Boswell's Life of Johnson
(answered Johnson,) not to Kings.' But fearing to be misunderstood, he
proceeded to explain himself; and immediately subjoined, 'That for those
who spoke worse of Kings than they deserved, he could find no excuse;
but that he could more easily conceive how some might speak better of
them than they deserved, without any ill intention; for, as Kings had
much in their power to give, those who were favoured by them would
frequently, from gratitude, exaggerate their praises; and as this
proceeded from a good motive, it was certainly excusable, as far as
errour could be excusable.'
The King then asked him what he thought of Dr. Hill. Johnson answered,
that he was an ingenious man, but had no veracity; and immediately
mentioned, as an instance of it, an assertion of that writer, that he
had seen objects magnified to a much greater degree by using three or
four microscopes at a time, than by using one. 'Now, (added Johnson,)
every one acquainted with microscopes knows, that the more of them he
looks through, the less the object will appear.' 'Why, (replied the
King,) this is not only telling an untruth, but telling it clumsily;
for, if that be the case, every one who can look through a microscope
will be able to detect him.'
'I now, (said Johnson to his friends, when relating what had passed)
began to consider that I was depreciating this man in the estimation
of his Sovereign, and thought it was time for me to say something that
might be more favourable.' He added, therefore, that Dr. Hill was,
notwithstanding, a very curious observer; and if he would have been
contented to tell the world no more than he knew, he might have been
a very considerable man, and needed not to have recourse to such mean
expedients to raise his reputation.
The King then talked of literary journals, mentioned particularly the
Journal des Savans, and asked Johnson if it was well done. Johnson said,
it was formerly very well done, and gave some account of the persons who
began it, and carried it on for some years; enlarging, at the same time,
on the nature and use of such works. The King asked him if it was well
done now. Johnson answered, he had no reason to think that it was. The
King then asked him if there were any other literary journals published
in this kingdom, except the Monthly and Critical Reviews; and on being
answered there were no other, his Majesty asked which of them was the
best: Johnson answered, that the Monthly Review was done with most care,
the Critical upon the best principles; adding that the authours of the
Monthly Review were enemies to the Church. This the King said he was
sorry to hear.
The conversation next turned on the Philosophical Transactions, when
Johnson observed, that they had now a better method of arranging their
materials than formerly. 'Aye, (said the King,) they are obliged to
Dr. Johnson for that;' for his Majesty had heard and remembered the
circumstance, which Johnson himself had forgot.
His Majesty expressed a desire to have the literary biography of this
country ably executed, and proposed to Dr. Johnson to undertake it.
Johnson signified his readiness to comply with his Majesty's wishes.
During the whole of this interview, Johnson talked to his Majesty with
profound respect, but still in his firm manly manner, with a sonorous
voice, and never in that subdued tone which is commonly used at the
levee and in the drawing-room. After the King withdrew, Johnson shewed
himself highly pleased with his Majesty's conversation, and gracious
behaviour. He said to Mr. Barnard, 'Sir, they may talk of the King as
they will; but he is the finest gentleman I have ever seen.' And he
afterwards observed to Mr. Langton, 'Sir, his manners are those of as
fine a gentleman as we may suppose Lewis the Fourteenth or Charles the
Second.'
At Sir Joshua Reynolds's, where a circle of Johnson's friends was
collected round him to hear his account of this memorable conversation,
Dr. Joseph Warton, in his frank and lively manner, was very active in
pressing him to mention the particulars. 'Come now, Sir, this is an
interesting matter; do favour us with it.' Johnson, with great good
humour, complied.
He told them, 'I found his Majesty wished I should talk, and I made it
my business to talk. I find it does a man good to be talked to by his
Sovereign. In the first place, a man cannot be in a passion--.' Here
some question interrupted him, which is to be regretted, as he certainly
would have pointed out and illustrated many circumstances of advantage,
from being in a situation, where the powers of the mind are at once
excited to vigorous exertion, and tempered by reverential awe.
During all the time in which Dr. Johnson was employed in relating to the
circle at Sir Joshua Reynolds's the particulars of what passed between
the King and him, Dr. Goldsmith remained unmoved upon a sopha at some
distance, affecting not to join in the least in the eager curiosity
of the company. He assigned as a reason for his gloom and seeming
inattention, that he apprehended Johnson had relinquished his purpose of
furnishing him with a Prologue to his play, with the hopes of which he
had been flattered; but it was strongly suspected that he was fretting
with chagrin and envy at the singular honour Dr. Johnson had lately
enjoyed. At length, the frankness and simplicity of his natural
character prevailed. He sprung from the sopha, advanced to Johnson, and
in a kind of flutter, from imagining himself in the situation which
he had just been hearing described, exclaimed, 'Well, you acquitted
yourself in this conversation better than I should have done; for I
should have bowed and stammered through the whole of it.'
His diary affords no light as to his employment at this time. He passed
three months at Lichfield; and I cannot omit an affecting and solemn
scene there, as related by himself:--
'Sunday, Oct. 18, 1767. Yesterday, Oct. 17, at about ten in the morning,
I took my leave for ever of my dear old friend, Catharine Chambers, who
came to live with my mother about 1724, and has been but little parted
from us since. She buried my father, my brother, and my mother. She is
now fifty-eight years old.
'I desired all to withdraw, then told her that we were to part for ever;
that as Christians, we should part with prayer; and that I would, if she
was willing, say a short prayer beside her. She expressed great desire
to hear me; and held up her poor hands, as she lay in bed, with great
fervour, while I prayed, kneeling by her, nearly in the following words:
'Almighty and most merciful Father, whose loving kindness is over all
thy works, behold, visit, and relieve this thy servant, who is grieved
with sickness. Grant that the sense of her weakness may add strength to
her faith, and seriousness to her repentance. And grant that by the help
of thy Holy Spirit, after the pains and labours of this short life, we
may all obtain everlasting happiness, through JESUS CHRIST our Lord; for
whose sake hear our prayers. Amen. Our Father, &c.
'I then kissed her. She told me, that to part was the greatest pain that
she had ever felt, and that she hoped we should meet again in a better
place. I expressed, with swelled eyes, and great emotion of tenderness,
the same hopes. We kissed, and parted. I humbly hope to meet again, and
to part no more.'
1768: AETAT. 59]--It appears from his notes of the state of his mind,
that he suffered great perturbation and distraction in 1768. Nothing of
his writing was given to the publick this year, except the Prologue to
his friend Goldsmith's comedy of The Good-natured Man. The first lines
of this Prologue are strongly characteristical of the dismal gloom of
his mind; which in his case, as in the case of all who are distressed
with the same malady of imagination, transfers to others its own
feelings. Who could suppose it was to introduce a comedy, when Mr.
Bensley solemnly began,
'Press'd with the load of life, the weary mind
Surveys the general toil of human kind.'
But this dark ground might make Goldsmith's humour shine the more.
In the spring of this year, having published my Account of Corsica,
with the Journal of a Tour to that Island, I returned to London, very
desirous to see Dr. Johnson, and hear him upon the subject. I found
he was at Oxford, with his friend Mr. Chambers, who was now Vinerian
Professor, and lived in New Inn Hall. Having had no letter from him
since that in which he criticised the Latinity of my Thesis, and having
been told by somebody that he was offended at my having put into my Book
an extract of his letter to me at Paris, I was impatient to be with him,
and therefore followed him to Oxford, where I was entertained by Mr.
Chambers, with a civility which I shall ever gratefully remember. I
found that Dr. Johnson had sent a letter to me to Scotland, and that I
had nothing to complain of but his being more indifferent to my anxiety
than I wished him to be. Instead of giving, with the circumstances of
time and place, such fragments of his conversation as I preserved during
this visit to Oxford, I shall throw them together in continuation.
Talking of some of the modern plays, he said False Delicacy was totally
void of character. He praised Goldsmith's Good-natured Man; said, it was
the best comedy that had appeared since The Provoked Husband, and that
there had not been of late any such character exhibited on the stage
as that of Croaker. I observed it was the Suspirius of his Rambler.
He said, Goldsmith had owned he had borrowed it from thence. 'Sir,
(continued he,) there is all the difference in the world between
characters of nature and characters of manners; and THERE is the
difference between the characters of Fielding and those of Richardson.
Characters of manners are very entertaining; but they are to be
understood by a more superficial observer than characters of nature,
where a man must dive into the recesses of the human heart.'
It always appeared to me that he estimated the compositions of
Richardson too highly, and that he had an unreasonable prejudice against
Fielding. In comparing those two writers, he used this expression: 'that
there was as great a difference between them as between a man who knew
how a watch was made, and a man who could tell the hour by looking on
the dial-plate.'
'I have not been troubled for a long time with authours desiring my
opinion of their works. I used once to be sadly plagued with a man who
wrote verses, but who literally had no other notion of a verse, but that
it consisted of ten syllables. Lay your knife and your fork, across your
plate, was to him a verse:
Lay your knife and your fork, across your plate.
As he wrote a great number of verses, he sometimes by chance made good
ones, though he did not know it.'
Johnson expatiated on the advantages of Oxford for learning. 'There is
here, Sir, (said he,) such a progressive emulation. The students are
anxious to appear well to their tutors; the tutors are anxious to have
their pupils appear well in the college; the colleges are anxious
to have their students appear well in the University; and there are
excellent rules of discipline in every college. That the rules are
sometimes ill observed, may be true; but is nothing against the system.
The members of an University may, for a season, be unmindful of their
duty. I am arguing for the excellency of the institution.'
He said he had lately been a long while at Lichfield, but had grown very
weary before he left it. BOSWELL. 'I wonder at that, Sir; it is your
native place.' JOHNSON. 'Why, so is Scotland YOUR native place.'
His prejudice against Scotland appeared remarkably strong at this time.
When I talked of our advancement in literature, 'Sir, (said he,) you