a line of the old ballad, "Johnny Armstrong's Last Good Night."

"And ran him through the fair body (1)!"

We returned to my house, where there met him, at dinner, the Duchess of Douglas (2), Sir Adolphus Oughton, Lord Chief Baron [Orde], Sir William Forbes, Principal Robertson, Mr. Cullen, advocate. Before dinner, he told us of a curious conversation between the famous George Faulkner and him. George said, that England had drained Ireland of fifty thousand pounds in specie, annually, for fifty years. "How so, Sir?" said Dr. Johnson: "you must have very great trade ?"—"No trade."—" Very rich mines? "No mines." "From whence, then, does all this money come?" "Come! why out of the blood and bowels of the poor people of Ireland !"

He seemed to me to have an unaccountable prejudice against Swift (3); for I once took the liberty

(1) The stanza from which he took this line is—

"But then rose up all Edinburgh,

They rose up by thousands three;
A cowardly Scot came John behind,

And ran him through the fair body!"

(2) Margaret, daughter of James Douglas, Esq. of the Mains. "An old lady," writes Dr. Johnson, "who talks broad Scotch with a paralytic voice, and is scarce understood by her own countrymen."-Letters, vol. i. 209.-C.

(3) What could Johnson mean by calling Swift" shallow?” If he be shallow, who, in his department of literature, is profound? Without admitting that Swift was "inferior in coarse humour to Arbuthnot" (of whose precise share in the works to which he is supposed to have contributed, we know little or nothing), it may be observed, that he who is second to the greatest masters of different styles may be said to be the first on the whole. See as to the Tale of a Tub, antè, Vol. II. p. 239.-C.

to ask him, if Swift had personally offended him,

He said to-day, "Swift In coarse humour he is

and he told me, he had not. is clear, but he is shallow. inferior to Arbuthnot; in delicate humour he is inferior to Addison. So he is inferior to his contemporaries, without putting him against the whole world. I doubt if the Tale of a Tub' was his; 6 has so much more thinking, more knowledge, more power, more colour, than any of the works which are indisputably his. If it was his, I shall only say, he was impar sibi.”

it

We gave him as good & dinner as we could. Our Scotch muir-fowl, or grouse, were then abundant, and quite in season; and, so far as wisdom and wit can be aided by administering agreeable sensations to the palate, my wife took care that our great guest should not be deficient.

Sir Adolphus Oughton, then our deputy commander in chief, who was not only an excellent officer, but one of the most universal scholars (1) I ever knew, had learned the Erse language, and expressed his belief in the authenticity of Ossian's Poetry. Dr. Johnson took the opposite side of that perplexed question, and I was afraid the dispute would have run high between them. But Sir Adolphus, who had a very sweet temper, changed the discourse, grew playful, laughed at Lord Monboddo's notion of men having tails, and called him a judge à posteriori, which amused Dr. Johnson, and thus hostilities were prevented.

(1) Lord Stowell remembers with pleasure the elegance and extent of Sir Adolphus Oughton's literature, and the suavity of his manners.-C.

At supper we had Dr. Cullen, his son the advocate, Dr. Adam Fergusson, and Mr. Crosbie, advo cate. (1) Witchcraft was introduced. Mr. Crosbie said he thought it the greatest blasphemy to suppose evil spirits counteracting the Deity, and raisingi storms, for instance, to destroy his creatures. JOHN

SON.

"Why, Sir, if moral evil be consistent with the government of the Deity, why may not physical evil be also consistent with it? It is not more strange that there should be evil spirits than evil, men: evil unembodied spirits, than evil embodied! spirits. And as to storms, we know there are such things; and it is no worse that evil spirits raise. them than that they rise." CROSBIE. "But it is.

ot credible that witches should have effected what they are said in stories to have done." JOHNSON. "Sir, I am not defending their credibility. I am only saying that your arguments are not good, and will not overturn the belief of witchcraft. — (Dr.. Fergusson said to me aside, He is right:') - And then, Sir, you have all mankind, rude and civilised, agreeing in the belief of the agency of preternatural powers. You must take evidence; you must consider that wise and great men have condemned witches to die." CROSbie. "But an act of parliament put an end to witchcraft." JOHNSON. “No, Sir, witchcraft had ceased; and, therefore, an act of parliament was passed to prevent persecution for what was not witchcraft. Why it ceased we cannot

(1) Lord Stowell recollects that Johnson was treated by the Scottish literati with a degree of deference bordering on pusillanimity; but he excepts from that observation Mr. Crosbie, whom he characterises as an intrepid talker, and the only man who was disposed to stand up (as the phrase is) to Johnson.-C.

tell, as we cannot tell the reason of many other things." Dr. Cullen, to keep up the gratification of mysterious disquisition, with the grave address for which he is remarkable in his companionable as in his professional hours, talked, in a very entertaining manner, of people walking and conversing in their sleep. I am very sorry I have no note of this. (1) We talked of the ouran-outang, and of Lord Monboddo's thinking that he might be taught to speak. Dr. Johnson treated this with ridicule. Mr. Crosbie said that Lord Monboddo believed the existence of every thing possible; in short, that all which is in posse might be found in esse. JOHNSON. “But, Sir, it is as possible that the ouran-outang does not speak, as that he speaks. However, I shall not contest the point. I should have thought it not possible to find a Monboddo; yet he exists." I again mentioned the stage. JOHNSON. "The ap

pearance of a player, with whom I have drunk tea, counteracts the imagination that he is the character he represents. Nay, you know, nobody imagines that he is the character he represents. They say, 'See Garrick how he looks to-night! See how he'll clutch the dagger!' That is the buzz of the theatre.” Tuesday, Aug. 17.- Sir William Forbes came to breakfast, and brought with him Dr. Blacklock, whom he introduced to Dr. Johnson, who received him with a most humane complacency; "Dear Dr. Blacklock, I am glad to see you!" Blacklock

(1) See in the Life of Blacklock, in Anderson's Brit. Poets, an anecdote of Dr. Blacklock's somnambulism, which may very probably have been one of the topics on this occasion.-C.

seemed to be much surprised when Dr. Johnson said, "it was easier to him to write poetry than to compose his Dictionary. His mind was less on the stretch in doing the one than the other. (1) Besides, composing a dictionary requires books and a desk: you can make a poem walking in the fields, or lying in bed." Dr. Blacklock spoke of scepticism in morals and religion with apparent uneasiness, as if he wished for more certainty. (2) Dr. Johnson, who had thought it all over, and whose vigorous understanding was fortified by much experience, thus encouraged the blind bard to apply to higher speculations what we all willingly submit to in common life in short, he gave him more familiarly the able and fair reasoning of Butler's Analogy: "Why, Sir, the greatest concern we have in this world, the choice of our profession, must be determined without demonstrative reasoning. Human life is not yet so well known, as that we can have it: and take the case of a man who is ill. sicians; they differ in opinion. I am not to lie down, and die between them: I must do something.” The conversation then turned on atheism; on that horrible book, Systême de la Nature; and on the supposition of an eternal necessity without design, without a governing mind. JOHNSON. "If it were so, why has it ceased? Why don't we see men thus produced around us now? Why, at least,

I call two phy

(1) There is hardly any operation of the intellect which requires nicer and deeper consideration than definition. A thousand men may write verses, for one who has the power of defining and discriminating the exact meaning of words and the principles of grammatical arrangement.-C.

(2) See his Letter on this subject in the Appendix, No. I.