Boswell's Life of Johnson
Dr. Johnson talked with approbation of one who had attained to the state
of the philosophical wise man, that is to have no want of any thing.
'Then, Sir, (said I,) the savage is a wise man.' 'Sir, (said he,) I do
not mean simply being without,--but not having a want.' I maintained,
against this proposition, that it was better to have fine clothes, for
instance, than not to feel the want of them. JOHNSON. 'No, Sir;
fine clothes are good only as they supply the want of other means of
procuring respect. Was Charles the Twelfth, think you, less respected
for his coarse blue coat and black stock? And you find the King
of Prussia dresses plain, because the dignity of his character is
sufficient.' I here brought myself into a scrape, for I heedlessly said,
'Would not YOU, Sir, be the better for velvet and embroidery?' JOHNSON.
'Sir, you put an end to all argument when you introduce your opponent
himself. Have you no better manners? There is YOUR WANT.' I apologised
by saying, I had mentioned him as an instance of one who wanted as
little as any man in the world, and yet, perhaps, might receive some
additional lustre from dress.
Having left Ashbourne in the evening, we stopped to change horses at
Derby, and availed ourselves of a moment to enjoy the conversation of
my countryman, Dr. Butter, then physician there. He was in great
indignation because Lord Mountstuart's bill for a Scotch militia had
been lost. Dr. Johnson was as violent against it. 'I am glad, (said he,)
that Parliament has had the spirit to throw it out. You wanted to take
advantage of the timidity of our scoundrels;' (meaning, I suppose, the
ministry). It may be observed, that he used the epithet scoundrel very
commonly not quite in the sense in which it is generally understood, but
as a strong term of disapprobation; as when he abruptly answered Mrs.
Thrale, who had asked him how he did, 'Ready to become a scoundrel,
Madam; with a little more spoiling you will, I think, make me a complete
rascal:' he meant, easy to become a capricious and self-indulgent
valetudinarian; a character for which I have heard him express great
disgust. We lay this night at Loughborough.
On Thursday, March 28, we pursued our journey. He said, 'It is commonly
a weak man who marries for love.' We then talked of marrying women of
fortune; and I mentioned a common remark, that a man may be, upon the
whole, richer by marrying a woman with a very small portion, because a
woman of fortune will be proportionally expensive; whereas a woman who
brings none will be very moderate in expenses. JOHNSON. 'Depend upon it,
Sir, this is not true. A woman of fortune being used to the handling of
money, spends it judiciously: but a woman who gets the command of money
for the first time upon her marriage, has such a gust in spending it,
that she throws it away with great profusion.'
He praised the ladies of the present age, insisting that they were more
faithful to their husbands, and more virtuous in every respect, than in
former times, because their understandings were better cultivated.
At Leicester we read in the news-paper that Dr. James was dead. I
thought that the death of an old school-fellow, and one with whom he
had lived a good deal in London, would have affected my fellow-traveller
much: but he only said, Ah! poor Jamy.' Afterwards, however, when we
were in the chaise, he said, with more tenderness, 'Since I set out on
this jaunt, I have lost an old friend and a young one;--Dr. James, and
poor Harry.' (Meaning Mr. Thrale's son.)
I enjoyed the luxury of our approach to London, that metropolis which we
both loved so much, for the high and varied intellectual pleasure which
it furnishes. I experienced immediate happiness while whirled along with
such a companion, and said to him, 'Sir, you observed one day at General
Oglethorpe's, that a man is never happy for the present, but when he
is drunk. Will you not add,--or when driving rapidly in a post-chaise?'
JOHNSON. 'No, Sir, you are driving rapidly FROM something, or TO
something.'
Talking of melancholy, he said, 'Some men, and very thinking men too,
have not those vexing thoughts. Sir Joshua Reynolds is the same all the
year round. Beauclerk, except when ill and in pain, is the same. But I
believe most men have them in the degree in which they are capable
of having them. If I were in the country, and were distressed by that
malady, I would force myself to take a book; and every time I did it
I should find it the easier. Melancholy, indeed, should be diverted by
every means but drinking.'
We stopped at Messieurs Dillys, booksellers in the Poultry; from whence
he hurried away, in a hackney coach, to Mr. Thrale's, in the Borough.
I called at his house in the evening, having promised to acquaint Mrs.
Williams of his safe return; when, to my surprize, I found him sitting
with her at tea, and, as I thought, not in a very good humour: for, it
seems, when he had got to Mr. Thrale's, he found the coach was at the
door waiting to carry Mrs. and Miss Thrale, and Signor Baretti, their
Italian master, to Bath. This was not shewing the attention which might
have been expected to the 'Guide, Philosopher, and Friend,' the Imlac
who had hastened from the country to console a distressed mother, who he
understood was very anxious for his return. They had, I found, without
ceremony, proceeded on their intended journey. I was glad to understand
from him that it was still resolved that his tour to Italy with Mr. and
Mrs. Thrale should take place, of which he had entertained some
doubt, on account of the loss which they had suffered; and his doubts
afterwards proved to be well-founded. He observed, indeed very justly,
that 'their loss was an additional reason for their going abroad; and
if it had not been fixed that he should have been one of the party, he
would force them out; but he would not advise them unless his advice was
asked, lest they might suspect that he recommended what he wished on
his own account.' I was not pleased that his intimacy with Mr.
Thrale's family, though it no doubt contributed much to his comfort and
enjoyment, was not without some degree of restraint: not, as has been
grossly suggested, that it was required of him as a task to talk for the
entertainment of them and their company; but that he was not quite
at his ease; which, however, might partly be owing to his own honest
pride--that dignity of mind which is always jealous of appearing too
compliant.
On Sunday, March 31, I called on him, and shewed him as a curiosity
which I had discovered, his Translation of Lobo's Account of Abyssinia,
which Sir John Pringle had lent me, it being then little known as one
of his works. He said, 'Take no notice of it,' or 'don't talk of it.' He
seemed to think it beneath him, though done at six-and-twenty. I said to
him, 'Your style, Sir, is much improved since you translated this.' He
answered with a sort of triumphant smile, 'Sir, I hope it is.'
On Wednesday, April 3, in the morning I found him very busy putting his
books in order, and as they were generally very old ones, clouds of dust
were flying around him. He had on a pair of large gloves such as hedgers
use. His present appearance put me in mind of my uncle, Dr. Boswell's
description of him, 'A robust genius, born to grapple with whole
libraries.'
He had been in company with Omai, a native of one of the South Sea
Islands, after he had been some time in this country. He was struck with
the elegance of his behaviour, and accounted for it thus: 'Sir, he had
passed his time, while in England, only in the best company; so that
all that he had acquired of our manners was genteel. As a proof of this,
Sir, Lord Mulgrave and he dined one day at Streatham; they sat
with their backs to the light fronting me, so that I could not see
distinctly; and there was so little of the savage in Omai, that I was
afraid to speak to either, lest I should mistake one for the other.'
We agreed to dine to-day at the Mitre-tavern after the rising of the
House of Lords, where a branch of the litigation concerning the Douglas
Estate, in which I was one of the counsel, was to come on.
I introduced the topick, which is often ignorantly urged, that the
Universities of England are too rich; so that learning does not flourish
in them as it would do, if those who teach had smaller salaries, and
depended on their assiduity for a great part of their income. JOHNSON.
'Sir, the very reverse of this is the truth; the English Universities
are not rich enough. Our fellowships are only sufficient to support
a man during his studies to fit him for the world, and accordingly
in general they are held no longer than till an opportunity offers of
getting away. Now and then, perhaps, there is a fellow who grows old
in his college; but this is against his will, unless he be a man very
indolent indeed. A hundred a year is reckoned a good fellowship, and
that is no more than is necessary to keep a man decently as a scholar.
We do not allow our fellows to marry, because we consider academical
institutions as preparatory to a settlement in the world. It is only by
being employed as a tutor, that a fellow can obtain any thing more than
a livelihood. To be sure a man, who has enough without teaching, will
probably not teach; for we would all be idle if we could. In the same
manner, a man who is to get nothing by teaching, will not exert himself.
Gresham College was intended as a place of instruction for London;
able professors were to read lectures gratis, they contrived to have no
scholars; whereas, if they had been allowed to receive but sixpence a
lecture from each scholar, they would have been emulous to have had many
scholars. Every body will agree that it should be the interest of those
who teach to have scholars and this is the case in our Universities.
That they are too rich is certainly not true; for they have nothing good
enough to keep a man of eminent learning with them for his life. In
the foreign Universities a professorship is a high thing. It is as much
almost as a man can make by his learning; and therefore we find the most
learned men abroad are in the Universities. It is not so with us.
Our Universities are impoverished of learning, by the penury of their
provisions. I wish there were many places of a thousand a-year
at Oxford, to keep first-rate men of learning from quitting the
University.'
I mentioned Mr. Maclaurin's uneasiness on account of a degree of
ridicule carelessly thrown on his deceased father, in Goldsmith's
History of Animated Nature, in which that celebrated mathematician is
represented as being subject to fits of yawning so violent as to
render him incapable of proceeding in his lecture; a story altogether
unfounded, but for the publication of which the law would give no
reparation. This led us to agitate the question, whether legal redress
could be obtained, even when a man's deceased relation was calumniated
in a publication.
On Friday, April 5, being Good Friday, after having attended the morning
service at St. Clement's Church, I walked home with Johnson. We talked
of the Roman Catholick religion. JOHNSON. 'In the barbarous ages, Sir,
priests and people were equally deceived; but afterwards there were
gross corruptions introduced by the clergy, such as indulgencies to
priests to have concubines, and the worship of images, not, indeed,
inculcated, but knowingly permitted.' He strongly censured the licensed
stews at Rome. BOSWELL. 'So then, Sir, you would allow of no irregular
intercourse whatever between the sexes?' JOHNSON. 'To be sure I would
not, Sir. I would punish it much more than it is done, and so restrain
it. In all countries there has been fornication, as in all countries
there has been theft; but there may be more or less of the one, as