‘As Johnson always allowed the extraordinary talents of Mr. Burke, so Mr. Burke was fully sensible of the wonderful powers of Johnson. Mr. Langton recollects having passed an evening with both of them, when Mr. Burke repeatedly entered upon topicks which it was evident he would have illustrated with extensive knowledge and richness of expression; but Johnson always seized upon the conversation, in which, however, he acquitted himself in a most masterly manner. As Mr. Burke and Mr. Langton were walking home, Mr. Burke observed that Johnson had been very great that night; Mr. Langton joined in this, but added, he could have wished to hear more from another person; (plainly intimating that he meant Mr. Burke.) “O, no (said Mr. Burke) it is enough for me to have rung the bell to him.”’
‘Beauclerk having observed to him of one of their friends, that he was aukward at counting money, “Why, Sir, said Johnson, I am likewise aukward at counting money. But then, Sir, the reason is plain; I have had very little money to count.”’
‘He had an abhorrence of affectation. Talking of old Mr. Langton, of whom he said, “Sir, you will seldom see such a gentleman, such are his stores of literature, such his knowledge in divinity, and such his exemplary life;” he added, “and Sir, he has no grimace, no gesticulation, no bursts of admiration on trivial occasions; he never embraces you with an overacted cordiality.”’
‘Being in company with a gentleman who thought fit to maintain Dr. Berkeley’s ingenious philosophy, that nothing exists but as perceived by some mind; when the gentleman was going away, Johnson said to him, “Pray, Sir, don’t leave us; for we may perhaps forget to think of you, and then you will cease to exist.”’
‘Goldsmith, upon being visited by Johnson one day in the Temple, said to him with a little jealousy of the appearance of his accommodation, “I shall soon be in better chambers than these.” Johnson at the same time checked him and paid him a handsome compliment, implying that a man of his talents should be above attention to such distinctions,— ‘Nay, Sir, never mind that. Nil te quaesiveris extra.’
‘At the time when his pension was granted to him, he said, with a noble literary ambition, “Had this happened twenty years years ago, I should have gone to Constantinople to learn Arabick, as Pococke did.”’
‘As an instance of the niceness of his taste, though he praised West’s translation of Pindar, he pointed out the following passage as faulty, by expressing a circumstance so minute as to detract from the general dignity which should prevail:
“Down then from thy glittering nail,
Take, O Muse, thy Dorian lyre95.’”
‘When Mr. Vesey was proposed as a member of the LITERARY CLUB, Mr. Burke began by saying that he was a man of gentle manners. “Sir, said Johnson, you need say no more. When you have said a man of gentle manners; you have said enough.”’
‘The late Mr. Fitzherbert told Mr. Langton that Johnson said to him, “Sir, a man has no more right to say an uncivil thing, than to act one; no more right to say a rude thing to another than to knock him down.”’
‘My dear friend Dr. Bathurst, (said he with a warmth of approbation) declared he was glad that his father, who was a West-Indian planter, had left his affairs in total ruin, because having no estate, he was not under the temptation of having slaves.’
‘Richardson had little conversation, except about his own works, of which Sir Joshua Reynolds said he was always willing to talk, and glad to have them introduced. Johnson when he carried Mr. Langton to see him, professed that he could bring him out into conversation, and used this allusive expression, “Sir, I can make him rear.” But he failed; for in that interview Richardson said little else than that there lay in the room a translation of his Clarissa into German.’
‘Once when somebody produced a newspaper in which there was a letter of stupid abuse of Sir Joshua Reynolds, of which Johnson himself came in for a share,— “Pray,” said he, “let us have it read aloud from beginning to end;” which being done, he with a ludicrous earnestness, and not directing his look to any particular person, called out, “Are we alive after all this satire!”’
‘He had a strong prejudice against the political character of Seeker, one instance of which appeared at Oxford, where he expressed great dissatisfaction at his varying the old established toast, “Church and King.” “The Archbishop of Canterbury, said he (with an affected smooth smiling grimace) drinks,’ Constitution in Church and State.’” Being asked what difference there was between the two toasts, he said, “Why, Sir, you may be sure he meant something.” Yet when the life of that prelate, prefixed to his sermons by Dr. Porteus and Dr. Stinton his chaplains, first came out, he read it with the utmost avidity, and said, “It is a life well written, and that well deserves to be recorded.”’
‘Of a certain noble Lord, he said, “Respect him, you could not; for he had no mind of his own. Love him you could not; for that which you could do with him, every one else could.”’
‘Of Dr. Goldsmith he said, “No man was more foolish when he had not a pen in his hand, or more wise when he had.”’
‘He told in his lively manner the following literary anecdote: “Green and Guthrie, an Irishman and a Scotchman, undertook a translation of Duhalde’s History of China. Green said of Guthrie, that he knew no English, and Guthrie of Green, that he knew no French; and these two undertook to translate Duhalde’s History of China. In this translation there was found ‘the twenty-sixth day of the new moon.’ Now as the whole age of the moon is but twenty-eight days, the moon instead of being new, was nearly as old as it could be. Their blunder arose from their mistaking the word neuvième ninth, for nouvelle or neuve, new.”’
‘Talking of Dr. Blagden’s copiousness and precision of communication, Dr. Johnson said, “Blagden, Sir, is a delightful fellow.”’
‘On occasion of Dr. Johnson’s publishing his pamphlet of The False Alarm, there came out a very angry answer (by many supposed to be by Mr. Wilkes). Dr. Johnson determined on not answering it; but, in conversation with Mr. Langton, mentioned a particular or two, which if he had replied to it, he might perhaps have inserted. In the answerer’s pamphlet, it had been said with solemnity, “Do you consider, Sir, that a House of Commons is to the people as a Creature is to its Creator?” To this question, said Dr. Johnson, I could have replied, that — in the first place — the idea of a CREATOR must be such as that he has a power to unmake or annihilate his creature.’
‘Then it cannot be conceived that a creature can make laws for its
CREATOR.’
‘Depend upon it, said he, that if a man talks of his misfortunes, there is something in them that is not disagreeable to him; for where there is nothing but pure misery, there never is any recourse to the mention of it.’
‘A man must be a poor beast that should read no more in quantity than he could utter aloud.’
‘Imlac in Rasselas, I spelt with a c at the end, because it is less like English, which should always have the Saxon k added to the c.’
‘Many a man is mad in certain instances, and goes through life without having it perceived: for example, a madness has seized a person of supposing himself obliged literally to pray continually — had the madness turned the opposite way and the person thought it a crime ever to pray, it might not improbably have continued unobserved.’
‘He apprehended that the delineation of characters in the end of the first Book of the Retreat of the Ten Thousand was the first instance of the kind that was known.’
‘Supposing (said he) a wife to be of a studious or argumentative turn, it would be very troublesome: for instance, — if a woman should continually dwell upon the subject of the Arian heresy.’
‘No man speaks concerning another, even suppose it be in his praise, if he thinks he does not hear him, exactly as he would, if he thought he was within hearing.’
‘The applause of a single human being is of great consequence: This he said to me with great earnestness of manner, very near the time of his decease, on occasion of having desired me to read a l
etter addressed to him from some person in the North of England; which when I had done, and he asked me what the contents were, as I thought being particular upon it might fatigue him, it being of great length, I only told him in general that it was highly in his praise; — and then he expressed himself as above.’
‘He mentioned with an air of satisfaction what Baretti had told him; that, meeting, in the course of his studying English, with an excellent paper in the Spectator, one of four that were written by the respectable Dissenting Minister, Mr. Grove of Taunton, and observing the genius and energy of mind that it exhibits, it greatly quickened his curiosity to visit our country; as he thought if such were the lighter periodical essays of our authours, their productions on more weighty occasions must be wonderful indeed!’
‘He observed once, at Sir Joshua Reynolds’s, that a beggar in the street will more readily ask alms from a man, though there should be no marks of wealth in his appearance, than from even a well-dressed woman; which he accounted for from the greater degree of carefulness as to money that is to be found in women; saying farther upon it, that the opportunities in general that they possess of improving their condition are much fewer than men have; and adding, as he looked round the company, which consisted of men only, — there is not one of us who does not think he might be richer if he would use his endeavour.’
‘He thus characterised an ingenious writer of his acquaintance: “Sir, he is an enthusiast by rule.”’
‘He may hold up that SHIELD against all his enemies;’ — was an observation on Homer, in reference to his description of the shield of Achilles, made by Mrs. Fitzherbert, wife to his friend Mr. Fitzherbert of Derbyshire, and respected by Dr. Johnson as a very fine one. He had in general a very high opinion of that lady’s understanding.’
‘An observation of Bathurst’s may be mentioned, which Johnson repeated, appearing to acknowledge it to be well founded, namely, it was somewhat remarkable how seldom, on occasion of coming into the company of any new person, one felt any wish or inclination to see him again.’
This year the Reverend Dr. Franklin having published a translation of Lucian, inscribed to him the Demonax thus: —
‘To DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON, the Demonax of the present age, this piece is inscribed by a sincere admirer of his respectable talents,
‘THE TRANSLATOR.’
Though upon a particular comparison of Demonax and Johnson, there does not seem to be a great deal of similarity between them, this Dedication is a just compliment from the general character given by Lucian of the ancient Sage, ‘[Greek: ariston on oida ego philosophon genomenon], the best philosopher whom I have ever seen or known.’
1781: AETAT. 72. — 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 vigour and haste.’ In a memorandum previous to this, he says of them: ‘Written, I hope, in such a manner as may tend to the promotion of piety.’
This is the work which of all Dr. Johnson’s writings will perhaps be read most generally, and with most pleasure. Philology and biography were his favourite pursuits, and those who lived most in intimacy with him, heard him upon all occasions, when there was a proper opportunity, take delight in expatiating upon the various merits of the English Poets: upon the niceties of their characters, and the events of their progress through the world which they contributed to illuminate. His mind was so full of that kind of information, and it was so well arranged in his memory, that in performing what he had undertaken in this way, he had little more to do than to put his thoughts upon paper, exhibiting first each Poet’s life, and then subjoining a critical examination of his genius and works. But when he began to write, the subject swelled in such a manner, that instead of prefaces to each poet, of no more than a few pages, as he had originally intended, he produced an ample, rich, and most entertaining view of them in every respect. In this he resembled Quintilian, who tells us, that in the composition of his Institutions of Oratory, Latiùs se tamen aperiente materiâ, plus quàm imponebatur oneris sponte suscepi. The booksellers, justly sensible of the great additional value of the copy-right, presented him with another hundred pounds, over and above two hundred, for which his agreement was to furnish such prefaces as he thought fit.
This was, however, but a small recompense for such a collection of biography, and such principles and illustrations of criticism, as, if digested and arranged in one system, by some modern Aristotle or Longinus, might form a code upon that subject, such as no other nation can shew. As he was so good as to make me a present of the greatest part of the original and indeed only manuscript of this admirable work, I have an opportunity of observing with wonder, the correctness with which he rapidly struck off such glowing composition. He may be assimilated to the Lady in Waller, who could impress with ‘Love at first sight:’
‘Some other nymphs with colours faint,
And pencil slow may Cupid paint,
And a weak heart in time destroy;
She has a stamp, and prints the boy129.’
That he, however, had a good deal of trouble, and some anxiety in carrying on the work, we see from a series of letters to Mr. Nichols the printer, whose variety of literary inquiry and obliging disposition, rendered him useful to Johnson. Mr. Steevens appears, from the papers in my possession, to have supplied him with some anecdotes and quotations; and I observe the fair hand of Mrs. Thrale as one of his copyists of select passages. But he was principally indebted to my steady friend Mr. Isaac Reed, of Staple-inn, whose extensive and accurate knowledge of English literary history I do not express with exaggeration, when I say it is wonderful; indeed his labours have proved it to the world; and all who have the pleasure of his acquaintance can bear testimony to the frankness of his communications in private society.
It is not my intention to dwell upon each of Johnson’s Lives of the Poets, or attempt an analysis of their merits, which, were I able to do it, would take up too much room in this work; yet I shall make a few observations upon some of them, and insert a few various readings.
The Life of COWLEY he himself considered as the best of the whole, on account of the dissertation which it contains on the Metaphysical Poets. Dryden, whose critical abilities were equal to his poetical, had mentioned them in his excellent Dedication of his Juvenal, but had barely mentioned them. Johnson has exhibited them at large, with such happy illustration from their writings, and in so luminous a manner, that indeed he may be allowed the full merit of novelty, and to have discovered to us, as it were, a new planet in the poetical hemisphere.
It is remarked by Johnson, in considering the works of a poet, that ‘amendments are seldom made without some token of a rent;’ but I do not find that this is applicable to prose. We shall see that though his amendments in this work are for the better, there is nothing of the pannus assutus; the texture is uniform: and indeed, what had been there at first, is very seldom unfit to have remained.
Various Readings in the Life of COWLEY.
‘All [future votaries of] that may hereafter pant for solitude.
‘To conceive and execute the [agitation or perception] pains and the pleasures of other minds.
‘The wide effulgence of [the blazing] a summer noon.’
In the Life of WALLER, Johnson gives a distinct and animated narrative of publick affairs in that variegated period, with strong yet nice touches of character; and having a fair opportunity to display his political principles, does it with an unqualified manly confidence, and satisfies his readers how nobly he might have executed a Tory History of his country.
So easy is his style in these Lives, that I do not recollect more than three uncommon or learned words; one, when giving an account of the approach of Waller’s mortal disease, he says, ‘he found his legs grow tumid;’ by using the expression his legs swelled, he would have avoided this; and there would have been no impropriety in its being follow
ed by the interesting question to his physician, ‘What that swelling meant?’ Another, when he mentions that Pope had emitted proposals; when published or issued would have been more readily understood; and a third, when he calls Orrery and Dr. Delany, writers both undoubtedly veracious, when true, honest, or faithful, might have been used. Yet, it must be owned, that none of these are hard or too big words; that custom would make them seem as easy as any others; and that a language is richer and capable of more beauty of expression, by having a greater variety of synonimes.
His dissertation upon the unfitness of poetry for the aweful subjects of our holy religion, though I do not entirely agree with with him, has all the merit of originality, with uncommon force and reasoning.
Various Readings in the Life of WALLER.
‘Consented to [the insertion of their names] their own nomination.
‘[After] paying a fine of ten thousand pounds.
‘Congratulating Charles the Second on his [coronation] recovered right.
‘He that has flattery ready for all whom the vicissitudes of the world happen to exalt, must be [confessed to degrade his powers] scorned as a prostituted mind.
‘The characters by which Waller intended to distinguish his writings are [elegance] sprightliness and dignity.
‘Blossoms to be valued only as they [fetch] foretell fruits.
Complete Works of Samuel Johnson Page 793