Complete Works of Samuel Johnson

by Samuel Johnson

  We talked of old age. Johnson (now in his seventieth year,) said, ‘It is a man’s own fault, it is from want of use, if his mind grows torpid in old age.’ The Bishop asked, if an old man does not lose faster than he gets. JOHNSON. ‘I think not, my Lord, if he exerts himself.’ One of the company rashly observed, that he thought it was happy for an old man that insensibility comes upon him. JOHNSON. (with a noble elevation and disdain,) ‘No, Sir, I should never be happy by being less rational.’ BISHOP OF ST. ASAPH. ‘Your wish then, Sir, is [Greek text omitted].’ JOHNSON. ‘Yes, my Lord.’

  This season there was a whimsical fashion in the newspapers of applying Shakspeare’s words to describe living persons well known in the world; which was done under the title of Modern Characters from Shakspeare; many of which were admirably adapted. The fancy took so much, that they were afterwards collected into a pamphlet. Somebody said to Johnson, across the table, that he had not been in those characters. ‘Yes (said he,) I have. I should have been sorry to be left out.’ He then repeated what had been applied to him,

  ‘I must borrow GARAGANTUA’S mouth.’

  Miss Reynolds not perceiving at once the meaning of this, he was obliged to explain it to her, which had something of an aukward and ludicrous effect. ‘Why, Madam, it has a reference to me, as using big words, which require the mouth of a giant to pronounce them. Garagantua is the name of a giant in Rabelais.’ BOSWELL. ‘But, Sir, there is another amongst them for you:

  “He would not flatter Neptune for his trident,

  Or Jove for his power to thunder.”’

  JOHNSON. ‘There is nothing marked in that. No, Sir, Garagantua is the best.’ Notwithstanding this ease and good humour, when I, a little while afterwards, repeated his sarcasm on Kenrick, which was received with applause, he asked, ‘WHO said that?’ and on my suddenly answering, Garagantua, he looked serious, which was a sufficient indication that he did not wish it to be kept up.

  When we went to the drawing-room there was a rich assemblage. Besides the company who had been at dinner, there were Mr. Garrick, Mr. Harris of Salisbury, Dr. Percy, Dr. Burney, Honourable Mrs. Cholmondeley, Miss Hannah More, &c. &c.

  After wandering about in a kind of pleasing distraction for some time, I got into a corner, with Johnson, Garrick, and Harris. GARRICK. (to Harris,) ‘Pray, Sir, have you read Potter’s Aeschylus?’ HARRIS. ‘Yes; and think it pretty.’ GARRICK. (to Johnson,) ‘And what think you, Sir, of it?’ JOHNSON. ‘I thought what I read of it VERBIAGE: but upon Mr. Harris’s recommendation, I will read a play. (To Mr. Harris,) Don’t prescribe two.’ Mr. Harris suggested one, I do not remember which. JOHNSON. ‘We must try its effect as an English poem; that is the way to judge of the merit of a translation. Translations are, in general, for people who cannot read the original.’ I mentioned the vulgar saying, that Pope’s Homer was not a good representation of the original. JOHNSON. ‘Sir, it is the greatest work of the kind that has ever been produced.’ BOSWELL. ‘The truth is, it is impossible perfectly to translate poetry. In a different language it may be the same tune, but it has not the same tone. Homer plays it on a bassoon; Pope on a flagelet.’ HARRIS. ‘I think Heroick poetry is best in blank verse; yet it appears that rhyme is essential to English poetry, from our deficiency in metrical quantities. In my opinion, the chief excellence of our language is numerous prose.’ JOHNSON. ‘Sir William Temple was the first writer who gave cadence to English prose. Before his time they were careless of arrangement, and did not mind whether a sentence ended with an important word or an insignificant word, or with what part of speech it was concluded.’

  GARRICK. ‘Of all the translations that ever were attempted, I think Elphinston’s Martial the most extraordinary. He consulted me upon it, who am a little of an epigrammatist myself, you know. I told him freely, “You don’t seem to have that turn.” I asked him if he was serious; and finding he was, I advised him against publishing. Why, his translation is more difficult to understand than the original. I thought him a man of some talents; but he seems crazy in this.’ JOHNSON. ‘Sir, you have done what I had not courage to do. But he did not ask my advice, and I did not force it upon him, to make him angry with me.’ GARRICK. ‘But as a friend, Sir — .’ JOHNSON. ‘Why, such a friend as I am with him — no.’ GARRICK. ‘But if you see a friend going to tumble over a precipice?’ JOHNSON. ‘That is an extravagant case, Sir. You are sure a friend will thank you for hindering him from tumbling over a precipice; but, in the other case, I should hurt his vanity, and do him no good. He would not take my advice. His brother-in-law, Strahan, sent him a subscription of fifty pounds, and said he would send him fifty more, if he would not publish.’ GARRICK. ‘What! eh! is Strahan a good judge of an Epigram? Is not he rather an OBTUSE man, eh?’ JOHNSON. ‘Why, Sir, he may not be a judge of an Epigram: but you see he is a judge of what is not an Epigram.’ BOSWELL. ‘It is easy for you, Mr. Garrick, to talk to an authour as you talked to Elphinston; you, who have been so long the manager of a theatre, rejecting the plays of poor authours. You are an old Judge, who have often pronounced sentence of death. You are a practiced surgeon, who have often amputated limbs; and though this may have been for the good of your patients, they cannot like you. Those who have undergone a dreadful operation, are not very fond of seeing the operator again.’ GARRICK. ‘Yes, I know enough of that. There was a reverend gentleman, (Mr. Hawkins,) who wrote a tragedy, the SIEGE of something, which I refused.’ HARRIS. ‘So, the siege was raised.’ JOHNSON. ‘Ay, he came to me and complained; and told me, that Garrick said his play was wrong in the CONCOCTION. Now, what is the concoction of a play?’ (Here Garrick started, and twisted himself, and seemed sorely vexed; for Johnson told me, he believed the story was true.) GARRICK. ‘I — I — I — said FIRST concoction.’ JOHNSON. (smiling,) ‘Well, he left out FIRST. And Rich, he said, refused him IN FALSE ENGLISH: he could shew it under his hand.’ GARRICK. ‘He wrote to me in violent wrath, for having refused his play: “Sir, this is growing a very serious and terrible affair. I am resolved to publish my play. I will appeal to the world; and how will your judgement appear?” I answered, “Sir, notwithstanding all the seriousness, and all the terrours, I have no objection to your publishing your play; and as you live at a great distance, (Devonshire, I believe,) if you will send it to me, I will convey it to the press.” I never heard more of it, ha! ha! ha!’

  On Friday, April 10, I found Johnson at home in the morning. We resumed the conversation of yesterday. He put me in mind of some of it which had escaped my memory, and enabled me to record it more perfectly than I otherwise could have done. He was much pleased with my paying so great attention to his recommendation in 1763, the period when our acquaintance began, that I should keep a journal; and I could perceive he was secretly pleased to find so much of the fruit of his mind preserved; and as he had been used to imagine and say that he always laboured when he said a good thing — it delighted him, on a review, to find that his conversation teemed with point and imagery.

  I said to him, ‘You were yesterday, Sir, in remarkably good humour: but there was nothing to offend you, nothing to produce irritation or violence. There was no bold offender. There was not one capital conviction. It was a maiden assize. You had on your white gloves.’

  He found fault with our friend Langton for having been too silent. ‘Sir, (said I,) you will recollect, that he very properly took up Sir Joshua for being glad that Charles Fox had praised Goldsmith’s Traveller, and you joined him.’ JOHNSON. ‘Yes, Sir, I knocked Fox on the head, without ceremony. Reynolds is too much under Fox and Burke at present. He is under the Fox star and the Irish constellation. He is always under some planet.’ BOSWELL. ‘There is no Fox star.’ JOHNSON. ‘But there is a dog star.’ BOSWELL. ‘They say, indeed, a fox and a dog are the same animal.’

  We dined together with Mr. Scott (now Sir William Scott his Majesty’s Advocate General,) at his chambers in the Temple, nobody else there. The company being small, Johnson was not in such spirits as he had been the preceding day, and
for a considerable time little was said.

  Talking of fame, for which there is so great a desire, I observed how little there is of it in reality, compared with the other objects of human attention. ‘Let every man recollect, and he will be sensible how small a part of his time is employed in talking or thinking of Shakspeare, Voltaire, or any of the most celebrated men that have ever lived, or are now supposed to occupy the attention and admiration of the world. Let this be extracted and compressed; into what a narrow space will it go!’ I then slily introduced Mr. Garrick’s fame, and his assuming the airs of a great man. JOHNSON. ‘Sir, it is wonderful how LITTLE Garrick assumes. No, Sir, Garrick fortunam reverenter habet. Consider, Sir: celebrated men, such as you have mentioned, have had their applause at a distance; but Garrick had it dashed in his face, sounded in his ears, and went home every night with the plaudits of a thousand in his CRANIUM. Then, Sir, Garrick did not FIND, but MADE his way to the tables, the levees, and almost the bed-chambers of the great. Then, Sir, Garrick had under him a numerous body of people; who, from fear of his power, and hopes of his favour, and admiration of his talents, were constantly submissive to him. And here is a man who has advanced the dignity of his profession. Garrick has made a player a higher character.’ SCOTT. ‘And he is a very sprightly writer too.’ JOHNSON. ‘Yes, Sir; and all this supported by great wealth of his own acquisition. If all this had happened to me, I should have had a couple of fellows with long poles walking before me, to knock down every body that stood in the way. Consider, if all this had happened to Cibber or Quin, they’d have jumped over the moon — Yet Garrick speaks to US.’ (smiling.) BOSWELL. ‘And Garrick is a very good man, a charitable man.’ JOHNSON. ‘Sir, a liberal man. He has given away more money than any man in England. There may be a little vanity mixed; but he has shewn, that money is not his first object.’ BOSWELL. ‘Yet Foote used to say of him, that he walked out with an intention to do a generous action; but, turning the corner of a street, he met with the ghost of a half-penny, which frightened him.’ JOHNSON. ‘Why, Sir, that is very true, too; for I never knew a man of whom it could be said with less certainty to-day, what he will do to-morrow, than Garrick; it depends so much on his humour at the time.’ SCOTT. ‘I am glad to hear of his liberality. He has been represented as very saving.’ JOHNSON. ‘With his domestick saving we have nothing to do. I remember drinking tea with him long ago, when Peg Woffington made it, and he grumbled at her for making it too strong.* He had then begun to feel money in his purse, and did not know when he should have enough of it.’

  * When Johnson told this little anecdote to Sir Joshua

  Reynolds, he mentioned a circumstance which he omitted

  to-day:— ‘Why, (said Garrick,) it is as red as blood.’

  — BOSWELL

  We talked of war. JOHNSON. ‘Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea.’ BOSWELL. ‘Lord Mansfield does not.’ JOHNSON. ‘Sir, if Lord Mansfield were in a company of General Officers and Admirals who have been in service, he would shrink; he’d wish to creep under the table.’ BOSWELL. ‘No; he’d think he could TRY them all.’ JOHNSON. ‘Yes, if he could catch them: but they’d try him much sooner. No, Sir; were Socrates and Charles the Twelfth of Sweden both present in any company, and Socrates to say, “Follow me, and hear a lecture on philosophy;” and Charles, laying his hand on his sword, to say, “Follow me, and dethrone the Czar;” a man would be ashamed to follow Socrates. Sir, the impression is universal; yet it is strange.’

  He talked of Mr. Charles Fox, of whose abilities he thought highly, but observed, that he did not talk much at our CLUB. I have heard Mr. Gibbon remark, ‘that Mr. Fox could not be afraid of Dr. Johnson; yet he certainly was very shy of saying any thing in Dr. Johnson’s presence.’

  He expressed great indignation at the imposture of the Cock-lane Ghost, and related, with much satisfaction, how he had assisted in detecting the cheat, and had published an account of it in the news-papers. Upon this subject I incautiously offended him, by pressing him with too many questions, and he shewed his displeasure. I apologised, saying that ‘I asked questions in order to be instructed and entertained; I repaired eagerly to the fountain; but that the moment he gave me a hint, the moment he put a lock upon the well, I desisted.’— ‘But, Sir, (said he), that is forcing one to do a disagreeable thing:’ and he continued to rate me. ‘Nay, Sir, (said I,) when you have put a lock upon the well, so that I can no longer drink, do not make the fountain of your wit play upon me and wet me.’

  He sometimes could not bear being teazed with questions. I was once present when a gentleman asked so many as, ‘What did you do, Sir?’ ‘What did you say, Sir?’ that he at last grew enraged, and said, ‘I will not be put to the QUESTION. Don’t you consider, Sir, that these are not the manners of a gentleman? I will not be baited with WHAT, and WHY; what is this? what is that? why is a cow’s tail long? why is a fox’s tail bushy?’ The gentleman, who was a good deal out of countenance, said, ‘Why, Sir, you are so good, that I venture to trouble you.’ Johnson. ‘Sir, my being so GOOD is no reason why you should be so ILL.’

  He talked with an uncommon animation of travelling into distant countries; that the mind was enlarged by it, and that an acquisition of dignity of character was derived from it. He expressed a particular enthusiasm with respect to visiting the wall of China. I catched it for the moment, and said I really believed I should go and see the wall of China had I not children, of whom it was my duty to take care. ‘Sir, (said he,) by doing so, you would do what would be of importance in raising your children to eminence. There would be a lustre reflected upon them from your spirit and curiosity. They would be at all times regarded as the children of a man who had gone to view the wall of China. I am serious, Sir.’

  When we had left Mr. Scott’s, he said ‘Will you go home with me?’ ‘Sir, (said I,) it is late; but I’ll go with you for three minutes.’ JOHNSON. ‘Or four.’ We went to Mrs. Williams’s room, where we found Mr. Allen the printer, who was the landlord of his house in Bolt-court, a worthy, obliging man, and his very old acquaintance; and what was exceedingly amusing, though he was of a very diminutive size, he used, even in Johnson’s presence, to imitate the stately periods and slow and solemn utterance of the great man. — I this evening boasted, that although I did not write what is called stenography, or short-hand, in appropriated characters devised for the purpose, I had a method of my own of writing half words, and leaving out some altogether so as yet to keep the substance and language of any discourse which I had heard so much in view, that I could give it very completely soon after I had taken it down.

  On Sunday, April 12, I found him at home before dinner. He and I, and Mrs. Williams, went to dine with the Reverend Dr. Percy.

  And here I shall record a scene of too much heat between Dr. Johnson and Dr. Percy, which I should have suppressed, were it not that it gave occasion to display the truely tender and benevolent heart of Johnson, who, as soon as he found a friend was at all hurt by any thing which he had ‘said in his wrath,’ was not only prompt and desirous to be reconciled, but exerted himself to make ample reparation.

  Books of Travels having been mentioned, Johnson praised Pennant very highly, as he did at Dunvegan, in the Isle of Sky. Dr. Percy, knowing himself to be the heir male of the ancient Percies, and having the warmest and most dutiful attachment to the noble House of Northumberland, could not sit quietly and hear a man praised, who had spoken disrespectfully of Alnwick-Castle and the Duke’s pleasure grounds, especially as he thought meanly of his travels. He therefore opposed Johnson eagerly. JOHNSON. ‘Pennant in what he has said of Alnwick, has done what he intended; he has made you very angry.’ PERCY. ‘He has said the garden is TRIM, which is representing it like a citizen’s parterre, when the truth is, there is a very large extent of fine turf and gravel walks.’ JOHNSON. ‘According to your own account, Sir, Pennant is right. It IS trim. Here is grass cut close, and gravel rolled smooth. Is not that trim? The extent is not
hing against that; a mile may be as trim as a square yard. Your extent puts me in mind of the citizen’s enlarged dinner, two pieces of roast-beef, and two puddings. There is no variety, no mind exerted in laying out the ground, no trees.’ PERCY. ‘He pretends to give the natural history of Northumberland, and yet takes no notice of the immense number of trees planted there of late.’ JOHNSON. ‘That, Sir, has nothing to do with the NATURAL history; that is CIVIL history. A man who gives the natural history of the oak, is not to tell how many oaks have been planted in this place or that. A man who gives the natural history of the cow, is not to tell how many cows are milked at Islington. The animal is the same, whether milked in the Park or at Islington.’ PERCY. ‘Pennant does not describe well; a carrier who goes along the side of Loch-lomond would describe it better.’ JOHNSON. ‘I think he describes very well.’ PERCY. ‘I travelled after him.’ JOHNSON. ‘And I travelled after him.’ PERCY. ‘But, my good friend, you are short-sighted, and do not see so well as I do.’ I wondered at Dr. Percy’s venturing thus. Dr. Johnson said nothing at the time; but inflammable particles were collecting for a cloud to burst. In a little while Dr. Percy said something more in disparagement of Pennant. JOHNSON. (pointedly,) ‘This is the resentment of a narrow mind, because he did not find every thing in Northumberland.’ PERCY. (feeling the stroke,) ‘Sir, you may be as rude as you please.’ JOHNSON. ‘Hold, Sir! Don’t talk of rudeness; remember, Sir, you told me (puffing hard with passion struggling for a vent,) I was shortsighted. We have done with civility. We are to be as rude as we please.’ PERCY. ‘Upon my honour, Sir, I did not mean to be uncivil.’ JOHNSON. ‘I cannot say so, Sir; for I DID mean to be uncivil, thinking YOU had been uncivil.’ Dr. Percy rose, ran up to him, and taking him by the hand, assured him affectionately that his meaning had been misunderstood; upon which a reconciliation instantly took place. JOHNSON. ‘My dear Sir, I am willing you shall HANG Pennant.’ PERCY. (resuming the former subject,) ‘Pennant complains that the helmet is not hung out to invite to the hall of hospitality. Now I never heard that it was a custom to hang out a HELMET.’ JOHNSON. ‘Hang him up, hang him up.’ BOSWELL. (humouring the joke,) ‘Hang out his skull instead of a helmet, and you may drink ale out of it in your hall of Odin, as he is your enemy; that will be truly ancient. THERE will be Northern Antiquities.’ JOHNSON. ‘He’s a WHIG, Sir; a SAD DOG. (smiling at his own violent expressions, merely for political difference of opinion.) But he’s the best traveller I ever read; he observes more things than any one else does.’