Life of Samuel Johnson, Vol. II — 1764 to 1766

THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.

D.

In 1764 and 1765 it should seem that Dr. Johnson was so busily employed with his edition of Shakspeare, as to have had little leisure for any other literary exertion, or, indeed, even for private correspondence[1].

He did not favour me with a single letter for more than two years, for which it will appear that he afterwards apologised.

He was, however, at all times ready to give assistance to his friends, and others, in revising their works, and in writing for them, or greatly improving their Dedications.

In that courtly species of composition no man excelled Dr. Johnson.

Though the loftiness of his mind prevented him from ever dedicating in his own person[2], he wrote a very great number of Dedications for others.

Some of these, the persons who were favoured with them are unwilling should be mentioned, from a too anxious apprehension, as I think, that they might be suspected of having received larger assistance[3]; and some, after all the diligence I have bestowed, have escaped my enquiries.

He told me, a great many years ago, 'he believed he had dedicated to all the Royal Family round[4];' and it was indifferent to him what was the subject of the work dedicated, provided it were innocent.

He once dedicated some Musick for the German Flute to Edward, Duke of York.

In writing Dedications for others, he considered himself as by no means speaking his own sentiments.

Notwithstanding his long silence, I never omitted to write to him when I had any thing worthy of communicating.

I generally kept copies of my letters to him, that I might have a full view of our correspondence, and never be at a loss to understand any reference in his letters[5].

He kept the greater part of mine very carefully; and a short time before his death was attentive enough to seal them up in bundles, and order them to be delivered to me, which was accordingly done.

Amongst them I found one, of which I had not made a copy, and which I own I read with pleasure at the distance of almost twenty years.

It is dated November, 1765, at the palace of Pascal Paoli, in Corte, the capital of Corsica, and is full of generous enthusiasm[6].

After giving a sketch of what I had seen and heard in that island, it proceeded thus: 'I dare to call this a spirited tour.

I dare, to challenge your approbation.'

This letter produced the following answer, which I found on my arrival at Paris.

A Mr. Mr. BOSWELL, chez Mr. WATERS, Banquier, A Paris.

'DEAR SIR, 'Apologies are seldom of any use.

We will delay till your arrival the reasons, good or bad, which have made me such a sparing and ungrateful correspondent.

Be assured, for the present, that nothing has lessened either the esteem or love with which I dismissed you at Harwich.

Both have been increased by all that I have been told of you by yourself or others; and[7] when you return, you will return to an unaltered, and, I hope, unalterable friend.

'All that you have to fear from me is the vexation of disappointing me.

No man loves to frustrate expectations which have been formed in his favour; and the pleasure which I promise myself from your journals and remarks is so great, that perhaps no degree of attention or discernment will be sufficient to afford it.

'Come home, however, and take your chance.

I long to see you, and to hear you; and hope that we shall not be so long separated again.

Come home, and expect such a welcome as is due to him whom a wise and noble curiosity has led, where perhaps no native of this country ever was before[8].

'I have no news to tell you that can deserve your notice; nor would I willingly lessen the pleasure that any novelty may give you at your return.

I am afraid we shall find it difficult to keep among us a mind which has been so long feasted with variety.

But let us try what esteem and kindness can effect.

'As your father's liberality has indulged you with so long a ramble, I doubt not but you will think his sickness, or even his desire to see you, a sufficient reason for hastening your return.

The longer we live, and the more we think, the higher value we learn to put on the friendship and tenderness of parents and of friends.

Parents we can have but once; and he promises himself too much, who enters life with the expectation of finding many friends.

Upon some motive, I hope, that you will be here soon; and am willing to think that it will be an inducement to your return, that it is sincerely desired by, dear Sir, 'Your affectionate humble servant, 'SAM.

JOHNSON.'

'Johnson's Court, Fleet-street, January 14, 1766.' I returned to London in February, and found Dr. Johnson in a good house in Johnson's Court, Fleet-street[9], in which he had accommodated Miss Williams with an apartment on the ground floor, while Mr. Levett occupied his post in the garret: his faithful Francis was still attending upon him.

He received me with much kindness.

The fragments of our first conversation, which I have preserved, are these: I told him that Voltaire, in a conversation with me, had distinguished Pope and Dryden thus:--'Pope drives a handsome chariot, with a couple of neat trim nags; Dryden a coach, and six stately horses.'

JOHNSON.

'Why, Sir, the truth is, they both drive coaches and six; but Dryden's horses are either galloping or stumbling: Pope's go at a steady even trot[10].'

He said of Goldsmith's _Traveller_, which had been published in my absence, 'There has not been so fine a poem since Pope's time.'

And here it is proper to settle, with authentick precision, what has long floated in publick report, as to Johnson's being himself the authour of a considerable part of that poem.

Much, no doubt, both of the sentiments and expression, were derived from conversation with him; and it was certainly submitted to his friendly revision: but in the year 1783, he, at my request, marked with a pencil the lines which he had furnished, which are only line 420th, 'To stop too fearful, and too faint to go;'

and the concluding ten lines, except the last couplet but one, which I distinguish by the Italick character: 'How small of all that human hearts endure, That part which kings or laws[11] can cause or cure.

Still to ourselves in every place consign'd, Our own felicity we make or find[12];

With secret course, which no loud storms annoy, Glides the smooth current of domestick joy: _The lifted axe, the agonizing wheel, Luke's iron crown, and Damien's bed of steel_, To men remote from power, but rarely known, Leave reason, faith, and conscience, all our own.'

He added, 'These are all of which I can be sure[13].'

They bear a small proportion to the whole, which consists of four hundred and thirty-eight verses.

Goldsmith, in the couplet which he inserted, mentions Luke as a person well known, and superficial readers have passed it over quite smoothly; while those of more attention have been as much perplexed by _Luke_, as by _Lydiat_[14], in _The Vanity of Human Wishes_.

The truth is, that Goldsmith himself was in a mistake.

In the _Respublica Hungarian_[15], there is an account of a desperate rebellion in the year 1514, headed by two brothers, of the name of _Zeck_, George and Luke.

When it was quelled, _George_, not _Luke_, was punished by his head being encircled with a red-hot iron crown: '_coronAc candescente ferreAc coronatur_[16].'

The same severity of torture was exercised on the Earl of Athol, one of the murderers of King James I. of Scotland.

Dr. Johnson at the same time favoured me by marking the lines which he furnished to Goldsmith's _Deserted Village_, which are only the last four: 'That trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay, As ocean sweeps the labour'd mole away: While self-dependent power can time defy, As rocks resist the billows and the sky.'

Talking of education, 'People have now a days, (said he,) got a strange opinion that every thing should be taught by lectures.

Now, I cannot see that lectures can do so much good as reading the books from which the lectures are taken.

I know nothing that can be best taught by lectures[17], except where experiments are to be shewn.

You may teach chymistry by lectures.

--You might teach making of shoes by lectures[18]!'

At night I supped with him at the Mitre tavern, that we might renew our social intimacy at the original place of meeting.

But there was now a considerable difference in his way of living.

Having had an illness, in which he was advised to leave off wine, he had, from that period, continued to abstain from it, and drank only water, or lemonade[19].

I told him that a foreign friend of his[20], whom I had met with abroad, was so wretchedly perverted to infidelity, that he treated the hopes of immortality with brutal levity; and said, 'As man dies like a dog, let him lie like a dog.'

JOHNSON.

'_If_ he dies like a dog, _let_ him lie like a dog.'

I added, that this man said to me, 'I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am.'

JOHNSON.

'Sir, he must be very singular in his opinion, if he thinks himself one of the best of men; for none of his friends think him so.'

--He said, 'no honest man could be a Deist; for no man could be so after a fair examination of the proofs of Christianity.'

I named Hume[21].

JOHNSON.

'No, Sir; Hume owned to a clergyman in the bishoprick of Durham, that he had never read the New Testament with attention.'

I mentioned Hume's notion[22], that all who are happy are equally happy; a little miss with a new gown at a dancing school ball, a general at the head of a victorious army, and an orator, after having made an eloquent speech in a great assembly.

JOHNSON.

'Sir, that all who are happy, are equally happy, is not true.

A peasant and a philosopher may be equally _satisfied_, but not equally _happy_.

Happiness consists in the multiplicity of agreeable consciousness.

A peasant has not capacity for having equal happiness with a philosopher.'

I remember this very question very happily illustrated in opposition to Hume, by the Reverend Mr. Robert Brown[23], at Utrecht.

'A small drinking-glass and a large one, (said he,) may be equally full; but the large one holds more than the small.'

Dr. Johnson was very kind this evening, and said to me, 'You have now lived five-and-twenty years, and you have employed them well.'

'Alas, Sir, (said I,) I fear not.

Do I know history?

Do I know mathematicks?

Do I know law?'

JOHNSON.

'Why, Sir, though you may know no science so well as to be able to teach it, and no profession so well as to be able to follow it, your general mass of knowledge of books and men renders you very capable to make yourself master of any science, or fit yourself for any profession.'

I mentioned that a gay friend had advised me against being a lawyer, because I should be excelled by plodding block-heads.

JOHNSON.

'Why, Sir, in the formulary and statutory part of law, a plodding block-head may excel; but in the ingenious and rational part of it a plodding block-head can never excel.'

I talked of the mode adopted by some to rise in the world, by courting great men, and asked him whether he had ever submitted to it.

JOHNSON.

'Why, Sir, I never was near enough to great men, to court them.

You may be prudently attached to great men and yet independent.

You are not to do what you think wrong; and, Sir, you are to calculate, and not pay too dear for what you get.

You must not give a shilling's worth of court for six-pence worth of good.

But if you can get a shilling's worth of good for six-pence worth of court, you are a fool if you do not pay court[24].'

He said, 'If convents should be allowed at all, they should only be retreats for persons unable to serve the publick, or who have served it.

It is our first duty to serve society, and, after we have done that, we may attend wholly to the salvation of our own souls.

A youthful passion for abstracted devotion should not be encouraged[25].'

I introduced the subject of second sight, and other mysterious manifestations; the fulfilment of which, I suggested, might happen by chance.

JOHNSON.

'Yes, Sir; but they have happened so often, that mankind have agreed to think them not fortuitous[26].'

I talked to him a great deal of what I had seen in Corsica, and of my intention to publish an account of it.

He encouraged me by saying, 'You cannot go to the bottom of the subject; but all that you tell us will be new to us.

Give us as many anecdotes as you can[27].'

Our next meeting at the Mitre was on Saturday the 15th of February, when I presented to him my old and most intimate friend, the Reverend Mr. Temple[28], then of Cambridge.

I having mentioned that I had passed some time with Rousseau in his wild retreat[29], and having quoted some remark made by Mr. Wilkes, with whom I had spent many pleasant hours in Italy, Johnson said (sarcastically,) 'It seems, Sir, you have kept very good company abroad, Rousseau and Wilkes!'

Thinking it enough to defend one at a time, I said nothing as to my gay friend, but answered with a smile, 'My dear Sir, you don't call Rousseau bad company.

Do you really think him a bad man?'

JOHNSON.

'Sir, if you are talking jestingly of this, I don't talk with you.

If you mean to be serious, I think him one of the worst of men; a rascal who ought to be hunted out of society, as he has been.

Three or four nations have expelled him; and it is a shame that he is protected in this country[30].'

BOSWELL.

'I don't deny, Sir, but that his novel[31] may, perhaps, do harm; but I cannot think his intention was bad.'

JOHNSON.

'Sir, that will not do.

We cannot prove any man's intention to be bad.

You may shoot a man through the head, and say you intended to miss him; but the Judge will order you to be hanged.

An alleged want of intention, when evil is committed, will not be allowed in a court of justice.

Rousseau, Sir, is a very bad man.

I would sooner sign a sentence for his transportation, than that of any felon who has gone from the Old Bailey these many years.

Yes, I should like to have him work in the plantations[32].'

BOSWELL.

'Sir, do you think him as bad a man as Voltaire?'

JOHNSON.

'Why, Sir, it is difficult to settle the proportion of iniquity between them[33].'

This violence seemed very strange to me, who had read many of Rousseau's animated writings with great pleasure, and even edification, had been much pleased with his society[34], and was just come from the Continent, where he was very generally admired.

Nor can I yet allow that he deserves the very severe censure which Johnson pronounced upon him.

His absurd preference of savage to civilised life[35], and other singularities, are proofs rather of a defect in his understanding, than of any depravity in his heart.

And notwithstanding the unfavourable opinion which many worthy men have expressed of his '_Profession de Foi du Vicaire Savoyard_', I cannot help admiring it as the performance of a man full of sincere reverential submission to Divine Mystery, though beset with perplexing doubts; a state of mind to be viewed with pity rather than with anger.

On his favourite subject of subordination, Johnson said, 'So far is it from being true that men are naturally equal[36], that no two people can be half an hour together, but one shall acquire an evident superiority over the other.'

I mentioned the advice given us by philosophers, to console ourselves, when distressed or embarrassed, by thinking of those who are in a worse situation than ourselves.

This, I observed, could not apply to all, for there must be some who have nobody worse than they are.

JOHNSON.

'Why, to be sure, Sir, there are; but they don't know it.

There is no being so poor and so contemptible, who does not think there is somebody still poorer, and still more contemptible.'

As my stay in London at this time was very short, I had not many opportunities of being with Dr. Johnson; but I felt my veneration for him in no degree lessened, by my having seen _mullorum hominum mores et urbes_[37].

On the contrary, by having it in my power to compare him with many of the most celebrated persons of other countries[38], my admiration of his extraordinary mind was increased and confirmed.

The roughness, indeed, which sometimes appeared in his manners, was more striking to me now, from my having been accustomed to the studied smooth complying habits of the Continent; and I clearly recognised in him, not without respect for his honest conscientious zeal, the same indignant and sarcastical mode of treating every attempt to unhinge or weaken good principles.

One evening when a young gentleman[39] teized him with an account of the infidelity of his servant, who, he said, would not believe the scriptures, because he could not read them in the original tongues, and be sure that they were not invented.

'Why, foolish fellow, (said Johnson,) has he any better authority for almost every thing that he believes?'

BOSWELL.

'Then the vulgar, Sir, never can know they are right, but must submit themselves to the learned.'

JOHNSON.

'To be sure, Sir.

The vulgar are the children of the State, and must be taught like children[40].'

BOSWELL.

'Then, Sir, a poor Turk must be a Mahometan, just as a poor Englishman must be a Christian[41]?'

JOHNSON.

'Why, yes, Sir;

and what then?

This now is such stuff as I used to talk to my mother, when I first began to think myself a clever fellow; and she ought to have whipt me for it.'

Another evening Dr. Goldsmith and I called on him, with the hope of prevailing on him to sup with us at the Mitre.

We found him indisposed, and resolved not to go abroad.

'Come then, (said Goldsmith,) we will not go to the Mitre to-night, since we cannot have the big man[42] with us.'

Johnson then called for a bottle of port, of which Goldsmith and I partook, while our friend, now a water-drinker, sat by us.

GOLDSMITH.

'I think, Mr. Johnson, you don't go near the theatres now.

You give yourself no more concern about a new play, than if you had never had any thing to do with the stage.'

JOHNSON.

'Why, Sir, our tastes greatly alter.

The lad does not care for the child's rattle, and the old man does not care for the young man's whore.'

GOLDSMITH.

'Nay, Sir, but your Muse was not a whore.'

JOHNSON.

'Sir, I do not think she was.

But as we advance in the journey of life, we drop some of the things which have pleased us; whether it be that we are fatigued and don't choose to carry so many things any farther, or that we find other things which we like better.'

BOSWELL.

'But, Sir, why don't you give us something in some other way?'

GOLDSMITH.

'Ay, Sir, we have a claim upon you[43].'

JOHNSON.

'No, Sir, I am not obliged to do any more.

No man is obliged to do as much as he can do.

A man is to have part of his life to himself.

If a soldier has fought a good many campaigns, he is not to be blamed if he retires to ease and tranquillity.

A physician, who has practised long in a great city, may be excused if he retires to a small town, and takes less practice.

Now, Sir, the good I can do by my conversation bears the same proportion to the good I can do by my writings, that the practice of a physician, retired to a small town, does to his practice in a great city[44].'

BOSWELL.

'But I wonder, Sir, you have not more pleasure in writing than in not writing.'

JOHNSON.

'Sir, you _may_ wonder.'

He talked of making verses, and observed, 'The great difficulty is to know when you have made good ones.

When composing, I have generally had them in my mind, perhaps fifty at a time, walking up and down in my room; and then I have written them down, and often, from laziness, have written only half lines.

I have written a hundred lines in a day.

I

remember I wrote a hundred lines of _The Vanity of Human Wishes_ in a day[45].

Doctor, (turning to Goldsmith,) I am not quite idle; I have one line t'other day; but I made no more.'

GOLDSMITH.

'Let us hear it; we'll put a bad one to it..

JOHNSON.

'No, Sir, I have forgot it.

[46]' Such specimens of the easy and playful conversation of the great Dr. Samuel Johnson are, I think, to be prized; as exhibiting the little varieties of a mind so enlarged and so powerful when objects of consequence required its exertions, and as giving us a minute knowledge of his character and modes of thinking.

'To BENNET LANGTON, ESQ.

, AT LANGTON, NEAR SPILSBY, LINCOLNSHIRE.

'DEAR SIR, 'What your friends have done, that from your departure till now nothing has been heard of you, none of us are able to inform the rest; but as we are all neglected alike, no one thinks himself entitled to the privilege of complaint.

'I should have known nothing of you or of Langton, from the time that dear Miss Langton left us, had not I met Mr. Simpson, of Lincoln, one day in the street, by whom I was informed that Mr. Langton, your Mamma, and yourself, had been all ill, but that you were all recovered.

'That sickness should suspend your correspondence, I did not wonder; but hoped that it would be renewed at your recovery.

'Since you will not inform us where you are, or how you live, I know not whether you desire to know any thing of us.

However, I will tell you that THE CLUB subsists; but we have the loss of Burke's company since he has been engaged in publick business[47], in which he has gained more reputation than perhaps any man at his [first] appearance ever gained before.

He made two speeches in the House for repealing the Stamp-act, which were publickly commended by Mr. Pitt, and have filled the town with wonder[48].

'Burke is a great man by nature, and is expected soon to attain civil greatness[49].

I am grown greater too, for I have maintained the newspapers these many weeks[50]; and what is greater still, I have risen every morning since New-year's day, at about eight; when I was up, I have indeed done but little; yet it is no slight advancement to obtain for so many hours more, the consciousness of being.

'I wish you were in my new study[51]; I am now writing the first letter in it.

I think it looks very pretty about me.

'Dyer[52] is constant at THE CLUB; Hawkins is remiss; I am not over diligent.

Dr. Nugent, Dr. Goldsmith, and Mr. Reynolds, are very constant.

Mr. Lye is printing his Saxon and Gothick Dictionary[53]; all THE CLUB subscribes.

'You will pay my respects to all my Lincolnshire friends.

I am, dear Sir, 'Most affectionately your's, 'SAM.

JOHNSON.'

'March 9, 1766. Johnson's-court, Fleet-street[54].'

'To BENNET LANGTON, ESQ.

, AT LANGTON, NEAR SPILSBY, LINCOLNSHIRE.

'DEAR SIR, 'In supposing that I should be more than commonly affected by the death of Peregrine Langton[55], you were not mistaken; he was one of those whom I loved at once by instinct and by reason.

I have seldom indulged more hope of any thing than of being able to improve our acquaintance to friendship.

Many a time have I placed myself again at Langton, and imagined the pleasure with which I should walk to Partney[56] in a summer morning; but this is no longer possible.

We must now endeavour to preserve what is left us,--his example of piety and oeconomy.

I hope you make what enquiries you can, and write down what is told you.

The little things which distinguish domestick characters are soon forgotten: if you delay to enquire, you will have no information; if you neglect to write, information will be vain[57].

'His art of life certainly deserves to be known and studied.

He lived in plenty and elegance upon an income which, to many would appear indigent, and to most, scanty.

How he lived, therefore, every man has an interest in knowing.

His death, I hope, was peaceful; it was surely happy.

'I wish I had written sooner, lest, writing now, I should renew your grief; but I would not forbear saying what I have now said.

'This loss is, I hope, the only misfortune of a family to whom no misfortune at all should happen, if my wishes could avert it.

Let me know how you all go on.

Has Mr. Langton got him the little horse that I recommended?

It would do him good to ride about his estate in fine weather.

'Be pleased to make my compliments to Mrs. Langton, and to dear Miss Langton, and Miss Di, and Miss Juliet, and to every body else.

'The wonder, with most that hear an account of his oeconomy, will be, how he was able, with such an income, to do so much, especially when it is considered that he paid for everything he had; he had no land, except the two or three small fields which I have said he rented; and, instead of gaining any thing by their produce, I have reason to think he lost by them; however, they furnished him with no further assistance towards his housekeeping, than grass for his horses, (not hay, for that I know he bought,) and for two cows.

Every Monday morning he settled his family accounts, and so kept up a constant attention to the confining his expences within his income; and to do it more exactly, compared those expences with a computation he had made, how much that income would afford him every week and day of the year.

One of his oeconomical practices was, as soon as any repair was wanting in or about his house, to have it immediately performed.

When he had money to spare, he chose to lay in a provision of linen or clothes, or any other necessaries; as then, he said, he could afford it, which he might not be so well able to do when the actual want came; in consequence of which method, he had a considerable supply of necessary articles lying by him, beside what was in use.

'But the main particular that seems to have enabled him to do so much with his income, was, that he paid for every thing as soon as he had it, except, alone, what were current accounts, such as rent for his house and servants' wages; and these he paid at the stated times with the utmost exactness.

He gave notice to the tradesmen of the neighbouring market-towns that they should no longer have his custom, if they let any of his servants have anything without their paying for it.

Thus he put it out of his power to commit those imprudences to which those are liable that defer their payments by using their money some other way than where it ought to go.

And whatever money he had by him, he knew that it was not demanded elsewhere, but that he might safely employ it as he pleased.

'His example was confined, by the sequestered place of his abode, to the observation of few, though his prudence and virtue would have made it valuable to all who could have known it.

--These few particulars, which I knew myself, or have obtained from those who lived with him, may afford instruction, and be an incentive to that wise art of living, which he so successfully practised.'

BOSWELL.

'THE CLUB holds very well together.

Monday is my night[58].

I continue to rise tolerably well, and read more than I did.

I hope something will yet come on it[59].

I am, Sir, 'Your most affectionate servant, 'SAM JOHNSON' 'May 10, 1766, Johnson's-court, Fleet-street.'

After I had been some time in Scotland, I mentioned to him in a letter that 'On my first return to my native country, after some years of absence, I was told of a vast number of my acquaintance who were all gone to the land of forgetfulness, and I found myself like a man stalking over a field of battle, who every moment perceives some one lying dead.'

I complained of irresolution, and mentioned my having made a vow as a security for good conduct.

I wrote to him again, without being able to move his indolence; nor did I hear from him till he had received a copy of my inaugural Exercise, or Thesis in Civil Law, which I published at my admission as an Advocate, as is the custom in Scotland.

He then wrote to me as follows: 'To JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.

'DEAR SIR, 'The reception of your Thesis put me in mind of my debt to you Why did you ----[60].

I will punish you for it, by telling you that your Latin wants correction[61].

In the beginning, _Spei alterae_, not to urge that it should be _prima_, is not grammatical: _alterae_ should be _alteri_.

In the next line you seem to use _genus_ absolutely, for what we call _family_, that is, for _illustrious extraction_, I doubt without authority.

_Homines nullius originis_, for _Nullis orti majoribus_, or, _Nullo loco nati_, is, I am afraid, barbarous.

--Ruddiman is dead[62].

'I have now vexed you enough, and will try to please you.

Your resolution to obey your father I sincerely approve; but do not accustom yourself to enchain your volatility by vows: they will sometime leave a thorn in your mind, which you will, perhaps, never be able to extract or eject.

Take this warning, it is of great importance[63].

'The study of the law is what you very justly term it, copious and generous[64]; and in adding your name to its professors, you have done exactly what I always wished, when I wished you best.

I hope that you will continue to pursue it vigorously and constantly[65].

You gain, at least, what is no small advantage, security from those troublesome and wearisome discontents, which are always obtruding themselves upon a mind vacant, unemployed, and undetermined.

'You ought to think it no small inducement to diligence and perseverance, that they will please your father.

We all live upon the hope of pleasing somebody; and the pleasure of pleasing ought to be greatest, and at last always will be greatest, when our endeavours are exerted in consequence of our duty.

'Life is not long, and too much of it must not pass in idle deliberation how it shall be spent; deliberation, which those who begin it by prudence, and continue it with subtilty, must, after long expence of thought, conclude by chance[66].

To prefer one future mode of life to another, upon just reasons, requires faculties which it has not pleased our Creator to give us.

'If, therefore, the profession you have chosen has some unexpected inconveniencies, console yourself by reflecting that no profession is without them; and that all the importunities and perplexities of business are softness and luxury, compared with the incessant cravings of vacancy, and the unsatisfactory expedients of idleness.

"_Haec sunt quce nostra polui te voce monere[67];

Vade, age_."

'As to your _History of Corsica_, you have no materials which others have not, or may not have.

You have, somehow, or other, warmed your imagination.

I wish there were some cure, like the lover's leap, for all heads of which some single idea has obtained an unreasonable and irregular possession.

Mind your own affairs, and leave the Corsicans to theirs.

I am, dear Sir, 'Your most humble servant, 'SAM.

JOHNSON.'

'London, Aug.

21, 1766.' 'To DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON.

'Auchinleck, Nov.

6, 1766. 'MUCH ESTEEMED AND DEAR SIR,

'I plead not guilty to[68]---- 'Having thus, I hope, cleared myself of the charge brought against me, I presume you will not be displeased if I escape the punishment which you have decreed for me unheard.

If you have discharged the arrows of criticism against an innocent man, you must rejoice to find they have missed him, or have not been pointed so as to wound him.

'To talk no longer in allegory, I am, with all deference, going to offer a few observations in defence of my Latin, which you have found fault with.

'You think I should have used _spei primA|_, instead of _spei alterA|_.

_Spes_ is, indeed, often used to express something on which we have a future dependence, as in Virg.

Eclog.

i.

l.

14, "....

_modo namque gemellos_ Spem _gregis ah silice in nudAi connixa reliquit_."

and in Georg.

iii.

l.

473, "Spemque _gregemque simul_," for the lambs and the sheep.

Yet it is also used to express any thing on which we have a present dependence, and is well applied to a man of distinguished influence, our support, our refuge, our _prA|sidium_, as Horace calls MA|cenas.

So, Aćneid xii.

l.