he faid, but, by the thundering fonoroufnefs of their pronoun ciation, had a confiderable effect upon the auricular organs of his fcholars. Hence proceeded his domineering infolence in company, which in him was no affectation; his lexiphanic differtations; and his bow-wow manner of fpeaking, which, according to Lord Pembroke, contributed fo much to his fuccefs" in the world.

Having given these openings into his character, with more penetration and good fenfe than any of his biographers, Mrs. Piozzi relates a variety of ftories and anecdotes concerning him, including no less than twenty years of his life. For the better inftruction of the reader we will felect a few from this promifcuous mafs, that illuftrate his character with regard to his religion, his tafte, his humanity and friendship, and his wit or convivial hilarity.

With regard to his religion, our fair biographer informs us (p. 220) "That he was lowly towards God; docile towards the church, and implicit in his belief of the gospel." He did not however attain at once to the fuperlative merit of implicit faith, "for at ten years of age (p. 7) he was disturbed by fcruples of infidelity." After a diligent but fruitless fearch for evidence on this myfterious fubject, he recollected to have feen a book in his father's fhop, De Veritate Religionis Chriftiana. He feized the book in a fit of remorse, and read it with avidity; but finding that he could not understand it, as it was written in Latin, he gave up any further inquiry, and began to follow his pleafures. But, from the pain which his conduct gave him, by one of the boldest inferences that ever was made, he deduced the immortality of the foul, which was the point that his belief stopped at; and from that moment, refolving to be a Chriftian, he became one of the most zealous Church of England faints which this nation has produced. Notwithstanding of this extraordinary converfion, he did not all at once get the better of the old man," for corruption at an early period entered into his heart by a dream.". When our elegant hiftoriographer interrogated him concerning this nocturnal corruption; "Do not afk me," replied he with much violence, and walked away in apparent agitation. Thus, to the irreparable lofs of the learned world, this dream hath gone the fame way with Nebuchadnezzar's, and there is no Daniel to divine and interpret! His faith in the immortality of the foul feems now to have acquired a tolerable degree of thickness and confiftency, and to have extended to purgatory as well as heaven and hell. Having got the play of Hamlet in his hand, he was reading it quietly in his father's kitchen, and kept on fteadily enough, till coming to the ghost scene, he fuddenly hurried up ftairs to the street-door, that he might fee people about him. He continued long to be

afraid of spirits, and we think with some reason, for he told Dr. Lawrence (p. 192) "That many years after his mother's death he heard her voice call to him Sam!" So very zealous was he in the faith of the Church of England, that he could not hear of an infidel's name with patience, and never quoted the authority of an infidel writer in his dictionary. For the fame reason, when asked, "Who was the best man he had ever known?" he anfwered, "George Pfalmanazzar," a notorious cheat and profligate impoftor, who, after having studied and difgraced all religions, died of the Church of England.

We come now to fome particulars that difcover and difplay his tafte. It is very juftly obferved by Dr. Armstrong, that there is an analogy between the organization of the body and that of the mind, and that there is hardly an inftance of a perfon of a robust and vulgar make who has an elegant mind. An elegant man difcovers his tafte in the pleasures of the table. Dr. Johnson's notions about eating, fays Mrs. Piozzi, (p. 104) were nothing less than delicate. A leg of pork boiled till it dropped from the bone, a veal pye with plums and fugar, or the outfide cut of a falt buttock of beef, were his favourite dainties: with regard to drink; his liking was for the Strongeft; as it was not the flavour, but the effect he fought for; and when I first knew him he used to pour capillaire into his port-wine. He poured large quantities of cream or even melted butter into his chocolate.

A high enjoyment of fine fcenes, delightful landscapes, and the beauties of nature, has generally been found to characterise a man of taste. Dr. Johnson knew none of these fenfual pleasures. When Mr. Thrale pointed out a fine landfcape to him, "Never heed fuch nonsense, (said he) a blade of grafs is always a blade of grafs, whether in one country or another." He hated to hear about profpects and views, and tafte in gardening. "That is the best garden (he faid), (p. 264) which produces moft roots and fruits; and that water moft to be prized which contains moft fifh." He used to laugh most unmercifully at Shenftone for not caring whether there was any thing good to eat in his ftreams, " as if (fays Dr. Johnson) one could fill one's belly with hearing foft murmurs, or looking at rough cafcades." He derided the people who covered their canals with foreign fowls, "when (fays he) our own geefe and ganders are twice as large." The following story not only fhews his tafte in painting, but the delicacy of his raillery. He told Sir Joshua Reynolds, one of his moft refpected friends, that it grieved him to fee fo much mind laid out upon fuch perifhable materials: "Why do you not paint on copper ?" Sir Joshua urged the difficulty of procuring a plate large enough for hiftorical fubjects: "What foppifh obftacles are these! (exENG. REV. Vol. VI. April 1786.

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claims Dr. Johnfon.) Here is Thrale who has a thousand tun of copper, you may paint it all round if you will, and I fuppofe it will ferve to brew in afterwards; will it not, Sir?""

Another mark of the peculiarity of his tafte was (fays Signora Piozzi, p. 257) that strong averfion felt by all the vulgar towards four-footed companions. Belle, Mr. Thrale's bitch, one day ftole their toaft and butter. Fye Belle, faid I, you used to be upon honour. Yes, faid he, but Belle grows old. His reafon for hating the dog was, that he was a profeffed favourite, and because her lady ordered her from time to time to be washed and combed, an affumption of fuperiority, (faid he) that one's nature revolts it. So great was his ambition to be the favourite of the family, that he could not even bear a fourfooted rival!

With this degree of tafte, which would have done honour to a Hottentot, we need not be surprised that he quarrelled with his wife, for her perpetual reverence for cleanliness, and attention to sweep the house!

Dr.

His general humanity and the delicacy of his friendship are a little fingular, but ftrongly marked in his character. Johnson profeffed to defpife Swift for hating whole focieties of men and loving individuals; and yet, without loving individuals, he hated whole focieties of men. He hated Cambridge, becaufe the university was infected with whiggifm, and had produced Mafon and Gray. He hated the Scotch, becaufe they were Prefbyterians, and because many repectable authors in the reigns of George the 2d and 3d were born north of the Tweed. He hated the French because they were the most enlightened and refined nation of Europe, and because their authors and their language circulated round the world. When a French author was mentioned with approbation, he flew into a rage; "What can be expected, fays he, from fellows that live on frogs?" His private friendship was of a piece with his general character. Lord Anfon invited him to his house. "I was well received, (fays he) and kindly treated, and with the true gratitude of a wit ridiculed the maiter of the house before I had left it an hour." To Garrick he was highly indebted for his fuc cefs and reputation in the world, and with a lively refentment of fuch favours he made it his conftant object to turn him into ridicule at his own table. We have seen how he treated Sir Joshua Reynolds. He profeffed to love his mother, One day fhe called him a puppy Pray," fays this dutiful and loving fon, "do you know what they call a puppy's mother?" To Mrs. Thrale he owed the highest obligations that one human being can owe to another, As an admirer fhe flattered him; as a friend fhe foothed him; as a nurfe fhe watched him. She faved him from disease, from melancholy, from madness, and from death.

One

day

day the lamented the lofs of a firft coufin killed in America: "Prithee, (faid he) have done with canting; how would the world be worse, if all your relations were at once pitted like larks and roafted for Prefto's fupper?" Prefto was the dog that lay under the table.

With regard to his wit we fhall fay little, as his bon mots are fo well known. Talking in company, fays Mrs. Thrale, was his chief employment and fole pleasure. He knew he could not fhine by elegant wit and polished manners, and therefore cultivated the easier graces of the vulgar, ill nature, infolence, rufticity, and barbarity. All his efforts at wit are tinctured with malignity and expreffed with bru tality. Indeed, in the whole collection of what are called his bon mots, we recollect few for which a boy would not have been whipped; for which a gentleman would not have been expelled from fociety, and perhaps run through the body; and for which a Chriftian, on account of the difpofitions from which they flow, is not threatened with the highest punishments of his religion.

From this account of Dr. Johnfon, different conclufions may be drawn. One is given us by Mrs. Piozzi; "that he was the wifeft and beft man fhe had ever known." The other by himself;" that he was ready to become a rafcal, and with a little more fpoiling would grow a complete fcoundrel." To which of these the preference is to be given, we shall leave to the determination of the reader.

Such was the man! With regard to the author, his reputation with the public is fuch, that it has not been injured or affected by the indifcreet and difhonourable conduct of his profeffed friends and admirers, in expofing to the ridicule of the world all the abfurdities and follies which fell from his tongue, in his weak, wicked, and mad moments. Of these we have had enough. A diftinguished character may be allowed fome peculiarities and oddities, but there is no occafion to transfer them to the lift of his virtues. An orthodox tartar may poffefs a fufficient degree of veneration for the Delai Lama, without either worshipping or eating his excrements.

ART. III. The Philofophical Dictionary: or, the Opinions of Modern Philofophers on Metaphyfical, Maral, and Political Subjects. In Four Volumes, 12mo, 12s. fewed. Robinfons, 1786. London.

THE prefent fashion of publishing truths and opinions under

the form of dictionaries, cyclopedies, and in other compilations with other names, is inimical to the improvement of fcience. A Thefaurus Lingua Grece, or Lingua Latina, is very

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proper. These languages are dead and fixed, and admit not of progress or variation. It is otherwise with science, which is in its nature progreffive, and with opinions, which are ever changing. It is better to lead on a young mind to difcover truth itself, than to present to its view a collection of the opinions of other men. And a divifion of the objects of truth or knowledge ought to be made in a fcientific manner; either according to the leading powers of the mind, imagination, memory, and judgment, which is the comprehensive arrangement followed by Lord Bacon in his Augmentis Scientiarum, or fome other divifion, if any fuch divifion can be found equally philofophical. The mind, in all general views of knowledge, fhould be led into the great cabinet of truth and nature, by such fteps and views, as thofe that we find in " Inftitutes of Moral Philofophy, for the Ufe of Students, by Doctor Adam Ferguson.' On these principles, we hold this Philofophical Dictionary in very flight eftimation, confidered, as its title bears, as a philofophical publication. But the compiler, in a preface, tells us

that

The following work is compiled from the writings of the moft eminent philofophers in Europe. It was originally undertaken with no other view but to ferve as a common-p -place book for private ufe. If the publication of it can add to the amufement of travellers who carry few books with them, or fatisfy the curiofity of those who cannot pur. chase many books, or have little time to read them, it will anfwer every purpose the editor could expect.

There are fome articles in it which have been the subject of controverfy amongst ancient as well as modern philofophers: on these fubjects the arguments on both fides of the queftion are, in general, extracted for the fatisfaction of the reader. If the work meet the approbation of the public, the defects of it may be amended in a fupplement or future edition.

A love of truth and warm wishes for its diffufion, under refpectable authorities, were the fole objects of the editor in this publication.'

From the writings of Locke, Hume, Helvetius, Smith, Montefquieu, Bolingbroke, Franklin, Burke, Voltaire, Rouffeau, Fergufon, Hartley, Raynal, D'Alembert, Beccaria, &c. &c. it was an easy matter to form a very fenfible, entertaining, and philofophical mifcellany; and our author has formed one that merits this character.

We could have wished that our compiler had not introduced together with the great names juft recited, others of very inferior merit and reputation; and fome who aspire to distinction and fame by joining though with feeble voice, in the hue and cry against the, Chriftian religion, and the administration of Providence. Our compiler feems fond of joining the pack and re-echoing the cries. May God of his infinite mercy pity, as

from