his hind legs. It is not done well; but you | fee-house, before my setting out for foreign are surprised to find it done at all."

[This probably alludes to Mr. Burke's " Vindication of Natural Society," a work published in 1756, in a happy imitation of Lord Bolingbroke's style, and in an ironical adoption of his principles the whole was so well done that it at first passed as a genuine work of Lord Bolingbroke's, and subsequently as the serious and (as 3 [Such is the date, as Dr. Harwood originally in style and imagery it certainly is) splendid ex- read it, and it agrees with that of the publication position of the principles of one of his disciples. of the book, but is inconsistent with the mention Lord Chesterfield and Bishop Warburton are stated of Johnson by the title of Doctor, who had not to have been so deceived; and it would seem from even the Dublin degree till 1765. Dr. Harwood, the passage in the text, that Johnson and Boswell on re-examining the MS., observes that the last were in the same error. In 1765, Mr. Burke re-figure is almost illegible, and may have been a 3, printed this piece, with a preface, in which he throws off altogether the mask of irony. Mr. Boswell calls him a friend of Johnson's, for he himself had not yet met Mr. Burke.-ED.]

is in the title, the editor was in reality Dr. He talked of Mr. Blacklock's 1 poetry, so Johnson, the authour of the Rambler, who far as it was descriptive of visible objects: wrote the life of the authour, and added sev- and observed that "as its authour had the eral notes, besides those of Mr. Upton. Dr. misfortune to be blind, we may be absoluteJohnson gave it to Mr. Bennet, for his ad-ly sure that such passages are combinations vantage. I charge you no more than bookseller's price, 10s. 6d.; it will be advertised at 12s. If not agreeable will take it again. I am, reverend sir, your most obedient hum-losophically how Blacklock may have done, ble servant, THOMAS DAVIES."]

At supper this night he talked of good eat-lates at the honourable Alexander Goring with uncommon satisfaction. "Some don's) with a warmth of expression which people," said he, "have a foolish way of not might have done honour to more imporminding or pretending not to mind what they tant subjects. "As for Maclaurin's imitaeat. For my part, I mind my belly very stu- tion of a made dish, it was a wretched atdiously, and very carefully; for I look upon tempt 3." He about the same time was so it, that he who does not mind his belly, will much displeased with the performance of hardly mind any thing else." He now ap- a nobleman's French cook, that he expeared to me Jean Bull philosophe, and he claimed with vehemence, "I'd throw such was for the moment, not only serious, but a rascal into the river:" and he then provehement. Yet I have heard him, upon ceeded to alarm a lady at whose house he other occasions, talk with great contempt was to sup, by the following manifesto of of people who were anxious to gratify their his skill: "I madam, who live at a variety palates; and the 206th number of his Ram- of good tables, am a much better judge of bler is a masterly essay against gulosity. cookery than any person who has a very His practice, indeed, I must acknowledge, tolerable cook, but lives much at home; for may be considered as casting the balance of his palate is gradually adapted to the taste his different opinions upon this subject; for of his cook: whereas, madam, in trying by I never knew any man who relished good a wider range, I can more exquisitely eating more than he did. When at table, judge." When invited to dine, even with he was totally absorbed in the business of an intimate friend, he was not pleased if the moment; his looks seemed riveted to his something better than a plain dinner was plate; nor would he, unless when in very high not prepared for him. I have heard him company, say one word, or even pay the say on such an occasion," this was a good least attention to what was said by others, dinner enough, to be sure; but it was not till he had satisfied his appetite; which was a dinner to ask a man to." On the other so fierce, and indulged with such intense- hand, he was wont to express, with great ness, that while in the act of eating, the glee, his satisfaction when he had been enveins of his forehead swelled, and generally tertained quite to his mind. One day when a strong perspiration was visible. To those he had dined with his neighbour and landwhose sensations were delicate, this could lord, in Bolt-court, Mr. Allen, the printer, not but be disgusting 1; and it was doubt- whose old housekeeper had studied his taste less not very suitable to the character of a in every thing, he pronounced this eulogy: philosopher, who should be distinguished "Sir, we could not have had a better dinby self-command. But it must be owned, ner had there been a synod of cooks." that Johnson, though he could be rigidly abstemious, was not a temperate man either in eating or drinking. He could refram2, but he could not use moderately. He told me that he had fasted two days without inconvenience, and that he had never been hungry but once. They who beheld with wonder how much he eat upon all occasions, when his dinner was to his taste, could not easily conceive what he must have meant by hunger; and not only was he remarkable for the extraordinary quantity which he eat, but he was, or affected to be, a man of very nice discernment in the science of cookery. He used to descant critically on the dishes which had been at table where he had dined or supped, and to recollect very minutely what he had liked. I remember when he was in Scotland, his praising" Gordon's palate" (a dish of paLord Kames's History of Man, book iii. sec. 12. -ED.]

1 [See ante, p. 115. n.-ED.]

2 [If hypercritically examined, refrain is not, perhaps, the word which exactly gives Mr. Boswell's meaning. The late Mr. Richard Warton, Secretary of the Treasury, and authour of the poem of Roncesvalles, used to express the idea with more verbal accuracy, by saying that he could abstain, but found it hard to refrain.-ED.]

Piozzi, p. 78, 79.

[Johnson's notions about eating, however, were nothing less than delicate; a leg of pork boiled till it dropped from the bone, a veal pie with plums and sugar, or the outside cut of a salt buttock of beef, were his favourite dainties: with regard to drink, his liking was for the strongest, as it was not the flavour, but the effect he sought for, and professed to desire; and when Mrs. Piozzi first knew him, he used to pour capillaire into his port wine. For the last twelve years, however, he left off all fermented liquors. To make himself some amends indeed, he took his chocolate liberally, pouring in large quantities of cream, or even melted butter; and was so fond of fruit, that though he would eat seven or eight large peaches of a morning before breakfast began, and treated them with proportionate attention after dinner again, yet he has been heard

3 [On returning to Edinburgh, after the tour to the Hebrides, he dined one day at Mr. Maclaurin's, and supped at the Honourable Alexander Gordon's: the former was son of the celebrated mathematician, and, in 1787, became a Lord of Session, by the title of Lord Dreghorn; the latter was third son of the second Earl of Aberdeen, and, in 1788, he also was made a Lord of Session, and took the title of Lord Rockville.-ED.]

p. 89, 90.

to protest, that he never had quite as much | for little matters 1. It would not be terrias he wished of wall-fruit, except once in ble, though I were to be detained some his life, and that was when he and the time here." The practice of using words Thrales were all together at Ombersley, of disproportionate magnitude, is, no doubt, the seat of Lord Sandys; and yet when his too frequent every where; but, I think, Irish friend Grierson, hearing him most remarkable among the French, of Piozzi, enumerate the qualities necessary which, all who have travelled in France must to the formation of a poet, began have been struck with innumerable instana comical parody upon his ornamented har- ces. We went and looked at the church, angue in praise of a cook, concluding with and having gone into it, and walked up to this observation, that he who dressed a the altar, Johnson, whose piety was congood dinner was a more excellent and more stant and fervent, sent me to my knees, sayuseful member of society than he who wrote ing, "Now that you are going to leave a good poem. "And in this opinion," said your native country, recommend yourself Dr. Johnson, in reply, "all the dogs in the to the protection of your CREATOR and REtown will join you."

Piozzi, P. 115.

Mrs. Piozzi also relates that he used often to say in her hearing, perhaps for her edification, "that wherever the dinner is ill got up there is poverty, or there is avarice, or there is stupidity; in short, the family is somehow grossly wrong: for," continued he, " a man seldom thinks with more earnestness of any thing than he does of his dinner: and if he cannot get that well dressed, he should be suspected of inaccuracy in other things." One day, when he was speaking upon the subject, Mrs. Piozzi asked him, if he ever huffed his wife about his dinner? "So often," replied he, "that at last she called to me, when about to say grace, and said, 'Nay, hold, Mr. Johnson, and do not make a farce of thanking God for a dinner which in a few minutes you will pronounce not eatable.""] While we were left by ourselves, after the Dutchman had gone to bed, Dr. Johnson talked of that studied behaviour which many have recommended and practised. He disapproved of it; and said, "I never considered whether I should be a grave man, or a merry man, but just let inclination, for the time, have its course."

He flattered me with some hopes that he would, in the course of the following summer, come over to Holland, and accompany me in a tour through the Netherlands.

I teased him with fanciful apprehensions of unhappiness. A moth having fluttered round the candle, and burnt itself, he laid hold of this little incident to admonish me; saying, with a sly look, and in a solemn but a quiet tone," That creature was its own tormentor, and I believe its name was BosWELL."

DEEMER.'

After we came out of the church, we stood talking for some time together of Bishop Berkeley's ingenious sophistry to prove the non-existence of matter, and that every thing in the universe is merely ideal. I observed, that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I never shall forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it, "I refute it thus"." This was a stout exemplification of the first truths of Père Bouffier, or the original principles of Reid and of Beattie; without admitting which, we can no more argue in metaphysicks, than we can argue in mathematicks without axioms. To me it is not conceivable how Berkeley can be answered by pure reasoning; but I know that the nice and difficult task was to have been undertaken by one 3 of the most luminous minds of the present age, had not politicks "turned him from calm philosophy

[This advice comes drolly from the writer, who makes a young lady talk of "the cosmetic discipline," "a regular lustration with beanflower water, and the use of a pommade to discuss pimples and clear discoloration."-Ramb. No. 130: while a young gentleman tells us of "the flaccid sides of a football having swelled out into stiffness and extension."-No. 117. And it is equally amusing to find Mr. Boswell, after his various defences of Johnson's grandiloquence, attacking the little inflations of French conversation; straining at a gnat, after having swallowed a camel.—ED.]

2 Dr. Johnson seems to have been imperfectly acquainted with Berkeley's doctrine as his exNext day we got to Harwich, to dinner; of solidity, which Berkeley did not deny. Headperiment only proves that we have the sensation and my passage in the packet-boat to Hel-mitted that we had sensations or ideas that are voetsluys being secured, and my baggage usually called sensible qualities, one of which is put on board, we dined at our inn by our-solidity: he only denied the existence of matter, selves. I happened to say, it would be ter- i. e. an inert senseless substance, in which they rible if he should not find a speedy opportu- are supposed to subsist. Johnson's exemplification nity of returning to London, and be con- concurs with the vulgar notion, that solidity is fined in so dull a place. JOHNSON. "Don't, matter.-KEARNEY. sir, accustom yourself to use big words

3 [Mr. Burke.-ED.]

My revered friend walked down with me to the beach, where we embraced and parted with tenderness, and engaged to correspond by letters. I said, "I hope sir, you will not forget me in my absence." JOHNSON. "Nay, sir, it is more likely you should forget me, than that I should forget you." As the vessel put out to sea, I kept my eyes upon him for a considerable time, while he remained rolling his majestick frame in his usual manner; and at last I perceived him walk back into the town, and he disappeared.

Utrecht seeming at first very dull to me, after the animated scenes of London, my spirits were grievously affected; and I wrote to Johnson a plaintive and desponding letter, to which he paid no regard. Afterwards, when I had acquired a firmer tone of mind, I wrote him a second letter, expressing much anxiety to hear from him. At length I received the following epistle, which was of important service to me, and, I trust, will be so to many others.

"DEAR SIR,-You are not to think yourself forgotten, or criminally neglected, that you have had yet no letter from me. I love to see my friends, to hear from them, to talk to them, and to talk of them; but it is not without a considerable effort of resolution that I prevail upon myself to write. I would not, however, gratify my own indolence by the omission of any important duty, or any office of real kindness.

|

not doubt but I shall at least wish to prefer the pleasure of gratifying a friend much less esteemed than yourself, before the gloomy calm of idle vacancy. Whether I shall easily arrive at an exact punctuality of correspondence, I cannot tell. I shall, at present, expect that you will receive this in return for two which I have had from you. The first, indeed, gave me an account so hopeless of the state of your mind, that it hardly admitted or deserved an answer; by the second I was much better pleased; and the pleasure will still be increased by such a narrative of the progress of your studies, as may evince the continuance of an equal and rational application of your mind to some useful inquiry.

"You will, perhaps, wish to ask, what study I would recommend. I shall not speak of theology, because it ought not to be considered as a question whether you shall endeavour to know the will of God.

"I shall, therefore, consider only such studies as we are at liberty to pursue or to neglect; and of these I know not how you will make a better choice, than by studying the civil law, as your father advises, and the ancient languages, as you had determined for yourself; at least resolve, while you remain in any settled residence, to spend a certain number of hours every day amongst your books. The dissipation of thought of which you complain is nothing more than the vacillation of a mind suspended between different motives, and changing its direction as any motive gains or loses strength. If you can but kindle in your mind any strong desire, if you can but keep predominant any wish for some particular excellence or attainment, the gusts of imagination will break away, without any effect upon your conduct, and commonly without any traces left upon the memory.

"There lurks, perhaps, in every human heart a desire of distinction, which inclines every man first to hope, and then to believe, that nature has given him something pecu"To tell you that I am or am not well, liar to himself. This vanity makes one that I have or have not been in the coun-mind nurse aversions, and another actuate try, that I drank your health in the room in which we last sat together, and that your acquaintance continue to speak of you with their former kindness, topicks with which those letters are commonly filled which are written only for the sake of writing, I seldom shall think worth communicating; but if I can have it in my power to calm any harassing disquiet, to excite any virtuous desire, to rectify any important opinion, or fortify any generous resolution, you need

desires, till they rise by art much above their original state of power: and as affectation, in time, improves to habit, they at last tyrannise over him, who at first encouraged them only for show. Every desire is a viper in the bosom, who, while he was chill, was harmless; but when warmth gave him strength, exerted it in poison. You know a gentleman 2, who, when first he

2

[This perhaps was meant for Mr. Langton, whose indolence and aversion from business Johnson often endeavored to correct; but Mr. Langton was very studious, and had attained a deep knowledge of Greek. The early dissipation seems to suit the character of Beauclerk, but his return to