cal. The asthma has remitted for a time, but is now very troublesome; the weakness still continues, but the dropsy has disappeared; and has twice, in the summer, yielded to medicine. I hope to return with a body somewhat, however little, relieved, and with a mind less dejected. "I hope your dear lady and dear little ones are all well, and all happy; I love them all. I am, dear sir, your most humble servant, vol. ii. p. 410. "SAM. JOHNSON." DR. JOHNSON TO MR. SASTRES. "Lichfield, 20th October, 1784. "SIR,-You have abundance of Letters, naughty tricks; is this your way of writing to a poor sick friend twice a week? Post comes after post, and brings no letter from Mr. Sastres. If you know any thing, write and tell it; if you know nothing, write and say that you know nothing. "What comes of the specimen? If the booksellers want a specimen, in which a keen critick can spy no faults, they must wait for another generation. Had not the Crusca faults? Did not the academicians of France commit many faults? It is enough that a dictionary is better than others of the same kind. A perfect performance of any kind is not to be expected, and certainly not a perfect dictionary. "Mrs. Desmoulins never writes, and I know not how things go on at home; tell me, dear sir, what you can. "If Mr. Seward be in town, tell me his direction, for I ought to write to him. "I am am very weak, and have had bad nights. I am, dear sir, your, &c." "TO THE SAME. "Lichfield, 1st November, 1784. "DEAR SIR,-I beg you to continue the frequency of your letters; every letter is a cordial ; but you must not wonder that I do not answer with exact punctuality. You may always have something to tell you live among the various orders of mankind, and may make a letter from the exploits, sometimes of the philosopher, and sometimes of the pickpocket. You see some balloons succeed and some miscarry, and a thousand strange and a thousand foolish things. But I see nothing; I must make my letter from what I feel, and what I feel with so little delight, that I cannot love to talk of it. "I am certainly not to come to town, but do not omit to write; for I know not when I shall come, and the loss of a letter is not much. I am, dear sir, your, &c." "DR. JOHNSON TO MR. NICHOLS 1. "27th July, 1778. "You have now all Cowley. I Gent. Mag. have been drawn to a great length; vol. Iv. p. 9. but Cowley or [and] Waller never had any critical examination before. I am very far advanced in Dryden, who will be long too. The next great Life I purpose to be Milton's. 1 [Here follow such of the short letters and notes referred to by Mr. Boswell, ante, p. 268, n, 1, as he did not Introduce into his text.-ED.] "26th November, 1778. "Mr. Johnson will hope for Mr. Nichols's company to tea, about six this afternoon, to talk of the Index, and settle the terms.-Monday. "I am very well contented that the Index is settled; for though the price is low, it is not penurious. Mr. M. having been for some time out of business, is in some little perplexities, from which twelve guineas will set him free. This, we hope, you will advance; and, during the continuance of the work subject to your inspection, he desires a weekly payment of sixteen shillings, the rest to remain till it is completed. "SAM. JOHNSON." "There is a copy of verses by Fenton on the First Fit of the Gout,' in Pope's Miscellanies, and I think in the last volumes of Dryden. In Pope's I am sure. Answ. I should have given Fenton's birth to Shelton in Staffordshire, but that I am afraid there is no such place. The rest I have, except his secretaryship, of which I know not what to make. When Lord Orrery was in an office, Lewis was his secretary. Lewis lived in my time; I knew him. The gout verses were always given to Fenton, when I was young, and he was living. Lord Orrery told me that Fenton was his tutor; but never thought he was his father's secretary'. Pray let me see the Oxford and Cambridge [Verses], &c. [1707]. If you are sure it was published by Fenton, I shall take notice of it." "Mr. Johnson desires Mr. Nichols to send him Ruff head's Life of Pope, Pope's works, Swift's works with Dr. Hawkesworth's Life, Lyttelton's works; and with these he hopes to have done. The first to be got is Lyttelton." "Mr. Johnson, being now at home, desires the last leaves of the criticism on Popes epitaphs, and he will correct them. Mr. N. is entreated to save the proof sheets of Pope, because they are promised to a lady 3, who desires to have them." "In reading Rowe in your edition, which is very impudently called mine, I observed a little piece unnaturally and odiously obscene. I was offended, but was still more offended when I could not find it in Rowe's genuine volumes. To admit it, had been wrong; to interpolate it, is surely worse. If I had known of such a piece in the whole collection, I should have been angry. What can be done?" "24th May, 1780. "Mr. Johnson is obliged to Mr. Nichols for his communication 3, and must have Hammond again. Mr. Johnson would be glad of Blackmore's Essays for a few days." "Dr. Warton tells me that Collins's first piece 7 is in the Gent. Mag. for August, 1739. In August there is no such thing. Amasius was at that time the poetical name of Dr. Swan, who translated Sydenham. Where to find Collins I know not. I think I must make some short addition to Thomson's sheet, but will send it to-day." "This Life of Dr. Young was written by a friend of his son [Mr. Croft]. What is crossed with black is expunged by the authour; what is 1 Dr. Johnson retracted this opinion, as Fenton in his Life is styled "secretary." Fenton was secretary to Lord Orrery when he commanded a regiment in Flan ders, and was dismissed in 1705, four years before Dr. Johnson was born.-NICHOLS. [There is some mistake in the statement of Dr. Johnson. The first mention of Lord Orrery was probably a slip of the pen for Oxford, whose secretary Lewis was.-ED.] 2 See Lives of the Poets, vol. iií. p. 111.-N1CHOLS. 3 Probably to Miss Burney.-NICHOLS. The epigram on a lady at the tragedy of Cato, which has not only appeared in the works of Rowe, but has been transplanted by Pope into the "Miscellanies" he published in his own name and that of Dean Swift. NICHOLS. [This would have been a sufficient excuse (if one were needed) for the Editor's omission of two or three indelicate expressions which escaped from Mr. Boswell in the course of his work.-ED.] 5 Lives of the Poets, vol iii. p. 185.-NICHOLS. "16th August, 1780. "I expected to have found a Life of Lord Lyttelton prefixed to his works. Is there not one before the quarto edition? I think there is; if not, I am, with respect to him, quite aground. "Brighthelmstone, 26th Oct. 1780. "I think you never need send back the revises unless something important occurs. Little things, if I omit them, you will do me the favour of setting right yourself. Our post is awkward, as you will find, and I fancy you will find it best to send two sheets at once.' "16th April, 1781. "Mr. Johnson desires Mr. Nichols to send him a set of the last Lives, and would be glad to know how the octavo edition goes forward." "10th June, 1781. "My desire being to complete the sets of Lives which I have formerly presented to my friends, I have occasion for a few of the first volumes; of which, by some misapprehension, I have received a great number, which I desire to exchange for the latter volumes. I wish success to the new edition. Please to deliver to Mr. Steevens a com plete set of the Lives in 12mo." He "26th December, 1781. "Mr. Johnson, being much out of order, sent in search of the book, but it is not found. will, if he is better, look himself diligently tomorrow. He thanks Mr. Nichols for all his favours." "28th October, 1782. "What will the booksellers give me for this new edition? I know not what to ask. I would have twenty-four sets bound in plain calf, and figured with the number of the volumes. For the rest, they may please themselves.'' IV. Give me thy Enable UNPUBLISHED Prayers by Dr. Johnson. "Easter day, 15th April, 1759. "ALMIGHTY and most merciful Pearson Father, look down with pity upon my e sins. I am a sinner, good Lord; but let not my sins burthen me for ever. grace to break the chain of evil custom. me to shake off idleness and sloth: to will and to do what thou hast commanded, grant me chaste in thoughts, words and actions; to love and frequent thy worship, to study and understand thy word; to be diligent in my calling, that I may support myself and relieve others. Let "Forgive me, O Lord, whatever my mother has suffered by my fault, whatever I have done amiss, and whatever duty I have neglected. me not sink into useless dejection; but so sanctify my affliction, O Lord, that I may be converted and healed; and that, by the help of thy holy Spirit, I may obtain everlasting life through Jesus Christ our Lord. "And O Lord, so far as it may be lawful, I commend unto thy fatherly goodness my father, brother, wife and mother, beseeching thee to make them happy for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen." Rose MSS. "SCRUPLES. "O Lord, who wouldst that all men should be saved, and who knowest that without thy grace we can do nothing acceptable to thee, have mercy upon me. Enable me to break the chain of my sins, to reject sensuality in thought, and to overcome and suppress vain scruples; and to use such diligence in lawful employment as may enable me to support myself and do good to others. O Lord, forgive me the time lost in idleness; pardon the sins which I have committed, and grant that I may redeem the time mispent, and be reconciled to thee by.true repentance, that I may live and die in peace, and be received to everlasting happiness. Take not from me, O Lord, thy holy Spirit, but let me have support and comfort for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen. Transc. June 26th, 1768. Of this prayer there is no date, nor can I conjecture when it was composed." ed on this occasion to print from. The subject, "sermoni proprior," is not favourable to poetry ; the criticism is sometimes superficial and erroneous; and the raillery frequently offends good feeling and good taste. It is, however, with all its defects, and, indeed, on account of these defects, deserving a place in this collection of Johnsonianą, not only as a tribute to the general excellence of Dr. Johnson's character, but in order that some of the errors it contains may be corrected. The authour, once a considerable person in the political and literary world, is fading so fast from public memory, that the Editor is glad to be able to present his readers with the following biographical notice of Mr. Courtenay, from the pen of their common friend, Sir James Mackintosh.-ED.] BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF MR. COURTENAY. JOHN COURTENAY was so intimate Mackin a friend of Boswell, and so long a mem- tosh. ber of the club, founded by Johnson, that a short account of him may not be misplaced in this work. He was born at Carlingford, in August, 1738. The first of his family in Ireland settled there in the reign of Elizabeth, and married a sister of the Deputy Chichester, as appears from a monument at Carrickfergus. His grandfather served under King William at the Boyne. His father, a younger son, obtained a situation in the revenue. He was himself educated at the school of Dundalk, where he read and relished the best writers of Greece and Rome; but he became so much infected with a passion for the army, or rather, for its show and dissipation, that he would not gratify his father by pursuing his studies at the university. In 1756 he purchased an ensigncy, and seems to have combined the conviviality of the time with desultory reading and careless composition. In 1765, when on the eve of purchasing a company, he was disappointed by an accident: he relinquished the army in a fit of ill humour, and applied the purchase-money to buy the place of a commissary of musters, thus unfortunately renouncing all regular advancement in a profession. married, obtained leave to sell his place, and, after paying his debts, found himself possessed of six hundred pounds. He About that time, Dr. Lucas, a man then popular at Dublin, had published a severe pamphlet against the sentence of a court-martial. Courtenay, prompted by old military feelings, employed his very idle hours in an answer, which obtained some commendation, and earned for him the patronage of Lord Townshend, then lord-lieutenant. He soon after became one of the writers of the "Bachelor," a government paper, conducted by Simcox, a clergyman, but chiefly written by Courtenay, Marlay 3, afterward a bishop, and Jephson, a dramatic poet of note. It was a main part of the task of these advocates of the 3 [Ante, p. 283.-ED.] 4 Ante, vol. i. p. 260, and p. 397 of this vol.-ED.] Castle to counteract the "Baratarian Letters," an Irish imitation of Junius, which, attacking the lord-lieutenant's government, received contributions from Flood, and first published Grattan's character of Chatham. Previous to the recall of the lord-lieutenant he gave Courtenay the place of barrack-master of Kinsale, and soon after his return to England appointed him secretary to the master-general of the ordnance. Though in that confidential relation to a minister, Courtenay agreed more in opinion, and was more connected with the Opposition, as may be pretty certainly inferred from his intimacy with Mr. Windham, than an oppositionist of more than common violence, who used to meet him often at the Thatched-house, as Courtenay said, to drink a glass to the health of General Washington. political opponents in times of much heat. Mr. Windham and Lord Stowell, Mr. Malone, and even Mr. Burke, continued to show kindness to him. He was frequently a guest of Sir Joshua Reynolds, of whose table he gave an amusing description [which is inserted ante, p. 78.] His parliamentary speeches, by which he was best known, did injustice to his powers. He was in truth a man of fine talents, and of various accomplishments, which rendered his conversation agreeable, as his good-nature and kind heart obtained for him the attachment of many excellent friends. But, from his speeches, strangers mistook him for a jester by profession. Every Irishman has wit, but Courtenay's drollery had not that polish and urbanity, of which pleasantry stands in greater need than perhaps any other endowment. 66 In 1780, Lord Townshend gave him a seat for He fell into two not easily forgotten mistakes; Tamworth, which he long retained. He some- the one was a somewhat unrefined attack on Mr. times made ineffectual attempts to vindicate his Canning, whom he mistook for a declaiming consistency in voting for the minister, on the plea schoolboy; the other was an attack on Mr. Wilthat he could no longer support the Americans berforce, whose meekness and gentleness he unafter they had received French aid; as if those, luckily-regarded, before he knew him, as proofs whom he considered as exposing themselves to of want of wit. The following extract from some destruction in a righteous cause, might not lawful- criticism on parliamentary speakers written by ly seek for succour wherever they could find it. him long after, is an agreeable proof that, in the 'This, however, was the period of his chief success case of Mr. Wilberforce, he discovered his error, in parliament. He was then invited often to the and was willing to acknowledge the justice of the evening convivial parties of Rigby, a man of wit chastisement. He (Mr. W.) is quick and acute and pleasure he became an intimate friend of in debate, and always prompt to answer and reMr. Gerard Hamilton, a man of considerable liter-ply. When he is provoked to personality (which ature and of fastidious taste in his companions, seldom happens) he retorts in a poignant and reand of Boswell, a zealous but good-natured tory. fined vein of satire, peculiarly his own." In the At the coalition, in 1783, he was appointed same criticism he makes reparation to Mr. Cansurveyor-general of the ordnance. After the ex-ning, by owning that "his wit is keen," but he pulsion of that administration, he refused to retain tries to excuse himself by adding, "that it is somethe office, which was handsomely offered to him times flippant.' by the Duke of Richmond: the letters of both do them credit. Henceforwards he attached himself to Mr. Fox, during a long and rigid exclusion from office. On one occasion he took a step not To the early connexion of Mr. Courtenay with believed to be agreeable to that great man. At a General Fraser, in the family of Lord Townsdinner at Lord Lauderdale's, in Leicester-square, hend, the writer of this note, (who is the Generin spring 1792, he put his name, with others, of al's grand-nephew) owed the beginning of a whom the present writer was one, to the Associ- kindness which lasted till Courtenay's death. ation of the Friends of the People for the pro- Fraser was Lord Townshend's aid-de-camp at motion of Parliamentary Reform," saying, as he Quebec in 1759, where by means of some French pushed the writing materials on to his next neigh-acquired when an officer in the Scotch regiments bour, "There goes Tamworth." Mr. Fox, with difficulty, saved him from the necessity of leaving England in 1796 and in 1802, by procuring a seat for him. In 1806, Mr. Fox wished to have restored him to the ordnance, but a high influence obtained that place for another, and Courtenay, after twenty-five years of opposition, had a twelvemonth's scat at the treasury. In 1812, when aged, lonely, infirm, and nearly bed-ridden, he was rescued from cruel sufferings by the generosity of the late Lord Thanet. Even in that situation, when found at his dinner, consisting of the claw of a lobster, by one of his few visiters, he used to make his repast a subject of merriment. The happy marriages of two daughters were, for a short time, bright spots in his little sphere; but though his life was unprosperous, it was not, thanks to his temper, unhappy. The consolations of friendship he deserved and possessed among | He died at his humble lodging, in Duke-street, Portland-place, on the 21st of March, 1815, in the seventy-eighth year of his age. in the service of the states-general, he had the good fortune to render a more important service than is usually within the reach of an officer of the rank which he held at that time. When rowing down the river St. Lawrence, and on the point of landing, the night before the battle, they were observed by a French sentinel, who called to him for the word," which the British officers did not know. Fraser answered in an audible whisper in French, "Hold your tongue; they will overhear us. The sentinel believed them to be a French reinforcement, and they effected their landing without disturbance. He went with Lord Townshend to Ireland, and he was killed in Burgoyne's ariny at Stillwater, near Saratoga, on the 7th October, 1777. His death has been affectingly represented by the pencil and the pen. The writer attended Mr. Courtenay's funeral, almost the only duty of a friend and an executor which circumstances left for him to perform; unless he may be allowed to consider as another of these duties the present attempt to preserve a short account of Mr. Courtenay, in which he has studiously endeavoured to avoid all exaggeration, and has laboured to shun that undue expansion which he cannot help considering as a sort of tacit exaggeration.MACKINTOSH, ' A generous tear will Caledonia shed? 1A Scotchman must be a sturdy moralist, who does not prefer Scotland to truth." Johnson's Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland.-COURTENAY. 2 The Poems of Dr. Watts were, by my recommendation, inserted in this collection; the readers of which are to impute to me whatever pleasure or weariness they may find in the perusal of Blackmore, Watts, Pomfret, and Yalden." Johnson's Life of Watts. The following specimen of their productions may be sufficient to enable the reader to judge of their respective merits: "Alas, Jerusalem! alas where's now Thy pristine glory, thy unmatch'd renown, Eleazar's Lamentation over Jerusalem, "Before the Almighty Artist framed the sky, Or gave the earth its harmony, His first command was for thy light; He view'd the lovely birth, and bless'd it: In purple swaddling bands it struggling lay, And from thy beauteous form did first presage its own." "My cheerful soul now all the day Sits waiting here and sings; Looks through the ruins of her clay, O, rather let this flesh decay, The ruins wider grow; Till, glad to see the enlarged way, I stretch my pinions through." A Sight of Heaven in Sickness, by Isaac Watts.-COURTENAY. [The Editor is not without some apprehensions, that he may incur a similar censure, for having recommended the introduction of Mr. Courtenay's poem into this collection.-ED.] 3 He seemed to me to have an unaccountable prejudice against Swift. He said to-day, "I doubt if the Tale of & Tub' was his; it has so much more thinking, more knowledge, more power, more colour, than any of the works that are indisputably his. If it was his, I shall only say, he was impar sibi."-Boswell's Tour to the Hebrides, p. 38. Dr. Johnson's "unaccountable prejudice against Swift" may probably be derived from the same source as Blackmore's, if we may venture to form a judgment from the panegyrick he bestows on the follow ing groundless invective, expressl aimed at Swift, as the authour of "A Tale of a Tub," which he quotes in his life of Blackmore: "Several, in their books, have many sarcastical and spiteful strokes at religion in general; while others make themselves pleasant with the principles of the christian. Of the last kind, this age has seen a most audacious example in the book entitled 'A Tale of a Tub. Had this writing been published in a pagan or popish nation, who are justly impatient of all indignity offered to the established religion of their country, no doubt but the authour would have received the punishment he deserved. But the fate of this impious buffoon is very different; for, in a protestant kingdom, zealous of their civil and religious immunities, he has not only escaped affronts, and the effects of publick resentment, but has been caressed and patronized by persons of great figure of all denominations." The malevolent dulness of bigotry alone could have inspired Blackmore with With poignant taunt mild Shenstone's life arraigns, A sceptick once, he taught the letter'd throng To doubt the existence of famed Ossian's song; Yet by the eye of faith, in reason's spite, Saw ghosts and witches, preach'd up second-sight: For o'er his soul sad superstition threw Her gloom, and tinged his genius with her hue. On popish ground he takes his high church station, To sound mysterious tenets through the nation * ; these sentiments. The fact is, that the "Tale of a Tub" is a continued panegyrick on the Church of England, and a bitter satire on popery, Calvinism, and every sect of dissenters. At the same time I am persuaded, that every reader of taste and discernment will perceive, in many parts of Swift's other writings, strong internal proofs of that style which characterises the "Tale of a Tub; " especially in the "Public Spirit of the Whigs" It is well known, that he affected simplicity, and studiously avoided any display of learning, except where the subject made it absolutely necessary. Temporary, local, and political topicks compose too great a part of his works; but in a treatise that admitted "more thinking, more knowledge,” &c. he naturally exerted all his powers. Let us hear the authour himself on this point. "The greatest part of that book was finished above thirteen years since (1656), which is eight years before it was published. The authour was then young, his invention at the height, and his reading fresh in his head." And again: "Men should be more cautious in losing their time, if they did but consider, that to answer a book effectually requireth more pains and skill, more wit, learning, and judgment than were employed in writing it. And the authour assureth those gentlemen, who have given themselves that trouble with him, that his discourse is the product of the study, the observation and the invention of several years; that he often blotted out more than he left; and if his papers had not been a long time out of his possession, they must still have undergone more severe corrections." "An Apology for the Tale of a Tub."-With respect to this work being the production of Swift, see his letter to the printer, Mr. Benjamin Tooke, dated Dublin, June 29, 1710, and Tooke's answer on the publication of the "Apology" and a new edition of the Tale of a Tub." -Hawkesworth's edition of Swift's Works, 8vo. vol. xvi. p. 145. Dr. Hawkesworth mentions, in his preface, that the edition of "A Tale of a Tub," printed in 1710, was revised and corrected by the Dean a short time before his understanding was impaired, and that the corrected copy was, in the year 1760, in the hands of his kinsman, Mr. Dean Swift.-COURTENAY. 4 JOHNSON. "I would tell truth of the two Georges, or of that scoundrel, King William." Boswell's Tour to the Hebrides, ante, v. i. p. 410.-COURTENAY. 5 See his letter to Lord Thurlow, in which he seems to approve of the application (though he was not previously consulted), thanks his lordship for having made it, and even seems to express some degree of surprise and resentment on the proposed addition to his pension being refused.-COURTENAY. (It seems very strange, that after Sir Joshua Reynolds had received Lord Thurlow's letter of the 18th Nov. 1784, he should still have permitted Dr. Johnson and all his friends to remain in the belief, that the king had been applied to and had refused. See ante, p 413.-Eo.] 6"If (added Dr. Johnson) God had never spoken figuratively, we might hold that he speaks literally, when he says, This is my body.'" Boswell's Tour, p. 67. Here his only objection to transubstantiation seems to rest on the style of the scripture being figurative else where as well as in this passage. Hence we may infer, that he would otherwise have believed in it. But archbishop Tillotson and Mr. Locke reason more philosophi cally, by asserting, that "no doctrine, however clearly expressed in scripture, is to be admitted, if it contradict the evidence of our senses: -For our evidence for the truth of revealed religion is less than the evidence for the truth of our senses, because, even in the first authors of our religion, it was no greater; and it is evident it must diminish in passing from them to us, through the |