! very like your praises. I wonder whether | fame. That was his primary motive. Had I shall ever show them to you. "Boswell will be with you. Please to ask Murphy the way to Lord Mansfield. Dr. Wetherell, who is now here, and will be here for some days, is very desirous of seeing the brew-house; I hope Mr. Thrale will send him an invitation. He does what he can for Carter. "To-day I dine with Hamilton; to-morrow with Hoole; on Monday with Paradise; on Tuesday with master and mistress; on Wednesday with Dilly; but come back to the tower 1."] He revised some sheets of Lord Hailes's "Annals of Scotland," and wrote a few notes on the margin with red ink, which he bade me tell his lordship did not sink into the paper, and might be wiped off with a wet sponge, so that it did not spoil his manuscript. I observed to him that there were very few of his friends so accurate as that I could venture to put down in writing what they told me as his sayings. JOHNSON. "Why should you write down my sayings?" BOSWELL. "I write them when they are good." JOHNSON. "Nay, you may as well write down the sayings of any one else that are good." But where, I might with great propriety have added, can I find such? I visited him by appointment in the evening, and we drank tea with Mrs. Williams. He told me that he had been in the company of a gentleman 2 whose extraordinary travels had been much the subject of conversation. But I found he had not listened to him with that full confidence, without which there is little satisfaction in the society of travellers. I was curious to hear what opinion so able a judge as Johnson had formed of his abilities, and I asked if he was not a man of sense. JOHNSON. "Why, sir, he is not a distinct relater; and I should say, he is neither abounding nor deficient in sense. I did not perceive any superiority of understanding." BOSWELL. "But will you not allow him a nobleness of resolution, in penetrating into distant regions?" JOHNSON. "That, sir, is not to the present purpose: we are talking of sense. A fighting cock has a nobleness of resolution." Next day, Sunday, 2d April, I dined with him at Mr. Hoole's. We talked of Pope. JOHNSON. "He wrote his Dunciad' for [The tower was a separate room at Streatham, where Dr. Johnson slept.-Prozzi. So called probably because it was bowed. The editor slept in that room many years after, and was pleased to find that Dr. Johnson's writing-table was carefully preserved, and that even the blots of his ink were not cleaned away.-ED.] k [Bruce, the Abyssinian traveller, with whom he had dined this day at Mr. Gerard Hamilton's. -ED.] it not been for that, the dunces might have railed against him till they were weary, without his troubling himself about them. He delighted to vex them, no doubt; but he had more delight in seeing how well he could vex them." The "Odes to Obscurity and Oblivion," in ridicule of" cool Mason and warm Gray," being mentioned, Johnson said, "They are Colman's best things." Upon its being observed that it was believed these odes were made by Colman and Lloyd;-JOHNSON. "Nay, sir, how can two people make an ode? Perhaps one made one of them, and one the other." I observed that two people had made a play, and quoted the anecdote of Beaumont and Fletcher, who were brought under suspicion of treason, because while concerting the plan of a tragedy when sitting together at a tavern, one of them was overheard saying to the other, "I'll kill the king." JOHNSON. "The first of these odes is the best; but they are both good. They exposed a very bad kind of writing 3." BOSWELL. "Surely, sir, Mr. Mason's' Elfrida' is a fine poem: at least you will allow there are some good passages in it." JOHNSON. "There are now and then some good imitations of Milton's bad manner." Piozzi, p. 28. [Mrs. Piozzi has heard Johnson relate how he used to sit in some coffee-house, and turn Mason's Caractacus into ridicule for the diversion of himself and of chance comers-in. "The Elfrida (says he) was too exquisitely pretty 4; Ì could make no fun out of that." When upon some occasions he would express his astonishment that he should have an enemy in the world, while he had been doing nothing but good to his neighbours, Mrs. Piozzi used to make him recollect these circumstances: "Why, child, (said he), what harm could that do the fellow? I always thought very well of Mason for a Cambridge man: he is, I believe, a mighty blameless character."] Of I often wondered at his low estimation of the writings of Gray and Mason. Gray's poetry I have in a former part of this work expressed my high opinion; and for that of Mr. Mason I have ever entertained a warm admiration. His "Elfrida" is exquisite, both in poetical description and [Gray's odes are still on every table and in every mouth, and there are not, the editor believes, a dozen libraries in England which could produce these "best things," written by two professed wits in ridicule of them.-ED.] 4 [The editor has not thought himself at liberty to suppress this judgment, because it seems in. substance authorised by Boswell's account, although the expression is very unlike Johnson's style.-ED.] moral sentiment; and his "Caractacus" is a noble drama. Nor can I omit paying my tribute of praise to some of his smaller poems, which I have read with pleasure, and which no criticism shall persuade me not to like. If I wondered at Johnson's not tasting the works of Mason and Gray, still more have I wondered at their not tasting his works: that they should be insensible to his energy of diction, to his splendour of images, and comprehension of thought. Tastes may differ as to the violin, the flute, the hautboy; in short all the lesser instruments: but, who can be insensible to the powerful impressions of the majestic organ? in competition for honorary prizes, being I talked of the cheerfulness of Fleet-street, owing to the constant quick succession of people which we perceive passing through JOHNSON. "Why, sir, Fleet-street has a very animated appearance; but I His "Taxation no Tyranny" being mentioned, he said, "I think I have not been attacked enough for it. Attack is the re-it. action; I never think I have hit hard, unless it rebounds." BoswELL. "I don't know, sir, what you would be at. Five or six shots of small arms in every newspaper, and repeated cannonading in pamphlets, might, I think, satisfy you. But, sir, you'll never make out this match, of which we have talked, with a certain political lady 1, since you are so severe against her principles." JOHNSON. "Nay, sir, I have the better chance for that. She is like the Amazons of old; she must be courted by the sword. But I have not been severe upon her." BosWELL. "Yes, sir, you have made her ridiculous." JOHNSON. "That was already done, sir. To endeavour to make her ridiculous, is like blacking the chimney." I put him in mind that the landlord at Ellon in Scotland said, that he heard he was the greatest man in England, next to Lord Mansfield. 66 Ay, sir (said he), the exception defined the idea. A Scotchman could go no farther: The force of Nature could no farther go.'" Lady Miller's collection of verses by fashionable people, which were put into her Vase at Batheaston villa 2, near Bath, 1 [Mrs. Macaulay: see ante, p. 102. Dr. Macaulay had been dead some years, and the lady did not re-marry till 1778.-ED.] [Batheaston. The following extract, from one of Horace Walpole's letters, will explain the personages and proceedings of this farce: "You must know, that near Bath is erected a new Parnassus, composed of three laurels, a myrtle-tree, a weeping-willow, and a view of the Avon, which has been new christened Helicon. Ten years ago there lived a madam [Riggs], an old rough humourist, who passed for a wit; her daughter, who passed for nothing, married to a captain [Miller], full of good natured officiousness. These good folks were friends of Miss Rich*, who carried me to dine with them at Bath-Easton, * Daughter of Sir Robert Rich, and sister to the second wife of George, Lord Lyttelton. now Pindus. They caught a little of what was 3 [Probably the Rev. Richard Graves, who was for some years tutor in the house of Johnson's friend, Mr. Fitzherbert, and who contributed to the Batheaston Vase. He was Rector of Claverton, near Bath, where he died in 1804.-ED.] ; [Lady Anne Stuart, second daughter of Lord Bute, married in 1764 to the second Duke of Northumberland, from whom she was divorced in 1779.-ED.] A literary lady, of whom we shall see more hereafter, -ED.] think the full tide of human existence is at Charing-cross." He made the common remark on the unhappiness which men who have led a busy life experience, when they retire in expectation of enjoying themselves at ease, and that they generally languish for want of their habitual occupation, and wish to return to it. He mentioned as strong an instance of this as can well be imagined. "An eminent tallow-chandler in London, who had acquired a considerable fortune, gave up the trade in favour of his foreman, and went to live at a country-house near town. He soon grew weary, and paid frequent visits to his old shop, where he desired they might let him know their meltingdays, and he would come and assist them; which he accordingly did. Here, sir, was a man to whom the most disgusting circumstances in the business to which he had been used was a relief from idleness." On Wednesday, 5th April, I dined with him at Messieurs Dillys, with Mr. John Scott of Amwell, the Quaker, Mr. Langton, Mr. Miller (now Sir John), and Dr. Thomas Campbell, an Irish clergyman, whom I took the liberty of inviting to Mr. Dilly's table, having seen him at Mr. Thrale's, and been told that he had come to England chiefly with a view to see Dr. Johnson, for whom he entertained the highest veneration. He has since published "A Philosophical Survey of the South of Ireland," a very entertaining book, which has, however, one fault-that it assumes the fictitious character of an Englishman. We talked of publick speaking. JOHNSON. "We must not estimate a man's powers by his being able or not able to deliver his sentiments in publick. Isaac Hawkins Browne, one of the first wits of this country, got into parliament, and never opened his mouth. For my own part, I think it is more disgraceful never to try to speak, than to try it and fail; as it is more disgraceful not to fight, than to fight and be beaten." This argument appeared to me fallacious; for if a man has not spoken, it may be said that he would have done very well if he had tried; whereas, if he has tried and failed, there is nothing to be said for him. "Why then," I asked, "is it thought disgraceful for a man not to fight, and not disgraceful not to speak in publick?" JOHNSON. "Because there may be other reasons for a man's not speaking in publick than want of resolution: he may have nothing to say (laughing). Whereas, sir, you know courage is reckoned the greatest of all virtues; because, unless a man has that virtue, he has no security for preserving any other." [See post, 6th April-ED.] He observed, that "the statutes against bribery were intended to prevent upstarts with money from getting into parliament: " adding, that "if he were a gentleman of landed property, he would turn out all his tenants who did not vote for the candidate whom he supported." LANGTON. " Would not that, sir, be checking the freedom of election?" JOHNSON. "Sir, the law does not mean that the privilege of voting should be independent of old family interest, of the permanent property of the country." On Thursday, 6th April, I dined with him at Mr. Thomas Davies's, with Mr. Hicky, the painter, and my old acquaintance Mr. Moody, the player. Dr. Johnson, as usual, spoke contemptuously of Colley Cibber. "It is wonderful that a man, who for forty years had lived with the great and the witty, should have acquired so ill the talents of conversation: and he had but half to furnish; for one half of what he said was oaths." He, however, allowed considerable merit to some of his comedies, and said there was no reason to believe that the "Careless Husband" was not written by himself. Davies said, he was the first dramatick writer who introduced genteel ladies upon the stage. Johnson refuted his observation by instancing several such characters in comedies before his time. DAVIES (trying to defend himself from a charge of ignorance). “I mean genteel moral characters." "I think," said Hicky, "gentility and morality are inseparable." BoswELL. "By no means, sir. The genteelest characters are often the most immoral. Does not Lord Chesterfield give precepts for uniting wickedness and the graces? A man, indeed, is not genteel when he gets drunk; but most vices may be committed very genteelly: a man may debauch his friend's wife genteelly: he may cheat at cards genteelly." HICKY. "I do not think that is genteel." BOSWELL. "Sir, it may not be like a gentleman, but it may be genteel." JOHNSON, "You are meaning two different things. One means exteriour grace; the other honour. It is certain that a man may be very immoral with exteriour grace. Lovelace, in Clarissa,' is a very genteel and a very wicked character. Tom Hervey 2, who died t'other day, though a vicious man, was one of the genteelest men that ever_lived.” Tom Davies instanced Charles the Second. JOHNSON (taking fire at any attack upon that Prince, for whom he had an extraordinary partiality). "Charles the Second was licentious in his practice; but he always had a reverence for what was good. Charles the Second knew his people, and [See ante, p. 238.—ED.] rewarded merit. The church was at no time better filled than in his reign. He was the best king we have had from his time till the reign of his present majesty, except James the Second, who was a very good king 1, but unhappily believed that it was necessary for the salvation of his subjects that they should be Roman Catholicks. He had the merit of endeavouring to do what he thought was for the salvation of the souls of his subjects, till he lost a great empire. We, who thought that we should not be saved if we were Roman Catholicks, had the merit of maintaining our religion, at the expense of submitting ourselves to the government of King William, (for it could not be done otherwise,)—to the government of one of the most worthless scoundrels that ever existed 2. No, Charles the Second was not such a man as -3, [All this seems so contrary to historical truth and common sense, that no explanation can be given of it; but it excites a lively curiosity to know more of Dr. Johnson's personal history during the years 1745 and 1746, during which Boswell could find no trace of him. See ante, p. 71.-ED.] 2 [He was always vehement against King William: a gentleman who dined at a nobleman's table in his company and that of Mr. Thrale, who related the anecdote, was willing to enter the lists in defence of King William's character, and, having opposed and contradicted Johnson two or three times petulantly enough, the master of the house began to feel uneasy, and expect disagreeable consequences; to avoid which he said, loud enough for the Doctor to hear, "Our friend here has no meaning now in all this, except just to relate at club to-morrow how he teased Johnson at dinner to-day-this is all to do himself honour.” "No, upon my word," replied the other, "I no honour in it, whatever you may do." "Well, sir," returned Dr. Johnson, sternly, "if you do not see the honour, I am sure I feel the disgrace."-Piozzi, p. 156.—ED.] see (naming anotner king). He did not destroy his father's will. He took money, indeed, from France: but he did not betray those over whom he ruled: he did not let the French fleet pass ours. George the First knew nothing, and desired to know nothing; did nothing, and desired to do nothing; and the only good thing that is told of him is, that he wished to restore the crown to its hereditary successor." roared with prodigious violence against George the Second. When he ceased, Moody interjected, in an Irish tone, and with a comick look, "Ah! poor George the Second." He I mentioned that Dr. Thomas Campbell had come from Ireland to London, principally to see Dr. Johnson. He seemed angry at this observation. DAVIES. "Why, you know, sir, there came a man from Spain to see Livy 4; and Corelli came to England to see Purcell5, and when he heard he was dead, went directly back "I should again to Italy," JOHNSON. not have wished to be dead to disappoint Campbell, had he been so foolish as you represent him; but I should have wished to have been a hundred miles off." This was apparently perverse; and I do believe it was not his real way of thinking: he could not but like a man who came so far to see him. He laughed with some complacency, when I told him Campbell's odd expression to me concerning him: "That having seen such a man, was a thing to talk of a century hence," as if he could live so long 6. 4 Plin. Epist. Lib. ii. Ep. 3.-BoOSWELL. 5 Mr. Davies was here mistaken. Corelli never was in England.-BURNEY. [Mrs. Thrale gives, in her lively style, a sketch of this gentleman: "We have a flashy friend here (at Bath) already, who is much your adorer. I wonder how you will like him? An [George the Second.-The story of the will Irishman he is; very handsome, very hot-headed, is told by Horace Walpole, in his very amusing loud and lively, and sure to be a favourite with (but often inaccurate) Reminiscences: "At you, he tells us, for he can live with a man of the first council held by the new sovereign, Dr. ever so odd a temper. My master laughs, but Wake, Archbishop of Canterbury, produced the likes him, and it diverts me to think what you will will of the late king, and delivered it to the suc- do when he professes that he would clean shoes cessor, expecting it would be opened and read in for you; that he would shed his blood for you; council. On the contrary, his majesty put it into with twenty more extravagant flights; and you his pocket and stalked out of the room, without say I flatter! Upon my honour, sir, and indeed uttering a word on the subject. The poor prelate now, as Dr. Campbell's phrase is, I am but a was thunderstruck, and had not the presence of twitter to him."-Letters, 16th May, 1776. mind or the courage to demand the testament's Johnson, in his reply, 18th May, 1776, asks being opened, or at least to have it registered." Who can be this new friend of mine?" No man present chose to be more hardy than the person to whom the deposit had been intrusted; perhaps none of them immediately conceived the possible violation of so solemn an act, so notoriously existent. Still, as the king never mentioned the will more, whispers, only by degrees, informed the public that the will was burnt, at least that its injunctions were never fulfilled."-Reminiscences, ch. vi.—ED.] The Editor is unable to reconcile Mrs. Thrale's wonder "how Johnson would like him," and Johnson's ignorance of "who he was," in May, 1776, with Boswell's statement, that Campbell had dined thrice in his company, in April, 1775—one of the places being Mr. and Mrs. Thrale's own house: see post, 8th May. There can be no error in the date of the letters 1776, because they were written while Mrs. Thrale was at Bath, after I argued warmly against the judges trading, and mentioning Hale as an instance of a perfect judge, who devoted himself entirely to his office. JOHNSON. "Hale, sir, attended to other things besides law; he left a great estate." BOSWELL. "That was because what he got accumulated without any exertion and anxiety on his part." While the dispute went on, Moody once tried to say something on our side. Tom Davies clapped him on the back, to encourage him. Beauclerk, to whom I mentioned this circumstance, said, "that he could not conceive a more humiliating situation than to be clapped on the back by Tom Davies." We got into an argument whether the [I made a calculation, that if I should write judges who went to India might with pro- but a page a day, at the same rate, I should, priety engage in trade. Johnson warmly in ten years, write nine volumes in folio, of maintained that they might. "For why," an ordinary size and print." BOSWELL. he urged, "should not judges get riches," Such as Carte's History?"" JOHNSON. as well as those who deserve them less?" "Yes, sir; when a man writes from his own I said, they should have sufficient salaries, mind, he writes very rapidly 2. The greatand have nothing to take off their attention est part of a writer's time is spent in readfrom the affairs of the publick. JOHNSON. ing, in order to write; a man will turn over "No judge, sir, can give his whole atten- half a library, to make one book." tion to his office; and it is very proper that he should employ what time he has to himself to his own advantage, in the most profitable manner 1." "Then, sir," said Davies, who enlivened the dispute by making it somewhat dramatick," he may become an insurer; and when he is going to the bench, he may be stopped,-Your lordship cannot go yet; here is a bunch of invoices; several ships are about to sail." JOHNSON. "Sir, you may as well say a judge should not have a house; for they may come and tell him- Your lordship's house is on fire;' and so, instead of minding the business of his court, he is to be occupied in getting the engine with the greatest speed. There is no end of this. Every judge who has land, trades to a certain extent in corn or in cattle, and in the land itself: undoubtedly his steward acts for him, and so do clerks for a great merchant. A judge may be a farmer, but he is not to geld his own pigs. A judge may play a little at cards for his amusement; but he is not to play at marbles, or chuck-farthing in the piazza. No, sir, there is no profession to which a man gives a very great proportion of his time. It is wonderful, when a calculation is made, how little the mind is actually employed in the discharge of any profession. No man would be a judge, upon the condition of being totally a judge. The best employed lawyer has his mind at work but for a small proportion of his time; a great deal of his occupation is merely mechanical. I once wrote for a magazine: the loss of her son, which event took place in March, 1776, and is alluded to in the letters. Nor can Mr. Boswell's date be mistaken, for he says, that Campbell dined at Mr. Dilly's on Wednesday the 5th April, and the 5th April fell on a Wednesday in 1775. Mr. Boswell had, moreover, left London in 1776, prior to the date of Mrs. Thrale's, so that he could not have met Dr. Campbell in that year. The discrepancy is on a point of no importance, but it seems inexplicable. -ED.] [This must have been said in a mere spirit of argumentation, for we have seen (ante, p. 359.) that he was angry at a judge's being so much like an ordinary gentleman as even to wear a round hat in his own country house, and he censured him for being so much of a farmer as to farm a part of his demesne for his own amusement.ED.] We spoke of Rolt, to whose 'Dictionary of Commerce' Dr. Johnson wrote the preface. JOHNSON. "Old Gardener, the book seller, employed Rolt and Smart to write a monthly miscellany, called 'The Universal Visitor. There was a formal written contract, which Allen the printer saw. Gardener thought as you do of the judge. They were bound to write nothing else; they were to have, I think, a third of the profits of his sixpenny pamphlet; and the contract was for ninety-nine years. I wish I had thought of giving this to Thurlow, in the cause about literary property. What an excellent instance would it have been of the oppression of booksellers towards poor authors!" smiling 3. Davies, zealous for the honour of the trade, said Gardener was not properly a bookseller. JOHNSON. "Nay, sir; he certainly was a bookseller. He had served his time regularly, was a member of the Stationers' Company, kept a shop in the face of mankind, purchased copyright, and was a bibliopole, sir, in every sense. I wrote for some months in The Universal Visitor' for poor Smart, while he was mad, not then knowing the terms on which he was engaged to write, and thinking I was 2 Johnson certainly did, who had a mind stored with knowledge, and teeming with imagery; but the observation is not applicable to writers in general.-BOSWELL. 3 There has probably been some mistake as to the terms of this supposed extraordinary contract, the recital of which from hearsay afforded Johnson so much play for his sportive acuteness. Or if it was worded as he supposed, it is so strange that I should conclude it was a joke. Mr. Gardener, I am assured, was a worthy and liberal man.-BosWELL. |