He told us of Cooke, who translated Hesiod, and lived twenty years on a translation of Plautus, for which he was always taking subscriptions; and that he presented Foote to a Club, in the following singular manner:  ’This is the nephew of the gentleman who was lately hung in chains for murdering his brother[89].’  In the evening I introduced to Mr. Johnson[90] two good friends of mine, Mr. William Nairne, Advocate, and Mr. Hamilton of Sundrum, my neighbour in the country, both of whom supped with us.  I have preserved nothing of what passed, except that Dr. Johnson displayed another of his heterodox opinions,—­a contempt of tragick acting[91].  He said, ’the action of all players in tragedy is bad.  It should be a man’s study to repress those signs of emotion and passion, as they are called.’  He was of a directly contrary opinion to that of Fielding, in his Tom Jones; who makes Partridge say, of Garrick, ’why, I could act as well as he myself.  I am sure, if I had seen a ghost, I should have looked in the very same manner, and done just as he did[92].’  For, when I asked him, ’Would you not, Sir, start as Mr. Garrick does, if you saw a ghost?’ He answered, ’I hope not.  If I did, I should frighten the ghost.’

MONDAY, AUGUST 16.

Dr. William Robertson came to breakfast.  We talked of Ogden on Prayer.  Dr. Johnson said, ’The same arguments which are used against GOD’S hearing prayer, will serve against his rewarding good, and punishing evil.  He has resolved, he has declared, in the former case as in the latter.’  He had last night looked into Lord Hailes’s Remarks on the History of Scotland.  Dr. Robertson and I said, it was a pity Lord Hailes did not write greater things.  His lordship had not then published his Annals of Scotland[93].  JOHNSON.  ’I remember I was once on a visit at the house of a lady for whom I had a high respect.  There was a good deal of company in the room.  When they were gone, I said to this lady, “What foolish talking have we had!” “Yes, (said she,) but while they talked, you said nothing.”  I was struck with the reproof.  How much better is the man who does anything that is innocent, than he who does nothing.  Besides, I love anecdotes[94].  I fancy mankind may come, in time, to write all aphoristically, except in narrative; grow weary of preparation, and connection, and illustration, and all those arts by which a big book is made.  If a man is to wait till he weaves anecdotes into a system, we may be long in getting them, and get but few, in comparison of what we might get.

Dr. Robertson said, the notions of Eupham Macallan, a fanatick woman, of whom Lord Hailes gives a sketch, were still prevalent among some of the Presbyterians; and therefore it was right in Lord Hailes, a man of known piety, to undeceive them[95].