LETTER 118. TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. "Brighthelmstone, Sept 9. 1769. "DEAR SIR, Why do you charge me with unkindness? I have omitted nothing that could do you good, or give you pleasure, unless it be that I have forborne to tell you my opinion of your 'Account of Corsica.' I believe my opinion, if you think well of my judgment, might have given you pleasure; but when it is considered how much vanity is excited by praise, I am not sure that it would have done you good. Your History is like other histories, but your Journal is, in a very high degree, curious and delightful. There is between the history and the journal that difference which there will always be found between notions borrowed from without, and notions generated within. Your history was copied from books; your journal rose out of your own experience and observation. You express images which operated strongly upon yourself, and you have impressed them with great force upon your readers. I know not whether I could name any narrative by which curiosity is better excited, or better gratified. "I am glad that you are going to be married; and as I wish you well in things of less importance, wish you well with proportionate ardour in this crisis of your life. What I can contribute to your happiness, I should be very unwilling to withhold; for I have always loved and valued you, and shall love you and value you still more, as you become more regular and useful: effects which a happy marriage will hardly fail to produce. "I do not find that I am likely to come back very soon from this place. I shall, perhaps, stay a fortnight longer; and a fortnight is a long time to a lover absent from his mistress. Would a fortnight ever have an end? I am, dear Sir, your most affectionate humble servant, "SAM. JOHNSON." 71 General Paoli. CHAPTER III. 1769. Observance of Sunday. Rousseau and Monboddo. Love of Singularity. Life. Artemisias. Second Marriages. Scotch Gardening. Vails. Whitfield. Prior Garrick's Poetry. Breeding. Fate and Free-will. Goldsmith's Tailor. The Dunciad. Dryden. Sheridan. — Mrs. Montagu's Essay.—Lord Kames. Baretti's Trial. Mandeville. AFTER his return to town, we met frequently, and I continued the practice of making notes of his conversation, though not with so much assiduity as I I wish I had done. At this time, indeed, I had a sufficient excuse for not being able to appropriate so much time to my journal; for General Paoli (1), after Corsica had been overpowered by the monarchy of France, was now no longer at the head of his brave countrymen; but, having with difficulty escaped from (1) [In 1755, Pascal Paoli was appointed first magistrate and general of Corsica. He had been educated at Naples, and was a captain in the service of King Don Carlos. He was tall, young, handsome, learned, and eloquent. In 1769, a French army, commanded by Marshal de Vaux, landed in Corsica. The inhabitants fought resolutely; but, driven to the south of the island, Paoli embarked, June 16., in an English ship at PortoVecchio, landed at Leghorn, crossed the continent, and repaired to London, where he was every where received with tokens of the greatest admiration, both by the people and their princes. NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE, Mémoires, tom. iv. p. 36.] his native island, had sought an asylum in Great Britain; and it was my duty, as well as my pleasure, to attend much upon him. Such particulars of Johnson's conversation at this period as I have committed to writing, I shall here introduce, without any strict attention to methodical arrangement. Sometimes short notes of different days shall be blended together, and sometimes a day may seem important enough to be separately distinguished. He said, he would not have Sunday kept with rigid severity and gloom, but with a gravity and simplicity of behaviour. (1) I told him that David Hume had made a short collection of Scotticisms. "I wonder," said Johnson, "that he should find them.” (2) He would not admit the importance of the question concerning the legality of general warrants. "Such a power," he observed, "must be vested in every government, to answer particular cases of necessity; and there can be no just complaint but when it is abused, for which those who administer government must be answerable. It is a matter of such indifference, a matter about which the people care so very (1) He ridiculed a friend who, looking out on Streatham Common from our windows one day, lamented the enormous wickedness of the times, because some birdcatchers were busy there one fine Sunday morning. "While half the Christian world is permitted," said he, "to dance and sing, and celebrate Sunday as a day of festivity, how comes your puritanical spirit so offended with frivolous and empty deviations from exactness? Whoever loads life with unnecessary scruples, Sir," continued he, "provokes the attention of others on his conduct, and incurs the censure of singularity without reaping the reward of superior virtue.". Piozzi. (2) The first edition of Hume's History of England was full of Scotticisms, many of which he corrected in subsequent editions.-M. little, that were a man to be sent over Britain to offer them an exemption from it at a halfpenny a piece, very few would purchase it." This was a specimen of that laxity of talking, which I had heard him fairly acknowledge; for, surely, while the power of granting general warrants was supposed to be legal, and the apprehension of them hung over our heads, we did not possess that security of freedom, congenial to our happy constitution, and which, by the intrepid exertions of Mr. Wilkes, has been happily established. He said, "The duration of parliament, whether for seven years or the life of the king, appears to me so immaterial, that I would not give half a crown to turn the scale one way or the other. The habeas corpus is the single advantage which our government has over that of other countries." (1) On the 30th of September we dined together at the Mitre. I attempted to argue for the superior happiness of the savage life, upon the usual fanciful topics. JOHNSON. "Sir, there can be nothing more false. The savages have no bodily advantages beyond those of civilised men. They have not better health; and as to care or mental uneasiness, they are not above it, but below it, like bears. No, Sir; you are not to talk such paradox: let me have no more on't. It cannot entertain, far less can it instruct. Lord Monboddo, one of your Scotch judges, talked a great deal of such nonsense. I suffered him; but I will not suffer you." BOSWELL. "But, Sir, does (1) Did he reckon the power of the Commons over the public purse as nothing? and did he calculate how long the habeas corpus might exist, if the freedom of the press were destroyed, and the duration of parliaments unlimited?. C. not Rousseau talk such nonsense?" JOHNSON. "True, Sir; but Rousseau knows he is talking nonsense, and laughs at the world for staring at him." BOSWELL. "How so, Sir?" JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, a man who talks nonsense so well, must know that he is talking nonsense. But I am afraid (chuckling and laughing), Monboddo does not know that he is talking nonsense." (1) BosWELL. "Is it wrong then, Sir, to affect singularity, in order to make people stare?" JOHNSON. "Yes, if you do it by propagating error: and, indeed, it is wrong in any way. There is in human nature a general inclination to make people stare; and every wise man has himself to cure of it, and does cure himself. If you wish to make people stare, by doing better than others, why, make them stare till they stare their eyes out. But consider how easy it is to make people stare, by being absurd. I may do it by going into a drawing-room without my shoes. You remember the gentleman in 'The Spectator' [No. 576.] who had a commission of lunacy taken out against him for his extreme singularity, such as never wearing a wig, but a night-cap. Now Sir, abstractedly, the night-cap was best but, relatively, the advantage was overbalanced by his making the boys run after him.” (2) (1) His lordship having frequently spoken in an abusive manner of Dr. Johnson, in my company, I, on one occasion, during the lifetime of my illustrious friend, could not refrain from retaliation, and repeated to him this saying. He has since published I don't know how many pages in one of his curious books, attempting, in much anger, but with pitiful effect, to persuade mankind that my illustrious friend was not the great and good man which they esteemed and ever will esteem him to be. (2) Few people had a more settled reverence for the world than Dr. Johnson, or were less captivated by innovations on |