Complete Works of Samuel Johnson

by Samuel Johnson

  His Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland is a most valuable performance. Johnson’s grateful acknowledgements of kindnesses received in the course of this tour, completely refute the brutal reflections which have been thrown out against him, as if he had made an ungrateful return; and his delicacy in sparing in his book those who we find from his letters to Mrs. Thrale were just objects of censure, is much to be admired. His candour and amiable disposition is conspicuous from his conduct, when informed by Mr. Macleod, of Rasay, that he had committed a mistake, which gave that gentleman some uneasiness. He wrote him a courteous and kind letter, and inserted in the news-papers an advertisement, correcting the mistake.

  As to his prejudice against the Scotch, which I always ascribed to that nationality which he observed in THEM, he said to the same gentleman, ‘When I find a Scotchman, to whom an Englishman is as a Scotchman, that Scotchman shall be as an Englishman to me.’ His intimacy with many gentlemen of Scotland, and his employing so many natives of that country as his amanuenses, prove that his prejudice was not virulent; and I have deposited in the British Museum, amongst other pieces of his writing, the following note in answer to one from me, asking if he would meet me at dinner at the Mitre, though a friend of mine, a Scotchman, was to be there: —

  ‘Mr. Johnson does not see why Mr. Boswell should suppose a Scotchman less acceptable than any other man. He will be at the Mitre.’

  My much-valued friend Dr. Barnard, now Bishop of Killaloc, having once expressed to him an apprehension, that if he should visit Ireland he might treat the people of that country more unfavourably than he had done the Scotch, he answered, with strong pointed double-edged wit, ‘Sir, you have no reason to be afraid of me. The Irish are not in a conspiracy to cheat the world by false representations of the merits of their countrymen. No, Sir; the Irish are a FAIR PEOPLE; — they never speak well of one another.’

  All the miserable cavillings against his Journey, in newspapers, magazines, and other fugitive publications, I can speak from certain knowledge, only furnished him with sport. At last there came out a scurrilous volume, larger than Johnson’s own, filled with malignant abuse, under a name, real or fictitious, of some low man in an obscure corner of Scotland, though supposed to be the work of another Scotchman, who has found means to make himself well known both in Scotland and England. The effect which it had upon Johnson was, to produce this pleasant observation to Mr. Seward, to whom he lent the book: ‘This fellow must be a blockhead. They don’t know how to go about their abuse. Who will read a five-shilling book against me? No, Sir, if they had wit, they should have kept pelting me with pamphlets.’

  On Tuesday, March 21, I arrived in London; and on repairing to Dr. Johnson’s before dinner, found him in his study, sitting with Mr. Peter Garrick, the elder brother of David, strongly resembling him in countenance and voice, but of more sedate and placid manners. Johnson informed me, that ‘though Mr. Beauclerk was in great pain, it was hoped he was not in danger, and that he now wished to consult Dr. Heberden to try the effect of a NEW UNDERSTANDING.’ Both at this interview, and in the evening at Mr. Thrale’s where he and Mr. Peter Garrick and I met again, he was vehement on the subject of the Ossian controversy; observing, ‘We do not know that there are any ancient Erse manuscripts; and we have no other reason to disbelieve that there are men with three heads, but that we do not know that there are any such men.’ He also was outrageous upon his supposition that my countrymen ‘loved Scotland better than truth,’ saying, ‘All of them, — nay not all, — but DROVES of them, would come up, and attest any thing for the honour of Scotland.’ He also persevered in his wild allegation, that he questioned if there was a tree between Edinburgh and the English border older than himself. I assured him he was mistaken, and suggested that the proper punishment would be that he should receive a stripe at every tree above a hundred years old, that was found within that space. He laughed, and said, ‘I believe I might submit to it for a BAUBEE!’

  The doubts which, in my correspondence with him, I had ventured to state as to the justice and wisdom of the conduct of Great-Britain towards the American colonies, while I at the same time requested that he would enable me to inform myself upon that momentous subject, he had altogether disregarded; and had recently published a pamphlet, entitled, Taxation no Tyranny; an answer to the Resolutions and Address of the American Congress.

  He had long before indulged most unfavourable sentiments of our fellow-subjects in America. For, as early as 1769, I was told by Dr. John Campbell, that he had said of them, ‘Sir, they are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful for any thing we allow them short of hanging.’

  Of this performance I avoided to talk with him; for I had now formed a clear and settled opinion, that the people of America were well warranted to resist a claim that their fellow-subjects in the mother-country should have the entire command of their fortunes, by taxing them without their own consent; and the extreme violence which it breathed, appeared to me so unsuitable to the mildness of a christian philosopher, and so directly opposite to the principles of peace which he had so beautifully recommended in his pamphlet respecting Falkland’s Islands, that I was sorry to see him appear in so unfavourable a light.

  On Friday, March 24, I met him at the LITERARY CLUB, where were Mr. Beauclerk, Mr. Langton, Mr. Colman, Dr. Percy, Mr. Vesey, Sir Charles Bunbury, Dr. George Fordyce, Mr. Steevens, and Mr. Charles Fox. Before he came in, we talked of his Journey to the Western Islands, and of his coming away ‘willing to believe the second sight,’ which seemed to excite some ridicule. I was then so impressed with the truth of many of the stories of it which I had been told, that I avowed my conviction, saying, ‘He is only WILLING to believe: I DO believe. The evidence is enough for me, though not for his great mind. What will not fill a quart bottle will fill a pint bottle. I am filled with belief.’ ‘Are you? (said Colman,) then cork it up.’

  I found his Journey the common topick of conversation in London at this time, wherever I happened to be. At one of Lord Mansfield’s formal Sunday evening conversations, strangely called Levees, his Lordship addressed me, ‘We have all been reading your travels, Mr. Boswell.’ I answered, ‘I was but the humble attendant of Dr. Johnson.’ The Chief Justice replied, with that air and manner which none, who ever saw and heard him, can forget, ‘He speaks ill of nobody but Ossian.’

  Johnson was in high spirits this evening at the club, and talked with great animation and success. He attacked Swift, as he used to do upon all occasions. The Tale of a Tub is so much superiour to his other writings, that one can hardly believe he was the authour of it: ‘there is in it such a vigour of mind, such a swarm of thoughts, so much of nature, and art, and life.’ I wondered to hear him say of Gulliver’s Travels, ‘When once you have thought of big men and little men, it is very easy to do all the rest.’ I endeavoured to make a stand for Swift, and tried to rouse those who were much more able to defend him; but in vain. Johnson at last, of his own accord, allowed very great merit to the inventory of articles found in the pocket of the Man Mountain, particularly the description of his watch, which it was conjectured was his God; as he consulted it upon all occasions. He observed, that ‘Swift put his name to but two things, (after he had a name to put,) The Plan for the Improvement of the English Language, and the last Drapier’s Letter.’

  From Swift, there was an easy transition to Mr. Thomas Sheridan — JOHNSON. ‘Sheridan is a wonderful admirer of the tragedy of Douglas, and presented its authour with a gold medal. Some years ago, at a coffee-house in Oxford, I called to him, “Mr. Sheridan, Mr. Sheridan, how came you to give a gold medal to Home, for writing that foolish play?” This you see, was wanton and insolent; but I MEANT to be wanton and insolent. A medal has no value but as a stamp of merit. And was Sheridan to assume to himself the right of giving that stamp? If Sheridan was magnificent enough to bestow a gold medal as an honorary reward of dramatick excellence, he should have requested one of the Universities to choose the person on whom it should be confe
rred. Sheridan had no right to give a stamp of merit: it was counterfeiting Apollo’s coin.’

  On Monday, March 27, I breakfasted with him at Mr Strahan’s. He told us, that he was engaged to go that evening to Mrs. Abington’s benefit. ‘She was visiting some ladies whom I was visiting, and begged that I would come to her benefit. I told her I could not hear: but she insisted so much on my coming, that it would have been brutal to have refused her.’ This was a speech quite characteristical. He loved to bring forward his having been in the gay circles of life; and he was, perhaps, a little vain of the solicitations of this elegant and fashionable actress. He told us, the play was to be the The Hypocrite, altered from Cibber’s Nonjuror, so as to satirize the Methodists. ‘I do not think (said he,) the character of The Hypocrite justly applicable to the Methodists, but it was very applicable to the Nonjurors.’

  Mr. Strahan had taken a poor boy from the country as an apprentice, upon Johnson’s recommendation. Johnson having enquired 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 uniformly, in as intelligible a manner as I can.’

  ‘Well, my boy, how do you go on?’— ‘Pretty well, Sir; but they are afraid I an’t strong enough for some parts of the business.’ JOHNSON. ‘Why, I shall be sorry for it; for when you consider with how little mental power and corporeal labour a printer can get a guinea a week, it is a very desirable occupation 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 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-legged boy, contrasted with the boy’s aukwardness and awe, could not but excite some ludicrous emotions.

  I met him at Drury-lane play-house 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 honour to put me in the group. Johnson sat on the seat directly behind me; and as he could neither see nor hear at such a distance from the stage, he was wrapped up in grave abstraction, and seemed quite a cloud, amidst all the sunshine of glitter and gaiety. I wondered at his patience in sitting out a play of five acts, and a farce of two. He said very little; but after the prologue to Bon Ton had been spoken, which he could hear pretty well from the more slow and distinct utterance, he talked of prologue-writing, and observed, ‘Dryden has written prologues superiour to any that David Garrick has written; but David Garrick has written more good prologues than Dryden has done. It is wonderful that he has been able to write such variety of them.’

  At Mr. Beauclerk’s, where I supped, was Mr. Garrick, whom I made happy with Johnson’s praise of his prologues; and I suppose, in gratitude to him, he took up one of his favourite topicks, the nationality of the Scotch, which he maintained in a pleasant manner, with the aid of a little poetical fiction. ‘Come, come, don’t deny it: they are really national. Why, now, the Adams are as liberal-minded men as any in the world: but, I don’t know how it is, all their workmen are Scotch. You are, to be sure, wonderfully free from that nationality: but so it happens, that you employ the only Scotch shoe-black in London.’ He imitated the manner of his old master with ludicrous exaggeration; repeating, with pauses and half-whistlings interjected,

  ‘Os homini sublime dedit, — caelumque tueri

  Jussit, — et erectos ad sidera — tollere vultus’;

  looking downwards all the time, and, while pronouncing the four last words, absolutely touching the ground with a kind of contorted gesticulation.

  Garrick, however, when he pleased, could imitate Johnson very exactly; for that great actor, with his distinguished powers of expression which were so universally admired, possessed also an admirable talent of mimickry. He was always jealous that Johnson spoke lightly of him. I recollect his exhibiting him to me one day, as if saying, ‘Davy has some convivial pleasantry about him, but ’tis a futile fellow;’ which he uttered perfectly with the tone and air of Johnson.

  I cannot too frequently request of my readers, while they peruse my account of Johnson’s conversation, to endeavour to keep in mind his deliberate and strong utterance. His mode of speaking was indeed very impressive; and I wish it could be preserved as musick is written, according to the very ingenious method of Mr. Steele, who has shewn how the recitation of Mr. Garrick, and other eminent speakers, might be transmitted to posterity IN SCORE.

  Next day I dined with Johnson at Mr. Thrale’s. He attacked Gray, calling him ‘a dull fellow.’ BOSWELL. ‘I understand he was reserved, and might appear dull in company; but surely he was not dull in poetry.’ JOHNSON. ‘Sir, he was dull in company, dull in his closet, dull every where. He was dull in a new way, and that made many people think him GREAT. He was a mechanical poet.’ He then repeated some ludicrous lines, which have escaped my memory, and said, ‘Is not that GREAT, like his Odes?’ Mrs. Thrale maintained that his Odes were melodious; upon which he exclaimed,

  ‘Weave the warp, and weave the woof;’ —

  I added, in a solemn tone,

  ‘The winding-sheet of Edward’s race.’

  ‘THERE is a good line.’ ‘Ay, (said he,) and the next line is a good one,’ (pronouncing it contemptuously;)

  ‘Give ample verge and room enough.’ —

  ‘No, Sir, there are but two good stanzas in Gray’s poetry, which are in his Elegy in a Country Church-yard.’ He then repeated the stanza,

  ‘For who to dumb forgetfulness a prey,’ &c.

  mistaking one word; for instead of precincts he said confines. He added, ‘The other stanza I forget.’

  A young lady who had married a man much her inferiour 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, according 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 punished so as to deter others from the same perversion.’

  On Friday, March 31, I supped with him and some friends at a tavern. One of the company* attempted, with too much forwardness, to rally him on his late appearance at the theatre; but had reason to repent of his temerity. ‘Why, Sir, did you go to Mrs. Abington’s benefit? Did you see?’ JOHNSON. ‘No, Sir.’ ‘Did you hear?’ JOHNSON. ‘No, Sir.’ ‘Why then, Sir, did you go?’ JOHNSON. ‘Because, Sir, she is a favourite of the publick; and when the publick cares the thousandth part for you that it does for her, I will go to your benefit too.’

  * Very likely Boswell. — HILL.

  Next morning I won a small bet from Lady Diana Beauclerk, by asking him as to one of his particularities, which her Ladyship laid I durst not do. It seems he had been frequently observed at the Club to put into his pocket the Seville oranges, after he had squeezed the juice of them into the drink which he made for himself. Beauclerk and Garrick talked of it to me, and seemed to think that he
had a strange unwillingness to be discovered. We could not divine what he did with them; and this was the bold question to be put. I saw on his table the spoils of the preceding night, some fresh peels nicely scraped and cut into pieces. ‘O, Sir, (said I,) I now partly see what you do with the squeezed oranges which you put into your pocket at the Club.’ JOHNSON. ‘I have a great love for them.’ BOSWELL. ‘And pray, Sir, what do you do with them? You scrape them, it seems, very neatly, and what next?’ JOHNSON. ‘Let them dry, Sir.’ BOSWELL. ‘And what next?’ JOHNSON. ‘Nay, Sir, you shall know their fate no further.’ BOSWELL. ‘Then the world must be left in the dark. It must be said (assuming a mock solemnity,) he scraped them, and let them dry, but what he did with them next, he never could be prevailed upon to tell.’ JOHNSON. ‘Nay, Sir, you should say it more emphatically: — he could not be prevailed upon, even by his dearest friends, to tell.’

  He had this morning received his Diploma as Doctor of Laws from the University of Oxford. He did not vaunt of his new dignity, but I understood he was highly pleased with it.

  I observed to him that there were very few of his friends so accurate as that I could venture to put down in writing what they told me as his sayings. JOHNSON. ‘Why should you write down MY sayings?’ BOSWELL. ‘I write them when they are good.’ JOHNSON. ‘Nay, you may as well write down the sayings of any one else that are good.’ But WHERE, I might with great propriety have added, can I find such?

  Next day, Sunday, April 2, I dined with him at Mr. Hoole’s. We talked of Pope. JOHNSON. ‘He wrote, his Dunciad for fame. That was his primary motive. Had it not been for that, the dunces might have railed against him till they were weary, without his troubling himself about them. He delighted to vex them, no doubt; but he had more delight in seeing how well he could vex them.’

  His Taxation no Tyranny being mentioned, he said, ‘I think I have not been attacked enough for it. Attack is the re-action; I never think I have hit hard, unless it rebounds.’ BOSWELL. ‘I don’t know, Sir, what you would be at. Five or six shots of small arms in every newspaper, and repeated cannonading in pamphlets, might, I think, satisfy you. But, Sir, you’ll never make out this match, of which we have talked, with a certain political lady,* since you are so severe against her principles.’ JOHNSON. ‘Nay, Sir, I have the better chance for that. She is like the Amazons of old; she must be courted by the sword. But I have not been severe upon her.’ BOSWELL. ‘Yes, Sir, you have made her ridiculous.’ JOHNSON. ‘That was already done, Sir. To endeavour to make HER ridiculous, is like blacking the chimney.’