1 and brought up, and which was still his own property. We had a comfortable supper, and got into high spirits. I felt all my Toryism glow in this old capital of Staffordshire. I could have offered incense genio loci; and I indulged in libations of that ale which Boniface, in The Beaux Stratagem, recommends with such an eloquent jollity. Next morning he introduced me to Mrs. Lucy Porter, his step-daughter. She was now an old maid, with much simplicity of manner. She had never been in London. Her brother, a captain in the navy, had left her a fortune of ten thousand pounds, about a third of which she had laid out in building a stately house, and making a handsome garden, in an elevated situation in Lichfield. Johnson, when here by himself, used to live at her house. She reverenced him, and he had a parental tenderness for her. ity and real kindness in this great man, who has been most unjustly represented as altogether harsh and destitute of tenderness. A thousand such instances might have been recorded in the course of his long life; though that his temper was warm and hasty, and his manner often rough, cannot be denied. wonse. Who's for poonsh?" 6 I saw here, for the first time, oat ale; and oat cakes, not hard as in Scotland, but soft like a Yorkshire cake, were served at breakfast. It was pleasant to me to find that Oats,' the 'food of horses,' were so much used as the food of the people in Dr. Johnson's own town. He expatiated in praise of Lichfield and its inhabitants, who he said were 'the most sober, decent people in England, the genteelest in proportion to their wealth, and spoke the purest English.' I doubted as to the last article of this eulogy, for they had several provincial sounds; as there We then visited Mr. Peter Garrick, who had pronounced like fear, instead of like fair; once that morning received a letter from his brother pronounced like woonse, instead of wunse, or David announcing our coming to Lichfield. He Johnson himself never got entirely free was engaged to dinner, but asked us to tea, and of those provincial accents. Garrick sometimes to sleep at his house. Johnson, however, would used to take him off, squeezing a lemon into not quit his old acquaintance Wilkins, of the a punch-bowl, with uncouth gesticulations, 'Three Crowns.' The family likeness of the Gar-looking round the company, and calling out ricks was very striking; and Johnson thought that David's vivacity was not so peculiar to himself as was supposed. 'Sir,' said he, 'I don't know but if Peter had cultivated all the arts of gaiety as much as David has done, he might have been as brisk and lively. Depend upon it, sir, vivacity is much an art, and depends greatly on habit.' I believe there is a good deal of truth in this, notwithstanding a ludicrous story told me by a lady abroad, of a heavy German baron, who had lived much with the young English at Geneva, and was ambitious to be as lively as they; with which view, he, with assiduous attention, was jumping over the chairs and tables in his lodgings; and when the people of the house ran in and asked with surprise, what was the matter, he answered, 'Sh' apprens t'etre fif. We dined at our inn, and had with us a Mr. Jackson, one of Johnson's schoolfellows, whom he treated with much kindness, though he seemed to be a low man, dull and untaught. He had a coarse grey coat, black waistcoat, greasy leather breeches, and a yellow uncurled wig; and his countenance had the ruddiness which betokens one who is in no haste to 'leave his can.' He drank only ale. He had tried to be a cutler at Birmingham, but had not succeeded; and now he lived poorly at home, and had some scheme of dressing leather in a better manner than common; to his indistinct account of which Dr. Johnson listened with patient attention, that he might assist him with his advice. Here was an instance of genuine human 1 I went through the house where my illustrious friend was born, with a reverence with which it doubtless will long be visited.-BOSWELL. Very little business appeared to be going forward in Lichfield. I found, however, two strange manufactures for so inland a place, sail-cloth and streamers for ships; and I observed them making some saddle-cloths and dressing sheepskins; but, upon the whole, the busy hand of industry seemed to be quite slackened. 'Surely, sir,' said I, 'you are an idle set of people.' Sir,' said Johnson, we are a city of philosophers; we work with our heads, and make the boobies of Birmingham work for us with their hands.' There was at this time a company of players performing at Lichfield. The manager, Mr. Stanton, sent his compliments, and begged leave to wait on Dr. Johnson. Johnson received him very courteously, and he drank a glass of wine with us. He was a plain, decent, well-behaved man, and expressed his gratitude to Dr. Johnson for having once got him permission from Dr. Taylor at Ashbourne to play there upon moderate terms. Garrick's name was soon introduced. JOHNSON: Garrick's conversation is gay and grotesque. It is a dish of all sorts, but all good things. There is no solid meat in it; there is a want of sentiment in it. Not but that he has sentiment sometimes, and sentiment, too, very powerful and very pleasing; but it has not its full proportion in his conversation.' 1 Garrick himself, like the Lichfieldians, always said, shupreme, shuperior.-BURNEY. This is still the vulgar pronunciation of Ireland, where the pronunciation of the English language by those who have not expatriated is doubtless that which generally prevailed in England in the time of Queen Elizabeth.-MALONE. i When we were by ourselves he told me, 'Forty years ago, sir, I was in love with an actress here, Mrs. Emmet, who acted Flora in Hob in a Well.' What merit this lady had as an actress, or what was her figure or her manner, I have not been informed; but if we may believe Mr. Garrick, his old master's taste in theatrical merit was by no means refined; he was not an elegans formarum spectator. Garrick used to tell that Johnson said of an actor, who played Sir Harry Wildair at Lichfield, 'There is a courtly vivacity about the fellow;' when in fact, according to Garrick's account, he was the most vulgar ruffian that ever went upon boards.' We had promised Mr. Stanton to be at his theatre on Monday. Dr. Johnson jocularly proposed to me to write a Prologue for the occasion: A Prologue by James Boswell, Esq., from the Hebrides.' I was really inclined to take the hint. Methought, 'Prologue, spoken before Dr. Samuel Johnson at Lichfield, 1776,' would have sounded as well as 'Prologue, spoken before the Duke of York at Oxford,' in Charles the Second's time. Much might have been said of what Lichfield had done for Shakspeare, by producing Johnson and Garrick. But I found he was averse to it. We went and viewed the museum of Mr. Richard Green, apothecary here, who told me he was proud of being a relation of Dr. JohnBon's. It was truly a wonderful collection, both of antiquities and natural curiosities, and ingenious works of art. He had all the articles accurately arranged, with their names upon labels printed at his own little press; and on the staircase leading to it was a board with the names of contributors marked in gold letters. A printed catalogue of the collection was to be had at a bookseller's. Johnson expressed his admiration of the activity and diligence and good fortune of Mr. Green, in getting together, in his situation, so great a variety of things; and Mr. Green told me that Johnson once said to | him, 'Sir, I should as soon have thought of building a man-of-war as of collecting such a museum.' Mr. Green's obliging alacrity in showing it was very pleasing. His engraved portrait, with which he has favoured me, has a motto truly characteristical of his disposition, 'Nemo sibi vivat.' tinuing to profess it would not hurt him, though his changing to it would." We drank tea and coffee at Mr. Peter Garrick's, where was Mrs. Aston, one of the maiden sisters of Mrs. Walmsley, wife of Johnson's first friend, and sister also of the lady of whom Johnson used to speak with the warmest admiration by the name of Molly Aston, who was afterwards married to Captain Brodie, of the navy. CHAPTER XXXVI. 1776. ON Sunday, March 24, we breakfasted with Mrs. Cobb, a widow lady, who lived in an agreeable sequestered place close by the town, called the Friary, it having been formerly a religious house. She and her niece, Miss Adey, were great admirers of Dr. Johnson; and he behaved to them with a kindness and easy pleasantry such as we see between old and intimate acquaintance. He accompanied Mrs. Cobb to St. Mary's Church, and I went to the Cathedral, where I was very much delighted with the music, finding it to be peculiarly solemn, and accordant with the words of the service. We dined at Mr. Peter Garrick's, who was in a very lively humour, and verified Johnson's saying, that if he had cultivated gaiety as much as his brother David, he might have equally excelled in it. He was to-day quite a London narrator, telling us a variety of anecdotes with that earnestness and attempt at mimicry which we usually find in the wits of the metropolis. Dr. Johnson went with me to the Cathedral in the afternoon. It was grand and pleasing to contemplate this illustrious writer, now full of fame, worshipping in 'the solemn temple' of his native city. I returned to tea and coffee at Mr. Peter Gar rick's, and then found Dr. Johnson at the Rev. Mr. Seward's, Canon Residentiary, who inhabited the Bishop's palace, in which Mr. Walmsley lived, and which had been the scene of many happy hours in Johnson's early life. Mr. Seward had, with ecclesiastical hospitality and politeness, asked me in the morning, merely as a stranger, to dine with him; and in the A physician being mentioned who had lost his afternoon, when I was introduced to him, he practice, because his whimsically changing his asked Dr. Johnson and me to spend the evening religion had made people distrustful of him, I and sup with him. He was a genteel, well-bred, maintained that this was unreasonable, as redignified clergyman, had travelled with Lord ligion is unconnected with medical skill. JOHNCharles Fitzroy, uncle of the present Duke of SON: 'Sir, it is not unreasonable; for when Grafton, who died when abroad, and he had people see a man absurd in what they under- lived much in the great world. He was an instand, they may conclude the same of him ingenious and literary man, had published an what they do not understand. If a physician edition of Beaumont and Fletcher, and written were to take to eating of horse-flesh, nobody would employ him: though one may eat horseflesh and be a very skilful physician. If a man were educated in an absurd religion, his con 1 Fothergill, a Quaker, and Schomberg, a Jew, had the greatest practice of any two physicians of their time.-BURNEY. verses in Dodsley's collection. His lady was the daughter of Mr. Hunter, Johnson's first schoolmaster. And now, for the first time, I had the pleasure of seeing his celebrated daughter, Miss Anna Seward, to whom I have since been indebted for many civilities, as well as some obliging communications concerning Johnson. Mr. Seward mentioned to us the observations which he had made upon the strata of earth in volcanos, from which it appeared that they were so very different in depth at different periods, that no calculation whatever could be made as to the time required for their formation. This fully refuted an anti-mosaical remark introduced into Captain Brydone's entertaining tour, I hope heedlessly, from a kind of vanity which is too common in those who have not sufficiently studied the most important of all subjects. Dr. Johnson, indeed, had said before, independent of this observation, 'Shall all the accumulated evidence of the history of the world -shall the authority of what is unquestionably the most ancient writing, be overturned by an uncertain remark such as this?' On Monday, March 25, we breakfasted at Mrs. Lucy Porter's. Johnson had sent an express to Dr. Taylor's, acquainting him of our being at Lichfield, and Taylor had returned an answer that his post-chaise should come for us this day. While we sat at breakfast, Dr. Johnson received a letter by the post, which seemed to agitate him very much. When he had read it, he exclaimed, 'One of the most dreadful things that has happened in my time.' The phrase my time, like the word age, is usually understood to refer to an event of a public or general nature. I imagined something like an assassination of the King, like a gunpowder plot carried into execution, or like another fire of London. When asked, 'What is it, sir?' he answered, 'Mr. Thrale has lost his only son!' This was, no doubt, a very great affliction to Mr. and Mrs. Thrale, which their friends would consider accordingly; but from the manner in which the intelligence of it was communicated by Johnson, it appeared for the moment to be comparatively small. I, however, soon felt a sincere concern, and was curious to observe how Dr. Johnson would be affected. He said, 'This is a total extinction to their family, as much as if they were sold into captivity.' Upon my mentioning that Mr. Thrale had daughters, who might inherit his wealth, Daughters!' said Johnson warmly, 'he'll no more value his daughters than was going to speak. 'Sir,' said he, 'don't you know how you yourself think? Sir, he wishes to propagate his name.' In short, I saw male succession strong in his mind, even where there was no name, no family of any long standing. I said it was lucky he was not present when this misfortune happened. JOHNSON: 'It is lucky for me. People in distress never think you feel enough.' BOSWELL: 'And, sir, they I will have the hope of seeing you, which will be a relief in the meantime; and when you get to them, the pain will be so far abated, that they will be capable of being consoled by you, which, in the first violence of it, I believe would not be the case.' JOHNSON: No, sir; violent pain of mind, like violent pain of body, must be severely felt.' BOSWELL: 'I own, sir, I have not so much feeling for the distress of others as some people have, or pretend to have; but I know this, that I would do all in my power to relieve them.' JOHNSON: 'Sir, it is affectation to pretend to feel the distress of others as much as they do themselves. It is equally so, as if one should pretend to feel as much pain while a friend's leg is cutting off as he does. No, sir; you have expressed the rational and just nature of sympathy. I would have gone to the extremity of the earth to have preserved this boy.' He was soon quite calm. The letter was from Mr. Thrale's clerk, and concluded, 'I need not say how much they wish to see you in London.' He said, 'We shall hasten back from Taylor's.' Mrs. Lucy Porter, and some other ladies of the place, talked a great deal of him when he was out of the room, not only with veneration, but affection. It pleased me to find that he was so much beloved in his native city. Mrs. Aston, whom I had seen the preceding night, and her sister Mrs. Gastrel, a widow lady, had each a house and garden, and pleasureground, prettily situate upon Stowhill, a gentle eminence adjoining to Lichfield. Johnson walked away to dinner there, leaving me by myself without any apology. I wonder at this want of that facility of manners from which a man has no difficulty in carrying a friend to a house where he is intimate. I felt it very unpleasant to be thus left in solitude in a country town, where I was an entire stranger, and began to think myself unkindly deserted; but I was soon relieved, and convinced that my friend, instead of being deficient in delicacy, had conducted the matter with perfect propriety, for I received the following note in his handwriting :— 'Mrs. Gastrel, at the lower house on Stowhill, desires Mr. Boswell's company to dinner at two." I accepted of the invitation, and had here another proof how amiable his character was in the opinon of those who knew him best. I was not informed till afterwards that Mrs. Gastrel's husband was the clergyman who, while he lived at Stratford-upon-Avon, where he was proprietor of Shakspeare's garden, with Gothic barbarity cut down his mulberry-tree,' and, as Dr. Johnson told me, did it to vex his neighbours. His lady, I have reason to believe on the same authority, participated in the guilt of what the enthu 1 See an accurate and animated statement of Mr. Gastrel's barbarity, by Mr. Malone, in a note on Some account of the Life of William Shakspeare, prefixed to his admirable edition of that poet's works, vol. i. p. 118.-BOSWELL siasts of our immortal bard deem almost a species don't know but there is upon the whole more of sacrilege. After dinner Dr. Johnson wrote a letter to Mrs. Thrale on the death of her son. I said it would be very distressing to Thrale, but she would soon forget it, as she had so many things to think of. JOHNSON: 'No, sir, Thrale will forget it first. She has many things that she may think of. He has many things that he must think of.' This was a very just remark upon the different effects of those light pursuits which occupy a vacant and easy mind, and those serious engagements which arrest attention and keep us from brooding over grief. He observed of Lord Bute, 'It was said of Augustus that it would have been better for Rome that he had never been born, or had never died. So it would have been better for this nation if Lord Bute had never been minister, or had never resigned.' In the evening we went to the Town Hall, which was converted into a temporary theatre, and saw Theodosius, with The Stratford Jubilee. I was happy to see Dr. Johnson sitting in a conspicuous part of the pit, and receiving affectioniate homage from all his acquaintance. We were quite gay and merry. I afterwards mentioned to him that I condemned myself for being so when poor Mr. and Mrs. Thrale were in such distress. JOHNSON: 'You are wrong, sir; twenty years hence Mr. and Mrs. Thrale will not suffer much pain from the death of their son. Now, sir, you are to consider that distance of place, as well as distance of time, operates upon the human feelings. I would not have you be gay in the presence of the distressed, because it would shock them; but you may be gay at a distance. Pain for the loss of a friend, or of a relation whom we love, is occasioned by the want which we feel. In time the vacuity is filled with something else; or sometimes the vacuity closes up of itself.' Mr. Seward and Mr. Pearson, another clergyman here, supped with us at our inn, and after they left us we sat up late, as we used to do in London. Here I shall record some fragments of my friend's conversation during this jaunt. 'Marriage, sir, is much more necessary to a man than to a woman; for he is much less able to supply himself with domestic comforts. You will recollect my saying to some ladies the other day that I had often wondered why young women should marry, as they have so much more freedom, and so much more attention paid to them while unmarried than when married. I indeed did not mention the strong reason for their marrying the mechanical reason.' BosWELL: Why, that is a strong one. But does not imagination make it much more important | than it is in reality? Is it not, to a certain degree, a delusion in us as well as in women?' JOHNSON: Why, yes, sir; but it is a delusion that is always beginning again.' BOSWELL: 'I misery than happiness produced by that passion.' JOHNSON; 'I don't think so, sir.' 'Never speak of a man in his own presence. It is always indelicate, and may be offensive.' Questioning is not the mode of conversation among gentlemen. It is assuming a superiority, and it is particularly wrong to question a man concerning himself. There may be parts of his former life which he may not wish to be made known to other persons, or even brought to his own recollection." 'A man should be careful never to tell tales of himself to his own disadvantage. People may be amused and laugh at the time, but they will be remembered and brought out against him upon some subsequent occasion.' 'Much may be done if a man puts his whole mind to a particular object. By doing so, Norton' has made himself the great lawyer that he is allowed to be.' I mentioned an acquaintance of mine, a sectary, who was a very religious man, who not only attended regularly on public worship with those of his communion, but made a particular study of the Scriptures, and even wrote a commentary on some parts of them, yet was known to be very licentious in indulging himself with women; maintaining that men are to be saved by faith alone, and that the Christian religion had not prescribed any fixed rule for the intercourse between the sexes. JOHNSON: Sir, there is no trusting to that crazy piety.' I observed that it was strange how well Scotchmen were known to one another in their own country, though born in very distant counties; for we do not find that the gentlemen of neighbouring counties in England are mutually known to each other. Johnson, with his usual acuteness, at once saw and explained the reason of this: Why, sir, you have Edinburgh, where the gentlemen from all your counties meet, and which is not so large but they are all known. There is no such common place of collection in England, except London, where, from its great size and diffusion, many of those who reside in contiguous counties of England may long remain unknown to each other.' On Tuesday, March 26, there came for us an equipage properly suited to a wealthy, wellbeneficed clergyman: Dr. Taylor's large, roomy post-chaise, drawn by four stout, plump horses, and driven by two steady jolly postilions, which conveyed us to Ashbourne; where I found my friend's schoolfellow living upon an establishment perfectly corresponding with his substantial creditable equipage; his house, garden, pleasure - grounds, table-in short, everything good, and no scantiness appearing. Every man should form such a plan of living as he can exe 1 Sir Fletcher Norton, afterwards Speaker of the House of Commons, and in 1782 created Baron Grantly.-MALONE. cute completely. Let him not draw an outline wider than he can fill up. I have seen many skeletons of show and magnificence which excite at once ridicule and pity. Dr. Taylor had a good estate of his own, and good preferment in the Church, being a prebendary of Westminster, and rector of Bosworth. He was a diligent justice of the peace, and presided over the town of Ashbourne, to the inhabitants of which I was told he was very liberal; and, as a proof of this, it was mentioned to me he had the preceding winter distributed two hundred pounds among such of them as stood in need of his assistance. He had consequently a considerable political interest in the county of Derby, which he employed to support the Devonshire family; for though the schoolfellow and friend of Johnson, he was a Whig. I could not perceive in his character much congeniality of any sort with that of Johnson, who however said to me, 'Sir, he has a very strong understanding.' His size, and figure, and countenance, and manner, were that of a hearty English 'squire, with the parson superinduced; and I took particular notice of his upper-servant, Mr. Peters, a decent, grave man, in purple clothes, and a large white wig, like the butler or major domo of a bishop. Dr. Johnson and Dr. Taylor met with great cordiality; and Johnson soon gave him the same sad account of their schoolfellow, Congreve, that he had given to Mr. Hector; adding a remark of such moment to the rational conduct of a man in the decline of life, that deserves to be imprinted upon every mind: There is nothing against which an old man should be so much upon his guard as putting himself to nurse.' Innumerable have been the melancholy instances of men once distinguished for firmness, resolution, and spirit, who in their latter days have been governed like children by interested female artifice. Dr. Taylor commended a physician who was known to him and Dr. Johnson, and said, 'I fight many battles for him, as many people in the country dislike him.' JOHNSON: But you should consider, sir, that by every one of your victories he is a loser; for every man of whom you get the better will be very angry, and resolve not to employ him; whereas, if people get the better of you in argument about him, they'll think, "We'll send for Dr.- nevertheless."' This was an observation deep and sure in human nature. Next day we talked of a book in which an eminent judge was arraigned before the bar of the public as having pronounced an unjust decision in a great cause. Dr. Johnson maintained that this publication would not give any uneasiness to the judge. For,' said he, either he acted honestly, or he meant to do injustice. If he acted honestly, his own consciousness will 1 Butter. protect him; if he meant to do injustice, he will be glad to see the man who attacks him so much vexed.' Next day, as Dr. Johnson had acquainted Dr. Taylor of the reason for his returning speedily to London, it was resolved that we should set out after dinner. A few of Dr. Taylor's neighbours were his guests that day. Dr. Johnson talked with approbation of one who had attained to the state of the philosophical wise man, that is, to have no want of anything. Then, sir,' said I, 'the savage is a wise man.' 'Sir,' said he, 'I do not mean simply being without, but not having a want.' I maintained against this proposition, that it was better to have fine clothes, for instance, than not to feel the want of them. JOHNSON: No, sir; fine clothes are good only as they supply the want of other means of procuring respect. Was Charles the Twelfth, think you, less respected for his coarse blue coat and black stock? And you find the King of Prussia dresses plain because the dignity of his character is sufficient.' I here brought myself into a scrape, for I heedlessly said, 'Would not you, sir, be the better for velvet embroidery?' JOHNSON: 'Sir, you put an end to all argument, when you introduce your opponent himself. Have you no better manners? There is your want.' I apologised by saying, I had mentioned him as an instance of one who wanted as little as any man in the world, and yet perhaps might receive some additional lustre from dress. Having left Ashbourne in the evening, we stopped to change horses at Derby, and availed ourselves of a moment to enjoy the conversation of my countryman, Dr. Butter, then physician there. He was in great indignation because Lord Mountstuart's bill for a Scotch militia had been lost. Dr. Johnson was as violent against it. 'I am glad,' said he, 'that Parliament has had the spirit to throw it out. You wanted to take advantage of the timidity of our scoundrels' (meaning, I suppose, the ministry). It may be observed that he used the epithet scoundrel very commonly-not quite in the sense in which it is generally understood, but as a strong term of disapprobation; as, when he abruptly answered Mrs. Thrale, who had asked him how he did, 'Ready to become a scoundrel, madam ; with a little more spoiling, you will, I think, make me a complete rascal.' He meant easy to become a capricious and self-indulgent valetudinarian-a character for which I have heard him express great disgust. Johnson had with him upon this jaunt n Palmerino d'Inghilterra, a romance praised by Cervantes; but did not like it much. He said he read it for the language, by way of preparation for his Italian expedition. We lay this night at Loughborough. On Thursday, March 28th, we pursued our journey. I mentioned that old Mr. Sheridan |