"Tertii verso quater orbe lustri
Quid theatrales tibi crispe pompae!
Quam decet canos male literatos
Sera voluptas!
"Tene mulceri fidibus canoris?
Tene cantorum modulis stupere?
Tene per pictas oculo elegante
Currere formas?
"Inter equales sine felle liber,
Codices veri studiosus inter
Rectius vives, sua quisque carpat
Gaudia gratus.
"Lusibus gaudet puer otiosis
Luxus oblectat juvenem theatri,
At seni fluxo sapienter uti
Tempore restat."
I gave him the following lines in imitation, which he liked well enough,
I think:
"When threescore years have chilled thee quite,
Still can theatric scenes delight?
Ill suits this place with learned wight,
May Bates or Coulson cry.
"The scholar's pride can Brent disarm?
His heart can soft Guadagni warm?
Or scenes with sweet delusion charm
The climacteric eye?
"The social club, the lonely tower,
Far better suit thy midnight hour;
Let each according to his power
In worth or wisdom shine!
"And while play pleases idle boys,
And wanton mirth fond youth employs,
To fix the soul, and free from toys,
That useful task be thine."
The copy of verses in Latin hexameters, as well as I remember, which he
wrote to Dr. Lawrence, I forgot to keep a copy of; and he obliged me to
resign his translation of the song beginning, "Busy, curious, thirsty
fly," for him to give Mr. Langton, with a promise _not_ to retain a copy.
I concluded he knew why, so never inquired the reason. He had the
greatest possible value for Mr. Langton, of Langton Hall, Lincoln, of
whose virtue and learning he delighted to talk in very exalted terms; and
poor Dr. Lawrence had long been his friend and confident. The
conversation I saw them hold together in Essex Street one day, in the
year 1781 or 1782, was a melancholy one, and made a singular impression
on my mind. He was himself exceedingly ill, and I accompanied him
thither for advice. The physician was, however, in some respects more to
be pitied than the patient. Johnson was panting under an asthma and
dropsy, but Lawrence had been brought home that very morning struck with
the palsy, from which he had, two hours before we came, strove to awaken
himself by blisters. They were both deaf, and scarce able to speak
besides: one from difficulty of breathing, the other from paralytic
debility. To give and receive medical counsel, therefore, they fairly
sat down on each side a table in the doctor's gloomy apartment, adorned
with skeletons, preserved monsters, etc., and agreed to write Latin
billets to each other. Such a scene did I never see. "You," said
Johnson, "are timide and gelide," finding that his friend had prescribed
palliative, not drastic, remedies. "It is not _me_," replies poor
Lawrence, in an interrupted voice, "'tis nature that is gelide and
timide." In fact, he lived but few months after, I believe, and retained
his faculties still a shorter time. He was a man of strict piety and
profound learning, but little skilled in the knowledge of life or
manners, and died without having ever enjoyed the reputation he so justly
deserved.
Mr. Johnson's health had been always extremely bad since I first knew
him, and his over-anxious care to retain without blemish the perfect
sanity of his mind contributed much to disturb it. He had studied
medicine diligently in all its branches, but had given particular
attention to the diseases of the imagination, which he watched in himself
with a solicitude destructive of his own peace, and intolerable to those
he trusted. Dr. Lawrence told him one day that if he would come and beat
him once a week he would bear it, but to hear his complaints was more
than _man_ could support. 'Twas therefore that he tried, I suppose, and
in eighteen years contrived to weary the patience of a _woman_. When Mr.
Johnson felt his fancy, or fancied he felt it, disordered, his constant
recurrence was to the study of arithmetic, and one day that he was
totally confined to his chamber, and I inquired what he had been doing to
divert himself, he showed me a calculation which I could scarce be made
to understand, so vast was the plan of it, and so very intricate were the
figures: no other, indeed, than that the national debt, computing it at
one hundred and eighty millions sterling, would, if converted into
silver, serve to make a meridian of that metal, I forgot how broad, for
the globe of the whole earth, the real _globe_. On a similar occasion I
asked him, knowing what subject he would like best to talk upon, how his
opinion stood towards the question between Paschal and Soame Jennings
about number and numeration? as the French philosopher observes that
infinity, though on all sides astonishing, appears most so when the idea
is connected with the idea of number; for the notion of infinite
number--and infinite number we know there is--stretches one's capacity
still more than the idea of infinite space. "Such a notion, indeed,"
adds he, "can scarcely find room in the human mind." Our English author,
on the other hand, exclaims, let no man give himself leave to talk about
infinite number, for infinite number is a contradiction in terms;
whatever is once numbered, we all see, cannot be infinite. "I think,"
said Mr. Johnson, after a pause, "we must settle the matter thus:
numeration is certainly infinite, for eternity might be employed in
adding unit to unit; but every number is in itself finite, as the
possibility of doubling it easily proves; besides, stop at what point you
will, you find yourself as far from infinitude as ever." These passages
I wrote down as soon as I had heard them, and repent that I did not take
the same method with a dissertation he made one other day that he was
very ill, concerning the peculiar properties of the number sixteen, which
I afterwards tried, but in vain, to make him repeat.
As ethics or figures, or metaphysical reasoning, was the sort of talk he
most delighted in, so no kind of conversation pleased him less, I think,
than when the subject was historical fact or general polity. "What shall
we learn from _that_ stuff?" said he. "Let us not fancy, like Swift,
that we are exalting a woman's character by telling how she
"'Could name the ancient heroes round,
Explain for what they were renowned,' etc."
I must not, however, lead my readers to suppose that he meant to reserve
such talk for men's company as a proof of pre-eminence. "He never," as
he expressed it, "desired to hear of the Punic War while he lived; such
conversation was lost time," he said, "and carried one away from common
life, leaving no ideas behind which could serve _living wight_ as warning
or direction."
"How I should act is not the case,
But how would Brutus in my place."
"And now," cries Mr. Johnson, laughing with obstreperous violence, "if
these two foolish lines can be equalled in folly, except by the two
succeeding ones--show them me."
I asked him once concerning the conversation powers of a gentleman with
whom I was myself unacquainted. "He talked to me at club one day,"
replies our Doctor, "concerning Catiline's conspiracy, so I withdrew my
attention, and thought about Tom Thumb."
Modern politics fared no better. I was one time extolling the character
of a statesman, and expatiating on the skill required to direct the
different currents, reconcile the jarring interests, etc. "Thus,"
replies he, "a mill is a complicated piece of mechanism enough, but the
water is no part of the workmanship." On another occasion, when some one
lamented the weakness of a then present minister, and complained that he
was dull and tardy, and knew little of affairs: "You may as well
complain, sir," says Johnson, "that the accounts of time are kept by the
clock; for he certainly does stand still upon the stair-head--and we all
know that he is no great chronologer." In the year 1777, or thereabouts,
when all the talk was of an invasion, he said most pathetically one
afternoon, "Alas! alas! how this unmeaning stuff spoils all my comfort in
my friends' conversation! Will the people have done with it; and shall I
never hear a sentence again without the _French_ in it? Here is no
invasion coming, and you _know_ there is none. Let the vexatious and
frivolous talk alone, or suffer it at least to teach you _one_ truth; and
learn by this perpetual echo of even unapprehended distress how
historians magnify events expected or calamities endured; when you know
they are at this very moment collecting all the big words they can find,
in which to describe a consternation never felt, for a misfortune which
never happened. Among all your lamentations, who eats the less--who
sleeps the worse, for one general's ill-success, or another's
capitulation? _Oh_, _pray_ let us hear no more of it!" No man, however,
was more zealously attached to his party; he not only loved a Tory
himself, but he loved a man the better if he heard he hated a Whig. "Dear
Bathurst," said he to me one day, "was a man to my very heart's content:
he hated a fool, and he hated a rogue, and he hated a _Whig_; he was a
very good _hater_."
Some one mentioned a gentleman of that party for having behaved oddly on
an occasion where faction was not concerned: "Is he not a citizen of
London, a native of North America, and a Whig?" says Johnson. "Let him
be absurd, I beg you of you; when a monkey is _too_ like a man, it shocks
one."
Severity towards the poor was, in Dr. Johnson's opinion (as is visible in
his "Life of Addison" particularly), an undoubted and constant attendant
or consequence upon Whiggism; and he was not contented with giving them
relief, he wished to add also indulgence. He loved the poor as I never
yet saw any one else do, with an earnest desire to make them happy. "What
signifies," says some one, "giving halfpence to common beggars? they only
lay it out in gin or tobacco." "And why should they be denied such
sweeteners of their existence?" says Johnson; "it is surely very savage
to refuse them every possible avenue to pleasure, reckoned too coarse for
our own acceptance. Life is a pill which none of us can bear to swallow
without gilding; yet for the poor we delight in stripping it still barer,
and are not ashamed to show even visible displeasure if ever the bitter
taste is taken from their mouths." In consequence of these principles he
nursed whole nests of people in his house, where the lame, the blind, the
sick, and the sorrowful found a sure retreat from all the evils whence
his little income could secure them: and commonly spending the middle of
the week at our house, he kept his numerous family in Fleet Street upon a
settled allowance; but returned to them every Saturday, to give them
three good dinners, and his company, before he came back to us on the
Monday night--treating them with the same, or perhaps more ceremonious
civility than he would have done by as many people of fashion--making the
Holy Scriptures thus the rule of his conduct, and only expecting
salvation as he was able to obey its precepts.
While Dr. Johnson possessed, however, the strongest compassion for
poverty or illness, he did not even pretend to feel for those who
lamented the loss of a child, a parent, or a friend. "These are the
distresses of sentiment," he would reply, "which a man who is really to
be pitied has no leisure to feel. The sight of people who want food and
raiment is so common in great cities, that a surly fellow like me has no
compassion to spare for wounds given only to vanity or softness." No
man, therefore, who smarted from the ingratitude of his friends, found
any sympathy from our philosopher. "Let him do good on higher motives
next time," would be the answer; "he will then be sure of his reward." It
is easy to observe that the justice of such sentences made them
offensive; but we must be careful how we condemn a man for saying what we
know to be true, only because it _is_ so. I hope that the reason our
hearts rebelled a little against his severity was chiefly because it came
from a living mouth. Books were invented to take off the odium of
immediate superiority, and soften the rigour of duties prescribed by the
teachers and censors of human kind--setting at least those who are
acknowledged wiser than ourselves at a distance. When we recollect,
however, that for this very reason _they_ are seldom consulted and little
obeyed, how much cause shall his contemporaries have to rejoice that
their living Johnson forced them to feel there proofs due to vice and
folly, while Seneca and Tillotson were no longer able to make
impression--except on our shelves! Few things, indeed, which pass well
enough with others would do with him: he had been a great reader of
Mandeville, and was ever on the watch to spy out those stains of original
corruption so easily discovered by a penetrating observer even in the
purest minds. I mentioned an event, which if it had happened would
greatly have injured Mr. Thrale and his family--"and then, dear sir,"
said I, "how sorry you would have been!" "I _hope_," replied he, after a
long pause, "I should have been _very_ sorry; but remember
Rochefoucault's maxim."
"I would rather," answered I, "remember Prior's verses, and ask--
'What need of books these truths to tell,
Which folks perceive that cannot spell?
And must we spectacles apply,
To see what hurts our naked eye?'
Will _anybody's_ mind bear this eternal microscope that you place upon
your own so?" "I never," replied he, "saw one that _would_, except that
of my dear Miss Reynolds--and hers is very near to purity itself." Of
slighter evils, and friends more distant than our own household, he spoke
less cautiously. An acquaintance lost the almost certain hope of a good
estate that had been long expected. "Such a one will grieve," said I,
"at her friend's disappointment." "She will suffer as much, perhaps,"
said he, "as your horse did when your cow miscarried." I professed
myself sincerely grieved when accumulated distresses crushed Sir George
Colebrook's family; and I was so. "Your own prosperity," said he, "may
possibly have so far increased the natural tenderness of your heart, that
for aught I know you _may_ be a _little sorry_; but it is sufficient for
a plain man if he does not laugh when he sees a fine new house tumble
down all on a sudden, and a snug cottage stand by ready to receive the
owner, whose birth entitled him to nothing better, and whose limbs are
left him to go to work again with."
I tried to tell him in jest that his morality was easily contented, and
when I have said something as if the wickedness of the world gave me
concern, he would cry out aloud against canting, and protest that he
thought there was very little gross wickedness in the world, and still
less of extraordinary virtue. Nothing, indeed, more surely disgusted Dr.
Johnson than hyperbole; he loved not to be told of sallies of excellence,
which he said were seldom valuable, and seldom true. "Heroic virtues,"
said he, "are the bons mots of life; they do not appear often, and when
they do appear are too much prized, I think, like the aloe-tree, which
shoots and flowers once in a hundred years. But life is made up of
little things; and that character is the best which does little but
repeated acts of beneficence; as that conversation is the best which
consists in elegant and pleasing thoughts expressed in natural and
pleasing terms. With regard to my own notions of moral virtue,"
continued he, "I hope I have not lost my sensibility of wrong; but I
hope, likewise, that I have lived long enough in the world to prevent me
from expecting to find any action of which both the original motive and
all the parts were good."
The piety of Dr. Johnson was exemplary and edifying; he was punctiliously
exact to perform every public duty enjoined by the Church, and his spirit
of devotion had an energy that affected all who ever saw him pray in
private. The coldest and most languid hearer of the Word must have felt
themselves animated by his manner of reading the Holy Scriptures; and to
pray by his sick-bed required strength of body as well as of mind, so
vehement were his manners, and his tones of voice so pathetic. I have
many times made it my request to Heaven that I might be spared the sight
of his death; and I was spared it.
Mr. Johnson, though in general a gross feeder, kept fast in Lent,
particularly the Holy Week, with a rigour very dangerous to his general
health; but though he had left off wine (for religious motives, as I
always believed, though he did not own it), yet he did not hold the
commutation of offences by voluntary penance, or encourage others to
practise severity upon themselves. He even once said "that he thought it
an error to endeavour at pleasing God by taking the rod of reproof out of
His hands." And when we talked of convents, and the hardships suffered
in them: "Remember always," said he, "that a convent is an idle place,
and where there is nothing to be _done_ something must be _endured_:
mustard has a bad taste per se, you may observe, but very insipid food
cannot be eaten without it."
His respect, however, for places of religious retirement was carried to
the greatest degree of earthly veneration; the Benedictine convent at
Paris paid him all possible honours in return, and the Prior and he
parted with tears of tenderness. Two of that college being sent to
England on the mission some years after, spent much of their time with
him at Bolt Court, I know, and he was ever earnest to retain their
friendship; but though beloved by all his Roman Catholic acquaintance,
particularly Dr. Nugent, for whose esteem he had a singular value, yet
was Mr. Johnson a most unshaken Church of England man; and I think, or at
least I once _did_ think, that a letter written by him to Mr. Barnard,
the King's Librarian, when he was in Italy collecting books, contained
some very particular advice to his friend to be on his guard against the
seductions of the Church of Rome.
The settled aversion Dr. Johnson felt towards an infidel he expressed to
all ranks, and at all times, without the smallest reserve; for though on
common occasions he paid great deference to birth or title, yet his
regard for truth and virtue never gave way to meaner considerations. We
talked of a dead wit one evening, and somebody praised him. "Let us
never praise talents so ill employed, sir; we foul our mouths by
commending such infidels," said he. "Allow him the lumieres at least,"
entreated one of the company. "I do allow him, sir," replied Johnson,
"just enough to light him to hell." Of a Jamaica gentleman, then lately
dead: "He will not, whither he is now gone," said Johnson, "find much
difference, I believe, either in the climate or the company." The Abbe
Reynal probably remembers that, being at the house of a common friend in
London, the master of it approached Johnson with that gentleman so much
celebrated in his hand, and this speech in his mouth: "Will you permit
me, sir, to present to you the Abbe Reynal?" "_No_, _sir_," replied the
Doctor very loud, and suddenly turned away from them both.
Though Mr. Johnson had but little reverence either for talents or fortune
when he found them unsupported by virtue, yet it was sufficient to tell
him a man was very pious, or very charitable, and he would at least
_begin_ with him on good terms, however the conversation might end. He
would sometimes, too, good-naturedly enter into a long chat for the
instruction or entertainment of people he despised. I perfectly
recollect his condescending to delight my daughter's dancing-master with
a long argument about _his_ art, which the man protested, at the close of
the discourse, the Doctor knew more of than himself, who remained
astonished, enlightened, and amused by the talk of a person little likely
to make a good disquisition upon dancing. I have sometimes, indeed, been
rather pleased than vexed when Mr. Johnson has given a rough answer to a
man who perhaps deserved one only half as rough, because I knew he would
repent of his hasty reproof, and make us all amends by some conversation
at once instructive and entertaining, as in the following cases. A young
fellow asked him abruptly one day, "Pray, sir, what and where is Palmyra?
I heard somebody talk last night of the ruins of Palmyra." "'Tis a hill
in Ireland," replies Johnson, "with palms growing on the top, and a bog
at the bottom, and so they call it _Palm-mira_." Seeing, however, that
the lad thought him serious, and thanked him for the information, he
undeceived him very gently indeed: told him the history, geography, and
chronology of Tadmor in the wilderness, with every incident that
literature could furnish, I think, or eloquence express, from the
building of Solomon's palace to the voyage of Dawkins and Wood.
On another occasion, when he was musing over the fire in our drawing-room
at Streatham, a young gentleman called to him suddenly, and I suppose he
thought disrespectfully, in these words: "Mr. Johnson, would you advise
me to marry?" "I would advise no man to marry, sir," returns for answer
in a very angry tone Dr. Johnson, "who is not likely to propagate
understanding," and so left the room. Our companion looked confounded,
and I believe had scarce recovered the consciousness of his own
existence, when Johnson came back, and drawing his chair among us, with
altered looks and a softened voice, joined in the general chat,
insensibly led the conversation to the subject of marriage, where he laid
himself out in a dissertation so useful, so elegant, so founded on the
true knowledge of human life, and so adorned with beauty of sentiment,
that no one ever recollected the offence, except to rejoice in its
consequences. He repented just as certainly, however, if he had been led
to praise any person or thing by accident more than he thought it
deserved; and was on such occasions comically earnest to destroy the
praise or pleasure he had unintentionally given.
Sir Joshua Reynolds mentioned some picture as excellent. "It has often
grieved me, sir," said Mr. Johnson, "to see so much mind as the science
of painting requires laid out upon such perishable materials. Why do not
you oftener make use of copper? I could wish your superiority in the art
you profess to be preserved in stuff more durable than canvas." Sir
Joshua urged the difficulty of procuring a plate large enough for
historical subjects, and was going to raise further observations. "What
foppish obstacles are these!" exclaims on a sudden Dr. Johnson. "Here is
Thrale has a thousand tun of copper; you may paint it all round if you
will, I suppose; it will serve him to brew in afterwards. Will it not,
sir?" (to my husband, who sat by). Indeed, Dr. Johnson's utter scorn of
painting was such that I have heard him say that he should sit very
quietly in a room hung round with the works of the greatest masters, and
never feel the slightest disposition to turn them if their backs were
outermost, unless it might be for the sake of telling Sir Joshua that he
_had_ turned them. Such speeches may appear offensive to many, but those
who knew he was too blind to discern the perfections of an art which
applies itself immediately to our eyesight must acknowledge he was not in
the wrong.
He delighted no more in music than in painting; he was almost as deaf as
he was blind; travelling with Dr. Johnson was for these reasons tiresome
enough. Mr. Thrale loved prospects, and was mortified that his friend
could not enjoy the sight of those different dispositions of wood and
water, hill and valley, that travelling through England and France
affords a man. But when he wished to point them out to his companion:
"Never heed such nonsense," would be the reply; "a blade of grass is
always a blade of grass, whether in one country or another. Let us, if
we _do_ talk, talk about something; men and women are my subjects of
inquiry; let us see how these differ from those we have left behind."
When we were at Rouen together, he took a great fancy to the Abbe
Roffette, with whom he conversed about the destruction of the order of
Jesuits, and condemned it loudly as a blow to the general power of the
Church, and likely to be followed with many and dangerous innovations,
which might at length become fatal to religion itself, and shake even the
foundation of Christianity. The gentleman seemed to wonder and delight
in his conversation. The talk was all in Latin, which both spoke
fluently, and Mr. Johnson pronounced a long eulogium upon Milton with so
much ardour, eloquence, and ingenuity, that the Abbe rose from his seat
and embraced him. My husband, seeing them apparently so charmed with the
company of each other, politely invited the Abbe to England, intending to
oblige his friend, who, instead of thanking, reprimanded him severely
before the man for such a sudden burst of tenderness towards a person he
could know nothing at all of, and thus put a sudden finish to all his own
and Mr. Thrale's entertainment from the company of the Abbe Roffette.
When at Versailles the people showed us the theatre. As we stood on the
stage looking at some machinery for playhouse purposes: "Now we are here,
what shall we act, Mr. Johnson--The Englishman at Paris?" "No, no,"
replied he, "we will try to act Harry the Fifth." His dislike to the
French was well known to both nations, I believe; but he applauded the
number of their books and the graces of their style. "They have few
sentiments," said he, "but they express them neatly; they have little
meat, too, but they dress it well." Johnson's own notions about eating,
however, were nothing less than delicate: a leg of pork boiled till it
dropped from the bone, a veal pie with plums and sugar, or the outside
cut of a salt buttock of beef, were his favourite dainties. With regard
to drink, his liking was for the strongest, as it was not the flavour,
but the effect, he sought for, and professed to desire; and when I first
knew him, he used to pour capillaire into his port wine. For the last
twelve years, however, he left off all fermented liquors. To make
himself some amends, indeed, he took his chocolate liberally, pouring in
large quantities of cream, or even melted butter; and was so fond of
fruit, that though he usually ate seven or eight large peaches of a
morning before breakfast began, and treated them with proportionate
attention after dinner again, yet I have heard him protest that he never
had quite as much as he wished of wall-fruit, except once in his life,
and that was when we were all together at Ombersley, the seat of my Lord
Sandys. I was saying to a friend one day, that I did not like goose;
"one smells it so while it is roasting," said I. "But you, madam,"
replies the Doctor, "have been at all times a fortunate woman, having
always had your hunger so forestalled by indulgence, that you never
experienced the delight of smelling your dinner beforehand." "Which
pleasure," answered I pertly, "is to be enjoyed in perfection by such as
have the happiness to pass through Porridge Island of a morning." "Come,
come," says he, gravely, "let's have no sneering at what is serious to so
many. Hundreds of your fellow-creatures, dear lady, turn another way,
that they may not be tempted by the luxuries of Porridge Island to wish
for gratifications they are not able to obtain. You are certainly not
better than all of _them_; give God thanks that you are happier."
I received on another occasion as just a rebuke from Mr. Johnson, for an
offence of the same nature, and hope I took care never to provoke a
third; for after a very long summer, particularly hot and dry, I was
wishing naturally but thoughtlessly for some rain to lay the dust as we
drove along the Surrey roads. "I cannot bear," replied he, with much
asperity and an altered look, "when I know how many poor families will
perish next winter for want of that bread which the present drought will
deny them, to hear ladies sighing for rain, only that their complexions
may not suffer from the heat, or their clothes be incommoded by the dust.
For shame! leave off such foppish lamentations, and study to relieve
those whose distresses are real."
With advising others to be charitable, however, Dr. Johnson did not
content himself. He gave away all he had, and all he ever had gotten,
except the two thousand pounds he left behind; and the very small portion
of his income which he spent on himself, with all our calculation, we
never could make more than seventy, or at most four-score pounds a year,
and he pretended to allow himself a hundred. He had numberless
dependents out of doors as well as in, who, as he expressed it, "did not
like to see him latterly unless he brought 'em money." For those people
he used frequently to raise contributions on his richer friends; "and
this," says he, "is one of the thousand reasons which ought to restrain a
man from drony solitude and useless retirement. Solitude," added he one
day, "is dangerous to reason, without being favourable to virtue:
pleasures of some sort are necessary to the intellectual as to the
corporeal health; and those who resist gaiety will be likely for the most
part to fall a sacrifice to appetite; for the solicitations of sense are
always at hand, and a dram to a vacant and solitary person is a speedy
and seducing relief. Remember," concluded he, "that the solitary mortal
is certainly luxurious, probably superstitious, and possibly mad: the
mind stagnates for want of employment, grows morbid, and is extinguished
like a candle in foul air." It was on this principle that Johnson
encouraged parents to carry their daughters early and much into company:
"for what harm can be done before so many witnesses? Solitude is the
surest nurse of all prurient passions, and a girl in the hurry of
preparation, or tumult of gaiety, has neither inclination nor leisure to
let tender expressions soften or sink into her heart. The ball, the
show, are not the dangerous places: no, it is the private friend, the
kind consoler, the companion of the easy, vacant hour, whose compliance
with her opinions can flatter her vanity, and whose conversation can just
soothe, without ever stretching her mind, that is the lover to be feared.
He who buzzes in her ear at court or at the opera must be contented to
buzz in vain." These notions Dr. Johnson carried so very far, that I
have heard him say, "If you shut up any man with any woman, so as to make
them derive their whole pleasure from each other, they would inevitably
fall in love, as it is called, with each other; but at six months' end,
if you would throw them both into public life, where they might change
partners at pleasure, each would soon forget that fondness which mutual
dependence and the paucity of general amusement alone had caused, and
each would separately feel delighted by their release."
In these opinions Rousseau apparently concurs with him exactly; and Mr.
Whitehead's poem, called "Variety," is written solely to elucidate this
simple proposition. Prior likewise advises the husband to send his wife
abroad, and let her see the world as it really stands:--
"Powder, and pocket-glass, and beau."
Mr. Johnson was indeed unjustly supposed to be a lover of singularity.
Few people had a more settled reverence for the world than he, or was
less captivated by new modes of behaviour introduced, or innovations on
the long-received customs of common life. He hated the way of leaving a
company without taking notice to the lady of the house that he was going,
and did not much like any of the contrivances by which ease had lately
been introduced into society instead of ceremony, which had more of his
approbation. Cards, dress, and dancing, however, all found their
advocate in Dr. Johnson, who inculcated, upon principle, the cultivation
of those arts which many a moralist thinks himself bound to reject, and
many a Christian holds unfit to be practised. "No person," said he one
day, "goes under-dressed till he thinks himself of consequence enough to
forbear carrying the badge of his rank upon his back." And in answer to
the arguments urged by Puritans, Quakers, etc., against showy decorations
of the human figure, I once heard him exclaim, "Oh, let us not be found,
when our Master calls us, ripping the lace off our waistcoats, but the
spirit of contention from our souls and tongues! Let us all conform in
outward customs, which are of no consequence, to the manners of those
whom we live among, and despise such paltry distinctions. Alas, sir!"
continued he, "a man who cannot get to heaven in a green coat, will not
find his way thither sooner in a grey one." On an occasion of less
consequence, when he turned his back on Lord Bolingbroke in the rooms at
Brighthelmstone, he made this excuse, "I am not obliged, sir," said he to
Mr. Thrale, who stood fretting, "to find reasons for respecting the rank
of him who will not condescend to declare it by his dress or some other
visible mark. What are stars and other signs of superiority made for?"
The next evening, however, he made us comical amends, by sitting by the
same nobleman, and haranguing very loudly about the nature and use and
abuse of divorces. Many people gathered round them to hear what was
said, and when my husband called him away, and told him to whom he had
been talking, received an answer which I will not write down.
Though no man, perhaps, made such rough replies as Dr. Johnson, yet
nobody had a more just aversion to general satire; he always hated and
censured Swift for his unprovoked bitterness against the professors of
medicine, and used to challenge his friends, when they lamented the
exorbitancy of physicians' fees, to produce him one instance of an estate
raised by physic in England. When an acquaintance, too, was one day
exclaiming against the tediousness of the law and its partiality: "Let us
hear, sir," said Johnson, "no general abuse; the law is the last result
of human wisdom acting upon human experience for the benefit of the
public."
As the mind of Dr. Johnson was greatly expanded, so his first care was
for general, not particular or petty morality; and those teachers had
more of his blame than praise, I think, who seek to oppress life with
unnecessary scruples. "Scruples would," as he observed, "certainly make
men miserable, and seldom make them good. Let us ever," he said,
"studiously fly from those instructors against whom our Saviour denounces
heavy judgments, for having bound up burdens grievous to be borne, and
laid them on the shoulders of mortal men." No one had, however, higher
notions of the hard task of true Christianity than Johnson, whose daily
terror lest he had not done enough, originated in piety, but ended in
little less than disease. Reasonable with regard to others, he had
formed vain hopes of performing impossibilities himself; and finding his
good works ever below his desires and intent, filled his imagination with
fears that he should never obtain forgiveness for omissions of duty and
criminal waste of time. These ideas kept him in constant anxiety
concerning his salvation; and the vehement petitions he perpetually made
for a longer continuance on earth, were doubtless the cause of his so
prolonged existence: for when I carried Dr. Pepys to him in the year
1782, it appeared wholly impossible for any skill of the physician or any
strength of the patient to save him. He was saved that time, however, by
Sir Lucas's prescriptions; and less skill on one side, or less strength
on the other, I am morally certain, would not have been enough. He had,
however, possessed an athletic constitution, as he said the man who
dipped people in the sea at Brighthelmstone acknowledged; for seeing Mr.
Johnson swim, in the year 1766, "Why, sir," says the dipper, "you must
have been a stout-hearted gentleman forty years ago."
Mr. Thrale and he used to laugh about that story very often: but Garrick
told a better, for he said that in their young days, when some strolling
players came to Lichfield, our friend had fixed his place upon the stage,
and got himself a chair accordingly; which leaving for a few minutes, he
found a man in it at his return, who refused to give it back at the first
entreaty. Mr. Johnson, however, who did not think it worth his while to
make a second, took chair and man and all together, and threw them all at
once into the pit. I asked the Doctor if this was a fact. "Garrick has
not _spoiled_ it in the telling," said he, "it is very _near_ true, to be
sure."
Mr. Beauclerc, too, related one day how on some occasion he ordered two
large mastiffs into his parlour, to show a friend who was conversant in
canine beauty and excellence how the dogs quarrelled, and fastening on
each other, alarmed all the company except Johnson, who seizing one in
one hand by the cuff of the neck, the other in the other hand, said
gravely, "Come, gentlemen! where's your difficulty? put one dog out at
the door, and I will show this fierce gentleman the way out of the
window:" which, lifting up the mastiff and the sash, he contrived to do
very expeditiously, and much to the satisfaction of the affrighted
company. We inquired as to the truth of this curious recital. "The dogs
have been somewhat magnified, I believe, sir," was the reply: "they were,
as I remember, two stout young pointers; but the story has gained but
little."
One reason why Mr. Johnson's memory was so particularly exact, might be
derived from his rigid attention to veracity; being always resolved to
relate every fact as it stood, he looked even on the smaller parts of
life with minute attention, and remembered such passages as escape
cursory and common observers. "A story," says he, "is a specimen of
human manners, and derives its sole value from its truth. When Foote has
told me something, I dismiss it from my mind like a passing shadow: when
Reynolds tells me something, I consider myself as possessed of an idea
the more."
Mr. Johnson liked a frolic or a jest well enough, though he had strange
serious rules about it too: and very angry was he if anybody offered to
be merry when he was disposed to be grave. "You have an ill-founded
notion," said he, "that it is clever to turn matters off with a joke (as
the phrase is); whereas nothing produces enmity so certain as one persons
showing a disposition to be merry when another is inclined to be either
serious or displeased."
One may gather from this how he felt when his Irish friend Grierson,
hearing him enumerate the qualities necessary to the formation of a poet,
began a comical parody upon his ornamented harangue in praise of a cook,
concluding with this observation, that he who dressed a good dinner was a
more excellent and a more useful member of society than he who wrote a
good poem. "And in this opinion," said Mr. Johnson in reply, "all the
dogs in the town will join you."
Of this Mr. Grierson I have heard him relate many droll stories, much to
his advantage as a wit, together with some facts more difficult to be
accounted for; as avarice never was reckoned among the vices of the
laughing world. But Johnson's various life, and spirit of vigilance to
learn and treasure up every peculiarity of manner, sentiment, or general
conduct, made his company, when he chose to relate anecdotes of people he
had formerly known, exquisitely amusing and comical. It is indeed
inconceivable what strange occurrences he had seen, and what surprising
things he could tell when in a communicative humour. It is by no means
my business to relate memoirs of his acquaintance; but it will serve to
show the character of Johnson himself, when I inform those who never knew
him that no man told a story with so good a grace, or knew so well what
would make an effect upon his auditors. When he raised contributions for
some distressed author, or wit in want, he often made us all more than
amends by diverting descriptions of the lives they were then passing in
corners unseen by anybody but himself; and that odd old surgeon whom he
kept in his house to tend the out-pensioners, and of whom he said most
truly and sublimely that--
"In misery's darkest caverns known,
His useful care was ever nigh,
Where hopeless anguish pours her groan,
And lonely want retires to die."
I have forgotten the year, but it could scarcely I think be later than
1765 or 1766, that he was called abruptly from our house after dinner,
and returning in about three hours, said he had been with an enraged
author, whose landlady pressed him for payment within doors, while the
bailiffs beset him without; that he was drinking himself drunk with
Madeira to drown care, and fretting over a novel which, when finished,
was to be his whole fortune; but he could not get it done for
distraction, nor could he step out of doors to offer it to sale. Mr.
Johnson therefore set away the bottle, and went to the bookseller,
recommending the performance, and desiring some immediate relief; which
when he brought back to the writer, he called the woman of the house
directly to partake of punch, and pass their time in merriment.
It was not till ten years after, I dare say, that something in Dr.
Goldsmith's behaviour struck me with an idea that he was the very man,
and then Johnson confessed it was so; the novel was the charming "Vicar
of Wakefield."
There was a Mr. Boyce, too, who wrote some very elegant verses printed in
the magazines of five-and-twenty years ago, of whose ingenuity and
distress I have heard Dr. Johnson tell some curious anecdotes,
particularly that when he was almost perishing with hunger, and some
money was produced to purchase him a dinner, he got a piece of roast
beef, but could not eat it without ketchup, and laid out the last half-
guinea he possessed in truffles and mushrooms, eating them in bed, too,
for want of clothes, or even a shirt to sit up in.
Another man, for whom he often begged, made as wild use of his friend's
beneficence as these, spending in punch the solitary guinea which had
been brought him one morning; when resolving to add another claimant to a
share of the bowl, besides a woman who always lived with him, and a
footman who used to carry out petitions for charity, he borrowed a
chairman's watch, and pawning it for half-a-crown, paid a clergyman to
marry him to a fellow-lodger in the wretched house they all inhabited,
and got so drunk over the guinea bowl of punch the evening of his wedding-
day, that having many years lost the use of one leg, he now contrived to
fall from the top of the stairs to the bottom, and break his arm, in
which condition his companions left him to call Mr. Johnson, who,
relating the series of his tragi-comical distresses obtained from the
Literary Club a seasonable relief.
Of that respectable society I have heard him speak in the highest terms,
and with a magnificent panegyric on each member, when it consisted only
of a dozen or fourteen friends; but as soon as the necessity of enlarging
it brought in new faces, and took off from his confidence in the company,
he grew less fond of the meeting, and loudly proclaimed his carelessness
_who_ might be admitted, when it was become a mere dinner club. I
_think_ the original names, when I first heard him talk with fervour of
every member's peculiar powers of instructing or delighting mankind, were
Sir John Hawkins, Mr. Burke, Mr. Langton, Mr. Beauclerc, Dr. Percy, Dr.
Nugent, Dr. Goldsmith, Sir Robert Chambers, Mr. Dyer, and Sir Joshua
Reynolds, whom he called their Romulus, or said somebody else of the
company called him so, which was more likely: but this was, I believe, in
the year 1775 or 1776. It was a supper meeting then, and I fancy Dr.
Nugent ordered an omelet sometimes on a Friday or Saturday night; for I
remember Mr. Johnson felt very painful sensations at the sight of that
dish soon after his death, and cried, "Ah, my poor dear friend! I shall
never eat omelet with _thee_ again!" quite in an agony. The truth is,
nobody suffered more from pungent sorrow at a friend's death than
Johnson, though he would suffer no one else to complain of their losses
in the same way; "for," says he, "we must either outlive our friends, you
know, or our friends must outlive us; and I see no man that would
hesitate about the choice."
Mr. Johnson loved late hours extremely, or more properly hated early
ones. Nothing was more terrifying to him than the idea of retiring to
bed, which he never would call going to rest, or suffer another to call
so. "I lie down," said he, "that my acquaintance may sleep; but I lie
down to endure oppressive misery, and soon rise again to pass the night
in anxiety and pain." By this pathetic manner, which no one ever
possessed in so eminent a degree, he used to shock me from quitting his
company, till I hurt my own health not a little by sitting up with him
when I was myself far from well; nor was it an easy matter to oblige him
even by compliance, for he always maintained that no one forbore their
own gratifications for the sake of pleasing another, and if one _did_ sit
up it was probably to amuse oneself. Some right, however, he certainly
had to say so, as he made his company exceedingly entertaining when he
had once forced one, by his vehement lamentations and piercing reproofs,
not to quit the room, but to sit quietly and make tea for him, as I often
did in London till four o'clock in the morning. At Streatham, indeed, I
managed better, having always some friend who was kind enough to engage
him in talk, and favour my retreat.
The first time I ever saw this extraordinary man was in the year 1764,
when Mr. Murphy, who had been long the friend and confidential intimate
of Mr. Thrale, persuaded him to wish for Johnson's conversation,
extolling it in terms which that of no other person could have deserved,
till we were only in doubt how to obtain his company, and find an excuse
for the invitation. The celebrity of Mr. Woodhouse, a shoemaker, whose
verses were at that time the subject of common discourse, soon afforded a
pretence, and Mr. Murphy brought Johnson to meet him, giving me general
cautions not to be surprised at his figure, dress, or behaviour. What I
recollect best of the day's talk was his earnestly recommending Addison's
works to Mr. Woodhouse as a model for imitation. "Give nights and days,
sir," said he, "to the study of Addison, if you mean either to be a good
writer, or what is more worth, an honest man." When I saw something like
the same expression in his criticism on that author, lately published, I
put him in mind of his past injunctions to the young poet, to which he
replied, "that he wished the shoemaker might have remembered them as
well." Mr. Johnson liked his new acquaintance so much, however, that,
from that time he dined with us every Thursday through the winter, and in
the autumn of the next year he followed us to Brighthelmstone, whence we
were gone before his arrival; so he was disappointed and enraged, and
wrote us a letter expressive of anger, which we were very desirous to
pacify, and to obtain his company again, if possible. Mr. Murphy brought
him back to us again very kindly, and from that time his visits grew more
frequent, till in the year 1766 his health, which he had always
complained of, grew so exceedingly bad, that he could not stir out of his
room in the court he inhabited for many _weeks_ together--I think
_months_.
Mr. Thrale's attentions and my own now became so acceptable to him, that
he often lamented to us the horrible condition of his mind, which he said
was nearly distracted; and though he charged _us_ to make him odd solemn
promises of secrecy on so strange a subject, yet when we waited on him
one morning, and heard him, in the most pathetic terms, beg the prayers
of Dr. Delap, who had left him as we came in, I felt excessively affected
with grief, and well remember my husband involuntarily lifted up one hand
to shut his mouth, from provocation at hearing a man so wildly proclaim
what he could at last persuade no one to believe, and what, if true,
would have been so very unfit to reveal.
Mr. Thrale went away soon after, leaving me with him, and bidding me
prevail on him to quit his close habitation in the court and come with us
to Streatham, where I undertook the care of his health, and had the
honour and happiness of contributing to its restoration. This task,
though distressing enough sometimes, would have been less so had not my
mother and he disliked one another extremely, and teased me often with
perverse opposition, petty contentions, and mutual complaints. Her
superfluous attention to such accounts of the foreign politics as are
transmitted to us by the daily prints, and her willingness to talk on
subjects he could not endure, began the aversion; and when, by the
peculiarity of his style, she found out that he teased her by writing in
the newspapers concerning battles and plots which had no existence, only
to feed her with new accounts of the division of Poland, perhaps, or the
disputes between the States of Russia and Turkey, she was exceedingly
angry, to be sure, and scarcely, I think, forgave the offence till the
domestic distresses of the year 1772 reconciled them to and taught them
the true value of each other, excellent as _they both_ were, far beyond
the excellence of any other man and woman I ever yet saw. As her
conduct, too, extorted his truest esteem, her cruel illness excited all
his tenderness, nor was the sight of beauty, scarce to be subdued by
disease, and wit, flashing through the apprehension of evil, a scene
which Dr. Johnson could see without sensibility. He acknowledged himself
improved by her piety, and astonished at her fortitude, and hung over her
bed with the affection of a parent, and the reverence of a son. Nor did
it give me less pleasure to see her sweet mind cleared of all its latent
prejudices, and left at liberty to admire and applaud that force of
thought and versatility of genius, that comprehensive soul and benevolent
heart, which attracted and commanded veneration from all, but inspired
peculiar sensations of delight mixed with reverence in those who, like
her, had the opportunity to observe these qualities stimulated by
gratitude, and actuated by friendship. When Mr. Thrale's perplexities
disturbed his peace, dear Dr. Johnson left him scarce a moment, and tried
every artifice to amuse as well as every argument to console him: nor is
it more possible to describe than to forget his prudent, his pious
attentions towards the man who had some years before certainly saved his
valuable life, perhaps his reason, by half obliging him to change the
foul air of Fleet Street for the wholesome breezes of the Sussex Downs.
The epitaph engraved on my mother's monument shows how deserving she was
of general applause. I asked Johnson why he named her person before her
mind. He said it was "because everybody could judge of the one, and but
few of the other."
_Juxta sepulta est_ HESTERA MARIA
_Thomae Cotton de Combermere baronetti Cestriensis filia_,
_Johannis Salusbury armigeri Flintiensis uxor_.
_Forma felix, felix ingenio_:
_Omnibus jucunda_, _suorum amantissima_.
_Linguis artibusque ita exculta_
_Ut loquenti nunquam deessent_
_Sermonis nitor_, _sententiarum flosculi_,
_Sapientiae gravitas_, _leporum gratia_:
_Modum servandi adeo perita_,
_Ut domestica inter negotia literis oblectaretur_.
_Literarum inter delicias_, _rem familiarem sedulo curaret_,
_Multis illi multos annos precantibus_
_diri carcinomatis veneno contabuit_,
_nexibusque vitae paulatim resolutis_,
_e terris_--_meliora sperans_--_emigravit_.
_Nata_ 1707. _Nupta_ 1739. _Obiit_ 1773.
Mr. Murphy, who admired her talents and delighted in her company, did me
the favour to paraphrase this elegant inscription in verses which I fancy
have never yet been published. His fame has long been out of my power to
increase as a poet: as a man of sensibility perhaps these lines may set
him higher than he now stands. I remember with gratitude the friendly
tears which prevented him from speaking as he put them into my hand.
Near this place
Are deposited the remains of
HESTER MARIA,
The daughter of Sir Thomas Cotton of Combermere,
in the county of Cheshire, Bart., the wife of
John Salusbury,
of the county of Flint, Esquire. She was
born in the year 1707, married in 1739, and died in 1773.
A pleasing form, where every grace combined,
With genius blest, a pure enlightened mind;
Benevolence on all that smiles bestowed,
A heart that for her friends with love o'erflowed:
In language skilled, by science formed to please,
Her mirth was wit, her gravity was ease.
Graceful in all, the happy mien she knew,
Which even to virtue gives the limits due;
Whate'er employed her, that she seemed to choose,
Her house, her friends, her business, or the muse.
Admired and loved, the theme of general praise,
All to such virtue wished a length of days.
But sad reverse! with slow-consuming pains,
Th' envenomed cancer revelled in her veins;
Preyed on her spirits--stole each power away;
Gradual she sank, yet smiling in decay;
She smiled in hope, by sore affliction tried,
And in that hope the pious Christian died.
The following epitaph on Mr. Thrale, who has now a monument close by hers
in Streatham Church, I have seen printed and commended in Maty's Review
for April, 1784; and a friend has favoured me with the translation:--
Hic conditur quod reliquum est
HENRICI THRALE,
Qui res seu civiles, seu domesticas, ita egit,
Ut vitam illi longiorem multi optarent;
Ita sacras,
Ut quam brevem esset habiturus praescire videretur.
Simplex, apertus, sibique semper similis,
Nihil ostentavit aut arte fictum aut cura
Elaboratum.
In senatu, regi patriaeque
Fideliter studuit;
Vulgi obstrepentis contemptor animosus,
Domi inter mille mercaturae negotia
Literarum elegantiam minime neglexit.
Amicis quocunque modo laborantibus,
Conciliis, auctoritate, muneribus adfuit.
Inter familiares, comites, convivas, hospites,
Tam facili fuit morum suavitate
Ut omnium animos ad se alliceret;
Tam felici sermonis libertate
Ut nulli adulatus, omnibus placeret.
Natus 1724. Ob. 1781.
Consortes tumuli habet Rodolphum patrem, strenuum
fortemque virum, et Henricum filium unicum,
quem spei parentum mors inopina decennem
praeripuit.
Ita
Domus felix et opulenta, quam erexit
Avus, auxitque pater, cum nepote decidit.
Abi viator!
Et vicibus rerum humanarum perspectis,
AEternitatem cogita!
Here are deposited the remains of
HENRY THRALE,
Who managed all his concerns in the present
world, public and private, in such a manner
as to leave many wishing he had continued
longer in it;
And all that related to a future world,
as if he had been sensible how short a time he
was to continue in this.
Simple, open, and uniform in his manners,
his conduct was without either art or affectation.
In the senate steadily attentive to the true interests
of his king and country,
He looked down with contempt on the clamours
of the multitude:
Though engaged in a very extensive business,
He found some time to apply to polite literature
And was ever ready to assist his friends
labouring under any difficulties,
with his advice, his influence, and his purse.
To his friends, acquaintance, and guests,
he behaved with such sweetness of manners
as to attach them all to his person:
So happy in his conversation with them,
as to please all, though he flattered none.
He was born in the year 1724, and died in 1781.
In the same tomb lie interred his father,
Ralph Thrale, a man of vigour and activity,
And his only son Henry, who died before his father,
Aged ten years.
Thus a happy and opulent family,
Raised by the grandfather, and augmented by the
father, became extinguished with the grandson.
Go, Reader!
And reflecting on the vicissitudes of
all human affairs,
Meditate on eternity.
I never recollect to have heard that Dr. Johnson wrote inscriptions for
any sepulchral stones except Dr. Goldsmith's, in Westminster Abbey, and
these two in Streatham Church. He made four lines once on the death of
poor Hogarth, which were equally true and pleasing. I know not why
Garrick's were preferred to them.
"The hand of him here torpid lies,
That drew th' essential form of grace;
Here clos'd in death th' attentive eyes,
That saw the manners in the face."
Mr. Hogarth, among the variety of kindnesses shown to me when I was too
young to have a proper sense of them, was used to be very earnest that I
should obtain the acquaintance, and if possible the friendship, of Dr.
Johnson, whose conversation was, to the talk of other men, "like Titian's
painting compared to Hudson's," he said: "but don't you tell people, now,
that I say so," continued he, "for the connoisseurs and I are at war, you
know; and because I hate _them_, they think I hate _Titian_--and let
them!" Many were indeed the lectures I used to have in my very early
days from dear Mr. Hogarth, whose regard for my father induced him,
perhaps, to take notice of his little girl, and give her some odd
particular directions about dress, dancing, and many other matters,
interesting now only because they were his. As he made all his talents,
however, subservient to the great purposes of morality, and the earnest
desire he had to mend mankind, his discourse commonly ended in an ethical
dissertation, and a serious charge to me, never to forget his picture of
the "Lady's last Stake." Of Dr. Johnson, when my father and he were
talking together about him one day, "That man," says Hogarth, "is not
contented with believing the Bible, but he fairly resolves, I think, to
believe nothing _but_ the Bible. Johnson," added he, "though so wise a
fellow, is more like King David than King Solomon; for he says in his
haste that 'all men are liars.'" This charge, as I afterwards came to
know, was but too well founded. Mr. Johnson's incredulity amounted
almost to disease, and I have seen it mortify his companions exceedingly.
But the truth is, Mr. Thrale had a very powerful influence over the
Doctor, and could make him suppress many rough answers. He could
likewise prevail on him to change his shirt, his coat, or his plate,
almost before it came indispensably necessary to the comfort of his
friends. But as I never had any ascendency at all over Mr. Johnson,
except just in the things that concerned his health, it grew extremely
perplexing and difficult to live in the house with him when the master of
it was no more; the worse, indeed, because his dislikes grew capricious;
and he could scarce bear to have anybody come to the house whom it was
absolutely necessary for me to see. Two gentlemen, I perfectly well
remember, dining with us at Streatham in the summer, 1782, when Elliot's
brave defence of Gibraltar was a subject of common discourse, one of
these men naturally enough began some talk about red-hot balls thrown
with surprising dexterity and effect, which Dr. Johnson having listened
some time to, "I would advise you, sir," said he, with a cold sneer,
"never to relate this story again; you really can scarce imagine how
_very poor_ a figure you make in the telling of it." Our guest being
bred a Quaker, and, I believe, a man of an extremely gentle disposition,
needed no more reproofs for the same folly; so if he ever did speak
again, it was in a low voice to the friend who came with him. The check
was given before dinner, and after coffee I left the room. When in the
evening, however, our companions were returned to London, and Mr. Johnson
and myself were left alone, with only our usual family about us, "I did
not quarrel with those Quaker fellows," said he, very seriously. "You
did perfectly right," replied I, "for they gave you no cause of offence."
"No offence!" returned he, with an altered voice; "and is it nothing,
then, to sit whispering together when _I_ am present, without ever
directing their discourse towards me, or offering me a share in the
conversation?" "That was because you frighted him who spoke first about
those hot balls." "Why, madam, if a creature is neither capable of
giving dignity to falsehood, nor willing to remain contented with the
truth, he deserves no better treatment."
Mr. Johnson's fixed incredulity of everything he heard, and his little
care to conceal that incredulity, was teasing enough, to be sure; and I
saw Mr. Sharp was pained exceedingly when relating the history of a
hurricane that happened about that time in the West Indies, where, for
aught I know, he had himself lost some friends too, he observed Dr.
Johnson believed not a syllable of the account. "For 'tis _so_ easy,"
says he, "for a man to fill his mouth with a wonder, and run about
telling the lie before it can be detected, that I have no heart to
believe hurricanes easily raised by the first inventor, and blown
forwards by thousands more." I asked him once if he believed the story
of the destruction of Lisbon by an earthquake when it first happened.
"Oh! not for six months," said he, "at least. I _did_ think that story
too dreadful to be credited, and can hardly yet persuade myself that it
was true to the full extent we all of us have heard."
Among the numberless people, however, whom I heard him grossly and flatly
contradict, I never yet saw any one who did not take it patiently
excepting Dr. Burney, from whose habitual softness of manners I little
expected such an exertion of spirit; the event was as little to be
expected. Mr. Johnson asked his pardon generously and genteelly, and
when he left the room, rose up to shake hands with him, that they might
part in peace. On another occasion, when he had violently provoked Mr.
Pepys, in a different but perhaps not a less offensive manner, till
something much too like a quarrel was grown up between them, the moment
he was gone, "Now," says Dr. Johnson, "is Pepys gone home hating me, who
love him better than I did before. He spoke in defence of his dead
friend; but though I hope _I_ spoke better who spoke against him, yet all
my eloquence will gain me nothing but an honest man for my enemy!" He
did not, however, cordially love Mr. Pepys, though he respected his
abilities. "I know the dog was a scholar," said he when they had been
disputing about the classics for three hours together one morning at
Streatham, "but that he had so much taste and so much knowledge I did
_not_ believe. I might have taken Barnard's word though, for Barnard
would not lie."
We had got a little French print among us at Brighthelmstone, in
November, 1782, of some people skating, with these lines written under:--
"Sur un mince chrystal l'hyver conduit leurs pas,
Le precipice est sous la glace;
Telle est de nos plaisirs la legere surface,
Glissez mortels; n'appayez pas."