Boswell's Life of Johnson
title of Johnsoniana, or Bon-Mots of Dr. Johnson. JOHNSON. 'Sir, it is
a mighty impudent thing.' BOSWELL. 'Pray, Sir, could you have no redress
if you were to prosecute a publisher for bringing out, under your name,
what you never said, and ascribing to you dull stupid nonsense, or
making you swear profanely, as many ignorant relaters of your bon-mots
do?' JOHNSON. 'No, Sir; there will always be some truth mixed with the
falsehood, and how can it be ascertained how much is true and how much
is false? Besides, Sir, what damages would a jury give me for having
been represented as swearing?' BOSWELL. 'I think, Sir, you should at
least disavow such a publication, because the world and posterity
might with much plausible foundation say, "Here is a volume which was
publickly advertised and came out in Dr. Johnson's own time, and, by
his silence, was admitted by him to be genuine."' JOHNSON. 'I shall give
myself no trouble about the matter.'
He was, perhaps, above suffering from such spurious publications; but
I could not help thinking, that many men would be much injured in their
reputation, by having absurd and vicious sayings imputed to them; and
that redress ought in such cases to be given.
He said, 'The value of every story depends on its being true. A story is
a picture either of an individual or of human nature in general: if it
be false, it is a picture of nothing. For instance: suppose a man should
tell that Johnson, before setting out for Italy, as he had to cross the
Alps, sat down to make himself wings. This many people would believe;
but it would be a picture of nothing. ******* (naming a worthy friend of
ours,) used to think a story, a story, till I shewed him that truth was
essential to it.' I observed, that Foote entertained us with stories
which were not true; but that, indeed, it was properly not as narratives
that Foote's stories pleased us, but as collections of ludicrous images.
JOHNSON. 'Foote is quite impartial, for he tells lies of every body.'
The importance of strict and scrupulous veracity cannot be too often
inculcated. Johnson was known to be so rigidly attentive to it, that
even in his common conversation the slightest circumstance was mentioned
with exact precision. The knowledge of his having such a principle and
habit made his friends have a perfect reliance on the truth of every
thing that he told, however it might have been doubted if told by many
others. As an instance of this, I may mention an odd incident which
he related as having happened to him one night in Fleet-street. 'A
gentlewoman (said he) begged I would give her my arm to assist her in
crossing the street, which I accordingly did; upon which she offered me
a shilling, supposing me to be the watchman. I perceived that she was
somewhat in liquor.' This, if told by most people, would have been
thought an invention; when told by Johnson, it was believed by his
friends as much as if they had seen what passed.
We landed at the Temple-stairs, where we parted.
I found him in the evening in Mrs. Williams's room. Finding him still
persevering in his abstinence from wine, I ventured to speak to him of
it--JOHNSON. 'Sir, I have no objection to a man's drinking wine, if he
can do it in moderation. I found myself apt to go to excess in it, and
therefore, after having been for some time without it, on account of
illness, I thought it better not to return to it. Every man is to judge
for himself, according to the effects which he experiences. One of the
fathers tells us, he found fasting made him so peevish that he did not
practise it.'
Though he often enlarged upon the evil of intoxication, he was by no
means harsh and unforgiving to those who indulged in occasional excess
in wine. One of his friends, I well remember, came to sup at a tavern
with him and some other gentlemen, and too plainly discovered that he
had drunk too much at dinner. When one who loved mischief, thinking to
produce a severe censure, asked Johnson, a few days afterwards, 'Well,
Sir, what did your friend say to you, as an apology for being in such a
situation?' Johnson answered, 'Sir, he said all that a man SHOULD say:
he said he was sorry for it.'
I again visited him on Monday. He took occasion to enlarge, as he often
did, upon the wretchedness of a sea-life. 'A ship is worse than a gaol.
There is, in a gaol, better air, better company, better conveniency
of every kind; and a ship has the additional disadvantage of being in
danger. When men come to like a sea-life, they are not fit to live on
land.'--'Then (said I) it would be cruel in a father to breed his son
to the sea.' JOHNSON. 'It would be cruel in a father who thinks as I do.
Men go to sea, before they know the unhappiness of that way of life; and
when they have come to know it, they cannot escape from it, because it
is then too late to choose another profession; as indeed is generally
the case with men, when they have once engaged in any particular way of
life.'
On Tuesday, March 19, which was fixed for our proposed jaunt, we met in
the morning at the Somerset coffee-house in the Strand, where we were
taken up by the Oxford coach. He was accompanied by Mr. Gwyn, the
architect; and a gentleman of Merton College, whom we did not know,
had the fourth seat. We soon got into conversation; for it was very
remarkable of Johnson, that the presence of a stranger had no restraint
upon his talk. I observed that Garrick, who was about to quit the stage,
would soon have an easier life. JOHNSON. 'I doubt that, Sir.' BOSWELL.
'Why, Sir, he will be Atlas with the burthen off his back.' JOHNSON.
'But I know not, Sir, if he will be so steady without his load. However,
he should never play any more, but be entirely the gentleman, and not
partly the player: he should no longer subject himself to be hissed by
a mob, or to be insolently treated by performers, whom he used to rule
with a high hand, and who would gladly retaliate.' BOSWELL. 'I think
he should play once a year for the benefit of decayed actors, as it
has been said he means to do.' JOHNSON. 'Alas, Sir! he will soon be a
decayed actor himself.'
Johnson expressed his disapprobation of ornamental architecture, such
as magnificent columns supporting a portico, or expensive pilasters
supporting merely their own capitals, 'because it consumes labour
disproportionate to its utility.' For the same reason he satyrised
statuary. 'Painting (said he) consumes labour not disproportionate to
its effect; but a fellow will hack half a year at a block of marble
to make something in stone that hardly resembles a man. The value of
statuary is owing to its difficulty. You would not value the finest head
cut upon a carrot.'
Gwyn was a fine lively rattling fellow. Dr. Johnson kept him in
subjection, but with a kindly authority. The spirit of the artist,
however, rose against what he thought a Gothick attack, and he made
a brisk defence. 'What, Sir, will you allow no value to beauty in
architecture or in statuary? Why should we allow it then in writing? Why
do you take the trouble to give us so many fine allusions, and bright
images, and elegant phrases? You might convey all your instruction
without these ornaments.' Johnson smiled with complacency; but said,
'Why, Sir, all these ornaments are useful, because they obtain an easier
reception for truth; but a building is not at all more convenient for
being decorated with superfluous carved work.'
Gwyn at last was lucky enough to make one reply to Dr. Johnson, which he
allowed to be excellent. Johnson censured him for taking down a church
which might have stood many years, and building a new one at a different
place, for no other reason but that there might be a direct road to a
new bridge; and his expression was, 'You are taking a church out of the
way, that the people may go in a straight line to the bridge.'--'No,
Sir, (said Gwyn,) I am putting the church IN the way, that the people
may not GO OUT OF THE WAY.' JOHNSON. (with a hearty loud laugh of
approbation,) 'Speak no more. Rest your colloquial fame upon this.'
Upon our arrival at Oxford, Dr. Johnson and I went directly to
University College, but were disappointed on finding that one of the
fellows, his friend Mr. Scott, who accompanied him from Newcastle to
Edinburgh, was gone to the country. We put up at the Angel inn, and
passed the evening by ourselves in easy and familiar conversation.
Talking of constitutional melancholy, he observed, 'A man so afflicted,
Sir, must divert distressing thoughts, and not combat with them.'
BOSWELL. 'May not he think them down, Sir?' JOHNSON. 'No, Sir. To
attempt to THINK THEM DOWN is madness. He should have a lamp constantly
burning in his bed-chamber during the night, and if wakefully disturbed,
take a book, and read, and compose himself to rest. To have the
management of the mind is a great art, and it may be attained in a
considerable degree by experience and habitual exercise.' BOSWELL.
'Should not he provide amusements for himself? Would it not, for
instance, be right for him to take a course of chymistry?' JOHNSON. 'Let
him take a course of chymistry, or a course of rope-dancing, or a course
of any thing to which he is inclined at the time. Let him contrive to
have as many retreats for his mind as he can, as many things to which it
can fly from itself. Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy is a valuable work.
It is, perhaps, overloaded with quotation. But there is great spirit and
great power in what Burton says, when he writes from his own mind.'
Next morning we visited Dr. Wetherell, Master of University College,
with whom Dr. Johnson conferred on the most advantageous mode of
disposing of the books printed at the Clarendon press. I often had
occasion to remark, Johnson loved business, loved to have his wisdom
actually operate on real life.
We then went to Pembroke College, and waited on his old friend Dr.
Adams, the master of it, whom I found to be a most polite, pleasing,
communicative man. Before his advancement to the headship of his
college, I had intended to go and visit him at Shrewsbury, where he was
rector of St. Chad's, in order to get from him what particulars he could
recollect of Johnson's academical life. He now obligingly gave me part
of that authentick information, which, with what I afterwards owed to
his kindness, will be found incorporated in its proper place in this
work.
Dr. Adams told us, that in some of the Colleges at Oxford, the fellows
had excluded the students from social intercourse with them in the
common room. JOHNSON. 'They are in the right, Sir: there can be no real
conversation, no fair exertion of mind amongst them, if the young men
are by; for a man who has a character does not choose to stake it
in their presence.' BOSWELL. 'But, Sir, may there not be very good
conversation without a contest for superiority?' JOHNSON. 'No animated
conversation, Sir, for it cannot be but one or other will come off
superiour. I do not mean that the victor must have the better of the
argument, for he may take the weak side; but his superiority of parts
and knowledge will necessarily appear: and he to whom he thus shews
himself superiour is lessened in the eyes of the young men.'
We walked with Dr. Adams into the master's garden, and into the common
room. JOHNSON. (after a reverie of meditation,) 'Ay! Here I used to play
at draughts with Phil. Jones and Fludyer. Jones loved beer, and did not
get very forward in the church. Fludyer turned out a scoundrel, a Whig,
and said he was ashamed of having been bred at Oxford. He had a living
at Putney, and got under the eye of some retainers to the court at that
time, and so became a violent Whig: but he had been a scoundrel all
along to be sure.' BOSWELL. 'Was he a scoundrel, Sir, in any other way