is not only telling an untruth, but telling | conversation and gracious behaviour. He it clumsily; for, if that be the case, every said to Mr. Barnard, "Sir, they may talk one who can look through a microscope will be able to detect him." "I now (said Johnson to his friends, when relating what had passed) began to consider that I was depreciating this man in the estimation of his sovereign, and thought it was time for me to say something that might be more favourable." He added, therefore, that Dr. Hill was, notwithstanding, a very curious observer; and if he would have been contented to tell the world no more than he knew, he might have been a very considerable man, and needed not to have recourse to such mean expedients to raise his reputation. The king then talked of literary journals, mentioned particularly the Journal des Satans, and asked Johnson if it was well done. Johnson said, it was formerly very well done, and gave some account of the persons who began it, and carried it on for some years; enlarging, at the same time, on the nature and use of such works. The king asked him if it was well done now. Johnson answered, he had no reason to think that it was. The king then asked him if there were any other literary journals published in this kingdom, except the Monthly and Critical Reviews; and on being answered there was no other, his majesty asked which of them was the best: Johnson answered, that the Monthly Review was done with most care, the Critical upon the best principles; adding that the authours of the Monthly Review were enemies to the church. This the king said he was sorry to hear. The conversation next turned on the Philosophical Transactions, when Johnson observed that they had now a better method of arranging their materials than formerly. "Ay (said the king), they are obliged to Dr. Johnson for that;" for his majesty had heard and remembered the circumstance, which Johnson himself had forgot. His majesty expressed a desire to have the literary biography of this country ably executed, and proposed to Dr. Johnson to undertake it. Johnson signified his readiness to comply with his majesty's wishes. During the whole of this interview, Johnson talked to his majesty with profound respect, but still in his firm manly manner, with a sonorous voice, and never in that subdued tone which is commonly ted at the levee and in the drawing-room. After the king withdrew, Johnson showed himself highly pleased with his majesty's [This perhaps may have given Dr. Johnson the first idea of the most popular and entertainng of all his works, "The Lives of the Poets." -ED-] of the king as they will; but he is the finest gentleman I have ever seen?." And he afterwards observed to Mr. Langton, "Sir, his manners are those of as fine a gentleman as we may suppose Louis XIV. or Charles II." At Sir Joshua Reynolds's, where a circle of Johnson's friends was collected round him to hear his account of this memorable conversation, Dr. Joseph Warton, in his frank and lively manner, was very active in pressing him to mention the particulars. "Come now, sir, this is an interesting matter; do favour us with it." Johnson, with great good humour, complied. He told them, "I found his majesty wished I should talk, and I made it my business to talk. I find it does a man good to be talked to by his sovereign. In the first place, a man cannot be in a passion 3 ." Here some question interrupted him, which is to be regretted, as he certainly would have pointed out and illustrated many circumstances of advantage, from being in a situation where the powers of the mind are at once excited to vigorous exertion, and tempered by reverential_awe. During all the time in which Dr. Johnson was employed in relating to the circle at Sir Joshua Reynolds's the particulars of what passed between the king and him, Dr. Goldsmith remained unmoved upon a sofa at some distance, affecting not to join in the least in the eager curiosity of the company. He assigned as a reason for his gloom and seeming inattention, that he apprehended Johnson had relinquished his purpose of furnishing him with a prologue to his play, with the hopes of which he had been flattered; but it was strongly suspected that he was fretting with chagrin and envy at the singular honour Dr. Johnson had lately enjoyed. At length, the frankness and simplicity of his natural character prevailed. He sprung from the sofa, advanced to Johnson, and in a kind of flutter, from imagining himself in the situation which he had just been hearing described, exclaimed, "Well, you acquitted yourself in this conversation better than I should have done; for I should have bowed and stammered through the whole of it." [It is a singularity that, however obvious, has not been before Ed. p. 470. observed, that Johnson should have been in the presence of Queen Anne and of George the Fourth 1. He once told Hawk. Sir John Hawkins, [that, in a visit to Mrs. Percy, who had the care of one of the young princes, at the queen's house, the Prince of Wales, being then a child, came into the room, and began to play about; when Johnson, with his usual curiosity, took an opportunity of asking him what books he was reading, and, in particular, inquired as to his knowledge of the scriptures; the prince, in his answers, gave him great satisfaction, and, es to the last, said, that part of his daily exercises was to read Ostervald 2.] Christians, we should part with prayer; "Almighty and most merciful Father, whose loving kindness is over all thy works, behold, visit, and relieve this thy servant, who is grieved with sickness. Grant that the sense of her weakness may add strength to her faith, and seriousness to her repentance. And grant that by the help of thy holy spirit, after the pains and labours of this short life, we may all obtain everlasting happiness, through Jesus Christ our Lord, for whose sake hear our prayers5. Amen. Our Father, &c. I received no letter from Johnson this year: nor have I discovered any of the correspondence 3 he had, except the two letters to Mr. Drummond, which have been inserted, for the sake of connexion with that to the same gentleman in 1766. His diary affords no light as to his employment at this time. He passed [more than 4] three months at Lichfield; and I cannot omit an affecting and solemn scene there, as re-ed, I humbly hope to meet again, and to lated by himself: part no more 6." "Sunday, Oct. 18, 1767. Yesterday, Oct. 17, at about ten in the morning, I took my leave for ever of my dear old friend, Catherine Chambers, who came to live with my mother about 1724, and has been but little parted from us since. She buried my father, my brother, and my mother. She is now fifty-eight years old. "I desired all to withdraw, then told her that we were to part for ever; that as [George the First he probably never saw, bat George the Second he must frequently have seen, and he had the honour of conversing, as above stated, with George the Third and George the Fourth, and thus saw four of the five last sovereigns, whose reigns already include above a century and a quarter.—ED.] [No doubt the popular Catechism and “ Abridgement of Sacred History” of J. F. Ostervald, an eminent Swiss divine. He died in 1747, in the 84th year of his age.-ED.] 3 It is proper here to mention, that when I speak of his correspondence, I consider it independent of the voluminous collection of letters which, in the course of many years, he wrote to Mrs. Thrale, which forms a separate part of his works: and as a proof of the high estimation set on any thing which came from his pen, was sold by that lady for the sum of five hundred pounds.-BOSWELL. [See the preface for some observations on these letters.-ED.] 4 In his letter to Mr. Drummond, dated Oct. 24, 1767, he mentions that he had arrived in London, after an absence of nearly six months in the country. Probably part of that time was spent at Oxford.-MALONE. [He dates a letter to Mrs. Thrale, from Lichfield, as early as the 20th July, and states that he had already been there longer than he intended. Letters.-ED.] "I then kissed her. She told me, that to part was the greatest pain that she had ever felt, and that she hoped we should meet again in a better place. I expressed, with swelled eyes, and great emotion of tenderness, the same hopes. We kissed, and part By those who have been taught to look upon Johnson as a man of a harsh and stern character, let this tender and affectionate scene be candidly read; and let them then judge whether more warmth of heart and grateful kindness is often found in human nature. "TO MRS. THRALE. Letters, vol. i. p.3. "Lichfield, 20 July, 1767. Though I have been away so much longer than I purposed or expected, I have found nothing that withdraws my affections from the friends whom I left behind, or which makes me less desirous of reposing at that place which your kindness and Mr. Thrale's allows me to call my home. "Miss Lucy is more kind and civil than I expected, and has raised my esteem by many excellencies very noble and resplendent, though a little discoloured by hoary virginity. Every thing else recalls to my remembrance years in which I proposed what, I am afraid, I have not done, and promised myself pleasure which I have not found." without resolution to apply to study or to business, being hindered by sudden snatches. "I have for some days forborne wine and suppers. Abstinence is not easily practised in another's house; but I think it fit to try. "I was extremely perturbed in the night, bat have had this day more ease than I expected. D[eo] gratia]. Perhaps this may be such a sudden relief as I once had by a good night's rest in Fetter-lane. "From that time, by abstinence, I have had more ease. I have read five books of Homer, and hope to end the sixth to-night. I have given Mrs. a guinea. "By abstinence from wine and suppers, I obtained sudden and great relief, and had freedom of mind restored to me; which I have wanted for all this year, without being able to find my means of obtaining it." He, however, furnished Mr. Adams with a dedication to the king of that ingenious gentleman's "Treatise on the Globes," conceived and expressed in such a manner as could not fail to be very grateful to a monarch, distinguished for his love of the sciences. This year was published a ridicule of his style, under the title of "Lexiphanes." Sir John Hawkins ascribes it to Dr. Kenrick; but its authour was one Campbell, a Scotch purser in the navy. The ridicule Consisted in applying Johnson's "words of large meaning," to insignificant matters, as if one should put the armour of Goliath upon a dwarf. The contrast might be laughable; but the dignity of the armour must remain the same in all considerate minds. This malicious drollery, therefore, it may easily be supposed, could do no harm to its illustrious object. "TO BENNET LANGTON, ESQ. “At Mr. Rothwell's, perfumer, in New Bond-street, London. "Lichfield, 10th October, 1767. "DEAR SIR,-That you have been all summer in London is one more reason for which I regret my long stay in the country. I hope that you will not leave the town before my return. We have here only the chance of vacancies in the passing carriages, and I have bespoken one that may, if it happens, bring me to town on the fourteenth 2 of this month; but this is not certain. "It will be a favour if you communicate this to Mrs. Williams; I long to see all my friends. I am, dear sir, your most humble "SAM. JOHNSON." servant, ["TO MRS. ASTON. Parker MSS. "17th November, 1767. "MADAM,-If you impute it to disrespect or inattention, that I took no leave when I left Lichfield, you will do me great injustice. I know you too well not to value your friendship. "When I came to Oxford l'inquired after the product of our walnut-tree, but it had, like other trees this year, but very few nuts, and for those few I came too late. The tree, as I told you, madam, we cannot find to be more than thirty years old, and upon measuring it, I found it, at about one foot from the ground, seven feet in circumference, and at the height of about seven feet, the circumference is five feet and a half; it would have been, I believe, still bigger but that it has been lopped. The nuts are small, such as they call single nuts; whether this nut is of quicker growth than better I have not yet inquired; such as they are I hope to send them next year. "You know, dear madam, the liberty I took of hinting, that I did not think your present mode of life very pregnant with happiness. Reflection has not yet changed my opinion. Solitude excludes pleasure, and does not always secure peace. Some communication of sentiments is commonly necessary to give vent to the imagination, and discharge the mind of its own flatulencies. Some lady surely might be found in whose conversation you might delight, and in whose fidelity you might repose. The world, says Locke, has people of all sorts. You will forgive me this obtrusion of my opinion; I am sure I wish you well. "Poor Kitty has done what we have all to do, and Lucy has the world to begin anew; I hope she will find some way to more content than I left her possessing. "Be pleased to make my compliments to Mrs. Hinckley and Miss Turton. I am, madam, your most obliged and most humble servant, "SAM. JOHNSON."] It appears from his notes of the state of his mind, that he suffered great perturbation and distraction in 1768. "Town-malling4, in Kent, 18th Sept. 1768, at night. "I have now begun the sixtieth year of my life. How the last year has past, I am Some 3 [Elizabeth, one of the younger daughters of Sir Thomas Aston: see ante, p. 29, n. letters of Johnson to Mrs. Aston, which have been communicated since that note was printed, are written with a uniform spirit of tender[It may have been malicious, but it certain-ness and respect, and, though of little other ly not droll. It is so over-charged, as to have neither resemblance nor pleasantry.-ED.] • [We have just seen that he was detained till the 1-in-ED] value, afford an additional proof of the inaccura cy of Miss Seward, who represents Dr. Johnson as stating to her a very unfavourable character of Mrs. Aston.-ED.] [It appears that he visited, with the Thrales, Surveys the general toil of human kind?" But this dark ground might make Goldsmith's humour shine the more 1. unwilling to terrify myself with thinking." Press'd with the load of life, the weary mind This day has been past in great perturbation; I was distracted at church in an uncommon degree, and my distress has had very little intermission. I have found myself somewhat relieved by reading, which I therefore intend to practise when I am able. In the spring of this year, having published my " Account of Corsica, with the Journal of a Tour to that Island," I returned to London, very desirous to see Dr. "This day it came into my mind to write Johnson, and hear him upon the subject. the history of my melancholy. On this II found he was at Oxford, with his friend purpose to deliberate; I know not whether it may not too much disturb me." * Nothing of his writings was given to the publick this year, except the Prologue to his friend Goldsmith's comedy of "The Good-natured Man." The first lines of this prologue are strongly characteristical of the dismal gloom of his mind; which in his case, as in the case of all who are distressed with the same malady of imagination, transfers to others its own feelings. Who could suppose it was to introduce a comedy; when Mr. Bensley solemnly began, Mr. Brooke of Town-malling, of whose primi tive house and manners we find some account in the Letters. "Dr. Johnson to Mrs. Thrale, 23d August, 1777.—"It was very well done by Mr. Brooke to send for you. His house is one of my favourite places. His water is very commodious, and the whole place has the true old appearance of a little country town. I hope Miss goes, for she takes notice." "Mrs. Thrale to Dr. Johnson, 18th September, 1777.—" Come, here is news of Townmalling, the quiet old-fashioned place in Kent, that you liked so, because it was agreeable to your own notions of a rural life. I believe we were the first people, except the master of it, who had, for many years, taken delight in the old coach without springs, the two roasted ducks in one dish, the fortified flower-garden, and fir-trees cut in figures. A spirit of innovation has howev èr reached even there at last. The roads are mended; no more narrow shaded lanes, but clear open turnpike trotting. A yew hedge, or an eugh hedge if you will, newly cut down too by his nephew's desire. Ah! those nephews. And a wall pulled away, which bore incomparable fruit-to call in the country-is the phrase. Mr. Thrale is wicked enough to urge on these rough reformers; how it will end I know not. For your comfort, the square canals still drop into one another, and the chocolate is still made in the room by a maid, who curtsies as she presents every cup. Dear old Daddy Brooke looks well, and even handsome at eighty-one years old; while I saw his sister, who is ninety-four years old and calls him Frankey, eat more venison at a sitting than Mr. Thrale. These are the proper contemplations of this season. May my daughter and my friend but enjoy life as long, and use it as innocently as these sweet people have done. The sight of such a family consoles one's heart."-ED.] Mr. Chambers, who was now Vinerian Professor, and lived in New-inn Hall. Having had no letter from him since that in which he criticised the Latinity of my Thesis, and having been told by somebody that he was offended at my having put into my book an extract of his letter to me at Paris, I was impatient to be with him, and therefore followed him to Oxford, where I was entertained by Mr. Chambers, with a civility which I shall ever gratefully remember. I found that Dr. Johnson had sent a letter to me to Scotland, and that I had nothing to complain of but his being more indifferent to my anxiety than I wished him to be. Instead of giving, with the circumstances of time and place, such fragments of his conversation as I preserved during this visit to Oxford, I shall throw them together in continuation. I asked him whether, as a moralist, he did not think that the practice of the law, in some degree, hurt the nice feeling of honesty. JOHNSON. "Why no, sir, if you act properly. You are not to deceive your clients with false representations of your opinion: you are not to tell lies to a judge." BOSWELL. "But what do you think of supporting a cause which you know to b bad?" JOHNSON. "Sir, you do not know it to be good or bad till the judge deter mines it. I have said that you are to stat facts fairly; so that your thinking, or wha be from reasoning, must be from your sup you call knowing, a cause to be bad, mus posing your arguments to be weak and in conclusive. But, sir, that is not enough In this prologue, as Mr. John Taylor inform me, after the fourth line-"And social sorro loses half its pain," the following couplet was in serted: "Amidst the toils of this returning year, When senators and nobles learn to fear, Our little bard without complaint may share The bustling season's epidemick care." So the prologue appeared in the Publick Adve tizer (the theatrical gazette of that day,) so after the first representation of this comedy 1768.-Goldsmith probably thought that t lines printed in italick characters, which, howe er, seem necessary, or at least improve the sen might give offence, and therefore prevailed Johnson to omit them. The epithet little, whi perhaps the authour thought might diminish dignity, was also changed to anxious,—M LONE, It always appeared to me that he estimated the compositions of Richardson too highly 3, and that he had an unreasonable prejudice against Fielding. In comparing those two writers, he used this expression; An argument which does not convince yourself, may convince the judge to whom you urge it; and if it does convince him, why, then, sir, you are wrong, and he is right. It is his business to judge; and you are not to be confident in your own opinion" that there was as great a difference bethat a cause is bad, but to say all you can tween them, as between a man who knew for your client, and then hear the judge's how a watch was made, and a man who opinion." Boswell. "But, sir, does not could tell the hour by looking on the dialaffecting a warmth when you have no plate." This was a short and figurative warmth, and appearing to be clearly of one state of his distinction between drawing opinion when you are in reality of another characters of nature and characters only of opinion, does not such dissimulation im- manners. But I cannot help being of opinpair one's honesty? Is there not some dan-ion that the neat watches of Fielding are ger that a lawyer may put on the same as well constructed as the large clocks of mask in common life, in the intercourse with his friends?" JOHNSON. "Why no, sir. Every body knows you are paid for affecting warmth for your client; and it is, therefore, properly no dissimulation; the moment you come from the bar you resume your usual behaviour. Sir, a man will no more carry the artifice of the bar into the common intercourse of society, than a man who is paid for tumbling upon his hands will continue to tumble upon his hands when he should walk on his feet 1." Richardson, and that his dial-plates are brighter. Fielding's characters, though they do not expand themselves so widely in dissertation, are as just pictures of human nature, and I will venture to say, have more striking features, and nicer touches of the pencil; and though Johnson used to quote with approbation a saying of Richardson's, "that the virtues of Fielding's heroes were the vices of a truly good man," I will venture to add that the moral tendency of Fielding's writings, though it does not encourage a strained and rarely possible virtue, is ever favourable to honour and hon erous affections. He who is as good as Fielding would make him, is an amiable member of society, and may be led on, by more regulated instructors, to a higher state of ethical perfection. Hawk. p. 217. Talking of some of the modern plays, he said, "False Delicacy 2" was totally void of character. He praised Goldsmith's" Good-esty, and cherishes the benevolent and gennatured Man;" said it was the best comedy that had appeared since "The Provoked Husband," and that there had not been of late any such character exhibited on the stage as that of Croaker. I observed it was the Suspirius of his Rambler. He said, Goldsmith had owned he had borrowed it from thence. "Sir (continued he), there is all the difference in the world between characters of nature and characters of manDers; and there is the difference between the characters of Fielding and those of Richardson. Characters of manners are very entertaining; but they are to be understood by a more superficial observer than characters of nature, where a man must dive into the recesses of the human heart." See post, 15th August, 1773, where Johnson has supported the same argument.-J. BosWELL. [Cicero touches this question more than once, but never with much confidence. "Atqui etiam hoc præceptum officii diligenter tenendum est, ne quem unquam innocentem judicio capitis arcessas; id, enim, sine scelere fieri nullo pacto potest. Nec tamen, ut hoc fugiendum est, ita habendum est religioni, nocentem aliquando, modo ne nefarium imprumque, defendere. Vult hoc multitudo, patitur consuetudo, fert etiani humanitas. Judicis est semper in causas verum sequi patroni, nonnunquam verisimile, etiamsi minus sit verum, defendere." (De Off. 1. 2. c. 14.) We might have expected a less conditional and apologetical defence of his own profession from the great philosophical orator.-ED.] [By Kelly, the poetical staymaker.-ED.] [Johnson was inclined, as being personally acquainted with Richardson, to favour the opinion of his admirers that he was acquainted with the inmost recesses of the human heart, and had an absolute command over the passions; but he seemed not firm in it, and could at any time be talked into a disapprobation of all fictitious relations, of which he would frequently say they took no hold of the mind.] Johnson proceeded: "Even Sir Francis Wronghead is a character of manners, though drawn with great humour." He then repeated, very happily, all Sir Francis's credulous account to Manly of his being with "the great man," and securing a place. I asked him if "The Suspicious Husband" did not furnish a well-drawn character, that of Ranger. JOHNSON. "No, sir; Ranger is just a rake, a mere rake, and a lively young fellow, but no character." |
