PART XVIII.

ANECDOTES OF DR. JOHNSON,

BY THE RT. HON. W. WINDHAM.(1)

[To the kindness of Thomas Amyot, Esq.:F.R.S., the Editor is indebted for the following Memoranda, extracted from Mr. Windham's Diary for 1784, of the Conversations he had with Dr. Johnson during his visit at Ashbourne; where he arrived on the 30th of August, "leaving it,” as he states, "with regret, at half-past one on the 1st of September."]

434. Homer.

"THE Source of every thing, either in or out of nature, that can serve the purpose of poetry, is to be found in Homer; every species of distress, every modification of heroic character, battles, storms, ghosts, incantations, &c."

435. Odyssey.

"Dr. Johnson said, he had never read through the Odyssey completely in the original."

436. Johnson's first Declamation.

"Anecdote of his first declamation at College, that having neglected to write it till the morning of his being to repeat it, and having only one copy, he got part of it by heart, while he was walking into the Hall,

(1) [In a letter to Dr. Brocklesby, dated September 2., John"Windham has been here to see me: he came, I son says think, forty miles out of his way, and stayed about a day and a half; perhaps I make the time shorter than it was. Such conversation I shall not have again till I come back to the regions of literature; and there Windham isinter stellas Luna minores."]

and the rest he repeated as well as he could extempore." (1)

437. The Ramei.

"Anecdote of his tutor, who told them that the Ramei, the followers of Ramus, were so called from Ramus, a bow."

438. Johnson's Idleness.

Description of himself as very idle and neglectful of his studies."

439. Latin.

"His opinion, that I could not name above five of my college acquaintance who read Latin with ease sufficient to make it pleasurable. The difficulties of the language overpower the desire of reading the author. "That he read Latin with as much ease when he went to college as at present."

440. Ovid's Fasti.- Wotton. Wood. "Recommended the reading the Fasti of Ovid, – also Wotton, and Wood on Homer."

441. Death of Hercules.

"Commended Ovid's description of the death of Hercules - doubted whether Virgil would not have loaded the description with too many fine words."

442. Styles.

Opinion that there were three ways in which writing might be unnatural; -- by being bombastic and above nature-affected and beside it, fringing events with ornaments which nature did not afford or weak and below nature. That neither of the first would please long. That the third might indeed please a good while, or at least please many; because imbecility,

and consequently a love of imbecility, might be found in many.

443. A Good Work.

"Baretti had told him of some Italian author, who said that a good work must be that with which the vulgar were pleased, and of which the learned could tell why it pleased - that it must be able to employ the learned, and detain the idle. Chevy Chase pleased the vulgar, but did not satisfy the learned; it did not fill a mind capable of thinking strongly. The merit of Shakspeare was such as the ignorant could take in, and the learned add nothing to."

444. "Stat magni nominis," &c.

"Stat magni nominis umbra he would construe as, umbra quæ est magni nominis, h. e. celebrata."

445. Rowe's Lucan.

56 Opinion of Rowe's translation of Lucan, that it would have been improved, if Rowe had had a couple of years to render it less paraphrastical."

446. Virgil.

"Vast change of the Latin language from the time

of Virgil to Lucretius;

other, even the French.

Fasti, also of Mezentius.

greater than known in any The story of Dido is in Ovid's

Virgil's invention there

fore is less than supposed. Take from his what is in Homer, what do you leave him ?'”

447. Latin.

"The pretensions of the English to the reputation of writing Latin is founded not so much on the specimens in that way which they have produced, as on the quantity of talent diffused through the country.”

448. Erasmus.

"Erasmus appears to be totally ignorant of science and natural knowledge. But one Italian writer is mentioned in Erasmus; whence Johnson conjectured that he did not understand Italian."

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449. Turnpike Roads.

Opinion about the effect of turnpike roads. Every place communicating with each other. Before, there were cheap places and dear places. Now all refuges are destroyed for elegant or genteel poverty. Want of such a last hope to support men in their struggle through life, however seldom it might be resorted to. Disunion of families by furnishing a market to each man's abilities, and destroying the dependence of one man on another."

[The following interesting Account of Mr. Windham's Conversations with Dr. Johnson, a few Days before his Death, is extracted from the same Journal.]

450. Johnson's last Illness and Death.

Tuesday, December 7. 1784.-Ten minutes past 2, P. M.- After waiting some short time in the adjoining room, I was admitted to Dr. Johnson in his bedchamber, where, after placing me next him in the chair (he sitting in his usual place, on the east side of the room, and I on his right hand), he put into my hands two small volumes (an edition of the New Testament, as he afterwards told me), saying, "Extremum hoc

munus morientis habeto."

He then proceeded to observe that I was entering upon a life which would lead me deeply into all the business of the world: that he did not condemn civil employment, but that it was a state of great danger, and that he had therefore one piece of advice earnestly

to impress upon me, that I would set apart every seventh day for the care of my soul. That one day, the seventh, should be employed in repenting what was amiss in the six preceding, and fortifying my virtue for the six to come. That such a portion of time was surely little enough for the meditation of eternity.

He then told me that he had a request to make to me; namely, that I would allow his servant Frank to look up to me as his friend, adviser, and protector, in all difficulties which his own weakness and imprudence, or the force or fraud of others, might bring him into. He said that he had left him what he considered an ample provision, viz. seventy pounds per annum; but that even that sum might not place him above the want of a protector, and to me, therefore, he recommended him as to one who had will, and power, and activity to protect him. Having obtained my assent to this, he proposed that Frank should be called in; and desiring me to take him by the hand in token of the promise, repeated before him the recommendation he had just made of him, and the promise I had given to attend to it.

I then took occasion to say how much I felt - what I had long foreseen that I should feel -regret at having spent so little of my life in his company. I stated this as an instance where resolutions are deferred till the occasions are past. For some time past I had determined that such an occasion of self-reproach should not subsist, and had built upon the hope of passing in his society the chief part of my time, at the moment when it was to be apprehended we were about to lose him for

ever.

I had no difficulty in speaking to him thus of my apprehensions. I could not help, on the other hand, entertaining hopes, but with these I did not like to trouble him, lest he should conceive that I thought it necessary to flatter him: he answered hastily, that he