Im a so ti Ed ^a^d Ttui ^ ,-• !7n : i v-v-so n , /oi-ds an J kls vvav.5 PREFACE. The aim of this work is to present, as concisely as pos- sible, the materials for a fair estimate of Dr. Johnson's character. These materials have been drawn from many books, and the best authorities upon the subject have been carefully examined. A systematic analysis of his char- acter has not been attempted ; the general arrangement of the book has been adopted merely as that which seemed most convenient and practicable — not for the purpose of deliberate analysis. * Any adequate consideration of Johnson's scholarship and position in literature would have involved a critical examination of his writings too extended for a work of this size. Accordingly, that subject has not been touched upon, save as it has occurred incidentally to other matters. Boswell's "Life" is, of course, the great storehouse of information concerning Johnson ; yet, outside of that re- markable book, there are means of gaining a clearer view of him than we can have of any other man who has lived. And it is to others than Eoswell that we must look for many shades of this complex and fascinating character. The materials for a highly interesting and valuable study of Johnson might be gathered without resorting to Bos- well. Nearly all his friends and acquaintances left some striking records of him; and we are thus enabled to see him as he appeared to a large circle of brilliant men and women. LEADING EVENTS OF JOHNSON'S LIFE. Born at Lichfield, September 18th. Taken to London to be touched by Queen Anne, to cure his scrofula. -Goes to school at Lichfield. Enters Pembroke College, Oxford, October 31st. His father dies, December, leaving him very poor. Becomes an usher at Market Bos worth School. Eemoves to Birmingham, where he supports himself by liter- ary work. ) At Lichfield and Birmingham, trying to earn his living by lit- > erature. Marries a widow, Mrs. Porter, of Birmingham, July 9th. Opens a boarding-school at Edial. Goes to London, in company with David Garrick, March 2d. Eetnrns to Lichfield in the summer, and finishes his tragedy of " Irene." Takes his wife to London in the autumn. Becomes a writer in the " Gentleman's Magazine." Publishes his " London." Publishes the " Life of Richard Savage." Publishes his " Plan for a Dictionary of the English Language." Publishes his "Vanity of Human Wishes" in January. Gar- rick produces " Irene " at Drury Lane Theatre, February 6th. Begins to publish " The Rambler." His wife dies. Obtains the degree of Master of Arts from Oxford University. Publishes his Dictionary. Issues proposals for an edition of Shakspeare. Commences "The Idler." His'mother dies. He writes " Rasselas." • LEASING E\ i:.N CS Ofe JOHNSON'fi .' • reated Doctor of Laws bj Dublin University, quaintance of the Thrales. Publishes his edition speare. ITT.".. Yi its the Scottish Hebrides with Boswell. 1775. Receives his diploma as Doctor of Laws from Oxford Univer- sity. Goes for a few weeks t>> France with the Thrales, 17-1. Publishes his "Lives of the Poets." 1783. Has a paralytic attack. 1764. Dies December lLJih. CONTENTS. PAGE - > Appearance, Manners, and Peculiarities 9 ' Partialities 26 —-Habits as Scholar and Author 35 — Pomposity of Style 40 Diseases 43 Melancholy 45 Fear op Death 49 Tory and High-Churchman 51 Superstition 5S Incredulity and Cynicism G2 Sentiment G5 Anti-Sentimentality G8 Arrogance 73 Self-Esteem 75 Humility 77 Respect for Hank and Authority 79 -Prejudices and Narrowness , 85 —Intolerance 91 — Coarseness 92 Obtuseness to Natural Beauty 99 Brute Force 101 Impatience and Irascibility 104 Pugnacity and Contradictoriness 110 General Brutality 122 -Powers of Invective and Satire 129 Wit 134 Humor 137 Playfulness 140 Gallantry 147 Extempore Verse-Making 151 Common-Sense 155 General Knowledge 1G3 8 I "Mi.M -. HONEST! AND TRUTHFULNESS 165 A r< ii..)., 11.- 17A) I'm. iv 171 COURAGI 17rf Independent 1~1 Expressions of Good-Will and Approbation 187 < rENEROSITY 194 Kindness Tenderness Authority and Predominance 211 Miscellaneous i'l 7 General View of Johnson's Characteb Extracts from Macaulay's Essay on Boswell's "Life of John- son" Extracts from Carlyle's Essay ox Boswell's "Life of -T . » i i n - sox" 2 SAMUEL JOHNSON. HIS WORDS AND HIS WAYS. APPEARANCE, MANNERS, AND PECULIARITIES. Ik Youth. — Miss Porter told me that when he was first introduced to her mother his appearance was very forbid- ding ; he was then lean and lank, so that his immense struct- ure of bones was hideously striking to the eye, and the scars of the scrofula were deeply visible. He also wore his hair, which was straight and stiff, and separated behind ; and he often had, seemingly, convulsive starts and odd gesticula- tions, which tended to excite at once surprise and ridicule. — Boswell. Rather Handsome. — Johnson's countenance, when in a good-humor, was not disagreeable : — his face clear, his com- plexion good, and his features not ill formed, many ladies have thought they might not be unattractive when he was young. Much misrepresentation has prevailed on this sub- ject. — Thomas Percy. Odd and Peculiar. — I spent yesterday with Johnson, the celebrated author of the "Rambler," who is of all oth- ers the oddest and most peculiar fellow I ever saw. He is six feet high, has a violent convulsion in his head, and his eyes are distorted. — Dr. DocTcl. 1* 10 SAMUEL .i"i: General Description. — His figure was lai formed, and his countenance of the cast of an ancient stat- ue; yet his appearance was rendered strange and soirite- what uncouth by convulsive cramps, by the scars of that distemper which it whs once imagined the royal touch could cure, and by a slovenly mode of dress. He had the of one eye; yet so much does mind govern and even supply the deficiency of organs, that his visual perceptions, as they extended, were uncommonly quick and accurate. So morbid was his temperament that he never knew the natural joy of a free and vigorous use of his limbs; when he walked, it was like the struggling gait of one in letters: when he rode, he had no command or direction of his horse, but was carried as if in a balloon. That with his consti- tution and habits of life he should have lived seventy-five years, is a proof that an inherent vivida vis is a powerful preservative of the human frame. — Boswell. Complexion and Eyes. — His features were strongly marked, and his countenance particularly rugged, though the original complexion had certainly been fair: his sight was near, and otherwise imperfect ; yet his eyes, though of a light gray color, were so wild, so piercing, and at times so fierce, that fear was, I believe, the first emotion in the hearts of all his beholders. — Mrs. Piozzi. Walk and BEARING. — When first I remember Johnson, I used to see him sometimes at a little distance from the house, coming to call on my father; his look directed down- ward, or rather in such abstraction as to have no direction. His walk was heavy, but he got on at a great rate, his left arm always placed across his breast, so as to bring the hand under his chin; and he walked wide, as if to support his weight. Getting out of a hackney-coach, which ha. I set. him down in Fleel Street, my brother Henry says, he made his way up Bolt Court in the zig-zag direction of a Hash APPEARANCE, MANNERS, AND PECULIARITIES. 1 1 of lightning; submitting his course only to the deflections imposed by the impossibility of going farther to right or left. His clothes hung loose, and the pocket on the right hand swung violently, the lining of his coat being always visible. I can now call to mind his brown hand, his metal sleeve-buttons, and my surprise at seeing him with plain wristbands, when all gentlemen wore ruffles ; his coat-sleeve, being very wide, showed his linen almost to his elbow. His wig in common was cut and bushy; if by chance he had one that had been dressed in separate curls, it gave him a dis- agreeable look, not suited to his years or character. — Miss L. M. Saivkins. Dress and Appearance. — He is, indeed, very ill-favored. Yet he has naturally a noble figure ; tall, stout, grand, and authoritative : but he stoops horribly ; his back is quite round : his mouth is continually opening and shutting, as if he were chewing something ; he has a singular method of twirling his fingers, and twisting his hands ; his vast body is in constant agitation, see -sawing backward and forward: his feet are never a moment quiet; and his whole great person looked often as if it were going to roll itself, quite voluntarily, from his chair to the floor. His dress, considering the times, and that he had meant to put on all his best becomes, for he was engaged to dine with a very fine party at Mrs. Montagu's, was as much out of the common road as his figure. He had a large, full, bushy wig, a snuff- color coat, with gold buttons (or, peradvent- ure, brass), but no ruffles to his doughty fists; and not, I suppose, to be taken for a Blue, though going to the Blue Queen, he had on very coarse black worsted stockings. — Madame D^Arblay. Johnson at Home. — The day after I wrote my last let- ter to you I was introduced to Mr. Johnson by a friend : we passed through three very dirty rooms to a little one that 12 SAMUEL JOB looked like an old counting-house, where this great man was sat at his breakfast. The furniture of this room was a very large deal writing-desk, an old walnut-tree table, and five ragged chairs of four different sets. I was very much struck with Mr. Johnson's appearance, and could hardly help think- ing him a madman for some time, as he sat waving over his breakfast like a lunatic. He is a very large man, and was dressed in a dirty brown coat and waistcoat, with breeches that were brown also (though they bad been crimson), and an old black wig: his shirt collar and sleeves were unbut- toned; his stockings were down about his feet, which had on them, by way of slippers, an old pair of shoes. — Ozicu Humphry. Joiixson Abroad. — Mr. Sheridan at one time lived in Bedford Street, opposite Henrietta Street, which ranges with the south side of Covent Garden, so that the prospect lies open the whole way, free of interruption. We were stand- ing together in the drawing-room, expecting Johnson, who was to dine there. Mr. Sheridan asked me, could I see the length of the Garden? "jSTo, sir." "Take out your opera- glass, Johnson is coming; you may know him by his gait.'' I perceived him at a good distance, working along with a peculiar solemnity of deportment, and an awkward sort of measured step. At that time the broad flagging at each side the streets was not universally adopted, and stone posts were in fashion to prevent the annoyance of cat Upon every post, as he passed along, I could observe, he deliberately laid his hand; but missing one of them, when he had got at some distance, he seemed suddenly to recol- lect himself, and immediately returning bark, carefully per- formed the accustomed ceremony, ami resumed his former course, not omitting one till lie gained the crossing. This, Mr. Sheridan assured me, however odd ii might appear, was his constant practice; but why or wherefore lie oould not inform me. — Whyte's MisceL Nova. APPEAEANCE, MANNEES, AND PECULIAEITIES. 13 Expeessive Face. — His face was capable of great expres- sion, both in respect to intelligence and mildness, as all those can witness who have seen him in the flow of conver- sation, or under the influence of grateful feelings. — Anony- Vaeious Peculiaeities. — Talking to himself was, indeed, one of his singularities ever since I knew him. I was cer- tain that he was frequently uttering pious ejaculations; for fragments of the Lord's Prayer have been distinctly over- heard. His friend, Mr. Thomas Davies, of whom Churchill says, "That Davies hath a very pretty wife," when Dr. Johnson muttered, "lead us not into tempta- tion," used, with waggish and gallant humor, to whisper Mrs. Davies, " You, my dear, are the cause of this." He had another particularity, of which none of his friends ever ventured to ask an explanation. It appeared to me some superstitious habit, which he had contracted early, and from which he had never called upon his reason to disen- tangle him. This was his anxious care to go out or in at a door or passage, by a certain number of steps from a certain point, or at least so as that either his right or his left foot (I am not certain which) should constantly make the first actual movement when he came close to the door or pas- sage. Thus I conjecture ; for I have, upon innumerable oc- casions, observed him suddenly stop, and then seem to count his steps with a deep earnestness; and when he had neglect- ed or gone wrong in this sort of magical movement, I have seen him go back again, put himself in a proper posture to begin the ceremony, and, having gone through it, break from his abstraction, walk briskly on, and join his compan- ion. A strange instance of something of this nature, even when on horseback, happened when he was in the Isle of Skye. Sir Joshua Reynolds has observed him to go a good 1-i SAMUEL JOB way about, rather than cross a particular alley in Leicester- but this Sir Joshua imputed to his having ha I disagreeable recollection associated with it. That the most minute singularities which beloi _ him, and made very observable parts of his appearance and manner, may not be omitted, it is requisite to mention that while talking, or even musing, as lie sat in his chair. I monly held his head to one side toward his right Bhoulder, and shook it in a tremulous manner, moving his bod; ward and forward, and rubbing his left knee in the same direction with the palm of his hand. In the intervals of articulating, lie made various sounds with his mouth ; some- times as if ruminating, or what is called chewing the cud, sometimes giving a half whistle, sometimes making his tongue play backward from the roof of his mouth, as if chuckling like a hen, and sometimes protruding it against his upper gums in front, as if pronouncing quickly under his breath, too, too, too, all this accompanied sometimes with a thoughtful look, but more frequently with a smile. Gen- erally when he had concluded a period, in the course of a dispute, by which time he was a good deal exhausted by violence and vociferation, he used to blow out his breath like a whale. This, I suppose, was a relief to his lungs; and seemed in him to be a contemptuous mode of expres- sion, as if he had made the arguments of his opponent fly like chaff before the wind. — Boswell. Convulsive Movements. — Those motions ortrioks of Dr. Johnson arc improperly called convulsions, lie could sit motionless, when he was told so to do, as well as any other man. My opinion is, thai it proceeded from a habit, which he had indulged himself in, of accompanying his thoughts with certain untoward actions, and those actions always ap- peared to me as it* they were meant to reprobate some part of his past conduct. Whenever he was not engaged iii con- versation, such thoughts were sure to rush into his mind; APPEARANCE, MANNEKS, AND PECULIARITIES. 1 5 and, for this reason, any company, any employment what- ever, he preferred to being alone. The great business of his life, he said, was to escape from himself; this disposi- tion he considered as the disease of his mind, which nothing cured but company. One instance of his absence of mind and particularity, as it is characteristic of the man, may be worth relating. When he and I took a journey together into the West, we visited the late Mr. Banks, of Dorsetshire ; the conversation turning upon pictures, which Johnson could not well see, he retired to a corner of the room, stretching out his right leg as far as he could reach before him, then bringing up his left leg, and stretching his right still farther on. The old gentleman observing him, went up to him, and in a very courteous manner assured him, though it was not a new house, the flooring was perfectly safe. The doctor started from his reverie, like a person waked out of his sleep, but spoke not a word. — Sir Joshua Reynolds. His head, and sometimes also his body, shook with a kind of motion like the effect of a palsy ; he appeared to be fre- quently disturbed by cramps, or convulsive contractions, of the nature of that distemper called " St. Vitus's dance." — JBosicell. The house on the right at the bottom of Beaufort Build- ings was occupied by Mr. Chamberlaine, Mrs. Sheridan's eldest brother, by whom Johnson was often invited in the snug way with the family party. At one of those social meetings Johnson, as usual, sat next the lady of the house ; the dessert still continuing, and the ladies in no haste to withdraw, Mrs. Chamberlaine had moved a little back from the table, and was carelessly dangling her foot backward and forward as she sat, enjoying "The feast of reason and the flow of soul." Johnson, the while, in a moment of ab- straction, was convulsively working his hand up and down, 10 SAMUEL JOHNSON. which the lady observing, she roguishly c I within his reach, and, as might partly have been expected, Johnson clutched hold of it and drew off her Bhoe; she started, and hastily exclaimed," Oh, fie ! Mr. Johnson '." company at first knew not what to make of it; but one of them, perceiving the joke, tittered. Johnson, not improb- ably aware of the trick, apologized. " Nay, madam, recol- lect yourself; I know not that I have justly incurred your rebuke; the motion was involuntary, and the action nut in- tentionally rude." — W/t>jtcs Miscel. Nova. I believe no one has described bis extraordinary gestures or antics with his hands and feet, particularly when passing over the threshold of a door, or rather before he would vent- ure to pass through any door-way. On entering Sir Joshua's house "with poor Mrs. Williams, a blind lady who lived with him, he would quit her hand, or else whirl her about on the steps as he whirled and twisted about to perforin his ges- ticulations; and as soon as he had finished, he would give a sudden spring, and make such an extensive stride over the threshold as if he was trying for a wager how far he could stride; Mrs. "Williams standing groping about outside the door, unless the servant took hold of her hand to conduct her in, leaving Dr. Johnson to perform at the parlor door much the same exercise over again. But it was not only at the entrance o\' a door that he exhibited such strange manoeuvres, but across a room, or in the street with company he has stopped on a sudden, as if lie had recollected his task, and began to perform it there, gathering a mob round him; and when he had finished. Would hasten to his companion (who probably had walked on before) with an air of greal satisfaction that he had done his duty. One Sunday morning, as I was walking with him in Twickenham meadow b, lie began his antics, both with his feel and hands, with (he latter as if he was holding the reins <>f a horse like a jockey on Cull speed. Bui to describe the APPEARANCE, HAJSTNEES, AND PECULIAEITIES. 17 strange positions of his feet is a difficult task ; sometimes he would make the back part of his heels to touch, sometimes his toes, as if he was aiming at making the form of a trian- gle, at least the two sides of one. Though, indeed, whether these were his gestures on this particular occasion I do not' now recollect, it is so long since ; but I well remember that they were so extraordinary that men, women, and children gathered round him, laughing. At last we sat down on some logs of wood by the river-side, and they nearly dis- persed, when he pulled out of his pocket Grotius's "De Veri- tate Religionis," over which he see-sawed at such a violent rate as to excite the curiosity of some people at a distance to come and see what was the matter with him. — Miss Reynolds. Habit of Scraping His Fingers. — Such was the heat and irritability of his blood, that not only did he pare his nails to the quick, but scraped the joints of his fingers with a penknife, till they seemed quite red and raw. — Boswell. Laughter. — I passed many hours with him on the 17th, of which I find all my memorial is, " much laughing." It should seem he had that day been in a humor for jocularity and merriment, and upon such occasions I never knew a man laugh more heartily. We may suppose that the high relish of a state so different from his habitual gloom produced more than ordinary exertions of that distinguishing faculty of man, which has puzzled philosophers so much to explain. Johnson's laugh was as remarkable as any circumstance in his manner. It was a kind of good-humored growl. Tom Davies described it drolly enough : " He laughs like a rhi- noceros." — Boswell. There is a beautiful little island in the Loch of Dunvegan, called Isa. Macleod said he would give it to Dr. Johnson on condition of his residing on it three months in the year; 13 SAMUEL JOB □ay, one month. Dr. Johnson was highly amused with tlie fancy. I have seen him please himself with little things, even with mere ideas like the present. He talked a great •leal of this island; how lie would build a house there, how he would fortify it, how he would have cannon, how he would plant, how he would sally out and taki the Me of 3Iuck; and then he laughed with uncommon glee, and could hardly leave off. I have seen him do so at a small matter that struck him, and was a sport to no one else. Mr. Lang- ton told me that one night lie did so while the company were all grave about him; only Garrick, in his significant smart manner, darting his eyes around, exclaimed, " Pi ./ jocose, to be sure !" — JBosiaU. He maintained the dignity and propriety of male succes- sion, in opposition to the opinion of one of our friends, who had that day employed Mr. Chambers to draw his will, de- vising his estate to his three sisters, in preference to a re- mote heir male. Johnson called them " three dowdies" and said, with as high a spirit as the boldest baron in the most perfect days of the feudal system, "An ancient estate should always go to males. It is mighty foolish to let a stranger have it because he marries your daughter and takes your name. As for an estate newly acquired by trade, you may give it, if you will, to the dog Towser, and let him keep his own name." I have known him at times exceedingly diverted at what seemed to others a very small sport. He now laughed im- moderately, without any reason that we could perceive, at our friend's making his will; called him the testator, and added, "I dure say he thinks he has done a mighty thing. lie won't stay till he gets home t<> his seat in the country, io produce this wonderful deed: he'll call up the landlord Of the first inn on the road, ami, after a suitable preface upon the mortality and the uncertainty of life, will tell him thai, he should not delay making his will; and c here, sir,' APPEARANCE, MANNERS, AND PECULIARITIES. 1 9 will be say, ' is my will, which I have just made, with the assistance of one of the ablest lawyers in the kingdom;' and he will read it to him (laughing all the time). He believes he has made this will; but he did not make it: you, Cham- bers, made it for him. I trust you have had more conscience than to make him say, ' being of sound understanding ;' ha, ha, ha ! I hope he has left me a legacy. I'd have his will turned into verse, like a ballad." In this playful manner did he run on, exulting in his own pleasantry, which certainly was not such as might be ex- pected from the author of "The Rambler," but which is here preserved, that my readers may be acquainted<&even with the slightest occasional characteristics of so eminent a man. Mr. Chambers did not by any means relish this jocularity upon a matter of which pars magna fait, and seemed impa- tient till he got rid of us. Johnson could not stop his mer- riment, but continued it all the way till he got without the Temple-gate. He then burst into such a fit of laughter that he appeared to be almost in a convulsion, and, in order to support himself, laid hold of one of the posts at the side of the foot-pavement, and sent forth peals so loud that, in the silence of the night, his voice seemed to resound from Tem- ple Bar to Fleet Ditch. — Boswell. Dislike for Gesticulation. — He had a great aversion to gesticulating in company. He called once to a gentle- man who offended him in that point, "Don't attitudenize." And when another gentleman thought he was giving addi- tional force to what he uttered by expressive movements of his hands, Johuson fairly seized them and held them down. — Boswell. Manner of Reciting. — When repeating to me one day Grainger's "Ode on Solitude," I shall never forget the con- cordance of his voice with the grandeur of those images; 20 SAMUEL JOHNSON. nor, indeed, the Gothic dignity of his aspect, bis look and manner, when repeating sublime passages. Uut what was very remarkable, though his cadence in reading poetry was so judiciously emphatical as to give additional force to the words uttered, yet in reading prose, particularly on common or familiar subjects, nothing could be more injudicious than his manner, beginning every period with a pompous accent, and reading it with a whine, or with a kind of spat struggle for utterance; and this not from any natural in- iirmity, but from a strange singularity, in reading on in one breath, as if he had made a resolution not to respire till he had closed the sentence. — Miss Reynolds {abridged). Table Manhees. — When at table he was totally ab- sorbed in the business of the moment : his looks seemed riveted to his plate; nor would he, unless when in very high company, say one word, or even pay the least attention to what was said by others, till he had satisfied his appetite, which was so fierce, and indulged with such intei that while in the act of eating the veins of his forehead swelled, and generally a strong perspiration was visible. To those whose sensations were delicate this could not but be disgusting; and it was doubtless not very suitable to the character of a philosopher, who should be distinguished by self-command. But it must be owned that Johnson, though lie could be rigidly , was not a / either in eating or drinking, lie could retrain, but he could moderately. He told me that he had fasted two days without inconvenience, and that he had never been hungry but once. They who beheld with wonder how much he ate upon all occasions, when his dinner was to his taste, could not easily conceive what he must have meant by hun- ger; and not only was he remarkable for tin- extraordinary quantity which he ate,bu1 he was, or affected t«« be,a man of very nice discernment in the sci ry. Housed to descant critically on the dishes which had been at table APPEARANCE, MANNERS, AND PECULIARITIES. 21 where lie had dined or supped, and to recollect very mi- nutely what he had liked. — Boswell. It was at no time of his life pleasing to see him at a meal ; the greediness with which he ate, his total inatten- tion to those among whom he was seated, and his profound silence in the hour of refection, were circumstances that at the instant degraded him, and showed him to bo more a sensualist than a philosopher. — Sir John Hawkins. Wine - drinker and Abstainee. — Talking of drinking wine, he said, "I did not leave off wine because I could not bear it; I have drunk three bottles of port without being the worse for it. University College has witnessed this." — Uosivell. He has great virtue in not drinking wine or any fer- mented liquor, because, as he acknowledged to us, he could not do it in moderation. Lady Macleod would hardly be- lieve him, and said, " I am sure, sir, you would not carry it too far." Johnson: "Nay, madam, it carried me. I took the opportunity of a long illness to leave it off. It was then prescribed to me not to drink wine; and hav- ing broken off the habit, I have never returned to it." — JBosioell. The strongest liquors, and in very large quantities, pro- duced no other effect on him than moderate exhilaration. Once, and but once, he is known to have had his dose; a circumstance which he himself discovered, on finding one of his sesquipedalian words hang fire ; he then started up, and gravely observed, " I think it time we should go to bed." "After a ten years' forbearance of every fluid except tea and sherbet, I drank," said he, " one glass of wine to the health of Sir Joshua Reynolds, on the evening of the day on which he was knighted. I never swallowed another drop, SAMUEL JOB until old Madeira was prescribed to me as a cordial daring my present indisposition." — Sir John Hawkins. Mr. Thrale tokl me I might now have the pleasure to see Dr. Johnson drink wine again, for he had lately returned t<> it. When I mentioned this to Johnson, he said, "I drink it now sometimes, but not socially." The first evening that I was with him at Thrale's, I observed he poured a large quantity of it into a glass, and swallowed it greedily. Ev- erything about his character and manners was forcible and violent; there never was any moderation; many a day did he last, many a year did he refrain from wine; but when he did eat, it was voraciously; when he did drink Mine, it was copiously, lie could practice abstinence, but nut temper- ance. — BosiL'ell. Memory. — We had this morning a singular proof of Dr. Johnson's quick and retentive memory. Hay's translation of Martial was lying in a window. I said I thought it was pretty well done, and showed him a particular epigram, I think, of ten, but am certain of eight lines. He read it, and tossed away the book, saying, " No, it is not pretty well." As I persisted in my opinion, he said, "Why, sir, the original is thus — " (and he repeated it), "and this man's translation is thus — ," and then he repeated that also, exactly, though he had never seen it before, and read it over only once, and that, too, without any intention oi' getting it by heart. — Boswell. Baretti had once proposed to teach him Italian. They went over a few stanzas of Ariosto's "Orlando Inamora- to," and Johnson then grew weary. Sonic years afterward Baretti reminded him of his promise to study [talian, and Baid he would give him another lesson; bul added,"] sup- pose you have forgol wli:ti we read before." "Who for- gets, sir?" said Johnson, and immediately repeated three or APPEARANCE, MANNERS, AND PECULIARITIES. 23 four stanzas of the poem. Baretti was astonished, and took an opportunity, before he went away, of privately taking down the book to see if it had been recently opened ; but the leaves were entirely covered with dust. — Malone. Fondness fop. Nicknames. — Johnson had a way of con- tracting the names of his friends: as Beauclerk, Beau ; Bos- well, Bozzy ; Langton, Lanky ; Murphy, Mur ; Sheridan, Sherry. I remember one day, when Tom Davies was tell- ing that Dr. Johnson said, " We are all in labor for a name to Goldifs play," Goldsmith seemed displeased that such a liberty should be taken with his name, and said, " I have often desired him not to call me Goldy." Tom was remark- ably attentive to the most minute circumstance about John- son. I recollect his telling me once, on my arrival in Lon- don, " Sir, our great friend has made an improvement on his appellation of old Mr. Sheridan. He calls him now Sherry deny." — Boswell. Late Hours. — He told me that he generally went abroad at four in the afternoon, and seldom came home till two in the morning. — Boswell. Irregularities. — My wife paid him the most assiduous and respectful attention, while he was our guest; so that I wonder how he discovered her wishing for his departure. The truth is, that his irregular hours and uncouth habits, such as turning the candles with their heads downward, when they did not burn bright enough, and letting the wax drop upon the carpet, could not but be disagreeable to a lady. — Boswell. Dress. — The great bushy wig, which throughout his life he affected to wear, by that closeness of texture which it had contracted, was nearly as impenetrable by a comb as a quickset hedge; and little of the dust that had once settled 2 J SAMUEL JOHNSON. on his outer garments was over known to have bi turbed by the brush. That lie was an habitual sloven, his best friends cannot deny. Johnson, as his acquaintance with persons of condition became more enlarged, corrected, to some degree, this failing, but could never be said to be neat- ly dressed, or indeed clean. lie affected to wear clothes of the darkest and dirtiest colors, and, in all weathers, black stockings. His wig never sat even on his head, as may be observed in all the pictures of him, the reason whereof was that he had a twist in his shoulders, and that the motion of his head, as soon as he put it on, dragged it awry. — Sir John Hawkins (abridged). He received me very courteously ; but it must be con- fessed that his apartment, and furniture, and morning diess were sufficiently uncouth. His brown suit of clothes looked very rnsty; he had on a little old, shrivelled, un powdered wig, which was too small for his head; his shirt-neck and knees of his breeches were loose; his black worsted stock- ings ill drawn up; and he had a pair of unbuckled shoes by way of slippers. But all these slovenly particularities were forgotten the moment that he began to talk. — JRosiccH. On occasion of his play being brought upon the stage, Johnson had a fancy that, as a dramatic author, his dress should be more gay than what he ordinarily wore; he there- fore appeared behind the scenes, and even in one of the side boxes, in a scarlet waistcoat, with rich gold lace, and a gold larrd hat. He humorously observed to Mr. Langton, " that when in that dress he could not treat people with the same case as when in his usual plain clothes." — Bo His residence was in some old-fashioned rooms, called, T think, Inner Temple Lane, No. I. At tin- top of a lew steps the door opened into a dark" and dingydooking old wain- scoted anteroom, through which was the study, and into APPEARANCE, MANNERS, AND PECULIARITIES. 25 which, a little before noon, came rolling, as if just roused from his cabin, the truly uncouth figure of our literary co- lossus, in a strange black wig, too little for him by half, but which, before our next interview, was exchanged for that very respectable brown one in which his friend Sir Joshua so faithfully depicted him. — B. J¥. Turner. Mr. Langton was exceedingly surprised when the sage first appeared. He had not received the smallest intima- tion of his figure, dress, or manner. From perusing his writings, he fancied he should see a decent, well-dressed, in short, a remarkably decorous philosopher. Instead of which, down from his bedchamber, about noon, came, as newly risen, a huge uncouth figure, with a little dark wig which scarcely covered his head, and his clothes hanging loose about him. — Bosioell. Condition op his Wigs.— In general his wigs were very shabby, and their fore parts were burned away by the near approach of the candle, which his short-sightedness rendered necessary in reading. At Streatham Mr. Thrale's butler had always a better wig ready ; and as Johnson passed from the drawing-room when dinner was announced, the servant would remove the ordinary wig, and replace it with the newer one. — CroJcer. Provincial Accent. — Johnson never got entirely free of provincial accents. Garrick sometimes used to take him off, squeezing a lemon into a punch -bowl, with uncouth gesticulations, looking round the company, and calling out, " Who's for poonsh ?" — Boswell. 2 26 SAMUEL JOHNSOST. PABTIAUTIE! . C'oxviviai.itv.— One night when Beauclerk and Langton had supped at a tavern in London, and sat till about three in the morning, it came into their heads to go and knock up Johnson, and see if they could prevail on lain to join them in a ramble. They rapped violently at the door of his chambers in the Temple, till at last he appeared in his shirt, with his little black wig on the top of his head, instead of a nightcap, and a poker in his hand, imagining, probably, that some ruffians were coming to attack him. When he discovered who they were, and was told their errand, he smiled, and with great good- humor agreed to their pro- posal: "What, is it you, you dogs! I'll have a frisk with you." He was soon dressed, and they sallied forth together into Covent Garden, where the green-grocers and fruiterers were beginning to arrange their hampers, just come in from the country. Johnson made some attempts to help them ; but the honest gardeners stared so at his figure and man- ner, and odd interference, that he soon saw his servici not relished. They then repaired to one of the neighboring taverns, and made a bowl of that liquor called bishop, which Johnson had always liked; while, in joyous contempt of sleep, from which he had been roused, he repeated the fes- tive lines, "Short, O short, then be thy reign, And give us to the world again !*' They did not stay long, but walked down to the Thames, took a boat, and rowed to Billingsgate. Beauclerk and Johnson were SO well pleased with their amusement that they resolved to persevere in dissipation for the rest of the day: but Langton deserted them, being engaged to break- fast with some young ladies. Johnson scolded him for "leaving his social friends, to go and sit with a set of wretched wnridecCd girls." Garriok being told of this ram- PARTIALITIES. 27 ble, said to him, smartly, "I heard of your frolic t'other night. You'll be in the 'Chronicle.'" Upon which John- son afterward observed, "He durst not do such a thing. His wife would not let him !" — Boswell. In the end of 1783 he was seized with a spasmodic asthma of such violence that he was confined to the house in great pain, being sometimes obliged to sit all night in his chair. He, however, had none of that unsocial shyness which we commonly see in people afflicted with sickness. He did not hide his head from the world in solitary abstraction ; he did not deny himself to the visits of his friends and acquaint- ances ; but at all times, when he was not overcome by sleep, was ready for conversation as in his best days. — JBostoell. Mrs. Lennox had written a novel, which in the spring of 1751 was ready for publication. One evening, at the Ivy Lane Club, Johnson proposed to us the celebrating of the birth of Mrs. Lennox's first literary child, as he called her book, by a whole night spent in festivity. The place ap- pointed was the Devil Tavern, and there, about the hour of eight, Mrs. Lennox and her husband, as also the club, and friends to the number of near twenty, assembled. The sup- per was elegant, and Johnson had directed that a magnifi- cent hot apple-pie should make a part of it, and this he would have stuck with bay- leaves, because, forsooth, Mrs. Lennox was an authoress, and had written verses; and further, he had prepared for her a crown of laurel, with which, but not till he had invoked the muses by some cere- monies of his own invention, he encircled her brows. The night passed in pleasant conversation and harmless mirth. About five, Johnson's face shone with meridian splendor, though his drink had been only lemonade. — Sir John Haw- kins {abridged). Clubs. — A gentleman venturing to say to Johnson, "Sir, 28 SAMUEL JOHNSON. I wonder sometimes that yon condescend so far as to attend a city club," be answered, "Sir, the -real chair of a full and pleasant club is, perhaps, the throne of human felicity." — Cradock. How much lie delighted in convivial meeting?, how he loved conversation, has already been mentioned. A tavern m:is the place for these enjoyments; and a weekly club was instituted for his gratification, and the mutual delight of its several members. The first movers in this association were Johnson and Sir Joshua Reynolds; the number of persons included in it was nine; the place of meeting was the Turk's Head, in Gerrard Street. The hours which Johnson spent in this society seemed to be the happiest of his life: he would often applaud his own sagacity in the selection of it, and was so constant at our meetings as never to absent himself. He came late ; but, then, he stayed late, for he little regarded hours. — Sir John Hawkins (abridged). Notwithstanding the complication of disorders under which Johnson now labored (in his seventy-fourth year), he did not resign himself to despondency and discontent, but with wisdom and spirit endeavored to console and amuse his mind with as many innocent enjoyments as he could procure. Sir John Hawkins has mentioned the cordiality with which he insisted that such of the members o( the old club in Ivy Lane as survived should meet again and dine together, which they did, twice at a tavern, and once at his house; and in order to insure himself society, in the even- ing, for three days in the week, he instituted a club at the Essex Head, in Essex Street, then kept by Samuel Greaves, an old servant of Mr. Thrale's. — Boswell. Taverns. — We dined : t an excellent im , at Cha house, wher ■ he expatiated on the felicity of E igla id in taverns :in« inns, and trill nphed over the Fi ench for PARTIALITIES. 29 having, in any perfection, the tavern life. "There is no private house," said he, " in which people can enjoy them- selves so well as at a capital tavern. Let there be ever so great plenty of good things, ever so much grandeur, ever so much elegance, ever so much desire that everybody should be easy, in the nature of things it cannot be : there must always be some degree of care and anxiety. The master of the house is anxious to entertain his guests; the guests are anxious to be agreeable to him ; and no man, but a very impudent dog indeed, can as freely command what is in another man's house as if it were his own. Whereas at a tavern there is a general freedom from anxiety. You are sure you are welcome: and the more noise you make, the more trouble you give, the more good things you call for, the welcomer you are. No servants will attend you with the alacrity which waiters do, who are incited by the pros- pect of an immediate reward in proportion as they please. No, sir, there is nothing which has yet been contrived by man by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn." He then repeated, with great emotion, Shenstone's lines : "Whoe'er has travell'd life's dull round, Where'er his stages may have been, May sigh to think he still has found The warmest welcome at an inn." — Boswell. In contradiction to those who, having a wife and chil- dren, prefer domestic enjoyments to those which a tavern affords, I have heard him assert that a tavern chair was the throne of earthly felicity. "As soon," said he, "as I enter the door .of a tavern I experience an oblivion of care, and a freedom from solicitude : when I am seated, I find the master courteous, and the servants obsequious to my call; anxious to know, and ready to supply, my wants ; wine there exhilarates my spirits, and prompts me to free con- versation and an interchange of discourse with those whom 30 SAMUEL JOHNSON. I most love; I dogmatize and am contradicted, and in this conflict of opinion and sentiments I find delight" — Sir Jul in Hawkins. Riding in - a Coach. — In the afternoon, as we were driven rapidly along in the post-chaise, he said to me, "Life has not many things better than this.'" — BdsweU. In our way Johnson strongly expressed his love of driv- ing fast in a post-chaise. "If," said he, "I had no duties, and no reference to futurity, I would spend my life in driv- ing briskly in a post-chaise with a pretty woman ; but she should be one who could understand me, and would add something to the conversation." — JBosweU. I asked him why he doted on a coach so, and received for answer that, "in the first place, the company was shut in with him there, and could not escape, as out of a room: in the next place, he heard all that was said in a carriage, when it was my turn to be deaf." — Mrs. Piozzi. Talk. — Mr. Johnson, as he was a very talking man him- self, had an idea that nothing promoted happiness so much as conversation. A friend's erudition was commend- ed, one day, as equally strong and deep: "lie will not talk, sir," was the reply; "so his learning does no good, and his wit, if he has it, gives us no pleasure." — Mrs, Fi- Londox — I suggested a doubt that, if I were to reside in London, tin: exquisite zest with which I relished it in oc- casional visits might, go off, and 1 might grow tired ol' it. Johnson: "Why, sir, you find no man at all intellectual who is willing to leave London. "No, sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired r. Johnson contrived to amuse his solitary hours. lie sometimes employed himself in chemistry, sometimes in watering and pruning a vine, sometimes in small experi- ments, at which those who may smile should recollect that there are moments which admit of being soothed only by trifles. In f it. At another time, at a gentleman's seat in Devonshire, as he and some company were sitting in a saloon, before which was a spacious lawn, it was remarked as a very proper place for running a race. A young lady present boasted that she could outrun any person; on which Dr. Johnson rose up and said, "Madam, you cannot outrun me;" and, going out on the lawn, they started. The lady at 6rst had the ad- vantage; but Dr. Johnson, happening to have slippers on much too small for his feet, kicked them oh' up into the air, and ran a great length without them, leaving the lady far behind him; and, having won the victory, he returned, leading her by the hand, with looks of high exultation and deli ght. — Miss Reynolds. A large party had been invited to meet the doctor at Stow Hill. The dinner waited far beyond the usual hour, and the company were about to sit down, when Johnson appeared at the great gate. lie stood for some time in deep contemplation, and at length began to climb it ; and, having succeeded in clearing it, advanced with hasty strides toward the house. On his arrival, Mrs. Gastrel asked him "if he had forgotten there was a small gate for foot-passen- gers by the side of the carriage-entrance?" "No, my dear lady, by no means," replied the doctor; "but T had a mind to try whether T could climb a gate now as 1 used to do when I was a lad." — Parker. After breakfast we walked to the top ..fa very steep hill behind the house. When we arrived at the summit, Mr. II A CITS AS SCHOLAR AXD AUTHOR. 35 Langton said, "Poor dear Dr. Johnson, when lie came to this spot, turned to look down the hill, and said he was de- termined to take a roll down. When we understood what he meant to do, we endeavored to dissuade him; but he was resolute, saying he had not had a roll for a long time ; and taking out of his lesser pockets whatever might be in them — keys, pencil, purse, or penknife — and laying himself parallel with the edge of the hill, he actually descended, turning himself over and over till he came to the bottom." The story was told with such gravity, and with an air of such affectionate remembrance of a departed friend, that it was impossible to suppose this extraordinary freak of the great lexicographer to have been a fiction or invention of Mr. Langton. — Best {from "Personal and Literary Memo- rials? 8vo, 1829). HABITS AS SCHOLAK AND AUTHOR The particular course of his reading while at Oxford, and during the time of vacation which he passed at home, can- not be traced. Enough has been said of his irregular mode of study. He told me that, from his earliest years, he loved to read poetry, but hardly ever read any poem to an end ; that he read Shakspeare at a period so early that the speech of the ghost in Hamlet terrified him when he was alone; that Horace's Odes were the compositions in which he took most delight, and it was long before he liked his Epistles and Satires. Pie told me what he read solidly, at Oxford, was Greek; not the Grecian historians, but Homer and Eu- ripides, and now and then a little epigram; that the study of which he was the most fond was Metaphysics, but he had not read much, even in that way. I always thought that he did himself injustice in his account of what he had read, and that he must have been speaking with reference to the vast portion of study which is possible, and to which 3G SAMUEL JOHNSON. few scholars in the whole history of literature Lave attained; for when I once asked 1dm whether a person, whose name I have now forgotten, studied hard, he answered, " No, sir; 1 do not believe he studied hard. I never knew a man who studied hard. I conclude, indeed, from the effects, that some men have studied hard, as Bentley and Clarke.' 1 Trying him by that criterion upon which he formed Ins judgment of others, we may be absolutely certain, both from Ins writ- ings and his conversation, that his reading was very exten- sive. Dr. Adam Smith, than whom few were better judges on this subject, once observed to me that "Johnson knew more books than any man alive." He had a peculiar facility in seizing at once what was valuable in any book, without submitting to the labor of perusing it from beginning to end. He had, from the irritability of his constitution, at all times an impatience and hurry when he either read or wrote. A certain apprehension arising from novelty made him write his first exercise at college twice over; but he never took that trouble with any other composition; and we shall see that his most excellent works were struck off at a heat, with rapid exertion. — UoshxII. Somebody talked of happy moments for composition; and how a man can write at one time, and not at another. "Nay," said Dr. Johnson, "a man may write at any time, if he will set himself doggedly to it." — Boswell Mr. Strahan, the printer, told me that Johnson wrote"Ras- selas," thai with the profits he might defray the expense of his mother's funeral, and pay some little debts which she had left. He told Sir Joshua Reynolds that he composed it in the evenings of one week, sent it to the press in portions as it was written, and had never since read it over. — Boswell lie Said, " Idleness is a disease which must be combated; but T would not advise a rigid adherence to a particular DABITS AS SCHOLAR AND AUTHOR. 37 plan of study. I myself have never persisted in any plan for two days together. A man ought to read just as incli- nation leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little good. A young man should read five hours in a day, and so may acquire a great deal of knowledge." — Boswell. In 1781, Johnson at last completed his "Lives of the Poets," of which he gives this account : " Some time in March I finished the ' Lives of the Poets,' which I wrote, in my usual way, dilatorily and hastily — unwilling to work, and working with vigor and haste." — Bosicell. Before dinner Dr. Johnson seized upon Mr. Charles Sheri- dan's "Account of the late Revolution in Sweden," and seemed to read it ravenously, as if he devoured it, which was, to all appearance, his method of studying. "He knows how to read better than any one," said Mrs. Knowles ; " he gets at the substance of a book directly ; he tears out the heart of it." He kept it wrapped up in the table-cloth, in his lap, during the time of dinner, from an avidity to have one entertainment in readiness when he should have finished another; resembling (if I may use so coarse a simile) a dog who holds a bone in his paws in reserve, while he eats some- thing else which has been thrown to him. — Bosicell. In the morning of Tuesday, June 15, while we sat at Dr. Adams's, we talked of a printed letter from the Rev. Her- bert Croft, to a young gentleman who had been his pupil, in which he advised him to read to the end of whatever books he should begin to read. Johnson: "This is surely a strange advice ; you may as well resolve that whatever men you happen to get acquainted with, you are to keep to them for life. A book may be good for nothing ; or there may be only one thing in it worth knowing: are we to read it all through? These voyages" (pointing to the three large vol- umes of "Voyages to the South Sea," which were just come 38 ovLt) t "who will read them through ? A man had better work his way before the mast than read them through; they will be eaten by rats and mice before they are read through." — Boswell. He said, "I wrote forty-eight of the printed octavo pages of the 'Life of Savage' at a sitting, but then I sat tip all night." "When a young man, he wrote three columns of the "Parliamentary Debates," in the "Gentleman's Magazine," in one hour. lie composed seventy lines of his poem upon the "Vanity of Unman "Wishes" in one day, without putting one of them on paper until they were all finished. — Editor. lie always read amazingly quick, glancing his eye from the top to the bottom of the page in an instant. If he made any pause, it was a compliment to the work; and. after see- sawing over it a few minutes, generally repeated the pas- sage, especially if it was poetry. — Miss Reynolds. Johnson's manner of composing has not been rightly un- derstood. He was so extremely short-sighted that writing was inconvenient to him; for, whenever he wrote, he was obliged to hold the paper close to Ins face. He therefore never composed what we call a foul draught on paper of anything he published, but used to revolve the subjeel in his mind, and turn and form every period, till he had brought the whole to the highesl correctness and the most perfect, arrangement. Then his uncommonly retentive mem- ory enabled him to deliver a whole essay, properly finished, whenever it was called for. — Thomas Percy. We talked of composition, which was a favorite topic oi' Dr. "Watson's, who firsl distinguished himself by lectures on rhetoric. Johnson: "I advised Chambers, and would ad- vise every young man beginning to compose, to do ii as fast as he can, to gel a habit of having his mind to start HABITS AS SCHOLAR AND AUTHOR. 39 promptly; it is so much more difficult to improve iu speed tbau in accuracy." Watson : " I own I am for much atten- tion to accuracy in composing, lest one should get bad hab- its of doiug it in a slovenly manner." Johnson: "Why,. sir, you are confounding doing inaccurately with the necessity of doing inaccurately. A man knows when his composition is inaccurate, and when he thinks fit he'll correct it. But if a man is accustomed to compose slowly, and with diffi- culty, upon all occasions, there is danger that he may not compose at all, as we do not like to do that which is not done easily; and, at any rate, more time is consumed in a small matter tban ought to be." Watson : " Dr. Hugh Blair has taken a week to compose a sermon." Johnson : " Then, sir, that is for want of the habit of composing quickly, which I am insisting one should acquire." Watson : " Blair was not composing all the week, but only such hours as he found himself disposed for composition." Johnson: "Nay, sir, unless you tell me the time he took, you tell me nothing. If I say I took a week to walk a mile, and have had the gout five days, and been ill otherwise another day, I have taken but one day. I myself have composed about forty sermons. I have begun a sermon after dinner, and sent it off by the post that night. I wrote forty- eight of the printed octavo pages of the 'Life of Savage' at a sitting; but then I sat up all night. I have also written six sheets in a day of translation from the French." Boswett: "We have all observed how one man dresses himself slowly, and another fast." Johnson: "Yes, sir; it is wonderful how much time some people will consume in dressing; taking up a thing and looking at it, and laying it down, and tak- ing it up again. Every one should get the habit of doing it quickly. I would say to a young divine, 'Here is your text ; let me see how soon you can make a sermon.' Then I'd say, 'Let me see how much better you can make it.' Thus I should see both his powers and his judgment." — Boswell. 40 SAMUEL JOB POMPOSITY OF STYLE. Thebe can be no doubt that Johnson laboriously culti- vated the pompous style of writing which we >till call Johnsonian. Even in his own day, when rhetoric was far more highly valued than it is at present, his manner was "Hen the theme of criticism and satire. Boswell relates one of Goldsmith's speeches upon this subject, which, for once, must have silenced the great talker; for there is no record of a repartee. The talk had run upon fable -writing, and Goldsmith observed that in most fables the animals seldom talk in character. "For instance," said he, "the table of the little fishes, who petitioned Jupiter to be changed into birds — the skill consists in making them talk like little fishes." This struck Johnson as very ridiculous talk, and he began to roll himself about, and to shake with laughter; when Goldsmith broke in upon his entertainment by saving, "Why, Doctor Johnson, this is not so easy as you seem to think; for if you were to make little fishes talk, they would talk like whales." — Editor. Sir Joshua Reynolds once asked him by what means he had attained his extraordinary accuracy and How of lan- guage, lie told him that he had early laid it down as a fixed rule to do his best on every occasion, and in every company to impart whatever he knew in the most forcible language he could put it in; and that by constant practice, and never suffering any careless expressions to escape him, or attempting to deliver his thoughts without arranging them in the clearest manner, it became habitual to him. — B08Wi ll. His talk was generally pithy and simple, but he some- times forced himself into his characteristic style and "talk- ed like a book." lie once objected to Boswell'a calling a mountain " immense," and corrected him by saying, " No, il POMPOSITY OF STYLE. 41 is no more than a considerable protuberance." When some one told him of a man who had forgotten his own name, he said, " Sir, that was a morbid oblivion." Macaulay says, "It is clear that Johnson himself did not think in the dialect in which he wrote. The expressions which came first to his tongue were simple, energetic, and picturesque. When he wrote for publication, he did his sentences out of English into Johnsonese. His letters from the Hebrides to Mrs. Thrale are the original of that work of which the 'Journey to the Hebrides ' is the translation. ' When we were taken up- stairs,' says he, in one of his letters, 'a dirty fellow bounced out of the bed on which one of us was to lie.' This incident is recorded in the 'Journey' as follows: 'Out of one of the beds on which we were to repose started up, at our entrance, a man black as a Cyclops from the forge.' " Here are a few more passages illustrating his cultivation of the grand manner. — Editor, Mr. Strahan had taken a poor boy from the country as an apprentice, upon Johnson's recommendation. Johnson, hav- ing inquired after him, said, "Mr. Strahan, let me have five guineas on account, and I'll give this boy one. Nay, if a man recommends a boy, and does nothing for him, it is sad work. Call him down." I followed him into the court- yard', behind Mr. Strahan's house; and there I had a proof of what I had heard him profess, that he talked alike to all. "Some people tell you that they let themselves down to the capacity of their hearers. I never do that. I speak uni- formly in as intelligible a manner as I can." — "Well, my boy, how do you go on?" "Pretty well, sir; but they are afraid I ain't strong enough for some parts of the business." Johnson: "Why, I shall be sorry for it; for when you con- sider with how little mental power and corporeal labor a printer can get a guinea a week, it is a very desirable occu- pation for you. Do you hear — take all the pains you can ; and if this does not do, we must think of some other way of 42 SAMUEL JOHNSON. life for you. There's a guinea." Here -was one of the many, many instances of his active benevolence. At the same time the slow and sonorous solemnity with which, while he bent himself down, he addressed a little thick short-legg contrasted with the boy's awkwardness and awe, could not but excite some ludicrous emotions. — Boswett. Talking of London, he observed, "Sir, if you wish to have a just notion of the magnitude of this city, you must not be satisfied with seeing its great streets and squares, but must survey the innumerable little lanes and courts. It is not in the showy evolutions of buildings, but in the multiplicity of human habitations which are crowded together, that the wonderful immensity of London consists." — Bosicell. Having asked Mr. Langton if his father and mother had sat for their pictures, which he thought it right for each generation of a family to do, and being told they had op- posed it, he said, "Sir, among the anfractuosities of the hu- man mind, I know not if it may not be one that there is a superstitious reluctance to sit for a picture." — BosweU. Lord Lucan tells a very good story, which, if not precise- ly exact, is certainly characteristical : that, when the sale of Thrale's brewery was going forward, Johnson appeared bustling about, with an inkhorn and pen in his button-holej like an exciseman; and on being asked what he really con- sidered to be the value of the property which was to be dis- posed of, answered, "We are not here to sell a parcel of boilers and vats, but the potentiality of growing rich be- yond the dreams of avarice." — Boswell, lie seemed to take a pleasure in speaking in his own style; for when he had oarelessly missed it, he would repeat the thought translated into it. Talking o( the comedy of "The Rehearsal," he said, "It has not w'n enough to Keep it. DISEASES. 43 sweet." This was easy; he therefore caught himself, and pronounced a more round sentence : " It has not vitality enough to preserve it from putrefaction." — Boswell. He is shockingly near-sighted. He did not even know Mrs. Thrale, till she held out her hand to him ; which she did very engagingly. After the first few minutes he drew his chair close to the pianoforte, and then bent down his nose quite over the keys to examine them and the four hands at work upon them, till poor Hetty and Susan hardly knew how to play on, for fear of touching his phiz; or, which was harder still, how to keep their countenances. — Madame D ^Arblay. The old tutor of Macdonald always ate fish with his fin- gers, alleging that a knife and fork gave it a bad taste. I took the liberty to observe to Dr. Johnson that he did so. " Yes," said he ; " but it is because I am short-sighted, and afraid of bones, for which reason I am not fond of eating many kinds of fish, because I must use my fingers." — Boswell. Dr. Johnson's sight was so very defective that he could scarcely distinguish the face of his most intimate acquaint- ance at half a yard, and, in general, it was observable that his critical remarks on dress, etc., were the result of very close inspection of the object. — 3fiss Reynolds. I met him at Drury Lane playhouse in the evening. Sir Joshua Reynolds, at Mrs. Abington's request, had promised to bring a body of wits to her benefit; and having secured forty places in the front boxes, had done me the honor to put me in the group. Johnson sat on the seat directly be- hind me ; and as he could neither see nor hear at such a dis- 44 SAMUEL .i":. tance from the stage, he was wrapped up in grave abstrac- tion, and seemed quite a cloud amidst all the sunshine of glitter and gayety. I wondered at his patience in sitting out a play of live acts and a farce of two. — B Being urged by a lady to go to see Mrs. Siddons, he said, "Well, madam, if you desire it, I will go. See her I Bhall not, nor hear her; but I'll go, and that will do." — Madame JD'Arbhnj. In the year 1766 Mr. Johnson's health grew so bad that he could not stir out of his room, in the court lie inhabited, for many weeks together — I think, months. Mr. Thrale's attentions and my own now became so acceptable to him that he often lamented to us the horrible condition of his mind, which, he said, was nearly distracted. — Mrs. Piozzi. Young Johnson had the misfortune to be much afflicted with the scrofula, or king's evil, which disfigured a counte- nance naturally well-formed, and hurt his visual nerves bo much that he did not see at all with one of his eyes, though its appearance was little different from that of the other. There is among his prayers one inscribed, " IV/ien my eye was restored to its use" which ascertains a defect that many of his friends knew he had, though I never perceived it. — Bosicell. Dr. Johnson loved late hours extremely, or, more proper- ly, 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; but 1 lie down to endure oppressive misery, and soon rise again to pass the night in anxiety and pain." — Mrs. Pi>>::::i. In his seventy-third year, Johnson wrote to his friend, Mr, MELANCHOLY. 45 Hector, " My health has been, from my twentieth year, such as has seldom afforded me a single day of ease; but it is at least not worse, and I sometimes make myself believe that it is better. My disorders are, however, still sufficiently op- pressive." It seems probable that he inherited a teudency to insanity from his father. All through his life he was sub- ject to that nervous affection which Boswell considered a kind of St. Vitus's dance; and at different periods he was afflicted by asthma, gout, dropsy, and paralysis. — Editor. MELANCHOLY. The " morbid melancholy," which was lurking in his con- stitution, and to which we may ascribe those particulari- ties, and that aversion to regular life, which at a very ear- ly period marked his character, gathered such strength in his twentieth year as to afflict him in a dreadful manner. While he was at Lichfield, in the college vacation of the year 1729, he felt himself overwhelmed with a horrible hyp- ochondria, with perpetual irritation, fretfulness, and impa- tience ; and with a dejection, gloom, and despair which made existence misery. From this dismal malady he never afterward was perfectly relieved; and all his labors and all his enjoyments were but temporary interruptions of its baleful influence. .How wonderful, how unsearchable are the ways of God ! Johnson, who was blest with all the powers of genius and understanding, in a degree far above the ordinary state of human nature, was at the same time visited with a disorder so afflictive, that they who know it by dire experience will not envy his exalted endowments. That it was, in some degree, occasioned by a defect in his nervous system, that inexplicable part of our frame, appears highly probable. He told Mr. Paradise that he was some- times so languid and inefficient that he could not distin- guish the hour upon the town clock. — Boswell. 46 SAMUEL JOHNSON. In 1764 lie was afflicted with a very severe return of the hypochondriac disorder, which was ever lurking about him. lie was so ill, as, notwithstanding his remarkable love of company, to be entirely averse to society — the most fatal symptom of that malady. l)v. Adams told me that, as an old friend, he was admitted to visit him, and that he found him in a deplorable state — sighing, groaning, talking to him- self, and restlessly walking from room to room. lie then used this cmphatical expression of the misery which he felt : "I would consent to have a limb amputated to recover my spirits." — JBosicell. lie asserted that the present was never a happy state to any human being; but that, as every part of life, of which we are conscious, was at some point of time a period yet to come, in which felicity was expected, there was some happi- ness produced by hope. Being pressed upon this subject, and asked if he really was of opinion that, though in gen- eral happiness was very rare in human life, a man was not sometimes happy in the moment that was present, he an- swered, "Never, but when he is drunk.''' — Boswell. I talked to him of misery being the "doom of man," in this life, as displayed in his "Vanity of Human Wishes." Yet I observed that things were done upon the supposition of happiness: grand houses were built, line gardens were made, splendid places of public amusement were contrived, and crowded with company. Johns,)// ; "Alas, sir, these are all only struggles for happiness. When 1 first entered Kane- lagh, ii gave an expansion and gay sensation to my mind, such as 1 never experienced anywhere else. But, as Xerxes wept when he viewed his immense army, and considered that not one of that great multitude would be alive a hun- dred years afterward, so if went to my heart to consider that there was not one in all that brilliant circle that was not afraid to go home and think; bnl thai the thoughts of MELANCHOLY. each individual there would be distressing when alone.' Boswell In 1777, it appears, from his "Prayers and Meditations," that Johnson suffered much from a state of mind " unsettled and perplexed," and from that constitutional gloom which, together with his extreme humility and anxiety with regard to his religious state, made him contemplate himself through too dark and unfavorable a medium. It may be said of him that he " saw God in clouds." Certain we may be of his injustice to himself in the following lamentable paragraph, which it is painful to think came from the contrite heart of this great man, to whose labors the world is so much in- debted : " When I survey my past life, I discover nothing but a barren waste of time, with some disorders of body and disturbances of mind very near to madness, which I hope He that made me will suffer to extenuate many faults, and excuse many deficiencies.'' To Johnson, whose supreme enjoyment was the exercise of his reason, the disturbance or obscuration of that faculty was the evil most to be dreaded. Insanity, therefore, was the object of his most dismal apprehension ; and he fancied himself seized by it, or approaching to it, at the very time when he was giving proofs of a more than ordinary sound- ness and vigor of judgment. — Boswell. It was observed to Dr. Johnson, that it seemed strange that he who has so often delighted his company by his lively and brilliant conversation should say he was miser- able. Johnson: "Alas ! it is all outside; I may be cracking my joke, and cursing the sun : Sun, how I hate thy beams!" — Boswell. An axiom of his was that the pains and miseries incident to human life far outweighed its happiness and good. But 48 SAMUEL JOHNSON. much may be said in Dr. Johnson's justification, supposing this notion should not meet with universal approbation, he having, it is probable, imbibed it in the early part of his life, when under the pressure of adverse fortune, and in every period of it under the still heavier pressure and more ad- verse influence of nature herself; for I have often heard him lament that he inherited from his father a morbid disposi- tion both of body and of mind — an oppressive melancholy, which robbed him of the common enjoyments of life. — Miss Reynolds. His "Prayers and Meditations" are full of indications of the deepest melancholy. He writes, " I have made no ref- ormation ; I have lived totally useless." Again. "A kind of strange oblivion has overspread me, so that I know not what has become of the last year, and perceive that inci- dents and intelligence pass over me without leaving any impression." A lady once said to him that she could not understand why men got drunk; she wondered how a man could find pleasure in making a beast of himself; and John- son said, "He who makes a beast of himself gets rid o( the pain of being a man." Boswell says, in his account of their tour together in the Hebrides, "Before breakfast, Dr. John- son came up to my room, to forbid me to mention that this was his birthday; but I told him I had done it already ; at which he was displeased." And in a letter to Mrs. Th rale Johnson writes as follows: "Boswell, with some <>f his troublesome kindness, has informed this family and re- minded me that the eighteenth of September is my birth- day. The return of my birthday, if 1 remember it, fills me with thoughts which it seema to be the general care of hu- manity to escape. 1 can now look back upon threeseore- and-four years, in which little has been done and little has been enjoyed; a life diversified by misery, spent part in the sluggishness of poverty, and part under the violence oi' pain, in gloomy rliscontenl or importunate distress. But perhaps FEAR OF DEATH. 49 I am better than I should have been if I had been less af- flicted. With this I will try to be content." Four years after that time, Johnson and Boswell were visiting Dr. Tay- lor, and Boswell had again a chance to learn that his great friend did not choose to have his birthday observed. " Last night," he says, " Dr. Johnson had proposed that the crystal lustre, or chandelier, in Dr. Taylor's large room should be lighted up some time or other. Taylor said it should be lighted up next night. ' That will do very well,' said I, ' for it is Dr. Johnson's birthday.' " But Johnson was again dis- pleased, and sternly said that the chandelier should not be lighted next day, that he would not permit it to be done. — Editor. FEAR OF DEATH. When we were alone, I introduced the subject of death, and endeavored to maintain that the fear of it might be got over. I told him that David Hume said to me he was no more uneasy to think he should not be after his life, than that he had not been before he began to exist. Johnson: "Sir, if he really thinks so, his perceptions are disturbed; he is mad. If he does not think so, he lies. He may tell you he holds his finger in the flame of a candle, without feeling pain; would you believe him? When he dies, he at least gives up all he has." Boswell: "Foote, sir, told me that, when he was very ill, he was not afraid to die." John- son : " It is not true, sir. Hold a pistol to Foote's breast, or to Hume's breast, and threaten to kill them, and you'll see how they behave." Boswell: "But may we not fortify our minds for the approach of death?" Here I am sensible I was in the wrong, to bring before his view what he ever looked upon with horror; for, although when in a celestial frame of mind, in his "Vanity of Human Wishes," he has supposed death to be " kind nature's signal for retreat," 00 SAMUEL JOHNSON". from this state of being to "a happier scat," his thoughts upon this awful change were, in general, full of dismal ap- prehensions. His mind resembled the vast amphitheatre, the Coliseum at Rome. In the centre stood his judgment, which, like a mighty gladiator, combated those apprehen- sions that, like the wild beasts of the arena, were all around in cells, ready to be let out upon him. Alter a conflict, he drives them back into their dens; but, not killing them, they were still assailing him. To my question, whether we might not fortify our minds for the approach of death, he answered, in a passion, "Xo, sir, let it alone. It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying- is not of importance — it lasts so short a time." He added, with an earnest look, "A man knows it must be so, and sub- mits. It will do him no good to whine." I attempted to continue the conversation. He was so provoked that he said, " Give us no more of this ;" and was thrown into such a state of agitation that he expressed himself in a way that alarmed and distressed me ; showed an impatience that I should leave him, and when I was going away, called to me sternly, "Don't let us meet to-morrow." — Bo$t':dl. The horror of death, which I had always observed in Dr. Johnson, appeared strong to-night. I ventured to tell him that I had been, for moments in my life, not afraid of death ; therefore I could suppose another man in that stale of mind for a considerable space of time. He said, "He never had a moment in which death was not terrible to him."' lie added that it had been observed that scarce any man dies in public but with apparent resolution, from that desire of praise which never quits us. I said, Dr. Dodd seemed will- ing to die, and full of hopes of happiness. "Sir," said he, "Dr. Dodd would have given both his hands and both his legs to have lived. The better a man is, the more he is afraid of death, having a clearer view of infinite purity." — Boswell. TORY AST) HIGH-CHUECHMAX. 51 He said to Boswell, "I have made no approaches to a state which can look on death as not terrible." On another occasion he said that the whole of life was but keeping away the thoughts of death. An old friend of his at Lich- field tells that some one in a company, of which Johnson was one, vouched for the company that there was no one in it afraid of death. " Speak for yourself, sir," said Johnson ; "for, indeed, I am." He held that the protraction of mere existence was a " sufficient recompense for very considerable degrees of torture." — Editor. TORY AND HIGH-CHURCHMAN. To such a degree of unrestrained frankness had he now accustomed me, that in the course of this evening I talked of the numerous reflections which had been thrown out against him on account of his having accepted a pension from his present Majesty. "Why, sir," said he, with a hearty laugh, " it is a mighty foolish noise that they make. I have accepted of a pension as a reward which has been thought due to my literary merit ; and now that I have this pension, I am the same man in every respect that I have ever been; I retain the same principles. It is true that I cannot now curse" (smiling) "the house of Hanover; nor would it be decent for me to drink King James's health in the wine that King George gives me money to pay for. But, sir, I think that the pleasure of cursing the house of Hanover and drinking King James's health are amply over- balanced by three hundred pounds a year." There was here, most certainly, an affectation of more Jacobitism than he really had; and, indeed, an intention of admitting for the moment, in a much greater extent than it really existed, the charge of disaffection imputed to him by the world, merely for the purpose of showing how dexter- ously he could repel an attack, even though he were placed 52 SAMUEL J0HXS0X. in the most disadvantageous position ; for I have beard him declare that if holding up his right hand would have secured victory at Culioden to Prince Charles's army, he was not sure he would have held it up, so little confidence had he in the right claimed by the house of Stuart, and so fearful was he of the consequences of another revolution on the throne of Great Britain ; and 3Ir. Topham Beauclerk as- sured me he had heard him say tins before he had his pen- sion. At another time he said to 3Ir. Langton, " Nothing has ever offered that has made it worth my while to con- sider the question fully." He, however, also said to the same gentleman, talking of King James the Second, "It was become impossible for him to reign any longer in this coun- try." He no doubt had an early attachment to the house of Stuart ; but his zeal had cooled as his reason strength- ened. Indeed, I heard him once say "that, after the death of a violent Whig, with -whom he used to contend with great eagerness, he felt his Toryism much abated." I sup- pose he meant Mr. Walmesley. Yet there is no doubt that, at earlier periods, he was wont often to exercise both his pleasantry and ingenuity in talk- ing Jacobitism. My much respected friend, Dr. Douglas, now Bishop of Salisbury, has favored me with the follow- ing admirable instance from his lordship's own recollection: One day, when dining at old Mr. Langton's, where Miss Roberts, his niece, was one of the company, Johnson, with his usual complacent attention to the fair sex, took her by the hand, and said, "My dear, I hope you are a Jacobite." Old Mr. Langton, who, though a high and steady Tory, Mas attached to the present royal family, seemed offended, and asked Johnson, with great warmth, what he could mean by putting such a question to his niece. " Why, sir," said John- son, "I meant no offence to your niece — I meant her a great compliment. A Jacobite, sir, believes in the divine right of kings. He that believes in the divine righl of kings be- lieves in a Divinity. AJacobite believes in the divine right TORY AND IIIGII-CIIUKCIIMAX. 53 of bishops. lie that believes in the divine right of bishops believes in the divine authority of the Christian religion. Therefore, sir, a Jacobite is neither an Atheist nor a Deist. That cannot be said of a Whig; for Whiggism is a negation of all principle" — Boswell (1763). I asked if it was not strange that government should per- mit so many infidel writings to pass without censure. John- son: "Sir, it is mighty foolish. It is for want of knowing their own power. The present family on the throne came to the crown against the will of nine-tenths of the people. Whether those nine-tenths were right or wrong, it is not our business now to inquire. But such being the situation of the royal family, they were glad to encourage all who would be their friends. Now, you know every bad man is a Whig ; every man who has loose notions. The Church was all against this family. They were, as I say, glad to encourage any friends; and therefore, since their accession, there is no instance of any man being kept back on account of his bad principles; and hence this inundation of impi- ety." — Boswell. He had this evening (partly, I suppose, from the spirit of contradiction to his Whig friend) a violent argument with Dr. Taylor as to the inclinations of the people of England at this time toward the royal family of Stuart. He grew so outrageous as to say "that, if England were fairly polled, the present king would be sent away to-night, and his ad- herents hanged to-morrow." Taylor, who was as violent a Whig as Johnson was a Tory, was roused by this to a pitch of bellowing. He denied loudly what Johnson said, and maintained that there was an abhorrence against the Stuart family, though he admitted that the people were not much attached to the present king.* Johnson: "Sir, the state of * George the Third. 54 SAM fix JOHNSON. the country is litis : the people, knowing it to he agreed on all bands that this king has nut the hereditary right to the crown, and there being no hope that he who has it can he restored, have grown cold and indifferent upon the sub- ject of loyalty, and have no warm attachment to any king. They would not, therefore, risk anything to restore the ex- iled family. They would not give twenty shillings a piece to bring it about. But if a mere vote could do it, there would be twenty to one ; at least, there would be a very great majority of voices for it. For, sir, you are to consider that all those who think a king has a right to his crown as a man has to his estate, which is the just opinion, would be for restoring the king who certainly has the hereditary right, could he be trusted with it; in which there would be no danger now, when laws and everything else are so much advanced, and every king will govern by the laws. And you must also consider, sir, that there is nothing on the other side to oppose this; for it is not alleged by any one that the present family has any inherent right: so that the Whigs could not have a contest between two rights." — JJosiceU. He said of Charles the Second that "he was licentious in his practice; but he always had a reverence for what was good. Charles the Second knew his people, and rewarded merit. The Church was at no time hotter filled than in his reign. He was the best king Ave have had from his time till the reign of his present Majesty, except James the Second, who was a very good king, hut, unhappily, believed that it was necessary for the salvation of his subjects that they should be Roman Catholics. He had the merit of endeavor- ing to do what he thought was lor the salvation of the souls of his siilijrcis, till lie lost a. great empire. We, who thought thai we should not be saved if we were Roman Catholics, had the merit, of maintaining our religion, at the expense of submitting ourselves to the government of King William TOEY AND HIGH-CHUECmiAX. 55 (for it could not be done otherwise) — to the government of one of the most worthless scoundrels that ever existed. No; Charles the Second was not such a man as"* (naming another king). " He did not destroy his father's will. He took money, indeed, from France ; hut he did not betray those over whom he ruled : he did not let the French fleet pass ours. George the First knew nothing, and desired to know nothing; did nothing, and desired to do nothing; and the only good thing that is told of him is that he wished to restore the crown to its hereditary successor." He roared with prodigious violence against George the Second. — Bos- icell. ISTo man 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." — Mrs. Piozzi. On Wednesday, August 3d, we had our last social even- ing at the Turk's Head coffee-house, before my setting out for foreign parts. I had the misfortune, before we parted, to irritate him unintentionally. I mentioned to him how common it was in the world to tell absurd stories of him, and to ascribe to him very strange sayings. Johnson : "What do they make me say, sir?" Bosicell: "Why, sir, as an instance very strange indeed," laughing heartily as I spoke, " David Hume told me you said that you would stand before a battery of cannon to restore the Convocation to its full powers." Little did I apprehend that he had actually said this: but I was soon convinced of my error; for, with a determined look, he thundered out, "And would I not, sir? Shall the Presbyterian Kirk of Scotland have * George the Second. 50 SAMUEL JOHNSON. its General Assembly, and the Church of England be denied its Convocation ?" llo was walking up and down the room while I told him the anecdote; but when he uttered this explosion of High-Church zeal, he had come close to my chair, and his eyes Hashed with indignation. — JBosweU. I had hired a Bohemian as my servant while I remained in London, and, being much pleased with him, I asked Dr. Johnson whether his being a Roman Catholic should pre- vent my taking him with me to Scotland. Johnson : "Why, no, sir. If he has no objection, you can have none." Jjos- well: "So, sir, you are no great enemy to the Roman Cath- olic religion?" Johnson: "No more, sir, than to the Pres- byterian religion." Bosicdl: " You are joking." Johnson: "No, sir, I really think so. Nay, sir, of the two I prefer the Popish." JjostceU: "How so, sir?" Johnson: "Why, sir, the Presbyterians have no Church, no apostolical ordina- tion." Boswell: "And do you think that absolutely essen- tial, sir?" Johnson; "Why, sir, as it Mas an apostolical in- stitution, I think it is dangerous to be without it. And, sir, the Presbyterians have no public worship: they have no form of prayer in which they know they are to join. They go to hear a man pray, and are to judge whether they will join with him." — Bostccll. His respect for the hierarchy, and particularly the dig- nitaries of the Church, has been more than once exhibited. Mr. Seward saw him presented to the Archbishop of York, and described his boio to an archbishop as such a stud- ied elaboration of homage, such an extension of limb, such a flexion of body, as have seldom or ever been equalled. — Jjosircll. Johnson's zeal for the Church of England was greatly stimulated by the sight of the ruined churches and alleys in Scotland. The following passages are taken from the TORY AND IIIGIICHUECTDIAX. " Journal of a Tour in the Hebrides," and indicate the full extent of Johnson's devotion to Episcopacy. — Editor. One of the steeples, which lie was told was in danger, he wished not to be taken down; "for," said he, "it may fall on some of the posterity of John Knox ; and no great mat- ter !" Dinner was mentioned. Johnson: "Ay, ay; amidst all these sorrowful scenes I have no objection to dinner." — BosweU. Dr. Johnson's veneration for the hierarchy is well known. There is no wonder, then, that he was affected with a strong- indignation while he beheld the ruins of religious magnif- icence. I happened to ask where John Knox was buried. Dr. Johnson burst out, "I hope in the highway! I have been looking at his reformations !" — BosweU. I doubted whether Dr. Johnson would be present at a Presbyterian prayer. I told Mr. Macaulay so, and said that the doctor might sit in the library while we were at family worship. Mr. Macaulay said he would omit it rather than give Dr. Johnson offence ; but I would by no means agree that an excess of politeness, even to so great a man, should prevent what I esteem as one of the best pious regulations. I know nothing more beneficial, more comfortable, more agreeable than that the little societies of each family should regularly assemble, and unite in praise and prayer to our heavenly Father, from whom we daily receive so much good, and may hope for more in a higher state of existence. I mentioned to Dr. Johnson the over-delicate scrupulosity of our host ; he said he had no objection to hear the prayer. This was a pleasing surprise to me, for he refused to go and hear Principal Robertson preach. "I will hear him," said he, "if he will get up into a tree and preach ; but I will not give a sanction, by my presence, to a Presbyterian assem- bly." — BosweU. 3* 58 SAMUEL JOHNSON. Neither the Rev. Mr. Nisbet, the Established minister, nor the Rev. Mr. Spooner, the Episcopal minister, were in town. Before breakfast we went and saw the town-hall, where is a good dancing-room, and other rooms for tea-drinking. The appearance of the town from it is very well; but many of the houses are built with their ends to the street, which looks awkward. When we came down from it, I met Mr. Gleig, a merchant here. He went with us to see the Eng- lish chapel. It is situated on a pretty, dry spot, and there is a fine walk to it. It is really an elegant building, both within and without. The organ is adorned with green and gold. Dr. Johnson gave a shilling extraordinary to the clerk, saying, " He belongs to an honest Church." I put him in mind that Episcopals were but Dissenters here; they Avere only tolerated. " Sir," said he, " we are here as Chris- tians in Turkey." — JBoswell. SUPERSTITION, Crosbie pleased him much by talking learnedly of alche- my, as to which Johnson was not a positive unbeliever, but rather delighted in considering what progress had actually been made in the transmutation of metals, what near ap- proaches there had been to the making of gold ; and told us that it was affirmed that a person in the Russian domin- ions had discovered the secret, but died without revealing it, as imagining it would be prejudicial to soeiety. He add- ed that it was not impossible but it might in time be gen- erally known. — BosiOi //. T have this year omitted church on most Sundays, in- tending to supply tlu' deficiency in the week; bo that 1 owe twelve attendances on worship. I will make no more such superstitious stipulations, — Johiison^s Prayers and Medita- tions. SUPERSTITION. 59 Of John Wesley he said, "He can talk well on auy sub- ject." Boswell: "Pray, sir, what has he made of his story of the ghost?" Johnson: "Why, sir, he believes it; but not on sufficient authority. He did. not take time enough to examine. the girl. It was at Newcastle, where the ghost was said, to have appeared to a young woman several times, mentioning something about the right to an old house, ad- vising application to be made to an attorney, which was done ; and at the same time saying the attorney would do nothing, which proved to be the fact. 'This,' says John, 'is a proof that a ghost knows our thoughts.' Now" (laugh- ing), " it is not necessary to know our thoughts to tell that an attorney will sometimes do nothing. Charles Wesley, who is a more stationary man, does not believe the story. I am sorry that John did not take more pains to inquire into the evidence for it." Hiss Seward (with an incredu- lous smile) : " What, sir, about a ghost ?" Johnson (with solemu vehemence) : " Yes, madam ; this is a question which, after five thousand years, is yet undecided : a question, whether in theology or philosophy, one of the most impor- tant that can come before the human understanding." — Boswell. When I mentioned Thomas Lord Lyttelton's vision, the prediction of the time of his death, and its exact fulfilment: Johnson: "It is the most extraordinary thing that has happened in my day. I heard it with my own ears, from his uncle, Lord Westcote. I am so glad to have every evi- dence of the spiritual world, that I am willing to believe it." — JBoswell. I introduced the subject of second sight and other mys- terious manifestations, the fulfilment of which, I suggested, might happen by chance. Johnson: "Yes, sir; but they have happened so often, that mankind have agreed to think them not fortuitous." — Boswell. 00 SAMUEL JOHNSON. Of apparitions he observed,"A total disbelief of them is adverse to the opinion of the existence of the soul between death and the last day. The question simply is whether departed spirits ever have the power of making themselves perceptible to us. A man who thinks he has seen an appa- rition can only be convinced himself; his authority will not convince another; and his conviction, if rational, must be founded on being told something which cannot be known but by supernatural means." He mentioned a thing as not unfrequent, of which I had never heard before — being called, that is, hearing one's name pronounced by the voice of a known person at a great dis- tance, far beyond the possibility of being reached by any sound uttered by human organs. An acquaintance, on whose veracity I can depend, told me that, walking home one evening to Kilmarnock, he heard himself called from a wood by the voice of a brother who had gone to America; and the next packet brought accounts of that brother's death. Macbcan asserted that this inexplicable calling was a thing very well known. Dr. Johnson said that one day at Oxford, as he was turning the key of his chamber, he heard his mother distinctly call — Sam. She was then at Lichfield; but nothing ensued. This phenomenon is. I think, as wonderful as any other mysterious fact, which many people are very slow to believe, or rather, indeed, reject with an obstinate contempt. — Boswell. In performance of my engagement, 1 am compelled to make public as well those particulars of Johnson thai may be thought to abase as those that exalt his character. Among the former may be reckoned the credit he for some time gave to the idle story of the Cock Lane ghost. — Sir Jolin Hawkins. Here it is proper, once for all, to give a true and fair statement of Johnson's way of thinking upon the question SUPERSTITION. Gl whether departed spirits are ever permitted to appear in this world, or in any way to operate upon human life. lie has been ignorantly misrepresented as weakly credulous upon that subject; and therefore, though I feel an inclina- tion to disdain and treat with silent contempt so foolish a notion concerning my illustrious friend, yet, as I find it has gained ground, it is necessary to refute it. The real fact, then, is that Johnson had a very philosophical mind, and such a rational respect for testimony as to make him, sub- mit his understanding to what Avas authentically proved, though he could not comprehend why it was so. Being thus disposed, he was willing to inquire into the truth of any relation of supernatural agency, a general belief of which has prevailed in all nations and ages. But so far was he from being the dupe of implicit faith, that he exam- ined the matter with a jealous attention, and no man was more ready to refute its falsehood when he had discovered it. Churchill, in his poem entitled " The Ghost," availed himself of the absurd credulity imputed to Johnson, and drew a caricature of him under the name of "Pomposo," representing him as one of the believers of the story of a ghost in Cock Lane, which, in the year 1762, had gained very general credit in London. Man}'' of my readers, I am convinced, are to this hour under an impression that John- son was thus foolishly deceived. It will, thei'efore, surprise them a good deal when they are informed, upon undoubted authority, that Johnson was one of those by whom the im- posture was detected. The story had become so popular that he thought it should be investigated; and in this re- search he was assisted by the Rev. Dr. Douglas, now Bishop of Salisbury, the great detector of impostures, who informs me that, after the gentlemen who went and examined into the evidence were satisfied of its falsity, Johnson wrote, in their presence, an account of it, which was published in the newspapers and " Gentleman's Magazine," and undeceived the world. — Boswett. 0-' SAMUEL JOHNSON. Johnson was undoubtedly prone to believe any supernat- ural tale; in this respect be was often weakly credulous. Boswell's own testimony establishes this fact, despite his attempt to vindicate Johnson in the passage last quoted. It must be remembered, in this connection, that I was here disqualified to judge fairly of Johnson by his own tendency to superstition. His intimate friend, Malone, says of him, "He delighted in talking- concerning ghosts, and what he has frequently denominated the mysterious." And Johnson, writing to Mrs. Thrale from the Hebrides, says, "Boswell, who is very pious, went into a ruined chapel at night to perform his devotions, but came back in haste, for fear of spectres." This does not give one much confidence in Boswell's ability to form a rational opinion of such mat- ters. — Editor. INCREDULITY AXD CYNICISM. He did not give me full credit when I mentioned that I had carried on a short conversation by signs with some Es- quimaux who were then in London, particularly with one of them who was a priest. He thought I could not make them understand me. No man was more incredulous as to particular facts which were at all extraordinary; and, there- fore, no man was more scrupulously inquisitive in order to discover the truth. — Boswell. He was, indeed, so much impressed with the prevalence of falsehood, voluntary or unintentional, that I never knew any person who, upon hearing an extraordinary circum- stance told, discovered more of the incredulus odi. He Mould say, with a significant look and decisive tone, "It is not so. Do not tell this again." — Boswell. Mr. Johnson's incredulity amounted almost to disease, and IXCKEDUL1TY AND CYNICISM:. 63 I have seen it mortify Lis companions exceedingly. Two gentlemen, I perfectly well remember, dining with us at Streatbam, in the summer of 1782, when Elliot's brave de- fence of Gibraltar was a subject of common discourse, one of these men naturally enough began some talk about red- hot balls thrown with surprising dexterity and effect; which Mr. Johnson having listened some time to : "I would ad- vise you, sir," said he, with a cold sneer, " never to relate this story again : you really can scarce imagine how very poor a figure you make in the telling of it." His fixed in- credulity of everything he heard, and his little care to con- ceal that incredulity, was teasing enough, to be sure; and I saw Mr. Sharp was pained exceedingly when, relating the history of a hurricane that happened about that time in the West Indies, where, for aught I know, he had himself lost some friends too, he observed Dr. Johnson believed not a syllable of the account. "For 'tis so easy," says he, "for a man* to fill his mouth with a wonder, and run about tell- ing the lie before it can be detected, that I have no heart to believe hurricanes, easily raised by the first inventor, and blown forward by thousands more." — Mrs. Piozzi. " Indeed, Dr. Johnson," said Miss Monckton, " you must see Mrs. Siddons. Won't you see her in some fine part?" "Why, if I must, madam, I have no choice." "She says, sir, she shall be very much afraid of you." "Madam, that cannot be true." " Not true ?" cried Miss Monckton, star- ing; "yes, it is." "It cannot be, madam." "But she said so to me; I heard her say it myself." "Madam, it is not possible ! Remember, therefore, in future, that even fiction should be supported by probability." Miss Monckton looked all amazement, but insisted on the truth of what she had said. " I do not believe, madam," said he, warmly, " she knows my name." — Madame D'Arblay. I mentioned my having that morning" introduced to Mr. G-t SAMUEL JOHNSON. Garrick Count Neni,a Flemish nobleman of great rank and fortune, to whom Garrick talked of Abel Drugger as a small part, and related, with pleasant vanity, that a Frenchman who had seen him in one of his low characters exclaimed, "Comment! je ne le crois pas. Ce ri 'est pas Monsieur Gar- rick, ce grand homme!" Garrick added, with an appear- ance of grave recollection, "If I were to begin life again, I think I should not play these low characters." Upon which I observed, " Sir, you would be in the wrong ; for your great excellence is your variety of playing, your representing so well characters so very different." Johnson: "Garrick, sir, was not in earnest in what he said; for, to be sure, his pe- culiar excellence is his variety; and, perhaps, there is not any one character which lias not been as well acted by somebody else as he could do it." JBoswell: "Why then, sir, did he talk so?" Johnson : " Why, sir, to make you an- swer as you did." Boswell: "I don't know, sir; he seemed to dip deep into his mind for the reflection." Johnson: "He had not far to dip, sir; lie had said the same thing, probably, twenty times before." — Boswell. Of Dr. Johnson, when my father and Hogarth were talk- ing together about him one day, "That man," said the lat- ter, " is not contented with believing the Bible, but he fairly resolves, I think, to believe nothing but the Bible. John- son," added he, "though so wise a fellow, is more like King David than King Solomon, for he says, in his haste, that all men arc liars." — Mrs. Pios&i. 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." Bui he had a rougher answer for me, when T commended a sermon preached by an intimate acquaintance of our own at the trading end of the town. "What was the subject, madam ?" says Dr. Johnson. " Friendship, sir," replied 1. " Why now, is it, not strange SENTIMEXT. 05 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 of their money, I suppose, and the women of their mops." — Mrs. Piozzi. It is certain he would scarcely allow any one to feel much for the distresses of others; or, whatever he thought they might feel, he was very apt to impute to causes that did no honor to human nature. Indeed, I thought him too fond of Rochefoucault's maxims. — Miss Reynolds. SEX'miEXT. Lady Macleod and I got into a warm dispute. She want- ed to build a house upon a farm which she has taken, about five miles from the castle, and to make gardens and other ornaments there; all of which I approved of, but insisted that the seat of the family should always be upon the rock of Dunvegan. Johnson: "Ay, in time we'll build all round this rock. ■ You may make a very good house at the farm, but it must not be such as to tempt the Laird of Macleod to go thither to reside. Most of the great families of England have a secondary residence, which is called a jointure-house : let the new house be of that kind." The lady insisted that the rock was very inconvenient; that there was no place near it where a good garden could be made ; that it must always be a rude place ; that it was a Herculean labor to make a dinner here. I was vexed to find the alloy of mod- ern refinement in a lady who had so much old family spirit. "Madam," said I, "if once you quit this rock, there is no knowing where you may settle. You move five miles at first ; then to St. Andrews, as the late laird did ; then to Edin- burgh ; and so on, till you end at Hampstead or in France. GG SAMUEL JOHNSON. No, no; keep to the rock: it is the very jewel of the estate. It looks as if it had been let clown from heaven ljy the four corners, to be the residence of a chief. Have all the com- forts and conveniences of life upon it, but never leave Rorie More's cascade." "But," said she, "is it not enough if we keep it? must Ave never have more convenience than Rorie More had ? He had his beef brought to dinner in one bas- ket, and his bread in another. AVhy not as well be Rorie More all over, as live upon his rock? And should not we tire in looking perpetually on this rock? It is very well for you, who have a fine place, and everything easy, to talk thus, and think of chaining honest folks to a rock. You would not live upon it yourself." "Yes, madam," said I, " I would live upon it, were I Laird of Macleod, and should be unhappy if I were not upon it." Jolmson, with a strong voice and most determined manner: "Madam, rather than quit the old rock, Boswell would live in the pit; he would make his bed in the dungeon." I felt a degree of elation at finding my resolute feudal enthusiasm thus confirmed by such a sanction. The lady was puzzled a little. She still returned to her pretty farm — rich ground — fine garden. "Madam," said Dr. Johnson, "were they in Asia, I would not leave the rock." — Boswell. Amidst this cold obscurity, there was one brilliant cir- cumstance to cheer him: he was well acquainted with Mr. Henry Ilervey, one of the branches of the noble family of that name, who had been quartered at Lichfield as an officer of the army, and had at this time a house in London, where Johnson was frequently entertained, and had an opportu- nity of meeting genteel company. Not very long before his death, he mentioned this, among other particulars of his life, which he was kindly communicating to me; and he de- Bcribed this early friend, " Harry Hervey," thus : "lie was a vicious man, 1ml very kind to me. If you call a t\o\x Iler- vey, I shall love him." — Boswell (1737). SENTIMENT. 67 I made a visit to poor Dr. Johnson, to inquire after his health. I found him better, but extremely far from well. One thing", however, gave me infinite satisfaction. He was so good as to ask me after Charles, and said, " I shall be glad to see him : pray tell him to call upon me." I thanked him very much, and said how proud he would be of such a permission. " I should be glad," said he, still more kindly, "to see him, if he were not your brother; but were he a clog, a cat, a rat, a frog, and belonged to you, I must needs be glad to see him." — Madame I) ''Arblay. Sentiment and Dr. Johnson seem to be incongruous ideas, yet the rugged old man was at times very sentimental, oc- casionally in a rather comical way. His friend, Dr. Nugent, was very fond of omelet, and he and Johnson often feasted together upon that dish at the club. Mrs. Piozzi tells us that "Johnson felt very painful sensations at the sight of that dish, soon after Nugent's death, and cried, 'Ah, my poor, dear friend, I shall never eat omelet with thee again !' quite in an agony." Mrs. Thrale's marriage with Piozzi was the cause of sore displeasure and reproach ; it raised a tumult against her which now seems irrational and impertinent. Johnson shared in the general feeling about the match, and in one of his letters to her, endeavoring to dissuade her from the step, he indulged himself in the following effusion: "When Queen Mary took the resolution of sheltering herself in England, the Archbishop of St. Andrews, attempting to dis- suade her, attended her on her journey; and when they came to the irremeable stream that separated the two king- doms, walked by her side into the water, in the middle of which he seized her bridle, and with earnestness propor- tioned to her danger and his own affection besought her to return. The Queen went forward — If the parallel reaches thus far, may it go no farther. The tears stand in my eyes." 68 SAMUEL JOHNSON. Oil the occasion of his leaving Streatham, which had for many years been a pleasant refuge for him, he notes in his journal: "I was called early. I packed up my bundles, and used the foregoing prayer" (which, besides being irrelevant, is somewhat long for quotation), "with my morning devo- tions somewhat, I think, enlarged. Being earlier than the family, I read St. Paul's farewell in the Acts, and then read fortuitously in the Gospels, which was my parting use of the library." In one of his memorandum-books he made this note of his last Sunday at Streatham: "Went to church at Streatham. Templo valedixi cum oscido!" But our sym- pathy and pensive enjoyment are somewhat disturbed, when we find that, upon this same Sunday, he made yet another Latin entry in his memorandum-book, an entry which Mr. Hay ward, the editor of Mrs. Thrale's autobiography, thus translates: "I dined at Streatham on boiled leg of lamb, with spinach, the stuffing of flour and raisins, round of beef, and turkey poult ; and after the meat service, figs, grapes, not yet ripe in consequence of the bad season, with peaches, also hard. I took my place at the table in no joyful mood, and partook of the food moderately, lest I should finish by intemperance. If I rightly remember, the banquet at the funeral of Had on came into my mind. When shall I revisit Streatham ?" — Editor. ANTI-SENTIMENTALITY. Johnson: "No, sir; violent pain of mind, like violent pain of body, must be severely felt." Boswell: l> 1 own, sir, I have not so much feeling for the distress of others as some people have, or pretend to have; but I know this, that I would do all in my power to relieve them." Johnson: "Sir, ii is affectation to pretend to feel the distress of others as much as they do themselves. It is equally so. as if one should pretend t<> feel as muoh pain while n friend's leg is AXTI-SENTIMEXTAJLITT. cutting off, as he does. No, sir; you have expressed the rational and just nature of sympathy." — Boswell. Talking of our feeling for the distresses of others, John- son: "Why, sir, there is much noise made about it, but it is greatly exaggerated. No, sir; we have a certain degree of feeling to prompt us to do good ; more than that Provi- dence does not intend. It would be misery to no purpose." Boswell: "But suppose now, sir, that one of your intimate friends were apprehended for an offence for which he might be hanged." Johnson: "I should do what I could to bail him, and give him any other assistance; but if he were once fairly hanged, I should not suffer." Bosicell: "Would you eat your dinner that day, sir?" Johnson: "Yes, sir, and eat it as if he were eating with me. Why, there's Baretti, who is to be tried for his life to-morrow. Friends have risen up for him on every side; yet, if he should be hanged, none of them will eat a slice of plum-pudding the less. Sir, that sympathetic feeling goes a very little way in depress- ing the mind." I told him that I had dined lately at Foote's, who showed me a letter which he had received from Tom Davies, telling him that he had not been able to sleep, from the concern he felt on account of " this sad affair of Baretti" begging of him to try if he could suggest anything that might be of service ; and, at the same time, recommending to him an industrious young man who kept a pickle shop. Johnson: "Ay, sir, here you have a specimen of human sympathy — a friend hanged, and a cucumber pickled. We know not whether Baretti or the pickle-man has kept Davies from sleep, nor does he know himself. And as to his not sleep- ing, sir, Tom Davies is a very great man ; Tom has been upon the stage, and knows how to do those things : I have not been upon the stage, and cannot do those things." Bos- well: "I have often blamed myself, sir, for not feeling for others as sensibly as many say they do." Johnson: "Sir, TO SAMUEL JOHNSON. don't be duped by them any more. You will find these very feeling- people are not very ready to do you good. They pay you by feeling" — Boswett. In the evening our gentleman-farmer and two others en- tertained themselves and the company with a great number of tunes on the fiddle. Johnson desired to have "Let am- bition fire thy mind," played over again, and appeared to give a patient attention to it; though he owned to me that lie was very insensible to the power of music. I told him that it affected me to such a degree as often to agitate my nerves painfully, producing in my mind alternate sensations of pathetic dejection, so that I was ready to shed tears; and of daring resolution, so that I was inclined to rush into the thickest part of the battle. "Sir," said he, "I should never hear it, if it made me such a fool." — Bosiccll. I repeated to him an argument of a lady of my acquaint- ance, who maintained that her husband's having been guilty of numberless infidelities, released her from conjugal obli- gations, because they were reciprocal. Johnson: "This is miserable stuff, sir. To the contract of marriage, besides the man and wife, there is a third party — society; and, if it be considered as a vow — God: and therefore it cannot be dissolved by their consent alone. Laws are not made for particular cases, but for men in general. A woman may be unhappy with her husband ; but she cannot be freed from him without the approbation of the civil and ecclesiastical power. A man may be unhappy, because he is not so rich as another; but he is not to seize upon another's property with his own hand." JBoswell: v " But, sir, this lady does not want that the contract should be dissolved; she only argues thai she may indulge herself in gallantries, with equal freedom as her husband does, provided she takes care nol to introduce a spurious issue into his family. STou know, sir, what Macrobius has told of Julia." John- AXTI-SENTIilEXTALITY. VI son : " This lady of yours, sir, I think, is very fit for a brothel." — Bosicell. On Friday, May 7th, I breakfasted with him at Mr. Thrale's, in the Borough. While we were alone, I endeavored as well as I could to apologize for a lady who had been divorced from her husband by Act of Parliament. I said that he had used her very ill, had behaved brutally to her, and that she could not continue to live with him without having her del- icacy contaminated ; that all affection for him was thus de- stroyed; that, the essence of conjugal union being gone, there remained only a cold form, a mere civil obligation ; that she was in the prime of life, with qualities to produce happiness; that these ought not to be lost; and that the gentleman on whose account she was divorced had gained her heart while thus unhappily situated. Seduced, perhaps, by the charms of the lady in question, I thus attempted to palliate what I was sensible could not be justified; for when I had finished my harangue, my venerable friend gave me a proper check : " My dear sir, never accustom your mind to mingle virtue and vice. The woman's a whore, and there's an end on't." — Bosicell. I have no minute of any interview with Johnson till Thursday, May 15th, when I find what follows. Boswell: " I wish much to be in Parliament, sir." Johnson : " Why, sir, unless you come resolved to support any administration, you would be the worse for being in Parliament, because you would be obliged to live more expensively." Bosicell: "Perhaps, sir, I should be the less happy for being in Par- liament. I never would sell my vote, and I should be vexed if things went wrong." Johnson: "That's cant, sir. It would not vex you more in the House than in the gallery: public affairs vex no man." Bosicell: "Have not they vexed yourself a little, sir? Have not you been vexed by all the turbulence of this reign, and by that absurd vote of the 72 SAMUEL JOHNSON. House of Commons, 'That the influence of the Crown has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminisl Johnson: "Sir, I have never slept an hour less, nor eat an ounce less meat. I would have knocked the factious dogs on the head, to be sure; but I was not vexed" JBostoett: "I declare, sir, upon my honor, I did imagine I was vexed, and took a pride in it; but it was, perhaps, cant; for I own I neither eat less, nor slept less." Johnson : "My dear friend, clear your mind of cant. You may talk as other people do : you may say to a man, ' Sir, I am your most humble servant.' You are not his most humble servant. You may say, 'These are bad times; it is a melancholy thing to be reserved to such times.' You don't mind the times. You tell a man, 'I am sorry you had such bad weather the last day of your journey, and were so much wet.' You don't care sixpence whether he is wet or dry. You may talk in this manner — it is a mode of talking in society — but don't think foolishly." — Boswett. While Dr. Johnson possessed the strongest compassion for poverty or illness, he did not even pretend to feel for those who lamented the loss of a child, a parent, or a friend.* "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 common in great cities, that a surly fellow like me has no compassion to spare for wounds given only to vanity or softness." Canter, indeed, was he none: he would forget to ask people alter the health of their nearest relations, and say, in excuse, " that he knew they did not care. Why should they?" said he; "every one in this world has as much as tiny can do in caring for themselves, and lew have leisure really to think of their neighbor's distresses, however * A must exaggerated statement. Mrs. Piozzi had cau6e t<> know him better. (See p. 17 7. ) ARROGANCE. 73 they may delight their tongues with talking of them." An acquaintance 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 disappointment." "She will suffer as much, perhaps," said he, " as your horse did when your cow miscarried." — Mrs. Flozzi. Boswell wrote him a letter, complaining of melancholy and mental suffering, arising from metaphysical problems which were too deep for him. He received this reply from Johnson : " I hoped you had got rid of all this hypocrisy of misery. "What have you to do with Liberty and Necessity? Or what more than to hold your tongue about it ? Do not doubt but I shall be most heartily glad to see you here again, for I love every part about you but your affectation of distress." Once, in the course of a political conversation, he said, "The notion of liberty amuses the people of Eng- land, and helps to keep off the tedium vitce. When a butcher tells you that his heart bleeds for his country, he has, in fact, no uneasy feeling." — Editor. ARROGANCE. He was vehement against old Dr. Mounsey, of Chelsea College, as "a fellow who swore and talked bawdy." "I have often been in his company," said Dr. Percy, "and never heard him swear or talk bawdy." Mr. Davies, who sat next to Dr. Percy, having after this had some conversa- tion aside with him, made a discovery which, in his zeal to pay court to Dr. Johnson, he eagerly proclaimed aloud from the foot of the table: "Oh, sir, I have found out a very good reason why Dr. Percy never heard Mounsey swear or talk bawdy, for he tells me he never saw him but at the Duke of Northumberland's table." "And so, sir," said Dr. Johnson, loudly, to Dr. Percy, "you would shield this man 4 7-± SAMUEL JOHNSON. from the charge of swearing and talking bawdy, because lie did nut do so at the Duke of Northumberland's tabic. Sir, you might as well tell us that you had seen him hold up his hand at the Old Bailey, and he neither swore nor talked bawdy; or that you had seen him in the cart at Tyburn, and he neither swore nor talked bawdy. And is it thus, sir, that you presume to controvert what I have related ?" Dr. Johnson's animadversion was uttered in such a manner that Dr. Percy seemed to be displeased, and soon afterward left the company, of which Johnson did not at that time take any notice. — JBosicell. Johnson could not brook appearing to be worsted in argu- ment, even when he had taken the wrong side, to show the force and dexterity of his talents. When, therefore, he per- ceived that his opponent gained ground, he had recourse to some sudden mode of robust sophistry. Once, when I was pressing upon him with visible advantage, he stopped me thus: "My dear Boswell, let's have no more of this; you'll make nothing of it. I'd rather have you whistle a Scotch tune." — Boswell. Dr. Maxwell said of Johnson, " When exasperated by con- tradiction, he was apt to treat his opponents with too much acrimony, as, 'Sir, you don't see your way through that question ; sir, you talk the language of ignorance.' " In Cooke's "Life of Foote"the following story is told: "On Garrick's showing Johnson a magnificent library full of books, in most elegant bindings, the doctor began running over the volumes in his usual rough and negligent manner, opening the book so wide; as almost to break the back of it, and then thing them down, one by one, on tin' floor, with contempt. 'Zounds!' said Garrick; 'why, what are you about? you'll spoil nil my books.' ' No, sir,' replied John- Ron, 'T have done nothing but treat a pack of silly plays, in fop's dresses, just as they deserve; but I see no books."' SELF-ESTEEM. To Dr. Taylor, his lite-long friend, said, " There is no arguing with Johnson, for he will not hear you, and, having the louder voice, must roar you down." — Editor. SELF-ESTEEM. We supped at Professor Anderson's. The general im- pression upon my memory is that we had not much conver- sation at Glasgow, where the professors, like their brethren at Aberdeen, did not venture to expose themselves much to the battery of cannon which they knew might play upon them. Dr. Johnson, who was fully conscious of his own superior powers, afterward praised Principal Robertson for his caution in this respect. He said to me, "Robertson, sir, was in the right. Robertson is a man of eminence, and the head of a college at Edinburgh. He had a character to maintain, and did 'well not to risk its being lessened." — Boswell. He said, "Doclsley first mentioned to me the scheme of an English Dictionary ; but I had long thought of it." Bos- well: "You did not know what you were undertaking." Johnson: "Yes, sir, I knew very well what I was under- taking, and very well how to do it, and have done it very well." — Boswell. Johnson: " Mrs. Thrale's mother said of me what flatter- ed me much. A clergyman was complaining of want of society in the country where he lived, and said, ' They talk of runts f that is, young cows. 'Sir,' said Mrs. Salusbury, 'Mr. Johnson would learn to talk of runts,' meaning that I was a man who would make the most of my situation, whatever it was." He added, "I think myself a very polite man." — Boswell. 70 SAMUEL JOHNSON. When I went into Dr. Johnson's room this morning, I ob- served to him how wonderfully courteous he had been at Inverary, and said," 5Tou were quite a fine gentleman, when with the duchess." lie answered, in good -humor, "Sir, I look upon myself aa a very polite man." — JBosweU. As a envious instance how little a man knows, or wishes to know his own character in the world, or, rather as a con- vincing proof that Johnson's roughness was only external, and did not proceed from his heart, I insert the following dialogue. Johnson: ' : It is wonderful, sir, how rare a qual- ity good-humor is in life. We meet with very few good- humored men." I mentioned four of our friends, none of whom he would allow to be good-humored. One was another was muddy, and to the others he had objections which have escaped me. Then, shaking his head and stretch- ing himself at ease in the coach, and smiling with much complacency, he turned to me and said, "I look upon my- self as a good-humored fellow." The epithet fellow, applied to the great Lexicographer, the stately Moralist, the master- ly Critic, as if he had been Sam Johnson, a mere pleasant companion, was highly diverting ; and this light notion of himself struck me with wonder. — JBosweU. We happened to be talking of Dr. Barnard, the Provost of Eton, who died about that time, and after a long and just eulogium on his wit, his learning, and his goodness oi' heart: " He was the only inan, too," says Mr. Johnson, quite seriously, " that did justice to my good-breeding; and you may observe that I am well-bred to a. degree of needless scrupulosity. No man," continued he, not observing the amazement of his hearers — "no man is so cautious not. to interrupt another; no man thinks it so necessary to appear attentive when others are speaking; no man so steadily refuses preference to himself, or so willingly bestows it upon another, as I do; nobody holds so strongly as T do HUMILITY. 77 the necessity of ceremony, and the ill effects "which follow the breach of it : yet people think me rude ; but Barnard did me justice." — Mrs. JPiozzi. When in good-humor, he would talk of his own writings with a wonderful frankness and candor, and would even criticise them with the closest severity. One day, having read over one of his Ramblers, Mr. Langton asked him how he liked that paper; he shook his head, and answered, "Too wordy." At another time, when one w r as reading his trag- edy of "Irene" to a company at a house in the country, he left the room; and somebody having asked him the reason of this, he replied, " Sir, I thought it had been better." — Bosivell. Macleod was too late in coming to breakfast. Dr. John- son said, laziness was worse than the toothache. Bosicell: "I cannot agree with you, sir; a basin of cold water or a horsewhip will cure laziness." Johnson: "No, sir, it will only put off the fit ; it will not cure the disease. I have been trying to cure my laziness all my life, and could not do it." Boswell: "But if a man does in a shorter time what might be the labor of a life, there is nothing to be said against him." Johnson (perceiving at once that I alluded to him and Ids Dictionary): "Suppose that flattery to be true, the consequence would be that the world would have no right to censure a man; but that will not justify him to himself." — Boswell. In a magazine I found a saying of Dr. Johnson's some- thing to tins purpose, that the happiest part of a man's life is what he passes lying awake in bed in the morning. I read it to him. He said, "I may, perhaps, have said this; 78 SAMUEL JOHNSON. for nobody, at times, talks more laxly than I do.*' — Bos- well. Poor Baretti ! Do not quarrel with him; to neglect him a little will be sufficient. He means only to be frank, and manly, and independent, and perhaps, as yon say, a little Avise. To be frank, he thinks, is to he cynical, and, to be independent, to be rude. Forgive him, dearest lady, the rather because of his misbehavior; I am afraid he has learned part of me. I hope to set him hereafter a better example. — Johnson {from a letter to Mrs. Thrale). About this time lie had the offer of a living, of which he might have rendered himself capable by entering into holy orders. It was a rectory, in a pleasant country, and of such a yearly value as might have tempted one in better circum- stances than himself to accept it; but he had scruples about the duties of the ministerial function that he could not over- come. " I have not," said he, " the requisites for the office, and I cannot, in my conscience, shear that flock which I am unable to feed." Upon conversing with him on that in- ability which was his reason for declining the offer, it was found to be a suspicion of his patience to undergo the fa- tigue of catechising and instructing a great number of poor, ignorant persons. — /Sir Jo/in Hawkins. Johnson read most of Boswell's journal of their trip to the Hebrides, and one day remarked, after reading an ac- count of his own talk, "They call me a scholar, and yet how very little literature is there in my conversation." Once, when speaking of Burke, ho said that any one meeting him, even lor a few moments, would naturally say, k 'This is an extraordinary man; 1 ' and added, "Now you may be long enough with me, without Ending anything extraordinary." ■ — Editor. BBSPECT FOE EAXK. AND AUTHORITY. 79 RESPECT FOR RAXK AXD AUTHORITY. A young lady, who had married a man much her inferior in rank, being mentioned, a question arose how a woman's relations should behave to her in such a situation; and, while I recapitulate the debate, and recollect what has since happened, I cannot but be struck in a manner that delicacy forbids me to express. While I contended that she ought to be treated with an inflexible steadiness of displeasure, Mrs. Thrale was all for mildness and forgiveness, and, ac- cording to the vulgar phrase, "making the best of a bad bargain." Johnson : " Madam, we must distinguish. Were I a man of rank, I would not let a daughter starve who had made a mean marriage ; but, having voluntarily degraded herself from the station which she was originally entitled to hold, I would support her only in that which she herself had chosen ; and would not put her on a level with my other daughters. You are to consider, madam, that it is our duty to maintain the subordination of civilized society; and when there is a gross and shameful deviation from rank, it should be punishecKso as to deter others from the same perversion." — Boswett. "Mrs. Williams was angry that Thrale's family did not send regularly to her every time they heard from me while I was in the Hebrides. Little people are apt to be jealous; but they should not be jealous, for they ought to consider that superior attention will necessarily be paid to superior fortune or rank. Two persons may have equal merit, and on that account may have an equal claim to attention ; but one of them may have also fortune and rank, and so may have a double claim." — Boswett. Lord Newhaven and Johnson carried on an argument for some time concerning the Middlesex election. Johnson said, " Parliament may be considered as bound by law as a 80 SAMUEL Jul I man is bound where there i i tie the knot. A- it is clear that the House of Commons may expel, and expel again and again, why not allow of the power to incapacitate for that Parliament, rather than have a perpetual contest kept up between Parliament and the people?" Lord New- haven took the opposite side, but respectfully said, " I speak with great deference to you, Dr. Johnson ; I speak to be in- structed." This had its full effect on my friend. He bowed his head almost as low as the table to a complimenting nobleman, and called out, "My lord, my lord, I do nut de- sire all this ceremony ; let us tell our minds to one another quietly." After the debate was over, he said, " I have got lights on the subject to-day which I had not before." This was a great deal from him, especially as he had written a pamphlet upon it. — Bosicell. As he was a zealous friend of subordination, he was at all times watchful to repress the vulgar cant against the man- ners of the great. "High people, sir," said he, "are the best; take a hundred ladies of quality, you'll find them bet- ter wives, better mothers, more willing to sacrifice their own pleasure to their children, than a hundred other women. Tradeswomen (I mean the wives of tradesmen) in the city, wdio are worth from £10,000 to £15,000, are the worst creat- ures upon the earth, grossly ignorant, and thinking vicious- ness fashionable. Farmers, I think, are often worthless Ill- lows. Few lords will cheat; and if they do, they'll be ashamed of it. Farmers cheat, and are not ashamed of it ; they have all the sensual vices, too, of the nobility, with cheating into the bargain. There is as much fornication and adultery among farmers :is among noblemen." "Bos- well: "The notion of the world, sir, however, is that the morals of women of quality are worse than those in lower stations." Johnson: "Yes, sir, the licentiousness of one woman of quality makes more noise than that of a number of women in lower stations; then, sir, you are to consider RESPECT FOR RANK AND AUTHORITY. 81 the malignity of women in the city against women of qual- ity, which will make them helieve anything of them — such as that they call their coachmen to bed. No, sir; so far as I have observed, the higher in rank, the richer ladies are, they are the better instructed and the more virtuous." — Bosioell. We dined together with Mr. Scott (now Sir William Scott, his Majesty's Advocate-general) at his chambers in the Temple ; nobody else there. The company being small, Johnson was not in such spirits as he had been the preced- ing day, and for a considerable time little was said. At last he burst forth : " Subordination is sadly broken down in this age. No man, now, has the same authority which his father had — except a jailer. No master has it over his servants; it is diminished in our colleges; nay, in our gram- mar-schools." Bosioell: "What is the cause of this, sir?" Johnson: "Why, the coming in of the Scotch" (laughing sarcastically). Boswell: "That is to say, things have been turned topsy-turvy. But your serious cause." Johnson: " Why, sir, there are many causes, the chief of which is, I think, the great increase of money. No man now depends upon the lord of a manor, when he can send to another country and fetch provisions. The shoeblack at the entry of my court does not depend on me. I can deprive him but of a penny a day, which he hopes somebody else will bring hira ; and that penny I must carry to another shoe- black ; so the trade suffers nothing. I have explained, in my 'Journey to the Hebrides,' how gold and silver destroy feudal subordination. But, besides, there is a general relax- ation of reverence. No son now depends upon his father, as in former times. Paternity used to be considered as of itself a great thing, which had a right to many claims. That is, in general, reduced to very small bounds. My hope is, that as anarchy produces tyranny, this extreme re- laxation will produce freni strictio." — Boswell. 4* S2 SAMUEL JOB In the morning we had talked of old families, and the re- spect due to them. Johnson: "Sir, you have :i right to that kind of respect, ami are arguing for yourself. I am for supporting the principle, and am disinterested in doing it, as I have no such right." Boswell: "Why, sir, it is one more incitement to a man to do well." Johnson : " STes, sir; and it is a matter of opinion, very necessary to keep so- ciety together. What is it but opinion, by which we have a respect for authority, that prevents us, who are the rabble, from rising up and pulling down you who are gentlemen from your places, and saying, 'We will be gentlemen in our turn?' Now, sir, that respect for authority is much more easily granted to a man whose father has had it than to an upstart, and so society is more easily supported." JBos- well: "Perhaps, sir, it might be done by the respect be- longing to office, as among the Romans, where the dress, the toga, inspired reverence." Johnson: "Why, we know- very little about the Romans. But, surely, it is much ea- sier to respect a man who has always had respect, than to respect a man who we know was last year no better than ourselves, and will be no better next year. In republics, there is no respect for authority, but a fear of power." Boswell: "At present, sir, I think riches seem to gain most respect." Johnson: "No, sir, riches do not gain hearty respect; they only procure external attention. A very rich man, from low beginnings, may buy his election in a borough; but, cceteris paribus, a man of family will be preferred. People will prefer a man for whose father their lathers have voted, though they should get no more money, or even less. That shows that the respect for family is not merely fanciful, but has an actual operation. If gentlemen of family would allow the rich upstarts to spend their money profusely, which they are ready enough to do, and not vie with them in expense, the upstarts would soon be at an end, and the gentlemen would re- main; but if the gentlemen will vie in expense with the EESP.ECT FOR EAXK. AXD AUTHORITY. S3 upstarts, which is very foolish, they must be ruiued." — Boswell. He again insisted on the duty of maintaining subordina- tion of rank. " Sir, I would no more deprive a nobleman of his respect than of his money. I consider myself as acting a part in the great system of society, and I do to others as I would have them to do to me. I would behave to a noble- man as I should expect he would behave to me were I a no- bleman, and he Sam Johnson. Sir, there is one Mrs. Macau- lay in this town, a great republican. One day when I was at her house, I put on a very grave countenance, and said to her, 'Madam, I am now become a convert to your way of thinking. I am convinced that all mankind are upon an equal footing; and to give you an unquestionable proof, Madam, that I am in earnest, here is a very sensible, civil, well-behaved fellow-citizen, your footman ; I desire that he may be allowed to sit down and dine with us.' I thus, sir, showed her the absurdity of the levelling doctrine. She has never liked me since. Sir, your levellers wish to level down as far as themselves; but they cannot bear levelling up to themselves. They would all have some people under them; why not then have some people above them?" I mentioned a certain author who disgusted me by his for- wardness, and by showing no deference to noblemen into whose company he was admitted. Johnson: "Suppose a shoemaker should claim an equality with him, as he does with a lord : how he would stare ! ' Why, sir, do you stare ?' says the shoemaker; 'I do great service to society. 'Tis true, I am paid for doing it; but so are you, sir: and I am sorry to say it, better paid than I am, for doing something not so necessary. For mankind could do better without your books than without my shoes.' Thus, sir, there would be a perpetual struggle for precedence, were there no fixed invariable rules for the distinction of rank, which creates no jo.ilousv, as it is allowed to be accidental." — Boswell. 84 SAMUEL JOB Mr. Dempster having endeavored to maintain that intrin- sic merit owjht to make the only distinction among man- kind — Johnson : " Why, sir, mankind have found that this cannot he. How shall Ave determine the proportion of in- trinsic merit *? Were that to he the only distinction amongst mankind, Ave should soon quarrel about the degrees of it. Were all distinctions abolished, the strongest would not long acquiesce, but would endeavor to obtain a superiority by their bodily strength. But, sir, as subordination is very necessary for society, and contentions for superiority very dangerous, mankind, that is to say, all civilized nations, have settled it upon a plain, invariable principle. A man is born to hereditary rank; or his being appointed to certain offices gives him a certain rank. Subordination tends greatly to human happiness. Were we all upon an equality, Ave should have no other enjoyment than mere animal pleasure." I said, I considered distinction or rank to be of so much im- portance in civilized society, that if I were asked on the same day to dine with the first duke in England, and with the first man in Britain for genius, I should hesitate which to prefer. Johnson: "To be sure, sir, if you were to dine only once, and it were never to be known where you dined, you would choose rather to dine with the first man for gen- ius; but to gain most respect, you should dine with the first duke in England. For nine people in ten that you meet with avouUI have a higher opinion of you for having dined with a duke; and the great genius himself would receive you better, because you had been with the great duke." — Boswell. PREJUDICES AND NARROWNESS. 85 PREJUDICES AND NAKROWKESS. An Irish gentleman said to Johnson, "Sir, you have not seen the best French players." Johnson : " Players, sir ! I look on them as no better than creatures set upon tables and joint-stools to make faces and produce laughter, like dancing dogs." "But, sir, you will allow that some players are bet- ter than others ?" Johnson : " Yes, sir, as some dogs dance better than others." — Bosviell. I told him that one morning when I went to breakfast with Garrick, who was very vain of his intimacy with Lord Camden, he accosted me thus: "Pray now, did you — did you meet a little lawyer turning the corner, eh?" "No, sir," said I. "Pray what do you mean by the question?" " Why," replied Garrick, with an affected indifference, yet as if standing on tiptoe, "Lord Camden has this moment left me. We have had a long walk together." Johnson: " Well, sir, Garrick talked very properly. Lord Camden was a lit- tle lawyer to be associated so familiarly with a player."— JBoswell. Johnson: " Colley Gibber once consulted me as to one of his birthday Odes a long time before it was wanted. I ob- jected very freely to several passages. Cibber lost patience, and would not read his ode to an end. When we had done with criticism, we walked over to Richardson's, the author of ' Clarissa,' and I wondered to find Kichardson displeased that I ' did not treat Cibber with more respect? Now, sir, to talk of respect for a player /" (smiling disdainfully). _Z>os- well: "There, sir, you are always heretical; you never will allow merit to a player." Johnson: "Merit, sir! what mer- it? Do you respect a rope -dancer or a ballad -singer?" JBosv:ell: "No, sir; but we respect a great player, as a man who can conceive lofty sentiments, and can express them gracefully." Johnson: "What, sir, a fellow who claps a SO SAMUEL JOHNSON. hump on his back, and a lump on his leg, and cries, i Iam Richard tin Third?* Nay, sir, a ballad-singer is a higher man, for he docs two things : he repeats and he sings. There is both recitation and music in his performance; the player only recites." JBoswell: "My dear sir, yon may turn any- thing into ridicule. I allow that a player of force is not en- titled to respect; he does a little thing; but he who can rep- resent exalted characters, and touch the noblest passions, has very respectable powers; and mankind have agreed in ad- miring great talents for the stage. We must consider, too, that a great player does what very few people are capable to do : his art is a very rare faculty. Who can repeat Ham- let's soliloquy, ' To be, or not to be,' as Garrick does it ?" Johnson: "Anybody may. Jemmy there (a boy about eight years old, who was in the room) will do it as well in a week." — JBoswell. His negro servant, Francis Barber, having left him, and been some time at sea, not pressed, as has been supposed, with his own consent, it appears, from a letter to John Wilkes, Esq., from Dr. Smollett, that his master kindly in- terested himself in procuring his release from a state of life of which Johnson always expressed the utmost abhorrence. He said, "No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is be- ing in a jail, with the chance of being drowned." And at another time, "A man in a jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company." — JJus/'-cIl. He said, "I am willing to love all mankind, except an American;" and his inflammable corruption bursting into horrid lire, he "breathed out threateiiings and slaughter," (■ailing them "Unseals — robbers — pirates," and exclaiming he'd "burn and destroy them." Miss Seward, looking to him with mild but steady astonishment, said, " Sir, this is an instance that we are always most violent against those whom TKEJUDICES AND NARROWNESS. 87 we have injured." He was irritated still more by this deli- cate and keen reproach, and roared out another tremendous volley, which one might fancy could be heard across the At- lantic. During this tempest I sat in great uneasiness, la- menting his heat of temper, till, by degrees, I diverted his attention to other topics. — Boswell. His unjust contempt for foreigners was, indeed, extreme. One evening, at Old Slaughter's coffee-house, when a num- ber of them were talking loud about little matters, he said, "Does not this confirm old MeynelFs observation, ' For any- thing I see, foreigners are fools P '" — Bennet Langton. He had long before indulged most unfavorable sentiments of our fellow-subjects in America. For, as early as 1769,1 w r as told by Dr. John Campbell that he had said of them, " Sir, they are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of hanging." — Boswell. Mrs. Macsweyn, who officiated as our landlady here (in one of the Scottish islands), had never been on the main-land. On hearing this, Dr. Johnson said to me, before her, " That is rather being behindhand with life. I would at least go and see Glenelg." Boswell: "You yourself, sir, have never seen anything but your native island." Johnson: " But, sir, by seeing London, I have seen as much of life as the world can show." Bosicell: "You have not seen Pekin." John- son: "What is Pekin? Ten thousand Londoners would drive all the people of Pekin : they would drive them like deer." — Boswell. Johnson: "The French, sir, are a very silly people. They have no common life — nothing but the two ends, beggary and nobility. Sir, they are made up in everything of two extremes. They have no common -sense, they have no common manners, no common learning. They are much SAMUEL JOB behindhand, stupid, ignorant creatures." — Miss Reynolds {abridged). Johnson's prejudice against the French was especially bit- ter, lie wrote to a friend soon after his return from the short visit which he made to France: "Their mode of com- mon life is gross, and incommodious, and disgusting. I am come home convinced that no improvement of general nse is to he found among them." He noted in his journal that their meals were gross, and spoke of them repeatedly as "ill-bred, untaught people." He contrived to indulge two of his most violent prejudices in one sentence when he said, "France is worse than Scotland in everything but climate. Nature has done more for the French, but they have done less for themselves than the Scotch have done." It is amus- ing to find his personal feelings displayed even in his Dic- tionary, as in the following definitions: "Tori/. One who adheres to the ancient constitution of the state, ami the apostolic hierarchy of the Church of England : opposed to a Whig. il Whig. The name of a faction. "Pension. An allowance made to any one without an equivalent. In England it is generally understood to mean pay given to a slate hireling for treason to his country. "Pensioner. A slave of state, hired by a stipend to obey his master. "Outs. A grain which in England is generally given to horses, hut in Scotland supports the people. "Excise. A hateful tax levied upon commodities, and adjudged not by the common judges of property, but by wretches hired by those to whom the excise is paid.'' Boswell had a talk with him about these definitions more than twenty years after the publication of the Dictionary, and says, "lie mentioned a still stronger instance of the pre- dominance of his private feelings in (lie composition of this work than any now to be found in it. ' You know. sir. Lord Gower forsook the old Jacobite interest. When I came to the word renegado, after telling that it meant, "one who de- serts to the enemy, a revolter," 1 added, "Sometimes we say PREJUDICES AND NARROWNESS. 89 a Gowee." Thus it went to the press, but the printer had more wit than I, and struck it out.' " Many other instances of Johnson's prejudices will be found scattered through this volume. — Editor. •Emigration was at this time a common topic of discourse. Dr. Johnson regretted it as hurtful to human happiness; "For," said he, "it spreads mankind, which weakens the de- fence of a nation, and lessens the comfort of living. Men, thinly scattered, make a shift, but a bad shift, without many things. A smith is ten miles off; they'll do without a nail or a staple. A tailor is far from them ; they'll botch their own clothes. It is being concentrated which produces high convenience." — Boswell. At breakfast I asked, " What is the reason that we are angry at a trader's having opulence?" Johnson: "Why, sir, the reason is (though I don't undertake to prove that there is a reason), we see no qualities in trade that should entitle a man to superiority. We are not angry at a sol- dier's getting riches, because we see that he possesses qual- ities which we have not. If a man returns from a battle having lost one hand, and with the other full of gold, we feel that he deserves the gold ; but we cannot think that a fellow by sitting all day at a desk is entitled to get above us." Boswell: " But, sir, may we not suppose a merchant to be a man of an enlarged mind, such as Addison in the 'Spectator' describes Sir Andrew Freeport to have been?" Johnson: "Why, sir, we may suppose any fictitious char- acter. We may suppose a philosophical day-laborer, who is happy in reflecting that, by his labor, he contributes to the fertility of the earth, and to the support of his fellow- creatures; but we find no such philosophical day-laborer. A merchant may, perhaps, be a man of an enlarged mind; but there is nothing in trade connected with an enlarged mind." — Boswell. 00 BAMXJEL JOHNSON. Johnson called the East Indians barbarians. Bosicell : "You will except the Chinese, sir V*' Johnson: "No, sir.'' Boswell: "Have they not artsy" Johnson: "They have pottery." Boswell: "What do you say to the written characters of their language?" Johnson: "Sir, they have not an alphabet. They have not been able to form what all other nations have formed." Boswell: "There is more learning in their language than in any other, from the im- mense number of their characters." Johnson: "It is only more difficult from its rudeness; as there is more labor in hewing down a tree with a stone than with an axe." — Boswell. Johnson: "Time may be employed to more advantage, from nineteen to twenty-four, almost in any way than in travelling : when you set travelling against mere negation, against doing nothing, it is better, to be sure; but how much more would a young man improve were he to study during those years. Indeed, if a young man is wild, and must run after women and bad company, it is better this should be done abroad, as, on his return, he can break off such connections, and begin at home a new man, with a character to form and acquaintances to make. How little does travelling supply to the conversation of any man who has travelled; how little to Beauclerk?" Bosice/l : "What say you to Lord [Charlemont] '?" Johnson: "I never but, once heard him talk of what he had seen, and that was of a large serpent in one of the pyramids of Egypt." — Bosw\ U. IXTOLEKAXCE. INTOLERANCE. Sir Piiilip Clerke defended the Opposition to the Amer- ican war ably and with temper, and I joined him. He said the majority of the nation was against the Ministry. John- son : " I, sir, am against the Ministry ; but it is for hav- ing too little of that of which Opposition thinks they have too much. AVere I minister, if any man wagged his finger against me, he should be turned out; for that which it is in the power of Government to give at pleasure to one or to another, should be given to the supporters of Govern- men t . " — Bosicell Our next meeting at the Mitre was on Saturday, the 15th of February, when I presented to him my old and most in- timate friend, the Rev. Mr. Temple, then of Cambridge. I having mentioned that I had passed some time with Rous- seau in his wild retreat, and having quoted some remark made by Mr. Wilkes, with whom I had spent many pleasant hours in Italy, Johnson said, sarcastically, "It seems, sir, you have kept very good company abroad — Rousseau and Wilkes !" Thinking it enough to defend one at a time, I said nothing as to my gay friend, but answered, with a smile, "My dear sir, you don't call Rousseau bad compa- ny. Do you really think him a bad man?" Johnson: " Sir, if you are talking jestingly of this, I don't talk with you. If you mean to be serious, I think him one of the worst of men ; a rascal, who ought to be hunted out of society, as he has been. Three or four nations have expel- led him, and it is a shame that he is protected in this coun- try." — Boswett. We talked of the proper use of riches. Johnson : " If I were a man of a great estate, I would drive all the rascals whom I did not like out of the county at an election." — ■ Boswett. SAMUEL Jul; I now recollect, with melancholy pleasure, two little an- ecdotes of Dr. Johnson, indicating a zeal for religion which one cannot but admire, however characteristically rough. When the Abbe" Raynal was introduced to him, upon the Abb6'a advancing to shake his hand, the Doctor drew back, and jiut his hands behind him, and afterward replied to the expostulation of a friend, "Sir, I will not shake hands with an infidel !" At another time I remember asking him if lie did not think the Dean of Derry a very agreeable man, to which he made no answer; and on my repeating my ques- tion, "Child," said he, "I will not speak anything in favor of a Sabbath -breaker, to please you, nor any one else." — Hannah More. The Abbe Raynal probably remembers that, being at the house of a common friend in London, the master of it ap- proached Johnson with that gentleman, so much celebrated, in his hand and this speech in his mouth : " Will you per- mit me, sir, to present to you the Abbe Raynal?" "No, sir," replied the Doctor, very loud, and suddenly turned away from them both. — Mrs. JPiozsi. COAESENESS. Johnson's coarseness pervaded, in some measure, his whole nature. I have accordingly arranged the materials for this portion of my work in three divisions — Sensuous, Intellect- ual, and Moral. — Editor. Sensuous. — We- had the music of the bagpipe every day, at Araidale., Dunvegan,and Col. Dr. Johnson appeared fond of it, and used often to stand for some time with his ear close to the greal drone. — Boswell. On Wednesday, April 7th, I dined with him at Sir Joshua Reynolds's. 1 have nol marked what, company was there. COARSENESS. 93 Johnson harangued upon the qualities of different liquors, and spoke with great contempt of claret, as so weak that "a man would be drowned by it before it made him drunk." lie was persuaded to drink one glass of it, that he might judge, not from recollection, which might be dim, but from immediate sensation. He shook his head, and said, "Poor stuff! Xo, sir, claret is the liquor for boys; port, for men: but he who aspires to be a hero (smiling) must drink brandy. In the first place, the flavor of brandy is most grateful to the palate ; and then brandy will do soonest for a man what drinking can do for him. There are, indeed, few who are able to drink brandy. That is a power rather to be wished for than attained. And yet," proceeded he, " as in all pleasure hope is a considerable part, I know not but fruition comes too quick by brandy. Florence wine I think the worst ; it is wine only to the eye ; it is wine neither while you are drink- ing it, nor after you have drunk it : it neither pleases the taste, nor exhilarates the spirits." I mentioned his scale of liquors — claret for boys, port for men, brandy for heroes. " Then," said Mr. Burke, "let me have claret: I love to be a boy — to have the careless gayety of boyish days." Johnson: "I should drink claret too, if it would give me that; but it does not : it neither makes boys men, nor men boys. You'll be drowned by it before it has any effect upon you." — Boswell. Johnson's notions about eating were nothing less than delicate : a leg of pork boiled till it dropped from thebone, a veal-pie with plums and sugar, or an outside cut of a salt buttock of beef, were his favorite dainties. With regard to drink, his liking was for the strongest, as it was not the fla- vor, but the effect, 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 quan- tities of cream, or even melted butter. — Mrs. Plozzi. 9-i 6AMUEL JOB Dr. Johnson loved a tine dinner, bat would eat, perhaps, more heartily of a coarse one — boiled beef or veal-pie. Fish he seldom passed over, though he said that he only valued the sauee, and that everybody eat the first as a vehicle for the second. When lie poured oyster-sauce over plum-pud- ding, and the melted butter flowing from the toast into his chocolate, one might surely say he was nothing less than delicate. — Mrs. Plozzi {extract from a letter). Of the beauties of painting Johnson had not the least conception, and the notice of this defect led me to mention the following fact: One evening, at the club, I came in with a small roll of prints, which, in the afternoon, I had picked up; I think they were landscapes of Perelle, and laying it down with my hat, Johnson's curiosity prompted him to take it up and unroll it: he viewed the prints sev- erally with great attention, and asked me what sort of .pleasure such things could afford me. He said that in his Avhole life he was never capable of discerning the least re- semblance of any kind between a picture and the subject it was intended to represent. To the delights of music he was equally insensible; neither voice nor instrument, nor the harmony of concordant sounds, had power over his af- fections, or even to engage his attention. Of music in gen- eral, he has been heard to say, "It excites in my mind no ideas, and hinders me from contemplating my own ;" and of a fine singer, or instrumental performer, that "he had the merit of a canary-bird." — Sir John JIaic/cins (abridged). Intellectual. — He said, "Garrick was no deolaimer; there was not one of his own scene-shifters who could not have spoken 'To be or not to be,' better than lie did." — J. /'. K< mble. After the king* withdrew, Johnson showed himself highly 1 George the Third. COAESENESS. 95 pleased with his Majesty's conversation and gracious behav- ior. He said to Mr. Barnard, "Sir, they may talk of the king as they will ; hut he is the finest gentleman I have ever seen." And he afterward observed to Mr. Langton, " Sir, his manners are those of as fine a gentleman as we may suppose Louis the Fourteenth or Charles the Second." — Bosioell. A stranger to Johnson's character and temper would have thought that the study of Shakspeare must have been the most pleasing employment that his imagination could suggest; but it was not so. In a visit that he one morning made to me, I congratulated him on his now being engaged in a work that suited his genius, and that, requir- ing none of that severe application which his Dictionary had condemned him to, would be executed con amove. His answer was, "I look upon this as I did upon the Diction- ary; it is all work, and my inducement to it is not love or desire of fame, but the want of money, which is the only motive to writing that I know of." — Sir John Hawltins {abridged). When he again talked of Mrs. Careless to-night, he seem- ed to have had his affection revived ; for he said, "If I had married her, it might have been as happy for me." Bos- well: "Pray, sir, do you not suppose that there are fifty women in the world, with any one of whom a man may be as happy as with any one woman in particular." Johnson; "Ay, sir, fifty thousand." Bosioell: " Then, sir, you are not of opinion with some who imagine that certain men and certain women are made for each other; and that they cannot be happy if they miss their counterparts." Johnson: "To be sure not, sir. I believe marriages would in general be as happy, and often more so, if they were all made by the Lord Chancellor, upon a due consideration of the char- acters and circumstances, without the parties having any choice in the matter." — Bosioell. 9U SAMUEL JOHNSON. Mobal, — For Bundry beneficed clergymen that requested him, he composed pulpit discourses, and for these, he made no scruple of confessing, he was paid : his price, I am in- formed, was a moderate one — a guinea. He reckoned that he had written about forty sermons; but, except as to some, knew not in what hands they were — "I have,*' said he, "been paid for them, and have no right to inquire about them." — Sir John Hawkins {abridged). He contributed the Preface to " Holt's Dictionary of Trade and Commerce," in which he displays such a clear and comprehensive knowledge of the subject as might lead the reader to think that its author had devoted all his life to it. I asked him whether lie knew much of Holt, and of his work. "Sir," said he, "I never saw the man, and never read the book. The booksellers wanted a Preface to a Dic- tionary of Trade and Commerce. I knew very well what such a Dictionary should be, and I wrote a Preface accord- ingly." — BosvxII. He said, " I am sorry that prize-fighting is gone out. Ev- ery art should be preserved, and the art of defence is surely important. Prize-fighting made people accustomed not to be alarmed at seeing their own blood, or feeling a little pain from a wound." — Bosicell On Friday, April 10th, I dined with him at General Ogle- thorpe's, where we found Dr. Goldsmith. I started the ques- tion, whether duelling was consistent with moral duty. The brave old General fired at this, and said, with a lofty air, "Undoubtedly a man has a right to defend his honor." Goldsmith (turning to me) : "I ask you first, sir, what would you do if you were affronted?" I answered, T should think it necessary to fight. "Why, then," replied Goldsmith, "that solves the question." Johnson: "No, sir, it does not solve the question. If does not follow that what :i COAESENESS. 97 man would do is therefore right." I said, I wished to have it settled whether duelling was contrary to the laws of Christianity. Johnson immediately entered on the sub- ject, and treated it in a masterly manner; and, so far as I have been able to recollect, his thoughts were these : " Sir, as men become in a high degree refined, various causes of oifence arise, which are considered to be of such impor- tance that life must be staked to atone for them, though in reality they are not so. A body that has received a very fine polish may be easily hurt. Before men arrive at this artificial refinement, if one tells his neighbor — he lies, his neighbor tells him — he lies; if one gives his neighbor a blow, his neighbor gives him a blow ; but in a state of highly pol- ished society an affront is held to be a serious injury. It must therefore be resented, or rather a duel must be fought upon it, as men have agreed to banish from their society one who puts up with an affront without fighting a duel. Now, sir, it is never unlawful to fight in self-defence. He, then, who fights a duel does not fight from passion against his antagonist, but out of self-defence, to avert the stigma of the world, and to prevent himself from being driven out of soci- ety. I could wish there was not that superfluity of refine- ment ; but while such notions prevail, no doubt a man may lawfully fight a duel." — Boswell. He thus treated the point as to prescription of murder in Scotland: "A jury in England would make allowance for deficiencies of evidence on account of lapse of time ; but a general rule that a crime should not be punished, or tried for the purpose of punishment, after twenty years, is bad. It is cant to talk of the king's advocate delaying a prosecution from malice. How unlikely is it the king's advocate should have malice against persons who commit murder, or should even know them at all ! If the son of the murdered man should kill the murderer, who got off merely by prescription, I would help him to make his escape, though were I upon his 5 OS SAMUEL JOHNSON. jury I would not acquit him. I would not advise him to com- mit such an act; on the contrary, I would bid him submit to the determination of society, because a man is bound to sub- * mit to the inconveniences of it, as be enjoys the good; but the young man, though politically wrong, would not be mor- ally wrong. lie would have to say, 'Here I am among bar- barians, who not only refuse to do justice, but encourage the greatest of all crimes. I am therefore in a state of nat- ure ; for so far as there is no law, it is a state of nature; and, consequently, upon the eternal and immutable law of justice, which requires that he who sheds man's blood should have his blood shed, I will stab the murderer of my father.' " — Boswell. On Thursday, March 28th, we pursued our journey. I mentioned that old Mr. Sheridan complained of the ingrati- tude of Mr. Wedderburne and General Fraser, who had been much obliged to him when they were young Scotchmen en- tering upon life in England. Johnson : " Why, sir, a man is very apt to complain of the ingratitude of those who have risen far above him. A man, when he gets into a high- er sphere, into other habits of life, cannot keep up all his former connections. Then, sir, those who knew him former- ly upon a level with themselves may think that they ought still to be treated as on a level, which cannot be; and an ac- quaintance in a former situation may bring out things which it would be very disagreeable to have mentioned before high- er company, though, perhaps, everybody knows of them.'' — Boswell. I mentioned to him a dispute between a friend of mine and his lady, concerning conjugal infidelity, which my friend had maintained was by no means so bad in the husband as in the wife. Johnson: "Your friend was in the right, sir. Between a. man ami his .Maker, it is a differenl question; but between a man ami his wife, a husband's infidelity is noth- OETUSEXESS TO XATUEAL BEAUTY. 99 ing. Thoy are connected by children, by fortune, by serious considerations of community. Wise married women don't trouble themselves about infidelity in their husbands." J>os- well: "To be sure there is a great difference between the of- fence of infidelity in a man and that of his wife." Johnson: " The difference is boundless. The man imposes no bastards upon his wife." — Jjosicell. He talked of the heinousness of the crime of adultery, by which the peace of families was destroyed. He said, " Con- fusion of progeny constitutes the essence of the crime; and therefore a woman who breaks her marriage vows is much more criminal than a man who does it. A man, to be sure, is criminal in the sight of God ; but he does not do his wife a very material injury, if he does not insult her; if, for in- stance, from mere wantonness of appetite, he steals privately to her chamber-maid. Sir, a wife ought not greatly to re- sent this. I would not receive home a daughter who had run away from her husband on that account. A wife should study to reclaim her husband, by more attention to please him. Sir, a man will not, once in a hundred instances, leave his wife and go to a harlot, if his wife has not been negligent of pleasing." — JBosicell. OBTUSEXESS TO NATURAL BEAUTY". We walked, in the evening, in Greenwich Park. He ask- ed me — I suppose, by way of trying my disposition — "Is not this very fine?" Having no exquisite relish of the beauties of nature, and being more delighted with "the busy hum of men," I answered, " Yes, sir, but not equal to Fleet Street." Johnson : " You are right, sir." — Jlosicell. Some gentlemen of the neighborhood came to visit my fa- ther; but there was little conversation. One of them ask- 100 SAMUEL JOB cd Dr. Johnson how he liked the Highlands. The question seemed to irritate him, for he answered, "How, sir, can you ask me what obliges me to speak unfavorably of a country where I have been hospitably entertained? Who can like the Highlands? I like the inhabitants very well." The gentleman asked no more questions. — BosweU. Mr. Thrale loved prospects, 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 nonsense," would be the reply ; " a blade of g always a blade of grass, whether in one country or anoth- er. Let us, if we do talk, talk about something. Men and women are my subjects of inquiry : let us see how these dif- fer from those we have left behind." — Mrs. Piozzi. Mrs. Brooke expatiated 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 prospect down the river St. Lawrence." The truth is, he hated to hear about prospects and views, and laying out ground, and taste in gardening. "That was the best garden," he said, "which produced most roots and fruits ; and that water was most to be prized which contained most fish." He used to laugh at Shenstone most unmercifully for not caring whether there was any- thing good to eat in the streams he was so fond of. Walk- ing in a wood when it rained was, I think, the only rural im- age which pleased his fancy. — Mrs. Piozzi. BRUTE FORCE. BRUTE FORCE. It has been confidently related, with many embellish- ments, that Johnson one day knocked Osborne down in his shop with a folio, and put his foot upon his neck. The sim- ple truth I had from Johnson himself. " Sir, he was imper- tinent to me, and I beat him. But it was not in his shop: it was in my own chamber." — Bosicell. Tom Osborne, the bookseller, was one of " that mercan- tile rugged race to which the delicacy of the poet is some- times exposed," as the following anecdote will more fully evince : Mr. Johnson being engaged by him to translate a work of some consequence,* he thought it a respect which he owed his own talents, as well as the credit of his em- ployer, to be as circumspect in the performance of it as possible. Osborne, irritated by what he thought an un- necessary delay, went one day into the room where John- son was sitting, and abused him in the most illiberal man- ner. Among other things, he told Johnson "he had been much mistaken in his man ; that he was recommended to him as a good scholar, and a ready hand; but that he doubted both; for that Tom such-a-one would have turned out the work much sooner; and that being the case, the probability was that by this here time the first edition would have moved off." Johnson heard him for some time unmoved ; but at last, losing all patience, he seized a huge folio, which he was at that time consulting, and aiming a blow at the bookseller's head, succeeded so forcibly as to send him sprawling to the floor. Osborne alarmed the fam- ily with his cries ; but Johnson, clapping his foot on his breast, would not let him stir till he had exposed him in that situation, and then left him with this triumphant ex- * All the other authorities who notice this event say that it was the Pref- ace to the Catalogue of the Harleian Library. 102 SAMUEL JOHNSON. pression: "Lie there, thou son of dulness, ignorance, and obscurity!" — Anonymous. (From a Life of Johnson, pub- lished by ies that were near him. "Mutton," answered she; "so I don't ask you to cat any, because I know you despise it." " Xo, madam, no," cried he ; " I despise nothing that is good of its sort ; but I am too proud now to cat of it. Sit- ting by Miss Burney makes me very proud to-day." "Miss Burney," said Mrs. Thrale, laughing, " yon must take great care of your heart if Dr. Johnson attacks it; for I assure you he is not often successless." ""What's that you say, madam?" cried he; "are you making mischief between the young lady and me already?" — Madame D^Arblay. Mr. Metcalf, with much satire, and much entertainment, kept chattering to me,* till Dr. Johnson found me out and brought a chair to me. "So," said lie to Mr. Metcalf, "it is * At nn evening entertainment. EXTEMPORE VEKSE-MAKLN'G. 151 you, is it, that are engrossing her thus?" "He's jealous !" Baid Mr. Metcalf, dryly. "How these people talk of Mrs. Siddons !" said the Doctor. " I came hither in full expecta- tion of hearing no name but the name I love and pant to hear, when from one corner to another they are talking of that jade, Mrs. Siddons ! till at last, wearied out, I went yon- der into a corner, and repeated to myself, ' Burney ! Bur- ney ! Burney ! Burney !' " "Ay, sir," said Mr. Metcalf, " you should have carved it upon the trees." " Sir, had there been any trees, so I should; but being none, I was content to carve it upon my heart." — Madame D^Arblay. EXTEMPORE VERSE-MAKING. He observed that a gentleman of eminence in literature had got into a bad style of poetry of late. "He puts," said he, "a very common thing in a strange dress till he does not know it himself, and thinks other people do not know it." Boswett: "That is owing to his being so much versant iu old English poetry." Johnson: "What is that to the purpose, sir ? If I say a man is drunk, and you tell me it is owing to his taking much drink, the matter is not mended. No, sir, has taken to an odd mode. For ex- ample, he'd write thus : ' Hermit hoar, in solemn cell, Wearing out life's evening gray.' Gray evening is common enough ; but evening gray he'd think fine. Stay; we'll make out the stanza : ' Hermit hoar, in solemn cell, Wearing out life's evening gray ; Smite thy bosom, sage, and tell, What is bliss, and which the way ?' " Boswell: "But why smite his bosom, sir?" Johnson: "Why, 152 SAMUEL JOHNSON. to show he was in earnest " (smiling). He at an after period added the following stanza: "Thus I spoke ; and speaking sighed, Scarce repressed the starting tear; "When the smiling sage replied — Come, my lad, and drink some beer.'' I went into his room on the morning of my birthday, and said to him, "ISTobody 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 confinement will account for the manner in which he burst out suddenly, without the least previous hesitation, and without having entertained the smallest intention to- ward it half a minute before : "Oft in danger, vet alive, We are come to thirty-five ; Long may better years arrive. Better years than thirty-five. Could philosophers contrive Life to stop at thirty-five, Time his hours should never drive O'er the bounds of thirty-five. High to soar, and deep to dive, Nature gives at thirty-five. Ladies, stock and tend your hive, Trifle not at thirty-live ; Tor, ho\ve*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 onThrale at thirty-five." "And now," said lie, as I was writing them down, "you may sec what if is to come lor poetry to a dictionary-maker ; you may observe that the rhymes run in alphabetical order ex- actly."— Mi 'S. Piozzi. EXTEMPOEE YEESE-MAKIXG. 153 When Dr. Percy first published his collection of ancient English ballads, perhaps he was too lavish in commendation of the beautiful simplicity and poetic merit he supposed him- self to discover in them. This circumstance provoked John- son to observe, one evening at Miss Reynolds's tea-table, that he could rhyme as well, and as elegantly, in common narrative and conversation. "For instance," says he: "As with my hat upon my head, I walked along the Strand, I there did meet another man With his hat in his hand." Or, to render such poetry subservient to my own immediate use: "I therefore pray thee, Eenny dear, That thou wilt give to me, With cream and sugar softened well, Another dish of tea. "Nor fear that I, my gentle maid, Shall long detain the cup, When once unto the bottom I Have drunk the liquor up. " Yet hear, alas ! this mournful truth— Nor hear it with a frown — Thou canst not make the tea so fast As I can gulp it down." And thus he proceeded through several more stanzas till the reverend critic cried out for quarter. — George Steevens. Some of the old legendary stories put in verse by modern writers provoked him to caricature them one day at Streat- ham ; but they are already well known, I am sure : " The tender infant, meek and mild, ■ Fell down upon the stone; The nurse took up the squealing child, Bflt still the child squealed on." I could give another comical instance of caricature imita- Iu4 SAMUEL .1"!: lion. One day when I was praising th de Vega — "Se aquien lus leoncs vence Vence una muger hermosa () el de flaco avcrguence 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 besides. The lady, we all know, does not conquer in the same manner as the lion docs. 'Tis a mere play of words," added he, "and you might as well say that If the man who turnips cries, Cries not when his father dies, 'Tis a proof that he had rather Have a turnip than his father." And this humor is of the same sort with which he answered the friend who commended the following line: "Who rules o'er freemen should himself 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 verses of a certain pantomime were quoted thus : "Je suis Cassandre deseendue des eieux, Pour vons faire entendre, mesdames et messieurs, Que je suis Cassandre deseendue des cieux ;" lie cried out gayly and suddenly, almost in a moment, " I am Cassandra come down from the sky. To tell each by-stander what none can deny, Thai I am Cassandra come down from the sky." The pretty Italian verses, too, at the end of Baretti's book he did in the same manner: COMMON-SENSE. ■ 155 '•Viva ! viva la padrona ! Tutta bella, e tutta buona, La padrona e un angiolella Tutta buona e tutta bella ; 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!" When some one in "company commended the verses of M. de Beuserade d son Lit : "Theatre des lis et des pleurs, Lit ! ou je nais, et oil je meurs, Tu nous fais voir comment voisins Sont nos plaisirs, et nos chagrins ;" he replied, without hesitating : " In bed we laugh, in bed we cry, And born in bed, in bed we die ; The near approach a bed may show Of human bliss to human woe." — Mrs. Piozzi. COMMON-SENSE. Mrs. Desmoulins made tea ; and she and I talked before him upon a topic which he had once borne patiently from me when we were by ourselves — his not complaining of the world because he was not called to some great office, nor had attained to great wealth. He flew into a violent pas- sion — I confess with some justice — and commanded us to have done. "Nobody," said he, "has a right to talk in this manner — to bring before a man his own character and the events of his life' — when he does not choose it should be done. I never have sought the world; the world was not 150 SAMUEL .1"!, to seek me. It is rather wonderful that so much has been done for me. All the complaints which arc made of the ■world are unjust. I never knew a man of merit neglected : it was generally by his own fault that he failed of success. A man may hide his head in a hole; he may go into the country, and publish a book now and then, which nobody reads, and then complain he is neglected. There is no rea- son why any person should exert himself for a man who has ■written a good book: he has not written it for any individ- ual. I may as well make a present to a postman who brings me a letter. When patronage was limited, an author ex- pected to find a Maecenas, and complained if he did not find one. Why should he complain ? This Maecenas has others as good as he, or others who have got the start of him." JBosioell : "But surely, sir, you will allow that there are men of merit at the bar who never get practice." Johnson .- "Sir, you are sure that practice is got from an opinion that the person employed deserves it best; so that if a man of merit at the bar does not get practice, it is from error, not from injustice. He is not neglected. A horse that is brought to market may not be bought, though he is a very good horse ; but that is from ignorance, not from intention.*' — Boswell. When asked how he felt upon the ill success of his trage- dy, he replied, "Like the Monument ;" meaning that he con- tinued firm and unmoved as that column. And let it be re- membered, as an admonition to the genus irritabUe of dra- matic writers, that this great man, instead ol' peevishly com- plaining of the bad taste of the town, submitted to its de- cision without a murmur. lie had, indeed, upon all occa- sions a great deference for the general opinion. "A man," said he, " who writes a book, thinks himself wiser or wittier than the rest of mankind; he supposes that he can instruct en- amuse them; and the public to whom he appeals must, after all, he the judges <>f his pretensions." — BosioeU. COMMON-SENSE. 157 I described to hiin an impudent fellow from Scotland who affected to be a savage, and railed at all established systems. Johnson : " There is nothing surprising in this, sir. He wants to make himself conspicuous. He would tumble in a hog-sty, as long as you looked at him and called to him to come out. But let him alone, never mind him, and he'll soon give it over." I added that the same person maintain- ed that there was no distinction between virtue and vice. Johnson : " Why, sir, if the fellow does not think as he speaks, he is lying; and I see not what honor he can pro- pose to himself from having the character of a liar. But if he does really think that there is no distinction between virtue and vice, why, sir, when he leaves our houses, let us count our spoons." — JBosicell. This evening one of our married ladies — a lively, pretty little woman — good-humoredly sat down upon Dr. Johnson's knee, and being encouraged by some of the company, put her hands round his neck and kissed him. "Do it again," said he, " and let us see who will tire first." He kept her on his knee some time, while he and she drank tea. He was now like a buck, indeed. All the company were much enter- tained to find him so easy and pleasant. To me it was high- ly comic, to see the grave philosopher — the "Rambler" — toying with a Highland beauty ! But what could he do ? He must have been surly, and weak too, had he not behaved as he did. He would have been laughed at, and not more respected, and less loved. — JBoswell. I observed that hardly any man was accurately prepared for dying ; but almost every one left something undone, something in confusion ; that my father, indeed, told me he knew one man (Carlyle, of Limekilns), after whose death all his papers were found in exact order, and nothing was omit- ted in his will. Johnson : " Sir, I had an uncle who died so ; but such attention requires great leisure, and great firmness 158 SAMUEL Jul: of mind. If one was to think constantly of death, the busi- ness of life would stand still. I am no friend to making re- ligion appear too hard. Many good people have done harm by giving severe notions of it. In the same way, as to learn- ing: I never frighten young people with difficulties; on the contrary, I tell them that they may very easily get as much as will do very well. I do not, indeed, tell them that they will be Bentlevs." — Bosicdl. He said our judges had not gone deep in the question con- cerning literary property. I mentioned Lord Monboddo's opinion — that if a man could get a work by heart he might print it, as by such an act the mind is exercised. Jolinson: "No, sir; a man's repeating it no more makes it his prop- erty, than a man may sell a cow which he drives home." I said printing an abridgment of a work was allowed, which was only cutting the horns and tail off the cow. Johnson : "No, sir; 'tis making the cow have a calf." — Bosicdl He said, "A man should pass a part of his time with the laughers, by which means anything ridiculous or particular about him might be presented to his view, and corrected." I observed he must have been a bold laugher who would have ventured to tell Dr. Johnson of any of his particulari- ties. Having observed the vain, ostentatious importance of many people in quoting the authority of dukes and lords, as having been in their company, he said he went to the other extreme, and did not mention his authority when he should have done it, had it not been that of a duke or a lord. — JJosicdl. Upon the question whether a man who had been guilty of vicious actions Mould do well to force himself into solitude and sadness — Tohnson: "No, sir, unless it, prevent him from being vicious again. With some people, gloomy penitence is only madness turned upside down. A man may be gloomy, COMMOX-SEXSE. till, in order to bo relieved from gloom, lie has recourse again to criminal indulgences." — JBosxcdl. Of the various states and conditions of humanity, he de- spised none more than the man who marries for a mainte- nance ; and of a friend who made his alliance on no higher principles, he said once, " Now has that fellow " (it was a no- bleman of whom they 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." — Mrs. Piozzi. A man, he observed, should begin to write soon; for if he waits till his judgment is matured, his inability, through want of practice, to express his conceptions will make the disproportion so great between what he sees and what he can attain that he will probably be discouraged from writ- ing at all. As a proof of the justness of this remark, we may instance what is related of the great Lord Granville : - that after he had written his letter giving an account of the battle of Dettingen, he said, "Here is a letter expressed in terms not good enough for a tallow-chandler to have used." — Bennet Langton. Mr. Langton told us he was about to establish a school upon his estate, but it had been suggested to him that it might have a tendency to make the people less industrious. Johnson : " No, sir. While learning to read and write is a distinction, the few who have that distinction may be the less inclined to work ; but when everybody learns to read and write, it is no longer a distinction. A man who has a laced waistcoat is too fine a man to work; but if everybody had laced waistcoats, we should have people working in laced waistcoats. There are no people whatever more in- dustrious, none who work more, than our manufacturers; yet they have all learned to read and write. Sir, you must 160 SAMUEL JOHN not neglect doing a thing immediately good from fear of re- mote evil, from fear of its being abused. -V man who baa candles may sit up too late, which he would not do if he had not candles; but nobody will deny that the art of making candles, by which light is continued to us beyond the time that the sun gives us light, is a valuable art, and ought to be preserved." — JBosicell. I talked of preaching, and of the great success which those called "Methodists" have. Johnson: "Sir, it is owing to their expressing themselves in a plain and familiar manner, which is the only way to do good to the common people, and which clergymen of genius and learning ought to do from a principle of duty when it is suited to their congrega- tions — a practice for which they will be praised by men of sense. To insist against drunkenness as a crime because it debases reason, the noblest faculty of man, would be of no service to the common people ; but to tell them that they may die in a fit of drunkenness, and show them how dread- ful that would be, cannot fail to make a deep impression. Sir, when your Scotch clergy give up their homely manner, religion will soon decay in that country." — JBosweU. He said, "There is nothing more likely to betray a man into absurdity than condescension; when he seems to sup- pose his understanding too powerful for his company." — JBennet Langton. He recommended that when one person meant to serve an- other he should not go about it slyly, or, as we say, under- hand, out of a false idea of delicacy, to surprise one's friend with an "unexpected favor, " which, ten to one," says he, "fails to oblige your acquaintance, who had some reasons againsl such a moth- of obligation, which you might have known bul for that superfluous cunning whioh you think an elegance. Oh, never be seduced l»y such silly pretences!" COAMOX-SEXSE. 1G1 continued 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 dependent, as if she took the woman for an os- trich, that could digest iron." — Mrs. Piozzi. Though a stern, true-born Englishman, and fully preju- diced against all other nations, he had discernment enough to see, and candor enough to censure, the cold reserve too common among Englishmen toward strangers. " Sir," said he, " two men of any other nation who are shown into a room together, at a house where they are both visitors, will immediately find some conversation. But two Englishmen will probably go each to a different window, and remain in obstinate silence. Sir, we as yet do not enough understand the common rights of humanity." — BosweU. At supper, Lady Macleod mentioned Dr. Cadogan's book on the gout. Johnson : " It is a good book in general, but a foolish one in particulars. It is good in general, as rec- ommending temperance, and exercise, and cheerfulness. Iu that respect it is only Dr. Cheyne's book told in a new way ; and there should come out such a book every thirty years, dressed in the mode of the times. It is foolish in maintaining that the gout is not hereditary, and that one fit of it, when gone, is like a fever when gone." Lady Mac- leod objected that the author does not practise what he teaches. Johnson: "I cannot help that, madam ; that does not make his book the worse. People are influenced more by what a man says, if his practice is suitable to it, because they are blockheads. The more intellectual people are, the readier will they attend to what a man tells them : if it is just, they will follow it, be his practice what it will. No man practises so well as he writes. I have all my life-long been lying till noon ; yet I tell all young men, and tell them with great sincerity, that nobody who does not rise early 102 SAMUEL JOHNSON. will ever do any good. Only consider! Yon read a book; you are convinced by it ; you do not know the anthor. Suppose you afterward know him, and find that lie d< practise what he teaches, are you to give up your former conviction ? At this rate you would he kept in a state of equilibrium, when reading every book, till you knew how the author practised." "But," said Lady .Macleod, " you would think better of Dr. Cadogan, if he acted according to his principles." Johnson: "Why, madam, to be sure, a man who acts in the face of light is worse than a man who does not know so much ; yet I think no man should be worse thought of for publishing good principles. There is something noble in publishing truth, though it condemns one's self." — Boswett. Johnson: "There is in human nature a general inclina- tion to make people stare ; and every wise man has himself to cure of it, and does cure himself. If you wish to make people stare by doing better than others, why make them stare till they stare their eyes out? But consider how easy it is to make people stare by being absurd. I may do it by going into a drawing-room without my shoes. You remember the gentleman in 'The Spectator,' who had a commission of lunacy taken out against him for his extreme singularity, such as never wearing a wig, but a night-cap. Now, sir, abstractedly, the night-cap was best: but, rela- tively, the advantage was overbalanced by his making the boys run after him." — Boswi 11. He ridiculed a friend who, looking out on Strcatham Com- mon from our windows one day, lamented the enormous wickedness of the times, because some bird-catchers were busy there one line Sunday morning. "While half the Christian world is permitted," said he, "to dance and sing, :uid celebrate Sunday :is a day of festivity, how comes your Puritanical spirit so offended with frivolous and empty dc- GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 163 viations from exactness? Whoever loads life with unnec- essary scruples, sir," continued be, "provokes the attention of others on his conduct, and incurs the censure of singular- ity without reaping the reward of superior virtue." — Mrs. Plozzi. In answer to the arguments used by Puritans, Quakers, etc., against showy decorations of the human figure, I once beard him exclaim, "Oh, let us not be found, when our Mas- ter calls us, ripping the lace off our waistcoats, but the spir- it of contention 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 distinctions. 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 gray one !" — Mrs. Plozzi. GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. He observed, "All knowledge is of itself of some value. There is nothing so minute or inconsiderable, that I would not rather know it than not. In the same manner, all pow- er, of whatever sort, is of itself desirable. A man would not submit to learn to hem a ruffle of his wife, or of his wife's maid; but if a mere wish could attain it, he would rather wish to be able to hem a ruffle." — Boswell. Last night Dr. Johnson gave us an account of the whole process of tanning, and of the nature of milk, and the vari- ous operations upon it, as making whey, etc. His variety of information is surprising ; and it gives one much satis- faction to find such a man bestowing his attention on the useful arts of life. Ulinish was much struck with his knowl- edge, and said, "He is a great orator, sir; it is music to hear this man speak." — Boswell. 1G4 SAMUEL JOHNSON. I have often been astonished with what exactness and perspicuity he will explain the process of any art. He this morning explained to us all the operation of coining, and at night all the operation of brewing, so very clearly, that Mr. Maccpieen said, when he heard the first, he thought he had been bred in the Mint; when he heard the second, that he had been bred a brewer. — Bosicell. Johnson devoted some time to the study of medicine, and was familiar with the principles of that science. At one time early in his life he thought seriously of becoming a law- yer ; his knowledge of law was extensive. Boswell men- tions several instances of his applying to Johnson for aid in important law cases, involving difficult and perplexing questions; whereupon Johnson gave him written opinions, which proved to be highly valuable. — Editor. Though born and bred in a city, he well understood both the theory and practice of agriculture, and even the man- agement of a farm ; he could describe, with great accuracy, the process of malting; and, had necessity driven him to it, could have thatched a dwelling. Of field recreations, such as hunting, setting, and shooting, he would discourse like a sportsman. He had taken a very comprehensive view of life and manners, and that he was well acquainted with the views and pursuits of all classes and characters of men, his writings abundantly show. His knowledge in manufact- ures was extensive, and his comprehension relative to me- chanical contrivances was still more extraordinary. The well-known Mr. Arkwright pronounced him to be the only person who, on a first view, understood both the principle and powers of his most complicated piece of machinery. — Sir John Hawkins {abridged). Ho would sometimes good-naturedly enter into a long chat for the instruction or entertainment of people he de- HONESTY AND TRUTHFULNESS. 1G5 spised. I perfectly recollect his condescending to delight my daughter's dancing-master with a long argument about his art ; which the man protested, at the close of the dis- course, the Doctor knew more of than himself. — Mrs. JPiozzi. HONESTY AND TKUTHFULNESS. Johnson was fond of disputation, and willing to see what could he said on each side of the question, when a subject was argued. At all other times no man had a more scrupulous regard for truth ; from which, I verily believe, he would not have deviated to save his life. — Thomas Percy. The importance of strict and scrupulous veracity cannot be too often inculcated. Johnson was known to be so rigid- ly attentive to it that even in his common conversation the slightest circumstance was mentioned with exact precision. The knowledge of his having such a principle and habit made his friends have a perfect reliance on the truth of ev- erything that he told, however it might have been doubted if told by many others. As an instance of this, I may men- tion an odd incident which he related as having happened to him one night in Fleet Street: "A gentlewoman," said he, " begged I would give her my arm to assist her in crossing the street, which I accordingly did ; upon which she offered me a shilling, supposing me to be the watchman. I per- ceived that she was somewhat in liquor." This, if told by most people, would have been thought an invention ; when told by Johnson, it was believed by his friends as much as if they had seen what had passed. — Boswell. Next morning, while we were at breakfast, Johnson gave a very earnest recommendation of what he himself practised with the utmost conscientiousness — I mean a strict attention 100 SAMUEL JOHNSON. to troth, even in the most minute particulars. "Accustom your children," said he, "constantly lo this: If a tiling hap- pened at one window, and they, when relating it, say that it happened at another, do not let it pass, but instantly cheek them ; you do not know where deviation from truth will end." Boswell: "It may come to the door; and when once an account is at all varied in one circumstance, it may by degrees be varied so as to be totally different from what really happened." Our lively hostess, whose fancy was im- patient of the rein, fidgeted at this, and ventured to say, "Nay, this is too much. If Mr. Johnson should forbid me to drilik tea, I would comply, as I should feel the restraint only twice a day ; but little variations in narrative must happen a thousand times a day, if one is not perpetually watching." Johnson: "Well, madam, and you ought to be perpetually watching. It is more from carelessness about truth than from intentional lying that there is so much false- hood in the world." — Boswell. One reason why his memory was so particularly exact might be derived from his rigid attention to veracity. Be- ing always resolved to relate every fact as it stood, he look- ed even on the smaller parts of life with minute attention, and remembered such passages as escape cursory and com- mon observers. His veracity was, indeed, from the most trivial to the most solemn occasions, strict even to severi- ty. He scorned to embellish a story with fictitious circum- stances, which he used to say took off from its real value. "A story," he said, "should be a specimen of life and man- ners; but if the surrounding circumstances are false, as it is no more a representation of reality, it is no longer worthy our attention." — Mrs. Pio::::i. He talked to me with serious concern of a certain female friend's " laxity »>f narration and inattention to truth." "I am as much vexed," said he, "at the ease with which she HONESTY AXD TEUTHFUXXESS. 107 hears it mentioned to her, as at the thing itself. I told her, 'Madam, you are contented to hear every day said to you what the highest of mankind have died for, rather than bear.' You know, sir, the highest of mankind have died rather than bear to be told they had uttered a falsehood. Do talk to her of it; I am weary." — Boswell. I mentioned Mr. Maclaurin's uneasiness on account of a degree of ridicule carelessly thrown on his deceased father in Goldsmith's "History of Animated Nature," in which that celebrated mathematician is represented as being subject to fits of yawning so violent as to render him incapable of pro- ceeding in his lecture — a story altogether unfounded, but for the publication of which the law would give no reparation. This led us to agitate the question whether legal redress could be obtained even when a man's deceased relation was calumniated in a publication. Mr. Murray maintained there should be reparation, unless the author could justify himself by proving the fact. Johnson : " Sir, it is of so much more consequence that truth should be told than that individuals should not be made uneasy, that it is much better that the law does not restrain writing freely concerning the charac- ters of the dead. Damages will be given to a man who is calumniated in his life-time, because he may be hurt in his worldly interest, or at least hurt in his mind ; but the law does not regard that uneasiness which a man feels on having his ancestor calumniated. That is too nice. Let him deny what is said, and let the matter have a fair chance by dis- cussion. But if a man could say nothing against a charac- ter but what he can prove, history could not be written ; for a great deal is known of men of which proof cannot be brought. A minister may be notoriously known to take bribes, and yet you may not be able to prove it." Mr. Mur- ray suggested that the author should be obliged to show some sort of evidence, though he would not require a strict legal proof; but Johnson firmly and resolutely opposed any 1G8 SAMUEL JOHNSON. restraint whatever, as adverse to a free investigation of the characters of mankind. — Uosicdl. Mr. Levett this day showed me Dr. Johnson's library, which was contained in two garrets over his chambers, where Lintot, son of the celebrated bookseller of that name, had formerly his warehouse. I foimd a number of good books, but very dusty, and in great confusion. The floor was strewed with manuscript leaves, in Johnson's own hand- writing, which I beheld with a degree of veneration, suppos- ing they, perhaps, might contain portions of the "Rambler," or of " Rasselas." I observed an apparatus for chemical ex- periments, of which Johnson was all his life very fond. The place seemed to be very favorable for retirement and medi- tation. Johnson told me that he went up thither without mentioning it to his servant when he wanted to study, se- cure from interruption ; for he would not allow his servant to say he was not at home when he really was. "A ser- vant's strict regard for truth," said he, "must be weakened by such a practice. A philosopher may know that it is merely a form of denial; but few servants are such nice dis- tinguishers. If I accustom a servant to tell a lie for me, have I not reason to apprehend that he will tell many lies for himself'?" — Bosioell Mr. Morgann and he had a dispute pretty late at night, in which Johnson would not give up, though he had the wrong side ; and, in short, both kept the field, Next morning, when they met in the breakfast - room, Dr. Johnson accosted Mr. Morgann thus: "Sir, I have been thinking on our dispute last night. You were in the rif/ht." — BosweU. Speaking of Dr. Campbell, at Kasay, lie told us that he one day called on him, and they talked of "Tull's Husband- ry." Dr. Campbell said something. Dr. Johnson began to dispute it. "Come," said Dr. Campbell, "we do not want UONESTY AND TRUTHFULNESS. 1G9 to get the better of one another : we want to increase each other's ideas." Dr. Johnson took it in good part, and the conversation then went on coolly and instructively. His candor in relating this anecdote does him much credit, and his conduct on that occasion proves how easily he could be persuaded to talk from a better motive than " for victory." — BosweU. A lady once asked him how he came to define Pastern the knee of a horse. Instead of making an elaborate defence, as she expected, he at once answered, "Ignorance, madam — pure ignorance." — Bosicell. He had a kindness for the Irish nation, and thus generous- ly expressed himself to a gentleman from that country on the subject of a union which artful politicians have often had in view : " Do not make a union with us, sir ; we should unite with you only to rob you. We should have robbed the Scotch, if they had had anything of which we could have robbed them." — BosweU. On the morning of December 'Zth, 1*784, only six days be- fore his death, Dr. Johnson requested to see the editor of these anecdotes, from whom he had borrowed some of the early volumes of the " Gentleman's Magazine," with a profess- ed intention to point out the pieces which he had written in that collection. The books lay on the table, with many leaves doubled down, particularly those which contained his share in the Parliamentary Debates ; and such was the goodness of Johnson's heart, that he solemnly declared that " the only part of his writings which then gave him any compunction was his account of the debates in the ' Magazine ;' but that at the time he Avrote them he did not think he was impos- ing on the world. The mode," he said, "was to fix upon a speaker's name, and then to conjure up an answer." — John Nichols. 110 SAMUEL JOHNSON. Johnson told me that, as soon as he found that the speech- es were thought genuine, lie determined that he -would write no more of them ; "i'or he would not he accessory to the propagation of falsehood." And such -was the tender- ness of his conscience, that a short time before his death he expressed his regret for his having been the author of fic- tions which had passed for realities. — Boswell APOLOGIES. I iiad slept ill. Dr. Johnson's anger had affected mc much.* I considered that without any bad intention I might suddenly forfeit his friendship, and -was impatient to see him this morning. I told him how uneasy he had made me by what he had said, and reminded him of his own re- mark at Aberdeen, upon old friendships being hastily bro- ken off. He owned he had spoken to me in a passion ; that he would not have done what he threatened; and that it' he had he should have been ten times worse than I; that form- ing intimacies would indeed be "limning the water," were they liable to such sudden dissolution ; and he added, "Let's think no more on't." Hosicell: "Well, then, sir, I shall be easy; remember I am to have fair warning in case of any quarrel; you arc never to spring a mine upon me; it was absurd in me to believe you." Johnson: "You deserved about as much as to believe mc from night to morning. "-*- Boswell. I must here mention an incident which shows how ready Johnson was to make amends for any little incivility. When I called upon him the morning after he had pressed me rather roughly to read hmder, lie said, " I was peevish yes- * Johnson had been furiously angry with him upon very sli:;lit grounds, s 109. APOLOGIES. 171 terday ; you must forgive me ; when you are as old and as sick as I am, perhaps you may be peevish too." I have heard him make many apologies of this kind. — Hoole. Miss Johnson, one of Sir Joshua's nieces, was dining one day at her uncle's with Dr. Johnson and a large party : the conversation happening to turn on music, Johnson spoke very contemptuously of that art, and added, "that no man of talent, or whose mind was capable of better things, ever would or could devote his time and attention to so idle and frivolous a pursuit." The young lady, who was very fond of music, whispered her next neighbor, " I wonder what Dr. Johnson thinks of King David." Johnson overheard her, and with great good-humor and complacency said, "Mad- am, I thank you ; I stand rebuked before you, and promise that upon one subject at least you shall never hear me talk nonsense again." — Anonymous. He and Mr. Langton and I went together to the Club, where we found Mr. Burke, Mr. Garrick, and some other members, and among them our friend Goldsmith, who sat silently brooding over Johnson's reprimand to him after dinner. Johnson perceived this, and said aside to some of us, " I'll make Goldsmith forgive me ;" and then called to him in a loud voice, "Dr. Goldsmith, something passed to- day where you and I dined;* I ask your pardon." Gold- smith answered placidly, " It must be much from you, sir, that I take ill." And so at once the difference was over, and they were on as easy terms as ever, and Goldsmith rat- tled away as usual. — Boswell. I shall never forget with what regret he spoke of the rude reply he made to Dr. Barnard, on his saying that men never * There had been a very stormy scene, and Johnson had said to Gold- smith, not wholly without cause, "Sir, you are impertinent." L72 SAMUEL JOHNSON. improved after the age of forty-five. "That is not true, sir," said Johnson. "Ton, who perhaps are forty -eight, may still improve, if yon will try; I wish you would set about it; ami I am afraid," he added, "there is great room for it;" and this was said in rather a large party of ladies and gentlemen at dinner, boon after the ladies withdrew from the table, Dr. Johnson followed them, and, sitting down by the lady of the house, he said, "I am very sorry for hav- ing spoken so rudely to the dean." "You very well may, sir." " Yes," he said, " it was highly improper to speak in that style to a minister of the Gospel, and I am the more hurt on reflecting with what mild dignity he received it." When the dean came up into the drawing-room, Dr. Johnson immediately rose from his seat, and made him sit on the sofa by him, and with such a beseeching look for pardon, and with such fond gestures — literally smoothing down his arms and his knees — tokens of penitence which were so gra- ciously received by the dean as to make Dr. Johnson very happy. — Miss lleynolds. In the year 1*774 I was making a tour in a gig. Just as we came to the point of the hill going down into Matlock, we saw Mr. Thrale's carriage, in which Avere Dr. Johuson, and Mr. and Mrs. Thrale. The horses were breathing after ascending the hill. I, with all the conceit of a young man, tripped very pertly from the gig to the carriage, and shook hands with Mr. and Mrs. Thrale. Dr. Johnson took not the smallest notice; on which Mr. Thrale said, "Dr. Johnson, here is Mr. Cholmondelcy." Dr. Johnson neither spoke nor moved. He repeated, " Dr. Johnson, here is Mr. Cholmonde- lcy." Dr. Johnson was equally silent. Mr. Thrale repeal- ed it a third time, when Dr. Johnson answered, "Well, sir, and what if there is Mr. Cholmondeley ?" I, o[' course, trip- ped back again. I imagine Mrs. Thrale must, in some dis- pute, have reproached him with this. Four years afterward i went t'» fDEXCE. 185 the authority which I have mentioned ; but Johnson himself assured me that there was not the least foundation for it. He told me that there never was any particular incident which produced a quarrel between Lord Chesterfield and him; but that his lordship's continued neglect was the rea- son why he resolved to have no connection with him. When the Dictionary was upon the eve of publication, Lord Ches- terfield, who, it is said, had flattered himself with expecta- tions that Johnson would dedicate the work to him, at- tempted, in a courtly manner, to soothe and insinuate him- self with the Sage, conscious, as it should seem, of the cold indifference with which he had treated its learned author; and farther attempted to conciliate him by writing two pa- pers in "The "World," in recommendation of the work; and it must be confessed that they contain some studied compli- ments, so finely turned that, if there had been no previous offence, it is probable thtit Johnson would have been highly delighted. Praise, in general, was pleasing to him ; but by praise from a man of rank and elegant accomplishments he was peculiarly gratified. This courtly device failed of its effect. Johnson, who thought that " all was false and hol- low," despised the honey words, and was even indignant that Lord Chesterfield should for a moment imagine that he could be the dupe of such an artifice. His expression to me concerning Lord Chesterfield upon this occasion was, " Sir, after making great professions, he had for many years taken no notice of me; but when my Dictionary was coming out, he fell a scribbling in 'The World' about it; upon which I wrote him a letter, expressed in civil terms, but such as might show him that I did not mind what he said or wrote, and that I had done with him." This is that celebrated let- ter of which so much has been said, and about which curios- ity has been so long excited, without being gratified. I for many years solicited Johnson to favor me with a copy of it, that so excellent a composition might not be lost to poster- ity. He delayed from time to time to give it me, till at 1SG SAMUEL JOHNSON. last, in 1781, when we were on a visit at Mr. Dilly's, at Southill, in Bedfordshire, he was pleased to dictate it to me from, memory. lie afterward fotind among his papers a copy of it, which he had dictated to Mr. Barctti, with its ti- tle and corrections in his own handwriting. This he gave to Mr. Langton, adding, that if it were to come into print, he wished it to be from that copy. By Mr. Langtoifs kind- ness, I am enabled to enrich my work with a perfect tran- script of what the world has so eagerly desired to see : " To the Right Honorable the Earl of Chesterfield. " February 7, 1775. "My Lord, — I have been lately informed, by the proprietor of 'The World,' that two papers, in which my Dictionary is recommended to the public, were written by your lordship. To be so distinguished is an honor which, being very little accustomed to favors from the great, I know not well how to receive or in what terms to acknowledge. "When, upon some slight encouragement, I first visited your lordship, I was overpowered, like the rest of mankind, by the enchantment of your ad- dress, and could not forbear to wish that I might boast myself L< vainqueur tin vainqueur cle la terre, that I might obtain that regard for which I saw the world contending ; but I found my attendance so little encouraged, that nei- ther pride nor modesty would suffer me to continue it. When I had once addressed your lordship in public, I had exhausted all the art of pleasing which a retired and uncourtly scholar can possess : I had done all that I could ; and no man is well pleased to have his all neglected, be it ever so little. "Seven years, my lord, have now passed since I waited in your outward rooms, or was repulsed from your door, during which time I have been push- ing on my work through difficulties of which it is useless to complain, and have brought it, at last, to the verge of publication, without one act of as- sistance, one word of encouragement, or one smile of favor. Such treat- ment I did not expect, for I never had a patron before. "The shepherd in 'Virgil' grew at last acquainted with Love, and found him a native of the rocks. " Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man strug- gling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help? The notice which you have been pleased to take of my la- burs, had it been early, had been kind; hut it has been delayed till I am in- different, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it : till I am known, and do not, want it. I hope it is no very cynical asperity not to confess obligations where no benefit has been received, or to be unwilling that EXPRESSIONS OF GOOD-WILL AND APPROBATION. 187 the public should consider me as owing that to a patron which Providence has enabled me to do for myself. "Having carried on my work thus far with so little obligation to any fa- vorer of learning, I shall not be disappointed though I shall conclude it, if less be possible, with less ; for I have been long wakened from that dream of hope, in which I once boasted myself with so much exultation, " My lord, your lordship's most humble, " Most obedient servant, Sam. Johnson." — Bos well. EXPRESSIONS OF GOOD-WILL AND APPROBATION. I assured him that in the extensive and various range of his acquaintance there never had been any one who had a more sincere respect and affection for him than I had. He said, "I believe it, sir. Were I in distress, there is no man to whom I should sooner come than to you. I should like to come and have a cottage in your park, toddle about, live mostly on milk, and be taken care of by Mrs. Boswell. She and I are good friends now — are we not ?" — Boswell. I said to him, " My dear sir, we must meet every year, if you don't quarrel with me." Johnson : " Nay, sir, you are more likely to quarrel with me than I with you. My re- gard for you is greater almost than I have words to ex- press; but I do not choose to be always repeating it; write it down on the first leaf of your pocket-book, and never doubt of it again." — Boswell. Never, my dear sir, do you take it into your head to think that I do not love you; you may settle yourself in full con- fidence both of my love and my esteem ; I love you as a kind man, I value you as a worthy man, and hope in time to reverence you as a man of exemplary piety. I hold you, as Hamlet has it, " in my heart of hearts," and therefore it is little to say, that I am, sir, Your affectionate humble servant, Sam. Johnson. 188 SAMUEL JOHNSON. You always seem to call for tenderness. Know, then, that in the first month of the present year I very highly esteem and very cordially love yon. I hope to tell you this at the begin- ning of every year as long as we live; and why should we trouble ourselves to tell or hear it oitener? Sam. Johnson. — Extract* from letters to BosweU. We talked of Mr. Langton. Johnson, with a warm vehe- mence of affectionate regard, exclaimed, " The earth does not bear a worthier man than Bennet Langton." — BosweU. I shall never forget the exalted character he drew of his friend Mr. Langton, nor with what energy, what fond delight he expatiated in his praise, giving him every excel- lence that nature could bestow, and every perfection hu- manity could acquire. On the praises of Mrs. Thrale ho used to dwell with a peculiar delight, a paternal fondness. — Miss Reynolds (abridged). He said, "I know not who will go to Heaven if Langton does not. Sir, I could almost say, '/Sit anima mea cum Langtonoy — BosweU. Dr. Farmer, of Cambridge, had written a most excellent and convincing pamphlet to prove that Shakspeare knew little or nothing of the ancients but by translations. Being in company with Dr. Johnson, he received from him the fol- lowing compliment upon the work: " Dr. Farmer, you have done that which never was done before ; that is, you have completely finished a controversy beyond all further doubt/' "I thank you," answered Dr. Farmer, "for your flattering opinion of my work, but still think there are some critics who will adhere to their old opinions — certain persons that I could name." "Ah," said Johnson, "that may he true ; for the limbs will quiver and move after the soul is gone." — A)c) put into them. Alas ! for poor Johnson Contradiction abounded ; in spirituals and in temporals, within and without. Born with the strongest unconquerable love of just Insight, he must begin to live and learn in a scene where Prejudice nourishes with rank luxuriance. England was all confused enough, sightless and yet restless, take it where you would ; but figure the best intellect in England nursed up to manhood in the idol- cavern of a poor Tradesman's house, in the cathedral city of Lichfield ! What is Truth ? said jesting Pilate. What is Truth ? might earnest Johnson much more emphatically say. Truth no longer, like the Phoenix, in rainbow plu- mage, poured from her glittering beak such tones of sweet- est melody as took captive every ear: the Phoenix (waxing old) had well-nigh ceased her singing, and empty wearisome Cuckoos, and doleful monotonous Owls, innumerable Jays also, and twittering Sparrows on the house-top, pretended they were repeating her. It was wholly a divided age, that of Johnson; Unity existed nowhere, in its Heaven or in its Earth. Society, through every fibre, was rent asunder: all things, it was then becoming visible, but could not then be understood, were moving onward, with an impulse received ages before, yet now first with a decisive rapidity, toward that great chaotic gulf where, whether in the shape of French Revolu- tions, Reform Bills, or what shape soever, bloody or blood- less, the descent and ingulfment assume, we now see them weltering and boiling. Already Cant, as once before hint- ed, had begun to play its wonderful part, for the hour was come : two ghastly Apparitions, unreal simulacra both, Hy- pocrisy and Atheism, are already, in silence, parting the world. Opinion and Action, which should live together as wedded pair, " one flesh," more properly as Soul and Body, EXTRACTS FEOil CAELYLE's ESSAY. 2 S3 have commenced their open quarrel, and are suing for a sep- arate maintenance — as if they could exist separately. To the earnest mind, in any position, firm footing and a life of Truth was becoming daily more difficult: in Johnson's posi- tion it was more difficult than in almost any other. If, as for a devout nature was inevitable and indispensa- ble, he looked up to Religion, as to the polestar of his voy- age, already there was no fixed polestar any longer visible; but two stars, a whole constellation of stars, each proclaim- ing itself as the true. There was the red portentous comet- star of Infidelity ; the dim fixed-star, burning ever dimmer, uncertain now whether not an atmospheric meteor, of Ortho- doxy: which of these to choose? The keener intellects of Europe had, almost without exception, ranged themselves under the former : for some half century, it had been the general effort of European speculation to proclaim that De- struction of Falsehood was the only Truth ; daily had Deni- al waxed stronger and stronger, Belief sunk more and more into decay. From our Bolingbrokes and Tolands the scep- tical fever had passed into France, into Scotland ; and al- ready it smouldered, far and wide, secretly eating out the heart of England. Bayle had played his part; Voltaire, on a wider theatre, was playing his — Johnson's senior by some fifteen years : Hume and Johnson were children almost of the same year. To this keener order of intellects did John- son's indisputably belong: was he to join them? was he to oppose them ? A complicated question : for, alas, the Church itself is no longer, even to him, wholly of true adamant, but of adamant and baked mud conjoined: the zealously Devout has to find his Church tottering; and pause amazed to see, instead of inspired Priest, many a swine-feeding Trulliber ministering at her altar. It is not the least curious of the incoherences which Johnson had to reconcile, that, though by nature contemptuous and incredulous, he was, at that time of day, to find his safety and glory in defending, with his whole might, the traditions of the elders. 2S4 SAMUEL JOHNSON. Not less perplexingly intricate, and on "both sides hollow or questionable, was the aspect of Politics. Whigs strug- gling blindly forward, Tories holding blindly back ; each with some forecast of a half truth; neither with any fore- cast of the whole ! Admire here this other Contradiction in the life of Johnson; that, though the most ungovernable, and in practice the most independent of men, he must be a Jacobite, and worshipper of the Divine Right. In Politics also there are Irreconcilables enough for him. As, indeed, how could it be otherwise ? For when Religion is torn asunder, and the very heart of man's existence set against itself, then in all subordinate departments there must needs be hollowness, incoherence. The English Nation had rebel- led against a Tyrant ; and, by the hands of religious tyranni- cides, exacted stern veng'eance of him : Democracy had risen iron- sinewed, and, "like an infant Hercules, strangled ser- pents in its cradle." But as yet none knew the meaning or extent of the phenomenon: Europe was not ripe for it; not to be ripened for it but by the culture and various experi- ence of another century and a half. And now, when the King-killers were all swept away, and a milder second pict- ure was painted over the canvas of the first, and betitled " Glorious Revolution," who doubted but the catastrophe was over, the whole business finished, and Democracy gone to its long sleep? Yet was it like a business finished and not finished ; a lingering uneasiness dwelt in all minds : the deep -lying, resistless Tendency, which had still to be obeyed, could no longer be recognized ; thus was there half- ness, insincerity, uncertainty in men's ways; instead of he- roic Puritans and heroic Cavaliers came now a dawdling set of argumentative Whigs, and a dawdling set of deaf-eared Tories; each half-foolish, each half-false. The Whigs were false and without basis; inasmuch as their whole object was Resistance, Criticism, Demolition — they knew not why or to- wards what issue. In Whiggism, ever since a Charles and his Jeffries had ceased to meddle with it, and to have any EXTBACTS FEOM CAELYLE's ESSAY. 2S5 Russell or Sydney to meddle with, there could be no divine- ness of character; not till, in these latter days, it took the figure of a thorough-going, all-defying Radicalism, was there any solid footing for it to stand on. Of the like uncertain, half-hollow nature had Toryism become in Johnson's time; preaching forth, indeed, an everlasting truth, the duty of Loyalty ; yet now, ever since the final expulsion of the Stu- arts, having no Person, but only an Office, to be loyal to ; no living Soul to worship, but only a dead velvet -cushioned Chair. Its attitude, therefore, Avas stiff-necked refusal to move ; as that of Whiggism was clamorous command to move — let rhyme and reason, on both hands, say to it what they might. The consequence was : Immeasurable floods of contentious jargon, tending nowhither; false conviction; false resistance to conviction ; decay (ultimately to become decease) of whatsoever was once understood by the words Principle, or Honesty of heart ; the loud and louder triumph of Halfness and Plausibility over Wholeness and Truth : at last, this all-overshadowing efflorescence of Quackery, which we now see, with all its deadening and killing fruits, in all its innumerable branches, down to the lowest. How, be- tween these jarring extremes, wherein the rotten lay so in- extricably intermingled with the sound, and as yet no eye could see through the ulterior meaning of the matter, was a faithful and true man to adjust himself? That Johnson, in spite of all drawbacks, adopted the Con- servative side; stationed himself as the unyielding opponent of Innovation, resolute to hold fast the form of sound words, could not but increase, in no small measure, the difficulties he had to strive with. We mean the moral difficulties ; for in economical respects it might be pretty equally balanced ; the Tory servant of the public had perhaps about the same chance of promotion as the Whig ; and all the promotion Johnson aimed at was the privilege to live. But for what, though unavowed, was no less indispensable, for his peace of conscience, and the clear ascertainment and feeling of his 2S6 SAMUEL JOHNSON. Duty as an inhabitant of God's world, the case was hereby rendered much more complex. To resist Innovation is easy enough on one condition : that you resist Inquiry. That is, and was, the common expedient of your common Conserva- tives ; but it would not do for Johnson : he was a zealous recommender and practiser of Inquiry ; ouce for all, could not and would not believe, much less speak and act, a False- hood : the form of sound words, which he held fast, must have a meaning in it. Here lay the difficulty : to behold a portentous mixture of True and False, and feel that he must dwell and fight there ; yet to love and defend only the True. How worship, when you cannot and will not be an idolater; yet cannot help discerning that the Symbol of your Divinity has half become idolatrous? This was the question which Johnson, the man both of clear eye and devout, believing heart, must answer — at peril of his life. The Whig or Scep- tic, on the other hand, had a much simpler part to play. To him only the idolatrous side of things, nowise the divine one, lay visible : not loorshiji, therefore, nay, in the strict sense, not heart-honesty, only at most lip and hand honesty, is required of him. What spiritual force is his, he can con- scientiously employ in the work of cavilling, of pulling down what is False. For the rest, that there is or can be any Truth of a higher than sensual nature, has not occurred to him. The utmost, therefore, that he as a man has to aim at is Respectability, the suffrages of his fellow -men. Such suffrages he may weigh as well as count, or count only, ac- cording as he is a Burke or a Wilkes. But beyond these there lies nothing divine for him ; these attained, all is at- tained. Thus is his whole world distinct and rounded-in ; a clear goal is set before him ; a firm path, rougher or smooth- er; at worst a firm region wherein to seek a path: let him gird up his loins, and travel on without misgivings ! For the honest Conservative, again, nothing is distinct, nothing rounded-in : Respectability can nowise be his highest God- head ; not one aim, but two conflicting aims to be continual- EXTKACTS FR03I CAELTLE's ESSAY. 287 ly reconciled by him, bas he to strive after. A difficult po- sition, as we said ; which accordingly the most did, even in those days, hut half defend : by the surrender, namely, of their own too cumbersome honesty, or even understanding ; alter which the completest defence was worth little. Into this difficult position Johnson, nevertheless, threw himself: found it indeed full of difficulties ; yet held it out manfully, as an honest-hearted, open-sighted man, while life was in him. Such was that same twofold Problem set before Samuel Johnson. Consider all these moral difficulties; and add to them the fearful aggravation, which lay in that other cir- cumstance, that he needed a continual appeal to the Public, must continually produce a certain impression and convic- tion on the Public ; that if he did not, he ceased to have " provision for the day that was passing over him," he could not any longer live ! How a vulgar character, once launch- ed into this wild element ; driven onward by Fear and Fam- ine ; without other aim than to clutch what Provender (of Enjoyment in any kind) he could get, always if possible keeping quite clear of the Gallows and Pillory, that is to say, minding needfully both "person" and "character" — would have floated hither and thither in it ; and contrived to eat some three repasts daily, and wear some three suits yearly, and then to depart and disappear, having consumed his last ration : all this might be worth knowing, but were in itself a trivial knowledge. How a noble man, resolute for the Truth, to whom Shams and Lies were once for all an abom- ination, was to act in it ; here lay the mystery. By what methods, by what gifts of eye and hand, does a heroic Sam- uel Johnson, now when cast forth into that waste Chaos of Authorship, maddest of things, a mingled Phlegethon and Fleet-ditch, with its floating lumber, and sea-krakens, and mud-spectres — shape himself a voyage; of the transient driftwood, and the enduring iron, build him a sea-worthy Life-boat, and sail therein, undrowned, unpolluted, through the roaring "mother of dead dogs," onward to an eternal 288 SAMUEL JOUNSOX. Landmark, and City that bath foundations? This high question is even the one answered in Boswell's Book; which Book we therefore, not so falsely, have named a Heroic Poem; for in it there lies the whole argument of such. Glory to our brave Samuel ! He accomplished this wonder- ful Problem; and now through long generations we point to him, and say, Here also was a Man ; let the world once more have assurance of a Man ! Had there been in Johnson, now when afloat on that con- fusion worse confounded of grandeur and squalor, no light but an earthly outward one, he too must have made ship- wreck. With his diseased body, and vehement voracious heart, how easy for him to become a carpe-diem Philoso- pher like the rest, and live and die as miserably as any Boyce of that Brotherhood ! But happily there was a high- er light for him; shining as a lamp to his path; which, in all paths, would teach him to act and walk not as a fool, but as wise, and in those evil days too " redeeming the time." Under dimmer or clearer manifestations, a Truth had been revealed to him : I also am a Man ; even in this unutterable element of Authorship, I may live as beseems a Man ! That Wrong is not only different from Right, but that it is in strict scientific terms infinitely different; even as the gaining of the whole world set against the losing of one's own soul, or (as Johnson had it) a Heaven set against a Hell ; that in all situations out of the Pit of Tophet, wherein a living Man has stood or can stand, there is act- ually a Prize of quite infinite value placed within his reach, namely, a Duty for him to do : this highest Gospel, which forms the basis and worth of all other Gospels whatsoever, had been revealed to Samuel Johnson ; and the man had believed it, and laid it faithfully to heart. Such knowledge of the transcendental, immeasurable character of Duty we call the basis of all Gospels, the essence of all Religion : he who with his whole soul knows not this, as yet knows noth- ing, as yet is properly nothing. EXTEACTS FROM CAELYLE'S ESSAY. 289 This, happily for him, Johnson was one of those that knew : under a certain authentic Symbol it stood forever present to 'his eyes: a Symbol, indeed, waxing old as doth a garment; yet which had guided forward, as their Banner and celestial Pillar of Fire, innumerable saints and witness- es, the fathers of our modern world ; and for him also had still a sacred significance. It does not appear that at any time Johnson was what we call irreligious : but in his sor- rows and isolation, when hope died away, and only a long vista of suffering and toil lay before him to the end, then first did Religion shine forth in its meek, everlasting clear- ness ; even as the stars do in black night, which in the daytime and dusk were hidden by inferior lights. How a true man, in the midst of errors and uncertainties, shall work out for himself a sure Life-truth ; and adjusting the tran- sient to the eternal, amidst the fragments of ruined Temples build up, with toil and pain, a little Altar for himself, and Avoiship there; how Samuel Johnson, in the era of Voltaire, can purify and fortify his soul, and hold real communion with the Highest, " in the Church of St. Clement Danes ;" this too stands all unfolded in his Biography, and is among the most touching and memorable things there ; a thing to be looked at with pity, admiration, awe. Johnson's Relig- ion was as the light of life to him ; without it his heart was all sick, dark, and had no guidance left. He is now enlisted, or impressed, into that unspeakable shoeblack- seraph Army of Authors; but can feel hereby that he fights under a celestial flag, and will quit him like a man. The first grand requisite, an assured heart, he there- fore has: what his outward equipments and accoutrements are, is the next question ; an important, though inferior one. His intellectual stock, intrinsically viewed, is perhaps incon- siderable; the furnishings of an English School and Eng- lish University ; good knowledge of the Latin tongue — a more uncertain one of Greek: this is a rather slender stock of Education wherewith to front the world. But then it 13 290 SAAIUEL JOHXSOX. is to be remembered that bis world was England; tbat such was tbe culture England commonly supplied and expected. Besides, Jobnson bas been a voracious reader, thougb a des- ultory one, and oftenest in strange scholastic, too obsolete Libraries; be bas also rubbed shoulders with the press of Actual Life for some thirty years now : views or hallucina- tions of innumerable things are weltering to and fro in him. Above all, be bis weapons what they may, he bas an arm tbat can wield them. Nature has given him her choicest gift — an open eye and heart. He will look on the world, wheresoever he can catch a glimpse of it, with eager curi- osity : to the last, we find this a striking characteristic of him ; for all human interests be has a sense ; the meanest handicraftsman could interest him, even in extreme age, by speaking of bis craft : the ways of men are all interesting to him; any human thing that he did not know, he wished to know. Reflection, moreover, Meditation, was what he practised incessantly, with or without his will ; for the mind of the man was earnest, deep as well as humane. Thus would the world, such fragments of it as be could survey, form itself, or continually tend to form itself, into a cohe- rent Whole; on any and on all phases of which his vote and voice must be well worth listening to. As a Speaker of the Word, he will speak real words ; no idle jargon or hollow triviality will issue from him. His aim too is clear, attainable ; that of icorMng for his icages : let him do this honestly, and all else will follow of its own accoi'd. With such omens, into such a warfare, did Johnson go forth. A rugged hungry Kern or Gallowglass, as we called him : yet indomitable ; in whom lay the true spirit of a Soldier. With giant's force be toils, since such is his ap- pointment, were it but at hewing of wood and drawing of water for old sedentary bushy-wigged Cave; distinguishes himself by mere quantity, if there is to be no other distinc- tion. He can write all things : frosty Latin verses, if these are the salable commodity; Book -prefaces, Political Phi- EXTRACTS FEOM CAELYLE's ESSAY. 291 lippics, Review Articles, Parliamentary Debates : all things be does rapidly; still more surprising-, all things he does thoroughly and well. How he sits there, in his rough-hewn, amorphous bulk, in that upper-room at St. John's Gate, and trundles off" sheet after sheet of those Senate-of-Lilliput De- bates, to the clamorous Printer's Devils waiting for them with insatiable throat down-stairs; himself perhaps impran- sus all the while ! Admire also the greatness of Literature; how a grain of mustard-seed cast into its Nile waters shall settle in the teeming mould, and be found, one day, as a Tree, in whose branches all the fowls of Heaven may lodge. Was it not so with these Lilliput Debates? In that small project and act began the stupendous Foueth Estate; whose wide world-embracing influences what eye can take in ; in whose boughs are there not already fowls of strange feather lodged? Such things, and far stranger, were done in that wondrous old Portal, even in latter times. And then figure Samuel dining "behind the screen," from a trencher covertly handed in to him, at a preconcerted nod from the "great bushy wig;" Samuel too ragged to show face, yet "made a happy man of" by hearing his praise spo- ken. If to Johnson himself, then much more to us, may that St. John's Gate be a place we can " never pass without ven- eration." Poverty, Distress, and as yet Obscurity, are his compan- ions : so poor is he that his Wife must leave him, and seek shelter among other relations; Johnson's household has ac- commodation for one inmate only. To all his ever-varying, ever -recurring troubles, moreover, must be added this con- tinual one of ill-health, and its concomitant depressiveness : a galling load, which would have crushed most common mortals into desperation, is his appointed ballast and life- burden ; he " could not remember the day he had passed free from pain." Nevertheless, Life, as we said before, is al- ways Life: a healthy soul, imprison it as you will, in squalid garrets, shabby coat, bodily sickness, or whatever else, will 292 SAMUEL JOHNSON. assert its heaven-granted indefeasible Freedom, its right to conquer difficulties, to do work, even to feel gladness. John- son does not whine over his existence, but manfully makes the most and best of it. "He said, a man might live in a garret at eighteenpence a week : few people would inquire where he lodged ; and if they did, it was easy to say, ' Sir, I am to be found at such a place.' By spending threepence in a coffee-house, he might be for some hours every day in very good company ; he might dine for sixpence, breakfast on bread-and-milk for a penny, and do without supper. On clean-shirt day he went abroad and paid visits." Think by whom and of whom this was uttered,* and ask then, Whether there is more pathos in it than in a whole circulating-library of "Giaours" and "Harolds," or less pathos? On another occasion, " when Dr. Johnson one day read his own Satire, in which the life of a scholar is painted, with the various ob- structions thrown in his way to fortune and to fame, he burst into a passion of tears : Mr. Thrale's 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.'' He was a very large man, and made out the triumvirate with Johnson and Hercules comically enough." These were sweet tears ; the sweet, victorious remembrance lay in them of toils indeed frightful, yet never flinched from, and now triumphed over. " One day it shall delight you also to remember labor done !" Neither, though Johnson is obscure and poor, need the highest enjoyment of existence, that of heart freely communing with heart, be denied him. Savage and he wander bomeless through the streets; with- out bed, yet not without friendly converse ; such another * This was told by Johnson, not as his own experience, hut that of an ac- quaintance, an Irish painter, whom he knew in his youth. lie gave accounts very like this of his own economy, but this particular story was not a person- al remembrance. See Boswell, 1737. — Editor. EXTKACTS FEOil CAELYLE's ESSAY. . 293 conversation not, it is like, producible in the proudest draw- ing-room of London. Nor, under the void Night, upon the hard pavement, are their own woes the only topic: nowise; they " will stand by their country," they there, the two " Backwoodsmen " of the Brick Desert ! Of all outward evils Obscurity is, perhaps, in itself the least. To Johnson, as to a healthy-minded man, the fantas- tic article sold or given under the title of Fame had little or no value but its intrinsic one. He prized it as the means of getting him employment and good wages ; scarcely as any- thing more. His light and guidance came from a loftier source; of which, in honest aversion to all hypocrisy or pre- tentious talk, he spoke not to men; nay, perhaps, being of a healthy mind, had never spoken to himself. We reckon it a striking fact in Johnson's history, this carelessness of his to Fame. Most authors speak of their "Fame" as if it were a quite priceless matter; the grand ultimatum, and heavenly Constantine's- Banner they had to follow, and conquer un- der. Thy " Fame !" Unhappy mortal, where will it and thou both be in some fifty years ? Shakspeare himself has lasted but two hundred; Homer (partly by accident) three thousand : and does not already an Eternity encircle every Me and every Thee? Cease, then, to sit feverishly hatch- ing on that "Fame" of thine; and flapping and shrinking with fierce hisses, like brood -goose on her last egg, if man shall or dare approach it ! Quarrel not with me, hate me not, my Brother: make what thou canst of thy egg, and welcome : God knows, I will not steal it ; I believe it to be addle. Johnson, for his part, was no man to be killed by a review; concerning which matter, it was said by a benevo- lent person : If any author can be reviewed to death, let it be, with all convenient despatch, done. Johnson thankfully receives any word spoken in his favor; is nowise disobliged by a lampoon, but will look at it, if pointed out to him, and show how it might have been done better: the lampoon it- self is, indeed, nothing, a soap-bubble that next moment will 294 SAMUEL JOHNSON. become a drop of sour suds ; but in the mean while, if it do anything, it keeps, him more in the world's eye, and the next bargain will be all the richer: "Sir, if they should cease to talk of me, I must starve." Sound heart and understanding head: these fail no man, not even a Man of Letters ! Obscurity, however, was in Johnson's case, whether a light or heavy evil, likely to be no lasting one. He is animated by the spirit of a true workman^ resolute to do his work well ; and he does his work well ; all his work, that of writ- ing, that of living. A man of this stamp is, unhappily, not so common in the literary or in any other department of the world that he can continue always unnoticed. By slow de- grees, Johnson emerges ; looming, at first, huge and dim in the eye of an observant few ; at last disclosed, in his real proportions, to the eye of the whole world, and encircled with a " light-nimbus " of glory, so that whoso is not blind must and shall behold him. By slow degrees, we said; for this also is notable ; slow, but sure : as his fame waxes not by exaggerated clamor of what he seems to be, but by bet- ter and better insight of what he is, so it will last and stand wearing, being genuine. Thus, indeed, is it always, or near- ly always, with true fame. The heavenly luminary rises amidst vapors ; star-gazers enough must scan it with criti- cal telescopes ; it makes no blazing, the world can either look at it or forbear looking at it ; not till after a time and times does its celestial, eternal nature become indubitable. Pleasant, on the other hand, is the blazing of a Tar-barrel ; the crowd dance merrily round it, with loud huzzaing, uni- versal three-times-three, and, like Homer's peasants, "bless the useful light :" but, unhappily, it so soon ends in dark- ness, foul, choking smoke ; and is kicked into the gutters, a nameless imbroglio of charred staves, pitch-cinders, and vo- missement die diable ! But, indeed, from of old Johnson has enjoyed all, or near- ly all, that Fame can yield any man : the respect, the obe- dience, of those that are about him and inferior to him ; of EXTRACTS FE03I CAELYLE S ESSAY. 295 those whose opinion alone can have any forcible impression on him. A little circle gathers round the "Wise man, which gradually enlarges as the report thereof spreads, and more can come to see and to believe ; for Wisdom is precious, and of irresistible attraction to all. "An inspired. idiot," Gold- smith, hangs strangely about him ; though, as Hawkins says, " he loved not Johnson, but rather envied him for his parts, and once entreated a friend to desist from praising him, ' for in so doing,' said he, ' you harrow up my very soul !' " Yet, on the whole, there is no evil in the " gooseberry fool," but, rather, much good ; of a finer, if of a weaker, sort than John- son's ; and all the more genuine that he himself could never become conscious of it — though, unhappily, never cease at- tempting to become so : the Author of the genuine " Vicar of Wakefield," nill he, will he, must needs fly toward such a mass of genuine Manhood ; and Dr. Minor keep gyrating round Dr. Major, alternately attracted and repelled. Then there is the chivalrous Topham Beauclerk, with his sharp wit, and gallant, courtly ways : there is Bennet Langton, an orthodox gentleman, and worthy; though Johnson once laughed, louder almost than mortal, at his last will and testament ; and " could not stop his merriment, but contin- ued it all the way till he got without the Temple gate ; then burst into such a fit of laughter that he appeared to be al- most in a convulsion, and, in order to support himself, laid hold of one of the posts at the side of the foot-pavement, and sent forth peals so loud that, in the silence of the night, his voice seemed to resound from Temple Bar to Fleet Ditch !" Lastly comes his solid-thinking, solid-feeding Thrale, the well-beloved man ; with Thralia, a bright papilionaceous creature, whom the elephant loved to play with, and wave to and fro upon his trunk. Not to speak of a reverent Boz- zy, for what need is there further ? or of the spiritual Lumi- naries, with tongue or pen, who made that age remarkable; or of Highland Lairds drinking, in fierce usquebaugh," Your health, Toctor Shonson !" Still less, of many such as that 29G SAMUEL JOHNSON. poor "Mr. F. Lewis," older in date, of whose birth, death, and whole terrestrial res gestce, this only, and, strange enough, this actually, survives: '-'Sir, he lived in London, and hung loose upon society !" Stat Parti nominis umbra. If Destiny had beaten hard on poor Samuel, and did never cease to visit him too roughly, yet the last section of his Life might be pronounced victorious, and, on the whole, happy. He was not idle; but now no longer goaded on by want; the light which had shone irradiating the dark haunts of Poverty, now illumines the circles of Wealth, of a certain culture and elegant intelligence ; he who had once been ad- mitted to speak with Edmund Cave and Tobacco Browne, now admits a Reynolds and a Burke to speak with him. Loving friends are there ; Listeners, even Answerers : the fruit of his long labors lies round him in fair, legible Writ- ings, of Philosophy, Eloquence, Morality, Philology ; some excellent, all worthy and genuine, Works ; for which, too, a deep, earnest murmur of thanks reaches him from all ends of his Fatherland. Na}'-, there are works of Goodness, of undying Mercy, which even he has possessed the power to do: "What I gave I have; what I spent I had!" Early friends had long sunk into the grave ; yet in his soul they ever lived, fresh and clear, with soft, pious breathings to- ward them, not without a still hope of one day meeting, them again in purer union. Such was Johnson's Life : the victorious Battle of a free, true Man. Finally, he died the death of the free and true : a dark cloud of Death, solemn, and not untinged with halos of immortal Hope, "took him away," and our eyes could no longer behold him; but can still behold the trace and impress of his courageous, honest spirit, deep-legible in the World's Business, wheresoever he walked and was. To estimate the quantity of Work that Johnson perform- ed, how much poorer the World were had it wanted him, can, as in all such cases, never be accurately done — cannot} till after some longer space, be approximately done. All EXTRACTS FROM CARLYLE's ESSAY. 297 work is as seed sown; it grows and spreads, and sows it- self anew, and so, in endless palingenesia, lives and works. To Johnson's Writings, good and solid, and still profitable as they are, we have already rated his Life and Conversa- tion as superior. By the one and by the other, who shall compute what effects have been produced, and are still, and into deep Time, producing? If we ask now by what endowment it mainly was that Johnson realized such a Life for himself and others; what quality of character the main phenomena of his Life may be most naturally deduced from, and his other qualities most naturally subordinated to, in our conception of him, perhaps the answer were: The quality of Courage, of Valor; that Johnson was a Brave Man. The Courage we desire and prize is not the Courage to die decently, but to live man- fully. This, when by God's grace it has been given, lies deep in the soul; like genial heat, fosters all other virtues and gifts. Without it they could not live. In spite of our innumerable Waterloos and Peterloos, and such campaign- ing as there has been, this Courage we allude to, and call the only true one, is perhaps rarer in these last ages than it has been in any other since the Saxon Invasion under Hengist. Altogether extinct it can never be among men ; otherwise the species Man were no longer for this world : here and there, in all times, under various guises, men are sent hither not only to demonstrate but exhibit it, and tes- tify, as from heart to heart, that it is still possible, still prac- ticable. Johnson, in the eighteenth century, and as Man of Let- ters, was one of such; and, in good truth, "the bravest of the brave." What mortal could have more to war with? Yet, as we saw, he yielded not, faltered not ; he fought, and even, such was his blessedness, prevailed. Whoso will un- derstand what it is to have a man's heart may find that, since the time of John Milton, no braver heart had beat in any English bosom than Samuel Johnson now bore. Ob- 29S SAMUEL JOHNSON. serve too that he never called himself brave, never felt him- self to be so ; the more completely was so. No Giant De- spair, no Golgotha Death -dance or Sorcerer's -Sabbath of "Literary Life in London," appals this pilgrim; he works resolutely for deliverance ; in still defiance steps stoutly along. The tiring that is given him to do, he can make himself do ; what is to be endured, he can endure in silence. How the great soul of old Samuel, consuming daily his own bitter unalleviable allotment of misery and toil, shows beside the poor flimsy little soul of young Boswell ; one day flaunting in the ring of vanity, tarrying by the wine- cup and crying, Aha, the wine is red; the next day deplor- ing his down -pressed, night -shaded, quite poor estate, and thinking it unkind that the whole movement of the Uni- verse should go on, while his digestive apparatus had stop- ped ! We reckon Johnson's " talent of silence " to be among his great and too rare gifts. Where there is noth- ing further to be done, there shall nothing further be said : like his own poor blind Welshwoman, he accomplished some- what, and also " endured fifty years of wretchedness with unshaken fortitude." How grim was Life to him ; a sick Prison-house and Doubting-castle! "His great business," he would profess, " was to escape from himself." Yet to- wards all this he has taken his position and resolution; can dismiss it all " with frigid indifference, having little to hope or to fear." Friends are stupid, and pusillanimous, and par- simonious; "wearied of his stay, yet offended at his depart- ure:" it is the manner of the world. "By popular delu- sion," remarks he with a gigantic calmness, " illiterate writ- ers will rise into renown :" it is portion of the History of English Literature ; a perennial thing, this same popular delusion; and will — alter the character of the Language. Closely connected with this quality of Valor, partly as springing from it, partly as protected by it, are the more rec- ognizable qualities of Truthfulness in word and thought, and Honesty in action. There is a reciprocity of influence here ; EXTRACTS FROM CAELYLE's ESSAY. 299 for as the realizing of Truthfulness and Honesty is the life- light and great aim of Valor, so without Valor they cannot in anywise be realized. Now, in spite of all practical short- comings, no one that sees into the significance of Johnson will say that his prime object was not Truth. In conversa- tion, doubtless, you may observe him, on occasion, fighting as if for victory ; and must pardon these ebulliences of a careless hour, which were not without temptation and prov- ocation. Remark, likewise, two things : that such prize-ar- guings were ever on merely superficial debatable questions; and then that they were argued generally by the fair laws of battle and logic-fence, by one cunning in that same. If their purpose was excusable, their effect was harmless, per- haps beneficial : that of taming noisy mediocrity, and show- ing it another side of a debatable matter; to see both sides of which was, for the first time, to see the Truth of it. In his Writings themselves are errors enough, crabbed prepos- ' sessions enough ; yet these, also, of a quite extraneous and accidental nature, nowhere a wilful shutting of the eyes to the Truth. Nay, is there not everywhere a heartfelt dis- cernment, singular, almost admirable, if we consider through what confused conflicting lights and hallucinations it had to be attained, of the highest everlasting Truth, and beginning of all truths : this, namely, that man is ever, and even in the age of Wilkes and Whitefield, a Revelation of God to man ; and lives, moves, and has his being in Truth only; is either true, or, in strict speech, is not at all? Quite spotless, on the other hand, is Johnson's love of Truth, if we look at it as expressed in Practice, as what w T e have named Honesty of action. " Clear your mind of Cant ;" clear it, throw Cant utterly away; such was his emphatic, repeated precept ; and did not he himself faithfully conform to it ? The Life of this man has been, as it were, turned in- side out, and examined with microscopes by friend and foe ; yet was there no Lie found in him. His Doings and Writ- ings are not shows, but performances : yon may weigh them 300 SAMUEL JOHNSOU. in the balance, and they will stand weight. Not a line, not a sentence, is dishonestly done, is other than it pretends to be. Alas ! and he wrote not out of inward inspiration, but to earn his wages : and with that grand perennial tide of "pop- ular delusion" flowing by; in whose waters he nevertheless refused to fish, to whose rich oyster-beds the dive was too muddy for hira. Observe, again, with what innate hatred of Cant he takes for himself, and offers to others, the lowest i possible view of his business, which he followed with such nobleness. Motive for writing he had none, as he often said, but money ; and yet he wrote so. Into the region of Poetic Art he, indeed, never rose; there was no ideal with- out him avowing itself in his work : the nobler was that un- avowed ideal which lay within him, and commanded, say- ing, Work out thy Artisanship in the spirit of an Artist ! They who talk loudest about the dignity of Art, and fancy that they too are Artistic guild-brethren, and of the Celes- tials, let them consider well what manner of man this was, who felt himself to be only a hired day-laborer. A laborer that was worthy of his hire; that has labored not as au eye- servant, but as one found faithful ! That Mercy can dwell only with Yalor, is an old senti- ment or proposition ; which in Johnson again receives con- firmation. Few men on record have had a more merciful, tenderly affectionate nature than old Samuel. He was call- ed the Bear; and did, indeed, too often look, and roar, like one; being forced to it in his own defence: yet within that shaggy exterior of his there beat a heart warm as a moth- er's, soft as a little child's. Nay, generally, his very roaring was but the anger of affection — the rage of a Bear, if you will; but of a Bear bereaved of her whelps. Touch his Re- ligion, glance at the Church of England, or the Divine Right, and he was upon you ! These things were his Symbols of all that was good and precious for men; his very Ark of the Covenant: whoso laid hand on them tore asunder his heart of hearts. Not out of hatred to the opponent, but oflove to EXTRACTS FROM CAKLYLE's ESSAY. 301 the thing opposed, did Johnson grow cruel, fiercely contra- dictory : this is an important distinction, never to be forgot- ten in onr censure of his conversational, outrages. But ob- serve, also, with what humanity, what openness of love, he can attach himself to all things : to a blind old woman, to a Doctor Lcvett, to a cat "Hodge." "His thoughts in the latter part of his life were frequently employed on his de- ceased friends; he often muttered these or such like sen- tences : 'Poor man ! and then he died.' " How he patiently converts his poor home into a Lazaretto; endures, for long years, the contradiction of the miserable and unreasonable; with him unconnected, save that they had no other to yield them refuge ! Generous old man ! Worldly possession he has little; yet of this he gives freely; from his own hard- earned shilling, the half-pence for the poor, that " waited his coming out," are not withheld : the poor " waited the com- ing out" of one not quite so poor ! A Sterne can write sen- timentalities on Dead Asses: Johnson has a rough voice; but he finds the wretched Daughter of Vice fallen down in the streets ; carries her home on his own shoulders, and, like a good Samaritan, gives help to the help-needing, worthy or unworthy. Ought not Charity, even in that sense, to cover a multitude of sins ? No Penny-a-week Committee-Lady, no manager of Soup-Kitchens, dancer at Charity-Balls, was this rugged, stern-visaged man : but where, in all England, could there have been found another soul so full of Pity, a hand so heaven-like bounteous as his? The widow's mite, we know, was greater than all the other gifts. Perhaps it is this divine feeling of Affection, throughout manifested, that principally attracts us toward Johnson. A true brother of men is he, and filial lover of the Earth; who, with little bright spots of Attachment, " where lives and works some loved one," has beautified "this rough, solitary Earth into a peopled garden." Lichfield, with its mostly dull and limited inhabitants, is to the last one of the sunny islets for him : Salve magna parens! Or read those Letters 302 SAMUEL JOHNSON. on his Mother's death : what a genuine solemn grief and pity lies recorded there ; a looking back into the Past, un- speakably mournful, unspeakably tender. And yet calm, sublime ; for he must now act, not look : his venerated Mother has. been taken from him; but he must now write a " Rasselas " to defray her funeral ! Again in this little in- cident, recorded in his Book of Devotion, are not the tones of sacred Sorrow and Greatness deeper than in many a blank- verse Tragedy ? as, indeed, " the fifth act of a Trage- dy," though unrhymecl, does "lie in every death-bed, were it a peasant's, and of straw :" "Sunday, October 18th, 1767. Yesterday, at about ten in the morning, I took my leave forever of my dear old friend, Catherine Chambers, who came to live with my mother about 1724, and has been but little parted from us since. She buried my father, my brother, and my mother. She is now fifty-eight years old. "I desired all to withdraw; then told her that we were to part forever; that as Christians, we should part with prayer ; and that I would, if she was willing, say a short prayer beside her. She expressed great desire to hear me ; and held up her poor hands as she lay in bed, with great fervor, while I prayed kneeling by her. * * * "I then kissed her. She told me that to part was the greatest pain she had ever felt, and that she hoped we should meet again in a better place. I expressed, with swelled eyes and great emotion of tenderness, the same hopes. We kissed and parted ; I humbly hope, to meet again, and to part no more." Tears trickling down the granite rock : a soft well of Pity springs within ! Still more tragical is this other scene : "Johnson mentioned that he could not, in general, accuse himself of having been an undutiful son. ' Once, indeed,' said he, ' I was disobedient : I refused to attend my father to Uttoxeter market. Pride was the source of that refusal, and the remembrance of it was painful. A few years ago I desired to atone for this fault.'" But by what method? What method was now possible ? Hear it ; the words are again given as his own, though here evidently by a less ca- pable reporter : EXTRACTS FROM CAELYLE's ESSAY. 303 "Madam, I beg your pardon for the abruptness of my departure in the morning, but I was compelled to it by conscience. Fifty years ago, madam, on this day, I committed a breach of filial piety. My father had been in the habit of attending Uttoxeter market, and opening a stall there for the sale of his books. Confined by indisposition, he desired me, that day, to go and attend the stall in his place. My pride prevented me ; I gave my father a refusal. And now to-day I have been at Uttoxeter ; I went into the market at the time of business, uncovered my head, and stood with it bare, for an hour, on the spot where my father's stall used to stand. ■ In contrition I stood, and I hope the penance was expiatory." Who does not figure to himself this spectacle, amidst the "rainy weather, and the sneers," or wonder, "of the by- stauders ?" The memory of old Michael Johnson, rising from the far distance ; sad-beckoning in the " moonlight of memory :" how he had toiled faithfully hither and thither ; patiently among the lowest of the low; been buffeted and beaten down, yet ever-risen again, ever tried it anew. — And oh, when the wearied old man, as Bookseller, or Hawker, or Tinker, or whatsoever it was that Fate had reduced him to, begged help of thee for one day — how savage, diabolic, was that mean Vanity which answered, No ! He sleeps now; af- ter life's fitful fever, he sleeps well : but thou, O Merciless, how now wilt thou still the sting of that remembrance ? The picture of Samuel Johnson standing bareheaded in the market there is one of the grandest and saddest we can paint. Repentance ! Repentance ! he proclaims, as with passionate sobs ; but only to the ear of Heaven, if Heaven will give him audience : the earthly ear and heart, that should have heard it, are now closed, unresponsive forever. That this so keen-loving, soft-trembling Affectionateness, the inmost essence of his being, must have looked forth, in one form or another, through Johnson's whole charac- ter, practical and intellectual, modifying both, is not to be doubted. Yet through what singular distortions and su- perstitions, moping melancholies, blind habits, whims about "entering with the right foot," and "touching every post as he walked along;" and all the other mad chaotic lumber 304: SAMUEL JOHNSOX. of a brain that, with sun-clear intellect, hovered forever on the verge of insanity — must that same inmost essence have looked forth ; unrecognizable to all but the most observant ! Accordingly, it was not recognized; Johnson passed not for a fine nature, but for a dull, almost brutal one. More legibly is this influence of the Loving heart to be traced in his intellectual character. What, indeed, is the beginning of'intellect, the first inducement to the exercise thereof, but attraction toward somewhat, affection for it ? Thus too, who ever saw, or will see, any true talent, not to speak of genius, the foundation of which is not goodness, love? From Johnson's strength of Affection we deduce many of his intellectual peculiarities; especially that threat- ening array of perversions, known under the name of "John- son's Prejudices." Looking well into the root from which these sprang, we have long ceased to view them with hos- tility, can pardon and reverently pity them. Consider with what force early imbibed opinions must have clung to a soul of this Affection. Those evil-famed Prejudices of his, that Jacobitism, Church-of-Englandism, hatred of the Scotch, belief in Witches, and such like, what were they but the ordinary beliefs of well-doing, well-meaning provincial Eng- lishmen in that day ? First gathered by his Father's hearth ; round the kind "country fires" of native Staffordshire; they grew with his growth and strengthened with his strength: they were hallowed by fondest sacred recollections ; to part with them was parting with his heart's blood. If the man- who has no strength of Affection, strength of Belief, have no strength of Prejudice, let him thank Heaven for it, but to himself take small thanks. Melancholy it was, indeed, that the noble Johnson could not work himself loose from these adhesions; that he could only purify them, and wear them with some nobleness. Yet let us understand how they grew out from the very centre of his being : nay, moreover, how they came to cohere in him with what formed the business and worth of his Life, EXTRACTS FROM! CAELYLE's ESSAY. ' 005 the sum of his whole Spiritual Endeavor. For it is on the same ground that he became throughout an Edifier and Repairer, not, as the others of his make were, a Puller-down; that in an age of universal Scepticism, England was still to produce its Believer. Mark too his candor even here ; while a Dr. Adams, with placid surprise, asks, " Have we not evidence enough of the soul's immortality?" Johnson an- swers, "I wish for more." But the truth is, in Prejudice, as in all things, Johnson was the product of England ; one of those good yeomen whose limbs were made in England : alas, the last of such Invincibles, their day being now done ! His culture is wholly English ; that not of a Thinker but of a " Scholar :" his interests are wholly English; he sees and knows noth- ing but England ; he is the John Bull of Spiritual Europe ; let him live, love him, as he was and could not but be ! Pitiable it is, no doubt, that a Samuel Johnson must con- fute Hume's irreligious Philosophy by some " story from a Clergyman of the Bishopric of Durham ;" should see noth- ing in the great Frederick but "Voltaire's lackey;" in Vol- taire himself but a man acerrimi ingenii^ r paucarum litera- rum; in Rousseau but one worthy to be hanged; and in the universal, long-prepared, inevitable Tendency of Euro- pean Thought but a green-sick milkmaid's crotchet of, for variety's sake, "milking the Bull." Our good, dear John! Observe, too, what it is that he sees in the city of Paris: no feeblest glimpse of those D'Alemberts and Diderots, or of the strange questionable work they did; solely some Ben- edictine Priests, to talk kitchen-latin with them about Edi- tiones Principes. "Monsheer Nbngtongpaw /" — Our dear, foolish John : yet is there a lion's heart within him ! Pit- iable all these thing were, we say ; yet nowise inexcusable ; nay, as basis or as foil to much else that was, in Johnson, almost venerable. Ought we not, indeed, to honor England, and English Institutions and Way of Life, that they could still equip such a man ; could furnish him in heart and head 306 SAMUEL JOHNSON. to be a Samuel Johnson, and yet to love them, and unyield- ingly fight for them? What truth and living vigor must such Institutions once have had, when, in the middle of the eighteenth century, there was still enough left in them for this ! INDEX. Abbe Kaynal, the, 92. Roufiette, conversing with the, 124. Abington's, Mrs., benefit, 43. Abridgment of a work, printing an, 158. Abroad, 12. Absent-mindedness, 15. Abstainer and wine-drinker, 21, 22. Accent, provincial, 25. Account of Johnson's household, 238, 239. Acquaintances, partial to making new, 180. Action in public speaking, against, 117. Adultery, on the heinousness of the crime of, 98, 99. Advertising, specimen of, 228, 229. Affection and respect, expressions of, 187. Agriculture, attainment in the theory and practice of, 164. "Albany," character of, 141. Alchemy, 5S. "Ambassador says well, the," 233. America, English in, 87. , taxation by Great Britain of, 107, 108. America's future (1773), opinion of, 229. Americans, abuse of the, 110. Amiability, 254. Anger, Dr. Johnson's, 170. Animals, kindness to, 199-201. Annihilation after death, disbelief in, 175. Antics and gestures, 1G. Anti-sentimentality, 68-73. Apologies, 170-173. Apparitions, on, 60. Appearance, manners, and peculiari- ties, 9-25. Approbation and good- will, expres- sions of, 187-194. Argument, fond of, 165. , tenacity in maintaining the wrong side of an, 119. Arithmetic, study of, 32. Arkwright's opinion of Johnson's me- chanical knowledge, 164. Arrogance, 73-75. Art of self-defence, on the, 96. Arts, no appreciation for the fine, 94. Asthma, seized with a spasmodic, 27. At home, 11. Athletic exercises, 33. Auchinleck, Lord, bout with, 248,249. Author and scholar, habits as, 35-39. Authority and predominance, 211- 216. and rank, respect for, 79-84. Authors and patronage, remarks on, 182. , opinion about, 155-157. Bagpipe, fondness for the music of the, 92. Ballad-singer, opinion of a, 85, 86. Bandeau, dislike to a, 149, 150. Banks, visit to Sir., 15. Barbarians, a name given to the East Indians, 90. Barber, Francis, sincere regard for, 199. Baretti's Italian lesson, 22. sad affair, G9. Barnard, Dr., Provost of Eton, 76, 130, 171, 172, 215. , conversation with, 215. , replying to, 130. ■ , rude reply to, 171, 172. Bateman's lectures, 181. Bathurst considered a good hater, 55. Bawdy talk, 73, 74. Bearing and walk, 10. Bearishness, Goldsmith on Johnson's, 253, 254. Beauclerk and Langton, 26. , Topham, affection for, 206, 207. Beauty, obtuseness to natural, 99,100. Benevolence, instances of, 201, 202. Berkeley's, Dr., ingenious philosophy, 129. Bet Flint, character of, 142, 143. Birthday reminiscences, 48. Bishop, controversy with a, 104. Blade of grass, a, 100. Bodleian Library, "Evelina" in the, 191,192.- Bolingbroke, Lord, the works of, 129. Books of travel, 112, 113. Bookseller, insult from a wealthy, 178, 179. Boswell, Mrs., opinion of, 139. Boswell and Johnson at Streatham, 226, 227. , dining with, 237, 23S. ■ — — , easiness with, 228. Boswell extinguished, 225. in the Hebrides, 221, 222. , letter to, 139. puts his head in the lion's jaws, 222. ■ receives the appellation of "Bozzy," 227. takes a liberty, 224. Boswell's father, 249, 250. first meeting with Johnson, 218- 220. "Life of Johnson," extracts from Macaulay's Essay, 259-267; Carlyle's Essay, 268-306. Bottom of good sense, a, 127, 128. Boufflers, Madame de, politeness to, 147, 148. Bout with Lord Auchinleck, 24S, 249. "Bozzy," appellation given to Bos- well, 227. Brandy, approval of, 93. Branghton, taken for a, 227. Breakfast scene, a, 246. Brewery, Thrale's, 42. Brewing, operation of, 164. Brighton, at, 251. Bristol, inn at, 130, 131. Brocklesby, Dr., remarks to, 180. Brooke's, Mrs., play, 136. Brutality, general, 122-128. Brute force, 101-104. Buchanan, George, praising, 136, 137. Buck, like a, 157. Burke, approval of, 125. , opinions of, 78, 193. Burney, Miss, affection for, 151. , character of, 144, 145. Burney 's "Cecilia," 141. "Evelina," quotation from, 142. C. the gout, Cadogan's, Dr., book 161, 162. Camden, Lord, neglecting Goldsmith, 192. 309 Campbell, Dr., at Rasay, disputing with, 168, 169. Canary-bird, merit of a, 94. Cant, dislike of, 72. Card-playing, on, 114. Caricature imitation in verse, 151- 155. Carlyle of Limekilns, about, 157. Carlyle's Essay on Boswell's "Life of Johnson," extracts from, 208- 306. Cat, kindness to his, 199, 200. "Cecilia," Burney's, censure of, 141. Chamberlaine's house, visit to, 15. Character, on, 155. , general view of Johnson's, 256- 259. Charitable and generous, 19-1-196. Charity, recommending Christian, 108, 109. Charles II., opinion of, 51, 55. Chemistry, fondness for, 32. Chesterfield, Lord, opinion of, 131, 132. , refusal to dedicate the Diction- ary to, 183-187. Chesterfield's, Lord, tribute, 250, 251. Children, kindness to poor, 209. , love of little, 199, 200. Cholmondeley, Mr., apologizing to, 173. Cholmondeley 's, Mrs., sympathy with Miss Reynolds, 138. Christian charity, recommending, 108, 109. Church of England, zeal for the, 56, 57. Churchill's opinion of Davies's wife, 13. Gibber, Colley, 85. at Lord Chesterfield's, 184. Civility for four, 253. Claret, contempt for, 93. Club, Garrick's death occasions a va- cancy at the, 20S. Clubs, on, 28. Coarseness, 92-99. • , dislike to, 229. Cock Lane ghost, story of the, 60, 61. story, detection of the fraud, 107. Coining, operation of, 164. Colloquial distinction, eagerness for, 119-122. Colman's first introduction to John- son, 251-253. Colossus of literature, a, 139. Comedy of "The Rehearsal," 42, 43. Common-sense, 155-163. Complexion and eyes, 10. Compliment from a pretty woman, pleased with a, 149. •, gust for a, 233, 234. Compliments and gross speeches, 108. Composition, 36. , manner of, 38, 39. Compositor, apologizing to a, 173. Condescension, absurdity of, 160. Confession, on, 120, 121. Conge d'elire considered as only a strong recommendation, 1 38. Conjugal infidelity, 98, 99. Constitution, of a robust, 126. Contempt for foreigners, 87. Contentment, on, 128. Contradiction hurts people of weak nerves, 108. Contradictoriness and pugnacity, 110- Conversation about Johnson, a, 246- 248. , happy, 226. , power of, 132. Conviviality, 26. Convulsive movements, 14. Cooper's "Dictionary," on, 135. Costume, against showy, 163. and dress, on, 24. of dress worn by Johnson, 147, 148. 310 Costume of ladies, concerning the, 212, 213. Countenance, Johnson's, 9. Courage, 178-180. Cow, imitating the lowing of a, 122. Criminal jurisdiction, 131. Croft's advice to a young gentleman, 37. Customs, conformity in outward, 163. Cynicism and incredulity, 62-65. Dancing, knowledge of, 165. ■ with a lord, 142. Davies, Thomas, character of, 218. , kindness to, 203. Dead nettle, a Scotch lady likened to a, 134. Dean of Deny a Sabbath - breaker, 92. Death and dying, on the subject of, 174-178. , fear of, 49-51. , opinions respecting, 157, 15S. Debauching ladies, on, 118. Defective eyesight, 43, 44. Defects outweighed by merits, 254. Definitions, 88. Delicate Londoner, a, 225. Demosthenes, remarks about, 117. Desecration of the Sabbath, 162. Desmoulins, Mrs., and her daughter living at Johnson's house, 194. Dettingen, Lord Granville's account of the battle of, 159. Devotion, private, 176. Diary, extract from an Irishman's, 250. Dictionary, English, 75. Difference in opinion not altering friendship, 125. Dilly's, on a visit at, 186. , a dinner-party at, 240-246. Dining behind a screen, 21S. Dinner at Boswell's, 237, 238. Dinner at Dilly's, and meeting Wilkes, 240-246. , love for a fine, 94. scene at Streatham, 115. Diseases, 43-45. Dislike for gesticulation, 19. • to coarseness and vulgarity, 229. Disputation, fond of, 165. Distresses of sentiment, 72. Dodd's, Dr., death, 50. Dominicetti, opposition to, 121. Douglas, tragedy of, 123. Dress, against showy, 103. and appearance, 11. and costume, 23. , concerning ladies', 212, 213. Drinking, on, 48, 123, 124, 127, 135, 100, 202. , pleasure in, 48. Drunkenness, on, 160. Drury Lane play-house, in, 122. Duelling, on, 96, 97. Dunces, on, 134. "Dunciad," in praise of the, 134. Dying, few men prepared for, 157, 158. Easiness with Boswell, 228. East Indians called barbarians, 90. Eating, notions about, 93, 94. Edinburgh, Goldsmith contradicting Ogilvie about, 136. Education, on, 159, 160. Election, Johnson at an, 234, 235. Emigration, discoursing on, 89. Englishmen, reserve among, 161. "Evelina" in the Bodleian Library, 191. , quotation from Burney's, 142. Excise, definition of the, 88. Exercises, athletic, 33. Exeter, Bishop of, interview with the, 104, 105. Experiments, small, 32. 311 Expressions of good-will and appro- bation, 187-194. Expressive face, 13. Extempore verse-making, 151-155. Extract from an Irishman's Diary, 250. Extracts from Macaulay's Essay on Boswell's "Life of Johnson," 259- 2C7. from Carlyle's Essay on Bos- well's "Life of Johnson," 268-306. Eyes and complexion, 10. Eyesight, defective, 43, 44. Eace, expressive, 13. "Ealse Delicacy," remarks on the comedy of, 206. Eamily worship at Mr. Macaulay's, 57. Farmer's, Dr., pamphlet, 188. Farmers, remarks about, 80. Fear from reflection, but courage nat- ural, 179. of death, 49-51. Fellow, the epithet, 7G. Female abilities, opinion of, 231, 232. "Fiddle-de-dee ! " 235. Field recreations, acquaintance with all kinds of, 164. Finger-scraping, 17. Fireworks at Marylebone Gardens, seeing the, 104. Fish-eating, 43. Flattery, love of, 139. Fleet Street, helping a gentlewoman across, 165. Flint, Bet, character of, 142, 143. Florence wine detestable, 93. Foote's humor, 102. unlucky fate in Dublin, 132. Forbes, Sir William, letter from, 216. Foreigners, contempt for, 87. Fortune and rank merit superior at- tention, 79. Fonlis, Messieurs, interview with the, 106. Four, civility for, 253. French, prejudice against the, 87, SS. Friendship not altered by difference of opinion, 125. , subject of, G4, 65. Frost, anecdote regarding the, 117. "Fugitive and Miscellaneous Pieces," publication of, 203. Fundamentally sensible, 128. Funeral of Garrick, 208. sermon, solicited to compose a, 137. Furniture of room, 12. Future of America, opinion of the, 229. state, conversation on the, 174, Gallantry, 147-151. Gaming, remarks about, 114, 115. Garrick considered no declaimer, 94. , funeral of, 20S. Garrick's dislike to playing low char- acters, 64. fame, conversation on, 189-191. General brutality, 122-128. description of appearance, 10, 11. knowledge, 163-165. ■ view of Johnson's character, 256-259. Generosity, 194-196. "Gentleman's Magazine," debates in the, 169. George I. considered a usurper, 53, 54. • ■ II. compared with Charles II., III., not much attachment to, 53. , visit from, 94. Gesticulation, dislike for, 1'J. 312 Gestures and antics, 16. Ghost story told by John Wesley, 59. Ghosts, stories of, 59-62. Glasgow University, Dr. Watson on, 182. Glenelg, on the road to, 109. Glensheal, passing through, 1 1 6. God, reverence for the name of, 176, 177. Gold and silver destroy feudal subor- dination, 81. Goldsmith and the "Vicar of Wake- field," 230, 231. -■ on Johnson's bearishness, 253, 251. , remarks favorable to, 192. • reprimanded by Johnson, 171. Goldsmith's feelings at the reception of the "Good-natured Man," 204- 206-. " History of Animated Nature," Mr. Maclaurin in, 167. " Good-natured Man," comedy of the, 201-206. Good -will and approbation, expres- sions of, 187-191. Gordon's, Sir Alexander, dining at, 212. Gout, Dr. Cadogan's book on the, 161, 162. Gower, Lord, and the Jacobite inter- est, 88. Graham, Miss, drinking water with, 118,149. Granville, Lord, on the battle of Det- tingen, 159. Greenwich Park, a walk in, 99. Grub Street, definition of, 138. Gunisbury Park, in, 33. Gust for a compliment, 233, 234. H. Habits as scholar and author, 35-39. Hackman, talking of, 110-112. Handsome, rather, 9. Hannah More and Johnson at Ox- ford, 235, 236. , story of, 123. Hanover rat, on the, 141, 142. Happy conversation, 226. , on being, 128. Hare restored to liberty, 200, 201. Harleian Library, on the Preface to the Catalogue of the, 101. Hawkins, Sir John, opinion of, 132, 133. Health-drinking, 135. Hebrides, revelry in the, 221, 222. Hell, God made, 131. "Hermit," Dr. Beattie's, 206. Hervey, Harry, description of, 66. Hierarchy, respect for the, 56, 57. High-Churchman and Tory, 51-58. Highlands, opinion of the, 100. Hill, rolling down, 35. "History of the Gray Eat," by Thom- as Percy, 141. Hodge, a name given to the cat, 1 99. Home, at, 11. Honesty and truthfulness, 165-170. Hortensia, history of, 143. Hospitality, 196-206. Household economy, 238, 239. Howard, of Lichfield, anecdote by, 194. Humility, 77, 78. Humor, 137-140. Hypochondriac disorder, 45-49. Icolmkill, building at, 105. Idleness a disease, 36. " Idler," advertisement regarding the, 228,, 229. Imagination, pleasures of, 202. Impatience and irascibility, 104-110. Impudence of a Scotchman, 130. Income in youth, 217. Incredulity and cynicism, 62-65. Independence, 181-187. 313 Indigence, Johnson's extreme, 217. Infidel writings, opinion of, 53. Infidelity, conjugal, on, 98, 99. Ingratitude, insensible of, l'JS. often shown, 98. In London when twenty-eight years old, 217. Inquiring mind, an, 239, 210. Inquisition, defending the, 119, 120. Instruction widely diffused, 1G4, 1G5. Jntellectual coarseness, 91, 95. Intolerance, 91, 92. Intoxicated persons, kindness to, 202. Introduction, an unpleasant, 251-253. Invective and satire, powers of, 129- 131. In youth, 9. Irascibility and impatience, 104-110. Irish nation, kindness for the, 169. ■ , opinion of the, 130. Irishman's diary, extract from an, 250. Irons in the fire, so many, 130. Irregularities, 23. Isa, in the Loch of Dunvegan, 17. Italian, learning, 22. Jackson, Harry, death of, 207. Jacobite, opinion of a, 52, 53. James II., remarks about, 54. Jest-book, opinions as to the perusal of a, 137. Jocosity of manner, 139. Johnson and Boswell at Streatham, 22G, 227. and Hannah More at Oxford, 235, 23G. and his tutor, 235. at an election, 234, 235. , conversation about, 246-248. Johnson's household, account of, 238, 239. opinion of his own roughness, 230. Johnson's quarrel with Pepys, 247. ' ' Journal, " Johnson's approval of the, 220. "Journal of a Tour in the Hebrides," K. Keith's, dining at, 123. Kelly, Hugh, a visit from, 132. Kennicott's " Hebrew Bible," re- marks about, 176. Kindness, 196-206. King of men, considered a, 211. Kissing by a married lady, 157. Knowledge, general, 163-165. Knox, John, opinion of, 57. "La, Polly! — only think! Miss has danced with a lord !" 142. Ladd, Lady, conversation with Mrs. Thrale about, 125, 126. Ladies, ceremonious punctilios to- ward, 147. " Ladies, I am tame ; you may stroke me," 139. Langton and Beauclerk, 26. , Bennet, regard for, 188. Lapland, wild prospects of, 136. Late hours, 23, 44. Latin, composing a prayer in, 180. , talking in, 124. Laughter, on, 17, IS, 15S. Laurinda, account of, 143, 144. Law, extensive knowledge of, 164. Laziness worse than the toothache, 77. Lennox's, Mrs., first literary child, 27. Letter to Lord Chesterfield, 186, 187. to Mrs. Thrale on the death of her son, 177, 178. Levellers in society, S3. Levett, Mr., recommendation of, 197. Lexicographer, definition of a, 138. 314 Liberty and necessity, 73. taken by Boswell, a, 224, 225. Library, Johnson's, 168. Lichfield, at, 45. , at a play in, 103. Cathedral, at, 126. , last visit to, 236. , money deposited when in, 196. "Life of Poote," anecdote from Cooke's, 74, 75. Like the Monument, unmoved, 156. Linen, advantages of wearing, 222. Liquors, on the qualities of different, 93. Literary property, 158. Literature, a colossus of, 139. "Lives of the Poets," 37. Living together, on, 125. London, liking for, 30. , opinion of, 87. , the magnitude of, 42. , when twenty- eight years old, in, 217. Londoner, a delicate, 225. Love of mystery, 232, 233. Lyttleton, Lord, Life of, 115. , on, 247. Lyttleton's, Lord, vision, 59. M. Macaulay's essay on Boswell's "Life of Johnson," 259-267. Maclaurin in Goldsmith's History of Animated Nature, 167. Macleod, Lady, interview with, 65, 66. Macpherson, James, charged with forgery, 103. "Madam, let us reciprocate," 149. Male succession, 18. Mankind, opinions respecting, 194. Manner of reciting, 19. Manners at table, 20, 21. , peculiarities and appearance, 9- 25. of his, 25i Manning, a compositor, apologizing to, 173. Mansfield, Lord, educated in England, 137. Manufactures, knowledge of, 164. Manuscripts sent to be read by ob- " scure authors, 201. Marriage vows, responsibility of, 70, 71. Marriages, on inferior, 79. would be oftener happy if made by the lord chancellor, 95. Married life, as to, 98, 99. Marrying for a maintenance, 159. ," on, 126, 127. Mechanician, a good, 164. Medal, value of a, 123. Medicine, devoting time to the study of, 164. Melancholy, 45-49. Memory, 22. Merits outweighing defects, 254. Metcalf, Mr., conversation with, 150. Methodism and Methodists, on, 160. Middlesex election, on the, 79, 80. Milk, on the nature of, 163. Mind, an inquiring, 239, 240. Ministerial functions, scruples about, 78. Miscellaneous, 217-255. "Miscellaneous and Fugitive Pieces," publication of, 203. Miserable, humanity shown to the, 204. Mitre Tavern, at the, 115, 196, 197. Monboddo's, Lord, opinion, 158. Monckton's, Miss, dining at, 202. Montagu, Mrs., estimation of, 116. Montagu's, Mrs., literary party at, 139. Moral coarseness, 96-99. More, Hannah, story of, 123. and Johnson at Oxford, 235, 236. Morgann, Mr., dispute with, 16S. Moi isey, Dr., vehemence against, 73, 74. Movements, convulsive, 14. Mack, Isle of, 18. Murder in Scotland, prescription of, 97, 98. Music, insensible to the power of, 70. , speaking contemptuously of, 171. Mutton, dislike to, 150. Mystery, love of, 232, 233. N. Narrowness and prejudices, 85-90. Natural beauty, obtuseness to, 99, 100. Nicknames, fondness for, 23. Nightcap worn by a gentleman in place of a wig, 1G2. Night wanderings, 217. "No, sir," the expression of, 113, 114. Nonsense, on talking, 225. Northumberland, natural history of, 112, 113. North Wales, tour through, 200, 201. Norway, noble wild prospects of, 136. Oats, definition of, 88. Obtuseness to natural beauty, 99, 100. Odd and peculiar, 9. Ogilvie, conversation with, 13G. Omelet, fondness for an, 67. Opiates declined when dying, 1 80. Opinion, a great deference for the general, 157. of America's future (1773), 229. of female abilities, 231, 232. Opposition to slavery, 229. Opulence in trade, 89. Oranges, Seville, 140. Osborne knocked down, 101, 102. Ossian, poems of, 103. Oxford, Johnson and Hannah More at, 235, 230. Painting, no conception for the beau- ties of, 94. Parliament, opinion of being a mem- ber of, 71,72. Partialities, 26-35. Past not better than the present, the, 229, 230. Pastern, definition of the word, 169. Patience under strong provocation, 224. Payment for writing the Dictionary, 194. Payne, Mr. John, racing with, 146. Peculiar and odd, 9. Peculiarities, appearance and man- ners, 9-25. Penance at Uttoxeter, 232. Pennant, praising, 112, 113. Pension and pensioners, definition of, 88. , Johnson's, 195. ■ , Johnson's, friends of, recom- mending an increase of, 210. Pepys, disputing with, 119. , quarrel with, 247. Percy, Dr., conversation with, 112, 113. ' , Mrs., politeness to, 148. Pertinacious gentleman, arguing with a, 134. Philosopher vs. warrior, 231. Pictures, sitting for, 42. Piety, 174-178. Pious ejaculations, 13. Piozzi, opinion of, 127. Piozzi's marriage with Mrs. Thrale, 67. Players, opinion of, 85. Playfulness, 140-146. Poetry-making, 151-155. Politeness to ladies, extreme, 147-151. "Pomposo," caricature drawn under the name of, 61. 316 Pomposity of style, 40-43. Pope, conversation on, 134. Poverty, suffering from, 181. Power of any sort is desirable, 163. Powers of invective and satire, 129- 134. Practices written about more than followed, 161. Prayer in Latin, composing a, ISO. "Prayers and Meditations," John- son's, 47, 48, 175, 176. Preaching, on, 160. Precept followed, if practice is suita- ble to it, 161. Predominance and authority, 211- 216. Prejudices and narrowness, 85-90. Presbyterians, opinion of, 56. Present, the past not better than the, 229, 230. Printer's devil, remarking about a, 127. Private devotions, 176. Prize-fighting, on, 96. Provincial accent, 25. Provocation, patience under strong, 224. " Provok'd Husband," allusion to the comedy of the, 206. Psalmanazar, George, 105. Public speaking, declamation against action in, 117. Pugnacity and contradictoriuess, 110- 122. Pulpit discourses, writing, 96. Punishment in a future state, about, 174. Purgatory, on, 120. Puritanical dress, against, 163. Q. Quaker costume, against, 163. Quality, on the behavior of ladies of, SO, 81. Quarrel and reconciliation, a, 223, 224. Quarrel with Pepys, 247. Questions, objection to, 107. R. Pacing with Mr. John Payne, 146. Rambling with Beauclerk and Lang- ton, 26. Ramsay's, Allan, dinner at, 213, 214. Rank and authority, respect fur, 79- 84. Repartee, good at, 133. "Rasselas" written to pay his moth- er's funeral expenses, 36. Rat, the gray, 141, 142. , the Hanover, 141, 142. Rather handsome, 9. Reciting, manner of, 19. Reconciliation after a quarrel, 223, 224, Rehearsal, comedy of the, 42, 43. Religion, zeal for, 92, Renegado, definition of a, 88. Reserve amongst Englishmen, 161. Residence in the Temple, 24. Respect for rank and authority, 79-84. Retort, dexterity in, 136, 137. Revelry in the Hebrides, 221, 222. Reverence for the name of God, 176, 177. Reviewers and reviewing, on, 182. Reynolds, Miss, asked for a toast af- ter supper, 138. , at tea with, 149. Reynolds, Sir Joshua, high opinion of, 191. Reynolds's, Sir Joshua, at, 223, 224. Rhyming, 151-155. Ribaldry, specimens of, 133. Riches, proper use of, 91. Riding in a coach, 30. River St. Lawrence, on the, 1 00. Robertson, Dr., conversation with, 135. Robertson's, Dr., opinion of Johnson, 213, 214. 317 Robinson, Sir Thomas, interview with, 148. Rolt's ''Dictionary of Trade and Commerce," preface to, !)G. Roman Catholicism, on, 119-121. Roman Catholics and the Inquisition, 110,120. , opinion of, 50. Rorie Move's cascade, 06. Rouen, at, 124. Rouffette, Abbe', conversing with the, 124. Roughness, Johnson's opinion of his own, 230. Rouging, cheek, 131. Round-robin, the, 21G. Rousseau and Wilkes, in company with, 91. Rudeness, a view of his, 255. Runts, talking of, 75. Sabbath-breaking, against, 1)2. Sailors worse off than prisoners, 86. Satire and invective, powers of, 129- 134. Scene at a breakfast, 246. Scholar and author, habits as, 35-39. , opinion of Johnson as a, 211, 212. School, at, 211, 212. , on the establishing a, 159. Scotch climate, the, SS. , hatred of the, 130, 131. lady likened to a dead nettle, a, 134. -, opinions of the, 136, 137. Scotland, prescription of murder in, 97, 98. , revelry in the Hebrides, 221, Scotchman, impudence of a, 130. Scotchman's noblest prospects, a, 136. Scraping fingers, 17. Screen, dining behind a, 218. Scrofula, attacked with, 44. Second sight, 59. Self-defence, on the art of, 96. Self-esteem, 75-77. Sensible, fundamentally, 128. Sensuous coarseness, 92-94. Sentiment, 65-68. Seraglio, Johnson's, 197. Sermons, writing, 96. Seville oranges at the Club, 140. Shakspeare, Dr. Farmer's pamphlet on, 18S. , study of, 95. Sheridan, house of, 12. Showy decorations, abhorrence of, 163. Siddons, Mrs., dislike for, 151. , politeness to, 148. visiting, 44. Silent folks, conversation upon, 208. Sizes of volumes of books, 122, 123. Slavery, opposition to, 229. Small experiments, 32. " Small vessels," 237. Society, upstarts in, SI -83. Sour small-beev, a woman likened to, 134. Specimen of advertising, 228, 229. St. Lawrence, on the river, 100. Vitus's dance, afflicted with, 45. Staring caused by being absurd, 1G2. Stolen goods, a receiver of, 133. Storm followed by a calm, a, 113, 212. Story-telling, on, 105-170. Stow Hill, climbing the gate at, 34. Strahan's apprentice, 41. Strategy, 240-246. Streatham, Boswell and Johnson at, 226, 227. , a farce, 139, 140. ■ •, dinner scene at, 115. , leaving, 68. Street, defence against attack in the, 179. Style, pomposity of, 40-43. Subordination, zealous friend of, 80- 84. "Sun, how I hate thy beams Sunday desecration, 162, 103. Superstition, 58-62. Supper at Professor Andersoi Swimming at Oxford, 179. Sympathy and kindness, 196- , opinion of the proper riatu: 68, 69, 72. " 47. :, 7.-,. LO. Table manners, 20, 21. Talking, 30. for victory, 119. like a book, 40, 41. to himself, 13. Tanning, account of the process of, 103. Taverns, 28, 29. Taxation of America by Great Brit- ain, 107, 10S. Tea, a lover of, 31. Temper, command of, 112. Temperature of the air, 115. Tenderness, 206-210. "The Eehearsal," comedy of, 42, 43. Theatre in Lichfield, at a, 103. Thirty-five, rhyming on, 152. Thrale, Mrs., conversing with, 144- 146. ■ , letter to, on the death of her son, 177, 178. , opinion of, 215. ■ -, marriage witli Piozzi, 67. Thrale's brewery, 42. Time, man's faculties not decayed by, 182, 183. "Tom Jones," extract from Field- ing's, 135, 136. Torre's fireworks at Marylebone Gar- dens, 104. Tory, definition of a, 88. and high churchman, 51-58. Toryism, love of, 134, 135. Toulon, suggesting calling for a bot- tle of, 144. Trade, opulence in, 89. Travel, books of, 112, 113. Traveling, disapprobation of, 90. Tribute by Lord Chesterfield, 250, 251. Truth, abhorrence of deviation from, 106. likened to a cow, 129. Truthfulness and honesty, 165-170. " Tail's Husbandry," 168, 169. Tutor, Johnson and his, 235. Twickenham Meadows, walking in, 16. Tyers, conversation with, 126. Tyr-yi, factor of, 105. U. Ulinish struck with Johnson's knowl- edge, 163. Unexpected favors, objections to, 160. Unpleasant introduction, an, 251-253. Unreserve, 232. Upstarts in society, 81-83. Uttoxeter, penance at, 232. V. " Vanity of Human Wishes," 38, 46, 49. Various peculiarities, 13. Veracity, scrupulous in, 165-169. Verse-making, extempore, 151-155. Vesey's, Mr., respect shown to John- son at, 214, 215. "Vicar of Wakefield," Goldsmith and the, 230, 231. Vice and virtue, on, 117, 118. Victory, talking for, 119. Virtue and vice, on, 117, 118. Volumes of books, sizes of, 122, 123. Vulgarity, dislike to, 229. Wales, North, tour through, 200, 201. Walk and bearing, 10. 319 Walking out, 12. Wanderings, night, 217. "Want of success generally the result of a person's own fault, 15G. Warrior vs. philosopher, 231. Watching against deviations from truth. 1GG. Watson's, Dr., observations about Glasgow University, 182. Weather, on the depression of spirits by the, 115, 116. Wedding-ring, his wife's, 209. Wesley, John, opinion of, 59. Wharton, Dr., called an enthusiast, 142. "Where's the merriment?" 128. Whig, definition of a, 88. Whiggism a negation of all principle, 53. Whining wife, on a, 138. Widower marrying immediately after his wife's decease, 137. Wife, great love expressed toward his, 208, 209. , on a whining, 138. Wig, condition of, 25. Wilkes and Rousseau, in company with, 91. , anecdote of meeting at Dilly's with, 240-246. , Israel, remarks to, 124, 125. Will-drawing, 18. Williams, Mrs. Anna, kindness shown to, 19G, 197. Wine, argument about drinking, 127. Wine-drinker and abstainer, 21, 22. Wine-drinking, 135. Wit, 134-137. , upon Pope's definition of, 122. Wolf, Percy's history of the, 141, 142. Woman, an empty, 133. likened to sour small-beer, 134. Woman's preaching, a, 129. Worship, family, at Mr. Macaulay's, 57. Writing early, benefits of, 159. made a necessity by the want Youth, in, 9. , income in, 217. ENGLISH MEN OF LETTEES. EDITED BY JOHN MORLEY. These short Boots are addressed to the general Public, with a view both to stirring and satisfying an interest in literature and its great topics in the minds of those who Lave to run as they read. An immense class is growing up, and must every year increase, whose education will have made them alive to the importance of the masters of our literature, and capable of intelligent curiosity as to their performances. The series is intended to give the means of nourishing this curiosity to an extent that shall be copious enough to be profitable for knowledge and life, and yet be brief enough to serve those whose leisure is scanty. THIS FOLLOWING ARE ARRANGED FOR : JOHNSON . Leslie Stephen. 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