1775.

Gray, which has had the honour to be adopted both by Mr. Mafon and Dr. Johnfon in their accounts of that poet. The words were, "How can tat. 66. your great, I will not fay your pious, but your moral friend, fupport the barbarous measures of administration, which they have not the face to ask even their infidel penfioner Hume to defend."

However confident of the rectitude of his own mind, Johnfon may have felt fincere uneafinefs that his condut fhould be erroneously imputed to unworthy motives, by good men, and that the influence of his valuable writings fhould on that account be in any degree obftructed or leffened.

He complained to a Right Honourable friend of distinguished talents and very elegant manners, with whom he maintained a long intimacy, and whose generofity towards him will afterwards appear, that his penfion having been given to him as a literary character, he had been applied to by administration to write political pamphlets; and he was even fo much irritated, that he delared his resolution to refign his penfion. His friend fhewed him the impropriety of fuch a measure, and he afterwards expreffed his gratitude, and faid he had received good advice. To that friend he once fignified a wish to have his penfion fecured to him for his life; but he neither asked nor received. from government any reward whatfoever for his political labours.

On Friday, March 24, I met him at the LITERARY CLUB, where were Mr. Beauclerk, Mr. Langton, Mr. Colman, Dr. Percy, Mr. Vesey, Sir Charles Bunbury, Dr. George Fordyce, Mr. Steevens, and Mr. Charles Fox. Before he came in, we talked of his " Journey to the Western Islands," and of his coming away, "willing to believe the fecond fight'," which feemed to excite fome ridicule. I was then fo impreffed with the truth of many of the ftories of it which I had been told, that I avowed my conviction, faying, "He is only willing to believe, I do believe. The evidence is enough for me, though not for his great mind. What will not fill a quart bottle will fill a pint bottle. I am filled with belief.” "Are you? (faid Colman,) then cork it up."

I found his " Journey" the common topick of converfation in London at this time, wherever I happened to be. At one of Lord Mansfield's formal Sunday evening converfations, ftrangely called Levées, his Lordship addressed me, "We have all been reading your travels, Mr. Bofwell." I answered, "I was but the humble attendant of Dr. Johnfon." The Chief Justice replied, with that air and manner which none, who ever faw and heard him, can forget, "He speaks ill of nobody but Offian."

1775.

Johnson was in high spirits this evening at the club, and talked with great tat. 66. animation and fuccefs. He attacked Swift, as he used to do upon all occafions. "The Tale of a Tub' is fo much fuperiour to his other writings, that one can hardly believe he was the authour of it. There is in it fuch a vigour of mind, fuch a fwarm of thoughts, fo much of nature, and art, and life." I wondered to hear him fay of " Gulliver's Travels," "When once you have thought of big men and little men, it is very eafy to do all the rest.” I endeavoured to make a stand for Swift, and tried to roufe thofe who were much more able to defend him; but in vain. Johnfon at last of his own accord allowed very great merit to the inventory of articles found in the pockets of the Man Mountain, particularly the description of his watch, which it was conjectured was his GOD, as he confulted it upon all occafions. He obferved, that "Swift put his name to but two things, (after he had a name to put,) The Plan for the Improvement of the English Language,' and the last 'Drapier's Letter."

From Swift, there was an eafy tranfition to Mr. Thomas Sheridan.JOHNSON. "Sheridan is a wonderful admirer of the tragedy of Douglas, and prefented its authour with a gold medal. Some years ago, at a coffee-house in Oxford, I called to him, Mr. Sheridan, Mr. Sheridan, how came you to give a gold medal to Home, for writing that foolish play?' This, you see, was wanton and infolent; but I meant to be wanton and infolent. A medal has no value but as a ftamp of merit. And was Sheridan to affume to himself the right of giving that ftamp? If Sheridan was magnificent enough to bestow a gold medal as an honorary reward of dramatick excellence, he should have requested one of the Univerfities to choofe the perfon on whom it fhould be conferred. Sheridan had no right to give a ftamp of merit: it was counterfeiting Apollo's coin."

On Monday, March 27, I breakfafted with him at Mr. Strahan's. He told us, that he was engaged to go that evening to Mrs. Abington's benefit. "She was vifiting fome ladies whom I was vifiting, and begged that I would come to her benefit. I told her I could not hear: but fhe infifted fo much on my coming, that it would have been brutal to have refused her." This was a fpeech quite characteristical. He loved to bring forward his having been in the gay circles of life; and he was, perhaps, a little vain of the folicitations of this elegant and fashionable actress. He told us, the play was to be "The Hypocrite," altered from Cibber's "Nonjuror," fo as to fatyrize the Methodists. "I do not think (faid he,) the character of the Hypocrite justly applicable to the Methodists; but it was very applicable to the Nonjurors.

Etat. 66.

I once faid to Dr. Madan, a clergyman of Ireland, who was a great Whig, 1775that perhaps a Nonjuror would have been less criminal in taking the oaths imposed by the ruling power, than refusing them; because refusing them, neceffarily laid him under almost an irresistible temptation to be more criminal for, a man must live, and if he precludes himself from the fupport furnished by the establishment, will probably be reduced to very wicked shifts to maintain himself." BOSWELL. "I fhould think, Sir, that a man who took the oaths contrary to his principles, was a determined wicked man, because he was fure he was committing perjury: whereas a Nonjuror might be infenfibly led to do what was wrong, without being fo directly confcious of it." JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, a man who goes to bed to his patron's wife is pretty fure that he is committing wickedness." BOSWELL. "Did the nonjuring clergymen do fo, Sir? JOHNSON. "I am afraid many of them did."

I was startled at his argument, and could by no means think it convincing. Had not his own father complied with the requifition of government, (as to which he once obferved to me, when I preffed him upon it, " That, Sir, he was to fettle with himself,") he would probably have thought more unfavourably of a Jacobite who took the oaths:

.. With many

3 This was not merely a curfory remark; for in his Life of Fenton he obferves, other wife and virtuous men, who at that time of difcord and debate [about the beginning of this century,] confulted confcience well or ill informed, more than intereft, he doubted the legality of the government; and refusing to qualify himself for publick employment, by taking the oaths required, left the Univerfity without a degree." This conduct, Johnfon calls "perverseness of integrity."

The question concerning the morality of taking oaths, of whatever kind, imposed by the prevailing power at the time, rather than to be excluded from all confequence, or even any confiderable usefulness in fociety, has been agitated with all the acutenefs of cafuiftry. It is related, that he who devised the oath of abjuration, profligately boafted, that he had framed a teft which should damn one half of the nation, and ftarve the other. Upon minds not exalted to inflexible rectitude, or minds in which zeal for a party is predominant to excess, taking that oath against conviction, may have been palliated under the plea of neceffity, or ventured upon in heat, as upon the whole producing more good than evil.

At a county election in Scotland, many years ago, when there was a warm contest between the friends of the Hanoverian fucceffion and thofe against it, the oath of abjuration having been demanded, the freeholders upon one fide rofe to go away. Upon which a very fanguine gentleman, one of their number, ran to the door to ftop them, calling out with much earncftness, flay, my friends, and let us fwear the rogues out of it!"

Stay,
Mr.

1775. L

Ætat. 66.

Mr. Strahan talked of launching into the great ocean of London, in order to have a chance for rifing to eminence, and obferving that many men were kept back from trying their fortune there, because they were born to a competency, faid, "Small certainties are the bane of men of talents:" which Johnson confirmed. Mr. Strahan put Johnson in mind of a remark which he had made to him; "There are few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting money." "The more one thinks of this, (faid Strahan,) the jufter it will appear."

Mr. Strahan had taken a poor boy from the country as an apprentice, upon Johnson's recommendation. Johnson having inquired after him, said, "Mr. Strahan, let me have five guineas on account, and I'll give this boy one. Nay, if a man recommends a boy, and does nothing for him, it is fad work. Call him down."

I followed him into the court-yard, behind Mr. Strahan's house; and there I had a proof of what I had heard him profefs, that he talked alike to all. "Some people (faid he,) tell you that they let themselves down to the capacity of their hearers. I never do that. I fpeak uniformly, in as intelligible a manner as I can.”

"Well, my boy, how do you go on ?"-" Pretty well, Sir; but they are afraid I an't strong enough for fome parts of the bufinefs." JOHNSON. "Why I shall be forry for it; for when you confider with how little mental power and corporeal labour a printer can get a guinea a week, it is a very desirable occupation for you. Do you hear,―take all the pains you can; and if this does not do, we must think of fome other way of life for you. There's a guinea."

Here was one of the many, many inftances of his active benevolence. At the fame time, the flow and fonorous folemnity with which, while he bent himself down, he addressed a little thick short-legged boy, contrafted with the boy's aukwardness and awe, could not but excite fome ludicrous emotions.

I met him at Drury-lane playhouse in the evening. Sir Joshua Reynolds, at Mrs. Abington's request, had promised to bring a body of wits to her benefit; and having fecured forty places in the front boxes, had done me the honour to put me in the groupe. Johnson fat on the feat directly behind me; and as he could neither fee nor hear at fuch a distance from the stage, he was wrapped up in grave abstraction, and feemed quite a cloud, amidst all the funfhine of glitter and gaiety. I wondered at his patience in fitting out a play of five acts, and a farce of two. He said very little; but after the prologue to" Bon Ton" had been spoken, which he could hear pretty well from the more flow and diftinct utterance, he obferved, "Dryden has written

prologues

prologues fuperiour to any that David Garrick has written; but David Garrick

1775

has written more good prologues than Dryden has done. It is wonderful that tat. 66. he has been able to write fuch a variety of them."

At Mr. Beauclerk's, where I fupped, was Mr. Garrick, whom I made happy with Johnson's praise of his prologues; and I fuppofe, in gratitude to him, he took up one of his favourite topicks, the nationality of the Scotch, which he maintained in his pleasant manner, with the aid of a little poetical fiction. "Come, come, don't deny it: they are really national. Why, now, the Adams are as liberal-minded men as any in the world: but, I don't know how it is, all their workmen are Scotch. You are, to be fure, wonderfully free from that nationality; but fo it happens, that you employ the only Scotch fhoe-black in London." He imitated the manner of his old mafter with ludicrous exaggeration; repeating, with paufes and half whiftlings interjected,

"Os bomini fublime dedit,-cælumque tueri-
"Fufit,-et erectos ad fidera-tollere vultus.”

looking downwards all the time, and, while pronouncing the four last words,
abfolutely touching the ground with a kind of contorted gefticulation.

Garrick, however, when he pleafed, could imitate Johnfon very exactly; for that great actor, with his distinguished powers of expreffion which were fo univerfally admired, poffeffed alfo an admirable talent of mimickry. He was always jealous that Johnson spoke lightly of him. I recollect his exhibiting him to me one day, as if faying "Davy is futile," which he uttered perfectly with the tone and air of Johnfon.

I cannot too frequently requeft of my readers while they perufe my account of Johnson's converfation, to endeavour to keep in mind his deliberate and ftrong utterance. His mode of speaking was indeed very impreffive*; and I wish it could be preferved as mufick is written, according to the very

My noble friend Lord Pembroke said once to me at Wilton, with a happy pleafantry and fome truth, that "Dr. Johnson's sayings would not appear fo extraordinary, were it not for his bowwow way." The fayings themselves are generally of sterling merit; but, doubtlefs, his manner was an addition to their effect, and therefore should be attended to as much as may be. It is neceffary, however, to guard those who were not acquainted with him, against overcharged imitations or caricatures of his manner, which are frequently attempted, and many of which are fecondhand copies from the late Mr. Henderfon the actor, who, though a good mimick of fome perfons, did not reprefent Johnfon correctly.