friend, Dr. Madden, of Ireland, said, that, in an and orchard there should be enough to eat, enough to orchards lay up, enough to be stolen, and enough to rot upon the ground.' Cherries are an early fruit, you may have them; and you may have the early apples and pears. BOSWELL. "We cannot have nonpareils." JOHNSON. "Sir, you can no more have nonpareils, than you can have grapes. BOSWELL. "We have them, Sir; but they are very bad.” JOHNSON. Nay, Sir, never try to have a thing, merely to shew that you cannot have it. From ground that would let for forty shillings you may have a large orchard; and you see it costs you only forty shillings. Nay, you may graze the ground, when the trees are grown up; you cannot, while they are young." BOSWELL. "Is not a good garden a very common thing in England, Sir?" JOHNSON. "Not so common, Sir, as you imagine. In Lincolnshire there is hardly an orchard; in Staffordshire very little fruit." BOSWELL. "Has Langton no orchard?" JOHNSON. "No, Sir." BOSWELL. "How so, Sir?" JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, from the general negligence of the county. He has it not, because nobody else has it." BOSWELL. "A hot-house is a certain thing; I may have that.” JOHNSON. "A hot-house is pretty certain; but you must first build it, then you must keep fires in it, and you must have a gardener to take care of it." BOSWELL. "But if I have a gardener at any rate?—' JOHNSON. Why, yes." BOSWELL. "I'd have it near my house; there is no need to have it in the orchard." JOHNSON. "Yes, I'd have it near my house.—I would plant a great many currants; the fruit is good, and they make a pretty sweetmeat.'

66

Elocution I record this minute detail, which some may think trifling, in order to shew clearly how this great man, whose mind could grasp such large and extensive subjects, as he has shewn in his literary labours, was yet well-informed in the common affairs of life, and loved to illustrate them.

Mr. Walker, the celebrated master of elocution, came in, and then we went up stairs into the study. I asked him if he had taught many clergymen. JOHNSON. "I hope not." WALKER. "I have taught only one, and he is the best reader I ever heard, not by my teaching, but by his own natural talents." JOHNSON. "Were he the best reader in the world, I would not have it told that he was taught." Here was one of his peculiar prejudices. Could it be any disadvantage to the clergyman to have it known that he was taught an easy and graceful delivery? BOSWELL. "Will you not allow, Sir, that a man may be taught to read well? JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, so far as to read better than he might do without being taught, yes. Formerly it was supposed that there was no difference in reading, but that one read as well as another." BOSWELL. "It is wonderful to see old Sheridan as enthusiastick about oratory as ever." WALKER. "His enthusiasm as to what oratory will do, may be too great but he reads well." JOHNSON. "He

reads well, but he reads low; and you know it is much easier to read low than to read high; for when you read high, you are much more limited, your loudest note can be but one, and so the variety is less in proportion to the loudness. Now some people have occasion to speak to an extensive audience, and must speak loud to be

20

heard." WALKER. "The art is to read strong, The
though low."

origin of Talking of the origin of language;-JOHNSON. language "It must have come by inspiration. A thousand,

nay, a million of children could not invent a language.
While the organs are pliable, there is not understand-
ing enough to form a language; by the time that
there is understanding enough, the organs are become
stiff. We know that after a certain age we cannot
learn to pronounce a new language. No foreigner,
who comes to England when advanced in life, ever
pronounces English tolerably well; at least such
instances are very rare. When I maintain that
language must have come by inspiration, I do not
mean that inspiration is required for rhetorick, and
all the beauties of language; for when once man
has language, we can conceive that he may gradually
form modifications of it. I mean only that inspira-
tion seems to me to be necessary to give man the
faculty of speech; to inform him that he
may have
speech; which I think he could no more find out
without inspiration, than cows or hogs would think
of such a faculty." WALKER. "Do you think,
Sir, that there are any perfect synonimes in any
language?" JOHNSON. "Originally there were not;
but by using words negligently, or in poetry, one
word comes to be confounded with another."

He talked of Dr. Dodd. "A friend of mine,
(said he,) came to me and told me, that a lady
wished to have Dr. Dodd's picture in a bracelet,
and asked me for a motto. I said, I could think
of no better than Currat Lex. I was very willing
to have him pardoned, that is, to have the sen-
tence changed to transportation: but, when he was

Garrick's once hanged, I did not wish he should be made funeral a saint."

Mrs. Burney, wife of his friend Dr. Burney, came in, and he seemed to be entertained with her conversation.

Garrick's funeral was talked of as extravagantly expensive. Johnson, from his dislike to exaggeration, would not allow that it was distinguished by any extraordinary pomp. "Were there not six horses to each coach?" said Mrs. Burney. JOHN"Madam, there were no more six horses

SON.

than six phoenixes.'

Mrs. Burney wondered that some very beautiful new buildings should be erected in Moorfields, in so shocking a situation as between Bedlam and St. Luke's Hospital; and said she could not live there. JOHNSON. "Nay, Madam, you see nothing there to hurt you. You no more think of madness by having windows that look to Bedlam, than you think of death by having windows that look to a churchyard." MRS. BURNEY. "We may look to a churchyard, Sir; for it is right that we should be kept in mind of death." JOHNSON. "Nay, Madam, if you go to that, it is right that we should be kept in mind of madness, which is occasioned by too much indulgence of imagination. I think a very moral use may be made of these new buildings: I would have those who have heated imaginations live there, and take warning." MRS. BURNEY. "But, Sir, many of the poor people that are mad, have become so from disease, or from distressing events. It is therefore, not their fault, but their misfortune; and, therefore, to think of them, is a melancholy consideration."

Time passed on in conversation till it was too

J

late for the service of the church at three o'clock. An inexI took a walk, and left him alone for some time; plicable character then returned, and we had coffee and conversation E again by ourselves.

I stated the character of a noble friend of mine,
as a curious case for his opinion:-"He is the
most inexplicable man to me that I ever knew.
Can you explain him, Sir? He is, I really believe,
noble-minded,
generous, and princely. But his most
intimate friends may be separated from him for
years, without his ever asking a question concern-
ing them. He will meet them with a formality,
a coldness, a stately indifference; but when they
come close to him, and fairly engage him in con-
versation, they find him as easy, pleasant, and kind,
as they could wish. One then supposes that what
is so agreeable will soon be renewed; but stay away
from him for half a year, and he will neither call
on you, nor send to enquire about you." JOHNSON.

Why, Sir, I cannot ascertain his character exactly, as I do not know him; but I should not like to have such a man for my friend. He may love study, and wish not to be interrupted by his friends; Amici fures temporis. He may be a frivolous man, and be so much occupied with petty pursuits, that he may not want friends. Or he may have a notion that there is a dignity in appearing indifferent, while he in fact may not be more indifferent at his heart than another."

We went to evening prayers at St. Clement's, at seven, and then parted.1

1 [The reader will recollect, that in the year 1775, when Dr. Johnson visited France, he was kindly entertained by the English Benedictine Monks at Paris. (See