THE INMATES OF JOHNSON'S HOUSE.
(Page 368.)
In September of this year (1778) Miss Burney records the following
conversation at Streatham:--'MRS. THRALE. "Pray, Sir, how does Mrs.
Williams like all this tribe?" DR. J. "Madam, she does not like them at
all; but their fondness for her is not greater. She and Desmoulins
quarrel incessantly; but as they can both be occasionally of service to
each other, and as neither of them have any other place to go to, their
animosity does not force them to separate." ... MR. T. "And pray who is
clerk of your kitchen, Sir?" DR. J. "Why, Sir, I am afraid there is
none; a general anarchy prevails in my kitchen, as I am told by Mr.
Levett, who says it is not now what it used to be." MRS. T. "Mr. Levett,
I suppose, Sir, has the office of keeping the hospital in health, for he
is an apothecary." DR. J. "Levett, Madam, is a brutal fellow, but I have
a good regard for him; for his brutality is in his manners, not his
mind." MR. T. "But how do you get your dinners drest?" DR. J. "Why,
Desmoulins has the chief management of the kitchen; but our roasting is
not magnificent, for we have no jack." MR. T. "No jack! Why, how do they
manage without?" DR. J. "Small joints, I believe, they manage with a
string, and larger are done at the tavern. I have some thoughts (with a
profound gravity) of buying a jack, because I think a jack is some
credit to a house." MR. T. "Well, but you'll have a spit too." DR. J.
"No, Sir, no; that would be superfluous; for we shall never use it; and
if a jack is seen, a spit will be presumed." MRS. T. "But pray, Sir, who
is the Poll you talk of? She that you used to abet in her quarrels with
Mrs. Williams, and call out, _At her again, Poll! Never flinch, Poll!_"
DR. J. "Why, I took to Poll very well at first, but she won't do upon a
nearer examination." MRS. T. "How came she among you, Sir?" DR. J. "Why,
I don't rightly remember, but we could spare her very well from us. Poll
is a stupid slut. I had some hopes of her at first; but when I talked to
her tightly and closely, I could make nothing of her; she was wiggle
waggle, and I could never persuade her to be categorical."' Mme.
D'Arblay's _Diary,_ i. 114.
More than a year later Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'Discord keeps her
residence in this habitation, but she has for some time been silent. We
have much malice, but no mischief. Levett is rather a friend to
Williams, because he hates Desmoulins more. A thing that he should hate
more than Desmoulins is not to be found.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 80. Mrs.
Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 213) says:--'He really was oftentimes afraid of going
home, because he was so sure to be met at the door with numberless
complaints; and he used to lament pathetically to me that they made his
life miserable from the impossibility he found of making theirs happy,
when every favour he bestowed on one was wormwood to the rest. If,
however, I ventured to blame their ingratitude, and condemn their
conduct, he would instantly set about softening the one and justifying
the other; and finished commonly by telling me, that I knew not how to
make allowances for situations I never experienced.' Hawkins (_Life_, p.
404) says:--'Almost throughout Johnson's life poverty and distressed
circumstances seemed to be the strongest of all recommendations to his
favour. When asked by one of his most intimate friends, how he could
bear to be surrounded by such necessitous and undeserving people as he
had about him, his answer was, "If I did not assist them, no one else
would, and they must be lost for want."' 'His humanity and generosity,
in proportion to his slender income, were,' writes Murphy (_Life_, p.
146), 'unbounded. It has been truly said that the lame, the blind, and
the sorrowful found in his house a sure retreat.' See also _ante_, iii.
222. At the same time it must be remembered that while Mrs. Desmoulins
and Miss Carmichael only brought trouble into the house, in the society
of Mrs. Williams and Levett he had real pleasure. See _ante_, i. 232,
note 1, and 243, note 3.
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