can illuftrate it. Without animation and ardour, thefe would never have been difcovered; without imagination and affection, the underftanding would have lain torpid and inactive. Fancy, that noble and neceffary power, has placed the fubject in every poffible combina tion of form and circumftance, has called in to its aid ideas, images, and analogies, which, at first, seemed moft foreign and inapplicable; and has thus beheld it in afpects which the dull plodder would never have imagined. By this means, a knowledge is acquired, various, extenfive, and exact, beyond what could, otherways, have poffibly been obtained. The office of the understanding is merely that of a judge, to pass fentence upon the caufe before it. The imagination collects and arranges the evidence, and brings it before the deciding power in fuch a form as may lead to an accurate and judicious determination." Thefe fentiments are illuftrated by arguments drawn from the profeffion of the phy. fician, and even from that of the mathema rician, whofe points, lines and fuperficies are, our author truly fays, mere creatures of the imagination; adding, that Sir Ifaac Newton must have poffeffed a fancy of the boldett wing " to hold it in with a tight rein, thra it may not run away with the understanding, and lead to conclufions finciful and groundlefs, we allow in its fullest extent. We contend only for that degree, which will confift with the exactnefs of judgment. Their "The vivacity and ftrength of imagination in children, is aftonishing. knowlelge of objects being very flight and fuperficial, a few faint refemblances are fufficient to realize and embody them. By degrees, as their knowledge becomes more extenfive and exact, their power of imagining declines, the power of judging is improved, and when thefe two powers have attained their proper balance, the mind has attained its highett capacity." We join alfo moft fervently with our author in offering up the following coaclufion. "Let, then, understanding and judgment ever be confidered as the prefiding faculties of the human spirit. To their control, let Let every other power ultimately fubmit. the imagination and the paffions be conûdered merely as their fervants, obedient to their command. But, whilft they are thus obedient, let them have the praife of good and ufful fervants: and above all, let them not be compelled to criminate and condemn themselves; or, according to the juft fimile of the poet, ( Whilft reafon holds the helm"Let paffion be the gale." Pope. Thele arguments however, ingenious as they are, only ferve to prove what, in our opinion, is felf-evident. For that which is obvious to the fentes requires not the alliftance of the imagination; that which is known to others, and is explained upon estabished principles, may or may not require fone little exertions of the imagination; hut in all matters of invention the imagination mut take the lead, muit be the primary agent, or the mind muft of neceifty remain in a state of inactivity. "That the imagination may, as it often does, tranfgrefs its fuch a pilotage, with fafety and fatisfaction." fr per bounds, we, with our author, most readily acknowledge. That it is neceffary "And let imagination fly abroad to collec the various fcattered breezes, which, thus united into one frong current, may carry the vellel for ward across the ocean of life, under [To be Continued.] The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, with Samuel Johnson, L. L. D. By James IN Bofwell, Efq. 8vo. 6s. Dilly. our Review for laft December we gave our opinion of the character of this entertaining work, and we now proceed, as we there began, to give fuch extracts as appear to us to require particular animadverfion. To Mr. Bofwell, who was lamenting that the independency of Scotland was loft by the Union, the Doctor replied, "Sir, never talk of your independency, who could let your Queen remain twenty years in captivity, and then be put to death, without even a pretence of justice, without your ever attempting to rescue her; and fuch a Queen too! as every man of any gallantry of spirit would have facr ficed his life for."-Worthy Mr. "Half James Kerr, Keeper of the Breonds. But though thote worthy and good gentlemen could not find it out, it is no difficult matter to difcover a reafon for the conduct of the people of Scotland, with regard to their captive Queen; a reafon which excufes them from the charge of putillanimity, and which feems totally to have escaped all the confabulators above mentioned. Queen Mary was a zealous papist, and on the eatfold con foled herself that he was to die a martyr for the Holy Catholic church. The great bulk of the people of Scotland, on the contrary, were ardent to a high degree to thake off the Rnish yoke. It was this conteft which drove Mary from her throne and kingdom, and threw her into the arms of the ungenerous Elizabeth. Could it be fuppofed therefore that a people thus circumftanced, were at once to drop all their principles and ideas of civil and religious liberty, and to rife in defence of that very person because she was beautiful, whom they justly esteemed as the head of the party with whom they were at irreconcileable variance? Such an inconfift. ency in the conduct of a great majority in power, does not occur in the history of any nation; and Dr. Johnson's reflection on the Scots for want of gallantry in not facrificing teir lives for fuch a Queen, may be a waggth joke, good enough; but it would be extremely filly in an historian to talk in fuch vague manner, after delineating the characters of the parties who were ftruggling, the one to enforce, and the other to fhake off the dominion and tyranny of the church of Rome. "When we came to Leith," fays Mr. Bofwell," I talked with perhaps too boast ing an air how pretty the Frith of Forth looked; as indeed after the profpect from Conftantinople, of which I have been told, and that from Naples, which I have feen, I bleve the view of that Frith and its environs, from the Caftle-hill of Edinburgh, the finelt profpest in Europe. Aye (faid Mr. Johnfon) that is the ftate of the world, water is the fame every where." But though water may be the fame every where, the winding of the fhores, and the handicapes that environ thofe fhores, are not the fame every where; and it is these that give fhape and beauty to the interfecting water; all which, by being happily grouped, produce the beautiful or magnificent in the Varieties of profpect. Mr. Bofwell fays Dr. Johaton was weak-fighted. We rather think he was what is commonly called short-fighted. He never used spectacles, and read with the book near his nofe; and therefore we prefume he did not and could not fee the landscapes which furround the Forth. Without fuch apology, his reply, when defired to contemplate one of the finest profpects in Europe, would have merited the cenfure of being most wantonly capricious, and peevifhly childish, Mr. Bofwell with apparent pleasure relates feveral inftances of the Doctor's knowledge in mechanics and various occupations. "Laft night, (fays he, p. 299.) Dr. Johnfon gave us an account of the whole procefs of tanning; of the nature of milk, and the various operations upon it, as making whey, &c. His variety of information is furprising; and it gives me much fatisfaction to find such a man beftowing his attention on the useful arts of life." He then adds the Doctor's skill in the trade of a butcher. "Different animds, faid he, are killed differently. An OX * is knocked down, and a calf stunned, but a fheep has its throat cut." The Doctor's knowledge of thatching is also admired, cum multis aliis. "He faid a roof thatched (Boswell, p. 325.) with Lincolnshire reeds would laft feventy years, as he was informed when in that country; and that he told this to a great thatcher in London †, who faid he believed it might be true.-Such are the pains that Dr. Johnfon takes to get the best information on every fubject." But against bis beft information on every fubject, we enter our ftrongest proteli. Of a subject the most interesting of all others to Englishmen, on which the protection and prefervation of their laws and liberties depend, the allknowing Doctor appears to have been moft fadly ignorant, By Mr. Bofwell's account, he feems totally loft whenever he attempted to talk of tea-affairs. Born in an island, and forrounded and out-numbered as we are with, next to ourselves, the most powerful maritime nations of the univerfe, who are our rivals in peace and ambitious enemies in war, it is truly furprifing to find an Eng ih Philofopher fo deeply prejudiced against, and fo ignorant even in theory of thet great bulwark and fine qua non defence of every thing dear to freemen, our mar.time œconomy and its practical part, as Dr. Johnfon is reprefented by his companion. Inftances of this will occur as we travel through Mr. Bofwell's volume. The firft that offers itfelf is as follows. When they were at Leith, the fea-port of Edinburgh," he observed of the pier or quay," fays Mr. Bofwell, "yu have no occation for fo large a one: your Thefe methods of killing cattle are given as general practice, in which light they are not founded. At the Victualling offices oxen are killed much more humanely, by stabbing them in the spinal marrow of the neck, which is the most inftant of all deaths; and calves are hung by the hind heels and have their thro ts cut in almoft every county in England. The Doctor's knowledge in butchery, in this inftance feems to have been confined to the great Effex calves. +We wonder in what part of London this great thatcher's employment lay. trade trade don't require it: but you are like a fhopkeeper who takes a fhop not only for what he has to put into it, but that it may be believed he has a great deal to put into it." On the above we fhall only remark, that in Milford-haven it is faid all the navy of England might moor in fafety. Now what would be thought, had Dr. Johnfon on view ing it faid to a Welchman, "Sir, you have occafion for fo large a baven; your "trade does not require it; but you are like "a fhopkeeper who takes a fhop not only "for what he has to put into it, but that it "may be believed he has a great deal to put "into it." ΠΟ If it is faid the Doctor only talked of the largenefs of the ftone pier at Leith, for which he thought there was no occafion, our reply is ready: We fufpected fo, though the fentence is not perfpicuous; and on the best authority we can now inform our readers, that the pier in question is indeed a large curving building, projecting a good way beyond the births of the fhipping, and built on purpose and abfolutely neceffary to fecure the births from the violence of the influx of the tide. Of this ufe and neceffity, when he upbraided its largenefs, the Doctor feems to have been totally ignorant. Dr. Johnson's strong indignation on viewing the truly barbarous devaftations of Knox's reformation at St. Andrew's, reflects great credit on the fincerity of his principles. That mind is unmanly which can be indifferent on fubjects which affect its principles. "I happened to afk where John Knox was buried." Says Mr. Bofwell, Dr. Johnfon burft out, I hope in the high way. I have been looking at his reformations." This reminds us of an anecdote of Archbishop Laud, whofe character was highly revered by Dr. Johnfon. (See his Satires.) Laud attended Charles I. in a journey to Scotland previous to the civil wars, and on a vifit to St. Andrew's, one of the profeffors fhewing him the ruins of the cathedral (the fpot on which the Doctor execrated Knox), faid, "it was very magnificent before the Reformation." "The Reformation!” faid Laud; no; my good friend, call it the Deformation.” In the next page (60) Mr. Bofwell afcribes the following fentence to the Doctor. "I never read of a hernit, but ́in imagination 1 kifs his feet; never of a monastery, but I could fail on my knees and kiss the pavement." He who reveres the great mind and extensive knowledge of Dr. Johníon must be hurt by the weakness and mistaken piety of fuch fentiments. It reminds us of fome parts of his private devotions which have been moft injudiciously publifhed. It is pity the Doctor had not attended to the abominations, as recorded by Bishop Burnet and others, which were discovered on breaking up the houfes falfely called Religious, in the time of our eighth Henry; or that he should have overlooked the character fo indelibly stamped upon them by Chaucer in his Tales; and every one is convinced that Chaucer painted from real life. And who is unacquainted with the ignorance and luxury, not to fay worfe, which have long reigned in monafteries? In page 77, Dr. Johnfon is introduced faying, "Philip Miller told me, that in Philips's Cyder, a poem, all the precepts were juft, and indeed better than in books written for the purpose of instructing; yet Philips had never made cyder." This was faid in oppofition to Lord Monboddo's affertion, that Virgil was certainly a practical farmer. But Philips was born, fpent the greatest part of his few years, and died in one of the best cider counties in England, and must have seen it made. What would be thought of a tentence like the following-" Tull, fir, wrote well upon husbandry, yet he never held a plough-tail, or drove a dung-cart in all his life-time." At Aberdeen our travellers found a great grandfon of Waller the poet studying under Profeffor Gordon, who rated his pupil's abilities as no farther than those of a plain country gentleman. "I obferved, fays Mr. B. a family could not expect a poet but in a hundred generations. Nay, (faid Dr. Johnfon) not one family in an hundred can expect a poet in a hundred generations. He then repeated Dryden's celebrated lines, Three poets in three diftant ages born, &c." What a contradiction is this to the Doctor's affertion, (cited in our Review for laft December) that "Newton, had he applied to poetry, would have made a very fine epic poem " and which he thus illuftrated: "Sir, the man who has vigour may walk to the east just as well as to the weft, if he happens to turn his head that way." The fophiftry of this is obvious, and we truft fufficiently evinced in page 452 of our last volume, where we furmifed that the good Doctor was not serious in afferting that poetical powers were to be acquired by affiduity. We now fee the justice of our furmise fully proved by the Doctor himself, in the most pointed terms. “I mentioned,” fays Mr. B. p. 95, "as a curious fact, that Locke had written veries. I know of none (faid the Do&tur) but a kind of exercise prefixed to Dr. Sydenham's works."-These are in Latin, and given by Mr. Bofwell in the notes. The Doctor's most curious and random character of thefe veríes shall be noticed hereafter. But the reader who defires to fee fome of Locke's English verfes, will find a little poem by that philo furber fopher on Oliver Cromwell, in the Critical Enquiry into the Life and Character of Cromwell, by a Gentleman of the Temple, published between forty and fifty years ago. Mr. Bofwell's account of their entertainment at Slains Castle, the feat of the Earl of Errol, is a moft pleasing part of his volume. The virtues and true politenefs of the noble family afford an affecting and desirable pic ture of domestic felicity; and the following is ftriking, and even poetical. After having retired to his bed-chamber, "I was kept awake," fays Mr. B. "a good time. I faw, in imagination, Lord Errol's father, Lord Kilmarnock, (who was beheaded on TowerHill in 1746) and I was somewhat dreary. But the thought did not last long, and I fell alleep." Dr. Johnson and Mr. Bofwell seem to have agreed must cordially in their veneration of men of family and hereditary opulence; and the principle has both reafon and public utility on its fide. But it may be carried much too far, which we apprehend was the cafe with the learned Doctor. Take the following inftance in p. 111, talking of elections. "Why, fir," said Johnfon," the Nabob will carry it by means of his wealth in a country where money is highly valued, as it must be where nothing can be had without money; but if it comes to perfonal preference, the man of family will always carry it. There is generally a foundrelism about a low man." Were no other character of the age to reach pofterity two or three centuries hence, our men of family of the prefent time would then be thought the most accomplished in legiflative philofophy, the most intelligent in the commercial fyftem of the world, the most virtuous and most amiable of human beings. But, good God! what a reverse does their true character exhibit! Ignorance and diflipation, faction and depravity, are the true characteristicks of the great majority of our prefent Gentry. Even their fathionable amufements in many inftances are vulgarifm itfelf; and if cruel infolence to dependents and inferiors, and cruel and unjuft delay of payment, be the marks of foundrelim, who has more of it than many a high man? "That there is always fomething of fcoundrelifm about a low man," is indeed very true, But does not this fentence of the Doctor, as given through Mr. Bofwell's medium, feem to apply to every man who has raised himself to opulence by commerce? Certainly it does; in which cafe it is most infolent and injurious. All who have acquired wealth in the Eaft or West have got been waiters or fhoe-blacks. The great majority of them have had liberal education, (fuperior, in improvement at least, to that of many Lords) and births at least equal to that of the Doctor. The character of the great merchant includes in it a most extensive knowledge of nations; of their natural produce, their customs and laws; a wide range. of most interesting ideas, of which his country reaps the greatest advantages, not only in wealth, but even in her liberties. Magna Charta is indeed the fource of English liberty, but not in the manner as is vulgarly imagined. The Baron or feudal Lord is the only perfon there termed the Liber Homo, the Free Man. The feudal slavery, commonly called Vassalage, is left in its full force by that celebrated Charter, which in truth only riveted the chains of the Yeomandry. But King John and his fucceffors, justly jealous of the great acquifition of power the Barons had thus obtained, became earnest to counteract it; and for that purpose corporations were greatly increased and patronized by the Crown, and commerce in all its branches was encouraged as the counterbalance to the feudal fyftem. The industrious thus partaking of opulence, became of confequence in the ftate; and the Gothic Baron, whofe rude tyranny was unpropitious even to the culture of his own lauds, funk into infignificance, like a fuperannuated gouty giant, in his old castle. And thus under that poli tical monarch Henry VII. the feudal fyftem expired, with a few groans, under the weight of the Commercial Influence; and thus MAGNA CHARTA became the means of English Liberty to every individual of the nation. Let us now recur to Dr. Johnson's idea, that it is money only which gives the Nabob (a term, as above cited, fynonimous with rich Merchant) any chance at an election; and that where the electors are unbribed, (for fuch is exactly the import of the Doctor's expreffion) perfonal preference will always be given to the man of family. Now, admitting this to be true, what will be the certain confequences? Aiftocracy without a doubt, and as gradual a return to the feudal fyftem as the depreffion of Commerce may poffibly produce; flow, but fure. But what can we fuppofe is meant by perfonal preference? Surely that feudal attachment and veneration which the Frenchman has for his Nobleffe, and which Mr. Bofwell affures us the Highlander has for his Chief, have no part in the composition of ninety-nine of every hundred of the English Freeholders; and it fo happens that the affection of their And in what country, we pray, is any thing to be had without money, or money's worth? native native counties is not the lot of all the great families in England. But no doubt, where there is no wealthy rival candidate, the man of family will have the preference "in a country where money is highly valued;" for intereft and money are in this cafe fynonimous. A Duke or Earl, when he propofes his brother or coufin to a borough or county, (befides the extenfive influence of his immediate dependents, his tradefmen and tenants) bribes as effectually with the hope and promifes of his intereft, and with money too, as the Nabob with his ready gold. But fays the Doctor, in another part of the volume before us, "influence ought to be propor tioned to property." True; for the merchant of great property is in this maxim included. But what then becomes of the preference due to the man of family, merely as fuch? For our part, we really believe it has no exiftence in England; and let us look into the Lower Houfe, and fee what fort of Members the brothers and coufins of our Dukes and Earls prove upon trial in that important ftation. Why truly, with the utmoft decency may be faid, that were it not for the intelligence diffused, and weight poffeffed, by the lawyers and mercantile part of the fenate, the conftitution of the country, and the commercial intereft of the empire, might go to Newmarket to be fettled by the Jockies and Black-Legs, for any thing that the great majority of the fprouts of our fift rate Nobility either care or know to the contrary. The following confeflion is most truly curious : "Mr. Robertfon fent a fervant with us, to fhew us through Lord Findlater's wood, by which our way was fhortened, and we faw fome part of his domain, which is indeed admirably laid out. Dr. Johnfon did not chufe to walk through it. He always faid, that he was not come to Scotland to fee fine places, of which there were enough in England; but wild objects,—mountains,--water-falls, peculiar manners; in fhort, things which he had not feen before. I have a notion that he at no time has had much tafte for rural beauties. I have myfelf very little." But how can this be bandjomely reconciled to the Doctor's own Tour? There we find him continually upon the upbraiding laugh at the nakednefs of Scotland, and its want of trees; and it would feem that when he was writing, he had quite forgotten what he had always faid, that he did not come to Scotland to fee fine places, but wild objects, &c. and had forgotten too that he had abfolutely refufed to walk through a wood admirably laid out, tho' the road was fhortened by that path. No one can blame the D&tor for this refufal; but the oddity lies in the perverfenefs of his abufing a country for the want of that which he would not, and did not come to fee. Mr. Bofwell supposes that at no time the Doctor has had much tafte for rural beauties, and candidly owns that he himself had very little. But we fufpe he did not fee the confequences of this conceffion; and these are no other than a confirmation of our opinion hinted at in the former number of these remarks, that Dr. Johnfon's forte in poetry was neither in the fublime nor defcriptive. Homer and Milton are in these remarkably happy; whether they defcribe action or landscape, every thing is placed in the strongest light before you. Indeed, a man may write a good prologue, an elegant panegyric, or a nervous fatire, without any tafte for, or power of, defcription: but that fuch a perfon could write an excellent Epic, or make any tolerable figure, in the higher regions of Parnatius, we freely own we cannot conceive. Yet though Mr. Bofwell has ingenuously confeffed more than once his own want of defcriptive powers, he fometimes, not unhappily, carries the reader along with him through the places the Doctor and he vifited. We almoft think ourselves prefent with the celebrated Travellers, when we read fuch paffages as the following: "In the afternoon, we drove over the very heath where Macbeth met the witches, according to tradition. Dr. Johnson again folemnly repeated How far is't called to Fores? What are these, Mr. Bofwell afterwards adds another proof of his power of carrying his reader along with him, connected with a remark on himself, which undoubtedly fhews his ingenuity of difpofition. The paffage we mean is thus: "The English chapel, to which we went this morning, was but mean. The altar was a bare fir table, with a coarfe ftool for kneeling on, covered with a piece of thick fail-cloth doubled, by way of cushion. The congregation was fmall. Mr. Tait, the cler. gyman, read prayers very well, though with much of the Scotch accent. He preached on "Love your Enemies." It was remarkable that, when talking of the connections among men, he faid, that fome connected themselves with men of diftinguished talents, and fince they could not equal them, tried to deck themfelves with their merit, by being their companions. The fentence was to this purpofe. It had an odd coincidence with what mg.c |