_5th._—Reading Boswell’s Life of Johnson at breakfast, was highly gratified by the following assertion of Johnson: “I find myself under the necessity of observing that this learned and judicious writer (Lord Kaimes), has not accurately distinguished the deficiencies and demands of the different conditions of human life; which, from a degree of savageness and independence, in which all laws are vain, _passes, or may pass_, by innumerable gradations, to a state of reciprocal benignity _in which laws shall be no longer necessary_.” Visited C——, profuse in his display of chirurgical knowledge, an acute and thinking mind, disliking contradiction, tenacious of system, and generally systematizing: thought the mind ought not to endeavour to regulate disease, its influence being great, but, as he affirmed, prejudicial. Instanced, that people having wounds, by a close attention to their feelings in the affected part, increased its sensibility to a noxious degree; and that the bones which, he said (I think erroneously,) have themselves no feeling, had, by the attention of patients, fixed upon them when diseased, become entirely sensitive. He spoke of these as facts within his own knowledge. From my own experience I believe them to be true, and think with him, that the attention so fixed upon parts diseased, may be prejudicial; but from experiments made upon myself, if the attention be fixed with a tranquil, pacifying, and cheerful temper of mind, I am persuaded they highly benefit the sufferer. This I urged; but his opinion seemed fixed. Advised me to consult Pitcairne, but did not lead me to hope, either from himself or others, any degree of medical knowledge that should be efficient. What is called nature, that is, the changes that are continually taking place, is trusted to as the chief operator. Received the third volume of Ireland’s Hogarth Illustrated. Clementi dined with us. _6th._—Read Hogarth, J. Ireland, vol. 3. Some valuable information, but wretchedly put together. Hogarth too irascible, and pushing his favourite points to extremes: a man of uncommon genius, and though highly admired by some, most unjustly treated by others. If it be true, which I doubt, that he did not excel in the higher parts of his art, i.e. in the beautiful and sublime, what he has written, and what he has done, sufficiently prove, it was not want of power, but want of practice. He felt his wrongs too indignantly, and, in resenting them, wanted liberality. Manners are undergoing a great change; and though just at present, an intolerant and acrimonious spirit prevails, yet there is much less ruggedness, asperity, and undisguised insult, than there was in his time. Saw B—— at Debrett’s; the health of Porson precarious. Called at Opie’s; he gone to see Hogarth’s March to Finchley.