Boswell's Life of Johnson
After some compliments on both sides, the tour which Johnson and I had
made to the Hebrides was mentioned. JOHNSON. 'I got an acquisition
of more ideas by it than by any thing that I remember. I saw quite a
different system of life.' BOSWELL. 'You would not like to make the same
journey again?' JOHNSON. 'Why no, Sir; not the same: it is a tale told.
Gravina, an Italian critick, observes, that every man desires to see
that of which he has read; but no man desires to read an account of what
he has seen: so much does description fall short of reality. Description
only excites curiosity: seeing satisfies it. Other people may go and
see the Hebrides.' BOSWELL. 'I should wish to go and see some country
totally different from what I have been used to; such as Turkey, where
religion and every thing else are different.' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir; there
are two objects of curiosity,--the Christian world, and the Mahometan
world. All the rest may be considered as barbarous.' BOSWELL. 'Pray,
Sir, is the Turkish Spy a genuine book?' JOHNSON. 'No, Sir. Mrs. Manley,
in her Life, says that her father wrote the first two volumes: and
in another book, Dunton's Life and Errours, we find that the rest was
written by one Sault, at two guineas a sheet, under the direction of Dr.
Midgeley.'
About this time he wrote to Mrs. Lucy Porter, mentioning his bad health,
and that he intended a visit to Lichfield. 'It is, (says he,) with no
great expectation of amendment that I make every year a journey into the
country; but it is pleasant to visit those whose kindness has been often
experienced.'
On April 18, (being Good-Friday,) I found him at breakfast, in his usual
manner upon that day, drinking tea without milk, and eating a cross-bun
to prevent faintness; we went to St. Clement's church, as formerly. When
we came home from church, he placed himself on one of the stone-seats at
his garden-door, and I took the other, and thus in the open air and in
a placid frame of mind, he talked away very easily. JOHNSON. 'Were I a
country gentleman, I should not be very hospitable, I should not have
crowds in my house.' BOSWELL. 'Sir Alexander Dick tells me, that he
remembers having a thousand people in a year to dine at his house:
that is, reckoning each person as one, each time that he dined there.'
JOHNSON. 'That, Sir, is about three a day.' BOSWELL. 'How your statement
lessens the idea.' JOHNSON. 'That, Sir, is the good of counting. It
brings every thing to a certainty, which before floated in the mind
indefinitely.'
BOSWELL. 'I wish to have a good walled garden.' JOHNSON. 'I don't think
it would be worth the expence to you. We compute in England, a park wall
at a thousand pounds a mile; now a garden-wall must cost at least as
much. You intend your trees should grow higher than a deer will leap.
Now let us see; for a hundred pounds you could only have forty-four
square yards, which is very little; for two hundred pounds, you may have
eighty-four square yards, which is very well. But when will you get the
value of two hundred pounds of walls, in fruit, in your climate? No,
Sir, such contention with Nature is not worth while. I would plant an
orchard, and have plenty of such fruit as ripen well in your country. My
friend, Dr. Madden, of Ireland, said, that "in an orchard there should
be enough to eat, enough to lay up, enough to be stolen, and enough to
rot upon the ground." Cherries are an early fruit, you may have them;
and you may have the early apples and pears.' BOSWELL. 'We cannot have
nonpareils.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, you can no more have nonpareils than you
can have grapes.' BOSWELL. 'We have them, Sir; but they are very bad.'
JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, never try to have a thing merely to shew that you
CANNOT have it. From ground that would let for forty shillings you may
have a large orchard; and you see it costs you only forty shillings.
Nay, you may graze the ground when the trees are grown up; you cannot
while they are young.' BOSWELL. 'Is not a good garden a very common
thing in England, Sir?' JOHNSON. 'Not so common, Sir, as you imagine.
In Lincolnshire there is hardly an orchard; in Staffordshire very little
fruit.' BOSWELL. 'Has Langton no orchard?' JOHNSON. 'No, Sir.' BOSWELL.
'How so, Sir?' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, from the general negligence of
the county. He has it not, because nobody else has it.' BOSWELL. 'A
hot-house is a certain thing; I may have that.' JOHNSON. 'A hot-house is
pretty certain; but you must first build it, then you must keep fires in
it, and you must have a gardener to take care of it.' BOSWELL. 'But if I
have a gardener at any rate ?--' JOHNSON. 'Why, yes.' BOSWELL. 'I'd have
it near my house; there is no need to have it in the orchard.' JOHNSON.
'Yes, I'd have it near my house. I would plant a great many currants;
the fruit is good, and they make a pretty sweetmeat.'
I record this minute detail, which some may think trifling, in order to
shew clearly how this great man, whose mind could grasp such large and
extensive subjects, as he has shewn in his literary labours, was yet
well-informed in the common affairs of life, and loved to illustrate
them.
Talking of the origin of language; JOHNSON. 'It must have come by
inspiration. A thousand, nay, a million of children could not invent
a language. While the organs are pliable, there is not understanding
enough to form a language; by the time that there is understanding
enough, the organs are become stiff. We know that after a certain age
we cannot learn to pronounce a new language. No foreigner, who comes to
England when advanced in life, ever pronounces English tolerably well;
at least such instances are very rare. When I maintain that language
must have come by inspiration, I do not mean that inspiration is
required for rhetorick, and all the beauties of language; for when
once man has language, we can conceive that he may gradually form
modifications of it. I mean only that inspiration seems to me to be
necessary to give man the faculty of speech; to inform him that he
may have speech; which I think he could no more find out without
inspiration, than cows or hogs would think of such a faculty.' WALKER.
'Do you think, Sir, that there are any perfect synonimes in any
language?' JOHNSON. 'Originally there were not; but by using words
negligently, or in poetry, one word comes to be confounded with
another.'
He talked of Dr. Dodd. 'A friend of mine, (said he,) came to me and told
me, that a lady wished to have Dr. Dodd's picture in a bracelet, and
asked me for a motto. I said, I could think of no better than Currat
Lex. I was very willing to have him pardoned, that is, to have the
sentence changed to transportation: but, when he was once hanged, I did
not wish he should be made a saint.'
Mrs. Burney, wife of his friend Dr. Burney, came in, and he seemed to be
entertained with her conversation.
Garrick's funeral was talked of as extravagantly expensive. Johnson,
from his dislike to exaggeration, would not allow that it was
distinguished by any extraordinary pomp. 'Were there not six horses to
each coach?' said Mrs. Burney. JOHNSON. 'Madam, there were no more six
horses than six phoenixes.'
Time passed on in conversation till it was too late for the service of
the church at three o'clock. I took a walk, and left him alone for
some time; then returned, and we had coffee and conversation again by
ourselves.
We went to evening prayers at St. Clement's, at seven, and then parted.
On Sunday, April 20, being Easter-day, after attending solemn service
at St. Paul's, I came to Dr. Johnson, and found Mr. Lowe, the painter,
sitting with him. Mr. Lowe mentioned the great number of new buildings
of late in London, yet that Dr. Johnson had observed, that the number of
inhabitants was not increased. JOHNSON. Why, Sir, the bills of mortality
prove that no more people die now than formerly; so it is plain no more
live. The register of births proves nothing, for not one tenth of the
people of London are born there.' BOSWELL. 'I believe, Sir, a great many
of the children born in London die early.' JOHNSON. 'Why, yes, Sir.'
BOSWELL. 'But those who do live, are as stout and strong people as
any: Dr. Price says, they must be naturally stronger to get through.'
JOHNSON. 'That is system, Sir. A great traveller observes, that it is
said there are no weak or deformed people among the Indians; but he with
much sagacity assigns the reason of this, which is, that the hardship
of their life as hunters and fishers does not allow weak or diseased
children to grow up. Now had I been an Indian, I must have died early;
my eyes would not have served me to get food. I indeed now could fish,
give me English tackle; but had I been an Indian I must have starved,
or they would have knocked me on the head, when they saw I could do
nothing.' BOSWELL. 'Perhaps they would have taken care of you: we are
told they are fond of oratory, you would have talked to them.' JOHNSON.
Nay, Sir, I should not have lived long enough to be fit to talk; I
should have been dead before I was ten years old. Depend upon it, Sir, a
savage, when he is hungry, will not carry about with him a looby of
nine years old, who cannot help himself. They have no affection, Sir.'
BOSWELL. 'I believe natural affection, of which we hear so much, is very
small.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, natural affection is nothing: but affection from
principle and established duty is sometimes wonderfully strong.' LOWE.
'A hen, Sir, will feed her chickens in preference to herself.' JOHNSON.
'But we don't know that the hen is hungry; let the hen be fairly hungry,
and I'll warrant she'll peck the corn herself. A cock, I believe,
will feed hens instead of himself; but we don't know that the cock is
hungry.' BOSWELL. 'And that, Sir, is not from affection but gallantry.
But some of the Indians have affection.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, that they help
some of their children is plain; for some of them live, which they could
not do without being helped.'
I dined with him; the company were, Mrs. Williams, Mrs. Desmoulins,
and Mr. Lowe. He seemed not to be well, talked little, grew drowsy soon
after dinner, and retired, upon which I went away.
Having next day gone to Mr. Burke's seat in the country, from whence I
was recalled by an express, that a near relation of mine had killed his
antagonist in a duel, and was himself dangerously wounded, I saw little
of Dr. Johnson till Monday, April 28, when I spent a considerable part
of the day with him, and introduced the subject, which then chiefly
occupied my mind. JOHNSON. 'I do not see, Sir, that fighting is
absolutely forbidden in Scripture; I see revenge forbidden, but not
self-defence.' BOSWELL. 'The Quakers say it is; "Unto him that smiteth
thee on one cheek, offer him also the other."' JOHNSON. 'But stay, Sir;
the text is meant only to have the effect of moderating passion; it is
plain that we are not to take it in a literal sense. We see this from
the context, where there are other recommendations, which I warrant you
the Quaker will not take literally; as, for instance, "From him that
would borrow of thee, turn thou not away." Let a man whose credit is
bad, come to a Quaker, and say, "Well, Sir, lend me a hundred pounds;"
he'll find him as unwilling as any other man. No, Sir, a man may shoot
the man who invades his character, as he may shoot him who attempts to
break into his house.* So in 1745, my friend, Tom Gumming, the Quaker,
said, he would not fight, but he would drive an ammunition cart; and we
know that the Quakers have sent flannel waistcoats to our soldiers, to
enable them to fight better.' BOSWELL. 'When a man is the aggressor, and
by ill-usage forces on a duel in which he is killed, have we not little
ground to hope that he is gone into a state of happiness?' JOHNSON.