(Vol. ix. p. 163.)—and a spirit of fatalism. They turn metaphysicians direct, and Adam throws the blame of all upon his Maker. "The woman that Thou gavest me," &c.

(Vol. ix. p. 173.) Stock of Killala believed that angels were not wholly immaterial; he held that God alone could act without organs. "The Almighty (said he) keeps that privilege to Himself." . . . It may be so; but bishops should not learn their divinity from Milton.

"The variety of pauses &c." (vol. ix. p. 181.)—This I had the honour to tell Doctor Johnson; and I said: "Quin the actor taught it me; and called it The Pause of Suspension."

"Of all the borrowers from Homer, Milton is perhaps the least indebted." (Vol. ix. p. 182.)-And somewhere (but I cannot find the passage), Johnson says in a sneering way: "You find no shield of Achilles, &c. in Milton." True; but future life on earth, divided into compartments by the angel Michael, for Adam's information, in the 11th Book of Paradise Lost, would not have been so elegantly divided, I believe, had Milton never read Homer.

(Story of Butler and the Duke of Buckingham. Vol. ix. p. 187.)- Johnson makes use of this story in his "Rambler," of the man perpetually disappointed in his patrons.

"The commonplace book of Butler." (Vol. ix. p. 196.) And such the commonplace book of Leonardo da Vinci.

GAMES OF CHANCE.- SECOND SIGHT.

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(Vɔl. ix. p. 197.) How dreadful 'tis to think that I, who saw dear Dr. Johnson write this passage lived long enough to witness the truth of this passage likewise and how strange, that after such a storm, the present temporary calm should give me comfortable leisure to write this note.--2 Sept., 1802.

"One of the Puritanical tenets was the illegality of all games of chance." (Vol. ix. p. 198.) — Playing at cards is deemed no very small wickedness now, in the year 1815, by many grave people who call themselves Methodists, or whom we call so: I trust it is because they do not reflect on the emptiness of other amusements. Hot Cockles, or Hide and Seek, is, per se, no more innocent than a game at shilling whist. But they are all Democrates, and like to thwart the upper ranks of society, and leave the gin-drinkers and tobaccosmokers full liberty of gross enjoyment.

(Vol. ix. p. 211, from the top to the bottom of the page.) The only tale I ever could give credit to, of the odd kind of second sight, was a story related by a young woman, her name, Mann, who was Miss Hamilton's maid. "I was when a girl," said she, “playing on the green with my companions one summer evening, when Sally Macdonald suddenly cry'd out, 'Look, look! there's my father ahanging across the door.' "What door?" replied I. There was no door in sight. His own,' answered the girl, and left off her diversion. We all continued ours, and thought no more about her, till in a week we heard the man had hanged himself on that very day. He lived seven

6

1

teen miles off." To this story I know not how either to grant assent, it is so strange, or to refuse belief, it is so artless.

(Vol. ix. p. 225.) — Richardson quotes as Otway's lines, verses now well known to be Shakespear's; but to Garrick, that mine of mercury striated with gold, we owe the revivification of Shakespear: tho' none of us had influence enough with Dr. Johnson to make him confess it, in his preface or his notes.

Mr. Thrale would not try; Garrick had refused him a
favour.
He would not patronize Poll Hart, who
afterwards married Reddish.

"She (Lady Dorothea Sidney) rejected his (Waller's) addresses with disdain." (Vol. ix. p. 232.)- Ladies are much humbler in these days. A famous poet now with ten thousand o' year* might choose among the lady Sophias and lady Dorotheas, I believe. 1802

but poets have no longer Dr. Johnson's aristocratic ideas about birth or rank, which he rates rather too high for any times; especially rank, which is a mere king's gift, and is often bestowed on very low mortals indeed.

(Waller's conduct on the discovery of his plot, vol. ix. p. 244.) What a mean fellow with his 10,000l. a year had he never read "Tacitus and his account of a woman's firmness in concealing the plot she was intrusted with, which no tortures could force her to discover, for fear of bringing the tyrant's not unjust wrath on her companions? a woman too of no

* Waller was a man of old family as well as large fortune.

good character for any virtue except fortitude! Oh, wretched Mr. Waller!!!

–

(On Waller's famous reply to Charles the Second, vol. ix. p. 252.) A reply borrowed from "Luigi Allemanni." See "Les Pensées Ingénieuses de Bonhours:" see also "Retrospection."

"For who forbears to flatter an author or a lady?” (Vol. ix. p. 263.) — Not Doctor Johnson certainly When he flattered Mrs. Montagu, who showed him some old china plates that had once belonged to Queen Elizabeth, and he told her they had suffered little diminution of dignity in falling to her.

(Waller's fortune, vol. ix. p. 269.)- Very true, indeed, but Johnson always did say that swelling assertions shrunk to a small size, when in the hard gripe of a computist.

(Verses, vol. ix. p. 266.) It is a false sentiment: we never heard of Venus's snowy coldness before I remember.

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as

They round about her into arbours crowd." (Vol. ix. p. 267.)- "Trees when you sit shall crowd into a shade," says Pope, in imitation.

"A tendency to belief that the mind goes with the body." (Vol. ix. p. 273.) — Johnson was very jealous of such sentiments towards himself: he used to quote Swift perpetually and say,

"Some dire misfortune to portend,

No enemy can match a friend."

I have seen friends who were hoping each other's decay-but they were wits, living in professed rivalry.

(Vol. ix. p. 332.)- Mrs. Sullen gives much such an account of her lover's courtship in comic prose, as Dr. Johnson here gives of Almanzor in serious sadness. See the Beaux Stratagem, where Archer binds the housebreaker.

(Vol. ix. p. 344.)- His (Dryden's) description of Cleopatra in her galley is the finest in the world keeping clear of Shakespear all the time. Shakespear's description is put into the mouth of an indifferent spectator, Enobarbus: Dryden makes Antony himself the narrator, and dwells judiciously on the beauties of the lady, rather than the beauties of the show.

As he (Dryden) came out from the representation, he was accosted thus by some airy stripling: "Had I been left alone with a young beauty, I would not have spent my time like your Spartan." "That, sir," said Dryden, "perhaps is true; but then let me tell you you are no Spartan." (Vol. i. p. 346.)-The story is ill told . . . instead of Spartan read hero; and then italic the word no at last, and you preserve the point, which Johnson loses.

(Vol. ix. p. 348.) — Impossible!!! The man, veins and bowels, must have been left wholly empty, writing as he did six plays in one year, what nonsense! *

Though he (Dryden) was perhaps injuriously censured, he would, by denying part of the charge, have confessed the rest. (Vol. ix. p. 351.)- Like Foote's

She was right, and Johnson was misinformed by Langborne. Dryden never wrote more than three plays in one year.