-old Mr. Edward Cave, the printer at St. John's Gate. He said, Mr. Cave did not like to talk of it, and seemed to be in great horrour whenever it was mentioned. BosWELL. "Pray, sir, what did he say was the appearance?" JOHNSON. "Why, sir, something of a shadowy being."

I mentioned witches, and asked him what they properly meant. JOHNSON. "Why, sir, they properly mean those who make use of the aid of evil spirits." BOSWELL. "There is, no doubt, sir, a general report and belief of their having existed." JOHNSON. You have not only the general report and belief, but you have many voluntary solemn confessions." He did not affirm any thing positively upon a subject which it is the fashion of the times to laugh at as a matter of absurd credulity. He only seemed willing, as a candid inquirer after truth, however strange and inexplicable, to show that he understood what might be urged for it.

On Friday, April 10, I dined with him at General Oglethorpe's, where we found Dr. Goldsmith.

Armorial bearings having been mentioned, Johnson said they were as ancient as the siege of Thebes, which he proved by a passage in one of the tragedies of Euripides 2.

I started the question, whether duelling was consistent with moral duty. The brave old general fired at this, and said, with a lofty air, "Undoubtedly a man has a right

1 See this curious question treated by him with most acute ability, post, 16th Aug. 1773.-Bos

WELL.

• The passage to which Johnson alluded, is to be found (as I conjecture) in the PHENISSE, 1. 1120.

Και πρωτα μεν προσηγε, κ. τ. λο
Ο της κυναγου Παρύενοπαιος εκγονος,

ΕΠΙΣΗΜ, έχων ΟΙΚΕΙΟΝ εν μέσω σωκει.
J. BOSWELL.

[The meaning is that " Parthenopæus had, in the centre of his shield, the domestic sign--Atalanta killing the Ætolian boar;" but this, admitting that the story of Atalanta was the "armorial bearing" of Parthenopæus, would only prove them to be as ancient as Euripides, who flourished (442 A. C.) near 800 years after the siege of Thebes (1225 A. C.) Homer, whom the chronologists place 500 years before Euripides, describes a sculptured shield; and there can be little doubt that very soon after ingenuity had made a shield, taste would begin to decorate it. The words " domestic sign" are certainly very curious, yet probably mean no more than that he bore on his shield the representation of a family story. The better opinion seems to be that it was not till the visor concealed the face of the warrior, that the ornaments of the shields and crests became distinctive of individuals and families in that peculiar manner which we understand by the terms "armorial bearings."-ED.]

to defend his honour." GOLDSMITH (turning to me). "I ask you first, sir, what would you do if you were affronted?" I answered, I should think it necessary to fight. "Why then," replied Goldsmith, "that solves the question." JOHNSON. "No, sir, it does not solve the question." It does not follow, that what a man would do is therefore right." I said, I wished to have it settled, whether duelling was contrary to the laws of christianity. Johnson immediately entered on the subject, and treated it in a masterly manner; and so far as I have been able to recollect, his thoughts were these: "Sir, as men become in a high degree refined, various causes of offence arise; which are considered to be of such importance, that life must be staked to atone for them, though in reality they are not so. A body that has received a very fine polish may be easily hurt. Before men arrive at this artificial refinement, if one tells his neighbour, he lies, his neighbour tells him, he lies; if one gives his neighbour a blow, his neighbour gives him a blow: but in a state of highly polished society, an affront is held to be a serious injury. It must, therefore, be resented, or rather a duel must be fought upon it; as men have agreed to banish, from their society one who puts up with an affront without fighting a duel. Now, sir, it is never unlawful to fight in self-defence. He, then, who fights a duel, does not fight from passion against his antagonist, but out of self-defence; to avert the stigma of the world, and to prevent himself from being driven out of society. I could wish there was not that superfluity of refinement; but while such notions prevail, no doubt, a man may lawfully fight a duel 3."

Let it be remembered, that this justification is applicable only to the person who receives an affront. All mankind must condemn the aggressor.

The general told us, that when he was a very young man, I think only fifteen, serving under Prince Eugene of Savoy, he was sitting in a company at table with a Prince of Wirtemberg. The prince took up a glass of wine, and, by a fillip, made some of it fly in. Oglethorpe's face. Here was a nice dilem

ma.

To have challenged him instantly might have fixed a quarrelsome character upon the young soldier: to have taken no notice of it might have been considered as cowardice. Oglethorpe, therefore, keeping his eye upon the prince, and smiling all the time, as if he took what his highness had done in jest, said, "Mon prince-" I forget the

3 The frequent disquisitions on this subject bring painfully to recollection the death of Mr. Boswell's eldest son, Sir Alexander, who was killed in a duel in 1822.-ED.]

er was, "That's a good joke: but we do it much better in England; " and threw a whole glass of wine in the prince's face. An old general, who sat by, said, "Il a bien fait, mon prince, vous l'avez commencé:" and thus all ended in good-humour,

Dr. Johnson said, "Pray, general, give us an account of the siege of Belgrade." Upon which the general, pouring a little wine upon the table, described every thing with a wet finger. "Here we were, here were the Turks," &c. &c. Johnson listened with the closest attention.

A question was started, how far people who disagree in a capital point can live in friendship together. Johnson said they might. Goldsmith said they could not, as they had not the idem velle atque idem nolle-the same likings and the same aversions. JOHNSON. "Why, sir, you must shun the subject as to which you disagree. For instance, I can live very well with Burke: I love his knowledge, his genius, his diffusion, and affluence of conversation; but I would not talk to him of the Rockingham party 1." GOLDSMITH. "But, sir, when people live together who have something as to which they disagree, and which they want to shun, they will be in the situation mentioned in the story of Bluebeard. You may look into all the chambers but one. But we should have the greatest inclination to look into that chamber, to talk of that subject." JOHNSON (with a loud voice). " Sir, I am not saying that you could live in friendship with a man from whom you differ as to some point; I am only saying that I could do it. You put me in mind of Sappho in

Ovid 2."

1 Of which Mr. Burke was a leading member. -ED.]

2 Mr. Boswell's note here being rather short, as taken at the time (with a view perhaps to future revision,) Johnson's remark is obscure, and requires to be a little opened. What he said probably was, "You seem to think that two friends, to live well together, must be in a perfect harmony with each other; that each should be to the other, what Sappho boasts she was to her lover, and uniformly agree in every particular; but this is by no means necessary," &e. The words of Sappho alluded to, are "omnique à parte placebam."-Ovid. Epist. Sapp. ad Phaonem. 1. 51. MALONE.

I should rather conjecture that the passage which Johnson had in view was the following, 1.

45:

"Si, nisi quæ facie poterit te digna videri
Nulla futura tua est; nulla futura tua est."

His reasoning and its illustration I take to be this. If you are determined to associate with no one whose sentiments do not universally coincide with your own, you will by such a resolution exclude yourself from all society, for no two men can be

in writing a Natural History3; and that he might have full leisure for it, he had taken lodgings, at a farmer's house, near to the six mile-stone, on the Edgware-road, and had carried down his books in two returned post-chaises. He said, he believed the farmer's family thought him an odd character, similar to that in which the Spectator appeared to his landlady and her children: he was The Gentleman. Mr. Mickle 4, the translator of "The Lusiad," and I, went to visit him at this place a few days afterwards. He was not at home; but having a curiosity to see his apartment, we went in, and found curious scraps of descriptions of animals, scrawled upon the wall with a black lead pencil.

The subject of ghosts being introduced, Johnson repeated what he had told me of a friend of his 5, an honest man, and a man of sense, having asserted to him, unat he had seen an apparition. Goldsmith told us, he was assured by his brother, the Reverend Mr. Goldsmith, that he also had seen one. General Oglethorpe told us, that Prendergast, an officer in the Duke of Marlborough's army, had mentioned to many of his friends, that he should die on a particular day; that upon that day a battle took place with the French; that after it was over, and Prendergast was still alive, his brother officers, while they were yet in the field, jestingly asked him, where was his prophecy now. Prendergast gravely answered, " I shall die, notwithstanding what you see." Soon afterwards, there came a shot from a French battery, to which the orders for a cessation of arms had

found who, on all points, invariably think alike. So Sappho in Ovid tells Phaon, that if he will not unite himself to any one who is not a complete resemblance of himself, it will be impossible for him to form any union at all.

The lines which I have quoted are thus expanded in Pope's Paraphrase, which, to say the truth, I suspect was at this moment more in Johnson's recollection than the original:

"If to no charms thou wilt thy heart resign
But such as merit, sùch as equal thine,
By none, alas! by none, thou canst be moved,
Phaon alone by Phaon must be loved."

JAMES BOSWELL.

3 [Published soon after, under the title of a History of the Earth and of Animated Nature.

-ED.]

[William Julius Mickle, the son of a Scotch clergyman, was born in 1734. He lived the life that poets lived in those days; that is, in difficulties and distress till 1779, when being appointed secretary to Commodore Johnson, he realized by prize agencies a moderate competence; he died in 1788. His translation of the Lusiad is still read; his original pieces are almost all forgot-ten.-ED.]

Mr. Cave. See ante, p. 294.

Ed.

be found in the appendix.]

"This, sir," said he, "you are to turn in your mind, and make the best use of it you can in your speech."

1 Here was a blank, which may be filled up thus: "was told by an apparition;" the writer being probably uncertain whether he was asleep or awake, when his mind was impressed with the solemn presentiment with which the fact afterwards happened so wonderfully to correspond.-BosWELL. [My friend, Sir Henry Hardinge, secretary at war, is so kind as to inform me that it appears

that Colonel Sir Thomas Prendergast, of the twen

ty-second foot, was killed at Malplaquet, August

31, 1709, but no trace can be found of Colonel Cecil. There were one or two subalterns, of the name of Cecil, at that time in the army, but it does not appear that they rose to the rank of field-officers. Is it not very strange, if this story made so great a noise, we should read of it nowhere else; and, as so much curiosity was excited, that the paper should not have been preserved, or, at least, so generally shown as to be mentioned by some other witness? the paper would have been exceedingly curious; but the hearsay that there had been such a paper is nothing, and indeed, in point of evidence, worse than nothing; for if a paper had existed, thousands must have seen it, and Oglethorpe himself does not state that even he saw it. At the time of the battle of Malplaquet, Oglethorpe was only eleven years old. Pope's Inquiries were probably made when the story was recent. Is it likely that Oglethorpe at the age of eleven was present at Pope's interview with Colonel Cecil, and even if he were, what credit is to be given to the recollections, after the lapse of sixty-three years, of what a boy of eleven had heard? Colonel Cecil was probably the well known Jacobite of that name.-Ευ.]

Of our friend Goldsmith he said, "Sir, he is so much afraid of being unnoticed, that he often talks merely lest you should forget that he is in the company." BosWELL. "Yes, hestands forward." JOHNSON. "True, sir, but if a man is to stand forward, he should wish to do it not in an awkward posture, not in rags, not so as that he shall only be exposed to ridicule." BOSWELL. "For my part, I-like very well to hear honest Goldsmith talk away carelessly." JOHNSON. "Why yes, sir; but he should not like to hear himself."

On Tuesday, April 14, the decree of the court of session in the schoolmaster's cause was reversed in the house of lords, after a very eloquent speech by Lord Mansfield, who showed himself an adept in school dis cipline, but I thought was too rigorous towards my client. On the evening of the next day I supped with Dr. Johnson, at the Crown and Anchor tavern, in the Strand, in company with Mr. Langton and his brother-in-law, Lord Binning 2. I repeated a sentence of Lord Mansfield's speech, of which, by the aid of Mr. Longlands, the solicitor on the other side, who obligingly allowed me to compare his note with my own, I have a full copy. "My lords, severity is not the way to govern either boys or men." "Nay," said Johnson, "it is the way to govern them. I know not whether it be the way to mend them."

I talked of the recent 3 expulsion of six students from the University of Oxford, who were methodists, and would not desist from publickly praying and exhorting. JOHNSON. Sir, that expulsion was extremely just and proper. What have they to do at an university, who are not willing to be taught, but will presume to teach? Where is religion to be learnt, but at an university? Sir, they were examined, and found to be mighty ignorant fellows." BOSWELL. "But, was it not hard, sir, to expel them, for I am told they were good beings?" JOHNSON. "I believe they might be good beings; but they were not fit to be in the University of Oxford. A cow is a very good animal in the field; but we turn her out of a garden." Lord Elibank used to repeat this as an illustration uncommonly happy.

Desirous of calling Johnson forth to talk, and exercise his wit, though I should myself be the object of it, I resolutely ventured

2 [Charles, Lord Binning, afterwards eighth Earl of Haddington, was the son of Mary Holt, who, by a first marriage with Mr. Lloyd, was the mother of Lady Rothes, Mr. Langton's wife.ED.]

3 [Not very recent, if he alluded to six members of St. Edmond Hall, who were expelled in May, 1768. See Gent. Mag. vol. xxxviii. p. 225.-ED.]

gence in wine, though he was not to-night in the most genial humour. After urging the common plausible topicks, I at last had recourse to the maxim, in vino veritas, a man who is well warmed with wine will speak truth. JOHNSON. "Why, sir, that may be an argument for drinking, if you suppose men in general to be liars. But, sir, I would not keep company with a fellow, who lies as long as he is sober, and whom you must make drunk before you can get a word of truth out of him."

coats.

Mr. Langton told us, he was about to establish a school upon his estate, but it had been suggested to him, that it might have a tendency to make the people less industrious. JOHNSON. "No, sir. While learning to read and write is a distinction, the few who have that distinction may be the less inclined to work; but when every body learns to read and write, it is no longer a distinction. A man who has a laced waistcoat is too fine a man to work; but if every body had laced waistcoats, we should have people working in laced waistThere are no people whatever more industrious, none who work more, than our manufacturers; yet they have all learnt to read and write. Sir, you must not neglect doing a thing immediately good, from fear of remote evil, from fear of its being abused. A man who has candles may sit up too late, which he would not do if he had not candles; but nobody will deny that the art of making candles, by which light is continued to us beyond the time that the sun gives us light, is a valuable art, and ought to be preserved." BosWELL. "But, sir, would it not be better to follow nature; and go to bed and rise just as nature gives us light or withholds it?" JOHNSON, No, sir; for then we should have no kind of equality in the partition of our time between sleeping and waking. It would be very different in different seasons and in different places. In some of the northern parts of Scotland how little light is there in the depth of winter!" We talked of Tacitus, and I hazarded an opinion, that with all his merit for penetration, shrewdness of judgment, and terseness of expression, he was too compact, too much broken into hints, as it were, and therefore too difficult to be understood. To my great satisfaction, Dr. Johnson sanctioned

rather to have made notes for an historical work, than to have written a history 2."

At this time it appears from his " Prayers and Meditations," that he had been more than commonly diligent in religious duties, particularly in reading the holy scriptures. It was Passion Week, that solemn season which the Christian world has appropriated to the commemoration of the mysteries of our redemption, and during which, whatever embers of religion are in our breasts, will be kindled into pious warmth.

I paid him short visits both on Friday and Saturday, and seeing his large folio Greek Testament before him, beheld him with a reverential awe, and would not intrude upon his time. While he was thus employed to such good purpose, and while his friends in their intercourse with him constantly found a vigorous intellect and a lively imagination, it is melancholy to read in his private register :

"My mind is unsettled and my memory confused. I have of late turned my thoughts with a very useless earnestness upon past incidents. I have yet got no command over my thoughts; an unpleasing incident is almost certain to hinder my rest."

What philosophick heroism was it in him to appear with such manly fortitude to the world, while he was inwardly so distressed! We may surely believe that the mysterious principle of being "made perfect through suffering," was to be strongly exemplified in him.

On Sunday, 19th April, being Easterday, General Paoli and I paid him a visit before dinner. We talked of the notion, that blind persons can distinguish colours by the touch. Johnson said, that Professor Sanderson mentions his having attempted to do it, but that he found he was aiming at an impossibility; that to be sure a difference in the surface makes the difference of colours; but that difference is so fine, that it is not sensible to the touch. The General mentioned jugglers and fraudulent gamesters, who could know cards by the touch. Dr. Johnson said, "the cards used by such persons must be less polished than ours commonly are."

We talked of sounds. The general said, there was no beauty in a simple sound, but only in an harmonious composition of sounds. I presumed to differ from this opinion, and mentioned the soft and sweet

• It is remarkable that Lord Monboddo, whom on account of his resembling Dr. Johnson in some particulars, Foote called an Elzevir edition of him, has, by coincidence, made the very same remark. Origin and Progress of Language, vol. iii. 2d edit. p. 219,-BOSWELL.

"No, sir, if a serpent or a toad uttered it, you would think it ugly." BOSWELL. "So you would think, sir, were a beautiful tune to be uttered by one of those animals." JOHNSON. "No, sir, it would be admired. We have seen fine fiddlers whom we liked as little as toads." (laughing).

Talking on the subject of taste in the arts, he said, that difference of taste was, in truth, difference of skill. BOSWELL. "But, sir, is there not a quality called taste, which consists merely in perception or in liking? for instance, we find people differ much as to what is the best style tyle of English composition. Some think Swift's the best; others prefer a fuller and grander way of writing." JOHNSON. "Sir, you must first define what you mean by style, before you can judge who has a good taste in style, and who has a bad. The two classes of persons whom you have mentioned, don 't differ as to good and bad. They both agree that Swift has a good neat style; but one loves a neat style, another loves a style of more splendour. In like manner, one loves a plain coat, another loves a laced coat; but neither will deny that each is good in its kind."

[The following meditations, made about this period, are very interesting sketches of his feelings:

"April 26, 1772. I was some way hindered from continuing this contemplation in the usual manner, and therefore try, at the distance of a week, to review the last [Easter] Sunday.

"I went to church early, having first, I think, used my prayer. When I was there, I had very little perturbation of mind. During the usual time of meditation, I considered the Christian duties under the three principles of soberness, righteousness, and godliness; and purposed to forward godliness by the annual perusal of the Bible; righteousness by settling something for charity, and soberness by early hours. I commended as usual, with preface of permission, and, I think, mentioned Bathurst. I came home, and found Paoli and Boswell waiting for me. What devotions I used after my return home, I do not distinctly remember. I went to prayers in the evening; and, I think, entered late.

"On Good Friday, I paid Peyton with

out requiring work.

"It is a comfort to me, that at last, in my sixty-third year, I have attained to know, even thus hastily, confusedly, and imperfectly, what my Bible contains.

"Having missed church in the morning (April 26), I went this evening, and afterwards sat with Southwell."]

him one day at the Crown and Anchor tavern, in the Strand, with Lord Elibank, Mr. Langton, and Dr. Vansittart of Oxford.1 Without specifying each particular day, I have preserved the following memorable things.

I regretted the reflection in his preface to Shakspeare against Garrick, to whom we cannot but apply the following passage:"I collated such copies as I could procure, and wished for more, but have not found the collectors of these rarities very communicative." I told him, that Garrick had complained to me of it, and had vindicated himself by assuring me, that Johnson was made welcome to the full use of his collection, and that he left the key of it with a servant, with orders to have a fire and every convenience for him. I found Johnson's notion was, that Garrick wanted to be courted for them, and that, on the contrary, Garrick should have courted him, and sent him the plays of his own accord. But, indeed, considering the slovenly and careless manner in which books were treated by Johnson, it could not be expected that scarce and valuable editions should have been lent to him.

A gentleman having to some of the usual arguments for drinking added this:-"You know, sir, drinking drives away care, and makes us forget whatever is disagreeable. Would not you allow a man to drink for that reason?" JOHNSON. "Yes, sir, if he sat next you."

I expressed a liking for Mr. Francis Osborne's work works, and asked him what he thought of that writer. He answered, " A conceited fellow. Were a man to write so

1 [Dr. Robert Vansittart, LL.D., professor of civil law at Oxford, and recorder of Windsor. He was a senior fellow of All Souls, where, after he had given up the profession in London, he chiefly resided in a set of rooms, formerly the old library, which he had fitted up in the Gothic style, and where he died about 1794. He was remarkable for his good-humour and inoffensive wit, and a great favourite on the Oxford circuit. He was tall and very thin; and the bar gave the name of Counsellor Van to a sharp-pointed rock on the Wye, which still retains the name. was the elder brother to Mr. Henry Vansittart, governor of Bengal, father of the present Lord Bexley, to whom the editor is indebted for the above particulars relative to his uncle.-ED.]

He

* [Of the family of the Osbornes, of Chicksands, in Bedfordshire. The work by which he is now best known, his "Historical Memoirs of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth and King James," written in a very acrimonious spirit. He had attached himself to the Pembroke family; and, like Earl Philip (whom Walpole designates by the too gentle appellation of memorable Simpleton), joined the parliamentarians. He died in