Page:Johnsonian Miscellanies II.djvu/20

 ��Apophthegms, Sentiments

��first neither 1 .' He would not be introduced to the Abbe Raynal, when he was in England 2.

He said, that when he first conversed with Mr. Bruce, the Abyssinian traveller, he was very much inclined to believe he had been there ; but that he had afterwards altered his opinion 3.

He was much pleased with Dr. Jortin's Sermons, the language of which he thought very elegant 4 ; but thought his life of Erasmus a dull book.

He was very well acquainted with Psalmanaazar, the pretended Formosan, and said, he had never seen the close of the life of any one that he wished so much his own to resemble, as that of him, for its purity and devotion. He told many anecdotes of him; and said he was supposed by his accent to have been a Gascon. He said, that Psalmanaazar spoke English with the city accent, and coarsely enough. He for some years spent his evenings at a publick house near Old-Street 5, where many persons went to talk with him ; Johnson was asked whether he ever contradicted Psalmanaazar ; ' I should as soon,' said he, 'have thought of contradicting a bishop 6 ;' so high did he hold

��1 Of her he said : < She is better employed at her toilet, than using her pen. It is better she should be reddening her own cheeks, than blackening other people's characters.' Life, iii. 46. In the Sale Catalogue of his Library, Lot 68 is ' Macaulay's History of England, 2 v. 1763-5.'

2 Mrs. Chapone wrote to Mrs. Carter on June 15, 1777 : ' I sup pose you have heard a great deal of the Abbe' Raynal, who is in London. I fancy you would have served him as Dr. Johnson did, to whom when Mrs. Vesey introduced him, he turned from him, and said he had read his book, and would have nothing to say to him.' Mrs. Chapone's Posthumous Works, i. 172. His book was burnt by the common hangman in Paris. C<tf\y\&s French Revolution,^. 1857, i. 45. Carlyle wrote to his future wife in 1824 : ' If you are for fiery-

��spirited men, I recommend you to the Abbe* Raynal, whose History, at least the edition of 1781, is, to use the words of my tailor respecting Africa, " wan coll (one coal) of burn ing sulphur." ' Early Letters of T. Carlyle, ii. 268. See ante, i. 211.

3 Ante, i. 365, n. I ; Life, ii. 333 ; Letters, i. 313, n. i.

Southey, reviewing Lord Valen- tia's Travels, agreed with his lord ship in questioning Bruce's state ments. * I think Lord Valentia is rather unfair to Bruce ; (wrote Scott) I know that surly Patagonian.' He adds that he must have been in Abyssinia. Letters of Sir Walter Scott, Boston, U.S.A. i. 148.

4 Life, iii. 248 ; iv. 161 ; Letters, ii. 276, n. i.

5 Life, iv. 187.

6 Ib. iv. 274. See id. iii. 443-9 for my note on Psalmanazar, and ante, i. 266.

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