deportment. He wrote a tragedy on the story of Leonidas, entitled The Patriot." He read it to a company of lawyers, who found so many faults that he wrote it over again: so then there were two tragedies on the same subject and with the same title. Dr. Johnson told us, that one of them was still in his possession. This very piece was, after his death, published by some person who had been about him, and for the sake of a little hasty profit, was fallaciously advertised so as to make it be believed to have been written by Johnson himself.

I said, I disliked the custom which some people had of bringing their children into company, because it in a manner forced us to pay foolish compliments to please their parents. JOHNSON. "You are right, Sir. We may be excused for not caring much about other people's children, for there are many who care very little about their own children. It may be observed, that men who, from being engaged in business, or from their course of life in whatever way, seldom see their children, do not care much about them. I myself should not have had much fondness for a child of my own." MRS. THRALE. "Nay, Sir, how can you talk so?" JOHNSON. "At least, I never wished to have a child."

Mr. Murphy mentioned Dr. Johnson's having a design to publish an edition of Cowley. Johnson said, he did not know but he should; and expressed his disapprobation of Dr. Hurd, for having published a mutilated edition under the title of Select Works of Abraham Cowley." Mr. Murphy thought it a bad precedent; observing, that any author might be used in the same manner, and that it was pleasing to see the variety of an author's compositions at different periods.

We talked of Flatman's Poems; and Mrs. Thrale observed, that Pope had partly borrowed from him “The Dying Christian to his Soul." Johnson repeated Rochester's verses upon Flatman,' which I think by much too severe :—

1 Thomas Flatman was born about 1635, and died in 1688. "He really excelled as an artist: a man must want ears for harmony that can admire his poetry, and even want eyes that can cease to admire his painting. One of his heads is worth a ream of his Pindarics."-Granger, vol. iv., p. 54.-Wright.

"Nor that slow drudge in swift Pindaric strains,
Flatman, who Cowley imitates with pains,

And rides a jaded muse, whipt with loose reins.”

I like to recollect all the passages that I heard Johnson repeat: it stamps a value on them.

1

He told us that the book entitled "The Lives of the Poets," by Mr. Cibber, was entirely compiled by Mr. Shiels,1 a Scotchman, one of his amanuenses. "The booksellers," said he, "gave Theophilus Cibber, who was then in prison, ten guineas to allow" Mr. Cibber" to be put upon the title-page, as the author; by this, a double imposition was intended; in the first place, that it was the work of a Cibber at all; and, in the second place, that it was the work of old Cibber."

Mr. Murphy said, that "The Memoirs of Gray's Life set him much higher in his estimation than his poems did: for you there saw a man constantly at work in literature." Johnson acquiesced in this; but depreciated the book, I thought, very unreasonably. For he said, "I forced myself to read it, only because it was a common topic of conversation. I found it mighty dull; and, as to the style, it is fit for the second table." Why he thought so I was at a loss to conceive. He now gave it as his opinion, that “ Akenside was a superior poet both to Gray and Mason."

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Talking of the Reviews, Johnson said, "I think them very impartial: I do not know an instance of partiality." He mentioned what had passed upon the subject of the Monthly and Critical Reviews, in the conversation with which his Majesty had honoured him. He expatiated a little more on them this evening. "The Monthly Reviewers," said he, "are not Deists; but they are Christians with as little Christianity as may be; and are for pulling down all establishments. The Critical Reviewers are for supporting the constitution both in church and state. The Critical Reviewers, I believe, often review without reading the books through; but lay hold of a topic, and write chiefly from their own minds. The Monthly Reviewers are duller men, and are glad to read the books through." He talked of Lord Lyttelton's extreme anxiety as an

1 See Appendix to this volume.-Editor.

author; observing, that "he was thirty years in preparing his history, and that he employed a man to point it for him; as if (laughing) another man could point his sense better than himself.' Mr. Murphy said, he understood his history was kept back several years for fear of Smollett.2 JOHNSON. "This seems strange to Murphy and me, who never felt that anxiety, but sent what we wrote to the press, and let it take its chance." MRS. THRALE. "The time has been, Sir, when you felt it." JOHNSON. "Why really, Madam, I do not recollect a time when that was the

3

Talking of "The Spectator," he said, "It is wonderful that there is such a proportion of bad papers in the half of the work which was not written by Addison; for there was all the world to write that half, yet not a half of that half is good. One of the finest pieces in the English language is the paper on Novelty [No. 626], yet we do not hear it talked of. It was written by Grove, a dissenting teacher." He would not, I perceived, call him a clergyman, though he was candid enough to allow very great merit to his composition. Mr. Murphy said, he remembered when there were several people alive in London, who enjoyed a considerable reputation merely from having written a paper in The Spectator." He mentioned particularly Mr. Ince, who used to frequent Tom's coffee-house. "But," said Johnson, 'you must consider how highly Steele speaks of Mr. Ince." [No. 555.] He would not allow that the paper [No. 364] on carrying a boy to travel, signed Philip Homebred, which was reported to be written by the Lord Chancellor Hardwicke, had merit. He said, "it was quite vulgar, and had nothing luminous."

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1 It may be doubted whether Johnson's dislike of Lord Lyttelton did not here lead him into an error. Persons not so habituated with the details of printing as he was may have been less expert at the use of these conventional signs. Lord Byron wrote to Mr. Murray: "Do you know any one who can stop? I mean point commas, and so forth; for I am, I fear, a sad hand at your punctuation.”—Moore's Life of Byron, vol. i., p. 417.-Croker.

2 Smollett was the founder, and for many years, editor, of the Critical Review. Croker.

3 Henry Grove was born at Taunton in 1683, and died in 1737. His posthumous works were published by subscription, in 4 vols. 8vo. in 1740. -Wright.

1

Johnson mentioned Dr. Barry's 66 System of Physic." "He was a man," said he, "who had acquired a high reputation in Dublin, came over to England, and brought his reputation with him; but had not great success. His notion was, that pulsation occasions death by attrition; and that, therefore, the way to preserve life is to retard pulsation. But we know that pulsation is strongest in infants, and that we increase in growth while it operates in its regular course: so it cannot be the cause of destruction." Soon after this he said something very flattering to Mrs. Thrale, which I do not recollect; but it concluded with wishing her long life. Sir," said I, "if Dr. Barry's system be true, you have now shortened Mrs. Thrale's life, perhaps some minutes, by accelerating her pulsation."

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On Thursday, April 11,2 I dined with him at General

Sir Edward Barry, Baronet.

2 It was on this day that Johnson applied to Lord Hertford, Lord Chamberlain, for rooms in Hampton Court, in a letter which was brought to light by Sir James Prior, in his Life of Malone, London, 1860. This application had apparently escaped the researches of Boswell, of Malone, and of Croker: for it is hardly possible to conceive that any of them would have suppressed the fact, had it fallen within his cognisance. The answer to it has also been preserved: so that it may be seen, and will no doubt be noted, how a great official of 1776 received and dealt with the petition of a great man.

1

"MY LORD,-Being wholly unknown to your Lordship, I have only this apology to make for presuming to trouble you with a request, that a stranger's petition, if it cannot easily be granted, can be easily refused. "Some of the apartments are now vacant in which I am encouraged to hope that by application to your Lordship, I may obtain a residence. Such a grant would be considered by me as a great favour; and I hope that to a man, who has had the honour of vindicating his Majesty's Government, a retreat in one of his houses may not be improperly or unworthily allowed.

"I therefore request that your Lordship will be pleased to grant such rooms in Hampton Court as shall seem proper to

"My Lord,

"Your Lordship's most obedient,
"And most faithful humble servant,

"April 11, 1776."

"SAM. JOHNSON.

Indorsed-" Mr. Saml. Johnson to the Earl of Hertford, requesting apartments at Hampton Court 11th May, 1776." And within, a memorandum of the answer.

"Lord C. presents his compliments to Mr. Johnson, and is sorry he

Paoli's, in whose house I now resided, and where I had ever afterwards the honour of being entertained with the kindest attention as his constant guest, while I was in London, till I had a house of my own there. I mentioned my having that morning introduced to Mr. Garrick, Count Neni, a Flemish nobleman of great rank and fortune, to whom Garrick talked of Abel Drugger as a small part; and related, with pleasant vanity, that a Frenchman, who had seen him in one of his low characters, exclaimed "Comment!

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je ne le crois pas. Ce n'est pas Monsieur Garrick, ce grand homme!" Garrick added, with an appearance of grave recollection, “If I were to begin life again, I think I should not play those low characters." Upon which I observed, Sir, you would be in the wrong, for your great excellence is your variety of playing, your representing so well characters so very different." JOHNSON. "Garrick, Sir, was not in earnest in what he said: for, to be sure, his peculiar excellence is his variety; and, perhaps, there is not any one character which has not been as well acted by somebody else, as he could do it." BoSWELL. "Why, then, Sir, did he talk so?" JOHNSON. “ Why, Sir, to make you answer as you did." BOSWELL. "I don't know, Sir; he seemed to dip deep into his mind for the reflection." JOHNSON. “He had not far to dip, Sir; he had said the same thing, probably, twenty times before."

Of a nobleman raised at a very early period to high office, he said, “His parts, Sir, are pretty well for a lord; but would not be distinguished in a man who had nothing else but his parts."

A journey to Italy was still in his thoughts. He said, "A man who has not been in Italy is always conscious of an inferiority, from his not having seen what it is expected a man should see. The grand object of travelling is to see the shores of the Mediterranean. On those shores were the four great empires of the world; the Assyrian, the Persian, the Grecian, and the Roman. All our religion, almost all our law, almost all our arts, almost all that sets us above savages, has come to us from the shores of the Mediterranean." The General observed, cannot obey his commands, having already on his hands many engagements unsatisfied." Prior's Life of Malone, p. 337.-Editor.