Boswell's Life of Johnson
Goldsmith, Mr. Chamier, and Sir John Hawkins. They met at the Turk's
Head, in Gerrard-street, Soho, one evening in every week, at seven, and
generally continued their conversation till a pretty late hour. This
club has been gradually increased to its present number, thirty-five:
After about ten years, instead of supping weekly, it was resolved to
dine together once a fortnight during the meeting of Parliament. Their
original tavern having been converted into a private house, they
moved first to Prince's in Sackville-street, then to Le Telier's in
Dover-street, and now meet at Parsloe's, St. James's-street. Between
the time of its formation, and the time at which this work is passing
through the press, (June 1792,) the following persons, now dead, were
members of it: Mr. Dunning, (afterwards Lord Ashburton,) Mr. Samuel
Dyer, Mr. Garrick, Dr. Shipley Bishop of St. Asaph, Mr. Vesey, Mr.
Thomas Warton and Dr. Adam Smith. The present members are,--Mr. Burke,
Mr. Langton, Lord Charlemont, Sir Robert Chambers, Dr. Percy Bishop of
Dromore, Dr. Barnard Bishop of Killaloc, Dr. Marlay Bishop of Clonfert,
Mr. Fox, Dr. George Fordyce, Sir William Scott, Sir Joseph Banks, Sir
Charles Bunbury, Mr. Windham of Norfolk, Mr. Sheridan, Mr. Gibbon, Sir
William Jones, Mr. Colman, Mr. Steevens, Dr. Burney, Dr. Joseph Warton,
Mr. Malone, Lord Ossory, Lord Spencer, Lord Lucan, Lord Palmerston, Lord
Eliot, Lord Macartney, Mr. Richard Burke junior, Sir William Hamilton,
Dr. Warren, Mr. Courtenay, Dr. Hinchcliffe Bishop of Peterborough, the
Duke of Leeds, Dr. Douglas Bishop of Salisbury, and the writer of this
account.
Not very long after the institution of our club, Sir Joshua Reynolds was
speaking of it to Garrick. 'I like it much, (said he), I think I shall
be of you.' When Sir Joshua mentioned this to Dr. Johnson, he was much
displeased with the actor's conceit. 'HE'LL BE OF US, (said Johnson) how
does he know we will PERMIT him? The first Duke in England has no right
to hold such language.' However, when Garrick was regularly proposed
some time afterwards, Johnson, though he had taken a momentary
offence at his arrogance, warmly and kindly supported him, and he was
accordingly elected, was a most agreeable member, and continued to
attend our meetings to the time of his death.
It was Johnson's custom to observe certain days with a pious
abstraction; viz. New-year's-day, the day of his wife's death, Good
Friday, Easter-day, and his own birth-day. He this year says:--'I have
now spent fifty-five years in resolving; having, from the earliest time
almost that I can remember, been forming schemes of a better life. I
have done nothing. The need of doing, therefore, is pressing, since the
time of doing is short. O GOD, grant me to resolve aright, and to keep
my resolutions, for JESUS CHRIST'S sake. Amen.'
About this time he was afflicted with a very severe return of the
hypochondriack disorder, which was ever lurking about him. He was so
ill, as, notwithstanding his remarkable love of company, to be entirely
averse to society, the most fatal symptom of that malady. Dr. Adams
told me, that as an old friend he was admitted to visit him, and that he
found him in a deplorable state, sighing, groaning, talking to himself,
and restlessly walking from room to room. He then used this emphatical
expression of the misery which he felt: 'I would consent to have a limb
amputated to recover my spirits.'
Talking to himself was, indeed, one of his singularities ever since
I knew him. I was certain that he was frequently uttering pious
ejaculations; for fragments of the Lord's Prayer have been distinctly
overheard. His friend Mr. Thomas Davies, of whom Churchill says,
'That Davies hath a very pretty wife,'
when Dr. Johnson muttered 'lead us not into temptation,' used with
waggish and gallant humour to whisper Mrs. Davies, 'You, my dear, are
the cause of this.'
He had another particularity, of which none of his friends ever ventured
to ask an explanation. It appeared to me some superstitious habit, which
he had contracted early, and from which he had never called upon his
reason to disentangle him. This was his anxious care to go out or in at
a door or passage by a certain number of steps from a certain point, or
at least so as that either his right or his left foot, (I am not certain
which,) should constantly make the first actual movement when he came
close to the door or passage. Thus I conjecture: for I have, upon
innumerable occasions, observed him suddenly stop, and then seem to
count his steps with a deep earnestness; and when he had neglected or
gone wrong in this sort of magical movement, I have seen him go back
again, put himself in a proper posture to begin the ceremony, and,
having gone through it, break from his abstraction, walk briskly on, and
join his companion. A strange instance of something of this nature, even
when on horseback, happened when he was in the isle of Sky. Sir Joshua
Reynolds has observed him to go a good way about, rather than cross a
particular alley in Leicester-fields; but this Sir Joshua imputed to his
having had some disagreeable recollection associated with it.
That the most minute singularities which belonged to him, and made very
observable parts of his appearance and manner, may not be omitted, it is
requisite to mention, that while talking or even musing as he sat in his
chair, he commonly held his head to one side towards his right shoulder,
and shook it in a tremulous manner, moving his body backwards and
forwards, and rubbing his left knee in the same direction, with the palm
of his hand. In the intervals of articulating he made various sounds
with his mouth, sometimes as if ruminating, or what is called chewing
the cud, sometimes giving a half whistle, sometimes making his tongue
play backwards from the roof of his mouth, as if clucking like a hen,
and sometimes protruding it against his upper gums in front, as
if pronouncing quickly under his breath, TOO, TOO, TOO: all this
accompanied sometimes with a thoughtful look, but more frequently with
a smile. Generally when he had concluded a period, in the course of
a dispute, by which time he was a good deal exhausted by violence
and vociferation, he used to blow out his breath like a Whale. This
I supposed was a relief to his lungs; and seemed in him to be a
contemptuous mode of expression, as if he had made the arguments of his
opponent fly like chaff before the wind.
1765: AETAT. 56.]--Trinity College, Dublin, at this time surprised
Johnson with a spontaneous compliment of the highest academical honours,
by creating him Doctor of Laws.
He appears this year to have been seized with a temporary fit of
ambition, for he had thoughts both of studying law and of engaging in
politics. His 'Prayer before the Study of Law' is truly admirable:--
'Sept. 26, 1765.
'Almighty GOD, the giver of wisdom, without whose help resolutions are
vain, without whose blessing study is ineffectual; enable me, if it
be thy will, to attain such knowledge as may qualify me to direct the
doubtful, and instruct the ignorant; to prevent wrongs and terminate
contentions; and grant that I may use that knowledge which I shall
attain, to thy glory and my own salvation, for JESUS CHRIST'S sake.
Amen.'
This year was distinguished by his being introduced into the family of
Mr. Thrale, one of the most eminent brewers in England, and Member of
Parliament for the borough of Southwark. Foreigners are not a little
amazed when they hear of brewers, distillers, and men in similar
departments of trade, held forth as persons of considerable consequence.
In this great commercial country it is natural that a situation which
produces much wealth should be considered as very respectable; and,
no doubt, honest industry is entitled to esteem. But, perhaps, the too
rapid advance of men of low extraction tends to lessen the value of that
distinction by birth and gentility, which has ever been found beneficial
to the grand scheme of subordination. Johnson used to give this account
of the rise of Mr. Thrale's father: 'He worked at six shillings a week
for twenty years in the great brewery, which afterwards was his own. The
proprietor of it had an only daughter, who was married to a nobleman. It
was not fit that a peer should continue the business. On the old man's
death, therefore, the brewery was to be sold. To find a purchaser for
so large a property was a difficult matter; and, after some time, it was
suggested, that it would be adviseable to treat with Thrale, a sensible,
active, honest man, who had been employed in the house, and to transfer
the whole to him for thirty thousand pounds, security being taken upon
the property. This was accordingly settled. In eleven years Thrale paid
the purchase-money. He acquired a large fortune, and lived to be Member
of Parliament for Southwark. But what was most remarkable was the
liberality with which he used his riches. He gave his son and daughters
the best education. The esteem which his good conduct procured him from
the nobleman who had married his master's daughter, made him be treated
with much attention; and his son, both at school and at the University
of Oxford, associated with young men of the first rank. His allowance
from his father, after he left college, was splendid; no less than a
thousand a year. This, in a man who had risen as old Thrale did, was
a very extraordinary instance of generosity. He used to say, "If this
young dog does not find so much after I am gone as he expects, let him
remember that he has had a great deal in my own time."'
The son, though in affluent circumstances, had good sense enough to
carry on his father's trade, which was of such extent, that I remember
he once told me, he would not quit it for an annuity of ten thousand a
year; 'Not (said he,) that I get ten thousand a year by it, but it is an
estate to a family.' Having left daughters only, the property was sold
for the immense sum of one hundred and thirty-five thousand pounds; a
magnificent proof of what may be done by fair trade in no long period of
time.
Mr. Thrale had married Miss Hesther Lynch Salusbury, of good Welsh
extraction, a lady of lively talents, improved by education. That
Johnson's introduction into Mr. Thrale's family, which contributed
so much to the happiness of his life, was owing to her desire for his
conversation, is very probable and a general supposition: but it is not
the truth. Mr. Murphy, who was intimate with Mr. Thrale, having spoken
very highly of Dr. Johnson, he was requested to make them acquainted.
This being mentioned to Johnson, he accepted of an invitation to dinner
at Thrale's, and was so much pleased with his reception, both by Mr. and
Mrs. Thrale, and they so much pleased with him, that his invitations to
their house were more and more frequent, till at last he became one
of the family, and an apartment was appropriated to him, both in their
house in Southwark, and in their villa at Streatham.
Johnson had a very sincere esteem for Mr. Thrale, as a man of
excellent principles, a good scholar, well skilled in trade, of a sound
understanding, and of manners such as presented the character of a plain
independent English Squire. As this family will frequently be mentioned
in the course of the following pages, and as a false notion
has prevailed that Mr. Thrale was inferiour, and in some degree
insignificant, compared with Mrs. Thrale, it may be proper to give a
true state of the case from the authority of Johnson himself in his own
words.
'I know no man, (said he,) who is more master of his wife and family
than Thrale. If he but holds up a finger, he is obeyed. It is a great
mistake to suppose that she is above him in literary attainments. She