Boswell's Life of Johnson
singular character. He was a native of Ireland, and a contemporary with
Mr. Burke at Trinity College, Dublin, but did not then give much promise
of future celebrity. He, however, observed to Mr. Malone, that 'though
he made no great figure in mathematicks, which was a study in much
repute there, he could turn an Ode of Horace into English better than
any of them.' He afterwards studied physick at Edinburgh, and upon the
Continent; and I have been informed, was enabled to pursue his travels
on foot, partly by demanding at Universities to enter the lists as a
disputant, by which, according to the custom of many of them, he was
entitled to the premium of a crown, when luckily for him his challenge
was not accepted; so that, as I once observed to Dr. Johnson, he
DISPUTED his passage through Europe. He then came to England, and was
employed successively in the capacities of an usher to an academy, a
corrector of the press, a reviewer, and a writer for a news-paper.
He had sagacity enough to cultivate assiduously the acquaintance of
Johnson, and his faculties were gradually enlarged by the contemplation
of such a model. To me and many others it appeared that he studiously
copied the manner of Johnson, though, indeed, upon a smaller scale.
At this time I think he had published nothing with his name, though it
was pretty generally known that one Dr. Goldsmith was the authour of An
Enquiry into the present State of polite Learning in Europe, and of The
Citizen of the World, a series of letters supposed to be written
from London by a Chinese. No man had the art of displaying with more
advantage as a writer, whatever literary acquisitions he made. 'Nihil
quod tetigit non ornavit.' His mind resembled a fertile, but thin soil.
There was a quick, but not a strong vegetation, of whatever chanced to
be thrown upon it. No deep root could be struck. The oak of the forest
did not grow there; but the elegant shrubbery and the fragrant parterre
appeared in gay succession. It has been generally circulated and
believed that he was a mere fool in conversation; but, in truth, this
has been greatly exaggerated. He had, no doubt, a more than common share
of that hurry of ideas which we often find in his countrymen, and which
sometimes produces a laughable confusion in expressing them. He was
very much what the French call un etourdi, and from vanity and an
eager desire of being conspicuous wherever he was, he frequently talked
carelessly without knowledge of the subject, or even without thought.
His person was short, his countenance coarse and vulgar, his deportment
that of a scholar aukwardly affecting the easy gentleman. Those who
were in any way distinguished, excited envy in him to so ridiculous an
excess, that the instances of it are hardly credible. When accompanying
two beautiful young ladies* with their mother on a tour in France, he
was seriously angry that more attention was paid to them than to him;
and once at the exhibition of the Fantoccini in London, when those who
sat next him observed with what dexterity a puppet was made to toss a
pike, he could not bear that it should have such praise, and exclaimed
with some warmth, 'Pshaw! I can do it better myself.'
* These were the Misses Horneck, known otherwise as 'Little
Comedy' and 'The Jessamy Bride.'--ED.
He boasted to me at this time of the power of his pen in commanding
money, which I believe was true in a certain degree, though in the
instance he gave he was by no means correct. He told me that he had sold
a novel for four hundred pounds. This was his Vicar of Wakefield. But
Johnson informed me, that he had made the bargain for Goldsmith, and the
price was sixty pounds. 'And, Sir, (said he,) a sufficient price too,
when it was sold; for then the fame of Goldsmith had not been elevated,
as it afterwards was, by his Traveller; and the bookseller had such
faint hopes of profit by his bargain, that he kept the manuscript by
him a long time, and did not publish it till after The Traveller had
appeared. Then, to be sure, it was accidentally worth more money.
Mrs. Piozzi and Sir John Hawkins have strangely misstated the history
of Goldsmith's situation and Johnson's friendly interference, when this
novel was sold. I shall give it authentically from Johnson's own exact
narration:--'I received one morning a message from poor Goldsmith that
he was in great distress, and as it was not in his power to come to
me, begging that I would come to him as soon as possible. I sent him a
guinea, and promised to come to him directly. I accordingly went as soon
as I was drest, and found that his landlady had arrested him for his
rent, at which he was in a violent passion. I perceived that he had
already changed my guinea, and had got a bottle of Madeira and a glass
before him. I put the cork into the bottle, desired he would be calm,
and began to talk to him of the means by which he might be extricated.
He then told me that he had a novel ready for the press, which he
produced to me. I looked into it, and saw its merit; told the landlady
I should soon return, and having gone to a bookseller, sold it for sixty
pounds. I brought Goldsmith the money, and he discharged his rent, not
without rating his landlady in a high tone for having used him so ill.'
My next meeting with Johnson was on Friday the 1st of July, when he and
I and Dr. Goldsmith supped together at the Mitre. I was before this
time pretty well acquainted with Goldsmith, who was one of the brightest
ornaments of the Johnsonian school. Goldsmith's respectful attachment to
Johnson was then at its height; for his own literary reputation had not
yet distinguished him so much as to excite a vain desire of competition
with his great Master. He had increased my admiration of the goodness
of Johnson's heart, by incidental remarks in the course of conversation,
such as, when I mentioned Mr. Levet, whom he entertained under his roof,
'He is poor and honest, which is recommendation enough to Johnson;' and
when I wondered that he was very kind to a man of whom I had heard a
very bad character, 'He is now become miserable; and that insures the
protection of Johnson.'
He talked very contemptuously of Churchill's poetry, observing, that
'it had a temporary currency, only from its audacity of abuse, and
being filled with living names, and that it would sink into oblivion.'
I ventured to hint that he was not quite a fair judge, as Churchill had
attacked him violently. JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, I am a very fair judge. He
did not attack me violently till he found I did not like his poetry;
and his attack on me shall not prevent me from continuing to say what
I think of him, from an apprehension that it may be ascribed to
resentment. No, Sir, I called the fellow a blockhead at first, and I
will call him a blockhead still. However, I will acknowledge that I
have a better opinion of him now, than I once had; for he has shewn more
fertility than I expected. To be sure, he is a tree that cannot produce
good fruit: he only bears crabs. But, Sir, a tree that produces a great
many crabs is better than a tree which produces only a few.'
Let me here apologize for the imperfect manner in which I am obliged to
exhibit Johnson's conversation at this period. In the early part of my
acquaintance with him, I was so wrapt in admiration of his extraordinary
colloquial talents, and so little accustomed to his peculiar mode of
expression, that I found it extremely difficult to recollect and record
his conversation with its genuine vigour and vivacity. In progress
of time, when my mind was, as it were, strongly impregnated with the
Johnsonian oether, I could, with much more facility and exactness, carry
in my memory and commit to paper the exuberant variety of his wisdom and
wit.
At this time MISS Williams, as she was then called, though she did
not reside with him in the Temple under his roof, but had lodgings in
Bolt-court, Fleet-street, had so much of his attention, that he every
night drank tea with her before he went home, however late it might be,
and she always sat up for him. This, it may be fairly conjectured, was
not alone a proof of his regard for HER, but of his own unwillingness
to go into solitude, before that unseasonable hour at which he had
habituated himself to expect the oblivion of repose. Dr. Goldsmith,
being a privileged man, went with him this night, strutting away, and
calling to me with an air of superiority, like that of an esoterick over
an exoterick disciple of a sage of antiquity, 'I go to Miss Williams.' I
confess, I then envied him this mighty privilege, of which he seemed
so proud; but it was not long before I obtained the same mark of
distinction.
On Tuesday the 5th of July, I again visited Johnson.
Talking of London, he observed, 'Sir, if you wish to have a just notion
of the magnitude of this city, you must not be satisfied with seeing its
great streets and squares, but must survey the innumerable little lanes
and courts. It is not in the showy evolutions of buildings, but in the
multiplicity of human habitations which are crowded together, that the
wonderful immensity of London consists.'
On Wednesday, July 6, he was engaged to sup with me at my lodgings in
Downing-street, Westminster. But on the preceding night my landlord
having behaved very rudely to me and some company who were with me, I
had resolved not to remain another night in his house. I was exceedingly
uneasy at the awkward appearance I supposed I should make to Johnson and
the other gentlemen whom I had invited, not being able to receive them
at home, and being obliged to order supper at the Mitre. I went to
Johnson in the morning, and talked of it as a serious distress. He
laughed, and said, 'Consider, Sir, how insignificant this will appear
a twelvemonth hence.'--Were this consideration to be applied to most of
the little vexatious incidents of life, by which our quiet is too often
disturbed, it would prevent many painful sensations. I have tried it
frequently, with good effect. 'There is nothing (continued he) in this
mighty misfortune; nay, we shall be better at the Mitre.'
I had as my guests this evening at the Mitre tavern, Dr. Johnson, Dr.
Goldsmith, Mr. Thomas Davies, Mr. Eccles, an Irish gentleman, for whose
agreeable company I was obliged to Mr. Davies, and the Reverend Mr.
John Ogilvie, who was desirous of being in company with my illustrious
friend, while I, in my turn, was proud to have the honour of shewing one
of my countrymen upon what easy terms Johnson permitted me to live with
him.
Goldsmith, as usual, endeavoured, with too much eagerness, to SHINE, and
disputed very warmly with Johnson against the well-known maxim of the
British constitution, 'the King can do no wrong;' affirming, that 'what
was morally false could not be politically true; and as the King might,
in the exercise of his regal power, command and cause the doing of what
was wrong, it certainly might be said, in sense and in reason, that
he could do wrong.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, you are to consider, that in our
constitution, according to its true principles, the King is the head; he
is supreme; he is above every thing, and there is no power by which he
can be tried. Therefore, it is, Sir, that we hold the King can do no
wrong; that whatever may happen to be wrong in government may not be
above our reach, by being ascribed to Majesty. Redress is always to be
had against oppression, by punishing the immediate agents. The King,
though he should command, cannot force a Judge to condemn a man
unjustly; therefore it is the Judge whom we prosecute and punish.
Political institutions are formed upon the consideration of what will
most frequently tend to the good of the whole, although now and then
exceptions may occur. Thus it is better in general that a nation should