Boswell's Life of Johnson
zest with which I relished it in occasional visits might go off, and
I might grow tired of it. JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, you find no man, at all
intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is
tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that
life can afford.'
He said, 'A country gentleman should bring his lady to visit London as
soon as he can, that they may have agreeable topicks for conversation
when they are by themselves.'
We talked of employment being absolutely necessary to preserve the
mind from wearying and growing fretful, especially in those who have a
tendency to melancholy; and I mentioned to him a saying which somebody
had related of an American savage, who, when an European was expatiating
on all the advantages of money, put this question: 'Will it purchase
OCCUPATION?' JOHNSON. 'Depend upon it, Sir, this saying is too refined
for a savage. And, Sir, money WILL purchase occupation; it will purchase
all the conveniences of life; it will purchase variety of company; it
will purchase all sorts of entertainment.'
I talked to him of Forster's Voyage to the South Seas, which pleased
me; but I found he did not like it. 'Sir, (said he,) there is a great
affectation of fine writing in it.' BOSWELL. 'But he carries you along
with him.' JOHNSON. 'No, Sir; he does not carry ME along with him: he
leaves me behind him: or rather, indeed, he sets me before him; for he
makes me turn over many leaves at a time.'
On Sunday, September 21, we went to the church of Ashbourne, which is
one of the largest and most luminous that I have seen in any town of the
same size. I felt great satisfaction in considering that I was supported
in my fondness for solemn publick worship by the general concurrence and
munificence of mankind.
Johnson and Taylor were so different from each other, that I wondered
at their preserving an intimacy. Their having been at school and college
together, might, in some degree, account for this; but Sir Joshua
Reynolds has furnished me with a stronger reason; for Johnson mentioned
to him, that he had been told by Taylor he was to be his heir. I shall
not take upon me to animadvert upon this; but certain it is, that
Johnson paid great attention to Taylor. He now, however, said to me,
'Sir, I love him; but I do not love him more; my regard for him does not
increase. As it is said in the Apocrypha, "his talk is of bullocks:" I
do not suppose he is very fond of my company. His habits are by no means
sufficiently clerical: this he knows that I see; and no man likes to
live under the eye of perpetual disapprobation.'
I have no doubt that a good many sermons were composed for Taylor by
Johnson. At this time I found, upon his table, a part of one which he
had newly begun to write: and Concio pro Tayloro appears in one of his
diaries. When to these circumstances we add the internal evidence from
the power of thinking and style, in the collection which the Reverend
Mr. Hayes has published, with the SIGNIFICANT title of 'Sermons LEFT FOR
PUBLICATION by the Reverend John Taylor, LL.D.,' our conviction will be
complete.
I, however, would not have it thought, that Dr. Taylor, though he could
not write like Johnson, (as, indeed, who could?) did not sometimes
compose sermons as good as those which we generally have from very
respectable divines. He shewed me one with notes on the margin in
Johnson's handwriting; and I was present when he read another to
Johnson, that he might have his opinion of it, and Johnson said it was
'very well.' These, we may be sure, were not Johnson's; for he was above
little arts, or tricks of deception.
I mentioned to Johnson a respectable person of a very strong mind, who
had little of that tenderness which is common to human nature; as an
instance of which, when I suggested to him that he should invite his
son, who had been settled ten years in foreign parts, to come home and
pay him a visit, his answer was, 'No, no, let him mind his business.
JOHNSON. 'I do not agree with him, Sir, in this. Getting money is not
all a man's business: to cultivate kindness is a valuable part of the
business of life.'
In the evening, Johnson, being in very good spirits, entertained us with
several characteristical portraits. I regret that any of them escaped
my retention and diligence. I found, from experience, that to collect
my friend's conversation so as to exhibit it with any degree of its
original flavour, it was necessary to write it down without delay. To
record his sayings, after some distance of time, was like preserving or
pickling long-kept and faded fruits, or other vegetables, which, when in
that state, have little or nothing of their taste when fresh.
I shall present my readers with a series of what I gathered this evening
from the Johnsonian garden.
'Did we not hear so much said of Jack Wilkes, we should think more
highly of his conversation. Jack has great variety of talk, Jack is a
scholar, and Jack has the manners of a gentleman. But after hearing his
name sounded from pole to pole, as the phoenix of convivial felicity, we
are disappointed in his company. He has always been AT ME: but I would
do Jack a kindness, rather than not. The contest is now over.'
'Colley Cibber once consulted me as to one of his birthday Odes, a long
time before it was wanted. I objected very freely to several passages.
Cibber lost patience, and would not read his Ode to an end. When we
had done with criticism, we walked over to Richardson's, the authour of
Clarissa and I wondered to find Richardson displeased that I "did not
treat Cibber with more RESPECT." Now, Sir, to talk of RESPECT for a
PLAYER!' (smiling disdainfully.) BOSWELL. 'There, Sir, you are always
heretical: you never will allow merit to a player.' JOHNSON. 'Merit,
Sir! what merit? Do you respect a rope-dancer, or a ballad-singer?'
BOSWELL. 'No, Sir: but we respect a great player, as a man who can
conceive lofty sentiments, and can express them gracefully.' JOHNSON.
'What, Sir, a fellow who claps a hump on his back, and a lump on his
leg, and cries "I am Richard the Third"? Nay, Sir, a ballad-singer is
a higher man, for he does two things; he repeats and he sings: there is
both recitation and musick in his performance: the player only recites.'
BOSWELL. 'My dear Sir! you may turn anything into ridicule. I allow,
that a player of farce is not entitled to respect; he does a little
thing: but he who can represent exalted characters, and touch the
noblest passions, has very respectable powers; and mankind have agreed
in admiring great talents for the stage. We must consider, too, that
a great player does what very few are capable to do: his art is a very
rare faculty. WHO can repeat Hamlet's soliloquy, "To be, or not to be,"
as Garrick does it?' JOHNSON. 'Any body may. Jemmy, there (a boy about
eight years old, who was in the room,) will do it as well in a week.'
BOSWELL. 'No, no, Sir: and as a proof of the merit of great acting,
and of the value which mankind set upon it, Garrick has got a hundred
thousand pounds.' JOHNSON. 'Is getting a hundred thousand pounds a proof
of excellence? That has been done by a scoundrel commissary.'
This was most fallacious reasoning. I was SURE, for once, that I had
the best side of the argument. I boldly maintained the just distinction
between a tragedian and a mere theatrical droll; between those who rouse
our terrour and pity, and those who only make us laugh. 'If (said I,)
Betterton and Foote were to walk into this room, you would respect
Betterton much more than Foote.' JOHNSON. 'If Betterton were to walk
into this room with Foote, Foote would soon drive him out of it. Foote,
Sir, quatenus Foote, has powers superiour to them all.'
On Monday, September 22, when at breakfast, I unguardedly said to Dr.
Johnson, 'I wish I saw you and Mrs. Macaulay together.' He grew very
angry; and, after a pause, while a cloud gathered on his brow, he burst
out, 'No, Sir; you would not see us quarrel, to make you sport. Don't
you know that it is very uncivil to PIT two people against one another?'
Then, checking himself, and wishing to be more gentle, he added, 'I
do not say you should be hanged or drowned for this; but it IS very
uncivil.' Dr. Taylor thought him in the wrong, and spoke to him
privately of it; but I afterwards acknowledged to Johnson that I was to
blame, for I candidly owned, that I meant to express a desire to see a
contest between Mrs. Macaulay and him; but then I knew how the contest
would end; so that I was to see him triumph. JOHNSON. 'Sir, you cannot
be sure how a contest will end; and no man has a right to engage two
people in a dispute by which their passions may be inflamed, and they
may part with bitter resentment against each other. I would sooner keep
company with a man from whom I must guard my pockets, than with a man
who contrives to bring me into a dispute with somebody that he may
hear it. This is the great fault of ------,(naming one of our friends,)
endeavouring to introduce a subject upon which he knows two people
in the company differ.' BOSWELL. 'But he told me, Sir, he does it for
instruction.' JOHNSON. 'Whatever the motive be, Sir, the man who does
so, does very wrong. He has no more right to instruct himself at such
risk, than he has to make two people fight a duel, that he may learn how
to defend himself.'
He found great fault with a gentleman of our acquaintance for keeping
a bad table. 'Sir, (said he,) when a man is invited to dinner, he is
disappointed if he does not get something good. I advised Mrs. Thrale,
who has no card-parties at her house, to give sweet-meats, and such good
things, in an evening, as are not commonly given, and she would find
company enough come to her; for every body loves to have things which
please the palate put in their way, without trouble or preparation.'
Such was his attention to the minutiae of life and manners.
Mr. Burke's Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol, on the affairs of
America, being mentioned, Johnson censured the composition much, and he
ridiculed the definition of a free government, viz. 'For any practical
purpose, it is what the people think so.'--'I will let the King of
France govern me on those conditions, (said he,) for it is to be
governed just as I please.' And when Dr. Taylor talked of a girl being
sent to a parish workhouse, and asked how much she could be obliged to
work, 'Why, (said Johnson,) as much as is reasonable: and what is that?
as much as SHE THINKS reasonable.'
Dr. Johnson obligingly proposed to carry me to see Islam, a romantick
scene, now belonging to a family of the name of Port, but formerly the
seat of the Congreves. I suppose it is well described in some of the
Tours. Johnson described it distinctly and vividly, at which I could not
but express to him my wonder; because, though my eyes, as he observed,
were better than his, I could not by any means equal him in representing
visible objects. I said, the difference between us in this respect was
as that between a man who has a bad instrument, but plays well on
it, and a man who has a good instrument, on which he can play very
imperfectly.
I recollect a very fine amphitheatre, surrounded with hills covered with
woods, and walks neatly formed along the side of a rocky steep, on
the quarter next the house with recesses under projections of rock,
overshadowed with trees; in one of which recesses, we were told,
Congreve wrote his Old Bachelor. We viewed a remarkable natural
curiosity at Islam; two rivers bursting near each other from the rock,
not from immediate springs, but after having run for many miles under
ground. Plott, in his History of Staffordshire, gives an account of
this curiosity; but Johnson would not believe it, though we had the