he said, "They should set him in the pillo- my house. I was obliged to tell her that ry, that he may be punished in a way that you would be in as respectable a situation would disgrace him." I observed, that the in my house as in her's. "Sir, the insopillory does not always disgrace. And I lence of wealth will creep out." Boswell. mentioned an instance of a gentleman," She has a little both of the insolence of who I thought was not dishonoured by it. wealth and the conceit of parts." JOHNJOHNSON." Ay, but he was, sir. He SON. "The insolence of wealth is a wretchcould not mouth and strut as he used to do, ed thing; but the conceit of parts has some after having been there. People are not foundation. To be sure, it should not be. willing to ask a man to their tables who But who is without it?" BOSWELL. has stood in the pillory." "Yourself, sir." JOHNSON. "Why, I The gentleman who had dined with us at play no tricks: I lay no traps.' BOSWELL. Dr. Percy's 2 came in. Johnson attacked" No, sir. You are six feet high, and you the Americans with intemperate vehemence only do not stoop." of abuse. I said something in their favour; We talked of the numbers of people that and added, that I was always sorry when sometimes have composed the household of he talked on that subject. This, it seems, great families. I mentioned that there exasperated him; though he said nothing were a hundred in the family of the present at the time. The cloud was charged with Earl of Eglintoune's father. Dr. Johnson sulphureous vapour, which was afterwards seeming to doubt it, I began to enumerate; to burst in thunder. We talked of a gen- "Let us see, my lord and my lady, two." tleman 3 who was running out his fortune JOHNSON. "Nay, sir, if you are to count in London; and I said, "We must get him by twos, you may be long enough." Bosout of it. All his friends must quarrel with WELL. "Well, but now I add two sons him, and that will soon drive him away.' ." and seven daughters, and a servant for each, JOHNSON. "Nay, sir, we'll send you to that will make twenty; so we have the fifth him. If your company does not drive a part already." JOHNSON. "Very true. man out of his house, nothing will." This You get at twenty pretty readily; but you was a horrible shock, for which there was will not so easily get further on. We grow no visible cause. I afterwards asked him to five feet pretty readily; but it is not so why he had said so harsh a thing. JOHN- easy to grow to seven. SON. "Because, sir, you made me angry about the Americans." BOSWELL. "But why did you not take your revenge directly?" JOHNSON (smiling). "Because, sir, I had nothing ready. A man cannot strike till he has his weapons." This was a candid and pleasant confession. He showed me to-night his drawingroom, very genteelly fitted up, and said, Mrs. Thrale sneered when I talked of my having asked you and your lady to live at sentence-pronounced in November, 1777-was a year's imprisonment, and 2007. fine; but it seems strange that Johnson should, in April, 1778, have spoken conjecturally of a sentence passed six months before. Perhaps the conversation occurred at Ashbourn in the preceding autumn, when the sentence was a subject of much conJecture and curiosity, and that, by some mistake in arranging his notes, Mr. Boswell has misplaced it here.-ED.] [Probably Dr. Shebbeare. It was Shebbeare's exposure which suggested the witty allusion of the Heroick Epistle, Does envy doubt? Witness, ye chosen train, Who breathe the sweets of his Saturnian reign; Witness, ye Hills, ye Johnsons, Scotts, Shebbeares, Hark to my call, for some of you have ears!" But his ears were not endangered; indeed he was so favourably treated, being allowed to stand on, and not in, the pillory, and to have certain other indulgencies, that the sheriff was afterwards prosecuted for partiality towards him.-ED.] 2 Sce p. 162, of this volume.-BOSWELL. [Mr. Langton.-ED.] Pravers & Med. p. 163. [Yesterday (18th) I rose late, having not slept ill. Having promised a dedication, I thought it necessary to write; but for some time neither wrote nor read. Langton came in and talked. After dinner I wrote. At tea Boswell came in. He staid till near twelve.] On Sunday, 19th April, being Easterday, after the solemnities of the festival in St. Paul's church, I visited him, but could not stay to dinner. I expressed a wish to have the arguments for Christianity always in readiness, that my religious faith might be as firm and clear as any proposition whatever; so that I need not be under the least uneasiness when it should be attacked. JOHNSON. "Sir, you cannot answer all objections. You have demonstration for a first cause: you see he must be good as well make him otherwise, and goodness of itself as powerful, because there is nothing to is preferable. Yet you have against this, what is very certain, the unhappiness of human life. This, however, gives us reason to hope for a future state of compensation, that there may be a perfect system. But of that we were not sure till we had a positive revelation." I told him that his "Rasselas" had often made me unhappy; for it represented the misery of human life so well, [He means that if it had not been in performance of a promise, he would not have done any worldly business on Easter eve. What the dedication was does not appear.-ED.] and so convincingly to a thinking mind, that if at any time the impression wore off, and I felt myself easy, I began to suspect some delusion. the well-known names with which it is filled, it would be nothing: the names carry the poet, not the poet the names." MUSGRAVE. "A temporary poem always entertains us." 99 JOHNSON. "So does an account of the criminals hanged yesterday entertain us." land of Ireland, son to the historian, Mrs. Cholmondeley, and some more ladies. "The Project," a new poem, was read to the company by Dr. Musgrave. JOHNSON. [In reviewing my time from Easter," Sir, it has no power. Were it not for 1777, I found a very melancholy and shameful blank. So little has been done, that days and months are without any trace. My health has, indeed, been very much interrupted. My nights have been commonly, not only restless, but painful and fatiguing. My respiration was once so difficult, that an asthma was suspected. I could not walk, but with great difficulty, from Stowhill to Greenhill. Some relaxation of my breast has been procured, I think, by opium, which, though it never gives me sleep, frees my breast from spasms. I have written a little of the Lives of the Poets. I think with all my usual vigour. I have made sermons, perhaps as readily as formerly. My memory is less faithful in retaining names, and, I am afraid, in retaining occurrences. Of this vacillation and vagrancy of mind, I impute a great part to a fortuitous and unsettled life, and therefore purpose to spend my time with more method.] He proceeded;-" Demosthenes Taylor, as he was called (that is, the editor of Demosthenes), was the most silent man, the merest statue of a man, that I have ever seen. I once dined in company with him, and all he said during the whole time was no more than Richard. How a man should say only Richard, it is not easy to imagine. But it was thus: Dr. Douglas was talking of Dr. Zachary Grey, and ascribing to him something that was written by Dr. Richard Grey. So, to correct him, Taylor said Richard.'" Mrs. Cholmondeley, in a high flow of spirits, exhibited some lively sallies of hyperbolical compliment to Johnson, with whom she had been long acquainted, and was very easy. He was quick in catching the manner of the moment, and answered her somewhat in the style of the hero of a romance, "Madam, you crown me with unfading laurels." Murph. Essay, p. 137. [Sitting at table one day with Mrs. Cholmondeley, he took hold of her hand in the middle of dinner, and held it close to his eye, wondering at the delicacy and whiteness, till, with a smile, she asked, "Will he give it to me again when he has done with it?"] On Monday, 20th April, I found him at home in the morning. We talked of a gentleman who we apprehended was gradually involving his circumstances by bad management. JOHNSON. Wasting a fortune is evaporation by a thousand imperceptible means. If it were a stream, they 'd stop it. You must speak to him. It is really miserable. Were he a gamester, it could be said he had hopes of winning. Were he a bankrupt in trade, he might have grown rich; but he has neither spirit to spend, nor resolution to spare. He does not spend fast enough to have pleasure from it. He I happened, I know not how, to say that has the crime of prodigality, and the wretch- a pamphlet meant a prose piece. JOHNSON. edness of parsimony. If a man is killed in "No, sir. A few sheets of poetry unbound a duel, he is killed as many a one has been are a pamphlet 3, as much as a few sheets killed; but it is a sad thing for a man to lie of prose." MUSGRAVE. "A pamphlet may down and die; to bleed to death, because be understood to mean a poetical piece in he has not fortitude enough to sear the Westminster-hall, that is, in formal lanwound, or even to stitch it up." I cannot guage; but in common language it is underbut pause a moment to admire the fecundi- stood to mean prose." JOHNSON. (And here ty of fancy, and choice of language, which was one of the many instances of his knowing in this instance, and, indeed, on almost all clearly and telling exactly how a thing is), occasions, he displayed. It was well ob-ides, and authour of "Dissertations on the served by Dr. Percy, (afterwards Bishop of Dromore), "The conversation of Johnson is strong and clear, and may be compared to an antique statue, where every vein and muscle is distinct and bold. Ordinary conversation resembles an inferiour cast." Grecian Mythology," &c. published in 1782, after He 3 Dr. Johnson is here perfectly correct, and is supported by the usage of preceding writers. So in Musarum Delicia, a collection of poems, 8vo. 1656, (the writer is speaking of Suckling's play entitled Aglaura, printed in folio): "This great voluminous pamphlet may be said, "A pamphlet is understood in common language to mean prose, only from this, that there is so much more prose written than poetry; as when we say a book, prose is understood for the same reason, though a book may as well be in poetry as in prose. We understand what is most general, and we name what is less frequent." 66 of Wakefield' I myself did not think would have had much success. It was written and sold to a bookseller before his Traveller,' but published after; so little expecta tion had the bookseller from it. Had it been sold after The Traveller,' he might have had twice as much money for it, though sixty guineas was no mean price. The bookseller had the advantage of Goldsmith's reputation from 'The Traveller 'in the sale, though Goldsmith had it not in selling the copy." SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. We went to the drawing-room, where was a considerable increase of company. Several of us got round Dr. Johnson, and complained that he would not give us an exact catalogue of his works, that there might be a complete edition. He smiled, and evaded our entreaties. That he intend We talked of a lady's verses on Ireland. MISS REYNOLDS. "Have you seen them, sir?" JOHNSON. "No, madam; I have seen a translation from Horace, by one of her daughters. She showed it me." Miss" The Beggar's Opera affords a proof how REYNOLDS. "And how was it, sir?" strangely people will differ in opinion about JOHNSON. Why, very well, for a young a literary performance. Burke thinks it miss's verses; that is to say, compared with has no merit." JOHNSON." It was refused excellence, nothing; but very well, for the by one of the houses; but I should have person who wrote them. I am vexed at thought it would succeed, not from any being shown verses in that manner." Miss great excellence in the writing, but from REYNOLDS. "But if they should be good, the novelty, and the general spirit and why not give them hearty praise?" JOHN- gaiety of the piece, which keeps the audiSON. “Why, madam, because I have not ence always attentive, and dismisses them then got the better of my bad humour from in good humour." having been shown them. You must consider, madam, beforehand they may be bad as well as good. Nobody has a right to put another under such a difficulty, that he must either hurt the person by telling the truth, or hurt himself by telling what is not true." Boswell. "A man often shows his writings to people of eminence, to ob-ed to do it, I have no doubt, because I have tain from them, either from their good-nature, or from their not being able to tell the truth firmly, a commendation, of which he may afterwards avail himself." JOHNSON. "Very true, sir. Therefore, the man who is asked by an authour, what he thinks of his work, is put to the torture, and is not obliged to speak the truth; so that what he says is not considered as his opinion; yet he has said it, and cannot retract it; and this authour, when mankind are hunting him with a canister at his tail, can say, I would not have published, had not Johnson, or Reynolds, or Musgrave, or some other good judge commended the work.' Yet I consider it as a very difficult question in conscience, whether one should advise a man not to publish a work, if profit be his object; for the man may say, Had it not been for you, I should have had the money.' Now you cannot be sure; for you have only your own opinion, and the publick may think very differently." SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. "You must upon such an occasion have two judgments; one as to the real value of the work, the other as to what may please the general taste at the time." JOHN heard him say so; and I have in my possession an imperfect list, fairly written out, which he entitles Historia Studiorum. I once got from one of his friends a list, which there was pretty good reason to suppose was accurate, for it was written down in his presence by this friend, who enumerated each article aloud, and had some of them mentioned to him by Mr. Levett, in concert with whom it was made out; and Johnson, who heard all this, aid not contradict it. But when I showed a copy of this list to him, and mentioned the evidence for its exactness, he laughed, and said, "I was willing to let them go on as they pleas ed, and never interfered." Upon which I read it to him, article by article, and got him positively to own or refuse; and then, having obtained certainty so far, I got some other articles confirmed by him directly, and, afterwards, from time to time, made additions under his sanction. His friend, Edward Cave, having been mentioned, he told us, "Cave used to sell ten thousand of The Gentleman's Magazine;' yet such was then his minute attention and anxiety that the sale should not suffer the smallest decrease, that he would name a particular person who he heard had talked of leaving off the Magazine, and would say, 'Let us have something good next month." " It was observed, that avarice was inherent in some dispositions. JOHNSON. "No man was born a miser, because no man was born to possession. Every man is born cupidus-desirous of getting; but not avarus-desirous of keeping." BOSWELL. "I have heard old Mr. Sheridan maintain, with much ingenuity, that a complete miser is a happy man: a miser who gives himself wholly to the one passion of saving." JOHNSON. "That is flying in the face of all the world, who have called an avaricious man a miser, because he is miserable. No, sir; a man who both spends and saves money is the happiest man, because he has both enjoyments." that is to say, a modus as to the tithes and certain fines." He observed, "A man cannot with propriety speak of himself, except he relates simple facts; as, 'I was at Richmond:' or what depends on mensuration; as, 'I am six feet high.' He is sure he has been at Richmond; he is sure he is six feet high; but he cannot be sure he is wise, or that he has any other excellence. Then, all censure of a man's self is oblique praise. It is in order to show how much he can spare. It has all the invidiousness of self-praise and all the reproach of falsehood." BOSWELL. The conversation having turned on bon-"Sometimes it may proceed from a man's mots, he quoted, from one of the Ana, an exquisite instance of flattery in a maid of honour in France, who being asked by the queen what o'clock it was, answered, "What your majesty pleases ." He admitted that Mr. Burke's classical pun 2 upon Mr. Wilkes's being carried on the shoulders of the mob, 1 SAT. 1. 106. 66 [The anecdote is told in " Menagiana," vol. iii. p. 104, but not of a “maid of honour," nor as an instance of “exquisite flattery.' M. de Uzès était chevalier d'honneur de la reine. Cette princesse lui demanda un jour quelle heure il était; il répondit, Madame, l'heure qu'il plaira à votre majesté.' Menage tells it as a pleasantry of M. de Uzès; but M. de la Monnoye says, that this duke was remarkable for naïvetés and blunders, and was a kind of butt, to whom the wits of the court used to attribute all manner of absurdities.-ED.] 2 [See ante, vol. i. p. 330.-ED.] 3 See this question fully investigated in the notes upon the "Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides," ante, v. i. p. 330, et seq. And here, as a lawyer mindful of the maxim Suum cuique tribuito, I cannot forbear to mention, that the additional note, beginning with "I find since the former edition," is not mine, but was obligingly furnished by Mr. Malone, who was so kind as to superintend the press while I was in Scotland, and the first part of the second edition was printing. He would not allow me to ascribe it to its proper authour; but, as it is exquisitely acute and elegant, I take this opportunity, without his knowledge, to do him justice.-BoswELL. This, as both Mr. Bindley and Dr. Kearney have observed to me, is the motto to "An Inquiry into Customary Estates and Tenants' Rights, &c.; with some Considerations for restraining ex strong consciousness of his faults being observed. He knows that others would throw him down, and therefore he had better lie down softly of his own accord." .. On Tuesday, April 28, he was engaged to dine at General Paoli's, where, as I have already observed, I was still entertained in elegant hospitality, and with all the ease and comfort of a home. I called on him, and accompanied him in a hackney-coach. We stopped first at the bottom of Hedgelane, into which he went to leave a letter, "with good news for a poor man in distress," as he told me. I did not question him particularly as to this. He himself often resembled Lady Bolingbroke's lively description of Pope: that he was un politique aux choux et aux raves." He would say, "I dine to-day in Grosvenor-square; this might be with a duke; or, perhaps, "I dine to-day at the other end of the town; or, "A gentleman of great eminence called on me yesterday." He loved thus to keep things floating in conjecture: Omne ignotum pro magnifico est. I believe I ventured to dissipate the cloud, to unveil the mystery, more freely and frequently than any of his friends. We stopped again at Wirgman's, the well-known toy-shop in St. James'sstreet, at the corner of St. James's-place, to which he had been directed, but not clearly, for he searched about some time, and could not find it at first; and said, "To diwith one." I supposed he meant this as a rect one only to a corner shop is toying play upon the word toy; it was the first time that I knew him stoop to such sport. After he had been some time in the shop, he sent for me to come out of the coach, and help him to choose a pair of silver buckles, as those he had were too small. Probably this alteration in dress had been suggested by Mrs. Thrale, by associating with whom, his external appearance was much improved. He got better clothes; and the dark colour, from which he never deviated, was enliven cessive Fines," by Everard Fleetwood, Esq. 8vo. 1731. But it is, probably, a mere coincidence. Mr. Burke, perhaps, never saw that pamphlet.— Malone. ED. Piozzi, p. 63, 4. culated; to obviate which Mr. Spottiswoode ed by metal buttons. His wigs, too, were | At this time fears of an invasion were cirmuch better; and, during their travels in France, he was furnished with a Paris-made wig, of handsome construction. [In general his wigs were very shabby, and their fore parts were burned away by the near approach of the candle, which his short-sightedness rendered necessary in reading. At Streatham, Mr. Thrale's butler had always a better wig ready, and as Johnson passed from the drawing-room, when dinner was announced, the servant would remove the ordinary wig, and replace it with the newer one, and this ludicrous ceremony was performed every day.] This choosing of silver buckles was a negotiation: "Sir," said he, "I will not have the ridiculous large ones now in fashion; and I will give no more than a guinea for a pair." Such were the principles of the business; and, after some examination, he was fitted. As we drove along, I found him in a talking humour, of which I availed myself. BosWELL. "I was this morning in Ridley's shop, sir; and was told, that the collection called 'Johnsoniana'' had sold very much." JOHNSON. "Yet the 'Journey to the Hebrides' has not had a great sale 2." BosWELL. "That is strange." JOHNSON. "Yes, sir; for in that book I have told theworld a great deal that they did not know before." BOSWELL. "I drank chocolate, sir, this morning with Mr. Eld; and, to my no small surprise, found him to be a Staffordshire whig, a being which I did not believe had existed." JOHNSON. "Sir, there are rascals in all countries." BosWELL. "Eld said, a tory was a creature generated between a non-juring parson and one's grandmother." JOHNSON. "And I have always said, the first whig was the devil." BosWELL. "He certainly was, sir. The devil was impatient of subordination; he was the first who resisted power: 'Better to reign in hell, than serve in heaven.'"' At General Paoli's were Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mr. Langton, Marchese Gherardi of Lombardy, and Mr. John Spottiswoode the younger, of Spottiswoode 3, the solicitor. [See ante, p. 31.—ED.] 2 Here he either was mistaken, or had a different notion of an extensive sale from what is generally entertained for the fact is, that four thousand copies of that excellent work were sold very quickly. A new edition has been printed since his death, besides that in the collection of his works. -BOSWELL. Another edition has been printed since Mr. Boswell wrote the above, besides repeated editions in the general collection of his works during the last twenty years.-MALONE. We talked of drinking wine. JOHNSON. "I require wine, only when I am alone. I have then often wished for it, and often taken it." SPOTTIS WOODE. "What, by way of a companion, sir?" JOHNSON. "To get rid of myself, to send myself away. Wine gives great pleasure; and every pleasure is of itself a good. It is a good, unless counterbalanced by evil. A man may have a strong reason not to drink wine; and that may be greater than the pleasure. Wine makes a man better pleased with himself. I do not say that it makeshim more pleasing to others. Sometimes it does. But the danger is, that while a man grows better pleased with himself, he may be growing less pleasing to others 4 tionary "-voce, Ilk. "It also signifies the same;' as, Mackintosh of that ilk, denotes a gentleman whose surname and the title of his estate are the same."-BosWELL. 4 It is observed in "Waller's Life," in the Biographia Britannica," that he drank only water; and that while he sat in a company who were drinking wine, "he had the dexterity to accommodate his discourse to the pitch of theirs as 3 In the phraseology of Scotland, I should have it sunk." If excess in drinking be meant, the said, "Mr. John Spottiswoode the younger, of remark is acutely just. But surely, a moderate that ilk." Johnson knew that sense of the word use of wine gives a gaiety of spirits which very well, and has thus explained it in his "Dic-water-drinkers know not.-BOSWELL. |