Letters of Anna Seward, 
prejudices, strong, but unfruitful, devo- 
tion; intolerant fierceness; compassi- 
onate munificence, and corroding envy; 
I was fearful that Mr. Boswell’s personal 
attachment would have scrupled to throw 
in those dark shades which truth com- 
mands should be employed -in drawing 
the Johnsonian portrait; but these fears 
are considerably dissipated by the style 
of Mr..Bosweli’s acknowledgments for 
the materials I had sent him, and for the 
perfect impartiality with which I had 
spoken of Johnson’s virtues and faults. 
He desires I will send him the minutes I 
made at the time of that, as he justly 
calls it, tremendous conversation at 
Dilly’s, between you and him, on the 
subject of Miss Harry’s commencing 
quaker. Boswell had so often spoke to 
me, with regret, over the ferocious, rea- 
sonless, and unchristian, violence of his 
idol that night, it looks impartial beyond 
my hopes, that he requests me to arrange 
it. I had omitted to send it in the first 
collection, from my hopelessness that 
Mr. Boswell would insert it in his life of 
the Colossus. Time may have worn 
away those deep-indented lines of bigot 
fierceness from the memory of the bio- 
grapher, and the hand of affection may 
not be firm enough to resolve upon en- 
graving them. 
O! yes, as you observe, dreadful were 
the horrors which attended poor John- 
son's dying state. His religion was cer- 
tainly not of that nature which sheds 
comfort on the death-bed pillow. I be- 
lieve his faith was sincere, and therefore 
could not fail to reproach his heart, which 
had swelled with pride, envy, and hatred, 
through the whole course of his existence. 
But religious feeling, on whict: you lay so 
great a stress, was not the desideratum in 
Johnson’s virtue. He was no cold mo- 
ralist; it was obedience, meekness, and 
universal benevolence, whose absence 
from his ‘heart, driven away by the tur- 
bulent fierceness and jealousy of his un- 
bridled passions, filled with so much hor- 
ror the darkness of the grave. Those 
glowing aspirations in religion, which are 
termed enthusiasm, cannot be rationally 
considered as a test of its truth, Every 
religion has had its martyrs. I verily 
believe Johnson would have stood that 
tial for a system, to whose precepts he 
yet disdained to bend his proud and 
stubborn heart. How diflerent from his 
was the death-bed of that sweet excel- 
lence, whom he abused at Dilly’s, by the 
name of the “ odious wench !” 
641 
BOSWELL CONTINUED. 
_ Mr. Boswell lately passed a few days 
in Lichfield. I did not find him quite 
so candid and ingenuous on the subject 
of Johnson, as I had hoped from the 
style of his Jetters. He affected to dis- 
tinguish in the despot’s favour, between 
envy and. literary jealousy. I- main. 
tained, that it was.a sophistic distinction 
without a real difference. _Mr. Boswell 
urged the unlikelibood that he, who had 
established his own fame on other ground 
than that of poetry, should envy poetic 
reputation, especially where it was post- 
humous; and seemed to believe that bis 
injustice to Milton, Prior, Gray, Collins, 
&c. proceeded from real want of taste 
for the higher orders of verse, ‘his jadg« 
ment being too rigidly severe to, relisla 
the enthusiasms of imaginatiop. 
Affection is apt to start from the im- 
partiality of calling faults by their proper 
names, Mr. Boswell soon after, una- 
wares, observed that Johnson had been 
galled by David Garrick’s instant sue- 
cess, and long eclat, who had set sail 
with himself on the sea of public life; 
that he took an aversion to him on that 
account; that it was a little cruel in the 
great man not once to name David Gar- 
rick in his preface to Shakespeare! and 
base, said [, as well as unkind. Gar- 
rick! who had restored that transcendent 
author (o the taste of the public, after it 
had recreantly and long receded from 
him ; especially as this restorer had been 
the companion of his youth. He was 
galled by Garrick’s prosperity, rejoined 
Mr. Boswell. Ah! said I, you now, 
unawares, cede to my position. If the: 
author of thé Rambler could stoop to 
envy a player, for the hasty splendour of 
a reputation, which, compared to his 
own, however that might, for some time, 
be hid in the night of obscurity, must, in 
the end, prove as the meteor of an hour 
to the permanent light of the sun, if 
cannot be doubted, but his injustice te 
Milton, Gray, Collins, Priors &c. pro- 
ceeding from the same cause, produced 
that levelling system of criticism, “ which 
lifts the mean, and lays the mighty low.” 
Mr. Boswell’s conmment upon this obser- 
vation was, that dissenting shake of the 
head, to which folk are reduced, when 
they will not be convinced, yet find their 
stores of defence exhausted. PR 
Mr, B. confessed his idea that Johnson 
was a Romay Catholic in his heart. —L 
have heard him, said he, staring Pale 
en 
