Boswell's Life of Johnson
than that of being a political scoundrel? Did he cheat at draughts?'
JOHNSON. 'Sir, we never played for MONEY.'
He then carried me to visit Dr. Bentham, Canon of Christ-Church, and
Divinity Professor, with whose learned and lively conversation we were
much pleased. He gave us an invitation to dinner, which Dr. Johnson told
me was a high honour. 'Sir, it is a great thing to dine with the Canons
of Christ-Church.' We could not accept his invitation, as we were
engaged to dine at University College. We had an excellent dinner there,
with the Master and Fellows, it being St. Cuthbert's day, which is kept
by them as a festival, as he was a saint of Durham, with which this
college is much connected.
We drank tea with Dr. Horne, late President of Magdalen College, and
Bishop of Norwich, of whose abilities, in different respects, the
publick has had eminent proofs, and the esteem annexed to whose
character was increased by knowing him personally.
We then went to Trinity College, where he introduced me to Mr. Thomas
Warton, with whom we passed a part of the evening. We talked of
biography--JOHNSON. 'It is rarely well executed. They only who live with
a man can write his life with any genuine exactness and discrimination;
and few people who have lived with a man know what to remark about him.
The chaplain of a late Bishop, whom I was to assist in writing some
memoirs of his Lordship, could tell me scarcely any thing.'
I said, Mr. Robert Dodsley's life should be written, as he had been so
much connected with the wits of his time, and by his literary merit had
raised himself from the station of a footman. Mr. Warton said, he
had published a little volume under the title of The Muse in Livery.
JOHNSON. 'I doubt whether Dodsley's brother would thank a man who should
write his life: yet Dodsley himself was not unwilling that his original
low condition should be recollected. When Lord Lyttelton's Dialogues of
the Dead came out, one of which is between Apicius, an ancient epicure,
and Dartineuf, a modern epicure, Dodsley said to me, "I knew Dartineuf
well, for I was once his footman."'
I mentioned Sir Richard Steele having published his Christian Hero, with
the avowed purpose of obliging himself to lead a religious life; yet,
that his conduct was by no means strictly suitable. JOHNSON. 'Steele, I
believe, practised the lighter vices.'
Mr. Warton, being engaged, could not sup with us at our inn; we had
therefore another evening by ourselves. I asked Johnson, whether a man's
being forward to make himself known to eminent people, and seeing as
much of life, and getting as much information as he could in every way,
was not yet lessening himself by his forwardness. JOHNSON. 'No, Sir, a
man always makes himself greater as he increases his knowledge.
I censured some ludicrous fantastick dialogues between two coach-horses
and other such stuff, which Baretti had lately published. He joined with
me, and said, 'Nothing odd will do long. Tristram Shandy did not last.'
I expressed a desire to be acquainted with a lady who had been much
talked of, and universally celebrated for extraordinary address and
insinuation. JOHNSON. 'Never believe extraordinary characters which you
hear of people. Depend upon it, Sir, they are exaggerated. You do not
see one man shoot a great deal higher than another.' I mentioned Mr.
Burke. JOHNSON. 'Yes; Burke is an extraordinary man. His stream of mind
is perpetual.' It is very pleasing to me to record, that Johnson's high
estimation of the talents of this gentleman was uniform from their early
acquaintance. Sir Joshua Reynolds informs me, that when Mr. Burke was
first elected a member of Parliament, and Sir John Hawkins expressed
a wonder at his attaining a seat, Johnson said, 'Now we who know Mr.
Burke, know, that he will be one of the first men in this country.' And
once, when Johnson was ill, and unable to exert himself as much as usual
without fatigue, Mr. Burke having been mentioned, he said, 'That fellow
calls forth all my powers. Were I to see Burke now it would kill me.' So
much was he accustomed to consider conversation as a contest, and such
was his notion of Burke as an opponent.
Next morning, Thursday, March 21, we set out in a post-chaise to pursue
our ramble. It was a delightful day, and we rode through Blenheim
park. When I looked at the magnificent bridge built by John Duke of
Marlborough, over a small rivulet, and recollected the Epigram made upon
it--
'The lofty arch his high ambition shows,
The stream, an emblem of his bounty flows:'
and saw that now, by the genius of Brown, a magnificent body of water
was collected, I said, 'They have DROWNED the Epigram.' I observed to
him, while in the midst of the noble scene around us, 'You and I,
Sir, have, I think, seen together the extremes of what can be seen in
Britain:--the wild rough island of Mull, and Blenheim park.'
We dined at an excellent inn at Chapel-house, where he expatiated on
the felicity of England in its taverns and inns, and triumphed over the
French for not having, in any perfection, the tavern life. 'There is no
private house, (said he,) in which people can enjoy themselves so
well, as at a capital tavern. Let there be ever so great plenty of
good things, ever so much grandeur, ever so much elegance, ever so much
desire that every body should be easy; in the nature of things it cannot
be: there must always be some degree of care and anxiety. The master of
the house is anxious to entertain his guests; the guests are anxious to
be agreeable to him: and no man, but a very impudent dog indeed, can as
freely command what is in another man's house, as if it were his own.
Whereas, at a tavern, there is a general freedom from anxiety. You are
sure you are welcome: and the more noise you make, the more trouble
you give, the more good things you call for, the welcomer you are. No
servants will attend you with the alacrity which waiters do, who are
incited by the prospect of an immediate reward, in proportion as they
please. No, Sir; there is nothing which has yet been contrived by man,
by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn.'* He
then repeated, with great emotion, Shenstone's lines:--
'Whoe'er has travell'd life's dull round,
Where'er his stages may have been,
May sigh to think he still has found
The warmest welcome at an inn.'
* Sir John Hawkins has preserved very few Memorabilia of
Johnson. There is, however, to be found, in his bulky tome
[p. 87], a very excellent one upon this subject:--'In
contradiction to those, who, having a wife and children,
prefer domestick enjoyments to those which a tavern affords,
I have heard him assert, that a tavern chair was the throne
of human felicity.--"As soon," said he, "as I enter the door
of a tavern, I experience an oblivion of care, and a freedom
from solicitude: when I am seated, I find the master
courteous, and the servants obsequious to my call; anxious
to know and ready to supply my wants: wine there exhilarates
my spirits, and prompts me to free conversation and an
interchange of discourse with those whom I most love: I
dogmatise and am contradicted, and in this conflict of
opinions and sentiments I find delight."'--BOSWELL.
In the afternoon, as we were driven rapidly along in the post-chaise, he
said to me 'Life has not many things better than this.'
We stopped at Stratford-upon-Avon, and drank tea and coffee; and it
pleased me to be with him upon the classick ground of Shakspeare's
native place.
He spoke slightingly of Dyer's Fleece.--'The subject, Sir, cannot be
made poetical. How can a man write poetically of serges and druggets?
Yet you will hear many people talk to you gravely of that excellent
poem, The Fleece.' Having talked of Grainger's Sugar-Cane, I mentioned
to him Mr. Langton's having told me, that this poem, when read in
manuscript at Sir Joshua Reynolds's, had made all the assembled wits
burst into a laugh, when, after much blank-verse pomp, the poet began a
new paragraph thus:--
'Now, Muse, let's sing of rats.'
And what increased the ridicule was, that one of the company, who slily
overlooked the reader, perceived that the word had been originally MICE,
and had been altered to RATS, as more dignified.
Johnson said, that Dr. Grainger was an agreeable man; a man who would do
any good that was in his power. His translation of Tibullus, he thought,
was very well done; but The Sugar-Cane, a poem, did not please him; for,
he exclaimed, 'What could he make of a sugar-cane? One might as well
write the "Parsley-bed, a Poem;" or "The Cabbage-garden, a Poem."'
BOSWELL. 'You must then pickle your cabbage with the sal atticum.'
JOHNSON. 'You know there is already The Hop-Garden, a Poem: and, I
think, one could say a great deal about cabbage. The poem might begin
with the advantages of civilized society over a rude state, exemplified
by the Scotch, who had no cabbages till Oliver Cromwell's soldiers
introduced them; and one might thus shew how arts are propagated by
conquest, as they were by the Roman arms.' He seemed to be much diverted
with the fertility of his own fancy.
I told him, that I heard Dr. Percy was writing the history of the wolf
in Great-Britain. JOHNSON. 'The wolf, Sir! why the wolf? why does he
not write of the bear, which we had formerly? Nay, it is said we had the
beaver. Or why does he not write of the grey rat, the Hanover rat, as it
is called, because it is said to have come into this country about the
time that the family of Hanover came? I should like to see The History
of the Grey Rat, by Thomas Percy, D. D., Chaplain in Ordinary to
his Majesty,' (laughing immoderately). BOSWELL. 'I am afraid a court
chaplain could not decently write of the grey rat.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, he
need not give it the name of the Hanover rat.' Thus could he indulge a
luxuriant sportive imagination, when talking of a friend whom he loved
and esteemed.
On Friday, March 22, having set out early from Henley, where we had lain
the preceding night, we arrived at Birmingham about nine o'clock, and,
after breakfast, went to call on his old schoolfellow Mr. Hector. A very
stupid maid, who opened the door, told us, that 'her master was gone
out; he was gone to the country; she could not tell when he would
return.' In short, she gave us a miserable reception; and Johnson
observed, 'She would have behaved no better to people who wanted him in
the way of his profession.' He said to her, 'My name is Johnson; tell
him I called. Will you remember the name?' She answered with rustick
simplicity, in the Warwickshire pronunciation, 'I don't understand
you, Sir.'--'Blockhead, (said he,) I'll write.' I never heard the word
blockhead applied to a woman before, though I do not see why it should
not, when there is evident occasion for it. He, however, made another
attempt to make her understand him, and roared loud in her ear,
'Johnson,' and then she catched the sound.
We next called on Mr. Lloyd, one of the people called Quakers. He too
was not at home; but Mrs. Lloyd was, and received us courteously, and
asked us to dinner. Johnson said to me, 'After the uncertainty of all
human things at Hector's, this invitation came very well.' We walked
about the town, and he was pleased to see it increasing.
Mr. Lloyd joined us in the street; and in a little while we met Friend
Hector, as Mr. Lloyd called him. It gave me pleasure to observe the joy
which Johnson and he expressed on seeing each other again. Mr. Lloyd
and I left them together, while he obligingly shewed me some of the
manufactures of this very curious assemblage of artificers. We all