dour than is suitable to a player: if they had had the wit to have assaulted him in that quarter, they might have galled him more. But they have kept clamouring about his avarice, which has rescued him from much obloquy and envy."

Talking of the great difficulty of obtaining authentick information for biography, Johnson told us, "When I was a young fellow I wanted to write the Life of Dryden, and in order to get materials, I applied to the only two persons then alive who had seen him; these were old Swinney, and old Cibber. Swinney's information was no more than this, 'That at Will's coffee-house Dryden had a particular chair for himself, which was set by the fire in winter, and was then called his winter-chair; and that it was carried out for him to the balcony in summer, and was then called his summer-chair.' Cibber could tell no more but "That he remembered him a decent old man, arbiter of critical disputes at Will's.' You are to consider that Cibber was then at a great distance from Dryden, had perhaps one leg only in the room, and durst not draw in the other." BOSWELL. "Yet Cibber was a man of observation?" JOHNSON. “I think not." BoSWELL. "You will allow his Apology to be well done." JOHNSON. "Very well done, to be sure, Sir. That book is a striking proof of the justice of Pope's remark:

“Each might his several province well command
Would all but stoop to what they understand.""

BOSWELL. "And his plays are good." JOHNSON. "Yes; but that was his trade; l'esprit du corps: he had been all his life among players and play-writers. I wondered that he had so little to say in conversation, for he had kept the best company, and learnt all that can be got by the ear. He abused Pindar to me, and then shewed me an Ode of his own, with an absurd couplet, making a linnet soar on an eagle's wing. I told him that when the ancients made a simile, they always made it like something real.”

Mr. Wilkes remarked, that "among all the bold flights of Shakspeare's imagination, the boldest was making Birnam wood march to Dunsinane; creating a wood where there never was a shrub; a wood in Scotland! ha! ha! ha!" And he also observed, that "the clannish slavery of the Highlands of Scotland was the single exception to Milton's remark of "The Mountain Nymph, sweet Liberty,' being worshipped in all hilly countries."-"When I was at Inverary (said he,) on a visit to my old friend, Archibald, Duke of Argyle, his dependents congratulated me on being such a favourite of his Grace. I said, 'It is then, gentlemen, truely lucky for me; for if I had displeased the Duke, and

he had wished it, there is not a Campbell among you but would have been ready to bring John Wilkes's head to him in a charger. It would have been only

""Off with his head! So much for Aylesbury.'

I was then member for Aylesbury."

Mr. Arthur Lee mentioned some Scotch who had taken possession of a barren part of America, and wondered why they should choose it. JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, all barrenness is comparative. The Scotch would not know it to be barren." BoSWELL. "Come, come, he is flattering the English. You have now been in Scotland, Sir, and say if you did not see meat and drink enough there." JOHNSON. "Why, yes, Sir; meat and drink enough to give the enhabitants sufficient strength to run away from home." All these quick and lively sallies were said sportively, quite in jest, and with a smile, which showed that he meant only wit. Upon this topick he and Mr. Wilkes could perfectly assimilate; here was a bond of union between them, and I was conscious that as both of them had visited Caledonia, both were fully satisfied of the strange narrow ignorance of those who imagine that it is a land of famine. But they amused themselves with persevering in the old jokes. When I claimed a superiority for Scotland over England in one respect, that no man can be arrested there for a debt merely because another swears it against him; but there must first be the judgement of a court of law ascertaining its justice; and that a seizure of the person, before judgement is obtained, can take place only, if his creditor should swear that he is about to fly from the country, or, as it is technically expressed, is in meditatione fuga: WILKES. "That, I should think, may be safely sworn of all the Scotch nation." JOHNSON. (to Mr. Wilkes,) "You must know, Sir, I lately took my friend Boswell and shewed him genuine civilised life in an English provincial town. I turned him loose at Lichfield, my native city, that he might see for once real civility: for you know he lives among savages in Scotland, and among rakes in London.” WILKES. "Except when he is with grave, sober, decent people like you and me." JOHNSON. (smiling,) “And we ashamed of him.”

LAURENCE STERNE (1713-1768)

From TRISTRAM SHANDY

The Story of Le Fever

Lieutenant Le Fever is a poor officer, dying from want and sickness, one of the many recipients of kindness from good Uncle Toby, the central figure in Tristram Shandy.

It was to my uncle Toby's eternal honour,

-though I tell it only

for the sake of those, who, when coop'd in betwixt a natural and a positive law, know not, for their souls, which way in the world to turn themselves -That notwithstanding my uncle Toby was warmly engaged at that time in carrying on the siege of Dendermond, parallel with the allies, who pressed theirs on so vigorously, that they scarce allowed him time to get his dinner that nevertheless he gave up Dendermond, though he had already made a lodgment upon the counterscarp; and bent his whole thoughts towards the private distresses at the inn; and except that he ordered the garden gate to be bolted up, by which he might be said to have turned the siege of Dendermond into a blockade, he left Dendermond to itself—to be relieved or not by the French king, as the French king thought good; and only considered how he himself should relieve the poor lieutenant and his son.

-That kind BEING, who is a friend to the friendless, shall recompence thee for this.

Thou hast left this matter short, said my uncle Toby to the corporal, as he was putting him to bed, and I will tell thee in what, Trim.In the first place, when thou madest an offer of my services to Le Fever, -as sickness and travelling are both expensive, and thou knowest he was but a poor lieutenant, with a son to subsist as well as himself out of his pay, that thou didst not make an offer to him of my purse; because, had he stood in need, thou knowest, Trim, he had been as welcome to it as myself. Your honour knows, said the corporal, I had no orders;- True, quoth my uncle Toby,-thou didst very right, Trim, as a soldier, but certainly very wrong as a man.

In the second place, for which, indeed, thou hast the same excuse, continued my uncle Toby,-when thou offeredst him whatever was in my house,thou shouldst have offered him my house too:—A sick brother officer should have the best quarters, Trim, and if we had him with us,- -we could tend and look to him:- -Thou art an excellent nurse thyself, Trim,—and what with thy care of him, and the old

woman's, and his boy's, and mine together, we might recruit him again at once, and set him upon his legs.

- In a fortnight or three weeks, added my uncle Toby, smiling, -he might march. He will never march; an' please your honour, in this world, said the corporal:He will march; said my uncle Toby, rising up, from the side of the bed, with one shoe off:-An' please your honour, said the corporal, he will never march but to his grave :He shall march, cried my uncle Toby, marching the foot which had a shoe on, though without advancing an inch, he shall march to his regiment.- -He cannot stand it, said the corporal;-He shall be supported, said my uncle Toby;-He'll drop at last, said the corporal, and what will become of his boy?—He shall not drop, said my uncle Toby, firmly.- A-well-o'-day,—do what we can for him, said Trim, maintaining his point,- -the poor soul will die:He shall not die, by G―, cried my uncle Toby.

-The ACCUSING SPIRIT, which flew up to heaven's chancery with the oath, blush'd as he gave it in;—and the RECORDING ANGEL, as he wrote it down, dropp'd a tear upon the word, and blotted it out for ever.

-My uncle Toby went to his bureau, put his purse into his breeches pocket, and having ordered the corporal to go early in the morning for a physician, he went to bed, and fell asleep.

The sun looked bright the morning after, to every eye in the village but Le Fever's and his afflicted son's; the hand of death press'd heavy upon his eye-lids, and hardly could the wheel at the cistern turn round its circle,- -when my uncle Toby, who had rose up an hour before his wonted time, entered the lieutenant's room, and without preface or apology, sat himself down upon the chair by the bed-side, and, independently of all modes and customs, opened the curtain in the manner an old friend and brother officer would have done it, and asked him how he did,how he had rested in the night,- -what was his complaint, —where was his pain,—and what he could do to help him :—and without giving him time to answer any one of the enquiries, went on, and told him of the little plan which he had been concerting with the corporal the night before for him.

-You shall go home directly, Le Fever, said my uncle Toby, to my house, and we'll send for a doctor to see what's the matter,———— and we'll have an apothecary, and the corporal shall be your nurse; -and I'll be your servant, Le Fever.

There was a frankness in my uncle Toby,not the effect of familiarity, but the cause of it,———which let you at once into his soul, and

shewed you the goodness of his nature; to this, there was something in his looks, and voice, and manner, superadded, which eternally beckoned to the unfortunate to come and take shelter under him; so that before my uncle Toby had half finished the kind offers he was making to the father, had the son insensibly pressed up close to his knees, and had taken hold of the breast of his coat, and was pulling it towards him.The blood and spirits of Le Fever, which were waxing cold and slow within him, and were retreating to their last citadel, the heart-rallied back,-the film forsook his eyes for a moment-he looked up wishfully in my uncle Toby's face,then cast a look -then cast a look upon his boy,-and that ligament, fine as it was,was never broken.

Nature instantly ebb'd again,

-the film returned to its place,—————the

pulse fluttered- —stopp'd—went on-throbb'd-stopp'd again -moved- -stopp'd.

Tristram and the Ass

Tristram was setting forth from his inn at Lyons, to visit "the tomb of the lovers," when he was stopped at the gate by the poor ass that figures in the following narration.

-'Twas by a poor ass, who had just turned in with a couple of large panniers upon his back, to collect eleemosynary turnip-tops and cabbage-leaves; and stood dubious, with his two fore-feet on the inside of the threshold, and with his two hinder feet towards the street, as not knowing very well whether he was to go in or no.

Now, 'tis an animal (be in what hurry I may) I cannot bear to strike -there is a patient endurance of sufferings, wrote so unaffectedly in his looks and carriage, which pleads so mightily for him, that it always disarms me; and to that degree, that I do not like to speak unkindly to him: on the contrary, meet him where I will-whether in town or country-in cart or under panniers-whether in liberty or bondage-I have ever something civil to say to him on my part; and as one word begets another (if he has as little to do as I)-I generally fall into conversation with him; and surely never is my imagination so busy as in framing his responses from the etchings of his countenance—and where those carry me not deep enough-in flying from my own heart into his, and seeing what is natural for an ass to think as well as a man, upon the occasion. In truth, it is the only creature of all the classes of beings below me, with whom I can do this: for parrots, jackdaws, &c. --I never exchange a word with them-nor with the apes, &c., for pretty near the same reason; they act by rote, as the others speak by it, and equally make me silent: nay my dog and my cat, though I value them