1831.] [ HI ] 



JOHNSON, BOSWELL, AND CROKER, 



We have no time now, to detail the merits of the five solid volumes, 

 which the scissors of the late secretary of the Admiralty have compiled 

 for us ; his part in the performance has been, to gather from all the 

 memoirs scattered through the shelves of gossipry, every fragment of 

 anecdote which could swell the bulk of the doctor's notoriety. The 

 result is, a very amusing book, probably of very considerable trouble 

 to the compiler, and undoubtedly, of very considerable interest to the 

 lover of pertinent sayings, strong charactei*, and rough argumentation. 

 The doctor was a first-rate John Bull, that is, a first-rate bull-dog, and 

 nothing could be more formidable than his gripe, when he once took 

 the ti'ouble to tear down his antagonist. But we have no time for cri- 

 ticism now. We shall try to gratify our readers by some fragments 

 of the volumes. 



Goldsmith was continually provoking Johnson, by some foolery or 

 other ; the doctor was fond of him, but, like a good parent, never spared 

 the rod. 



" Of Goldsmith's Traveller he used to speak in terms of the highest com- 

 mendation. A lady, I remember, who had the pleasure of hearing Dr. Johnson 

 read it from the beginning to the end, on its first coming out, to testify her 

 admiration of it, exclaimed, ' I never more shall think Dr. Goldsmith ugly !' 

 In having thought so, however, she was by no means singular : an instance of 

 which I am rather inclined to mention, because it involves a remarkable one 

 of Dr. Johnson's ready wit : for this lady, one evening, being in a large party, 

 was called upon, after supper, for her toast, and seeming embarrassed, she was 

 desired to give the ugliest man she knew ; and she immediately named Dr. 

 Goldsmith : on which a lady, on the other eide of the table, rose up, and 

 reached across to shake hands with her, expressing some desire of being better 

 acquainted with her, it being the first time they had met ; on which Dr. John- 

 son said, ' Thus the ancients, on the commencement of their friendships, used 

 to sacrifice a beast betwixt them.' " 



Johnson had some original dislike to the Scotch nation, though clearly 

 not to the Scotch as individuals, for his chief companions in his early 

 literary course were Scotchmen, and Boswell was obviously on the 

 most familiar footing with him ; but he had the insolence of the " Mo- 

 dern Athenian :" — 



" Mr. Boswell has chosen to omit, for reasons which will be presently obvious, 

 that Johnson and Adam Smith met at Glasgow ; but I have been assured by 

 Professor John Miller that they did so, ai^d that Smith, leaving the party in 

 which he had met Johnson, happened to come to another company where Miller 

 was. Knowing that Smith had been in Johnson's society, they were anxious to 

 know what had passed, and the more so, as Dr. Smith's temper seemed much 

 ruffled. At first Smith would only answer, 'He's a brute — he's a brute;' but 

 on closer examination, it appeared that Johnson no sooner saw Smith than he 

 attacked him for some point of his famous letter on the death of Hume. Smith 

 vindicated the truth of his statement. ' What did Johnson say ?' was the uni- 

 versal inquiry. ' Why, he said,' replied Smith, with the deepest impression of 

 resentment, ' he said, you lie !' 'And what did you reply ?' ' I said, you are a 



son of a !' On such terms did these two great moralists meet and part ; 



and such was the classical dialogue between two great teachers of philosophy." — 

 Walteu Scott. 



One of the anecdotes, trivial enough, is traced by the editor with a 

 ludicrous particularity : — 



