his life among players and play-writers. I wondered that he had so little to say in conversation, for he had kept the best company, and learnt all that can be got by the ear. He abused Pindar to me, and then showed me an ode of his own, with an absurd couplet, making a linnet soar on an eagle's wing. I told him that when the ancients made a simile, they always made it like something real."

Mr. Wilkes remarked, that “among all the bold flights of Shakspeare's imagination, the boldest was making Birnamwood march to Dunsinane; creating a wood where there never was a shrub! a wood in Scotland! ha! ha! ha!" And he also observed, that "the clannish slavery of the Highlands of Scotland was the single exception to Milton's remark of the mountain nymph, sweet Liberty,' being worshipped in all hilly countries." "When I was at Inverary," said he, “on a visit to my old friend Archibald, Duke of Argyle, his dependents congratulated me on being such a favourite of his Grace. I said, 'It is, then, gentlemen, truly lucky for me; for if I had displeased the duke, and he had wished it, there is not a Campbell among you but would have been ready to bring John Wilkes's head to him in a charger. It would have been only

'Off with his head! so much for Aylesbury.'

I was then member for Aylesbury."

Dr. Johnson and Mr. Wilkes talked of the contested passage in Horace's "Art of Poetry," Difficile est propriè communia dicere.' Mr. Wilkes, according to my note, gave the interpretation thus: "It is difficult to speak with propriety of common things; as if a poet had to speak of Queen Caroline drinking tea, he must endeavour to avoid the vulgarity of cups and saucers." But, upon reading my note, he tells me that he meant to say, that "the word communia, being a Roman law term, signifies here things communis juris, that is to say, what have never yet been treated by any body; and this appears clearly from what followed,

1 The long note on this passage I have relegated to the Appendix of this volume.-Editor.

Tuque

Rectiùs Iliacum carmen deducis in actus,

Quàm si proferres ignota indictaque primus."

You will easier make a tragedy out of the 'Iliad' than on any subject not handled before." JOHNSON. "He means that it is difficult to appropriate to particular persons qualities which are common to all mankind, as Homer has done."

WILKES. "We have no city-poet now: that is an office which has gone into disuse. The last was Elkanah Settle.' There is something in names which one cannot help feeling. Now Elkanah Settle sounds so queer, who can expect much from that name? We should have no hesitation to give it for John Dryden, in preference to Elkanah Settle, from the names only, without knowing their different merits." JOHNSON. "I suppose, Sir, Settle did as well for aldermen in his time, as John Home could do now. Where did Beckford and Trecothick learn English?".

Mr. Arthur Lee mentioned some Scotch who had taken possession of a barren part of America, and wondered why they should choose it. JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, all barrenness is comparative. The Scotch would not know it to be barren. Boswell. 66 Come, come, he is flattering the English. You have now been in Scotland, Sir, and say if you did not see meat and drink enough there." JOHNSON. Why, yes, Sir; meat and drink enough to give the inhabitants sufficient strength to run away from home." All these quick and lively sallies were said sportively, quite in jest, and with a smile, which showed that he meant only wit. Upon this topic he and Mr. Wilkes could perfectly assimilate; here was a bond of union between them, and I was conscious that as both had visited Caledonia, both were fully satisfied of the strange narrow ignorance of those who imagine that it is a land of famine. But they amused themselves with persevering in the old jokes. When I claimed a superiority for Scotland over England

1 Settle, for his factious audacity, was made the city poet, whose annual office was to describe the glories of the Mayor's-day. Of these bards he was the last. He died, in 1723, a pensioner in the Charterhouse.-Johnson, Life of Dryden.-Wright.

in one respect, that no man can be arrested there for a debt merely because another swears it against him; but there must first be the judgment of a court of law ascertaining its justice; and that a seizure of the person, before judgment is obtained, can take place only if his creditors should swear that he is about to fly from the country, or, as it is technically expressed, is in meditatione fuga. WILKES. "That, I should think, may be safely sworn of all the Scotch nation." JOHNSON (to Mr. Wilkes). must know, Sir, I lately took my friend Boswell, and showed him genuine civilised life in an English provincial town. I turned him loose at Lichfield, my native city, that he might see for once real civility; for you know he lives among savages in Scotland, and among rakes in London." WILKES." Except when he is with grave, sober, decent people like you and me." JOHNSON (Smiling). “And we

ashamed of him."

"You

They were quite frank and easy. Johnson told the story of his asking Mrs. Macaulay to allow her footman to sit down with them, to prove the ridiculousness of the argument for the equality of mankind; and he said to me afterwards, with a nod of satisfaction, "You saw Mr. Wilkes acquiesced." Wilkes talked with all imaginable freedom of the ludicrous title given to the attorneygeneral, Diabolus regis; adding, "I have reason to know something about that officer; for I was prosecuted for a libel." Johnson, who many people would have supposed must have been furiously angry at hearing this talked of so lightly, said not a word. He was now, indeed, “a goodhumoured fellow."

After dinner we had an accession of Mrs. Knowles, the Quaker lady, well known for her various talents, and of Mr. Alderman Lee. Amidst some patriotic groans, somebody (I think the Alderman) said, "Poor old England is lost." JOHNSON. Sir, it is not so much to be lamented that old England is lost, as that the Scotch have found it." WILKES. "Had Lord Bute governed Scotland only, I should not have taken the trouble to write his eulogy, and dedicate MORTIMER' to him."

t

It would not become me to expatiate on this strong and pointed remark, in which a very great deal of meaning is condensed.

Mr. Wilkes held a candle to show a fine print of a beautiful female figure which hung in the room, and pointed out the elegant contour of the bosom with the finger of an arch connoisseur. He afterwards in a conversation with me waggishly insisted, that all the time Johnson showed visible signs of a fervent admiration of the corresponding charms of the fair Quaker.

This record, though by no means so perfect as I could wish, will serve to give a notion of a very curious interview, which was not only pleasing at the time, but had the agreeable and benignant effect of reconciling any animosity, and sweetening any acidity, which, in the various bustle of political contest, had been produced in the minds of two men, who, though widely different, had so many things in common-classical learning, modern literature, wit and humour, and ready repartee-that it would have been much to be regretted if they had been for ever at a distance from each other.

Mr. Burke gave me much credit for this successful negotiation; and pleasantly said, "that there was nothing equal to it in the whole history of the corps diplomatique.'

I attended Dr. Johnson home, and had the satisfaction to hear him tell Mrs. Williams how much he had been pleased with Mr. Wilkes's company, and what an agreeable day he had passed.1

I talked a good deal to him of the celebrated Margaret Caroline Rudd, whom I had visited, induced by the fame of her talents, address, and irresistible power of fascination. To a lady who disapproved of my visiting her, he said on a former occasion, "Nay, Madam, Boswell is in the right; I should have visited her myself, were it not that they have now a trick of putting every thing into the newspapers."

The following is Dr. Johnson's own good-humoured account to Mrs. Thrale of this meeting:-"For my part I begin to settle, and keep company with grave aldermen. I dined yesterday in the Poultry with Mr. Alderman Wilkes, and Mr. Alderman Lee, and Councillor Lee, his brother. There sat you the while thinking, What is Johnson doing?' What should he be doing? He is breaking jokes with Jack Wilkes upon the Scotch. Such, Madam, are the vicissitudes of things! And there was Mrs. Knowles, the Quaker, that works the sutile pictures, who is a great admirer of your conversation."-Letters, vol. i., p. 325.— Croker.

This evening he exclaimed, "I envy him his acquaintance with Mrs. Rudd."

I mentioned a scheme which I had of making a tour to the Isle of Man, and giving a full account of it; and that Mr. Burke had playfully suggested as a motto,

"The proper study of mankind is MAN."

JOHNSON. "Sir, you will get more by the book than the jaunt will cost you; so you will have your diversion for nothing, and add to your reputation.”1

On the evening of the next day [16th May] I took leave of him, being to set out for Scotland. I thanked him, with great warmth, for all his kindness. Sir," said he, “you are very welcome. Nobody repays it with more."

66

How very false is the notion that has gone round the world, of the rough, and passionate, and harsh manners of this great and good man! That he had occasional sallies of heat of temper, and that he was sometimes, perhaps, too" easily provoked" by absurdity and folly, and sometimes too desirous of triumph in colloquial contest, must be allowed. The quickness both of his perception and sensibility disposed him to sudden explosions of satire; to which his extraordinary readiness of wit was a strong and almost irresistible incitement. To adopt one of the finest images in Mr. Home's "Douglas,"

"On each glance of thought

Decision followed, as the thunderbolt

Pursues the flash!'

I admit that the beadle within him was often so eager to apply the lash, that the judge had not time to consider the case with sufficient deliberation.

That he was occasionally remarkable for violence of

1 "May 14, 1776. Boswell goes away on Thursday very well satisfied with his journey. Some great men have promised to obtain him a place; and then a fig for his father and his new wife."—Letters, vol. i., p. 324. This place he never obtained, and the critical reader will observe several passages in this work, the tone of which may be attributed to his disappointment in this point. Lord Auchinleck had lately married Elizabeth Boswell, sister of Claude Irvine Boswell, afterwards a Lord of Session, by the title of Lord Balmuto. She was the cousin germain of her husband. Of this marriage there was no issue.-Croker.