man to get," observed Johnson, "who does best that which so many endeavor to do. There is nothing, I think, in which the power of art is shown so much as in playing on the fiddle. In all other things we can do something at first. Any man will forge a bar of iron, if you give him a hammer; not so well as a smith, but tolerably. A man will saw a piece of wood, and make a box, though a clumsy one; but give him a fiddle and fiddelstick and he can do nothing."

This, upon the whole, though reported by the onesided Boswell, is a tolerable specimen of the conversations of Goldsmith and Johnson; the former heedless, often illogical, always on the kind-hearted side of the question, and prone to redeem himself by lucky hits; the latter closely argumentative, studiously sententious, often profound, and sometimes laboriously prosaic.

They had an argument a few days later at Mr. Thrale's table, on the subject of suicide. “Do you think, sir," said Boswell, "that all who commit suicide are mad?" "Sir," replied Johnson, "they are not often universally disordered in their intellects, but one passion presses so upon them that they yield to it, and commit suicide, as a passionate man will stab another. I have often thought," added he, "that after a man has taken the resolution to kill himself, it is not courage in him to do anything, however desperate, because he has nothing to fear." "I don't see that," observed Goldsmith. "Nay, but, my dear sir," rejoined Johnson, "why should you

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not see what every one else does?" "It is," replied Goldsmith, "for fear of something that he has resolved to kill himself; and will not that timid disposition restrain him?" "It does not signify," pursued Johnson, "that the fear of something made him resolve; it is upon the state of his mind, after the resolution is taken, that I argue. Suppose a man, either from fear, or pride, or conscience, or whatever motive, has resolved to kill himself; when once the resolution is taken he has nothing to fear. He may then go and take the King of Prussia by the nose at the head of his army. He cannot fear the rack who is determined to kill himself." Boswell reports no more of the discussion, though Goldsmith might have continued it with advantage: for the very timid disposition, which through fear of something was impelling the man to commit suicide, might restrain him from an act involving the punishment of the rack, more terrible to him than death itself.

It is to be regretted in all these reports by Boswell, we have scarcely anything but the remarks of Johnson; it is only by accident that he now and then gives us the observations of others, when they are necessary to explain or set off those of his hero. "When in that presence," says Miss Burney, "he was unobservant, if not contemptuous of every one else. In truth, when he met with Dr. Johnson, he commonly forbore even answering anything that was said, or attending to anything that went forward, lest he should miss the smallest sound

from that voice, to which he paid such exclusive, though merited homage. But the moment that voice burst forth, the attention which it excited on Mr. Boswell amounted almost to pain. His eyes goggled with eagerness; he leant his ear almost on the shoulder of the Doctor; and his mouth dropped open to catch every syllable that might be uttered; nay, he seemed not only to dread losing a word, but to be anxious not to miss a breathing, as if hoping from it latently, or mystically, some information. On one occasion the Doctor detected Boswell, or Bozzy, as he called him, eavesdropping behind his chair, as he was conversing with Miss Burney at Mr. Thrale's table. "What are you doing there, sir?" cried he, turning round angrily, and clapping his hand upon his knee. "Go to the table, sir."

Boswell obeyed with an air of affright and submission, which raised a smile on every face. Scarce had he taken his seat, however, at a distance, than, impatient to get again at the side of Johnson, he rose and was running off in quest of something to show him, when the Doctor roared after him authoritatively, "What are you thinking of, sir? Why do you get up before the cloth is removed? Come back to your place, sir;"-and the obsequious spaniel did as he was commanded.—“ Running about in the middle of meals!" muttered the Doctor, pursing his mouth at the same time to restrain his rising risibility. Boswell got another rebuff from Johnson, which would have demolished any other man. He had been teasing

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him with many direct questions, such as, "What did you do, sir ?—What did you say, sir?" until the great philologist became perfectly enraged. "I will not be put to the question!" roared he. "Don't you consider, sir, that these are not the manners of a gentleman? I will not be baited with what and why;-What is this? What is that? Why is a cow's tail long? Why is a fox's tail bushy?" "Why, sir," replied pilgarlick, “you are so good that I venture to trouble you." "Sir," replied Johnson, "my being so good is no reason why you should be so ill." "You have but two topics, sir," exclaimed he on another occasion, "yourself and me, and I am sick of both."

Boswell's inveterate disposition to toad, was a sore cause of mortification to his father, the old laird of Auchinleck, (or Affleck.) He had been annoyed by his extravagant devotion to Paoli, but then he was something of a military hero; but this tagging at the heels of Dr. Johnson, whom he considered a kind of pedagogue, set his Scotch blood in a ferment. "There's nae hope for Jamie, mon," said he to a friend;-"Jamie is gaen clean gyte. What do you think, mon? He's done wi' Paoli; he's off wi' the landlouping scoundrel of a Corsican; and whose tail do you think he has pinn'd himself to now, man? A dominie, mon; an auld dominie; he keeped a schule, and cau'd it an acaadamy.”

We shall show in the next chapter that Jamie's devotion to the dominie did not go unrewarded.

CHAPTER XL.

CHANGES IN THE LITERARY CLUB.-JOHNSON'S OBJECTION TO GARRICK.—ELECTION OF BOSWELL.

HE Literary Club (as we have termed the club in Gerard Street, though it took that name some time later) had now been in existence several years. Johnson was exceedingly chary at first of its exclusiveness, and opposed to its being augmented in number. Not long after its institution, Sir Joshua Reynolds was speaking of it to Garrick. "I like it much," said little David, briskly; "I think I shall be of you." "When Sir Joshua mentioned this to Dr. Johnson," says Boswell, "he was much displeased with the actor's conceit. 'He'll be of us?' growled he. 'How does he know we will permit him? The first duke in England has no right to hold such language.'

When Sir John Hawkins spoke favorably of Garrick's pretensions, "Sir," replied Johnson, "he will disturb us by his buffoonery." In the same spirit he declared to Mr. Thrale, that, if Garrick should apply for admission, he would black-ball him. "Who, sir?" exclaimed Thrale, with surprise; "Mr. Garrick-your friend, your compan