Boswell's Life of Johnson
would not devote myself to the acquisition of popularity; I would live
in a much better way, much more happily; I would have my time at my own
command.' BOSWELL. 'But, Sir, is it not a sad thing to be at a distance
from all our literary friends?' JOHNSON. 'Sir, you will by and by have
enough of this conversation, which now delights you so much.'
As he was a zealous friend of subordination, he was at all times
watchful to repress the vulgar cant against the manners of the great;
'High people, Sir, (said he,) are the best; take a hundred ladies of
quality, you'll find them better wives, better mothers, more willing
to sacrifice their own pleasure to their children than a hundred other
women. Tradeswomen (I mean the wives of tradesmen) in the city, who are
worth from ten to fifteen thousand pounds, are the worst creatures
upon the earth, grossly ignorant, and thinking viciousness fashionable.
Farmers, I think, are often worthless fellows. Few lords will cheat;
and, if they do, they'll be ashamed of it: farmers cheat and are not
ashamed of it: they have all the sensual vices too of the nobility, with
cheating into the bargain. There is as much fornication and adultery
among farmers as amongst noblemen.' BOSWELL. 'The notion of the world,
Sir, however is, that the morals of women of quality are worse than
those in lower stations.' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir, the licentiousness of
one woman of quality makes more noise than that of a number of women in
lower stations; then, Sir, you are to consider the malignity of women
in the city against women of quality, which will make them believe any
thing of them, such as that they call their coachmen to bed. No, Sir, so
far as I have observed, the higher in rank, the richer ladies are, they
are the better instructed and the more virtuous.'
On Tuesday, May 19, I was to set out for Scotland in the evening. He was
engaged to dine with me at Mr. Dilly's, I waited upon him to remind
him of his appointment and attend him thither; he gave me some salutary
counsel, and recommended vigorous resolution against any deviation from
moral duty. BOSWELL. 'But you would not have me to bind myself by a
solemn obligation?' JOHNSON. (much agitated,) 'What! a vow--O, no, Sir,
a vow is a horrible thing, it is a snare for sin. The man who cannot go
to Heaven without a vow--may go--' Here, standing erect, in the middle
of his library, and rolling grand, his pause was truly a curious
compound of the solemn and the ludicrous; he half-whistled in his usual
way, when pleasant, and he paused, as if checked by religious awe.
Methought he would have added--to Hell--but was restrained. I humoured
the dilemma. 'What! Sir, (said I,) In caelum jusseris ibit?' alluding to
his imitation of it,--
'And bid him go to Hell, to Hell he goes.'
We had a quiet comfortable meeting at Mr. Dilly's; nobody there but
ourselves. My illustrious friend and I parted with assurances of
affectionate regard.
Mr. Langton has been pleased, at my request, to favour me with some
particulars of Dr. Johnson's visit to Warley-camp, where this gentleman
was at the time stationed as a Captain in the Lincolnshire militia. I
shall give them in his own words in a letter to me.
'It was in the summer of the year 1778, that he complied with my
invitation to come down to the Camp at Warley, and he staid with me
about a week; the scene appeared, notwithstanding a great degree of ill
health that he seemed to labour under, to interest and amuse him, as
agreeing with the disposition that I believe you know he constantly
manifested towards enquiring into subjects of the military kind. He
sate, with a patient degree of attention, to observe the proceedings of
a regimental court-martial, that happened to be called, in the time
of his stay with us; and one night, as late as at eleven o'clock, he
accompanied the Major of the regiment in going what are styled the
Rounds, where he might observe the forms of visiting the guards, for
the seeing that they and their sentries are ready in their duty on
their several posts. He took occasion to converse at times on military
topicks, one in particular, that I see the mention of, in your Journal
of a Tour to the Hebrides, which lies open before me, as to gun-powder;
which he spoke of to the same effect, in part, that you relate.
'On one occasion, when the regiment were going through their exercise,
he went quite close to the men at one of the extremities of it, and
watched all their practices attentively; and, when he came away,
his remark was, "The men indeed do load their muskets and fire with
wonderful celerity." He was likewise particular in requiring to know
what was the weight of the musquet balls in use, and within what
distance they might be expected to take effect when fired off.
'In walking among the tents, and observing the difference between
those of the officers and private men, he said that the superiority of
accommodation of the better conditions of life, to that of the inferiour
ones, was never exhibited to him in so distinct a view. The civilities
paid to him in the camp were, from the gentlemen of the Lincolnshire
regiment, one of the officers of which accommodated him with a tent in
which he slept; and from General Hall, who very courteously invited him
to dine with him, where he appeared to be very well pleased with
his entertainment, and the civilities he received on the part of the
General; the attention likewise, of the General's aide-de-camp, Captain
Smith, seemed to be very welcome to him, as appeared by their engaging
in a great deal of discourse together.'
We surely cannot but admire the benevolent exertions of this great and
good man, especially when we consider how grievously he was afflicted
with bad health, and how uncomfortable his home was made by the
perpetual jarring of those whom he charitably accommodated under his
roof. He has sometimes suffered me to talk jocularly of his group of
females, and call them his Seraglio. He thus mentions them, together
with honest Levett, in one of his letters to Mrs. Thrale: 'Williams
hates every body; Levett hates Desmoulins, and does not love Williams;
Desmoulins hates them both; Poll* loves none of them.'**
* Miss Carmichael.
** A year later he wrote: At Bolt-court there is much
malignity, but of late little hostility.'--ED.
In 1779, Johnson gave the world a luminous proof that the vigour of his
mind in all its faculties, whether memory, judgement, or imagination,
was not in the least abated; for this year came out the first four
volumes of his Prefaces, biographical and critical, to the most eminent
of the English Poets, published by the booksellers of London. The
remaining volumes came out in the year 1780. The Poets were selected by
the several booksellers who had the honorary copy right, which is still
preserved among them by mutual compact, notwithstanding the decision of
the House of Lords against the perpetuity of Literary Property. We have
his own authority, that by his recommendation the poems of Blackmore,
Watts, Pomfret, and Yalden, were added to the collection.
On the 22nd of January, I wrote to him on several topicks, and mentioned
that as he had been so good as to permit me to have the proof sheets of
his Lives of the Poets, I had written to his servant, Francis, to take
care of them for me.
On the 23rd of February I wrote to him again, complaining of his
silence, as I had heard he was ill, and had written to Mr. Thrale, for
information concerning him; and I announced my intention of soon being
again in London.
'TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.
'DEAR SIR,--Why should you take such delight to make a bustle, to write
to Mr. Thrale that I am negligent, and to Francis to do what is so very
unnecessary. Thrale, you may be sure, cared not about it; and I shall
spare Francis the trouble, by ordering a set both of the Lives and Poets
to dear Mrs. Boswell,* in acknowledgement of her marmalade. Persuade her
to accept them, and accept them kindly. If I thought she would receive
them scornfully, I would send them to Miss Boswell, who, I hope, has yet
none of her mamma's ill-will to me. . . .
'Mrs. Thrale waits in the coach. I am, dear Sir, &c.,
'March 13, 1779.'
'SAM. JOHNSON.'
* He sent a set elegantly bound and gilt, which was received
as a very handsome present.--BOSWELL
This letter crossed me on the road to London, where I arrived on Monday,
March 15, and next morning at a late hour, found Dr. Johnson sitting
over his tea, attended by Mrs. Desmoulins, Mr. Levett, and a clergyman,
who had come to submit some poetical pieces to his revision. It is
wonderful what a number and variety of writers, some of them even
unknown to him, prevailed on his good-nature to look over their works,
and suggest corrections and improvements. My arrival interrupted for
a little while the important business of this true representative of
Bayes; upon its being resumed, I found that the subject under immediate
consideration was a translation, yet in manuscript, of the Carmen
Seculare of Horace, which had this year been set to musick, and
performed as a publick entertainment in London, for the joint benefit of
monsieur Philidor and Signor Baretti. When Johnson had done reading,
the authour asked him bluntly, 'If upon the whole it was a good
translation?' Johnson, whose regard for truth was uncommonly strict,
seemed to be puzzled for a moment, what answer to make; as he certainly
could not honestly commend the performance: with exquisite address he
evaded the question thus, 'Sir, I do not say that it may not be made
a very good translation.' Here nothing whatever in favour of the
performance was affirmed, and yet the writer was not shocked. A printed
Ode to the Warlike Genius of Britain, came next in review; the bard was
a lank bony figure, with short black hair; he was writhing himself
in agitation, while Johnson read, and shewing his teeth in a grin of
earnestness, exclaimed in broken sentences, and in a keen sharp tone,
'Is that poetry, Sir?--Is it Pindar?' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, there is here
a great deal of what is called poetry.' Then, turning to me, the poet
cried, 'My muse has not been long upon the town, and (pointing to the
Ode) it trembles under the hand of the great critick.' Johnson, in a
tone of displeasure, asked him, 'Why do you praise Anson?' I did not
trouble him by asking his reason for this question. He proceeded, 'Here
is an errour, Sir; you have made Genius feminine.' 'Palpable, Sir;
(cried the enthusiast,) I know it. But (in a lower tone,) it was to
pay a compliment to the Duchess of Devonshire, with which her Grace was
pleased. She is walking across Coxheath, in the military uniform, and I
suppose her to be the Genius of Britain.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, you are giving
a reason for it; but that will not make it right. You may have a reason
why two and two should make five; but they will still make but four.'
Although I was several times with him in the course of the following
days, such it seems were my occupations, or such my negligence, that I
have preserved no memorial of his conversation till Friday, March 26,
when I visited him. He said he expected to be attacked on account of his
Lives of the Poets. 'However (said he,) I would rather be attacked than
unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an authour is to be silent
as to his works. An assault upon a town is a bad thing; but starving it
is still worse; an assault may be unsuccessful; you may have more
men killed than you kill; but if you starve the town, you are sure of
victory.'
Talking of a friend of ours associating with persons of very discordant
principles and characters; I said he was a very universal man, quite a
man of the world. JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir; but one may be so much a man