(laughing.) Yet I remember Richardson wondering that I could treat him with familiarity."

I mentioned to aim that I had seen the execution of several convicts at Tyburn,' two days before, and that none of them seemed to be under any concern. JOHNSON. "Most of them, Sir, have never thought at all." BOSWELL. "But is not the fear of death natural to man?" JOHNSON. So much so, Sir, that the whole of life is but keeping away the thoughts of it." He then, in a low and earnest tone, talked of his meditating upon the awful hour of his own dissolution, and in what manner he should conduct himself upon that occasion: "I know not," said he, "whether I should wish to have a friend by me, or have it all between GoD and myself."

Talking of our feeling for the distresses of others: JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, there is much noise made about it, but it is greatly exaggerated. No, Sir, we have a certain degree of feeling to prompt us to do good; more than that Providence does not intend. It would be misery to no purpose." BOSWELL. 'But, suppose now, Sir, that one of your intimate friends were apprehended for an offence for which he might be hanged?" JOHNSON. "I should do what I could to bail him, and give him any other assistance; but if he were once fairly hanged, I should not suffer." BOSWELL. "Would you eat your dinner that day, Sir?" JOHNSON. "Yes, Sir; and eat it as if he were eating with me. Why, there's Baretti, who is to be tried for his life to-morrow, friends have risen up for him on every side; yet if he should be hanged, none of them will eat a slice of plum-pudding the less. Sir, that sympathetic feeling goes a very little way in depressing the mind."

I told him that I had dined lately at Foote's, who shewed me a letter which he had received from Tom Davies, telling him that he had not been able to sleep from the concern he felt on account of "this sad affair of Baretti," begging of him to try if he could suggest anything that might be of service; and, at the same time, recommending to him an industrious young man who kept a pickleshop. JOHNSON. "Ay, Sir, here you have a specimen of human

Six unhappy men were executed at Tyburn, on Wednesday, the 18th (one day before). It was one of the irregularities of Mr. Boswell's mind to be passionately fond of seeing these melancholy spectacles.-C.

ETAT. 60.

SYMPATHY WITH DISTRESS.

25

sympathy; a friend hanged, and a cucumber pickled. We know not whether Baretti or the pickle-man has kept Davies from sleep; nor does he know himself.' And as to his not sleeping, Sir; Tom Davies is a very great man; Tom has been upon the stage, and knows how to do those things: I have not been upon the stage, and cannot do those things." BOSWELL. "I have often blamed myself, Sir, for not feeling for others as sensibly as many say they do." JOHNSON. "Sir, don't be duped by them any more. You will find these very feeling people are not very ready to do you good. They pay you by feeling."

JOHNSON.

BOSWELL. "Foote has a great deal of humour." "Yes, Sir." BOSWELL. "He has a singular talent of exhibiting character." JOHNSON. "Sir, it is not a talent; it is a vice; it is what others abstain from. It is not comedy, which exhibits the character of a species, as that of a miser gathered from many misers: it is farce which exhibits individuals." BOSWELL. "Did not he think of exhibiting you, Sir ?" JOHNSON. "Sir, fear restrained him; he knew I would have broken his bones. I would have saved him the trouble of cutting off a leg; I would not have left him a leg to cut off." BOSWELL. "Pray, Sir, is not Foote an infidel ?" JOHNSON. "I do not know, Sir, that the fellow is an infidel; but if he be an infidel, he is an infidel as a dog is an infidel; that is to say, he has never thought upon the subject." BOSWELL. "I suppose, Sir, he has thought superficially, and seized the first notions which occurred to his mind." JOHNSON. "Why then, Sir, still he is like a dog, that snatches the piece next him. Did you never observe that

2

1 It would seem that Davies's anxiety was more sincere than Johnson would represent. He says, in a letter to Granger, "I have been so taken up with a very unlucky accident that befell an intimate friend of mine, that for this last fortnight I have been able to attend to no business, though ever so urgent." Granger's Letters, p. 28.-C.

2 When Mr. Foote was at Edinburgh, he thought fit to entertain a numerous Scotch company, with a great deal of coarse jocularity, at the expense of Dr. Johnson, imagining it would be acceptable. I felt this as not civil to me; but sat very patiently till he had exhausted his merriment on that subject; and then observed, that surely Johnson must be allowed to have some sterling wit, and that I had heard him say a very good thing of Mr. Foote himself. "Ah! my old friend Sam," cried Foote, "no man says better things: do let us have it." Upon which I told the above story, which produced a very loud laugh from the com pany. But I never saw Foote so disconcerted. He looked grave and angry, and entered into a serious refutation of the justice of the remark. "What, Sir," said he, "talk thus of a man of liberal education;-a man who for years was at the University of Oxford;-a man who has added sixteen new characters to the English drama of his country!"

dogs have not the power of comparing? A dog will take a small bit of meat as readily as a large, when both are before him."

66

'Buchanan," he observed, "has fewer centos than any modern Latin poet. He has not only had great knowledge of the Latin language, but was a great poetical genius. Both the Scaligers praise him."

He again talked of the passage in Congreve with high commendation, and said, "Shakspeare never has six lines together without a fault. Perhaps you may find seven; but this does not refute my general assertion. If I come to an orchard, and say there's no fruit here, and then comes a poring man, who finds two apples and three pears, and tells me, 'Sir, you are mistaken, I have found both apples and pears,' I should laugh at him: what would that be to the purpose ?"

BOSWELL. "What do you think of Dr. Young's 'Night Thoughts,' Sir?" JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, there are very fine things in them." BoSWELL. "Is there not less religion in the nation now, Sir, than there was formerly?" JOHNSON. "I don't know, Sir, that there is." BOSWELL. "For instance, there used to be a chaplain in every great family, which we do not find now." JOHNSON. "Neither do you find any of the state servants which great families used formerly to have. There is a change of modes in the whole department of life."

Next day, October 20, he appeared, for the only time I suppose in his life, as a witness in a court of justice, being called to give evidence to the character of Mr. Baretti, who, having stabbed a man in the street, was arraigned at the Old Bailey for murder. Never did such a constellation of genius enlighten the awful Sessionshouse, emphatically called Justice-hall; Mr. Burke, Mr. Garrick, Mr. Beauclerk, and Dr. Johnson: and undoubtedly their favourable testimony had due weight with the court and jury. Johnson gave his evidence in a slow, deliberate, and distinct manner, which was

:

On the 3d of October, as Baretti was going hastily up the Haymarket, he was accosted by a woman, who behaving with great indecency, he was provoked to give her a blow on the hand upon which, three men immediately interfering, and endeavouring to push him from the pavement, with a view to throw him into a puddle, he was alarmed for his safety and rashly struck one of them with a knife (which he constantly wore for the purpose of cary ing fruit and sweetmeats), and gave him a wennd, of which he died the next day.-Europ Mag. vol. xvi p. 91.

E1AT. 60.

SYMPATHY WITH DISTRESS.

27

uncommonly impressive.' It is well known that Mr. Baretti was acquitted.'

The following is the substance of Dr. Johnson's evidence:-" Dr. J. I believe I began to be acquainted with Mr. Baretti about the year 1758 or 54. I have been intimate with him. He is a man of literature, a very studious man, a man of great diligence. He gets his living by study. I have no reason to think he was ever disordered with liquor in his life. A man that I never knew to be otherwise than peaceable, and a man that I take to be rather timorous.-Q. Was he addicted to pick up women in the streets?-Dr. J. I never knew that he was. Q. How is he as to eyesight?-Dr. J. He does not see me now, nor do I see him. I do not believe he could be capable of assaulting anybody in the street, without great provoca'ion."-Gent. Mag.

2 On the subject of sympathy with the distress of others, discussed in the foregoing conver sation, Mrs. Piozzi says-While Dr. Johnson possessed the strongest compassion for poverty or illness, he did not even pretend to feel for those who lamented the loss of a child, a parent, or a friend. "These are the distresses of sentiment," he would reply, "which a man who is really to be pitied has no leisure to feel. The sight of people who want food and raiment is so common in great cities, that a surly fellow like me has no compassion to spare for wounds given only to vanity or softness." Canter, indeed, was he none: he would forget to ask people after the health of their nearest relations, and say, in excuse, "That he knew they did not care: why should they?" said he, "every one in this world has as much as they can do in caring for themselves, and few have leisure really to think of their neighbours' distresses, however they may delight their tongues with talking of them." We talked of Lady Tavistock, who grieved herself to death for the loss of her husband. "She was rich and wanted employ. ment," says Johnson, "so she cried till she lost all power of constraining her tears: other women are forced to outlive their husbands, who were just as much beloved, depend on it; but they have no time for grief: and I doubt not, if we had put my Lady Tavistock into a small chandler's shop, and given her a nurse-child to tend, her life would have been saved. The poor and the busy have no leisure for sentimental sorrow." I mentioned an event, which, if it had happened, would greatly have injured Mr. Thrale and his family-" and then, dear sir," said I, "how sorry you would have been!"-"I hope," replied he, after a long pause, "I should have been very sorry; but remember Rochefoucault's maxim."* An acquaintance lost the almost certain hope of a good estate that had been long expected. "Such a one will grieve," said I, " at her friend's disappointment."-" She will suffer as much, perhaps," said he, “as your horse did when your cow miscarried " I professed myself sincerely grieved when accumulated distresses had crushed Sir George Colebrook's family; and I was so. "Your own prosperity," said he, "may possibly have so far increased the natural tenderness of your heart, that for aught I know you may be a little sorry; but it is sufficient for a plain man if he does not laugh when he sees a fine new house tumble down aЛ on a sudden, and a snug cottage stand by ready to receive the owner, whose birth entitled him to nothing better, and whose limbs are left him to go to work again with." Nothing, indeed, more surely disgusted Dr. Johnson than hyperbole : he loved not to be told of sallies of excellence, which he said were seldom valuable, and seldom true. "Heroic virtues," said he, “aro the bon-mots of life; they do not appear often, and when they do appear are too much prized, I think; like the aloe-tree, which shoots and flowers once in a hundred years. But life is made up of little things; and that character is the best, which does little but repeated acts of beneficence: as that conversation is the best which consists in elegant and pleasing thoughts expressed in natural and pleasing terms. With regard to my own notions of moral sirtue," continued he, "I hope I have not lost my sensibility of wrong; but I hope likewise that I have lived long enough in the world, to prevent me from expecting to find any action of which both the original motive and all the parts were good."

Viz.: "In the misfortunes of our best friends there is always something to please us.'

Dr. Johnson had been a great reader of Mandeville, and was ever on the watch to spy out those stains of original corruption, so easily discovered by a penetrating observer even in the purest minds. The natural depravity of mankind and the remains of original sin were so fixed in his opinion, that he was a most acute observer of their effects; and used to say sometimes, half in jest, half in earnest, that his observations were the remains of his old tutor Mandeville's instructions. No man, therefore, who smarted from the ingratitude of his friends, found any sympathy from our philosopher: "Let him do good on higher motives next time," would be the answer; "he will then be sure of his reward." As a book, however, he took care always loudly to condemn the Fable of the Bees, but not without adding, “ that it was the work of a thinking man."