what they are said in stories to have done.’  JOHNSON.  ’Sir, I am not defending their credibility.  I am only saying, that your arguments are not good, and will not overturn the belief of witchcraft.—­(Dr. Fergusson said to me, aside, ’He is right.’)—­And then, Sir, you have all mankind, rude and civilized, agreeing in the belief of the agency of preternatural powers.  You must take evidence:  you must consider, that wise and great men have condemned witches to die[124].’  CROSBIE.  ’But an act of parliament put an end to witchcraft[125].’  JOHNSON.  ’No, Sir; witchcraft had ceased; and therefore an act of parliament was passed to prevent persecution for what was not witchcraft.  Why it ceased, we cannot tell, as we cannot tell the reason of many other things.’—­Dr. Cullen, to keep up the gratification of mysterious disquisition, with the grave address for which he is remarkable in his companionable as in his professional hours, talked, in a very entertaining manner, of people walking and conversing in their sleep.  I am very sorry I have no note of this.  We talked of the Ouran-Outang, and of Lord Monboddo’s thinking that he might be taught to speak.  Dr. Johnson treated this with ridicule.  Mr. Crosbie said, that Lord Monboddo believed the existence of every thing possible; in short, that all which is in posse might be found in esse.  JOHNSON.  ’But, Sir, it is as possible that the Ouran-Outang does not speak, as that he speaks.  However, I shall not contest the point.  I should have thought it not possible to find a Monboddo; yet he exists.’  I again mentioned the stage.  JOHNSON.  ’The appearance of a player, with whom I have drunk tea, counteracts the imagination that he is the character he represents.  Nay, you know, nobody imagines that he is the character he represents.  They say, “See Garrick! how he looks to night!  See how he’ll clutch the dagger!” That is the buz of the theatre[126].’

TUESDAY, AUGUST 17.

Sir William Forbes came to breakfast, and brought with him Dr. Blacklock[127], whom he introduced to Dr. Johnson, who received him with a most humane complacency; ‘Dear Dr. Blacklock, I am glad to see you!’ Blacklock seemed to be much surprized, when Dr. Johnson said, ’it was easier to him to write poetry than to compose his Dictionary[128].  His mind was less on the stretch in doing the one than the other.  Besides; composing a Dictionary requires books and a desk:  you can make a poem walking in the fields, or lying in bed.  Dr. Blacklock spoke of scepticism in morals and religion, with apparent uneasiness, as if he wished for more certainty[129].  Dr. Johnson, who had thought it all over, and whose vigorous understanding was fortified by much experience, thus encouraged the blind Bard to apply to higher speculations what we all willingly submit to in common life:  in short, he gave him more familiarly the able and