Boswell's Life of Johnson
Sir, unless it prevent him from being vicious again. With some people,
gloomy penitence is only madness turned upside down. A man may be
gloomy, till, in order to be relieved from gloom, he has recourse again
to criminal indulgencies.'
On Wednesday, April 10, I dined with him at Mr. Thrale's, where were Mr.
Murphy and some other company. Before dinner, Dr. Johnson and I passed
some time by ourselves. I was sorry to find it was now resolved that the
proposed journey to Italy should not take place this year. He said, 'I
am disappointed, to be sure; but it is not a great disappointment.' I
wondered to see him bear, with a philosophical calmness, what would have
made most people peevish and fretful. I perceived, however, that he had
so warmly cherished the hope of enjoying classical scenes, that he could
not easily part with the scheme; for he said: 'I shall probably contrive
to get to Italy some other way. But I won't mention it to Mr. and Mrs.
Thrale, as it might vex them.' I suggested, that going to Italy might
have done Mr. and Mrs. Thrale good. JOHNSON. 'I rather believe not, Sir.
While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must
wait till grief be DIGESTED, and then amusement will dissipate the
remains of it.'
I said, I disliked the custom which some people had of bringing their
children into company, because it in a manner forced us to pay foolish
compliments to please their parents. JOHNSON. 'You are right, Sir. We
may be excused for not caring much about other people's children, for
there are many who care very little about their own children. It may be
observed, that men, who from being engaged in business, or from their
course of life in whatever way, seldom see their children, do not care
much about them. I myself should not have had much fondness for a child
of my own.' MRS. THRALE. 'Nay, Sir, how can you talk so?' JOHNSON. 'At
least, I never wished to have a child.'
He talked of Lord Lyttelton's extreme anxiety as an authour; observing,
that 'he was thirty years in preparing his History, and that he employed
a man to point it for him; as if (laughing) another man could point his
sense better than himself.' Mr. Murphy said, he understood his history
was kept back several years for fear of Smollet. JOHNSON. 'This seems
strange to Murphy and me, who never felt that anxiety, but sent what we
wrote to the press, and let it take its chance.' MRS. THRALE. 'The time
has been, Sir, when you felt it.' JOHNSON. 'Why, really, Madam, I do not
recollect a time when that was the case.'
On Thursday, April 11, I dined with him at General Paoli's, in whose
house I now resided, and where I had ever afterwards the honour of being
entertained with the kindest attention as his constant guest, while I
was in London, till I had a house of my own there. I mentioned my having
that morning introduced to Mr. Garrick, Count Neni, a Flemish Nobleman
of great rank and fortune, to whom Garrick talked of Abel Drugger as A
SMALL PART; and related, with pleasant vanity, that a Frenchman who had
seen him in one of his low characters, exclaimed, 'Comment! je ne le
crois pas. Ce n'est pas Monsieur Garrick, ce Grand Homme!' Garrick
added, with an appearance of grave recollection, 'If I were to begin
life again, I think I should not play those low characters.' Upon which
I observed, 'Sir, you would be in the wrong; for your great excellence
is your variety of playing, your representing so well, characters so
very different.' JOHNSON. 'Garrick, Sir, was not in earnest in what
he said; for, to be sure, his peculiar excellence is his variety; and,
perhaps, there is not any one character which has not been as well acted
by somebody else, as he could do it.' BOSWELL. 'Why then, Sir, did he
talk so?' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, to make you answer as you did.' BOSWELL.
'I don't know, Sir; he seemed to dip deep into his mind for the
reflection.' JOHNSON. 'He had not far to dip, Sir: he said the same
thing, probably, twenty times before.'
Of a nobleman raised at a very early period to high office, he
said, 'His parts, Sir, are pretty well for a Lord; but would not be
distinguished in a man who had nothing else but his parts.'
A journey to Italy was still in his thoughts. He said, 'A man who has
not been in Italy, is always conscious of an inferiority, from his not
having seen what it is expected a man should see. The grand object of
travelling is to see the shores of the Mediterranean. On those shores
were the four great Empires of the world; the Assyrian, the Persian, the
Grecian, and the Roman.--All our religion, almost all our law, almost
all our arts, almost all that sets us above savages, has come to us
from the shores of the Mediterranean.' The General observed, that 'THE
MEDITERRANEAN would be a noble subject for a poem.'
We talked of translation. I said, I could not define it, nor could I
think of a similitude to illustrate it; but that it appeared to me
the translation of poetry could be only imitation. JOHNSON. 'You may
translate books of science exactly. You may also translate history, in
so far as it is not embellished with oratory, which is poetical. Poetry,
indeed, cannot be translated; and, therefore, it is the poets that
preserve languages; for we would not be at the trouble to learn a
language, if we could have all that is written in it just as well in a
translation. But as the beauties of poetry cannot be preserved in any
language except that in which it was originally written, we learn the
language.'
'Goldsmith (he said,) referred every thing to vanity; his virtues, and
his vices too, were from that motive. He was not a social man. He never
exchanged mind with you.'
We spent the evening at Mr. Hoole's. Mr. Mickle, the excellent
translator of The Lusiad, was there. I have preserved little of the
conversation of this evening. Dr. Johnson said, 'Thomson had a true
poetical genius, the power of viewing every thing in a poetical light.
His fault is such a cloud of words sometimes, that the sense can hardly
peep through. Shiels, who compiled Cibber's Lives of the Poets, was one
day sitting with me. I took down Thomson, and read aloud a large portion
of him, and then asked,--Is not this fine? Shiels having expressed the
highest admiration. Well, Sir, (said I,) I have omitted every other
line.'
I related a dispute between Goldsmith and Mr. Robert Dodsley, one
day when they and I were dining at Tom Davies's, in 1762. Goldsmith
asserted, that there was no poetry produced in this age. Dodsley
appealed to his own Collection, and maintained, that though you could
not find a palace like Dryden's Ode on St. Cecilia's Day, you had
villages composed of very pretty houses; and he mentioned particularly
The Spleen. JOHNSON. 'I think Dodsley gave up the question. He and
Goldsmith said the same thing; only he said it in a softer manner than
Goldsmith did; for he acknowledged that there was no poetry, nothing
that towered above the common mark. You may find wit and humour in
verse, and yet no poetry. Hudibras has a profusion of these; yet it is
not to be reckoned a poem. The Spleen, in Dodsley's Collection, on which
you say he chiefly rested, is not poetry.' BOSWELL. 'Does not Gray's
poetry, Sir, tower above the common mark?' JOHNSON. Yes, Sir; but we
must attend to the difference between what men in general cannot do if
they would, and what every man may do if he would. Sixteen-string Jack*
towered above the common mark.' BOSWELL. 'Then, Sir, what is poetry?'
JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, it is much easier to say what it is not. We all KNOW
what light is; but it is not easy to TELL what it is.'
* A noted highwayman, who after having been several times
tried and acquitted, was at last hanged. He was remarkable
for foppery in his dress, and particularly for wearing a
bunch of sixteen strings at the knees of his breeches.
--BOSWELL.
On Friday, April 12, I dined with him at our friend Tom Davies's.
He reminded Dr. Johnson of Mr. Murphy's having paid him the highest
compliment that ever was paid to a layman, by asking his pardon for
repeating some oaths in the course of telling a story.
Johnson and I supt this evening at the Crown and Anchor tavern, in
company with Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mr. Langton, Mr. Nairne, now one of
the Scotch Judges, with the title of Lord Dunsinan, and my very worthy
friend, Sir William Forbes, of Pitsligo.
We discussed the question whether drinking improved conversation and
benevolence. Sir Joshua maintained it did. JOHNSON. 'No, Sir: before
dinner men meet with great inequality of understanding; and those who
are conscious of their inferiority, have the modesty not to talk. When
they have drunk wine, every man feels himself happy, and loses that
modesty, and grows impudent and vociferous: but he is not improved; he
is only not sensible of his defects.' Sir Joshua said the Doctor was
talking of the effects of excess in wine; but that a moderate glass
enlivened the mind, by giving a proper circulation to the blood. 'I
am (said he,) in very good spirits, when I get up in the morning. By
dinner-time I am exhausted; wine puts me in the same state as when I
got up; and I am sure that moderate drinking makes people talk better.'
JOHNSON. 'No, Sir; wine gives not light, gay, ideal hilarity; but
tumultuous, noisy, clamorous merriment. I have heard none of those
drunken,--nay, drunken is a coarse word,--none of those VINOUS flights.'
SIR JOSHUA. 'Because you have sat by, quite sober, and felt an envy
of the happiness of those who were drinking.' JOHNSON. 'Perhaps,
contempt.--And, Sir, it is not necessary to be drunk one's self, to
relish the wit of drunkenness. Do we not judge of the drunken wit, of
the dialogue between Iago and Cassio, the most excellent in its kind,
when we are quite sober? Wit is wit, by whatever means it is produced;
and, if good, will appear so at all times. I admit that the spirits
are raised by drinking, as by the common participation of any pleasure:
cock-fighting, or bear-baiting, will raise the spirits of a company, as
drinking does, though surely they will not improve conversation. I also
admit, that there are some sluggish men who are improved by drinking; as
there are fruits which are not good till they are rotten. There are such
men, but they are medlars. I indeed allow that there have been a very
few men of talents who were improved by drinking; but I maintain that
I am right as to the effects of drinking in general: and let it
be considered, that there is no position, however false in its
universality, which is not true of some particular man.' Sir William
Forbes said, 'Might not a man warmed with wine be like a bottle of
beer, which is made brisker by being set before the fire?'--'Nay, (said
Johnson, laughing,) I cannot answer that: that is too much for me.'
I observed, that wine did some people harm, by inflaming, confusing, and
irritating their minds; but that the experience of mankind had declared
in favour of moderate drinking. JOHNSON. 'Sir, I do not say it is wrong
to produce self complacency by drinking; I only deny that it improves
the mind. When I drank wine, I scorned to drink it when in company. I
have drunk many a bottle by myself; in the first place, because I had
need of it to raise my spirits; in the second place, because I would
have nobody to witness its effects upon me.'
He told us, 'almost all his Ramblers were written just as they were
wanted for the press; that he sent a certain portion of the copy of
an essay, and wrote the remainder, while the former part of it was
printing. When it was wanted, and he had fairly sat down to it, he was
sure it would be done.'
He said, that for general improvement, a man should read whatever his
immediate inclination prompts him to; though, to be sure, if a man has