Boswell's Life of Johnson
unwilling to return to Britain. JOHNSON. 'Sir, he is attached to some
woman.' BOSWELL. 'I rather believe, Sir, it is the fine climate which
keeps him there.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, how can you talk so? What is
CLIMATE to happiness? Place me in the heart of Asia, should I not be
exiled? What proportion does climate bear to the complex system of human
life? You may advise me to go to live at Bologna to eat sausages.
The sausages there are the best in the world; they lose much by being
carried.'
On Saturday, May 9, Mr. Dempster and I had agreed to dine by ourselves
at the British Coffee-house. Johnson, on whom I happened to call in
the morning, said he would join us, which he did, and we spent a very
agreeable day, though I recollect but little of what passed.
He said, 'Walpole was a minister given by the King to the people: Pitt
was a minister given by the people to the King,--as an adjunct.'
'The misfortune of Goldsmith in conversation is this: he goes on without
knowing how he is to get off. His genius is great, but his knowledge is
small. As they say of a generous man, it is a pity he is not rich, we
may say of Goldsmith, it is a pity he is not knowing. He would not keep
his knowledge to himself.'
1773: AETAT. 64.]--In 1773 his only publication was an edition of his
folio Dictionary, with additions and corrections; nor did he, so far
as is known, furnish any productions of his fertile pen to any of his
numerous friends or dependants, except the Preface to his old amanuensis
Macbean's Dictionary of Ancient Geography.
'TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.
'DEAR SIR,-- . . . A new edition of my great Dictionary is printed, from
a copy which I was persuaded to revise; but having made no preparation,
I was able to do very little. Some superfluities I have expunged,
and some faults I have corrected, and here and there have scattered a
remark; but the main fabrick of the work remains as it was. I had looked
very little into it since I wrote it, and, I think, I found it full as
often better, as worse, than I expected.
'Baretti and Davies have had a furious quarrel; a quarrel, I think,
irreconcileable. Dr. Goldsmith has a new comedy, which is expected in
the spring. No name is yet given it. The chief diversion arises from a
stratagem by which a lover is made to mistake his future father-in-law's
house for an inn. This, you see, borders upon farce. The dialogue
is quick and gay, and the incidents are so prepared as not to seem
improbable. . . .
'My health seems in general to improve; but I have been troubled for
many weeks with a vexatious catarrh, which is sometimes sufficiently
distressful. I have not found any great effects from bleeding and
physick; and am afraid, that I must expect help from brighter days and
softer air.
'Write to me now and then; and whenever any good befalls you, make haste
to let me know it, for no one will rejoice at it more than, dear Sir,
your most humble servant,
'SAM. JOHNSON.'
'London, Feb. 24, 1773.'
'You continue to stand very high in the favour of Mrs. Thrale.'
While a former edition of my work was passing through the press, I was
unexpectedly favoured with a packet from Philadelphia, from Mr. James
Abercrombie, a gentleman of that country, who is pleased to honour me
with very high praise of my Life of Dr. Johnson. To have the fame of
my illustrious friend, and his faithful biographer, echoed from the New
World is extremely flattering; and my grateful acknowledgements shall be
wafted across the Atlantick. Mr. Abercrombie has politely conferred on
me a considerable additional obligation, by transmitting to me copies of
two letters from Dr. Johnson to American gentlemen.
On Saturday, April 3, the day after my arrival in London this year, I
went to his house late in the evening, and sat with Mrs. Williams till
he came home. I found in the London Chronicle, Dr. Goldsmith's apology
to the publick for beating Evans, a bookseller, on account of a
paragraph in a newspaper published by him, which Goldsmith thought
impertinent to him and to a lady of his acquaintance. The apology was
written so much in Dr. Johnson's manner, that both Mrs. Williams and
I supposed it to be his; but when he came home, he soon undeceived us.
When he said to Mrs. Williams, 'Well, Dr. Goldsmith's manifesto has got
into your paper;' I asked him if Dr. Goldsmith had written it, with
an air that made him see I suspected it was his, though subscribed by
Goldsmith. JOHNSON. 'Sir, Dr. Goldsmith would no more have asked me to
write such a thing as that for him, than he would have asked me to feed
him with a spoon, or to do anything else that denoted his imbecility. I
as much believe that he wrote it, as if I had seen him do it. Sir, had
he shewn it to any one friend, he would not have been allowed to publish
it. He has, indeed, done it very well; but it is a foolish thing well
done. I suppose he has been so much elated with the success of his new
comedy, that he has thought every thing that concerned him must be of
importance to the publick.' BOSWELL. 'I fancy, Sir, this is the first
time that he has been engaged in such an adventure.' JOHNSON. 'Why,
Sir, I believe it is the first time he has BEAT; he may have BEEN BEATEN
before. This, Sir, is a new plume to him.'
At Mr. Thrale's, in the evening, he repeated his usual paradoxical
declamation against action in publick speaking. 'Action can have no
effect upon reasonable minds. It may augment noise, but it never can
enforce argument.'
Lord Chesterfield being mentioned, Johnson remarked, that almost all of
that celebrated nobleman's witty sayings were puns. He, however, allowed
the merit of good wit to his Lordship's saying of Lord Tyrawley and
himself, when both very old and infirm: 'Tyrawley and I have been dead
these two years; but we don't choose to have it known.'
The conversation having turned on modern imitations of ancient ballads,
and some one having praised their simplicity, he treated them with that
ridicule which he always displayed when that subject was mentioned.
He disapproved of introducing scripture phrases into secular discourse.
This seemed to me a question of some difficulty. A scripture expression
may be used, like a highly classical phrase, to produce an instantaneous
strong impression; and it may be done without being at all improper. Yet
I own there is danger, that applying the language of our sacred book to
ordinary subjects may tend to lessen our reverence for it. If therefore
it be introduced at all, it should be with very great caution.
On Thursday, April 8, I sat a good part of the evening with him, but he
was very silent.
Though he was not disposed to talk, he was unwilling that I should leave
him; and when I looked at my watch, and told him it was twelve o'clock,
he cried, What's that to you and me?' and ordered Frank to tell Mrs.
Williams that we were coming to drink tea with her, which we did. It was
settled that we should go to church together next day.
On the 9th of April, being Good Friday, I breakfasted with him on tea
and cross-buns; DOCTOR Levet, as Frank called him, making the tea. He
carried me with him to the church of St. Clement Danes, where he had his
seat; and his behaviour was, as I had imaged to myself, solemnly devout.
I never shall forget the tremulous earnestness with which he pronounced
the awful petition in the Litany: 'In the hour of death, and at the day
of judgement, good LORD deliver us.
We went to church both in the morning and evening. In the interval
between the two services we did not dine; but he read in the Greek New
Testament, and I turned over several of his books.
I told him that Goldsmith had said to me a few days before, 'As I take
my shoes from the shoemaker, and my coat from the taylor, so I take
my religion from the priest.' I regretted this loose way of talking.
JOHNSON. 'Sir, he knows nothing; he has made up his mind about nothing.'
To my great surprize he asked me to dine with him on Easter-day. I never
supposed that he had a dinner at his house; for I had not then heard of
any one of his friends having been entertained at his table. He told me,
'I generally have a meat pye on Sunday: it is baked at a publick oven,
which is very properly allowed, because one man can attend it; and thus
the advantage is obtained of not keeping servants from church to dress
dinners.'
April 11, being Easter-Sunday, after having attended Divine Service at
St. Paul's, I repaired to Dr. Johnson's. I had gratified my curiosity
much in dining with JEAN JAQUES ROUSSEAU, while he lived in the wilds of
Neufchatel: I had as great a curiosity to dine with DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON,
in the dusky recess of a court in Fleet-street. I supposed we should
scarcely have knives and forks, and only some strange, uncouth,
ill-drest dish: but I found every thing in very good order. We had no
other company but Mrs. Williams and a young woman whom I did not know.
As a dinner here was considered as a singular phaenomenon, and as I
was frequently interrogated on the subject, my readers may perhaps be
desirous to know our bill of fare. Foote, I remember, in allusion to
Francis, the NEGRO, was willing to suppose that our repast was BLACK
BROTH. But the fact was, that we had a very good soup, a boiled leg of
lamb and spinach, a veal pye, and a rice pudding.
He owned that he thought Hawkesworth was one of his imitators, but
he did not think Goldsmith was. Goldsmith, he said, had great merit.
BOSWELL. 'But, Sir, he is much indebted to you for his getting so high
in the publick estimation.' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, he has perhaps got
SOONER to it by his intimacy with me.'
Goldsmith, though his vanity often excited him to occasional
competition, had a very high regard for Johnson, which he at this time
expressed in the strongest manner in the Dedication of his comedy,
entitled, She Stoops to Conquer.
He told me that he had twelve or fourteen times attempted to keep a
journal of his life, but never could persevere. He advised me to do it.
'The great thing to be recorded, (said he,) is the state of your own
mind; and you should write down every thing that you remember, for you
cannot judge at first what is good or bad; and write immediately while
the impression is fresh, for it will not be the same a week afterwards.'
I again solicited him to communicate to me the particulars of his early
life. He said, 'You shall have them all for two-pence. I hope you shall
know a great deal more of me before you write my Life.' He mentioned to
me this day many circumstances, which I wrote down when I went home, and
have interwoven in the former part of this narrative.
On Tuesday, April 13, he and Dr. Goldsmith and I dined at General
Oglethorpe's. Goldsmith expatiated on the common topick, that the
race of our people was degenerated, and that this was owing to luxury.
JOHNSON. 'Sir, in the first place, I doubt the fact. I believe there
are as many tall men in England now, as ever there were. But, secondly,
supposing the stature of our people to be diminished, that is not owing
to luxury; for, Sir, consider to how very small a proportion of our
people luxury can reach. Our soldiery, surely, are not luxurious, who
live on sixpence a day; and the same remark will apply to almost all the
other classes. Luxury, so far as it reaches the poor, will do good to
the race of people; it will strengthen and multiply them. Sir, no nation
was ever hurt by luxury; for, as I said before, it can reach but to a
very few. I admit that the great increase of commerce and manufactures
hurts the military spirit of a people; because it produces a competition
for something else than martial honours,--a competition for riches. It
also hurts the bodies of the people; for you will observe, there is no