AGE 66.]

AT THE LITERARY CLUB.

271

I answered, "I was

reading your travels, Mr. Boswell." but the humble attendant of Dr. Johnson." The Chief Justice replied, with that air and manner which none, who ever saw and heard him, can forget, "He speaks ill of nobody but Ossian."

Johnson was in high spirits this evening at the club, and talked with great animation and success. He attacked Swift, as he used to do upon all occasions. "The Tale of a Tub' is so much superiour to his other writings, that one can hardly believe he was the authour of it:1 there is in it such a vigour of mind, such a swarm of thoughts, so much of nature, and art, and life." I wondered to hear him say of "Gulliver's Travels," "When once you have thought of big men and little men, it is very easy to do all the rest. I endeavoured to make a stand for Swift, and tried to rouse those who were much more able to defend him; but in vain. Johnson at last, of his own accord, allowed very great merit to the inventory of articles found in the pocket of "the Man Mountain," particularly the description of his watch, which it was conjectured was his GOD, as he consulted it upon all occasions. He observed, that "Swift put his name to but two things (after he had a name to put), The Plan for the Improvement of the English language,' and the last Drapier's Letter.'"

From Swift, there was an easy transition to Mr. Thomas Sheridan.-JOHNSON. "Sheridan is a wonderful admirer of the

1 This doubt has been much agitated on both sides, I think without good reason. See Addison's "Freeholder," May 4, 1714; An Apology for the Tale of a Tub:-Dr. Hawkesworth's Preface to Swift's Works, and Swift's Letter to Tooke the Printer, and Tooke's Answer in that collection :-Sheridan's Life of Swift ;-Mr. Courtenay's note on p. 3 of his "Poetical Review of the Literary and Moral Character of Dr. Johnson;" and Mr. Cooksey's "Essay on the Life and Character of John Lord Somers, Baron of Evesham."

Dr. Johnson here speaks only to the internal evidence. I take leave to differ from him, having a very high estimation of the powers of Dr. Swift. His "Sentiments of a Church-of-Englandman;" his "Sermon on the Trinity," and other serious pieces, prove his learning as well as his acuteness in logick and metaphysicks; and his various compositions of a different cast exhibit not only wit, humour, and ridicule; but a knowledge “of nature, and art, and life;" a combination, therefore, of those powers, when (as the "Apology" says) "the authour was young, his invention at the height, and his reading fresh in his head," might surely produce" The Tale of a Tub.".

tragedy of Douglas, and presented its authour with a gold medal. Some years ago, at a coffee-house in Oxford, I called to him, 'Mr. Sheridan, Mr. Sheridan, how came you to give a gold medal to Home, for writing that foolish play?' This, you see, was wanton and insolent; but I meant to be wanton and insolent. A medal has no value but as a stamp of merit. And was Sheridan to assume to himself the right of giving that stamp? If Sheridan was magnificent enough to bestow a gold medal as an honorary reward of dramatick excellence, he should have requested one of the Universities to choose the person on whom it should be conferred. Sheridan had no right to give a stamp of merit: it was counterfeiting Apollo's coin."

On Monday, March 27, I breakfasted with him at Mr. Strahan's. He told us, that he was engaged to go that evening to Mrs. Abington's benefit. "She was visiting some ladies whom I was visiting, and begged that I would come to her benefit. I told her I could not hear: but she insisted so much on my coming, that it would have been brutal to have refused her." This was a speech quite characteristical. He loved to bring forward his having been in the gay circles of life; and he was, perhaps, a little vain of the solicitations of this elegant and fashionable actress. He told us, the play was to be "The Hypocrite," altered from Cibber's "Nonjuror," so as to satirize the Methodists. "I do not think, (said he,) the character of the Hypocrite justly applicable to the Methodists, but it was very applicable to the Nonjurors. I once said to Dr. Madan, a clergyman of Ireland, who was a great Whig, that perhaps a Nonjuror would have been less criminal in taking the oaths imposed by the ruling power, than refusing them; because refusing them, necessarily laid him under an almost irresistible temptation to be more criminal; for, a man must live, and if he precludes himself from the support furnished by the establishment, will probably be reduced to very wicked

1 ["The celebrated Mr. Sheridan, manager of the Theatre Royal at Dublin, hath sent over a gold medal, of the value of ten guineas at least, as a present to the Rev. Mr. Home, author of Douglas, with an inscription, acknowledging his great merit in having enriched the English stage with such an excellent tragedy." London Chronicle, Nov. 26, 1757.-CHALMERS.] [This was a placebo for no profits on Home's Dublin benefit night.]