Johnson and Wilkes had one point in common — a vigorous prejudice against the Scotch, and upon this topic they cracked their jokes in friendly emulation. When they met upon a later occasion (1781), they still pursued this inexhaustible subject. Wilkes told how a privateer had completely plundered seven Scotch islands, and re-embarked with three and sixpence. Johnson now remarked in answer to somebody who said “Poor old England is lost!” “Sir, it is not so much to be lamented that old England is lost, as that the Scotch have found it.” “You must know, sir,” he said to Wilkes, “that I lately took my friend Boswell and showed him genuine civilized life in an English provincial town. I turned him loose at Lichfield, that he might see for once real civility, for you know he lives among savages in Scotland and among rakes in London.” “Except,” said Wilkes, “when he is with grave, sober, decent people like you and me.” “And we ashamed of him,” added Johnson, smiling.
Boswell had to bear some jokes against himself and his countrymen from the pair; but he had triumphed, and rejoiced greatly when he went home with Johnson, and heard the great man speak of his pleasant dinner to Mrs. Williams. Johnson seems to have been permanently reconciled to his foe. “Did we not hear so much said of Jack Wilkes,” he remarked next year, “we should think more highly of his conversation. Jack has a great variety of talk, Jack is a scholar, and Jack has the manners of a gentleman. But, after hearing his name sounded from pole to pole as the phoenix of convivial felicity, we are disappointed in his company. He has always been at me, but I would do Jack a kindness rather than not. The contest is now over.”
In fact, Wilkes had ceased to play any part in public life. When Johnson met him next (in 1781) they joked about such dangerous topics as some of Wilkes’s political performances. Johnson sent him a copy of the Lives, and they were seen conversing tête-à-tête in confidential whispers about George II. and the King of Prussia. To Boswell’s mind it suggested the happy days when the lion should lie down with the kid, or, as Dr. Barnard suggested, the goat.
In the year 1777 Johnson began the Lives of the Poets, in compliance with a request from the booksellers, who wished for prefaces to a large collection of English poetry. Johnson asked for this work the extremely modest sum of 200 guineas, when he might easily, according to Malone, have received 1000 or 1500. He did not meet Boswell till September, when they spent ten days together at Dr. Taylor’s. The subject which specially interested Boswell at this time was the fate of the unlucky Dr. Dodd, hanged for forgery in the previous June. Dodd seems to have been a worthless charlatan of the popular preacher variety. His crime would not in our days have been thought worthy of so severe a punishment; but his contemporaries were less shocked by the fact of death being inflicted for such a fault, than by the fact of its being inflicted on a clergyman. Johnson exerted himself to procure a remission of the sentence by writing various letters and petitions on Dodd’s behalf. He seems to have been deeply moved by the man’s appeal, and could “not bear the thought” that any negligence of his should lead to the death of a fellow-creature; but he said that if he had himself been in authority he would have signed the death-warrant, and for the man himself, he had as little respect as might be. He said, indeed, that Dodd was right in not joining in the “cant” about leaving a wretched world. “No, no,” said the poor rogue, “it has been a very agreeable world to me.” Dodd had allowed to pass for his own one of the papers composed for him by Johnson, and the Doctor was not quite pleased. When, however, Seward expressed a doubt as to Dodd’s power of writing so forcibly, Johnson felt bound not to expose him. “Why should you think so? Depend upon it, sir, when any man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.” On another occasion, Johnson expressed a doubt himself as to whether Dodd had really composed a certain prayer on the night before his execution. “Sir, do you think that a man the night before he is to be hanged cares for the succession of the royal family? Though he may have composed this prayer then. A man who has been canting all his life may cant to the last; and yet a man who has been refused a pardon after so much petitioning, would hardly be praying thus fervently for the king.”
The last day at Taylor’s was characteristic. Johnson was very cordial to his disciple, and Boswell fancied that he could defend his master at “the point of his sword.” “My regard for you,” said Johnson, “is greater almost than I have words to express, but I do not choose to be always repeating it. Write it down in the first leaf of your pocket-book, and never doubt of it again.” They became sentimental, and talked of the misery of human life. Boswell spoke of the pleasures of society. “Alas, sir,” replied Johnson, like a true pessimist, “these are only struggles for happiness!” He felt exhilarated, he said, when he first went to Ranelagh, but he changed to the mood of Xerxes weeping at the sight of his army. “It 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; but that the thoughts of each individual would be distressing when alone.” Some years before he had gone with Boswell to the Pantheon and taken a more cheerful view. When Boswell doubted whether there were many happy people present, he said, “Yes, sir, there are many happy people here. There are many people here who are watching hundreds, and who think hundreds are watching them.” The more permanent feeling was that which he expressed in the “serene autumn night” in Taylor’s garden. He was willing, however, to talk calmly about eternal punishment, and to admit the possibility of a “mitigated interpretation.”
After supper he dictated to Boswell an argument in favour of the negro who was then claiming his liberty in Scotland. He hated slavery with a zeal which the excellent Boswell thought to be “without knowledge;” and on one occasion gave as a toast to some “very grave men” at Oxford, “Here’s to the next insurrection of negroes in the West Indies.” The hatred was combined with as hearty a dislike for American independence. “How is it,” he said, “that we always hear the loudest yelps for liberty amongst the drivers of negroes?” The harmony of the evening was unluckily spoilt by an explosion of this prejudice. Boswell undertook the defence of the colonists, and the discussion became so fierce that though Johnson had expressed a willingness to sit up all night with him, they were glad to part after an hour or two, and go to bed.
In 1778, Boswell came to London and found Johnson absorbed, to an extent which apparently excited his jealousy, by his intimacy with the Thrales. They had, however, several agreeable meetings. One was at the club, and Boswell’s report of the conversation is the fullest that we have of any of its meetings. A certain reserve is indicated by his using initials for the interlocutors, of whom, however, one can be easily identified as Burke. The talk began by a discussion of an antique statue, said to be the dog of Alcibiades, and valued at 1000l. Burke said that the representation of no animal could be worth so much. Johnson, whose taste for art was a vanishing quantity, said that the value was proportional to the difficulty. A statue, as he argued on another occasion, would be worth nothing if it were cut out of a carrot. Everything, he now said, was valuable which “enlarged the sphere of human powers.” The first man who balanced a straw upon his nose, or rode upon three horses at once, deserved the applause of mankind; and so statues of animals should be preserved as a proof of dexterity, though men should not continue such fruitless labours.
The conversation became more instructive under the guidance of Burke. He maintained what seemed to his hearers a paradox, though it would be interesting to hear his arguments from some profounder economist than Boswell, that a country would be made more populous by emigration. “There are bulls enough in Ireland,” he remarked incidentally in the course of the argument. “So, sir, I should think from your argument,” said Johnson, for once condescending to an irresistible pun. It is recorded, too, that he once made a bull himself, observing that a horse was so slow that when it went up hill, it stood still. If he now failed to appreciate Burke’s argument, he made one good remark. Another speaker said that unhealthy countries we
re the most populous. “Countries which are the most populous,” replied Johnson, “have the most destructive diseases. That is the true state of the proposition;” and indeed, the remark applies to the case of emigration.
A discussion then took place as to whether it would be worth while for Burke to take so much trouble with speeches which never decided a vote. Burke replied that a speech, though it did not gain one vote, would have an influence, and maintained that the House of Commons was not wholly corrupt. “We are all more or less governed by interest,” was Johnson’s comment. “But interest will not do everything. In a case which admits of doubt, we try to think on the side which is for our interest, and generally bring ourselves to act accordingly. But the subject must admit of diversity of colouring; it must receive a colour on that side. In the House of Commons there are members enough who will not vote what is grossly absurd and unjust. No, sir, there must always be right enough, or appearance of right, to keep wrong in countenance.” After some deviations, the conversation returned to this point. Johnson and Burke agreed on a characteristic statement. Burke said that from his experience he had learnt to think better of mankind. “From my experience,” replied Johnson, “I have found them worse on commercial dealings, more disposed to cheat than I had any notion of; but more disposed to do one another good than I had conceived.” “Less just, and more beneficent,” as another speaker suggested. Johnson proceeded to say that considering the pressure of want, it was wonderful that men would do so much for each other. The greatest liar is said to speak more truth than falsehood, and perhaps the worst man might do more good than not. But when Boswell suggested that perhaps experience might increase our estimate of human happiness, Johnson returned to his habitual pessimism. “No, sir, the more we inquire, the more we shall find men less happy.” The talk soon wandered off into a disquisition upon the folly of deliberately testing the strength of our friend’s affection.
The evening ended by Johnson accepting a commission to write to a friend who had given to the Club a hogshead of claret, and to request another, with “a happy ambiguity of expression,” in the hopes that it might also be a present.
Some days afterwards, another conversation took place, which has a certain celebrity in Boswellian literature. The scene was at Dilly’s, and the guests included Miss Seward and Mrs. Knowles, a well-known Quaker Lady. Before dinner Johnson seized upon a book which he kept in his lap during dinner, wrapped up in the table-cloth. His attention was not distracted from the various business of the hour, but he hit upon a topic which happily combined the two appropriate veins of thought. He boasted that he would write a cookery-book upon philosophical principles; and declared in opposition to Miss Seward that such a task was beyond the sphere of woman. Perhaps this led to a discussion upon the privileges of men, in which Johnson put down Mrs. Knowles, who had some hankering for women’s rights, by the Shakspearian maxim that if two men ride on a horse, one must ride behind. Driven from her position in this world, poor Mrs. Knowles hoped that sexes might be equal in the next. Boswell reproved her by the remark already quoted, that men might as well expect to be equal to angels. He enforces this view by an illustration suggested by the “Rev. Mr. Brown of Utrecht,” who had observed that a great or small glass might be equally full, though not holding equal quantities. Mr. Brown intended this for a confutation of Hume, who has said that a little Miss, dressed for a ball, may be as happy as an orator who has won some triumphant success.
[Footnote 1: Boswell remarks as a curious coincidence that the same
illustration had been used by a Dr. King, a dissenting minister.
Doubtless it has been used often enough. For one instance see Donne’s
Sermons (Alford’s Edition), vol. i., p. 5.]
The conversation thus took a theological turn, and Mrs. Knowles was fortunate enough to win Johnson’s high approval. He defended a doctrine maintained by Soame Jenyns, that friendship is a Christian virtue. Mrs. Knowles remarked that Jesus had twelve disciples, but there was one whom he loved. Johnson, “with eyes sparkling benignantly,” exclaimed, “Very well indeed, madam; you have said very well!”
So far all had gone smoothly; but here, for some inexplicable reason, Johnson burst into a sudden fury against the American rebels, whom he described as “rascals, robbers, pirates,” and roared out a tremendous volley, which might almost have been audible across the Atlantic. Boswell sat and trembled, but gradually diverted the sage to less exciting topics. The name of Jonathan Edwards suggested a discussion upon free will and necessity, upon which poor Boswell was much given to worry himself. Some time afterwards Johnson wrote to him, in answer to one of his lamentations: “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?” Boswell could never take this sensible advice; but he got little comfort from his oracle. “We know that we are all free, and there’s an end on’t,” was his statement on one occasion, and now he could only say, “All theory is against the freedom of the will, and all experience for it.”
Some familiar topics followed, which play a great part in Boswell’s reports. Among the favourite topics of the sentimentalists of the day was the denunciation of “luxury,” and of civilized life in general. There was a disposition to find in the South Sea savages or American Indians an embodiment of the fancied state of nature. Johnson heartily despised the affectation. He was told of an American woman who had to be bound in order to keep her from savage life. “She must have been an animal, a beast,” said Boswell. “Sir,” said Johnson, “she was a speaking cat.” Somebody quoted to him with admiration the soliloquy of an officer who had lived in the wilds of America: “Here am I, free and unrestrained, amidst the rude magnificence of nature, with the Indian woman by my side, and this gun, with which I can procure food when I want it! What more can be desired for human happiness?” “Do not allow yourself, sir,” replied Johnson, “to be imposed upon by such gross absurdity. It is sad stuff; it is brutish. If a bull could speak, he might as well exclaim, ‘Here am I with this cow and this grass; what being can enjoy greater felicity?’” When Johnson implored Boswell to “clear his mind of cant,” he was attacking his disciple for affecting a serious depression about public affairs; but the cant which he hated would certainly have included as its first article an admiration for the state of nature.
On the present occasion Johnson defended luxury, and said that he had learnt much from Mandeville — a shrewd cynic, in whom Johnson’s hatred for humbug is exaggerated into a general disbelief in real as well as sham nobleness of sentiment. As the conversation proceeded, Johnson expressed his habitual horror of death, and caused Miss Seward’s ridicule by talking seriously of ghosts and the importance of the question of their reality; and then followed an explosion, which seems to have closed this characteristic evening. A young woman had become a Quaker under the influence of Mrs. Knowles, who now proceeded to deprecate Johnson’s wrath at what he regarded as an apostasy. “Madam,” he said, “she is an odious wench,” and he proceeded to denounce her audacity in presuming to choose a religion for herself. “She knew no more of the points of difference,” he said, “than of the difference between the Copernican and Ptolemaic systems.” When Mrs. Knowles said that she had the New Testament before her, he said that it was the “most difficult book in the world,” and he proceeded to attack the unlucky proselyte with a fury which shocked the two ladies. Mrs. Knowles afterwards published a report of this conversation, and obtained another report, with which, however, she was not satisfied, from Miss Seward. Both of them represent the poor doctor as hopelessly confuted by the mild dignity and calm reason of Mrs. Knowles, though the triumph is painted in far the brightest colours by Mrs. Knowles herself. Unluckily, there is not a trace of Johnson’s manner, except in one phrase, in either report, and they are chiefly curious as an indirect testimony to Boswell’s superior powers. The passage, in which both the ladies agree, is that Johnson, on the expression of Mrs. Knowles’
s hope that he would meet the young lady in another world, retorted that he was not fond of meeting fools anywhere.
Poor Boswell was at this time a water-drinker by Johnson’s recommendation, though unluckily for himself he never broke off his drinking habits for long. They had a conversation at Paoli’s, in which Boswell argued against his present practice. Johnson remarked “that wine gave a man nothing, but only put in motion what had been locked up in frost.” It was a key, suggested some one, which opened a box, but the box might be full or empty. “Nay, sir,” said Johnson, “conversation is the key, wine is a picklock, which forces open the box and injures it. A man should cultivate his mind, so as to have that confidence and readiness without wine which wine gives.” Boswell characteristically said that the great difficulty was from “benevolence.” It was hard to refuse “a good, worthy man” who asked you to try his cellar. This, according to Johnson, was mere conceit, implying an exaggerated estimate of your importance to your entertainer. Reynolds gallantly took up the opposite side, and produced the one recorded instance of a Johnsonian blush. “I won’t argue any more with you, sir,” said Johnson, who thought every man to be elevated who drank wine, “you are too far gone.” “I should have thought so indeed, sir, had I made such a speech as you have now done,” said Reynolds; and Johnson apologized with the aforesaid blush.
The explosion was soon over on this occasion. Not long afterwards, Johnson attacked Boswell so fiercely at a dinner at Reynolds’s, that the poor disciple kept away for a week. They made it up when they met next, and Johnson solaced Boswell’s wounded vanity by highly commending an image made by him to express his feelings. “I don’t care how often or how high Johnson tosses me, when only friends are present, for then I fall upon soft ground; but I do not like falling on stones, which is the case when enemies are present.” The phrase may recall one of Johnson’s happiest illustrations. When some one said in his presence that a congé d’élire might be considered as only a strong recommendation: “Sir,” replied Johnson, “it is such a recommendation as if I should throw you out of a two-pair of stairs window, and recommend you to fall soft.”
Complete Works of Samuel Johnson Page 644