he forbore to speak, or even to look at me, and seemed in much disturbance. Extremely alarmed, I durst not venture at any question; But Mrs. Davis, who was there, uneasily asked, "How is Dr. Johnson now, Sir?" Going on to death very fast!" was the mournful reply. Grievously shocked and overset by so hopeless a sentence, after an invitation so sprightly of only the preceding evening from the dying man himself, I turned to the window to recover from so painful a disappointment. "Has he taken any thing, Sir?" said Mrs. Davis. 66 Nothing at all! We carried him some bread and milk he refused it, and said, The less the better!"" Mrs. Davis then asked sundry other questions, from the answers to which it fully appeared that his faculties were perfect, and that his mind was quite composed.

This conversation lasted about a quarter of an hour, before I had any suspicion that Mr. Langton had entered the parlour purposely to speak to me, and with a message from Dr. Johnson; but as soon as I could summon sufficient firmness to turn round, Mr. Langton, solemnly said, "The Doctor is very sorry indeed not to see you; but he desired me to come and speak to you for him myself, and to tell you, that he hopes you will excuse him; for he feels himself too weak for such an interview." Touched to the very heart by so kind, though sorrowful a message, at a moment that seemed so awful, I hastily expressed something like thanks to Mr. Langton, who was visibly affected; and, leaving my most affectionate respects, with every warmly kind wish I could half utter, I hurried back to my father's coach. The very next day, Monday, the 13th of December, Dr. Johnson expired, and without a groan. Expired, it is thought, in his sleep.

PART XVII.

ANECDOTES OF DR. JOHNSON,

JOHNSON'S

:

66

BY DR. BEATTIE. (1)

427. Johnson's "Journey."

Journey to the Hebrides" contains many things worthy of the author, and is, on the whole, very entertaining. His account of the isles is, I dare say, very just I never was there, and therefore can say nothing of them, from my own knowledge. His account of some facts, relating to other parts of Scotland, are not unexceptionable: either he must have been misinformed, or he must have misunderstood his informer, in regard to several of his remarks on the improvement of the country. I am surprised at one of his mistakes, which leads him once or twice into perplexity and false conjecture he seems not to have known, that, in the common language of Scotland, Irish and Erse are both used to denote the speech of the Scots Highlanders ; and are as much synonymous (at least, in many parts of the kingdom) as Scotch and Scottish. Irish is generally thought the genteeler appellation; and Erse, the vulgar and colloquial. His remarks on the trees of Scotland must greatly surprise a native. In some of our provinces trees cannot be reared by any mode of cultivation we have yet discovered; in some, where trees flourish extremely well, they are not much cultivated, because they are not necessary; but in others, we have store of wood, and forests of great extent, and of great antiquity. I admire Johnson's genius; I esteem him for his virtues; I shall ever cherish a grateful remembrance

(1) [From Sir William Forbes's Life of Dr. Beattie.]

of the civilities I have received from him: I have often, in this country, exerted myself in defence both of his character and writings; but there are in this book several things which I cannot defend.

428. Mr. and Mrs. Thrale.

Goldsmith.

I was introduced to Mr. and Mrs. Thrale by Dr. Johnson, and received many and great civilities from both. Mr. Thrale was a most respectable character; intelligent, modest, communicative, and friendly; and I greatly admired his wife for her vivacity, learning, affability, and beauty: I thought her, indeed, one of the most agreeable women I ever saw; and could not have imagined her capable of acting so unwise a part as she afterwards did. What she says of Goldsmith is perfectly true. He was a poor fretful creature, eaten up with affectation and envy. He was the only person I ever knew who acknowledged himself to be envious. In Johnson's presence he was quiet enough; but in his absence expressed great uneasiness on hearing him praised.

429. Mrs. Montagu.

Johnson's harsh censure of Mrs. Montagu's Essay on Shakspeare does not surprise me; for I have heard him speak contemptuously of it. It is, for all that, one of the best, the most original, and most elegant pieces of criticism in our language, or in any other. Johnson had many of the talents of a critic; but his want of temper, his violent prejudices, and something, I am afraid, of an envious turn of mind, made him often an unfair one. Mrs. Montagu was very kind to him; but Mrs. Montagu has more wit than any body; and Johnson could not bear that any person should be thought to have wit but himself. Even Lord Chesterfield, and, what is more strange, even Mr. Burke, he would not allow to have wit. He preferred Smollett to Fielding. He would not grant that Armstrong's poem of " Health,"

or the tragedy of " Douglas," had any merit. He told me, that he never read Milton through, till he was obliged to do it, in order to gather words for his Dictionary. He spoke very peevishly of the "Masque of Comus ;" and when I urged, that there was a great deal of exquisite poetry in it, "Yes," said he, "but it is like gold hid under a rock;" to which I made no reply; for indeed I did not well understand it.

430. Johnson in 1781.

He

Johnson grows in grace as he grows in years. not only has better health and a fresher complexion than ever he had before (at least since I knew him), but he has contracted a gentleness of manners which pleases every body. Some ascribe this to the good company to which he has of late been more accustomed than in the early part of his life. There may be something in this; but I am apt to think the good health he has enjoyed for a long time is the chief cause. Thrale appointed him one of his executors, and left him two hundred pounds; every body says, he should have left him two hundred a year; which, from a fortune like his, would have been a very inconsiderable reduction.

431. Lives of the Poets.

Mr.

I have been reading Johnson's Prefaces to the English edition of the Poets. There are many excellent things in them, particularly in the Lives of Milton, Dryden, and Waller. He is more civil to Milton than I expected, though he hates him for his blank verse and his politics. To the forced and unnatural conceits of Cowley, I think he is too favourable; and I heartily wish, that, instead of the poems of this poet, he had given us "The Faerie Queen" of Spenser, which is left out very absurdly.

432. Milton.

Johnson hated Milton from his heart; and he wished to be himself considered as a good Latin poet, which, however, he never was, as may be seen by his translation of Pope's " Messiah."

433. Boswell's "Tour."

I have just gone through Boswell's book. He is very good to me, as Dr. Johnson always was; and I am very grateful to both: but I cannot approve the plan of such a work. To publish a man's letters, or his conversation, without his consent, is not, in my opinion, quite fair: for how many things, in the hour of relaxation, or in friendly correspondence, does a man throw out, which he would never wish to hear of again; and what a restraint would it be on all social intercourse, if one were to suppose that every word one utters would be entered in a register! Mr. Boswell indeed says, that there are few men who need be under any apprehension of that sort. This is true; and the argument he founds on it would be good, if he had published nothing but what Dr. Johnson and he said and did; for Johnson, it seems, knew that the publication would be made, and did not object to it: but Mr. Boswell has published the sayings and doings of other people, who never consented to any such thing; and who little thought, when they were doing their best to entertain and amuse the two travellers, that a story would be made of it, and laid before the public. I approve of the Greek proverb, that says, "I hate a bottle companion with a memory.” If my friend, after eating a bit of mutton with me, should go to the coffee-house, and there give an account of every thing that had passed, I believe I should not take it well.