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" upon his knees behind a chair, repeat the Lord's Prayer, and then refume his feat at table. He has played this freak over and over, perhaps five or fix "times in the courfe of an evening. It is not hypo"crify, but madness. Though an honeft fort of man himfelf, he is always patronifing fcoundrels.

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Savage, for instance, whom he fo loudly praifes, was "but a worthlefs fellow; his penfion of fifty pounds, never lasted him longer than a few days. As a fample of his economy, you may take a circum"ftance, that Johnson himself once told me.

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It was,

at that period, fashionable to wear scarlet cloaks trim"med with gold lace; and the Doctor met him one day, juft after he had got his penfion, with one of thefe cloaks upon his back, while, at the fame time, "his naked toes were fticking through his fhoes."

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He was no admirer of the Rambler or the Idler, and hinted, that he had never been able to read them.-He was averse to the conteft with America, yet he spoke highly of Johnfon's political pamphlets: But, above all, he was charmed with that refpecting Falkland's Ilands, as it displayed, in fuch forcible language, the madness of modern wars.

I inquired his opinion of the late Dr. Campbell, author of the Political Survey of Great Britain. He told me, that he never had been above once in his company; that the Doctor was a voluminous writer, and one of those authors who write from one end of the week. to the other, without interruption. A gentleman, who happened to dine with Dr. Campbell in the house of a Common acquaintance, remarked, that he would be glad to poffefs a complete fet of the Doctor's works. The hint was not lost; for next morning he was furprised at the appearance of a cart before his door. This cart was loaded with the books he had asked for ;-the driver's bill amounted to feventy pounds! As Dr. Campbell compofed a part of the univerfal hiftofy, and of the Biographia Britanpica, we may fuppofe, that these two ponderous articles

formed a great part of the cargo. The Doctor was in ufe to get a number of copies of his publications from the printer, and keep them in his house for such an opportunity. A gentleman who came in one day, exclaimed, with surprise, "Have you ever read all these "books."" Nay," replied Doctor Campbell, laughing, "I have written them."

Of Swift, Dr. Smith made frequent and honourable mention. He denied, that the Dean could ever have written the Pindarics printed under his name. He affirmed, that he wanted nothing but inclination to have become one of the greatest of all poets. "But in place of "this, he is only a goffiper, writing merely for the "entertainment of a private circle." He regarded Swift, both in tile and fentiment, as a pattern of correctness. He read to me fome of the fhort poetical addreffes to Stella, and was particularly pleafed with one Couplet." Say, Stella, feel you no content, reflecting

on a life well-fpent."--Though the Dean's verses are remarkable for eafe and fimplicity, yet the compofition required an effort. To exprefs this difficulty, Swift used to say, that a verfe came from him like a guinea. Dr. Smith confidered the lines on his own death, as the Dean's poetical mafter-piece. He thought that upon the whole, his poetry was correct, after he settled in Ireland, when he was, as he himself said, furrounded only by humble friends."

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The Doctor had fome fingular opinions. I was furprised at hearing him prefer Livy to all other hiftorians, ancient and modern. He knew of no other who had even a pretence to rival him, if David Hume could not claim that honour. He regretted, in particular, the lofs of his account of the civil wars in the age of Julius Cæfar; and when I attempted to comfort him by the library at Fez, he cut me fhort. I would have expected Polybius to ftand much higher in his esteem than Livy, as having a much nearer refemblance to Dr, Smith's own manner of writing. Befides his miracles,

Livy contains an immenfe number of the most obvious and grofs falfehoods.

He was no fanguine admirer of Shakespeare. "Voltaire, you know," fays he, " calls Hamlet the "dream of a drunken favage.' "He has good fcenes, "but not one good play." The Doctor, however, would not have permitted any body elfe to pafs this verdict with impunity: For when I once afterwards, in order to found him, hinted a difrefpect for Hamlet, he gave a fmile, as if he thought I would detect him in a contradiction, and replied, "Yes! but till Ham"let is full of fine paffages,"

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He had an invincible contempt and averfion for blank verfe, Milton's always excepted. They do well, faid "he, to call it blank, for blank it is; I myself, even I, "who never could find a single rhime in my life, could "make blank verfe as fast as I could speak; nothing but "lazinefs hinders our tragic poets from writing, like the "French, in rhime. Dryden, had he poffeffed but a tenth part of Shakespeare's dramatic genius, would have brought rhyming tragedies into fashion here as well as 66 they are in France, and then the mob would have ad"mired them just as much as they now pretend to de"spise them."

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Beatie's minstrel he would not allow to be called a poem; for it had, he faid, no plan, no beginning, middle, or end. He thought it only a series of verses, but a few of them very happy. As for the translation of the Iliad, They do well," he said "to call it Pope's Homer; for it is not Homer's Homer. It has no refemblance to the majesty and fimplicity of the Greck." He read over to me l' Allegro, and II' Penferofo, and explained the respective beauties of each, but added, that all the rest of Milton's fhort poems were trash. He could not imagine what had made Johnfon praise the poem on the death of Mrs. Killigrew, and compare t with Alexander's Feast. The criticifm had induced him to read it over, and with attention, twice, and he

could not discover even a spark of merit. At the fame time, he mentioned Gray's odes, which Johnfon has damned fo completely, and in my humble opinion with fo much juftice, as the ftandard of lyric excellence. He did not much admire the Gentle Shepherd. He preferred the Paftor Fido, of which he fpoke with rapture, and the Eclogues of Virgil. I pled as well as I could for Allan Ramfay, because I regard him as the fingle unaffected poet whom we have had fince Buchanan.

Proximus huic longo, fed proximus intervallo.

He answered: "It is the duty of a poet to write "like a gentleman. I dislike that homely ftile which "fome think fit to call the language of nature and fimplicity, and fo forth. In Percy's reliques too, a few "tolerable pieces are buried under a heap of rubbish. "You have read perhaps Adam Bell Clym, of the Cleugh, "and William of Cloudeflie." I answered yes. "Well then," faid he, "do you think that was worth printing." He reflected with fome harfhnefs on Dr. Goldfmith ; and repeated a variety of anecdotes to support his cen'fure.

They amounted to prove that Goldfmith loved a wench and a bottle; and that a lie, when to serve a fpecial end, was not excluded from his fyftem of morality. To commit thefe ftories to print, would be very much in the modern tafte; but fuch proceedings appear to me as an abfolute difgrace to typography.

He never spoke but with ridicule and deteftation of the reviews. He faid that it was not eafy to conceive in what contempt they were held in London. I mentioned a story I had read of Mr. Burke having feduced and dishonoured a young lady, under promife of marriage. "I imagine," faid he," that you have got that fine ftory out of fome of the magazines. If any thing can be lower than the Reviews, they are fo. They once had the impudence to publish a ftory of a gentleman's having debauched his own fifter; and upon

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inquiry, it came out that the gentleman never had a "fifter. As to Mr. Burke, he is a worthy honeft man. "He married an accomplished girl, without a fhilling of "fortune." I wanted to get the Gentleman's Magazine excepted from his general cenfure; but he would not hear me. He never, he faid, looked at a Review, nor even knew the names of the publishers.

He was fond of Pope, and had by heart many favourite paffages; but he difliked the private character of the man. He was, he faid, all affectation, and mentioned his letter to Arbuthnot, when the latter was dying, as a confummate fpecimen of canting; which to be fure it is. He had alfo a very high opinion of Dryden, and loudly extolled his fables. I mentioned Mr. Hume's objections; he replied, "You will learn more as to poetry by reading one good poem, than by a "thoufand volumes of criticifm." He quoted fome paffages in Defoe, which breathed, as he thought, the true fpirit of English verfe.

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He difliked Meikle's tranflation of the Lufiad, and efteemed the French verfion of that work as far fuperior. Meikle, in his preface, has contradicted with great franknefs, fome of the pofitions advanced in the Doctor's inquiry, which may perhaps have disgusted him; but in truth, Meikle is only an indifferent rhymer.

You have lately quoted largely from Lord Gardenftoun's Remarks on English Plays; and I obferve, that this lively and venerable crític, damns by far the greater part of them. In this fentiment, Dr. Smith, agreed moft heartily with his Lordship; he regarded the French theatre as the standard of dramatic excellence *. He faid, that at the beginning of the prefent reign,

It is entertaining to obferve men of abilities contradict each other on topics apparently fimple. Dr. Smith admired as the very climax of dramatic excellence, Voltaire's Mahomet; on the other hand, Lord Gardenfloun pronounces, that every line in the play betrays a total want of genius, and even of tafte for tragic compofition. It is not my bufiness to balance accounts between his Lordship and the Doctor,