But the impress of which it is most necessary to speak is that upon James Boswell, for this is the very greatest instance of Johnson’s dynamic energy. It is strange that it should be necessary to point this out; but critics will do all they can to explain away the miracle which Johnson wrought in creating out of Boswell a greater author than himself. The wonder of the result has actually obscured appreciation of the man who produced it. Boswell himself realized it fully. Here is an unpublished passage from one of his own letters (March 3, 1772) to Johnson:
The greatness of Boswell’s record, when all is said, is simply Samuel Johnson, who is not merely the subject, but in the last analysis the author too. We have heard overmuch of Boswell’s hero-worship and of the service which he did that hero in preserving his memory; but it is time that we remind ourselves of what the hero did for the disciple. Genius begot genius. The greatest contribution of Samuel Johnson to English literature was James Boswell.
I have a suspicion that in saying this I am perhaps in danger of ending, as I began, with a commonplace. But in an age which has somewhat overindulged itself in the subtleties of criticism, it is sometimes well to remind ourselves of the simple old truths. We have heard too much of the inessential Johnson, of spilled pudding-sauce, irrelevant ejaculations of the Lord’s Prayer, slipper-snatchings, and other stories interesting to schoolboys, but of doubtful authenticity and of small significance. It is time to dwell again upon Johnson’s kindness, his courage, his respect for rank and achievement in an age whose general tendency was downwards, his Catholic faith in an era of timid skepticism and cheap tolerance, and above all, to reckon with his dynamic influence upon his friends.
I fairly own that after an absence from you for any length of time, I feel that I require a renewal of that spirit which your presence always gives me, and which makes me a better and a happier man than I had imagined I could be, before I was introduced to your acquaintance.
Extract from the Early Diary
28th March.
MY DEAR DADDY,
My dear father seemed well pleased at my returning to my time; and that is no small consolation and pleasure to me. So now, to our Thursday morning party.
Mrs. and Miss Thrale, Miss Owen, and Mr. Seward came long before Lexiphanes. Mrs. Thrale is a very pretty woman still; she is extremely lively and chatty; has no supercilious or pedantic airs, and is really gay and agreeable. Her daughter is about twelve years old, (stiff and proud), I believe, (or else shy and reserved: I don’t yet know which). Miss Owen, who is a relation, is good-humoured and sensible enough; she is a sort of butt, and, as such, a general favourite; for those sort of characters are prodigiously useful in drawing out the wit and pleasantry of others. Mr. Seward is a very polite, agreeable young man.
My sister Burney was invited to meet and play to them. The conversation was supported with a good deal of vivacity (N.B. my father being at home) for about half an hour, and then Hetty and Susette for the first time in public, played a duet; and in the midst of this performance Dr. Johnson was announced. He is, indeed, very ill-favoured; is tall and stout; but stoops terribly; he is almost bent double. His mouth is almost [continually opening and shutting], as if he was chewing. He has a strange method of frequently twirling his fingers, and twisting his hands. His body is in continual agitation, see-sawing up and down; his feet are never a moment quiet; and, in short, his whole person is in perpetual motion. His dress, too, considering the times, and that he had meant to put on his best becomes, being engaged to dine in a large company, was as much out of the common road as his figure; he had a large wig, snuff-colour coat, and gold buttons, but no ruffles to his [shirt], doughty fists, and black worsted stockings. He is shockingly near-sighted, and did not, till she held out her hand to him, even know Mrs. Thrale. He poked his nose over the keys of the harpsichord, till the duet was finished, and then my father introduced Hetty to him as an old acquaintance, and he cordially kissed her! When she was a little girl, he had made her a present of The Idler.
His attention, however, was not to be diverted five minutes from the books, as we were in the library; he pored over them, shelf by shelf, almost touching the backs of them with his eye-lashes, as he read their titles. At last, having fixed upon one, he began, without further ceremony, to read to himself, all the time standing at a distance from the company. We were all very much provoked, as we perfectly languished to hear him talk; but it seems he is the most silent creature, when not particularly drawn out, in the world. My sister then played another duet with my father; but Dr. Johnson was so deep in the Encyclopedie that as he is very deaf, I question if he even knew what was going forward. When this was over, Mrs. Thrale, in a laughing manner, said, “Pray, Dr. Burney, can you tell me what that song was and whose, which Savoi sung last night at Bach’s Concert, and which you did not hear?” My father confessed himself by no means so good a diviner, not having had time to consult the stars, though in the house of Sir Isaac Newton. However, wishing to draw Dr. Johnson into some conversation, he told him the question. The Doctor, seeing his drift, good- naturedly put away his book, and said very drolly, “And pray, Sir, who is Bach? is he a piper?” Many exclamations of surprise, you will believe, followed this question. “Why you have read his name often in the papers,” said Mrs. Thrale; and then she gave him some account of his Concert, and the number of fine performances she had heard at it.
“Pray,” said he, gravely, “Madam, what is the expense?”
“Oh!” answered she, “much trouble and solicitation, to get a Subscriber’s Ticket; —— or else, half a Guinea.” “Trouble and solicitation,” said he, “I will have nothing to do with; but I would be willing to give eighteen pence.”
Ha! ha!
Chocolate being then brought, we adjourned to the drawing-room. And here, Dr. Johnson being taken from the books, entered freely and most cleverly into conversation; though it is remarkable he never speaks at all, but when spoken to; nor does he ever start, though he so admirably supports, any subject.
The whole party was engaged to dine at Mrs. Montagu’s Dr. Johnson said he had received the most flattering note he had ever read, or that any body else had ever read, by way of invitation. “Well! so have I too,” cried Mrs. Thrale; “so if a note from Mrs. Montagu is to be boasted of, I beg mine may not be forgot.”
“Your note,” cried Dr. Johnson, “can bear no comparison with mine; I am at the head of the Philosophers, she says.”
“And I,” cried Mrs. Thrale, “have all the Muses in my train!”
“A fair battle,” said my father. “Come, compliment for compliment, and see who will hold out longest.”
“Oh! I am afraid for Mrs. Thrale,” cried Mr. Seward; “for I know Mrs. Montague exerts all her forces, when she attacks Dr. Johnson.”
“Oh, yes!” said Mrs. Thrale, “she has often, I know, flattered him, till he has been ready to faint.”
“Well, ladies,” said my father, “you must get him between you to-day, and see which can lay on the paint thickest, Mrs. Thrale or Mrs. Montagu.”
“I had rather,” cried the Doctor, drily, “go to Bach’s Concert!”
After this, they talked of Mr. Garrick and his late exhibition before the King, to whom and to the Queen and Royal Family he read Lethe in character, cest a dire, in different voices, and theatrically. Mr. Seward gave us an account of a Fable, which Mr. Garrick had written, by way of prologue or introduction, upon the occasion. In this he says, that a blackbird, grown old and feeble, droops his wings, etc. etc., and gives up singing; but being called upon by the eagle, his voice recovers its powers, his spirits revive, he sets age at defiance, and sings better than ever. The application is obvious.
“There is not,” said Dr. Johnson, “much of the spirit of fabulosity in this Fable; for the call of an eagle never yet had much tendency to restore the voice of a blackbird!”Tis true that the fabulists frequently make the wolves converse with the lambs,; but, when the conversation is over, the lambs are sure to be eaten! And so the ea
gle may entertain the blackbird; but the entertainment always ends in a feast for the eagle.”
“They say,” cried Mrs. Thrale, “that Garrick was extremely hurt at the coolness of the King’s applause, and did not find his reception such as he expected.” “He has been so long accustomed,” said Mr. Seward, “to the thundering approbation of the Theatre, that a mere “Very well” must necessarily and naturally disappoint him.”
“Sir,” said Dr. Johnson, “he should not, in a Royal apartment, expect the hallowing and clamour of the One Shilling Company. The King, I doubt not gave him as much applause as was rationally his due; and, indeed, great and uncommon as is the merit of Mr. Garrick, no man will be bold enough to assert he has not had his just proportion both of fame and of profit. He has long reigned the unequalled favourite of the public; and therefore nobody will mourn his hard fate, if the King and the Royal Family were not transported into rapture, upon hearing him read Lethe. Yet Mr. Garrick will complain to his friends, and his friends will lament the King’s want of feeling and taste; — and then Mr. Garrick will kindly excuse the King. He will say that His Majesty might be thinking of something else; that the affairs of America might occur to him; or some subject of more importance than Lethe; but, though he will say this himself, he will not forgive his friends, if they do not contradict him!”
But now that I have written this satire, it is but just both to Mr. Garrick and to Dr. Johnson, to tell you what he said of him afterwards, when he discriminated his character with equal candour and humour. “Garrick,” said he, “is accused of vanity; but few men would have borne such unremitting prosperity with greater, if with equal moderation. He is accused, too, of avarice; but, were he not, he would be accused of just the contrary; for he now lives rather as a prince than an actor; but the frugality he practised, when he first appeared in the world, and which, even then was perhaps beyond his necessity, has marked his character ever since; and now, though his table, the equipage, and manner of living, are all the most expensive, and equal to those of a nobleman, yet the original stain still blots his name! Though, had he not fixed upon himself the charge of avarice, he would long since have been reproached with luxury and with living beyond his station in magnificence and splendour.”
Another time he said of him, “Garrick never enters a room, but he regards himself as the object of general attention, from whom the entertainment of the company is expected; and true it is, that he seldom disappoints them; for he has infinite humour, a very just proportion of wit, and more convivial pleasantry, than almost any other man. But then off, as well as on the Stage, he is always an Actor; for he thinks it so incumbent upon him to be sportive, that his gaiety becomes mechanical from being habitual, and he can exert his spirits at all times alike, without consulting his real disposition to hilarity.
Extracts from the Diary and Letters
July. . . .
I have also had a letter from Susanne. She informs me that my father, when he took the books back to Streatham, actually acquainted Mrs. Thrale with my secret. He took an opportunity, when they were alone together, of saying that upon her recommendation, he had himself, as well as my mother, been reading Evelina.
“Well!” cried she, “and is it not a very pretty book? and a very clever book? and a very comical book?”
“Why,” answered he, “’tis well enough; but I have something to tell you about it.”
“Well? what?” cried she; “has Mrs. Cholmondeley found out the author?”
“No,” returned he, “not that I know of; but I believe I have, though but very lately.
“Well, pray let’s hear!” cried she eagerly, “I want to know him of all things.”
How my father must laugh at the him! He then, however, undeceived her in regard to that particular, by telling her it was “our Fanny!” for she knows all about all our family, as my father talks to her of his domestic concerns without any reserve.
A hundred handsome things, of course, followed; and she afterwards read some of the comic parts to Dr. Johnson, Mr. Thrale, and whoever came near her. How I should have quivered had I been there! but they tell me that Dr. Johnson laughed as heartily as my father himself did.
August 3. ——
I have an immensity to write. Susan has copied me a letter which Mrs. Thrale has written to my father, upon the occasion of returning my mother two novels by Madame Riccoboni. It is so honourable to me, and so sweet in her, that I must copy it for my faithful journal.
Wednesday, 22 (July), 1778,
Place: “Streatham.
“Dear Sir —— I forgot to give you the novels home in your carriage which I now send by Mr. Abingdon s. Evelina certainly excels them far enough, both in probability of story, elegance of sentiment, and general power over the mind, whether exerted in humour or pathos. Add to this, that Riccoboni is a veteran author, and all she ever can be; but I cannot tell what might not be expected from Evelina, was she to try her genius at Comedy. So far had I written of my letter, when Mr. Johnson returned home, full of the praises of the Book I had lent him, and protesting there were passages in it which might do honour to Richardson. We talk of it for ever, and he feels ardent after the denouement; he could not get rid of the Rogue, he said! I lent him the second volume, and he is now busy with the other two [sic]. You must be more a philosopher, and less a father, than I wish you, not to be pleased with this letter; —— and the giving such pleasure yields to nothing but receiving it. Long my Dear Sir, may you live to enjoy the just praises of your children, and long may they live to deserve and delight such a parent! These are things that you would say in verse; but Poetry implies Fiction, and all this is naked truth.
“Give my letter to my little friend, and a warm invitation to come and eat fruit, while the season lasts. My Compliments to Mrs. Burney, and kindest wishes to all your flock, etc.”
How sweet, how amiable in this charming woman is her desire of making my dear father satisfied with his scribbler’s attempt! I do, indeed, feel the most grateful love for her.
But Dr. Johnson’s approbation! —— it almost crazed me with agreeable surprise —— it gave me such a flight of spirits, that I danced a jig to Mr. Crisp, without any preparation, music, or explanation —— to his no small amazement and diversion. I left him, however, to make his own comments upon my friskiness, without affording him the smallest assistance.
Susan also writes me word, that when my father went last to Streatham, Dr. Johnson was not there, but Mrs. Thrale told him, that when he gave her the first volume of Evelina which she had lent him, he said, “Why, madam, why, what a charming book you lent me!” and eagerly inquired for the rest. He was particularly pleased with the Snow-hill scenes, and said that Mr. Smith’s vulgar gentility was admirably portrayed; and when Sir Clement joins them, he said there was a shade of character prodigiously well marked. Well may it be said, that the greatest minds are ever the most candid to the inferior set! I think I should love Dr. Johnson for such lenity to a poor mere worm in literature, even if I were not myself the identical grub he has obliged.
Susan has sent me a little note which has really been less pleasant to me, because it has alarmed me for my future concealment. It is from Mrs. Williams, an exceedingly pretty poetess, who has the misfortune to be blind, but who has, to make some amends, the honour of residing in the house of Dr. Johnson; for though he lives almost wholly at Sreatham, he always keeps his apartments in town, and this lady acts as mistress of his house.
July 25,
Mrs. Williams sends compliments to Dr. Burney, and begs he will intercede with Miss Burney to do her the favour to lend her the reading of Evelina. I was quite confounded at this request, which proves that Mrs. Thrale has told Dr. Johnson of my secret, and that he has told Mrs. Williams, and that she has told the person whoever it be, whom she got to write the note.
I instantly scrawled a hasty letter to town to entreat my father would be so good as to write to her, to acquaint her with my earnest and unaffected desire to remain unkn
own.
And yet, though I am frightened at this affair, I am by no means insensible to the honour which I receive from the certainty that Dr. Johnson must have spoken very well of the book, to have induced Mrs. Williams to send to our house for it. She has known my father indeed for some years, but not with any intimacy; and I never saw her, though the perusal of her poems has often made me wish to be acquainted with her.
I now come to last Saturday evening, when my beloved father came to Chessington, in full health, charming spirits, and all kindness, openness, and entertainment.
I inquired what he had done about Mrs. Williams. He told me he went to her himself at my desire, for if he had written she could not herself have read the note. She apologised very much for the liberty she had taken, and spoke highly of the book, though she had only heard the first volume, as she was dependent upon a lady’s good nature and time for hearing any part of it, but she went so far as to say that “his daughter was certainly the first writer, in that way, now living.”
In his way hither, he had stopped at Streatham, and he settled with Mrs. Thrale that he would call on her again in his way to town, and carry me with him! and Mrs. Thrale said, “We all long to know her.”
Complete Works of Frances Burney Page 677