"O'er crackling ice, o'er gulfs profound,
With nimble glide the skaters play;
O'er treacherous pleasure's flow'ry ground
Thus lightly skim, and haste away."
Though thus uncommonly ready both to give and take offence, Mr. Johnson
had many rigid maxims concerning the necessity of continued softness and
compliance of disposition: and when I once mentioned Shenstone's idea
that some little quarrel among lovers, relations, and friends was useful,
and contributed to their general happiness upon the whole, by making the
soul feel her elastic force, and return to the beloved object with
renewed delight: "Why, what a pernicious maxim is this now," cries
Johnson, "_all_ quarrels ought to be avoided studiously, particularly
conjugal ones, as no one can possibly tell where they may end; besides
that lasting dislike is often the consequence of occasional disgust, and
that the cup of life is surely bitter enough without squeezing in the
hateful rind of resentment." It was upon something like the same
principle, and from his general hatred of refinement, that when I told
him how Dr. Collier, in order to keep the servants in humour with his
favourite dog, by seeming rough with the animal himself on many
occasions, and crying out, "Why will nobody knock this cur's brains out?"
meant to conciliate their tenderness towards Pompey; he returned me for
answer, "that the maxim was evidently false, and founded on ignorance of
human life: that the servants would kick the dog sooner for having
obtained such a sanction to their severity. And I once," added he, "chid
my wife for beating the cat before the maid, who will now," said I,
"treat puss with cruelty, perhaps, and plead her mistress's example."
I asked him upon this if he ever disputed with his wife? (I had heard
that he loved her passionately.) "Perpetually," said he: "my wife had a
particular reverence for cleanliness, and desired the praise of neatness
in her dress and furniture, as many ladies do, till they become
troublesome to their best friends, slaves to their own besoms, and only
sigh for the hour of sweeping their husbands out of the house as dirt and
useless lumber. 'A clean floor is _so_ comfortable,' she would say
sometimes, by way of twitting; till at last I told her that I thought we
had had talk enough about the _floor_, we would now have a touch at the
_ceiling_."
On another occasion I have heard him blame her for a fault many people
have, of setting the miseries of their neighbours half unintentionally,
half wantonly before their eyes, showing them the bad side of their
profession, situation, etc. He said, "She would lament the dependence of
pupilage to a young heir, etc., and once told a waterman who rowed her
along the Thames in a wherry, that he was no happier than a galley-slave,
one being chained to the oar by authority, the other by want. I had,
however," said he, laughing, "the wit to get her daughter on my side
always before we began the dispute. She read comedy better than anybody
he ever heard," he said; "in tragedy she mouthed too much."
Garrick told Mr. Thrale, however, that she was a little painted puppet,
of no value at all, and quite disguised with affectation, full of odd
airs of rural elegance; and he made out some comical scenes, by mimicking
her in a dialogue he pretended to have overheard. I do not know whether
he meant such stuff to be believed or no, it was so comical; nor did I
indeed ever see him represent her ridiculously, though my husband did.
The intelligence I gained of her from old Levett was only perpetual
illness and perpetual opium. The picture I found of her at Lichfield was
very pretty, and her daughter, Mrs. Lucy Porter, said it was like. Mr.
Johnson has told me that her hair was eminently beautiful, quite blonde,
like that of a baby; but that she fretted about the colour, and was
always desirous to dye it black, which he very judiciously hindered her
from doing. His account of their wedding we used to think ludicrous
enough. "I was riding to church," says Johnson, "and she following on
another single horse. She hung back, however, and I turned about to see
whether she could get her steed along, or what was the matter. I had,
however, soon occasion to see it was only coquetry, and _that I
despised_, so quickening my pace a little, she mended hers; but I believe
there was a tear or two--pretty dear creature!"
Johnson loved his dinner exceedingly, and has often said in my hearing,
perhaps for my edification, "that wherever the dinner is ill got there is
poverty or there is avarice, or there is stupidity; in short, the family
is somehow grossly wrong: for," continued he, "a man seldom thinks with
more earnestness of anything than he does of his dinner, and if he cannot
get that well dressed, he should be suspected of inaccuracy in other
things." One day, when he was speaking upon the subject, I asked him if
he ever huffed his wife about his dinner? "So often," replied he, "that
at last she called to me, and said, 'Nay, hold, Mr. Johnson, and do not
make a farce of thanking God for a dinner which in a few minutes you will
protest not eatable.'"
When any disputes arose between our married acquaintance, however, Mr.
Johnson always sided with the husband, "whom," he said, "the woman had
probably provoked so often, she scarce knew when or how she had
disobliged him first. Women," says Dr. Johnson, "give great offence by a
contemptuous spirit of non-compliance on petty occasions. The man calls
his wife to walk with him in the shade, and she feels a strange desire
just at that moment to sit in the sun: he offers to read her a play, or
sing her a song, and she calls the children in to disturb them, or
advises him to seize that opportunity of settling the family accounts.
Twenty such tricks will the faithfullest wife in the world not refuse to
play, and then look astonished when the fellow fetches in a mistress.
Boarding-schools were established," continued he, "for the conjugal quiet
of the parents. The two partners cannot agree which child to fondle, nor
how to fondle them, so they put the young ones to school, and remove the
cause of contention. The little girl pokes her head, the mother reproves
her sharply. 'Do not mind your mamma,' says the father, 'my dear, but do
your own way.' The mother complains to me of this. 'Madam,' said I,
'your husband is right all the while; he is with you but two hours of the
day, perhaps, and then you tease him by making the child cry. Are not
ten hours enough for tuition? and are the hours of pleasure so frequent
in life, that when a man gets a couple of quiet ones to spend in familiar
chat with his wife, they must be poisoned by petty mortifications? Put
missy to school; she will learn to hold her head like her neighbours, and
you will no longer torment your family for want of other talk.'".
The vacuity of life had at some early period of his life struck so
forcibly on the mind of Mr. Johnson, that it became by repeated
impression his favourite hypothesis, and the general tenor of his
reasonings commonly ended there, wherever they might begin. Such things,
therefore, as other philosophers often attribute to various and
contradictory causes, appeared to him uniform enough; all was done to
fill up the time, upon his principle. I used to tell him that it was
like the clown's answer in As You Like It, of "Oh, lord, sir!" for that
it suited every occasion. One man, for example, was profligate and wild,
as we call it, followed the girls, or sat still at the gaming-table.
"Why, life must be filled up," says Johnson, "and the man who is not
capable of intellectual pleasures must content himself with such as his
senses can afford." Another was a hoarder. "Why, a fellow must do
something; and what, so easy to a narrow mind as hoarding halfpence till
they turn into sixpences." Avarice was a vice against which, however, I
never much heard Mr. Johnson declaim, till one represented it to him
connected with cruelty, or some such disgraceful companion. "Do not,"
said he, "discourage your children from hoarding if they have a taste to
it: whoever lays up his penny rather than part with it for a cake, at
least is not the slave of gross appetite, and shows besides a preference
always to be esteemed, of the future to the present moment. Such a mind
may be made a good one; but the natural spendthrift, who grasps his
pleasures greedily and coarsely, and cares for nothing but immediate
indulgence, is very little to be valued above a negro." We talked of
Lady Tavistock, who grieved herself to death for the loss of her
husband--"She was rich, and wanted employment," says Johnson, "so she
cried till she lost all power of restraining her tears: other women are
forced to outlive their husbands, who were just as much beloved, depend
on it; but they have no time for grief: and I doubt not, if we had put my
Lady Tavistock into a small chandler's shop, and given her a nurse-child
to tend, her life would have been saved. The poor and the busy have no
leisure for sentimental sorrow." We were speaking of a gentleman who
loved his friend--"Make him Prime Minister," says Johnson, "and see how
long his friend will be remembered." But he had a rougher answer for me,
when I commended a sermon preached by an intimate acquaintance of our own
at the trading end of the town. "What was the subject, madam?" says Dr.
Johnson. "Friendship, sir," replied I. "Why, now, is it not strange
that a wise man, like our dear little Evans, should take it in his head
to preach on such a subject, in a place where no one can be thinking of
it?" "Why, what are they thinking upon, sir?" said I. "Why, the men are
thinking on their money, I suppose, and the women are thinking of their
mops."
Dr. Johnson's knowledge and esteem of what we call low or coarse life was
indeed prodigious; and he did not like that the upper ranks should be
dignified with the name of _the world_. Sir Joshua Reynolds said one day
that nobody _wore_ laced coats now; and that once everybody wore them.
"See, now," says Johnson, "how absurd that is; as if the bulk of mankind
consisted of fine gentlemen that came to him to sit for their pictures.
If every man who wears a laced coat (that he can pay for) was extirpated,
who would miss them?" With all this haughty contempt of gentility, no
praise was more welcome to Dr. Johnson than that which said he had the
notions or manners of a gentleman: which character I have heard him
define with accuracy, and describe with elegance. "Officers," he said,
"were falsely supposed to have the carriage of gentlemen; whereas no
profession left a stronger brand behind it than that of a soldier; and it
was the essence of a gentleman's character to bear the visible mark of no
profession whatever." He once named Mr. Berenger as the standard of true
elegance; but some one objecting that he too much resembled the gentleman
in Congreve's comedies, Mr. Johnson said, "We must fix them upon the
famous Thomas Hervey, whose manners were polished even to acuteness and
brilliancy, though he lost but little in solid power of reasoning, and in
genuine force of mind." Mr. Johnson had, however, an avowed and scarcely
limited partiality for all who bore the name or boasted the alliance of
an Aston or a Hervey; and when Mr. Thrale once asked him which had been
the happiest period of his past life? he replied, "It was that year in
which he spent one whole evening with M---y As--n. That, indeed," said
he, "was not happiness, it was rapture; but the thoughts of it sweetened
the whole year." I must add that the evening alluded to was not passed
tete-a-tete, but in a select company, of which the present Lord Killmorey
was one. "Molly," says Dr. Johnson, "was a beauty and a scholar, and a
wit and a Whig; and she talked all in praise of liberty: and so I made
this epigram upon her. She was the loveliest creature I ever saw!!!
"'Liber ut esse velim, suasisti pulchra Maria,
Ut maneam liber--pulchra Maria, vale!'"
"Will it do this way in English, sir?" said I.
"Persuasions to freedom fall oddly from you;
If freedom we seek--fair Maria, adieu!"
"It will do well enough," replied he, "but it is translated by a lady,
and the ladies never loved M---y As--n." I asked him what his wife
thought of this attachment? "She was jealous, to be sure," said he, "and
teased me sometimes when I would let her; and one day, as a
fortune-telling gipsy passed us when we were walking out in company with
two or three friends in the country, she made the wench look at my hand,
but soon repented her curiosity; 'for,' says the gipsy, 'your heart is
divided, sir, between a Betty and a Molly: Betty loves you best, but you
take most delight in Molly's company.' When I turned about to laugh, I
saw my wife was crying. Pretty charmer! she had no reason!"
It was, I believe, long after the currents of life had driven him to a
great distance from this lady, that he spent much of his time with Mrs. F-
tzh--b--t, of whom he always spoke with esteem and tenderness, and with a
veneration very difficult to deserve. "That woman," said he, "loved her
husband as we hope and desire to be loved by our guardian angel. F-tzh--
b--t was a gay, good-humoured fellow, generous of his money and of his
meat, and desirous of nothing but cheerful society among people
distinguished in _some_ way, in _any way_, I think; for Rousseau and St.
Austin would have been equally welcome to his table and to his kindness.
The lady, however, was of another way of thinking: her first care was to
preserve her husband's soul from corruption; her second, to keep his
estate entire for their children: and I owed my good reception in the
family to the idea she had entertained, that I was fit company for F-tzh--
b--t, whom I loved extremely. 'They dare not,' said she, 'swear, and
take other conversation-liberties before _you_.'" I asked if her husband
returned her regard? "He felt her influence too powerfully," replied Mr.
Johnson; "no man will be fond of what forces him daily to feel himself
inferior. She stood at the door of her paradise in Derbyshire, like the
angel with a flaming sword, to keep the devil at a distance. But she was
not immortal, poor dear! she died, and her husband felt at once afflicted
and released." I inquired if she was handsome? "She would have been
handsome for a queen," replied the panegyrist; "her beauty had more in it
of majesty than of attraction, more of the dignity of virtue than the
vivacity of wit." The friend of this lady, Miss B--thby, succeeded her
in the management of Mr. F-tzh--b--t's family, and in the esteem of Dr.
Johnson, though he told me she pushed her piety to bigotry, her devotion
to enthusiasm, that she somewhat disqualified herself for the duties of
_this_ life, by her perpetual aspirations after the _next_. Such was,
however, the purity of her mind, he said, and such the graces of her
manner, that Lord Lyttelton and he used to strive for her preference with
an emulation that occasioned hourly disgust, and ended in lasting
animosity. "You may see," said he to me, when the "Poets' Lives" were
printed, "that dear B--thby is at my heart still. She _would_ delight in
that fellow Lyttelton's company though, all that I could do; and I cannot
forgive even his memory the preference given by a mind like hers." I
have heard Baretti say that when this lady died, Dr. Johnson was almost
distracted with his grief, and that the friends about him had much ado to
calm the violence of his emotion. Dr. Taylor, too, related once to Mr.
Thrale and me, that when he lost his wife, the negro Francis ran away,
though in the middle of the night, to Westminster, to fetch Dr. Taylor to
his master, who was all but wild with excess of sorrow, and scarce knew
him when he arrived. After some minutes, however, the Doctor proposed
their going to prayers, as the only rational method of calming the
disorder this misfortune had occasioned in both their spirits. Time, and
resignation to the will of God, cured every breach in his heart before I
made acquaintance with him, though he always persisted in saying he never
rightly recovered the loss of his wife. It is in allusion to her that he
records the observation of a female critic, as he calls her, in Gay's
"Life;" and the lady of great beauty and elegance, mentioned in the
criticisms upon Pope's epitaphs, was Miss Molly Aston. The person spoken
of in his strictures upon Young's poetry is the writer of these
anecdotes, to whom he likewise addressed the following verses when he was
in the Isle of Skye with Mr. Boswell. The letters written in his
journey, I used to tell him, were better than the printed book; and he
was not displeased at my having taken the pains to copy them all over.
Here is the Latin ode:--
"Permeo terras, ubi nuda rupes
Saxeas miscet nebulis ruinas,
Torva ubi rident steriles coloni
Rura labores.
"Pervagor gentes, hominum ferorum
Vita ubi nullo decorata cultu,
Squallet informis, tigurique fumis
Faeda latescit.
"Inter erroris salebrosa longi,
Inter ignotae strepitus loquelae,
Quot modis mecum, quid agat requiro
Thralia dulcis?
"Seu viri curas pia nupta mulcet,
Seu fovet mater sobolem benigna,
Sive cum libris novitate pascit
Sedula mentem:
"Sit memor nostri, fideique merces,
Stet fides constans, meritoque blandum
Thraliae discant resonare nomen
Littora Skiae."
On another occasion I can boast verses from Dr. Johnson. As I went into
his room the morning of my birthday once, and said to him, "Nobody sends
me any verses now, because I am five-and-thirty years old, and Stella was
fed with them till forty-six, I remember." My being just recovered from
illness and confinement will account for the manner in which he burst
out, suddenly, for so he did without the least previous hesitation
whatsoever, and without having entertained the smallest intention towards
it half a minute before:
"Oft in danger, yet alive,
We are come to thirty-five;
Long may better years arrive,
Better years than thirty-five.
Could philosophers contrive
Life to stop at thirty-five,
Time his hours should never drive
O'er the bounds of thirty-five.
High to soar, and deep to dive,
Nature gives at thirty-five.
Ladies, stock and tend your hive,
Trifle not at thirty-five:
For howe'er we boast and strive,
Life declines from thirty-five.
He that ever hopes to thrive
Must begin by thirty-five;
And all who wisely wish to wive
Must look on Thrale at thirty-five."
"And now," said he, as I was writing them down, "you may see what it is
to come for poetry to a dictionary-maker; you may observe that the rhymes
run in alphabetical order exactly." And so they do.
Mr. Johnson did indeed possess an almost Tuscan power of improvisation.
When he called to my daughter, who was consulting with a friend about a
new gown and dressed hat she thought of wearing to an assembly, thus
suddenly, while she hoped he was not listening to their conversation--
"Wear the gown and wear the hat,
Snatch thy pleasures while they last;
Hadst thou nine lives like a cat,
Soon those nine lives would be past."
It is impossible to deny to such little sallies the power of the
Florentines, who do not permit their verses to be ever written down,
though they often deserve it, because, as they express it, Cosi se perde-
rebbe la poca gloria.
As for translations, we used to make him sometimes run off with one or
two in a good humour. He was praising this song of Metastasio:--
"Deh, se piacermi vuoi,
Lascia i sospetti tuoi,
Non mi turbar conquesto
Molesto dubitar:
Chi ciecamente crede,
Impegna a serbar fede:
Chi sempre inganno aspetta,
Alletta ad ingannar."
"Should you like it in English," said he, "thus?"
"Would you hope to gain my heart,
Bid your teasing doubts depart;
He who blindly trusts, will find
Faith from every generous mind:
He who still expects deceit,
Only teaches how to cheat."
Mr. Baretti coaxed him likewise one day at Streatham out of a translation
of Emirena's speech to the false courtier Aquileius, and it is probably
printed before now, as I think two or three people took copies; but
perhaps it has slipped their memories.
"Ah! tu in corte invecchiasti, e giurerei
Che fra i pochi non sei tenace ancora
Dell' antica onesta: quando bisogna,
Saprai sereno in volto
Vezzeggiare un nemico: accio vi cada,
Aprirgli innanzi un precipizio, e poi
Piangerne la caduta. Offrirti a tutti
E non esser che tuo; di false lodi
Vestir le accuse, ed aggravar le colpe
Nel farne la difesa, ognor dal trono
I buoni allontanar; d'ogni castigo
Lasciar Vodio allo seettro, c d'ogni dono
Il merito usurpar: tener nascosto
Sotto un zelo apparente un empio fine,
Ne fabbricar che sulle altrui rouine."
"Grown old in courts, thou art not surely one
Who keeps the rigid rules of ancient honour;
Well skilled to soothe a foe with looks of kindness,
To sink the fatal precipice before him,
And then lament his fall with seeming friendship:
Open to all, true only to thyself,
Thou know'st those arts which blast with envious praise,
Which aggravate a fault with feigned excuses,
And drive discountenanced virtue from the throne;
That leave blame of rigour to the prince,
And of his every gift usurp the merit;
That hide in seeming zeal a wicked purpose,
And only build upon another's ruin."
These characters Dr. Johnson, however, did not delight in reading, or in
hearing of: he always maintained that the world was not half so wicked as
it was represented; and he might very well continue in that opinion, as
he resolutely drove from him every story that could make him change it;
and when Mr. Bickerstaff's flight confirmed the report of his guilt, and
my husband said, in answer to Johnson's astonishment, that he had long
been a suspected man: "By those who look close to the ground, dirt will
be seen, sir," was the lofty reply. "I hope I see things from a greater
distance."
His desire to go abroad, particularly to see Italy, was very great; and
he had a longing wish, too, to leave some Latin verses at the Grand
Chartreux. He loved, indeed, the very act of travelling, and I cannot
tell how far one might have taken him in a carriage before he would have
wished for refreshment. He was therefore in some respects an admirable
companion on the road, as he piqued himself upon feeling no
inconvenience, and on despising no accommodations. On the other hand,
however, he expected no one else to feel any, and felt exceedingly
inflamed with anger if any one complained of the rain, the sun, or the
dust. "How," said he, "do other people bear them?" As for general
uneasiness, or complaints of lone confinement in a carriage, he
considered all lamentations on their account as proofs of an empty head,
and a tongue desirous to talk without materials of conversation. "A mill
that goes without grist," said he, "is as good a companion as such
creatures."
I pitied a friend before him, who had a whining wife that found
everything painful to her, and nothing pleasing. "He does not know that
she whimpers," says Johnson; "when a door has creaked for a fortnight
together, you may observe--the master will scarcely give sixpence to get
it oiled."
Of another lady, more insipid than offensive, I once heard him say, "She
has some softness indeed, but so has a pillow." And when one observed,
in reply, that her husband's fidelity and attachment were exemplary,
notwithstanding this low account at which her perfections were
rated--"Why, sir," cries the Doctor, "being married to those
sleepy-souled women is just like playing at cards for nothing: no passion
is excited, and the time is filled up. I do not, however, envy a fellow
one of those honeysuckle wives for my part, as they are but _creepers_ at
best, and commonly destroy the tree they so tenderly cling about."
For a lady of quality, since dead, who received us at her husband's seat
in Wales with less attention than he had long been accustomed to, he had
a rougher denunciation. "That woman," cries Johnson, "is like sour small-
beer, the beverage of her table, and produce of the wretched country she
lives in: like that, she could never have been a good thing, and even
that bad thing is spoiled." This was in the same vein of asperity, and I
believe with something like the same provocation, that he observed of a
Scotch lady, "that she resembled a dead nettle; were she alive," said he,
"she would sting."
Mr. Johnson's hatred of the Scotch is so well known, and so many of his
bons mots expressive of that hatred have been already repeated in so many
books and pamphlets, that 'tis perhaps scarcely worth while to write down
the conversation between him and a friend of that nation who always
resides in London, and who at his return from the Hebrides asked him,
with a firm tone of voice, "What he thought of his country?" "That it is
a very vile country, to be sure, sir," returned for answer Dr. Johnson.
"Well, sir!" replies the other, somewhat mortified, "God made it."
"Certainly He did," answers Mr. Johnson again, "but we must always
remember that He made it for Scotchmen, and comparisons are odious, Mr.
S---; but God made hell."
Dr. Johnson did not, I think, much delight in that kind of conversation
which consists in telling stories. "Everybody," said he, "tells stories
of me, and I tell stories of nobody. I do not recollect," added he,
"that I have ever told _you_, that have been always favourites, above
three stories; but I hope I do not play the Old Fool, and force people to
hear uninteresting narratives, only because I once was diverted with them
myself." He was, however, no enemy to that sort of talk from the famous
Mr. Foote, "whose happiness of manner in relating was such," he said, "as
subdued arrogance and roused stupidity. _His_ stories were truly like
those of Biron in Love's Labour's Lost, so _very_ attractive--
'That aged ears played truant with his tales,
And younger hearings were quite ravished,
So sweet and voluble was his discourse.'
Of all conversers, however," added he, "the late Hawkins Browne was the
most delightful with whom I ever was in company: his talk was at once so
elegant, so apparently artless, so pure, so pleasing, it seemed a
perpetual stream of sentiment, enlivened by gaiety, and sparkling with
images." When I asked Dr. Johnson who was the best man he had ever
known? "Psalmanazar," was the unexpected reply. He said, likewise, "that
though a native of France, as his friend imagined, he possessed more of
the English language than any one of the other foreigners who had
separately fallen in his way." Though there was much esteem, however,
there was, I believe, but little confidence between them; they conversed
merely about general topics, religion and learning, of which both were
undoubtedly stupendous examples; and, with regard to true Christian
perfection, I have heard Johnson say, "That George Psalmanazar's piety,
penitence, and virtue exceeded almost what we read as wonderful even in
the lives of saints."
I forget in what year it was this extraordinary person lived and died at
a house in Old Street, where Mr. Johnson was witness to his talents and
virtues, and to his final preference of the Church of England, after
having studied, disgraced, and adorned so many modes of worship. The
name he went by was not supposed by his friend to be that of his family,
but all inquiries were vain. His reasons for concealing his original
were penitentiary; he deserved no other name than that of the impostor,
he said. That portion of the Universal History which was written by him
does not seem to me to be composed with peculiar spirit, but all traces
of the wit and the wanderer were probably worn out before he undertook
the work. His pious and patient endurance of a tedious illness, ending
in an exemplary death, confirmed the strong impression his merit had made
upon the mind of Mr. Johnson. "It is so _very_ difficult," said he,
always, "for a sick man not to be a scoundrel. Oh! set the pillows soft,
here is Mr. Grumbler a-coming. Ah! let no air in for the world, Mr.
Grumbler will be here presently."
This perpetual preference is so offensive, where the privileges of
sickness are, besides, supported by wealth, and nourished by dependence,
that one cannot much wonder that a rough mind is revolted by them. It
was, however, at once comical and touchant (as the French call it), to
observe Mr. Johnson so habitually watchful against this sort of
behaviour, that he was often ready to suspect himself of it; and when one
asked him gently, how he did?--"Ready to become a scoundrel, madam,"
would commonly be the answer; "with a little more spoiling you will, I
think, make me a complete rascal!"
His desire of doing good was not, however, lessened by his aversion to a
sick chamber. He would have made an ill man well by any expense or
fatigue of his own, sooner than any of the canters. Canter, indeed, was
he none: he would forget to ask people after the health of their nearest
relations, and say in excuse, "That he knew they did not care: why should
they?" says he; "every one in this world has as much as they can do in
caring for themselves, and few have leisure really to _think_ of their
neighbours' distresses, however they may delight their tongues with
_talking_ of them."
The natural depravity of mankind and remains of original sin were so
fixed in Mr. Johnson's opinion, that he was indeed a most acute observer
of their effects; and used to say sometimes, half in jest, half in
earnest, that they were the remains of his old tutor Mandeville's
instructions. As a book, however, he took care always loudly to condemn
the "Fable of the Bees," but not without adding, "that it was the work of
a thinking man."
I have in former days heard Dr. Collier of the Commons loudly condemned
for uttering sentiments, which twenty years after I have heard as loudly
applauded from the lips of Dr. Johnson, concerning the well-known writer
of that celebrated work: but if people will live long enough in this
capricious world, such instances of partiality will shock them less and
less by frequent repetition. Mr. Johnson knew mankind, and wished to
mend them: he therefore, to the piety and pure religion, the untainted
integrity, and scrupulous morals of my earliest and most disinterested
friend, judiciously contrived to join a cautious attention to the
capacity of his hearers, and a prudent resolution not to lessen the
influence of his learning and virtue, by casual freaks of humour and
irregular starts of ill-managed merriment. He did not wish to confound,
but to inform his auditors; and though he did not appear to solicit
benevolence, he always wished to retain authority, and leave his company
impressed with the idea that it was his to teach in this world, and
theirs to learn. What wonder, then, that all should receive with
docility from Johnson those doctrines, which, propagated by Collier, they
drove away from them with shouts! Dr. Johnson was not grave, however,
because he knew not how to be merry. No man loved laughing better, and
his vein of humour was rich and apparently inexhaustible; though Dr.
Goldsmith said once to him, "We should change companions oftener, we
exhaust one another, and shall soon be both of us worn out." Poor
Goldsmith was to him, indeed, like the earthen pot to the iron one in
Fontaine's fables; it had been better for _him_, perhaps, that they had
changed companions oftener; yet no experience of his antagonist's
strength hindered him from continuing the contest. He used to remind me
always of that verse in Berni--
"Il pover uomo che non sen' era accorto,
Andava combattendo--ed era morto."
Mr. Johnson made him a comical answer one day, when seeming to repine at
the success of Beattie's "Essay on Truth"--"Here's such a stir," said he,
"about a fellow that has written one book, and I have written many." "Ah,
Doctor," says his friend, "there go two-and-forty sixpences, you know, to
one guinea."
They had spent an evening with Eaton Graham, too, I remember hearing it
was at some tavern; his heart was open, and he began inviting away; told
what he could do to make his college agreeable, and begged the visit
might not be delayed. Goldsmith thanked him, and proposed setting out
with Mr. Johnson for Buckinghamshire in a fortnight. "Nay, hold, Dr.
_Minor_," says the other, "I did not invite you."
Many such mortifications arose in the course of their intimacy, to be
sure, but few more laughable than when the newspapers had tacked them
together as the pedant and his flatterer in Love's Labour's Lost. Dr.
Goldsmith came to his friend, fretting and foaming, and vowing vengeance
against the printer, etc., till Mr. Johnson, tired of the bustle, and
desirous to think of something else, cried out at last, "Why, what
would'st thou have, dear Doctor! who the plague is hurt with all this
nonsense? and how is a man the worse, I wonder, in his health, purse, or
character, for being called Holofernes?" "I do not know," replies the
other, "how you may relish being called Holofernes, but I do not like at
least to play Goodman Dull."
Dr. Johnson was indeed famous for disregarding public abuse. When the
people criticised and answered his pamphlets, papers, etc., "Why, now,
these fellows are only advertising my book," he would say; "it is surely
better a man should be abused than forgotten." When Churchill nettled
him, however, it is certain he felt the sting, or that poet's works would
hardly have been left out of the edition. Of that, however, I have no
right to decide; the booksellers, perhaps, did not put Churchill on their
list. I know Mr. Johnson was exceedingly zealous to declare how very
little he had to do with the selection. Churchill's works, too, might
possibly be rejected by him upon a higher principle; the highest, indeed,
if he was inspired by the same laudable motive which made him reject
every authority for a word in his dictionary that could only be gleaned
from writers dangerous to religion or morality. "I would not," said he,
"send people to look for words in a book, that by such a casual seizure
of the mind might chance to mislead it for ever." In consequence of this
delicacy, Mrs. Montague once observed, "That were an angel to give the
imprimatur, Dr. Johnson's works were among those very few which would not
be lessened by a line." That such praise from such a lady should delight
him, is not strange; insensibility in a case like that must have been the
result alone of arrogance acting on stupidity. Mr. Johnson had indeed no
dislike to the commendations which he knew he deserved. "What signifies
protesting so against flattery!" would he cry; "when a person speaks well
of one, it must be either true or false, you know; if true, let us
rejoice in his good opinion; if he lies, it is a proof at least that he
loves more to please me than to sit silent when he need say nothing."
That natural roughness of his manner so often mentioned would,
notwithstanding the regularity of his notions, burst through them all
from time to time; and he once bade a very celebrated lady, who praised
him with too much zeal, perhaps, or perhaps too strong an emphasis (which
always offended him), "Consider what her flattery was worth before she
choked _him_ with it." A few more winters passed in the talking world
showed him the value of that friend's commendations, however; and he was
very sorry for the disgusting speech he made her.
I used to think Mr. Johnson's determined preference of a cold, monotonous
talker over an emphatical and violent one would make him quite a
favourite among the men of ton, whose insensibility, or affectation of
perpetual calmness, certainly did not give to him the offence it does to
many. He loved "conversation without effort," he said; and the encomiums
I have heard him so often pronounce on the manners of Topham Beaucler in
society constantly ended in that peculiar praise, that "it was without
_effort_."
We were talking of Richardson, who wrote "Clarissa." "You think I love
flattery," says Dr. Johnson, "and so I do; but a little too much always
disgusts me. That fellow Richardson, on the contrary, could not be
contented to sail quietly down the stream of reputation without longing
to taste the froth from every stroke of the oar."
With regard to slight insults from newspaper abuse, I have already
declared his notions. "They sting one," says he, "but as a fly stings a
horse; and the eagle will not catch flies." He once told me, however,
that Cummyns, the famous Quaker, whose friendship he valued very highly,
fell a sacrifice to their insults, having declared on his death-bed to
Dr. Johnson that the pain of an anonymous letter, written in some of the
common prints of the day, fastened on his heart, and threw him into the
slow fever of which he died.
Nor was Cummyns the only valuable member so lost to society. Hawkesworth,
the pious, the virtuous, and the wise, for want of that fortitude which
casts a shield before the merits of his friend, fell a lamented sacrifice
to wanton malice and cruelty, I know not how provoked; but all in turn
feel the lash of censure in a country where, as every baby is allowed to
carry a whip, no person can escape except by chance. The unpublished
crimes, unknown distresses, and even death itself, however, daily
occurring in less liberal governments and less free nations, soon teach
one to content oneself with such petty grievances, and make one
acknowledge that the undistinguishing severity of newspaper abuse may in
some measure diminish the diffusion of vice and folly in Great Britain,
and while they fright delicate minds into forced refinements and affected
insipidity, they are useful to the great causes of virtue in the soul and
liberty in the State; and though sensibility often sinks under the
roughness of their prescriptions, it would be no good policy to take away
their licence.
Knowing the state of Mr. Johnson's nerves, and how easily they were
affected, I forbore reading in a new magazine, one day, the death of a
Samuel Johnson who expired that month; but my companion snatching up the
book, saw it himself, and contrary to my expectation, "Oh!" said he, "I
hope Death will now be glutted with Sam Johnsons, and let me alone for
some time to come; I read of another namesake's departure last week."
Though Mr. Johnson was commonly affected even to agony at the thoughts of
a friend's dying, he troubled himself very little with the complaints
they might make to him about ill-health. "Dear Doctor," said he one day
to a common acquaintance, who lamented the tender state of his _inside_,
"do not be like the spider, man, and spin conversation thus incessantly
out of thy own bowels." I told him of another friend who suffered
grievously with the gout. "He will live a vast many years for all that,"
replied he, "and then what signifies how much he suffers! But he will
die at last, poor fellow; there's the misery; gout seldom takes the fort
by a coup-de-main, but turning the siege into a blockade, obliges it to
surrender at discretion."
A lady he thought well of was disordered in her health. "What help has
she called in?" inquired Johnson. "Dr. James, sir," was the reply. "What
is her disease?" "Oh, nothing positive; rather a gradual and gentle
decline." "She will die, then, pretty dear!" answered he. "When Death's
pale horse runs away with a person on full speed, an active physician may
possibly give them a turn; but if he carries them on an even, slow pace,
down-hill, too! no care nor skill can save them!"
When Garrick was on his last sick-bed, no arguments, or recitals of such
facts as I had heard, would persuade Mr. Johnson of his danger. He had
prepossessed himself with a notion, that to say a man was sick was very
near wishing him so; and few things offended him more than
prognosticating even the death of an ordinary acquaintance. "Ay, ay,"
said he, "Swift knew the world pretty well when he said that--
'Some dire misfortune to portend,
No enemy can match a friend.'"
The danger, then, of Mr. Garrick, or of Mr. Thrale, whom he loved better,
was an image which no one durst present before his view; he always
persisted in the possibility and hope of their recovering disorders from
which no human creatures by human means alone ever did recover. His
distress for their loss was for that very reason poignant to excess. But
his fears of his own salvation were excessive. His truly tolerant spirit
and Christian charity, which _hopeth all things_, and _believeth all
things_, made him rely securely on the safety of his friends; while his
earnest aspiration after a blessed immortality made him cautious of his
own steps, and timorous concerning their consequences. He knew how much
had been given, and filled his mind with fancies of how much would be
required, till his impressed imagination was often disturbed by them, and
his health suffered from the sensibility of his too tender conscience. A
real Christian is _so_ apt to find his talk above his power of
performance!
Mr. Johnson did not, however, give in to ridiculous refinements either of
speculation or practice, or suffer himself to be deluded by specious
appearances. "I have had dust thrown in my eyes too often," would he
say, "to be blinded so. Let us never confound matters of belief with
matters of opinion." Some one urged in his presence the preference of
hope to possession; and as I remember produced an Italian sonnet on the
subject. "Let us not," cries Johnson, "amuse ourselves with subtleties
and sonnets, when speaking about hope, which is the follower of faith and
the precursor of eternity; but if you only mean those air-built hopes
which to-day excite and to-morrow will destroy, let us talk away, and
remember that we only talk of the pleasures of hope; we feel those of
possession, and no man in his senses would change the last for the first.
Such hope is a mere bubble, that by a gentle breath may be blown to what
size you will almost, but a rough blast bursts it at once. Hope is an
amusement rather than a good, and adapted to none but very tranquil
minds." The truth is, Mr. Johnson hated what he called unprofitable
chat; and to a gentleman who had disserted some time about the natural
history of the mouse--"I wonder what such a one would have said," cried
Johnson, "if he had ever had the luck to see a _lion_!"
I well remember that at Brighthelmstone once, when he was not present,
Mr. Beauclerc asserted that he was afraid of spirits; and I, who was
secretly offended at the charge, asked him, the first opportunity I could
find, "what ground he had ever given to the world for such a report?" "I
can," replied he, "recollect nothing nearer it than my telling Dr.
Lawrence, many years ago, that a long time after my poor mother's death I
heard her voice call '_Sam_!'" "What answer did the Doctor make to your
story, sir?" said I. "None in the world," replied he, and suddenly
changed the conversation. Now, as Mr. Johnson had a most unshaken faith,
without any mixture of credulity, this story must either have been
strictly true, or his persuasion of its truth the effect of disordered
spirits. I relate the anecdote precisely as he told it me, but could not
prevail on him to draw out the talk into length for further satisfaction
of my curiosity.
As Johnson was the firmest of believers, without being credulous, so he
was the most charitable of mortals, without being what we call an active
friend. Admirable at giving counsel, no man saw his way so clearly; but
he would not stir a finger for the assistance of those to whom he was
willing enough to give advice: besides that, he had principles of
laziness, and could be indolent by rule. To hinder your death, or
procure you a dinner, I mean if really in want of one; his earnestness,
his exertions could not be prevented, though health and purse and ease
were all destroyed by their violence. If you wanted a slight favour, you
must apply to people of other dispositions; for not a step would Johnson
move to obtain a man a vote in a society, to repay a compliment which
might be useful or pleasing, to write a letter of request, or to obtain a
hundred pounds a year more for a friend, who perhaps had already two or
three. No force could urge him to diligence, no importunity could
conquer his resolution of standing still. "What good are we doing with
all this ado?" would he say; "dearest lady, let's hear no more of it!" I
have, however, more than once in my life forced him on such services, but
with extreme difficulty.
We parted at his door one evening when I had teased him for many weeks to
write a recommendatory letter of a little boy to his schoolmaster; and
after he had faithfully promised to do this prodigious feat before we met
again--"Do not forget dear Dick, sir," said I, as he went out of the
coach. He turned back, stood still two minutes on the
carriage-step--"When I have written my letter for Dick, I may hang
myself, mayn't I?" and turned away in a very ill humour indeed.
Though apt enough to take sudden likings or aversions to people he
occasionally met, he would never hastily pronounce upon their character;
and when, seeing him justly delighted with Solander's conversation, I
observed once that he was a man of great parts who talked from a full
mind--"It may be so," said Mr. Johnson, "but you cannot know it yet, nor
I neither: the pump works well, to be sure! but how, I wonder, are we to
decide in so very short an acquaintance, whether it is supplied by a
spring or a reservoir?" He always made a great difference in his esteem
between talents and erudition; and when he saw a person eminent for
literature, though wholly unconversible, it fretted him. "Teaching such
tonies," said he to me one day, "is like setting a lady's diamonds in
lead, which only obscures the lustre of the stone, and makes the
possessor ashamed on't." Useful and what we call everyday knowledge had
the most of his just praise. "Let your boy learn arithmetic, dear
madam," was his advice to the mother of a rich young heir: "he will not
then be a prey to every rascal which this town swarms with. Teach him
the value of money, and how to reckon it; ignorance to a wealthy lad of
one-and-twenty is only so much fat to a sick sheep: it just serves to
call the _rooks_ about him."
"And all that prey in vice or folly
Joy to see their quarry fly;
Here the gamester light and jolly,
There the lender grave and sly."
These improviso lines, making part of a long copy of verses which my
regard for the youth on whose birthday they were written obliges me to
suppress, lest they should give him pain, show a mind of surprising
activity and warmth; the more so as he was past seventy years of age when
he composed them; but nothing more certainly offended Mr. Johnson than
the idea of a man's faculties (mental ones, I mean) decaying by time. "It
is not true, sir," would he say; "what a man could once do, he would
always do, unless, indeed, by dint of vicious indolence, and compliance
with the nephews and the nieces who crowd round an old fellow, and help
to tuck him in, till he, contented with the exchange of fame for ease,
e'en resolves to let them set the pillows at his back, and gives no
further proof of his existence than just to suck the jelly that prolongs
it."
For such a life or such a death Dr. Johnson was indeed never intended by
Providence: his mind was like a warm climate, which brings everything to
perfection suddenly and vigorously, not like the alembicated productions
of artificial fire, which always betray the difficulty of bringing them
forth when their size is disproportionate to their flavour. "Je ferois
un Roman tout comme un autre, mais la vie n'est point un Roman," says a
famous French writer; and this was so certainly the opinion of the author
of the "Rambler," that all his conversation precepts tended towards the
dispersion of romantic ideas, and were chiefly intended to promote the
cultivation of
"That which before thee lies in daily life."