tereft of those who teach to have fcholars; and this is the cafe in our Universities. That they are rich is certainly not true; for they have nothing good enough to keep a man of eminent learning with them for his life. In the foreign Universities a profefforfhip is a high thing. It is as much almost as a man can inake by his learning; and therefore we find the moft learned men abroad are in the Univerfities it is not fo with us. Our Univerfities are impoverished of learning, by the penury of their provifions. I wish there were many places of a thoufand a year at Oxford to keep first-rate men of learning from quitting the University."--Undoubtedly (remarks Mr. Bofwell) if this were the cafe, Literature would have a ftill greater dignity and splendour at Oxford, and there would be grander living fources of inftruction.

A gentleman one day mentioned Mr. Maclaurin's uneafinefs on account of a degree of ridicule carelessly thrown on his deceased father, in Goldsmith's Hiftory of Animated Nature," in which that celebrated mathematician is reprefented as being fubject to fits of yawning fo violent as to render him incapable of proceeding in his lecture; a ftory altogether unfounded, but for the publication of which the law would give no reparation. This led the com

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pany to agitate the queflion, whether legal drefs could be obtained, even when a man's deceafed relation was calumniated in a publication. Mr. Murray maintained there fhould be reparation, unless the author could justify himfelf by proving the fact.-JOHNSON. “Sir, it is of fo much more confequence that truth fhould be told, than that individuals fhould not be made uneafy, that it is much better that the law does not reftrain writing freely concerning the characters of the dead. Damages will be given to a man who is calumniated in his life-time, because he may be hurt in his worldly intereft, or at least hurt in his mind. If a man could fay nothing against a character but what he can. prove, hiftory could not be written; for a great deal is known of men of which proof cannot be brought. A minifter may be notoriously known to take bribes, and yet you may not be able to prove it." Mr. Murray fuggefted, that the author fhould be obliged to fhow fome fort of evidence, though he would not require a strict legal proof; but Johnfon firmly and refolutely oppofed any restraint whatever, as adverse to a free investigation of the characters of mankind.

Johnfon mentioned Dr. Barry's Syfiem of Phyfick." He was a man (faid he) who had acquired a high reputation in Dublin, came

over to England, and brought his reputation with him, but had no great fuccefs. His notion was, that pulfation occafions death by attrition; and that therefore the way to preferve life is to retard pulfation. But we know that pulfation is ftrongest in infants, and that we incrcafe in growth while it operates in its regular courfe; fo it cannot be the caufe of deftruction."

Talking of tranflation, one faid, he could not define it, nor could he think of a fimilitude to illuftrate it; but that it appeared to him that tranflation of poetry could be only imitation. Johnfon obferved, "You may tranflate books of fcience exactly. You may alfo translate history, in fo far as it is not embellifhed with oratory, which is poetical. Poetry, indeed, cannot be tranflated; and, therefore, it is the poets that preferve languages; for we would not be at the trouble to learn a language if we could have all that is written in it just as well in a translation. But as the beautics of poetry cannot be preferved in any language except that in which it was originally written, we learn the language."

A gentleman maintained that the art of printing had hurt real learning, by diffeminating idle writings.-Johnson faid, “Sir, if it had not been for the art of printing, we should now have had no learning at all; for books would

have perifhed fafter than they could have been tranfcribed." This obfervation feems not jutt, confidering for how many ages books were preferved by writing alone.

The fame gentleman maintained, that a general diffusion of knowledge among a people was a difadvantage; for it inade the vulgar rife above their humble fphere.-" Sir (faid Johnfon), while knowledge is a diftinction, those who are poffeffed of it will naturally rife above those who are not. Merely to read and write was a diftinction at firft; but we fee when reading and writing have become general, the common people keep their ftations. And fo, were higher attainments to become general, the effect would be the fame."

He faid, that for general improvement, a man fhould read whatever his immediate inclination prompts him to; though, to be fure, if a man has a fcience to learn, he must regularly and refolutely advance. He added, "what we read with inclination makes a much stronger impreffion. If we read without inclination, half the mind is employed in fixing the attention; fo there is but one half to be employed on what we read." He faid, he read Fielding's Amelia' through without ftopping." If a man (faid he) begins to read in the middle of a book, and feels an inclination to go on, let him not

quit it to go to the beginning. He may perhaps not feel again the inclination."

It having been mentioned, that a certain female political writer, whofe doctrines be dif liked, had of late become very fond of drefs, fat hours together at her toilet, and even put on rouge, Johnfon faid, "She is better employed at her toilet than ufing her pen. It is better she fhould be reddening her own checks, than blackening other people's characters."

Mr. Bofwell tells us, that a clergyman had come to submit fome poetical pieces to Johnson's revision. "It is wonderful (fays Mr. B.) what a number and variety of writers, fome of them even unknown to him, prevailed on his good nature to look over their works, and fuggeft corrections and improvements. My arrival interrupted for a little while the important bufinefs of this true reprefentative of Bayes; upon its being refumed, I found that the fubject under immediate confideration was a tranflation, yet in manufcript, of the Carmen Seculare' of Horace, which had this year been set to music, and performed as a public entertainment in London, for the joint benefit of Monfieur Philidor and Signor Baretti. When Johnfon had done reading, the author afked him bluntly, "If upon the whole it was a good tranflation ?" Johnfon, whofe regard for truth was uncom

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