154 The fear of death. [A.D. 1777. scarce any man' dies in publick, but with apparent resolution; from that desire of praise which never quits us. I said, Dr. Dodd seemed to be willing to die, and full of hopes of happiness. 'Sir, (said he,) Dr. Dodd would have given both his hands and both his legs to have lived. The better a man is, the more afraid he is of death, having a clearer view of infinite purity.' He owned, that our being in an unhappy uncertainty as to our salvation, was mysterious; and said, 'Ah! we must wait till we are in another state of being, to have many things explained to us.' Even the powerful mind of Johnson seemed foiled by futurity. But I thought, that the gloom of uncertainty in solemn religious speculation, being mingled with hope, was yet more consolatory than the emptiness of infidelity. A man can live in thick air, but perishes in an exhausted receiver. Dr. Johnson was much pleased with a remark which I told him was made to me by General Paoli :-'That it is impossible not to be afraid of death; and that those who at the time of dying are not afraid, are not thinking of death, but of applause, or something else, which keeps death out of their sight: so that all men are equally afraid of death when they see it; only some have a power of turning their sight away from it better than others',' On Wednesday, September 17, Dr. Butter, physician at Derby, drank tea with us; and it was settled that Dr. Johnson and I should go on Friday and dine with him. Johnson said, 'I'm glad of this.' He seemed weary of the uniformity of life at Dr. Taylor's. Talking of biography, I said, in writing a life, a man's pecuc liarities should be mentioned, because they mark his character. Johnson says:-'There are few things not purely evil of which we can say without some emotion of uneasiness, this is the last.... The secret horrour of the last is inseparable from a thinking being whose life is limited, and to whom death is dreadful.' In the first edition for scarce any man we find almost no man. See ante, March 20, 1776, note. 2 Bacon, in his Essay on Death, says 'It is worthy the observing, that there is no passion in the mind of man so weak but it mates and masters the fear of death; and therefore death is no such terrible enemy, when a man hath so many attendants about him, that can win the combat of him.' In the De Aug. Sci. vi. 3. 12, he says:-'Non invenias inter humanos affectum tam pusillum, qui si intendatur paullo vehementius, non mortis metum superet.' JOHNSON. JOHNS ON Aetat. 68.] Panegyricks and Lives. 155 JOHNSON. Sir, there is no doubt as to peculiarities: the question is, whether a man's vices should be mentioned; for instance, whether it should be mentioned that Addison and Parnell drank too freely for people will probably more easily indulge in drinking from knowing this; so that more ill may be done by the example, than good by telling the whole truth'.' Here was an instance of his varying from himself in talk; for when Lord Hailes and he sat one morning calmly conversing in my house at Edinburgh, I well remember that Dr. Johnson maintained, that 'If a man is to write A Panegyrick, he may keep vices out of sight; but if he professes to write A Life, he must represent it really as it was:' and when I objected to the danger of telling that Parnell drank to excess, he said, that 'it would produce an instructive caution to avoid drinking, when it was seen, that even the learning and genius of Parnell could be debased by it.' And in the Hebrides he maintained, as appears from my Journal', that a man's intimate friend should mention his faults, if he writes his life3. He had this evening, partly, I suppose, from the spirit of contradiction to his Whig friend, a violent argument with Dr. Taylor, as to the inclinations of the people of England at this time towards the Royal Family of Stuart. He grew so outrageous as to say, 'that, if England were fairly polled, the present King 3 In the Life of Addison (Works, vii. 444) he says ::-'The necessity of complying with times, and of sparing persons, is the great impediment of biography. History may be formed from permanent monuments and records; but Lives can only be written from personal knowledge, which is growing every day less, and in a short time is lost for ever. What is known can seldom be immediately told; and when it might be told, it is no longer known. The delicate features of the mind, the nice discriminations of character, and the minute peculiarities of conduct, are soon obliterated; and it is surely better that caprice, obstinacy, frolick and folly, however they might delight in the description, should be silently forgotten, than that, by wanton merriment and unseasonable detection, a pang should be given to a widow, a daughter, a brother, or a friend. As the process of these narratives is now bringing me among my contemporaries, I begin to feel myself "walking upon ashes under which the fire is not extinguished,” and coming to the time of which it will be proper rather to say "nothing that is false, than all that is true."' See ante, i. 9, and 30. would 156 Popular indifference to the King. [A.D. 1777. would be sent away to-night, and his adherents hanged tomorrow.' Taylor, who was as violent a Whig as Johnson was a Tory, was roused by this to a pitch of bellowing. He denied, loudly, what Johnson said; and maintained, that there was an abhorrence against the Stuart family, though he admitted that the people were not much attached to the present King'. JOHNSON. 'Sir, the state of the country is this: the people knowing it to be agreed on all hands that this King has not the hereditary right to the crown, and there being no hope that he who has it can be restored, have grown cold and indifferent upon the subject of loyalty, and have no warm attachment to any King. They would not, therefore, risk any thing to restore the exiled family. They would not give twenty shillings a piece to bring it about. But, if a mere vote could do it, there would be twenty to one; at least, there would be a very great majority of voices for it. For, Sir, you are to consider, that all those who think a King has a right to his crown, as a man has to his estate, which is the just opinion, would be for restoring the King who certainly has the hereditary right, could he be trusted with it; in which there would be no danger now, when laws and every thing else are so much advanced and every King will govern by the laws. And you must also consider, Sir, that there is nothing on the other side to oppose to this; for it is not alledged by any one that the present family has any inherent right: so that the Whigs could not have a contest between two rights.' Dr. Taylor admitted, that if the question as to hereditary right were to be tried by a poll of the people of England, to be sure the abstract doctrine would be given in favour of the family I Dr. Taylor was very ready to make this admission, because the party with which he was connected was not in power. There was then some truth in it, owing to the pertinacity of factious clamour. Had he lived till now, it would have been impossible for him to deny that his Majesty possesses the warmest affection of his people. BOSWELL. See post, March 21, 1783. 2 The Duke of York in 1788, speaking in the House of Lords on the King's illness, said :-'He was confident that his Royal Highness [the Prince of Wales] understood too well the sacred principles which seated the House of Brunswick on the throne of Great Britain ever to assume or exercise any power, be his claim what it might, not derived from the will of the people, expressed by their representatives, and their lordships in parliament assembled.' Parl. Hist. xxvii. 678. of Aetat. 68.] Johnson's birth-day. 157 of Stuart; but he said, the conduct of that family, which occasioned their expulsion, was so fresh in the minds of the people, that they would not vote for a restoration. Dr. Johnson, I think, was contented with the admission as to the hereditary right, leaving the original point in dispute, viz. what the people upon the whole would do, taking in right and affection; for he said, people were afraid of a change, even though they think it right. Dr. Taylor said something of the slight foundation of the hereditary right of the house of Stuart. 'Sir, (said Johnson,) the house of Stuart succeeded to the full right of both the houses of York and Lancaster, whose common source had the undisputed right. A right to a throne is like a right to any thing else. Possession is sufficient, where no better right can be shown. This was the case with the Royal Family of England, as it is now with the King of France: for as to the first beginning of the right, we are in the dark'.' Thursday, September 18. Last night Dr. Johnson had proposed that the crystal lustre, or chandelier, in Dr. Taylor's large room, should be lighted up some time or other. Taylor said, it should be lighted up next night. That will do very well, (said I,) for it is Dr. Johnson's birth-day?' When we were in the Isle of Sky, Johnson had desired me not to mention his birth-day. He did not seem pleased at this time that I mentioned it, and said (somewhat sternly) 'he would not have the lustre lighted the next day.' Some ladies, who had been present yesterday when I mentioned his birth-day, came to dinner to-day, and plagued him unintentionally, by wishing him joy. I know not why he disliked having his birth-day mentioned, unless it were that it reminded him of his approaching nearer to death, of which he had a constant dread3. 'See ante, i. 430. * See Boswell's Hebrides, Sept. 18, 1773, and post, under date of Sept. 9, 1779, note. 3 The return of my birth-day,' he wrote in 1773, 'if I remember it, fills me with thoughts which it seems to be the general care of humanity to escape.' Piozzi Letters, i. 134. In 1781 he viewed the day with calmness, if not with cheerfulness. He writes rose, breakfasted, and gave thanks at church for my creation, preservation, and redemption. As I came home, I thought I had never begun any period of life so placidly. I have always been accustomed to let this day pass unnoticed, but it I mentioned 158 A modern bad style of poetry. [A.D. 1777. I mentioned to him a friend of mine who was formerly gloomy from low spirits, and much distressed by the fear of death, but was now uniformly placid, and contemplated his dissolution without any perturbation. 'Sir, (said Johnson,) this is only a disordered imagination taking a different turn.' We talked of a collection being made of all the English Poets who had published a volume of poems. Johnson told me that a Mr. Coxeter', whom he knew, had gone the greatest length towards this; having collected, I think, about five hundred volumes of poets whose works were little known; but that upon his death Tom Osborne' bought them, and they were dispersed, which he thought a pity, as it was curious to see any series complete; and in every volume of poems something good may be found.' He observed, that a gentleman of eminence in literature had got into a bad style of poetry of late3. He puts (said he) a very common thing in a strange dress till he does not know it, himself, and thinks other people do not know it.' Boswell. 'That is owing to his being so much versant in old English poetry. JOHNSON. 'What is that to the purpose, Sir? came this time into my mind that some little festivity was not improper. I had a dinner; and invited Allen and Levet.' Pr. and Med. p. 198. In 1783 he again had 'a little dinner,' and invited four friends to keep the day. Croker's Boswell, p. 739. At Streatham the day, it should seem, was always kept. Mrs. Piozzi writes (Anec. p. 211):—' On the birthday of our eldest daughter, and that of our friend, Dr. Johnson, the 17th and 18th of September, we every year made up a little dance and supper to divert our servants and their friends.' The son of a Mr. Coxeter, 'a gentleman,' says Johnson, 'who was once my friend,' enlisted in the service of the East India Company. Johnson asked Mr. Thrale to use his influence to get his discharge. Piozzi Letters, i. 33. 2 The bookseller whom Johnson beat, ante, i. 154. If I 3 'When a well-known author published his poems in the year 1777, "Such a one's verses are come out," said I: "Yes," replied Johnson, “and this frost has struck them in again. Here are some lines I have written to ridicule them; but remember that I love the fellow dearly now-for all I laugh at him. Wheresoe'er I turn my view, * In The Rambler, No. 121. Johnson, twenty-six years earlier, attacked say |