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THE ANCESTOR 15 Boswell : Mr. Harris, who was present, agreed with her. Johnson : Harris was laughing at her, sir. Harris is a sound, sullen scholar. He does not like interlopers. Harris however is a prig, and a bad prig.^ I looked into his book and thought he did not understand his own system. Boswell : He says plain things in a formal and abstract way, to be sure ; for, etc., etc. Boswell himself seems to have joined in the general con- census of opinion as to James Harris' abilities, for in referring to a dinner and reception at the house of Sir Joshua Reynolds, Dr. Johnson's biographer remarks ^ : ' When we went to the drawing-room there was a rich assemblage. Besides the com- pany who had been at dinner there were Mr. Garrick, Mr. Harris of Salisbury, Dr. Percy, Dr. Burney, the Hon. Mrs. Cholmondeley, Miss Hannah More, etc., etc' And the fol- lowing conclusion to a conversation between Dr. Johnson and Mr. Harris is certainly characteristic : — Johnson; . . . every substance [smiling to Mr. Harris] has so many accidents. To be distinct we must talk analytically. If we analyse language, we must speak of it grammatically ; if we analyse argument, we must speak of it logi- cally. Johnson survived Harris by four years, they having been born the same year, 1709 ; and Boswell did not publish the first edition of his life of the former until eleven years after Harris' death. The following extract therefore from the Harris letters may be somewhat appropriate here, though it contains anything but flattering comments on Dr. Johnson or Mr. Boswell : ^ — . . . Tuesday, Dr. Johnson, his fellow-traveller through the Scotch Western Isles, Mr. Boswell and Sir Joshua Reynolds dined here. I have long wished to be in company with this said Johnson ; his conversation is the same as his writing, but a dreadful voice and manner. He is certainly amusing as a novelty, but seems not possessed of any benevolence, is beyond all description awkward, and more beastly in his dress and person than anything I ever beheld. He feeds nastily and ferociously, and eats quantities most unthankfuUy. As to Boswell, he appears a low-bred kind of being. The above unkind criticism of Johnson and his satellite Boswell does not emanate from the brain of ' Hermes ' Harris, ^ Boswell comments on this remark of Johnson's in a footnote, which appears in the first edition of The Life, bearing special reference to this conver- sation, as follows : * What my friend meant by these words concerning the amiable philosopher of Salisbury, I am at a loss to understand.' ^ Boswell's Life of Dr. Johnson, ed. Augustine Birrell, iv. 258-9 (Constable & Co.). ^ Letters, first Earl of Malmesbury (Bentley). B