Complete Works of Samuel Johnson

by Samuel Johnson

  “O my coevals! remnants of yourselves!”’

  Johnson did not relish this at all; but shook his head with impatience. Edwards walked off, seemingly highly pleased with the honour of having been thus noticed by Dr. Johnson. When he was gone, I said to Johnson, I thought him but a weak man. JOHNSON. ‘Why, yes, Sir. Here is a man who has passed through life without experience: yet I would rather have him with me than a more sensible man who will not talk readily. This man is always willing to say what he has to say.’ Yet Dr. Johnson had himself by no means that willingness which he praised so much, and I think so justly; for who has not felt the painful effect of the dreary void, when there is a total silence in a company, for any length of time; or, which is as bad, or perhaps worse, when the conversation is with difficulty kept up by a perpetual effort?

  Johnson once observed to me, ‘Tom Tyers described me the best: “Sir (said he), you are like a ghost: you never speak till you are spoken to.”’

  The gentleman whom he thus familiarly mentioned was Mr. Thomas Tyers, son of Mr. Jonathan Tyers, the founder of that excellent place of publick amusement, Vauxhall Gardens, which must ever be an estate to its proprietor, as it is peculiarly adapted to the taste of the English nation; there being a mixture of curious show, — gay exhibition, — musick, vocal and instrumental, not too refined for the general ear; — for all which only a shilling is paid; and, though last, not least, good eating and drinking for those who choose to purchase that regale. Mr. Thomas Tyers was bred to the law; but having a handsome fortune, vivacity of temper, and eccentricity of mind, he could not confine himself to the regularity of practice. He therefore ran about the world with a pleasant carelessness, amusing everybody by his desultory conversation. He abounded in anecdote, but was not sufficiently attentive to accuracy. I therefore cannot venture to avail myself much of a biographical sketch of Johnson which he published, being one among the various persons ambitious of appending their names to that of my illustrious friend. That sketch is, however, an entertaining little collection of fragments. Those which he published of Pope and Addison are of higher merit; but his fame must chiefly rest upon his Political Conferences, in which he introduces several eminent persons delivering their sentiments in the way of dialogue, and discovers a considerable share of learning, various knowledge, and discernment of character. This much may I be allowed to say of a man who was exceedingly obliging to me, and who lived with Dr. Johnson in as easy a manner as almost any of his very numerous acquaintance.

  Mr. Edwards had said to me aside, that Dr. Johnson should have been of a profession. I repeated the remark to Johnson that I might have his own thoughts on the subject. JOHNSON. ‘Sir, it would have been better that I had been of a profession. I ought to have been a lawyer.’ BOSWELL. ‘I do not think, Sir, it would have been better, for we should not have had the English Dictionary.’ JOHNSON. ‘But you would have had Reports.’ BOSWELL. ‘Ay; but there would not have been another, who could have written the Dictionary. There have been many very good Judges. Suppose you had been Lord Chancellor; you would have delivered opinions with more extent of mind, and in a more ornamented manner, than perhaps any Chancellor ever did, or ever will do. But, I believe, causes have been as judiciously decided as you could have done.’ JOHNSON. ‘Yes, Sir. Property has been as well settled.’

  Johnson, however, had a noble ambition floating in his mind, and had, undoubtedly, often speculated on the possibility of his supereminent powers being rewarded in this great and liberal country by the highest honours of the state. Sir William Scott informs me, that upon the death of the late Lord Lichfield, who was Chancellor of the University of Oxford, he said to Johnson, ‘What a pity it is, Sir, that you did not follow the profession of the law. You might have been Lord Chancellor of Great Britain, and attained to the dignity of the peerage; and now that the title of Lichfield, your native city, is extinct, you might have had it.’ Johnson, upon this, seemed much agitated; and, in an angry tone, exclaimed, ‘Why will you vex me by suggesting this, when it is too late?’

  But he did not repine at the prosperity of others. The late Dr. Thomas Leland told Mr. Courtenay, that when Mr. Edmund Burke shewed Johnson his fine house and lands near Beaconsfield, Johnson coolly said, ‘Non equidem invideo; miror magis.’

  Yet no man had a higher notion of the dignity of literature than Johnson, or was more determined in maintaining the respect which he justly considered as due to it. Of this, besides the general tenor of his conduct in society, some characteristical instances may be mentioned.

  He told Sir Joshua Reynolds, that once when he dined in a numerous company of booksellers, where the room being small, the head of the table, at which he sat, was almost close to the fire, he persevered in suffering a great deal of inconvenience from the heat, rather than quit his place, and let one of them sit above him.

  Goldsmith, in his diverting simplicity, complained one day, in a mixed company, of Lord Camden. ‘I met him (said he) at Lord Clare’s house in the country, and he took no more notice of me than if I had been an ordinary man.’ The company having laughed heartily, Johnson stood forth in defence of his friend. ‘Nay, Gentleman, (said he,) Dr. Goldsmith is in the right. A nobleman ought to have made up to such a man as Goldsmith; and I think it is much against Lord Camden that he neglected him.’

  Nor could he patiently endure to hear that such respect as he thought due only to higher intellectual qualities, should be bestowed on men of slighter, though perhaps more amusing talents. 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 tip-toe,) 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 little lawyer to be associating so familiarly with a player.’ Sir Joshua Reynolds observed, with great truth, that Johnson considered Garrick to be as it were his property. He would allow no man either to blame or to praise Garrick in his presence, without contradicting him.

  Having fallen into a very serious frame of mind, in which mutual expressions of kindness passed between us, such as would be thought too vain in me to repeat, I talked with regret of the sad inevitable certainty that one of us must survive the other. JOHNSON. ‘Yes, Sir, that is an affecting consideration. I remember Swift, in one of his letters to Pope, says, “I intend to come over, that we may meet once more; and when we must part, it is what happens to all human beings.”’ BOSWELL. ‘The hope that we shall see our departed friends again must support the mind.’ JOHNSON. ‘Why yes, Sir.’ BOSWELL. ‘There is a strange unwillingness to part with life, independent of serious fears as to futurity. A reverend friend of ours (naming him) tells me, that he feels an uneasiness at the thoughts of leaving his house, his study, his books.’ JOHNSON. ‘This is foolish in —— . A man need not be uneasy on these grounds; for, as he will retain his consciousness, he may say with the philosopher, Omnia mea mecum porto.’ BOSWELL. ‘True, Sir: we may carry our books in our heads; but still there is something painful in the thought of leaving for ever what has given us pleasure. I remember, many years ago, when my imagination was warm, and I happened to be in a melancholy mood, it distressed me to think of going into a state of being in which Shakspeare’s poetry did not exist. A lady whom I then much admired, a very amiable woman, humoured my fancy, and relieved me by saying, “The first thing you will meet in the other world, will be an elegant copy of Shakspeare’s works presented to you.”’ Dr. Johnson smiled benignantly at this, and did not appear to disapprove of the notion.

  We went to St. Clement’s church again in the afternoon, and then returned and drank tea and coffee in Mrs. Williams’s room; Mrs. Desmoulins doing the honours of the tea-table. I observed that he would not even look at a proof-sheet of his Life of Waller on Good-
Friday.

  Mr. Allen, the printer, brought a book on agriculture, which was printed, and was soon to be published. It was a very strange performance, the authour having mixed in it his own thoughts upon various topicks, along with his remarks on ploughing, sowing, and other farming operations. He seemed to be an absurd profane fellow, and had introduced in his book many sneers at religion, with equal ignorance and conceit. Dr. Johnson permitted me to read some passages aloud. One was, that he resolved to work on Sunday, and did work, but he owned he felt some weak compunction; and he had this very curious reflection:— ‘I was born in the wilds of Christianity, and the briars and thorns still hang about me.’ Dr. Johnson could not help laughing at this ridiculous image, yet was very angry at the fellow’s impiety. ‘However, (said he,) the Reviewers will make him hang himself.’ He, however, observed, ‘that formerly there might have been a dispensation obtained for working on Sunday in the time of harvest.’ Indeed in ritual observances, were all the ministers of religion what they should be, and what many of them are, such a power might be wisely and safely lodged with the Church.

  On Saturday, April 14, I drank tea with him. He praised the late Mr. Buncombe, of Canterbury, as a pleasing man. ‘He used to come to me: I did not seek much after him. Indeed I never sought much after any body.’ BOSWELL. ‘Lord Orrery, I suppose.’ JOHNSON. ‘No, Sir; I never went to him but when he sent for me.’ BOSWELL. ‘Richardson?’ JOHNSON. ‘Yes, Sir. But I sought after George Psalmanazar the most. I used to go and sit with him at an alehouse in the city.’

  I am happy to mention another instance which I discovered of his seeking after a man of merit. Soon after the Honourable Daines Barrington had published his excellent Observations on the Statutes, Johnson waited on that worthy and learned gentleman; and, having told him his name, courteously said, ‘I have read your book, Sir, with great pleasure, and wish to be better known to you.’ Thus began an acquaintance, which was continued with mutual regard as long as Johnson lived.

  Talking of a recent seditious delinquent, he said, ‘They should set him in the pillory, that he may be punished in a way that would disgrace him.’ I observed, that the pillory does not always disgrace. And I mentioned an instance of a gentleman who I thought was not dishonoured by it. JOHNSON. ‘Ay, but he was, Sir. He could not mouth and strut as he used to do, after having been there. People are not willing to ask a man to their tables who has stood in the pillory.’

  The Gentleman who had dined with us at Dr. Percy’s came in. Johnson attacked the Americans with intemperate vehemence of abuse. I said something in their favour; and added, that I was always sorry when he talked on that subject. This, it seems, exasperated him; though he said nothing at the time. The cloud was charged with sulphureous vapour, which was afterwards to burst in thunder. — We talked of a gentleman who was running out his fortune in London; and I said, ‘We must get him out of it. All his friends must quarrel with him, and that will soon drive him away.’ JOHNSON. ‘Nay, Sir; we’ll send you to him. If your company does not drive a man out of his house, nothing will.’ This was a horrible shock, for which there was no visible cause. I afterwards asked him why he had said so harsh a thing. JOHNSON. ‘Because, Sir, you made me angry about the Americans.’ BOSWELL. ‘But why did you not take your revenge directly?’ JOHNSON. (smiling) ‘Because, Sir, I had nothing ready. A man cannot strike till he has his weapons.’ This was a candid and pleasant confession.

  He shewed me to-night his drawing-room, very genteelly fitted up; and said, ‘Mrs. Thrale sneered when I talked of my having asked you and your lady to live at my house. I was obliged to tell her, that you would be in as respectable a situation in my house as in hers. Sir, the insolence of wealth will creep out.’ BOSWELL. ‘She has a little both of the insolence of wealth, and the conceit of parts.’ JOHNSON. ‘The insolence of wealth is a wretched thing; but the conceit of parts has some foundation. To be sure it should not be. But who is without it?’ BOSWELL. ‘Yourself, Sir.’ JOHNSON. ‘Why I play no tricks: I lay no traps.’ BOSWELL. ‘No, Sir. You are six feet high, and you only do not stoop.’

  We talked of the numbers of people that sometimes have composed the household of great families. I mentioned that there were a hundred in the family of the present Earl of Eglintoune’s father. Dr. Johnson seeming to doubt it, I began to enumerate. ‘Let us see: my Lord and my Lady two.’ JOHNSON. ‘Nay, Sir, if you are to count by twos, you may be long enough.’ BOSWELL. ‘Well, but now I add two sons and seven daughters, and a servant for each, that will make twenty; so we have the fifth part already.’ JOHNSON. ‘Very true. You get at twenty pretty readily; but you will not so easily get further on. We grow to five feet pretty readily; but it is not so easy to grow to seven.’

  On Sunday, April 19, being Easter-day, after the solemnities of the festival in St. Paul’s Church, I visited him, but could not stay to dinner. I expressed a wish to have the arguments for Christianity always in readiness, that my religious faith might be as firm and clear as any proposition whatever, so that I need not be under the least uneasiness, when it should be attacked. JOHNSON. ‘Sir, you cannot answer all objections. You have demonstration for a First Cause: you see he must be good as well as powerful, because there is nothing to make him otherwise, and goodness of itself is preferable. Yet you have against this, what is very certain, the unhappiness of human life. This, however, gives us reason to hope for a future state of compensation, that there may be a perfect system. But of that we were not sure, till we had a positive revelation.’ I told him, that his Rasselas had often made me unhappy; for it represented the misery of human life so well, and so convincingly to a thinking mind, that if at any time the impression wore off, and I felt myself easy, I began to suspect some delusion.

  On Monday, April 20, I found him at home in the morning. We talked of a gentleman who we apprehended was gradually involving his circumstances by bad management. JOHNSON. ‘Wasting a fortune is evaporation by a thousand imperceptible means. If it were a stream, they’d stop it. You must speak to him. It is really miserable. Were he a gamester, it could be said he had hopes of winning. Were he a bankrupt in trade, he might have grown rich; but he has neither spirit to spend nor resolution to spare. He does not spend fast enough to have pleasure from it. He has the crime of prodigality, and the wretchedness of parsimony. If a man is killed in a duel, he is killed as many a one has been killed; but it is a sad thing for a man to lie down and die; to bleed to death, because he has not fortitude enough to sear the wound, or even to stitch it up.’ I cannot but pause a moment to admire the fecundity of fancy, and choice of language, which in this instance, and, indeed, on almost all occasions, he displayed. It was well observed by Dr. Percy, now Bishop of Dromore, ‘The conversation of Johnson is strong and clear, and may be compared to an antique statue, where every vein and muscle is distinct and bold. Ordinary conversation resembles an inferiour cast.’

  On Saturday, April 25, I dined with him at Sir Joshua Reynolds’s, with the learned Dr. Musgrave, Counsellor Leland of Ireland, son to the historian, Mrs. Cholmondeley, and some more ladies. The Project, a new poem, was read to the company by Dr. Musgrave. JOHNSON. ‘Sir, it has no power. Were it not for the well-known names with which it is filled, it would be nothing: the names carry the poet, not the poet the names.’ MUSGRAVE. ‘A temporary poem always entertains us.’ JOHNSON. ‘So does an account of the criminals hanged yesterday entertain us.’

  He proceeded:— ‘Demosthenes Taylor, as he was called, (that is, the Editor of Demosthenes) was the most silent man, the merest statue of a man that I have ever seen. I once dined in company with him, and all he said during the whole time was no more than Richard. How a man should say only Richard, it is not easy to imagine. But it was thus: Dr. Douglas was talking of Dr. Zachary Grey, and ascribing to him something that was written by Dr. Richard Grey. So, to correct him, Taylor said, (imitating his affected sententious emphasis and nod,) “Richard.”’

  Mrs. Cholmondeley, in a high flow of spirits, exhibited some lively sal
lies of hyperbolical compliment to Johnson, with whom she had been long acquainted, and was very easy. He was quick in catching the manner of the moment, and answered her somewhat in the style of the hero of a romance, ‘Madam, you crown me with unfading laurels.’

  I happened, I know not how, to say that a pamphlet meant a prose piece. JOHNSON. ‘No, Sir. A few sheets of poetry unbound are a pamphlet, as much as a few sheets of prose.’ MUSGRAVE. ‘A pamphlet may be understood to mean a poetical piece in Westminster-Hall, that is, in formal language; but in common language it is understood to mean prose.’ JOHNSON. (and here was one of the many instances of his knowing clearly and telling exactly how a thing is) ‘A pamphlet is understood in common language to mean prose, only from this, that there is so much more prose written than poetry; as when we say a book, prose is understood for the same reason, though a book may as well be in poetry as in prose. We understand what is most general, and we name what is less frequent.’

  We talked of a lady’s verses on Ireland. MISS REYNOLDS. ‘Have you seen them, Sir?’ JOHNSON. ‘No, Madam. I have seen a translation from Horace, by one of her daughters. She shewed it me.’ MISS REYNOLDS. ‘And how was it, Sir?’ JOHNSON. ‘Why, very well for a young Miss’s verses; — that is to say, compared with excellence, nothing; but, very well, for the person who wrote them. I am vexed at being shewn verses in that manner.’ MISS REYNOLDS. ‘But if they should be good, why not give them hearty praise?’ JOHNSON. ‘Why, Madam, because I have not then got the better of my bad humour from having been shewn them. You must consider, Madam; beforehand they may be bad, as well as good. Nobody has a right to put another under such a difficulty, that he must either hurt the person by telling the truth, or hurt himself by telling what is not true.’ BOSWELL. ‘A man often shews his writings to people of eminence, to obtain from them, either from their good-nature, or from their not being able to tell the truth firmly, a commendation, of which he may afterwards avail himself.’ JOHNSON. ‘Very true, Sir. Therefore the man, who is asked by an authour, what he thinks of his work, is put to the torture, and is not obliged to speak the truth; so that what he says is not considered as his opinion; yet he has said it, and cannot retract it; and this authour, when mankind are hunting him with a cannister at his tail, can say, “I would not have published, had not Johnson, or Reynolds, or Musgrave, or some other good judge commended the work.” Yet I consider it as a very difficult question in conscience, whether one should advise a man not to publish a work, if profit be his object; for the man may say, “Had it not been for you, I should have had the money.” Now you cannot be sure; for you have only your own opinion, and the publick may think very differently.’ SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. ‘You must upon such an occasion have two judgments; one as to the real value of the work, the other as to what may please the general taste at the time.’ JOHNSON. ‘But you can be sure of neither; and therefore I should scruple much to give a suppressive vote. Both Goldsmith’s comedies were once refused; his first by Garrick, his second by Colman, who was prevailed on at last by much solicitation, nay, a kind of force, to bring it on. His Vicar of Wakefield I myself did not think would have had much success. It was written and sold to a bookseller before his Traveller; but published after; so little expectation had the bookseller from it. Had it been sold after the Traveller, he might have had twice as much money for it, though sixty guineas was no mean price. The bookseller had the advantage of Goldsmith’s reputation from The Traveller in the sale, though Goldsmith had it not in selling the copy.’ SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. ‘The Beggar’s Opera affords a proof how strangely people will differ in opinion about a literary performance. Burke thinks it has no merit.’ JOHNSON. ‘It was refused by one of the houses; but I should have thought it would succeed, not from any great excellence in the writing, but from the novelty, and the general spirit and gaiety of the piece, which keeps the audience always attentive, and dismisses them in good humour.’