Boswell's Life of Johnson
that when the ancients made a simile, they always made it like something
real.'
Mr. Wilkes remarked, that 'among all the bold flights of Shakspeare's
imagination, the boldest was making Birnamwood march to Dunsinane;
creating a wood where there never was a shrub; a wood in Scotland!
ha! ha! ha!' And he also observed, that 'the clannish slavery of the
Highlands of Scotland was the single exception to Milton's remark of
"The Mountain Nymph, sweet Liberty," being worshipped in all hilly
countries.'--'When I was at Inverary (said he,) on a visit to my old
friend, Archibald, Duke of Argyle, his dependents congratulated me on
being such a favourite of his Grace. I said, "It is then, gentlemen,
truely lucky for me; for if I had displeased the Duke, and he had wished
it, there is not a Campbell among you but would have been ready to bring
John Wilkes's head to him in a charger. It would have been only,
'Off with his head! So much for Aylesbury.'"
I was then member for Aylesbury.'
Mr. Arthur Lee mentioned some Scotch who had taken possession of a
barren part of America, and wondered why they should choose it. JOHNSON.
'Why, Sir, all barrenness is comparative. The SCOTCH would not know it
to be barren.' BOSWELL. 'Come, come, he is flattering the English. You
have now been in Scotland, Sir, and say if you did not see meat and
drink enough there.' JOHNSON. 'Why yes, Sir; meat and drink enough to
give the enhabitants sufficient strength to run away from home.' All
these quick and lively sallies were said sportively, quite in jest, and
with a smile, which showed that he meant only wit. Upon this topick
he and Mr. Wilkes could perfectly assimilate; here was a bond of union
between them, and I was conscious that as both of them had visited
Caledonia, both were fully satisfied of the strange narrow ignorance
of those who imagine that it is a land of famine. But they amused
themselves with persevering in the old jokes. When I claimed a
superiority for Scotland over England in one respect, that no man can be
arrested there for a debt merely because another swears it against him;
but there must first be the judgement of a court of law ascertaining its
justice; and that a seizure of the person, before judgement is obtained,
can take place only, if his creditor should swear that he is about
to fly from the country, or, as it is technically expressed, is in
meditatione fugoe: WILKES. 'That, I should think, may be safely sworn of
all the Scotch nation.' JOHNSON. (to Mr. Wilkes,) 'You must know, Sir,
I lately took my friend Boswell and shewed him genuine civilised life in
an English provincial town. I turned him loose at Lichfield, my native
city, that he might see for once real civility: for you know he lives
among savages in Scotland, and among rakes in London.' WILKES. 'Except
when he is with grave, sober, decent people like you and me.' JOHNSON.
(smiling,) 'And we ashamed of him.'
They were quite frank and easy. Johnson told the story of his asking
Mrs. Macaulay to allow her footman to sit down with them, to prove the
ridiculousness of the argument for the equality of mankind; and he
said to me afterwards, with a nod of satisfaction, 'You saw Mr. Wilkes
acquiesced.' Wilkes talked with all imaginable freedom of the ludicrous
title given to the Attorney-General, Diabolus Regis; adding, 'I have
reason to know something about that officer; for I was prosecuted for
a libel.' Johnson, who many people would have supposed must have been
furiously angry at hearing this talked of so lightly, said not a word.
He was now, INDEED, 'a good-humoured fellow.'
After dinner we had an accession of Mrs. Knowles, the Quaker lady, well
known for her various talents, and of Mr. Alderman Lee. Amidst some
patriotick groans, somebody (I think the Alderman) said, 'Poor old
England is lost.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, it is not so much to be lamented that
Old England is lost, as that the Scotch have found it.' WILKES. 'Had
Lord Bute governed Scotland only, I should not have taken the trouble to
write his eulogy, and dedicate Mortimer to him.'
Mr. Wilkes held a candle to shew a fine print of a beautiful female
figure which hung in the room, and pointed out the elegant contour of
the bosom with the finger of an arch connoisseur. He afterwards, in
a conversation with me, waggishly insisted, that all the time Johnson
shewed visible signs of a fervent admiration of the corresponding charms
of the fair Quaker.
This record, though by no means so perfect as I could wish, will
serve to give a notion of a very curious interview, which was not only
pleasing at the time, but had the agreeable and benignant effect of
reconciling any animosity, and sweetening any acidity, which in the
various bustle of political contest, had been produced in the minds
of two men, who though widely different, had so many things in
common--classical learning, modern literature, wit, and humour, and
ready repartee--that it would have been much to be regretted if they had
been for ever at a distance from each other.
Mr. Burke gave me much credit for this successful NEGOCIATION; and
pleasantly said, that 'there was nothing to equal it in the whole
history of the Corps Diplomatique.'
I attended Dr. Johnson home, and had the satisfaction to hear him tell
Mrs. Williams how much he had been pleased with Mr. Wilkes's company,
and what an agreeable day he had passed.
I talked a good deal to him of the celebrated Margaret Caroline Rudd,
whom I had visited, induced by the fame of her talents, address, and
irresistible power of fascination. To a lady who disapproved of my
visiting her, he said on a former occasion, 'Nay, Madam, Boswell is in
the right; I should have visited her myself, were it not that they have
now a trick of putting every thing into the news-papers.' This evening
he exclaimed, 'I envy him his acquaintance with Mrs. Rudd.'
On the evening of the next day I took leave of him, being to set out for
Scotland. I thanked him with great warmth for all his kindness. 'Sir,
(said he,) you are very welcome. Nobody repays it with more.
The following letters concerning an Epitaph which he wrote for the
monument of Dr. Goldsmith, in Westminster-Abbey, afford at once a proof
of his unaffected modesty, his carelessness as to his own writings, and
of the great respect which he entertained for the taste and judgement of
the excellent and eminent person to whom they are addressed:
TO SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.
DEAR SIR,--I have been kept away from you, I know not well how, and
of these vexatious hindrances I know not when there will be an end.
I therefore send you the poor dear Doctor's epitaph. Read it first
yourself; and if you then think it right, shew it to the Club. I am, you
know, willing to be corrected. If you think any thing much amiss, keep
it to yourself, till we come together. I have sent two copies, but
prefer the card. The dates must be settled by Dr. Percy. I am, Sir, your
most humble servant,
'May 16, 1776.'
'SAM. JOHNSON.'
It was, I think, after I had left London this year, that this Epitaph
gave occasion to a Remonstrance to the MONARCH OF LITERATURE, for an
account of which I am indebted to Sir William Forbes, of Pitsligo.
That my readers may have the subject more fully and clearly before them,
I shall first insert the Epitaph.
OLIVARII GOLDSMITH,
Poetae, Physici, Historici,
Qui nullum fere scribendi genus
Non tetigit,
Nullum quod tetiqit non ornavit:
Sive risus essent movendi,
Sive lacrymae,
Affectuum potens at lenis dominator:
Ingenio sublimis, vividus, versatilis,
Oratione grandis, nitidus, venustus:
Hoc monumento memoriam coluit
Sodalium amor,
Amicorum fides,
Lectorum veneratio.
Natus in Hibernia Forniae Longfordiensis,
In loco cui nomen Pallas,
Nov. XXIX. MDCCXXXI;
Eblanae literis institutus;
Obiit Londini,
April IV, MDCCLXXIV.'
Sir William Forbes writes to me thus:--
'I enclose the Round Robin. This jeu d'esprit took its rise one day at
dinner at our friend Sir Joshua Reynolds's. All the company present,
except myself, were friends and acquaintance of Dr. Goldsmith.
The Epitaph, written for him by Dr. Johnson, became the subject of
conversation, and various emendations were suggested, which it was
agreed should be submitted to the Doctor's consideration. But the
question was, who should have the courage to propose them to him? At
last it was hinted, that there could be no way so good as that of a
Round Robin, as the sailors call it, which they make use of when they
enter into a conspiracy, so as not to let it be known who puts his name
first or last to the paper. This proposition was instantly assented
to; and Dr. Barnard, Dean of Derry, now Bishop of Killaloe, drew up an
address to Dr. Johnson on the occasion, replete with wit and humour, but
which it was feared the Doctor might think treated the subject with too
much levity. Mr. Burke then proposed the address as it stands in the
paper in writing, to which I had the honour to officiate as clerk.
'Sir Joshua agreed to carry it to Dr. Johnson, who received it with
much good humour,* and desired Sir Joshua to tell the gentlemen, that he
would alter the Epitaph in any manner they pleased, as to the sense
of it; but he would never consent to disgrace the walls of Westminster
Abbey with an English inscription.
* He however, upon seeing Dr. Warton's name to the
suggestion, that the Epitaph should be in English, observed
to Sir Joshua, 'I wonder that Joe Warton, a scholar by
profession, should be such a fool.' He said too, 'I should
have thought Mund Burke would have had more sense.' Mr.
Langton, who was one of the company at Sir Joshua's, like a
sturdy scholar, resolutely refused to sign the Round Robin.
The Epitaph is engraved upon Dr. Goldsmith's monument
without any alteration. At another time, when somebody
endeavoured to argue in favour of its being in English,
Johnson said, 'The language of the country of which a
learned man was a native, is not the language fit for his
epitaph, which should be in ancient and permanent language.
Consider, Sir; how you should feel, were you to find at
Rotterdam an epitaph upon Erasmus IN DUTCH!'--BOSWELL.
'I consider this Round Robin as a species of literary curiosity worth
preserving, as it marks, in a certain degree, Dr. Johnson's character.'
Sir William Forbes's observation is very just. The anecdote now related
proves, in the strongest manner, the reverence and awe with which
Johnson was regarded, by some of the most eminent men of his time, in
various departments, and even by such of them as lived most with him;
while it also confirms what I have again and again inculcated, that he
was by no means of that ferocious and irascible character which has been
ignorantly imagined.
This hasty composition is also to be remarked as one of a thousand
instances which evince the extraordinary promptitude of Mr. Burke; who
while he is equal to the greatest things, can adorn the least; can,
with equal facility, embrace the vast and complicated speculations of
politicks, or the ingenious topicks of literary investigation.
'DR. JOHNSON TO MRS. BOSWELL.
'MADAM,--You must not think me uncivil in omitting to answer the letter
with which you favoured me some time ago. I imagined it to have been
written without Mr. Boswell's knowledge, and therefore supposed the
answer to require, what I could not find, a private conveyance.