The Life of Samuel Johnson

by James Boswell

  ‘Oct. 27. Friday. I staid at home. – Gough and Keene, and Mrs. S—’s friend515 dined with us. – This day we began to have a fire. – The weather is grown very cold, and I fear, has a bad effect upon my breath, which has grown much more free and easy in this country.

  ‘Sat., Oct. 28. I visited the Grand Chartreux516 built by St. Louis. – It is built for forty, but contains only twenty-four, and will not maintain more. The friar that spoke to us had a pretty apartment. – Mr. Baretti says four rooms; I remember but three. – His books seemed to be French. – His garden was neat; he gave me grapes. – We saw the Place de Victoire, with the statues of the King, and the captive nations.

  ‘We saw the palace and gardens of Luxembourg, but the gallery was shut. – We climbed to the top stairs. – I dined with Colbrooke, who had much company: – Foote, Sir George Rodney, Motteux, Udson, Taaf. – Called on the Prior, and found him in bed.

  ‘Hotel – a guinea a day. – Coach, three guineas a week. – Valet de place, three l. a day. –Avantcoureur, a guinea a week. – Ordinary dinner, six l. a head. – Our ordinary seems to be about five guineas a day. – Our extraordinary expences, as diversions, gratuities, clothes, I cannot reckon. – Our travelling is ten guineas a day.

  ‘White stockings, 18 l. – Wig. – Hat.

  ‘Sunday, Oct. 29. We saw the boarding-school. – The Enfans trouves.517 – A room with about eighty-six children in cradles, as sweet as a parlour. – They lose a third; take in to perhaps more than seven {years old}; put them to trades; pin to them the papers sent with them. – Want nurses. – Saw their chapel.

  ‘Went to St. Eustatia; saw an innumerable company of girls catechised, in many bodies, perhaps 100 to a catechist. – Boys taught at one time, girls at another. – The sermon; the preacher wears a cap, which he takes off at the name: – his action uniform, not very violent.

  ‘Oct. 30. Monday. We saw the library of St. Germain. – A very noble collection. –Codex Divinorum Officiorum, 1459: – a letter, square like that of the Offices, perhaps the same. – The Codex, by Fust and Gernsheym.

  – Meursius, 12 v. fol. –Amadis, in French, 3 v. fol. – Catholicon sine colophone, but of 1460. – Two other editions,a one by…. Augustin. de Civitate Dei, without name, date, or place, but of Fust’s square letter as it seems.

  ‘I dined with Col. Drumgold; – had a pleasing afternoon.

  ‘Some of the books of St. Germain’s stand in presses from the wall, like those at Oxford.

  ‘Oct. 31. Tuesday. I lived at the Benedictines; meagre day; soup meagre, herrings, eels, both with sauce; fryed fish; lentils, tasteless in themselves. In the library; where I found Maffeus’s de Historia Indica: Promontorium flectere, to double the Cape. I parted very tenderly from the Prior and Friar Wilkes.

  ‘Maitre des Arts, 2 y. –Bacc. Theol. 3 y. –Licentiate, 2 y. –Doctor Th. 2 y. in all 9 years. – For the Doctorate three disputations, Major, Minor, Sorbonica. – Several colleges suppressed, and transferred to that which was the Jesuits’ College.

  ‘Nov. 1. Wednesday. We left Paris. – St. Denis, a large town; the church not very large, but the middle isle is very lofty and aweful. – On the left are chapels built beyond the line of the wall, which destroy the symmetry of the sides. The organ is higher above the pavement than any I have ever seen. – The gates are of brass. – On the middle gate is the history of our Lord. – The painted windows are historical, and said to be eminently beautiful. – We were at another church belonging to a convent, of which the portal is a dome; we could not enter further, and it was almost dark.

  ‘Nov. 2. Thursday. We came this day to Chantilly, a seat belonging to the Prince of Conde. – This place is eminently beautified by all varieties of waters starting up in fountains, falling in cascades, running in streams, and spread in lakes. – The water seems to be too near the house. – All this water is brought from a source or river three leagues off, by an artificial canal, which for one league is carried under ground. – The house is magnificent. – The cabinet seems well stocked: what I remember was, the jaws of a hippopotamus, and a young hippopotamus preserved, which, however, is so small, that I doubt its reality. – It seems too hairy for an abortion, and too small for a mature birth. – Nothing was in spirits; all was dry. – The dog; the deer; the ant-bear with long snout. – The toucan, long broad beak. – The stables were of very great length. – The kennel had no scents. There was a mockery of a village. – The Menagerie had few animals.a – Two faussans,b or Brasilian weasels, spotted, very wild. – There is a forest, and, I think, a park. – I walked till I was very weary, and next morning felt my feet battered, and with pains in the toes.

  ‘Nov. 3. Friday. We came to Compiegne, a very large town, with a royal palace built round a pentagonal court. – The court is raised upon vaults, and has, I suppose, an entry on one side by a gentle rise. – Talk of painting. The church is not very large, but very elegant and splendid. – I had at first great difficulty to walk, but motion grew continually easier. – At night we came to Noyon, an episcopal city. – The cathedral is very beautiful, the pillars alternately Gothick and Corinthian. – We entered a very noble parochial church. – Noyon is walled, and is said to be three miles round.

  ‘Nov. 4. Saturday. We rose very early, and came through St. Quintin to Cambray, not long after three. – We went to an English nunnery, to give a letter to Father Welch, the confessor, who came to visit us in the evening.

  ‘Nov. 5. Sunday. We saw the cathedral. – It is very beautiful, with chapels on each side. – The choir splendid. – The balustrade in one part brass. – The Neff518 very high and grand. – The altar silver as far as it is seen. – The vestments very splendid. – At the Benedictines church – ‘

  Here his Journala ends abruptly. Whether he wrote any more after this time, I know not; but probably not much, as he arrived in England about the 12th of November. These short notes of his tour, though they may seem minute taken singly, make together a considerable mass of information, and exhibit such an ardour of enquiry and acuteness of examination, as, I believe, are found in but few travellers, especially at an advanced age. They completely refute the idle notion which has been propagated, that he could not see; and, if he had taken the trouble to revise and digest them, he undoubtedly could have expanded them into a very entertaining narrative.

  When I met him in London the following year, the account which he gave me of his French tour, was, ‘sir, I have seen all the visibilities of Paris, and around it; but to have formed an acquaintance with the people there, would have required more time than I could stay. I was just beginning to creep into acquaintance by means of Colonel Drumgold, a very high man, Sir, head of L’Ecole Militaire, a most complete character, for he had first been a professor of rhetorick, and then became a soldier. And, Sir, I was very kindly treated by the English Benedictines, and have a cell appropriated to me in their convent.’

  He observed, ‘The great in France live very magnificently, but the rest very miserably. There is no happy middle state as in England. The shops of Paris are mean; the meat in the markets is such as would be sent to a gaol in England: and Mr. Thrale justly observed, that the cookery of the French was forced upon them by necessity; for they could not eat their meat, unless they added some taste to it. The French are an indelicate people; they will spit upon any place. At Madame —’s,519 a literary lady of rank, the footman took the sugar in his fingers, and threw it into my coffee. I was going to put it aside; but hearing it was made on purpose for me, I e’en tasted Tom’s fingers. The same lady would needs make tea à l’Angloise.520 The spout of the tea-pot did not pour freely; she bad the footman blow into it. France is worse than Scotland in every thing but climate. Nature has done more for the French; but they have done less for themselves than the Scotch have done.’

  It happened that Foote was at Paris at the same time with Dr. Johnson, and his description of my friend while there, was abundantly ludicrous. He told me, that the French were quite astonished at his figure and ma
nner, and at his dress, which he obstinately continued exactly as in London; – his brown clothes, black stockings, and plain shirt. He mentioned, that an Irish gentleman521 said to Johnson, ‘sir, you have not seen the best French players.’ JOHNSON. ‘Players, Sir! I look on them as no better than creatures set upon tables and joint-stools to make faces and produce laughter, like dancing dogs.’ – ‘But, Sir, you will allow that some players are better than others?’ JOHNSON. ‘Yes, Sir, as some dogs dance better than others.’

  While Johnson was in France, he was generally very resolute in speaking Latin. It was a maxim with him that a man should not let himself down, by speaking a language which he speaks imperfectly. Indeed, we must have often observed how inferiour, how much like a child a man appears, who speaks a broken tongue. When Sir Joshua Reynolds, at one of the dinners of the Royal Academy, presented him to a Frenchman of great distinction,522 he would not deign to speak French, but talked Latin, though his Excellency did not understand it, owing, perhaps, to Johnson’s English pronunciation: yet upon another occasion he was observed to speak French to a Frenchman of high rank, who spoke English; and being asked the reason, with some expression of surprise, – he answered, ‘because I think my French is as good as his English.’ Though Johnson understood French perfectly, he could not speak it readily, as I have observed at his first interview with General Paoli, in 1769; yet he wrote it, I imagine, pretty well, as appears from some of his letters in Mrs. Piozzi’s collection, of which I shall transcribe one: –

  A Madame La Comtesse de

  ‘July 16, 1775.

  ‘OUI, Madame, le moment est arrive, et il faut que je parte. Mais pourquoi faut-il partiri Est-ce que je m’ennuyei Je m’ennuyerai ailleurs. Est-ce que je cbercbe ou quelque plaisir, ou quelque soulagementi Je ne cbercbe rien, je n’espere rien. Aller voir ce que jai vtl, etre un peu rejoue, un peu degoute, me resouvenir que la vie se passe en vain, me plaindre de moi, m’endurcir aux debors; void le tout de ce qu’on compte pour les delices de l’annee. Que Dieu vous donne, Madame, tous les agremens de la vie, avec un esprit qui peut en jouir sans s’y livrer trop.’523

  Here let me not forget a curious anecdote, as related to me by Mr. Beauclerk, which I shall endeavour to exhibit as well as I can in that gentleman’s lively manner; and in justice to him it is proper to add, that Dr. Johnson told me I might rely both on the correctness of his memory, and the fidelity of his narrative. ‘When Madame de Boufflers was first in England, (said Beauclerk,) she was desirous to see JOHNSON. I accordingly went with her to his chambers in the Temple, where she was entertained with his conversation for some time. When our visit was over, she and I left him, and were got into Inner Temple-lane, when all at once I heard a noise like thunder. This was occasioned by Johnson, who it seems, upon a little recollection, had taken it into his head that he ought to have done the honours of his literary residence to a foreign lady of quality, and eager to show himself a man of gallantry, was hurrying down the stair-case in violent agitation. He overtook us before we reached the Temple-gate, and brushing in between me and Madame de Boufflers, seized her hand, and conducted her to her coach. His dress was a rusty brown morning suit, a pair of old shoes by way of slippers, a little shrivelled wig sticking on the top of his head, and the sleeves of his shirt and the knees of his breeches hanging loose. A considerable crowd of people gathered round, and were not a little struck by this singular appearance.’

  He spoke Latin with wonderful fluency and elegance. When Pere Boscov-ich was in England, Johnson dined in company with him at Sir Joshua Reynolds’s, and at Dr. Douglas’s, now Bishop of Salisbury. Upon both occasions that celebrated foreigner expressed his astonishment at Johnson’s Latin conversation. When at Paris, Johnson thus characterised Voltaire to Freron the Journalist: ‘Vir est acerrimi ingenii et paucarum literarum.’524

  ‘To DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON

  ‘MY DEAR SIR, ‘Edinburgh, Dec. 5, 1775.

  ‘Mr. Alexander Maclean, the present young Laird of Col, being to set out to-morrow for London, I give him this letter to introduce him to your acquaintance. The kindness which you and I experienced from his brother, whose unfortunate death we sincerely lament, will make us always desirous to shew attention to any branch of the family. Indeed, you have so much of the true Highland cordiality, that I am sure you would have thought me to blame if I had neglected to recommend to you this Hebridean prince, in whose island we were hospitably entertained. I ever am with respectful attachment, my dear Sir, your most obliged and most humble servant,

  ‘JAMES BOSWELL.’

  Mr. Maclean returned with the most agreeable accounts of the polite attention with which he was received by Dr. Johnson.

  In the course of this year Dr. Burney informs me, that ‘he very frequently met Dr. Johnson at Mr. Thrale’s, at Streatham, where they had many long conversations, often sitting up as long as the fire and candles lasted, and much longer than the patience of the servants subsisted.’

  A few of Johnson’s sayings, which that gentleman recollects, shall here be inserted.

  ‘I never take a nap after dinner but when I have had a bad night, and then the nap takes me.’

  ‘The writer of an epitaph should not be considered as saying nothing but what is strictly true. Allowance must be made for some degree of exaggerated praise. In lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath.’

  ‘There is now less flogging in our great schools than formerly, but then less is learned there; so that what the boys get at one end, they lose at the other.’

  ‘More is learned in publick than in private schools, from emulation; there is the collision of mind with mind, or the radiation of many minds pointing to one centre. Though few boys make their own exercises, yet if a good exercise is given up, out of a great number of boys, it is made by somebody.’

  ‘I hate by-roads in education. Education is as well known, and has long been as well known, as ever it can be. Endeavouring to make children prematurely wise is useless labour. Suppose they have more knowledge at five or six years old than other children, what use can be made of it? It will be lost before it is wanted, and the waste of so much time and labour of the teacher can never be repaid. Too much is expected from precocity, and too little performed. Miss —525 was an instance of early cultivation, but in what did it terminate? In marrying a little Presbyterian parson,526 who keeps an infant boarding-school, so that all her employment now is,

  “To suckle fools, and chronicle small-beer.”527

  She tells the children, ”This is a cat, and that is a dog, with four legs and a tail; see there! you are much better than a cat or a dog, for you can speak.” If I had bestowed such an education on a daughter, and had discovered that she thought of marrying such a fellow, I would have sent her to the Congress.’528

  ‘After having talked slightingly of musick, he was observed to listen very attentively while Miss Thrale played on the harpsichord, and with eagerness he called to her, ”Why don’t you dash away like Burney?” Dr. Burney upon this said to him, ”I believe, Sir, we shall make a musician of you at last.” Johnson with candid complacency replied, ”sir, I shall be glad to have a new sense given to me.”’

  ‘He had come down one morning to the breakfast-room, and been a considerable time by himself before any body appeared. When, on a subsequent day, he was twitted by Mrs. Thrale for being very late, which he generally was, he defended himself by alluding to the extraordinary morning, when he had been too early, ”Madam, I do not like to come down to vacuity.”’

  ‘Dr. Burney having remarked that Mr. Garrick was beginning to look old, he said, ”Why, Sir, you are not to wonder at that; no man’s face has had more wear and tear.”’

  Not having heard from him for a longer time than I supposed he would be silent, I wrote to him December 18, not in good spirits: –

  ‘Sometimes I have been afraid that the cold which has gone over Europe this year like a sort of pestilence has seized you severely: sometimes my imagination, which is upon occasions prolifick of e
vil, hath figured that you may have somehow taken offence at some part of my conduct.’

  ‘To JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.

  ‘DEAR SIR, – Never dream of any offence. How should you offend me? I consider your friendship as a possession, which I intend to hold till you take it from me, and to lament if ever by my fault I should lose it. However, when such suspicions find their way into your mind, always give them vent; I shall make haste to disperse them; but hinder their first ingress if you can. Consider such thoughts as morbid.

  ‘Such illness as may excuse my omission to Lord Hailes, I cannot honestly plead. I have been hindered, I know not how, by a succession of petty obstructions. I hope to mend immediately, and to send next post to his Lordship. Mr. Thrale would have written to you if I had omitted; he sends his compliments and wishes to see you.

  ‘You and your lady will now have no more wrangling about feudal inheritance. How does the young Laird of Auchinleck? I suppose Miss Veronica is grown a reader and discourser.

  ‘I have just now got a cough, but it has never yet hindered me from sleeping: I have had quieter nights than are common with me.

  ‘I cannot but rejoice that Josepha has had the wit to find the way back. He is a fine fellow, and one of the best travellers in the world.

  ‘Young Col brought me your letter. He is a very pleasing youth. I took him two days ago to the Mitre, and we dined together. I was as civil as I had the means of being.

  ‘I have had a letter from Rasay, acknowledging, with great appearance of satisfaction, the insertion in the Edinburgh paper. I am very glad that it was done.

  ‘My compliments to Mrs. Boswell, who does not love me; and of all the rest, I need only send them to those that do: and I am afraid it will give you very little trouble to distribute them. I am, my dear, dear Sir, your affectionate humble servant,