been Lady Lade; for there is enough of her to carry it off; but you
are too little for anything ridiculous; that which seems nothing upon
a Patagonian, will become very conspicuous upon a Lilliputian, and of
you there is so little in all, that one single absurdity would
swallow up half of you."
Matrimony was one of his favourite subjects, and he was fond of
laying down and refining on the duties of the married state, with the
amount of happiness and comfort to be found in it. But once when he
was musing over the fire in the drawing-room at Streatham, a young
gentleman called to him suddenly, "Mr. Johnson, would you advise me
to marry?" "I would advise no man to marry, Sir," replied the Doctor
in a very angry tone, "who is not likely to propagate understanding;"
and so left the room. "Our companion," adds Mrs. Thrale, in the
"Anecdotes," "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."
The young gentleman was Mr. Thrale's nephew, Sir John Lade; who was
proposed, half in earnest, whilst still a minor, by the Doctor as a
fitting mate for the author of "Evelina." He married a woman of the
town, became a celebrated member of the Four-in-Hand Club, and
contrived to waste the whole of a fine fortune before he died.
In "Thraliana" she says:--"Lady Lade consulted him about her son, Sir
John. 'Endeavour, Madam,' said he, 'to procure him knowledge; for
really ignorance to a rich man is like fat to a sick sheep, it only
serves to call the rooks about him.' On the same occasion it was that
he observed how a mind unfurnished with subjects and materials for
thinking can keep up no dignity at all in solitude. 'It is,' says he,
'in the state of a mill without grist.'"
The attractions of Streatham must have been very strong, to induce
Johnson to pass so much of his time away from "the busy hum of men"
in Fleet Street, and "the full tide of human existence" at Charing
Cross. He often found fault with Mrs. Thrale for living so much in
the country, "feeding the chickens till she starved her
understanding." Walking in a wood when it rained, she tells us, "was
the only rural image he pleased his fancy with; for he would say,
after one has gathered the apples in an orchard, one wishes them well
baked, and removed to a London eating-house for enjoyment." This is
almost as bad as the foreigner, who complained that there was no ripe
fruit in England but the roasted apples. Amongst other modes of
passing time in the country, Johnson once or twice tried hunting and,
mounted on an old horse of Mr. Thrale's, acquitted himself to the
surprise of the "field," one of whom delighted him by exclaiming,
"Why Johnson rides as well, for ought I see, as the most illiterate
fellow in England." But a trial or two satisfied him--
"He thought at heart like courtly Chesterfield,
Who after a long chase o'er hills, dales, fields,
And what not, though he rode beyond all price,
Ask'd next day,'If men ever hunted twice?'"
It is very strange, and very melancholy, was his reflection, that the
paucity of human pleasures should persuade us ever to call hunting
one of them. The mode of locomotion in which he delighted was the
vehicular. As he was driving rapidly in a postchaise with Boswell, he
exclaimed, "Life has not many things better than this." On their way
from Dr. Taylor's to Derby in 1777, he said, "If I had no duties, and
no reference to futurity, I would spend my life in driving briskly in
a postchaise with a pretty woman, but she should be one who could
understand me, and would add something to the conversation."
Mr. Croker attributes his enjoyment to the novelty of the pleasure;
his poverty having in early life prevented him from travelling post.
But a better reason is given by Mrs. Thrale:
"I asked him why he doated on a coach so? and received for answer,
that in the first place, the company were shut in with him _there_;
and could not escape, as out of a room; in the next place, he heard
all that was said in a carriage, where it was my turn to be deaf; and
very impatient was he at my occasional difficulty of hearing. On this
account he wished to travel all over the world: for the very act of
going forward was delightful to him, and he gave himself no concern
about accidents, which he said never happened; nor did the
running-away of the horses at the edge of a precipice between Vernon
and St. Denys in France convince him to the contrary: 'for nothing
came of it,' he said, 'except that Mr. Thrale leaped out of the
carriage into a chalk-pit, and then came up again, looking as
_white_!' When the truth was, all their lives were saved by the
greatest providence ever exerted in favour of three human creatures:
and the part Mr. Thrale took from desperation was the likeliest thing
in the world to produce broken limbs and death."
The drawbacks on his gratification and on that of his fellow
travellers were his physical defects, and his utter insensibility to
the beauty of nature, as well as to the fine arts, in so far as they
were addressed to the senses of sight and hearing. "He delighted,"
says Mrs. Thrale, "no more in music than 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."
It is no small deduction from our admiration of Johnson, and no
trifling enhancement of his friends' kindness in tolerating his
eccentricities, that he seldom made allowance for his own palpable
and undeniable deficiencies. As well might a blind man deny the
existence of colours, as a purblind man assert that there was no
charm in a prospect, or in a Claude or Titian, because he could see
none. Once, by way of pleasing Reynolds, he pretended to lament that
the great painter's genius was not exerted on stuff more durable than
canvas, and suggested copper. Sir Joshua urged the difficulty of
procuring plates large enough for historical subjects. "What foppish
obstacles are these!" exclaimed Johnson. "Here is Thrale has a
thousand ton 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 Thrale, who sate by.)
He always "civilised" to Dr. Burney, who has supplied the following
anecdote:
"After having talked slightingly of music, he was observed to listen
very attentively while Miss Thrale played on the harpsichord; and
with eagerness he called to her, 'Why don't you dash away like
Burney?' Dr. Burney upon this said to him, 'I believe, Sir, we shall
make a musician of you at last.' Johnson with candid complacency
replied, 'Sir, I shall be glad to have a new sense given to me.'"
In 1774, the Thrales made a tour in Wales, mainly for the purpose of
revisiting her birthplace and estates. They were accompanied by
Johnson, who kept a diary of the expedition, beginning July 5th and
ending September 24th. It was preserved by his negro servant, and
Boswell had no suspicion of its existence, for he says, "I do not
find that he kept any journal or notes of what he saw there." The
diary was first published by Mr. Duppa in 1816; and some manuscript
notes by Mrs. Thrale which reached that gentleman too late for
insertion, have been added in Mr. Murray's recent edition of the
Life. The first entry is:
"_Tuesday, July 5_.--We left Streatham 11 A.M. Price of four horses
two shillings a mile. Barnet 1.40 P.M. On the road I read 'Tully's
Epistles.' At night at Dunstable." At Chester, he records:--"We
walked round the walls, which are complete, and contain one mile,
three quarters, and one hundred and one yards." Mrs. Thrale's comment
is, "Of those ill-fated walls Dr. Johnson might have learned the
extent from any one. He has since put me fairly out of countenance by
saying, 'I have known _my mistress_ fifteen years, and never saw her
fairly out of humour but on Chester wall.' It was because he would
keep Miss Thrale beyond her hour of going to bed to walk on the wall,
where from the want of light, I apprehended some accident to her,
perhaps to him."
He thus describes Mrs. Thrale's family mansion:
"_Saturday, July 30._--We went to Bâch y Graig, where we found an old
house, built 1567, in an uncommon and incommodious form--My mistress
chatted about tiring, but I prevailed on her to go to the top--The
floors have been stolen: the windows are stopped--The house was less
than I seemed to expect--The River Clwyd is a brook with a bridge of
one arch, about one third of a mile--The woods have many trees,
generally young; but some which seem to decay--They have been
lopped--The house never had a garden--The addition of another story
would make an useful house, but it cannot be great."
On the 4th August, they visited Rhuddlan Castle and Bodryddan[1], of
which he says:--
[Footnote 1: Now the property of Mr. Shipley Conway, the
great-grandson of Johnson's acquaintance, the Bishop of St. Asaph,
and representative, through females, of Sir John Conway or Conwy, to
whom Rhuddlan Castle, with its domain, was granted by Edward the
First.]
"Stapylton's house is pretty: there are pleasing shades about it,
with a constant spring that supplies a cold bath. We then went out to
see a cascade. I trudged unwillingly, and was not sorry to find it
dry. The water was, however, turned on, and produced a very striking
cataract."[1]
[Footnote 1: Bowles, the poet, on the unexpected arrival of a party
to see his grounds, was overheard giving a hurried order to set the
fountain playing and carry the hermit his beard.]
Mrs. Piozzi remarks on this passage: "He teased Mrs. Cotton about her
dry cascade till she was ready to cry."
Mrs. Cotton, _née_ Stapylton, married the eldest son of Sir Lynch
Cotton, and was the mother of Field-Marshal Viscount Combermere. She
said that Johnson, despite of his rudeness, was at times delightful,
having a manner peculiar to himself in relating anecdotes that could
not fail to attract both old and young. Her impression was that Mrs.
Thrale was very vexatious in wishing to engross all his attention,
which annoyed him much. This, I fancy, is no uncommon impression,
when we ourselves are anxious to attract notice.
The range of hills bordering the valley or delta of the Clwyd, is
very fine. On their being pointed out to him by his host, he
exclaimed: "Hills, do you call them?--mere mole-hills to the Alps or
to those in Scotland." On being told that Sir Richard Clough had
formed a plan for making the river navigable to Rhyddlan, he broke
out into a loud fit of laughter, and shouted--"why, Sir, I could
clear any part of it by a leap." He probably had seen neither the
hills nor the river, which might easily be made navigable.
On two occasions, Johnson incidentally imputes a want of liberality
to Mrs. Thrale, which the general tenor of her conduct belies:
"_August 2._--We went to Dymerchion Church, where the old clerk
acknowledged his mistress. It is the parish church of Bâch y Graig; a
mean fabric; Mr. Salusbury (Mrs. Thrale's father) was buried in
it.... The old clerk had great appearance of joy, and foolishly said
that he was now willing to die. He had only a crown given him by my
mistress."
"_August 4._--Mrs. Thrale lost her purse. She expressed so much
uneasiness that I concluded the sum to be very great; but when I
heard of only seven guineas, I was glad to find she had so much
sensibility of money."
Johnson might have remarked, that the annoyance we experience from a
loss is seldom entirely regulated by the pecuniary value of the thing
lost.
On the way to Holywell he sets down: "Talk with mistress about
flattery;" on which she notes: "He said I flattered the people to
whose houses we went: I was saucy and said I was obliged to be civil
for two, meaning himself and me.[1] He replied nobody would thank me
for compliments they did not understand. At Gwanynog (Mr.
Middleton's), however, _he_ was flattered, and was happy of course."
[Footnote 1: Madame D'Arblay reports Mrs. Thrale saying to Johnson at
Streatham, in September, 1778: "I remember, Sir, when we were
travelling in Wales, how you called me to account for my civility to
the people; 'Madam,' you said, 'let me have no more of this idle
commendation of nothing. Why is it, that whatever you see, and
whoever you see, you are to be so indiscriminately lavish of praise?'
'Why I'll tell you, Sir,' said I, 'when I am with you, and Mr.
Thrale, and Queeny, I am obliged to be civil for four!'"]
The other entries referring to the Thrales are:
"_August_ 22.--We went to visit Bodville, the place where Mrs. Thrale
was born, and the churches called Tydweilliog and Llangwinodyl, which
she holds by impropriation."
"_August_ 24.--We went to see Bodville. Mrs. Thrale remembered the
rooms, and wandered over them, with recollections of her childhood.
This species of pleasure is always melancholy.... Mr. Thrale purposes
to beautify the churches, and, if he prospers, will probably restore
the tithes. Mrs. Thrale visited a house where she had been used to
drink milk, which was left, with an estate of 200_l._ a year, by one
Lloyd, to a married woman who lived with him."
"_August_ 26.--_Note_. Queeny's goats, 149, I think."
Without Mr. Duppa's aid this last entry would be a puzzle for
commentators. His note is:
"Mr. Thrale was near-sighted, and could not see the goats browsing on
Snowdon, and he promised his daughter, who was a child of ten years
old, a penny for every goat she would show him, and Dr. Johnson kept
the account; so that it appears her father was in debt to her one
hundred and forty-nine pence. _Queeny_ was an epithet, which had its
origin in the nursery, by which (in allusion to _Queen_ Esther) Miss
Thrale (whose name was Esther) was always distinguished by Johnson."
She was named, after her mother, Hester, not Esther.
On September 13, Johnson sets down: "We came, to Lord Sandys', at
Ombersley, where we were treated with great civility." It was here,
as he told Mrs. Thrale, that for the only time in his life he had as
much wall fruit as he liked; yet she says that he was in the habit of
eating six or seven peaches before breakfast during the fruit season
at Streatham. Swift was also fond of fruit: "observing (says Scott)
that a gentleman in whose garden he walked with some friends, seemed
to have no intention to request them to eat any, the Dean remarked
that it was a saying of his dear grandmother:
"'Always pull a peach
When it is within your reach;'
and helping himself accordingly, his example was followed by the
whole company." Thomson, the author of the "Castle of Indolence," was
once seen lounging round Lord Burlington's garden, with his hands in
his waistcoat pockets, biting off the sunny sides of the peaches.
Johnson's dislike to the Lyttletons was not abated by his visit to
Hagley, of which he says, "We made haste away from a place where all
were offended." Mrs. Thrale's explanation is: "Mrs. Lyttelton,
_ci-devant_ Caroline Bristow, forced me to play at whist against my
liking, and her husband took away Johnson's candle that he wanted to
read by at the other end of the room. Those, I trust, were the
offences."
He was not in much better humour at Combermere Abbey, the seat of her
relative, Sir Lynch Cotton, which is beautifully situated on one of
the finest lakes in England. He commends the place grudgingly, passes
a harsh judgment on Lady Cotton, and is traditionally recorded to
have made answer to the baronet who inquired what he thought of a
neighbouring peer (Lord Kilmorey): "A dull, commonplace sort of man,
just like you and your brother."
In a letter to Levet, dated Lleweny, in Denbighshire, August 16,
1774, printed by Boswell, is this sentence: "Wales, so far as I have
yet seen of it, is a very beautiful and rich country, all enclosed
and planted." Her marginal note is: "Yet to please Mr. Thrale, he
feigned abhorrence of it."
I am indebted to an intelligent and accurate in-formant for a curious
incident of the Welsh tour:
"Dr. Johnson was taken by Mr. and Mrs. Thrale to dine at Maesnynan,
with my relation, Mr. Lloyd, who, with his pretty young daughter
(motherless), received them at the door. All came out of the carriage
except the great lexicographer, who was crouching in what my uncle
jokingly called the Poets' Corner, deeply interested evidently with
the book he was reading. A wink from Mrs. Thrale, and a touch of her
hand, silenced the host. She bade the coachman not move, and desired
the people in the house to let Mr. Johnson read on till dinner was on
the table, when she would go and whistle him to it. She always had a
whistle hung at her girdle, and this she used, when in Wales, to
summon him and her daughters[1], when in or out of doors. Mr. Lloyd
and all the visitors went to see the effect of the whistle, and found
him reading intently with one foot on the step of the carriage, where
he had been (a looker-on said) five minutes."
[Footnote 1:
"He cast off his friends as a huntsman his pack,
For he knew when he pleas'd he could whistle them back."]
"This scene is well told by Miss Burney, in her 'Camilla'[1] _ex
relatione_ Mrs. Williams (Lady Cotton's sister, who was present) and
Beata Lloyd, whose brother, Colonel Thomas Lloyd, of the Guards, was
the Brummell of his day, celebrated for his manly beauty and
accomplishments. I heard Lord Crewe say that Colonel Lloyd's horse,
and his graceful manner of mounting him, used to attract members of
both Houses (he among them) to _turn out_ to see him mount guard; and
the Princesses were forbidden, when driving out, to go so often that
way and at that time."
[Footnote 1: Book viii. chap, iv., Dr. Orkborne is described standing
on the staircase of an inn absorbed in the composition of a paragraph
whilst the party are at dinner.]
Their impressions of one another as travelling companions were
sufficiently favourable to induce the party (with the addition of
Baretti) to make a short tour in France in the autumn of the year
following, 1775, during part of which Johnson kept a diary in the
same laconic and elliptical style. The only allusion to either of his
friends is:
"We went to Sansterre, a brewer. He brews with about as much malt as
Mr. Thrale, and sells his beer at the same price, though he pays no
duty for malt, and little more than half as much for beer. Beer is
sold retail at sixpence a bottle."
In a letter to Levet, dated Paris, Oct. 22, 1775, he says:
"We went to see the king and queen at dinner, and the queen was so
impressed by Miss, that she sent one of the gentlemen to inquire who
she was. I find all true that you have ever told me at Paris. Mr.
Thrale is very liberal, and keeps us two coaches, and a very fine
table; but I think our cookery very bad. Mrs. Thrale got into a
convent of English nuns, and I talked with her through the grate, and
I am very kindly used by the English Benedictine friars."
A striking instance of Johnson's occasional impracticability occurred
during this journey:
"When we were at Rouen together," says Mrs. Thrale, "he took a great
fancy to the Abbe Kofiette, 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 abbé rose from his seat
and embraced him. My husband seeing them apparently so charmed with
the company of each other, politely invited the abbé 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 Abbé Roffette."
In a letter dated May 9, 1780, also, Mrs. Thrale alludes to more than
one disagreement in France:
"When did I ever plague you about contour, and grace, and expression?
I have dreaded them all three since that hapless day at Compiegne,
when you teased me so, and Mr. Thrale made what I hoped would have
proved a lasting peace; but French ground is unfavourable to fidelity
perhaps, and so now you begin again: after having taken five years'
breath, you might have done more than this. Say another word, and I
will bring up afresh the history of your exploits at St. Denys and
how cross you were for nothing--but some how or other, our travels
never make any part either of our conversation or correspondence."
Joseph Baretti, who now formed one of the family, is so mixed up with
their history that some account of him becomes indispensable. He was
a Piedmontese, whose position in his native country was not of a kind
to tempt him to remain in it, when Lord Charlemont, to whom he had
been useful in Italy, proposed his coming to England. His own story
was that he had lost at play the little property he had inherited
from his father, an architect. The education given him by his parents
was limited to Latin; he taught himself English, French, Spanish, and
Portuguese. His talents, acquirements, and strength of mind must have
been considerable, for they soon earned him the esteem and friendship
of the most eminent members of the Johnsonian circle, in despite of
his arrogance. He came to England in 1753; is kindly mentioned in one
of Johnson's letters in 1754; and when he was in Italy in 1761, his
illustrious friend's letters to him are marked by a tone of
affectionate interest. Ceremony and tenderness are oddly blended in
the conclusion of one of them:
"May you, my Baretti, be very happy at Milan, or some other place
nearer to, Sir, your most affectionate humble servant, SAMUEL
JOHNSON."
Johnson remarked of Baretti in 1768: "I know no man who carries his
head higher in conversation than Baretti. There are strong powers in
his mind. He has not indeed many hooks, but with what hooks he has,
he grapples very forcibly." Cornelia Knight was "disgusted by his
satirical madness of manner," although admitting him to be a man of
great learning and information. Madame D'Arblay was more struck by
his rudeness and violence than by his intellectual vigour.
"Thraliana" confirms Johnson's estimate of Baretti's capacity:
"Will. Burke was tart upon Mr. Baretti for being too dogmatical in
his talk about politics. 'You have,' says he, 'no business to be
investigating the characters of Lord Falkland or Mr. Hampden. You
cannot judge of their merits, they are no countrymen of yours.'
'True,' replied Baretti, 'and you should learn by the same rule to
speak very cautiously about Brutus and Mark Antony; they are my
countrymen, and I must have their characters tenderly treated by
foreigners.'