed a man of much professional learning, or a liberal patron of it-yet it is well where a man possesses any strong positive excellence.-Few have all kinds of merit belonging to their character. We must not examine matters too deeply. No, sir, a fallible being will fail somewhere.'

"Talking of the Irish clergy, he said, Swift was a man of great parts, and the instrument of much good to his country. Berkeley was a profound scholar, as well as a man of fine imagination: but Usher, he said, was the great luminary of the Irish church; and a greater, he added, no church could boast of; at least in modern times.

"We dined tête-à-tête at the Mitre, as I was preparing to return to Ireland, after an absence of many years. I regretted much leaving London, where I had formed many agreeable connections. Sir,' said he, 'I don't wonder at it: no man fond of letters leaves London

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without regret. But remember, sir, you have seen and enjoyed a great deal:-you have seen life in its highest decorations, and the world has nothing new to exhibit. -No man is so well qualified to leave publick life as he who has long tried it, and known it well. We are always hankering after untried situations, and imagining greater felicity from them than they can afford. No, sir, knowledge and virtue may be acquired in all countries; and your local consequence will make you some amends for the intellectual gratifications you relinquish.' Then he quoted the following lines with great pathos :

He who has early known the pomps of state,

(For things unknown 'tis ignorance to condemn ;)
And after having view'd the gaudy bait,

Can boldly say, The trifle I contemn ;

With such a one contented could I live,

Contented could I die 9.

"He then took a most affecting leave of me; said, he

¶ Mr. Malone, with characteristic zeal to trace these verses to the fountainhead, after having in vain turned over several of our elder poets with the hope of lighting on them, applied to Dr. Maxwell himself, at that time resident at Bath, for the purpose of ascertaining their author; but that gentleman could furnish him no aid in his researches. At length the lines were discovered by the author's second son, Mr. James Boswell, in the London Magazine for July, 1732, where they form part of a poem on Retirement, there published anonymously, but in fact (as he afterwards found) copied with some slight variations from one of Walsh's smaller poems, entitled The Retirement; and they exhibit another proof of what has been elsewhere observed by the author of the work before us, that Johnson retained in his memory fragments of obscure or neglected poetry. In quoting verses of that description, he appears, by a slight variation, to have sometimes given them a moral turn, and to have dexterously adapted them to his own sentiments, where the original had a very different tendency. Thus, in the present instance, (as Mr. J. Boswell remarked,)" the author of the poem above mentioned exhibits himself as having retired to the country, to avoid the vain follies of a town life,-ambition, avarice, and the pursuit of pleasure, contrasted with the enjoyments of the country, and the delightful conversation that the brooks, etc. furnish; which he holds to be infinitely more pleasing and instructive than any which towns afford. He is then led to consider the weakness of the human mind; and after lamenting that he, (the writer,) who is neither enslaved by avarice, ambition, or pleasure, has yet made himself a slave to love, he thus proceeds:

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