Dr. Johnson's fame now rests principally upon Boswell. It is impossible not
to be amused with such a book. But his _bow-wow_ manner must have had a
good deal to do with the effect produced;--for no one, I suppose, will set
Johnson before Burke,--and Burke was a great and universal talker;--yet now
we hear nothing of this except by some chance remarks in Boswell. The fact
is, Burke, like all men of genius who love to talk at all, was very
discursive and continuous; hence he is not reported; he seldom said the
sharp short things that Johnson almost always did, which produce a more
decided effect at the moment, and which are so much more easy to carry
off.[1] Besides, as to Burke's testimony to Johnson's powers, you must
remember that Burke was a great courtier; and after all, Burke said and
wrote more than once that he thought Johnson greater in talking than
writing, and greater in Boswell than in real life.[2]
[Footnote 1:
Burke, I am persuaded, was not so continuous a talker as Coleridge. Madame
de Stael told a nephew of the latter, at Coppet, that Mr. C. was a master
of monologue, _mais qu'il ne savait pas le dialogue_. There was a spice of
vindictiveness in this, the exact history of which is not worth explaining.
And if dialogue must be cut down in its meaning to small talk, I, for one,
will admit that Coleridge, amongst his numberless qualifications, possessed
it not. But I am sure that he could, when it suited him, converse as well
as any one else, and with women he frequently did converse in a very
winning and popular style, confining them, however, as well as he could, to
the detail of facts or of their spontaneous emotions. In general, it was
certainly otherwise. "You must not be surprised," he said to me, "at my
talking so long to you--I pass so much of my time in pain and solitude, yet
everlastingly thinking, that, when you or any other persons call on me, I
can hardly help easing my mind by pouring forth some of the accumulated
mass of reflection and feeling, upon an apparently interested recipient."
But the principal reason, no doubt, was the habit of his intellect, which
was under a law of discoursing upon all subjects with reference to ideas or
ultimate ends. You might interrupt him when you pleased, and he was patient
of every sort of conversation except mere personality, which he absolutely
hated.--ED.]
[Footnote 2:
This was said, I believe, to the late Sir James Mackintosh.--ED.]
* * * * *
Newton _was_ a great man, but you must excuse me if I think that it would
take many Newtons to make one Milton.
_July_ 6. 1833.