Aetat. 69.] Mrs. Thrale's laxity of narration.

275

pompous narrative, "Once for his amusement he tried knotting; nor did this Hercules disdain the distaff." JOHNSON. 'Knitting of stockings is a good amusement. As a free

man of Aberdeen', I should be a knitter of stockings.' He asked me to go down with him and dine at Mr. Thrale's at Streatham, to which I agreed. I had lent him An Account of Scotland, in 1702, written by a man of various enquiry, an English chaplain to a regiment stationed there. JOHNSON. 'It is sad stuff, Sir, miserably written, as books in general then were. There is now an elegance of style universally diffused'. No man now writes so ill as Martin's Account of the Hebrides is written. A man could not write so ill, if he should try. Set a merchant's clerk now to write, and he'll do better3.'

He talked to me with serious concern of a certain female friend's 'laxity of narration, and inattention to truth.'-'I

'By this inspired (O ne'er to be forgot!)

Some lords have learned to spell, and some to knot.' Lord Eldon says that 'at a period when all ladies were employed (when they had nothing better to do) in knotting, Bishop Porteous was asked by the Queen, whether she might knot on a Sunday. He answered, You may not ;" leaving her Majesty to decide whether, as knot and not were in sound alike, she was, or was not, at liberty to do so.' Twiss's Eldon, ii. 355.

' Martin's style is wanting in that 'cadence which Temple gave to English prose' (post, p. 292). It would not be judged now so severely as it was a century ago, as the following instance will show :-'There is but one steel and tinder-box in all this commonwealth; the owner whereof fails not upon every occasion of striking fire in the lesser isles, to go thither, and exact three eggs, or one of the lesser fowls from each man as a reward for his service; this by them is called the Fire-Penny, and this Capitation is very uneasy to them; I bid them try their chrystal with their knives, which, when they saw it did strike fire, they were not a little astonished, admiring at the strangeness of the thing, and at the same time accusing their own ignorance, considering the quantity of chrystal growing under the rock of their coast. This discovery has delivered them from the Fire-Penny-Tax, and so they are no longer liable to it.'

am

276

Dr. John Campbell.

[A.D. 1778. am as much vexed (said he) at the case with which she hears it mentioned to her, as at the thing itself. I told her, "Madam, you are contented to hear every day said to you, what the highest of mankind have died for, rather than bear." -You know, Sir, the highest of mankind have died rather than bear to be told they had uttered a falsehood. Do talk to her of it': I am weary.'

BOSWELL. Was not Dr. John Campbell a very inaccurate man in his narrative, Sir? He once told me, that he drank thirteen bottles of port at a sitting". JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, I do not know that Campbell ever lied with pen and ink; but you could not entirely depend on any thing he told you in conversation: if there was fact mixed with it. However, I loved Campbell: he was a solid orthodox man: he had a reverence for religion. Though defective in practice, he was religious in principle; and he did nothing grossly wrong that I have heard3.'

I told him, that I had been present the day before, when Mrs. Montagu, the literary lady', sat to Miss Reynolds for

See anie, p. 256.

'Lord Macartney observes upon this passage, 'I have heard him tell many things, which, though embellished by their mode of narrative, had their foundation in truth; but I never remember any thing approaching to this. If he had written it, I should have supposed some wag had put the figure of one before the three.'-I am, however, absolutely certain that Dr. Campbell told me it, and I gave particular attention to it, being myself a lover of wine, and therefore curious to hear whatever is remarkable concerning drinking. There can be no doubt that some men can drink, without suffering any injury, such a quantity as to others appears incredible. It is but fair to add, that Dr. Campbell told me, he took a very long time to this great potation; and I have heard Dr. Johnson say, 'Sir, if a man drinks very slowly, and lets one glass evaporate before he takes another, I know not how long he may drink.' Dr. Campbell mentioned a Colonel of Militia who sat with him all the time, and drank equally. Boswell.

'See ante, i. 483.

In the following September she is thus mentioned by Miss Burney:Mrs. Thrale. "To-morrow, Sir, Mrs. Montagu dines here, and then you will have talk enough." Dr. Johnson began to see-saw, her

Aetat. 69.]

Mrs. Montagu.

277

her picture; and that she said, 'she had bound up Mr. Gibbon's History without the last two offensive chapters'; for that she thought the book so far good, as it gave, in an elegant manner, the substance of the bad writers medii ævi, which the late Lord Lyttelton advised her to read.' JOHNSON. Sir, she has not read them: she shews none of this impetuosity to me: she does not know Greek, and, I fancy, knows little Latin. She is willing you should think she knows them; but she does not say she does'.' BOSWELL. Mr. Harris, who was present, agreed with her.' JOHNSON. 'Harris was laughing at her, Sir. Harris is a sound sullen scholar; he does not like interlopers. Harris, however, is a prig, and a bad prig". I looked into his

with a countenance strongly expressive of inward fun, and after enjoying it some time in silence, he suddenly, and with great animation, turned to me and cried; Down with her, Burney! down with her! spare her not! attack her, fight her, and down with her at once! You are a rising wit, and she is at the top; and when I was beginning the world, and was nothing and nobody, the joy of my life was to fire at all the established wits, and then everybody loved to halloo me on."' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, i. 117. She has,' adds Miss Burney, 'a sensible and penetrating countenance and the air and manner of a woman accustomed to being distinguished and of great parts. Dr. Johnson, who agrees in this, told us that a Mrs. Hervey of his acquaintance says she can remember Mrs. Montagu trying for this same air and manner.' Ib. p. 122. See ante, ii. IOI.

1

Only one volume had been published; it ended with the sixteenth chapter.

' Dr. A. Carlyle ( Auto. p. 462) says:-'She did not take at Edinburgh. Lord Kames, who was at first catched with her Parnassian coquetry, said at last that he believed she had as much learning as a well-educated college lad here of sixteen. In genuine feelings and deeds she was remarkably deficient. We saw her often in the neighbourhood of Newcastle, and in that town, where there was no audience for such an actress as she was, her natural character was displayed, which was that of an active manager of her affairs, a crafty chaperon, and a keen pursuer of her interest, not to be outdone by the sharpest coal-dealer on the Tyne; but in this capacity she was not displeasing, for she was not acting a part.'

'What my friend meant by these words concerning the amiable philosopher of Salisbury, I am at a loss to understand. A friend sug

book,

278

Johnson's abstinence from wine.

[A.D. 1778.

book', and thought he did not understand his own system.' BOSWELL. He says plain things in a formal and abstract way, to be sure: but his method is good: for to have clear notions upon any subject, we must have recourse to analytick arrangement.' JOHNSON. Sir, it is what every body does, whether they will or no. But sometimes things may be made darker by definition. I see a cow, I define her, Animal quadrupes ruminans cornutum. But a goat ruminates, and a cow may have no horns. Cow is plainer.' BosWELL. I think Dr. Franklin's definition of Man a good one -"A tool-making animal."' JOHNSON. But many a man never made a tool; and suppose a man without arms, he could not make a tool.'

Talking of drinking wine, he said, 'I did not leave off wine, because I could not bear it; I have drunk three bottles of port without being the worse for it. University College has witnessed this'.' BOSWELL. 'Why then, Sir, did you leave it off?' JOHNSON. Why, Sir, because it is so much better for a man to be sure that he is never to be intoxicated, never to lose the power over himself. I shall not begin to drink wine again, till I grow old, and want it.' BOSWELL. 'I think, Sir, you once said to me, that not to drink wine was a great deduction from life.' JOHNSON. It is a diminution of pleasure, to be sure; but I do not say a diminution of

gests, that Johnson thought his manner as a writer affected, while at the same time the matter did not compensate for that fault. In short, that he meant to make a remark quite different from that which a celebrated gentleman made on a very eminent physician: 'He is a coxcomb, but a satisfactory coxcomb.' BOSWELL. Malone says that the celebrated gentleman was Gerard Hamilton. See Boswell's Hebrides, Nov. 3, where Johnson says that 'he thought Harris a coxcomb,' and ante, ii. 258.

Hermes.

* On the back of the engraving of Johnson in the Common Room of University College is inscribed:- Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in hac camera communi frequens conviva. D.D. Gulielmus Scott nuper socius.' Gulielmus Scott is better known as Lord Stowell. See ante, i 439, note I, and iii. 49; and post, April 17, 1778. See ante, under March 15, 1776.

happiness.