if he had been for years anatomising the heart of man, and peeping into
every cranny of it.' GOLDSMITH. 'It is easier to write that book, than
to read it[269].' JOHNSON. 'We have an example of true criticism in
Burke's _Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful_; and, if I recollect, there
is also Du Bos[270]; and Bouhours[271], who shews all beauty to depend on
truth. There is no great merit in telling how many plays have ghosts in
them, and how this Ghost is better than that. You must shew how terrour
is impressed on the human heart. In the description of night in
_Macbeth_[272], the beetle and the bat detract from the general idea of
darkness,--inspissated gloom.'

Politicks being mentioned, he said, 'This petitioning is a new mode of
distressing government, and a mighty easy one. I will undertake to get
petitions either against quarter-guineas or half-guineas, with the help
of a little hot wine. There must be no yielding to encourage this. The
object is not important enough. We are not to blow up half a dozen
palaces, because one cottage is burning[273].'

The conversation then took another turn. JOHNSON. 'It is amazing what
ignorance of certain points one sometimes finds in men of eminence. A
wit about town, who wrote Latin bawdy verses, asked me, how it happened
that England and Scotland, which were once two kingdoms, were now
one:--and Sir Fletcher Norton[274] did not seem to know that there were
such publications as the Reviews.'

'The ballad of Hardyknute[275] has no great merit, if it be really
ancient. People talk of nature. But mere obvious nature may be exhibited
with very little power of mind.'

On Thursday, October 19, I passed the evening with him at his house. He