man was born a miser, because no man was born to possession. Every man is born cupidus-desirous of getting; but not avarus-desirous of keeping.' BOSWELL. "I have heard old Mr. Sheridan maintain, with much ingenuity, that a complete miser is a happy man: a miser who gives himself wholly to the one passion of saving." JOHNSON. "That is flying in the face of all the world, who have called an avaricious man a miser, because he is miserable. No, sir; a man who both spends and saves money is the happiest man, because he has both enjoyments."

that is to say, a modus as to the tithes and certain fines."

He observed, "A man cannot with propriety speak of himself, except he relates. simple facts; as, 'I was at Richmond:' or what depends on mensuration; as, ' I am six feet high.' He is sure he has been at Richmond; he is sure he is six feet high; but he cannot be sure he is wise, or that he has any other excellence. Then, all censure of a man's self is oblique praise. It is in order to show how much he can spare. It has all the invidiousness of self-praise and all the reproach of falsehood." BOSWELL.

strong consciousness of his faults being observed. He knows that others would throw him down, and therefore he had better lie down softly of his own accord.”

The conversation having turned on bon-" Sometimes it may proceed from a man's mots, he quoted, from one of the Ana, an exquisite instance of flattery in a maid of honour in France, who being asked by the queen what o'clock it was, answered, "What your majesty pleases." He admitted that Mr. Burke's classical pun 2 upon Mr. Wilkes's being carried on the shoulders of the mob,

nour:

• Est modus in rebus, sunt certi denique fines;

1 SAT. 1. 106.

ور

On Tuesday, April 28, he was engaged to dine at General Paoli's, where, as I have already observed, I was still entertained in elegant hospitality, and with all the ease numerisque fertur and comfort of a home. I called on him, Lege solutis," and accompanied him in a hackney-coach. HOR. 4. OD. 2. 25, We stopped first at the bottom of Hedgewas admirable; and though he was strange- lane, into which he went to leave a letter, ly unwilling to allow to that extraordinary" with good news for a poor man in disman the talent of wit3, he also laughed with tress," as he told me. I did not question approbation at another of his playful conceits; | him particularly as to this. He himself oftwhich was, that "Horace has in one line en resembled Lady Bolingbroke's lively degiven a description of good desirable ma- scription of Pope: that he was un politique aux choux et aux raves." He would say, "I dine to-day in Grosvenor-square; this might be with a duke; or, perhaps, "I dine to-day at the other end of the town; or, A gentleman of great eminence called on me yesterday." He loved thus to keep things floating in conjecture: Omne ignotum pro magnifico est. I believe I ventured to dissipate the cloud, to unveil the mystery, more freely and frequently than any of his friends. We stopped again at Wirgman's, the well-known toy-shop in St. James'sstreet, at the corner of St. James's-place, to which he had been directed, but not clearly, for he searched about some time, and could not find it at first; and said, "To direct one only to a corner shop is toying with one." I supposed he meant this as a play upon the word toy; it was the first time that I knew him stoop to such sport. After he had been some time in the shop, he sent for me to come out of the coach, and help him to choose a pair of silver buckles, as those he had were too small. Probably this alteration in dress had been suggested by Mrs. Thrale, by associating with whom, his external appearance was much improved. He got better clothes; and the dark colour, from which he never deviated, was enliven

[The anecdote is told in " Menagiana," vol. iii. p. 104, but not of a "maid of honour," nor as an instance of "exquisite flattery." "M. de Uzès était chevalier d'honneur de la reine. Cette princesse lui demanda un jour quelle heure il etait; il repondit, Madame, l'heure qu'il plaira à votre majesté.' Menage tells it as a pleasantry of M. de Uzès; but M. de la Monnoye says, that this duke was remarkable for naïvetés and blunders, and was a kind of butt, to whom the wits of the court used to attribute all manner of absurdities.-ED.]

[See ante, vol. i. p. 330.-ED.] 3 See this question fully investigated in the notes upon the "Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides," ante, v. i. p. 330, et seq. And here, as a lawyer mindful of the maxim Suum cuique tribuito, I cannot forbear to mention, that the additional note, beginning with "I find since the former edition," is not mine, but was obligingly furnished by Mr. Malone, who was so kind as to superintend the press while I was in Scotland, and the first part of the second edition was printing. He would not allow me to ascribe it to its proper authour; but, as it is exquisitely acute and elegant, I take this opportunity, without his knowledge, to do him justice.-BoswELL.

4 This, as both Mr. Bindley and Dr. Kearney have observed to me, is the motto to "An Inquiry into Customary Estates and Tenants' Rights, &c.; with some Considerations for restraining ex

cessive Fines," by Everard Fleetwood, Esq. 8vo. 1731. But it is, probably, a mere coincidence. Mr. Burke, perhaps, never saw that pamphlet.MALONE.

ED.

p. 63, 4.

culated; to obviate which Mr. Spottiswoode
observed, that Mr. Fraser, the engineer,
who had lately come from Dunkirk, said,
that the French had the same fears of us.
JOHNSON. "It is thus that mutual coward-
ice keeps us in peace. Were one half of
mankind brave, and one half cowards, the
brave would be always beating the cowards.
Were all brave, they would lead a very
uneasy life; all would be continually fight-
ing: but being all cowards, we go on very
well." [One afternoon, while all
the talk was of this apprehended Piozzi,
invasion, he said most pathetically,
"Alas! alas! how this unmeaning stuff spoils
all my comfort in my friends' conversation!
Will the people never have done with it;
and shall I never hear a sentence again
without the French in it? Here is no in-
vasion coming, and you know there is none.
Let such vexatious and frivolous talk alone,
or suffer it at least to teach you one truth;
and learn by this perpetual echo of even
unapprehended distress, how historians
magnify events expected, or calamities en-
dured; when you know they are at this
very moment collecting all the big words
they can find, in which to describe a con-
sternation never felt, or a misfortune which
never happened. Among all your lamenta-
tions, who eats the less? Who sleeps the
worse, for one general's ill success, or an-
other's capitulation? Oh, pray let us hear
no more of it!"]:

ed by metal buttons. His wigs, too, were | At this time fears of an invasion were cirmuch, better; and, during their travels in France, he was furnished with a Paris-made wig, of handsome construction. [In general his wigs were very shabby, and their fore parts were burned away by the near approach of the candle, which his short-sightedness rendered necessary in reading. At Streatham, Mr. Thrale's butler had always a better wig ready, and as Johnson passed from the drawing-room, when dinner was announced, the servant would remove the ordinary wig, and replace it with the newer one, and this ludicrous ceremony was performed every day.] This choosing of silver buckles was a negotiation: "Sir," said he, "I will not have the ridiculous large ones now in fashion; and I will give no more than a guinea for a pair." Such were the principles of the business; and, after some examination, he was fitted. As we drove along, I found him in a talking humour, of which I availed myself. BosWELL. "I was this morning in Ridley's shop, sir; and was told, that the collection called 'Johnsoniana' had sold very much." JOHNSON. “Yet the 'Journey to the Hebrides' has not had a great sale 2." BosWELL. "That is strange." JOHNSON. "Yes, sir; for in that book I have told theworld a great deal that they did not know before." BOSWELL. "I drank chocolate, sir, this morning with Mr. Eld; and, to my no small surprise, found him to be a Staffordshire whig, a being which I did not believe had existed." JOHNSON. "Sir, there are rascals in all countries." BOSWELL. "Eld said, a tory was a creature generated between a non-juring parson and one's grandmother." JOHNSON. "And I have always said, the first whig was the devil." BosWELL." He certainly was, sir. The devil was impatient of subordination; he was the first who resisted power:

We talked of drinking wine. JOHNSON. "I require wine, only when I am alone. I have then often wished for it, and often taken it." SPOTTISWOODE. "What, by way of a companion, sir?" JOHNSON. "To get rid of myself, to send myself away. Wine gives great pleasure; and every pleasure is of itself a good. It is a good, unless counterbalanced by evil. A man may have a strong reason not to drink wine; and that may be greater than the pleasure. Wine makes a man better pleased with himself. I do not say that it makes him more pleasing to others. Sometimes it does. But the danger is, that while a man grows better pleased with himself, he may be growing less pleasing to others 4

tionary "-você, Ilk.

are the same."-BOSWELL.

6

2 Here he either was mistaken, or had a different notion of an extensive sale from what is generally "It also signifies the entertained for the fact is, that four thousand same;' as, Mackintosh of that ilk, denotes a gencopies of that excellent work were sold very quick-tleman whose surname and the title of his estate ly. A new edition has been printed since his death, besides that in the collection of his works. -BOSWELL. Another edition has been printed since Mr. Boswell wrote the above, besides repeated editions in the general collection of his works during the last twenty years.-MALONE.

66

4 It is observed in "Waller's Life," in the Biographia Britannica," that he drank only water; and that while he sat in a company who were drinking wine," he had the dexterity to accommodate his discourse to the pitch of theirs as 3 In the phraseology of Scotland, I should have it sunk." If excess in drinking be meant, the said, "Mr. John Spottiswoode the younger, of remark is acutely just. But surely, a moderate that ilk." Johnson knew that sense of the word use of wine gives a gaiety of spirits which very well, and has thus explained it in his " Dic-water-drinkers know not.-BOSWELL.

1

history; I wish much to have one branch well done, and that is the history of manners, of common life." ROBERTSON. "Henry should have applied his attention to that alone, which is enough for any man; and he might have found a great deal scattered in various books, had he read solely with that view. Henry erred in not selling his first volume at a moderate price to the book

on till he had got reputation. I sold my History of Scotland' at a moderate price, as a work by which the booksellers might either gain or not; and Cadell has told me, that Miller and he have got six thousand pounds by it. I afterwards received a much higher price for my writings. An authour should sell his first work for what the booksellers will give, till it shall appear whether he is an authour of merit, or, which is the same thing as to purchase-money, an authour who pleases the publick.”

RAMSAY. "I am old enough to have been a contemporary of Pope. His poetry was highly admired in his life-time, more a great deal than after his death." JOHNSON. "Sir, it has not been less admired since his death; no authours ever had so much fame in their own life-time as Pope and Voltaire; and Pope's poetry has been as much admired since his death as during his life; it has only not been as much talk-sellers, that they might have pushed him ed of, but that is owing to its being now more distant, and people having other writings to talk of. Virgil is less talked of than Pope, and Homer is less talked of than Virgil; but they are not less admired. We must read what the world reads at the moment. It has been maintained that this superfetation, this teeming of the press, in modern times, is prejudicial to good literature, because it obliges us to read so much of what is of inferiour value, in order to be in the fashion; so that better works are neglected for want of time, because a man will have more gratification of his vanity in conversation, from having read modern books, than from having read the best works of antiquity. But it must be considered, that we have now more knowledge generally diffused; all our ladies read now, which is a great extension. Modern wri-ed, for instance, how this country is to be ters are the moons of literature; they shine with reflected light, with light borrowed from the ancients. Greece appears to me to be the fountain of knowledge; Rome of elegance." RAMSAY. "I suppose Homer's Iliad' to be a collection of pieces which had been written before his time. I should like to see a translation of it in poetical prose, like the book of Ruth or Job." ROBERTSON, "Would you, Dr. Johnson, who are a master of the English language, but try your hand upon a part of it." JOHNSON. Sir, you would not read it without the pleasure of verse 2."

We talked of antiquarian researches. JOHNSON. "All that is really known of the ancient state of Britain is contained in a few pages. We can know no more than what the old writers have told us; yet what large books have we upon it, the whole of which, excepting such parts as are taken from those old writers, is all a dream, such as Whitaker's Manchester.' I have heard Henry's History of Britain' well spoken of; I am told it is carried on in separate divisions, as the civil, the military, the religious

[Mr. Ramsay was just of Johnson's age. ED.]

* This experiment, which Madame Dacier made in vain, has since been tried in our own language, by the editor of "Ossian," and we must either think very meanly of his abilities, or allow that Dr. Johnson was in the right. And Mr. Cowper, a man of real genius, has miserably failed in his blank verse translation.-BoOSWELL.

Dr. Robertson expatiated on the character of a certain nobleman 3; that he was one of the strongest-minded men that ever lived; that he would sit in company quite sluggish, while there was nothing to call forth his intellectual vigour; but the moment that any important subject was start

defended against a French invasion, he would rouse himself, and show his extraordinary talents with the most powerful ability and animation. JOHNSON, "Yet this man cut his own throat. The true strong and sound mind is the mind that can embrace equally great things and small. Now I am told the King of Prussia will say to a servant, Bring me a bottle of such a wine, which came in such a year; it lies in such a corner of the cellars.' I would have a man great in great things, and elegant in little things." He said to me afterwards, when we were by ourselves, "Robertson was in a mighty romantick humour, he talked of one whom he did not know; but I downed him with the King of Prussia." 66 Yes, sir," said I," you threw a bottle at his head."'

An ingenious gentleman was mentioned, concerning whom both Robertson and Ramsay agreed that he had a constant firmness of mind; for after a laborious day, and amidst a multiplicity of cares and anxieties, he would sit down with his sisters and be quite cheerful and good-humoured. Such à disposition, it was observed, was the happy gift of nature. JOHNSON. "I do not think so: a man has from nature a certain portion of mind; the use he makes of it depends upon his own free will. That a man has always the same firmness of mind, I do not say: because every man feels his mind less firm at one time than another; but I think, a man's being in a good or bad hu

3 [Lord Clive.-ED.]