PART XV. ANECDOTES OF DR. JOHNSON, 410. Johnson's Conversation.-Sir Joshua Reynolds's "Discourses."-Art of Thinking. It I REMEMBER Mr. Burke, speaking of the Essays of Sir Francis Bacon, said, he thought them the best of his works. Dr. Johnson was of opinion, that "their excellence and their value consisted in being the observations of a strong mind operating upon life; and in consequence you find there what you seldom find in other books." is this kind of excellence which gives a value to the performances of artists also. It is the thoughts expressed in the works of Michael Angelo, Coreggio, Raffaelle, Parmegiano, and perhaps some of the old Gothic masters, and not the inventions of Pietro da Cortona, Carlo Marati, Luca Giordano, and others, that I might mention, which we seek after with avidity; from the former we learn to think originally. May I presume to introduce myself on this occasion, and even to mention, as an instance of the truth of what I have remarked, the very discourses which I have had the honour of delivering from this place? Whatever merit they have, must be imputed, in a great measure, to the education which I may be said to have had under Dr. (*) [From an unfinished discourse, found by Mr. Malone among Si Joshua's loose papers. See Works, vol. i. p. 9.] Johnson. I do not mean to say, that it certainly would be to the credit of these discourses, if I could say it with truth, that he contributed even a single sentiment to them; but he qualified my mind to think justly. No man had, like him, the faculty of teaching inferior minds the art of thinking. Perhaps other men might have equal knowledge; but few were so communicative. His great pleasure was to talk to those who looked up to him. It was here he exhibited his wonderful powers. In mixed company, and frequently in company that ought to have looked up to him, many, thinking they had a character for learning to support, considered it as beneath them to enlist in the train of his auditors; and to such persons he certainly did not appear to advantage, being often impetuous and overbearing. The desire of shining in conversation was in him, indeed, a predominant passion; and if it must be attributed to vanity, let it at the same time be recollected, that it produced that loquaciousness from which his more intimate friends derived considerable advantage. The observations which he made on poetry, on life, and on everything about us, I applied to our art; with what success, others must judge. Perhaps an artist in his studies should pursue the same conduct; and, instead of patching up a particular work on the narrow plan of imitation, rather endeavour to acquire the art and power of thinking. 411. Johnson's Style of Conversation. [The following jeu d'esprit was written by Sir Joshua Reynolds to illustrate a remark which he had made, that "Dr. Johnson considered Garrick as his property, and would never suffer any one to praise or abuse him but himself." In the first of these supposed dialogues, Sir Joshua himself, by high encomiums upon Garrick, is represented as drawing down upon him Johnson's censure; in the second, Mr. Gibbon, by taking the opposite side, calls forth his praise. TWO DIALOGUES IN IMITATION OF JOHNSON'S STYLE OF CONVERSATION.(*) JOHNSON AGAINST GARRICK. Dr. Johnson and Sir Joshua Reynolds. REYNOLDS. Let me alone, I'll bring him out. (Aside.) (*) [These Dialogues were printed in 1816 from the MS. of Sir I have been thinking, Dr. Johnson, this morning, on a matter that has puzzled me very much; it is a subject that I dare say has often passed in your thoughts, and though I cannot, I dare say you have made up your mind upon it. JOHNSON. Tilly fally! what is all this preparation, what is all this mighty matter? REY. Why, it is a very weighty matter. The subject I have been thinking upon is, predestination and free will, two things I cannot reconcile together for the life of me; in my opinion, Dr. Johnson, freewill and foreknowledge cannot be reconciled. JOHNS. Sir, it is not of very great importance what your opinion is upon such a question. REY. But I meant only, Dr. Johnson, to know your opinion. JOHNS. No, sir, you meant no such thing; you meant only to show these gentlemen that you are not the man they took you to be, but that you think of high matters sometimes, and that you may have the credit of having it said that you held an argument with Sam. Johnson on predestination and freewill; a subject of that magnitude as to have engaged the attention of the world, to have perplexed the wisdom of man for these two thousand years; a subject on which the fallen angels, who had yet not lost their original brightness, find themselves in wandering mazes lost. That such a subject could be discussed in the Joshua, by his niece, Lady Thomond: they were not published, but distributed by her ladyship to some friends of Dr. Johnson and Sir Joshua. The copy which I have was spontaneously transmitted to me by Mrs. Gwynn, the friend of Goldsmith and of Johnson, whose early beauty is noticed by Boswell, and who is still distinguished for her amiable character and high mental accomplishments. Lady Thomond, in the prefatory note, calls this a "jeu d'esprit;" but I was informed by the late Sir Joshua Beaumont, who knew all the parties, and to whom Reynolds himself gave a copy of it, that if the words jeu d'esprit were to be understood to imply that it was altogether an invention of Sir Joshua's, the term would be erroneous. The substance, and many of the expressions, of the dialogues did really occur; Sir Joshua did little more than collect, as if into two conversations, what had been uttered at many, and heighten the effect by the juxtaposition of such discordant opinions.-C.] levity of convivial conversation, is a degree of absurdity beyond what is easily conceivable. REY. It is so, as you say, to be sure; I talked once to our friend Garrick upon this subject, but I remember we could make nothing of it. JOHNS. O noble pair! REY. Garrick was a clever fellow, Dr. J.; Garrick, take him altogether, was certainly a very great man. JOHNS. Garrick, sir, may be a great man in your opinion, as far as I know, but he was not so in mine; little things are great to little men. REV. I have heard you say, Dr. Johnson JOHNS. Sir, you never heard me say that David Garrick was a great man; you may have heard me say that Garrick was a good repeater-of other men's words-words put into his mouth by other men; this makes but a faint approach towards being a great man. REY. But take Garrick upon the whole, now, in regard to conversation JOHNS. Well, sir, in regard to conversation, I never discovered in the conversation of David Garrick any intellectual energy, any wide grasp of thought, any extensive comprehension of mind, or that he possessed any of those powers to which great could, with any degree of propriety, be applied. REY. But still JOHNS. Hold, sir, I have not done-there are, to be sure, in the laxity of colloquial speech, various kinds of greatness; a man may be a great tobacconist, a man may be a great painter, he may be likewise a great mimic: now you may be the one, and Garrick the other, and yet neither of you be great men. REY. But, Dr. Johnson JOHNS. Hold, sir; I have often lamented how dangerous it is to investigate and to discriminate character to men who have no discriminative powers. REY. But Garrick, as a companion, I heard you say-no longer ago than last Wednesday, at Mr. Thrale's table JOHNS. You tease me, sir. Whatever you may have heard me say—no longer ago than last Wednesday, at Mr. Thrale's table, I tell you I do not say so now: besides, as I said before, you may not have understood me, you misapprehended me, you may not have heard me. REY. I am very sure I heard you. JOHNS. Besides, besides, sir, besides-do you not know are you so ignorant as not to know, that it is the highest degree of rudeness to quote a man against himself? REY. But if you differ from yourself, and give one opinion to-day JOHNS. Have done, sir; the company, you see, are tired, as well as myself." T'OTHER SIDE. Dr. Johnson and Mr. Gibbon. JOHNSON. No, sir: Garrick's fame was prodigious, not only in England, but over all Europe. Even in Russia I have been told he was a proverb; when any one had repeated well, he was called a second Garrick. GIBBON. I think be had full as much reputation as he deserved. JOHNS. I do not pretend to know, sir, what your meaning may be, by saying he had as much reputation as he deserved; he deserved much, and he had much. GIB. Why, surely, Dr. Johnson, his merit was in small things only, he had none of those qualities that make a real great man. JOHNS. Sir, I as little understand what your meaning may be when you speak of the qualities that make a great man; it is a vague term. Garrick was no common man; a man above the common size of men may surely, without any great impropriety, be called a great man. In my opinion he has very reasonably fulfilled the prophecy which he once reminded me of having made to his mother, when she asked me how little David went on at school, that I should say to her, that he would come to be hanged, or come to be a great man. No, sir, it is undoubtedly true that the same qualities, united with virtue or with viee, make a hero or a rogue, a great general or a highwayman. Now Garrick, we are sure, was never hanged, and in regard to his being a great man, you must take the whole man together. It must be considered in how many things Garrick excelled in which every man desires to |