Boswell's Life of Johnson
pleased with the house. 'But (said he,) that was when Lord Scarsdale was
present. Politeness obliges us to appear pleased with a man's works when
he is present. No man will be so ill bred as to question you. You may
therefore pay compliments without saying what is not true. I should say
to Lord Scarsdale of his large room, "My Lord, this is the most COSTLY
room that I ever saw;" which is true.'
Dr. Manningham, physician in London, who was visiting at Lord
Scarsdale's, accompanyed us through many of the rooms, and soon
afterwards my Lord himself, to whom Dr. Johnson was known, appeared, and
did the honours of the house. We talked of Mr. Langton. Johnson, with
a warm vehemence of affectionate regard, exclaimed, 'The earth does
not bear a worthier man than Bennet Langton.' We saw a good many fine
pictures, which I think are described in one of Young's Tours. There is
a printed catalogue of them which the housekeeper put into my hand;
I should like to view them at leisure. I was much struck with Daniel
interpreting Nebuchadnezzar's dream by Rembrandt. We were shown a pretty
large library. In his Lordship's dressing-room lay Johnson's small
Dictionary: he shewed it to me, with some eagerness, saying, 'Look'ye!
Quae terra nostri non plena laboris.' He observed, also, Goldsmith's
Animated Nature; and said, 'Here's our friend! The poor Doctor would
have been happy to hear of this.'
In our way, Johnson strongly expressed his love of driving fast in
a post-chaise. 'If (said he,) I had no duties, and no reference to
futurity, I would spend my life in driving briskly in a post-chaise with
a pretty woman; but she should be one who could understand me, and would
add something to the conversation.' I observed, that we were this day to
stop just where the Highland army did in 1745. JOHNSON. 'It was a noble
attempt.' BOSWELL. 'I wish we could have an authentick history of it.'
JOHNSON. 'If you were not an idle dog you might write it, by collecting
from every body what they can tell, and putting down your authorities.'
BOSWELL. 'But I could not have the advantage of it in my life-time.'
JOHNSON. 'You might have the satisfaction of its fame, by printing it in
Holland; and as to profit, consider how long it was before writing came
to be considered in a pecuniary view. Baretti says, he is the first man
that ever received copy-money in Italy.' I said that I would endeavour
to do what Dr. Johnson suggested and I thought that I might write so as
to venture to publish my History of the Civil War in Great-Britain in
1745 and 1746, without being obliged to go to a foreign press.
When we arrived at Derby, Dr. Butter accompanied us to see the
manufactory of china there. I admired the ingenuity and delicate art
with which a man fashioned clay into a cup, a saucer, or a tea-pot,
while a boy turned round a wheel to give the mass rotundity. I thought
this as excellent in its species of power, as making good verses in ITS
species. Yet I had no respect for this potter. Neither, indeed, has a
man of any extent of thinking for a mere verse-maker, in whose numbers,
however perfect, there is no poetry, no mind. The china was beautiful,
but Dr. Johnson justly observed it was too dear; for that he could have
vessels of silver, of the same size, as cheap as what were here made of
porcelain.
I felt a pleasure in walking about Derby such as I always have in
walking about any town to which I am not accustomed. There is an
immediate sensation of novelty; and one speculates on the way in which
life is passed in it, which, although there is a sameness every where
upon the whole, is yet minutely diversified. The minute diversities in
every thing are wonderful. Talking of shaving the other night at Dr.
Taylor's, Dr. Johnson said, 'Sir, of a thousand shavers, two do not
shave so much alike as not to be distinguished.' I thought this
not possible, till he specified so many of the varieties in
shaving;--holding the razor more or less perpendicular;--drawing long
or short strokes;--beginning at the upper part of the face, or the
under;--at the right side or the left side. Indeed, when one considers
what variety of sounds can be uttered by the windpipe, in the compass
of a very small aperture, we may be convinced how many degrees of
difference there may be in the application of a razor.
We dined with Dr. Butter, whose lady is daughter of my cousin Sir John
Douglas, whose grandson is now presumptive heir of the noble family of
Queensberry. Johnson and he had a good deal of medical conversation.
Johnson said, he had somewhere or other given an account of Dr.
Nichols's discourse De Animia Medica. He told us 'that whatever a man's
distemper was, Dr. Nichols would not attend him as a physician, if his
mind was not at ease; for he believed that no medicines would have any
influence. He once attended a man in trade, upon whom he found none
of the medicines he prescribed had any effect: he asked the man's wife
privately whether his affairs were not in a bad way? She said no. He
continued his attendance some time, still without success. At length the
man's wife told him, she had discovered that her husband's affairs WERE
in a bad way. When Goldsmith was dying, Dr. Turton said to him, "Your
pulse is in greater disorder than it should be, from the degree of fever
which you have: is your mind at ease?" Goldsmith answered it was not.'
Dr. Johnson told us at tea, that when some of Dr. Dodd's pious friends
were trying to console him by saying that he was going to leave 'a
wretched world,' he had honesty enough not to join in the cant:--'No,
no, (said he,) it has been a very agreeable world to me.' Johnson added,
'I respect Dodd for thus speaking the truth; for, to be sure, he had for
several years enjoyed a life of great voluptuousness.
He told us, that Dodd's city friends stood by him so, that a thousand
pounds were ready to be given to the gaoler, if he would let him escape.
He added, that he knew a friend of Dodd's, who walked about Newgate
for some time on the evening before the day of his execution, with five
hundred pounds in his pocket, ready to be paid to any of the turnkeys
who could get him out: but it was too late; for he was watched with much
circumspection. He said, Dodd's friends had an image of him made of wax,
which was to have been left in his place; and he believed it was carried
into the prison.
Johnson disapproved of Dr. Dodd's leaving the world persuaded that The
Convict's Address to his unhappy Brethren was of his own writing. 'But,
Sir, (said I,) you contributed to the deception; for when Mr. Seward
expressed a doubt to you that it was not Dodd's own, because it had a
great deal more force of mind in it than any thing known to be his, you
answered,--"Why should you think so? Depend upon it, Sir, when a man
knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind
wonderfully."' JOHNSON. Sir, as Dodd got it from me to pass as his own,
while that could do him any good, there was an IMPLIED PROMISE that I
should not own it. To own it, therefore, would have been telling a lie,
with the addition of breach of promise, which was worse than simply
telling a lie to make it be believed it was Dodd's. Besides, Sir, I did
not DIRECTLY tell a lie: I left the matter uncertain. Perhaps I thought
that Seward would not believe it the less to be mine for what I said;
but I would not put it in his power to say I had owned it.'
He said, 'Goldsmith was a plant that flowered late. There appeared
nothing remarkable about him when he was young; though when he had got
high in fame, one of his friends began to recollect something of his
being distinguished at College. Goldsmith in the same manner recollected
more of that friend's early years, as he grew a greater man.'
I mentioned that Lord Monboddo told me, he awaked every morning at four,
and then for his health got up and walked in his room naked, with the
window open, which he called taking an air bath; after which he went to
bed again, and slept two hours more. Johnson, who was always ready to
beat down any thing that seemed to be exhibited with disproportionate
importance, thus observed: 'I suppose, Sir, there is no more in it than
this, he awakes at four, and cannot sleep till he chills himself, and
makes the warmth of the bed a grateful sensation.'
I talked of the difficulty of rising in the morning. Dr. Johnson told
me, 'that the learned Mrs. Carter, at that period when she was eager
in study, did not awake as early as she wished, and she therefore had
a contrivance, that, at a certain hour, her chamber-light should burn
a string to which a heavy weight was suspended, which then fell with
a strong sudden noise: this roused her from sleep, and then she had no
difficulty in getting up.' But I said THAT was my difficulty; and wished
there could be some medicine invented which would make one rise without
pain, which I never did, unless after lying in bed a very long time.
Johnson advised me to-night not to REFINE in the education of my
children. 'Life (said he,) will not bear refinement: you must do as
other people do.'
As we drove back to Ashbourne, Dr. Johnson recommended to me, as he had
often done, to drink water only: 'For (said he,) you are then sure not
to get drunk; whereas if you drink wine you are never sure.' I said,
drinking wine was a pleasure which I was unwilling to give up, 'Why,
Sir, (said he,) there is no doubt that not to drink wine is a great
deduction from life; but it may be necessary.' He however owned, that in
his opinion a free use of wine did not shorten life; and said, he would
not give less for the life of a certain Scotch Lord (whom he named)
celebrated for hard drinking, than for that of a sober man. 'But stay,
(said he, with his usual intelligence, and accuracy of enquiry,) does it
take much wine to make him drunk?' I answered, 'a great deal either of
wine or strong punch.'--'Then (said he,) that is the worse.' I presume
to illustrate my friend's observation thus: 'A fortress which soon
surrenders has its walls less shattered than when a long and obstinate
resistance is made.'
I ventured to mention a person who was as violent a Scotsman as he was
an Englishman; and literally had the same contempt for an Englishman
compared with a Scotsman, that he had for a Scotsman compared with an
Englishman; and that he would say of Dr. Johnson, 'Damned rascal! to
talk as he does of the Scotch.' This seemed, for a moment, 'to give him
pause.' It, perhaps, presented his extreme prejudice against the Scotch
in a point of view somewhat new to him, by the effect of CONTRAST.
By the time when we returned to Ashbourne, Dr. Taylor was gone to bed.
Johnson and I sat up a long time by ourselves.
On Saturday, September 20, after breakfast, when Taylor was gone out to
his farm, Dr. Johnson and I had a serious conversation by ourselves on
melancholy and madness.
We entered seriously upon a question of much importance to me, which
Johnson was pleased to consider with friendly attention. I had long
complained to him that I felt myself discontented in Scotland, as too
narrow a sphere, and that I wished to make my chief residence in London,
the great scene of ambition, instruction, and amusement: a scene, which
was to me, comparatively speaking, a heaven upon earth. JOHNSON. 'Why,
Sir, I never knew any one who had such a GUST for London as you have:
and I cannot blame you for your wish to live there: yet, Sir, were I in
your father's place, I should not consent to your settling there; for
I have the old feudal notions, and I should be afraid that Auchinleck
would be deserted, as you would soon find it more desirable to have a
country-seat in a better climate.'
I suggested a doubt, that if I were to reside in London, the exquisite