ÆTAT. 59. READING MSS. 41 your knife and your fork across your plate, was to him a verse: "Lay your knife and your fōrk across your plāte." As he wrote a great number of verses, he sometimes by chance made good ones, though he did not know it." (1) He renewed his promise of coming to Scotland, and going with me to the Hebrides, but said he would now content himself with seeing one or two of the most curious of them. He said, " Macaulay, who writes the account of St. Kilda, set out with a prejudice against prejudice, and wanted to be a smart modern thinker; and yet he affirms for a truth, that (1) Dr. Johnson did not like that his friends should bring their manuscripts for him to read, and he liked still less to read them when they were brought: sometimes, however, when he could not refuse, he would take the play or poem, or whatever it was, and give the people his opinion from some one page that he had peeped into. A gentleman carried him his tragedy, which, because he loved the author, Johnson took, and it lay about our rooms at Streatham some time. "What answer did you give your friend, Sir?" asked I, after the book had been called for. "I told him," replied he, "that there was too much Tig and Tirry in it." Seeing me laugh most violently, "Why, what wouldst have, child?" said he; "I looked at nothing but the dramatis, and there was Tigranes and Tiridates, or Teribazus, or such stuff. A man can tell but what he knows, and I never got any farther than the first page."— PIOZZI. In Mr. Murphy's tragedy of Zenobia, acted in 1768, there are two personages named Tigranes and Teribazus. There was a serious difference between Murphy and Garrick, in which Bickerstaff employed Dr. Johnson as a mediator; and in consequence of the reconciliation thus effected, Zenobia was played. It was, no doubt, on this occasion, that the MS. was entrusted to Johnson. At the reconciliation dinner at Bickerstaff's, the last plays happening to be mentioned, Johnson said, "Prithee do not talk of plays; if you do, you will quarrel again." He was, Murphy confessed, a true prophet; for they were always quarrelling. See Foot's Life of Murphy, p. 208. CROker. when a ship arrives there all the inhabitants are seized with a cold." Dr. John Campbell, the celebrated writer (1), took a great deal of pains to ascertain this fact, and attempted to account for it on physical principles, from the effect of effluvia from human bodies. Johnson, at another time [March 21.1772], praised Macaulay for his "magnanimity," in asserting this wonderful story, because it was well attested. A lady of Norfolk, by a letter [Oct. 2. 1773] to my friend Dr. Burney, has favoured me with the following solution : "Now for the explication of this seeming mystery, which is so very obvious as, for that reason, to have escaped the penetration of Dr. Johnson and his friend, as well as that of the author. Reading the book with my ingenious friend, the late Rev. Mr. Christian of Docking - after ruminating a little, 'The cause,' says he, 'is a natural one. The situation of St. Kilda renders a northeast wind indispensably necessary before a stranger can land. The wind, not the stranger, occasions an epidemic cold. If I am not mistaken, Mr. Macaulay is dead; if living, this solution might please him, as I hope it will Mr. Boswell, in return for the many agreeable hours his works have afforded us." Johnson expatiated on the advantages of Oxford for learning. “There is here, Sir," said he, " such a progressive emulation. The students are anxious to appear well to their tutors; the tutors are anxious to have their pupils appear well in the college; the colleges are anxious to have their students appear (1) [See antè, Vol. II. p. 195.] ÆTAT. 59. GUTHRIE. HUME. ROBERTSON. 43 well in the university; and there are excellent rules of discipline in every college. That the rules are sometimes ill observed may be true, but is nothing against the system. The members of an university may, for a season, be unmindful of their duty. I am arguing for the excellency of the institution." Of Guthrie, he said, "Sir, he is a man of parts. He has no great regular fund of knowledge; but by reading so long, and writing so long, he no doubt has picked up a good deal." He said he had lately been a long while at Lichfield, but had grown very weary before he left it. BOSWELL. "I wonder at that, Sir; it is your native place." JOHNSON. "Why so is Scotland your native place." His prejudice against Scotland appeared remarkably strong at this time. (1) When I talked of our advancement in literature, "Sir," said he, "you have learnt a little from us, and you think yourselves very great men. Hume would never have written history, had not Voltaire written it before him. He is an echo of Voltaire." BOSWELL. "But, Sir, we have lord Kames. JOHNSON. "You have lord Kames. Keep him; ha, ha, ha! We don't envy you him. Do you ever see Dr. Robertson ?" BOSWELL. "Yes, Sir." JOHNSON. "Does the dog talk of me?" BOSWELL. "Indeed, Sir, he does, (1) [Johnson's invectives against Scotland, in common conversation, were more in pleasantry and sport than real and malignant; for no man was more visited by natives of that country, nor were there any for whom he had a greater esteem. It was to Dr. Grainger, a Scottish physician, that I owed my first acquaintance with Johnson, in 1756.- PERCY:1 and loves you." Thinking that I now had him in a corner, and being solicitous for the literary fame of my country, I pressed him for his opinion on the merit of Dr. Robertson's History of Scotland. But, to my surprise, he escaped." Sir, I love Robertson, and I won't talk of his book." It is but justice both to him and Dr. Robertson to add, that though he indulged himself in this sally of wit, he had too good taste not to be fully sensible of the merits of that admirable work. An essay, written by Mr. Dean, a divine of the Church of England, maintaining the future life of brutes (1), by an explication of certain parts of the Scriptures, was mentioned, and the doctrine insisted on by a gentleman who seemed fond of curious speculation; Johnson, who did not like to hear of any thing concerning a future state which was not authorised by the regular canons of orthodoxy, discouraged this talk; and being offended at its continuation; he watched an opportunity to give the gentleman a blow of reprehension. So, when the poor speculatist, with a serious metaphysical pensive face, addressed him, " But really, Sir, when we see a very sensible dog, we don't know what to think of him;" Johnson, rolling with joy at the thought which beamed in his eye, turned quickly round, and replied, "True, Sir: and when we see a very foolish fellow, we don't know what to think of him." (1) "An Essay on the Future Life of Brute Creatures, by Richard Dean, curate of Middleton." This work is reviewed in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1768, p. 177., in a style very like Johnson's; and a story of " a very sensible dog" is noticed with censure. — C. ETAT. 59. SCORPIONS. MAUPERTUIS. 45 He then rose up, strided to the fire, and stood for some time laughing and exulting. I told him that I had several times, when in Italy, seen the experiment of placing a scorpion within a circle of burning coals; that it ran round and round in extreme pain; and finding no way to escape, retired to the centre, and, like a true Stoic philosopher, darted its sting into its head, and thus at once freed itself from its woes. "This must end 'em." I said, this was a curious fact, as it showed deliberate suicide in a reptile. Johnson would not admit the fact. He said, Maupertuis (1) was of opinion that it does not kill itself, but dies of the heat; that it gets to the centre of the circle, as the coolest place; that its turning its tail in upon his head is merely a convulsion, and that it does not sting itself. He said he would be satisfied if the great anatomist Morgagni, after dissecting a scorpion on which the (1) I should think it impossible not to wonder at the variety of Johnson's reading, however desultory it might have been. Who could have imagined that the High Church of Englandman would be so prompt in quoting Maupertuis, who, I am sorry to think, stands in the list of those unfortunate mistaken men, who call themselves esprits forts. I have, however, a high respect for that philosopher whom the great Frederic of Prussia loved and honoured, and addressed pathetically in one of his poems, "Maupertuis, cher Maupertuis, There was in Maupertuis a vigour and yet a tenderness of sentiment, united with strong intellectual powers, and uncommon ardour of soul. Would he had been a Christian! I cannot help earnestly venturing to hope that he is one now.-B. — -- Maupertuis died in 1759, at the age of 62, in the arms of the Bernoullis, très Chrétiennement. -BURNEY. Mr. Boswell seems to contemplate the possibility of a post mortem conversion to Christianity. - CROKER. |