then I shall come to live in town, and will ["TO MRS. LUCY PORTER. "Bolt-court, Fleet-street, 4th March, 1779. "MY DEAR LOVE,- Since I Pearson heard from you, I sent you a little MS. print, and two barrels of oysters, and I shall have some little books to send you soon. "I have seen Mr. Pearson, and am pleased to find that he has got a living. I was hurried when he was with me, but had time to hear that my friends were all well. "Poor Mrs. Adey was, I think, a good woman, and therefore her death is less to be lamented; but it is not pleasant to think how uncertain it is, that, when friends part, they will ever meet again. "My old complaint of flatulence, and tight and short breath, oppress me heavily. My nights are very restless. I think of consulting the doctor to-morrow. "This has been a mild winter, for which I hope you have been the better. Take what care you can of yourself, and do not forget to drink. I was somehow or other hindered from coming into the country last summer, but I think of coming this year. I am, dear love, your most humble servant, "SAM. JOHNSON."] MSS. "I got my Lives, not yet quite printed, put neatly together, and sent them to the king: what he says of them I know not. If the king is a whig, he will not like them: but is any king a whig?"] On the 23d of February I had written 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. "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 2, 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. ["TO MRS. ASTON. Bolt-court, Fleet-street, 4th March, 1779. "DEAR MADAM,-Mrs. Gastrell Pemb. and you are very often in my "I would send sets of Lives, four volumes, thoughts, though I do not write to some other friends, to Lord Hailes first. so often as might be expected from so much His second volume lies by my bed-side; a love and so much respect. I please myself book surely of great labour, and to every with thinking that I shall see you again, and just thinker of great delight. Write me shall find you better. But futurity is un- word to whom I shall send besides. Would certain: poor David had doubtless many it please Lord Auchinleck? Mrs. Thrale futurities in his head, which death has in-waits in the coach. I am, dear sir, &c. tercepted a death, I believe, totally unexpected: he did not in his last hour seem to think his life in danger. "My old complaints hang heavy on me, and my nights are very uncomfortable and unquiet; and sleepless nights make heavy days. I think to go to my physician, and try what can be done. For why should not I grow better as well as you? 1 ' [Mr. Garrick.-ED.] "SAM. JOHNSON." 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 2 He sent a set elegantly bound and gilt, which was received as a very handsome present.-Bos WELL. submit some poetical pieces to his revision. | errour, sir; you have made Genius femiIt is wonderful what a number and variety nine." "Palpable, sir (cried the enthusiof writers, some of them even unknown to ast); I know it. But (in a lower tone) it him, prevailed on his good-nature to look was to pay a compliment to the Duchess over their works, and suggest corrections of Devonshire, with which her grace was and improvements. My arrival interrupted, pleased. She is walking across Coxheath 3 for a little while, the important business of in the military uniform, and I suppose her this true representative of Bayes; upon its to be the Genius of Britain." JOHNSON. being resumed, I found that the subject" Sir, you are giving a reason for it; but under immediate consideration was a trans- that will not make it right. You may have lation, yet in manuscript, of the "Carmen a reason why two and two should make Seculare" of Horace, which had this year five; but they will still make but four." been set to musick, and performed as a Although I was several times with him publick entertainment in London, for the in the course of the following days, such it joint benefit of Monsieur Philidor and Sig- seems were my occupations, or such my nor Baretti. When Johnson had done read- negligence, that I have preserved no memoing, the authour asked him bluntly, "If rial of his conversation till Friday, March upon the whole it was a good translation?" "26, when I visited him. He said he exJohnson, whose regard for truth was un-pected to be attacked on account of his commonly 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 1 was a lank bony figure, with short black hair; he was writhing himself in agitation, while Johnson read, and, showing 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. 66 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 2. He proceeded:-" Here is an [This was a Mr. Tasker. Mr. D'Israeli informs the Editor, that this portrait is so accurately drawn, that, being, some years after the publication of this work, at a watering-place on the coast of Devon, he was visited by Mr. Tasker, whose name, however, he did not then know, but was so struck with his resemblance to Boswell's picture, that he asked him whether he had not had an interview with Dr. Johnson, and it appeared that he was indeed the authour of "The Warlike Genius of Britain."-ED.] 2 [He disliked Lord Anson probably from local politics. On one occasion he visited Lord Anson's seat, and although, as he confessed, "well received and kindly treated, he, with the true gratitude of a wit, ridiculed the master of the house before he had left it half an hour." In the grounds there is a temple of the winds, on which he made the following epigram: "Lives of the Poets." "However," said p. 140. Talking of a friend 4 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 of the world, as to be nothing in the world. I remember a passage in Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield,' which he was afterwards fool enough to expunge. I do not love a man who is zealous for nothing.' BOSWELL. "That was a fine passage." JOHNSON. "Yes, sir: there was another fine passage too, which he struck out: When I was a young man, being anxious to distinguish myself, I was perpetually starting new propositions. But I soon gave this over; for I found that generally what was new was false 5.'" I Gratum animum laudo; Qui debuit omnia ventis, 3 [Where there was a camp at this period; see ante, p. 199.-ED.] 4 [Probably Sir Joshua Reynolds; see ante, p. 156.-ED.] 5 Dr. Burney, in a note introduced in a former page, has mentioned this circumstance, concerning Goldsmith, as communicated to him by Dr. Johnson, not recollecting that it occurred here. His said I did not like to sit with people of whom I had not a good opinion. JOHNSON. "But you must not indulge your delicacy too much, or you will be a tête-à-tête man all your life." ["DR. JOHNSON TO MRS. THRALE. Letters, vol. ii. p. 43. "18th March, 1779. "Thus to be cerning insolvent debtors 2. p. 20. At Streatham, on Monday, March 29, at breakfast, he maintained that a father had no right to control the inclinations of his daughter in marriage. [Of pa"On Monday I came late to Mrs. rental authority, indeed, few people Piozzi, Vesey. Mrs. Montagu was there; thought with a lower degree of esI called for the print 1, and got good timation. Mrs. Thrale one day mentioned words. The evening was not brilliant, the resignation of Cyrus to his father's will, but I had thanks for my company. The as related by Xenophon, when, after all his night was troublesome. On Tuesday fast-conquests, he requested the consent of ed, and went to the doctor: he ordered bleed- Cambyses to his marriage with a neighing. On Wednesday I had the tea-pot, bouring princess; and she added Rollin's fasted, and was blooded. Wednesday applause and recommendation of the examnight was better. To-day I have dined at ple. "Do you not perceive, then," says Mr. Strahan's, at Islington, with his new Johnson, "that Xenophon on this occasion wife. To-night there will be opium; to- commends like a pedant, and Pere Rollin morrow the tea-pot; then heigh for Satur- applauds like a slave? If Cyrus, by his day. I wish the doctor would bleed me conquests, had not purchased emancipation, again. Yet every body that I meet says he had conquered to little purpose indeed. that I look better than when I was last Can you forbear to see the folly of a fellow met."] who has in his care the lives of thousands, when he begs his papa's permission to be married, and confesses his inability to decide in a matter which concerns no man's happiness but his own?" Dr. Johnson caught Mrs. Thrale another time reprimanding the daughter of her house-keeper for having sat down unpermitted in her mother's presence. "Why, she gets her living, does she not," said he, "without her mother's help? Let the wench alone," continued he. And when they were again out of the women's sight who were concerned in the dispute, "Poor people's children, dear lady," said he, "never respect them. I did not respect my own mother, though I loved her: and one day, when in anger, she called me a puppy, I asked her if she knew what they called a puppy's mother."] During my stay in London this spring, I find I was unaccountably negligent in preserving Johnson's sayings, more so than at any time when I was happy enough to have an opportunity of hearing his wisdom and wit. There is no help.for it now. I must content myself with presenting such scraps as I have. But I am nevertheless ashamed and vexed to think how much has been lost. It is not that there was a bad crop this year, but that I was not sufficiently careful in gathering it in. I therefore, in some instances, can only exhibit a few detached fragments. Talking of the wonderful concealment of the authour of the celebrated letters signed Junius, he said, "I should have believed Burke to be Junius, because I know no man but Burke who is capable of writing these letters; but Burke spontaneously denied it to me. The case would have been different, had I asked him if he was the authour; a man so questioned, as to an anonymous publication, may think he has a right to deny it." He observed that his old friend, Mr. Sheridan, had been honoured with extraordinary attention in his own country, by having had an exception made in his favour in an Irish act of parliament con remark, however, is not wholly superfluous, as it ascertains that the words which Goldsmith had put into the mouth of a fictitious character in the "Vicar of Wakefield," and which, as we learn from Dr. Johnson, he afterwards expunged, related, like many other passages in his novel, to himself. -MALONE. [Mrs. Montagu's portrait.—ED.] us 2 On Wednesday, 31st March, when I visited him, and confessed an excess of which I had very seldom been guilty—that I had spent a whole night in playing at cards, and that I could not look back on it with satisfaction—instead of a harsh animadversion, he mildly said, "Alas, sir, on how [This is a total mistake. Mr. Whyte tells of the personal civility with which some members of a committee of the Irish house of commons on a bill for the relief of insolvent debtors treated Mr. Sheridan and Mr. Whyte who appeared on his behalf, but there is no exception in the act. Sheridan's name is one of some hundreds, and has no distinction whatsoever. The favour he sought was, to be included in the act without being in actual custody, as he was resident in France; this he obtained, but not specially, for one hundred and twenty other persons, in similar circumstances, are also included. See Schedule to Irish Statute, 5th Geo. 3d, chap. 23.-ED.] few things can we look back with satisfaction!" On Thursday, 1st April, he commended one of the Dukes of Devonshire for "a dogged veracity 1." He said, too, “London is nothing to some people; but to a man whose pleasure is intellectual, London is the place. And there is no place where economy can be so well practised as in London: more can be had here for the money, even by ladies, than any where else. You cannot play tricks with your fortune in a small place; you must make an uniform appearance. Here a lady may have wellfurnished apartments, and elegant dress, without any meat in her kitchen." I was amused by considering with how much ease and coolness he could write or talk to a friend, exhorting him not to suppose that happiness was not to be found as well in other places as in London; when he himself was at all times sensible of its being, comparatively speaking, a heaven upon earth. The truth is, that by those who from sagacity, attention, and experience, have learnt the full advantage of London, its pre-eminence over every other place, not only for variety of enjoyment, but for comfort, will be felt with a philosophical exultation. The freedom from remark and petty censure, with which life may be passed there, is a circumstance which a man who knows the teasing restraint of a narrow circle must relish highly. Mr. Burke, whose orderly and amiable domestick habits might make the eye of observation less irksome to him than to most men, said once very pleasantly, in my hearing, "Though I have the honour to represent Bristol, I should not like to live there; I should be obliged to be so much upon my good behaviour. In London, a man may live in splendid society at one time, and in frugal retirement at another, without animadversion. There, and there alone, a man's own house is truly his castle, in which he can be in perfect safety from intrusion whenever he pleases. I never shall forget how well this was expressed to me one day by Mr. Meynell: "The chief advantage of London," said he," is, that a man is always so near his burrow." He said of one of his old acquaintances 2, "He is very fit for a travelling governour. He knows French very well. He is a man of good principles; and there would be no danger that a young gentleman should catch his manner; for it is so very bad, that it must be avoided. In that respect he would be like the drunken Helot." 1 See p. 126.--BOSWELL. 2 [Probably Mr. Elphinstone, the schoolmaster of Kensington, and translator of Martial. See ante, v. i. pp. 85, (n.) and 291.-ED.] A gentleman has informed me, that Johnson said of the same person," Sir, he has the most inverted understanding of any man whom I have ever known." On Friday, 20 April, being Good-Friday, I visited him in the morning as usual; and finding that we insensibly fell into a train of ridicule upon the foibles of one of our friends, a very worthy man, I, by way of a check, quoted some good admonition from "The Government of the Tongue," that very pious book. It happened also remarkably enough, that the subject of the sermon preached to us to-day by Dr. Burrows, the rector of St. Clement Danes, was the certainty that at the last day we must give an account of" the deeds done in the body;" and amongst various acts of culpability he mentioned evil-speaking. As we were moving slowly along in the crowd from church, Johnson jogged my elbow and said, “Did you attend to the sermon?" "Yes, sir," said I; "it was very applicable to us." He, however, stood upon the defensive. "Why, sir, the sense of ridicule is given us, and may be lawfully used. The authour of The Government of the Tongue' would have us treat all men alike." In the interval between morning and evening service, he endeavoured to employ himself earnestly in devotional exercise; and, as he has mentioned in his " Prayers and Meditations," gave me "Les Pensées de Paschal," that I might not interrupt him. I preserve the book with reverence. His presenting it to me is marked upon it with his own hand, and I have found in it a truly divine unction. We went to church again in the afternoon. On Saturday, 3d April, I visited him at night, and found him sitting in Mrs. Williams's room, with her, and one who he afterwards told me was a natural son 3 of the second Lord Southwell. The table had a singular appearance, being covered with a heterogeneous assemblage of oysters and porter for his company, and tea for himself. I mentioned my having heard an eminent physician, who was himself a Christian, argue in favour of universal toleration, and maintain, that no man could be hurt by another man's differing from him in opinion. JOHNSON. "Sir, you are to a certain degree hurt by knowing that even one man does not believe." [His annual review of his conduct appears to have been this year more detailed and severe than usual.] ED. ther business nor pleasure; much intended, | with him. and little done. My health is much broken; his guest. my nights afford me little rest. I have tried opium, but its help is counterbalanced with great disturbance; it prevents the spasms, but it hinders sleep. O God, have mercy on me. Last week I published (the first part of) the Lives of the Poets, written, I hope, in such a manner as may tend to the promotion of piety. In this last year I have made little acquisition; I have scarcely read any thing. I maintain Mrs. 1 and her daughter. Other good of myself I know not where to find, except a little charity. But I am now in my seventieth year; what can be done, ought not to be delayed. April 3, 1779, 11 P. M.-Easter-eve. This is the time of my annual review, and annual resolution. The review is comfortless; little done. Part of the Life of Dryden and the Life of Milton have been written; but my mind has neither been improved nor enlarged. I have read little, almost nothing. And I am not conscious that I have gained any good, or quitted any evil habits. April 4, 1779, Easter-day.-I rose about half an hour after nine, transcribed the prayer written last night; and by neglecting to count time sat too long at breakfast, so that I came to church at the first lesson. I attended the Litany pretty well; but in the pew could not hear the communion service, and missed the prayer for the church militant. Before I went to the altar, I prayed the occasional prayer. At the altar I commended my 2, and again prayed the prayer; I then prayed the collects, and again my own prayer by memory. I left out a clause. I then received, I hope with earnestness; and while others received sat down; but thinking that posture, though usual, improper, I rose and stood. I prayed again, in the pew, but with what prayer I have forgotten. When I used the occasional prayer at the altar, I added a general purpose,-To avoid idleness.. I gave two shillings to the plate. Before I went I used, I think, my prayer, and endeavoured to calm my mind. After my return I used it again, and the collect for the day. Lord, have mercy upon me. I have for some nights called Francis to prayers, and last night discoursed with him on the sacrament.] On Easter-day, after [the] solemn service at St. Paul's, [just described], I dined 1 [No doubt Mrs. Desmoulins and her daughter. -ED.] 2 [These letters (which Dr. Strahan seems not to have understood), probably mean Orntos x, departed friends."-ED.] Mr. Allen the printer was also He was uncommonly silent; and I have not written down any thing, except a single curious fact, which, having the sanction of his inflexible veracity, may be received as a striking instance of human insensibility and inconsideration. As he was passing by a fishmonger who was skinning an eel alive, he heard him "curse it, because it would not lie still." On Wednesday, 7th April, I dined with him at Sir Joshua Reynolds's. I have not marked what company was there. Johnson harangued upon the qualities of different liquors; and spoke with great contempt of claret, as so weak, that "a man would be drowned by it before it made him drunk.” He was persuaded to drink one glass of it, that he might judge, not from recollection, which might be dim, but from immediate sensation. He shook his head, and said, "Poor stuff! No, sir, claret is the liquor for boys; port for men; but he who aspires to be a hero (smiling) must drink brandy. In the first place, the flavour of brandy is most grateful to the palate; and then brandy will do soonest for a man what drinking can do for him. There are, indeed, few who are able to drink brandy. That is a power rather to be wished for than attained. And yet," proceeded he, "as in all pleasure hope is a considerable part, I know not but fruition comes too quick by brandy. Florence wine I think the worst; it is wine only to the eye; it is wine neither while you are drinking it, nor after you have drunk it; it neither pleases the taste, nor exhilarates the spirits." I reminded him how heartily he and I used to drink wine together, when we were first acquainted; and how I used to have a headache after sitting up with him. He did not like to have this recalled, or, perhaps, thinking that I boasted improperly, resolved to have a witty stroke at me; "Nay, sir, it was not the wine that made your head ache, but the sense that I put into it." BOSWELL. "What, sir! will sense make the head JOHNSON. ache?" Yes, sir (with a smile), when it is not used to it." No man who has a true relish of pleasantry could be offended at this; especially if Johnson in a long intimacy had given him repeated proofs of his regard and good estimation. I used to say that as he had given me a thousand pounds in praise, he had a good right now and then to take a guinea from me. On Thursday, 8th April, I dined with him at Mr. Allan Ramsay's, with Lord Graham 3 and some other company. We talked of Shakspeare's witches. JOHNSON. 3 [The present [third] Duke of Montrose, born in 1755. He succeeded to the dukedom in 1790.-ED.] |