He and I walked away together; we stopped a little while by the rails of the Adelphi, looking on the Thames, and I said to him with some emotion that I was now thinking of two friends we had lost, who once lived in the buildings behind us, Beauclerk and Garrick. ‘Ay, Sir, (said he, tenderly,) and two such friends as cannot be supplied.’
For some time after this day I did not see him very often, and of the conversation which I did enjoy, I am sorry to find I have preserved but little. I was at this time engaged in a variety of other matters, which required exertion and assiduity, and necessarily occupied almost all my time.
One day having spoken very freely of those who were then in power, he said to me, ‘Between ourselves, Sir, I do not like to give opposition the satisfaction of knowing how much I disapprove of the ministry.’ And when I mentioned that Mr. Burke had boasted how quiet the nation was in George the Second’s reign, when Whigs were in power, compared with the present reign, when Tories governed; – ‘Why, Sir, (said he,) you are to consider that Tories having more reverence for government, will not oppose with the same violence as Whigs, who being unrestrained by that principle, will oppose by any means.’
This month he lost not only Mr. Thrale, but another friend, Mr. William Strahan, Junior, printer, the eldest son of his old and constant friend, Printer to his Majesty.
‘To MRS. STRAHAN
‘DEAR MADAM, – The grief which I feel for the loss of a very kind friend is sufficient to make me know how much you must suffer by the death of an amiable son; a man, of whom I think it may truly be said, that no one knew him who does not lament him. I look upon myself as having a friend, another friend, taken from me.
‘Comfort, dear Madam, I would give you if I could, but I know how little the forms of consolation can avail. Let me, however, counsel you not to waste your health in unprofitable sorrow, but go to Bath, and endeavour to prolong your own life; but when we have all done all that we can, one friend must in time lose the other. I am, dear Madam, your most humble servant,
‘April 23, 1781.’ ‘SAM. JOHNSON.’
On Tuesday, May 8, I had the pleasure of again dining with him and Mr. Wilkes, at Mr. Dilly’s. No negociation was now required to bring them together; for Johnson was so well satisfied with the former interview, that he was very glad to meet Wilkes again, who was this day seated between Dr. Beattie and Dr. Johnson; (between Truth and Reason, as General Paoli said, when I told him of it.) WILKES. ‘I have been thinking, Dr. Johnson, that there should be a bill brought into parliament that the controverted elections for Scotland should be tried in that country, at their own abbey of Holy-Rood House, and not here; for the consequence of trying them here is, that we have an inundation of Scotchmen, who come up and never go back again. Now here is Boswell, who is come up upon the election for his own county, which will not last a fortnight.’ JOHNSON. ‘Nay, Sir, I see no reason why they should be tried at all; for, you know, one Scotchman is as good as another.’ WILKES. ‘Pray, Boswell, how much may be got in a year by an Advocate at the Scotch bar?’ BOSWELL. ‘I believe two thousand pounds.’ WILKES. ‘How can it be possible to spend that money in Scotland?’ JOHNSON. ‘Why, Sir, the money may be spent in England: but there is a harder question. If one man in Scotland gets possession of two thousand pounds, what remains for all the rest of the nation?’ WILKES. ‘You know, in the last war, the immense booty which Thurot carried off by the complete plunder of seven Scotch isles; he re-embarked with three and six-pence.’ Here again Johnson and Wilkes joined in extravagant sportive raillery upon the supposed poverty of Scotland, which Dr. Beattie and I did not think it worth our while to dispute.
The subject of quotation being introduced, Mr. Wilkes censured it as pedantry. Johnson. ‘No, Sir, it is a good thing; there is a community of mind in it. Classical quotation is the parole1032 of literary men all over the world.’ Wilkes. ‘Upon the continent they all quote the vulgate Bible. Shakspeare is chiefly quoted here; and we quote also Pope, Prior, Butler, Waller, and sometimes Cowley.’
We talked of Letter-writing. Johnson. ‘It is now become so much the fashion to publish letters, that in order to avoid it, I put as little into mine as Ican.’ BOSWELL. ‘Do what you will, Sir, you cannot avoid it. Should you even write as ill as you can, your letters would be published as curiosities:
‘Behold a miracle! instead of wit,
See two dull lines with Stanhope’s pencil writ.” ‘1033
He gave us an entertaining account of Bet Flint, a woman of the town, who, with some eccentrick talents and much effrontery, forced herself upon his acquaintance. Bet (said he,) wrote her own Life in versea, which she brought to me, wishing that I would furnish her with a Preface to it. (Laughing.) I used to say of her that she was generally slut and drunkard; occasionally, whore and thief. She had, however, genteel lodgings, a spinnet on which she played, and a boy that walked before her chair. Poor Bet was taken up on a charge of stealing a counterpane, and tried at the Old Bailey. Chief Justice —,1035 who loved a wench, summed up favourably, and she was acquitted. After which Bet said, with a gay and satisfied air, “Now that the counterpane is my own, I shall make a petticoat of it.”’
Talking of oratory, Mr. Wilkes described it as accompanied with all the charms of poetical expression. JOHNSON. ‘No, Sir; oratory is the power of beating down your adversary’s arguments, and putting better in their place.’ Wilkes. ‘But this does not move the passions.’ JOHNSON. ‘He must be a weak man, who is to be so moved.’ WILKES. (naming a celebrated orator,)1036 ‘Amidst all the brilliancy of —’s imagination, and the exuberance of his wit, there is a strange want of taste. It was observed of Apelles’s Venus, that her flesh seemed as if she had been nourished by roses: his oratory would sometimes make one suspect that he eats potatoes and drinks whisky.’
Mr. Wilkes observed, how tenacious we are of forms in this country, and gave as an instance, the vote of the House of Commons for remitting money to pay the army in America in Portugal pieces, when, in reality, the remittance is made not in Portugal money, but in our own specie. Johnson. ‘Is there not a law, Sir, against exporting the current coin of the realm?’ WILKES. ‘Yes, Sir: but might not the House of Commons, in case of real evident necessity, order our own current coin to be sent into our own colonies?’ Here Johnson, with that quickness of recollection which distinguished him so eminently, gave the Middlesex Patriot an admirable retort upon his own ground. ‘Sure, Sir, you don’t think a resolution of the House of Commons equal to the law of the land?’1037 WILKES. (at once perceiving the application,) ‘GOD forbid, Sir.’ To hear what had been treated with such violence in The False Alarm, now turned into pleasant repartee, was extremely agreeable. Johnson went on; – ‘Locke observes well, that a prohibition to export the current coin is impolitick; for when the balance of trade happens to be against a state, the current coin must be exported.’
Mr. Beauclerk’s great library was this season sold in London by auction. Mr. Wilkes said, he wondered to find in it such a numerous collection of sermons; seeming to think it strange that a gentleman of Mr. Beauclerk’s character in the gay world should have chosen to have many compositions of that kind. Johnson. ‘Why, Sir, you are to consider, that sermons make a considerable branch of English literature; so that a library must be very imperfect if it has not a numerous collection of sermons;a and in all collections, Sir, the desire of augmenting it grows stronger in proportion to the advance in acquisition; as motion is accelerated by the continuance of the impetus. Besides, Sir, (looking at Mr. Wilkes with a placid but significant smile,) a man may collect sermons with intention of making himself better by them. I hope Mr. Beauclerk intended, that some time or other that should be the case with him.’
Mr. Wilkes said to me, loud enough for Dr. Johnson to hear, ‘Dr. Johnson should make me a present of his Lives of the Poets, as I am a poor patriot, who cannot afford to buy them.’ Johnson seemed to take no notice of this hint; but in a little while, he called to Mr. Dilly, ‘Pray, Sir, be so good as to send a set
of my Lives to Mr. Wilkes, with my compliments.’ This was accordingly done; and Mr. Wilkes paid Dr. Johnson a visit, was courteously received, and sat with him a long time.
The company gradually dropped away. Mr. Dilly himself was called down stairs upon business; I left the room for some time; when I returned, I was struck with observing Dr. Samuel Johnson and John Wilkes, Esq., literally t eˆte-à-teˆte; for they were reclined upon their chairs, with their heads leaning almost close to each other, and talking earnestly, in a kind of confidential whisper, of the personal quarrel between George the Second and the King of Prussia. Such a scene of perfectly easy sociality between two such opponents in the war of political controversy, as that which I now beheld, would have been an excellent subject for a picture. It presented to my mind the happy days which are foretold in Scripture, when the lion shall lie down with the kid.a1039
After this day there was another pretty long interval, during which Dr. Johnson and I did not meet. When I mentioned it to him with regret, he was pleased to say, ‘Then, Sir, let us live double.’
About this time it was much the fashion for several ladies to have evening assemblies, where the fair sex might participate in conversation with literary and ingenious men, animated by a desire to please. These societies were denominated Blue-stocking Clubs, the origin of which title being little known, it may be worth while to relate it. One of the most eminent members of those societies, when they first commenced, was Mr. Stilling-fleet,a whose dress was remarkably grave, and in particular it was observed, that he wore blue stockings. Such was the excellence of his conversation, that his absence was felt as so great a loss, that it used to be said, ‘We can do nothing without the blue stockings;’ and thus by degrees the title was established. Miss Hannah More has admirably described a Blue-stocking Club, in her Bas Bleu, a poem in which many of the persons who were most conspicuous there are mentioned.
Johnson was prevailed with to come sometimes into these circles, and did not think himself too grave even for the lively Miss Monckton (now Countess of Corke), who used to have the finest bit of blue at the house of her mother, Lady Galway. Her vivacity enchanted the Sage, and they used to talk together with all imaginable ease. A singular instance happened one evening, when she insisted that some of Sterne’s writings were very pathetick. Johnson bluntly denied it. ‘I am sure (said she,) they have affected me.’ ‘Why, (said Johnson, smiling, and rolling himself about,) that is, because, dearest, you’re a dunce.’ When she some time afterwards mentioned this to him, he said with equal truth and politeness; ‘Madam, if I had thought so, I certainly should not have said it.’
Another evening Johnson’s kind indulgence towards me had a pretty difficult trial. I had dined at the Duke of Montrose’s, with a very agreeable party, and his Grace, according to his usual custom, had circulated the bottle very freely. Lord Graham and I went together to Miss Monckton’s, where I certainly was in extraordinary spirits, and above all fear or awe. In the midst of a great number of persons of the first rank, amongst whom I recollect with confusion, a noble lady of the most stately decorum, I placed myself next to Johnson, and thinking myself now fully his match, talked to him in a loud and boisterous manner, desirous to let the company know how I could contend with Ajax. I particularly remember pressing him upon the value of the pleasures of the imagination, and as an illustration of my argument, asking him, ‘What, Sir, supposing I were to fancy that the — (naming the most charming Duchess1040 in his Majesty’s dominions) were in love with me, should I not be very happy?’ My friend with much address evaded my interrogatories, and kept me as quiet as possible; but it may easily be conceived how he must have felt.b However, when a few days afterwards I waited upon him and made an apology, he behaved with the most friendly gentleness.
While I remained in London this year, Johnson and I dined together at several places. I recollect a placid day at Dr. Butter’s, who had now removed from Derby to Lower Grosvenor-street, London; but of his conversation on that and other occasions during this period, I neglected to keep any regular record, and shall therefore insert here some miscellaneous articles which I find in my Johnsonian notes.
His disorderly habits, when ‘making provision for the day that was passing over him,’ appear from the following anecdote, communicated to me by Mr. John Nichols: – ‘In the year 1763, a young bookseller, who was an apprentice to Mr. Whiston, waited on him with a subscription to his Shakspeare: and observing that the Doctor made no entry in any book of the subscriber’s name, ventured diffidently to ask, whether he would please to have the gentleman’s address, that it might be properly inserted in the printed list of subscribers.’ I shall print no list of subscribers;’ said Johnson, with great abruptness; but almost immediately recollecting himself, added, very complacently, ‘Sir, I have two very cogent reasons for not printing any list of subscribers; – one, that I have lost all the names, – the other, that I have spent all the money.’
Johnson could not brook appearing to be worsted in argument, even when he had taken the wrong side, to shew the force and dexterity of his talents. When, therefore, he perceived that his opponent gained ground, he had recourse to some sudden mode of robust sophistry. Once when I was pressing upon him with visible advantage, he stopped me thus: – ‘My dear Boswell, let’s have no more of this; you’ll make nothing of it. I’d rather have you whistle a Scotch tune.’
Care, however, must be taken to distinguish between Johnson when he ‘talked for victory,’ and Johnson when he had no desire but to inform and illustrate. ‘One of Johnson’s principal talents (says an eminent friend of his)1041 was shewn in maintaining the wrong side of an argument, and in a splendid perversion of the truth. If you could contrive to have his fair opinion on a subject, and without any bias from personal prejudice, or from a wish to be victorious in argument, it was wisdom itself, not only convincing, but overpowering.’
He had, however, all his life habituated himself to consider conversation as a trial of intellectual vigour and skill; and to this, I think, we may venture to ascribe that unexampled richness and brilliancy which appeared in his own. As a proof at once of his eagerness for colloquial distinction, and his high notion of this eminent friend, he once addressed him thus: – ‘—, we now have been several hours together; and you have said but one thing for which I envied you.’
He disliked much all speculative desponding considerations, which tended to discourage men from diligence and exertion. He was in this like Dr. Shaw, the great traveller, who, Mr. Daines Barrington told me, used to say, ‘I hate a cui bono1042 man.’ Upon being asked by a friend1043 what he should think of a man who was apt to say non est tanti;1044 – ‘That he’s a stupid fellow, Sir; (answered Johnson): What would these tanti men be doing the while?’ When I, in a low-spirited fit, was talking to him with indifference of the pursuits which generally engage us in a course of action, and inquiring a reason for taking so much trouble; ‘Sir, (said he, in an animated tone) it is driving on the system of life.’
He told me, that he was glad that I had, by General Oglethorpe’s means, become acquainted with Dr. Shebbeare. Indeed that gentleman, whatever objections were made to him, had knowledge and abilities much above the class of ordinary writers, and deserves to be remembered as a respectable name in literature, were it only for his admirable Letters on the English Nation, under the name of ‘Battista Angeloni, a Jesuit.’
Johnson and Shebbearea were frequently named together, as having in former reigns had no predilection for the family of Hanover. The authour1045 of the celebrated Heroick Epistle to Sir William Chambers, introduces them in one line, in a list of those ‘who tasted the sweets of his present Majesty’s reign.’ Such was Johnson’s candid relish of the merit of that satire, that he allowed Dr. Goldsmith, as he told me, to read it to him from beginning to end, and did not refuse his praise to its execution.
Goldsmith could sometimes take adventurous liberties with him, and escape unpunished. Beauclerk told me that when Goldsmith talked of a project
for having a third Theatre in London, solely for the exhibition of new plays, in order to deliver authours from the supposed tyranny of managers, Johnson treated it slightingly; upon which Goldsmith said, ‘Ay, ay, this may be nothing to you, who can now shelter yourself behind the corner of a pension;’ and that Johnson bore this with good-humour.
Johnson praised the Earl of Carlisle’s Poems, which his Lordship had published with his name, as not disdaining to be a candidate for literary fame. My friend was of opinion, that when a man of rank appeared in that character, he deserved to have his merit handsomely allowed.a In this I think he was more liberal than Mr. William Whitehead, in his Elegy to Lord Villiers, in which under the pretext of ‘superiour toils, demanding all their care,’ he discovers a jealousy of the great paying their court to the Muses: –
‘—— to the chosen few
Who dare excel, thy fost’ring aid afford,
Their arts, their magick powers, with honours due
The Life of Samuel Johnson Page 125