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Aetat. 67.]

Margaret Caroline Rudd.

79

been produced in the minds of two men, who though widely different, had so many things in common-classical learning, modern literature, wit, and humour, and ready repartee-that it would have been much to be regretted if they had been for ever at a distance from each other 1.

Mr. Burke gave me much credit for this successful negociation; and pleasantly said, that 'there was nothing to equal it in the whole history of the Corps Diplomatique.'

I attended Dr. Johnson home, and had the satisfaction to hear him tell Mrs. Williams how much he had been pleased with Mr. Wilkes's company, and what an agreeable day he had passed 2.

I talked a good deal to him of the celebrated Margaret Caroline Rudd, whom I had visited, induced by the fame of her talents, address, and irresistible power of fascination 3. To a lady who disapproved of my visiting her, he said on a former occasion, 'Nay, Madam, Boswell is in the right; I should have visited her myself, were it not that they have now a trick of putting every thing into the news-papers.'

Yet Wilkes within less than a year violently attacked Johnson in parliament. He said, 'The two famous doctors, Shebbeare and Johnson, are in this reign the state hirelings called pensioners.' Their names, he continued, 'disgraced the Civil List. They are the known pensioned advocates of despotism.' Parl. Hist. xix. 118. It is curious that Boswell does not mention this attack, and that Johnson a few months after it was made, speaking of himself and Wilkes, said :-'The contest is now over.' Post, Sept. 21, 1777.

2 The next day he wrote to Mrs. Thrale:-'For my part, I begin to settle and keep company with grave aldermen. I dined yesterday in the Poultry with Mr. Alderman Wilkes, and Mr. Alderman Lee, and Counsellor Lee, his brother. There sat you the while, so sober, with your W-'s and your H-'s, and my aunt and her turnspit; and when they are

gone, you think by chance on Johnson, what is he doing? What should he be doing? He is breaking jokes with Jack Wilkes upon the Scots. Such, Madam, are the vicissitudes of things.' Piozzi Letters, i. 325.

3 See ante, March 20, 1776.

4 If he had said this on a former occasion to a lady, he said it also on a latter occasion to a gentlemanMr. Spottiswoode. Post, April 28, 1778. Moreover, Miss Burney records in 1778, that when Johnson was telling about Bet Flint (post, May 8, 1781) and other strange characters whom he had known, 'Mrs. Thrale said, "I wonder, Sir, you never went to see Mrs. Rudd among the rest." "Why, Madam, I believe I should," said he, "if it was not for the newspapers; but I am prevented many frolics that I should like very well, since I am become such a theme for the papers." Mme. D’Arblay's Diary, i. 90.

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Johnson's explosions of satire.

[A.D. 1776.

This evening he exclaimed, 'I envy him his acquaintance with Mrs. Rudd.'

I mentioned a scheme which I had of making a tour to the Isle of Man, and giving a full account of it; and that Mr. Burke had playfully suggested as a motto,

"The proper study of mankind is MAN'.'

JOHNSON. 'Sir, you will get more by the book than the jaunt will cost you; so you will have your diversion for nothing, and add to your reputation.'

On the evening of the next day I took leave of him, being to set out for Scotland'. I thanked him with great warmth for all his kindness. 'Sir, (said he,) you are very welcome. Nobody repays it with more.'

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How very false is the notion which has gone round the world of the rough, and passionate, and harsh manners of this great and good man. That he had occasional sallies of heat of temper, and that he was sometimes, perhaps, too easily provoked 3' by absurdity and folly, and sometimes too desirous of triumph in colloquial contest, must be allowed. The quickness both of his perception and sensibility disposed him to sudden explosions of satire; to which his extraordinary readiness of wit was a strong and almost irresistible incitement. To adopt one of the finest images in Mr. Home's Douglas*,

I

2

On each glance of thought

Decision followed, as the thunderbolt
Pursues the flash!'

Pope, Essay on Man, ii. 2. Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale on May 14 (Tuesday) :—“* *** goes away on Thursday, very well satisfied with his journey. Some great men have promised to obtain him a place, and then a fig for my father and his new wife.' Piozzi Letters, i. 324. He is writing no doubt of Boswell; yet, as Lord Auchinleck had been married more than six years, it is odd his wife should be called new. Boswell, a year earlier, wrote to Temple of his hopes from Lord Pembroke: - 'How happy should I be to get an independency

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Aetat. 67.]

Goldsmith's epitaph.

81

I admit that the beadle within him was often so eager to apply the lash, that the Judge had not time to consider the case with sufficient deliberation.

That he was occasionally remarkable for violence of temper may be granted: but let us ascertain the degree, and not let it be supposed that he was in a perpetual rage, and never without a club in his hand, to knock down every one who approached him. On the contrary, the truth is, that by much the greatest part of his time he was civil, obliging, nay, polite in the true sense of the word; so much so, that many gentlemen, who were long acquainted with him, never received, or even heard a strong expression from him'.

The following letters concerning an Epitaph which he wrote for the monument of Dr. Goldsmith, in Westminster-Abbey, afford at once a proof of his unaffected modesty, his carelessness as to his own writings, and of the great respect which he entertained for the taste and judgement of the excellent and eminent person to whom they are addressed:

'DEAR SIR,

'TO SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

'I have been kept away from you, I know not well how, and of these vexatious hindrances I know not when there will be an end. I therefore send you the poor dear Doctor's epitaph. Read it first yourself; and if you then think it right, shew it to the Club. I am, you know, willing to be corrected. If you think any thing much amiss, keep it to yourself, till we come together. I have sent two copies, but prefer the card. The dates must be settled by Dr. Percy. 'I am, Sir,

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Goldsmith's epitaph.

[A.D. 1776.

'SIR,

TO THE SAME.

'Miss Reynolds has a mind to send the Epitaph to Dr. Beattie; I am very willing, but having no copy, cannot immediately recollect it. She tells me you have lost it. Try to recollect and put down as much as you retain; you perhaps may have kept what I have dropped. The lines for which I am at a loss are something of rerum civilium sivè naturalium1. It was a sorry trick to lose it; help me

if you can. I am, Sir,

'June 22, 1776.

'Your most humble servant,

'The gout grows better but slowly?.'

'SAM. JOHNSON.'

It was, I think, after I had left London this year, that this Epitaph gave occasion to a Remonstrance to the MONARCH OF LITERATURE, for an account of which I am indebted to Sir William Forbes, of Pitsligo.

That my readers may have the subject more fully and clearly before them, I shall first insert the Epitaph.

OLIVARII GOLDSMITH,

Poeta, Physici, Historici,

Qui nullum ferè scribendi genus
Non tetigit,

Nullum quod tetigit non ornavit 3:

I These words must have been in the other copy. They are not in that which was preferred. Boswell.

* On June 3 he wrote that he was suffering from 'a very serious and troublesome fit of the gout. I enjoy all the dignity of lameness. I receive ladies and dismiss them sitting. Painful pre-eminence! Piozzi Letters, i. 337. 'Painful pre-eminence' comes from Addison's Cato, act iii. sc. 5. Pope, in his Essay on Man, iv. 267, borrows the phrase:'Painful pre-eminence! yourself to view,

Above life's weakness and its com-
forts too.'

It is humorously introduced into the
Rolliad in the description of the
Speaker :-

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