Bolingbroke in the rooms at Brighthelmstone, he made this excuse: 1 am not obliged, sir,' said he to Mr. Thrale, who stood by fretting, to find reasons for respecting the rank of him who will not condescend to declare it by his dress or some other visible mark: what are stars and other signs of superiority made for?'

"All these exactnesses in a man who was nothing less than exact himself, made him extremely impracticable as an inmate, though most instructive as a companion, and useful as a friend. Mr. Thrale, too, could sometimes overrule his rigidity, by saying coldly, There, there, now we have had enough for one lecture, Dr. Johnson; we will not be upon education any more till after dinner, if you please;' or some such speech: but when there was nobody to restrain his dislikes, it was extremely difficult to find any body with whom he could converse, without living always on the verge of a quarrel, or of something too like a quarrel to be pleasing. I came into the room, for example, one evening, where he and a gentleman, [Mr. Seward], whose abilities we all respected exceedingly, were sitting; a lady 2 who walked in two minutes before me had blown them both into a flame, by whispering something to Mr. [Seward], which he endeavoured to explain away, so as not to affront the Doctor, whose suspicions were all alive. And have a care, sir,' said he just as I came in; the old lion will not bear to be tickled.' The. other was pale with rage, the lady wept at the confusion she had caused, and I could only say with Lady Macbeth,

how very poor a figure you make in the telling of it.' Our guest being bred a quaker, and, I believe, a man of an extremely gentle disposition, needea no more reproofs for the same folly; so if he ever did speak again, it was in a low voice to the friend who came with him. The check was given before dinner, and after coffee I left the room. When in the evening, however, our companions had returned to London, and Dr. Johnson and myself were left alone, with only our usual family about us, I did not quarrel with those quaker fellows,' said he, very seriously. You did perfectly right,' replied I; for they gave you no cause of offence.' No offence!' returned he, with an altered voice; and is it nothing then to sit whispering together when I am present, without ever directing their discourse towards me, or offering me a share in the conversation?' That was because you frighted him who spoke first about those hot balls.' Why, madam, if a creature is neither capable of giving dignity to falsehood, nor willing to remain contented with the truth, he deserves no better treatment 3.

meeting

just. Mrs. Piozzi's object was to exhibit Johnson's manners, and not to record the minute de-tails of the quaker's story.-ED.]

this passage," Here is another GROSS MISREP4 [Mr. Malone, in his MS. notes, observes on RESENTATION. He had no fixed incredulity concerning every thing he heard; but he had observed the great laxity with which almost every story is told, and therefore always examined it accurately, and frequently found some gross exaggeration. The writer herself had not the smallest regard for truth, as Johnson told Mr. Boswell (see his Life of Johnson), and hence this scrutinising habit of her guest was to her a very sore subject." On this the Editor must take leave to say, that Mr. Malone's observation defeats itself; because if Dr. Johnson's incredulity was a sore subject with Mrs. Piozzi, she cannot be blamed for recording it. Mr. Malone might have questioned her judgment, in supposing that Johnson was equally incredulous as to other persons, but not her sincerity, in describing him as she found him; and if he found almost every story told with great laxity, is it surprising that he should have an ha bitual incredulity?-ED.]

[See ante, p. 69.-ED.]

6

"Though thus uncommonly ready both to give and take offence, Dr. Johnson had many rigid maxims concerning the necessity of continued softness and compliance of disposition: and when I once mentioned Shenstone's idea, that some little quarrel among lovers, relations, and friends, was useful, and contributed to their general happiness upon the whole, by making the soul feel her elastic force, and return to the beloved object with renewed delight: Why, what a prenicious maxim is this now,' cried Dr. Johnson: all quarrels ought to be avoided studiously, particularly conjugal ones, as no one can possibly tell where they may end; besides that lasting dislike is often the consequence of occasional disgust, and that the cup of life is surely bitter enough, without squeezing in the hateful rind of resentment.' "A very ignorant young fellow, who had plagued us all for nine or ten months, died at last consumptive: 'I think,' said Dr. Johnson, when he heard the news, I am afraid I should have been more concerned for the death of the dog; but hesitating awhile, I am not wrong now in all this, for the dog acted up to his character on every occasion that we know; but that dunce of a fellow helped forward the general disgrace of humanity.' Why, dear sir,' said I, how odd you are! you have often said the lad, was not capable of receiving farther instruction.' 'He was,' replied the Doctor, like a corked bottle, with a drop of dirty water in it, to be sure; one might pump upon it forever without the smallest effect; but when every method to open and clean it had been tried [in vain], you would not have me grieve that the bottle was broke at last.'

in a distant province; and Dr. Johnson used both to write and talk to his friend concerning his education.

"A young fellow, less confident of his own abilities, lamenting one day that he had lost all his Greek- I believe it happened at the same time, sir,' said Johnson, that I lost all my large estate in Yorkshire.'

C

"Of a Jamaica gentleman, then lately dead, he said- He will not, whither he is now gone, find much difference, I believe, either in the climate or the company.'

"Returning home one day from dining at the chaplains' table 1, he told me, that Dr. Goldsmith had given a very comical and unnecessarily exact recital there of his own feelings when his play was hissed; telling the company how he went indeed to the Literary Club at night, and chatted gaily among his friends, as if nothing had happened amiss; that to impress them still more forcibly with an idea of his magnanimity, he even sung his favourite song about an old woman tossed in a blanket seventeen times as high as the moon;' but all this while I was suffering horrid tortures,' said he, and verily believe that if I had put a bit into my mouth it would have strangled me on the spot, I was so excessively ill; but I made more noise than usual to cover all that; and so they never perceived my not eating, nor I believe at all imaged to themselves the anguish of my heart: but when all were gone except Johnson here, I burst out a-crying, and even swore that I would never write again.' All which, doctor,' said Dr. Johnson, amazed at his odd frankness, I thought had been a secret between you and me; and I am sure I would not have said any thing about it for the world. Now see,' repeated he when he told the story, what a figure a man makes who thus unaccountably chooses to be the frigid narrator of his own disgrace. Il volto sciollo, ed i pensieri stretti, was a proverb made on purpose for such mortals, to keep people, if possible, from being thus the heralds of their own shame: for what compassion can they gain by such silly narratives? No man should be expected to sympathize with the sorrows of vanity. If then you are mortified by any ill usage, whether real or supposed, keep at least the account of such mortifications to yourself, and forbear

to proclaim how meanly you are thought on by others, unless you desire to be meanly thought of by all.'

"Poor Goldsmith was to him indeed like the earthen pot to the iron one in Fontaine's fables; it had been better for him, perhaps, that they had changed companions oftener; yet no experience of his antagonist's strength hindered him from continuing the contest. He used to remind me always of that verse in Berni,

Il pover uomo che non sen' era accorto, Andava combattendo-ed era morto.' "Dr. Johnson made him a cómical answer one day, when seeming to repiné at the success of Beattie's Essay on Truth. Here's such a stir,' said he,' about a fellow that has written one book, and I have written many.' 'Ah, Doctor,' said his friend, there go two-and-forty sixpences, you know, to one guinea.'

"Garrick said to Dr. Johnson one day, Why did not you make me a tory, when we lived so much together? you love to make people tories.' Why,' said Johnson, pulling a heap of half-pence from his pocket, did not the king make these-guineas?' "But however roughly he might be suddenly provoked to treat a harmless exertion of vanity, he did not wish to inflict the pain he gave, and was sometimes very sorry when he perceived the people to smart more than they deserved. How harshly you treated that man to-day,' said I once, 'who harangued us so about gardening!' 'I am sorry,' said he, if I vexed the crea-. ture, for there certainly is no harm in a fellow's rattling a rattle-box; only do 'nt let him think that he thunders."

6

"We were speaking of a gentleman who loved his friend- Make him prime minister,' said Johnson, and see how long his friend will be remembered.' But he had a rougher answer for me, when I commended a sermon preached by an intimate acquaintance of our own at the trading end of the town. 'What was the subject, madam?' said Dr. Johnson. Friendship, sir,' replied I. Why now, is it not strange that a wise man, like our dear little Evans, should take it in his head to preach on such a subject, in a place where no one can be thinking of it? Why, what are they thinking upon, sir?' said I. Why, the men are thinking on their money, I suppose, and the women are thinking of their mops.'

"I have mentioned before, that old age. had very little of Dr. Johnson's reverence: A man commonly grew wickeder as he grew older,' he said, ' at least he but changed the vices of youth, headstrong passion and wild temerity, for treacherous caution and desire to circumvent. I am always,' said he, on the young people's side, when

there is a dispute between them and the old ones; for you have at least a chance for virtue till age has withered its very root.' While we were talking, my mother's spaniel, whom he never loved, stole our toast and butter: Fie, Belle!' said I,' you used to be upon honour.? Yes, madam,' replied Johnson, but Belle grows old.' His reason for hating the dog was, because she was a professed favourite,' he said, and because her lady ordered her from time to time to be washed and combed: a foolish trick,' said he, and an assumption of superiority that every one's nature revolts at; so because one must not wish ill to the lady in such cases,' continued he, one curses the cur.' The truth is, Belle was not wellbehaved, and being a large spaniel, was troublesome enough at dinner with frequent solicitations to be fed. This animal,' said Dr. Johnson, one day,' would have been of extraordinary merit and value in the state of Lycurgus; for she condemns one to the exertion of perpetual vigilance.'

66

Though apt enough to take sudden likings or aversions to people he occasionally met, he would never hastily pronounce upon their character; and when, seeing him justly delighted with Dr. Solander's conversation, I observed once that he was a man of great parts, who talked from a full mind-It may be so,' said Dr. Johnson, but you cannot know it yet, nor I neither: the pump works well, to be sure; but how, I wonder, are we to decide in so very short an acquaintance, whether it is supplied by a spring or a reservoir?',

"He always made a great difference in his esteem between talents and erudition; and when he saw a person eminent for literature, wholly unconversable, it fretted him.

Teaching such tonies,' said he to me one day, is like setting a lady's diamonds in lead, which only obscures the lustre of the stone, and makes the possessor ashamed on 't.'

"Among the numberless people, however, whom I heard him grossly and flatly contradict, I never yet saw any one who did not take it patiently excepting Dr. Burney, from whose habitual softness of manners I little expected such an exertion of spirit: the event was as little to be expected. Dr. Johnson asked his pardon generously and genteelly, and when he left the room rose up to shake hands with him, that they might part in peace.

"When Dr. Johnson had a mind to coinpliment any one, he did it with more dignity to himself, and better effect upon the company, than any man. I can recollect but few instances indeed, though perhaps that may be more my fault than his.

[See ante, vol. i. 438.-ED.]

The king to Oxford sent his troop of horse,
For tories own no argument but force;
With equal care to Cambridge books he sent,
For whigs allow no force but argument.'

"Dr. Johnson did him the justice to say, it was one of the happiest extemporaneous productions he ever met with; though he once comically confessed, that he hated to repeat the wit of a whig urged in support of whiggism.

"When Sir Joshua Reynolds had painted his portrait looking into the slit of his pen, and holding it almost close to his eye, as was his general custom, he felt displeased, and told me, he would not be known by posterity for his defects only, let Sir Joshua do his worst.' I said in reply, that Reynolds had no such difficulties about himself, and that he might observe the picture which hung up in the room where we were talking represented Sir Joshua holding his ear in his hand to catch the sound. He may paint himself as deaf if he chooses,' replied Johnson; but I will not be blinking Sam.'

"As we had been saying one day that no subject failed of receiving dignity from the manner in which Dr. Johnson treated it, a lady at our house said, she would make him talk about love, and took her measures accordingly, deriding the novels of the day because they treated about love. 'It is not,' replied our philosopher, 'because they treat, as you call it, about love, but because they treat of nothing, that they are despicable: we must not ridicule a passion which he who never felt never was happy, and he who laughs at never deserves to feel a passion which has caused the change of empires, and the loss of worlds-a passion which has inspired heroism and subdued avarice.' He thought he had already said too much. A passion, in short,' added he, with an altered tone,' that consumes me away for my pretty Fanny here, and she is very cruel.'

[Miss Burney, the authour of Evelina, &c. now Madame D'Arblay.-ED.] 34

VOL. 11

"As Johnson was the firmest of believers without being credulous, so he was the most charitable of mortals without being what we call an active friend 2. Admirable at giving counsel, no man saw his way so clearly; but he would not stir a finger for the assistance of those to whom he was willing enough to give advice: besides that, he had principles of laziness, and could be indolent by rule. To hinder your death, or procure you a dinner-I mean, if really in want of one-his earnestness, his exertions, could not be prevented, though health, and purse, and ease were all destroyed by their violence. If you wanted a slight favour, you must apply to people of other dispositions; for not a step would Johnson move to obtain a man a vote in a society, or repay a compliment, which might be useful or pleasing, to write a letter of request, or to obtain a hundred pounds a year more for a friend, who, perhaps, had already two or three. No force could urge him to diligence, no importunity could conquer his resolution of standing still. What good are we doing with all this ado?' would he say: dearest lady, let's hear no more of it!' 'I have, however, more than once in my life forced him on such services, but with extreme difficulty. We parted at his door one evening when I had teased him for many weeks to write a recommendatory letter of a little boy to his schoolmaster; and after he had faithfully promised to do this prodigious feat before we met again' Do not forget dear Dick, sir,' said I, as he went out of the coach. He turned back, stood still two minutes on the carriage-step- When I have written my letter for Dick, I may hang myself, may n't I?' and turned away in a very ill humour indeed.

"The strangest applications in the world were certainly made from time to time towards Dr. Johnson, who by that means had an inexhaustible fund of anecdote, and could, if he pleased, tell the most astonishing stories of human folly and human weakness that ever were confided to any man not a confessor by profession.

I

“One day, when he was in a humour to record some of them, he told us the following tale: 'A person,' said he, had for these last five weeks often called at my door, but would not leave his name, or other message, but that he wished to speak with me. At last we met, and he told me that he was oppressed by scruples of conscience. blamed him gently for not applying, as the rules of our church direct, to his parish priest, or other discreet clergyman; when, after some compliments on his part, he told me, that he was clerk to a very eminent trader, at whose ware-houses much business consisted in packing goods in order to go * [See post, sub June, 1784.-ED.]