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By Root 5580 0

write that half, yet not a half of that half is good. One of the finest pieces in the English language is the paper on Novelty, yet we do not hear it talked of. It was written by Grove, a dissenting teacher.’ He would not, I perceived, call him a clergyman, though he was candid enough to allow very great merit to his composition. Mr. Murphy said, he remembered when there were several people alive in London, who enjoyed a considerable reputation merely from having written a paper in The Spectator. He mentioned particularly Mr. Ince, who used to frequent Tom’s coffee-house. ‘But (said Johnson,) you must consider how highly Steele speaks of Mr. Ince.’ He would not allow that the paper on carrying a boy to travel, signed Philip Homebred, which was reported to be written by the Lord Chancellor Hardwicke, had merit. He said, ‘it was quite vulgar, and had nothing luminous.’

Johnson mentioned Dr. Barry’sa System of Physick. ‘He was a man (said he,) who had acquired a high reputation in Dublin, came over to England, and brought his reputation with him, but had not great success. His notion was, that pulsation occasions death by attrition; and that, therefore, the way to preserve life is to retard pulsation. But we know that pulsation is strongest in infants, and that we increase in growth while it operates in its regular course; so it cannot be the cause of destruction.’ Soon after this, he said something very flattering to Mrs. Thrale, which I do not recollect; but it concluded with wishing her long life. ‘sir, (said I,) if Dr. Barry’s system be true, you have now shortened Mrs. Thrale’s life, perhaps, some minutes, by accelerating her pulsation.’

On Thursday, April n, I dined with him at General Paoli’s, in whose house I now resided, and where I had ever afterwards the honour of being entertained with the kindest attention as his constant guest, while I was in London, till I had a house of my own there. I mentioned my having that morning introduced to Mr. Garrick, Count Neni, a Flemish Nobleman of great rank and fortune, to whom Garrick talked of Abel Drugger597 as a small part; and related, with pleasant vanity, that a Frenchman who had seen him in one of his low characters, exclaimed, ‘Comment! je ne le crois pas. Ce n’est pas Monsieur Garrick, ce Grand Homme!’598 Garrick added, with an appearance of grave recollection, ‘If I were to begin life again, I think I should not play those low characters.’ Upon which I observed, ‘sir, you would be in the wrong; for your great excellence is your variety of playing, your representing so well, characters so very different.’ JOHNSON. ‘Garrick, Sir, was not in earnest in what he said; for, to be sure, his peculiar excellence is his variety: and, perhaps, there is not any one character which has not been as well acted by somebody else, as he could do it.’ BOSWELL. ‘Why then, Sir, did he talk so?’ JOHNSON. ‘Why, Sir, to make you answer as you did.’ BOSWELL. ‘I don’t know, Sir; he seemed to dip deep into his mind for the reflection.’ JOHNSON. ‘He had not far to dip, Sir: he said the same thing, probably, twenty times before.’

Of a nobleman599 raised at a very early period to high office, he said, ‘His parts, Sir, are pretty well for a Lord; but would not be distinguished in a man who had nothing else but his parts.’

A journey to Italy was still in his thoughts. He said, ‘A man who has not been in Italy, is always conscious of an inferiority, from his not having seen what it is expected a man should see. The grand object of travelling is to see the shores of the Mediterranean. On those shores were the four great Empires of the world; the Assyrian, the Persian, the Grecian, and the Roman. – All our religion, almost all our law, almost all our arts, almost all that sets us above savages, has come to us from the shores of the Mediterranean.’ The General observed, that ‘The Mediterranean would be a noble subject for a poem.’

We talked of translation. I said, I could not define it, nor could I think of a similitude to illustrate it; but that it appeared to me the translation of poetry could