Class Book _ _ _ U°v5V ■^zMa : JOHNSONIANA : 7 A COLLECTION OF MISCELLANEOUS ANECDOTES AND SAYINGS DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON, GATHERED FROM NEARLY A HUNDRED DIFFERENT PUBLICATIONS. PRINTED SEPARATELY, FROM CROKER'S EDITION OF BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON. LONDON : HENRY G. BOHN,YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN. 1845. Fite S3"?. 111* NOTICE. These Ana form a sequel to all editions of Boswell's Life of Johnson, but more particularly to that published in eight volumes, uniform with the present. The Editor, after preparing them for the press, feels more than ever satisfied as to the arrangement ultimately adopted with respect to the scattered John- soniana of BoswelTs friends and rivals. In the notes to the preceding volumes, he has presented all those slwrt passages of other writers, which seemed to bear decidedly on the statements in Boswell's text : in these volumes the reader has presented to him a mass of miscellaneous Anecdotes and Sayings, gathered from nearly a hundred different publications ; which could not have been produced as notes to Boswell, without overloading and perplexing his pages, but which are essential to the completion of the intellectual portrait of Johnson. Taken by themselves alone, these Ana might, it is presumed, claim a place with the best books of that popular description, in our own or in any other VI NOTICE. language. They form, it will hardly be disputed, one of the richest collections of Materials for Thinking that can be pointed out in literature ; and constitute, eminently, a Manual such as Johnson himself was so fond of — " one of those 'portable books, that you may carry to the fireside, and hold readily in your hand — the most useful after all." The beautiful head of Mrs. Piozzi, which faces the title-page of this volume, is from Sir Joshua Reynolds's portrait ; which, on the dispersion of the Streatham Gallery, passed into the hands of that accomplished lover of art and literature, Samuel Boddington, Esq. and which was never before engraved. JOHNSONIANA— CONTENTS. ANECDOTES AND SAYINGS OF JOHNSON:— Part I. by Mrs. Piozzi . II. — Sir John Hawkins III. — Thomas Tyers, Esq. IV. — J. Hoole, Esq. V. — George Stevens, Esq. VI. — Miss Reynolds VII. — Mr. Cumberland . VIII. — Mr. Cradock . IX. — Mr. Wickins . X. — Mr. Green, of Lichfiel XI. — Rev. Mr. Parker . XII. — Mrs. Rose XIII. — William Seward, Esq. XIV. — Ozias Humphry, R.A, XV. — Sir Joshua Reynolds XVI. — Madame D'Arblay XVII. — XVIII. — XIX. — XX. — XXI. — Dr. Beattie . The Right Hon. W Hannah More Bishop Horne xorthcote XXII. — Miss Seward . XXIII. XXIV. XXV. Parr Baretti Percy XXVI. — Lady Knight Wn Vol. 1. XXVII. — Stockdale XXVIII. — Miss Hawkins XXIX. XlCHOLS . XXX. — Murphy. XXXI. Critical Remarks by Drake XXXII. Anecdotes, Opinions, and Remarks Various Persons XXXIII. Jeux d'Esprit on Johnson's Biographers . XXXIV. Memoir of Boswell; Extracts from his Letters, &c. &c. PAGE 1 . 128 . 168 . 178 , 192 . 202 . 228 . 236 . 245 . 248 . 249 . 252 . 255 . 257 . 259 . 273 . 304 . 308 . 318 . 330 1 9 22 35 40 48 51 56 62 66 16 OL. 2. 96 182 203 J0HNS0N1ANA. Part I. ANECDOTES OF DR. JOHNSON, BY MRS. PIOZZI. [Published in 1785.] 1. Introductory. I am aware that many will say, I have not spoken highly enough of Dr. Johnson ; but it will be difficult for those who say so, to speak more highly. If I have described his manners as they were, I have been careful to show his superiority to the common forms of common life. It is surely no dispraise to an oak that it does not bear jessamine ; and he who should plant honey- suckle round Trajan's column, would not be thought to adorn, but to disgrace it. When I have said, that he was more a man of genius than of learning, I mean not to take from the one part of his character that B 2 JOHNSONIANA. which I willingly give to the other. The erudition of Mr. Johnson proved his genius ; for he had not ac- quired it by long or profound study : nor can 1 think those characters the greatest which, have most learning driven into their heads, any more than I can persuade myself to consider the river Jenisca as superior to the Nile, because the first receives near seventy tributary streams in the course of its unmarked progress to the sea, while the great parent of African plenty, flowing from an almost invisible source, and unenriched by any ex- traneous waters, except eleven nameless rivers, pours his majestic torrent into the ocean by seven celebrated mouths. 2. Bodily Exercises, Mr. Johnson was very conversant in the art of attack and defence by boxing, which science he had learned from his uncle Andrew ( x ), I believe ; and I have heard him descant upon the age when people were received, and when rejected, in the schools once held for that brutal amusement, much to the admiration of those who had no expectation of his skill in such matters, from the sight of a figure which precluded all possibility of per- sonal prowess ; though, because he saw Mr. Thrale one day leap over a cabriolet stool, to show that he was not tired after a chase of fifty miles or more, he sud- denly jumped over it too ; but in a way so strange and so unwieldy, that our terror lest he should break his bones took from us even the power of laughing. 3. Showing off Children. The trick which most parents play with their children, of showing off their newly-acquired accomplishments, disgusted Mr. Johnson beyond expression : he had been treated so himself, he said, till he absolutely loathed his father's caresses, because he knew they were sure {!) \ See ante, Vol. I. p. 31 2. J piozzi. 3 to precede some unpleasing display of his early abili- ties; and he used, when neighbours came o' visiting, to run up a tree that he might not be found and exhi- bited, such, as no doubt he was, a prodigy of early understanding. His epitaph upon the duck he killed by treading on it at five years old, " Here lies poor duck/' &c. is a striking example of early expansion of mind, and knowledge of language ; yet he always seemed more mortified at the recollection of the bustle his parents made with his wit, than pleased with the thoughts of possessing it. " That," said he to me one day, lg is the great misery of late marriages; the unhappy produce of them becomes the plaything of dotage : an old man's child," continued he, " leads much such a life, I think, as a little boy's dog, teased with awkward fondness, and forced, perhaps, to sit up and beg, as we call it, to divert a company, who at last go away com- plaining of their disagreeable entertainment." In con- sequence of these maxims, and full of indignation against such parents as delight to produce their young ones early into the talking world, I have known Mr. Johnson give a good deal of pain, by refusing to hear the verses the children could recite, or the songs they could sing ; particularly one friend who told him that his two sons should repeat Gray's elegy to him alter- nately, that he might judge who had the happiest ca- dence. e( No, pray Sir," said he, (( let the dears both speak it at once ; more noise will by that means be made, and the noise will be sooner over." 4. Parson Ford. Mr. Johnson always spoke to me of his cousin, . the Rev. Mr. Ford( 1 ), with tenderness, praising his ac- quaintance with life and manners, and recollecting one piece of advice that no man surely ever followed more (1) TSee ante, Vol. I. p. 45. j B 2 4 JOHNSONIANA. exactly. " Obtain/' says Ford, '* some general prin- ciples of every science; he who can talk only on one sub- ject, or act only in one department, is seldom wanted, and perhaps never wished for ; while the man of general knowledge can often benefit, and always please/' He used to relate, however, another story less to the credit of his cousin's penetration, how Ford on some occasion said to him, u You will make your way the more easily in the world, I see, as you are contented to dispute no man's claim to conversation excellence; they will, there- fore, more willingly allow your pretensions as a writer." 5. Johnsons Nurse. — Children s Books. Dr. Johnson first learned to read of his mother and her old maid Catharine, in whose lap he well remem- bered sitting while she explained to him the story of St. George and the Dragon. The recollection of such reading as had delighted him in his infancy, made him always persist in fancying that it was the only reading which could please an infant ; and he used to condemn me for putting Newbery's books into their hands as too trifling to engage their attention. " Babies do not w r ant," said he., e( to hear about babies ; they like to be told of giants and castles, and of somewhat which can stretch and stimulate their little minds." When in answer I would urge the numerous editions and quick sale of Tommy Prudent or Goody Two Shoes : " Re- member always," said he, " that the parents buy the books, and that the children never read them." Mrs. Barbauld, however, had his best praise ( ] ), and deserved it ; no man was more struck than Mr. Johnson with voluntary descent from possible splendour to painful duty. (l") This is not consistent with his opinion before recorded. (ante, Vol. VI. p. 28.) of this lady's work for the instruction of youth. — C. PIOZZI. o 6. Dreams and Ghosts. I have heard him relate an odd thing of himself, Din it is one which every body has heard as well as I : now, when he was about nine years old, having got the piav of Hamlet in his hand, and reading it quietly in ms father's kitchen, he kept on steadily enough, till, coming to the ghost scene, he suddenly hurried up stairs tc the street door that he might see people about aim : such an incident, as he was not unwilling to re- late it, is probably in every one's possession now ; he told it as a testimony to the merits of Shakspeare : but one day when my son was going to school, and dear Dr. Johnson followed as far as the garden gate, praying for his salvation, in a voice which those who listened at- tentively could hear plain enough, he said to me sud- denly, u Make your boy tell you his dreams : the first corruption that entered into my heart was communicated in a dream/' " What was it, Sir ?" said I. c: Do not ask m a " replied he with much violence, and walked away m apparent agitation. I never durst make any further enquiries. ?. Education of Children. Mr. Johnson was exceedingly disposed to the general indulgence of children, and was even scrupulously and ceremoniously attentive not to offend them : he had strongly persuaded himself of the difficulty people always find to erase early impressions either of kindness or resentment, and said, " he should never have so loved his mother when a man, had she not given him coffee she could ill afford, to gratify his appetite when a boy." u If you had had children, Sir," said I, " would you have taught them any thing ? " " I hope," replied he, " that I should have willingly lived on bread and water to obtain instruction for them ; but 1 would not have O J0HNS0N1ANA. set their future friendship to hazard, for the sake of thrusting into their heads knowledge of things for which they might not perhaps have either taste or ne- cessity. You teach your daughters the diameters of the planets, and wonder when you have done that they do not delight in your company. No science can be communicated by mortal creatures without attention from the scholar ; no attention can be obtained from children without the infliction of pain, and pain is never remembered without resentment." That some- thing should be learned, was. however so certainly his opinion, that I have heard him say, how education had been often compared to agriculture, yet that it resem- bled it chiefly in this : " that if nothing is sown, no crop," says he, cc can be obtained/' His contempt of the lady who fancied her son could be eminent without study, because Shakspeare was found wanting in scho- lastic learning, was expressed in terms so gross and so well known, I will not repeat them here. The remembrance of what had passed in his own childhood, made Mr. Johnson very solicitous to pre- serve the felicity of children ; and when he had per- suaded Dr. Sumner to remit the tasks usually given to fill up boys' time during the hclydays, he rejoiced ex- ceedingly in the success of his negotiation, and told me that he had never ceased representing to all the eminent schoolmasters in England, the absurd tyranny of poi- soning the hour of permitted pleasure, by keeping future misery before the children's eyes, and tempting them by bribery or falsehood to evade it. " Bob Sum- ner," said he, u however, I have at length prevailed upon : I know not indeed whether his tenderness was persuaded, or his reason convinced, but the effect will always be the same." Poor Dr. Sumner died, how- ever, before the next vacation. piozzi. 7 8. Positive and General. Mr. Johnson was of opinion, too, that young people should have positive not general rules given for their direction, <( My mother/' said he, e! was always tell- ing me that I did not behave myself properly ; that I should endeavour to learn behaviour, and such cant : but when I replied, that she ought to tell me what to do, and what to avoid, her admonitions were commonly, for that time at least, at an end." This, I fear, was, however, at best a momentary refuge, found out by per- verseness. No man knew better than Johnson in how many nameless and numberless actions behaviour con- sists : actions which can scarcely be reduced to rule, and which come under no description. Of these he retained so many very strange ones, that I suppose no one who saw his odd manner of gesticulating, much blamed or wondered at the good lady's solicitude concerning her son's behaviour. 9. Parental Authority. Though he was attentive to the peace of children in general, no man had a stronger contempt than he for such parents as openly profess that they cannot govern their children. " How/' says he, " is an army governed? Such people, for the most part, multiply prohibitions till obedience becomes impossible, and authority appears absurd ; and never suspect that they tease their family, their friends, and themselves, only because conversation runs lcWj and something must be said.*' Of parental authority, indeed, few people thought with a lower degree of estimation. I one day mentioned the resignation of Cyrus to his father's will, as related by Xenophon, when, after all his conquests, he re- quested the consent of Cambyses to his marriage with a neighbouring princess ; and I added RoUin's applause and recommendation of the example. (i Do you not perceive, then," says Johnson, ff that Xenophon on this B 4 8 JOHNSONIANA. occasion commends like a pedant, and Pere Rollin applauds like a slave ? If Cyrus by his conquests had not purchased emancipation, he had conquered to little purpose indeed. Can you bear to see the folly of a fellow who has in his care the lives of thousands, when he begs his papa permission to be married, and con- fesses his inability to decide in a matter which con- cerns no man's happiness but his own ? " Mr. Johnson caught me another time reprimanding the daughter of my housekeeper for having sat down unpermitted in her mother's presence. " Why, she gets her living, does she not," said he, " without her mother's help ? Let the wench alone," continued he. And when we were again out of the women's sight who were concerned in the dispute : " Poor people's children, dear lady," said he, ec never respect them : I did not respect my own mother, though I loved her : and one day, when in anger she called me a puppy, I asked her if she knew what they called a puppy's mother ?" We were talking of a young fellow who used to come often to the house ; he was about fifteen years old, or less, if I remember right, and had a manner at once sullen and sheepish. " That lad," says Mr. Johnson, " looks like the son of a schoolmaster ; which," added he, et is one of the very worst conditions of childhood : such a boy has no father, or worse than none ; he never can reflect on his parent, but the reflection brings to his mind some idea of pain inflicted, or of sorrow suffered." 10. Cultivation of Memory. I will relate one thing more that Dr. Johnson said about babyhood before I quit the subject ; it was this : " That little people should be encouraged always to tell whatever they hear particularly striking, to some brother, sister, or servant, immediately before the im- pression is erased by the intervention of newer occur- rences. He perfectly remembered the first time he pioz.zi. y ever heard of heaven and hell, he said, " because when his mother had made out such a description of both places as she thought likely to seize the attention of her infant auditor, who was then in bed with her, she got up, and dressing him before the usual time, sent him directly to call a favourite workman in the house, to whom she knew he would communicate the convers- ation while it was yet impressed upon his mind. The event was what she wished; and it was to that method chiefly that he owed his uncommon felicity of re- membering distant occurrences, and long past convers- ations. ,, 11. Oxford. Dr. Johnson delighted in his own partiality for Oxford ; and one day, at my house, entertained five members of the other university with various instances of the superiority of Oxford, enumerating the gigantic names of many men whom it had produced, with ap- parent triumph. At last I said to him, " Why there happens to be no less than five Cambridge men in the room now." <( I did not/' said he, " think of that till you told me ; but the wolf don't count the sheep/' When the company were retired, we happened to be talking of Dr. Barnard, the Provost of Eton, who died about that time; and after a long and just eulogium on his wit, his learning, and his goodness of heart: " He was the only man, too," says Mr. Johnson quite seriously, et that did justice to my good breeding; and you may observe that I am well bred to a degree of needless scrupulosity. No man," continued he, not observing the amazement of his hearers, " no man is so cautious not to interrupt another; no man thinks it so necessary to appear attentive when others are speaking ; no man so steadily refuses preference to himself, or so willingly bestows it on another, as I do; nobody holds so strongly as I do the necessity of ceremony, and the ill effects 10 J0HNSONIANA. which follow the breach of it: yet people think me rude; but Barnard did me justice." iC 'T is pity/' said I, laughing, " that he had not heard you compliment the Cambridge men after dinner to-day." Sir William Browne the physician,, who lived to a very extraordinary age ( ] ), and was in other respects an odd mortal, with more genius than understanding, and more self-sufficiency than wit, was the only person who ventured to oppose Mr. Johnson, when he had a mind to shine by exalting his favourite university, and to express his contempt of the whiggish notions which prevail at Cambridge. He did it once, however, with surprising felicity : his antagonist having repeated with an air of triumph the famous epigram written by Dr. Trapp, "Our royal master saw, with heedful eyes, The wants of his two universities : Troops he to Oxford sent, as knowing why That learned body wanted loyalty : But books to Cambridge gave, as, well discerning, That that right loyal body wanted learning." Which, says Sir WilHam, might well be answered thus : — " 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." Mr. 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. (1) He died in March, 1774, at the age of eighty-two. It is no where stated, that I know of, that this epigram was made ex- temporaneously on a provocation from Dr. Johnson. See an account of Sir William Browne, and a more accurate version of the two epigrams, in the Biog. Diet. — C. PIOZZI. 11 12. Toryism and Garrick. Of Mr. Johnson's toryism the world has long been witness, and the political pamphlets written by him in defence of his party are vigorous and elegant. Says Garrick to him one day, " Why did not you make me a Tory, when we lived so much together ; you love to make people Tories ?" " Why," says Johnson, pulling a heap of halfpence from his pocket, " did not the king make these guineas ? " 13. Burke. — BoswelL It was in the year 1775 that Mr. Edmund Burke made the famous speech in parliament ( J ), that struck even foes with admiration, and friends with delight. Among the nameless thousands who are contented to echo those praises they have not skill to invent, / ventured, before Dr. Johnson himself, to applaud, with rapture, the beautiful passage in it concerning Lord Bathurst and the angel (-) ; which, said our Doctor, (1 ) On the 22d of March, 1775, upon moving his resolutions for conciliation with America. (2) [" Mr. Speaker, I cannot prevail on myself to hurry over this great consideration. It is good for us to be here. We stand where we have an immense view of what is, and what is past. Clouds indeed, and darkness, rest upon the future, het us, however, before we descend from this noble eminence, re- flect that this growth of our national prosperity has happened within the short period of the life of man. It has happened within sixty- eight years. There are those alive whose memory might touch the two extremities. For instance, my Lord Bathurst might remember all the stages of the progress. He was in 1704 of an age at least to be made to comprehend such things. He was then old enough acta parentum jam legere, et quce sit poterit cognoscere virtus. — Suppose, Sir, that the angel of this auspicious youth, foreseeing the many virtues, which made him one of the most amiable, as he is one of the most fortunate, men of his age, had opened to him in vision, that, when, in the fourth generation, the third prince of the House of Brunswick had sat twelve years on the throne of that nation, which (by the happy issue of moderate and healing councils) was to be made Great Britain, he should see his son, LonJ Chancellor of England, turn back the current of hereditary 12 JOHNSONIANA. nad I been in the house, I would have answered thus: — " Suppose. Mr. Speaker, that to Wharton, or to Marlborough, or to any of the eminent Whigs of the last age, the devil had, not with any great impropriety, consented to appear; he would perhaps in somewhat like these words have commenced the conversation : C( ( You seem, my Lord, to be concerned at the ju- dicious apprehension, that while you are sapping the foundations of royalty at home, and propagating here the dangerous doctrine of resistance ; the distance of America may secure its inhabitants from your arts, though active : but I will unfold to you the gay prospects of futurity. This people, now so innocent and harmless, shall draw the sword against their mother country, and bathe its point in the blood of their benefactors : this people, now contented with a little, shall then refuse to spare what they themselves confess they could not miss; dignity to its fountain, and raise him to a higher rank of peerage, whilst he enriched the family with a new one — If, amidst these bright and happy scenes of domestic honour and prosperity, that angel should have drawn up the curtain, and unfolded the rising glories of his country, and whilst he was gazing with ad- miration on the then commercial grandeur of England, the genius should point out to him a little speck, scarce visible in the mass of the national interest, a small seminal principle, rather than a formed body, and should tell him, — * Young man, there is America — which at this day serves for little more than to amuse you with stories of savage men and uncouth manners ; yet shall, before you taste of death, show itself equal to the whole of that commerce which now attracts the envy of the world. Whatever England has been growing to by a progressive increase of improvement, brought in by varieties of people, by succession of civilising conquests and civilising settlements in a series of seventeen hundred years, you shall see as much added to her by America in the course of a single life !' — if this state of his country had been foretold to him, would it not require all the sanguine credulity of youth, and all the fervid glow of en- thusiasm, to make him believe it? Fortunate man, he has lived to see it ! Fortunate, indeed, if he lives to see nothing that shall vary the prospect, and cloud the setting of his day ! " Part, Hist vol.xviii. p. 487.] piozzi. 13 and these men, now so honest and so grateful, shall, in return for peace and for protection, see their vile agents in the house of parliament, there to sow the seeds of sedition, and propagate confusion, perplexity, and pain. Be not dispirited, then, at the contemplation of their present happy state : I promise you that anarchy, poverty, and death shall, by my care, be carried even across the spacious Atlantic, and settle in America itself, the sure consequences of our beloved whiggism/ " This I thought a thing so very particular, that I begged his leave to write it down directly, before any thing could intervene that might make me forget the force of the expressions : a trick, which I have how- ever seen played on common occasions, of sitting steadily down at the other end of the room to write at the moment what should be said in company, either by Dr. Johnson or to him, I never practised myself, nor approved of in another. ( ! ) There is something so ill- bred, and so inclining to treachery in this conduct, that were it commonly adopted, all confidence would soon be exiled from society, and a conversation assembly-room would become tremendous as a court of justice. A set of acquaintance joined in familiar chat may say a thou- sand things, which, as the phrase is, pass well enough at the time, though they cannot stand the test of critical examination ; and as all talk beyond that which is necessary to the purposes of actual business is a kind of game, there will be ever found ways of playing fairly or unfairly at it, which distinguish the gentleman from the juggler. 14. Anacreons Dove, Dr. Johnson, as well as many of my acquaintance, knew that I kept a commonplace book ; and he one day said to me good-hum ouredly, that he would give me something to write in my repository. "1 warrant," (1) [This is evidently an allusion to Boswell.] 14« JOHNSONIANA. said he, " there is a great deal about me in it : you shall have at least one thing worth your pains ; so if you will get the pen and ink, I will repeat to you Anacreoe's Dove directly ; but tell at the same time, that as I never was struck with any thing in the Greek language till I read that, so I never read any thing in frie same language since, that pleased me as much. I hone my translation," continued he, Ci is not worse than that of Frank Fawkes." Seeing me disposed to laugh. i( Nay, nay," said he, " Frank Fawkes has done them very finely : — Lovely courier of the sky, Whence and whither dost thou fly ? Scatt'ring, as thy pinions play, Liquid fragrance all the way : Is it business ? is it love ? Tell me, tell me, gentle Dove. " Soft Anacreon's vows I bear, Vows to Myrtale the fair ; Graced with all that charms the ilea? , Blushing nature, smiling art, Venus, courted by an ode, On the bard her Dove bestow'd. Vested with a master's right Now Anacreon rules my flight • His the letters that you see, Weighty charge consign'd to me : Think not yet my service hard, Joyless task without reward : Smiling at my master's gates, Freedom my return awaits ; But the liberal grant in vain Tempts me to be wild again : Can a prudent Dove decline Blissful bondage such as mine? Over hills and fields to roam, Fortune's guest without a home •. Under leaves to hide one's heau« Slightly shelter'd, coarsely fed , piozzi. 15 Now my better lot bestows Sweet repast, and soft repose ; Now the generous bowl I sip As it leaves Anacreon's lip ; Void of care, and free from dread, From his fingers snatch his bread, Then with luscious plenty gay, Round his chamber dance and play ; Or from wine as courage springs, O'er his face extend my wings; And when feast and frolic tire, Drop asleep upon his lyre. This is all, be quick and go, More than all thou canst not know ; Let me now my pinions ply, 1 have chatter'd like a pie. " When I had finished, " But you must remember to add," says Mr. Johnson, "that though these verses were planned, and even begun, when I was sixteen years old, I never could find time to make an end of them before I was sixty -eight." 15. Johnsons Portrait by Himself, He told me that the character of Sober, in the Idler, was by himself intended as his own portrait ; and that he had his own outset into life in his eye, when he wrote the eastern story of Gelaleddin. 16. Giving away Literary Productions. Dr. Johnson was liberal enough in granting literary assistance to others, I think ; and innumerable are the prefaces, sermons, lectures, and dedications which he used to make for people who begged of him. Mr. Murphy related in his and my hearing one day, and he did not deny it, that when Murphy joked him the week before for having been so diligent of late between Dodd's sermon and Kelly's prologue, that Dr. Johnson replied, " Why, Sir, when they come to me with a 16 JOHNSONIANA. dead stay-maker and a dying parson, what can a man do ? " He said, however, that "he hated to give away literary performances, or even to sell them too cheaply : the next generation shall not accuse me," added he, " of beating down the price of literature : one hates, besides, ever to give that which one has been accustomed to sell: would not you, Sir," turning to Mr. Thrale, Ci rather give away money than porter ? " 17. Reading. Mr. Johnson had never, by his own account, been a close student, and used to advise young people never to be without a book in their pocket, to be read at bye- times, when they had nothing else to do. st It has been by that means/' said he to a boy at our house one day, ee that all my knowledge has been gained, except what I have picked up by running about the world with my wits ready to observe, and my tongue ready to talk. A man is seldom in a humour to unlock his bookcase, set his desk in order, and betake himself to serious study ; but a retentive memory will do something, and a fellow shall have strange credit given him, if he can but recollect striking passages from different books, keep the authors separate in his head, and bring his stock of knowledge artfully into play. How else," added he, "do the gamesters manage, when they play for more money than they are worth ? " 18. The Dictionary. His Dictionary, however, could not, one would think, have been written by running up and down : but he really did not consider it as a great performance ; and used to say, " that he might have done it easily in two years, had not his health received several shocks during I the time." When Mr. Thrale, in consequence of this declaration, teased him, in the year 1 768, to give a new edition of it, iC because," said he, " there are four or five piozzi. 17 gross faults : " — "Alas! Sir," replied Johnson, u there are four or five hundred faults, instead of four or five ; but you do not consider that it would take me up three whole months' labour, and when the time was expired the work would not be done." When the booksellers set him about it, however, some years after, he went cheerfully to the business, sairl he was well paid, and that thev deserved to have it done care- fully. 19- The French Academy. His reply to the person who complimented him on his Dictionary coming out first, mentioning the ill success of the French in a similar attempt, is well known ; and, I trust, has been often recorded : (i Why, what would you expect, dear Sir," said he, (C from fellows that eat frogs ? " Q) 20. Greek. I have often thought Dr. Johnson more free than prudent, in professing so loudly his little skill in the Greek language ( 2 ) : for though he considered it as a proof of a narrow mind to be too careful of literary re- putation, yet no man could be more enraged than he, if an enemy, taking advantage of this confession, twitted him with his ignorance ; and I remember when the king of Denmark was in England, one of his noblemen was brought by Mr. Colman to see Dr. Johnson at our country-house ; and having heard, he said, that he was not famous for Greek literature, attacked him on the weak side ; politely adding, that he chose that con- versation on purpose to favour himself. Our Doctor, however, displayed so copious, so compendious a know- ledge of authors, books, and every branch of learning in that language, that the gentleman appeared astonished. (1) For his pleasantry about the French Academy, see Vol. I. p. 215. — C. (2) [See ante, Vol. VIII. p. 389.] VOL. IX. C 18 JOHNSONIANA. When he was gone home, says Johnson, Cf Now for all this triumph, I may thank Thrale's Xenophon here, as, I think excepting that one, I have not looked in a Greek book these ten years : but see what haste my dear friends were all in/' continued he, " to tell this poor innocent foreigner that I knew nothing of Greek ! Oh, no, he knows nothing of Greek ! " with a loud burst of laughing. 2 1 . Pope — Dry den — Ga rrick — Congreve — and Young. Of Pope as a writer he had the highest opinion, and once when a lady at our house talked of his preface to Shakspeare as superior to Pope's, a I fear not, Madam," said he ; " the little fellow has done wonders." His superior reverence of Dryden, notwithstanding, still ap- peared in his talk as in his writings ; and when some one mentioned the ridicule thrown on him in the " Re- Dearsal," as having hurt his general character as an author, " on the contrary," says Mr. Johnson, " the greatness of Dryden's reputation is now the only prin- ciple of vitality which keeps the duke of Buckingham's play from putrefaction." (*) It was not very easy, however, for people not quite intimate with Dr. Johnson, to get exactly his opinion of a writer's merit, as he would now and then divert himself by confounding those who thought themselves obliged to say to-morrow what he had said yesterday ; and even Garrick, who ought to have been better ac- quainted with his tricks, professed himself mortified, that one time when he was extolling Dryden in a rap- ture that I suppose disgusted his friend, Mr. Johnson suddenly challenged him to produce twenty lines in a (1 ) [If this opinion on the republication of " The Rehearsal " be correct, it must — as sometimes happens — have fallen and risen again. The truth is, that the greater number of readers at present admire the wit of " The Rehearsal," without ever thinking of its being a satire on Dryden. — Fonnere^u.J piozzi. 19 scries, that would not disgrace the poet and his admirer. Garriek produced a passage that he had once heard the Doctor commend, in which he now found, if I remember rightly, sixteen faults, and made Garriek look silly at his own table. When I told Mr. Johnson the story, u Why, what a monkey was David now," says he, u to tell of his own disgrace ! " In the course of that hour's chat, he told me how he used to tease Garriek by commendations of the tomb scene in Congreve's Mourning Bride, protesting that Shakspeare had, in the same line of excellence, nothing as good : " All which is strictly true" said he ; but that is no reason for supposing Con gr eve is to stand in competition with Shakspeare : these fellows know not how to blame, nor how to commend." I forced him one day, in a similar humour, to prefer Young's description of night to the so much admired ones of Dry den and Shakspeare, as more forcible, and more general. Every reader is not either a lover or a tyrant, but every reader is interested when he hears that " Creation sleeps ; 't is as the general pulse Of life stood still, and nature made a pause ; An awful pause — prophetic of its end." " This," said he, " is true ; but remember that, taking the compositions of Young in general, they are but like bright stepping-stones over a miry road. Young froths, and foams, and bubbles sometimes very vigorously ; but we must not compare the noise made by your tea-kettle here with the roaring of the ocean." 22. Corneille. — Shakspeare. — Steele. Somebody was praising Corneille one day in oppo- sition to Shakspeare : (( Corneille is to Shakspeare," replied Mr. Johnson, i: as a clipped hedge is to a forest." When we talked of Steele's Essays, " They are too thin," says our critic, <( for an Englishman's taste: c 2 20 JOHNSONIANA. mere superficial observations on life and manners, with- out erudition enough to make them keep, — like the light French wines, which turn sour with standing a while for want of body, as we call it." 23. Style of Swift A friend was praising the style of Dr. Swift ; Mr. Johnson did not find himself in the humour to agree with him : the critic was driven from one of his per- formances to the other. At length, " you must allow me," said the gentleman, ee that there are strong facts in the account of the ' Four last Years of Queen Anne.' " " Yes, surely, Sir/' replies Johnson, " and so there are in the Ordinary of Newgate's account." 24. " New Manner of Writing." This was like the story which Mr. Murphy tells, and Johnson always acknowledged : how Dr. Rose of Chis- wick, contending for the preference of Scotch writers over the English, after having set up his authors like nine-pins, while the Doctor kept bowling them down again ; at last, to make sure of victory, he named Fer- guson upon " Civil Society," and praised the book for being written in a new manner. " I do not/' says Johnson, " perceive the value of this new manner ; it is only like Buckinger, who had no hands, and so wrote with his feet." 25. Robertson. — Canting. When he related to me a short dialogue that passed between himself and a writer of the first eminence in the world, when he was in Scotland, I was shocked to think how he must have disgusted him. Dr. Robertson asked me, said he, why I did not join in their public worship when among them ? " for," said he, " I went to your churches often when in England. " So," re- plied Johnson, c \ 74 JOHNSU^IANA. 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 John- son, ec tha,t I lost all my large estate in Yorkshire." The Lincolnshire lady (*) who showed him a grotto she had been making, came off no better, as I remember: " Would it not be a pretty cool habitation in summer, Mr. Johnson ? " said she. iC I think it would, Madam," replied he, — ie for a toad." 98. Compliments, When Mr. Johnson had a mind to compliment any one, he did it with more dignity to himself, and better effect upon the company, than any man. When Sir Joshua Reynolds left the room one day, he said, " There goes a man not to be spoiled by prosperity." And when Mrs. Montagu showed him some China plates which had once belonged to Queen Elizabeth, he told her, ff that they had no reason to be ashamed of their pre- sent possessor, who was so little inferior to the first." He was not at all offended when, comparing all our acquaintance to some animal or other, we pitched upon the elephant for his resemblance, adding that the pro- boscis of that creature was like his mind most exactly, strong to buffet even the tiger, and pliable to pick up even the pin. The truth is, Mr. Johnson was often good-hum ouredly willing to join in childish amuse- ments, -and hated to be left out of any innocent merri- ment that was going forward. Mr. Murphy always said, he was incomparable at buffoonery ; and I verily think, if he had had good eyes, and a form less inflex- ible, he would have made an admirable mimic. (1) Mrs. Langton, mother of his friend Malone MS. notes. This was not meant as rudeness to the lady ; but Johnson hated, grottos, and thought, as he has said in his Life of Pope, that they were " not often the wish or pleasure of an Englishman who has more frequent need to solicit than to exclude the sun. piozzi. 75 99. Johnson on Horseback. — Hunting. He certainly rode on Mr. Thrale's old hunter with a good firmness, and though he would follow the hounds fifty miles an end sometimes, would never own himself either tired or amused. " I have now learned," said he, " by hunting, to perceive, that it is no diversion at all, nor ever takes a man out of himself for a moment : the dogs have less sagacity than I could have prevailed on myself to suppose ; and the gentlemen often call to me not to ride over them. It is very strange, and very melancholy, that the paucity of human pleasures should persuade us ever to call hunting one of them." He was however proud to be amongst the sportsmen ; and I think no praise ever went so close to his heart, as when Mr. Hamilton called out one day upon Bright- helmstone Downs, " Why, Johnson rides as well, for aught I see, as the most illiterate fellow in England." ( ] ) 100. Conversation. Mr. Johnson, as he was a very talking man himself, had an idea that nothing promoted happiness so much as conversation. A friend's erudition was commended one day as equally deep and strong : — ' c He will not talk, Sir," was the reply, " so his learning does no good, and his wit, if he has it, gives us no pleasure : out of all his boasted stores I never heard him force but one word, and that word^as-Ilichard" With a contempt not inferior he received the praises of a pretty lady's face and behaviour : " She says no- thing, Sir," answers Johnson ; " a talking blackamoor were better than a white creature who adds nothing to life, and by sitting down before one thus desperately (1) Mr. Boswell says, that Johnson once hunted ; this seems more probable than Mrs-. Piozzi's and Hawkins' statements, from which it would be inferred, that he hunted habitually. It seems hard to figure to one's self Dr. Johnson fairly joining in this violent and, to him, one would suppose, extravagant and dangerous amusement. — C. 76 J-JHNSONIANA. silent, takes away the confidence one should have in the company of her chair if she were once out of it." 101. Love. — Francis Barber. As we had been saying one day that no subject failed of receiving dignity from the manner in which Mr. Johnson treated it, a lady at my house said she would make him talk about love, and took her measures ac- cordingly, deriding the novels of the day because they treated about love. " It is not," replied our philoso- pher, cc because they treat, as you call it, about love, but because they treat of nothing, that they are despi- cable : 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." He told us, however, in the course of the same chat, how his negro Francis had been eminent for his success among the girls. Seeing us all laugh, " I must have you know, ladies," said he, " that Frank has carried the empire of Cupid further than most men. When I was in Lincolnshire so many years ago, he attended me thither ; and when we returned home together, I found that a female haymaker had followed him to London for love." Francis was indeed no small favourite with his master ; who retained, however, a prodigious in- fluence over his most violent passions. On the birthday of our eldest daughter, and that of our friend Dr. Johnson, the 17th and 18th of Septem- ber, we every year made up a little dance and supper, to divert our servants and their friends, putting the (1) Miss Burney, the author of " Evelina." piozzi. 77 summer-house into their hands for the two evenings, to fill with acquaintance and merriment. Francis and his white wife were invited of course. She was eminently pretty, and he was jealous, as my maids told me. On the first of these days' amusements (I know not what year) Frank took offence at some attentions paid his Desdemona, and walked away next morning to London in wrath. His master and I driving the same road an hour after, overtook him. <( What is the matter, child," says Dr. Johnson, " that you leave Streatham to-day ? Art sick?" Si He is jealous," whispered I. to sharpen them upon. There is in this world no real delight (excepting those of sensuality), but exchange of ideas in conversation ; and whoever has once expe- (1) [This reminds one of Caraccioli's remark, that " the only fruit in England that ripened in the open air were apples, for they were roasted." — Fonnereau.] piozzi. 97 rienced the full flow of London talk, when he retires to country friendships and rural sports, must either be contented to turn baby again and play with the rattle, or he will pine away like a great fish in a little pond, and die for want of his usual food." ISO. Knowledge of Life. " Books without the knowledge of life are useless," I have heard him say ; "for what should books teach but the art^ of^Jivinq ? To study manners however only in coffee-houses, is more than equally imperfect : the minds of men who acquire no solid learning, and only exist on the daily forage that they pick up by running about, and snatching what drops from their neighbours as ignorant as themselves, will never ferment into any knowledge valuable or durable ; but like the light wines we drink in hot countries, please for the moment though incapable of keeping. In the study of mankind much will be found to swim as froth, and much must sink as feculence, before the wine can have its effect, and become that noblest liquor which rejoices the heart, and gives vigour to the imagination." 131. Disguise. Fear of what others may think, is the great cause of affectation ; and he was not likely to disguise his no- tions out of cowardice. He hated disguise, and nobody penetrated it so readily. I showed him a letter written to a common friend, who was at some loss for the explanation of it : " Whoever wrote it," says our Doctor, " could, if he chose it, make himself under- stood ; but 'tis the letter of an embarrassed man, Sir ; " and so the event proved it to be. 132. Mysteriousness. Mysteriousness in trifles offended him on every side : (< it commonly ended in guilt/' he said ; " for VOL. IX. h 98 JOHNSONIANA. those who begin by concealment of innocent things,, will soon have something to hide which they dare not bring to light." He therefore encouraged an openness of conduct, in women particularly, " who/' he ob- served, (i were often led away when children, by their delight and power of surprising/' 133. Superfluous Cunning. — Conferring Favours. He recommended, on something like the same prin- ciple, that when one person meant to serve another, he should not go about it slily, or, as we say, underhand, out of a false idea of delicacy, to surprise one's friend with an unexpected favour ; " which, ten to one," says he, iC fails to oblige your acquaintance, who had some reasons against such a mode of obligation, which you might have known but for that superfluous cunning which you think an elegance. " Oh ! never be seduced by such silly pretences," continued he ; cc if a wench wants a good gown, do not give her a fine smelling-bottle, because that is more delicate : as I once knew a lady lend the key of her library to a poor scribbling dependant, as if she took the woman for an ostrich that could digest iron." He said, indeed, that " women were very difficult to be taught the proper manner of conferring pecuniary favours : that they always gave too much money or too little ; for that they had an idea of delicacy accom panying their gifts, so that they generally rendered them either useless or ridiculous." 134. General Sarcasms. He did indeed say very contemptuous things of our sex ; but was exceedingly angry when I told Miss Reynolds that he said, " It was well managed of some one to leave his affairs in the hands of his wife, because, in matters of business," said he, " no woman stops at integrity." This was, I think, the only sentence I piozzi. 99 ever observed him solicitous to explain away after he had uttered it. He was not at all displeased at the recollection of a sarcasm thrown on a whole profession at once ; when a gentleman leaving the company, somebody who sat next Dr. Johnson asked him, who he was ? " I can- not exactly tell you, Sir/' replied he, " and I would be loath to speak ill of any person who I do not know de- serves it, but I am afraid he is an attorney. ." He did not however encourage general satire, and for the most part professed himself to feel directly contrary to Dr. Swift ; " who," says he, " hates the world, though he loves John and Robert, and certain individuals/' John- son said always, that iC the world was well constructed, but that the particular people disgraced the elegance and beauty of the general fabric/ ' 135. Needle-work. Needle- work had a strenuous approver in Dr. John- son, who said, that cf one of the great felicities of female life, was the general consent of the world, that they might amuse themselves with petty occupations, which contributed to the lengthening their lives, and preserving their minds in a state of sanity/' " A man cannot hem a pocket-handkerchief," said a lady of quality to him one day, " and so he runs mad, and torments his family and friends/' The expression struck him ex- ceedingly ; and when one acquaintance grew trouble- some, and another unhealthy, he used to quote Lady Frances's (*) observation, that " a man cannot hem a pocket-handkerchief/' 136. « Nice People." The nice people found no mercy from Mr. Johnson ; such I mean as can dine only at four o'clock, who can- (1) Lady Frances Burgoyne, daughter of the last Lord Ha- lifax. — C. h 2 tOfC. 100 JOHNSONIANA. not bear to be waked at an unusual hour, or miss a stated meal without inconvenience. He had no such prejudices himself, and with difficulty forgave them in another. " Delicacy does not surely consist," says he, €C in impossibility to be pleasedj and that is false dignity indeed which is content to depend upon others." 137. Conversation. The saying of the old philosopher, who observes, that <( he who wants least is most like the gods, who want nothing/' was a favourite sentence with Dr. Johnson; who on his own part required less attendance, sick or well, than ever I saw any human creature. Con- versation was all he required to make him happy ; and when he would have tea made at two o'clock in the morning, it was only that there might be a certainty of detaining his companions round him. On that princi- ple it was that he preferred winter to summer, when the heat of the weather gave people an excuse to stroll about, and walk for pleasure in the shade, while he wished to sit still on a chair, and chat day after day, till somebody proposed a drive in the coach ; and that was the most delicious moment of his life. ec But the carriage must stop sometime, " as he said, cc and the people would come home at last ; " so his pleasure was of short duration. 138. Love of a Coach. 1 asked him why he doated on a coach so ? and re- ceived for answer, that " in the first place, the com- pany was shut in with him there ; and could not escape, as out of a room : in the next place, he heard all that was said in a carriage, where it was my turn to be deaf : " and very impatient was he at my occasional difficulty of hearing. On this account he wished to travel all over the world ; for the very act of going for- ward was delightful to him, and he gave himself no piozzi. 10] concern about accidents, which he said never happened : nor did the running away of the horses on the edge of a precipice between Vernon and St. Denys in France convince him to the contrary ; e< for nothing came of it/' he said, iC except that Mr. Thrale leaped out of the carriage into a chalk-pit, and then came up again, look- ing as white ! " When the truth was, all their lives were saved by the greatest providence ever exerted in favour of three human creatures ; a*id the part Mr. Thrale took from desperation was the likeliest thing in the world to produce broken limbs and death. 139. Fear. Fear was indeed a sensation to which Mr. Johnson was an utter stranger, excepting when some sudden ap- prehensions seized him that he was going to die; and even then he kept all his wits about him, to express the most humble and pathetic petitions to the Almighty : and when the first paralytic stroke took his speech from him, he instantly set about composing a prayer in Latin, at once to deprecate God's mercy, to satisfy himself that his mental powers remained unimpaired, and to keep them in exercise, that they might not perish by per- mitted stagnation. ( ] ) When one day he had at my house taken tincture of antimony instead of emetic wine, for a vomit, he was himself the person to direct us what to do for him, and managed with as much coolness and deliberation, as if he had been prescribing for an indifferent person. Though on another occasion, when he had lamented In the most piercing terms his approaching dissolution, and conjured me solemnly to tell him what I thought, while Sir Richard Jebb was perpetually on the road to Streatham, and Mr. Johnson seemed to think himself neglected if the physician left him for an hour only, I made him a steady, but as I thought a very gentle (1) [See ante, Vol. VIII. p. 223.J H 3 102 JOHNSONIANA. harangue, in which I confirmed all that the Doctor had been saying, how no present danger could be expected ; but that his age and continued ill health must naturally accelerate the arrival of that hour which can be escaped by none : " And this, " says Johnson, rising in great anger, " is the voice of female friendship, I suppose when the hand of the hangman would be softer." Another day, when he was ill, and exceedingly low- spirited, and persuaded that death was not far distant, I appeared before him in a dark-coloured gown, which his bad sight, and worse apprehensions, made him mis- take for an iron-grey. " Why do you delight, " said he, ee thus to thicken the gloom of misery that sur- rounds me ? Is not here sufficient accumulation of horror without anticipated mourning ? " c< This is not mourning, Sir," said I, drawing the curtain, that the light might fall upon the silk, and show it was a purple mixed with green. " Well, well," replied he, changing his voice, " you little creatures should never wear those sort of clothes however ; they are unsuitable in every way. What ! have not all insects gay colours ? " I re- late these instances chiefly to iiiow that the fears of death itself could not suppress his wit, his sagacity, or his temptation to sudden resentment. 140. Don Quixote. " Alas, Madam ! " said he, one day, " how few books are there of which one ever can possibly arrive at the last page ! Was there ever yet any thing written by mere man that was wished longer by its readers, excepting Don Quixote, Robinson Crusoe, and the Pilgrim's Progress ? " After Homer's Iliad, Mr. John- son confessed that the work of Cervantes was the great- est in the worlds speaking of it I mean as a book of entertainment. piozzi. 103 141. French Literature. Dr. Johnson was a great reader of French literature, and delighted exceedingly in Boileau's works. Moliere 1 think he had hardly sufficient taste of; and he used to condemn me for preferring La Bruyere to the Due de Rochefoucauld fS who/' he said, i( was the only gentleman writer who wrote like a professed author." 142. Life of a Sailor. " The life of a sailor was also a continued scene of danger and exertion/' he said, i( and the manner in which, time was spent on shipboard would make all who saw a cabin envy a gaol." The roughness of the lan- guage used on board a man-of-war, where he passed a week on a visit to Captain Knight, disgusted him terri- bly. He asked an officer what some place was called, and received for answer, that it was where the loplolly man kept his loplolly : a reply, he considered, not un- justly, as disrespectful, gross, and ignorant ; for though I have been led to mention Dr. Johnson's tenderness towards poor people, I do not wish to mislead my readers, and make them think he had any delight in mean manners or coarse expressions. 143. Dress. Even dress itself, when it resembled that of the vulgar, offended him exceedingly ; and when he had condemned me many times for not adorning my chil- dren with more show than I thought useful or elegant, I presented a little girl to him who came o' visiting one evening covered with shining ornaments, to see if he would approve of the appearance she made. When they were gone home, " Well, Sir," said I, ie how did you like little miss ? 1 hope she was fine enough." " It was the finery of a beggar/' said he, " and you know it was ; she looked like a native of Cow Lane dressed up to be carried to Bartholomew fair." h 4 104 JOHNSONIANA. His reprimand to another lady for crossing her little child's handkerchief before, and by that operation drag- ging down its head oddly and unintentionally, was on the same principle. Kippis. — Royal Society, Dr. Brocklesby, a few days before the death of Dr. Johnson, found on the table Dr. Kippis's account of the Disputes of the Royal Society. Dr. Johnson in- quired of his physician if he had read it, who answered in the negative. " You have sustained no loss, Sir. It is poor stuff, indeed, a sad unscholar-like performance. I could not have believed that that man would have written so 111." 380. Dr. Warren. Being desired to call in Dr. Warren, he said, they might call in any body they pleased ; and Warren was called. At his going away, " You have come in," said Dr. Johnson, cc at the eleventh hour ; but you shall be paid the same with your fellow-labourers. Francis, put into Dr. Warren's coach a copy of the f English Poets/" 381. Fear of Death. Some years before, some person in a company at Salisbury, of which Dr. Johnson was one, vouched for the company, that there was nobody in it afraid of death — (C Speak for yourself, Sir," said Johnson, " for indeed I am.'* " I did not say of dying" replied the )ther ; " but of death, meaning its consequences.'' " And so I mean," rejoined the Doctor ; ee I am very seriously afraid of the consequences." (1) See ante, Vol. VI. p. 98. PARKER. 249 Part XI. ANECDOTES OF DR. JOHNSON, BY THE REV. MR. PARKER, (i) 382. Stow-Hill. Dr. Johnson's friendship for Mrs. Elizabeth Aston commenced at the palace in Lichfield, the residence of Mr. Walmesley : with Mrs. Gastrel he became ac- quainted in London, at the house of her brother-in-law, Mr. Hervey. During the Doctor's annual visits to his daughter-in-law, Lucy Porter, he spent much of his time at Stow Hill, where Mrs. Gastrel and Mrs. Eliza- beth Aston resided. They were the daughters of Sir Thomas Aston, of Aston Hall in Cheshire, of whom it is said, that being applied to for some account of his family, to illustrate the history of Cheshire, he replied, that (i the title and estate had descended from father to son for thirty generations, and that he believed they were neither much richer nor much poorer than they were at first." 383. Dr. Hunter. — Miss Seward. He used to say of Dr. Hunter ( 2 ), master of the free grammar school, Lichfield, that he never taught a boy in his life — he whipped and they learned. Hunter was a pompous man, and never entered the school with- out his gown and cassock, and his wig full dressed. He had a remarkably stern look, and Dr. Johnson said, he could tremble at the sight of Miss Seward, she was so like her grandfather. ( 1 ) The following anecdotes are told by Mr. Parker, from the relation of Mrs. Aston and her sister. — C. (2) See ante, Vol. I. p. 40. 250 JOHNSONIANA. 384. Lives of the Poets. Mrs. Gastrel was on a visit at Mr. Hervey's, in London, at the time that Johnson was writing the Rambler; the printer's boy would often come after him to their house, and wait while he wrote off a paper for the press in a room full of company. A great por- tion of the Lives of the Poets was written at Stow- Hill : he had a table by one of the windows, which was frequently surrounded by five or six ladies engaged in work or conversation. Mrs. Gastrel had a very valuable edition of Bailey's Dictionary, to which he often referred. She told him that Miss Seward said that he had made poetry of no value by his criticism. " Why, my dear lady," replied he, €€ if silver is dirty, it is not the less valuable for a good scouring." 385. Climbing. A large party had one day been invited to meet the Doctor at Stow-Hill: the dinner waited far beyond the usual hour, and the company were about to sit down, when Johnson appeared at the great gate; he stood for some time in deep contemplation, and at length began to climb it, and, having succeeded in clearing it, advanced with hasty strides towards the house. On his arrival Mrs. Gastrel asked him, " if he had forgotten that there was a small gate for foot passengers by the side of the carriage entrance." " No, my dear lady, by no means," replied the Doctor ; " but I had a mind to try whether I could climb a gate now as I used to do when I was a lad." 386. Cato's Soliloquy. One day Mrs. Gastrel set a little girl to repeat to him Cato's soliloquy, which she went through very cor- rectly. The Doctor, after a pause, asked the child, " What was to bring Cato to an end ? " She said, it was a knife. " No, my dear, it was not so." " My PARKER. 251 aunt Polly said it was a knife." " Why, aunt Polly's knife may do, but it was a dagger, my dear." He then asked her the meaning of " bane and antidote/' which she was unable to give. Mrs. Gastrel said, " You can- not expect so young a child to know the meaning of such words." He then said, " My dear, how many pence are there in sixpence?" ee I cannot tell, Sir," was the half-terrified reply. On this, addressing him- self to Mrs. Gastrel, he said, u Now, my dear lady, can any thing be more ridiculous than to teach a child Cato's soliloquy, who does not know how many pence there are in sixpence ? " 387. Charity. The ladies at Stow- Hill would occasionally rebuke Dr. Johnson for the indiscriminate exercise of his charity to all who applied for it. " There was that woman," said one of them, " to whom you yesterday gave half-a-crown, why she was at church to-day in long sleeves and ribands." " Well, my dear," replied Johnson, u and if it gave the woman pleasure, why should she not wear them ?" 388. Gilbert Walmesley. He had long promised to write Mr. Walmesley *s epitaph, and Mrs. W. waited for it, in order to erect a monument to her husband's memory : procrastination, however, one of the Doctor's few failings, prevented its being finished ; he was engaged upon it in his last ill- ness, and when the physicians, at his own request, in- formed him of his danger, he pushed the papers from before him, saying, " It was too late to write the epitaph of another, when he should so soon want one himself." 252 JOHNSONIANA. Part XII. ANECDOTES OF DR. JOHNSON, BY MRS. ROSE.(i) 389. The Dockers. Dr. Mudge used to relate, as a proof of Dr. Johnson's quick discernment into character : — When he was on a visit to Dr. Mudge at Plymouth, the inhabitants of the Dock (now Devonport) were very desirous of their town being supplied with water, to effect which it was necessary to obtain the consent of the corporation of Plymouth ; this was obstinately refused, the Dock being considered as an upstart. And a rival, Alder- man Tolcher, who took a very strong part, called one morning, and immediately opened on the subject to Dr. Johnson, who appeared to give great attention, and, when the alderman had ceased speaking, replied, " You are perfectly right, Sir ; I would let the rogues die of thirst, for I hate a Docker from my heart/' The old man went away quite delighted, and told all his ac- quaintances how completely u the great Dr. Johnson was on his side of the question/' ( 2 ) (1 ) Mrs. Rose, who has obligingly communicated these anec- dotes, is the daughter of Dr. Farr, of Plymouth, and the daughter-in-law of Dr. Johnson's old friend, Dr. Rose, of Chiswick. — C. (2) This story is told by Mr. Boswell, and commented upon by Mr. Blakeway {ante, Vol. II. p. 148.), as if Dr. Johnson had seriously entered into the spirit of the contest ; whereas Dr. Mudge, more naturally, represents him as flattering, with an ironical vehemence, the prejudices of the worthy alderman, who is known, from other circumstances, to have been of a very zealous disposition. — C. rose. 253 390. Calumny. — Ridicule. It was after the publication of the Lives of the Poets that Dr. Farr, being engaged to dine with Sir Joshua Reynolds, mentioned, on coming in, that, in his way, he had seen a caricature, which he thought clever, of the nine muses flogging Dr. Johnson round Parnassus. The admirers of Gray and others, who thought their favourites hardly treated in the Lives, were laughing at Dr. Farr's account of the print, when Dr. Johnson was himself announced. Dr. Farr being the only stranger. Sir Joshua introduced him, and, to Dr. Farr's infinite embarrassment, repeated what he had just been telling them. Johnson was not at all surly on the occasion, but said, turning to Dr. Farr, " Sir, I am very glad to hear this. I hope the day will never arrive when I shall neither be the object of calumny or ridicule, for then I shall be neglected and forgotten." ( ! ) 391. u Fiddle-de-dee." It was near the close of his life that two young ladies, who were warm admirers of his works, but had never seen himself, went to Bolt Court, and, asking if he was at home, were shown up stairs, where he was writing. He laid down his pen on their entrance, and, as they stood before him, one of the females repeated a speech of some length, previously prepared for the occasion. It was an enthusiastic effusion, which, when the speaker had finished, she panted for her idol's reply. What was her mortification when all he said was, " Fiddle-de- dee, my dear." (1) This was his usual declaration on all such occasions. If Johnson had been an amateur author, abuse and even criticism would no doubt have given him pain, but, to an author by pro- fession, and one who, for so many years, had lived by his pen, the greatest misfortune would be neglect ; for his daily bread depended on the sensation his works might create (see ante, Vol. VII. p. 246.). This observation will be found applicable to many other cases. — C. 254- JOHNSONIANA. 392. Hayley. Much pains were taken by Mr. Hayley 's friends to prevail on Br. Johnson to read c ' The Triumphs of Temper/' when it was in its zenith ; at last he con- sented, but never got beyond the two first pages, of which he uttered a few words of contempt that I have now forgotten. They were, however, carried to the author, who revenged himself by portraying Johnson as Rumble in his comedy of " The Mausoleum ;" and subsequently he published, without his name, a " Dialogue in the Shades between Lord Chesterfield and Dr. Johnson," more distinguished for malignity than wit. Being anonymous, and possessing very little merit, it fell still-born from the press. 393. Mrs. Montagu. — Lord Lyttelton. Dr. Johnson sent his " Life of Lord Lyttelton " in MS. to Mrs. Montagu, who was much dissatisfied with it, and thought her friend every way underrated ; but the Doctor made no alteration. When he subse- quently made one of a party at Mrs. Montagu's, he ad- dressed his hostess two or three times after dinner, with a view to engage her in conversation : receiving only cold and brief answers, he said, in a low voice, to General Paoli, who sat next him, and who told me the story, et You see, Sir, I am no longer the man for Mrs. Montagu." 394<. Favourite Couplet. Mrs. Piozzi related to me, that when Dr. Johnson one day observed, that poets in general preferred some one couplet they had written to any other, she replied, that she did not suppose he had a favourite ; he told her she was mistaken — he thought his best lines were : — " The encumber'd oar scarce leaves the hostile coast, Through purple billows and a floating host." SEWARD. 251 Part XIII. ANECDOTES OF DR. JOHNSON, BY WILLIAM SEWARD, ESQ. (1) 395. Sir Robert Walpole. Dr. Johnson said one day of Sir Robert Walpole, that he was the best minister this country ever had ; " for/ said he, ee he would have kept it in perpetual peace, if we," — meaning the Tories and those in opposition to him, — " would have let him. ,, 396* Romantic Virtue. Dr. Johnson used to advise his friends to be upon their guard against romantic virtue, as being founded upon no settled principle ; " a plank," said he, K that is tilted up at one end, must of course fall down on the other/' 397. Little Books. Another admonition of his was, never to go out with- out some little book or other in their pocket. cc Much time," added he, " is lost by waiting, by travelling, &c, and this may be prevented, by making use of every pos- sible opportunity for improvement." 398. Languages. " The knowledge of various languages," said he, " may be kept up by occasionally using bibles and prayer-books in them at church." (1) [Author of " Anecdotes of Distinguished Persons," &c. See ante, Vol. III. p. 76. n. j 256 JOHNSONIANA. 399* Christian Religion, In a conversation with the Due de Chaulnes, the duke said to Johnson, ec that the morality of the dif- ferent religions existing in the world was nearly the same/' ei But you must acknowledge, my lord," said the Doctor, " that the Christion religion puts it upon its proper basis — the fear and love of God." 400. Dr. Burney. Of the musical tracts of Dr. Burney this great critic in style thought so highly, that he told a friend of his, after he had published his Scotch Tour, ee Sir, I had Burney in my eye all the while I was writing my Journal." 401. Mrs. Montagu. — Shakspeare. — Voltaire. Of Mrs. Montagu's elegant " Essay upon Shak- speare," he always said, ee that it was ad hominem , that it was conclusive against Voltaire ; and that she had done what she intended to do." ( ] ) 402. Preface to Shakspeare. Johnson's Preface to his edition of Shakspeare was styled by Dr. Adam Smith, the most manly piece of criticism that was ever published in any country. 403. Infant Hercules. Sir Joshua Reynolds, in his picture of the Infant Hercules, painted for the Empress of Russia, in the person of Tiresias the soothsayer, gave an adumbration of Johnson's manner. 404. Due de Montmorencu In a conversation with Dr. Johnson on tne subject of this nobleman, he said, " Had I been Richelieu, I could not have found in my heart to have suffered the (1) fSee ante. Vol. III. p. 90., and Vol. IV. p. 266 ) HUMPHRY. 257 first Christian baron to die by the hands of the exe- cutioner/' 405. Music. Dr. Johnson was observed by a musical friend of his to be extremely inattentive at a concert, whilst a cele- brated solo player was running up the divisions and subdivisions of notes upon his violin. His friend, to induce him to take greater notice of what was going on, told him how extremely difficult it was. ce Difficult do you call it Sir ? " replied the Doctor ; " I wish it were impossible/' 406. Voltaire. Dr. Johnson told Voltaire's antagonist FreVou, that vir erai acerrimi ingenii, ac paucarum literarum; and Warburton says of him, that " he wrote indifferently well upon every thing/' Part XIV. ANECDOTES OF DR. JOHNSON, BY OZIAS HUMPHRY, R.A. (') 407« Johnson in 1 764. The day after I wrote my last letter to you I was in- troduced to Mr. Johnson by a friend: we passed through three very dirty rooms to a little one that looked like (1) [In a letter to his brother, the Rev. William Humphry, Rector of Kemsing and Seal, in Kent, and Vicar of Birling : from the original, in the possession of Mr. Upcott, dated Sep- tember 19. 1764. For Boswell's account of Mr. Humphry see ante, Vol. VIII. p. 264.] TOL. IX. S 258 JOHNSONIANA an old counting-house, where this great man was sat at his breakfast. The furniture of this room was a very large deal writing-desk, an old walnut-tree table, and five ragged chairs of four different sets. I was very much struck with Mr. Johnson's appearance, and could hardly help thinking him a madman for some time, as he sat waving over his breakfast like a lunatic. He is a very large man, and was dressed in a dirty brown coat and waistcoat, with breeches that were brown also (though they had been crimson), and an old black wig : his shirt collar and sleeves were unbuttoned ; his stockings were down about his feet, which had on them, by way of slippers, an old pair of shoes. He had not been up long when we called on him, which was near one o'clock : he seldom goes to bed till near two in the morning ; and Mr. Reynolds tells me he generally drinks tea about an hour after he has supped. We had been some time with him before he began to talk, but at length he began, and, faith, to some purpose ! every thing he says is as correct as a second edition : 'tis almost impossible to argue with him, he is so sen- tentious aud so knowing. 408. Sir Joshua Reynolds. I asked him, if he had seen Mr. Reynolds's pictures lately. (e No, Sir." " He has painted many fine ones." " I know he has," he said, " as I hear he has been fully employed." I told him, I imagined Mr. Rey- nolds was not much pleased to be overlooked by the court, as he must be conscious of his superior merit. (i Not at all displeased," he said, " Mr. Reynolds has too much good sense to be affected by it: when he was younger he believed it would have been agreeable ; but now he does not want their favour. It has ever been more profitable to be popular among the people than favoured by the King : it is no reflection on Mr. Rey- nolds not to be employed by them ; but it will be a SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 259 reflection for ever on the court not to have employed him. The King, perhaps, knows nothing but that he employs the best painter; and as for the queen, I don't imagine she has any other idea of a picture, but that it is a thing composed of many colours." 409. Bath. When Mr. Johnson understood that I had lived some time in Bath, he asked me many questions that led, indeed, to a general description of it. He seemed very well pleased ; but remarked, that men and women bathing together, as they do at Bath, is an instance of barbarity, that he believed could not be paralleled in any part of the world. He entertained us about an hour and a half in this manner; then we took our leave. I must not omit to add, that I am informed he denies himself many conveniences, though he cannot well afford any, that he may have more in his power to give in charities. Part XV. ANECDOTES OF DR. JOHNSON, BY SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. (1) 410. Johnsons Conversation, — Sir Joshua Reynolds's fi Discourses." — Art of Thinking. 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 r * their excellence and their value consisted in being the ob- (1) [From an unfinished Discourse, found by Mr. Malone among Sir Joshua's loose papers. See Works, vol. i. p. 9. j s 2 260 JOHNSONIANA. servations of a strong mind operating upon life ; and in consequence you find there what you seldom find in other books." It 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. Johnson. I do not mean to say, though 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 com- municative. 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 over- bearing. The desire of shining in conversation was in him, in- deed, 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 in- timate friends derived considerable advantage. The SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 261 observations which he made on poetry, on life, and on every thing 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. Johnsons Style of Conversation. [Thefollouing jeu $ esprit was written by Sir Joshua Reynolds to illustrate a remark which he had made, that " Dr. Johnson con- sidered Garrick as Ids property, and would never suffer any one to praise or abuse him but himself.''' In tlie first of these sup- posed 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. I have been thinking, Dr. Johnson, this morning, on a (2) These dialogues were printed in 1816 from the MS. of Sir Joshua, by his niece, Lady Thomond: they were not pub- lished, but distributed by her "ladyship to some friends of Dr. Johnson and Sir Joshua. The copy which I have was spon- taneously transmitted to me by Mrs. Gwynn, the friend of Goldsmith and of Johnson, whose early beauty is celebrated in the first part of this work (Vol. II. p'. 191. ), and who is still distinguished for her amiable character and high mental accom- plishments. Lady Thomond, in the prefatory note, calls this a u jeu cP esprit " but I was informed by the late Sir George Beaumont, who knew all the parties, and to whom Reynolds himself gave a copy of it, that if the words jeu desprii were to be understood to imply that it was altogether an invention of Sir Joshua's, the term would be erroneous. The substance, s 3 262 JOHNSON1ANA. matter that has puzzled me very much ; it is a subject that I dare say has often passed in your thoughts, and though / 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 sub- ject I have been thinking upon is, predestination and freewill, 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 bright- ness, find themselves in wandering mazes lost. That such a subject could be discussed in the levity of convi- vial conversation, is a degree of absurdity beyond what rs 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. and many of the expressions, of the dialogues did really occur ; Sir Joshua did little more than collect, as if into two con- versations, what had been uttered at many, and heighten the effect bv the juxtaposition of such discordant opinions. — C. SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 263 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. Rey. I have heard you say, Dr. Johnson Johns. Sir, you never heard me say that David Gar- rick 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 ex- tensive 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 dan- gerous 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 : s 4 264 JOHNSONIANA. oesides, 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, basides, — 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 pinion 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 he had full as much reputation as he deserved. John. 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 SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 265 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 vice, 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 excel : setting aside his excellence as an actor, in which he is ac- knowledged to be unrivalled ; as a man, as a poet, as a convivial companion, you will find but few his equals, and none his superior. As a man, he was kind, friendly, benevolent, and generous. Gib. Of Garrick's generosity I never heard ; I un- derstood his character to be totally the reverse, and that he was reckoned to have loved money. Johns. That he loved money, nobody will dispute ; who does not? but if you mean, by loving money, that he was parsimonious to a fault, Sir, you have been misinformed. To Foote, and such scoundrels, who circulated those reports, to such profligate spendthrifts prudence is meanness, and economy is avarice. That Garrick, in early youth, was brought up in strict habits of economy, I believe, and that they were necessary, I have heard from himself; to suppose that Garrick might inadvertently act from this habit, and be saving in small things, can be no wonder : but let it be re- membered at the same time, that if he was frugal by habit, he was liberal from principle ; that when he acted from reflection, he did what his fortune enabled him to do, and what was expected from such a fortune. I remember no instance of David's parsimony but once, when he stopped Mrs. Woffington from replenishing the tea-pot ; it was already, he said, as red as blood ; and this instance is doubtful, and happened many years ago. In the latter part of his life I observed no blame- able parsimony in David; his table was elegant and 2f]6 JOHNSONIANA. even splendid; his house both in town and country, his equipage, and I think all his habits of life, were such as might be expected from a man who had acquired great riches. In regard to his generosity, which you seem to question, I shall only say, there is no man to whom I would apply with more confidence of success, for the loan of two hundred pounds to assist a common friend, than to David, and this too with very little, if any, probability of its being repaid. Gib. You were going to say something of him as a writer — - you don't rate him very high as a poet. Johns. Sir, a man may be a respectable poet without being a Homer, as a man may be a good player without being a Garrick. In the lighter kinds of poetry, in the appendages of the drama, he was, if not the first, in the very first class. He had a readiness and facility, a dexterity of mind that appeared extraordinary even to men of experience, and who are not apt to wonder from ignorance. Writing prologues, epilogues, and epigrams, he said he considered as his trade, and he was, what a man should be, always, and at all times, ready at his trade. He required two hours for a prologue or epi- logue, and five minutes for an epigram. Once at Burke's table the company proposed a subject, and Gar- rick finished his epigram within the time ; the same experiment was repeated in the garden, and with the same success. Gib. Garrick had some flippancy of parts, to be sure, and was brisk and lively in company, and by the help of mimicry and story-telling, made himself a pleasant companion ; but here the whole world gave the su- periority to Foote, and Garrick himself appears to have felt as if his genius was rebuked by the superior powers of Foote. It has been often observed, that Garrick never dared to enter into competition with him, but was content to act an under part to bring Foote out. Johns. That this conduct of Garrick's might be in- SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 267 ^erpreted by the gross minds of Foote and his friends, as if he was afraid to encounter him, I can easily ima- gine. Of the natural superiority of Garrick over Foote, this conduct is an instance : he disdained entering into competition with such a fellow, and made him the buf- foon of the company; or, as you say, brought him out. And what was at last brought out but coarse jests and vulgar merriment, indecency and impiety, a relation of events which, upon the face of them, could never have happened, characters grossly conceived and as coarsely represented ? Foote was even no mimic ; he went out of himself, it is true, but without going into another man ; he was excelled by Garrick even in this, which is considered as Foote's greatest excellence. Garrick, besides his exact imitation of the voice and gesture of his original, to a degree of refinement of which Foote had no conception, exhibited the mind and mode of thinking of the person imitated. Besides, Garrick con- fined his powers within the limits of decency ; he had a character to preserve, Foote had none. By Foote's buffoonery and broad -faced merriment, private friend- ship, public decency, and every thing estimable amongst men, were trod under foot. We all know the differ- ence of their reception in the world. No man, however high in rank or literature, but was proud to know Garrick, and was glad to have him at his table ; no man ever considered or treated Garrick as a player ; he may be said to have stepped out of his own rank into a higher, and by raising himself, he raised the rank of his profession. At a convivial table his exhilarating powers were unrivalled ; he was lively, entertaining, quick in discerning the ridicule of life, and as ready in representing it ; and on graver subjects there were few topics in which he could not bear his part. It is in- jurious to the character of Garrick to be named in the same breath with Foote. That Foote was admitted sometimes into good company (to do the man what 268 JOHNSONIANA. credit I can) I will allow, but then it was merely to play tricks : Foote's merriment was that of a buffoon, and Garrick' s that of a gentleman. Gib. I have been told, on the contrary, that Garrick in company had not the easy manners of a gentleman. Johns. Sir, I don't know what you may have been told, or what your ideas may be, of the manners of a gentleman : Garrick had no vulgarity in his manners ; it is true Garrick had not the airiness of a fop, nor did he assume an affected indifference to what was passing ; he did not lounge from the table to the window, and from thence to the fire, or, whilst you were addressing your discourse to him, turn from you and talk to his next neighbour, or give any indication that he was tired of your company : if such manners form your ideas of a fine gentleman, Garrick certainly had them not. Gib. I mean that Garrick was more overawed by the presence of the great, and more obsequious to rank, than Foote, who considered himself as their equal, and treated them with the same familiarity as they treated each other. Johns. He did so, and what did the fellow get by it? The grossness of his mind prevented him from seeing that this familiarity was merely suffered as they would play with a dog ; he got no ground by affecting to call peers by their surnames; the foolish fellow fancied that lowering them was raising himself to their level ; this affectation of familiarity with the great, this childish ambition of momentary exaltation obtained by the neglect of those ceremonies which custom has esta- blished as the barriers between one order of society and another, only showed his folly and meanness ; he did not see that by encroaching on others' dignity, he puts himself in their power either to be repelled with helpless indignity, or endured by clemency and con- descension. Garrick, by paying due respect to rank, respected himself; what he gave was returned, and SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 269 what was returned he kept for ever ; his advancement was on firm ground, he was recognised in public as well as respected in private, and as no man was ever more courted and better received by the public, so no man was ever less spoiled by its flattery : Garrick con- tinued advancing to the last, till he had acquired every advantage that high birth or title could bestow, except the precedence of going into a room ; but when he was there, he was treated with as much attention as the first man at the table. It is to the credit of Garrick, that he never laid any claim to this distinction ; it was as voluntarily allowed as if it had been his birthright. In this, I confess, I looked on David with some degree of envy, not so much for the respect he received, as for the manner of its being acquired ; what fell into his lap unsought, I have been forced to claim. I began the world by fighting my way. There was something about me that invited insult, or at least a disposition to neglect, and I was equally disposed to repel insult and to claim attention, and I fear continue too much in this disposition now it is no longer necessary ; I receive at present as much favour as I have a right to expect. I am not one of the complainers of the neglect of merit. Gib. Your pretensions, Dr. Johnson, nobody will dispute ; I cannot place Garrick on the same footing : your reputation will continue increasing after your death, when Garrick will be totally forgotten ; you will be for ever considered as a classic Johns. Enough, Sir, enough ; the company would be better pleased to see us quarrel than bandying com- pliments. Gib. But you must allow, Dr. Johnson, that Garrick was too much a slave to fame, or rather to the mean ambition of living with the great, terribly afraid of making himself cheap even with them ; by which he debarred himself of much pleasant society. Employing so much attention, and so much management upon such 270 JOHNSONIANA. little things, implies, I think, a little mind. It was ob- served by his friend Colman, that he never went into company but with a plot how to get out of it ; he was every minute called out, and went off or returned as there was or was not a probability of his shining. Johns. In regard to his mean ambition, as you call it, of living with the great, what was the boast of Pope, and is every man's wish, can be no reproach to Garrick ; he who says he despises it knows he lies. That Garrick husbanded his fame, the fame which he had justly acquired both at the theatre and at the table, is not denied ; but where is the blame, either in the one or the other, of leaving as little as he could to chance ? Be- sides, Sir, consider what you have said ; you first deny Garrick' s pretensions to fame, and then accuse him of too great an attention to preserve what he never pos- sessed. Gib. I don't understand Johns. Sir, I can't help that. Gib. Well, but Dr. Johnson, you will not vindicate him in his over and above attention to his fame, his inordinate desire to exhibit himself to new men, like a coquette, ever seeking after new conquests, to the total neglect of old friends and admirers ; — " He threw off his friends like a huntsman his pack," always looking out for new game. Johns. When you quoted the line from Goldsmith, you ought, in fairness, to have given what followed ; " He knew when he pleased he could whistle them back ; which implies at least that he possessed a power ov other men's minds approaching to fascination ; but con- sider, Sir, what is to be done : here is a man whom every other man desired to know. Garrick could not receive and cultivate all, according to each man's con- ception of his own value : we are all apt enough to consider ourselves as possessing a right to be excepted Sill JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 271 from the common crowd ; besides, Sir, I do not see why that should be imputed to him as a crime, which we all so irresistibly feel and practise ; we all make a greater exertion of the presence of new men than old acquaintance ; it is undoubtedly true that Garrick divided his attention among so many, that but little was left to the share of any individual ; like the extension and dissipation of water into dew, there was not quantity united sufficiently to quench any man's thirst ; but this is the inevitable state of things : Garrick, no more than another man, could unite what, in their natures, are incompatible. Gib. But Garrick not only was excluded by this means from real friendship, but accused of treating those whom he called friends with insincerity and double dealings. Johns. Sir, it is not true ; his character in that respect is misunderstood : Garrick was, to be sure, very ready in promising, but he intended at that time to fulfil his promise ; he intended no deceit : his polite- ness or his good-nature, call it which you will, made him unwilling to deny ; he wanted the courage to say No, even to unreasonable demands. This was the great error of his life : by raising expectations which he did not, perhaps could not, gratify, he made many enemies ; at the same time it must be remembered, that this error proceeded from the same cause which produced many of his virtues. Friendships from warmth of temper too suddenly taken up, and too violent to continue, ended as they were like to do, in disappointment; enmity succeeded disappointment ; his friends became his enemies ; and those having been fostered in his bosom, well knew his sensibility to reproach, and they took care that he should be amply supplied with such bitter potions as they were capable of administering ; their impotent efforts he ought to have despised, but he felt them ; nor did he affect insensibility. 272 JOHNSONIANA. Gib. And that sensibility probably shortened his life. Johns. No, Sir, he died of a disorder of which you or any other man may die, without being killed by too much sensibility. Gib. But you will allow, however, that this sensi- bility, those fine feelings, made him the great actor he was. Johns. This is all cant, fit only for kitchen wenches and chambermaids : Garrick's trade was to represent passion, not to feel it. Ask Reynolds whether he felt the distress of Count Hugolino when he drew it. Gib. But surely he feels the passion at the moment he is representing it. Johns. About as much as Punch feels. That Gar- rick himself gave into this foppery of feelings I can easily believe ; but he knew at the same time that he lied. He might think it right, as far as I know, to have what fools imagined he ought to have ; but it is amazing that any one should be so ignorant as to think that an actor will risk his reputation by depending on the feelings that shall be excited in the presence of two hundred people, on the repetition of certain words which he has repeated two hundred times before in what actors call their study. No, Sir, Garrick left nothing to chance ; every gesture, every expression of countenance, and variation of voice, was settled in his closet before he set his foot upon the stage." (*) (l) This is conformable with the opinion of Grimm and Diderot, and with the admission of Mr. Kemble ; but it must not be understood too literally. A great actor prepares in his study, positions, attitudes, the particular mode of uttering certain passages, and even the tone which is to be adopted ; and having once ascertained, both by thought and experience, what is best, he will naturally adhere to that, however often he may play the part ; but it is equally certain, that there is a large portion of the merit of a great theatrical exhibition which is not reducible to any rule, and which depends, not only on the general powers of the petformer, but on his health, his spirits, and other per- d'arblay. 273 Part XVI. ANECDOTES OF DR. JOHNSON, BY MADAME D'ARBLAY. (i) 412. Mr. Bewley. — Johnson s Hearth-broom. In 1760, Mr. Burney found an opportunity of pay- ing his personal respects to Dr. Johnson ; who then resided in chambers in the Temple. While awaiting the appearance of his revered host, Mr. Burney re- collected a supplication from Mr. Bewley, the philoso- pher of Massingham, to be indulged with some token, however trifling or common, of his friend's admission to the habitation of this great man. Vainly, however, Mr. Burney looked around the apartment for something that he might innoxiously purloin. Nothing but coarse and necessary furniture was in view ; nothing portable — not even a wafer, the cover of a letter, or a split pen, was to be caught ; till, at length, he had the happiness to espy an old hearth-broom in the chimney corner. From this, with hasty glee, he cut off a bristly wisp, which he hurried into his pocket-book ; and afterwards sonal circumstances of the moment which may tend to encourage or restrain his powers. And it may be safely affirmed, that al- though no actor ever fancies himself Othello, or any actress Calista, yet that the unpremeditated emotions last alluded to constitute a great part of the charm which distinguishes on the stage excellence from mediocrity. — C. (1) [Formerly, the celebrated Miss Fanny Burney, author of " Evelina," &c. ; from whose Memoirs of her father, Dr. Burney, these anecdotes are taken.] VOL. IX. T 274 JOHNSONIANA. formally folded in silver paper, and forwarded, in a frank to Lord Orford, for Mr. Bewley ; by whom the burlesque offering was hailed with good-humoured ac- clamation, and preserved through life. ( J ) 413. Music. Dr. Johnson, who had no ear for music, had ac- customed himself, like many other great writers who have had that same, and frequently sole, deficiency, to speak slightingly both of the art and of its professors : and it was not till after he had become intimately ac- quainted with Dr. Burney and his various merits, that he ceased to join in a jargon so unworthy of his liberal judgment, as that of excluding musicians and their art from celebrity. The first symptom that he showed of a tendency to conversion upon this subject, was upon hearing the following paragraph read, accidentally, aloud by Mrs. Thrale, from the preface to the History of Music, while it was yet in manuscript : — t€ The love of lengthened tones and modulated sounds, seems a passion implanted in human nature throughout the globe ; as we hear of no people, however wild and savage in other particulars, who have not music of some kind or other, with which they seem greatly delighted." — ) 427- Johnsons " Journey." Johnson's " Journey to the Hebrides" contains many things worthy of the author, and is, on the whole, very entertaining. His account of the isles is, I dare say, very just : I never was there, and therefore can say no- thing of them, from my own knowledge. His account of some facts, relating to other parts of Scotland, are not unexceptionable : either he must have been misin- formed, or he must have misunderstood his informer, in regard to several of his remarks on the improvement of the country. I am surprised at one of his mistakes, which leads him once or twice into perplexity and false conjecture : he seems not to have known, that, in the common language of Scotland, Irish and Erse are both used to denote the speech of the Scots Highlanders ; and are as much synonymous (at least, in many parts of the kingdom) as Scotch and Scottish. Irish is generally thought the genteeler appellation ; and Erse, the vulgar and colloquial. His remarks on the trees of Scotland must greatly surprise a native. In some of our pro- vinces trees cannot be reared by any mode of cultivation we have yet discovered ; in some, where trees flourish extremely well, they are not much cultivated, because they are not necessary ; but in others, we have store of wood, and forests of great extent, and of great anti- quity. I admire Johnson's genius ; I esteem him for his virtues ; I shall ever cherish a grateful remembrance (1) [From Sir William Forbes's Life of Dr. Beattie.] BEATTIE, 305 Of the civilities I have received from him : I have often, in this country, exerted myself in defence both of his character and writings ; but there are in this book several things which I cannot defend. 428. Mr. and Mrs. Thrale. — Goldsmith. I was introduced to Mr. and Mrs. Thrale by Dr. Johnson, and received many and great civilities from both. Mr. Thrale was a most respectable character ; intelligent, modest, communicative, and friendly ; and I greatly admired his wife for her vivacity, learning, affability, and beauty: I thought her, indeed, one of the most agreeable women I ever saw ; and could not have imagined her capable of acting so unwise a part as she afterwards did. What she says of Goldsmith is perfectly true. He was a poor fretful creature, eaten up with affectation and envy. He was the only person I ever knew who acknowledged himself to be envious. In Johnson's presence he was quiet enough ; but in his absence expressed great uneasiness on hearing him praised. 429* Mrs. Montagu. Johnson's harsh censure of Mrs. Montagu's Essay on Shakspeare does not surprise me ; for I have heard him speak contemptuously of it. It is, for all that, one of the best, the most original, and most elegant pieces of criticism in our language, or in any other. Johnson had many of the talents of a critic j but his want of temper, his violent prejudices, and something, I am afraid, of an envious turn of mind, made him often an unfair one. Mrs. Montagu was very kind to him ; but Mrs. Montagu has more wit than any body ; and John- son could not bear that any person should be thought to have wit but himself. Even Lord Chesterfield, and, what is more strange, even Mr. Burke, he would not allow to have wit. He preferred Smollett to Fielding. He would not grant that Armstrong's poem of ff Health," vol. IX. x 306 JOHNSONIANA. or the tragedy of " Douglas/' had any merit. He told me, that he never read Milton through, till he was obliged to do it, in order to gather words for his Dic- tionary. He spoke very peevishly of the ce Masque of Comus ;" and when I urged, that there was a great deal of exquisite poetry in it, cc Yes," said he, " but it is like gold hid under a rock ; " to which I made no reply ; for indeed I did not well understand it. 430. Johnson in 1781. Johnson grows in grace as he grows in years. He not only has better health and a fresher complexion than ever he had before (at least since I knew him), but he has contracted a gentleness of manners which pleases every body. Some ascribe this to the good company to which he has of late been more accustomed than in the early part of his life. There may be some- thing in this ; but / am apt to think the good health he has enjoyed for a long time is the chief cause. Mr. Thrale appointed him one of his executors, and left him two hundred pounds ; every body says, he should have left him two hundred a year; which, from a for- tune like his, would have been a very inconsiderable reduction. 431. Lives of the Poets. I have been reading Johnson's Prefaces to the En- glish edition of the Poets. There are many excellent things in them, particularly in the Lives of Milton, Dryden, and Waller. He is more civil to Milton than I expected, though he hates him for his blank verse and his politics. To the forced and unnatural conceits of Cowley, I think he is too favourable ; and I heartily wish, that, instead of the poems of this poet, he had given us " The Faerie Queen " of Spenser, which is left out very absurdly. BEATTIE. 307 432. Milton. Johnson hated Milton from his heart ; and he wished to be himself considered as a good Latin poet, which, however, he never was, as may be seen by his trans- lation of Pope's " Messiah." 433. BoswelVs " Tour:* I have just gone through Boswell's book. He is very good to me, as Dr. Johnson always was ; and I am very grateful to both : but I cannot approve the plan of such a work. To publish a man's letters, or his conversation, without his consent, is not, in my opinion, quite fair : for how many things, in the hour of relaxation, or in friendly correspondence, does a man throw out, which he would never wish to hear of again ; and what a restraint would it be on all social inter- course, if one were to suppose that every word one utters would be entered in a register ! Mr. Bosvv ell in- deed says, that there are few men who need be under any apprehension of that sort. This is true ; and the argument he founds en it would be good, if he had published nothing but what Dr. Johnson and he said and did ; for Johnson, it seems, knew that the pub- lication would be made, and did not object to it : but Mr. Bos well has published the sayings and doings of other people, who never consented to any such thing ; and who little thought, when they were doing their best to entertain and amuse the two travellers, that a story would be made of it, and laid before the public. I approve of the Greek proverb, that says, " 1 hate a bottle companion with a memory." If my friend, after eating a bit of mutton with me, should go to the coffee-house, and there give an account of every thing that had passed, I believe I should not take it well. x 2 308 JOHNSONIANA. Part XVIII. ANECDOTES OF DR. JOHNSON, BY THE RT. HON. W. WINDHAM.(i) [To the kindness of Thomas Amyot, Esq. F.R.S., the Editor is indebted for the following Memoranda, extracted from Mr. Windham's Diary for 1784, of the Conversations he had with Dr. Johnson during his visit at Ashbourne; where he arrived on the 30th of August, " leaving it," as he states, *' with regret, at half-past one on the 1st of September."] 434. Homer. " The source of every thing, either in or out of nature, that can serve the purpose of poetry, is to be found in Homer ; — every species of distress, every modification of heroic character, battles, storms, ghosts, incantations, &c." 435. Odyssey. " Dr. Johnson said, he had never read through tne Odyssey completely in the original." 436. Johnson s first Declamation. " Anecdote of his first declamation at College, that having neglected to write it till the morning of his being to repeat it, and having only one copy, he got part of it by heart, while he was walking into the Hall, (1 ) [In a letter to Dr. Brocklesby, dated September 2., John- son says — " Windham has been here to see me : he came, I think, forty miles out of his way, and stayed about a day and a half; perhaps I make the time shorter than it was. Such con- versation I shall not have again till I come back to the regions of literature ; and there Windham is inter Stellas Luna minores."] WINDHAM. S09 and the rest he repeated as well as he could extem- pore." (*) 437. The Ramei. u Anecdote of his tutor, who told them that the Ramei, the followers of Ramus, were so called from Ramus, a bow." 438. Johnsons Idleness. " Description of himself as very idle and neglectful of his studies." 439. Latin. " His opinion, that I could not name above five of my college acquaintance who read Latin with case suf- ficient to make it pleasurable. The difficulties of the language overpower the desire of reading the author. iC That he read Latin with as much ease when he went to eollege as at present/' 440. Ovid's Fasti.— Wotton. — Wood. " Recommended the reading the Fasti of Ovid, — also Wotton, and Wood on Homer." 441 . Death of Hercules. ie Commended Ovid's description of the death of Hercules — doubted whether Virgil would not have loaded the description with too many fine words." 442. Styles. " Opinion that there were three ways in which writing might be unnatural; — by being bombastic and above nature — affected and beside it, fringing events with ornaments which nature did not afford — or weak and below nature. That neither of the first would please long. That the third might indeed please a good while, or at least please many ; because imbecilitv. (1) [See ante, Vol. 1. p. 60. — C.j 310 JOHNSONIANA. and consequently a love of imbecility, might be found in many." 443. A Good Work. " Baretti had told him of some Italian author, who said that a good work must be that with which the vulgar were pleased, and of which the learned could tell why it pleased — that it must be able to employ the learned, and detain the idle. Chevy Chase pleased the vulgar, but did not satisfy the learned ; it did not fill a mind capable of thinking strongly. The merit of Shakspeare was such as the ignorant could take in, and the learned add nothing to/' 444. " Stat magni nominis" tyc* Ci Stat magni nominis umbra he would construe as, umbra quce est magni nominis , h. e. ceiebrata." 445. Rowes Lucan. ci Opinion of Rowe's translation of Lucan, that it would have been improved, if Rowe had had a couple of years to render it less paraphrastical." 446. Virgil. " Vast change of the Latin language from the time of Virgil to Lucretius ; — greater than known in any other, even the French. The story of Dido is in Ovid's Fasti, also of Mezentius. Virgil's invention there- fore is less than supposed. ' Take from his what is in Homer, what do you leave him ? ' " 447. Latin. " The pretensions of the English to the reputation, of writing LRtin is founded not so much on the speci- mens in that way which they have produced, as on the quantity of talent diffused through the country." WINDHAM. 311 448. Erasmus. " Erasmus appears to be totally ignorant of science and natural knowledge. But one Italian writer is men- tioned in Erasmus; whence Johnson conjectured that he did not understand Italian." 449. Turnpike Roads. " Opinion about the effect of turnpike roads. Every place communicating with each other. Before, there were cheap places and dear places. Now all refuges are destroyed for elegant or genteel poverty. Want of such a last hope to support men in their struggle through life, however seldom it might he resorted to. Disunion of families by furnishing a market to each man's abili- ties, and destroying the dependence of one man on another." \_The following interesting Account of Mr. Wiudhams Conversations with Dr. Johnson, a few Days before his Death, is extracted from the same Journal.^ 450. Johnsons last Illness and Death. Tuesday, December 7. 1784. — Ten minutes past 2, p. m. — After waiting some short time in the adjoining room, I was admitted to Dr. Johnson in his bed- chamber, where, after placing me next him in the chair (he sitting in his usual place, on the east side of the room, and I on his right hand), he put into my hands two small volumes (an edition of the New Testament, as he afterwards told me), saying, " Extremum hoc munus morientis habeto." He then proceeded to observe that I was entering upon a life which would lead me deeply into all the business of the world : that he did not condemn civil employment, but that it was a state of great danger, and that he had therefore one piece of advice earnestly x 4 312 JOHNSONIANA. to impress upon me, that I would set apart every seventh day for the care of my soul. That one day, the seventh, should be employed in repenting what was amiss in the six preceding, and fortifying my virtue for the six to come. That such a portion of time was surely little enough for the meditation of eternity. He then told me that he had a request to make to me ; namely, that I would allow his servant Frank to look up to me as his friend, adviser, and protector, in all difficulties which his own weakness and imprudence, or the force or fraud of others, might bring him into. He said that he had left him what he considered an ample provision, viz. seventy pounds per annum ; but that even that sum might not place him above the want of a protector, and to me, therefore, he recommended him as to one who had will, and power, and activity to protect him. Having obtained my assent to this, he proposed that Frank should be called in ; and desiring me to take him by the hand in token of the promise, repeated before him the recommendation he had just made of him, and the promise I had given to attend to it. I then took occasion to say how much I felt — what I had long foreseen that I should feel — regret at having spent so little of my life in his company. I stated this as an instance where resolutions are deferred till the oc- casions are past. For some time past I had determined that such an occasion of self-reproach should not sub- sist, and had built upon the hope of passing in his society the chief part of my time, at the moment when it was to be apprehended we were about to lose him for ever. I had no difficulty in speaking to him thus of my apprehensions. I could not help, on the other hand, entertaining hopes, but with these I did not like to trouble him, lest he should conceive that I thought it necessary to flatter him : he answered hastily, that he WINDHAM. 313 was sure I would not ; and proceeded to make a com- pliment to the manliness of my mind, which; whether deserved or not, ought to be remembered, that it may be deserved. I then stated, that among other neglects was the omission of introducing of all topics the most important, the consequence of which particularly filled my mind at that moment, and in which I had often been de- sirous to know his opinions ; the subjects I meant were, I said, natural and revealed religion. The wish thus generally stated, was in part gratified on the instant. For revealed religion, he said, there was such historical evidence, as, upon any subject not religious, would have left no doubt. Had the facts recorded in the New Testament been mere civil occurrences, no one would have called in question the testimony by which they are established ; but the importance annexed to them, amounting to nothing less than the salvation of man- kind, raised a cloud in our minds, and created doubts unknown upon any other subject. Of proofs to be de- rived from history, one of the most cogent, he seemed to think, was the opinion so well authenticated, and so long entertained, of a deliverer that was to appear about that time. Among the typical representations, the sacrifice of the Paschal Lamb, in which no bone was to be broken, had early struck his mind. For the imme- diate life and miracles of Christ, such attestation as that of the apostles, who all, except St. John, confirmed their testimony with their blood — such belief as these witnesses procured from a people best furnished with the means of judging, and least disposed to judge fa- vourably — such an extension afterwards of that belief over all the nations of the earth, though originating from a nation of all others most despised, would leave no doubt that the things witnessed were true, and were of a nature more than human. With respect to evi- dence, Dr. Johnson observed that we had not such 314 JOHNSONIANA. evidence that Caesar died in the Capitol, as that Christ died in the manner related. December 11. — Went with Sir Joshua, whom I took up by the way, to see Dr. Johnson. Strahan and Langton there. No hopes ; though a great discharge had taken place from the legs. December 12. — At about half-past seven p. m. went to Dr. Johnson's, where I stayed, chiefly in the outer room, till past eleven. Strahan there during the whole time ; during part Mr. Hoole ; and latterly Mr. Cruikshanks and the apothecary. I only went in twice, for a few minutes each time : the first time I hinted only what they had before been urging ; namely, that he would be prevailed upon to take some sustenance, and desisted upon his exclaiming, " ' T is all very child- ish ; let us hear no more of it." The second time I came in, in consequence of a consultation with Mr. Cruikshanks and the apothecary, and addressed him formally, after premising that I considered what 1 was going to say as matter of duty ; I said that I hoped he would not suspect me of the weakness of importuning him to take nourishment for the purpose of prolonging his life for a few hours or days. I then stated what the reason was. It was to secure that which I was persuaded he was most anxious about ; namely, that he might preserve his faculties entire to the last mo- ment. Before I had quite stated my meaning, he interrupted me by saying, that he had refused no sus- tenance but inebriating sustenance ; and proceeded to give instances where, in compliance with the wishes of his physician, he had taken even a small quantity of wine. I readily assented to any objections he might have to nourishment of that kind, and observing that milk was the only nourishment I intended, flattered myself that I had succeeded in my endeavours, when he recurred to his general refusal, and ce begged that there might be an end of it." I then said, that I WINDHAM. 315 hoped he would forgive my earnestness, or something to that effect, when he replied eagerly, that from me nothing could be necessary by way of apology ; adding, with great fervour, in words which I shall, I hope, never forget, i( God bless you, my dear Windham, through Jesus Christ;" and concluding with a wish " that we might [share] in some humble portion of that happiness which God might finally vouchsafe to repentant sinners." These were the last words I ever heard him speak. I hurried out of the room with tears in my eyes, and more affected than I had been on any former occasion. December 13. — In the morning meant to have met Mr. Cruikshanks in Bolt Court ; but while I was deliberating about going, was sent for by Mr Burke. Went to Bolt Court about half-past three, found that Dr. Johnson had been almost constantly asleep since nine in the morning, and heard from Mr. Desmoulins what passed in the night. He had compelled Frank to give him a lancet, and had besides concealed in the bed a pair of scissors, and w r ith one or the other of them had scarified himself in three places, two of them in the leg. On Mr. Desmoulins making a difficulty in giving him the lancet, he said, " Don't, if you have any scruple; but I will compel Frank:" and on Mr. Desmoulins attempting afterwards to prevent Frank from giving it to him, and at last to restrain his hand, he grew very outrageous, so as to call Frank scoundrel, and to threaten Mr. Desmoulins that he would stab him( ] ) ; he then made the three incisions above men- (1) See ante, p. 166. The reader will judge whether Boswell's or Hawkins's account of this transaction is the juster ; but that more importance may not be given to it than it deserves, it must be recollected, that Johnson fancied that his attendants were treating him with a timid leniency, merely to spare him pain, a notion which irritated, at once, his love of life, his animal cou- rage, and his high moral principle. We have already seen [ante, D. 137.) that when in health he had said, " Whoever is afraid of 316 JOHNSONIANA. tioned, two of which were not unskilfully made ; but one of those in the leg was a deep and ugly wound, from which they suppose him to have lost at least eight ounces of blood. Upon Dr. Heberden expressing his fears about the scarification, Dr. Johnson told him he was timidorum timidissimus. A few days before his death, talking with Dr. Brocklesby, he said, >e also lost to all sense of conscience." Sir Joshua saia, b 2 * JOHNSONIANA. he thought it was exactly the same ; he could see no difference. " What ! " said Johnson, " can you see no difference ? I am ashamed to hear you, or any body, utter such nonsense, when the one relates to men only, the other to God ! " Miss Reynolds then observed, that when shame was lost, conscience was nearly gone. Johnson agreed, that her conclusion was very just. 481. Richardson on Painting. Dr. Johnson knew nothing of the art of painting, either in theory or practice ; which is one proof that he could not be the author of Sir Joshua's " Discourses : " indeed, his imperfect sight was some excuse for his total ignorance in that department of study. One day, being at dinner at Sir Joshua's, in company with many painters, in the course of conversation Richardson's u Treatise on Painting" happened to be mentioned: " Ah ! " said Johnson, K I remember, when I was at college, I by chance found that book on my stairs : I took it up with me to my chamber, and read it through, and truly I did not think it possible to say so much upon the art." Sir Joshua, who could not hear dis- tinctly, desired of one of the company to be informed what Johnson had said ; and it being repeated to him so loud that Johnson heard it, the Doctor seemed hurt, and added, (i But I did not wish, Sir, that Sir Joshua should have been told what I then said." The latter speech of Johnson denotes a delicacy in him, and an unwillingness to offend; and it evinces a part of his character, which he has not had the credit of having ever possessed. 482. " Venice Preserved J* One day, Johnson and Goldsmith meeting at Sir Joshua Reynolds's table, the conversation turned on the merits of Otway's of an hackney, and would have been greatly offended had Madam ever offered to order the horses out of the stable on his sole account. True it is, that Johnson BARETTI. 37 was not lavish of his money when he began to have any to save, but he scorned to be considered as oversaving: it: and of this we have a pretty lively proof, p. 38. vol. ii. of his Letters, where he rebukes Mr. Thrale for wishing to have him brought to Brightelmstone by Dr. Burney, that he might not be at the expense of a postchaise or of the stage-coach : " Burney is to bring me ? " says Johnson. ec Pray why so ? Is it not as fit that I should bring Burney ? My Master is in his < old lunes/ and so am I." This asperity of language proves how ticklish Johnson was on the most distant suppo- sition that he grudged expense when necessary. It is not true, that Dr. Johnson (C w r ould often not rise till twelve, and oblige her to make breakfast for him till the bell rang for dinner." It is a constant fact, that, during Johnson's acquaintance with the Thrale family, he got the habit of rising as early as other folks, nor ever made Mr. Thrale stay a single moment for his breakfast, knowing that his business called him away from the breakfast table about ten o'clock every morning, except Sundays ; nor had Mr. Thrale quitted the table a moment but the Doctor swallowed his last cup, and Madam was at liberty to go about her hens and turkeys, leaving him to chat with me or any body else that happened to be there, or go up in his room, which was more usual, from whence he did not stir till dinner-time. Johnson's austere reprimands and unrestrained up- braidings, when face to face with Madam, always de- lighted Mr. Thrale, and were approved even by her children : and I remember to this purpose a piece of mortification she once underwent by a trait de naiveU of poor little Harry, some months before he died. " Harry," said his father to him, on entering the room, " are you listening to what the Doctor and mamma are about?" "Yes, papa," answered the boy. cc And," quoth Mr. Thrale, " what are they saying ?" " They d 3 38 JOHNSON IAN A. are disputing/' replied Harry ; "but mamma has just such a chance against Dr. Johnson, as Presto would have if he were to fight Dash." Dash was a large dog, and Presto but a little one. The laugh this innocent ob- servation produced was so very loud and hearty, that Madam, unable to stand it, quitted the room in such a mood as was still more laughable than the boy's perti- nent remark, though she muttered "it was very imper- tinent." However, a short turn in the pleasure-ground soon restored her to her usual elasticity, made her come back to give us tea, and the puny powers of Presto were mentioned no more. 528. Barettts Rupture with Dr. Johnson. ( ] ) My story may be a lesson to eager mortals to mis- trust the duration of any worldly enjoyment; as even the best cemented friendship, which I consider as the most precious of earthly blessings, is but a precarious one, and subject, like all the rest, to be blasted away in an unexpected moment, by the capriciousness of chance, and by some one of those trifling weaknesses, unac- countably engrafted even in the noblest minds that ever showed to what a pitch human nature may be elevated. About thirteen months before Dr. Johnson went the way of all flesh, my visits to him grew to be much less frequent than they used to be, on account of my gout and other infirmities, which permitted not my going very often from Edward Street, Cavendish Square, to Bolt Court, Fleet Street, as it had been the case in my better days ; yet, once or twice every month, I never failed to go to him, and he was always glad to see " the oldest friend he had in the world ; " which, since Gar- rick's death, was the appellation he honoured me with, and constantly requested me to see him as often as I could. One day — and, alas ! it was the last time I saw (1) [From " Tolondson : Speeches to John Bowie, about his edition of Don Quixote," 1786.] BARETTT. 39 him — I called on him, not without some anxiety, as I had heard that he had been very ill ; but found him so well as to be in very high spirits ; of which he soon made me aware, because, the conversation happening to turn about Otaheite, he recollected that Omiah had often conquered me at chess ; a subject on which, whenever chance brought it about, he never failed to rally me most unmercifully, and made himself mighty merry with. This time, more than he had ever done before, he pushed his banter on at such a rate, that at last he chafed me, and made me so angry, that, not being able to put a stop to it, I snatched up my hat and stick, and quitted him in a most choleric mood. The skilful translator of Tasso (Mr. Hoole), who was a witness to that ridiculous scene, may tell whether the Doctor's obstreperous merriment deserved approbation or blame ; but, such was Johnson, that, whatever was the matter in hand, if he was in the humour, he would carry it as far as he could ; nor was he much in the habit, even with much higher folks than myself, to refrain from sallies which, not seldom, would carry him further than he intended. Vexed at his having given me cause to be angry, and at my own anger too, I was not in haste to see him again ; and he heard, from more than one, that my resentment continued. Finding, at last, or supposing, that I might not call on him any more, he requested a respectable friend to tell me that he would be glad to see me as soon as possible ; but this message was delivered me while making ready to go into Sussex, where I staid a month longer ; and it was on my leav- ing Sussex, that the newspapers apprised me my friend was no more, and England had lost possibly the greatest of her literary ornaments. ( ] ) (1) [The interesting memoir of Baretti, in the Gentleman's Magazine for May, 1789, drawn up by Dr. Vincent, concludes thus : — " It was not distress that compelled Baretti to take refuge in the hospitality of Mr. Thrale, as has been suggested. D 4 40 JOHNSONIANA. Part XXV. ANECDOTES AND REMARKS, BY BISHOP PERCY, (i) 529. Stourbridge School. Sir John Hawkins is not correct in saying that Johnson, in early life,, had not been accustomed to the conversation of gentlemen. His genius was so dis- tinguished, that, although little more than a schoolboy, he was admitted to the best company, both at Lichfield and Stourbridge ; and, in the latter neighbourhood, had met even with George, afterwards Lord Lyttelton ; with whom, having some colloquial disputes, he is supposed to have conceived that prejudice which so improperly influenced him in the Life of that worthy nobleman. But this could scarcely have happened when he was a boy of fifteen ; and, therefore, it is probable he occa- sionally visited Stourbridge, during his residence at Birmingham, before he removed to London. He had lately received five hundred pounds for his Spanish " Travels," but was induced by Dr. Johnson (contrary to his own determination, of never becoming a teacher of languages) to undertake the instruction of Mr. Thrale's daughters in Italian. He was either nine or eleven years almost entirely in that family, though he still rented a lodging in town ; during which period he expended his own five hundred pounds, and received nothing in return for his instruction, but the participation of a good table, and a hundred and fifty pounds by way of presents. Instead of his " Strictures on Signora Piozzi/' had he told this plain unvarnished tale, he would have convicted that lady of avarice and ingratitude, without incurring the danger of a reply, or exposing his memory to be insulted by her advocates."] (1) [From communications made by Bishop Percy, to Dr. Robert Anderson.] BISHOP PERCY. 41 530. Personal Peculiarities. Johnson's countenance, when in a good humour, was not disagreeable. His face clear , his complexion good, and his features not ill formed, many ladies have thought they might not have been unattractive when he was young. Much misrepresentation has prevailed on this subject, among such as did not personally know him. That he had some whimsical peculiarities of the nature described by Mr. Bos well, is certainly true ; but there is no reason to believe they proceeded from any superstitious motives, wherein religion was concerned : they are rather to be ascribed to the <( mental distem- pers" to which Boswell has so repeatedly alluded. Johnson was so extremely short-sighted, that he had no conception of rural beauties ; and, therefore, it is not to be wondered, that he should prefer the convers- ation of the metropolis to the silent groves and views of Hampstead and Greenwich ; which, however delightful, he could not see. In his Tour through the Highlands of Scotland^ he has somewhere observed, that one moun- tain was like another; so utterly unconscious was he of the wonderful variety of sublime and beautiful scenes those mountains exhibited. I was once present when the case of a gentleman was mentioned, who^ having, with great taste and skill, formed the lawns and plantations about his house into most beautiful landscapes, to com- plete one part of the scenery, was obliged to apply for leave to a neighbour with w T hom he was not upon cor- dial terms ; when Johnson made the following remark, which at once shows what ideas he had of landscape improvement, and how happily he applied the most common incidents to moral instruction. " See how inordinate desires enslave a man ! No desire can be more innocent than to have a pretty garden, yet, in- dulged to excess, it has made this poor man submit to beg a favour of his enemv." 42 JOHNSONIANA. 531.. Johnsons Manner of Composing. Johnson's manner of composing has not been rightly understood. He was so extremely short-sighted, from the defect in his eyes, that writing was inconvenient to him ; for, whenever he wrote, he was obliged to hold the paper close to his face. He, therefore, never com- posed what we call a foul draft on paper of any thing he published, but used to revolve the subject in his mind, and turn and form every period, till he had brought the whole to the highest correctness and the most perfect arrangement. Then his uncommonly re- tentive memory enabled him to deliver a whole essay, properly finished, whenever it was called for. I have often heard him humming and forming periods, in low whispers to himself, when shallow observers thought he was muttering prayers, &c. But Johnson is well known to have represented his own practice, in the following passage in his Life of Pope : " Of composition there are different methods. Some employ at once memory and invention ; and, with little intermediate use of the pen, form and polish large masses by continued me- ditation, and write their productions only when, in their own opinion, they have completed them/ 532. Dislike of Swift. The extraordinary prejudice and dislike of Swift, manifested on all occasions by Johnson, whose political opinions coincided exactly with his, has been difficult to account for ; and is therefore attributed to his failing in getting a degree, which Swift might not choose to solicit, for a reason given below. The real cause is believed to be as follows : The Rev. Dr. Madden ( ] ), who distinguished himself so laudably by giving pre- miums to the young students of Dublin College, for (1) [See ante, Vol. II. p. 8. and 73.] BISHOP PERCY. 43 which he had raised a fund, by applying for contribu- tions to the nobility and gentry of Ireland, had solicited the same from Swift, when he was sinking into that morbid idiocy which only terminated with his life, and was saving every shilling to found his hospital for lunatics ; but his application was refused with so little delicacy, as left in Dr. Madden a rooted dislike to Swift's character, which he communicated to Johnson, whose friendship he gained on the following occasion : Dr. Madden wished to address some person of high rank, in prose or verse ; and, desirous of having his compo- sition examined and corrected by some writer of superior talents, had been recommended to Johnson, who was at that time in extreme indigence ; and having finished his task, would probably have thought himself well re- warded with a guinea or two, when, to his great sur- prise, Dr. Madden generously slipped ten guineas into his hand. This made such an impression on Johnson, as led him to adopt every opinion of Dr. Madden, and to resent, as warmly as himself, Swift's rough refusal of the contribution ; after which the latter could not decently request any favour from the University of Dublin. 533. The Dictionary. The account of the manner in which Johnson com- piled his Dictionary, as given by Mr. Boswell ( J ), is confused and erroneous, and, a moment's reflection will convince every person of judgment, could not be correct; for, to write down an alphabetical arrangement of all the words in the English language, and then hunt through the whole compass of English literature for all their different significations, would have taken the whole life of any individual ; but Johnson, who, among other peculiarities of his character, excelled most men in con- (1) [See ante, Vol. I. p. 217.] 14 JOHNSONIANA. triving the best means to accomplish any end, devised the following mode for completing his Dictionary, as he himself expressly described to the writer of this ac- count. He began his task by devoting his first care to a diligent perusal of all such English writers as were most correct in their language, and under every sentence which he meant to quote he drew a line, and noted in the margin the first letter of the word under which it was to occur. He then delivered these books to his clerks, who transcribed each sentence on a separate slip of paper, and arranged the same under the word referred to. By these means he collected the several words and their different significations ; and when the whole ar- rangement was alphabetically formed, he gave the defi- nitions of their meanings, and collected their etymologies from Skinner, Junius, and other writers on the subject. In completing his alphabetical arrangement, he, no doubt, would recur to former dictionaries, to see if any words had escaped him ; but this, which Mr. Boswell makes the first step in the business, was in reality the last ; and it was doubtless to this happy arrangement that Johnson effected in a few years, what employed the foreign academies nearly half a century. 534. Miss Williams. (*) During the summer of 1764, Johnson paid a visit to me, at my vicarage-house in Easton-Mauduit, near Wel- lingborough, in Northamptonshire, and spent parts of the months of June, July, and August w T ith me, ac- companied by his friend Miss Williams, whom Mrs. Percy found a very agreeable companion. As poor Miss Williams, whose history is so connected with that of Johnson, has not had common justice done her by his biographers, it may be proper to mention, that, so far from being a constant source of disquiet and vex- ation to him, although she had been totally blind for the (1) [See ante, Vol. I. p. 274.] BISHOP PERCY. 45 last thirty years of her life, her mind was so well cul- tivated, and her conversation so agreeable, that she very- much enlivened and diverted his solitary hours ; and, though there may have happened some slight disagree- ments between her and Mrs. Desmoulins, which, at the moment, disquieted him, the friendship of Miss Wil- liams contributed very much to his comfort and hap- piness. For, having been the intimate friend of his wife, who harl invited her to his house, she continued to reside with him, and in her he had always a con- versable companion ; who, whether at his dinners or at his tea-table, entertained his friends with her sensible conversation. Being extremely clean and neat in her person and habits, she never gave the least disgust by her manner of eating ; and when she made tea for Johnson and his friends, conducted it with so much delicacy, by gently touching the outside of the cup, to feel, by the heat, the tea as it ascended within, that it was rather matter of admiration than of dislike to every attentive observer. 535. Truth. Johnson was fond of disputation, and willing to see what could be said on each side of the question, when a subject was argued. At all other times, no man had a more scrupulous regard for truth ; from which, I verily believe, he would not have deviated to save his life. 536. Robert Levett. Mr. Boswell describes Levett as a man of a strange, grotesque appearance, stiff and formal in his manner.^) This is misrepresented. He was a modest, reserved man; humble and unaffected; ready to execute any commission for Johnson ; and grateful for his patronage. (1) [See ante, Vol. I. p. 290.] 46 J0HNS0N1ANA. 537. Mr. Thrale. Of Mr. Thrale, Johnson has given a true character in a Latin epitaph, inscribed on his monument in Streatham church. This most amiable and worthy gentleman certainly deserved every tribute of gratitude from the Doctor and his literary friends ; who were always welcome at his hospitable table. It must there- fore give us great concern to see his origin degraded by any of them, in a manner that might be extremely in- jurious to his elegant and accomplished daughters, if it could not be contradicted ; for his father is represented to have been a common drayman ; whereas, he was well known to have been a respectable citizen, who increased a fortune, originally not contemptible, and proved his mind had been always liberal, by giving a superior education to his son. 538. " The Rambler." Mr. Boswefl objects to the title of cc Rambler," which he says, was ill-suited to a series of grave and moral discourses, and is translated into Italian, 6C II Vaga- bondo," as also because the same title was afterwards given to a licentious magazine. These are curious rea- sons. But, in the first place, Mr. Boswell assumes, that Johnson intended only to write a series of papers on " grave and moral" subjects ; whereas, on the con- trary, he meant this periodical paper should be open for the reception of every subject, serious or sprightly, solemn or familiar, moral or amusing ; and therefore endeavoured to find a title as general and unconfined as possible. He acknowledged, that " The Spectator " was the most happily chosen of all others, and cc The Tatler" the next to it: and after long consideration how to fix a third title, equally capacious and suited to his purpose, he suddenly thought upon " The Ram- PERCY. 47 bier" (*) ; and it would be difficult to find any other that so exactly coincided with the motto he has adopted in the title-page — " Quo me cunque rapit tempestas deferor hospes. " 539. Fear of Death. Mr. Boswell states, that " Dr. Johnson's conduct, after he had associated with Savage and others, was not so strictly virtuous, in one respect, as when he was a younger man. ( 2 ) This seems to have been suggested by Mr. Boswell, to account for Johnson's religious ter- rors on the approach of death ; as if they proceeded from his having been led by Savage to vicious in- dulgences with the women of the town, in his nocturnal rambles. This, if true, Johnson was not likely to have confessed to Mr. Boswell, and therefore must be re- ceived as a pure invention of his own. But if Johnson ever conversed with those unfortunate females, it is be- lieved to have been in order to reclaim them from their dissolute life, by moral and religious impressions ; for to one of his friends he once related a conversation of that sort which he had with a young female in the street, and that, asking her what she thought she was made for, her reply was, if she supposed to please the gentlemen." His friend intimating his surprise, that he should have had communications with street-walkers, implying a suspicion that they were not of a moral tendency, John- son expressed the highest indignation that any other motive could ever be suspected. (1) [A paper, entitled "The Rambler," appeared in 1712. Only one number of it seems to have escaped the ravages of time ; this is in the British Museum.] (2) [See ante, Vol. VIII. p. 395. J 48 JOHNSONIANA. Part XXVI. ANECDOTES AND REMARKS, BY LADY KNIGHT, (i) 540. Mrs. Johnson. Mrs. Williams's account of Johnson's wife was, that she had a good understanding and great sensibility but inclined to be satirical. Her first husband died in- solvent : her sons were much disgusted with her for her second marriage ; perhaps because they, being strug- gling to get advanced in life, were mortified to think she had allied herself to a man who had not any visible means of being useful to them. However, she always retained her affection for them. While they resided in Gough Court, her son, the officer, knocked at the door, and asked the maid if her mistress was at home ? She answered, " Yes, Sir ; but she is sick in bed." " O !" says he, e< if it is so, tell her that her son Jervas called to know how she did ;" and was going away. The maid begged she might run up to tell her mistress, and, without attending his answer, left him. Mrs. Johnson, enraptured to hear her son was below, desired the maid to tell him she longed to embrace him. When the maid descended, the gentleman was gone, and poor Mrs. Johnson was much agitated by the adventure : it was the only time he ever made an effort to see her. Dr. (1) [From a paper transmitted by Lady Knight, at Rome, to Mr. Hoole. Lady Knight was the mother of Miss Cornelia Knight, the accomplished author of " Dinarbas," " Marcus Flaminius," and other ingenious works. See ante y Vol. I. p. 275., and Vol. III. p. 9.] LADY KNIGHT. 49 Johnson did all he could to console his wife ; but told Mrs. Williams, " Her son is uniformly undutiful ; so I conclude, like many other sober men, he might once in his life be drunk, and in that fit nature got the better of his pride." 541. Mrs. Williams. Mrs. Williams was never otherwise dependent on Dr. Johnson, than in that sort of association, which is little known in the great world. They both had much to struggle through ; and I verily believe, that whichever held the purse, the other partook what want required. She was, in respect to morals, more rigid than mo- dern politeness admits ; for she abhorred vice, and was not sparing of anger against those who threw young folks into temptation. Her ideas were very just in re- spect to the improvement of the mind, and her own was well stored. I have several of her letters : they are all written with great good sense and simplicity, and with a tenderness and affection, that far excel all that is called politeness and elegance. I have been favoured with her company some weeks at different times, and always found her temper equal, and her con- versation lively. I never passed hours with more plea- sure than when I heard her and J>r. Johnson talk of the persons they valued, or upon subjects in which they were much interested. One night I remember Mrs. Williams was giving an account of the Wilkinsons being at Paris, and having had consigned to their care the letters of Lady Wortley Montagu, on which they had bestowed great praise. The Doctor said, "Why, Madam, there might be great charms to them in being intrusted with honourable letters ; but those who know better of the world, would have rather possessed two pages of true history/' One day that he came to my house to meet many others, we told him that we had arranged our party to go to Westminster Abbey, would not he go with us ? a No," he replied ; u not while I vol. x. fi 50 JOHNSONIANA. can keep out." Upon our saying, that the friends of a lady had been in great fear lest she should make a certain match for herself, he said, " We that are his friends have had great fears for him." I talked to Mrs. Thrale much of dear Mrs. Williams. She said she was highly born ; that she was very nearly related to a Welsh peer ; but that, though Dr. Johnson had always pressed her to be acquainted with her, yet she could not ; she was afraid of her. I named her virtues ; she seemed to hear me as if I had spoken of a newly dis- covered country. 542. Johnson's Character. I think the character of Dr. Johnson can never be better summedup than in his own words in " Rasselas," chapter 42. He was master of an infinite deal of wit, which proceeded from depth of thought, and of a humour which he used sometimes to take off from the asperity of reproof. Though he did frequently utter very sportive things, which might be said to be playing upon the folly of some of his companions, and though he never said one that could disgrace him, yet I think, now that he is no more, the care should be to prove his steady uniformity in wisdom, virtue, and religion. His political principles ran high, both in church and state : he wished power to the king and to the heads of the church, as the laws of England have established ; but I know he disliked absolute power, and I am very sure of his disapprobation of the doctrines of the church of Rome ; because, about three weeks before we came abroad, he said to my Cor- nelia, " You are going where the ostentatious pomp of church ceremonies attracts the imagination ; but, if they want to persuade you to change your religion, you must remember, that, by increasing your faith, you may be persuaded to become a Turk." If these were not the words, I have kept up to the express meaning. STOCKDALE, SI Part XXVII. ANECDOTES, BY MR. STOCKDALE. (*) 543. Swift — The Tale of a Tub. About the year 1770, I was invited by the lively and hospitable Tom Davies to dine with him, to meet some interesting characters. Dr. Johnson was of the party, and this was my first introduction to him : there were others, with whom every intelligent mind would have wished to converse, — Dr. Goldsmith and Mr. Meyer, the elegant miniature painter. Swift was one of our convivial subjects ; of whom it was Dr. John- son's invariable custom to speak in a disparaging man- ner. We gave our sentiments, and undoubtedly of high panegyric, on the Tale of a Tub ; of which Dr. Johnson insisted, in his usual positive manner, that it was impossible that Swift should have been the author, it was so eminently superior to all his other works. I expressed my own conviction, that it was written by Swift, and that, in many of his productions, he showed a genius not unequal to the composition of the Tale of a Tub. The Doctor desired me to name one. I re- (l) [From " Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Percival Stockdale," 2 vols. 8vo. 1809. To this gentleman, the "Bel- field " of Miss Burney's " Cecilia," Johnson was, upon several occasions, a kind protector. He was, for some years, the Doctor's neighbour, both in Johnson's Court and Bolt Court. For Miss Jane Porter's character of him, see ant^ Vol, III. p. 122. n.] E 2 52 JOHNSONIAN' A. plied, that I thought Gulliver's Travels not unworthy of the performance he so exclusively admired. He would not admit the instance ; but said, that " if Swift was really the author of the Tale of a Tub, as the best of his other performances were of a very inferior merit, he should have hanged himself after he had written it." 544. The Journal to Stella. Johnson said on the same day, " Swift corresponded minutely with Stella and Mrs. Dingley, on his im- portance with the ministry, from excessive vanity — that the women might exclaim, 'What a great man Dr. Swift is ! •'" 54:5. Warburton. Among other topics, Warburton claimed our at- tention. Goldsmith took a part against Warburton whom Johnson strenuously defended, and, indeed, with many strong arguments, and with bright sallies of elo- quence. Goldsmith ridiculously asserted, that Warbur- ton was a weak writer. This misapplied characteristic Dr. Johnson refuted. I shall never forget one of the happy metaphors with which he strengthened and illustrated his refutation. " Warburton," said he, " may be absurd, but he will never be weak : he floun- ders well ." 54:6. Johnson s Cat. If I wanted the precedents, examples, and authority of celebrated men, to warrant my humble regard and affection for a cat, either in my boyish or maturer years (that useful, and indeed amiable, but infamously ha- rassed and persecuted creature), those precedents I might easily produce. Montaigne has recorded his cat, in his usual facetiousness, but in an affectionate manner. And as the insolence of Achilles, and the sternness of Telamonian Ajax, were subdued by a Briseis and a STOCKDALE. 53 Tecmessa, I have frequently seen the ruggedness of Dr. Johnson softened to smiles and caresses, by the inarticulate, yet pathetic, expressions of his favourite Hodge. 547. Charles the Twelfth. Charles the Twelfth was guilty of a deed which will eternally shade the glory of one of the most splendid periods that are presented to us in history — the murder of Patkal. Dr. Johnson remarked to me, when we were conversing on this tragical subject, that Charles had nine years of good and nine of bad fortune ; that his adverse events began soon after the execution of Patkal, and continued to his death. Johnson may be pronounced to have been superstitious ; but I own that I was sensibly struck with the force of the observation. 548. Pope's Homer. Lord Lyttelton told me, that on a visit to Mr. Pope, while he was translating the Iliad, he took the liberty to express to that great poet his surprise, that he had not determined to translate Homer's poem into blank verse ; as it was an epic poem, and as he had before him the illustrious example of Milton, in the Paradise Lost. Mr. Pope's answer to Lord Lyttelton was, that " he could translate it more easily into rhyme." I com- municated this anecdote to Dr. Johnson ; his remark to me was, I think, very erroneous in criticism, — " Sir, when Pope said that, he knew that he lied." 549. Garrick. When Dr. Johnson and I were talking of Garrick, I observed, that he was a very moderate, fair, and pleas- ing companion ; when we considered what a constant influx had flowed upon him, both of fortune and fame, to throw him off his bias of moral and social self- government. tc Sir," replied Johnson, in his usual emphatical and glowing manner, " you are very right e 3 54 JOHNbONIANA. in your remark ; Garrick has undoubtedly the merit of a temperate and unassuming behaviour in society ; for more pains have been taken to spoil that fellow, than if he had been heir apparent to the empire of India ! " When Garrick was one day mentioning to me Dr. Johnson's illiberal treatment of him, on different occa- sions ; " I question/' said he, " whether, in his calmest and most dispassionate moments, he would allow me the high theatrical merit which the public have been so generous as to attribute to me." I told him, that I would take an early opportunity to make the trial, and that I would not fail to inform him of the result of my experiment. As I had rather an active curiosity to put Johnson's disinterested generosity fairly to the test, on this apposite subject, I took an early opportunity of waiting on him, to hear his verdict on Garrick's pre- tensions to his great and universal fame. I found him in very good and social humour ; and I began a con- versation which naturally led to the mention of Garrick. I said something particular on his excellence as an actor; and I added, " But pray, Dr. Johnson, do you really think that he deserves that illustrious theatrical cha- racter, and that prodigious fame, which he has ac- quired?" u Ob, Sir," said he, (i he deserves every thing that he has acquired, for having seized the very soul of Shakspeare ; for having embodied it in himself; and for having extended its glory over the world/' I was not slow in communicating to Garrick the answer of the Delphic oracle. The tear started in his eye — " Oh ! Stockdale," said he, ce such a praise from such 5 man ! — this atones for all that has passed." 550. Intoxication* I called on Dr. Johnson one morning, when Mrs. Williams, the blind lady, was conversing with him. She was telling him where she had dined the day before. C£ There were several gentlemen there," said she, " and STOCKDALE. 55 when some of them came to the tea-table, I found that there had been a good deal of hard drinking." She closed this observation with a common and trite moral reflection ; which, indeed, is very ill-founded, and does great injustice to animals — " I wonder what pleasure men can take in making beasts of themselves!" " I wonder, Madam," replied the Doctor, " that you have not penetration enough to see the strong inducement to this excess ; for he who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man." 551. Mrs. Bruce. Mrs. Bruce^ an old Scotch lady, the widow of Cap- tain Bruce, who had been for many years an officer in the Russian service, drank tea with me one afternoon at my lodgings in Bolt Court, when Johnson was ond of the company. She spoke very broad Scotch ; and this alarmed me for her present social situation. " Dr a Johnson," said she/' you tell us, in your Dictionary, that in England oats are given to horses ; but that in Scot- land they support the people. Now, Sir, I can assure you, that in Scotland we give oats to our horses, as well as you do to yours in England." I almost trembled for the widow of the Russian hero : I never saw a more contemptuous leer than that which Johnson threw at Mrs. Bruce : however, he deigned her an answer, — " I am very glad, Madam, to find that you treat your horses as well as you treat yourselves/' I was delivered from my panic, and I wondered that she was so gently set down. 56 JOHNSONIANA. Part XXVIII. ANECDOTES, BY MISS HAWKINS. (0 552. Johnsons Person and Dress. When first I remember Johnson, I used to see him sometimes at a little distance from the house,, coming to call on my father ; his look directed downwards, or rather in such abstraction as to have no direction. His walk was heavy, but he got on at a great rate, his left arm always placed across his breast, so as to bring the hand under his chin ; and he walked wide, as if to sup- port his weight. Got out of a hackney coach, which had set him down in Fleet Street, my brother Henry says, he made his way up Bolt Court in the zig-zag direction of a blast of lightning ; submitting his course only to the deflections imposed by the impossibility of going further to right or left. His clothes hung loose, and the pocket on the right hand swung violently, the lining of his coat being always visible. I can now call to mind his brown hand, his metal sleeve-buttons, and my surprise at seeing him with plain wristbands, when all gentlemen wore ruffles ; his coat-sleeve being very wide, showed his linen almost to his elbow. His wig in common was cut and bushy; if by chance he had one that had been dressed in separate (1) [From the Memoirs of Letitia Hawkins (daughter of Sir John), 2 vols. 8vo. 1827-} MISS HAWKINS. 57 curls, it gave him a disagreeable look, not suited to his years or character. In his colloquial intercourse, Johnson's compliments were studied, and therefore lost their effect : his head dipped lower ; the semicircle in which it revolved was of greater extent ; and his roar was deeper in its tone when he meant to be civil. His movement in reading, which he did with great rapidity, was humorously de- scribed after his death, by a lady, who said, that " his head swung seconds." The usual initial sentences of his conversation led some to imagine that to resemble him was as easy as to mimic him, and that, if they began with " Why, Sir," or " I know no reason," or ie If any man chooses to think," or " If you mean to say," they must, of course, " talk Johnson." That his style might be imitated, is true ; and that its strong features made it easier to lay hold on it than on a milder style, no one will dispute. 553. The Economy of Bolt Court. What the economy of Dr. Johnson's house may have been under his wife's administration, I cannot tell ; but under Miss Williams's management, and, indeed, after- wards, when he was overcome at the misery of those around him, it always exceeded my expectation, as far as the condition of the apartment into which I was ad- mitted could enable me to judge. It was not, indeed, his study : amongst his books he probably might bring Magliabecchi to recollection; but I saw him only in the decent drawing-room of a house, not inferior to others on the same local situation, and with stout old-fashioned mahogany table and chairs. He was a liberal customer to his tailor, and I can remember that his linen was often a strong contrast to the colour of his hands. 554}. Bennet Langton. On one occasion, I remember Johnson's departing 58 JOHNSONIANA. from his gentleness towards Mr. Langton, and in his irritation showing some inconsistency of ideas. I went with my father to call in Bolt Court one Sunday after church. There were many persons in the Doctor's drawing-room, and among them Mr. Langton, who stood leaning against the post of en open door, under- going what I suppose the giver of it would have called an " objurgation." Johnson, on my father's entrance, went back to explain the cause of this, which was no less than that Mr. Langton, in his opinion, ought then to have been far on his road into Lincolnshire, where he was informed his mother was very ill. Mr. Lang- ton's pious affection for his mother could not be doubted, — she was a parent of whom any son might have been proud ; but this was a feeling which never could have been brought into the question by her son : the inert spirit, backed, perhaps, by hope, and previous knowledge of the extent of similar attacks, prevailed ; and John- son's arguments seemed hitherto rather to have riveted Mr. Langton's feet to the place where he was, than to have spurred him to quit it. My father, thus referred to, took up the subject, and a few half- whispered sen- tences from him made Mr. Langton take his leave ; but, as he was quitting the room, Johnson, with one of his howls, and his indescribable but really pathetic slow semi-circuits of his head, said most energetically, " Do, Hawkins, teach Langton a little of the world." 555. Mrs. Thrale. On the death of Mr. Thrale, it was concluded by some, that Johnson would marry the widow ; by others, that he would entirely take up his residence in her house; which, resembling the situation of many other learned men, would have been nothing extraordinary or cen- surable. The path he would pursue was not evident ; . when, on a sudden, he came out again, and sought my father with kind eagerness. Calls were exchanged : he MISS HAWKINS. 59 would now take his tea with us ; and in one of those evening visits, which were the pleasantest periods of my knowledge of him, saying, when taking leave, that he was leaving London, Lady Hawkins said, " I suppose you are going to Bath ?" u Why should you suppose so ? " said he. " Because," said my mother, u I hear Mrs. Thrale is gone there/' " I know nothing of Mrs. Thrale," he roared out ; " good evening to you." The state of affairs was soon made known. 556. Warburton. To Warbur ton's great powers he did full justice. He did not always, my brother says, agree with him in his notions ; " but," said he, (C with all his errors, si non err asset, fecerat ille minus" Speaking of War bur- ton's contemptuous treatment of some one who presumed to differ from him, I heard him repeat with much glee the coarse expressions in which he had vented this feel- ing, that there could be no doubt of his hearty appro- bation. 557. Sex. He said, he doubted whether there ever was a man who was not gratified by being told that he was liked by the women. 558. Reading and Study. Speaking of reading and study, my younger brother heard him say, that he would not ask a man to give up his important interests for them, because it would not be fair ; but that, if any man would employ in reading that time which he would otherwise waste, he would answer for it, if he were a man of ordinary endowment, that he would make a sensible man. " He might not/' said he, " make a Bentley, but he would be a sensible man," 60 JOHNSONIANA. 559* Thurlow. — Burke, — Boswell. It may be said of Johnson, that he had a peculiar individual feeling of regard towards his many and va- rious friends, and that he was to each what I might call the indenture or counterpart of what they were to him. My brother says, that any memoirs of his conversations with Lord Thurlow or Burke would be invaluable : to the former he acknowledged that he always (( talked his best;" and the latter would, by the force of his own powers, have tried those of Johnson to the utmost. But still the inquisitive world, that world whose inquisitive- ness has tempted almost to sacrilege, would not have been satisfied without the minor communications of Boswell, though he sometimes sorely punctured his friend to get at what he wanted. 560. Complainers. It is greatly to the honour of Johnson, that he never accustomed himself to descant on the ingratitude of mankind, or to comment on the many causes he had to think harshly of the world. He said once to my youngest brother, " I hate a complainer." This hatred might preserve him from the habit. 561. Envy. — Dr. Taylor. Johnson was, with all his infirmities, bodily and mental, less of the thorough-bred irritabile genus of authors, than most of his compeers : he had no petty feelings of animosity, to be traced only to mean causes. He said of some one, indeed, that he was " a good hater," as if he approved the feeling ; but I understand by the expression, that it was at least a justifiable, an honest and avowed aversion, that obtained this character for its possessor. But still more to his honour is it, that his irritability was not excited by the most common cause of mortification. He saw the companion of his studies and the witness of his poverty, Taylor, raised MISS HAWKINS. 61 by the tide of human affairs to bloating affluence, and, I should presume,, with pretensions of every kind, far, very far inferior to his : yet I do not recollect having ever heard of a sigh excited by his disparity of lot. That he envied Garrick, while he loved and admired him, is true ; but it was under the pardonable feeling of jealousy, in seeing histrionic excellence so much more highly prized, than that which he knew himself to possess* 562. Reynolds's " Discourses" On Johnson's death, Mr. Langton said to Sir John Hawkins, " We shall now know whether he has or has not assisted Sir Joshua in his f Discourses ; ' " but Johnson had assured Sir John, that his assistance had never ex- ceeded the substitution of a word or two, in preference to what Sir Joshua had written. 563. " Mr. James Boswell" My father and Boswell grew a little acquainted ; and when the Life of their friend came out, Boswell showed himself very uneasy under an injury, which he was much embarrassed in defining. He called on my father, and being admitted, complained of the manner in which he was enrolled amongst Johnson's friends, which was as u Mr. James Boswell of Auchinleck." Where was the offence ? It was one of those which a complainant hardly dares to embody in words : he would only repeat, ' ' Well, but Mr. James Boswell ! surely, surely, Mr. James Boswell ! ! " " I know/' said my father, u Mr. Boswell, what you mean ; you would have had me say that Johnson undertook this tour with The Boswell." He could not indeed absolutely covet this mode of pro- clamation ; he would perhaps have been content with " the celebrated," or " the well-known," but he could not confess quite so much ; he therefore acquiesced in the amendment proposed, but he was forced to depart without any promise of correction in a subsequent edition. 62 JOHNSONIANA. Part XXIX. ANECDOTES, BY JOHN NICHOLS, ESQ. (i) 564. fix the aeras of recorded time, And live in ev'ry age and ev'ry clime ; Record the chiefs, who propt their country's cause; Who founded empires, and establish'd laws ; To learn whate'er the sage with virtue fraught, Whate'er the Muse of moral wisdom taught. These were your quarry ; these to you were known, And the world's ample volume was your own. * Yet warn'd by me, ye pigmy Wits, beware, Nor with immortal Scaliger compare. For me, though his example strike my view, Oh ! not for me his footsteps to pursue. Whether first Nature, unpropitious, cold, This clay compounded in a ruder mould ; Or the slow current, loit'ring at my heart, No gleam of wit or fancy can impart ; Whate'er the cause, from me no numbers flow, No visions warm me, and no raptures glow. •* A mind like Scaliger's, superior still, No grief could conquer, no misfortune chill. Though for the maze of words his native skies He seem'd to quit, 't was but again to rise ; To mount once more to the bright source of day, And view the wonders of th' etherial way. The love of fame his gen'rous bosom fired ; Each Science hail'd him, and each Muse inspired. For him the Sons of Learning trimm'd the bays, And nations grew harmonious in his praise. u My task perform'd, and all my labours o*er, For me what lot has Fortune now in store ? The listless will succeeds, that worst disease, The rack of indolence, the sluggish ease. Care grows on care, and o'er my aching brain Black Melancholy pours her morbid train. No kind relief, no lenitive at hand, I seek, at midnight clubs, the social band ; But midnight clubs, where wit with noise conspires^ Where Comus revels, and where wine inspires, F 3 70 JOHNSON1ANA. Delight no more : I seek my lonely bed, And call on Sleep to sooth my languid head But sleep from these sad lids flies far away ; I mourn all night, and dread the coming day. Exhausted, tired, I throw my eyes around, To find some vacant spot on classic ground : And soon, vain hope ! I form a grand design ; Langour succeeds, and all my powers decline. If Science open not her richest vein, Without materials all our toil is vain. A form to rugged stone when Phidias gives, Beneath his touch a new creation lives. Remove his marble, and his genius dies ; With nature then no breathing statue vies. :i Whate'er I plan, I feel my powers confined By Fortune's frown and penury of mind. I boast no knowledge glean'd with toil and strife, That bright reward of a well- acted life. I view myself, while Reason's feeble light Shoots a pale glimmer through the gloom of night. While passions, errors, phantoms of the brain, And vain opinions, fill the dark domain ; A dreary void, where fears with grief combined Waste all within, and desolate the mind. '-' What then remains? Must I in slow decline To mute inglorious ease old age resign ? Or, bold ambition kindling in my breast, Attempt some arduous task ? Or, were it best Brooding o'er Lexicons to pass the day, And in that labour drudge my life away ? " (l) Such is the picture for which Dr. Johnson sat to himself. He gives the prominent features of his cha- racter ; his lassitude, his morbid melancholy, his love of fame, his dejection, his tavern parties, and his wan- dering reveries, Vacua mala somnia mentis, abou/; (1) [This spirited translation, or rather imitation, is by Mr. Murphy.] MURPHY. 71 which so much has heen written ; all are painted in miniature, but in vivid colours, by his own hand. His idea of writing more dictionaries was not merely said in verse. Mr. Hamilton, who was at that time an eminent printer, and well acquainted with Dr. Johnson, re- members that he engaged in a Commercial Dictionary, and, as appears by the receipts in his possession, was paid his price for several sheets ; but he soon relin- quished the undertaking. 578. BoswelVs Introduction to Johnson. Upon one occasion, I went with Dr. Johnson into the shop of Davies, the bookseller, in Russell Street, Covent Garden. Davies came running to him almost out of breath with joy : " The Scots gentleman is come, Sir; his principal wish is to see you; he is now in the back parlour." "Well, well, I'll see the gen- tleman," said Johnson. He walked towards the room. Mr. Bos well was the person. I followed with no small curiosity. " I find," said Mr. Boswell, u that I am come to London at a bad time, when great popular pre- judice has gone forth against us North Britons ; but, when I am talking to you, I am talking to a large and liberal mind, and you know that I cannot help coining from Scotland/* "Sir," said Johnson, "no more can the rest of your countrymen." (*) 579. Dread of Death. For many years, when he was not disposed to enter into the conversation going forward, whoever sat near his chair might hear him repeating, from Shakspeare, — " Ay, but to die and go we know not where; To lie in cold obstruction and to rot • (1) [Mr. BoswelPs account of this introduction is very dif« ferent from the above. See ante, Vol. II. p. 163,1 F 4 > <2 JOHNSONIANA. This sensible warm motion to become \ kneaded clod, and the delighted spirit To bathe in fiery floods," And from Milton,— " Who would lose, For fear of pain, this intellectual being ! " 580. Essex- Head Club. Johnson, being in December 1783 eased of his dropsy, began to entertain hopes that the vigour of his con- stitution was not entirely broken. For the sake of conversing with his friends, he established a conversa- tion-club, to meet on every Wednesday evening ; and, to serve a man whom he had known in Mr. Thrale's household for many years, the place was fixed at his house in Essex Street near the Temple. To answer the malignant remarks of Sir John Hawkins, on this sub- ject ( J ), were a wretched waste of time. Professing to be Johnson's friend, that biographer has raised more objections to his character than all the enemies to that excellent man. Sir John had a root of bitterness that " put rancours in the vessel of his peace." " Fielding,'* he says, " was the inventor of a cant phrase, Goodness of heart, which means little more than the virtue of a horse or a dog." He should have known that kind affections are the essence of virtue ; they are the will of God implanted in our nature, to aid and strengthen moral obligation ; they incite to action ; a sense of be- nevolence is no less necessary than a sense of duty. Good affections are an ornament not only to an author but to his writings. He who shows himself upon a cold scent for opportunities to bark and snarl through- out a volume of six hundred pages, may, if he will, pretend to moralise ; but " goodness of heart," or, to (l) [See ante, Vol. VIII. p. 250.] MURPHY. 73 use the politer phrase, the iC virtue of a horse or a dog," would redound more to his honour. 581. Character of Johnson, If we now look back, as from an eminence, to view the scenes of life and the literary labours in which Dr. Johnson was engaged, we may be able to delineate the features of the man, and to form an estimate of his genius. As a man, Dr. Johnson stands displayed in open daylight. Nothing remains undiscovered. What- ever he said is known ; and, without allowing him the usual privilege of hazarding sentiments, and advancing positions, for mere amusement, or the pleasure of dis- cussion, criticism has endeavoured to make him an- swerable for what, perhaps, he never seriously thought. His Diary, which has been printed, discovers still more. We have before us the very heart of the man, with all his inward consciousness. And yet, neither in the open paths of life, nor in his secret recesses, has any one vice been discovered. We see him reviewing every year of his life, and severely censuring himself, for not keeping resolutions, which morbid melancholy and other bodily infirmities rendered impracticable. We see him for every little defect imposing on himself vo- luntary penance, and to the last, amidst paroxysms and remissions of illness, forming plans of study and reso- lutions to amend his life. ( l ) Many of his scruple? may be called weaknesses ; but they are the weaknesses of a good, a pious, and most excellent man. Johnson was born a logician ; one of those to whom only books of logic are said to be of use. In conse- quence of his skill in that art, he loved argumentation. No man thought more profoundly, nor with such acute discernment. A fallacy could not stand before him : (l) On the subject of voluntary penance; see the Rambler No. 110. 74 JOHNSONIANA. it was sure to be refuted by strength of reasoning, and a precision both in idea and expression almost une- qualled. When he chose by apt illustration to place the argument of his adversary in a ludicrous light, one was almost inclined to think ridicule the test of truth. He was surprised to be told, but it is certainly true, that, with great powers of mind, wit and humour were his shining talents. That he often argued for the sake of triumph over his adversary, cannot be dissembled. Dr. Rose, of Chiswick, has been heard to tell a friend of his, who thanked him for introducing him to Dr. Johnson, as he had been convinced, in the course of a long dis- pute, that an opinion, which he had embraced as a settled truth, was no better than a vulgar error. This being reported to Johnson, " Nay/' said he, " do not let him be thankful; for he was right, and I was wrong." Like his uncle Andrew, in the ring at Smithfield, Johnson, in a circle of disputants, was determined neither to be thrown nor conquered. Not- withstanding all his piety, self-government, or the com- mand of his passions in conversation, does not seem to have been among his attainments. Whenever he thought the contention was for superiority, he has been known to break out with violence, and even ferocity. When the fray was over, he generally softened into repentance, and, by conciliating measures, took care that no animosity should be left rankling in the breast of his antagonist. It is observed by the younger Pliny, that in the con- fines of virtue and great qualities there are generally vices of an opposite nature. In Dr. Johnson not one ingredient can take the name of vice. From his attain- ments in literature grew the pride of knowledge ; and, from his powers of reasoning, the love of disputation and the vainglory of superior vigour. His piety, in some instances, bordered on superstition. He was will- ing to believe in preternatural agency, and thought it MURPHY. 75 not more strange that there should be evil spirits than evil men. Even the question about second sight held him in suspense. Since virtue, or moral goodness, consists in a just conformity of our actions to the relations in which we stand to the Supreme Being and to our fellow- creatures, where shall we find a man who has been, or endea- voured to be, more diligent in the discharge of those essential duties ? His first Prayer was composed in 1738 ; he continued those fervent ejaculations of piety to the end of his life. In his Meditations we see 'nirn scrutinising himself with severity, and aiming at per- fection unattainable by man. His duty to his neigh- bour consisted in universal benevolence, and a constant aim at the production of happiness. Who was more sincere and steady in his friendships ? His humanity and generosity, in proportion to his slender income, were unbounded. It has been truly said, that the lame, the blind, and the sorrowful, found in his house a sure retreat. A strict adherence to truth he considered as a sacred obligation, insomuch that, in relating the most minute anecdote, he would not allow himself the smallest addition to embellish his story. The late Mr. Tyers, who knew Dr. Johnson intimately, observed, that " he always talked as if he was talking upon oath." After a long acquaintance with this ex- cellent man, and an attentive retrospect to his whole conduct, such is the light in which he appears to the writer of this essay. The following lines of Horace may be deemed his picture in miniature : — " Iracundior est paulo, minus aptus acutis Naribus horum hominum, rideri possit, eo quod Rusticius tonso toga defluit, et male laxus In pede calceus hagret; at est bonus, ut melior vir Non alius quisquam ; at tibi amicus at ingenium ingens; Inculto latet hoc sub corpore." 76 JOHNSONIANA. " Your friend is passionate, perhaps unfit For the brisk petulance of modern wit His hair ill-cut, his robe that awkward ffows* Or his large shoes to raillery expose The man you love ; yet is he not possess'd Of virtues with which very few are blest? While underneath this rude, uncouth disguise A genius of extensive knowledge lies." Part XXXI. CRITICAL REMARKS, BY NATHAN DRAKE, M.D. (i) 582. "London." As this spirited imitation of Juvenal forms an epoch in our author's literary life, and is one of his best poeticai productions, I shall consider it as introductory to an uninterrupted consideration of his compositions in this branch, and to a discussion of his general character as a poet ; and this plan I shall pursue with regard to the other numerous departments of literature in which he excelled, and according to the order in which the first in merit of a class shall in succession rise to view ; per- suaded that, by this mode, the monotony arising from (1) [From "Essays, critical and historical, illustrative of the Rambler, Adventurer, and Idler:" Part II. " The Literary Life of Dr. Johnson." 2 vols. 1806 DRAKE. 77 a stricter chronological detail of his various writings, the arrangement hitherto adopted by his biographers, may, in a great measure, be obviated. Of the three imitators of the third satire of the Roman poet, Boileau, Oldham, and Johnson, the latter is, by many degrees, the most vigorous and poetical. No man, indeed, was better calculated to transfuse the stern invective, the sublime philosophy, and nervous painting of Juvenal, than our author; and his " London," whilst it rivals the original in these respects, is, at the same time, greatly superior to it in purity of illustration, and harmony of versification. The felicity with which he has adapted the imagery and allusions of the Latin poem to modern manners, vices, and events ; and the richness and depth of thought which he exhibits when the hint is merely taken from the Roman bard, or when he chooses altogether to desert him, are such as to render this satire the noblest moral poem in our lan- guage. At the period when Johnson wrote his " London," he must, from his peculiar circumstances, have been prone to imbibe all the warmth and indignation of the ancient satirist, who depicts in the boldest colours the un- merited treatment to which indigence is subjected, and the multiform oppressions arising from tyranny and ill- acquired wealth. He was, indeed, at this time, " steeped up to the lips in poverty," and was likewise a zealous opponent of what he deemed a corrupt administration. It is impossible to read the following passage, one of the finest in the poem, and especially its concluding line, which the author distinguished by capitals, without deeply entering into, and severely sympathising with, the feelings and sufferings of the writer : — " By numbers here from shame or censure free, All crimes are safe but hated poverty. This, only this, the rigid law pursues, This, only this, provokes the snarling muse. 78 JOHNSONIANA. The sober trader at a tatter'd cloak Wakes from his dream, and labours for a joke ; With brisker air the silken courtiers gaze, And turn the varied taunt a thousand ways. " Of all the griefs that harass the distress'd, Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest ; Fate never wounds more deep the gen'rous heart, That when a blockhead's insult points the dart. " Has Heaven reserved, in pity to the poor, No pathless waste, or undiscover'd shore ? No secret island in the boundless main ! No peaceful desert yet unclaim'd by Spain ? Quick let us rise, the happy seats explore, And bear oppression's insolence no more. This mournful truth is every where confess'd, Slow rises worth, by poverty depressed" Of the energy and compression which characterise the sentiment and diction of (< London/' this last line is a striking example ; for the original, though strong in its expression, is less terse and happy : — " Haud facile emergunt, quorum virtutibus obstat Res angusta domi.'* 583. fc Vanity of Human Wishes." The " Vanity of Human Wishes/' the subject of which is in a great degree founded on the Alcibiades of Plato, possesses not the point and fire which animates the " London." It breathes, however, a strain of calm and dignified philosophy, much more pleasing to the mind, and certainly much more consonant to truth, than the party exaggeration of the prior satire. The poet's choice of modern examples, in place of those brought forward by the ancient bard, is happy and judicious ; and he has every where availed himself, and in a style the most impressive, of the solemnity, the pathos, and sublime morality of the Christian code. To enter into competition with the tenth satire of DRAKE. 79 Juvenal, which is, without doubt, the most perfect composition of its author, was a daring and a hazardous attempt. Dryden had led the way, and, though oc- casionally successful, has failed to equal the general merit of the Latin poem. The imitation of Johnson, on the contrary, may be said to vie with the Roman in every line, and in some instances to surpass the original ; particularly in the sketch of Charles, and in the con- clusion of the satire, which, though nobly moral as it is in the page of Juvenal, is greatly heightened by the pen of Johnson, and forms one of the finest lessons of piety and resignation discoverable in the works of any uninspired writer. After reprobating the too frequent folly of our wishes and our prayers, it is inquired of the poet, whether we shall upon no occasion implore the mercy of the skies ? He replies : — " Inquirer, cease; petitions yet remain, Which Heaven may hear, nor deem religion vain. Still raise for good the supplicating voice, But leave to Heaven the measure and the choice. Safe in his power, whose eyes discern afar The secret ambush of a specious prayer ; Implore his aid, in his decisions rest, Secure whate'er he gives he gives the best. Yet when the sense of sacred presence fires, And strong devotion to the skies aspires, Pour forth thy fervours for a healthful mind y Obedient passions, and a icill resigned. For love, which scarce collective man canfUl ; For patience, sovereign o'er transmuted ill; For faith, that, pantingfor a happier leat, Counts death kind nature's signal of retreat : These goods for man the laws of heaven ord lin, These goods he grants, who grants the powc* to gain ; With these celestial wisdom calms the mind, And makes the happiness she does not find." 80 johnsomana 584. " Irene." a ^vpnturer, No, 126. 88 JOHNSONIANA. was consequently founded on such a basis as will not easily be shaken by succeeding modes. 588. Johnson sketched by Himself. The character of Sober in the " Idler/' No. 31., was intended by the author as a delineation of himself. Johnson was constitutionally idle, nor was he roused to any great effort, but by the imperious call of necessity : his exertions, indeed, when sufficiently stimulated, were gigantic, but they were infrequent and uncertain. He was destined to complain of the miseries of idleness, and to mitigate his remorse by repeated but too often ineffectual resolutions of industry. The portrait which he has drawn is faithful and divested of flattery — a result not common in autobiography : — " Sober is a man of strong desires and quick imagination, so exactly balanced by the love of ease, that they can seldom stimulate him to any difficult undertaking; they have, however, so much power, that they will not suffer him to lie quite at rest, and though they do not make him sufficiently useful to others, they make him at least weary of himself. " Mr. Sober's chief pleasure is conversation ; there is no end of his talk or his attention; to speak or to hear is equally pleas- ing ; for he still fancies that he is teaching or learning some- thing, and is free for the time from his own reproaches. " But there is one time at night when he must go home, that his friends may sleep ; and another time in the morning, when all the world agrees to shut out interruption. These are the moments of which poor Sober trembles at the thought. But the misery of these tiresome intervals, he has many means of alleviating. He has persuaded himself that the manual arts are undeservedly overlooked; he has observed in many trades the effects of close thought, and just ratiocination. From specula- tion he proceeded to practice, and supplied himself with the tools of a carpenter, with which he mended his coal-box very successfully, and which he still continues to employ as he finds occasion< "He has attempted at other times the crafts of the shoemaker. DnAkB 89 tinman, plumber, and potter ; in all these arts he has failed, and resolves to qualify himself for them by better information. But his daily amusement is chemistry. He has a small furnace, which he employs in distillation, and which has long been the solace of his life. He draws oils, and waters, and essences, and spirits, which he knows to be of no use ; sits and counts the drops as they come from his retort ; and forgets that whilst a drop is falling, a moment flies away. " Poor Sober ! I have often teazed him with reproof, and he has often promised reformation ; for no man is so much open to conviction as the idler, but there is none on whom it operates so little. What will be the effect of this paper I know not ; perhaps he will read it, and laugh, and light the fire in his furnace ; but my hope is, that he will quit his trifles, and betake himself to rational and useful diligence." 589. Horror of Death. One of the best written and most impressive of the essays of the " Rambler" is No. 78-> on the Power of Novelty, in which he appears to have exerted the full force of his genius. It is in this paper that the horror of Death, which embittered so many of the hours of Johnson, is depicted in more vivid colours, than in any other part of his periodical writings : — " Surely," he remarks, " nothing can so much disturb the passions or perplex the intellects of man, as the disruption of his union with visible nature ; a separation from all that has hitherto delighted or engaged him ; a change not only of the place, but the manner, of his being ; an entrance into a state not simply which he knows not, but which perhaps he has not faculties to know ; an immediate and perceptible communication with the Supreme Being, and, what is above all distressful and alarming, the final sentence, and unalterable allotment : " — a passage which, in its sentiment and tendency, strongly reminds us of the admirable description of Claudio in the (i Measure for Measure " of Shakspeare : — 90 JOHNSONIANA. " Ay, but to die, and go we know not where ; To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot ; This sensible warm motion to become A kneaded clod ; and the delighted spirit To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice ; To be imprison'd in the viewless winds, And blown with restless violence round about The pendent world ; or to be worse than worst Of those, that lawless and incertain thoughts Imagine howling ! — 'tis too horrible ! The weariest and most loathed worldly life, That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment Can lay on nature, is a paradise To what we fear of death." Our author seems likewise to have remembered a couplet in the " Aureng-Zebe" of Dryden : — " Death in itself is nothing ; but we fear To be we know not what, we know not where." It is in this paper, also, that one of the few pathetic paragraphs which are scattered through the pages of Johnson may be found. Whether considered with re- gard to its diction or its tender appeal to the heart, it is alike exquisite : — ** It is not possible," observes the moralist, " to be regarded with tenderness except by a few. That merit which gives great- ness and renown diffuses its influence to a wide compass, but acts weakly on every single breast; it is placed at a distance from common spectators, and shines like one of the remote stars, of which the light reaches us, but not the heat. The wit, the hero, the philosopher, whom their tempers ot their fortunes have hindered from intimate relations, die, without any other effect than that of adding a new topic to the conversation of the day. They impress none with any fresh conviction of the fra- gility of our nature, because none had any particular interest in their lives, or was united to them by a reciprocation of benefits and endearments. Thus it often happens, that those who in DRAKE. 91 their lives were applauded and admired, are laid at last in the ground without the common honour of a stone ; because by those excellencies with which many were delighted, none had been obliged, and though they had many to celebrate, they had none to love them." 590. Anningait and Ajut. Never was the passion of love, or the assiduities of affection, placed in a more entertaining or pleasing light, than in the Greenland story of Anningait and Ajut ( ] ) ; which, owing to its wild and savage imagery, and the felicity with which it is adapted to the circumstances of the narrative, possesses the attractions of no ordinary share of originality. Mr. Campbell, in his truly sub- lime poem on the Pleasures of Hope, has thus beautifully alluded to this story : — " Oh ! vainly wise, the moral Muse hath sung That 'suasive Hope hath but a syren tongue ! True ; she may sport with life's untutor'd day, Nor heed the solace of its last decay, The guileless heart, her happy mansion spurn, And part like Ajut — never to return." 591. Rasselas. Many of the topics which are eagerly discussed in the History of Rasselas are known to have greatly interested, and even agitated, the mind of Johnson. Of these the most remarkable are, on the Efficacy of Pilgrimage, on the State of Departed Souls, on the Probability of the Reappearance of the Dead, and on the Danger of Insanity. The apprehension of mental derangement seems to have haunted the mind of John- son during the greater part of his life ; and he has therefore very emphatically declared, that Ci of the un- certainties in our present state, the most dreadful and (1) Rambler, Nos. 186> 187. 92 JOHNSONIANA. alarming is the uncertain continuance of reason." ( ! ) It is highly probable, that his fears and feelings on this head gave rise to the character of the Mad Astronomer in Rasselas, who declared to Imlac, that he had possessed for five years the regulation of the weather, and the distribution of the seasons ; that the sun had listened to his dictates, and passed from tropic to tropic by his direction ; that the clouds at his call had poured their waters, and the Nile had overflowed at his com- mand. This tremendous visitation he has ascribed principally to the indulgence of imagination in the shades of solitude : — »' Disorders of intellect," he remarks, " happen much more often than superficial observers will easily believe. Perhaps, if we speak with rigorous exactness, no human mind is in its right state. There is no man whose imagination does not some- times predominate over his reason, who can regulate his at- tention wholly by his will, and whose ideas will come and go at his command. No man will be found in whose mind airy notions do not sometimes tyrannise, and force him to hope or fear beyond the limits of sober probability. All power of fancy over reason is a degree of insanity ; but while this power is such as we can control and repress, it is not visible to others, nor considered as any depravation of the mental faculties : it is not pronounced madness but when it becomes ungovernable, and apparently influences speech or action. " To indulge the power of fiction, and send imagination out upon the wing, is often the sport of those who delight too much in silent speculation. When we are alone we are not always busy; the labour of excogitation is too violent to last long; the ardour of inquiry will sometimes give way to idleness or satiety. He who has nothing external that can divert him, must find pleasure in his own thoughts, and must conceive himself what he is not; for who is pleased with what he is? He then expatiates in boundless futurity, and culls from all imaginable conditions that which for the present moment he should most desire, (1) Rasselas, chap. 42. DRAKE. 93 amuses his desires with impossible enjoyments, and confers upon his pride unattainable dominion. The mind dances from scene to scene, unites all pleasures in all combinations, and riots in delights which nature and fortune, with all their bounty, cannot bestow. " In time, some particular train of ideas fixes the attention ; all other intellectual gratifications are rejected; the mind, in weariness or leisure, recurs constantly to the favourite con- ception, and feasts on the luscious falsehood, whenever she is offended with the bitterness of truth. By degrees the reign of fancy is confirmed ; she grows first imperious, and in time de- spotic. Then fictions begin to operate as realities, false opinions fasten upon the mind, and life passes in dreams of rapture or of anguish. " This, Sir, is one of the dangers of solitude. " (1) In the paragraphs which we have just quoted, there is much reason to suppose, that Johnson was describing what he had himself repeatedly experienced ; and to this circumstance Sir John Hawkins has attributed his uncommon attachment to society. 592. Preface to Shakspeare. This Preface is perhaps the most eloquent and acute piece of dramatic criticism of which our language can boast. The characteristic excellencies of Shakspeare, his beauties and defects, are delineated with powers of discrimination not easily paralleled ; and though the panegyric on his genius be high and uncommonly splendid, his faults are laid open with an impartial and unsparing hand. To the prose encomia of Dryden and Addison on our unrivalled bard may be added, as worthy of juxtaposition, the following admirable para- graph ; the conclusion of which is alike excellent for its imagery and sublimity : — (1) Rasselas, chap. 43. 94 JOHNSONIANA. M As the personages of Shakspeare act upon principles arising from genuine passion, very little modified by particular forms, their pleasures and vexations are communicable to all times and to all places ; they are natural, and therefore durable ; the ad- ventitious peculiarities of personal habits are only superficial dyes, bright and pleasing for a little while, yet soon fading to a dim tinct, without any remains of former lustre ; and the dis crimination of true passion are the colours of nature ; they per vade the whole mass, and can only perish with the body that exhibits them. The accidental compositions of heterogeneous modes are dissolved by the chance that combined them ; but the uniform simplicity of primitive qualities neither admits increase nor suffers decay. The sand heaped by one flood is scattered by another, but the rock always continues in its place. The stream of time, which is continually washing the dissoluble fabrics of other poets, passes without injury by the adamant of Shak- speare." 593. " Lives of the Poets. 99 The effect of the critical biography of Johnson on the literary world, and on the public at large, has been very considerable, and, in many respects, beneficial. It has excited a laudable attention to preserve the memory of those, who have, by intellectual exertions, contributed to our instruction and amusement; whereas, previous to the appearance of our author's " Lives/' biography, with few exceptions, had been confined to military and political characters : it has given rise, also, to much dis- cussion and research into the merits and defects of our national poets ; and the edition to which it was an- nexed, has led the way to several subsequent collection on an improved and more extended scale. 594. Johnsons " Letters/ 9 The Letters of Johnson place him before us stripped of all disguise ; they teach us to love as well as to admire the man and are frequently written with a pathos and DRAKE. 95 an ardour of affection, which impress us with a much more amiable idea of the writer, than can be drawn from any portion of his more elaborated works. 595* Johnsons Sermons. The Sermons of Johnson, twenty-five in number, were part of the stock which his friend Dr. Taylor car- ried with him to the pulpit. As compositions, they are little inferior to any of his best works ; and they inculcate, without enthusiasm or dogmatism, the purest precepts and doctrines of religion and morality. 596. "Prayers and Meditations" It is in the Prayers and Meditations of Johnson that we become acquainted with the inward heart of the man. He had left them for publication, under the idea that they were calculated to do good ; and depraved, indeed, must be that individual who rises unbenefited from their perusal. The contrast between the language of this little volume, and the style of the Rambler, is striking in the extreme, and a strong proof of the judgment, the humility, and the piety of the author. With a deep sense of human frailty and individual error, he addresses the throne of mercy in a strain re- markable for its simplicity and plainness ; but which, though totally stripped of the decorations of art, pos- sesses a native dignity, approaching to that which we receive from our most excellent liturgy 93 JOHNSONlAisA. Part XXXIL ANECDOTES, OPINIONS, AND REMARKS, BY VARIOUS PERSONS. 597. Osborne knocked down with a Folio. Q) Tom Osborne, the bookseller, was one of iC that mer- cantile ragged race to which the delicacy of the poet is sometimes exposed " ( 2 ) ; as the following anecdote will more fully evince. Mr. Johnson being engaged by him to translate a work of some consequence, he thought it a respect which he owed his own talents, as well as the credit of his employer, to be as circumspect in the performance of it as possible. In consequence of which, the work went on, according to Osborne's ideas, rather slowly : in consequence, he frequently spoke to Johnson of this circumstance ; and, being a man of a coarse mind, sometimes by his expressions made him feel the situation of dependence. Johnson, however, seemed to take no notice of him, but went on according to the plan which he had prescribed to himself. Osborne, irritated by what he thought an unnecessary delay, went one day into the room where Johnson was sitting, and abused him in the most illiberal manner : amongst other things, he told Johnson, " he had been much mistaken in his man ; that he was recommended to him as a good scholar, and (1) [Nos. 596 — 607. are from the " Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D." 8vo., published by G. Kearsley, in 1785. For Bos- well's favourable notice of this little work see ante, Vol. VIII. p. 44.] (2) Johnson's Life of Drvden, KEARSLEY. 97 a ready hand : but he doubted both ; for that Tom such-a-one would have turned out the work much sooner ; and that being the case, the probability was, that by this here time the first edition would have moved off." Johnson heard him for some time un- moved ; but, at last, losing all patience, he seized a huge folio, which he was at that time consulting, and, aiming a blow at the bookseller's head, succeeded so forcibly, as to send him sprawling to the floor. Osborne alarmed the family with his cries ; but Johnson, clap- ping his foot on his breast, would not let him stir till he had exposed him in that situation ; and then left him, with this triumphant expression : " Lie there, thou son of dulness, ignorance, and obscurity ! " ( j ) 598. Savage. Johnson was not unacquainted with Savage's frail- ties ; but, as he, a short time before his death, said to a friend, on this subject, M he knew his heart, and that was never intentionally abandoned ; for, though he ge- nerally mistook the love for the practice of virtue, he was at all times a true and sincere believer/' 599« Trotter's Portrait of Johnson. The head at the front of this book is esteemed a good likeness of Johnson ; indeed, so much so, that when the Doctor saw the drawing, he exclaimed, " Well, thou art an ugly fellow ; but still, I believe thou art like the original." The Doctor sat for this picture to Mr. Trotter, in February, 1782, at the request of Mr. Kearsley, who had just furnished him with a list of all (1) ["The identical book with which Johnson knocked down Osborne (Biblia Grceca Septuaginta, fol. 1594. Frank- fort ; the note written by the Rev. Mills) I saw in February, 1812, at Cambridge, in the possession of J. Thorpe, bookseller ; whose catalogue, since published, contains particulars authen- ticating this assertion." — Xiclwls : Lit. Ar*ec % viii. p. 446. 9S JOHNSONTANA. his works ; for he confessed he had forgot more than half what he had written. His face, however, was ca- pable of great expression, both in respect to intelligence and mildness ; as all those can witness who have seen him in the flow of conversation, or under the influence of grateful feelings. 600. Hawkesworttis " Ode on Life." Sometime previous to Hawkesworth's publication of his beautiful " Ode on Life," he carried it down with him to a friend's house in the country to retouch. Johnson was of this party ; and, as Hawkes worth and the Doctor lived upon the most intimate terms, the former read it to him for his opinion. " Why, Sir," says Johnson, " I can't well determine on a first hear- ing ; read it again, second thoughts are best." Hawkes- worth did so ; after which Johnson read it himself, and approved of it very highly. Next morning at break- fast, the subject of the poem being renewed, Johnson, after again expressing his approbation of it, said he had but one objection to make to it, which was, that he doubted its originality. Hawkesworth, alarmed at this, challenged him to the proof, when the Doctor repeated the whole of the poem, with only the omission of a few lines. ei What do you say to that, Hawkey ?" said the Doctor. Ci Only this," replied the other, u that I shall never repeat any thing I write before you again ; for you have a memory that would convict any author of plagiarism in any court of literature in the world." I have now the poem before me, and I find it contains no less than sixty- eight lines. 601. Projected Dictionary of Commerce. Soon after the publication of the English Dictionary, Johnson made a proposal to a number of booksellers, convened for that purpose, of writing a Dictionary of Trade and Commerce. This proposal went round the KEARSLEY. 99 room without any answer, when a well-known son of the trade, remarkable for the abruptness of his manners, replied, . cc Panting Time" Johnson, perhaps, caught his " panting Time toiled after him in vain," from Young's " And leave praise panting in the distant vale." 665. « The Happy Valley: 9 Looked over RennelTs Memoir of his Map of Hin- dostan. The secluded valley of Cashmere, — forming, between the parallels of 34° and 35°, an oval hollow eighty miles by fifty ; blooming with perennial spring, refreshed with cascades and streams and lakes, and enriched with mountainous ridges towering into the regions of eternal snow, — was perhaps Johnson's proto- type for the Happy Valley of Amhara in " Rasselas/' 666. Gray. It is curious to hear Gray, in his tenth letter to Horace Walpole, say, (C The same man's verses" (John- son's, at the opening of Garrick's theatre) " are not bad" — of one who was destined afterwards to sit in imperial judgment on him and all his tribe. 667. Johnsons Conversation. Had a long and interesting conversation with [Sir James] Mackintosh. Spoke highly of Johnson's prompt tnd vigorous powers in conversation, and, on this ground, of Boswell's Life of him : Burke, he said, agreed with him ; and affirmed, that this work was a greater monu- ment to Johnson's fame, than all his writings put together. 668. " Pleasures of Hope." Read Campbell's Pleasures of Hope. The beau- tiful allusion with which this poem opens, is borrowed GREEN. 141 from one in Johnson's collections for the " Rambler ; " which, I believe, he never employed, but which was certainly too good to be lost. ( j ) 669- Dr. Bernard. Mr. Monney told me he had often met Johnson, and imitated his manner very happily. Johnson came on a visit to the president of his college (Jesus) at Ox- ford, Dr. Bernard. Dr. Bernard ventured to put a joke upon Johnson; but being terrified by a tre- mendous snarl, (i Indeed, indeed, Doctor, believe me," said he, " I meant nothing." " Sir," said Johnson, " if you mean nothing, say nothing ! " and was quiet for the rest of the evening. 670. Johnsons " Letters" Johnson's Letters to Mrs. Thrale raise him, if pos- sible, still higher than ever in my esteem and venera- tion. His wonderful insight into the real springs of human actions is often apparent where he trifles most ; and when he summons his powers, he pours new and unexpected light, even on the clearest and most ob- vious topics. His fertility of logical invention is pro- bably unrivalled. 671. Boswell. Boswell, from his open, communicative, good-hu- moured vanity, which leads him to display events and feelings that other men, of more sound judgment, though slighter pretensions, would have studiously con- cealed, has depressed himself below his just level in public estimation. His information is extensive; his talents far from despicable ; and he seems so exactly adapted, even by his very foibles, that we might almost suppose him purposely created to be the chronicler of (1) [See ante, Vol. I. p. 238.] 142 JOHNSONIANA Johnson. A pleasing and instructive pocket-companion might be formed by a judicious selection from his copious repertory of Johnson's talk. 672. cc Vesuvius Ccesar." I have (says Mr. W. E. Surtees) heard my grand- mother, a daughter, by his first wife, of the Dean of Ossory (who married secondly Miss Charlotte Cot- terell, see Vol. II. p. 152.), speak of Dr. Johnson, as having frequently seen him in her youth. On one oc- casion, probably about 1762-3, he spent a day or two in the country with her father, and went with the family to see the house of a rich merchant. The owner — all bows and smiles — seemed to exult in the opportunity of displaying his costly articles of virtu to his visitor, and, in going through their catalogue, observed, ' ' And this, Dr. Johnson, is Vesuvius Caesar." My grand- mother, then but a girl, could not suppress a titter, when the Doctor turned round, and thus, alike to the dis- comfiture of the merchant and herself, sternly rebuked her aloud, a What is the child laughing at ? Ignorance is a subject for pity — not for laughter." 673. Story-telling: Q) Dr. Johnson, having had a general invitation from Lord Lansdowne to see Bow- wood, his Lordship's seat in Wiltshire, he accordingly made him a visit, in com- pany with Cumming, the Quaker, a character at that time well known as the projector of the conquest of Senegal. They arrived about dinner-time, and were received with such respect and good-breeding, that the Doctor joined in the conversation with much pleasantry and good-humour. He told several stories of his ac- quaintance with literary characters, and in particular re- peated the last part of his celebrated letter to Lord Ches- (1) [This and the eight following are from the European Magazine, edited at the time by Isaac Reed, Esq.] JOHNSONIANA. 143 terfield, desiring to be dismissed from all further patron- age. Whilst iC the feast of reason and the flow of soul " was thus enjoying^ a gentleman of Lord Lansdowne's acquaintance from London happened to arrive ; but being too late for dinner, his Lordship was making his apologies, and added, "But you have lost a better thing than dinner, in not being here time enough to hear Dr. Johnson repeat his charming letter to Lord Chesterfield, though I dare say the Doctor will be kind enough to give it to us again." " Indeed, my Lord," says the Doc- tor (who began to growl the moment the subject was mentioned), " I will not : I told the story just for my own amusement, but I will not be dragged in as story- teller to a company." 674. Pomponius Gauricus. Dr. Johnson had planned a book on the model of Robinson Crusoe. Pomponius Gauricus, a learned Neapolitan, who had dabbled in alchemy, &c, suddenly disappeared in the year 1530, and was heard of no more. The supposed life of this man the Doctor had resolved to write. " I will not," said he, cc shipwreck my hero on an uninhabited island, but will carry him up to the summit of San Pelegrini, the highest of the Apennines; where he shall be made his own bio- grapher, passing his time among the goat -herds," &c* 675. Character of Boswell. Boswell was a man of excellent natural parts, on which he had engrafted a great deal of general know- ledge. His talents as a man of company were much heightened by his extreme cheerfulness and good na- ture. Mr. Burke said of him, that he had no merit in possessing that agreeable faculty, and that a man might as well assume to himself merit in possessing an excel- lent constitution. Mr. Boswell professed the Scotch 144 JOHNSONIANA. and the English law ; but had never taken very great pains on the subject. His father, Lord Auchinleck, told him one day, that it would cost him more trouble to hide his ignorance in these professions, than to show his knowledge. This Mr. Boswell owned he had found to be true. Society was his idol ; to that he sacrificed every thing : his eye glistened, and his countenance brightened up, when he saw the human face divine ; and that person must have been very fastidious indeed, who did not return him the same compliment when he came into a room. Of his Life of Johnson, who can say too much, or praise it too highly ? What is Plu- tarch's biography to his ? so minute, so appropriate, so dramatic. " How happy would the learned world have been," said the present acute and elegantly minded Bishop of Hereford (*), " had Pericles, Plato, or Socrates possessed such a friend and companion as Mr. Boswell was to Doctor Johnson ! " 676. Johnsons Agility. A gentleman of Lichfield meeting the Doctor re- turning from a walk, inquired how far he had been ? The Doctor replied, he had gone round Mr. Levet's field (the place where the scholars play) in search of a rail that he used to jump over when a boy, " and," says the Doctor in a transport of joy, " I have been so for- tunate as to find it : I stood," said he, te gazing upon it some time with a degree of rapture, for it brought to my mind all my juvenile sports and pastimes, and at length I determined to try my skill and dexterity ; I laid aside my hat and wig, pulled of my coat, and leapt over it twice." Thus the great Dr. Johnson, only three years before his death, was, without hat, wig, or coat, jumping over a rail that he had used to fly over when a school-boy. Amongst those who were so intimate with Dr. Johnson (1) [The Rev. Dr. John Butler.] REED. 145 as to have him occasionally an intimate in their families, it is a well known fact that he would frequently descend from the contemplation of subjects the most profound imaginable to the most childish playfulness. It was no uncommon thing to see him hop, step, and jump ; he would often seat himself on the back of his chair, and more than once has been known to propose a race on some grassplat adapted to the purpose. He was very intimate and much attached to Mr. John Payne, once a bookseller in Paternoster Row, and afterwards Chief Accountant of the Bank. Mr. Payne was of a very diminutive appearance, and once when they were to- gether on a visit with a friend at some distance from town, Johnson in a gaiety of humour proposed to run a race with Mr. Payne — the proposal was accepted ; but, before they had proceeded more than half of the in- tended distance, Johnson caught his little adversary up in his arms, and without any ceremony placed him upon the arm of a tree which was near, and then continued running as if he had met with a hard match. He after- wards returned with much exultation to release his friend from the no very pleasant situation in which he had left him. 677. Boswelts Life of Johnson. Cowper, the poet, speaking of Boswell's Life of Johnson, observed, that though it was so much abused, it presented the best portrait that had ever been given of the great English moralist; adding, that mankind would be gratified indeed, if some contemporary of Shakspeare and Milton had given the world such a history of those unrivalled poets. 678- Party Heat. Doctor, afterwards Dean Maxwell, sitting in com- pany with Johnson, they were talking of the violence of parties, and what unwarrantable and insolent lengths vol. x. L 146 JOHNSONIANA. mobs will sometimes run into. i( Why, yes, Sir/' says Johnson, " they'll do any thing, no matter how odd, or desperate, to gain their point ; they'll catch hold of the red-hot end of a poker, sooner than not get possession of it." 679* Rights of Hospitality. Dr. Johnson, in his tour through North Wales, passed two days at the seat of Colonel Middleton of Gwynagag. While he remained there, the gardener caught a hare amidst some potatoe plants, and brought it to his master, then engaged in conversation with the Doctor. An order was given to carry it to the cook. As soon as Johnson heard this sentence, he begged to have the animal placed in his arms ; which was no sooner done, than approaching the window then half open, he restored the hare to her liberty, shouting after her to accelerate her speed. ' ' What have you done ? " cried the Colonel ; " why, Doctor, you 1 ave robbed my table of a delicacy, perhaps deprived us of a dinner." u So much the better, Sir," replied the humane champion of a con- demned hare ; for if your table is to be supplied at the expense of the laws of hospitality, I envy not the ap- - petite of him who eats it. This, Sir, is not a hare ferce natures, but one which had placed itself under your protection ; and savage indeed must be that man who does not make his hearth an asylum for the confiding stranger." 680. Count de Holcke. ( ] ) In the year 1768, the king of Denmark visited Eng- land, and amongst the gentlemen of his suite was Count de Holcke, grand master of the wardrobe, a gentleman of considerable celebrity for polite learning and classical erudition ; this gentleman had heard much of Dr. John- son's literary fame, and was therefore anxious to see (1) [This and the two following are from the Monthly Magazine.] GERMAN TRAVELLER. 14? him. Through the interest of Dr. Brocklesby, he was enabled to pay Johnson a morning visit. They had a long conversation. Next day Count de Holcke dined with Lord Temple in Pall Mall, where he met Mr. William Gerard Hamilton (commonly called Single- speech Hamilton), who, knowing of his visit to Johnson, asked him what he thought of the Doctor ? Holcke replied, that of all the literary impostors and pedants he had ever met with he thought Johnson the greatest — " so shallow a fellow/' he said, " he had never seen ! " 681. A German Travellers Interview with Johnson in 1768. (!) I am just returned from a visit to Samuel Johnson, the colossus of English literature, who combines pro- found knowledge with wit, and humour with serious wisdom, and whose exterior announces nothing of these qualities ; for in the proportions of his form are ex- actly those of the sturdy drayman. To this he alludes in his delineation of the Idler : " The diligence of an Idler is rapid and impetuous ; as ponderous bodies, forced into velocity, move with violence proportionate to their weight." His manners are boorish ; and his eye cold as his raillery ■ never is it animated with a glance that betrays archness or acuteness ; he constantly seems to be, and not seldom he really is, absent and distracted. — He had invited Colman and me by letter, and forgot it. We surprised him, in the strictest sense of the word, at the country seat of Mr. Thrale, whose lady, a genteel agreeable Welshwoman, by way of amusement reads and translates Greek authors. Here Johnson lives and reigns (for he is fond of acting the dominator) as if he were in the midst of his own family. He received us in a friendly manner, though a certain air of solemness and pomposity never left him, which is interwoven with (1) [See ante, Vol. IX. p. 17.] h 2 148 JOHNSONIANA. his manners as well as with his style. In conversation he rounds his periods, and speaks with a tone almost theatrical ; but whatever he says becomes interesting by a certain peculiar character with which it is stamped. We spoke of the English language; and I remarked "that it passed through its different epochs quicker than other languages : there is a greater difference/' said I5 " between your present writers and the cele- brated club of authors in the reign of Queen Ann than between the French of the present and the last century. They make incursions into foreign ground, and lavishly squander the easily acquired plunder ; for they follow not the counsel of Swift, to adopt, indeed, new words, but never after to reject them." iC We conquer/' inter- rupted me one of the guests, ec new words in a fit of enthusiasm, and give them back again in cold blood, as we do our conquests on the making of peace." " But are you not," asked I, " thus losers with regard to pos- terity ? For your writings will be scarcely intelligible to the third succeeding generation." ec New words," replied Johnson, " are well-earned riches. When a nation enlarges its stock of knowledge and acquires new ideas, it must necessarily have a suitable vesture for them. Foreign idioms, on the contrary, have been de- cried as dangerous ; and the critics daily object to me my Latinisms, which, they say, alter the character of our language : but it is seriously my opinion, that every language must be servilely formed after the model of some one of the ancient, if we wish to give durability to our works." Do you not think that there is some truth in this sophistry ? A dead language, no longer subject to change, may well serve as a fit standard for a living one. It is an old sterling weight, according to which the value of the current coin is estimated. — '*' The greatest confusion in languages," continued I, address- ing myself to Johnson, " is caused by a kind of original geniuses, who invent their own Sanscrit, that they may GERMAN TRAVELLER. 14& clothe their ideas in holy obscurity ; and yet we will- ingly listen to their oracular sayings, and at length are ourselves infected with the disease." " Singularity," exclaimed one of the guests, " is often a mark of genius." (i Then/' answered Johnson, iC there exist few greater geniuses than Wilton in Chelsea. ( ] ) His manner of writing is the most singular in the world ; for, since the last war, he writes with his feet." Colman spoke of the c ' Rehearsal," which was formerly so much admired as a masterpiece ; but which nobody bad patience now to read through. " There was too little salt in it to keep it sweet," said Johnson. Hume was mentioned. " Priestley," said I, " objects to this historian the frequent use of Gallicisms." " And I," said Johnson, " that his whole history is a Gallicism." Johnson eagerly seizes every opportunity of giving vent to his hatred against the Scots. Even in his Dictionary we find the following article : u Oats, a grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people/ ' Not recollecting his edition of Shakspeare, which was so far from answering the expectations of the critics I unthinkingly and precipitately enough asked him, Ci which edition of that poet he most esteemed?" "Eh !" replied he with a smile; cc \ is what we call an unlucky question." I inquired after Bos well. Johnson seems to love him much ; he is sensible of, but forgives him, his en- thusiasm. Boswell is a fiery young man, who firmly believes in heroic virtue ; and who, in the intoxication of his heart, would have flown with equal ardour to Iceland as to Corsica, in pursuit of a demigod. You are acquainted with Johnson's works. The Rambler, the Idler ; London, a Satire ; and the ex- cellent Biography of Savage, are well known in Ger- (l) An old soldier, whose arms had been shot off. L 3 150 JOHNSONIANA. many. But we hear less in our country of Prince Rasselas, a masterly, cold, political romance, as all of the kind are ; for a teacher of the art of government, who, remote from, and unpractised in, affairs, writes for kings, can spin out of his brain a texture only of gene- ral principles. Irene, a tragedy by Johnson, full of the finest speeches, was hissed, and is forgotten. This celebrated man had long to contend with po- verty ; for you must not imagine, that England always rewards her authors in proportion to the general admir- ation they excite. Often was he obliged to hide him- self in a cellar near Moorfields, to avoid being lodged in a room with an iron grate. In those days of adversity he wrote speeches worthy of a Demosthenes, for and against the most important questions agitated in Par- liament, which were published under the names of the real members. These speeches for a long time passed for genuine in the country ; and it is not generally known, that among them is the celebrated speech of Pitt, which he is said to have pronounced, when his youth was ob- jected to him, and which never so flowed from the mouth of Pitt. Johnson has now conducted the Pacto- lus into his garden. He enjoys a pension of three hundred pounds sterling, not to make speeches ; but, as the Opposition asserts, to induce him to remain silent I forgot to tell you, that Johnson denies the anti- quity of Ossian. Macpherson is a native of Scotland ; and Johnson would rather suffer him to pass for a great poet than allow him to be an honest man. I am con- vinced of their authenticity. Macpherson showed me, in the presence of Alexander Dow, at least twelve par- cels of the manuscript of the Earse original. Some of these manuscripts seemed to be very old. Literati of my acquaintance, who understand the language, have compared them with the translation; and we must either believe the absurdity, that Macpherson had like- THE SALISBURY STAGE. 151 wise fabricated the Earse text, or no longer contend against evidence. Macpherson declaimed a few passages to me. The language sounded melodious enough, but solemnly plaintive and guttural, like the languages of all rude, uncultivated nations. 082. Johnson in the Salisbury Stage. ( ] ) In the year 1?83 (says a correspondent)^ I went in the stage-coach from London to Salisbury. Upon enter- ing it, I perceived three gentlemen, one of whom strongly attracted my notice. He was a corpulent man, with a book in his hand, placed very near to his eyes. He had a large wig, which did not appear to have been combed for an age : his clothes were threadbare. On seating myself in the coach, he lifted up his eyes, and directed them towards me ; but in an instant they resumed their former employment. I was immediately struck with his resemblance to the print of Dr. Johnson, given as a frontispiece to the " Lives of the Poets ; n but how to gratify my curiosity I was at a loss. I thought, from all I had heard of Dr. Johnson, that I should discover him if, by any means, I could engage him in conversa- tion. The gentleman by the side of him remarked, ei I wonder, Sir, that you can read in a coach which travels so swiftly : it would make my head ache." "Ay, Sir,*' replied he, "books make some people's head ache." This appeared to me Johnsonian. I knew several persons with w T hom Dr. Johnson was well acquainted : this was another mode of trying how far my conjecture was right. " Do you know Miss Han-, nah More, Sir ? " " Well, Sir : the best of all the female versifiers." This phraseology confirmed my former opinion. We now reached Hounslow, and were (1) [In August 1783, Johnson paid a visit to Mr. Bowles of Heale, near Salisbury. See ante, Vol. VIII. p. 288.] L 4 152 JOHNSONIANA. served with our breakfast. Having found that none of my travelling companions knew this gentleman, I plainly put the question, " May I take the liberty, Sir, to en- quire whether you be not Dr. Johnson ? " " The same, Sir." " I am happy," replied I, " to congratulate the learned world, that Dr. Johnson, whom the papers lately announced to be dangerously indisposed, is re-established in his health." (i The civilest young man I ever met with in my life," was his answer. From that moment he became very gracious towards me. I was then pre- paring to go abroad ; and imagined that I could derive some useful information from a character so eminent lor learning. " What book of travels, Sir, would you advise me to read, previously to my setting off upon a tour to France and Italy?" " Why, Sir, as to France, I know no book worth a groat : and as to Italy, Baretti paints the fair side, and Sharp the foul ; the truth, perhaps, lies between the two." Every step which brought us nearer to Salisbury increased my pain, at the thought of leaving so interesting a fellow- traveller. I observed that, at dinner, he contented himself with water, as his beverage. I asked him, ie Whether he had ever tasted bumbo ?" a West- Indian potation, which is neither more nor less than very strong punch. "No, Sir," said he. I made some. He tasted ; and declared, that if ever he drank any thing else than water, it should be bumbo. When the sad moment of separation, at Salisbury, arrived, " Sir," said he, " let me see you in London, upon your return to your native country. I am sorry that we must part. I have always looked upon it as the worst condition of man's destiny, that persons are so often torn asunder, just as they become happy in each others society." KNOX. 153 683. Knox on the Character of Johnson, (*) The illustrious character of Pierre de Corneille in- duced those who approached him to expect something in his manners, address, and conversation, above the common level. They were disappointed; and, in a thousand similar instances, a similar disappointment has taken place. The friends of Corneille, as was natural enough, were uneasy at rinding people express their disappointment after an interview with him. They wished him to appear as respectable when near as when at a distance ; in a personal intimacy, as in the regions of fame. They took the liberty of mentioning to him his defects, his awkward address, his ungentlemanlike behaviour. Corneille heard the enumeration of his faults with great patience ; and, when it was concluded, said with a smile, and with a just confidence in himself, " All this may be very true, but, notwithstanding all this, I am still Pierre de Corneille/' The numberless defects, infirmities, and faults which the friends of Dr. Johnson have brought to public light, were chiefly what, in less conspicuous men, would be passed over as foibles, or excused as mere peccadilloes ; and, however his enemies may triumph in the exposure, I think he might, if he were alive, imitate Corneille, and say, " Notwithstanding all this, I am still Samuel Johnson." Few men could stand so fierce a trial as he has done. His gold has been put into the furnace, and, considering the violence of the fire and the frequent repetition of the process, the quantity of dross and alloy is incon- siderable. Let him be considered not absolutely, but comparatively ; and let those who are disgusted with him ask themselves, whether their own characters, or those they most admire, would not exhibit some de- (1) [This and the following are from " Winter Evenings; or Lucubrations," by Dr. Vicesimus Knox.] 154? JOHNSONIANA. formity, if they were to be analysed with a minute and anxious curiosity. The private conversation of John- son, the caprice of momentary ill -humour, the weak- ness of disease, the common infirmities of human nature, have been presented to the public without those alle- viating circumstances which probably attended them. And where is the man that has not foibles, weaknesses, follies, and defects of some kind ? And where is the man that has greater virtues, greater abilities, more useful labours, to put into the opposite scale against his defects than Johnson ? Time, however, will place him, notwithstanding all his errors and infirmities, high in the ranks of fame. Posterity will forgive his roughness of manner, his apparent superstition, and his prejudices ; and will remember his Dictionary, his moral writings, his biography, his manly vigour of thought, his piety, and his charity. They will make allowances for morbid melancholy ; for a life, a great part of which was spent in extreme indigence and labour, and the rest, by a sudden transition, in the midst of affluence, flattery, obsequiousness, submission, and universal renown. 684. Knox on " Johnsons Prayers and Meditations." Every one had heard that Dr. Johnson was devout ; few entertained an adequate idea of his warmth and scrupulous regularity in the offices of devotion, till the publication of his Prayers and Meditations. They exhibit him in a light in which he has seldom appeared to his readers. He usually puts on a garb of dignity and command. His Rambler is written in the style of authority. His Prefaces to the Poets are dicta- torial. The reader is easily induced to believe that pride is a striking feature in his character. But he no sooner opens the book of Prayers and Meditations, than he sees him in a state of true humility : no affectation in the style : no words of unusual occurrence : every expression is such as is well adapted to a frail mortal, FORDYCE. 155 however improved by art or favoured by nature, when he approaches the merey-seat of the Almighty. The reader is thus, in some degree, gratified by observing a man, who had always appeared to him as a superior mortal, and exempt from human infirmities, feeling and acknowledging with all humility the common weaknesses of all human creatures. 685. Fordyce on the Death and Character of Dr. Johnson. ( ] ) It hath pleased thee, Almighty Disposer, to number with the silent dead a man of renown, a master in Israel, who had " the tongue of the learned," and worshipped thee with fervour " in the land of the living." His was " the pen of a ready writer/* His was the happy power of communicating truth with clearness, and inculcating virtue with energy ; of cloth- ing the gravest counsels in the attractive garb of enter- tainment, and adding dignity to the most obvious maxims of prudence. To him it was given to expose with just discrimination the follies of a frivolous age, and with honest zeal to reprobate its vices. This shining light raised up by thee, ' ' the Father of lights," for the honour of thy name, and the benefit of many, thou hast lately seen fit to remove. But blessed be thy Providence for continuing him so long. Blessed be thy Spirit that enriched him with those eminent gifts, and enabled him to render them useful. In his presence the infidel was awed, the profane stood cor- rected, and the mouth of the swearer was stopped. In his discourse the majesty of genius impressed the at- tentive and unprejudiced with a reverence for wisdom ; the virtuous and the pious were encouraged by the ap- probation of superior discernment; and truths^ that (1) [From "Addresses to the Deity," bv James Fordyce, D.D., 12mo. 1785.] I5f) JOHNSONIANA, had lost the allurement of novelty, recovered their influence, from the native hut peculiar force with which they were proposed. But ^ what is man," O Lord? or who among the sons of men can plead innocence hefore the Thrice Holy ? When trouble and anguish came upon thy aged servant, when " his sleep went from him," when in solemn recollection he