words negligently, or in poetry, one word comes to be confounded with another."

came to

He talked of Dr. Dodd. "A friend of mine," said he, me, and told me, that a lady wished to have Dr. Dodd's picture in a bracelet, and asked me for a motto. I said, I could think of no better than Currat Lex. I was very willing to have him pardoned; that is, to have the sentence changed to transportation; but, when he was once hanged, I did not wish he should be made a saint."

Mrs. Burney, wife of his friend Dr. Burney, came in, and he seemed to be entertained with her conversation.

Garrick's funeral was talked of as extravagantly expensive. Johnson, from his dislike to exaggeration, would not allow that it was distinguished by any extraordinary pomp. "Were there not six horses to each coach?" said Mrs. Burney. JOHNSON: "Madam, there were no more six horses than six phoenixes."

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Mrs. Burney wondered that some very beautiful new buildings should be erected in Moorfields, in so shocking a situation as between Bedlam and St. Luke's Hospital; and said she could not live there. JOHNSON: "Nay, Madam, you see nothing there to hurt you. You no more think of madness by having windows that look to Bedlam, than you think of death by having windows that look to a churchyard." MRS. BURNEY: "We may look to a churchyard, Sir; for it is right that we should be kept in mind of death.' JOHNSON: 'Nay, Madam, if you go to that, it is right that we should be kept in mind of madness, which is occasioned by too much indulgence of imagination. I think a very moral use may be made of these new buildings; I would have those who have heated imaginations live there, and take warning." MRS. BURNEY: " But, Sir, many of the poor people that are mad, have become so from disease, or from distressing events. It is, therefore, not their fault, but their misfortune; and therefore to think of them is a melancholy consideration.

Time passed on in conversation till it was too late for the service of the church at three o'clock. I took a walk, and left him alone for some time; then returned, and we had coffee and conversation again by ourselves.

I stated the character of a noble friend of mine, as a curious case for his opinion:-"He is the most inexplicable man to me that I ever knew. Can you explain him, Sir? He is, I really believe, nobleminded, generous, and princely. But his most intimate friends may be separated from him for years, without his ever asking a question concerning them. He will meet them with a formality, a coldness, a stately indifference; but when they come close to him, and fairly engage him in conversation, they find him as easy, pleasant, and kind as they could wish. One then supposes that what is so agreeable will soon be renewed; but stay away from him for half a year, and he will

neither call on you, nor send to inquire about you." JOHNSON: “Why, Sir, I cannot ascertain his character exactly, as I do not know him ; but I should not like to have such a man for my friend. He may love study, and wish not to be interrupted by his friends; Amici fures temporis. He may be a frivolous man, and be so much occupied with petty pursuits, that he may not want friends. Or he may have a notion that there is a dignity in appearing indifferent, while he in fact may not be more indifferent at his heart than another."

We went to evening prayers at St. Clement's, at seven, and then parted.

DUEL

INCREASE OF LONDON, AND ITS POPULATION-NATURAL AFFECTIONSBETWEEN RIDDELL AND CUNNINGHAM ON CORPULENCY- GOVERNMENT OF INDIA-DR. SHEBBEARE-PAYMENT FOR REVIEWING-RELIGIOUS DISBELIEFLIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE-MALLET'S FIRST ESSAY-ON READING-VIRGIL AND HOMER-CANT-HOSPITALITY-SHERIDAN-FRIENDSHIP-BARRY'S PICTURES

CHRISTIAN DEVOTION-RICHARD BAXTER-MISS PHILIPS-CORRESPONDENCEJOHNSON ATTACKED BY PARALYSIS-MR. DAVIES-JOHNSON'S RECOVERY-VISITS ROCHESTER AND HEALE-DEATH OF MRS. WILLIAMS-MISCELLANEOUS CON

VERSATION.

ON

N Sunday, April 20, being Easter-day, after attending solemn service at St. Paul's, I came to Dr. Johnson, and found Mr. Lowe, the painter, sitting with him. Mr. Lowe mentioned the great number of new buildings of late in London, yet that Dr. Johnson had observed, that the number of inhabitants was not increased. JOHNSON: "Why, Sir, the bills of mortality prove that no more people die now than formerly; so it is plain no more live. The register of births proves nothing; for not one-tenth of the people of London are born there." BOSWELL: "I believe, Sir, a great many of the children born in London die early." JOHNSON: "Why, yes, Sir." BoswELL: "But those who do live, are as stout and strong people as any: Dr. Price says, they must be naturally strong to get through.' JOHNSON: "That is system, Sir. A great traveller observes, that it is said there are no weak or deformed people among the Indians; but he with much sagacity assigns the reason of this, which is, that the hardship of their life, as hunters and fishers, does not allow weak or diseased children to grow up. Now had I been an Indian I must have died early; my eyes would not have served me to get food. I indeed now could fish, give me English tackle; but had I been an Indian I must have starved, or they would have knocked me on the head, when they saw I could do nothing."

BOSWELL: “Perhaps they would have taken care of you: we are told they are fond of oratory; you would have talked to them.' JOHNSON: “Nay, Sir, I should not have lived long enough to be fit to talk; I should have been dead before I. was ten years old. Depend upon it, Sir, a savage, when he is hungry, will not carry about with him a looby of nine years old, who cannot help himself. They have no affection, Sir.” BOSWELL: "I believe natural affection, of which we hear so much, is very small.” JOHNSON: "Sir, natural affection is nothing but affection from principle and established duty, is sometimes wonderfully strong." LowE: "A hen, Sir, will feed her chickens in preference to herself." JOHNSON: "But we don't know that the hen is hungry; let the hen be fairly hungry, and I'll warrant she'll peck the corn herself. A cock, I believe, will feed hens instead of himself; but we don't know that the cock is hungry." BOSWELL: 'And that, Sir, is not from affection but gallantry. But some of the Indians have affection." JOHNSON: "Sir, that they help some of their children is plain; for some of them live, which they could not do without being helped."

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I dined with him. The company were, Mrs. Williams, Mrs. Desmoulins, and Mr. Lowe. He seemed not to be well, talked little, grew drowsy soon after dinner, and retired, upon which I went away.

Having next day gone to Mr. Burke's seat in the country, from whence I was recalled by an express, that a near relation of mine had killed his antagonist in a duel, and was himself dangerously wounded, I saw little of Dr. Johnson till Monday, April 28, when I spent a considerable part of the day with him, and introduced the subject, which then chiefly occupied my mind. JOHNSON: "I do not see, Sir, that fighting is absolutely forbidden in scripture; I see revenge forbidden, but not self defence." BOSWELL: "The Quakers say it is; Unto him that smiteth thee on one cheek, offer him also the other.'" JOHNSON: "But stay, Sir; the text is meant only to have the effect of moderating passion; it is plain that we are not to take it in a literal sense. We see this from the context, where there are other recommendations, which I warrant you the Quaker will not take literally; as, for instance, ‘From him that would borrow of thee, turn thou not away.' Let a man whose credit is bad, come to a Quaker, and say, 'Well, Sir, lend me a hundred pounds ;' he will find him as unwilling as any other man. No, Sir, a man may shoot the man who invades his character, as he may shoot him who attempts to break into his house.1 So in 1745, my

1 I think it necessary to caution my readers against concluding that in this or any other conversation of Dr. Johnson, they have his serious and deliberate opinion on the subject of duelling. In my "Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides," 3 edit. p. 386, it appears that he made this frank confession: "Nobody at times talks more laxly than I do;" and ibid. p. 231, "he fairly owned he could not explain the rationality of duelling." We may, therefore, infer that he could not think that justifiable, which seems so inconsistent with the spirit of the Gospel. At the same time, it must be confessed,

friend, Tom Cumming the Quaker, said he would not fight, but he would drive an ammunition cart; and we know that the Quakers have sent flannel waistcoats to our soldiers, to enable them to fight better." BOSWELL: "When a man is the aggressor, and by ill-usage forces on a duel in which he is killed, have we not little ground to hope that he is gone to a state of happiness?" JOHNSON: "Sir, we are not to judge determinately of the state in which a man leaves this life. He may in a moment have repented effectually, and it is possible may have been accepted of GOD. There is, in Camden's Remains,' an epitaph upon a very wicked man, who was killed by a fall from his horse, in which he is supposed to say,

'Between the stirrup and the ground,

I mercy asked, I mercy found.' ''1

BOSWELL: "Is not the expression in the Burial-service, ' in the sure and certain hope of a blessed resurrection,' too strong to be used indiscriminately, and, indeed, sometimes when those over whose bodies it is said, have been notoriously profane?" JOHNSON: "It is sure and certain hope, Sir; not belief." I did not insist farther; but cannot help thinking that less positive words would be more proper.2

Talking of a man who was grown very fat, so as to be incommoded with corpulency; he said, "He eats too much, Sir." BOSWELL: “I don't know, Sir; you will see one man fat who eats moderately, and another lean who eats a great deal." JOHNSON: “ Nay, Sir, whatever may be the quantity that a man eats, it is plain that if he is too fat, he has eaten more than he should have done. One man may have a digestion that consumes food better than common; but it is certain that solidity is increased by putting something to it.' BOSWELL: "But

that from the prevalent notions of honour, a gentleman who receives a challenge is reduced to a dreadful alternative. A remarkable instance of this is furnished by a clause in the will of the late Colonel Thomas, of the Guards, written the night before he fell in a duel, September 3, 1783: "In the first place, I commit my soul to Almighty Gon, in hopes of his mercy and pardon for the irreligious step I now (in compliance with the unwarrantable customs of this wicked world) put myself under the necessity of taking."— BoswELL.

1 In repeating this epitaph Johnson improved it. The original runs thus:

"Betwixt the stirrup and the ground,

Mercy I asked, mercy I found."-MALONE.

2 Upon this objection the Reverend Mr. Ralph Churton, Fellow of Brazenose College, Oxford, has favoured me with the following satisfactory observation. "The passage in the Burial-service does not mean the resurrection of the person interred, but the general resurrection; it is in sure and certain hope of the resurrection-not his resurrection. Where the deceased is really spoken of, the expression is very different,' as our hope is this our brother doth' [rest in Christ], a mode of speech consistent with everything but absolute certainty that the person departed doth not rest in Christ, which no one can be assured of without immediate revelation from Heaven. In the first of these places, also, 'eternal life' does not necessarily mean eternity of bliss, but merely the eternity of the state, whether in happiness or in misery, to ensue upon the resurrection; which is probably the sense of the life everlasting,' in the Apostles' Creed. See Wheatly and Bennet on the Common Prayer."-BOSWELL.