Boswell's Life of Johnson
different ways, as you please.' BOSWELL. 'I said to-day to Sir Joshua,
when he observed that you TOSSED me sometimes--I don't care how often,
or how high he tosses me, when only friends are present, for then I fall
upon soft ground: but I do not like falling on stones, which is the
case when enemies are present.--I think this a pretty good image, Sir.'
JOHNSON. 'Sir, it is one of the happiest I have ever heard.'
The truth is, there was no venom in the wounds which he inflicted at
any time, unless they were irritated by some malignant infusion by other
hands. We were instantly as cordial again as ever, and joined in
hearty laugh at some ludicrous but innocent peculiarities of one of our
friends. BOSWELL. 'Do you think, Sir, it is always culpable to laugh at
a man to his face?' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, that depends upon the man and
the thing. If it is a slight man, and a slight thing, you may; for you
take nothing valuable from him.'
When Mr. Langton returned to us, the 'flow of talk' went on. An eminent
authour being mentioned;--JOHNSON. 'He is not a pleasant man. His
conversation is neither instructive nor brilliant. He does not talk as
if impelled by any fulness of knowledge or vivacity of imagination. His
conversation is like that of any other sensible man. He talks with no
wish either to inform or to hear, but only because he thinks it does not
become ------ ------ to sit in a company and say nothing.'
Mr. Langton having repeated the anecdote of Addison having distinguished
between his powers in conversation and in writing, by saying 'I
have only nine-pence in my pocket; but I can draw for a thousand
pounds;'--JOHNSON. 'He had not that retort ready, Sir; he had prepared
it before-hand.' LANGTON. (turning to me,) 'A fine surmise. Set a thief
to catch a thief.'
JOHNSON. 'I shall be at home to-morrow.' BOSWELL. 'Then let us dine by
ourselves at the Mitre, to keep up the old custom, "the custom of the
manor," the custom of the mitre.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, so it shall be.'
On Saturday, May 9, we fulfilled our purpose of dining by ourselves at
the Mitre, according to old custom. There was, on these occasions, a
little circumstance of kind attention to Mrs. Williams, which must not
be omitted. Before coming out, and leaving her to dine alone, he gave
her her choice of a chicken, a sweetbread, or any other little nice
thing, which was carefully sent to her from the tavern, ready-drest.
On Tuesday, May 12, I waited on the Earl of Marchmont, to know if his
Lordship would favour Dr. Johnson with information concerning Pope,
whose Life he was about to write. Johnson had not flattered himself with
the hopes of receiving any civility from this nobleman; for he said to
me, when I mentioned Lord Marchmont as one who could tell him a great
deal about Pope,--'Sir, he will tell ME nothing.' I had the honour of
being known to his Lordship, and applied to him of myself, without being
commissioned by Johnson. His Lordship behaved in the most polite and
obliging manner, promised to tell all he recollected about Pope, and was
so very courteous as to say, 'Tell Dr. Johnson I have a great respect
for him, and am ready to shew it in any way I can. I am to be in the
city to-morrow, and will call at his house as I return.' His Lordship
however asked, 'Will he write the Lives of the Poets impartially? He was
the first that brought Whig and Tory into a Dictionary. And what do
you think of his definition of Excise? Do you know the history of his
aversion to the word transpire?' Then taking down the folio Dictionary,
he shewed it with this censure on its secondary sense: '"To escape
from secrecy to notice; a sense lately innovated from France, without
necessity." The truth was Lord Bolingbroke, who left the Jacobites,
first used it; therefore, it was to be condemned. He should have shewn
what word would do for it, if it was unnecessary.' I afterwards put the
question to Johnson: 'Why, Sir, (said he,) GET ABROAD.' BOSWELL. 'That,
Sir, is using two words.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, there is no end of this. You
may as well insist to have a word for old age.' BOSWELL. 'Well, Sir,
Senectus.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, to insist always that there should be
one word to express a thing in English, because there is one in another
language, is to change the language.'
I proposed to Lord Marchmont that he should revise Johnson's Life
of Pope: 'So (said his Lordship,) you would put me in a dangerous
situation. You know he knocked down Osborne the bookseller.'
Elated with the success of my spontaneous exertion to procure material
and respectable aid to Johnson for his very favourite work, The Lives
of the Poets, I hastened down to Mr. Thrale's at Streatham, where he now
was, that I might insure his being at home next day; and after dinner,
when I thought he would receive the good news in the best humour, I
announced it eagerly: 'I have been at work for you to-day, Sir. I have
been with Lord Marchmont. He bade me tell you he has a great respect for
you, and will call on you to-morrow at one o'clock, and communicate all
he knows about Pope.'--Here I paused, in full expectation that he would
be pleased with this intelligence, would praise my active merit, and
would be alert to embrace such an offer from a nobleman. But whether I
had shewn an over-exultation, which provoked his spleen; or whether he
was seized with a suspicion that I had obtruded him on Lord Marchmont,
and humbled him too much; or whether there was any thing more than an
unlucky fit of ill-humour, I know not; but, to my surprize, the result
was,--JOHNSON. 'I shall not be in town to-morrow. I don't care to know
about Pope.' MRS. THRALE. (surprized as I was, and a little angry,) 'I
suppose, Sir, Mr. Boswell thought, that as you are to write Pope's Life,
you would wish to know about him.' JOHNSON. 'Wish! why yes. If it rained
knowledge I'd hold out my hand; but I would not give myself the trouble
to go in quest of it.' There was no arguing with him at the moment. Some
time afterwards he said, 'Lord Marchmont will call on me, and then
I shall call on Lord Marchmont.' Mr. Thrale was uneasy at his
unaccountable caprice; and told me, that if I did not take care to bring
about a meeting between Lord Marchmont and him, it would never take
place, which would be a great pity. I sent a card to his Lordship, to be
left at Johnson's house, acquainting him, that Dr. Johnson could not be
in town next day, but would do himself the honour of waiting on him at
another time. I give this account fairly, as a specimen of that unhappy
temper with which this great and good man had occasionally to struggle,
from something morbid in his constitution. Let the most censorious of
my readers suppose himself to have a violent fit of the tooth-ach, or to
have received a severe stroke on the shin-bone, and when in such a
state to be asked a question; and if he has any candour, he will not
be surprized at the answers which Johnson sometimes gave in moments of
irritation, which, let me assure them, is exquisitely painful. But it
must not be erroneously supposed that he was, in the smallest degree,
careless concerning any work which he undertook, or that he was
generally thus peevish. It will be seen, that in the following year he
had a very agreeable interview with Lord Marchmont, at his Lordship's
house; and this very afternoon he soon forgot any fretfulness, and fell
into conversation as usual.
JOHNSON. 'How foolish was it in Pope to give all his friendship to
Lords, who thought they honoured him by being with him; and to choose
such Lords as Burlington, and Cobham, and Bolingbroke! Bathurst was
negative, a pleasing man; and I have heard no ill of Marchmont; and then
always saying, "I do not value you for being a Lord;" which was a sure
proof that he did. I never say, I do not value Boswell more for being
born to an estate, because I do not care.' BOSWELL. 'Nor for being
a Scotchman?' JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, I do value you more for being a
Scotchman. You are a Scotchman without the faults of a Scotchman.
You would not have been so valuable as you are, had you not been a
Scotchman.'
Amongst the numerous prints pasted on the walls of the dining-room at
Streatham, was Hogarth's 'Modern Midnight Conversation.' I asked him
what he knew of Parson Ford, who makes a conspicuous figure in the
riotous group. JOHNSON. 'Sir, he was my acquaintance and relation,
my mother's nephew. He had purchased a living in the country, but not
simoniacally. I never saw him but in the country. I have been told he
was a man of great parts; very profligate, but I never heard he was
impious.' BOSWELL. 'Was there not a story of his ghost having appeared?'
JOHNSON. 'Sir, it was believed. A waiter at the Hummums, in which house
Ford died, had been absent for some time, and returned, not knowing that
Ford was dead. Going down to the cellar, according to the story, he
met him; going down again he met him a second time. When he came up, he
asked some of the people of the house what Ford could be doing there.
They told him Ford was dead. The waiter took a fever, in which he lay
for some time. When he recovered, he said he had a message to deliver to
some women from Ford; but he was not to tell what, or to whom. He walked
out; he was followed; but somewhere about St. Paul's they lost him.
He came back, and said he had delivered the message, and the women
exclaimed, "Then we are all undone!" Dr. Pellet, who was not a credulous
man, inquired into the truth of this story, and he said, the evidence
was irresistible. My wife went to the Hummums; (it is a place where
people get themselves cupped.) I believe she went with intention to hear
about this story of Ford. At first they were unwilling to tell her; but,
after they had talked to her, she came away satisfied that it was
true. To be sure the man had a fever; and this vision may have been the
beginning of it. But if the message to the women, and their behaviour
upon it, were true as related, there was something supernatural. That
rests upon his word; and there it remains.'
I staid all this day* with him at Streatham. He talked a great deal, in
very good humour.
* Wednesday, May 13.--ED.
Looking at Messrs. Dilly's splendid edition of Lord Chesterfield's
miscellaneous works, he laughed, and said, 'Here now are two speeches
ascribed to him, both of which were written by me: and the best of it
is, they have found out that one is like Demosthenes, and the other like
Cicero.'
BOSWELL. 'Is not modesty natural?' JOHNSON. 'I cannot say, Sir, as we
find no people quite in a state of nature; but I think the more they
are taught, the more modest they are. The French are a gross, ill-bred,
untaught people; a lady there will spit on the floor and rub it with
her foot. What I gained by being in France was, learning to be better
satisfied with my own country. Time may be employed to more advantage
from nineteen to twenty-four almost in any way than in travelling; when
you set travelling against mere negation, against doing nothing, it is
better to be sure; but how much more would a young man improve were he
to study during those years. Indeed, if a young man is wild, and must
run after women and bad company, it is better this should be done
abroad, as, on his return, he can break off such connections, and begin
at home a new man, with a character to form, and acquaintances to make.
How little does travelling supply to the conversation of any man who
has travelled; how little to Beauclerk!' BOSWELL. 'What say you to Lord
------?' JOHNSON. 'I never but once heard him talk of what he had
seen, and that was of a large serpent in one of the Pyramids of Egypt.'
BOSWELL. 'Well, I happened to hear him tell the same thing, which made
me mention him.'
I talked of a country life. JOHNSON. 'Were I to live in the country, I