Mrs. Montagu, a lady distinguished for having written an Essay on Shakspeare, being mentioned; Reynolds.  ’I think that essay does her honour.’  Johnson.  ’Yes, Sir:  it does her honour, but it would do nobody else honour.  I have, indeed, not read it all.  But when I take up the end of a web, and find it packthread, I do not expect, by looking further, to find embroidery.  Sir, I will venture to say, there is not one sentence of true criticism in her book.’  Garrick.  ’But, Sir, surely it shews how much Voltaire has mistaken Shakspeare, which nobody else has done.’  Johnson.  ’Sir, nobody else has thought it worth while.  And what merit is there in that?  You may as well praise a schoolmaster for whipping a boy who has construed ill.  No, Sir, there is no real criticism in it:  none shewing the beauty of thought, as formed on the workings of the human heart.’

The admirers of this Essay may be offended at the slighting manner in which Johnson spoke of it; but let it be remembered, that he gave his honest opinion unbiassed by any prejudice, or any proud jealousy of a woman intruding herself into the chair of criticism; for Sir Joshua Reynolds has told me, that when the Essay first came out, and it was not known who had written it, Johnson wondered how Sir Joshua could like it.  At this time Sir Joshua himself had received no information concerning the authour, except being assured by one of our most eminent literati, that it was clear its authour did not know the Greek tragedies in the original.  One day at Sir Joshua’s table, when it was related that Mrs. Montagu, in an excess of compliment to the authour of a modern tragedy, had exclaimed, ‘I tremble for Shakspeare;’ Johnson said, ’When Shakspeare has got ——­ for his rival, and Mrs. Montagu for his defender, he is in a poor state indeed.’

On Thursday, October 19, I passed the evening with him at his house.  He advised me to complete a Dictionary of words peculiar to Scotland, of which I shewed him a specimen.  ’Sir, (said he,) Ray has made a collection of north-country words.  By collecting those of your country, you will do a useful thing towards the history of the language.  He bade me also go on with collections which I was making upon the antiquities of Scotland.  ‘Make a large book; a folio.’  Boswell.  ’But of what use will it be, Sir?’ Johnson.  ‘Never mind the use; do it.’

I complained that he had not mentioned Garrick in his Preface to Shakspeare; and asked him if he did not admire him.  Johnson.  ’Yes, as “a poor player, who frets and struts his hour upon the stage;”—­as a shadow.’  Boswell.  ‘But has he not brought Shakspeare into notice?’ Johnson.  ’Sir, to allow that, would be to lampoon the age.  Many of Shakspeare’s plays are the worse for being acted:  Macbeth, for instance.’  Boswell.  ’What, Sir, is nothing gained by decoration and action?  Indeed, I do wish that you had mentioned