Book 1__ 
 
 u 
 
' ' 
 
 
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ANECDOTES 
 
 OP 
 
 SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL. D. 
 
/ 
 
 ANECDOTES 
 
 OF 
 
 SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. 
 
 DURING THE UkST 
 
 TWENTY YEARS OP HIS LIFE. 
 
 *Y 
 
 HESTHER LYNCH PIOZZI. 
 
 A NEW EDITION, 
 
 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED FOR T. AND J. ALLMAN, 
 GREAT QUEEN STREET, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS. 
 
 1826. 
 
Printed by T. C. Ncvtby, Angel-Hill, Bury. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 I have somewhere heard or read, that the 
 preface before a book, like the portico before 
 a house, should be contrived, so as to catch, 
 but not detain, the attention of those who 
 desire admission to the family within, or leave 
 to look over the collection of pictures, made 
 by one whose opportunities of obtaining them 
 we know to have been not unfrequent. I wish 
 not to keep my readers long from such inti- 
 macy with the manners of Dr. Johnson, or 
 such knowledge of his sentiments as these 
 pages can convey. To urge my distance from 
 England as an excuse for the book's being ill 
 written, would be ridiculous; it might indeed 
 serve as a just reason for my having written 
 it at all; because, though others may print 
 the same aphorisms and stories, I cannot here 
 
VI 
 
 be sure that they have done so. As the Duke 
 says, however, to the Weaver, in A Midsum- 
 mer Night's Dream, " Never excuse ; if your 
 play be a bad one, keep at least the excuses 
 to yourself/' 
 
 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 man* 
 ners as they were, I have been careful to shew 
 his superiority to the common forms of com- 
 mon life. It is surely no dispraise to an oak 
 that it does not bear jessamine ; and he who 
 should plant honeysuckle round Trajan's co- 
 lumn, 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 which 
 I willingly give to the other. The erudition 
 of Mr. Johnson proved his genius ; for he 
 had not acquired it by long or profound stu- 
 dy ; nor can I think those characters the 
 
Vll 
 
 greatest which have most learning driven in- 
 to their heads, any more than I can persuade 
 myself to consider the river Jenisca as supe- 
 rior 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 extraneous waters, except eleven 
 nameless rivers, pours his majestic torrent 
 into the ocean by seven celebrated mouths. 
 But I must conclude my Preface, and be- 
 t gin my book, the first I ever presented before 
 the public ; from whose awful appearance in 
 some measure to defend and conceal myself, 
 I have thought fit to retire behind the Tela- 
 monian shield, and shew as little of myself as 
 possible ; well aware of the exceeding differ- 
 ence there is, between fencing in the school, 
 and fighting in the field. Studious, how- 
 ever, to avoid offending, and careless of that 
 offence which can be taken without a cause, 
 I here not unwillingly submit my slight per- 
 
vm 
 
 formance to the decision of that glorious 
 country, which I have the daily delight to 
 hear applauded in others, as eminently just, 
 generous, and humane. 
 
ANECDOTES. 
 
 Too much intelligence is often as pernicious 
 to biography as too little; the mind remains 
 perplexed by contradiction of probabilities, 
 and finds difficulty in separating report from 
 truth. If Johnson then lamented that so little 
 had ever been said about Butler, I might with 
 more reason be led to complain that so much 
 has been said about himself; for numberless 
 informers but distract or cloud information, as 
 glasses which multiply will for the most part 
 be found also to obscure. Of a life, too, which 
 for the last twenty years was passed in the very 
 front of literature, every leader of a literary 
 company, whether officer or subaltern, natur- 
 ally becomes either author or critic, so that lit- 
 tle less than the recollection that it was once the 
 request of the deceased, and twice the desire of 
 those whose will I ever delighted to comply 
 with, should have engaged me to add my little 
 
 B 
 
2 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 book to the number of those already written on 
 the subject. I used to urge another reason for 
 forbearance, and say, that all the readers would, 
 on this singular occasion, be the writers of his 
 life : like the first representation of the Masque 
 of Comus, which by changing their characters 
 from spectators to performers, was acted by 
 the lords and ladies it was written to entertain. 
 This objection is however now at an end, as I 
 have found friends, far remote indeed from li- 
 terary questions, who may yet be diverted from 
 melancholy by my description of Johnson's 
 manners, warmed to virtue even by the distant 
 reflection of his glowing excellence, and en- 
 couraged by the relation of his animated zeal 
 to persist in the profession as well as practice 
 of Christianity. 
 
 Samuel Johnson was the son of Michael 
 Johnson, a bookseller at Litchfield, in Staf- 
 fordshire ; a very pious and worthy man, but 
 wrong-headed, positive, and afflicted with me- 
 lancholy, as his son, from whom alone I had 
 the information, once told me : his business, 
 however, leading him to be much on horseback, 
 contributed to the preservation of his bodily 
 health, and mental sanity; which, when he 
 
 K 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 3 
 
 stayed long at home, would sometimes be about 
 to give way; and Mr. Johnson said, that when 
 his workshop, a detached building, had fallen 
 half down for want of money to repair it, his 
 father was not less diligent to lock the door 
 every night, though he saw that any body might 
 walk in at the back part, and knew that there 
 was no security obtained by barring the front 
 door. " This (says his son) was madness, you 
 may see, and would have been discoverable in 
 other instances of the prevalence of imagination, 
 but that poverty prevented it from playing such 
 tricks as riches and leisure encourage." Mi- 
 chael was a man of still larger size and greater 
 strength than his son, who was reckoned very 
 like him, but did not delight in talking much 
 of his family — ft One has (says he) so little 
 pleasure in reciting the anecdotes of beggary." 
 One day, however, hearing me praise a favour- 
 ite friend with partial tenderness as well as true 
 esteem ; Why do you like that man's acquaint- 
 ance so ? said he : Because, replied I, he is 
 open and confiding, and tells me stories of his 
 uncles and cousins ; I love the light parts of a 
 solid character. " Nay, if you are for family 
 history (says Mr. Johnson good-humouredly), 
 
 b 2 
 
4 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 / can fit you : I had an uncle, Cornelius Ford, 
 who, upon a journey, stopped and read an in* 
 scription written on a stone he saw standing 
 by the way side, set up, as it proved, in honour 
 of a man who had leaped a certain leap there- 
 abouts, the extent of which was specified upon 
 the stone : Why now, says my uncle, I could 
 leap it in my boots ; and he did leap it in his 
 boots. I had likewise another uncle, Andrew 
 (continued he), my father's brother, who kept 
 the ring in Smithfield (where they wrestled 
 and boxed) for a whole year, and never was 
 thrown or conquered. Here now are uncles 
 for you, mistress, if that's the way to your 
 heart." Mr. Johnson was very conversant in 
 the art of attack and defence by boxing, which 
 science he had learned from this uncle Andrew, 
 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 bru- 
 tal amusement, much to the admiration of those 
 who had no expectation of his skill in such mat- 
 ters, from the sight of a figure which precluded 
 all possibility of personal prowess ; though, be- 
 cause he saw Mr. Thrale one day leap over a 
 cabriolet stool, to shew that he was not tired 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 5 
 
 after a chase of fifty miles or more, he suddenly- 
 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. 
 
 Michael Johnson was past fifty years old 
 when he married his wife, who was upwards of 
 forty ; yet I think her son told me she remain- 
 ed three years childless before he was born into 
 the world, who so greatly contributed to im- 
 prove it. In three years more she brought an- 
 other son, Nathaniel, who lived to be twenty- 
 seven or twenty-eight years old, and of whose 
 manly spirit I have heard his brother speak 
 with pride and pleasure, mentioning one cir- 
 cumstance, particular enough, that when the 
 company were one day lamenting the badness 
 of the roads, he inquired where they could be, 
 as he travelled the country more than most 
 people, and had never seen a bad road in his 
 life. The two brothers did not, however, much 
 delight in each other's company, being always 
 rivals for the mother's fondness ; and many of 
 the severe reflections on domestic life in Ras- 
 selas, took their source from its author's keen 
 recollections of the time passed in his early 
 
O ANECDOTES OF 
 
 years. Their father Michael died of an inflam- 
 matory fever, at the age of seventy- six, as Mr. 
 Johnson told me : their mother at eighty-nine, 
 of a gradual decay. She was slight in her per- 
 son, he said, and rather below than above the 
 common size. So excellent was her character, 
 and so blameless her life, that when an oppres- 
 sive neighbour once endeavoured to take from 
 her a little field she possessed, he could per- 
 suade no attorney to undertake the cause 
 against a woman so beloved in her narrow cir- 
 cle : and it is this incident he alludes to in the 
 line of his Vanity of Human Wishes, calling her 
 
 The general favourite as the general friend. 
 
 Nor could any one pay more willing homage to 
 such a character, though she had not been re- 
 lated to him, than did Dr. Johnson on every 
 occasion that offered: his disquisition on Pope's 
 epitaph placed over Mrs. Corbet, is a proof of 
 that preference always given by him to a noise- 
 less life over a bustling one ; but however taste 
 begins, we almost always see that it ends in 
 simplicity ; the glutton finishes by losing his 
 relish for any thing highly sauced, and calls for 
 his boiled chicken at the close ot many years 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. / 
 
 spent in the search of dainties ; the connois- 
 seurs are soon weary of Rubens, and the critics 
 of Luc an ; and the refinements of every kind 
 heaped upon civil life, always sicken their pos- 
 sessors before the close of it. 
 
 At the age of two years Mr. Johnson was 
 brought up to London by his mother, to be 
 touched by queen Anne for the scrophulous 
 evil, which terribly afflicted his childhood, and 
 left such marks as greatly disfigured a counte- 
 nance naturally harsh and rugged, beside doing 
 irreparable damage to the auricular organs, 
 which never could perform their functions since 
 I knew him; and it was owing to that horrible 
 disorder, too, that one eye was perfectly useless 
 to him ; that defect, however, was not observa- 
 ble, the eyes looked both alike. As Mr. John- 
 son had an astonishing memory, I asked him, 
 if he could remember queen Anne at all ? He 
 had, he said, a confused, but somehow a sort 
 of solemn recollection of a lady in diamonds and 
 a long black hood. 
 
 The christening of his brother he remembe- 
 red with all its circumstances, and said, his mo- 
 ther taught him to spell and pronounce the 
 words little Natty, syllable by syllable, making 
 
8 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 him say it over in the evening to her husband 
 and his guests. The trick which most parents 
 play with their children, that of shewing off 
 their newly-acquired accomplishments, disgus- 
 ted Mr. Johnson beyond expression; he had 
 been treated so himself, he said, till he abso- 
 lutely loathed his father's caresses, because he 
 knew they were sure to precede some unpleas- 
 ing display of his early abilities ; and he used, 
 when neighbours came o' visiting, to run up a 
 tree that he might not be found and exhibited, 
 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 
 
 That Samuel Johnson trod on; 
 If it had liv'd it had been good luck, 
 
 For it would have been an odd one ; 
 
 is a striking example of early expansion of 
 mind, and knowledge of language ; yet he al- 
 ways seem'd 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) is the great 
 misery of late marriages ; the unhappy produce 
 of them becomes the plaything of dotage : an 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 9 
 
 old man's child (continued he) leads much such 
 a life, I think, as a little boy's dog, teazed with 
 awkward fondness, and forced, perhaps, to sit 
 up and beg, as we call it , to divert a company, 
 who at last go away complaining of their dis- 
 agreeable entertainment.' ' In consequence 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 refu- 
 sing to hear the verses the children could re- 
 cite, or the songs they could sing ; particularly 
 one friend who told him that his two sons 
 should repeat Gray's Elegy to him alternately, 
 that he might judge who had the happiest ca- 
 dence. " 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." He told me the story himself, but I 
 have forgot who the father was. 
 
 Mr. Johnson's Mother was daughter to a 
 gentleman in the country, such as there were 
 many of in those days, who possessing, perhaps, 
 one or two hundred pounds a year in land, li- 
 ved on the profits, and sought not to increase 
 their income : she was therefore inclined to 
 

 10 ANECDOTES OV 
 
 think higher of herself than of her husband, 
 whose conduct in money matters being but in- 
 different, she had a trick of teasing him about 
 it, and was, by her son's account, very impor- 
 tunate with regard to her fears of sp ending- 
 more than they could afford, though she never 
 arrived at knowing how much that was ; a fault 
 common, as he said, to most women who pride 
 themselves on their economy. They did not 
 however, as I could understand, live ill toge- 
 ther on the whole : " My father (says he) could 
 always take his horse and ride away for orders 
 when things went badly." The lady's maiden 
 name was Ford ; and the parson who sits next 
 to the punch-bowl in Hogarth's Modern Mid- 
 night Conversation was her brother's son. 
 This Ford was a man who chose to be eminent 
 only for vice, with talents that might have 
 made him conspicuous in literature, and re- 
 spectable in any profession he could have cho- 
 sen : his cousin has mentioned him in the lives 
 of Fenton and of Broome ; and when he spoke 
 of him to me it was always with tenderness, 
 praising his acquaintance with life and manners, 
 and recollecting one piece of advice that no man 
 surely ever followed more exactly : " Obtain 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 11 
 
 (says Ford) some general principles of every 
 science; he who can talk only on one subject, 
 or act only in one department, is seldom want- 
 ed and perhaps never wished for; while the 
 man of general knowledge can often benefit, 
 and always please." He used to relate, how- 
 ever, another story less to the credit of his 
 cousin's penetration, how Ford on some occa- 
 sion said to him, " You will make your way 
 more easily in the world, I see, as you are con- 
 tented to dispute no man's claim to conversa- 
 tion excellence ; they will, therefore, more 
 willingly allow your pretensions as a writer." 
 Can one, on such an occasion, forbear recol- 
 lecting the predictions of Boileau's father, when 
 stroking the head of the young satirist, Ce petit 
 bon homme (says he) na point trop <T esprit, mais 
 il ne dira jamais mal de personne ? Such are 
 the prognostics formed by men of wit and 
 sense, as these two certainly were, concerning 
 the future character and conduct of those for 
 whose welfare they were honestly and deeply 
 concerned ; and so late do those features of 
 peculiarity come to their growth, which mark 
 a character to all succeeding generations. 
 
 Dr. Johnson first learned to read of his mo- 
 ther and her old maid Catharine, in whose lap 
 
12 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 he well remembered sitting while she explained 
 to him the story of St. George and the Dragon. 
 I know not whether this is the proper place to 
 add, that such was his tenderness, and such 
 his gratitude, that he took a journey to Litch- 
 field fifty- seven years afterward to support and 
 comfort her in her last illness ; he had inquired 
 for his nurse, and she was dead. The recol- 
 lection of such reading as had delighted him in 
 his infancy, made him always persist in fancy- 
 ing 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. "Ba- 
 bies do not want (said he) 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 pos- 
 sible splendor to painful duty. 
 
 At eight years old he went to school, for his 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 13 
 
 health would not permit him to be sent sooner ; 
 and at the age of ten years his mind was dis- 
 turbed by scruples of infidelity, which preyed 
 upon his spirits, and made him very uneasy; 
 the more so, as he revealed his uneasiness to no 
 one, being naturally, as he said, "of a sullen 
 and reserved disposition." He searched, how- 
 ever, diligently but fruitlessly, for evidences of 
 the truth of revelation ; and at length recol- 
 lecting a book he had once seen in his father's 
 shop, entitled, De Veritate Religionis, Sec. he be- 
 gan to think himself highly culpable for neg- 
 lecting such a means of information, and took 
 himself severely to task for this sin, adding ma- 
 ny acts of voluntary, and to others unknown, 
 penance. The first opportunity which offered 
 (of course) he seized the book with avidity; 
 but on examination not finding himself scholar 
 enough to peruse its contents, set his heart at 
 rest ; and, not thinking to enquire whether there 
 were any English books written on the subject, 
 followed his usual amusements, and considered 
 his conscience as lightened of a crime. He 
 redoubled his diligence to learn the language 
 that contained the information he most wished 
 for; but from the pain which guilt had given 
 

 
 14 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 him, he now began to deduce the soul's immor- 
 tality, which was the point that belief first 
 stopped at ; and from that moment resolving 
 to be a Christian, became one of the most zea- 
 lous and pious ones our nation ever produced. 
 When he had told me this odd anecdote of his 
 childhood^ " I cannot imagine (said he) what 
 makes me talk of myself to you so, for I really 
 never mentioned this foolish story to any body 
 except Dr. Taylor, not even to my dear dear 
 Bathurst, whom I loved better than ever I lov- 
 ed any human creature ; but poor Bathurst is 
 dead ! ! ! "—Here a long pause and a few tears 
 ensued. Why sir, said I, how like is all this 
 to Jean Jaques Rousseau ! as like, I mean, as 
 the sensations of frost and fire, when my child 
 complained yesterday that the ice she was eat- 
 ing burned her mouth. Mr. Johnson laughed 
 at the incongruous ideas ; but the first thing 
 which presented itself to the mind of an inge- 
 nious and learned friend whom I had the plea- 
 sure to pass some time with here at Florence, 
 was the same resemblance, though I think the 
 two characters had little in common, farther 
 than an early attention to things beyond the 
 capacity of other babies, a keen sensibility of 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 15 
 
 right and wrong, and a warmth of imagination 
 little consistent with sound and perfect health. 
 I have heard him relate another odd thing of 
 himself too, but it is one which every body has 
 heard as well as me : how, when he was about 
 nine years old, having got the play of Hamlet 
 in his hand, and reading it quietly in his fa- 
 ther's kitchen, he kept on steadily enough, till 
 coming to the ghost scene, he suddenly hurried 
 up stairs to the street-door that he might see 
 people about him : such an incident, as he was 
 not unwilling to relate it, is probably in every 
 one's possession now ; he told it as a testi- 
 mony to the merits of Shakespeare : 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 attentively could hear plain 
 enough, he said to me suddenly, "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. "Do 
 not ask me," replied he with much violence, 
 and walked away in apparent agitation. I never 
 durst make any further inquiries. He retained 
 a strong aversion for the memory of Hunter, 
 
16 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 one of his schoolmasters, who, he said once, 
 was a brutal fellow : "so brutal (added he), 
 that no man who had been educated by him 
 ever sent his son to the same school." I have 
 however heard him acknowledge his scholar- 
 ship to be very great. His next master he 
 despised, as knowing less than himself, I found ; 
 but the name of that gentleman has slipped my 
 memory. Mr. Johnson was himself exceed- 
 ingly disposed to the general indulgence of 
 children, and was even scrupulously and cere- 
 moniously 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." 
 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 I 
 would not have set their future friendship to ha- 
 zard for the sake of thrusting into their heads 
 knowledge of things for which they might not 
 perhaps have either taste or necessity. You 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 17 
 
 teach your daughters the diameters of the pla- 
 nets, and wonder when you have done that 
 they do not delight in your company. No 
 science can be communicated by mortal crea- 
 tures without attention from the scholar ; no at- 
 tention can be obtained from children without 
 the infliction of pain, and pain is never remem- 
 bered without resentment/' That something 
 should be learned, was, however, so certainly 
 his opinion, that I have heard him say, how 
 education had been often compared to agricul- 
 ture, yet that it resembled it chieily in this : 
 "that if nothing is sown, no crop (says he) can 
 be obtained." His contempt of the lady who 
 fancied her son could be eminent without study, 
 because Shakspeare was found wanting in 
 scholastic learning, was expressed in terms so 
 gross and so well known, I will not repeat them 
 here. 
 
 To recollect, however, and to repeat the 
 sayings of Dr. Johnson, is almost all that can 
 be done by the writers of his life ; as his life, 
 at least since my acquaintance with him, con- 
 sisted in little else than talking, when he was 
 not absolutely employed in some serious piece 
 of work ; and whatever work he did, seemed 
 
 c 
 
18 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 so much below his powers of performance, that 
 he appeared the idlest of all human beings; 
 ever musing till he was called out to converse, 
 and conversing till the fatigue of his friends, or 
 the promptitude of his own temper to take of- 
 fence, consigned him back again to silent me- 
 ditation. 
 
 The remembrance of what had passed in his 
 own childhood, made Mr. Johnson very solici- 
 tous to preserve the felicity of children ; and 
 when he had persuaded Dr. Sumner to remit 
 the tasks usually given to fill up boys' time du- 
 ring the holidays, he rejoiced exceedingly in 
 the success of his negociation, and told me that 
 he had never ceased representing to all the 
 eminent schoolmasters in England, the absurd 
 tyranny of poisoning 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 Sumner (said 
 he), however, I have at length prevailed upon : 
 I know not indeed whether his tenderness was 
 persuaded, or his reason convinced, but the ef- 
 fect will always be the same. Poor Dr. Sum- 
 ner died, however, before the next vacation." 
 
 Mr. Johnson was of opinion, too, that young 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 19 
 
 people should have positive, not general rules 
 given for their direction. " My mother (said 
 he) was always telling me that I did not behave 
 myself properly ; that I should endeavour to 
 learn behaviour, and such cant : but when I re- 
 plied, that she ought to tell me what to do, and 
 what to avoid, her admonitions were common- 
 ly, for that time at least, at an end." 
 
 This, I fear, was however at best a momen- 
 tary refuge, found out by perverseness. 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 sons 
 behaviour. 
 
 Though he was attentive to the peace of chil- 
 dren 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 
 
 c 2 
 
20 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 absurd ; and never suspect that they tease 
 their family, their friends, and themselves, only 
 because conversation runs low, 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 requested the consent 
 of Cambyses to his marriage with a neighbour- 
 ing princess ; and I added Kollin's applause 
 and recommendation of the example. " Do 
 you not perceive then (says Johnson), that Xe- 
 nophon on this occasion commends like a pe- 
 dant, and Pere Rollin applauds like a slave ? 
 If Cyrus by his conquests had not purchased 
 emancipation, he had conquered to little pur- 
 pose indeed. Can you forbear to see the fol- 
 ly of a fellow who has in his care the lives of 
 thousands, when he begs his papa's permission 
 to be married, and confesses his inability to de- 
 cide in a matter which concerns no man's hap- 
 piness but his own?" — Mr. Johnson caught me 
 another time reprimanding the daughter of my 
 housekeeper for having sat down unpermitted 
 iu her mother's presence. " Why, she gets her 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 21 
 
 living, does she not (said he), without her mo- 
 ther's help? Let the wench alone/' continued 
 he. And when we were again out of the wo- 
 men's sight who were concerned in the dispute, 
 "Poor people's children, dear lady (said he) 
 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) 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." 
 
 I will relate one thing more that Dr. John- 
 son 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 
 
22 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 impression is erased by the intervention of 
 newer occurrences. He perfectly remember- 
 ed the first time he 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 di- 
 rectly to call a favourite workman in the 
 house, to whom she knew he would communi- 
 cate the conversation while it was yet impres- 
 sed upon his mind. The event was what she 
 wished, and it was to that method chiefly that 
 he owed his uncommon felicity of remembering 
 distant occurrances, and long-past conversa- 
 tions." 
 
 At the age of eighteen Dr. Johnson quitted 
 school, and escaped from the tuition of those 
 he hated or those he despised. I have heard 
 him relate very few college adventures. He 
 used to say that our best accounts of his beha- 
 viour there would be gathered from Dr. Adams 
 and Dr. Taylor, and that he was sure they 
 would always tell the truth. He told me how- 
 ever one day, when he was first entered at the 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 23 
 
 university, he passed a morning, in compliance 
 with the customs of the place, at his tutor's 
 chambers ; but finding him no scholar, went no 
 more. In about ten days after, meeting the 
 same gentleman, Mr. Jordan, in the street, he 
 offered to pass by without saluting him ; but 
 the tutor stopped and inquired, not roughly 
 neither, what he had been doing ; " Sliding on 
 the ice," was the reply ; and so turned away 
 with disdain. He laughed very heartily at the 
 recollection of his own insolence, and said they 
 endured it from him with wonderful acquies- 
 cence, and a gentleness that, whenever he 
 thought of it, astonished himself. He told me 
 too, that when he made his first declamation, 
 he wrote over but one copy, and that coarsely ; 
 and having given it into the hand of the tutor 
 who stood to receive it as he passed, was obli- 
 ged to begin by chance and continue on how he 
 could, for he had got but little of it by heart ; so, 
 fairly trusting to his present powers for imme- 
 diate supply, he finished by adding astonish- 
 ment to the applause of all who knew how little 
 was owing to study. A prodigious risk, however, 
 said some one : " Not at all (exclaims Johnson), 
 no man I suppose leaps at once into deep wa- 
 ter who does not know how to swim." 
 
24 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 I doubt not but this story will be told by 
 many of his biographers, and said so to him 
 when he told it me on the 18th of July, 1773. 
 " And who will be my biogropher (said he), 
 do you think ?" Goldsmith, no doubt, replied 
 I, and he will do it the best among us. " The 
 dog would write it best to be sure (replied he); 
 but his particular malice towards me, and ge- 
 neral disregard for truth, would make the book 
 useless to all, and injurious to my character." 
 Oh ! as to that, said I, we should all fasten up- 
 on him, and force him to do you justice ; but 
 the worst is, the doctor does not know your 
 life ; nor can I tell indeed who does, except 
 Dr. Taylor of Ashbourne. " Why Taylor (said 
 he) is better acquainted with my heart than 
 any man or woman now alive ; and the history 
 of my Oxford exploits lies all between him and 
 Adams ; but Dr. James knows my very early 
 days better than he. After my coming to Lon- 
 don to drive the world about a little, you must 
 all go to Jack Hawkesworth for anecdotes : I 
 lived in great familiarity with him (though I 
 think there was not much affection) from the 
 year 1753 till the time Mr. Thrale and you 
 took me up. I intend, however, to disappoint 
 the rogues, and either make you write the life, 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 25 
 
 with Taylor's intelligence ; or, which is better, 
 do it myself, after outliving you all. I am now 
 (added he) keeping a diary, in hopes of using 
 it for that purpose some time." Here the con- 
 versation stopped, from my accidentally look- 
 ing in an old magazine of the year 1768, where 
 I saw the following lines with his name to them, 
 and asked if they were his. 
 
 VERSES said to be written by Dr. Samuel Johnson, at the request 
 of a Gentleman to whom a Lady had given a Sprig of Myrtle. 
 
 What hopes, what terrors, does thy gift create, 
 Ambiguous emblem of uncertain fate ; 
 The Myrtle, ensign of supreme command, 
 Consign'd by Venus to Melissa's hand ; 
 Not less capricious than a reigning fair, 
 Now grants, and now rejects a lover's prayer. 
 In myrtle shades oft sings the happy swain, 
 In myrtle shades despairing ghosts complain : 
 The myrtle crowns the happy lovers' heads, 
 Th' unhappy lovers' grave the myrtle spreads : 
 O then the meaning of thy gift impart, 
 And ease the throbbings of an anxious heart ! 
 Soon must this bough, as you shall fix his doom, 
 Adorn Philander's head, or grace his tomb. 
 
 "Why now, do but see how the world is 
 gaping for a wonder! (cries Mr. Johnson.) I 
 think it is now just forty years ago that a 
 young fellow had a sprig of myrtle given him 
 by a girl he courted, and asked me to write 
 
26 
 
 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 him some verses that he might present her in 
 return. I promised, but forgot; and when he 
 called for his lines at the time agreed on. Sit 
 still a moment (says I), dear Mund, and I'll 
 fetch them thee — so stepped aside for five mi- 
 nutes, and wrote the nonsense you now keep 
 such a stir about." 
 
 Upon revising these Anecdotes, it is impos- 
 sible not to be struck with shame and regret 
 that one treasured no more of them up ; but no 
 experience is sufficient to cure the vice of neg- 
 ligence ; whatever one sees constantly, or might 
 see constantly, becomes uninteresting ; and we 
 suffer every trivial occupation, every slight 
 amusement, to hinder us from writing down, 
 what indeed we cannot choose but remem- 
 ber; but what we should wish to recollect with 
 pleasure, unpoisoned by remorse for not re- 
 membering more. While I write this, I neg- 
 lect impressing my mind with the wonders of 
 art, and beauties of nature, that now surround 
 me ; and shall one day, perhaps, think on the 
 hours I might have profitably passed in the 
 Florentine Gallery, and, reflecting on Ra- 
 phael's St John at that time, as upon Johnson's 
 conversation in this moment, may justly ex- 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 27 
 
 claim of the months spent by me most delight- 
 fully in Itlay 
 
 That I priz'd every hour that pass'd by, 
 
 Beyond all that had pleas'd me before; 
 But now they are past, and I sigh 
 
 And I grieve that I priz'd them no more. 
 
 S hen stone. 
 
 Dr. Johnson delighted in his own partiality 
 for Oxford ; and one day, at my house, enter- 
 tained five members of the other university 
 with various instances of the superiority of Ox- 
 ford, enumerating the gigantic names of many 
 men whom it had produced, with apparent tri- 
 umph. At last I said to him, Why there hap- 
 pens 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 goodness of heart — "He was 
 the only man too (says Mr. Johnson quite seri- 
 ously) that did justice to my good breeding; 
 and you may observe that I am well-bred to 
 a degree of needless scrupulosity. No man 
 
28 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 (continued he, not observing the amazement 
 of his hearers), no man is so cautious not to 
 interrupt another; no man thinks it so ne- 
 cessary to appear attentive when others are 
 speaking; no man so steadily refuses prefer- 
 ence 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 ef- 
 fects which follow the breach of it : yet people 
 think me rude; but Barnard did me justice." 
 Tis pity,, said I laughing, that he had not heard 
 you compliment the Cambridge men after din- 
 ner to-day. "Why (replied re) I was in- 
 clined to down them sure enough ; but then a 
 fellow deserves to be of Oxford that talks so." 
 I have heard him at other times relate how he 
 used to sit in some coffee-house there, and turn 
 M 's C-r-ct-c-s into ridicule for the diver- 
 sion of himself and of chance comers-in. "The 
 Elf — da (says he) was too exquisitely pretty ; 
 I could make no fun out of that." When up- 
 on some occasions he would express his asto- 
 nishment that he should have an enemy in the 
 world, while he had been doing nothing but 
 good to his neighbours, I used to make him re- 
 collect these circumstances: "Why child (said 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 29 
 
 he), what harm could that do the fellow ? I 
 
 always thought very well of M n for a 
 
 Cambridge man; he is, I believe, a mighty 
 blameless character." Such tricks were, how- 
 ever, the more unpardonable in Mr. Johnson, 
 because no one could harangue like him about 
 the difficulty always found in forgiving petty 
 injuries, or in provoking by needless offence. 
 Mr. Jordan, his tutor, had much of his affec- 
 tion, though he despised his want of scholastic 
 learning. " That creature would (said he) de- 
 fend his pupils to the last : no young lad under 
 his care should suffer for committing slight 
 improprieties, while he had breath to defend 
 or power to protect them. If I had had sons 
 to send to college (added he), Jordan should 
 have been their tutor." 
 
 Sir William Browne the physician, who li- 
 ved 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 no- 
 tions which prevail at Cambridge. He did it 
 
30 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 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, 
 
 Tho 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 William, might well be an- 
 swered thus : 
 
 The king to Oxford sent his troop of horse, 
 For Tories own no argument but force ; 
 With equal cLre 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 pro- 
 ductions he ever met with; though he once 
 comically confessed, that he hated to repeat 
 the wit of a Whig urged in support of Whig- 
 gism. Says Garrickto him one day, Why did 
 not you make me a Tory, when we lived so 
 much together ? you love to make people To- 
 ries. " Why (says Johnson, pulling a heap of 
 halfpence from his pocket,) did not the king 
 make these guineas V* 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 31 
 
 Of Mr. Johnson's Toryism the world has 
 long been witness, and the political pamphlets 
 written by him in defence of his party, are vi- 
 gorous and elegant. He often delighted his 
 imagination with the thoughts of having de- 
 stroyed Junius, an anonymous writer who 
 flourished in the years 1769 and 1770, and 
 who kept himself so ingeniously concealed from 
 every endeavour to detect him, that no proba- 
 ble guess was, I believe, ever formed concern- 
 ing the author's name, though at that time the 
 subject of general conversation. Mr. Johnson 
 made us all laugh one day, because I had re- 
 ceived a remarkably fine Stilton cheese as a 
 present from some person who had packed and 
 directed it carefully, but without mentioning 
 whence it came. Mr. Thrale, desirous to 
 know who we were obliged to, asked every 
 friend as they came in, but nobody owned it : 
 " Depend upon it, sir (says Johnson), it was 
 sent by Junius" 
 
 The False Alarm, his first and favourite 
 pamphlet, was written at our house between 
 eight o'clock on Wednesday night and twelve 
 o'clock on Thursday night; we read it to Mr. 
 Thrale when he came very late home from the 
 
32 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 House of Commons : the other political tracts 
 followed in their order. I have forgotten which 
 contains the stroke at Junius ; but shall for ever 
 remember the pleasure it gave him to have 
 written it. It was however in the year 1775 that 
 Mr. Edmund Burke made the famous speech 
 in parliament, that struck even foes with admi- 
 ration, 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 ap- 
 plaud, with rapture, the beautiful passage in 
 it concerning lord Bathurst and the angel; 
 Which, said our Doctor, had 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 : 
 
 "You seem, my lord, to be concerned at 
 the judicious 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 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 33 
 
 its inhabitants from your arts, though active i 
 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 ; 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 sedi- 
 tion, and propagate confusion, perplexity, and 
 pain. Be not dispirited then at the contempla- 
 tion 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 di- 
 rectly, before any thing could intervene that 
 might make me forget the force of the ex- 
 pressions : a trick, which I have however seen 
 played on common occasions, of sitting steadily 
 down at the other end of the room to write at 
 
34 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 the moment what should be said in company, ei- 
 ther 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 trea- 
 chery 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 thousand things, which (as the 
 phrase is) pass well enough at the time, though 
 they cannot stand the test of critical examina- 
 tion ; and as all talk beyond that which is ne- 
 cessary 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 distin- 
 guish the gentleman from the juggler. Dr. 
 Johnson, as well as many of my acquaintance 
 knew that I kept a common-place book ; and 
 he one day said to me good-humouredly, that 
 he would give me something to write in my 
 repository. "I warrant (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 
 Anacreon's Dove directly ; but tell at the same 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 35 
 
 time, that as I never was struck with any thing 
 in the Greek language till I read that, so I ne- 
 ver read any thing in the same language since, 
 that pleased me as much. I hope my transla- 
 tion (continued he) is not worse than that of 
 Frank Fawkes." Seeing me disposed to laugh, 
 " 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 heart, 
 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 ; 
 
 D 2 
 
36 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 Under leaves to hide one's head, 
 Slightly shelter'd coarsely fed; 
 Now my better lot bestows 
 Sweet repast, and soft repose ; 
 Now the generous bowl I sip 
 
 As it leaves Anacreon's lip ; . J 
 
 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, 
 I hav« chatter' d like,apie." 
 
 When I had finished, "But you must re- 
 member to had (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." 
 
 This facility of writing, and this dilatoriness 
 ever to write, Mr. Johnson always retained, 
 from the days that he lay a- bed and dictated 
 his first publication to Mr. Hector, who acted 
 as his amanuensis, to the moment he made me 
 copy out those variations in Pope's Homer 
 which are printed in the Poets' Lives: "And 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 37 
 
 now (3&id he, when I had finished it for him), I 
 fear not Mr. Nicholson of a pin." — The fine 
 Rambler on the subject of Procrastination was 
 hastily composed, as I have heard, in sir Joshua 
 Reynolds's parlour, while the boy waited to 
 carry it to press: and numberless are the in- 
 stances of his writing under immediate pressure 
 of importunity or distress. He told me that 
 the character of Sober in the Idler, was by him- 
 self 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. Of the 
 allegorical papers in the Rambler, Labour and 
 Rest was his favourite ; but Serotinus, the man 
 who returns late in life to receive honours in his 
 native country, and meets with mortification 
 instead of respect, was by him considered as a 
 masterpiece in the science of life and manners. 
 The character of Prospero in the fourth volume, 
 Garrick took to be his; and I have heard the 
 author say, that he never forgave the offence. 
 Sophron was likewise a picture drawn from re- 
 ality ; and by Gelidus the philosopher, he meant 
 to represent Mr. Coulson, a mathematician, 
 who formerly lived at Rochester. The man 
 immortalized for purring like a cat was, as he 
 
38 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 told me, one Busby, a proctor in the Commons. 
 He who barked so ingeniously, and then called 
 the drawer to drive away the dog, was father 
 to Dr. Salter of the Charterhouse. He who 
 sung a song, and by correspondent motions of 
 his arm chalked out a giant on the wall, was 
 one Richardson, an attorney. The letter sign- 
 ed Sunday, was written by Miss Talbot ; and 
 he fancied the billets in the first volume of the 
 Rambler, were sent him by Miss Mulso, now 
 Mrs. Chapone, The papers contributed by 
 Mrs. Carter, had much of his esteem, though 
 he always blamed me for preferring the letter 
 signed Chariessa to the allegory, where religion 
 and superstition are indeed most masterly de- 
 lineated. 
 
 When Dr. Johnson read his own satire, in 
 which the life of a scholar is painted, with the 
 various obstructions thrown in his way to for- 
 tune and to fame, he burst into a passion of 
 tears one day : the family and Mr Scott only 
 were present, who, in a jocose way, clapped 
 him on the back, and said, What's all this, my 
 dear sir ? Why you, and I, and Hercules, you 
 know, were all troubled with melancholy. — As 
 there are many gentlemen of the same name, 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 39 
 
 I should say, perhaps, that it was a Mr. Scott 
 who married Miss Robinson, and that I think 
 I have heard Mr. Thrale call him George Lewis, 
 or George Augustus, I have forgot which. He 
 was a very large man, however, and made out 
 the triumvirate with Johnson and Hercules co- 
 mically enough. The Doctor was so delighted 
 at his odd sally, that he suddenly embraced 
 him, and the subject was immediately changed. 
 I never saw Mr. Scott but that once in my life. 
 Dr. Johnson was liberal enough in granting 
 literary assistance to others, I think ; and in- 
 numerable are the prefaces, sermons, lectures, 
 and dedications, which he used to make for 
 people who begged of him. Mr. Murphy re- 
 lated 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 pro- 
 logue, that Dr. Johnson replied, " Why, sir, 
 when they come to me with a dead staymaker 
 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 li- 
 terature : one hates, besides, ever to give that 
 
40 ANECDOTES OE 
 
 which one has been accustomed to sell ; would 
 not you, sir (turning to Mr. Thrale), rather 
 give away money than porter ?". 
 
 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 by times when they had 
 nothing else to do. " It has been by that 
 means (said he to a boy at our house one day) 
 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 book case, 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 art- 
 fully into play : how else (added he) do the 
 gamesters manage when they play for more 
 money than they are worth?" 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 ea- 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 41 
 
 sily in two years, had not his health received 
 several shocks during the time." 
 
 When Mr. Thrale, inconsequence of this de- 
 claration, teased him in the year 1769 to give a 
 new edition of it, because (said he) there are 
 four or five gross faults: "Alas, sir (replied 
 Johnson), 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 booksel- 
 lers set him about it, however, some years af- 
 ter, he went cheerfully to the business, said he 
 was well paid, and that they deserved to have 
 it done carefully. His reply to the person who 
 complimented him on its coming out first, men- 
 tioning the ill success of the French in a similar 
 attempt, is well known ; and, I trust, has been 
 often recorded : "Why what would you expect, 
 dear sir (said he), from fellows that eat frogs?" 
 I have however often thought Dr. Johnson more 
 free than prudent in professing so loudly his 
 little skill in the Greek language : for though 
 he considered it as a proof of a narrow mind to 
 be too careful of literary reputation, yet no man 
 could be more enraged than he, if an enemy, 
 
42 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 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 com- 
 pendious a knowledge of authors, books, and 
 every branch of learning in that language, that 
 the gentleman appeared astonished. When he 
 was gone home, says Johnson, " Now for all 
 this triumph, I may thank Thrale's Xeno- 
 phon 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. 
 
 When Davies printed the Fugitive Pieces 
 without his knowledge or consent; How, said 
 I, would Pope have raved, had he been served 
 so? "We should never (replied he) have heard 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 43 
 
 the last on't, to be sure ; but then Pope was a 
 narrow man : I will however (added he) storm 
 and bluster myself & little this time;" — so went 
 to London in all the wrath he could muster up. 
 At his return I asked how the affair ended : 
 " Why (said he), I was a fierce fellow, and 
 pretended to be very angry, and Thomas was 
 a good-natured fellow, and pretended to be 
 very sorry ; so there the matter ended : I be- 
 lieve the dog loves me dearly. Mr. Thrale 
 (turning to my husband), what shall you and I 
 do that is good for Tom Davie s ? We will do 
 something for him, to be sure." 
 
 Of Pope as a writer he had the highest opi- 
 nion, and once when a lady at our house talked 
 of his preface to Shakspeare as superior to 
 Pope's, " I fear not, madam (said he), the lit- 
 tle 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 Rehearsal, as having hurt his gene- 
 ral character as an author, '* On the contrary 
 (says Mr. Johnson), the greatness of Dryden s 
 reputation is now the only principal of vitality 
 which keeps the duke of Buckingham's play 
 from putrefaction." 
 
44 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 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 rapture that I suppose disgusted 
 his friend, Mr. Johnson suddenly challenged 
 him to produce twenty lines in a series that 
 would not disgrace the poet and his admirer. 
 Garrick produced a passage that he had once 
 heard the Doctor commend, in which he now 
 found, if I remember rightly, sixteen faults, 
 and made Garrick look silly at his own table. 
 When I told Mr. Johnson the story, " Why what 
 a monkey was David now (says he), to tell of 
 his own disgrace !" And in the course of that 
 hour's chat he told me, how he used to tease 
 Garrick by commendations of the tomb scene 
 in Congreve's Morning 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 
 Congreve is to stand in competition with Shak- 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 45 
 
 speare : these fellows know not how to blame, 
 nor how to commend." I forced him one day, 
 in a similar humour, to prefer Young's descrip- 
 tion of Night to the so-much-admired ones of 
 Dryden and Shakspeare, as more forcible, 
 and more general. Every reader is not either 
 a lover or a tyrant, but every reader is inter- 
 ested when he hears that 
 
 Creation sleeps; 'tis as the general pulse 
 Of life stood still, and nature made a pause j 
 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 bub- 
 bles, sometimes very vigorously ; but we must 
 not compare the noise made by your tea-kettle 
 here with the roaring of the ocean." 
 
 Somebody was praising Corneille one day in 
 opposition to Shakspeare: " Corneille is to 
 Shakspeare (replied Mr. Johnson) 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 : mere super- 
 ficial observations on life and manners, without 
 
46 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 erudition enough to make them keep, like the 
 light French wines, which turn sour with stand- 
 ing awhile for want of body, as we call it." 
 
 Of a much-admired poem, when extolled as 
 beautiful, he replied, " That it had indeed the 
 beauty of a bubble : the colours are gay (said 
 he), but the substance slight." Of James Har- 
 ris's dedication to his Hermes 1 have heard him 
 observe, that, though but fourteen lines long, 
 there were six grammatical faults in it. 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 performances to the other. At 
 length you must allow me, said the gentleman, 
 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." This was 
 like the story which Mr. Murphy tells, and 
 Johnson always acknowledged : How Mr. Rose 
 of Hammersmith, 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 
 L; 1, to make sure of victory, he named Fergu- 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 47 
 
 son 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." Of a mo- 
 dern Martial, when it came out, " There are 
 in these verses (says Dr. Johnson) too much 
 folly for madness, I think, and too much mad- 
 ness for folly." If, however, Mr. Johnson la- 
 mented, that the nearer he approached to his 
 own times, the more enemies he should make, 
 by telling biographical truths in his Lives of 
 the later Poets, what may I not apprehend, 
 who, if I relate anecdotes of Mr. Johnson, am 
 obliged to repeat expressions of severity, and 
 sentences of contempt ? Let me at least soften 
 them a little, by saying, that he did not hate 
 the persons he treated with roughness, or de- 
 spise them whom he drove from him by appa- 
 rent scorn. He really loved and respected 
 many whom he would not suffer to love him. 
 And 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. asked 
 
43 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 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 (replied Johnson) I have read that the 
 Siamese sent ambassadors to Lewis Quatorze, 
 but I never heard that the king of France 
 thought it worth his while to send Ambassa- 
 dors from his court to that of Siam" He was 
 no gentler with myself, or those for whom I 
 had the greatest regard. When I one day la- 
 mented the loss of a first cousin killed in Ame- 
 rica — "Prithee, my dear (said he,) have done 
 with canting : how would the world be worse 
 for it, I may ask, if all your relations were at 
 once spitted like larks, and roasted for Presto's 
 supper ?" Presto was the dog that lay under 
 the table while we talked. When we went 
 into Wales together, and spent some time at 
 sir Robert Cotton's at Lleweny, one day at 
 dinner I meant to please Mr. Johnson particu- 
 larly with a dish of very young peas. Are not 
 they charming ? said I to him, while he was 
 eating them. — " Perhaps (said he) they would 
 be so — to a pig" I only instance these re- 
 plies, to excuse my mentioning those he made 
 to others. 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 49 
 
 When a well-known author published his 
 poems in the year 1777 : Such a one's verses 
 are come out, said I: "Yes (replied Johnson), 
 and this frost has struck them in again. Here 
 are some lines I have written to ridicule them : 
 but remember that I love the fellow dearly, now 
 — for all I laugh at him. 
 
 Wheresoe'er I turn my view, 
 All is strange, yet nothing new : 
 Endless labour all along, 
 Endless labour to be wrong • 
 Phrase that Time has flung away ; 
 Uncouth words in disarray, 
 Trick'd in antique ruff and bonnet, 
 Ode, and elegy, and sonnet." 
 
 When he parodied the verses of another emi* 
 nent writer, it was done with more provocation, 
 I believe, and with some merry malice. A se- 
 rious translation of the same lines, which I 
 think are from Euripides, may be found in Bur- 
 ney's History of Music— Here are the burles- 
 que ones : 
 
 Err shall they not, who resolute explore 
 Time's gloomy backward with judicious eyes ♦ 
 And scanning right the practices of yore, 
 Shall deem our hoar progenitors unwise. 
 
 They to the dome where smoke with curling play 
 Announced the dinner to the regions round, 
 
 E 
 
50 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 Summon'd the singer blythe, and harper gay, 
 And aided wine with dulcet-streaming sound. 
 
 The better use of notes, or sweet or shrill, 
 By quiv'ring string, or modulated wind ; 
 Trumpet or lyre— to their arch bosoms chill, 
 Admission ne'er had sought, or could not find. 
 
 Oh ! send them to the sullen mansions dun , 
 Her baleful eyes where Sorrow rolls around ; 
 Where gloom-enamour'd Mischief loves to dwell, 
 And Murder, all blood-bolter'd, schemes the wound. 
 
 When cates luxuriant pile the spacious dishy 
 And purple nectar glads the festive hour j 
 The guest, without a want, without a wish, 
 Can yield no room to Music's soothing poweF. 
 
 Some of the old legendary stories put in verse 
 by modern writers provoked him to caricature 
 them thus one day at Streatham; but they are 
 already well -know, I am sure. 
 
 The tender infant, meek and mild, 
 
 Fell down upon the stone ; 
 The nurse took up the squealing child, 
 
 But still the child squeal'd on. 
 
 A famous ballad also, beginning Rio verde, 
 Rio verde, when I commended the translation 
 of it, he said he could do it better himself — as 
 thus : 
 
 Glassy water, glassy water, 
 Down whose current, clear and strong, 
 Chiefs confus'd in mutual slaughter, 
 Moor and Christian roll along. 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 51 
 
 But sir, said I, this is not ridiculous at all. 
 <"Why no (replied he), why should I always 
 write ridiculously? — perhaps because I made 
 these verses to imitate such a one, naming 
 him: 
 
 Hermit hoar, in solemn cell 
 Wearing out life's evening gray ; 
 Strike thy bosom sage ! and tell, 
 What is bliss, and which the way ? 
 
 Thus I spoke, and speaking sigh'd, 
 Scarce repress'd the starting tear, 
 When the hoary sage replied, 
 Come, my lad, and drink some beer." 
 
 I could give another comical instance of 
 caricatura imitation. Recollecting some day, 
 when praising these verses of Lopez de Vega, 
 
 Se acquien los leones vcnce 
 Vence una muger hermosa 
 O el de flaco averguenge 
 O ella di ser mas furiosa, 
 
 more than he thought they deserved, Mr. 
 Johnson instantly observed, "that they were 
 founded on a trivial conceit ; and that conceit 
 ill- explained, and ill-expressed beside. — The 
 lady, we all know, does not conquer in the 
 same manner as the lion does : 'tis a mere play 
 
 e 2 
 
52 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 of words (added he), and you might as well 
 say, that 
 
 If the man who turnips cries, 
 Gry not when his father dies, 
 'Tis a proof that he had rather 
 Have a turnip than his father." 
 
 And this humour is of the same sort with which 
 he answered the friend who commended the fol- 
 lowing* line : 
 
 Who rules o'er freemen should him self be free. 
 
 "To be sure (said Dr. Johnson), 
 
 Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat.'" 
 
 This readiness of finding a parallel, or making 
 one, was shown by him perpetually in the 
 course of conversation. — When the French ver- 
 ses of a certain pantomime were quoted thus, 
 
 Je suis Cassandre descendue des cieux, 
 
 Pour vous faire entendre, mcsdames et messieurs, 
 
 Que je suis Cassandre descendue des cieux ; 
 
 he cried out gaily and suddenly, almost in a 
 moment, 
 
 I am Cassandra come down from the sky, 
 To tell each by-stander what none can deny, 
 That I am Cassandra come down from the sky. 
 
 The pretty Italian verses too, at the end of 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 53 
 
 Baretti's book, called "Easy Phraseology," he 
 did aW improviso, in the same manner : 
 
 Viva ! viva la padrona! 
 Tutta bell a, e tutta buona, 
 La padrona e un angiolella 
 Tutta buona e tutta belia ; 
 Tutta bella e tutta buona; 
 Viva! viva la padrona! 
 
 Long may live my lovely Hetty ! 
 Always young and always pretty, 
 Always pretty, always young, 
 Live my lovely Hetty long ! 
 Always young and always pretty; 
 Long may live my lovely Hetty ! 
 
 The famous distich too, of an Italian improvi- 
 satore, who, when the duke of Modena ran 
 away from the comet in the year 1742 or 1743, 
 
 Se al venir vestro i principi sen' vanno 
 Deh venga ogni di- — -durate un anno ; 
 
 "which (said he) would do just as well in our 
 language thus : 
 
 If at your coming princes disappear, 
 Comets ! come every day-»-and stay a year. 
 
 When some one in company commended the 
 verses of M. de Benserade a son Lit ; 
 
 Theatre des ris et des pleurs, 
 Lit! ou je nais, et ou je meurs, 
 Tu nous fais voir comment voisins, 
 Sont nos plaisirs, et nos chagrins. 
 
54* ANECDOTES Ol 
 
 To which he replied without hesitating, 
 
 "In bed we laugh, in bed we cry 3 
 And born in bed, in bed we die j 
 The near approach a bed may shew 
 Of human bliss to human woe." 
 
 The inscription on the collar of sir Joseph 
 Banks's goat which had been on two of his ad- 
 venturous expeditions with him, and was then, 
 by the humanity of her amiable m aster, turned 
 out to graze in Kent, as a recompense for her 
 utility and faithful service, was given me by 
 Johnson in the year 1777, I think, and I have 
 never yet seen it printed. 
 
 Perpetui, ambita, bis terra, premia lactis, 
 Hsec habet aitrici Capra secunda Jovis. 
 
 The epigram written at lord Anson's house 
 many years ago, "where (says Mr. Johnson) I 
 was well received and kindly treated, and with 
 the true gratitude of a wit ridiculed the master 
 of the house before I had left it an hour," has 
 been falsely printed in many papers since his 
 death. I wrote it down from his own lips one 
 evening in August 1772, notneglecting the little 
 preface, accusing himself of making so grace- 
 less a return for the civilities shewn him. He 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 55 
 
 had, among other elegances about the park and 
 gardens, been made to observe a temple to the 
 winds, when this thought naturally presented 
 itself to a wit. 
 
 Gratum animum laudo ; Qui debuit omnia ventis, 
 Quam bene ventorum, surgere templa jubet ! 
 
 A translation of Dryden's epigram too, I used 
 to fancy I had to myself. 
 
 Quos laudet vates, Graius, Romanus, et Anglus, 
 Tres tria temporibus secla dedere suis : 
 Sublime ingenium Graius, — Romanus habebat 
 Carmen grande sonans, Anglus utrumque tulit. 
 Nil majus natura capit ; clarare priores 
 Quae potuere duos, tertius unus habet ; 
 
 from the famous lines written under Milton's 
 picture : 
 
 Three poets in three distant ages born, 
 Greece, Italy, and England, did adorn: 
 The first in loftiness of thought surpast, 
 The next in majesty ; in both the last. 
 The force of nature could no farther go, 
 To make a third she join'd the former two. 
 
 One evening in the oratorio season of the 
 year 1771, Mr, Johnson went with me to Co- 
 vent- Garden theatre; and though he was for 
 the most part an exceeding bad playhouse com- 
 
56 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 panion, as his person drew people's eyes upon 
 the box, and the loudness of his voice made it 
 difficult for me to hear any body but himself; 
 he sat surprisingly quiet, and I flattered myself 
 that he was listening to the music. When we 
 got home, however, he repeated these verses, 
 which he said he had made at the oratorio, and 
 he bid me translate them, 
 
 IN THEATRO. 
 
 Tertii verso quater orbe lustri 
 Quid theatrales tibi crispe pompas ! 
 Quam decet canos male literatos 
 
 Sera vol up tas! 
 
 Tene mulceri fidibus canoris? 
 Tene cantorum modulis stupere ? 
 Tene per pictas oculo elegante 
 
 Currere formas ? 
 
 Inter equales sine felle liber, 
 Codices veri studiosus inter 
 Rectius vives, sua quisque carpat 
 
 Qaudia grains, 
 
 Lusibus gaudet puer otiosis. 
 Lux us oblectat juvenem theatri, 
 At seni fluxo sapienter uti 
 
 Tempore restat. 
 
 I gave him the following lines in imitation, 
 which he liked well enough, I think : 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 57 
 
 When threescore years have chill'd thee quite, 
 
 Still can theatric scenes delight? 
 
 Ill suits this place with learned wight, 
 
 May Bates or Coulson cry. 
 
 The scholar's pride can Brent disarm ? 
 His heart can soft Guadagni warm? 
 Or scenes with sweet delusion charm 
 
 The climacteric eye ? 
 
 The social club, the lonely tower, 
 Far better suit thy midnight hour; 
 Let each according to bis power 
 
 In worth or wisdom shine ! 
 
 And while play pleases idle boys, 
 And wanton mirth fond youth employs, 
 To fix the soul, and free from toys, 
 
 That useful task be thine. 
 
 The copy of verses in Latin hexameters, as 
 well as I remember, which he wrote to Dr. 
 Lawrence, I forgot to keep a copy of; and he 
 obliged me to resign his translation of the song 
 beginning, Busy, curious, thirsty fly, for him to 
 give Mr. Langton, with a promise not to retain 
 a copy. I concluded he knew why, so never 
 inquired the reason. He had the greatest pos- 
 sible value for Mr. Langton, of whose virtue and 
 learning he delighted to talk in very exalted 
 terms ; and poor Dr. Lawrence had long been 
 his friend and confidant. The conversation I 
 
58 ANECDOTES OE 
 
 saw them hold together in Essex-street one day 
 in the year 1781 or 1782, was a melancholy 
 one, and made a singular impression on my 
 mind. He was himself exceedingly ill, and I 
 accompanied him thither for advice. The phy- 
 sician was, however, in some respects, more to 
 be pitied than the patient : Johnson was pant- 
 ing under an asthma and dropsy ; but Lawrence 
 had been brought home that very morning 
 struck with the palsy, from which he had, two 
 hours before we came, strove to awaken himself 
 by blisters : they were both deaf, and scarce 
 able to speak besides ; one from difficulty of 
 breathing, the other from paralytic debility. 
 To give and receive medical counsel therefore, 
 they fairly sat down on each side a table in the 
 doctor's gloomy apartment, adorned with skel- 
 etons, preserved monsters, &c. and agreed to 
 write Latin billets to each other: such a scene 
 did I never see! '■ You (said Johnson) are timidb 
 and gelide ;" finding that his friend had pre- 
 scribed palliative not drastic remedies. It is 
 not me, replies poor Lawrence, in an interrup- 
 ted voice ; 'tis nature that is gelide and timidl. 
 In fact he lived but few months after I believe, 
 and retained his faculties still a shorter time. 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 59 
 
 He was a man of strict piety and profound 
 learning, but little skilled in the knowledge of 
 life or manners, and died without ever having 
 enjoyed the reputation he so justly deserved. 
 
 Mr. Johnson's health had been always ex- 
 tremely bad since I first knew him, and his 
 over-anxious care to retain without blemish the 
 perfect sanity of his mind, contributed much to 
 disturb it. He had studied medicine diligently 
 in all its branches; but had given particular 
 attention to the diseases of the imagination, 
 which he watched in himself with a solicitude 
 destructive of his own peace, and intolerable 
 to those he trusted. Dr. Lawrence told him 
 one day, that if he would come and beat him 
 once a week he would bear it; but to hear his 
 complaints was more than man could support. 
 9 Twas therefore that he tried, I suppose, and in 
 eighteen years contrived, to weary the patience 
 of a woman. When Mr. Johnson felt his fancy, 
 or fancied he felt it, disordered, his constant re- 
 currence was to the study of arithmetic : and 
 one day that he was totally confined to his 
 chamber, and I inquired what he had been do- 
 ing to divert himself; he shewed me a calcula- 
 tion which I could scarce be made to under- 
 
t)0 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 stand, so vast was the plan of it, and so very- 
 intricate were the figures : no other indeed than 
 that the national debt, computing it at one hun- 
 dred, and eighty millions sterling, would, if con- 
 verted into silver, serve to make a meridian of 
 that metal, I forget how broad, for the globe of 
 the whole earth, the real globe. On a similar 
 occasion I asked him (knowing what subject he 
 would like best to talk upon), how his opinion 
 stood towards the question between Paschal 
 and Soame Jennings about number and nume- 
 ration? as the French philosopher observes that 
 infinity, though on all sides astonishing, appears 
 most so when the idea is connected with the 
 idea of number; for the notions of infinite 
 number, and infinite number we know there is, 
 stretches one's capacity still more than the idea 
 of infinite space : <tk Such a notion indeed (adds 
 he) can scarcely find room in the human mind." 
 Our English author on the other hand exclaims, 
 Let no man give himself leave to talk about in- 
 finite number, for infinite number is a contra- 
 diction in terms ; whatever is once numbered 
 we all see cannot be infinite. "I think (said 
 Mr. Johnson after a pause) we must settle the 
 matter thus: numeration is certainly infinite^ 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 6l 
 
 for eternity might be employed in adding unit 
 t&unit; but every number is in itself finite as the 
 possibility of doubling it easily proves : besides, 
 stop at what point you will, you find yourself as 
 far from infinitude as ever." These passages I 
 wrote down as soon as I had heard them, and 
 repent that I did not take the same method 
 with a dissertation he made one other day that 
 he was very ill, concerning the peculiar pro- 
 perties of the number Sixteen, which I after- 
 ward tried, but in vain, to make him repeat. 
 
 As ethics or figures, or metaphysical reason- 
 ing, was the sort of talk he most delighted in, so 
 no kind of conversation pleased him less I think, 
 than when the subject was historical fact or ge- 
 neral polity. "What shall we learn from that 
 stuff (said he) ? let us not fancy like Swift that 
 we are exalting a woman's character by telling 
 how she 
 
 Could name the ancient heroes round, 
 Explain for what they were renown'd, &c." 
 
 I must not however lead my readers to suppose 
 that he meant to reserve such talk for men's 
 company as a proof of pre-eminence. "He 
 never (as he expressed it) desired to hear of the 
 
6 C 2 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 Punic war while he lived : such conversation 
 was lost time (he said), and carried one away 
 from common life, leaving no ideas behind 
 which could serve living wight as warning or 
 direction. 
 
 How I should act is not the case, 
 But how would Brutus in my place? 
 
 And now (cries Mr. Johnson, laughing with ob- 
 streperous violence) if these two foolish lines 
 can be equalled in folly, except by the two suc- 
 ceeding ones — shew them me." 
 
 I asked him once concerning the conversa- 
 tion powers of a gentleman with whom I was 
 myself unacquainted — " He talked to me at club 
 one day (replies our doctor) concerning Cati- 
 line's conspiracy — so I withdrew my attention, 
 and thought about Tom Thumb." 
 
 Modern politics fared no better. I was one 
 time extolling the character of a statesman and 
 expatiating on the skill required to direct the 
 different currents, reconcile the jarring inte- 
 rests, &c. " Thus (replies he) a mill is a com- 
 plicated piece of mechanism enough, but the 
 water is no part of the workmanship." — On 
 another occasion, when some one lamented the 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON, 63 
 
 Weakness of a then present minister, and com- 
 plained that he was dull and tardy, and knew 
 little of affairs, — " You may as well complain, 
 sir (says Johnson), that the accounts of time 
 are kept by the clock; for he certainly does 
 stand still upon the stair-head — and we all 
 know that he is no great chronologer." — In 
 the year 1777, or thereabouts, when all the talk 
 was of an invasion, he said most pathetically 
 one afternoon, "Alas! alas! how this unmean- 
 ing stuff spoils all my comfort in my friends' 
 convocation ! Will the people never have done 
 with it; and shall I never hear a sentence again 
 without the French in it ? Here is no invasion 
 coming, and you know there is none. Let the 
 vexatious and frivolous talk alone, or suffer it 
 at least to teach you one truth; and learn by 
 this perpetual echo of even unapprehended 
 distress, how historians magnify events expec- 
 ted, or calamities endured; when you know 
 they are at this very moment collecting all the 
 big* words they can find, in which to describe a 
 consternation never felt, for a misfortune which 
 never happened. Among all your lamentations, 
 who eats the less ? Who sleeps the worse, for one 
 general's ill success, or another's capitulation? 
 
64 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 Oh, pray let us hear no more of it! " — No man 
 however was more zealously attached to his 
 party; he not only loved a Tory himself, but 
 he loved a man the better if he heard he hated 
 a Whig. "Dear Bathurst (said he. to me one 
 day) was a man to my very heart's content : 
 he hated a fool, and he hated a rogue, and he 
 hated a Whig : he was a very good hater ^ 
 
 Some one mentioned a gentleman of that 
 party for having behaved oddly on an occasion 
 where faction was not concerned : — "Is he not 
 a citizen of London, a native of North America, 
 and a Whig? (says Johnson.) — Let him be ab- 
 surd, 1 beg of you : when a monkey is too like 
 a man, it shocks one." 
 
 Severity towards the poor was, in Dr. John- 
 son's opinion (as is visible in his Life of Addis- 
 on particularly) an undoubted and constant 
 attendant or consequence upon Whiggism ; and 
 he was not contented with giving them relief, 
 he wished to add also indulgence. He loved 
 the poor as 1 never yet saw any one else do, 
 with an earnest desire to make them happy. — 
 What signifies, says some one, giving halfpence 
 to common beggars ? they only lay it out in gin 
 or tobacco. Cl And why should they be denied 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 65 
 
 such sweeteners of their existence ? (says John- 
 son :) it is surely very savage to refuse them every 
 possible avenue to pleasure, reckoned too coarse 
 for our own acceptance . Life is a pill which none 
 of us can bear to swallow without gilding ; yet 
 for the poor we delight in stripping it still ba- 
 rer, and are not ashamed to shew even visible 
 displeasure, if ever the bitter taste is taken from 
 their mouths." In consequence of these prin- 
 ciples he nursed whole nests of people in his 
 house, where the lame, the blind, the sick, and 
 the sorrowful, found a sure retreat from all the 
 evils whence his little income could secure them : 
 and commonly spending the middle of the week 
 at our house, he kept his numerous family in 
 Fleet-street upon a settled allowance ; but re- 
 turned to them every Saturday, to give them 
 three good dinners, and his company, before he 
 
 came back to us on the Monday night 
 
 treating them with the same, or perhaps more 
 ceremonious civility, than he would have done 
 
 by as many people of fashion making the 
 
 Holy Scripture thus the rule of his conduct, 
 and only expecting salvation as he was able to 
 obey its precepts. 
 
 While Dr. Johnson possessed however the 
 
66 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 strongest compassion for poverty or illness, he 
 did not even pretend to feel for those who la- 
 mented the loss of a child, a parent, or a friend. 
 
 M These are the distresses of sentiment (he 
 
 would reply), which a man who is really to 
 be pitied has no leisure to feel. The sight of 
 people who want food and raiment is so com- 
 mon in great cities, that a surly fellow like me 
 has no compassion to spare for wounds given 
 only to vanity or softness." No man, therefore, 
 who smarted from the ingratitude of his friends, 
 found any sympathy from our philosopher : "Let 
 him do good on higher motives next time," 
 would be the answer; "he will then be sure 
 of his reward." — —It is easy to observe, that 
 the justice of such sentences made them offen- 
 sive ; but we must be careful how we condemn 
 a man for saying what we know to be true, only 
 because it is so. I hope that the reason our 
 hearts rebelled a little against his severity, was 
 chiefly because it came from a living mouth. — 
 Books were invented to take off the odium of 
 immediate superiority, and soften the rigour of 
 duties prescribed by the teachers and censors 
 of human-kind — setting at least those who are 
 acknowledged wiser than ourselves at a distance. 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 6j 
 
 When we recollect, however, that for this very 
 reason they are seldom consulted and little obey- 
 ed, how much cause shall his contemporaries 
 have to rejoice that their living Johnson forced 
 them to feel the reproofs due to vice and folly — 
 while Seneca and Tillotson were no longer able 
 
 to make impression except on our shelves ? 
 
 Few things indeed which pass well enough 
 with others would do with him : he had been a 
 great reader of Mandeville, and was ever on 
 the watch to spy out those stains of original 
 corruption, so easily discovered by a penetra- 
 ting observer even in the purest minds. I 
 mentioned an event, which if it had happened 
 would greatly have injured Mr. Thrale and his 
 
 family and then, dear sir, said I, how sorry 
 
 you would have been ! " I hope (replied he af- 
 ter a long pause) — I should have been very 
 sorry ; — but remember Rochefoucault's max- 
 im." 1 would rather (answered I) remem- 
 ber Prior's verses, and ask, 
 
 - What need of books these truths to tell, 
 Which folks perceive that cannot spell ? 
 And must we spectacles apply, 
 To see what hurts our naked eye ? 
 
 Will any body's mind bear this eternal micro- 
 
 F 2 
 
68 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 scope that you place upon your own so? "1 
 never (replied he) saw one that would, except 
 that of my dear miss Reynolds — and hers is 
 
 very near to purity itself."-- Of slighter evils, 
 
 and friends more distant than our own house- 
 hold, he spoke less cautiously. An acquaint- 
 ance lost the almost certain hope of a good 
 estate that had been long expected. Such a 
 one will grieve (said I) at her friend's disap- 
 pointment. " She will suffer as much perhaps 
 (said he) as your horse did when your cow 
 miscarried." I professed myself sincerely 
 grieved when accumulated distresses crushed 
 sir George Colebrook's family ; and I was 
 so. " Your own prosperity (said he) may 
 possibly have so far increased the natural ten- 
 derness of your heart, that for aught I know 
 you may be a little sorry ; but it is sufficient 
 for a plain man if he does not laugh when he 
 sees a fine new house tumble down all on a 
 sudden, and a snug cottage stand by ready to 
 receive the owner, whose birth entitled him to 
 nothing better* and whose limbs are left him 
 to go to work again with." 
 
 I used to tell him in jest, that his morality 
 was easily contented ; and when I have said 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 6Q 
 
 something as if the wickedness of the world 
 gave me concern, he would cry out aloud 
 against canting, and protest that he thought 
 there was very little gross wickedness in the 
 world, and still less of extraordinary virtue. 
 Nothing indeed more surely disgusted Dr. 
 Johnson than hyperbole : he loved not to be 
 told of sallies of excellence, which he said were 
 seldom valuable, and seldom true. " Heroic 
 virtues (said he) are the bon mots of life ; they 
 do not appear often, and when they do appear 
 are too much prized I think ; like the aloe-tree, 
 which shoots and flowers once in a hundred 
 years. But life is made up of little things ; 
 and that character is the best which does little 
 but repeated acts of beneficence : as that con- 
 versation is the best which consists in elegant 
 and pleasing thoughts expressed in natural and 
 pleasing terms. With regard to my own no- 
 tions of moral virtue (continued he), I hope I 
 have not lost my sensibility of wrong ; but I 
 hope likewise that I have lived long enough in 
 the world, to prevent me from expecting to 
 find any action of which both the original mo- 
 tive and all the parts were good." 
 
 The piety of Dr. Johnson was exemplary 
 
70 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 and edifying ; he was punctiliously exact to 
 perform every public duty enjoined by the 
 church, and his spirit of devotion had an ener- 
 gy that affected all who ever saw him pray in 
 private. The coldest and most languid hearers 
 of the word must have felt themselves animated 
 by his manner of reading the Holy Scriptures; 
 and to pray by his sick bed, required strength 
 of body as well as of mind, so vehement were 
 his manners, and his tones of voice so pathetic, 
 I have many times made it my request to Hea- 
 ven that I might be spared the sight of his 
 death ; and I was spared it ! 
 
 Mr. Johnson, though in general a gross feed- 
 er, kept fast in Lent, particularly the holy 
 week, with a rigour very dangerous to his ge- 
 neral health ; but though he had left off wine 
 (for religious motives as I always believed, 
 though he did not own it), yet he did not hold 
 the commutation of offences by voluntary pe- 
 nance, or encourage others to practise severity 
 upon themselves. He even once said, "that 
 he thought it an error to endeavour at pleasing- 
 God by taking the rod of reproof out of his 
 hands." And when we talked of convents, and 
 the hardships suffered in them — "Remember 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 71 
 
 always (said he) that a convent is an idle place, 
 and where there is nothing to be done some- 
 thing must be endured: mustard has a bad 
 taste per se you may observe, but very insipid 
 food cannot be eaten without it." 
 
 His respect however for places of religious 
 retirement was carried to the greatest degree 
 of earthly veneration: the Benedictine convent 
 at Paris paid him all possible honours in re- 
 turn, and the prior and he parted with tears of 
 tenderness. Two of that college being sent to 
 England on the mission some years after, spent 
 much of their time with him at Bolt- court I 
 know, and he was ever earnest to retain their 
 friendship ; but though beloved by all his Ro- 
 man-Catholic acquaintance, particularly Dr. 
 Nugent, for whose esteem he had a singular 
 value, yet was Mr. Johnson a most unshaken 
 church-of-England man ; and I think, or at 
 least I once did think, that a letter written by 
 him to Mr. Barnard the king's librarian, when 
 he was in Italy collecting books, contained 
 some very particular advice to his friend to be 
 on his guard against the seductions of the 
 church of Rome. 
 
 The settled aversion Dr. Johnson felt towards 
 
72 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 an infidel he expressed to all ranks, and at all 
 times, without the smallest reserve ; for though 
 on common occasions he paid great deference 
 to birth or title, yet his regard for truth and 
 virtue never gave way to meaner considera- 
 tions. We talked of a dead wit one evening, 
 and somebody praised him— " Let us never 
 praise talents so ill employed, sir; we foul our 
 mouths by commending such infidels," said he. 
 Allow him the lumieres at least, entreated one 
 of the company — "I do allow him, sir (replied 
 Johnson), just enough to light him to hell." 
 Of a Jamaica gentleman, then lately dead-^- 
 <f He will not, whither he is now gone (said 
 Johnson), find much difference, I believe, ei- 
 ther in the climate or the company." The 
 
 abbe Reynal probably remembers that, being 
 at the house of a common friend in London, the 
 master of it approached Johnson with that gen- 
 tleman so much celebrated in his hand, and 
 this speech in his mouth : Will you permit me, 
 sir, to present to you the abbe Reynal? "No 
 sir,'" replied the Doctor very loud, and sudden- 
 ly turned away from them. 
 
 Though Mr. Johnson had but little reve- 
 rence either for talents or fortune, when he 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 73 
 
 found them unsupported by virtue ; yet it was 
 sufficient to tell him a man was very pious, or 
 very charitable, and he would at least begin with 
 him on good terms, however the conversation 
 might end. He would, sometimes too, good- 
 naturedly enter into a long chat for the instruc - 
 tion or entertainment of people he despised. 
 I perfectly recollect his condescending to de- 
 light my daughter's dancing-master with a long 
 argument about his art; which the man pro- 
 tested, at the close of the discourse, the Doc- 
 tor knew more of than himself; who remained 
 astonished, enlightened, and amused, by the 
 talk of a person little likely to make a good 
 disquisition upon dancing. I have sometimes 
 indeed been rather pleased than vexed when 
 Mr. Johnson has given a rough answer to a 
 man who perhaps deserved one only half as 
 rough, because I knew he would repent of his 
 hasty reproof, and make us all amends by some 
 conversation at once instructive and entertain- 
 ing, as in the following cases : A young fellow 
 asked him abruptly one day, Pray, sir, what 
 and where is Palmyra? I heard somebody talk 
 last night of the ruins of Palmyra. " Tis a hill 
 in Ireland (replies Johnson), with palms grow- 
 
74 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 ing on the top, and a bog at the bottom, and so 
 they call it Balm-mira" Seeing however that 
 the lad thought him serious, and thanked him 
 for the information, he undeceived him very 
 gently indeed ; told him the history, geography, 
 and chronology, of Tadmor in the wilderness, 
 with every incident that literature could fur- 
 nish I think, or eloquence express, from the 
 building of Solomon's palace to the voyage of 
 Dawkins and Wood. 
 
 On another occasion, when he was musing 
 over the fire in our drawing room at Streatham, 
 a young gentleman called to him suddenly, 
 and I suppose he thought disrespectfully, in 
 these words : Mr. Johnson, would you advise 
 me to marry? " I would advise no man to mar- 
 ry, sir (returns for answer in a very angry tone 
 Dr. Johnson), who is not likely to propagate 
 understanding;" and so left the room. Our 
 companion looked confounded, and I believe 
 had scarce recovered the consciousness of his 
 own existence, when Johnson came back, and 
 drawing his chair among us, with altered looks 
 and a softened voice, joined in the general chat, 
 insensibly led the conversation to the subject 
 of marriage, where he laid himself out in a dis- 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 75 
 
 sertation so useful, so elegant, so founded on 
 the true knowledge of human life, and so adorn- 
 ed with beauty of sentiment, that no one ever 
 recollected the offence, except to rejoice in its 
 consequences. He repented just as certainly 
 however, if he had been led to praise any per- 
 son or thing by accident more than he thought 
 it deserved ; and was on such occasions comi- 
 cally earnest to destroy the praise or pleasure 
 he had unintentionally given. 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds mentioned some picture 
 as excellent. " It has often grieved me, sir 
 (said Mr. Johnson), to see so much mind as the 
 science of painting requires, laid out upon such 
 perishable materials : why do not you oftener 
 make use of copper ? I could wish your su- 
 periority in the art you profess, to be preserved 
 in stuff more durable than canvas." Sir Joshua 
 urged the difficulty of procuring a plate large 
 enough for historical subjects, and was going 
 to raise farther observations : " What foppish 
 obstacles are these ! (exclaims on a sudden Dr. 
 Johnson :) here is Thrale has a thousand tun of 
 copper ; you may paint it all round if you will, 
 I suppose ; it will serve him to brew in after- 
 ward : will it not, sir ?" to my husband who 
 
76 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 sat by. Indeed Dr. Johnson's utter scorn of 
 painting was such, that I have heard him say, 
 that he should sit very quietly in a room hung 
 round with the works of the greatest masters, 
 and never feel the slightest disposition to turn 
 them if their backs were outermost, unless it 
 might be for the sake of telling sir Joshua that 
 he had turned them. Such speeches may ap- 
 pear offensive to many, but those who knew 
 he was too blind to discern the perfections of 
 an art which ^applies itself immediately to our 
 eye-sight, must acknowledge he was not in the 
 wrong. 
 
 He delighted no more in music than paint- 
 ing ; he was almost as deaf as he was blind ; 
 travelling with Dr. Johnson was for these rea-- 
 sons tiresome enough. Mr. Thrale loved pros^ 
 pects, and was mortified that his friend could 
 not enjoy the sight of those different disposi^ 
 tions of wood and water, hill and valley, that 
 travelling through England and France affords 
 a man. But when he wished to point them 
 out to his companion : "Never heed such non- 
 sense," would be the reply : "a blade of grass 
 is always a blade of glass, whether in one 
 country or another ; let us if we do talk, talk 
 
BR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 77 
 
 about something ; men and women are my 
 subjects of enquiry; let us see how these differ 
 from those we have left behind." 
 
 When we were at Rouen together, he took 
 a great fancy to the abbe RorTette, with whom 
 he conversed about the destruction of the order 
 of Jesuits, and condemned it loudly, as a blow 
 to the general power of the church, and likely 
 to be followed with many and dangerous inno- 
 vations, which might at length become fatal to 
 religion itself, and shake even the foundation 
 of Christianity. The gentleman seemed to 
 wonder and delight in his conversation : the 
 talk was all in Latin, which both spoke fluent- 
 ly, and Mr. Johnson pronounced a long eulo- 
 logium upon Milton with so much ardour, 
 eloquence, and ingenuity, that the abbe* rose 
 from his seat and embraced him. My husband 
 seeing them apparently so charmed with the 
 company of each other, politely invited the 
 abbe* to England, intending to oblige his friend ; 
 who, instead of thanking, reprimanded him se- 
 verely before the man, for such a sudden burst 
 of tenderness towards a person he could know 
 nothing at all of ; and thus put a sudden finish 
 to all his own and Mr. Thrale's entertainment, 
 from the company of the abbe* RofFette. 
 
78 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 When at Versailles the people shewed us the 
 theatre. As we stood on the stage looking at 
 some machinery for playhouse purposes : Now 
 we are here, what shall we act, Mr. Johnson, 
 — The Englishman at Paris? "No, no (re- 
 plied he), we will try to act Harry the Fifth. " 
 His dislike of the French was well known to 
 both nations, I believe ; but he applauded the 
 number of their books and the graces of their 
 style. " They have few sentiments (said he), 
 but they express them neatly ; they have little 
 meat too, but they dress it well." Johnson's 
 own notions about eating however were no- 
 thing less than delicate ; a leg of pork boiled 
 till it dropped from the bone, a veal pie with 
 plumbs and sugar, or the outside cut of a salt 
 buttock of beef, were his favourite dainties : 
 with regard to drink, his liking was for the 
 strongest, as it was not the flavour, but the ef- 
 fect he sought for, and professed to desire ; 
 and when I first knew him, he used to pour 
 capillaire into his Port wine. For the last 
 twelve years however, he left off all fermented 
 liquors. To make himself some amends in- 
 deed, he took his chocolate liberally, pouring 
 in large quantities of cream, or even melted 
 butter ; and was so fond of fruit, that though 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 79 
 
 he usually eat seven or eight large peaches of 
 a morning before breakfast began, and treated 
 them with proportionate attention after dinner 
 again, yet I have heard him protest, that he 
 never had quite as much as he wished of wall- 
 fruit, except once in his life, and that was when 
 we were all together at Ombersley, the seat of 
 my lord Sandys. I was saying to a friend one 
 day, that I did not like goose ; one smells it so 
 while it is roasting, said I. " But you, Madam, 
 (replies the Doctor), have been at all times a 
 fortunate woman, having always had your hun- 
 ger so forestalled by indulgence, that you never 
 experienced the delight of smelling your din- 
 ner beforehand." Which pleasure, answered 
 I, pertly, is to be enjoyed in perfection by such 
 as have the happiness to pass through Porridge- 
 Island* of a morning. "Come, come (says he 
 gravely), let's have no sneering at what is se- 
 rious to so many : hundreds of your fellow- 
 creatures, dear lady, turn another way, that 
 they may not be tempted by the luxuries of 
 
 * Porridge-Island is a mean street in London, filled with cook-shops 
 for the convenience of the poorer inhabitants ; the real name of it I 
 know not, but suspect that it is generally known by, to have been ori- 
 ginally a term of derision. 
 
mmmmmmmmm 
 
 80 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 Porridge-Island to wish for gratifications they 
 are not able to obtain : you are certainly not 
 better than all of them ; give God thanks that 
 you are happier." 
 
 I received on another occasion as just a re- 
 buke from Mr. Johnson, for an offence of the 
 same nature, and hope I took care never to 
 provoke a third ; for after a very long summer 
 particularly hot and dry, I was wishing natu- 
 rally, but thoughtlessly, for some rain to lay 
 the dust as we drove along the Surry roads. 
 " I cannot bear (replied he, with much asperity 
 and an altered look), when I know how many 
 poor families will perish next winter for want 
 of that bread which the present drought will 
 deny them, to hear ladies sighing for rain, only 
 that their complexions may not suffer from the 
 heat, or their clothes be incommoded by the 
 dust: — for shame! leave off such foppish la- 
 mentations, and study to relieve those whose 
 distresses are real." 
 
 With advising others to be charitable how- 
 ever, Dr. Johnson did not content himself* He 
 gave away all he had, and all he ever had got- 
 ten, except the two thousand pounds he left 
 behind ; and the very small portion of his in- 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 81 
 
 eome which he spent on himself, with all our 
 calculation, we never could make more than 
 seventy, or at most fourscore pounds a year, 
 and he pretended to allow himself a hundred* 
 He had numberless dependants out of doors as 
 well as in, " who, as he expressed it, did not 
 like to see him latterly unless he brought 'em 
 money." For those people he used frequently 
 to raise contributions on his richer friends ; 
 " and this (says he) is one of the thousand 
 reasons which ought to restrain a man from 
 drony solitude and useless retirement. Soli- 
 tude (added he one day) is dangerous to reason, 
 without being favourable to virtue ; pleasures 
 of some sort are necessary to the intellectual 
 as to the corporeal health ; and those who re- 
 sist gaiety, will be likely for the most part to 
 fall a sacrifice to appetite ; for the solicitations 
 of sense are always at hand, and a dram to a 
 vacant and solitary person is a speedy and se- 
 ducing relief. Remember (continued he) that 
 the solitary mortal is certainly luxurious, pro- 
 bably superstitious, and possibly mad : the 
 mind stagnates for want of employment, grows 
 morbid, and is extinguished like a candle in 
 foul air." It was on this principle that John- 
 
 G 
 
82 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 son encouraged parents to carry their daugh- 
 ters early and much into company : "for what 
 harm can be done before so many witnesses ? 
 Solitude is the surest nurse of all prurient pas- 
 sions, and a girl in the hurry of preparation, or 
 tumult of gaiety, has neither inclination nor 
 leisure to let tender expressions soften or sink 
 into her heart. The ball, the show, are not 
 the dangerous places : no, 'tis the private 
 friend, the kind consoler, the companion of the 
 easy vacant hour, whose compliance with her 
 opinions can flatter her vanity, and whose con- 
 versation can just soothe, without ever stretch- 
 ing her mind, that is the lover to be feared : 
 he who buzzes in her ear at court, or at the 
 opera, must be contented to buzz in vain." 
 These notions Dr. Johnson carried so very far, 
 that I have heard him say, "If you would shut 
 up any man with any woman, so as to make 
 them derive their whole pleasure from each 
 other, they would inevitably fall in love as it is 
 called, with each other ; but at six months' end 
 if you would throw them both into public life 
 where they might change partners at pleasure, 
 each would soon forget that fondness which 
 mutual dependance, and the paucity of general 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON*. 83 
 
 amusement alone, had caused, and each would 
 separately feel delighted by their release." 
 
 In these opinions Rousseau apparently con- 
 curs with him exactly ; and Mr. Whitehead's 
 poem called Variety, is written solely to eluci- 
 date this simple proposition. Prior likewise 
 advises the husband to send his wife abroad, 
 and let her see the world as it really stands 
 
 Powder, and pocket-glass, and beau. 
 
 Mr. Johnson was indeed unjustly supposed 
 to be a lover of singularity. Few people had 
 a more settled reverence for the world than he, 
 or was less captivated by new modes of beha- 
 viour introduced, or innovations on the long- 
 received customs of common life. He hated 
 the way of leaving a company without taking 
 notice to the lady of the house that he was go- 
 ing ; and did not much like any of the contri- 
 vances by which ease has been lately introdu- 
 ced into society instead of ceremony, which 
 had more of his approbation. Cards, dress, 
 and dancing, however, all found their advo- 
 cates in Dr. Johnson, who inculcated, upon 
 principle, the cultivation of those arts, which 
 many a moralist thinks himself bound to reject, 
 g 3 
 
84 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 and many a Christian holds unfit to be practi- 
 sed. " No person (said he one day) goes 
 under-dressed till he thinks himself of conse- 
 quence enough to forbear carrying the badge 
 of his rank upon his back." And in answer to 
 the arguments urged by Puritans, Quakers, &c. 
 against showy decorations of the human figure, 
 I once heard him exclaim, *' Oh, let us not be 
 found when our Master calls us, ripping the 
 lace off our waistcoats, but the spirit of con- 
 tention from our souls and tongues ! Let us all 
 conform in outward customs, which are of no 
 consequence, to the manners of those whom 
 we live among, and despise such paltry dis- 
 tinctions. Alas, sir (continued he), a man who 
 cannot get to heaven in a green coat, will not 
 find his way thither the sooner in a grey one." 
 On an occasion of less consequence, when he 
 turned his back on lord Bolinbroke in the 
 rooms at Brighthelmstone, he made this ex- 
 cuse : "lam not obliged, sir (said he to Mr. 
 Thrale, who stood fretting), to find reasons for 
 respecting the rank of him who will not con- 
 descend to declare it by his dress or some other 
 visible mark : what are stars and other signs 
 of superiority made for ?" 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 85 
 
 The next evening however he made us co- 
 mical amends, by sitting by the same nobleman, 
 and haranguing very loudly about the nature, 
 and use, and abuse, of divorces. Many people 
 gathered round them to hear what was said, 
 and when my husband called him away, and 
 told him to whom he had been talking — recei- 
 ved an answer which I will not write down. 
 
 Though no man perhaps made such rough 
 replies as Dr. Johnson, yet nobody had a more 
 just aversion for general satire ; he always ha- 
 ted and censured Swift for his unprovoked bit- 
 terness against the professors of medicine; and 
 used to challenge his friends, when they la- 
 mented the exorbitancy of physicians' fees, to 
 produce him one instance of an estate raised 
 by physic in England. When an acquaintance 
 too was one day exclaiming against the tedi- 
 ousness of the law and its partiality ; " Let us 
 hear, sir (said Johnson), no general abuse ; the 
 law is the last result of human wisdom acting 
 upon human experience for the benefit of the 
 public." 
 
 As the mind of Dr. Johnson was greatly ex- 
 panded, so his first care was for general, not 
 particular or petty morality ; and those teach- 
 
86 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 ers had more of his blame than praise, I think, 
 who seek to oppress life with unnecessary 
 scruples : Scruples would (as he observed) 
 certainly make men miserable, and seldom 
 make them good. Let us ever (he said) studi- 
 ously fly from those instructors, against whom 
 our Saviour denounces heavy judgements, for 
 having bound up burdens grievous to be borne, 
 and laid them on the shoulders of mortal men." 
 No one had however higher notions of the hard 
 task of true Christianity than Johnson, whose 
 daily terror lest he had not done enough, ori- 
 ginated in piety, but ended in little less than 
 disease. Reasonable with regard to others, 
 he had formed vain hopes of performing im- 
 possibilities himself; and finding his good 
 works ever below his desires and intent, filled 
 his imagination with fears that he should never 
 obtain forgiveness for omissions of duty and 
 criminal waste of time. These ideas kept him 
 in constant anxiety concerning his salvation; 
 and the vehement petitions he perpetually 
 made for a longer continuance on earth, were 
 doubtless the cause of his so -prolonged exis- 
 tence ; for when I carried Dr. Pepys to him in 
 the year 1782, it appeared wholly impossible 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 87 
 
 for any skill of the physician or any strength of 
 the patient to save him. He was saved that 
 time however by sir Lucas's prescription ; and 
 less skill on one side, or less strength on the 
 other, I am morally certain, would not have 
 been enough. He had however possessed an 
 athletic constitution, as he said the man who 
 dipped people in the sea at Brighthelmstone 
 acknowledged ; for seeing Mr. Johnson swim in 
 the year 1766, Why, sir (says the dipper), you 
 must have been a stout-hearted gentleman 
 forty years ago. 
 
 Mr. Thrale and he used to laugh about that 
 story very often: but Garrick told a better, for 
 he said that in their young days, when some 
 strolling players came to Litchfield, our friend 
 had fixed his place upon the stage, and got 
 himself a chair accordingly ; which leaving for 
 a few minutes, he found a man in it at his re- 
 turn, who refused to give it back at the first 
 entreaty : Mr. Johnson however, who did not 
 think it worth his while to make a second, took 
 chair and man altogether, and threw them all 
 at once into the pit. I asked the Doctor if this 
 was a fact? " Garrick has not spoiled it in the 
 telling (said he), it is very near true to be sure." 
 
88 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 Mr. Beauclerc too related one day, how on 
 some occasion he ordered two large mastiffs in- 
 to his parlour, to shew a friend who was con- 
 versant in canine beauty and excellence, how 
 the dogs quarrelled, and fastened on each other, 
 alarmed all the company, except Johnson, who 
 seizing one in one hand by the cuff of the neck, 
 the other in the other hand, said gravely, 
 "Come, gentlemen ! where is your difficulty } 
 put one dog out at the door, and I will shew 
 this fierce gentleman the way out of the win- 
 dow :" which, lifting up the mastiff and the 
 sash, he contrived to do very expeditiously, 
 and much to the satisfaction of the affrighted 
 company. We inquired as to the truth of this 
 curious recital. "The dogs have been some- 
 what magnified, I believe, sir (was the reply) : 
 they were, as I remember, two stout young 
 pointers ; but the story has gained but little." 
 
 One reason why Mr. Johnson's memory was 
 so particularly exact, might be derived from 
 his rigid attention to veracity ; being always 
 resolved to relate every fact as it stood, he 
 looked even on the smaller parts of life with 
 minute attention, and remembered such passa- 
 ges as escape cursory and common observers, 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 89 
 
 " A story (says he) is a specimen of human 
 manners, and derives its sole value from its 
 truth. When Foote has told me something, I 
 dismiss it from my mind like a passing shadow ; 
 when Reynolds tells me something, I consider 
 myself as possessed of an idea the more." 
 
 Mr. Johnson liked a frolic or a jest well 
 enough; though he had strange serious rules 
 about it too : and very angry was he if any bo- 
 dy offered to be merry when he was disposed 
 to be grave. "You have an ill-founded notion 
 (said he) that it is clever to turn matters off 
 with a joke, as the phrase is; whereas nothing 
 produces enmity so certain, as one person's 
 shewing a disposition to be merry when an- 
 other is inclined to be either serious or dis- 
 pleased." 
 
 One may gather from this how he felt, when 
 his Irish friend Grierson, hearing him enume- 
 rate the qualities necessary to the formation of 
 a poet, began a comical parody upon his orna- 
 mented harangue in praise of a cook, concluding 
 with this observation, that he who dressed a 
 good dinner was a more excellent and more 
 useful member of society than he who wrote a 
 good poem, " And in this opinion (said Mr. 
 
90 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 Johnson in reply) all the dogs in the town will 
 join you." 
 
 Of this Mr. Grierson I have heard him relate 
 many droll stories, much to his advantage as a 
 wit, together with some facts more difficult to 
 be accounted for; as avarice never was reck- 
 oned among the vices of the laughing world. 
 But Johnson's various life, and spirit of vigi- 
 lance to learn and treasure up every peculiarity 
 of manner, sentiment, or general conduct, made 
 his company, when he chose to relate anecdotes 
 of people he had formerly known, exquisitely 
 amusing and comical. It is indeed inconceiv- 
 able what strange occurrences he had seen, 
 and what surprising things he could tell when 
 in a communicative humour. It is by no means 
 my business to relate memoirs of his acquaint; 
 ance ; but it will serve to shew the character 
 of Johnson himself, when I inform those who 
 never knew him, that no man told a story with 
 so good a grace, or knew so well what would 
 make an effect upon his auditors. When he 
 raised contributions for some distressed author, 
 or wit in want, he often made us all more than 
 amends by diverting descriptions of the lives 
 they were then passing in corners unseen by 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON". 91 
 
 any body but himself; and that odd old sur- 
 geon whom he kept in his house to tend the 
 out-pensioners, and of whom he said most truly 
 and sublimely, that 
 
 In misery's darkest caverns known, 
 
 His useful care was ever nigh, 
 Where hopeless anguish pours her groan, 
 
 And lonely want retires to die. 
 
 I have forgotten the year, but it could scarce- 
 ly I think be later than 1765 — 6, that he was 
 called abruptly from our house after dinner, 
 and returning in about three hours, said, he 
 had been with an enraged author, whose land- 
 lady pressed him for payment within doors, 
 while the bailiffs beset him without ; that he 
 was drinking himself drunk with Madeira to 
 drown care, and fretting over a novel which 
 when finished was to be his whole fortune ; 
 but he could not get it done for distraction, 
 nor could he step out of doors to offer it to 
 sale. Mr. Johnson therefore sent away the 
 bottle, and went to the bookseller, recom- 
 mending the performance, and desiring some 
 immediate relief; which when he brought back 
 to the writer, he called the woman of the house 
 directly to partake of punch, and pass their 
 time in merriment. 
 
92 ANECDOTES OE 
 
 It was not till ten years after, I dare say, 
 that something in Dr. Goldsmith's behaviour 
 struck me with an idea that he was the very 
 man, and then Johnson confessed that he was 
 so ; the novel was the charming Vicar of 
 Wakefield. 
 
 There was a Mr. Boyce too, who wrote some 
 very elegant verses printed in the Magazines 
 of five-and-twenty years ago, of whose inge- 
 nuity and distress I have heard Dr. Johnson 
 tell some curious anecdotes ; particularly, that 
 when he was almost perishing with hunger, and 
 some money was produced to purchase him a 
 dinner, he got a bit of roast beef, but could 
 not eat it without ketchup, and laid out the 
 last half-guinea he possessed in truffles and 
 mushrooms, eating them in bed too, for want 
 of clothes, or even a shirt to sit up in. 
 
 Another man for whom he often begged, 
 made as wild use of his friend's beneficence as 
 these, spending in punch the solitary guinea 
 which had been brought him one morning ; 
 when resolving to add another claimant to a 
 share of the bowl, besides a woman who al- 
 ways lived with him, and a footman who used 
 to carry out petitions for charity, he borrowed 
 a chairman's watch, and pawning it for half a 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 93 
 
 crown, paid a clergyman to marry him to a 
 fellow-lodger in the wretched house they all 
 inhabited, and got so drunk over the guinea 
 bowl of punch, the evening of his wedding- 
 day, that having many years lost the use of 
 one leg, he now contrived to fall from the top 
 of the stairs to the bottom, and break his arm, 
 in which condition his companions left him to 
 call Mr. Johnson, who relating the series of 
 his tragi-comical distresses, obtained from the 
 Literary Club a seasonable relief. 
 
 Of that respectable society I have heard 
 him speak in the highest terms, and with a 
 magnificent panegyric on each member, when 
 it consisted only of a dozen or fourteen friends ; 
 but as soon as the necessity of enlarging it 
 brought in new faces, and took off from his 
 confidence in the company, he grew less fond 
 of the meeting, and loudly proclaimed his 
 carelessness who might be admitted, when it 
 was become a mere dinner-club. I think the 
 original names, when I first : heard him talk 
 with fervour of every member's peculiar pow- 
 ers of instructing or delighting mankind, were 
 sir John Hawkins, Mr. Burke, Mr. Langton, 
 Mr. Beauclerc, Dr. Percy, Dr. Nugent, Dr. 
 
94 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 Goldsmith, sir Robert Chambers, Mr. Dyer, 
 and sir Joshua Reynolds, whom he called 
 their Romulus, or said somebody else of the 
 company called him so, which was more like- 
 ly : but this was, I believe, in the year 1775 
 or 1776. It was a supper-meeting then, and 
 I fancy Dr. Nugent ordeied an omelet some- 
 times on a Friday or Saturday night ; for I 
 remember Mr. Johnson felt very painful sensa- 
 tions at the sight of that dish soon after his 
 iteath, and cried, Ci Ah, my poor dear friend ! 
 I shall never eat omelet with thee again!" quite 
 in an agony. The truth is, nobody suffered 
 more from pungent sorrow at a friend's death 
 than Johnson, though he would suffer no one 
 else to complain of their losses in the same 
 way ; "for (says he) we must either outlive 
 our friends you know, or our friends must out- 
 live us : and I see no man that would hesitate 
 about the choice." 
 
 Mr. Johnson loved late hours extremely, or 
 more properly hated early ones. Nothing was 
 more terrifying to him than the idea of retiring 
 to bed, which he never would call going to 
 rest, or suffer another to call so. "I lie down 
 (said he) that my acquaintance may sleep ; 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 95 
 
 but I lie down to endure oppressive misery, 
 and soon rise again to pass the night in anxiety 
 and pain." By this pathetic manner, which 
 no one ever possessed in so eminent a degree, 
 he used to shock me from quitting his company, 
 till I hurt my own health not a little by sitting 
 up with him when I was myself far from well : 
 nor was it an easy matter to oblige him even 
 by compliance, for he always maintained that 
 no one forbore their own gratifications for the 
 sake of pleasing another, and if one did sit up 
 it was probably to amuse one's self. Some 
 right however he certainly had to say so, as he 
 made his company exceedingly entertaining 
 when he had once forced one, by his vehement 
 lamentations and piercing reproofs, not to quit 
 the room, but to sit quietly and make tea for 
 him, as I often did in London till four o'clock 
 in the morning. At Streatham indeed I mana- 
 ged better, having always some friend who was 
 kind enough to engage him in talk, and favour 
 my retreat. 
 
 The first time I ever saw this extraordinary 
 man was in the year 1764, when Mr. Murphy, 
 who had long been the friend and confidential 
 intimate of Mr. Thrale, persuaded him to wish 
 
96 
 
 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 for Johnson's conversation, extolling it in ternw 
 which that of no other person could have de- 
 served, till we were only in doubt how to obtain 
 his company, and find an excuse for the invi- 
 tation. The celebrity of Mr. Woodhouse, a 
 shoemaker, whose verses were at that time the 
 subject of common discourse, soon afforded a 
 pretence, and Mr. Murphy brought Johnson to 
 meet him, giving me general caution not to be 
 surprized at his figure, dress, or behaviour. 
 What I recollect best of the day's talk, was 
 his earnestly recommending Addison's works 
 to Mr, Woodhouse as a model for imitation. 
 "Give nights and days, sir v said he) to the stu- 
 dy of Addison, if you mean either to be a good 
 writer, or, what is more worth, an honest 
 man." When I saw something like the same 
 expression in his criticism on that author, 
 lately published, I put him in mind of his past 
 injunctions to the young poet, to which he re- 
 plied, "that he wished the shoemaker mght 
 have remembered them as well." Mr. John- 
 son liked his new acquaintance so much how- 
 ever, that from that time he dined with us 
 every Thursday through the winter, and in tlie 
 autumn of the next year he followed us to 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 97 
 
 Brighthelmstone, whence we were gone before 
 his arrival ; so he was disappointed and enra- 
 ged, and wrote us a letter expressive of anger, 
 which we were very desirous to pacify, and to 
 obtain his company again if possible. Mr. 
 Murphy brought him back to us again very 
 kindly, and from that time his visits grew more 
 frequent, till in the year 1766 his health, which 
 he had always complained of, grew so exceed- 
 ingly bad, that he could not stir out of his 
 room in the court he inhabited for many weeks 
 together, I think months. 
 
 Mr. Thrale's attentions and my own now be* 
 came so acceptable to him, that he often la- 
 mented to us the horrible condition of his mind, 
 which he said was nearly distracted; and though 
 he charged us to make him odd solemn promi- 
 ses of secrecy on so strange a subject, yet when 
 we waited on him one morning, and heard him, 
 in the most pathetic terms, beg the prayers of 
 Dr. Delap, who had left him as we came in, I 
 felt excessively affected with grief, and well 
 remember my husband involuntarily lifted up 
 one hand to shut his mouth, from provocation 
 at hearing a man so wildly proclaim what he 
 could at last persuade no one to believe, and 
 
 H 
 
98 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 what, if true, would have been so very unfit to 
 reveal. 
 
 Mr. Thrale went away soon after, leaving 
 me with him, and bidding me prevail on him 
 to quit his close habitation in the court and 
 come with us to Streatham, where I undertook 
 the care of his health, and had the honour and 
 happiness of contributing to its restoration. 
 This task, though distressing enough some- 
 times, would have been less so had not my 
 mother and he disliked one another extremely, 
 and teased me often with perverse opposition, 
 petty contentions, and mutual complaints. 
 Her superfluous attention to such accounts of 
 the foreign politics as are transmitted to us by 
 the daily prints, and her willingness to talk on 
 subjects he could not endure, began the aver- 
 sion ; and when by the peculiarity of his style, 
 she found out that he teased her by writing in 
 the newspapers concerning battles and plots 
 which had no existence, only to feed her with 
 new accounts of the division of Poland perhaps, 
 or the disputes between the states of Russia and 
 Turkey, she was exceedingly angry to be sure, 
 and scarcely I think forgave the offence, till the 
 domestic distresses of the year 1772 reconciled 
 
DR. SAMtJEL JOHNSON. 99 
 
 them to, and taught them the true value of, each 
 other; excellent as they both were, far beyond 
 the excellence of any other man and woman I 
 ever yet saw. As her conduct too extorted his 
 truest esteem, her cruel illness excited all his 
 tenderness ; nor was the sight of beauty, scarce 
 to be subdued by disease, and wit, flashing 
 through the apprehension of evil, a scene which 
 Dr. Johnson could see without sensibility. He 
 acknowledged himself improved by her piety, 
 and astonished at her fortitude, and hung over 
 her bed with the affection of a parent, and the 
 reverence of a son. Nor did it give me less 
 pleasure to see her sweet mind cleared of all its 
 latent prejudices, and left at liberty to admire 
 and applaud that force of thought and versati- 
 lity of genius, that comprehensive soul and be- 
 nevolent heart, which attracted and command- 
 ed veneration from all, but inspired peculiar 
 sensations of delight mixed with reverence in 
 those who, like her, had the opportunity to ob- 
 serve these qualities, stimulated by gratitude, 
 and actuated by friendship. When Mr. Thrale's 
 perplexities disturbed his peace, dear Dr. John- 
 son left him scarce a moment, and tried every 
 artifice to amuse, as well as every argu- 
 h 2 
 
100 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 ment to console him: nor is it more possible to 
 describe than to forget his prudent, his pious 
 attentions towards the man who had some years 
 before certainly saved his valuable life, perhaps 
 his reason, by half obliging him to change the 
 foul air of Fleet-street for the wholesome bree- 
 zes of the Sussex Downs. 
 
 The epitaph engraved on my mother's monu- 
 ment shews how deserving she was of general 
 applause . I asked Johnson why he named her 
 person before her mind : he said it was, "be- 
 cause every body could judge of the one, and 
 but few of the other." 
 
 Juxta sepulta est Hestera Maria 
 
 Thomas Cotton de Combermere baronetti Cestriensis filia 
 
 Johannis Salusbury armigeri Flintiensis uxor. 
 
 Forma felix, felix ingenio ; 
 
 Omnibus jucunda, suorum amantissima. 
 
 Linguis artibusque ita exculta 
 
 Ut loquenti nunquam deessent 
 
 Sermonis nitor, sententiarum flosculi, 
 
 Sapientiae gravitas, leporum gratia : 
 
 Modum serrandi adeo perita 
 
 Ut domestica inter negotia Uteris oblectaretur, 
 
 Literarum inter delicias, rem familiarem sedulo curaret, 
 
 Multis illi multos annos precantibus 
 
 diri carcinomatis veneno contabuit, 
 
 nexibusque vitae paulatim resolutis, 
 
 e terris— meliora sperans— cmigravit. 
 
 Nata 1707. Nupta 1739. Obiit 1773. 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 101 
 
 Mr. Murphy, who admired her talents and 
 delighted in her company, did me the favour to 
 paraphrase this elegant inscription in verses 
 which I fancy have never yet been published. 
 His fame has long been out of my power to in- 
 crease as a poet ; as a man of sensibility per- 
 haps these lines may set him higher than he 
 now stands. I remember with gratitude the 
 friendly tears which prevented him from speak- 
 ing as he put them into my hand. 
 
 Near this place 
 
 Are deposited the remains of 
 
 HESTER MARIA, 
 
 The daughter of Sir Thomas Cotton of Combermere, 
 
 in the county of Cheshire, Bart, the wife of 
 
 John Salusbury, 
 
 of the county of Flint, Esquire. She was 
 
 born in the year 1707, married in 1739, and died in 1773. 
 
 A pleasing form, where every grace combin'd, 
 With genius blest, a pure enlighten'd mind; 
 Benevolence on all that smiles bestow'd, 
 A heart that for her friends with love o'erflow'd : 
 In language skill'd, by science form'd to please, 
 Her mirth was wit, her gravity was ease. 
 Graceful in all, the happy mien she knew, 
 Which even to virtue gives the limits due ; 
 Whate'er employed her, that she seem'd to choose, 
 Her house, her friends, her business, or the muse. 
 Admir'd and lov'd, the theme of general praise, 
 All to such virtue wish'd a length of days : 
 But sad reverse ! with slow-consuming pains, ( 
 i* . . 'Th envenom' d cancer revell'd in her veins ; 
 
102 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 Prey'd on her spirits—stole each power away ; 
 Gradual she sunk, yet smiling in deeay ; 
 She smil'd in hope, by sore afflictions tried, 
 And in that hope the pious Christian died. 
 
 The following epitaph on Mr. Thrale, who 
 has now a monument close by hers in Strea- 
 tham church, I have seen printed and com- 
 mended in Maty's Review for April, 1784 ; 
 and a friend has favoured me with the transla- 
 tion. 
 
 Hie conditur quod reliquum est 
 
 Henrici Thrale, 
 
 Qui res seu civiles, seu domesticas, ita egit, 
 
 Ut vitamilli longiorem multi optarent; 
 
 Ita sacras, 
 
 Ut quam brevem esset habiturus praescire videretur ; 
 
 Simplex, apertus, sibique semper simiiis, 
 
 Nihil ostentavit aut arte fictum aut cura 
 
 Elaboratum. 
 
 In senatu, regi patriaeque 
 
 Fideliterstuduit; 
 
 Vulgi obstrepentis contemptor animosus, 
 
 Domi inter mille mercaturse negotia 
 
 Literarum elegantiam minime neglexit. 
 
 Amicis quocunque modo laborantibus, 
 
 Conciliis, auctoritate, muneribus adfuit. 
 
 Inter familiares, comites, convivas, hospites, 
 
 Tarn facili fuit morrtin suavitate 
 
 Ut omnium animos ad se alliceret ; 
 
 Tarn felici sermonis libertate 
 
 U t nulli adulatus, omnibus placerct. 
 
 Natus 1724. Ob. 1781. 
 
 Consortes tumuli habetRodolphum patrem, strenuum 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 103 
 
 fortemque virum, et Henricum filium unicum, 
 
 quern spei parentum mors inopiua decennem 
 
 praeripuit. 
 
 Ita 
 
 Domus felix et opulcnta, quam erexit 
 
 Avus, auxitque pater, cum nepote decidit. 
 
 Abi viator ! 
 
 Et vicibus rerum humanarum perspectis, 
 
 JEternitatem cogita ! 
 
 Here are deposited the remains of 
 
 Henry Thrale, 
 
 Who managed all his concerns in the present 
 
 world, public and private, in such a manner 
 
 as to leave many wishing he had continued 
 
 longer in it ; 
 
 And all that related to a future world, 
 
 as if he had been sensible how short a time he 
 
 was to continue in this. 
 
 Simple, open, and uniform in his manners, 
 
 his conduct was without either art or affectation. 
 
 In the senate steadily attentive to the true interests 
 
 of his king and country, 
 
 He looked down with contempt on the clamours 
 
 of the multitude: 
 
 Though engaged in a very extensive business, 
 
 He found some time to apply to polite literature : 
 
 And was ever ready to assist his friends 
 
 labouring under any difficulties, 
 
 with his advice, his influence, and his purse. 
 
 To his friends, acquaintance, and guests, 
 
 he behaved with such sweetness of manners 
 
 as to attach them all to his person : 
 
 So happy in his conversation with them, 
 
 as to please all, though he flattered none. 
 
 He was born in the year 1724, and died in 1781. 
 
 In the same tomb lie interred his father 
 
 Ralph Thrale, a man of vigour and activity, 
 
104 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 And his only son Henry, who died before his father, 
 
 Aged ten years. 
 
 Thus a happy and opulent family, 
 
 Raised by the grandfather, and augmented by the 
 
 father, became extinguished with the grandson. 
 
 Go, Reader ! 
 
 And, reflecting on the vicissitudes of 
 
 all human affairs. 
 
 Meditate on eternity. 
 
 I never recollect to have heard that Dr. 
 Johnson wrote inscriptions for any sepulchral 
 stones, except Dr. Goldsmith's in Westminster 
 Abbey, and these two in Streatham church. 
 He made four lines once on the death of poor 
 Hogarth, which were equally true and pleas- 
 ing : I know not why Garrrick's were prefer- 
 red to them. 
 
 The hand of him here torpid lies, 
 That drew the essential form of grace ; 
 Here clos'd in death the attentive eyes, 
 That saw the manners in the face. 
 
 Mr. Hogarth, among the variety of kindnes- 
 ses shewn to me when I was too young to have 
 a proper sense of them, was used to be very 
 earnest that I should obtain the acquaintance, 
 and if possible, the friendship, of Dr. Johnson, 
 whose conversation was to the talk of other 
 men, like Titian's painting compared to Hud- 
 
DR. SAMUEL JHONSON. 105 
 
 son's, he said : but don't you tell people now, 
 that I say so (continued he), for the connois- 
 seurs and I are at war you know ; and because 
 I hate them, they think I hate Titian — and let 
 them! Many were indeed the lectures I used to 
 have in my very early days from dear Mr. Ho- 
 garth, whose regard for my father induced him 
 perhaps to take notice of his little girl, and give 
 her some odd particular directions about dress, 
 dancing*, and many other matters, interesting 
 now only because they were his. As he made 
 all his talents, however, subservient to the great 
 purposes of morality, and the earnest desire he 
 had to mend mankind, his discourse commonly 
 ended in an ethical dissertation, and a serious 
 charge to me, never to forget his picture of the 
 Lady's last Stake. Of Dr. Johnson, when my 
 father and he were talking together about him 
 one day: That man (says Hogarth) is not con- 
 tented with believing the Bible, but he fairly 
 resolves, I think, to believe nothing but the, 
 Bible. Johnson (added he), though so wise a 
 fellow, is more like king David than king Solo- 
 mon; for he says in his haste that all men are 
 liars. This charge, as I afterward came to 
 know, was but too well founded ; Mr. Johnson's 
 
106 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 incredulity amounted almost to disease, and I 
 have seen it mortify his companions exceed- 
 ingly. But the truth is, Mr. Thrale had a very 
 powerful influence over the Doctor, and could 
 make him suppress many rough answers : he 
 could likewise prevail on him to change his shirt, 
 his coat, or his plate, almost before it came indis- 
 pensably necessary to the comfortable feelings 
 of his friends: but as I never had any ascendency 
 at all over Mr. Johnson, except just in the 
 things that concerned his health, it grew ex- 
 tremely perplexing and difficult to live in the 
 house with him when the master of it was no 
 more; the worse, indeed, because his dislikes 
 grew capricious; and he could scarce bear to 
 have any body come to the house whom it was 
 absolutely necessary for me to see. Two gen- 
 tlemen, I perfectly well remember, dining with 
 us at Streatham in the summer 1782, when El- 
 liot's brave defence of Gibraltar was a subject 
 of common discourse, one of these men natu- 
 rally enough began some talk about red-hot 
 balls thrown with surprising dexterity and ef- 
 fect : which Dr. Johnson having listened some 
 time to, "I would advise you, sir (said he, with 
 a cold sneer), never to relate this story again; 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 107 
 
 you really can scarce imagine how very poor a 
 figure you make in the telling of it." Our 
 guest being bred a Quaker, and I believe a man 
 of an extremely gentle disposition, needed no 
 more reproofs for the same folly ; so if he ever 
 did speak again, it was in a low voice to the 
 friend who came with him. The check was gi- 
 ven before dinner, and after coffee I left the 
 room. When in the evening however our com- 
 panions were returned to London, and Mr. 
 Johnson and myself were left alone, with only 
 our usual family about us, "I did not quarrel 
 with those Quaker fellows," said he, very seri- 
 ously. You did perfectly right, replied I ; for 
 they gave you no cause of offence. "No of- 
 fence! (returned he with an altered voice;) and 
 is it nothing then to sit whispering together 
 when 7 am present, without ever directing their 
 discourse towards me, or offering me a share 
 in the conversation > " That was, because you 
 frighted him who spoke first about those hot 
 balls. "Why, madam, if a creature is neither 
 capable of giving dignity to falsehood, nor wil- 
 ling to remain contented with the truth, he 
 deserves no better treatment." 
 
 Mr. Johnson's fixed incredulity of every thing 
 
108 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 he heard, and his little care to conceal that in- 
 credulity, was teasing enough to be sure : and 
 I saw Mr. Sharp was pained exceedingly, when 
 relating the history of a hurricane that happen- 
 ed about that time in the West Indies, where, 
 for aught I know, he had himself lost some 
 friends too, he observed Di. Johnson believed 
 not a syllable of the account: "For 'tis so easy 
 (says he) for a man to fill his mouth with won- 
 der, and run about telling the lie before it can 
 be detected, that I have no heart to believe hur- 
 ricanes easily raised by the first inventor, and 
 blown forwards by thousands more." I asked 
 him once if he believed the story of the de- 
 struction of Lisbon by an earthquake when it 
 first happened: "Oh! not for six months (said 
 he) at least : I did think that story too dreadful 
 to be credited, and can hardly yet persuade 
 myself that it was true to the full extent we all 
 of us have heard. * 
 
 Among the numberless people, however, 
 whom I heard him grossly and flatly contradict, 
 I never yet saw any one who did not take it 
 patiently excepting Dr. Burney, from whose 
 habitual softness of manners I little expected 
 such an exertion of spirit: the event was as 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 109 
 
 little to be expected. Mr. Johnson asked his 
 pardon generously and genteelly, and when he 
 left the room rose up to shake hands with him, 
 that they might part in peace. On another oc- 
 casion, when he had violently provoked Mr. 
 Pepys, in a different but perhaps not a less of- 
 fensive manner, till something much too like a 
 quarrel was grown up between them, the mo- 
 ment he was gone, "Now (says Dr. Johnson) 
 is Pepys gone home hating me, who love him 
 better than I did before : he spoke in defence 
 of his dead friend; but though I hope / spoke 
 better who spoke against him, yet all my elo- 
 quence will gain me nothing but an honest man 
 for my enemy !" He did not however cordially 
 love Mr. Pepys, though he respected his abili- 
 ties. "I knew the dog was a scholar (said he, 
 when they had been disputing about the classics 
 for three hours together one morning at S treat- 
 ham); but that he had so much taste and so 
 much knowledge I did not believe: I might 
 have taken Barnard's word though, for Barnard 
 would not lie." 
 
 We had got a little French print among us at 
 Brighthelmstone, in November 1782, of some 
 people skaiting, with these lines written under: 
 
110 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 Sur un mince chrystal 1'hyver conduit leurs pas, 
 
 Le precipice est sous la glace ; 
 Telle est de nos plaisirs la iegere surface, 
 
 Glissez mortels j n'appayez pas. 
 
 And I begged translations from every body 
 Dr. Johnson gave me this ; 
 
 O'er ice the rapid skaiter flies, 
 
 With sport above and death below : 
 
 Where mischief lurks in gay disguise, 
 Thus lightly touch and quickly go. 
 
 He was however most exceedingly enraged 
 when he knew that in the course of the season 
 I had asked half a dozen acquaintance to do the 
 same thing ; and said, it was a piece of trea- 
 chery, and done to make every body else look 
 little when compared to my favourite friend^ 
 the Pepyses, whose translations were unquesti- 
 onably the best. I will insert them because he 
 did say so. This is the distich given me by sir 
 Lucas, to whom I owe more solid obligations, 
 no less than the power of thanking him for the 
 life he saved, and whose least valuable praise 
 is the correctness of his taste : 
 
 O'er the ice as o'er pleasure you lightly should glide, 
 Both have gulfs which their flattering surfaces hide. 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. Ill 
 
 This other more serious one was written by his 
 brother : 
 
 Swift o'er the level how the skaiters slide, 
 And skim the glitt'ring surface as they go : 
 
 Thus o'er life's specious pleasures lightly glide, 
 But pause not, press not on the gulf below. 
 
 Dr. Johnson seeing this last, and thinking a 
 moment, repeated, 
 
 O'er crackling ice, o'er gulfs profound, 
 
 With nimble glide the skaiters play ; 
 O'er treacherous pleasure's flow'ry ground 
 
 Thus lightly skim, and haste away. 
 
 Though thus uncommonly ready both to give 
 and take offence, Mr. Johnson had many rigid 
 maxims concerning the necessity of continued 
 softness and compliance of disposition : and 
 when I once mentioned Shenstone's idea, that 
 some little quarrel among lovers, relations, 
 and friends, was useful, and contributed to 
 their general happiness upon the whole, by 
 making the soul feel her elastic force, and re- 
 turn to the beloved object with renewed de- 
 light : — " Why, what a pernicious maxim is 
 this now (cries Johnson), all quarrels ought to 
 be avoided studiously, particularly conjugal 
 ones, as no one can possibly tell where they 
 
112 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 may end ; besides that lasting dislike is often 
 the consequence of occasional disgust, and that 
 the cup of life is surely bitter enough, without 
 squeezing in the hateful rind of resentment." 
 It was upon something like the same principle, 
 and from, his general hatred of refinement, that 
 when I told him how Dr. Collier, in order to 
 keep the servants in humour with his favourite 
 dog, by seeming rough with the animal himself 
 on many occasions, and crying out, Why will 
 nobody knock this cur's brains out? meant to 
 conciliate their tenderness towards Pompey; 
 he returned me for answer, "that the maxim 
 was evidently false, and founded on ignorance 
 of human life : that the servants would kick the 
 dog the sooner for having obtained such a sanc- 
 tion to their severity: and I once (added he) 
 chid my wife for beating the cat before the maid, 
 who -will now (said I) treat puss with cruelty 
 perhaps, and plead her mistress's example." 
 
 I asked him upon this, if he ever disputed 
 with his wife? (I had heard that he loved her 
 passionately.) . " Perpetually (said he) : my 
 wife had a particular reverence for cleanliness, 
 and desired the praise of neatness in her dress 
 and furniture, as many ladies do, till they be- 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 113 
 
 come troublesome to their best friends, slaves 
 to their own besoms, and only sigh for the 
 hour of sweeping their husbands out of the 
 house as dirt and useless lumber : a clean 
 floor is so comfortable, she would say some- 
 times, by way of twitting; till at last I told 
 her, that I thought we had had talk enough 
 about the floor, we would now have a touch at 
 the deling" 
 
 On another occasion I have heard him blame 
 her for a fault many people have, of setting the 
 miseries of their neighbours half unintentionally, 
 half wantonly, before their eyes, shewing them 
 the bad side of their profession, situation, &c. 
 He said, " she would lament the dependance 
 of pupillage to a young heir, &c. and once told 
 a waterman who rowed her along the Thames 
 in a wherry, that he was no happier than a 
 galley-slave, one being chained to the oar by 
 authority, the other by want. I had however 
 (said he, laughing,) the wit to get her daughter 
 on my side always before we began the dispute. 
 She read comedy better than any body he ever 
 heard (he said) ; in tragedy she mouthed too 
 much." 
 
 Garrick told Mr. Thrale however, that she 
 
114 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 was a little painted puppet, of no value at all, 
 and quite disguised with affectation, full of odd 
 airs of rural elegance ; and he made out some 
 comical scenes, by mimicking her in a dialogue 
 he pretended to have overheard : I do not know 
 whether he meant such stuff to be believed or 
 no, it was so comical ; nor did I indeed ever 
 see him represent her ridiculously, though my 
 husband did. The intelligence I gained of her 
 from old Levett, was only perpetual illness and 
 perpetual opium. The picture I found of her 
 at Litchfield was very pretty, and her daughter 
 Mrs. Lucy Porter said it was like. Mr. John- 
 son has told me, that her hair was eminently 
 beautiful, quite blonde like that of a baby ; but 
 that she fretted about the colour, and was al- 
 ways desirous to die it black,' which he very 
 judiciously hindered her from doing. His 
 account of their wedding we used to think 
 ludicrous enough — " I was riding to church 
 (says Johnson), and she following on another 
 single horse : she hung back however, and I 
 turned about to see whether she could get her 
 steed along, or what was the matter. I had 
 however soon occasion to see it was only co- 
 quetry, and that I despised, so quickening my 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 115 
 
 paGe a little, she mended hers ; but I believe 
 there was a tear or two — pretty dear creature 1" 
 
 Johnson loved his dinner exceedingly, and 
 has often said in my hearing, perhaps for my 
 edification, " that wherever the dinner is ill 
 got there is poverty, or there is avarice, or 
 there is stupidity ; in short, the family is some- 
 how grossly wrong : for (continued he) a man 
 seldom thinks with more earnestness of any 
 thing than he does of his dinner; and if he 
 cannot get that well dressed, he should be sus- 
 pected of inaccuracy in other things." One 
 day, when he was speaking upon the subject, 
 I asked him, if he ever huffed his wife about 
 his dinner ? "So often (replied he), that at 
 last she called to me, and said, Nay hold, Mr. 
 Johnson, and do not make a farce of thanking 
 God for a dinner which in a few minutes you 
 will protest not eatable." 
 
 When any disputes arose between our mar- 
 ried acquaintance however, Mr. Johnson always 
 sided with the husband, " whom (he said) the 
 woman had probably provoked so often, she 
 scarce knew when or how she had disobliged 
 him first. Women (says Dr. Johnson) give 
 great offence by a contemptuous spirit of non- 
 
 i 2 
 
116' ANECDOTES OF 
 
 compliance on petty occasions. The man calls 
 his wife to walk with him in the shade, and 
 she feels a strange desire just at that moment 
 to sit in the sun ; he offers to read her a play, 
 or sing her a song, and she calls the children 
 in to disturb them, or advises him to seize that 
 opportunity of settling the family accounts. 
 Twenty such tricks will the faithfullest wife in 
 the world not refuse to play, and then look 
 astonished when the fellow fetches in a mis- 
 tress. Boarding-schools were established (con- 
 tinued he) for the conjugal quiet of the parents: 
 the two partners cannot agree which child to 
 fondle, nor how to fondle them, so they put the 
 young ones to school and remove the cause of 
 contention. The little girl pokes her head, 
 the mother reproves her sharply : Do not mind 
 your mamma, says the father, my dear, but do 
 your own way. The mother complains to me 
 of this : Madam (said I), your husband is right 
 all the while ; he is with you but two hours of 
 the day perhaps, and then you tease him by 
 making the child cry. Are not ten hours 
 enough for tuition ? And are the hours of plea- 
 sure so frequent in life, that when a man gets 
 a couple of quiet ones to spend in familiar chat 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 117 
 
 with his wife, they must be poisoned by petty 
 mortifications ? Put missey to school ; she will 
 learn to hold her head like her neighbours, and 
 you will no longer torment your family for want 
 of other talk." 
 
 The vacuity of life had at some early period 
 of his life struck so forcibly on the mind of 
 Mr. Johnson, that it became by repeated im- 
 pression his favourite hypothesis, and the gene- 
 ral tenor of his reasonings commonly ended 
 there, wherever they might begin. Such things 
 therefore as other philosophers often attribute 
 to various and contradictory causes, appeared 
 to him uniform enough; all was done to fill up 
 the time, upon his principle. I used to tell 
 him, that it was like the clown's answer in As 
 you like it, of " Oh Lord, sir!" for that it suited 
 every occasion. One man, for example, was 
 profligate and wild, as we call it, followed the 
 girls, or sat still at the gaming-table. " Why, 
 life must be filled up (says Johnson), and the 
 man who is not capable of intellectual plea- 
 sures must content himself with such as his 
 senses can afford." Another was a hoarder : 
 "Why, a fellow must do something; and what 
 so easy to a narrow mind as hoarding halfpence 
 
118 ANECBOTES Ol 
 
 till they turn into sixpences ?" — Avarice was a 
 vice against which, however, I never much 
 heard Mr. Johnson declaim, till one represented 
 it to him connected with cruelty, or some such 
 disgraceful companion. "Do not (said he) 
 discourage your children from hoarding, if they 
 have a taste to it: whoever lays up his penny 
 rather than part with it for a cake, at least is 
 not the slave of gross appetite ; and shews be- 
 sides a preference always to be esteemed, of the 
 future to the present moment. Such a mind 
 may be made a good one; but the natural 
 spendthrift, who grasps his pleasures greedily 
 and coarsely, and cares for nothing but imme- 
 diate indulgence, is very little to be valued 
 above a negro." We talked of lady Tavistock, 
 who grieved herself to death for the loss of 
 her husband — " She was rich and wanted em- 
 ployment (says Johnson), so she cried till she 
 lost all power of restraining her tears : other 
 women are forced to outlive their husbands, 
 who were just as much beloved, depend on it; 
 but they have no time for grief: and I doubt 
 not, if we had put my lady Tavistock into a 
 small chandler's shop, and given her a nurse- 
 ehild to tend, her life would have been saved. 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 119 
 
 The poor and the busy have no leisure for sen- 
 timental sorrow." We were speaking of a 
 gentleman who loved his friend — " Make him 
 prime minister (says Johnson), and see how 
 long his friend will be remembered." But he 
 had a rougher answer for me, when I com- 
 mended a sermon preached by an intimate ac- 
 quaintance of our own at the trading end of 
 the town. " What was the subject, madam ?" 
 says Dr. Johnson. Friendship, sir, replied I. 
 " Why now, is it not strange that a wise man, 
 like our dear little Evans, should take it in his 
 head to preach on such a subject, in a place 
 where no one can be thinking of it ?" Why 
 what are they thinking upon, sir? said, I. 
 " Why the men are thinking on their money, 
 I suppose, and the women are thinking of 
 their mops." 
 
 Dr. Johnson's knowledge and esteem of what 
 we call low or coarse life was indeed prodi- 
 gious ; and he did not like that the upper ranks 
 should be dignified with the name of the world. 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds said one day, that nobody 
 wore laced coats now ; and that once every 
 body wore them. "See now (says Johnson) how 
 absurd that is ; as if the bulk of mankind con- 
 
120 ANECDOTES OE 
 
 sisted of fine gentlemen that came to him to 
 sit for their pictures. If every man who wears 
 a laced coat (that he can pay for) was extir- 
 pated, who would miss them?" With all this 
 haughty contempt of gentility, no praise was 
 more welcome to Dr. Johnson than that which 
 said he had the notions or manners of a gentle- 
 man: which character I have heard him de- 
 fine with accuracy, and describe with ele- 
 gance. "Officers (he said) were falsely sup- 
 posed to have the carriage of gentlemen; where- 
 as no profession left a stronger brand behind 
 it than that of a soldier; and it was the essence 
 of a gentleman's character to bear the visible 
 mark of no profession whatever." He once 
 named Mr. Berenger as the standard of true 
 elegance ; but some one objecting, that he too 
 much resembled the gentleman in Congreve's 
 comedies, Mr. Johnson said, "We must fix 
 then upon the famous Thomas Hervey, whose 
 manners were polished even to acuteness and 
 brilliancy, though he lost but little in solid pow- 
 er of reasoning, and in genuine force of mind." 
 Mr. Johnson had however an avowed and 
 scarcely limited partiality for all who bore the 
 name or boasted the alliance of an Aston or a 
 
DH. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 121 
 
 Hervey ; and when Mr. Thrale once asked him 
 which had been the happiest period of his past 
 life? he replied, ''It was that year in which he 
 spent one whole evening with M — y As— n. 
 That indeed (said he) was not happiness, it 
 was rapture; but the thoughts of it sweetened 
 the whole year." I must add, that the evening 
 alluded to was not passed tete-a-tete, but in a 
 select company, of which the present Lord 
 Killmorey was one. "Molly (says Dr. Johnson) 
 was a beauty and a scholar, and a wit and a 
 Whig ; and she talked all in praise of liberty : 
 and so I made this epigram upon her — She 
 was the lovliest creature I ever saw ! ! ! 
 
 Liber ut esse velim, suasisti pulchra Maria, 
 Ut maneam liber — pulchra Maria, vale !" 
 
 Will it do this way in English, sir ? said I, 
 
 Persuasions to freedom fall oddly from you 
 If freedom we seek — fair Maria, adieu ! 
 
 "It will do well enough (replied he); but it is 
 translated by a lady, and the ladies never loved 
 
 M -y As n." I asked him what/as wife 
 
 thought of this attachment? "She was jealous 
 
122 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 to be sure (said he), and teased me sometimes, 
 when I would let her ; and one day, as a fortune- 
 telling gipsey passed us when we were walking- 
 out in company with two or three friends in the 
 country, she made the wench look at my hand, 
 but soon repented her curiosity; for, says the 
 gipsey, Your heart is divided, sir, between a 
 Betty and a Molly: Betty loves you best, but 
 you take most delight in Molly's company: 
 when I turned about to laugh, I saw my wife 
 was crying. Pretty charmer! she had no rea- 
 son!" It was, I believe, long after the currents of 
 life had driven him to a great distance from this 
 lady, that he spent much of his time with Mrs. 
 F — zh — b — t, of whom he always spoke with 
 esteem and tenderness, and with a veneration 
 very difficult to deserve." That woman (said 
 he) loved her husbandas we hope and desire to 
 be loved by our guardian angel. F — tzh — b — t 
 was a gay good-humoured fellow, generous 
 of his money and of his meat, and desirous 
 of nothing but good cheerful society among 
 people distinguished in some way, in any way I 
 think; for Rousseau and St. Austin would have 
 been equally welcome to his table and to his 
 kindness: the lady however was of another 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 123 
 
 way of thinking ; her first care was to preserve 
 her husband's soul from corruption ; her second, 
 to keep his estate entire for their children : and 
 I owed my good reception in the family to the idea 
 she had entertained, that I was fit company for 
 F — tzh — b — t, whom I loved extremely. They 
 dare not (said she) swear, and take other con- 
 versation-liberties befpjre you." I asked if her 
 husband returned her regard? "He felt her in- 
 fluence too powerfully (replied Mr. Johnson) : 
 no man will be fond of what forces him daily 
 to feel himself inferior. She stood at the door 
 of her paradise in Derbyshire, like the angel 
 with the flaming sword, to keep the devil at a 
 distance. But she was not immortal, poor 
 dear! she died, and her husband felt at once 
 afflicted and released." I enquired if she was 
 handsome? " She would have been handsome 
 for a queen (replied the panegyrist); her beau- 
 ty had more in it of majesty than of attraction, 
 more of the dignity of virtue than the vivacity of 
 wit." The friend of this lady, miss B — thby 
 succeeded her in the management of Mr. 
 F — -tzh — b — t's family, and in the esteem of Dr. 
 Johnson; though he told me she pushed her 
 piety to bigotry, her devotion to enthusiasm ; 
 
124 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 that she somewhat disqualified herself for the 
 duties of this life by her perpetual aspirations 
 after the next : such was however the purity of her 
 mind, he said, and such the graces of her manner, 
 that lord Lyttelton. and he used to strive for her 
 preference with an emulation that occasioned 
 hourly disgust, and ended in lasting animosity. 
 "You may see (said he^g me, when the Poets' 
 Lives w r ere printed) that dear B — thby is at my 
 heart still. She would delight in that fellow 
 Lyttelton's company though, all that I could 
 do ; and I cannot forgive even his memory the 
 preference given by a mind like hers." I have 
 heard Baretti say, that when this lady died, 
 Dr. Johnson, was almost distracted with his 
 grief; and that the friends about him had much 
 ado to calm the violence of his emotions. Dr. 
 Taylor too related once to Mr f Thrale and me, 
 that when he lost his wife, the negro Francis 
 ran away, though in the middle of the night, to 
 Westminster, to fetch Dr. Taylor to his master, 
 who was all but wild with excess of sorrow, and 
 scarce knew him when he arrived : after some mi- 
 nutes however, the doctor proposed their going 
 to prayers, as the only rational method of 
 calming the disorder this misfortune had occa- 
 
DR. SAMUEL JHONSON. 125 
 
 sioned in both their spirits. Time, and resig- 
 nation to the will of God, cured every breach 
 in his heart before I made acquaintance with 
 liim, though he always persisted in saying he 
 never rightly recovered the loss of his wife. 
 It is in allusion to her that he records the ob- 
 servation of a female critic, as he calls her, in 
 Gay's Life ; and the lady of great beauty and 
 elegance, mentioned in the criticisms upon 
 Pope's epitaphs, was miss Molly Aston. The 
 person spoken of in his strictures upon Young's 
 poetry, is the writer of these Anecdotes, to 
 whom he likewise addressed the following ver- 
 ses when he was in the Isle of Sky with Mr. 
 Bos well. The letters written in his journey, I 
 used to tell him, were better than the printed 
 book; and he was not displeased at my having 
 taken the pains to copy them all over. Here 
 is the Latin ode ; 
 
 Permeo terras, ubi nuda rupes 
 Saxeas miscet nebulis ruinas, 
 Torva ubi rident steriles coloni 
 
 Rura labores. 
 
 Pervagor gentes, hominum ferorum 
 Vita ubi nullo decorata cultu, 
 Squallet informis, tigurique fumis 
 
 Foedalatescit. 
 
126 ANECDOTES 0¥ 
 
 Inter erroris salebrosa longi, 
 Inter ignotse strepitus loquelse, 
 Quot modis mecum, quid agat requiro 
 
 Thralia duleis ? 
 
 Seu viri curas pia nupta mulcet, 
 Seufovet mater sobolem benigna, 
 Sive cum libris novitate pascit 
 
 Sedula inentem 
 
 Sit memor nostri, fideique merces, 
 Stet fides constans, meritoque blandum 
 Thralas discant rcsonare nomen 
 
 Littora Skiae. 
 
 On another occasion I can boast verses from 
 Dr. Johnson — as I went into his room the 
 morning of my birth-day once and said to him, 
 Nobody sends me any verses now, because I 
 am five-and-thirty years old; and Stella was 
 fed with them till forty-six, I remember. My 
 being just recovered from illness and confine- 
 ment will account for the manner in which he 
 burst out suddenly, for so he did without the 
 least previous hesitation whatsoever, and with- 
 out having entertained the smallest intention 
 towards it half a minute before: 
 
 Oft in danger, yet alive, 
 We are come to thirty-five ; 
 Long may better years arrive, 
 Better years than tbirty-fivc. 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 127 
 
 Could philosophers contrive 
 
 Life to stop at thirty-fire, 
 
 Time his hours should never dive 
 
 O'er the bounds of thirty-five. 
 
 High to soar, and deep to drive, 
 
 Nature gives at thirty-five. 
 
 Ladies, stock and tend your hive, 
 
 Trifle not at thirty-five : 
 
 For howe'er we boast and strive, 
 
 Life declines from thirty-five : 
 
 He that ever hopes to thrive 
 
 Must begin by thirty-five ; 
 And all who wisely wish to wive 
 Must look on Thrale at thirty-five. 
 
 *' And now (said he, as I was writing them 
 down) you may see what it is to come for poe- 
 try to a Dictionary-maker; you may observe 
 that the rhymes run in alphabetical order ex- 
 actly." And so they do. 
 
 Mr. Johnson did indeed possess an almost 
 Tuscan power of improvisation : when he called 
 to my daughter, who was consulting with a 
 friend about a new gown and dressed hat she 
 thought of wearing to an assembly, thus sud- 
 denly, while she hoped he was not listening to 
 their conversation, 
 
 Wear the gown and wear the hat, 
 Snatch thy pleasures while they last , 
 
 Hadst thou nine lives like a cat, 
 Soon those nine lives would be past. 
 
128 ANECDOTES OE 
 
 It is impossible to deny to such little sallies 
 the power of the Florentines, who do not permit 
 their verses to be ever written down though 
 they often deserve it, because, as they express 
 it, cosi se perderebbe la poca gloria. 
 
 As for translations, we used to make him 
 sometimes run off with one* or two in a good 
 humour. He was praising this song of Metas- 
 tatio, 
 
 Deb, se piacermi vuoi, 
 Lascia i sospetti tuoi, 
 Won mi turbar conqucsto 
 Molesto dubitar : 
 Chi ciecamente crede, 
 Impegna a serbar fede ; 
 Chi sempre inganno aspeUa, 
 Alletta adingannar. 
 
 " Should you like it in English (said he) 
 thus?" 
 
 Would you hope to gain my heart, 
 Bid your teasing doubts depart ; 
 He who blindly trusts, will find 
 Faith from every generous mind : 
 He who still expects deceit, 
 Only teaches how to cheat. 
 
 Mr. Baretti coaxed him likewise one day at 
 Streatham out of a translation of Emirena's 
 
BR. SAMUEL jOHNSOfr. 129 
 
 speech to the false courtier Aquileius, and it is 
 probably printed before now, as I think two 
 or three people took copies; but perhaps it has 
 slipped their memories. 
 
 Ah ! tu in corte invecchiasti, e giurere'i 
 Che fra i pochi non sei tenace ancora 
 Dell' antica onesta: quando bisogna, 
 Saprai sereno in volto 
 Vezzeggiare un nemico $ accio vi cada, 
 Aprirgli innanzi un precipizio, e poi 
 Piangerne la caduta. Offrirti a tutti 
 JE non esser che tuo j di false lodi 
 Vesllr le accuse, ed aggravar le colpe 
 Nel fame la difesa, ognor dal trono 
 I buoni allontanar ; d' ogni castigo 
 Lasciar 1' odio alio scettro, e d' ogni dono 
 U merito usurpar : tener nascosto 
 Sotto un zelo apparente un empio fine, 
 Ne fabbricar che sulle altrui rouine. 
 
 Grown old in courts, thou art not surely one 
 
 Who keeps the rigid rules of ancient honour ; 
 
 Well skill'd to soothe a foe with looks of kindness, 
 
 To sink the fatal precipice before him, 
 
 And then lament his fall with seeming friendship : 
 
 Open to all, true only to thyself, 
 
 Thou know'st those arts Which blast with envious praise^ 
 
 Which aggravate a fault with feign'd excuses, 
 
 Aud drive discountenanced virtue from the throne : 
 
 That leave the blame Of rigour to the prince, 
 
 And of his every gift usurp the merit; 
 
 That hide in seeming zeal a wicked purpose. 
 
 And only build upon another's ruin. 
 
 These characters Dr. Johnson however did 
 
 K 
 
130 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 not delight in reading, or in hearing of : he al- 
 ways maintained, that the world was not half 
 as wicked as it was represented ; and he might 
 very well continue in that opinion, as he reso- 
 lutely drove from him every story that could 
 make him change it; and when Mr. Bicker- 
 staff's flight confirmed the report of his guilt, 
 and my husband said in answer to Johnson's 
 astonishment, that he had long been a suspected 
 man : " By those who look close to the ground, 
 dirt will be seen, sir (was the lofty reply) : I 
 hope I see things from a greater distance." 
 
 His desire to go abroad, particularly to see 
 Italy, was very great ; and he had a longing 
 wish too, to leave some Latin verses at the 
 Grand Chartreux. He loved indeed the very 
 act of travelling, and I cannot tell how far one 
 might have taken him in a carriage before he 
 would have wished for refreshment. He was 
 therefore in some respects an admirable com- 
 panion on the road, as he piqued himself upon 
 feeling no inconvenience, and on despising no 
 accommodations. On the other hand, however, 
 he expected no one else to feel any, and felt 
 exceedingly inflamed with anger if any one 
 complained of the rain, the sun, or the dust. 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 131 
 
 " How (said he) do other people bear them V* 
 As for general uneasiness, or complaints of long 
 confinement in a carriage, he considered all 
 lamentations on their account as proofs of an 
 empty head, and a tongue desirous to talk 
 without materials of conversation. "A mill 
 that goes without grist (said he) is as good a 
 companion as such creatures." 
 
 I pitied a friend before him who had a whi- 
 ning wife, that found every thing painful to her* 
 and nothing pleasing—" He does not know 
 that she whimpers (says Johnson) ; when a door 
 has creaked for a fortnight together, you may 
 observe— *the master will scarcely give sixpence 
 to get it oiled." 
 
 Of another lady, more insipid than offensive, 
 I once heard him say, " She has some softness 
 indeed, but so has a pillow." And when one 
 observed in reply, that her husband's fidelity 
 and attachment were exemplary, notwithstand- 
 ing this low account at which her perfections 
 were rated — "Why, sir (cries the Doctor), be- 
 ing married to those sleepy-souled women, is 
 just like playing at cards for nothing : no pas- 
 sion is excited, and the time is filled up. I do 
 not however envy a fellow one of those honey- 
 
 k 2 
 
132 ANECDOTES Of 
 
 suckle wives, for my part, as they are but creep- 
 ers at best, and commonly destroy the tree 
 they so tenderly cling about." 
 
 For a lady of quality, since dead, who re- 
 ceived us at her husband's seat in Wales with 
 less attention than he had long been accus- 
 tomed to, he had a rougher denunciation : 
 "That woman (cries Johnson) is like sour 
 small beer, the beverage of her table, and pro- 
 duce of the wretched country she lives in: like 
 that, she could never have been a good thing, 
 and even that bad thing is spoiled." This was 
 in the same vein of asperity, and I believe with 
 something like the same provocation, that he 
 observed of a Scotch lady, " that she resem- 
 bled a dead nettle ; were she alive (said he) 
 she would sting." 
 
 Mr. Johnson's hatred of the Scotch is so 
 well known, and so many of his bon mots ex- 
 pressive of that hatred have been already re- 
 peated in so many books and pamphlets, that 
 it is perhaps scarcely worth while to write 
 down the conversation between him and a 
 friend of that nation, who always resides in 
 London, and who at his return from the He- 
 brides asked him, with a firm tone of voice, 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 133 
 
 what he thought of his country? " That it is 
 a very vile country to be sure, sir ;" returned 
 for answer Dr. Johnson. Well, sir! replies the 
 other somewhat mortified, God made it. "Cer- 
 tainly he did (answers Mr. Johnson again) ; 
 but we must always remember that he made it 
 for Scotchmen, and comparisons are odious, 
 
 Mr. S ; but God made hell." 
 
 Dr. Johnson did not I think much delight in 
 that kind of conversation which consists in tel- 
 ling stories : "Every body (said he) tells stories 
 of me, and I tell stories of nobody. I do not 
 recollect (added he), that I have ever told you, 
 that have been always favourites, above three 
 stories ; but I hope I do not play the old fool, 
 and force people to hear uninteresting narra- 
 tives, only because I once was diverted with 
 them myself." He was however no enemy to 
 that sort of talk from the famous Mr. Foote, 
 "whose happiness of manner in relating was 
 such (he said) as subdued arrogance and roused 
 stupidity ; his stories were truly like those of 
 Biron in Love's Labour Lost, so very attractive 
 
 That aged ears play'd truant with his tales, 
 And younger hearings were quite ravished, 
 So sweet and voluble was his discourse. 
 
134 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 Of all conversers however (added he), the late 
 Hawkins Browne was the most delightful with 
 whom I ever was in company : his talk was at 
 once so elegant, so apparently artless, so pure, 
 and so pleasing, it seemed a perpetual stream 
 of sentiment, enlivened by gaiety, and sparkling 
 with images." When I asked Dr. Johnson, 
 who was the best man he had ever known ? 
 " Psalmanazar," was the unexpected reply: he 
 said, likewise, -'that though a native of France, 
 as his friend imagined, he possessed more of 
 the English language, than any one of the other 
 foreigners who had separately fallen in his 
 way." Though there was much esteem how- 
 ever, there was I believe but little confidence 
 between them ; they conversed merely about 
 general topics, religion and learning, of which 
 both were undoubtedly stupendous examples ; 
 and, with regard to true Christian perfection, 
 I have heard Johnson say, "That George Psal- 
 manazar's piety, penitence, and virtue, ex- 
 ceeded almost what we read as wonderful even 
 in the lives of saints." 
 
 I forget in what year it was that this extra- 
 ordinary person lived and died at a house in 
 Old-street, where Mr. Johnson was witness to 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 135 
 
 his talents and virtues, and to his final prefe- 
 rence of the church of England, after having 
 studied, disgraced, and adorned, so many modes 
 of worship. The name he went by, was not 
 supposed by his friend to be that of his family, 
 but all enquiries were vain ; his reasons for con- 
 cealing his original were penitentiary; he de- 
 served no other name than that of the impostor, 
 he said. That portion of the Universal History 
 which was written by him, does not seem to 
 me to be composed with peculiar spirit, but all 
 traces of the wit and the wanderer were proba- 
 bly worn out before he undertook the work. — 
 His pious and patient endurance of a tedious 
 illness, ending in an exemplary death, con- 
 firmed the strong impression his merit had made 
 upon the mind of Mr. Johnson. " It is so very 
 difficult (said he, always) for a sick man not to 
 be a scoundrel. Oh ! set the pillows soft, here 
 is Mr. Grumbler o'coming : Ah ! let no air in 
 for the world, Mr. Grumbler will be here pre- 
 sently." 
 
 This perpetual preference is so offensive, 
 where the privileges of sickness are besides 
 supported by wealth, and nourished bydepen- 
 dance, that one cannot much wonder that a 
 
136 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 rough mind is revolted by them. It was, how-* 
 ever, at once comical and touchant (as the 
 French call it), to observe Mr. Johnson so ha-? 
 bitually watchful against this sort of behaviour, 
 that he was often ready to suspect himself of it; 
 and when one asked him gently, how he did— 
 "Ready to become a scoundrel, madam (would 
 commonly be the answer): with a little more 
 spoiling you will, I think, make me a complete 
 rascal." 
 
 His desire of doing good was not however 
 lessened by his aversion to a sick-chamber : he 
 would have made an ill man well by any ex- 
 pence or fatigue of his own, sooner than any of 
 the canters. Canter indeed was he none: 
 he would forget to ask people after the health 
 of their nearest relations, and say in excuse, 
 f ' That he knew they did not care : why should 
 they ? (says he :) every one in this world has 
 as much as they can do in caring for themselves, 
 and few have leisure really to think of their 
 neighbours' distresses, however they may de- 
 light their tongues with talking of them.*' 
 
 The natural depravity of mankind and re- 
 mains of original sin were so fixed in Mr. 
 Johnson's opinion, that he was indeed a most 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 137 
 
 acute observer of their effects ; and used to 
 say sometimes, half in jest, half in earnest, that 
 they were the remains of his old tutor Mande- 
 ville's instructions. As a book however, he 
 took care always loudly to condemn the Fable 
 of the Bees, but not without adding, " that it 
 was the work of a thinking man." 
 
 I have in former days heard Dr. Collier of 
 the Commons loudly condemned for uttering 
 sentiments, which twenty years after I have 
 heard as loudly applauded from the lips of Dr. 
 Johnson, concerning the well-known writer of 
 that celebrated work : but if people will live 
 long enough in this capricious world, such in- 
 stances of partiality will shock them less and 
 less, by frequent repetition. Mr. Johnson knew 
 mankind, and wished to mend them : he there- 
 fore, to the piety and pure religion, the un- 
 tainted integrity, and scrupulous morals, of my 
 earliest and most disinterested friend, judi- 
 ciously contrived to join a cautious attention 
 to the capacity of his hearers, and a prudent 
 resolution not to lessen the influence of his 
 learning and virtue, by casual freaks of hu- 
 mour, and irregular starts of ill-managed mer- 
 riment. He did not wish to confound, but to 
 
138 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 inform his auditors ; and though he did not 
 appear to solicit benevolence, he always wish- 
 ed to retain authority, and leave his company 
 impressed with the idea, that it was his to 
 teach in this world, and theirs to learn. What 
 wonder then that all should receive with doci- 
 lity from Johnson those doctrines, which pro- 
 pagated by Collier they drove away from them 
 with shouts ! Dr. Johnson was not grave how- 
 ever because he knew not how to be merry. 
 No man loved laughing better, and his vein of 
 humour was rich, and apparently inexhaust- 
 ible; though Dr. Goldsmith said once to him, 
 We should change companions oftener, we ex- 
 haust one another, and shall soon be both of us 
 worn out. Poor Goldsmith was to him indeed 
 like the earthen pot to the iron one in Fontaine's 
 fables ; it had been better for him perhaps, that 
 they had changed companions oftener; yet no 
 experience of his antagonist's strength hindered 
 him from continuing the contest. He used to 
 remind me always of that verse in Berni, 
 
 II pover uomo che non sen* era accorto, 
 Andava conabattcndo--ed era morto. 
 
 Mr. Johnson made him a comical answer one 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 139 
 
 day, when seeming to repine at the success of 
 Beattie's Essay on Truth — "Here's such a stir 
 (said he) about a fellow that has written one 
 book, and I have written many." Ah, Doctor 
 (says his friend), there go two-and- forty six- 
 pences you know to one guinea. 
 
 They had spent an evening with Eton Gra- 
 ham too ; I remember hearing it was at some 
 tavern; his heart was open, and he began in- 
 viting away; told what he could do to make 
 his college agreeable, and begged the visit 
 might not be delayed. Goldsmith thanked 
 him, and proposed setting out with Mr. John- 
 son for Buckinghamshire in a fortnight ; " Nay 
 hold, Dr. Minor (says the other), I did not in- 
 vite you." 
 
 Many such mortifications arose in the course 
 of their intimacy to be sure, but few more 
 laughable than when the newspapers had tack- 
 ed them together as the pedant and his flat- 
 terer in Love's Labour Lost. Dr. Goldsmith 
 came to his friend, fretting and foaming, and 
 vowing vengeance against the printer, &c. till 
 Mr. Johnson, tired of the bustle-, and desirous 
 to think of something else, cried out at last, 
 " Why, what wouldest thou have, dear doctor! 
 
140 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 who the plague is hurt with all this nonsense ? 
 and how is a man the worse I wonder in his 
 health, purse, or character, for being called 
 HolofernesV I do not know, replies the other, 
 how you may relish being called Hoiofernes, 
 but I do not like at least to play Goodman 
 Dull 
 
 Dr. Johnson was indeed famous for disre- 
 garding public abuse. When the "people criti* 
 cised and answered his pamphlets, papers, &c, 
 " Why now, these fellows are only advertising 
 my book (he would say) ; it is surely better a 
 man should be abused than forgotten." When 
 Churchill nettled him, however, it is certain he 
 felt the sting, or that poet's works would hardly 
 have been left out of the edition. Of that how-? 
 ever I have no right to decide ; the booksellers 
 perhaps did not put Churchill on their list* 
 I know Mr. Johnson was exceedingly zealous to 
 declare how very little he had to do with the 
 selection. Churchill's works too might possibly 
 be rejected by him upon a higher principle; 
 the highest indeed, if he was inspired by the 
 same laudable motive which made him reject 
 every authority for a word in his Dictionary 
 that could only be gleaned from writers dange- 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON 141 
 
 rous to religion or morality — " I would not 
 (said he) send people to look for words in a 
 book, that by such a casual seizure of the mind 
 might chance to mislead it for ever." In con- 
 sequence of this delicacy, Mrs. Montague once 
 observed, That were an angel to give the im- 
 primatur, Dr. Johnson's works were among 
 those very few which would not be lessened 
 by a line. That such praise from such a lady 
 should delight him, is not strange ; insensibility 
 in a case like that, must have been the result 
 alone of arrogance acting on stupidity. Mr. 
 Johnson had indeed no dislike to the commen- 
 dations which he knew he deserved: "What 
 signifies protesting so against flattery ! (would 
 he cry :) when a person speaks well of one, it 
 must be either true or false, you know ; if true, 
 let us rejoice in his good opinion; if he lies, it 
 is a proof at least that he loves more to please 
 me, than to sit silent when he need say nothing." 
 That natural roughness of his manner, so 
 often mentioned, would, notwithstanding the 
 regularity of his notions, burst through them 
 all from time to time ; and he once bade a very 
 celebrated lady, who praised him with too much 
 zeal perhaps, or perhaps too strong an empha- 
 
142 ■ ANECDOTES OF 
 
 sis (which always offended him), " consider 
 what her flattery was worth before she choked 
 him with it." A few more winters passed in 
 the talking world shewed him the value of that 
 friend's commendations, however ; and he was 
 very sorry for the disgusting speech he made her. 
 
 I used to think Mr, Johnson's determined 
 preference of a cold monotonous talker over an 
 emphatical and violent one, would make him 
 quite a favourite among the men of ton, whose 
 insensibility, or affectation of perpetual calm- 
 ness, certainly did not give to him the offence 
 it does to many. He loved " conversation 
 without effort," he said ; and the encomiums I 
 have heard him so often pronounce on the man- 
 ners of Topham Beauclerc in society, constantly 
 ended in that peculiar praise, that " it was 
 without effort" 
 
 We were talking of Richardson, who wrote 
 Clarissa : " You think I love flattery (says Dr. 
 Johnson), and so I do ; but a little too much 
 always disgusts me : that fellow Richardson, 
 on the contrary, could not be contented to sail 
 quietly down the stream of reputation, without 
 longing to taste the froth from every stroke of 
 the oar." 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 143 
 
 With regard to slight insults from newspaper 
 abuse, I have already declared his notions : 
 " They sting one (says he) but as a fly stings a 
 horse ; and the eagle will not catoh flies." He 
 once told me, however, that Cummyns, the 
 famous Quaker, whose friendship he valued 
 very highly, fell a sacrifice to their insults, ha- 
 ving declared on his death-bed to Dr. Johnson, 
 that the pain of an anonymous letter, written 
 in some of the common prints of the day, fast- 
 ened on his heart, and threw him into the slow 
 fever of which he died. 
 
 Nor was Cummyns the only valuable mem- 
 ber so lost to society : Hawkesworth, the pious, 
 the virtuous, and the wise, for want of that for- 
 titude which casts a shield before the merits of 
 his friend, fell a lamented sacrifice to wanton 
 malice and cruelty, I know not how provoked; 
 but all in turn feel the lash of censure in a coun- 
 try where, as every baby is allowed to carry a 
 whip, no person can escape except by chance. 
 The unpublished crimes, unknown distresses, 
 and even death itself, however, daily occurring 
 in less liberal governments and less free nations, 
 soon teach one to content one's self with such 
 petty grievances, and make one acknowledge 
 
144 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 that the undistinguishing severity of newspaper 
 abuse may in some measure dimmish the diffu- 
 sion of vice aud folly in Great Britain, and 
 while they fright delicate minds into forced 
 refinements and affected insipidity, they are 
 useful to the great causes of virtue in the soul, 
 and liberty in the state ; and though sensibility 
 often sinks under the roughness of their pre- 
 scriptions, it would be no good policy to take 
 away their licence. 
 
 Knowing the state of Mr. Johnson's nerves, 
 and how easily they were affected, I forbore 
 reading in a new magazine one day, the death 
 of a Samuel Johnson who expired that month; 
 but my companion snatching up the book, saw 
 it himself, and, contrary to my expectation— 
 " Oh ! (said he,) I hope Death will now be 
 glutted with Sam. Johnsons, and let me alone 
 for some time to come : I read of another 
 namesake's departure last week."— Though 
 Mr. Johnson was commonly affected even to 
 agony at the thoughts of a friend's dying, he 
 troubled himself very little with the complaints 
 they might make to him about ill health. 
 " Dear doctor (said he one day to a common 
 acquaintance, who lamented the tender state 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 145 
 
 of his inside), do not be like the spider, man ; 
 and spin conversation thus incessantly out of 
 thy own bowels." — I told him of another friend 
 who suffered grievously with the gout — " He 
 will live a vast many years for all that (replied 
 he), and then what signifies how much he suf- 
 fers ? but he will die at last, poor fellow, there's 
 the misery ; gout seldom takes the fort by a 
 coup-de-main, but turning the siege into a 
 blockade, obliges it to surrender at discretion." 
 
 A lady he thought well of, was disordered 
 in her health — " What help has she called 
 in ?" inquired Johnson. Dr. James, sir : was 
 the reply. " What is her disease ?" Oh, no- 
 thing positive, rather a gradual and gentle 
 decline. " She will die then, pretty dear ! 
 (answered he ;) when Death's pale horse runs 
 away with a person on full speed, an active 
 physician may possibly give them a turn ; but 
 if he carries them on an even slow pace, down 
 hill too ! no care nor skill can save them !" 
 
 When Garrick was on his last sick-bed, no 
 arguments or recitals of such facts as I had 
 heard, would persuade Mr. Johnson of his dan- 
 ger : he had prepossessed himself with a notion, 
 that to say a man was sick, was very near wish- 
 
 L 
 
146 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 ing him so ; and few things offended him more, 
 than prognosticating even the death of an ordi- 
 nary acquaintance. " Ay, ay (said he), Swift 
 knew the world pretty well, when he said, that 
 
 Some dire misfortune to portend, 
 No enemy can match a friend.*' 
 
 The danger then of Mr. Garrick, or of Mr. 
 Thrale, whom he loved better, was an image 
 which no one durst present before his view; 
 he always persisted in the possibility and hope 
 of their recovering disorders from which no 
 human creatures by human means alone ever 
 did recover. His distress for their loss was 
 for that very reason poignant to excess : but 
 his fears of his own salvation were excessive : 
 his truly tolerant spirit, and Christian charity, 
 which hopeth all things, and believeth all things, 
 made him rely securely on the safety of his 
 friends, while his earnest aspiration after a 
 blessed immortality made him cautious of his 
 own steps, and timorous concerning their con- 
 sequences. He knew how much had been gi- 
 ven, and filled his mind with fancies of how 
 much would be required, till his impressed 
 imagination was often disturbed by them, and 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 147 
 
 his health suffered from the sensibility of his 
 too tender conscience : a real Christian is so 
 apt to find his task above his power of per- 
 formance ! 
 
 Mr. Johnson did not however give into ridi- 
 culous refinements either of speculation or 
 practice, or suffer himself to be deluded by 
 specious appearances. " I have had dust 
 thrown in my eyes too often (would he say) to 
 be blinded so. Let us never confound matters 
 of belief with matters of opinion." — Some one 
 urged in his presence the preference of hope to 
 possession ; and, as I remember, produced an 
 Italian sonnet on the subject. " Let us not 
 (cries Johnson) amuse ourselves with subtilties 
 and sonnets, when speaking about hope, which 
 is the follower of faith and the precursor of 
 eternity ; but if you only mean those air-built 
 hopes which to-day excites and to-morrow 
 will destroy, let us talk away, and remember 
 that we only talk of the pleasures of hope; we 
 feel those of possession, and no man in his 
 senses would change the last for the first : such 
 hope is a mere bubble, that by a gentle breath 
 may be blown to what size you will almost, 
 but a rough blast bursts it at once. Hope is 
 
 l 3 
 
148 ANECDOTES 01* 
 
 an amusement rather than a good, and adapted 
 to none but very tranquil minds." The truth 
 is, Mr. Johnson hated what we call unprofita- 
 ble chat ; and to a gentleman who had disser- 
 ted some time about the natural history of the 
 mouse — " I wonder what such a one would 
 have said (cried Johnson), if he had ever had 
 the luck to see a lion /" 
 
 I well remember that at Brighthelmstone 
 once, when he was not present, Mr. Beauclerc 
 asserted that he was afraid of spirits ; and 1, 
 who was secretly offended at the charge, asked 
 him, the first opportunity I could find, what 
 ground he had ever given to the world for such 
 a report ? " I can (replied he) recollect no- 
 thing nearer it, than my telling Dr. Lawrence 
 many years ago, that a. long time after my 
 poor mother's death, I heard her voice call 
 Sam /" What answer did the doctor make to 
 jour story, sir? said I. "None in the world," 
 replied he ; and suddenly changed the conver- 
 sation. Now as Mr. Johnson had a most un- 
 shaken faith, without any mixture of credulity, 
 this story must either have been strictly true, 
 or his persuasion of its truth the effect of dis- 
 ordered spirits. I relate the anecdote pre- 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 149 
 
 cisely as he told it me ; but could not prevail 
 on him to draw out the talk into length for 
 farther satisfaction of my curiosity. 
 
 As Johnson was the firmest of believers with- 
 out being credulous, so he was the most cha- 
 ritable of mortals without being what we call 
 an active friend. Admirable at giving counsel 
 no man saw his way so clearly ; but he would 
 not stir a finger for the assistance of those to 
 whom he was willing enough to give advice : 
 besides that, he had principles of laziness, and 
 could be indolent by rule. To hinder your 
 death, or procure you a dinner, I mean if 
 really in want of one, his earnestness, his ex- 
 ertions, could not be prevented, though health 
 and purse and ease were all destroyed by their 
 violence. * If you wanted a slight favour, you 
 must apply to people of other dispositions ; for 
 not a step would Johnson move to obtain a man 
 a vote in a society, to repay a compliment 
 which might be useful or pleasing, to write a 
 letter of request, or to obtain a hundred pounds 
 a-year more for a friend, who perhaps had al- 
 ready two or three. No force could urge him 
 to diligence, no importunity could conquer his 
 resolution of standing stilL "What good are 
 
150 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 we doing with all this ado ? (would he say ;) 
 dearest lady, let's hear no more of it !" I have, 
 however, more than once in my life forced him 
 on such services, but with extreme difficulty. 
 
 We parted at his doer one evening when I 
 had teazed him for many weeks to write a re- 
 commendatory letter of a little boy to his school- 
 master: and after he had faithfully promised 
 to do this prodigious feat before we met again — 
 Do not forget dear Dick, sir, said I, as he went 
 out of the coach : he turned back, stood still 
 two minutes on the carriage step — " When I 
 have written my letter for Dick, I may hang 
 myself, mayn't I ?" — and turned away in a very 
 ill humour indeed. 
 
 Though apt enough to take sudden likings or 
 aversions to people he occasionally met, he 
 would never hastily pronounce upon their cha» 
 racter ; and when, seeing him justly delighted 
 with Solander's conversation, I observed once 
 that he was a man of great parts, who talked 
 from a full mind— " It may be so (said Mr. 
 Johnson), but you cannot know it yet, nor I 
 neither : the $ pump works well, to be sure ; 
 but how, I wonder, are we to decide in so very 
 short an acquaintance, whether it is supplied 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON 151 
 
 by a spring or a reservoir I" — He always made 
 a great difference in his esteem between talents 
 and erudition ; and when he saw a person emi- 
 nent for literature, though wholly unconversi- 
 ble, it fretted him. " Teaching such tonies 
 (said he to me one day) is like setting a lady's 
 diamonds in lead, which only obscures the 
 lustre of the stone, and makes the possessor 
 ashamed on't." Useful and what we call 
 every-day knowledge had the most of his just 
 praise. ■ ■ Let your boy learn arithmetic, dear 
 madam," was his advice to the mother of a 
 rich young heir : <f he will not then be a prey 
 to every rascal which this town swarms with : 
 teach him the value of money and how to 
 reckon it : ignorance to a wealthy lad of one- 
 and-twenty, is only so much fat to a sick sheep : 
 it just serves to call the rooks about him." 
 
 And all that prey in vice or folly 
 
 Joy to see their quarry fly ; 
 Here the gamester light and jolly, 
 
 There the lender grave and sly. 
 
 These improviso lines, making part of a long 
 copy of verses which my regard for the youth 
 on whose birth-day they were written obliges 
 me to suppress, lest they should give him pain, 
 
152 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 shew a mind of surprising activity and warmth ; 
 the more so as he was past seventy years of 
 age when he composed them ; but nothing 
 more certainly offended Mr. Johnson, than the 
 idea of a man's faculties (mental ones I mean) 
 decaying by time ; " It is not true, sir (would 
 he say) ; what a man could once do, he would 
 always do, unless indeed by dint of vicious in- 
 dolence, and compliance with the nephews and 
 nieces who crowd round an old fellow, and 
 help to tuck him in, till he, contented with the 
 exchange of fame for ease, e'en resolves to let 
 them set the pillows at his back, and gives no 
 farther proof of his existence than just to suck 
 the jelly that prolongs it." 
 
 For such a life or such a death Dr. Johnson 
 was indeed never intended by Providence : his 
 mind was like a warm climate, which brings 
 every thing to perfection suddenly and vigo- 
 rously, not like the alembicated productions of 
 artificial fire, which always betray the difficul- 
 ty of bringing them forth when their size is 
 disproportionate to their flavour. Je ferois un 
 Roman tout comme un autre, mais la vie nest 
 point un Roman, says a famous French writer ; 
 and this was so certainly the opinion of the 
 
Bit. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 153 
 
 author of the Rambler, that all his conversation 
 precepts tended towards the dispersion of ro- 
 mantic ideas, and were chiefly intended to 
 promote the cultivation of 
 
 That which before thee lies in daily life.— Milton. 
 
 And when he talked of authors, his praise 
 went spontaneously to such passages as are 
 sure in his own phrase to leave something be- 
 hind them useful on common occasions, or ob- 
 servant of common manners. For example, it 
 was not the two last, but the two first, volumes 
 of Clarissa that he prized ; " For give me a sick- 
 bed, and a dying lady (said he), and I'll be 
 pathetic myself: but Richardson had picked 
 the kernel of life (he said), while Fielding was 
 contented with the husk." — It was not King 
 Lear cursing his daughters, or deprecating the 
 storm, that I remember his commendations of; 
 butlago's ingenious malice, and subtle revenge ; 
 or prince Hal's gay compliance with the vices 
 of Falstaff, whom he all along despised. Those 
 plays had indeed no rivals in Johnson's favour : 
 " No man but Shakspeare (he said) could have 
 $rawn sir John, " 
 
 JBis manner of criticising and commending 
 
154 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 Addison's prose, was the same in conversation 
 as we read it in the printed strictures, and many 
 of the expressions used have been heard to fall 
 from him on common occasions. It was not- 
 withstanding observable enough (or I fancied 
 so), that he did never like, though he always 
 thought fit, to praise it; and his praises resem- 
 bled those of a man who extols the superior 
 elegance of high-painted porcelain, while he 
 himself always chooses to eat off plate. I told 
 him so one day, and he neither denied it nor 
 appeared displeased. 
 
 Of the pathetic in poetry he never liked to 
 speak, and the only passage I ever heard him 
 applaud as particularly tender in any common 
 book, was Jane Shore's exclamation in the 
 last act, 
 
 Forgive me ! but forgive me ! 
 
 It was not however from the want of a sus- 
 ceptible heart that he hated to cite tender ex- 
 pressions, for he was more strongly and more 
 violently affected by the force of words repre- 
 senting ideas capable of affecting him at all, 
 than any other man in the world, I believe ; 
 and when he would try to repeat the celebrated 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 155 
 
 Frosa Ecclesiastica pro Mortuis, as it is called, 
 beginning Dies irce, Dies ilia, he could never 
 pass the stanza ending thus, Tantus labor non 
 sit cassus, without bursting into a flood of tears ; 
 which sensibility I used to quote against him 
 when he would inveigh against devotional 
 poetry, and protest that all religious verses 
 were cold and feeble, and unworthy the subject, 
 which ought to be treated with higher reve- 
 rence, he said, than either poets or painters 
 could presume to excite or bestow. Nor can 
 any thing be a stronger proof of Dr. Johnson's 
 piety than such an expression ; for his idea of 
 poetry was magnificent indeed, and very fully 
 was he persuaded of its superiority over every 
 other talent bestowed by heaven on man. His 
 chapter upon that particular subject in his Ras- 
 selas, is really written from the fulness of his 
 heart, and quite in his best manner I think. I 
 am not so sure that this is the proper place to 
 mention his writing that surprising little volume 
 in a week or ten days' time, in order to obtain 
 money for his journey to Litchfield when his 
 jnother lay upon her last sick-bed. 
 
 Promptitude of thought indeed, and quick- 
 ness of expression, were among the peculiar 
 
156 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 felicities of Johnson : his notions rose up like 
 the dragon's teeth sowed by Cadmus all ready- 
 clothed, and in bright armour too, fit for imme- 
 diate battle. He was therefore (as somebody 
 is said to have expressed it) a tremendous con- 
 verser, and few people ventured to try their 
 skill against an antagonist with whom conten- 
 tion was so hopeless. One gentleman, how- 
 ever, who dined at a nobleman's house in his 
 company and that of Mr. Thrale, to whom I 
 was obliged for the anecdote, was willing to 
 enter the lists in defence of king William's cha- 
 racter, and having opposed and contradicted 
 Johnson two or three times petulantly enough ; 
 the master of the house began to feel uneasy, 
 and expect disagreeable consequences : to avoid 
 which he said, loud enough for the Doctor to 
 hear, Our friend here as no meaning now in all 
 this, except just to relate at club to-morrow 
 how he teased Johnson at dinner to-day — this 
 is all to do himself honour. No, upon my word, 
 replied the other, 1 see no honour in it, what- 
 ever you may do. "Well, sir! (returned Mr. 
 Johnson sternly,) if you do not see the honour, 
 I am sure I feel the disgrace" 
 
 A young fellow, less confident of his own 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 157 
 
 ubilities, lamenting one day that he had lost 
 all his Greek — " I believe it happened at the 
 same time, sir, (said Johnson), that I lost all 
 my large estate in Yorkshire," 
 
 But however roughly he might be suddenly 
 provoked to treat a harmless exertion of vanity, 
 he did not wish to inflict the pain he gave, and 
 was sometimes very sorry when he perceived 
 the people to smart more than they deserved. 
 How harshly you treated that man to-day, said 
 I once, who harangued us so about gardening — 
 "lam sorry (said he) if I vexed the creature, 
 for there certainly is no harm in a fellow's 
 rattling a rattle-box, only don't let him think 
 that he thunders." — The Lincolnshire lady, 
 who shewed him a grotto she had been ma- 
 king, came off no better, as I remember: 
 Would it not be a pretty cool habitation in 
 summer, said she, Mr. Johnson ? "I think it 
 would, madam (replied he), for a toad." 
 
 All desire of distinction indeed had a sure 
 enemy in Mr. Johnson. We met a friend 
 driving six very small ponies, and stopped to 
 admire them. "Why does nobody (said our 
 Doctor) begin the fashion of driving six spa- 
 vined horses, all spavined of the same leg ? it 
 
158 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 would have a mighty pretty effect, and produce 
 the distinction of doing something worse than 
 the common way." 
 
 When Mr. Johnson had a mind to compli- 
 ment any one, he did it with more dignity to 
 himself, and better effect upon the company, 
 than any man. I can recollect but few in- 
 stances indeed, though perhaps that may be 
 more my fault than his. When sir Joshua 
 Reynolds left the room one day, he said, 
 " There goes a man not to be spoiled by pros- 
 perity." And when Mrs. Mpntague shewed 
 him some China plates which had once belong- 
 ed to queen Elizabeth, he told her, " that they 
 had no reason to be ashamed of their present 
 possessor, who was so little inferior to the first." 
 I likewise remember that he pronounced one 
 day at my house a most lofty panegyric upon 
 Jones the orientalist, who seemed little pleased 
 with the praise, for what cause I know not. 
 He was not at all offended, when, compairing 
 all our acquaintance to some animal or other, 
 we pitched upon the elephant for his resem- 
 blance, adding, that the proboscis of that crea- 
 ture was like his mind most exactly, strong to 
 buffet even the tiger, and pliable to pick up 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 159 
 
 even the pin. The truth is, Mr. Johnson was 
 often good-humouredly willing to join in child- 
 ish amusements, and hated to be left out of any- 
 innocent merriment, 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 inflexible, he 
 would have made an admirable mimic. 
 
 He certainly rode on Mr. Thrale's old hun- 
 ter with a good firmness, and though he would 
 follow the hounds fifty miles an end sometimes, 
 would never own himself either tired or amu- 
 sed. " 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 melan- 
 choly, 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 
 
160 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 for aught I see, as the most illiterate fellow in 
 England. 
 
 Though Dr. Johnson owed his very life to- 
 air and exercise, given him when his organs of 
 respiration could scarcely play, in the year 
 1766, yet he ever persisted in the notion, that 
 neither of them had any thing to do with health. 
 "People live as long (said he) in Pepper-alley 
 as on Salisbury-plain; and they live so much 
 happier, that an inhabitant of the first would, 
 if he turned cottager, starve his understanding 
 for want of conversation, and perish in a state 
 of mental inferiority." 
 
 Mr. Johnson indeed, as he was a very talk- 
 ing man himself, had an idea that nothing pro- 
 moted happiness so much as conversation. A 
 friend's erudition was commended one day as 
 equally deep and strong — "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 was Rich- 
 ard!" — With a contempt not inferior he recei- 
 ved the praises of a pretty lady's face and beha- 
 viour: "She says nothing, sir (answers John- 
 son) ; a talking blackamoor were better than a 
 
t>R. SAMUEL JOHNSOtf. 161 
 
 white creature who adds nothing to life — and 
 sitting down before one thus desperately silent, 
 takes away the confidence one should have in 
 the company of her chair if she were once out 
 of it." — No one was however less willing to 
 begin any discourse than himself: his friend 
 Mr. Thomas Tyers said, he was like the ghosts, 
 who never speak till they are spoken to : and 
 he liked the expression so well, that he often 
 repeated it. He had indeed no necessity to 
 lead the stream of chat to a favourite channel, 
 that his fullness on the subject might be shewn 
 more clearly, whatever was the topic ; and he 
 usually left the choice to others. His informa- 
 tion best enlightened, his argument strength- 
 ened, and his wit made it ever remembered. 
 Of him it might have been said, as he often 
 delighted to say of Edmund Burke, ' ' that you 
 could not stand five minutes with that man be- 
 neath a shed while it rained, but you must be 
 convinced you had been standing with the 
 greatest man you had ever yet seen." 
 
 As we had been saying one day that no sub- 
 ject 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 
 
 M 
 
162 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 love ; and took her measures accordingly, de- 
 riding the novels of the day because they treated 
 about love. " It is not (replied our philoso- 
 pher) because they treat, as you call it, about 
 love, but because they treat of nothing, that 
 they are despicable : 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 ava- 
 rice." 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," 
 speaking of another lady in the room. 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 
 farther than most men. When I was in Lin- 
 colnshire 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 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 163 
 
 no small favourite with his master, who re- 
 tained however a prodigious influence over his 
 most violent passions. 
 
 On the birth-day of our eldest daughter, and 
 that of our friend Dr. Johnson, the 17th and 
 18th of September, we every year made up a 
 little dance and supper, to divert our servants 
 and their friends, putting the 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 Des- 
 demona, 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 V* 
 He is jealous, whispered I, " Are you jealous 
 of your wife, you stupid blockhead?" cries 
 out his master in another tone. The fellow 
 hesitated ; and, To be sure sir, I dortt 
 quite approve sir, was the stammering reply. 
 " Why, what do they do to her, man ? 
 M 2 
 
l64f ANECDOTES OF 
 
 do the footmen kiss her ?" No sir, no! — Kiss 
 my wife sir ! — / hope not sir. " Why, what do 
 they do to her, my lad ?" Why nothing sir, 
 I'm sure sir. "Why then go back directly 
 and dance you dog, do ; and let's hear no more 
 of such empty lamentations." I believe how- 
 ever that Francis was scarcely as much the 
 object of Mr. Johnson's personal kindness, as 
 the representative of Dr. Bathurst, for whose 
 sake he would have loved any body, or any 
 thing, 
 
 When he spoke of negroes, he always ap- 
 peared to think them of a race naturally in- 
 ferior, and made few exceptions in favour of 
 his own ; yet whenever disputes arose in his 
 household among the many odd inhabitants of 
 which it consisted, he always sided with Fran- 
 cis against the others, whom he suspected (not 
 unjustly I believe) of greater malignity. It 
 seems at once vexatious and comical to reflect, 
 that the dissensions those people chose to live 
 constantly in, distressed and mortified him ex- 
 ceedingly. He really was oftentimes afraid of 
 going home, because he was so sure to be met 
 at the door with numberless complaints ; and 
 he used to lament pathetically to me, and to 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. l65 
 
 Mr, Sastres, the Italian master, who was much 
 his favourite, that they made his life miserable 
 from the impossibility he found of making theirs 
 happy, when every favour he bestowed on one 
 was wormwood to the rest. If however I ven- 
 ture4 to blame their ingratitude, and condemn 
 their conduct, he would instantly set about 
 softening the one and justifying the other ; and 
 finished commonly by telling me, that I knew 
 not Jiow to make allowances for situations I 
 never experienced. 
 
 To thee no reason who know'st only good, 
 But evil hast not tried. Milton. 
 
 Dr Johnson knew how to be merry with mean 
 people too, as well as to be sad with them ; he 
 loved the lower ranks of humanity with a real 
 affection : and though his talents and learning 
 kept him always in the sphere of upper life, yet 
 he nevet lost sight of the time when he and they 
 shared pain and pleasure in common. A bo- 
 rough election once shewed me his toleration 
 of boisterous mirth, and his content in the com- 
 pany of people whom one would have thought 
 at first sight little calculated for his society. 
 A rough fellow one day on such an occasion, 
 
166 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 a hatter by trade, seeing Mr. Johnson's beaver 
 in a state of decay, seized it suddenly with one 
 hand, and clapping him on the back with the 
 other ; Ah, master Johnson (says he), this is no 
 time to be thinking about hats. " No, no, sir 
 (replies our Doctor in a cheerful tone), hats 
 are of no use now, as you say, except to throw 
 up in the air and huzza with;" accompanying 
 his words with the true election halloo. 
 
 But it was never against people of coarse 
 life that his contempt was expressed, while po- 
 verty of sentiment in men who considered 
 themselves to be company for the parlour, as 
 he called it, was what he would not bear. A 
 very ignorant young fellow, who had plagued 
 us all for nine or ten months, died at last con- 
 sumptive : "I think (said Mr. Johnson when 
 he heard the news), I am afraid, I should have 
 been more concerned for the death of the dog; 
 
 but (hesitating awhile) I am not wrong now 
 
 in all this, for the dog acted up to his character 
 on every occasion that we know; but that 
 dunce of a fellow helped forward the general 
 disgrace of humanity." Why dear sir (said I), 
 how odd you are ! you have often said the lad 
 was not capable of receiving farther instruc? 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 167 
 
 tion. " He was (replied the Doctor) like a cor- 
 ked bottle, with a drop of dirty water in it, to 
 be sure ; one might pump upon it for ever 
 without the smallest effect ; but when every 
 method to open and clean it had been tried, 
 you would not have me grieve that the bottle 
 was broke at last." 
 
 This was the same youth who told us he had 
 been reading Lucius Florus; Florus Delphini 
 was the phrase : and, my mother (said he) 
 thought it had something to do with Delphos ; 
 but of that I know nothing. Who founded 
 Rome then? inquired Mr. Thrale. The lad 
 replied, Romulus. And who succeeded Ro- 
 mulus ? said I. A long pause, and apparently 
 distressful hesitation, followed the difficult 
 question. " Why will you ask him in terms 
 that he does not comprehend ? (said Mr. John- 
 son enraged.) You might as well bid him tell 
 you who phlebotomized Romulus. This fel- 
 low's dulness is elastic (continued he), and all 
 we do is but like kicking at a woolsack." 
 
 The pains he took however to obtain the 
 young man more patient instructors, were 
 many, and oftentimes repeated. He was put 
 under the care of a clergyman in a distant 
 
168 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 province ; and Mr. Johnson used both to write 
 and talk to his friend concerning his education. 
 It was on that occasion that I remember his 
 saying, " A boy should never be sent to Eton 
 or Westminster school before he is twelve years 
 old at least ; for if in his years of babyhood he 
 ^scapes that general and transcendant know- 
 ledge without which life is perpetually put to 
 a stand, he will never get it at a public school, 
 where if he does not learn Latin and Greek, 
 he learns nothing." Mr. Johnson often said, 
 " that there was too much stress laid upon li- 
 terature as indispensably necessary : there is 
 surely no need that every body should be a 
 scholar, no call that every one should square 
 the circle. Our manner of teaching (said he) 
 cramps and warps many a mind, which if left 
 more at liberty would have been respectable 
 in some way, though perhaps not in that. We 
 lop our trees, and prune them, and pinch them 
 about (he would say), and nail them tight up 
 to the wall, while a good standard is at last 
 the only thing for bearing healthy fruit, though 
 it commonly begins later. Let the people 
 learn necessary knowledge : let them learn to 
 count their fingers, and to count their money. 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 169 
 
 before they are caring for the classics ; for 
 (says Mr. Johnson) though I do not quite 
 agree with the proverb, that Nullum numen 
 abest si sit prudentia, yet we may very well say, 
 that Nullum numen adest — ni sit prudentia." 
 
 We had been visiting at a lady's house, 
 whom as we returned some of the company ri- 
 diculed for her ignorance: "She is not igno- 
 rant (said he), I believe, of any thing she has 
 been taught, or of any thing she is desirous to 
 know ; and I suppose if one wanted a little 
 run tea, she might be a proper person enough 
 to apply to/' 
 
 When I relate these various instances of 
 contemptuous behaviour shewn to a variety of 
 people, I am aware that those who till now 
 have heard little of Mr. Johnson will here cry 
 out against his pride and his severity ; yet I 
 have been as careful as I could to tell them, 
 that all he did was gentle, if all he said was 
 rough. Had I given anecdotes of his actions 
 instead of his words, we should I am sure have 
 had nothing on record but acts of virtue dif- 
 ferently modified, as different occasions called 
 that virtue forth : and among all the nine bio- 
 graphical essays or performances which I have 
 
170 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 heard will at last be written about dear. Dr. 
 Johnson, no mean or wretched, no wicked or 
 even slightly culpable action will I trust be 
 found, to produce and put in the scale against 
 a life of seventy years, spent in the uniform 
 practice of every moral excellence and every 
 Christian perfection, save humility alone, says 
 a critic ; but that I think must be excepted. 
 He was not however wanting even in that to a 
 degree seldom attained by man, when the du- 
 ties of piety or charity called it forth. 
 
 Lowly towards God, and docile towards the 
 church ; implicit in his belief of the gospel, 
 and ever respectful towards the poople appoin- 
 ted to preach it ; tender of the unhappy, and 
 affectionate to the poor, let no one hastily 
 condemn as proud, a character which may 
 perhaps somewhat justly be censured as arro- 
 gant. It must however be remembered again, 
 that even this arrogance was never shewn 
 without some intention, immediate or remote, 
 of mending some fault or conveying some in- 
 struction. Had I meant to make a panegyric 
 on Mr. Johnson's well-known excellences, I 
 should have told his deeds only, not his words 
 — sincerely protesting, that as I never saw 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 171 
 
 him- once' do a wrong thing, so we had accus- 
 tomed ourselves to look upon him almost as 
 an excepted being; and I should as much 
 have expected injustice from Socrates or im- 
 piety from Paschal, as the slightest deviation 
 from truth and goodness in any transaction 
 one might be engaged in with Samuel Johnson. 
 His attention to veracity was without equal or 
 example : and when 1 mentioned Clarissa as a 
 perfect character ; " On the contrary (said he), 
 you may observe there is always something 
 which she prefers to truth. Fielding's Amelia 
 was the most pleasing heroine of all the ro- 
 mances (he said) ; but that vile broken nose 
 never cured, ruined the sale of perhaps the 
 only book, which being printed off betimes one 
 morning, a new edition was called for before 
 night." 
 
 Mr. Johnson ? s knowledge of literary history 
 was extensive and surprising : he knew every 
 adventure of every book you could name al- 
 most, and was exceedingly pleased with the 
 opportunity which writing the Poets' Lives 
 gave him to display it. He loved to be set at 
 work, and was sorry when he came to the end 
 of the business he was about. I do not feel 
 so myself with regard to these sheets : a fever 
 
172 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 which has preyed on me while I wrote them 
 over for the press, will perhaps lessen my 
 power of doing well the first, and probably the 
 last work I should ever have thought of pre- 
 senting to the public. I could doubtless wish 
 so to conclude it, as at least to shew my zeal 
 for my friend, whose life, as I once had the 
 honour and happiness of being useful to, I 
 should wish to record a few particular traits of, 
 that those who read should emulate his good* 
 ness ; but seeing the necessity of making even 
 virtue and learning such as his agreeable, that 
 all should be warned against such coarseness 
 of manners, as drove even from him those who 
 loved, honoured, and esteemed him. His wife's 
 daughter, Mrs. Lucy Porter of Litchfield, 
 whose veneration for his person and character 
 has ever been the greatest possible, being op- 
 posed one day in conversation by a clergyman 
 who came often to her house, and feeling 
 somewhat offended, cried out suddenly, Why, 
 Mr. Pearson you are just like Dr. Johnson, I 
 think : I do not mean that you are a man of 
 the greatest capacity in all the world, like Dr. 
 Johnson, but that you contradict one every 
 word one speaks, just like him. 
 
 Mr. Johnson, told me the story : he was 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON • 173 
 
 present at the giving of the reproof. It was 
 however observable, that with all his odd seve- 
 rity, he could not keep even indifferent people 
 from teasing him with unaccountable confes- 
 sions of silly conduct, which one would think 
 they would scarcely have had inclination to re- 
 veal even to their tenderest and most intimate 
 companions ; and it was from these unaccount- 
 able volunteers in sincerity that he learned to 
 warn the world against follies little known, 
 and seldom thought on by other moralists. 
 
 Much of his eloquence and much of his logic, 
 have I heard him use to prevent men from 
 making vows on trivial occasions ; and when he 
 saw a person oddly perplexed about a slight 
 difficulty, " Let the man alone (he would say), 
 and torment him no more about it; there is a 
 vow in the case, I am convinced ; but is it not 
 very strange that people should be neither 
 afraid nor ashamed of bringing in God Almigh- 
 ty thus at every turn between themselves and 
 their dinner?" When I asked what ground he 
 had for such imaginations, he informed me, 
 "That a young lady once told him in confi- 
 dence, that she could never persuade herself to 
 be dressed against the bell rung for dinner, till 
 
174 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 she had made a vow to Heaven that she would 
 never more be absent from the family meals." 
 
 The strangest applications in the world were 
 certainly made from time to time towards Mr. 
 Johnson, who by that means had an inexhaus- 
 tible fund of anecdote, and could, if he pleased, 
 tell the most astonishing stories of human folly 
 and human weakness that ever were confided 
 to any man not a confessor by profession. 
 
 One day when he was in a humour to record 
 some of them, he told us the following tale: 
 " A person (said he) had for these last five 
 weeks often called at my door, but would not 
 leave his name, or other message ; but that he 
 wished to speak with me. At last we met, and 
 he told me that he was oppressed by scruples 
 of conscience : I blamed him gently for not ap- 
 plying, as the rules of our church direct, to his 
 parish priest, or other discreet clergyman ; 
 when, after some compliments on his part, he 
 told me, that he was clerk to a very eminent 
 trader, at whose warehouses much business 
 consisted in packing goods in order to go abroad : 
 that he was often tempted to take paper and 
 packthread enough for his own use, and that 
 he had indeed done so so often, that he could 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 175 
 
 recollect no time when he ever had bought any 
 for himself. — But probably (said I) your mas* 
 ter was wholly indifferent with regard to such 
 trivial emoluments ; you had better ask for it 
 at once, and so take your trifles with consent. — > 
 Oh, sir ! replies the visitor, my master bid me 
 have as much as I pleased, and was half angry 
 when I talked to him about it. — Then pray, 
 sir (said I), tease me no more about such airy 
 nothings ; — and was going on to be very angry, 
 when I recollected that the fellow might be mad 
 perhaps ; so I asked him, when he left the 
 counting-house of an evening? — At seven 
 o'clock, sir. — And when do you go to bed, 
 sir? — At twelve o'clock. — Then (replied I) I 
 have at least learned thus much by my new 
 acquaintance — that five hours of the four-and- 
 twenty unemployed are enough for a man to go 
 mad in : so I would advise you sir to study alge- 
 bra, if you are not an adept already in it : your 
 head would get less muddy 9 and you will leave 
 off tormenting your neighbours about paper 
 and packthread, while we all live together in a 
 world that is bursting with sin and sorrow. — ■ 
 It is perhaps needless to add that this visitor 
 came no more." 
 
176 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 Mr. Johnson had indeed a real abhorrence of 
 a person that had ever before him treated 
 a little thing like a great one : and he quoted 
 this scrupulous gentleman with his packthread 
 very often, in ridicule of a friend who, looking 
 out on Streatham-common from our windows 
 one day, lamented the enormous wickedness of 
 the times, because some bird-catchers were busy 
 there one fine Sunday morning. Ci While half the 
 Christian world is permitted (said he) to dance 
 and sing, and celebrate Sunday as a day of 
 festivity, how comes your puritanical spirit so 
 offended with frivolous and empty deviations 
 from exactness ? Whoever loads life with unne- 
 cessary scruples, sir (continued he), provokes 
 the attention of others on his conduct, and in- 
 curs the censure of singularity without reaping 
 the reward of superior virtue." 
 
 I must not among the anecdotes of Dr. John- 
 son's life, omit to relate a thing that happened 
 to him one day, which he told me of himself. 
 As he was walking along the Strand a gentle- 
 man stepped out of some neighbouring tavern, 
 with his napkin in his hand and no hat, and 
 stopping him as civilly as he could — I beg your 
 pardon, sir; but you are Dr. Johnson, I believe* 
 
1)11. SAMUEL JOHNSOtf. 177 
 
 c * Yes, sir." We have a wager depending on 
 your reply : Pray, sir, is it irreparable or irre- 
 parable that one should say ? " The last I think, 
 sir (answered Dr> Johnson), for the adverb 
 ought to follow the verb ; but you had better 
 consult my Dictionary than me, for that was 
 the result of more thought than you will now 
 give me time for." No, no, replied the gen- 
 tleman gaily, the book I have no certainty at 
 all of; but here is the author, to whom I re- 
 ferred : is he not sir ? to a friend with him : I 
 have won my twenty guineas quite fairly, and 
 am much obliged to you, sir ; so shaking Mr. 
 Johnson kindly by the hand, he went back to 
 finish his dinner or dessert. 
 
 Another strange thing he told me once, which 
 there was no danger of forgetting : how a young 
 gentleman called on him one morning, and told 
 him that his father having, just before his death, 
 dropped suddenly into the enjoyment of an 
 ample fortune, he, the son, was willing to qua- 
 lify himself for genteel society by adding some 
 literature to his other endowments, and wished 
 to be put in an easy way of obtaining it. 
 Johnson recommended the university ; " fof 
 you read Latin * sir, with jto7%." I read it a 
 
 N 
 
178 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 little to be sure, sir. "But do you read it with 
 facility, I say ?" Upon my word, sir, I do not 
 very well know/ but I rather believe not. Mr. 
 Johnson now began to recommend^ other 
 branches of science, when he found languages 
 zk such an immeasurable distance, and advising 
 him to study natural history, there arose some 
 talk about animals, and their divisions into 
 oviparous and viviparous ; And the cat here, 
 sir, said the youth who wished for instruction, 
 pray in which class is she ? Our Doctor's pa- 
 tience and desire of doing good began now to 
 give way to the natural roughness of his tem- 
 per. " You would do well (said he) to look 
 for some person to be always about you, sir, 
 who is capable of explaining such matters, and 
 not come to us (there were some literary friends 
 present as I recollect) to know whether the 
 cat lays eggs or not : get a discreet man to 
 keep you company, there are so many who 
 would be glad of your table and fifty pounds a 
 year." The young gentleman retired, and in 
 less than a week informed his friends, that he 
 had fixed on a preceptor to whom no objections" 
 could be made ; but when he named as such 
 one of the most distinguished characters in our 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 179 
 
 age or nation, Mr. Johnson fairly gave himself 
 up to an honest burst of laughter ; and seeing 
 this youth at such a surprising distance from 
 common knowledge of the world, or of any 
 thing in it, desired to see his visitor no more. 
 
 He had not much better luck with two boys 
 that he used to tell of, to whom he had taught 
 the classics, *' so that (he said) they were no 
 incompetent or mean scholars ;" it was neces- 
 sary however that something more familial 
 should be known, and he bid them read the 
 history of England. After a few months had 
 elapsed he asked them, " if they could recol- 
 lect who first destroyed the monasteries in our 
 island?" One modestly replied, that he did 
 not know ; the other said Jesus Christ, 
 
 Of the truth of stories which ran currently 
 about the town concerning Dr. Johnson, it was 
 impossible to be certain, unless one asked him 
 himself; and what he told, or suffered to be 
 told before his face without contradicting, has 
 every possible mark I think of real and genuine 
 authenticity. I made one day very minute in- 
 quiries about the tale of his knocking down, 
 the famous Tom Osborne with his own Diction- 
 ary in the man's own house. And how was 
 N 2 
 
180 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 that affair, in earnest ? do tell me, Mr. John- 
 son. " There is nothing to tell, dearest lady, 
 but that he was insolent and I beat him, and 
 that he was a blockhead and told of it, which 
 I should never have done ; so the blows have 
 been multiplying, and the wonder thickening, 
 for all these years, as Thomas was never a fa- 
 vourite with the public. I have beat many a 
 fellow, but the rest had the wit to hold their 
 tongues." 
 
 I have heard Mr. Murphy relate a very sin- 
 gular story, while he was present, greatly to 
 the credit of his uncommon skill and knowledge 
 of life and manners : When first the Ramblers 
 came out in separate numbers, as they were 
 the objects of attention to multitudes of people, 
 they happened, as it seems, particularly to at- 
 tract the notice of a society who met every 
 Saturday evening during the summer at Rom- 
 ford in Essex, and were known by the name 
 of the Bowling-green Club. These men seeing 
 one day the character of Leviculus the fortune- 
 hunter, or Tetrica the old maid : another day 
 some account of a person who spent his life in 
 hoping for a legacy, or of him who is always 
 prying into other folks' affairs, began sure 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 181 
 
 enough to think they were betrayed ; and that 
 some of the coterie sat down to divert himself 
 by giving to the public the portrait of all the 
 rest. Filled with wrath against the traitor of 
 Romford, one of them resolved to write to the 
 printer and inquire the author's name; Samuel 
 Johnson, was the reply. No more was neces- 
 sary ; Samuel Johnson was the name of the 
 curate, and soon did each begin to load him 
 with reproaches for turning his friends into ri- 
 dicule in a manner so cruel and unprovoked. 
 In vain did the guiltless curate protest his in- 
 nocence ; one was sure that Aligu meant Mr. 
 Twigg, and that Cupidus was but another name 
 for neighbour Baggs ; till the poor parson, 
 unable to contend any longer, rode to London, 
 and brought them full satisfaction concerning 
 the writer, who from his own knowledge of 
 general manners, quickened by a vigorous and 
 warm imagination, had happily delineated, 
 though unknown to himself, the members of 
 the Bowling-green Club. 
 
 Mr. Murphy likewise used to tell before Dr. 
 Johnson, of the first time they met, and the 
 occasion of their meeting, which he related 
 thus : That being in those days engaged in a 
 
182 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 periodical paper, he found himself at a friend's 
 house out of town ; and not being disposed to 
 lose pleasure for the ^ake of business, wished 
 rather to content his bookseller by sending 
 some unstudied essay to London by the servant, 
 than deny himself the company of his acquaint- 
 ance, and drive away to his chambers for the 
 purpose of writing something more correct. He 
 therefore took up a French Journal Literaire 
 that lay about the room, and translating some- 
 thing he liked from it, sent it away without 
 farther examination. Time however discovered 
 that he had translated from the French a Ram- 
 bler of Johnson's, which had been but a month 
 before taken from the English ; and thinking 
 it right to make him his personal excuses, he 
 went next day and found our friend all covered 
 with soot like a chimney-sweeper, in a little 
 room, with an intolerable heat and strange 
 smell, as if he had been acting Lungs in the 
 Alchymist, making ether. " Come, come, 
 (says Dr. Johnson), dear Mur, the story is 
 black enough now ; and it was a very happy 
 day for me that brought you first to my house, 
 and a very happy mistake about the Ramblers." 
 Dr. Johnson was always exceeding fond of 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 183 
 
 chemistry ; and we made up a sort of labora- 
 tory at Streatham one summer, and diverted 
 ourselves with drawing essences and colouring 
 liquors. But the danger Mr. Thrale found his 
 friend in one day when I was driven to London, 
 and he had got the children and servants round 
 him to see some experiments performed, put an 
 end to all our entertainment ; so well was the 
 master of the house persuaded, that his short 
 sight would have been his destruction in a mo- 
 ment, by bringing him close to a fierce and 
 violent flame. Indeed it was a perpetual mi- 
 racle that he did not set himself on fire reading 
 a-bed, as was his constant custom, when ex- 
 ceedingly unable even to keep clear of mischief 
 with our best help ; and accordingly the fore- 
 tops of all his wigs were burned by the candle 
 down to the very net-work. Mr. Thrale's 
 valet-de-chambre, for that reason, kept one 
 always in his own hands, with which he met 
 him at the parlour-door when the bell had 
 called him down to dinner ; and as he went up 
 stairs to sleep in the afternoon, the same man 
 constantly followed him with another. 
 
 Future experiments in chemistry however 
 were too dangerous, and Mr. Thrale insisted 
 
184 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 that we should do no more towards finding the 
 philosopher's stone. 
 
 Mr. Johnson's amusements were thus redu- 
 ced to the pleasures of conversation merely : 
 and what wonder that he should have an avidity 
 for the sole delight he was able to enjoy? No 
 man conversed so well as he on every subject; 
 no man so acutely discerned the reason of 
 every fact, the motive of every action, the end 
 of every design. He was indeed often pained 
 by the ignorance or causeless wonder of those 
 who knew less than himself, though he seldom 
 drove them away with apparent scorn, unless 
 he thought they added presumption to stupi- 
 dity : and it was impossible not to laugh at 
 the patience he shewed, when a Welch parson 
 of mean abilities, though a good heart, struck 
 with reverence at the sight of Dr. Johnson, 
 whom he had heard of as the greatest man liv- 
 ing, could not find any words to answer his 
 inquiries concerning a motto round somebody's 
 arms which adorned a tombstone in Ruabon 
 churchyard. If I remember right the words 
 were, 
 
 Ilcb Dw, Heb Dym, 
 Dw o' diggon. 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 185 
 
 And though of no very difficult construction, 
 the gentleman seemed wholly confounded, and 
 unable to explain them ; till Mr. Johnson, ha- 
 ving picked out the meaning by little and little, 
 said to the man, "Heb is a preposition, I believe 
 sir, is it not ?" My countryman recovering 
 some spirits upon the sudden question, cried 
 out, So I humbly presume sir, very comically. 
 Stones of humour do not tell well in books ; 
 and what made impression on the friends who 
 heard a jest, will seldom much delight the dis- 
 tant acquaintance or sullen critic who reads it. 
 The cork model of Paris is not more despicable 
 as a resemblance of a great city, than this book, 
 levior cortice, as a specimen of Johnson's cha- 
 racter. Yet every body naturally likes to ga- 
 ther little specimens of the rarities found in a 
 great country ; and could I carry home from 
 Italy square pieces of all the curious marbles 
 which are the just glory of this surprising part 
 of the world, I could scarcely contrive perhaps 
 to arrange them so meanly as not to gain some 
 attention from the respect due to the places 
 
 they once belonged to. Such a piece of 
 
 motley mosaic work will these Anecdotes ine- 
 vitably make : but let the reader remember 
 
186 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 that he was promised nothing better, and so 
 be as contented as he can. 
 
 An Irish trader at our house one day heard 
 Dr. Johnson launch out into very great and 
 greatly-deserved praises of Mr. Edmund Burke : 
 delighted to find his countryman stood so high 
 in the opinion of a man he had been told so 
 much of, Sir (said he), give me leave to tell 
 something of Mr. Burke now. We were all 
 silent, and the honest Hibernian began to re- 
 late how Mr. Burke went to see the collieries 
 in a distant province : and he would go down 
 into the bowels of the earth (in a bag), and he 
 would examine every thing; he went in a bag, 
 sir, and ventured his health and his life for 
 knowledge ; but he took care of his clothes, 
 that they should not be spoiled, for he went 
 down in a bag. " Well sir (says Mr. Johnson 
 good-humouredly), if our friend Mund should 
 die in any of these hazardous exploits, you and 
 I would write his life and panegyric together ; 
 and your chapter of it should be entitled thus — 
 Burke in a bag." 
 
 He had always a very great personal regard 
 and particular affection for Mr. Edmund Burke, 
 -as well as an esteem difficult for me to repeat. 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 187 
 
 though for him only easy to express. And 
 when at the end of the year 1774 the general 
 election called us all different ways, and broke 
 up the delightful society in which we had 
 spent some time at Beaconsfield, Dr. Johnson 
 shook the hospitable master of the house kind- 
 ly by the hand, and said, " Farewell, my dear 
 sir, and remember, that I wish you all the 
 success which ought to be wished you, which 
 can possibly be wished you indeed — By an 
 honest man,''' 
 
 I must here take leave to observe, that in 
 giving little memoirs of Mr. Johnson's beha- 
 viour and conversation, such as I saw and 
 heard it, my book lies under manifest disad- 
 vantages, compared with theirs, who having 
 seen him in various situations, and observed 
 his conduct in numberless cases, are able to 
 throw stronger and more brilliant lights upon 
 his character. Virtues are like shrubs, which 
 yield their sweets in different manners accor- 
 ding to the circumstances which surround them : 
 and while generosity of soul scatters its fra- 
 grance like the honeysuckle, and delights the 
 senses of many occasional passengers, who 
 feel the pleasure, and half wonder how the 
 
188 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 breeze has blown it from so far, the more sul- 
 len but not less valuable myrtle waits like for- 
 titude to discover its excellence, till the hand 
 arrives that will crush it, and force out that 
 perfume whose durability well compensates 
 the difficulty of production. 
 
 I saw Mr. Johnson in none but a tranquil 
 uniform state, passing the evening* of his life 
 among friends, who loved, honoured, and ad- 
 mired him : I saw none of the things he did, 
 except such acts of charity as have been often 
 mentioned in this book, and such writings as 
 are universally known. What he said is all I 
 can relate ; and from what he said, those who 
 think it worth while to read these Anecdotes, 
 must be contented to gather his character. 
 Mine is a mere candle-light picture of his latter 
 days, where every thing falls in dark shadow 
 except the face, the index of the mind ; but 
 even that is seen unfavourably, and with a 
 paleness beyond what nature gave it. 
 
 When I have told how many follies Dr. John- 
 son knew of others, I must not omit to mention 
 with how much fidelity he would always have 
 kept them concealed, could they of whom he 
 knew the absurdities have been contented, in 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 189 
 
 the common phrase, to keep their own counsel. 
 But returning home one day from dining at the 
 chaplain's table, he told me, that Dr. Goldsmith 
 had given a very comical and unnecessarily ex- 
 act recital there, of his own feelings when his 
 play was hissed ; telling the company how he 
 went indeed to the Literary Club at night, and 
 chatted gaily among his friends, as if nothing 
 had happened amiss ; that to impress them 
 still more forcibly with an idea of his magna- 
 nimity, he even sung his favourite song about 
 an old woman tossed in a blanket seventeen 
 times as high as the moon ; but all this while 
 I was suffering horrid tortures (said he), and 
 verily believe that if I had put a bit into my 
 mouth it would have strangled me on the spot, 
 I was so excessively ill ; but I made more 
 noise than usual to cover all that, and so they 
 never perceived my not eating, nor I believe 
 at all imaged to themselves the anguish of my 
 heart : but when all were gone except Johnson 
 here, I burst out a-crying, and even swore by 
 — i — that I would never write again. "All 
 which, doctor (says Mr. Johnson, amazed at 
 his odd frankness), I thought had been a se- 
 cret between you and me ; and I am sure I 
 
190 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 would not have said any thing about it for the 
 world. Now see (repeated he when he told 
 the story) what a figure a man makes who thus 
 unaccountably chooses to be the frigid narrator 
 of his own disgrace. II volto sciolto, ed i pensi- 
 eri stretti, was a proverb made on purpose for 
 such mortals, to keep people, if possible, from 
 being thus the heralds of their own shame : 
 for what compassion can they gain by such 
 silly narratives ? No man should be expected 
 to sympathize with the sorrows of vanity. If 
 then you are mortified by any ill usage, whe- 
 ther real or supposed, keep at least the account 
 of such mortifications to yourself, and forbear 
 to proclaim how meanly you are thought on by 
 others, unless you desire to be meanly thought 
 of by all." 
 
 The little history of another friend's super- 
 fluous ingenuity will contribute to introduce a 
 similar remark. He had a daughter of about 
 fourteen years old, as I remember, fat and 
 clumsy : and though the father adored, 
 and desired others to adore her, yet being- 
 aware perhaps that she was not what the 
 French call paitrie des graces, and thinking I 
 suppose that the old maxim, of beginning to 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON 191 
 
 laugh at yourself first where you have any 
 thing ridiculous about you, was a good one, 
 he comically enough called his girl Trundle 
 when he spoke of her ; and many who bore 
 neither of them any ill-will, felt disposed to 
 laugh at the happiness of the appellation. 
 " See now (says Dr. Johnson) what haste peo- 
 ple are in to be hooted. Nobody ever thought 
 of this fellow nor of his daughter, could he 
 but have been quiet himself, and forborne to 
 call the eyes of the world on his dowdy and 
 her deformity. But it teaches one to see at 
 least, that if nobody else will nickname one's 
 children, the parents will e'en do it themselves." 
 All this held true in matters to Mr. Johnson 
 of more serious consequence. When sir Joshua 
 Reynolds had painted his portrait looking into 
 the slit of his pen, and holding it almost close 
 to his eye, as was his general custom, he felt 
 displeased, and told me, " he would not be 
 known by posterity for his defects only, let sir 
 Joshua do his worst." I said in reply, that 
 Reynolds had no such difficulties about him- 
 self, and that he might observe the picture 
 which hung up in the room where we were 
 talking, represented sir Joshua holding his ear 
 
192 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 in his hand to catch the sound. " He may 
 paint himself as deaf if he chooses (replied 
 Johnson) ; but I will not be blinking Sam."'' 
 
 It is chiefly for the sake of evincing the re- 
 gularity and steadiness of Mr. Johnson's mind 
 that I have given these trifling memoirs, to 
 shew that his soul was not different from that 
 of another person, but, as it was, greater ; and 
 to give those who did not know him a just idea 
 of his acquiescence in what we call vulgar 
 prejudices, and of his extreme distance from 
 those notions which the world has agreed, I 
 know not very well why, to call romantic. It 
 is indeed observable in his preface to Shak- 
 speare, that while other critics expatiate on the 
 creative powers and vivid imagination of that 
 matchless poet, Dr. Johnson commends him 
 for giving so just a representation of human 
 manners, " that from his scenes a hermit might 
 estimate the value of society, and a confessor 
 predict the progress of the passions." I have 
 not the book with me here, but am pretty sure 
 that such is his expression. 
 
 The general and constant advice he gave too, 
 when consulted about the choice of a wife, a 
 profession, or whatever influences a man's par- 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 193 
 
 ticular and immediate happiness, was always 
 to reject no positive good from fears of its con- 
 trary consequences. " Do not (said he) for- 
 bear to marry a beautiful woman if you can 
 find such, out of a fancy that she will be less 
 constant than an ugly one ; or condemn your- 
 self to the society of coarseness and vulgarity 
 for fear of the expenses or other dangers of 
 elegance and personal charms, which have been 
 always acknowledged as a positive good, and 
 for the want of which there should be always 
 given some weighty compensation. I have 
 however (continued Mr. Johnson) seen some 
 prudent fellows who forbore to connect them- 
 selves with beauty lest coquetry should be 
 near, and with wit or birth lest insolence 
 should lurk behind them, till they have been 
 forced by their discretion to linger life away 
 in tasteless stupidity, and choose to count the 
 moments by remembrance of pain instead of 
 enjoyment of pleasure." 
 
 When professions were talked of, " Scorn 
 (said Mr. Johnson) to put your behaviour un- 
 der the dominion of canters ; never think it 
 clever to call physic a mean study, or law a 
 dry one ; or ask a baby of seven years old 
 
194* ANECDOTES ©F 
 
 which way his genius leads him, when we all 
 know that a boy of seven years old has no ge- 
 nius for any thing except a peg-top and an 
 apple pie; but fix on some business where 
 much money may be got and little virtue risked: 
 follow that business steadily, and do not live, 
 as Roger Ascham says the wits do, Men knmv 
 not how ; and at last die obscurely, men mark not 
 ivhere" 
 
 Dr. Johnson had indeed a veneration for the 
 voice of mankind beyond what most people will 
 own ; and as he liberally confessed that all his 
 own disappointments proceeded from himself, 
 he hated to hear others complain of general 
 injustice. I remember when lamentation was 
 made of the neglect shewed to Jeremiah Mark- 
 land, a great philologist, as some one ventured 
 to call him — " He is a scholar undoubtedly, 
 sir (replied Dr. Johnson), but remember that 
 he would run from the world, and that it is not 
 the world's business to run after him. I hate 
 a fellow whom pride, or cowardice, or laziness, 
 drives into a corner, and does nothing when he 
 is there but sit and growl; let him come out as 
 I do, and bark. The world (added he) is chief- 
 ly unjust and ungenerous in this, that all are 
 
DR. S^IUEL JOHNSON. 195 
 
 ready to encourage a man who once talks of 
 leaving it* and few things do really provoke me 
 more, than to hear people prate of retirement, 
 when they have neither skill to discern their 
 own motives, nor penetration to estimate the 
 consequences: but while a fellow is active to 
 gain either power or wealth (continued he), 
 every body produces some hinderance to his 
 advancement, some sage remark, or some un- 
 favourable prediction ; but let him once say 
 slightly, I have had enough of this troublesome 
 bustling world, 'tis time to leave it now : Ah, 
 dear sir ! cries the first old acquaintance he 
 meets, I am glad to find you in this happy 
 disposition : yes, dear friend ! do retire and 
 think of nothing but your own ease : there's 
 Mr. William will find it a pleasure to settle all 
 your accounts and relieve you from the fatigue; 
 miss Dolly makes the charmingest chicken- 
 broth in the world, and the cheesecakes we 
 eat of hers once, how good they were ! I will 
 be coming every two or three days myself to 
 chat with you in a quiet way ; so snug ! and 
 tell you how matters go upon 'Change, or in 
 the House, or according to the blockhead's 
 first pursuits, whether lucrative or politic, 
 
 o 2 
 
196 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 which thus he leaves , and lays himself down 
 a voluntary prey to his own sensuality and 
 sloth, while the ambition and avarice of the 
 nephews and nieces, with their rascally adhe- 
 rents and coadjutors, reap the advantage, while 
 they fatten the fool." 
 
 As the votaries of retirement had little of 
 Mr. Johnson's applause, unless that he knew 
 that the motives were merely devotional, and 
 unless he was convinced that their rituals were 
 accompanied by a mortified state of the body, 
 the sole proof of their sincerity which he would 
 admit, as a compensation for such fatigue as a 
 worldly life of care and activity requires ; so 
 of the various states and conditions of humanity, 
 he despised none more I think than the man 
 who marries for a maintenance : and of a friend 
 who made his alliance on no higher principles, 
 he said once, " Now has that fellow (it was a 
 nobleman of whom we were speaking) at length 
 obtained a certainty of three meals a day, and 
 for that certainty, like his brother dog in the 
 fable, he will get his neck galled for life with 
 a collar." 
 
 That poverty was an evil to be avoided by 
 all honest means however, no man was more 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 197 
 
 ready to avow : concealed poverty particularly, 
 which he said was the general corrosive that 
 destroyed the peace of almost every family ; 
 to which no evening perhaps ever returned 
 without some new project for hiding the sor- 
 rows and dangers of the next day. " Want of 
 money (says Dr. Johnson) is sometimes con- 
 cealed under pretended avarice, and sly hints 
 of aversion to part with it ; sometimes under 
 stormy anger, and affectation of boundless rage ; 
 but oftener still under a show of thoughtless 
 extravagance and gay neglect-— while to a pe- 
 netrating eye, none of these wretched veils 
 suffice to keep the cruel truth from being seen. 
 Poverty is hie et ubique (says he), and if you 
 do shut the jade out of the door, she will al- 
 ways contrive in some manner to poke her pale 
 lean face in at the window." 
 
 I have mentioned before, that old age had 
 very little of Mr. Johnson s reverence : " A man 
 commonly grew wickeder as he grew older (he 
 said), at least he but changed the vices of 
 youth ; headstrong passion and wild temerity, 
 for treacherous caution, and desire to circum- 
 vent. I am always (said he) on the young 
 people's side, when there is a dispute between 
 
198 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 them and the old ones : for you have at least 
 a chance for virtue till age has withered its 
 very root." While we were talking, my mo- 
 ther's spaniel, whom he never loved, stole our 
 toast and butter; Fie, Belle! said I, you used 
 to be upon honour ; " Yes, madam (replies 
 Johnson), but Belle grows old? His reason for 
 hating the dog was, " because she was a pro- 
 fessed favourite (he said), and because her jady 
 ordered her from time to time to be washed 
 and combed: a foolish trick (said he) and an 
 assumption of superiority that every one's na- 
 ture revolts at ; so because one must not wish 
 ill to the lady in such cases (continued he), 
 one curses the cur." The truth is, Belle was 
 not well-behaved, and being a large spaniel, 
 was troublesome enough at dinner with fre- 
 quent solicitations to be fed. " This animal 
 (said Dr. Johnson one day) would have been of 
 extraordinary merit and value in the state of 
 Lycurgus ; for she condemns one to the exer- 
 tion of perpetual vigilance." 
 
 He had indeed that strong aversion felt by 
 all the lower ranks of people towards four-footed 
 companions very compjetely, notwithstanding 
 he had for many years a cat which he called 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 199 
 
 Hodge, that kept always in his room at Fleet- 
 street ; but so exact was he not to offend the 
 human species by superfluous attention to 
 brutes, that when the creature was grown sick 
 and old, and could eat nothing but oysters, Mr. 
 Johnson always went out himself to buy 
 Hodge's dinner, that Francis the Black's deli- 
 cacy might not be hurt, at seeing himself em- 
 ployed for the convenience of a quadruped. 
 
 No one was indeed so attentive not to offend 
 in all such sort of things as Dr. Johnson ; nor 
 so careful to maintain the ceremonies of life : 
 and though he told Mr. Thrale once, that he 
 had never sought to please till past thirty years 
 old, considering the matter as hopeless, he had 
 been always studious not to make enemies, by 
 apparent preference of himself. It happened 
 very comically, that the moment this curious con- 
 versation passed, of which I was a silent audi- 
 tress, was in the coach, in some distant province, 
 either Shropshire or Derbyshire, I believe ; and 
 as soon as it was over, Mr. Johnson took out 
 of his pocket a little book and read, while a 
 gentleman, of no small distinction for his birth 
 and elegance, suddenly rode up to the carriage, 
 and paying us all his proper compliments, 
 
200 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 was desirous not to neglect Dr. Johnson ; but 
 observing that he did not see him, tapped him 
 gently on the shoulder — Tis Mr. Ch — 1m — ley, 
 says my husband ; — " Well, sir ! and what if 
 it is Mr. Ch — lm — ley !" says the other sternly, 
 just lifting his eyes a moment from his book, 
 and returning to it again with renewed avidity. 
 He had sometimes fits of reading very vio- 
 lent ; and when he was in earnest about get- 
 ting through some particular pages, for I have 
 heard him say he never read but one book, 
 which he did not consider as obligatory, 
 through in his whole life (and lady Mary 
 Wortley's Letters was the book), he would be 
 quite lost to company, and withdraw all his 
 attention to what he was reading, without the 
 smallest knowledge or care about the noise 
 made around him. His deafness made such 
 conduct less odd and less difficult to him than 
 it would have been to another man ; but his 
 advising others to take the same method, and 
 pull a little book out when they were not en- 
 tertained with what was going forward in soci- 
 ety, seemed more likely to advance the growth 
 of science than of polished manners, for which 
 he always pretended extreme veneration. 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 201 
 
 Mr. Johnson indeed always measured othei 
 people's notions of every thing by his own, and 
 nothing could persuade him to believe, that the 
 books which he disliked were agreeable to 
 thousands, or that air and exercise, which he 
 despised, were beneficial to the health of other 
 mortals. When poor Smart, so well known 
 for his wit and misfortunes, was first obliged 
 to be put in private lodgings, a common friend 
 of both lamented in tender terms the necessity 
 which had torn so pleasing a companion from 
 their acquaintance — "A madman must be 
 confined, sir," replies Dr. Johnson ; But, says 
 the other, I am now apprehensive for his ge- 
 neral health, he will lose the benefit of exercise. 
 "Exercise! (returns the Doctor,) I never heard 
 that he used any : he might, for aught I know, 
 walk to the alehouse ; but 1 believe he was al- 
 ways carried home again." 
 
 It was however unlucky for those who de- 
 lighted to echo Johnson's sentiments, that he 
 would not endure from them to-day, what per- 
 haps he had yesterday, by his own manner of 
 treating the subject, made them fond of re- 
 peating ; and I fancy Mr. B has not for- 
 gotten, that though hisfriend one evening in a 
 
202 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 gay humour talked in praise of wine as one of 
 the blessings permitted by Heaven, when used 
 with moderation, to lighten the load of life, 
 and give men strength to endure it: yet, when 
 in consequence of such talk he thought fit to 
 make a Bacchanalian discourse in its favour, 
 Mr. Johnson contradicted him somewhat 
 roughly as I remember: and when, to assure 
 himself of conquest, he added these words: 
 You must allow me, sir, at least that it pro- 
 duces truth; in vino Veritas, you know, sir. — 
 H That (replied Mr. Johnson) would be useless 
 to a man who knew he was not a liar when he 
 was sober." 
 
 When one talks of giving and taking the lie 
 familiarly, it is impossible to forbear recol- 
 lecting the transactions between the editor of 
 Ossian and the author of the Journey to the 
 Hebrides. It was most observable to me 
 however, that Mr. Johnson never bore his an- 
 tagonist the slightest degree of ill-will. He 
 always kept those quarrels which belonged to 
 him as a writer separate from those which he 
 had to do with as a man ; but I never did hear 
 him say in private one malicious word of a 
 public enemy ; and of Mr. Macpherson I once 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 203 
 
 heard him speak respectfully, though his reply 
 to the friend who asked him if any man living 
 could have written such a book, is well known 
 and has been often repeated ; " Yes, sir ; 
 many men, many women, and many children." 
 
 I inquired of him myself if this story was au- 
 thentic, and he said it was. I made the same 
 inquiry concerning his account of the state of 
 literature in Scotland, which was repeated up 
 and down at one time by every body — " How 
 knowledge was divided among the Scots, like 
 bread in a besieged town, to every man a 
 mouthful, to no man a bellyful." This story 
 he likewise acknowledged, and said besides, 
 **■ that some officious friend had carried it to 
 lord Bute, who only answered — Well, well! 
 never mind what he says — he will have the 
 pension all one." 
 
 Another famous reply to a Scotsman, who 
 commended the beauty and dignity of Glasgow, 
 till Mr. Johnson stopped him by observing, 
 " that he probably had never yet seen Brent* 
 ford," was one of the jokes he owned: and said 
 himself, " that when a gentleman of that coun- 
 try once mentioned the lovely prospects com- 
 mon in his nation, he could not help telling 
 
204 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 him, that the view of the London road was the 
 prospect in which every Scotsman most natu- 
 rally and most rationally delighted." 
 
 Mrs. Brooke received an answer not unlike 
 this, when expatiating on the accumulation of 
 sublime and beautiful objects, which form the 
 fine prospect up the river St. Lawrence in 
 North America ; " Come, madam (says Dr. 
 Johnson), confess that nothing ever equalled 
 your pleasure in seeing that sight reversed; 
 and finding yourself looking at the happy pros- 
 pect down the river St. Lawrence." The 
 truth is, he hated to hear about prospects and 
 views, and laying out ground, and taste in gar- 
 dening : " That was the best garden (he said) 
 which produced most roots and fruits ; and 
 that water was most to be prized which con^ 
 tained most fish." He used to laugh at Shen- 
 stone most unmercifully for not caring whether 
 there was any thing good to eat in the streams 
 he was so fond of, "as if (says Johnson) one 
 could fill one's belly with hearing soft murmurs, 
 or looking at rough cascades !" 
 
 He loved the sight of fine forest- trees, how- 
 ever, and detested Brighthelmstone Downs, 
 *' because it was a country so truly desolate 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON 205 
 
 (he said), that if one had a mind to hang one's 
 self for desperation at being obliged to live 
 there, it would be difficult to find a tree on 
 which to fasten the rope." Walking in a wood 
 when it rained, was, I think, the only rural 
 image he pleased his fancy with ; " for (says 
 he) after one has gathered the apples in an 
 orchard, one wishes them well baked, and re- 
 moved to a London eating-house for enjoyment." 
 With such notions, who can wonder he passed 
 his time uncomfortably enough with us, who he 
 often complained of for living so much in the 
 country ; " feeding the chickens (as he said I 
 did) till I starved my own understanding. Get, 
 however (said he), a book about gardening, 
 and study it hard, since you will pass your life 
 with birds and flowers, and learn to raise the 
 largest turnips, and to breed the biggest fowls." 
 It was vain to assure him that the goodness of 
 such dishes did not depend upon their size ; 
 he laughed at the people who covered their ca- 
 nals with foreign fowls, " when (says he) our 
 own geese and ganders are twice as large : if 
 we fetched better animals from distant nations, 
 there might be some sense in the preference ; 
 but to get cows from Alderney, or water-fowl 
 
206 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 from China, only to see nature degenerating 
 round one, is a poor ambition indeed." 
 
 Nor was Mr. Johnson more merciful with 
 regard to the amusements people are contented 
 to call such : " You hunt in the morning (says 
 he), and crowd to the public rooms at night, 
 and call it diversion ; when your heart knows 
 it is perishing with poverty of pleasures, and 
 your wits get blunted for want of some other 
 mind to sharpen them upon. There is in this 
 world no real delight (excepting those of sensu- 
 ality) but exchange of ideas in conversation ; 
 and whoever has once experienced 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." — " Books without the knowledge 
 of life are useless (I have heard him say) ; for 
 what should books teach but the art of living ? 
 To study manners however only in coffee-hou- 
 ses, 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 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 207 
 
 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 man- 
 kind 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 vi- 
 gour to the imagination." 
 
 I am well aware that I do not, and cannot, 
 give each expression of Dr. Johnson with all 
 its force or all its neatness ; but I have done 
 my best to record such of his maxims, and re- 
 peat such of his sentiments, as may give to 
 those who knew him net, a just idea of his cha- 
 racter and manner of thinking. To endeavour 
 at adorning, or adding, or softening, or melior- 
 ating such anecdotes, by any tricks my inex- 
 perienced pen could play, would be weakness 
 indeed ; worse than the Frenchman who pre- 
 sides over the porcelain manufactory at Seve, 
 to whom when some Greek vases were given 
 him as models, he lamented la tristesse de telles 
 formes; and endeavoured to assist them by 
 clusters of flowers, while flying Cupids served 
 
208 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 for the handles of urns originally intended to 
 contain the ashes of the dead. The misery is, 
 that I can recollect so few anecdotes, and that 
 I have recorded no more axioms of a man whose 
 every word merited attention, and whose every 
 sentiment did honour to human nature. Re- 
 mote from affectation as from error or false- 
 hood, the comfort a reader has in looking over 
 these papers, is the certainty that those were 
 really the opinions of Johnson, which are rela- 
 ted as such. 
 
 Fear of what others may think, is the great 
 cause of affectation ; and he was not likely to 
 disguise his notions out of cowardice. He ha- 
 ted disguise, and nobody penetrated it so rea- 
 dily. I shewed him a letter written to a com- 
 mon friend, who was at some loss for the 
 explanation of it: "Whoever wrote it (says 
 our Doctor) could, if he chose it, make himself 
 understood ; but 'tis the letter of an embar- 
 rassed man, sir ;" and so the event proved it 
 to be. 
 
 Mysteriousness in trifles offended him on 
 every side : " it commonly ended in guilt (he 
 said) ; for those who begin by concealment of 
 innocent things, will soon have something to 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 209 
 
 hide which they dare not bring to light." He 
 therefore encouraged an openness of conduct, 
 in women particularly, " who (he observed) 
 were often led away, when children, by their 
 delight and power of surprising." He recom- 
 mended, on something like the same principle, 
 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 fa- 
 vour ; " which, ten to one (says he), fails to 
 oblige your acquaintance, who had some rea- 
 sons 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 (con- 
 tinued he) ; 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 de- 
 pendant, 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 pro- 
 per manner of conferring pecuniary favours ; 
 that they always gave too much money or too 
 little ; for that they had an idea of delicacy ac- 
 
210 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 companying their gifts, so that they generally 
 rendered them either useless or ridiculous." 
 
 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 busi- 
 ness (said he), no woman stops at integrity." 
 This was, I think, the only sentence I 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 deserves 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." 
 
 Johnson said always, " that the world was 
 well constructed, but that the particular peo- 
 ple disgraced the elegance and beauty of the 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 211 
 
 general fabric.'' In the same manner I was 
 relating once to him, how Dr. Collier observed* 
 that the love one bore to children was from the 
 anticipation one's mind made while one con- 
 templated them : " We hope (says he) that 
 they will some time make wise men, or ami- 
 able women ; and we suffer 'em to take up our 
 affection beforehand. One cannot love lumps 
 of flesh, and little infants are nothing more* 
 On the contrary (says Johnson), one can 
 scarcely help wishing, while one fondles a 
 baby, that it may never live to become a man; 
 for it is so probable that when he becomes a 
 man, he should be sure to end in a scoundrel." 
 Girls were less displeasing to him; "for as 
 their temptations were fewer (he said), their 
 virtue in this life, and happiness in the next, 
 were less improbable ; and he loved (he said) 
 to see a knot of little misses dearly." 
 
 Needle-work had a strenuous approver in 
 Dr. Johnson, who said, " that 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 can- 
 p 2 
 
212 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 not hem a pocket-handkerchief (said a lady of 
 quality to him one day) y and so he runs mad, 
 and torments his family and friends. The ex- 
 pression struck him exceedingly, and when 
 one acquaintance grew troublesome, and ano- 
 ther unhealthy, he used to quote lady Frances's 
 observation, " That a man cannot hem a poc- 
 ket-handkerchief . " 
 
 The nice people found no mercy from Mr. 
 Johnson ; such I mean as can dine only at 
 four o'clock, who cannot 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) in impossibility to be pleased, and 
 that is false dignity indeed which is content to 
 depend upon others." 
 
 The saying of the old philosopher, who ob- 
 serves, 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. Conver- 
 sation was all he required to make him happy ; 
 and when he would have tea made at two 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 213 
 
 o'clock in the morning, it was only that there 
 might be a certainty of detaining his compa- 
 nions round him. On that principle 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. " But the carriage must 
 stop sometime (as he said), and the people 
 would come home at last ;" so his pleasure 
 was of short duration. 
 
 I asked him why he doated on a coach so ? 
 and received for answer, " That in the first 
 place, the company were 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 wish- 
 ed to travel all over the world ; for the very 
 act of going forward was delightful to him, and 
 he gave himself no concern about accidents, 
 which he said never happened: nor did the 
 xunning-away of the horses on the edge of a 
 
5214 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 precipice between Vernon and St. Denys in 
 France convince him to the contrary ; " for 
 nothing came of it (he said), except that Mr. 
 Thrale leaped out of the carriage into a chalk- 
 pit, and then came up again, looking as white!" 
 When the truth was, all their lives were saved 
 by the greatest providence ever exerted in fa- 
 vour of three human creatures ; and the part 
 Mr. Thrale took from desperation was the 
 likeliest thing in the world to produce broken 
 limbs and death, 
 
 Fear was indeed a sensation to which Mr, 
 Johnson was an utter stranger, excepting when 
 some sudden apprehensions 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 ex- 
 ercise, that they might not perish by permitted 
 stagnation. This was after we parted ; but 
 he wrote me an account of it, and I intend \Q 
 publish that letter, with many more, 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 215 
 
 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 la- 
 mented in the most piercing terms his approach- 
 ing 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 neg- 
 lected if the physician left him for an hour 
 only, I made him a steady, but as I thought a 
 very gentle harangue, in which I confirmed all 
 that the doctor had been saying, how no pre- 
 sent danger could be expected ; but that his 
 age and continued ill health must naturally ac- 
 celerate 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 exceed- 
 ingly low-spirited, and persuaded that death 
 was not far distant, I appeared before him in a 
 
Qi6 anecdotes of 
 
 dark-coloured gown, which his bad sight, and 
 worse apprehensions, made him mistake for an 
 iron grey. " Why do you delight (said he) 
 thus to thicken the gloom of misery that sur- 
 rounds me ? is not here sufficient accumulation 
 t)f horror without anticipated mourning ?" This 
 is not mourning, sir (said I), drawing the cur- 
 tain, that the light might fall upon the silk, 
 and shew 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 relate these instances chiefly to 
 shew, that the fears of death itself could not 
 suppress his wit, his sagacity, or his temptation 
 to sudden resentment. 
 
 Mr. Johnson did not like that his friends 
 should bring their manuscripts for him to read, 
 and he liked still less to read them when they 
 were brought : sometimes, however, when he 
 could not refuse he would take the play or 
 poem, or whatever it was, and give the people 
 his opinion from some one page that he had 
 peeped into. A gentleman carried him his 
 tragedy, which, because he loved the author^ 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 217 
 
 Johnson took, and it lay about our rooms some 
 time. What answer did you give your friend, 
 sir ? said I, after the book had been called for. 
 " I told him ^replied he), that there was too 
 much Tig and Tirry in it," Seeing me laugh 
 most violently, "Why what would'st have, 
 child ? (said he.) I looked at nothing but the 
 dramatis, and there was 7/gTanes and Tzrida- 
 tes, or Teribazus, or such stuff. A man can 
 tell but what he knows, and I never got any 
 farther than the first page. Alas, madam ! ' 
 (continued he,) 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. Johnson confessed that the 
 work of Cervantes was the greatest in the 
 world, speaking of it I mean as a book of en- 
 tertainment ; and when we consider that every 
 other author's admirers are confined to his 
 countrymen, and perhaps to the literary clas- 
 ses among them, while Don Quixote is a sort 
 of common property, a universal classic, equal- 
 ly tasted by the court and the cottage, equally 
 
218 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 applauded in France and England as in Spain, 
 quoted by every servant, the amusement of 
 every age from infancy to decrepitude ; the 
 first book you see on every shelf, in every shop, 
 where books are sold, through all the states of 
 Italy ; who can refuse his consent to an avowal 
 of the superiority of Cervantes to all other mo- 
 dern writers ? Shakspeare himself has, till 
 lately, been worshipped only at home, though 
 his plays are now the favourite amusements of 
 Vienna; and when I was at Padua some months 
 ago, Romeo and Juliet was acted there under 
 the name of Tragedia Veronese; while engra- 
 vers and translators live by the hero of La 
 Mancha in every nation, and the sides of mise- 
 rable inns all over England and France, and I 
 have heard Germany too, are adorned with the 
 exploits of Don Quixote. May his celebrity 
 procure my pardon for a digression in praise of 
 a writer who, through four volumes of the most 
 exquisite pleasantry and genuine humour, has 
 never been seduced to overstep the limits of 
 propriety, has never called in the wretched 
 auxiliaries of obscenity or profaneness ; who 
 trusts in nature and sentiment alone, and never 
 misses of that applause which Voltaire and 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON 219 
 
 Sterne labour to produce, while honest merri- 
 ment bestows her unfading crown upon Cer- 
 vantes. 
 
 Dr. Johnson was a great reader of French 
 literature, and delighted exceedingly in Boi- 
 leau's works. Moliere I think he had hardly 
 sufficient taste of; and he used to condemn me 
 for preferring La Bruyere to the Due de Hoche- 
 foucault, "who (he said) was the only gentle- 
 man writer who wrote like a professed author." 
 The asperity of his harsh sentences, each of 
 them a sentence of condemnation, used to dis- 
 gust me, however ; though it must be owned 
 that, among the necessaries of human life, a 
 rasp is reckoned pne as well as a razor. 
 
 Mr. Johnson did not like any one who said 
 they were happy, or who said any one else 
 was so. (f It was all cant (he would cry), the 
 dog knows he is miserable all the time," A 
 friend whom he loved exceedingly, told him on 
 some occasion notwithstanding, that his wife's 
 sister was really happy, and called upon the 
 lady to confirm his assertion, which she did 
 somewhat roundly as we say, and with an accent 
 and manner capable of offending Mr. Johnson, 
 if lier position had not been sufficient, without 
 
220 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 any thing more, to put him in a very ill humour. 
 ** If your sister-in-law is really the contented 
 being she professes herself, sir (said he), her 
 life gives the lie to every research of humanity ; 
 for she is happy without health, without beau- 
 ty, without money, and without understand- 
 ing." This story he told me himself; and 
 when I expressed something of the horror I 
 felt, " The same stupidity (said he) which 
 prompted her to extol felicity she never felt, 
 hindered her from feeling what shocks you on 
 repetition. I tell you, the woman is ugly, and 
 sickly, and foolish, and poor; and would it 
 not make a man hang himself to hear such a 
 creature say it was happy ?" 
 
 " The life of a sailor was also a continued 
 scene of danger and exertion (he said) ; and 
 the manner in which time was spent on ship- 
 board would make all who saw a cabin envy a 
 gaol." The roughness of the language used on 
 board a man of war, where he passed a week 
 on a visit to Capt. Knight, disgusted him ter- 
 ribly. 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 unjustly, as disre^- 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 221 
 
 spectful, gross, and ignorant ; for though in 
 the course of these Memoirs I have been led 
 to mention Dr. Johnson's tenderness- towards 
 poor people, I do not wish to mislead my rea- 
 ders, and make them think he had any delight 
 in mean manners or coarse expressions. Even 
 dress itself, when it resembled that of the vul- 
 gar, offended him exceedingly ; and when he 
 had condemned me many times for not adorn- 
 ing my children 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 ap- 
 prove of the appearance she made. When 
 they were gone home, Well sir, said I, how 
 did you like little miss ? I hope she was jine 
 enough. " It was the finery of a beggar (said 
 he), and you knew it was ; she looked like a 
 native of Cow-lane dressed up to be carried to 
 Bartholomew fair," 
 
 His reprimand to another lady for crossing 
 her little child's handkerchief before, and by 
 that operation dragging down its head oddly 
 and unintentionally, was on the same principle, 
 " It is the beggar's fear of cold (said he) that 
 prevails over such parents, and so they pull the 
 
222 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 poor thing's head down, and give it the look of 
 a baby that plays about Westminster-bridge, 
 while the mother sits shivering in a niche." 
 
 I commended a young lady for her beauty 
 and pretty behaviour one day, how T ever, to 
 whom I thought no objections could have been 
 made. " I saw her (said Dr. Johnson) take a 
 pair of scissors in her left hand though ; and 
 for all her father is now become a nobleman, 
 and as you say excessively rich, I should were 
 I a youth of quality ten years hence, hesitate 
 between a girl so neglected, and a negro." 
 
 It was indeed astonishing how he could re- 
 mark such minutenesses with a sight so mise- 
 rably imperfect ; but no accidental position of 
 a riband escaped him, so nice was his observa- 
 tion, and so rigorous his demands of propriety. 
 When I went with him to Litchfield, and came 
 down stairs to breakfast at the inn, my dress 
 did not please him, and he made me alter 
 it entirely before he would stir a step with 
 us about the town, saying most satirical things 
 concerning the appearance I made in a riding- 
 habit ; and adding, " Tis very strange that 
 such eyes as yours cannot discern propriety of 
 dress : if I had a sight only half as good, 1 
 think I should see to the centre." 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 223 
 
 My compliances however were of little worth; 
 what really surprised me was the victory he 
 gained over a lady little accustomed to con- 
 tradiction, who had dressed herself for church 
 at Streatham one Sunday morning, in a manner 
 he did not approve, and to whom he said such 
 sharp and pungent things concerning her hat, 
 her gown, &c. that she hastened to change 
 them, and returning quite another figure re- 
 ceived his applause, and thanked him for his 
 reproofs, much to the amazement of her hus- 
 band, who could scarely believe his own ears. 
 
 Another lady, whose accomplishments he 
 never denied, came to our house one day co- 
 vered with diamonds, feathers, &c. and he did 
 not seem inclined to chat with her as usual. 
 I asked him why ? when the company was 
 gone. " Why, her head looked so like that of 
 a woman who shews puppets (said he), and her 
 voice so confirmed the fancy, that I could not 
 bear her to-day ; when she wears a large cap, 
 I can talk to her." 
 
 When the ladies wore lace trimmings to their 
 clothes, he expressed his contempt of the reign- 
 ing fashion in these terms: "A Brussels trim- 
 ming is like bread- sauce (said he), it takes 
 
224 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 away the glow of colour from the gown, and 
 gives you nothing instead of it ; but sauce was 
 invented to heighten the flavour of our food, 
 and trimming is an ornament to the manteau, 
 or it is nothing. Learn (said he) that there is 
 propriety or impropriety in every thing how 
 slight soever, and get at the general principles 
 of dress and of behaviour ; if you then trans- 
 gress them, you will at least know that they 
 are not observed." 
 
 All these exactnesses in a man who was no- 
 thing less than exact himself, made him ex- 
 tremely impracticable as an inmate, though 
 most instructive as a companion, and useful as 
 a friend. Mr. Thrale too could sometimes 
 overrule his rigidity, by saying coldly, There, 
 there, now we have had enough for one lec- 
 ture, Dr. Johnson, we will not be upon educa- 
 tion any more till after dinner, if you please — 
 or some such speech : but when there was no- 
 body to restrain his dislikes, it was extremely 
 difficult to find any body with whom he could 
 converse, without living always on the verge 
 of a quarrel, or of something too like a quarrel 
 to be pleasing. I came into the room, for ex- 
 ample, one evening, where he and a gentleman, 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 225 
 
 whose abilities we all respected exceedingly* 
 were sitting; a lady who walked in two mi^ 
 nutes before me had blown 'em both into a 
 
 flame* by whispering something to Mr. S- d, 
 
 which he endeavoured to explain away, so as 
 not to affront the Doctor, whose suspicions 
 were all alive. " And have a care, sir (said he), 
 just as I came in ; the old lion will not bear to 
 be tickled." The other was pale with rage, the 
 lady wept at the confusion she had caused, and 
 I could only say with lady Macbeth, 
 
 So ! you've displaced the mirth j broke the good meeting 
 With most admir'd disorder. 
 
 Such accidents however occurred too often* 
 and I was forced to take advantage of my lost 
 lawsuit, and plead inability of purse to remain 
 longer in London or its vicinage. I had been 
 crossed in my intentions of going abroad* and 
 found it convenient* for every reason of health, 
 peace, and pecuniary circumstances* to retire 
 to Bath, where I knew Mr, Johnson would not 
 follow me, and where I could for that reason 
 command some little portion of time for my 
 own use ; a thing impossible while I remained 
 at Streatham or at London* as my hours* car- 
 
 Q 
 
226 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 riage, and servants, had long been at his com- 
 mand, who would not rise in the morning till 
 twelve o'clock perhaps, and oblige me to make 
 breakfast for him till the bell rung for dinner, 
 though much displeased if the toilet was neg-* 
 lected, and though much of the time we passed 
 together was spent in blaming or deriding, very 
 justly, my neglect of economy, and waste of 
 that money which might make many families 
 happy. The original reason of our connexion, 
 his particularly disordered health and spirits, had 
 been long at an end, and he had no other ail- 
 ments than old age and general infirmity, which 
 every professor of medicine was ardently zea- 
 lous and generally attentive to palliate, and to 
 contribute all in their power for the prolonga- 
 tion of a life so valuable. Veneration for his 
 virtue, reverence for his talents, delight in his 
 conversation, and habitual endurance of a yoke 
 my husband first put upon me, and of which 
 he contentedly bore his share for sixteen or 
 seventeen years, made me go on so long with 
 Mr. Johnson ; but the perpetual confinement I 
 will own to have been terrifying in the first 
 years of our friendship, and irksome in the last; 
 nor could I pretend to support it without help, 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 227 
 
 when my coadjutor was no more. To the as- 
 sistance we gave him, the shelter our house 
 afforded to his uneasy fancies, and to the pains 
 we took to soothe or repress them, the world 
 perhaps is indebted for the three political pam- 
 phlets, the new edition and correction of his 
 Dictionary, and for the Poets' Lives, which he 
 would scarce have lived, I think, and kept his 
 faculties entire, to have written, had not inces- 
 sant care been exerted at the time of his first 
 coming to be our constant guest in the country ; 
 and several times after that, when he found 
 himself ( particularly oppressed with diseases 
 incident to the most vivid and fervent imagina- 
 tions. 1 shall for ever consider it as the great- 
 est honour which could be conferred on any 
 one, to have been the confidential friend of Dr. 
 Johnson's health ; and to have in some mea- 
 sure, with Mr. Thrale's assistance, saved from 
 distress at least, if not from worse, a mind 
 great beyond the comprehension of common 
 mortals, and good beyond all hope of imitation 
 from perishable beings. 
 
 Many of our friends were earnest that he 
 should write the lives of our famous prose au- 
 Q 2 
 
228 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 thors ; but he never made any answer that I 
 can recollect to the proposal, excepting when 
 sir Richard Musgrave once was singularly 
 warm about it, getting up and entreating him 
 to set about the work immediately, he coldly 
 replied, " Sit down, sir!" 
 
 When Mr. Thrale built the new library at 
 Streatham, and hung up over the books the por- 
 traits of his favourite friends, that of Dr. John- 
 son was last finished, and closed the number. 
 It was almost impossible not to make verses 
 on such an accidental combination of circum- 
 stances, so I made the following ones : but as 
 a character written in verse will for the most 
 part be found imperfect as a character, I have 
 therefore written a prose one, with which I 
 mean, not to complete, but to conclude these 
 Anecdotes of the best and wisest man that ever 
 came within the reach of my personal acquaint- 
 ance, and I think I might venture to add, that 
 of all or any of my readers : 
 
 Gigantic in knowledge, in virtue, in strength, 
 
 Our company closes with Johnson at length ; 
 
 So the Greeks from the cavern of Polypheme past, 
 
 When wisest, and greatest, Ulysses came last. 
 
 To his comrades contemptuous, we see him look down 
 
 On their wit and their worth with a general frown. 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 22Q 
 
 Since from Science' proud tree the rich fruit he receives, 
 
 Who could shake the whole trunk while they turn'd a few leaves. 
 
 His piety pure, his morality nice — 
 
 Protector of virtue, and terror of vice ; 
 
 In these features Religion's firm champion display'd, 
 
 Shall make infidels fear for a modern crusade. 
 
 While th' inflammable temper, the positive tongue, 
 
 Too conscious of right for endurance of wrong, 
 
 We suffer from Johnson, contented to find, 
 
 That some notice we gain from so noble a mind ; 
 
 And pardon our hurts, since so often we've found 
 
 The balm of instruction pour'd into the wound. 
 
 'Tis thus for its virtues the chemists extol 
 
 Pure rectified spirit, sublime alcohol : 
 
 From noxious putrescence, preservative pure, 
 
 A eordial in health, and in sickness a cure ; 
 
 But exposed to the sun, taking fire at his rays, 
 
 Burns bright to the bottom, and ends in a blaze. 
 
 It is usual, I know not why, when a charac- 
 ter is given, to begin with a description of the 
 person ; that which contained the soul of Mr. 
 Johnson deserves to be particularly described. 
 His stature was remarkably high, and his limbs 
 exceedingly large : his strength was more than 
 common I believe, and his activity had been 
 greater I have heard than such a form gave one 
 reason to expect : his features were strongly 
 marked, and his countenance particularly rug- 
 ged, though the original complexion had cer- 
 tainly been fair; a circumstance somewhat 
 unusual : his sight was near, and otherwise 
 
230 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 imperfect ; yet his eyes, though of a light-gray 
 colour, were so wild, so piercing, and at times 
 so fierce, that fear was I believe the first emo- 
 tion in the hearts of all 'his beholders. His 
 mind was so comprehensive, that no language 
 but that he used could have expressed its con- 
 tents ; and so ponderous was his language, 
 that sentiments less lofty and less solid than 
 his were, would have been encumbered, not 
 adorned by it. 
 
 Mr. Johnson was not intentionally however 
 a pompous converser ; and though he was ac- 
 cused of using big words, as they are called, 
 it was only when little ones would not express 
 his meaning as clearly, or when perhaps the 
 elevation of the thought would have been dis- 
 graced by a dress less superb. He used to 
 say, " that the size of a man's understanding 
 might always be justly measured by his mirth; " 
 and his own was never contemptible. He would 
 laugh at a stroke of genuine humour, or sudden 
 sally of odd absurdity, as heartily and freely as 
 I ever yet saw any man: and though the jest 
 was often such as few felt besides himself, yet 
 his laugh was irresistible, and was observed im- 
 mediately to produce that of the company, not 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 231 
 
 merely from the notion that it was proper to 
 laugh when he did, but purely out of want of 
 power to forbear it. He was no enemy to 
 splendour of apparel or pomp of equipage — 
 " Life (he would say) is barren enough surely 
 with all her trappings ; let us therefore be cau- 
 tious how we strip her." In matters of still 
 higher moment he once observed, when speak- 
 ing on the subject of sudden innovation, — "He 
 who plants a forest may doubtless cut down a 
 hedge : yet I could wish methinks that even he 
 would wait till he sees his young plants grow." 
 With regard to common occurrences, Mr. 
 Johnson had, when I first knew him, looked 
 on the still-shifting scenes of life till he was 
 weary ; for as a mind slow in its own nature, or 
 unenlivened by information, will contentedly 
 read in the same book for twenty times perhaps, 
 the very act of reading it being more than half 
 the business, and every period being at every 
 reading better understood; while a mind more 
 active or more skilful to comprehend its mean- 
 ing is made sincerely sick at the second peru- 
 sal : so a soul like his, acute to discern the truth, 
 vigorous to embrace, and powerful to retain it, 
 soon sees enough of the world's dull prospect, 
 
232 ANECDOTES OP 
 
 which at first, like that of the sea, pleases by 
 its extent, but soon, like that too, fatigues from 
 its uniformity ; a calm and a storm being the 
 only variations that the nature of either will 
 admit. 
 
 Of Mr. Johnson's erudition the world has 
 been the judge, and we who produce each a 
 score of his sayings, as proofs of that wit which 
 in him was inexhaustible, resemble travellers 
 who, having visited Delhi or Golconda, bring 
 home each a handful of oriental pearl to evince 
 the riches of the Great Mogul. May the pub- 
 lic condescend to accept my illstrung selection 
 with patience at least, remembering only that 
 they are relics of him who was great on all oc- 
 casions, and, like a cube in architecture, you 
 beheld him on each side, and his size still ap- 
 peared undiminished. 
 
 As his purse was ever open to almsgiving, so 
 was his heart tender to those who wanted re- 
 lief, and his soul susceptible of gratitude, and 
 of every kind impression : yet, though he had 
 refined his sensibility, he had not endangered 
 his quiet, by encouraging in himself a solicit 
 tude about trifles, which he treated with the 
 contempt they deserve. 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON". 233 
 
 It was well enough known before these 
 sheets were published, that Mr. Johnson had a 
 roughness in his manner which subdued the 
 saucy, and terrified the meek : this was, when 
 I knew him, the prominent part of a character 
 which few durstventure to approach so nearly; 
 and which was for that reason in many respects 
 grossly and frequently mistaken, and it was 
 perhaps peculiar to him, that the lofty con- 
 sciousness of his own superiority, which ani- 
 mated his looks, and raised his voice in 
 conversation, cast likewise an impenetrable 
 veil over him when he said nothing. His talk 
 therefore had commonly the complexion of 
 arrogance, his silence of superciliousness. He 
 was however seldom inclined to be silent when 
 any moral or literary question was started : and 
 it was on such occasions, that, like the sage 
 in Rasselas, he spoke, and attention watched 
 his lips ; he reasoned, and conviction closed 
 his periods : if poetry was talked of, his quota- 
 tions were the readiest ; and had he not been 
 eminent for more solid and brilliant qualities, 
 mankind would have united to extol his extra- 
 ordinary memory. His manner of repeating 
 deserves to be described, though at the same 
 
234 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 time it defeats all power of description : but 
 whoever once heard him repeat an ode of Ho- 
 race, would be long before they could endure 
 to hear it repeated by another. 
 
 His equity in giving the character of living 
 acquaintance ought not undoubtedly to be 
 omitted in his own, whence partiality and pre* 
 judice were totally excluded, and truth alone 
 presided in his tongue : a steadiness of conduct 
 the more to be commended, as no man had 
 stronger likings or aversions. His veracity 
 was indeed, from the most trivial to the most 
 solemn occasions, strict even to severity ; he 
 scorned to embellish a story with fictitious cir- 
 cumstances, which (he used to say) took off 
 from its real value. ** A story (says Johnson) 
 should be a specimen of life and manners ; but 
 if the surrounding circumstances are false, as 
 it is no more a representation of reality, it is 
 no longer worthy our attention." 
 
 For the rest — That beneficence which, dur- 
 ing his life, increased the comforts of so many, 
 may after his death be perhaps ungratefully 
 forgotten ; but that piety which dictated the 
 serious papers in the Rambler, will be for ever 
 remembered • for ever, I think, revered. That 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 235 
 
 ample repository of religious truth, moral wis- 
 dom, and accurate criticism, breathes indeed 
 the genuine emanations of its great author's 
 mind, expressed too in a style so natural to 
 him, and so much like his common mode of 
 conversing, that I was myself but little asto- 
 nished when he told me, that he had scarcely 
 read over one of those inimitable essays before 
 they went to the press. 
 
 I will add one or two peculiarities more, 
 
 before I lay down my pen. Though at an 
 
 immeasurable distance from content in the 
 contemplation of his own uncouth form and 
 figure, he did not like another man much the 
 less for being a coxcomb. I mentioned two 
 friends who were particularly fond of looking 
 at themselves in a glass — " They do not sur- 
 prise me at all by so doing (said Johnson) : they 
 see, reflected in that glass, men who have risen 
 from almost the lowest situations in life ; one 
 to enormous riches, the other to every thing 
 this world can give — rank, fame, and fortune. 
 They see likewise, men who have merited their 
 advancement by the exertion and improvement 
 of those talents which God had given them ; 
 
336 ANECDOTES OF 
 
 and I see not why they should avoid the 
 mirror. 
 
 The other singularity I promised to record is 
 this: That though a man of obscure birth him- 
 self, his partiality to people of family was visi- 
 ble on every occasion ; his zeal for subordina- 
 tion warm even to bigotry; his hatred to inno- 
 vation, and reverence for the old feudal times, 
 apparent, whenever any possible manner of 
 shewing them occurred. I have spoken of his 
 piety, his charity, and his truth, the enlarge- 
 ment of his heart, and the delicacy of his sen- 
 timents ; and when I search for shadow to my 
 portrait, none can I find but what was formed 
 by pride, differently modified as different occa- 
 sions shewed it; yet never was pride so puri- 
 fied as Johnson's at once from meanness and from 
 vanity. The mind of this man was indeed ex- 
 panded beyond the common limits of human 
 nature, and stored with such variety of know- 
 ledge, that I used to think it resembled a royal 
 pleasure-ground, where every plant, of every 
 name and nation, flourished in the full perfection 
 of their powers, and where, though lofty woods 
 and falling cataracts first caught the eye, and 
 
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON". 237 
 
 fixed the earliest attention of beholders, yet 
 neither the trim parterre, nor the pleasing 
 shrubbery, nor even the antiquated evergreens, 
 were denied a place in some fit corner of the 
 happy valley. 
 
 POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 Naples, Feb. 10, 1780. 
 
 Since the foregoing went to the press, having seen a passage from 
 Mr. Boswell's Tour to the Hebrides, in which it is said, that "I could 
 not get through Mrs. Montagu's Essay on Shakspeare," I do not de- 
 lay a moment to declare, that, on the contrary, I have always com- 
 mended it myself, and heard it commended by every one else j and few 
 things would give me more concern than to be thought incapable of 
 tasting, or unwilling to testify my opinion of its excellence. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 Printed by T. C. Newby, Angel-Hill, Bury. 
 
LBo.