"If you are willing, fays he to the judges, to receive my confeffion, whit your tormentors are preparing their rack for the vileft criminal ever ftretched upon it, hear me! If not, fet your engine to work without farther enquiry, and glut your appetites with human agonies, which once in your lives you may now inflict with julice.

"Proceed, faid the fenior judge. "That guiltlefs fufferer, who now lies infenfible before my eyes, faid the monk, is the fon of an excellent father, who was once my dearest friend. He was confided to my charge, being then an infant; and my friend followed his fortunes to our fettlements in the Brazils. He refided there twenty years without vifiting Portugal once in the time: he remitted to me many fums of money on his fon's account. At this time a hellish thought arofe in my mind, which the direfs of my affairs and a panion for extrava gance infpired, of converting the property of my charge to my own account. I imparted thefe fuggeftions to my unhappy wife, who is now at her account: let me do her juffice to confefs fhe with lood them firmly for a time Still fortune frowned upon me, and I was finking in my credit every hour: ruin ftared me in the face, and nothing flood between me and immediate difgrace, but this infamous expedient.

At lal, perfuafion, menaces,

i

and the impending preffure of nej ceffity, conquered her virtue, and the acceded to the fraud. We agreed to adopt the infant as the orphan fon of a diftant relation of our own name. I maintained a correfpondence with his father by letters pretending to be written by the fon, and I fupported my family in a fplendid extravagance by the affignments I received from the Bazils. At length, the father of Don Juan died, and by will be. queathed his fortune to me, in failure of his fon and his heirs. I had already advanced fo far in guilt, that the tempration of this contingency met with no refiftance in my mind; and I determined upon removing this bar to my ambition, and propofed to my wie to fecure the prize that fortune had hung within our reach, by the affaffination of the heir. She revolted from the idea with horror, and for fome time her thoughts remained in fo difturbed a state, that I did not think it prudent to renew the attack. A ter fome time the agent of the deceafed arrived in Lifbon from the Brazils, and as he was privy to my correfpondence, it became necefiary for me to dif cover to Don Juan who he was, and alfo what fortune he was intitled to. In this critis, threatened with fhame and detection on one hand, and tempted by avarice, pride, and the devil, on the other, I won over my reluctant wife to a participation of my crime; and we mixed that dofe with poifon, which we believed was intended for Don Juan, hut which, in fact, was defined for our only child. She took it; heaven difcharged its vengeance on our heads; and we fw our daughter expire in agonies before our eyes, with the bitter aggravation of a double murder, for the

child was alive within her. Are there words in language to exprefs our lamentations? Are there tortures in the reach of even your invention to compare with thofe we felt? Wonderful were the ftruggles of nature in the heart of our expiring child: fhe bewailed us; the confoled, nay, fhe even forgave us. To Don Juan we made immediate confeffion of our guilt, and conjured him to inAlict that punishment upon us, which juftice demanded, and our crimes deferved. It was in this dreadful moment that our daugh. ter, with her laft breath, by the moft folemn adjurations, exacted and obtained a promife from Don Juan not to expofe her parents to a public execution by diiclofing what had paffed. Alas! alas! we fee too plainly how he kept his word: behold, he dies a martyr to Honour! your infernal tortures have deftroy

ed him.

"No fooner had the monk pro

nounced thefe words in a loud and furious tone, than he wretched Don Juan drew a figh: a fecond would have followed, but heaven no longer could tolerate the agonies of innocence, and stopped his heart for ever.

MON

place, wild and naked, with a poor old houfe; though, if I recollect right, there are two turrets, which mark an old baron's refidence. Lord Monboddo received us at his gate moit courtcoufly; pointed to the Douglas arms upon his houfe, and told us that his greatgrandmother was of that family.

In fuch houfes (faid he) our ancestors lived, who were better men than we."" No, no, my lord (faid Dr. Johnfon), we are as ftrong As they, and a great deal wifer."

"The monk had fixed his eyes' upon him, ghaftly with terror, and as he firetched out his mangled limbs at life's lafi gafp-Accuried monsters, he exclaimed, may God requite his murder on your fouls at the great day of judgment! His blood be on your heads, ye minifters of darknels! For me, if hea venly vengeance is not yet appeafed by my contrition, in the midst of flames my aggrieved foul will find fome confol tion in the thought, that you partake it, torments...

"Having uttered this in a voice fcarcely human, he plunged a knife to his heart, and whilft his blood fpouted on the pavement, dropped dead upon the body of Don juan, and expired without a groan."

lord Monboddo's capital dogmas, and I was afraid there would have been a violent altercation in the very clofe, before we got into the houfe. But his lordship is diftin guifhed not only for ancient me taphyficks," but for 'ancient pol teffe," la vieille cour," and he made no reply.

66

"His lordflip was drest in a ruf tick fuit, and wore a little round hat; told us, we now faw him as farmer Burnett, and we should have his family dinner, a farmer's dinner

? +

ner. He faid, "I should not have forgiven Mr. Bofwell, had he not brought you here, Dr. Johnfon." He produced a very long stalk of corn, as a fpecimen of his crop, and faid "you fee here the latas Jegetes," and obferved that Virgil feemed to be as an enthufiaftic a farmer as he, and was certainly a practical one-Johnjon. "It does not always follow, my lord, that a man who has written a good poem on an art, has practifed it. 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."

"Iftarted the fubject of emigra tions, Jobnfon. "To a man of mere animal life, you can urge no argument againft going to America, but that it will be fome time before he will get the earth to produce. But a man of any intellectual enjoyment will not easily go and immerfe himself and his pofterity for ages in barbarifm."

"He and my lord fpoke highly of Homer,-Johnfon." He had all the learning of his age, The fhield of Achilles fhews a nation in war, a nation in peace; harvest fport, nay ftealing."-Monboddo.

Aye, and what we (looking to me) would call a parliament-houfe fcere; a caufe pleaded."-Johnfon.

That is part of the life of a na tion in peace. And there are in Homer fuch characters of heroes, and combinations of qualities of heroes, that the united powers of mankind ever fince have not produced any but what are to be found there."

Monboddo. Yet no character is defcribed."-Johnson. "No; they all develope themfelves. Aga memnon is always a gentleman-like character; he has always Bag

T. That the ancients held to, is plain from this; that Euripides, in his Hecuba, makes him the perfon to interpofe."-Monbodda. "The hiftory of manners is the most valuable. I never set a high value on any other hiftory."—Johnlon."Nor I; and therefore I eitcem biogra phy, as giving us what comes near to ourfelves, what we can turn to ufe."-Bofwell. "But in the course of general hiftory, we find manners. In wars, we fee the difpolitions of people, their degrees of humanity, and other particulars."Johnjon. "Yes; but then you must take all the facts to get this; and it is but a little you get."-Monboddo. "And it is that little which makes history valuable." Bravo! thought I; they agree like two brothers.Monboddo. "I am forry, Dr. Johnfon, you was not longer at Edinburgh, to receive the homage of our men of learning."-Johnson. "My lord, I received great refpect and great kindnefs."Bofwell. "He goes back to Edinburgh after our tour." We talked of the decrease of learning in Scotland, and of the "Mufe's Welcome." — Johnson. "Learning is much decreafed in England, in my remembrance."Mcnboddo, "You, Sir, have lived to fee its decreafe in England, I its extinction in Scotland." However, I brought him to confefs that the high fchool of Edinburgh did well, Johnfon. "Learning has decreafed in England, becaufe learning will not do fo much for a man as formerly. There are other ways of getting preferment. Few bishops are now made for their learning, To be a bishop, a man must be learned in a learned age factious in a factious age; but always of eminence. Warburton is an excep tion; though his learning alone did not raife him. He was first an an tagonist

rity between Johnfon and Monboddo. I obferved how curious it was to fee an African in the north of Scotland, with little or no difference of manners 'rom thofe of the natives. Dr. Johnfon laughed to fee Gory and Jofeph riding together moft cordially. "Thofe two fellows (faid he), one from Africa, the other from Bohemia, feem quite at home." He was much pleated with lord Monboddo to-day. He faid, he would have pardoned him for a few paradoxes, when he found he had fo much that was good. But that, from his appearance in London, he thought him all paradox, which would not do." He obferved, that his lordship had talked no paradoxes to-day. And as

to the favage and the London fhopkeeper (faid he) I don't know but I might have taken the fide of the favage equally, had any body else taken the fide of the fhopkeeper." He had faid to my lord, in oppofition to the value of the favage's courage, that it was owing to his limited power of thinking, and repeated Pope's verfes, in which "Macedonia's madman" is introduced, and the conclufion is,

"Yet ne'er looks forward further than his nofe."

affiduity of the Scottish clergy, in vifiting and privately infructing their parishioners, and obferved how much in this they excelled the English clergy. Dr. Johnfon would not let this pafs. He tried to turn it off, by faying, "there are different ways of inftructing. Our clergy pray and preach." M'Leod and I prefied the fubject, upon which he grew warm, and broke forth: "I do not believe your people are better inftructed. If they are, it is the blind leading the blind; for your clergy are not inftructed them. Telves." Thinking he had gone a little too far, he checked himicif, and added, "When I talk of the ignorance of your clergy, I talk of them as a body: I do not mean that there are not individuals who are

I objected to the laft phrafe, as being low.-Jobafon. Sir, it is intended to be low: it is fatire. The expreflion is debased, to debafe the character."

at I fuppofe there are fuch among the clergy in Mufcovy. The clergy of England have produced the moft valuable books in fupport of religion, both in theory and practice. What have your clergy done, fince you funk into prefbyterianifm? Can you name one bo k of any value, on a religious fubject, written by them?"We were filent.-"I'l help you. Forbes wrote very well; but I believe he wrote before epifcopacy was quite extinguifhed."And then pausing a little, he faid,

Yes, you have Wifhart against repentance."-Bofwell. But, fir, we are not contending for the fuperior learning of our clergy, but for their fuperior affiduity." He bore us down again, with thundering a gainft their ignorance, and faid to