Boswell's Life of Johnson
long a celebrated name both at home and abroad.
I must, again and again, intreat of my readers not to suppose that my
imperfect record of conversation contains the whole of what was said
by Johnson, or other eminent persons who lived with him. What I have
preserved, however, has the value of the most perfect authenticity.
He urged General Oglethorpe to give the world his Life. He said, 'I know
no man whose Life would be more interesting. If I were furnished with
materials, I should be very glad to write it.'
Mr. Scott of Amwell's Elegies were lying in the room. Dr. Johnson
observed, 'They are very well; but such as twenty people might write.'
Upon this I took occasion to controvert Horace's maxim,
'------- mediocribus esse poetis
Non Di, non homines, non concessere columnae.'
For here, (I observed,) was a very middle-rate poet, who pleased many
readers, and therefore poetry of a middle sort was entitled to some
esteem; nor could I see why poetry should not, like every thing else,
have different gradations of excellence, and consequently of value.
Johnson repeated the common remark, that, 'as there is no necessity for
our having poetry at all, it being merely a luxury, an instrument of
pleasure, it can have no value, unless when exquisite in its kind.' I
declared myself not satisfied. 'Why then, Sir, (said he,) Horace and you
must settle it.' He was not much in the humour of talking.
No more of his conversation for some days appears in my journal, except
that when a gentleman told him he had bought a suit of lace for his
lady, he said, 'Well, Sir, you have done a good thing and a wise thing.'
'I have done a good thing, (said the gentleman,) but I do not know that
I have done a wise thing.' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir; no money is better spent
than what is laid out for domestick satisfaction. A man is pleased that
his wife is drest as well as other people; and a wife is pleased that
she is drest.'
On Friday, April 14, being Good-Friday, I repaired to him in the
morning, according to my usual custom on that day, and breakfasted with
him. I observed that he fasted so very strictly, that he did not even
taste bread, and took no milk with his tea; I suppose because it is a
kind of animal food.
I told him that I had been informed by Mr. Orme, that many parts of the
East-Indies were better mapped than the Highlands of Scotland. JOHNSON.
'That a country may be mapped, it must be travelled over.' 'Nay, (said
I, meaning to laugh with him at one of his prejudices,) can't you say,
it is not WORTH mapping?'
As we walked to St. Clement's church, and saw several shops open upon
this most solemn fast-day of the Christian world, I remarked, that one
disadvantage arising from the immensity of London, was, that nobody was
heeded by his neighbour; there was no fear of censure for not observing
Good-Friday, as it ought to be kept, and as it is kept in country-towns.
He said, it was, upon the whole, very well observed even in London. He,
however, owned, that London was too large; but added, 'It is nonsense
to say the head is too big for the body. It would be as much too big,
though the body were ever so large; that is to say, though the country
were ever so extensive. It has no similarity to a head connected with a
body.'
Dr. Wetherell, Master of University College, Oxford, accompanied us home
from church; and after he was gone, there came two other gentlemen,
one of whom uttered the commonplace complaints, that by the increase of
taxes, labour would be dear, other nations would undersell us, and our
commerce would be ruined. JOHNSON. (smiling,) 'Never fear, Sir. Our
commerce is in a very good state; and suppose we had no commerce at all,
we could live very well on the produce of our own country.' I cannot
omit to mention, that I never knew any man who was less disposed to be
querulous than Johnson. Whether the subject was his own situation,
or the state of the publick, or the state of human nature in general,
though he saw the evils, his mind was turned to resolution, and never to
whining or complaint.
We went again to St. Clement's in the afternoon. He had found fault with
the preacher in the morning for not choosing a text adapted to the day.
The preacher in the afternoon had chosen one extremely proper: 'It is
finished.'
After the evening service, he said, 'Come, you shall go home with me,
and sit just an hour.' But he was better than his word; for after we
had drunk tea with Mrs. Williams, he asked me to go up to his study with
him, where we sat a long while together in a serene undisturbed frame
of mind, sometimes in silence, and sometimes conversing, as we felt
ourselves inclined, or more properly speaking, as HE was inclined;
for during all the course of my long intimacy with him, my respectful
attention never abated, and my wish to hear him was such, that I
constantly watched every dawning of communication from that great and
illuminated mind.
He again advised me to keep a journal fully and minutely, but not to
mention such trifles as, that meat was too much or too little done, or
that the weather was fair or rainy. He had, till very near his death, a
contempt for the notion that the weather affects the human frame.
I told him that our friend Goldsmith had said to me, that he had come
too late into the world, for that Pope and other poets had taken up the
places in the Temple of Fame; so that, as but a few at any period can
possess poetical reputation, a man of genius can now hardly acquire it.
JOHNSON. 'That is one of the most sensible things I have ever heard of
Goldsmith. It is difficult to get literary fame, and it is every
day growing more difficult. Ah, Sir, that should make a man think of
securing happiness in another world, which all who try sincerely for it
may attain. In comparison of that, how little are all other things! The
belief of immortality is impressed upon all men, and all men act under
an impression of it, however they may talk, and though, perhaps, they
may be scarcely sensible of it.' I said, it appeared to me that some
people had not the least notion of immortality; and I mentioned a
distinguished gentleman of our acquaintance. JOHNSON. 'Sir, if it were
not for the notion of immortality, he would cut a throat to fill his
pockets.' When I quoted this to Beauclerk, who knew much more of the
gentleman than we did, he said, in his acid manner, 'He would cut a
throat to fill his pockets, if it were not for fear of being hanged.'
He was pleased to say, 'If you come to settle here, we will have one
day in the week on which we will meet by ourselves. That is the happiest
conversation where there is no competition, no vanity, but a calm quiet
interchange of sentiments.' In his private register this evening is thus
marked, 'Boswell sat with me till night; we had some serious talk.' It
also appears from the same record, that after I left him he was occupied
in religious duties, in 'giving Francis, his servant, some directions
for preparation to communicate; in reviewing his life, and resolving
on better conduct.' The humility and piety which he discovers on such
occasions, is truely edifying. No saint, however, in the course of his
religious warfare, was more sensible of the unhappy failure of pious
resolves, than Johnson. He said one day, talking to an acquaintance on
this subject, 'Sir Hell is paved with good intentions.'
On Sunday, April 16, being Easter Day, after having attended the solemn
service at St. Paul's, I dined with Dr. Johnson and Mrs. Williams. I
maintained that Horace was wrong in placing happiness in Nil admirari,
for that I thought admiration one of the most agreeable of all our
feelings; and I regretted that I had lost much of my disposition to
admire, which people generally do as they advance in life. JOHNSON.
'Sir, as a man advances in life, he gets what is better than
admiration--judgement, to estimate things at their true value.' I still
insisted that admiration was more pleasing than judgement, as love is
more pleasing than friendship. The feeling of friendship is like that
of being comfortably filled with roast beef; love, like being enlivened
with champagne. JOHNSON. 'No, Sir; admiration and love are like
being intoxicated with champagne; judgement and friendship like being
enlivened. Waller has hit upon the same thought with you: but I don't
believe you have borrowed from Waller. I wish you would enable yourself
to borrow more.'
He then took occasion to enlarge on the advantages of reading, and
combated the idle superficial notion, that knowledge enough may be
acquired in conversation. 'The foundation (said he,) must be laid by
reading. General principles must be had from books, which, however, must
be brought to the test of real life. In conversation you never get a
system. What is said upon a subject is to be gathered from a hundred
people. The parts of a truth, which a man gets thus, are at such a
distance from each other that he never attains to a full view.'
On Tuesday, April 15, he and I were engaged to go with Sir Joshua
Reynolds to dine with Mr. Cambridge, at his beautiful villa on the banks
of the Thames, near Twickenham. Dr. Johnson's tardiness was such, that
Sir Joshua, who had an appointment at Richmond, early in the day, was
obliged to go by himself on horseback, leaving his coach to Johnson and
me. Johnson was in such good spirits, that every thing seemed to please
him as we drove along.
Our conversation turned on a variety of subjects. He thought
portrait-painting an improper employment for a woman. 'Publick
practice of any art, (he observed,) and staring in men's faces, is very
indelicate in a female.' I happened to start a question, whether, when a
man knows that some of his intimate friends are invited to the house
of another friend, with whom they are all equally intimate, he may join
them without an invitation. JOHNSON. 'No, Sir; he is not to go when he
is not invited. They may be invited on purpose to abuse him' (smiling).
As a curious instance how little a man knows, or wishes to know, his own
character in the world, or, rather, as a convincing proof that Johnson's
roughness was only external, and did not proceed from his heart, I
insert the following dialogue. JOHNSON. 'It is wonderful, Sir, how rare
a quality good humour is in life. We meet with very few good humoured
men.' I mentioned four of our friends, none of whom he would allow to be
good humoured. One was ACID, another was MUDDY, and to the others he had
objections which have escaped me. Then, shaking his head and stretching
himself at ease in the coach, and smiling with much complacency, he
turned to me and said, 'I look upon MYSELF as a good humoured fellow.'
The epithet FELLOW, applied to the great Lexicographer, the stately
Moralist, the masterly critick, as if he had been SAM Johnson, a mere
pleasant companion, was highly diverting; and this light notion of
himself struck me with wonder. I answered, also smiling, 'No, no, Sir;
that will NOT do. You are good natured, but not good humoured: you are
irascible. You have not patience with folly and absurdity. I believe you
would pardon them, if there were time to deprecate your vengeance; but
punishment follows so quick after sentence, that they cannot escape.
I had brought with me a great bundle of Scotch magazines and
news-papers, in which his Journey to the Western Islands was attacked in
every mode; and I read a great part of them to him, knowing they would
afford him entertainment. I wish the writers of them had been present:
they would have been sufficiently vexed. One ludicrous imitation of his
style, by Mr. Maclaurin, now one of the Scotch Judges, with the title of
Lord Dreghorn, was distinguished by him from the rude mass. 'This