Boswell's Life of Johnson
is more flippant; but he has ten times her learning: he is a regular
scholar; but her learning is that of a school-boy in one of the lower
forms.' My readers may naturally wish for some representation of the
figures of this couple. Mr. Thrale was tall, well proportioned, and
stately. As for Madam, or my Mistress, by which epithets Johnson used
to mention Mrs. Thrale, she was short, plump, and brisk. She has herself
given us a lively view of the idea which Johnson had of her person, on
her appearing before him in a dark-coloured gown: 'You little creatures
should never wear those sort of clothes, however; they are unsuitable in
every way. What! have not all insects gay colours?' Mr. Thrale gave his
wife a liberal indulgence, both in the choice of their company, and in
the mode of entertaining them. He understood and valued Johnson, without
remission, from their first acquaintance to the day of his death. Mrs.
Thrale was enchanted with Johnson's conversation, for its own sake, and
had also a very allowable vanity in appearing to be honoured with the
attention of so celebrated a man.
Nothing could be more fortunate for Johnson than this connection. He
had at Mr. Thrale's all the comforts and even luxuries of life;
his melancholy was diverted, and his irregular habits lessened by
association with an agreeable and well-ordered family. He was treated
with the utmost respect, and even affection. The vivacity of Mrs.
Thrale's literary talk roused him to cheerfulness and exertion, even
when they were alone. But this was not often the case; for he found
here a constant succession of what gave him the highest enjoyment: the
society of the learned, the witty, and the eminent in every way, who
were assembled in numerous companies, called forth his wonderful powers,
and gratified him with admiration, to which no man could be insensible.
In the October of this year he at length gave to the world his edition
of Shakspeare, which, if it had no other merit but that of producing his
Preface, in which the excellencies and defects of that immortal bard are
displayed with a masterly hand, the nation would have had no reason to
complain.
In 1764 and 1765 it should seem that Dr. Johnson was so busily employed
with his edition of Shakspeare, as to have had little leisure for any
other literary exertion, or, indeed, even for private correspondence.
He did not favour me with a single letter for more than two years, for
which it will appear that he afterwards apologised.
He was, however, at all times ready to give assistance to his friends,
and others, in revising their works, and in writing for them, or greatly
improving their Dedications. In that courtly species of composition no
man excelled Dr. Johnson. Though the loftiness of his mind prevented him
from ever dedicating in his own person, he wrote a very great number
of Dedications for others. Some of these, the persons who were favoured
with them are unwilling should be mentioned, from a too anxious
apprehension, as I think, that they might be suspected of having
received larger assistance; and some, after all the diligence I have
bestowed, have escaped my enquiries. He told me, a great many years ago,
'he believed he had dedicated to all the Royal Family round;' and it was
indifferent to him what was the subject of the work dedicated, provided
it were innocent. He once dedicated some Musick for the German Flute to
Edward, Duke of York. In writing Dedications for others, he considered
himself as by no means speaking his own sentiments.
I returned to London in February,* and found Dr. Johnson in a good house
in Johnson's Court, Fleet-street, in which he had accommodated Miss
Williams with an apartment on the ground floor, while Mr. Levet occupied
his post in the garret: his faithful Francis was still attending upon
him. He received me with much kindness. The fragments of our first
conversation, which I have preserved, are these:
I told him that Voltaire, in a conversation with me, had distinguished
Pope and Dryden thus:--'Pope drives a handsome chariot, with a couple of
neat trim nags; Dryden a coach, and six stately horses.' JOHNSON. 'Why,
Sir, the truth is, they both drive coaches and six; but Dryden's horses
are either galloping or stumbling: Pope's go at a steady even trot.' He
said of Goldsmith's Traveller, which had been published in my absence,
'There has not been so fine a poem since Pope's time.'
* 1766.
Talking of education, 'People have now a-days, (said he,) got a strange
opinion that every thing should be taught by lectures. Now, I cannot see
that lectures can do so much good as reading the books from which the
lectures are taken. I know nothing that can be best taught by lectures,
except where experiments are to be shewn. You may teach chymistry by
lectures.--You might teach making of shoes by lectures!'
At night I supped with him at the Mitre tavern, that we might renew our
social intimacy at the original place of meeting. But there was now a
considerable difference in his way of living. Having had an illness,
in which he was advised to leave off wine, he had, from that period,
continued to abstain from it, and drank only water, or lemonade.
I told him that a foreign friend of his, whom I had met with abroad,
was so wretchedly perverted to infidelity, that he treated the hopes of
immortality with brutal levity; and said, 'As man dies like a dog, let
him lie like a dog.' JOHNSON. 'IF he dies like a dog, LET him lie like
a dog.' I added, that this man said to me, 'I hate mankind, for I think
myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am.' JOHNSON. 'Sir,
he must be very singular in his opinion, if he thinks himself one of the
best of men; for none of his friends think him so.'--He said, 'no honest
man could be a Deist; for no man could be so after a fair examination of
the proofs of Christianity.' I named Hume. JOHNSON. 'No, Sir; Hume owned
to a clergyman in the bishoprick of Durham, that he had never read the
New Testament with attention.' I mentioned Hume's notion, that all who
are happy are equally happy; a little miss with a new gown at a dancing
school ball, a general at the head of a victorious army, and an orator,
after having made an eloquent speech in a great assembly. JOHNSON. 'Sir,
that all who are happy, are equally happy, is not true. A peasant and a
philosopher may be equally SATISFIED, but not equally HAPPY. Happiness
consists in the multiplicity of agreeable consciousness. A peasant has
not capacity for having equal happiness with a philosopher.'
Dr. Johnson was very kind this evening, and said to me 'You have now
lived five-and-twenty years, and you have employed them well.' 'Alas,
Sir, (said I,) I fear not. Do I know history? Do I know mathematicks? Do
I know law?' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, though you may know no science so well
as to be able to teach it, and no profession so well as to be able to
follow it, your general mass of knowledge of books and men renders you
very capable to make yourself master of any science, or fit yourself for
any profession.' I mentioned that a gay friend had advised me against
being a lawyer, because I should be excelled by plodding block-heads.
JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, in the formulary and statutory part of law, a
plodding block-head may excel; but in the ingenious and rational part of
it a plodding block-head can never excel.'
I talked of the mode adopted by some to rise in the world, by courting
great men, and asked him whether he had ever submitted to it. JOHNSON.
'Why, Sir, I never was near enough to great men, to court them. You may
be prudently attached to great men and yet independent. You are not to
do what you think wrong; and, Sir, you are to calculate, and not pay too
dear for what you get. You must not give a shilling's worth of court for
six-pence worth of good. But if you can get a shilling's worth of good
for six-pence worth of court, you are a fool if you do not pay court.'
I talked to him a great deal of what I had seen in Corsica, and of my
intention to publish an account of it. He encouraged me by saying, 'You
cannot go to the bottom of the subject; but all that you tell us will be
new to us. Give us as many anecdotes as you can.'
Our next meeting at the Mitre was on Saturday the 15th of February, when
I presented to him my old and most intimate friend, the Reverend Mr.
Temple, then of Cambridge. I having mentioned that I had passed some
time with Rousseau in his wild retreat, and having quoted some remark
made by Mr. Wilkes, with whom I had spent many pleasant hours in Italy,
Johnson said (sarcastically,) 'It seems, Sir, you have kept very good
company abroad, Rousseau and Wilkes!' Thinking it enough to defend
one at a time, I said nothing as to my gay friend, but answered with a
smile, 'My dear Sir, you don't call Rousseau bad company. Do you really
think HIM a bad man?' JOHNSON. 'Sir, if you are talking jestingly of
this, I don't talk with you. If you mean to be serious, I think him one
of the worst of men; a rascal who ought to be hunted out of society, as
he has been. Three or four nations have expelled him; and it is a shame
that he is protected in this country.' BOSWELL. 'I don't deny, Sir, but
that his novel may, perhaps, do harm; but I cannot think his intention
was bad.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, that will not do. We cannot prove any man's
intention to be bad. You may shoot a man through the head, and say you
intended to miss him; but the Judge will order you to be hanged. An
alleged want of intention, when evil is committed, will not be allowed
in a court of justice. Rousseau, Sir, is a very bad man. I would sooner
sign a sentence for his transportation, than that of any felon who has
gone from the Old Bailey these many years. Yes, I should like to have
him work in the plantations.' BOSWELL. 'Sir, do you think him as bad
a man as Voltaire?' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, it is difficult to settle the
proportion of iniquity between them.'
On his favourite subject of subordination, Johnson said, 'So far is it
from being true that men are naturally equal, that no two people can be
half an hour together, but one shall acquire an evident superiority over
the other.'
I mentioned the advice given us by philosophers, to console ourselves,
when distressed or embarrassed, by thinking of those who are in a worse
situation than ourselves. This, I observed, could not apply to all, for
there must be some who have nobody worse than they are. JOHNSON. 'Why,
to be sure, Sir, there are; but they don't know it. There is no being
so poor and so contemptible, who does not think there is somebody still
poorer, and still more contemptible.'
As my stay in London at this time was very short, I had not many
opportunities of being with Dr. Johnson; but I felt my veneration for
him in no degree lessened, by my having seen multoram hominum mores et
urbes. On the contrary, by having it in my power to compare him with
many of the most celebrated persons of other countries, my admiration of
his extraordinary mind was increased and confirmed.
The roughness, indeed, which sometimes appeared in his manners, was more
striking to me now, from my having been accustomed to the studied smooth
complying habits of the Continent; and I clearly recognised in him, not
without respect for his honest conscientious zeal, the same indignant
and sarcastical mode of treating every attempt to unhinge or weaken good
principles.
One evening when a young gentleman teazed him with an account of
the infidelity of his servant, who, he said, would not believe the
scriptures, because he could not read them in the original tongues,
and be sure that they were not invented, 'Why, foolish fellow, (said
Johnson,) has he any better authority for almost every thing that he