Boswell's Life of Johnson
Paul's church, I found him alone; Dr. Scott of the Commons came in.
We talked of the difference between the mode of education at Oxford,
and that in those Colleges where instruction is chiefly conveyed by
lectures. JOHNSON. 'Lectures were once useful; but now, when all can
read, and books are so numerous, lectures are unnecessary. If your
attention fails, and you miss a part of a lecture, it is lost; you
cannot go back as you do upon a book.' Dr. Scott agreed with him. 'But
yet (said I), Dr. Scott, you yourself gave lectures at Oxford.' He
smiled. 'You laughed (then said I,) at those who came to you.'
Dr. Scott left us, and soon afterwards we went to dinner. Our company
consisted of Mrs. Williams, Mrs. Desmoulins, Mr. Levett, Mr. Allen,
the printer, and Mrs. Hall, sister of the Reverend Mr. John Wesley,
and resembling him, as I thought, both in figure and manner. Johnson
produced now, for the first time, some handsome silver salvers, which he
told me he had bought fourteen years ago; so it was a great day. I was
not a little amused by observing Allen perpetually struggling to talk in
the manner of Johnson, like the little frog in the fable blowing himself
up to resemble the stately ox.
He mentioned a thing as not unfrequent, of which I had never heard
before,--being CALLED, that is, hearing one's name pronounced by the
voice of a known person at a great distance, far beyond the possibility
of being reached by any sound uttered by human organs. 'An acquaintance,
on whose veracity I can depend, told me, that walking home one evening
to Kilmarnock, he heard himself called from a wood, by the voice of a
brother who had gone to America; and the next packet brought accounts of
that brother's death.' Macbean asserted that this inexplicable CALLING
was a thing very well known. Dr. Johnson said, that one day at Oxford,
as he was turning the key of his chamber, he heard his mother
distinctly call SAM. She was then at Lichfleld; but nothing ensued.
This phaenomenon is, I think, as wonderful as any other mysterious fact,
which many people are very slow to believe, or rather, indeed, reject
with an obstinate contempt.
Some time after this, upon his making a remark which escaped my
attention, Mrs. Williams and Mrs. Hall were both together striving to
answer him. He grew angry, and called out loudly, 'Nay, when you both
speak at once, it is intolerable.' But checking himself, and softening,
he said, 'This one may say, though you ARE ladies.' Then he brightened
into gay humour, and addressed them in the words of one of the songs in
The Beggar's Opera:--
'But two at a time there's no mortal can bear.'
'What, Sir, (said I,) are you going to turn Captain Macheath?' There was
something as pleasantly ludicrous in this scene as can be imagined.
The contrast between Macheath, Polly, and Lucy--and Dr. Samuel Johnson,
blind, peevish Mrs. Williams, and lean, lank, preaching Mrs. Hall, was
exquisite.
On Friday, April 20, I spent with him one of the happiest days that I
remember to have enjoyed in the whole course of my life. Mrs. Garrick,
whose grief for the loss of her husband was, I believe, as sincere as
wounded affection and admiration could produce, had this day, for the
first time since his death, a select party of his friends to dine with
her. The company was Miss Hannah More, who lived with her, and whom she
called her Chaplain; Mrs. Boscawen, Mrs. Elizabeth Carter, Sir Joshua
Reynolds, Dr. Burney, Dr. Johnson, and myself. We found ourselves very
elegantly entertained at her house in the Adelphi, where I have passed
many a pleasing hour with him 'who gladdened life.' She looked well,
talked of her husband with complacency, and while she cast her eyes on
his portrait, which hung over the chimney-piece, said, that 'death
was now the most agreeable object to her.' The very semblance of David
Garrick was cheering.
We were all in fine spirits; and I whispered to Mrs. Boscawen, 'I
believe this is as much as can be made of life.' In addition to a
splendid entertainment, we were regaled with Lichfield ale, which had
a peculiar appropriated value. Sir Joshua, and Dr. Burney, and I, drank
cordially of it to Dr. Johnson's health; and though he would not join
us, he as cordially answered, 'Gentlemen, I wish you all as well as you
do me.'
The general effect of this day dwells upon my mind in fond remembrance;
but I do not find much conversation recorded. What I have preserved
shall be faithfully given.
One of the company mentioned Mr. Thomas Hollis, the strenuous Whig,
who used to send over Europe presents of democratical books, with their
boards stamped with daggers and caps of liberty. Mrs. Carter said, 'He
was a bad man. He used to talk uncharitably.' JOHNSON. 'Poh! poh! Madam;
who is the worse for being talked of uncharitably? Besides, he was a
dull poor creature as ever lived: and I believe he would not have done
harm to a man whom he knew to be of very opposite principles to his own.
I remember once at the Society of Arts, when an advertisement was to be
drawn up, he pointed me out as the man who could do it best. This, you
will observe, was kindness to me. I however slipt away, and escaped it.'
Mrs. Carter having said of the same person, 'I doubt he was an Atheist.'
JOHNSON. 'I don't know that. He might perhaps have become one, if he had
had time to ripen, (smiling.) He might have EXUBERATED into an Atheist.'
Sir Joshua Reynolds praised Mudge's Sermons. JOHNSON. 'Mudge's Sermons
are good, but not practical. He grasps more sense than he can hold; he
takes more corn than he can make into meal; he opens a wide prospect,
but it is so distant, it is indistinct. I love Blair's Sermons. Though
the dog is a Scotchman, and a Presbyterian, and every thing he should
not be, I was the first to praise them. Such was my candour,' (smiling.)
MRS. BOSCAWEN. 'Such his great merit to get the better of all your
prejudices.' JOHNSON. 'Why, Madam, let us compound the matter; let us
ascribe it to my candour, and his merit.'
In the evening we had a large company in the drawing-room, several
ladies, the Bishop of Killaloe, Dr. Percy, Mr. Chamberlayne, of the
Treasury, &c. &c.
Talking of a very respectable authour, he told us a curious circumstance
in his life, which was, that he had married a printer's devil. REYNOLDS.
'A printer's devil, Sir! Why, I thought a printer's devil was a creature
with a black face and in rags.' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir. But I suppose, he
had her face washed, and put clean clothes on her. (Then looking very
serious, and very earnest.) And she did not disgrace him; the woman
had a bottom of good sense.' The word bottom thus introduced, was so
ludicrous when contrasted with his gravity, that most of us could not
forbear tittering and laughing; though I recollect that the Bishop of
Killaloe kept his countenance with perfect steadiness, while Miss Hannah
More slyly hid her face behind a lady's back who sat on the same settee
with her. His pride could not bear that any expression of his should
excite ridicule, when he did not intend it; he therefore resolved to
assume and exercise despotick power, glanced sternly around, and called
out in a strong tone, 'Where's the merriment?' Then collecting himself,
and looking aweful, to make us feel how he could impose restraint, and
as it were searching his mind for a still more ludicrous word, he slowly
pronounced, 'I say the WOMAN was FUNDAMENTALLY sensible;' as if he had
said, hear this now, and laugh if you dare. We all sat composed as at a
funeral.
He and I walked away together; we stopped a little while by the rails of
the Adelphi, looking on the Thames, and I said to him with some emotion
that I was now thinking of two friends we had lost, who once lived in
the buildings behind us, Beauclerk and Garrick. 'Ay, Sir, (said he,
tenderly,) and two such friends as cannot be supplied.'
For some time after this day I did not see him very often, and of the
conversation which I did enjoy, I am sorry to find I have preserved but
little. I was at this time engaged in a variety of other matters, which
required exertion and assiduity, and necessarily occupied almost all my
time.
On Tuesday, May 8, I had the pleasure of again dining with him and Mr.
Wilkes, at Mr. Dilly's. No NEGOCIATION was now required to bring them
together; for Johnson was so well satisfied with the former interview,
that he was very glad to meet Wilkes again, who was this day seated
between Dr. Beattie and Dr. Johnson; (between Truth and Reason, as
General Paoli said, when I told him of it.) WILKES. 'I have been
thinking, Dr. Johnson, that there should be a bill brought into
parliament that the controverted elections for Scotland should be tried
in that country, at their own Abbey of Holy-Rood House, and not here;
for the consequence of trying them here is, that we have an inundation
of Scotchmen, who come up and never go back again. Now here is Boswell,
who is come up upon the election for his own county, which will not last
a fortnight.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, I see no reason why they should be
tried at all; for, you know, one Scotchman is as good as another.'
WILKES. 'Pray, Boswell, how much may be got in a year by an Advocate at
the Scotch bar?' BOSWELL. 'I believe two thousand pounds.' WILKES. 'How
can it be possible to spend that money in Scotland?' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir,
the money may be spent in England: but there is a harder question. If
one man in Scotland gets possession of two thousand pounds, what remains
for all the rest of the nation?' WILKES. 'You know, in the last war, the
immense booty which Thurot carried off by the complete plunder of seven
Scotch isles; he re-embarked with THREE AND SIX-PENCE.' Here again
Johnson and Wilkes joined in extravagant sportive raillery upon the
supposed poverty of Scotland, which Dr. Beattie and I did not think it
worth our while to dispute.
The subject of quotation being introduced, Mr. Wilkes censured it as
pedantry. JOHNSON. 'No, Sir, it is a good thing; there is a community of
mind in it. Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over
the world.'
He gave us an entertaining account of Bet Flint, a woman of the town,
who, with some eccentrick talents and much effrontery, forced herself
upon his acquaintance. 'Bet (said he,) wrote her own Life in verse,
which she brought to me, wishing that I would furnish her with a Preface
to it, (laughing.) I used to say of her that she was generally slut
and drunkard; occasionally, whore and thief. She had, however, genteel
lodgings, a spinnet on which she played, and a boy that walked before
her chair. Poor Bet was taken up on a charge of stealing a counterpane,
and tried at the Old Bailey. Chief Justice ------, who loved a wench,
summed up favourably, and she was acquitted. After which Bet said, with
a gay and satisfied air, "Now that the counterpane is MY OWN, I shall
make a petticoat of it."'
Talking of oratory, Mr. Wilkes described it as accompanied with all the
charms of poetical expression. JOHNSON. 'No, Sir; oratory is the power
of beating down your adversary's arguments, and putting better in their
place.' WILKES. 'But this does not move the passions.' JOHNSON. 'He
must be a weak man, who is to be so moved.' WILKES. (naming a celebrated
orator,) 'Amidst all the brilliancy of ------'s imagination, and the
exuberance of his wit, there is a strange want of TASTE. It was observed
of Apelles's Venus, that her flesh seemed as if she had been nourished
by roses: his oratory would sometimes make one suspect that he eats
potatoes and drinks whisky.'
Mr. Wilkes said to me, loud enough for Dr. Johnson to hear, 'Dr. Johnson
should make me a present of his Lives of the Poets, as I am a poor
patriot, who cannot afford to buy them.' Johnson seemed to take no