Boswell's Life of Johnson
Hume said to me, he was no more uneasy to think he should NOT BE after
this life, than that he HAD NOT BEEN before he began to exist. JOHNSON.
Sir, if he really thinks so, his perceptions are disturbed; he is mad:
if he does not think so, he lies. He may tell you, he holds his finger
in the flame of a candle, without feeling pain; would you believe him?
When he dies, he at least gives up all he has.' BOSWELL. 'Foote, Sir,
told me, that when he was very ill he was not afraid to die.' JOHNSON.
'It is not true, Sir. Hold a pistol to Foote's breast, or to Hume's
breast, and threaten to kill them, and you'll see how they behave.'
BOSWELL. 'But may we not fortify our minds for the approach of death?'
Here I am sensible I was in the wrong, to bring before his view what he
ever looked upon with horrour; for although when in a celestial frame,
in his Vanity of Human Wishes he has supposed death to be 'kind Nature's
signal for retreat,' from this state of being to 'a happier seat,'
his thoughts upon this aweful change were in general full of dismal
apprehensions. His mind resembled the vast amphitheatre, the Colisaeum
at Rome. In the centre stood his judgement, which, like a mighty
gladiator, combated those apprehensions that, like the wild beasts of
the Arena, were all around in cells, ready to be let out upon him. After
a conflict, he drives them back into their dens; but not killing them,
they were still assailing him. To my question, whether we might not
fortify our minds for the approach of death, he answered, in a passion,
'No, Sir, let it alone. It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives.
The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.' He
added, (with an earnest look,) 'A man knows it must be so, and submits.
It will do him no good to whine.'
I attempted to continue the conversation. He was so provoked, that he
said, 'Give us no more of this;' and was thrown into such a state
of agitation, that he expressed himself in a way that alarmed and
distressed me; shewed an impatience that I should leave him, and when I
was going away, called to me sternly, 'Don't let us meet tomorrow.'
I went home exceedingly uneasy. All the harsh observations which I had
ever heard made upon his character, crowded into my mind; and I seemed
to myself like the man who had put his head into the lion's mouth a
great many times with perfect safety, but at last had it bit off.
Next morning I sent him a note, stating, that I might have been in the
wrong, but it was not intentionally; he was therefore, I could not help
thinking, too severe upon me. That notwithstanding our agreement not to
meet that day, I would call on him in my way to the city, and stay five
minutes by my watch. 'You are, (said I,) in my mind, since last night,
surrounded with cloud and storm. Let me have a glimpse of sunshine, and
go about my affairs in serenity and chearfulness.'
Upon entering his study, I was glad that he was not alone, which would
have made our meeting more awkward. There were with him, Mr. Steevens
and Mr. Tyers, both of whom I now saw for the first time. My note
had, on his own reflection, softened him, for he received me very
complacently; so that I unexpectedly found myself at ease, and joined in
the conversation.
I whispered him, 'Well, Sir, you are now in good humour. JOHNSON. 'Yes,
Sir.' I was going to leave him, and had got as far as the staircase.
He stopped me, and smiling, said, 'Get you gone IN;' a curious mode of
inviting me to stay, which I accordingly did for some time longer.
This little incidental quarrel and reconciliation, which, perhaps, I
may be thought to have detailed too minutely, must be esteemed as one of
many proofs which his friends had, that though he might be charged with
bad humour at times, he was always a good-natured man; and I have
heard Sir Joshua Reynolds, a nice and delicate observer of manners,
particularly remark, that when upon any occasion Johnson had been
rough to any person in company, he took the first opportunity of
reconciliation, by drinking to him, or addressing his discourse to him;
but if he found his dignified indirect overtures sullenly neglected, he
was quite indifferent, and considered himself as having done all that he
ought to do, and the other as now in the wrong.
I went to him early on the morning of the tenth of November. 'Now (said
he,) that you are going to marry, do not expect more from life, than
life will afford. You may often find yourself out of humour, and you may
often think your wife not studious enough to please you; and yet you
may have reason to consider yourself as upon the whole very happily
married.'
1770: AETAT. 61.]--During this year there was a total cessation of
all correspondence between Dr. Johnson and me, without any coldness on
either side, but merely from procrastination, continued from day to day;
and as I was not in London, I had no opportunity of enjoying his company
and recording his conversation. To supply this blank, I shall present
my readers with some Collectanea, obligingly furnished to me by the Rev.
Dr. Maxwell, of Falkland, in Ireland, sometime assistant preacher at the
Temple, and for many years the social friend of Johnson, who spoke of
him with a very kind regard.
'His general mode of life, during my acquaintance, seemed to be pretty
uniform. About twelve o'clock I commonly visited him, and frequently
found him in bed, or declaiming over his tea, which he drank very
plentifully. He generally had a levee of morning visitors, chiefly
men of letters; Hawkesworth, Goldsmith, Murphy, Langton, Steevens,
Beaucherk, &c. &c., and sometimes learned ladies, particularly I
remember a French lady of wit and fashion doing him the honour of a
visit. He seemed to me to be considered as a kind of publick oracle,
whom every body thought they had a right to visit and consult; and
doubtless they were well rewarded. I never could discover how he found
time for his compositions. He declaimed all the morning, then went to
dinner at a tavern, where he commonly staid late, and then drank his tea
at some friend's house, over which he loitered a great while, but seldom
took supper. I fancy he must have read and wrote chiefly in the night,
for I can scarcely recollect that he ever refused going with me to
a tavern, and he often went to Ranelagh, which he deemed a place of
innocent recreation.
'He frequently gave all the silver in his pocket to the poor, who
watched him, between his house and the tavern where he dined. He walked
the streets at all hours, and said he was never robbed, for the rogues
knew he had little money, nor had the appearance of having much.
'Though the most accessible and communicative man alive; yet when he
suspected he was invited to be exhibited, he constantly spurned the
invitation.
'Two young women from Staffordshire visited him when I was present, to
consult him on the subject of Methodism, to which they were inclined.
"Come, (said he,) you pretty fools, dine with Maxwell and me at the
Mitre, and we will talk over that subject;" which they did, and after
dinner he took one of them upon his knee, and fondled her for half an
hour together.
'Johnson was much attached to London: he observed, that a man stored his
mind better there, than any where else; and that in remote situations a
man's body might be feasted, but his mind was starved, and his faculties
apt to degenerate, from want of exercise and competition. No place, (he
said,) cured a man's vanity or arrogance so well as London; for as no
man was either great or good per se, but as compared with others not so
good or great, he was sure to find in the metropolis many his equals,
and some his superiours. He observed, that a man in London was in less
danger of falling in love indiscreetly, than any where else; for there
the difficulty of deciding between the conflicting pretensions of a vast
variety of objects, kept him safe. He told me, that he had frequently
been offered country preferment, if he would consent to take orders; but
he could not leave the improved society of the capital, or consent to
exchange the exhilarating joys and splendid decorations of publick life,
for the obscurity, insipidity, and uniformity of remote situations.
'Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, he said, was the only book that ever
took him out of bed two hours sooner than he wished to rise.
'When exasperated by contradiction, he was apt to treat his opponents
with too much acrimony: as, "Sir, you don't see your way through that
question:"--"Sir, you talk the language of ignorance." On my observing
to him that a certain gentleman had remained silent the whole evening,
in the midst of a very brilliant and learned society, "Sir, (said he,)
the conversation overflowed, and drowned him."
'He observed, that the established clergy in general did not preach
plain enough; and that polished periods and glittering sentences flew
over the heads of the common people, without any impression upon
their hearts. Something might be necessary, he observed, to excite the
affections of the common people, who were sunk in languor and lethargy,
and therefore he supposed that the new concomitants of methodism might
probably produce so desirable an effect. The mind, like the body, he
observed, delighted in change and novelty, and even in religion itself,
courted new appearances and modifications. Whatever might be thought of
some methodist teachers, he said, he could scarcely doubt the sincerity
of that man, who travelled nine hundred miles in a month, and preached
twelve times a week; for no adequate reward, merely temporal, could be
given for such indefatigable labour.
'In a Latin conversation with the Pere Boscovitch, at the house of Mrs.
Cholmondeley, I heard him maintain the superiority of Sir Isaac Newton
over all foreign philosophers, with a dignity and eloquence that
surprized that learned foreigner. It being observed to him, that a rage
for every thing English prevailed much in France after Lord Chatham's
glorious war, he said, he did not wonder at it, for that we had drubbed
those fellows into a proper reverence for us, and that their national
petulance required periodical chastisement.
'Speaking of a dull tiresome fellow, whom he chanced to meet, he said,
"That fellow seems to me to possess but one idea, and that is a wrong
one."
'Much enquiry having been made concerning a gentleman, who had quitted
a company where Johnson was, and no information being obtained; at last
Johnson observed, that "he did not care to speak ill of any man behind
his back, but he believed the gentleman was an ATTORNEY."
'A gentleman who had been very unhappy in marriage, married immediately
after his wife died: Johnson said, it was the triumph of hope over
experience.
'He observed, that a man of sense and education should meet a suitable
companion in a wife. It was a miserable thing when the conversation
could only be such as, whether the mutton should be boiled or roasted,
and probably a dispute about that.
'He did not approve of late marriages, observing that more was lost in
point of time, than compensated for by any possible advantages. Even ill
assorted marriages were preferable to cheerless celibacy.
'He said, foppery was never cured; it was the bad stamina of the mind,
which, like those of the body, were never rectified: once a coxcomb, and
always a coxcomb.
'Being told that Gilbert Cowper called him the Caliban of literature;
"Well, (said he,) I must dub him the Punchinello."
'He said few people had intellectual resources sufficient to forego the
pleasures of wine. They could not otherwise contrive how to fill the
interval between dinner and supper.
'One evening at Mrs. Montagu's, where a splendid company was assembled,