CHAPTER IV.

JOHNSON AS A LITERARY DICTATOR.

We have now reached the point at which Johnson's life becomes distinctly

visible through the eyes of a competent observer. The last twenty years

are those which are really familiar to us; and little remains but to

give some brief selection of Boswell's anecdotes. The task, however, is

a difficult one. It is easy enough to make a selection of the gems of

Boswell's narrative; but it is also inevitable that, taken from their

setting, they should lose the greatest part of their brilliance. We lose

all the quaint semiconscious touches of character which make the

original so fascinating; and Boswell's absurdities become less amusing

when we are able to forget for an instant that the perpetrator is also

the narrator. The effort, however, must be made; and it will be best to

premise a brief statement of the external conditions of the life.

From the time of the pension until his death, Johnson was elevated above

the fear of poverty. He had a pleasant refuge at the Thrales', where

much of his time was spent; and many friends gathered round him and

regarded his utterances with even excessive admiration. He had still

frequent periods of profound depression. His diaries reveal an inner

life tormented by gloomy forebodings, by remorse for past indolence and

futile resolutions of amendment; but he could always escape from himself

to a society of friends and admirers. His abandonment of wine seems to

have improved his health and diminished the intensity of his melancholy

fits. His literary activity, however, nearly ceased. He wrote a few

political pamphlets in defence of Government, and after a long period of

indolence managed to complete his last conspicuous work--the _Lives of

the Poets_, which was published in 1779 and 1781. One other book of some

interest appeared in 1775. It was an account of the journey made with

Boswell to the Hebrides in 1773. This journey was in fact the chief

interruption to the even tenour of his life. He made a tour to Wales

with the Thrales in 1774; and spent a month with them in Paris in 1775.

For the rest of the period he lived chiefly in London or at Streatham,

making occasional trips to Lichfield and Oxford, or paying visits to

Taylor, Langton, and one or two other friends. It was, however, in the

London which he loved so ardently ("a man," he said once, "who is tired

of London is tired of life"), that he was chiefly conspicuous. There he

talked and drank tea illimitably at his friends' houses, or argued and

laid down the law to his disciples collected in a tavern instead of

Academic groves. Especially he was in all his glory at the Club, which

began its meetings in February, 1764, and was afterwards known as the

Literary Club. This Club was founded by Sir Joshua Reynolds, "our

Romulus," as Johnson called him. The original members were Reynolds,

Johnson, Burke, Nugent, Beauclerk, Langton, Goldsmith, Chamier, and

Hawkins. They met weekly at the Turk's Head, in Gerard Street, Soho, at

seven o'clock, and the talk generally continued till a late hour. The

Club was afterwards increased in numbers, and the weekly supper changed

to a fortnightly dinner. It continued to thrive, and election to it came

to be as great an honour in certain circles as election to a membership

of Parliament. Among the members elected in Johnson's lifetime were

Percy of the _Reliques_, Garrick, Sir W. Jones, Boswell, Fox, Steevens,

Gibbon, Adam Smith, the Wartons, Sheridan, Dunning, Sir Joseph Banks,

Windham, Lord Stowell, Malone, and Dr. Burney. What was best in the

conversation at the time was doubtless to be found at its meetings.

Johnson's habitual mode of life is described by Dr. Maxwell, one of

Boswell's friends, who made his acquaintance in 1754. Maxwell generally

called upon him about twelve, and found him in bed or declaiming over

his tea. A levée, chiefly of literary men, surrounded him; and he seemed

to be regarded as a kind of oracle to whom every one might resort for

advice or instruction. After talking all the morning, he dined at a

tavern, staying late and then going to some friend's house for tea, over

which he again loitered for a long time. Maxwell is puzzled to know when

he could have read or written. The answer seems to be pretty obvious;

namely, that after the publication of the _Dictionary_ he wrote very

little, and that, when he did write, it was generally in a brief spasm

of feverish energy. One may understand that Johnson should have

frequently reproached himself for his indolence; though he seems to have

occasionally comforted himself by thinking that he could do good by

talking as well as by writing. He said that a man should have a part of

his life to himself; and compared himself to a physician retired to a

small town from practice in a great city. Boswell, in spite of this,

said that he still wondered that Johnson had not more pleasure in

writing than in not writing. "Sir," replied the oracle, "you _may_

wonder."

I will now endeavour, with Boswell's guidance, to describe a few of the

characteristic scenes which can be fully enjoyed in his pages alone.

The first must be the introduction of Boswell to the sage. Boswell had

come to London eager for the acquaintance of literary magnates. He

already knew Goldsmith, who had inflamed his desire for an introduction

to Johnson. Once when Boswell spoke of Levett, one of Johnson's

dependents, Goldsmith had said, "he is poor and honest, which is

recommendation enough to Johnson." Another time, when Boswell had

wondered at Johnson's kindness to a man of bad character, Goldsmith had

replied, "He is now become miserable, and that insures the protection of

Johnson." Boswell had hoped for an introduction through the elder

Sheridan; but Sheridan never forgot the contemptuous phrase in which

Johnson had referred to his fellow-pensioner. Possibly Sheridan had

heard of one other Johnsonian remark. "Why, sir," he had said, "Sherry

is dull, naturally dull; but it must have taken him a great deal of

pains to become what we now see him. Such an excess of stupidity, sir,

is not in Nature." At another time he said, "Sheridan cannot bear me; I

bring his declamation to a point." "What influence can Mr. Sheridan have

upon the language of this great country by his narrow exertions? Sir, it

is burning a farthing candle at Dover to show light at Calais." Boswell,

however, was acquainted with Davies, an actor turned bookseller, now

chiefly remembered by a line in Churchill's _Rosciad_ which is said to

have driven him from the stage--

He mouths a sentence as curs mouth a bone.

Boswell was drinking tea with Davies and his wife in their back parlour

when Johnson came into the shop. Davies, seeing him through the

glass-door, announced his approach to Boswell in the spirit of Horatio

addressing Hamlet: "Look, my Lord, it comes!" Davies introduced the

young Scotchman, who remembered Johnson's proverbial prejudices. "Don't

tell him where I come from!" cried Boswell. "From Scotland," said Davies

roguishly. "Mr. Johnson," said Boswell, "I do indeed come from Scotland;

but I cannot help it!" "That, sir," was the first of Johnson's many

retorts to his worshipper, "is what a great many of your countrymen

cannot help."

Poor Boswell was stunned; but he recovered when Johnson observed to

Davies, "What do you think of Garrick? He has refused me an order for

the play for Miss Williams because he knows the house will be full, and

that an order would be worth three shillings." "O, sir," intruded the

unlucky Boswell, "I cannot think Mr. Garrick would grudge such a trifle

to you." "Sir," replied Johnson sternly, "I have known David Garrick

longer than you have done, and I know no right you have to talk to me on

the subject." The second blow might have crushed a less intrepid

curiosity. Boswell, though silenced, gradually recovered sufficiently to

listen, and afterwards to note down parts of the conversation. As the

interview went on, he even ventured to make a remark or two, which were

very civilly received; Davies consoled him at his departure by assuring

him that the great man liked him very well. "I cannot conceive a more

humiliating position," said Beauclerk on another occasion, "than to be

clapped on the back by Tom Davies." For the present, however, even Tom

Davies was a welcome encourager to one who, for the rest, was not easily

rebuffed. A few days afterwards Boswell ventured a call, was kindly

received and detained for some time by "the giant in his den." He was

still a little afraid of the said giant, who had shortly before

administered a vigorous retort to his countryman Blair. Blair had asked

Johnson whether he thought that any man of a modern age could have

written _Ossian_. "Yes, sir," replied Johnson, "many men, many women,

and many children." Boswell, however, got on very well, and before long

had the high honour of drinking a bottle of port with Johnson at the

Mitre, and receiving, after a little autobiographical sketch, the

emphatic approval, "Give me your hand, I have taken a liking to you."

In a very short time Boswell was on sufficiently easy terms with

Johnson, not merely to frequent his levées but to ask him to dinner at

the Mitre. He gathered up, though without the skill of his later

performances, some fragments of the conversational feast. The great man

aimed another blow or two at Scotch prejudices. To an unlucky compatriot

of Boswell's, who claimed for his country a great many "noble wild

prospects," Johnson replied, "I believe, sir, you have a great many,

Norway, too, has noble wild prospects; and Lapland is remarkable for

prodigious noble wild prospects. But, sir, let me tell you the noblest

prospect which a Scotchman ever sees, is the high road that leads him to

England." Though Boswell makes a slight remonstrance about the "rude

grandeur of Nature" as seen in "Caledonia," he sympathized in this with

his teacher. Johnson said afterwards, that he never knew any one with

"such a gust for London." Before long he was trying Boswell's tastes by

asking him in Greenwich Park, "Is not this very fine?" "Yes, sir,"

replied the promising disciple, "but not equal to Fleet Street." "You

are right, sir," said the sage; and Boswell illustrates his dictum by

the authority of a "very fashionable baronet," and, moreover, a baronet

from Rydal, who declared that the fragrance of a May evening in the

country might be very well, but that he preferred the smell of a

flambeau at the playhouse. In more serious moods Johnson delighted his

new disciple by discussions upon theological, social, and literary

topics. He argued with an unfortunate friend of Boswell's, whose mind,

it appears, had been poisoned by Hume, and who was, moreover, rash

enough to undertake the defence of principles of political equality.

Johnson's view of all propagators of new opinions was tolerably simple.

"Hume, and other sceptical innovators," he said, "are vain men, and will

gratify themselves at any expense. Truth will not afford sufficient food

to their vanity; so they have betaken themselves to error. Truth, sir,

is a cow which will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone

to milk the bull." On another occasion poor Boswell, not yet acquainted

with the master's prejudices, quoted with hearty laughter a "very

strange" story which Hume had told him of Johnson. According to Hume,

Johnson had said that he would stand before a battery of cannon to

restore Convocation to its full powers. "And would I not, sir?"

thundered out the sage with flashing eyes and threatening gestures.

Boswell judiciously bowed to the storm, and diverted Johnson's

attention. Another manifestation of orthodox prejudice was less

terrible. Boswell told Johnson that he had heard a Quaker woman preach.

"A woman's preaching," said Johnson, "is like a dog's walking on his

hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at

all."

So friendly had the pair become, that when Boswell left England to

continue his studies at Utrecht, Johnson accompanied him in the

stage-coach to Harwich, amusing him on the way by his frankness of

address to fellow-passengers, and by the voracity of his appetite. He

gave him some excellent advice, remarking of a moth which fluttered

into a candle, "that creature was its own tormentor, and I believe its

name was Boswell." He refuted Berkeley by striking his foot with mighty

force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it. As the ship put

out to sea Boswell watched him from the deck, whilst he remained

"rolling his majestic frame in his usual manner." And so the friendship

was cemented, though Boswell disappeared for a time from the scene,

travelled on the Continent, and visited Paoli in Corsica. A friendly

letter or two kept up the connexion till Boswell returned in 1766, with

his head full of Corsica and a projected book of travels.

In the next year, 1767, occurred an incident upon which Boswell dwells

with extreme complacency. Johnson was in the habit of sometimes reading

in the King's Library, and it came into the head of his majesty that he

should like to see the uncouth monster upon whom he had bestowed a

pension. In spite of his semi-humorous Jacobitism, there was probably

not a more loyal subject in his majesty's dominions. Loyalty is a word

too often used to designate a sentiment worthy only of valets,

advertising tradesmen, and writers of claptrap articles. But it deserves

all respect when it reposes, as in Johnson's case, upon a profound

conviction of the value of political subordination, and an acceptance of

the king as the authorized representative of a great principle. There

was no touch of servility in Johnson's respect for his sovereign, a

respect fully reconcilable with a sense of his own personal dignity.

Johnson spoke of his interview with an unfeigned satisfaction, which it

would be difficult in these days to preserve from the taint of

snobbishness. He described it frequently to his friends, and Boswell

with pious care ascertained the details from Johnson himself, and from

various secondary sources. He contrived afterwards to get his minute

submitted to the King himself, who graciously authorized its

publication. When he was preparing his biography, he published this

account with the letter to Chesterfield in a small pamphlet sold at a

prohibitory price, in order to secure the copyright.

"I find," said Johnson afterwards, "that it does a man good to be talked

to by his sovereign. In the first place a man cannot be in a passion."

What other advantages he perceived must be unknown, for here the oracle

was interrupted. But whatever the advantages, it could hardly be

reckoned amongst them, that there would be room for the hearty cut and

thrust retorts which enlivened his ordinary talk. To us accordingly the

conversation is chiefly interesting as illustrating what Johnson meant

by his politeness. He found that the King wanted him to talk, and he

talked accordingly. He spoke in a "firm manly manner, with a sonorous

voice," and not in the subdued tone customary at formal receptions. He

dilated upon various literary topics, on the libraries of Oxford and

Cambridge, on some contemporary controversies, on the quack Dr. Hill,

and upon the reviews of the day. All that is worth repeating is a

complimentary passage which shows Johnson's possession of that courtesy

which rests upon sense and self-respect. The King asked whether he was

writing anything, and Johnson excused himself by saying that he had told

the world what he knew for the present, and had "done his part as a

writer." "I should have thought so too," said the King, "if you had not

written so well." "No man," said Johnson, "could have paid a higher

compliment; and it was fit for a King to pay--it was decisive." When

asked if he had replied, he said, "No, sir. When the King had said it,

it was to be. It was not for me to bandy civilities with my sovereign."

Johnson was not the less delighted. "Sir," he said to the librarian,

"they may talk of the King as they will, but he is the finest gentleman

I have ever seen." And he afterwards compared his manners to those of

Louis XIV., and his favourite, Charles II. Goldsmith, says Boswell, was

silent during the narrative, because (so his kind friend supposed) he

was jealous of the honour paid to the dictator. But his natural

simplicity prevailed. He ran to Johnson, and exclaimed in 'a kind of

flutter,' "Well, you acquitted yourself in this conversation better than

I should have done, for I should have bowed and stammered through the

whole of it."

The years 1768 and 1769 were a period of great excitement for Boswell.

He was carrying on various love affairs, which ended with his marriage

in the end of 1769. He was publishing his book upon Corsica and paying

homage to Paoli, who arrived in England in the autumn of the same year.

The book appeared in the beginning of 1768, and he begs his friend

Temple to report all that is said about it, but with the restriction

that he is to conceal _all censure_. He particularly wanted Gray's

opinion, as Gray was a friend of Temple's. Gray's opinion, not conveyed

to Boswell, was expressed by his calling it "a dialogue between a green

goose and a hero." Boswell, who was cultivating the society of various

eminent people, exclaims triumphantly in a letter to Temple (April 26,

1768), "I am really the great man now." Johnson and Hume had called upon

him on the same day, and Garrick, Franklin, and Oglethorpe also partook

of his "admirable dinners and good claret." "This," he says, with the

sense that he deserved his honours, "is enjoying the fruit of my

labours, and appearing like the friend of Paoli." Johnson in vain

expressed a wish that he would "empty his head of Corsica, which had

filled it too long." "Empty my head of Corsica! Empty it of honour,

empty it of friendship, empty it of piety!" exclaims the ardent youth.

The next year accordingly saw Boswell's appearance at the Stratford

Jubilee, where he paraded to the admiration of all beholders in a

costume described by himself (apparently) in a glowing article in the

_London Magazine_. "Is it wrong, sir," he took speedy opportunity of

inquiring from the oracle, "to affect singularity in order to make

people stare?" "Yes," replied Johnson, "if you do it by propagating

error, and indeed it is wrong in any way. There is in human nature a

general inclination to make people stare, and every wise man has himself

to cure of it, and does cure himself. If you wish to make people stare

by doing better than others, why make them stare till they stare their

eyes out. But consider how easy it is to make people stare by being

absurd"--a proposition which he proceeds to illustrate by examples

perhaps less telling than Boswell's recent performance.

The sage was less communicative on the question of marriage, though

Boswell had anticipated some "instructive conversation" upon that topic.

His sole remark was one from which Boswell "humbly differed." Johnson

maintained that a wife was not the worse for being learned. Boswell, on

the other hand, defined the proper degree of intelligence to be desired

in a female companion by some verses in which Sir Thomas Overbury says

that a wife should have some knowledge, and be "by nature wise, not

learned much by art." Johnson said afterwards that Mrs. Boswell was in a

proper degree inferior to her husband. So far as we can tell, she seems

to have been a really sensible, and good woman, who kept her husband's

absurdities in check, and was, in her way, a better wife than he

deserved. So, happily, are most wives.

Johnson and Boswell had several meetings in 1769. Boswell had the honour

of introducing the two objects of his idolatry, Johnson and Paoli, and

on another occasion entertained a party including Goldsmith and Garrick

and Reynolds, at his lodgings in Old Bond Street. We can still see the

meeting more distinctly than many that have been swallowed by a few days

of oblivion. They waited for one of the party, Johnson kindly

maintaining that six ought to be kept waiting for one, if the one would

suffer more by the others sitting down than the six by waiting.

Meanwhile Garrick "played round Johnson with a fond vivacity, taking

hold of the breasts of his coat, looking up in his face with a lively

archness," and complimenting him on his good health. Goldsmith strutted

about bragging of his dress, of which Boswell, in the serene

consciousness of superiority to such weakness, thought him seriously

vain. "Let me tell you," said Goldsmith, "when my tailor brought home my

bloom-coloured coat, he said, 'Sir, I have a favour to beg of you; when

anybody asks you who made your clothes, be pleased to mention John

Filby, at the Harrow, Water Lane.'" "Why, sir," said Johnson, "that was

because he knew that the strange colour would attract crowds to gaze at

it, and thus they might hear of him, and see how well he could make a

coat even of so absurd a colour." Mr. Filby has gone the way of all

tailors and bloom-coloured coats, but some of his bills are preserved.

On the day of this dinner he had delivered to Goldsmith a half-dress

suit of ratteen lined with satin, costing twelve guineas, a pair of silk

stocking-breeches for £2 5_s_. and a pair of bloom-coloured ditto for £1

4_s_. 6_d_. The bill, including other items, was paid, it is

satisfactory to add, in February, 1771.

The conversation was chiefly literary. Johnson repeated the concluding

lines of the _Dunciad_; upon which some one (probably Boswell) ventured

to say that they were "too fine for such a poem--a poem on what?" "Why,"

said Johnson, "on dunces! It was worth while being a dunce then. Ah,

sir, hadst _thou_ lived in those days!" Johnson previously uttered a

criticism which has led some people to think that he had a touch of the

dunce in him. He declared that a description of a temple in Congreve's

_Mourning Bride_ was the finest he knew--finer than anything in

Shakspeare. Garrick vainly protested; but Johnson was inexorable. He

compared Congreve to a man who had only ten guineas in the world, but

all in one coin; whereas Shakspeare might have ten thousand separate

guineas. The principle of the criticism is rather curious. "What I mean

is," said Johnson, "that you can show me no passage where there is

simply a description of material objects, without any admixture of moral

notions, which produces such an effect." The description of the night

before Agincourt was rejected because there were men in it; and the

description of Dover Cliff because the boats and the crows "impede yon

fall." They do "not impress your mind at once with the horrible idea of

immense height. The impression is divided; you pass on by computation

from one stage of the tremendous space to another."

Probably most people will think that the passage in question deserves a

very slight fraction of the praise bestowed upon it; but the criticism,

like most of Johnson's, has a meaning which might be worth examining

abstractedly from the special application which shocks the idolaters of

Shakspeare. Presently the party discussed Mrs. Montagu, whose Essay upon

Shakspeare had made some noise. Johnson had a respect for her, caused in

great measure by a sense of her liberality to his friend Miss Williams,

of whom more must be said hereafter. He paid her some tremendous

compliments, observing that some China plates which had belonged to

Queen Elizabeth and to her, had no reason to be ashamed of a possessor

so little inferior to the first. But he had his usual professional

contempt for her amateur performances in literature. Her defence of

Shakspeare against Voltaire did her honour, he admitted, but it would do

nobody else honour. "No, sir, there is no real criticism in it: none

showing the beauty of thought, as formed on the workings of the human

heart." Mrs. Montagu was reported once to have complimented a modern

tragedian, probably Jephson, by saying, "I tremble for Shakspeare."

"When Shakspeare," said Johnson, "has got Jephson for his rival and Mrs.

Montagu for his defender, he is in a poor state indeed." The

conversation went on to a recently published book, _Kames's Elements of

Criticism_, which Johnson praised, whilst Goldsmith said more truly, "It

is easier to write that book than to read it." Johnson went on to speak

of other critics. "There is no great merit," he said, "in telling how

many plays have ghosts in them, and how this ghost is better than that.

You must show how terror is impressed on the human heart. In the

description of night in _Macbeth_ the beetle and the bat detract from

the general idea of darkness--inspissated gloom."

After Boswell's marriage he disappeared for some time from London, and

his correspondence with Johnson dropped, as he says, without coldness,

from pure procrastination. He did not return to London till 1772. In the

spring of that and the following year he renewed his old habits of

intimacy, and inquired into Johnson's opinion upon various subjects

ranging from ghosts to literary criticism. The height to which he had

risen in the doctor's good opinion was marked by several symptoms. He

was asked to dine at Johnson's house upon Easter day, 1773; and observes

that his curiosity was as much gratified as by a previous dinner with

Rousseau in the "wilds of Neufchatel." He was now able to report, to the

amazement of many inquirers, that Johnson's establishment was quite

orderly. The meal consisted of very good soup, a boiled leg of lamb with

spinach, a veal pie, and a rice pudding. A stronger testimony of

good-will was his election, by Johnson's influence, into the Club. It

ought apparently to be said that Johnson forced him upon the Club by

letting it be understood that, till Boswell was admitted, no other

candidate would have a chance. Boswell, however, was, as his proposer

said, a thoroughly "clubable" man, and once a member, his good humour

secured his popularity. On the important evening Boswell dined at

Beauclerk's with his proposer and some other members. The talk turned

upon Goldsmith's merits; and Johnson not only defended his poetry, but

preferred him as a historian to Robertson. Such a judgment could be

explained in Boswell's opinion by nothing but Johnson's dislike to the

Scotch. Once before, when Boswell had mentioned Robertson in order to

meet Johnson's condemnation of Scotch literature in general, Johnson had

evaded him; "Sir, I love Robertson, and I won't talk of his book." On

the present occasion he said that he would give to Robertson the advice

offered by an old college tutor to a pupil; "read over your

compositions, and whenever you meet with a passage which you think

particularly fine, strike it out." A good anecdote of Goldsmith

followed. Johnson had said to him once in the Poet's Corner at

Westminster,--

Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur istis.

When they got to Temple Bar Goldsmith pointed to the heads of the

Jacobites upon it and slily suggested,--

Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur _istis_.

Johnson next pronounced a critical judgment which should be set against

many sins of that kind. He praised the _Pilgrim's Progress_ very warmly,

and suggested that Bunyan had probably read Spenser.

After more talk the gentlemen went to the Club; and poor Boswell

remained trembling with an anxiety which even the claims of Lady Di

Beauclerk's conversation could not dissipate. The welcome news of his

election was brought; and Boswell went to see Burke for the first time,

and to receive a humorous charge from Johnson, pointing out the conduct

expected from him as a good member. Perhaps some hints were given as to

betrayal of confidence. Boswell seems at any rate to have had a certain

reserve in repeating Club talk.

This intimacy with Johnson was about to receive a more public and even

more impressive stamp. The antipathy to Scotland and the Scotch already

noticed was one of Johnson's most notorious crotchets. The origin of the

prejudice was forgotten by Johnson himself, though he was willing to

accept a theory started by old Sheridan that it was resentment for the

betrayal of Charles I. There is, however, nothing surprising in

Johnson's partaking a prejudice common enough from the days of his

youth, when each people supposed itself to have been cheated by the

Union, and Englishmen resented the advent of swarms of needy

adventurers, talking with a strange accent and hanging together with

honourable but vexatious persistence. Johnson was irritated by what was,

after all, a natural defence against English prejudice. He declared that

the Scotch were always ready to lie on each other's behalf. "The Irish,"

he said, "are not in a conspiracy to cheat the world by false

representations of the merits of their countrymen. No, sir, the Irish

are a fair people; they never speak well of one another." There was

another difference. He always expressed a generous resentment against

the tyranny exercised by English rulers over the Irish people. To some

one who defended the restriction of Irish trade for the good of English

merchants, he said, "Sir, you talk the language of a savage. What! sir,

would you prevent any people from feeding themselves, if by any honest

means they can do it?" It was "better to hang or drown people at once,"

than weaken them by unrelenting persecution. He felt some tenderness for

Catholics, especially when oppressed, and a hearty antipathy towards

prosperous Presbyterians. The Lowland Scotch were typified by John Knox,

in regard to whom he expressed a hope, after viewing the ruins of St.

Andrew's, that he was buried "in the highway."

This sturdy British and High Church prejudice did not prevent the worthy

doctor from having many warm friendships with Scotchmen, and helping

many distressed Scotchmen in London. Most of the amanuenses employed for

his _Dictionary_ were Scotch. But he nourished the prejudice the more as

giving an excellent pretext for many keen gibes. "Scotch learning," he

said, for example, "is like bread in a besieged town. Every man gets a

mouthful, but no man a bellyful." Once Strahan said in answer to some

abusive remarks, "Well, sir, God made Scotland." "Certainly," replied

Johnson, "but we must always remember that He made it for Scotchmen; and

comparisons are odious, Mr. Strahan, but God made hell."

Boswell, therefore, had reason to feel both triumph and alarm when he

induced the great man to accompany him in a Scotch tour. Boswell's

journal of the tour appeared soon after Johnson's death. Johnson himself

wrote an account of it, which is not without interest, though it is in

his dignified style, which does not condescend to Boswellian touches of

character. In 1773 the Scotch Highlands were still a little known

region, justifying a book descriptive of manners and customs, and

touching upon antiquities now the commonplaces of innumerable guide

books. Scott was still an infant, and the day of enthusiasm, real or

affected, for mountain scenery had not yet dawned. Neither of the

travellers, as Boswell remarks, cared much for "rural beauties." Johnson

says quaintly on the shores of Loch Ness, "It will very readily occur

that this uniformity of barrenness can afford very little amusement to

the traveller; that it is easy to sit at home and conceive rocks and

heath and waterfalls; and that these journeys are useless labours, which

neither impregnate the imagination nor enlarge the understanding." And

though he shortly afterwards sits down on a bank "such as a writer of

romance might have delighted to feign," and there conceived the thought

of his book, he does not seem to have felt much enthusiasm. He checked

Boswell for describing a hill as "immense," and told him that it was

only a "considerable protuberance." Indeed it is not surprising if he

sometimes grew weary in long rides upon Highland ponies, or if, when

weatherbound in a remote village in Skye, he declared that this was a

"waste of life."

On the whole, however, Johnson bore his fatigues well, preserved his

temper, and made sensible remarks upon men and things. The pair started

from Edinburgh in the middle of August, 1773; they went north along the

eastern coast, through St. Andrew's, Aberdeen, Banff, Fort George, and

Inverness. There they took to horses, rode to Glenelg, and took boat for

Skye, where they landed on the 2nd of September. They visited Rothsay,

Col, Mull, and Iona, and after some dangerous sailing got to the

mainland at Oban on October 2nd. Thence they proceeded by Inverary and

Loch Lomond to Glasgow; and after paying a visit to Boswell's paternal

mansion at Auchinleck in Ayrshire, returned to Edinburgh in November. It

were too long to narrate their adventures at length, or to describe in

detail how Johnson grieved over traces of the iconoclastic zeal of

Knox's disciples, seriously investigated stories of second-sight,

cross-examined and brow-beat credulous believers in the authenticity of

_Ossian_, and felt his piety grow warm among the ruins of Iona. Once or

twice, when the temper of the travellers was tried by the various

worries incident to their position, poor Boswell came in for some severe

blows. But he was happy, feeling, as he remarks, like a dog who has run

away with a large piece of meat, and is devouring it peacefully in a

corner by himself. Boswell's spirits were irrepressible. On hearing a

drum beat for dinner at Fort George, he says, with a Pepys-like touch,

"I for a little while fancied myself a military man, and it pleased me."

He got scandalously drunk on one occasion, and showed reprehensible

levity on others. He bored Johnson by inquiring too curiously into his

reasons for not wearing a nightcap--a subject which seems to have

interested him profoundly; he permitted himself to say in his journal

that he was so much pleased with some pretty ladies' maids at the Duke

of Argyll's, that he felt he could "have been a knight-errant for them,"

and his "venerable fellow-traveller" read the passage without censuring

his levity. The great man himself could be equally volatile. "I _have

often thought_," he observed one day, to Boswell's amusement, "that if I

kept a seraglio, the ladies should all wear linen gowns"--as more

cleanly. The pair agreed in trying to stimulate the feudal zeal of

various Highland chiefs with whom they came in contact, and who were

unreasonable enough to show a hankering after the luxuries of

civilization.

Though Johnson seems to have been generally on his best behaviour, he

had a rough encounter or two with some of the more civilized natives.

Boswell piloted him safely through a visit to Lord Monboddo, a man of

real ability, though the proprietor of crochets as eccentric as

Johnson's, and consequently divided from him by strong mutual

prejudices. At Auchinleck he was less fortunate. The old laird, who was

the staunchest of Whigs, had not relished his son's hero-worship. "There

is nae hope for Jamie, mon; Jamie is gaen clean gyte. What do you think,

mon? He's done wi' Paoli--he's off wi' the land-louping scoundrel of a

Corsican, and who's tail do you think he's pinned himself to now, mon?"

"Here," says Sir Walter Scott, the authority for the story, "the old

judge summoned up a sneer of most sovereign contempt. 'A dominie,

mon--an auld dominie--he keeped a schule and caauld it an acaademy.'"

The two managed to keep the peace till, one day during Johnson's visit,

they got upon Oliver Cromwell. Boswell suppresses the scene with obvious

reluctance, his openness being checked for once by filial respect. Scott

has fortunately preserved the climax of Old Boswell's argument. "What

had Cromwell done for his country?" asked Johnson. "God, doctor, he gart

Kings ken that they had a _lith_ in their necks" retorted the laird, in

a phrase worthy of Mr. Carlyle himself. Scott reports one other scene,

at which respectable commentators, like Croker, hold up their hands in

horror. Should we regret or rejoice to say that it involves an obvious

inaccuracy? The authority, however, is too good to allow us to suppose

that it was without some foundation. Adam Smith, it is said, met Johnson

at Glasgow and had an altercation with him about the well-known account

of Hume's death. As Hume did not die till three years later, there must

be some error in this. The dispute, however, whatever its date or

subject, ended by Johnson saying to Smith, "_You lie_." "And what did

you reply?" was asked of Smith. "I said, 'you are a son of a -----.'"

"On such terms," says Scott, "did these two great moralists meet and

part, and such was the classical dialogue between these two great

teachers of morality."

In the year 1774 Boswell found it expedient to atone for his long

absence in the previous year by staying at home. Johnson managed to

complete his account of the _Scotch Tour_, which was published at the

end of the year. Among other consequences was a violent controversy with

the lovers of _Ossian_. Johnson was a thorough sceptic as to the

authenticity of the book. His scepticism did not repose upon the

philological or antiquarian reasonings, which would be applicable in the

controversy from internal evidence. It was to some extent the expression

of a general incredulity which astonished his friends, especially when

contrasted with his tenderness for many puerile superstitions. He could

scarcely be induced to admit the truth of any narrative which struck

him as odd, and it was long, for example, before he would believe even

in the Lisbon earthquake. Yet he seriously discussed the truth of

second-sight; he carefully investigated the Cock-lane ghost--a goblin

who anticipated some of the modern phenomena of so-called

"spiritualism," and with almost equal absurdity; he told stories to

Boswell about a "shadowy being" which had once been seen by Cave, and

declared that he had once heard his mother call "Sam" when he was at

Oxford and she at Lichfield. The apparent inconsistency was in truth

natural enough. Any man who clings with unreasonable pertinacity to the

prejudices of his childhood, must be alternately credulous and sceptical

in excess. In both cases, he judges by his fancies in defiance of

evidence; and accepts and rejects according to his likes and dislikes,

instead of his estimates of logical proof. _Ossian_ would be naturally

offensive to Johnson, as one of the earliest and most remarkable

manifestations of that growing taste for what was called "Nature," as

opposed to civilization, of which Rousseau was the great mouthpiece.

Nobody more heartily despised this form of "cant" than Johnson. A man

who utterly despised the scenery of the Hebrides as compared with

Greenwich Park or Charing Cross, would hardly take kindly to the

Ossianesque version of the mountain passion. The book struck him as

sheer rubbish. I have already quoted the retort about "many men, many

women, and many children." "A man," he said, on another occasion, "might

write such stuff for ever, if he would abandon his mind to it."

The precise point, however, upon which he rested his case, was the

tangible one of the inability of Macpherson to produce the manuscripts

of which he had affirmed the existence. MacPherson wrote a furious

letter to Johnson, of which the purport can only be inferred from

Johnson's smashing retort,--

"Mr. James MacPherson, I have received your foolish and impudent letter.

Any violence offered me I shall do my best to repel; and what I cannot

do for myself, the law shall do for me. I hope I shall never be deterred

from detecting what I think a cheat by the menaces of a ruffian.

"What would you have me retract? I thought your book an imposture: I

think it an imposture still. For this opinion I have given my reasons to

the public, which I here dare you to refute. Your rage I defy. Your

abilities, since your _Homer_, are not so formidable; and what I hear of

your morals inclines me to pay regard not to what you shall say, but to

what you shall prove. You may print this if you will.

"SAM. JOHNSON."

And so laying in a tremendous cudgel, the old gentleman (he was now

sixty-six) awaited the assault, which, however, was not delivered.

In 1775 Boswell again came to London, and renewed some of the Scotch

discussions. He attended a meeting of the Literary Club, and found the

members disposed to laugh at Johnson's tenderness to the stories about

second-sight. Boswell heroically avowed his own belief. "The evidence,"

he said, "is enough for me, though not for his great mind. What will not

fill a quart bottle, will fill a pint bottle. I am filled with belief."

"Are you?" said Colman; "then cork it up."

It was during this and the next few years that Boswell laboured most

successfully in gathering materials for his book. In 1777 he only met

Johnson in the country. In 1779, for some unexplained reason, he was

lazy in making notes; in 1780 and 1781 he was absent from London; and in

the following year, Johnson was visibly declining. The tenour of

Johnson's life was interrupted during this period by no remarkable

incidents, and his literary activity was not great, although the

composition of the _Lives of the Poets_ falls between 1777 and 1780. His

mind, however, as represented by his talk, was in full vigour. I will

take in order of time a few of the passages recorded by Boswell, which

may serve for various reasons to afford the best illustration of his

character. Yet it may be worth while once more to repeat the warning

that such fragments moved from their context must lose most of their

charm.

On March 26th (1775), Boswell met Johnson at the house of the publisher,

Strahan. Strahan reminded Johnson of a characteristic remark which he

had formerly made, that there are "few ways in which a man can be more

innocently employed than in getting money." On another occasion Johnson

observed with equal truth, if less originality, that cultivating

kindness was an important part of life, as well as money-making. Johnson

then asked to see a country lad whom he had recommended to Strahan as an

apprentice. He asked for five guineas on account, that he might give one

to the boy. "Nay, if a man recommends a boy and does nothing for him, it

is sad work." A "little, thick short-legged boy" was accordingly brought

into the courtyard, whither Johnson and Boswell descended, and the

lexicographer bending himself down administered some good advice to the

awestruck lad with "slow and sonorous solemnity," ending by the

presentation of the guinea.

In the evening the pair formed part of a corps of party "wits," led by

Sir Joshua Reynolds, to the benefit of Mrs. Abingdon, who had been a

frequent model of the painter. Johnson praised Garrick's prologues, and

Boswell kindly reported the eulogy to Garrick, with whom he supped at

Beauclerk's. Garrick treated him to a mimicry of Johnson, repeating,

"with pauses and half-whistling," the lines,--

Os homini sublime dedit--coelumque tueri

Jussit--et erectos ad sidera tollere vultus:

looking downwards, and at the end touching the ground with a contorted

gesticulation. Garrick was generally jealous of Johnson's light opinion

of him, and used to take off his old master, saying, "Davy has some

convivial pleasantry about him, but 'tis a futile fellow."

Next day, at Thrales', Johnson fell foul of Gray, one of his pet

aversions. Boswell denied that Gray was dull in poetry. "Sir," replied

Johnson, "he was dull in company, dull in his closet, dull everywhere.

He was dull in a new way, and that made people think him great. He was a

mechanical poet." He proceeded to say that there were only two good

stanzas in the _Elegy_. Johnson's criticism was perverse; but if we were

to collect a few of the judgments passed by contemporaries upon each

other, it would be scarcely exceptional in its want of appreciation. It

is rather odd to remark that Gray was generally condemned for

obscurity--a charge which seems strangely out of place when he is

measured by more recent standards.

A day or two afterwards some one rallied Johnson on his appearance at

Mrs. Abingdon's benefit. "Why did you go?" he asked. "Did you see?" "No,

sir." "Did you hear?" "No, sir." "Why, then, sir, did you go?"

"Because, sir, she is a favourite of the public; and when the public

cares the thousandth part for you that it does for her, I will go to

your benefit too."

The day after, Boswell won a bet from Lady Di Beauclerk by venturing to

ask Johnson what he did with the orange-peel which he used to pocket.

Johnson received the question amicably, but did not clear the mystery.

"Then," said Boswell, "the world must be left in the dark. It must be

said, he scraped them, and he let them dry, but what he did with them

next he never could be prevailed upon to tell." "Nay, sir," replied

Johnson, "you should say it more emphatically--he could not be prevailed

upon, even by his dearest friends to tell."

This year Johnson received the degree of LL.D. from Oxford. He had

previously (in 1765) received the same honour from Dublin. It is

remarkable, however, that familiar as the title has become, Johnson

called himself plain Mr. to the end of his days, and was generally so

called by his intimates. On April 2nd, at a dinner at Hoole's, Johnson

made another assault upon Gray and Mason. When Boswell said that there

were good passages in Mason's _Elfrida_, he conceded that there were

"now and then some good imitations of Milton's bad manner." After some

more talk, Boswell spoke of the cheerfulness of Fleet Street. "Why,

sir," said Johnson, "Fleet Street has a very animated appearance, but I

think that the full tide of human existence is at Charing Cross." He

added a story of an eminent tallow-chandler who had made a fortune in

London, and was foolish enough to retire to the country. He grew so

tired of his retreat, that he begged to know the melting-days of his

successor, that he might be present at the operation.

On April 7th, they dined at a tavern, where the talk turned upon

_Ossian_. Some one mentioned as an objection to its authenticity that no

mention of wolves occurred in it. Johnson fell into a reverie upon wild

beasts, and, whilst Reynolds and Langton were discussing something, he

broke out, "Pennant tells of bears." What Pennant told is unknown. The

company continued to talk, whilst Johnson continued his monologue, the

word "bear" occurring at intervals, like a word in a catch. At last,

when a pause came, he was going on: "We are told that the black bear is

innocent, but I should not like to trust myself with him." Gibbon

muttered in a low tone, "I should not like to trust myself with

_you_"--a prudent resolution, says honest Boswell who hated Gibbon, if

it referred to a competition of abilities.

The talk went on to patriotism, and Johnson laid down an apophthegm, at

"which many will start," many people, in fact, having little sense of

humour. Such persons may be reminded for their comfort that at this

period patriot had a technical meaning. "Patriotism is the last refuge

of a scoundrel." On the 10th of April, he laid down another dogma,

calculated to offend the weaker brethren. He defended Pope's line--

Man never _is_ but always _to be_ blest.

And being asked if man did not sometimes enjoy a momentary happiness,

replied, "Never, but when he is drunk." It would be useless to defend

these and other such utterances to any one who cannot enjoy them without

defence.

On April 11th, the pair went in Reynolds's coach to dine with Cambridge,

at Twickenham. Johnson was in high spirits. He remarked as they drove

down, upon the rarity of good humour in life. One friend mentioned by

Boswell was, he said, _acid_, and another _muddy_. At last, stretching

himself and turning with complacency, he observed, "I look upon myself

as a good-humoured fellow"--a bit of self-esteem against which Boswell

protested. Johnson, he admitted, was good-natured; but was too irascible

and impatient to be good-humoured. On reaching Cambridge's house,

Johnson ran to look at the books. "Mr. Johnson," said Cambridge

politely, "I am going with your pardon to accuse myself, for I have the

same custom which I perceive you have. But it seems odd that one should

have such a desire to look at the backs of books." "Sir," replied

Johnson, wheeling about at the words, "the reason is very plain.

Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where

we can find information upon it. When we inquire into any subject, the

first thing we have to do is to know what books have treated of it. This

leads us to look at catalogues, and the backs of books in libraries."

A pleasant talk followed. Johnson denied the value attributed to

historical reading, on the ground that we know very little except a few

facts and dates. All the colouring, he said, was conjectural. Boswell

chuckles over the reflection that Gibbon, who was present, did not take

up the cudgels for his favourite study, though the first-fruits of his

labours were to appear in the following year. "Probably he did not like

to trust himself with Johnson."

The conversation presently turned upon the _Beggar's Opera_, and Johnson

sensibly refused to believe that any man had been made a rogue by seeing

it. Yet the moralist felt bound to utter some condemnation of such a

performance, and at last, amidst the smothered amusement of the company,

collected himself to give a heavy stroke: "there is in it," he said,

"such a _labefactation_ of all principles as may he dangerous to

morality."

A discussion followed as to whether Sheridan was right for refusing to

allow his wife to continue as a public singer. Johnson defended him

"with all the high spirit of a Roman senator." "He resolved wisely and

nobly, to be sure. He is a brave man. Would not a gentleman be disgraced

by having his wife sing publicly for hire? No, sir, there can be no

doubt here. I know not if I should not prepare myself for a public

singer as readily as let my wife be one."

The stout old supporter of social authority went on to denounce the

politics of the day. He asserted that politics had come to mean nothing

but the art of rising in the world. He contrasted the absence of any

principles with the state of the national mind during the stormy days of

the seventeenth century. This gives the pith of Johnston's political

prejudices. He hated Whigs blindly from his cradle; but he justified his

hatred on the ground that they were now all "bottomless Whigs," that is

to say, that pierce where you would, you came upon no definite creed,

but only upon hollow formulae, intended as a cloak for private interest.

If Burke and one or two of his friends be excepted, the remark had but

too much justice.

In 1776, Boswell found Johnson rejoicing in the prospect of a journey to

Italy with the Thrales. Before starting he was to take a trip to the

country, in which Boswell agreed to join. Boswell gathered up various

bits of advice before their departure. One seems to have commended

itself to him as specially available for practice. "A man who had been

drinking freely," said the moralist, "should never go into a new

company. He would probably strike them as ridiculous, though he might

be in unison with those who had been drinking with him." Johnson

propounded another favourite theory. "A ship," he said, "was worse than

a gaol. There is in a gaol better air, better company, better

conveniency of every kind; and a ship has the additional disadvantage of

being in danger."

On March 19th, they went by coach to the Angel at Oxford; and next

morning visited the Master of University College, who chose with Boswell

to act in opposition to a very sound bit of advice given by Johnson soon

afterwards--perhaps with some reference to the proceeding. "Never speak

of a man in his own presence; it is always indelicate and may be

offensive." The two, however, discussed Johnson without reserve. The

Master said that he would have given Johnson a hundred pounds for a

discourse on the British Constitution; and Boswell suggested that

Johnson should write two volumes of no great bulk upon Church and State,

which should comprise the whole substance of the argument. "He should

erect a fort on the confines of each." Johnson was not unnaturally

displeased with the dialogue, and growled out, "Why should I be always

writing?"

Presently, they went to see Dr. Adams, the doctor's old friend, who had

been answering Hume. Boswell, who had done his best to court the

acquaintance of Voltaire, Rousseau, Wilkes, and Hume himself, felt it

desirable to reprove Adams for having met Hume with civility. He aired

his admirable sentiments in a long speech, observing upon the connexion

between theory and practice, and remarking, by way of practical

application, that, if an infidel were at once vain and ugly, he might be

compared to "Cicero's beautiful image of Virtue"--which would, as he

seems to think, be a crushing retort. Boswell always delighted in

fighting with his gigantic backer close behind him. Johnson, as he had

doubtless expected, chimed in with the argument. "You should do your

best," said Johnson, "to diminish the authority, as well as dispute the

arguments of your adversary, because most people are biased more by

personal respect than by reasoning." "You would not jostle a

chimney-sweeper," said Adams. "Yes," replied Johnson, "if it were

necessary to jostle him down."

The pair proceeded by post-chaise past Blenheim, and dined at a good inn

at Chapelhouse. Johnston boasted of the superiority, long since vanished

if it ever existed, of English to French inns, and quoted with great

emotion Shenstone's lines--

Whoe'er has travell'd life's dull round,

Where'er his stages may have been,

Must sigh to think he still has found

The warmest welcome at an inn.

As they drove along rapidly in the post-chaise, he exclaimed, "Life has

not many better things than this." On another occasion he said that he

should like to spend his life driving briskly in a post-chaise with a

pretty woman, clever enough to add to the conversation. The pleasure was

partly owing to the fact that his deafness was less troublesome in a

carriage. But he admitted that there were drawbacks even to this

pleasure. Boswell asked him whether he would not add a post-chaise

journey to the other sole cause of happiness--namely, drunkenness. "No,

sir," said Johnson, "you are driving rapidly _from_ something or _to_

something."

They went to Birmingham, where Boswell pumped Hector about Johnson's

early days, and saw the works of Boulton, Watt's partner, who said to

him, "I sell here, sir, what all the world desires to have--_power_."

Thence they went to Lichfield, and met more of the rapidly thinning

circle of Johnson's oldest friends. Here Boswell was a little

scandalized by Johnson's warm exclamation on opening a letter--"One of

the most dreadful things that has happened in my time!" This turned out

to be the death of Thrale's only son. Boswell thought the phrase too big

for the event, and was some time before he could feel a proper concern.

He was, however, "curious to observe how Dr. Johnson would be affected,"

and was again a little scandalized by the reply to his consolatory

remark that the Thrales still had daughters. "Sir," said Johnson, "don't

you know how you yourself think? Sir, he wishes to propagate his name."

The great man was actually putting the family sentiment of a brewer in

the same category with the sentiments of the heir of Auchinleck.

Johnson, however, calmed down, but resolved to hurry back to London.

They stayed a night at Taylor's, who remarked that he had fought a good

many battles for a physician, one of their common friends. "But you

should consider, sir," said Johnson, "that by every one of your

victories he is a loser; for every man of whom you get the better will

be very angry, and resolve not to employ him, whereas if people get the

better of you in argument about him, they will think 'We'll send for Dr.

---- nevertheless!'"

It was after their return to London that Boswell won the greatest

triumph of his friendship. He carried through a negotiation, to which,

as Burke pleasantly said, there was nothing equal in the whole history

of the _corps diplomatique_. At some moment of enthusiasm it had

occurred to him to bring Johnson into company with Wilkes. The infidel

demagogue was probably in the mind of the Tory High Churchman, when he

threw out that pleasant little apophthegm about patriotism. To bring

together two such opposites without provoking a collision would be the

crowning triumph of Boswell's curiosity. He was ready to run all hazards

as a chemist might try some new experiment at the risk of a destructive

explosion; but being resolved, he took every precaution with admirable

foresight.

Boswell had been invited by the Dillys, well-known booksellers of the

day, to meet Wilkes. "Let us have Johnson," suggested the gallant

Boswell. "Not for the world!" exclaimed Dilly. But, on Boswell's

undertaking the negotiation, he consented to the experiment. Boswell

went off to Johnson and politely invited him in Dilly's name. "I will

wait upon him," said Johnson. "Provided, sir, I suppose," said the

diplomatic Boswell, "that the company which he is to have is agreeable

to you." "What do you mean, sir?" exclaimed Johnson. "What do you take

me for? Do you think I am so ignorant of the world as to prescribe to a

gentleman what company he is to have at his table?" Boswell worked the

point a little farther, till, by judicious manipulation, he had got

Johnson to commit himself to meeting anybody--even Jack Wilkes, to make

a wild hypothesis--at the Dillys' table. Boswell retired, hoping to

think that he had fixed the discussion in Johnson's mind.

The great day arrived, and Boswell, like a consummate general who leaves

nothing to chance, went himself to fetch Johnson to the dinner. The

great man had forgotten the engagement, and was "buffeting his books" in

a dirty shirt and amidst clouds of dust. When reminded of his promise,

he said that he had ordered dinner at home with Mrs. Williams.

Entreaties of the warmest kind from Boswell softened the peevish old

lady, to whose pleasure Johnson had referred him. Boswell flew back,

announced Mrs. Williams's consent, and Johnson roared, "Frank, a clean

shirt!" and was soon in a hackney-coach. Boswell rejoiced like a

"fortune-hunter who has got an heiress into a post-chaise with him to

set out for Gretna Green." Yet the joy was with trembling. Arrived at

Dillys', Johnson found himself amongst strangers, and Boswell watched

anxiously from a corner. "Who is that gentleman?" whispered Johnson to

Dilly. "Mr. Arthur Lee." Johnson whistled "too-too-too" doubtfully, for

Lee was a patriot and an American. "And who is the gentleman in lace?"

"Mr. Wilkes, sir." Johnson subsided into a window-seat and fixed his eye

on a book. He was fairly in the toils. His reproof of Boswell was recent

enough to prevent him from exhibiting his displeasure, and he resolved

to restrain himself.

At dinner Wilkes, placed next to Johnson, took up his part in the

performance. He pacified the sturdy moralist by delicate attentions to

his needs. He helped him carefully to some fine veal. "Pray give me

leave, sir; it is better here--a little of the brown--some fat, sir--a

little of the stuffing--some gravy--let me have the pleasure of giving

you some butter. Allow me to recommend a squeeze of this orange; or the

lemon, perhaps, may have more zest." "Sir, sir," cried Johnson, "I am

obliged to you, sir," bowing and turning to him, with a look for some

time of "surly virtue," and soon of complacency.

Gradually the conversation became cordial. Johnson told of the

fascination exercised by Foote, who, like Wilkes, had succeeded in

pleasing him against his will. Foote once took to selling beer, and it

was so bad that the servants of Fitzherbert, one of his customers,

resolved to protest. They chose a little black boy to carry their

remonstrance; but the boy waited at table one day when Foote was

present, and returning to his companions, said, "This is the finest man

I have ever seen. I will not deliver your message; I will drink his

beer." From Foote the transition was easy to Garrick, whom Johnson, as

usual, defended against the attacks of others. He maintained that

Garrick's reputation for avarice, though unfounded, had been rather

useful than otherwise. "You despise a man for avarice, but you do not

hate him." The clamour would have been more effectual, had it been

directed against his living with splendour too great for a player.

Johnson went on to speak of the difficulty of getting biographical

information. When he had wished to write a life of Dryden, he applied to

two living men who remembered him. One could only tell him that Dryden

had a chair by the fire at Will's Coffee-house in winter, which was

moved to the balcony in summer. The other (Cibber) could only report

that he remembered Dryden as a "decent old man, arbiter of critical

disputes at Will's."

Johnson and Wilkes had one point in common--a vigorous prejudice against

the Scotch, and upon this topic they cracked their jokes in friendly

emulation. When they met upon a later occasion (1781), they still

pursued this inexhaustible subject. Wilkes told how a privateer had

completely plundered seven Scotch islands, and re-embarked with three

and sixpence. Johnson now remarked in answer to somebody who said "Poor

old England is lost!" "Sir, it is not so much to be lamented that old

England is lost, as that the Scotch have found it." "You must know,

sir," he said to Wilkes, "that I lately took my friend Boswell and

showed him genuine civilized life in an English provincial town. I

turned him loose at Lichfield, that he might see for once real civility,

for you know he lives among savages in Scotland and among rakes in

London." "Except," said Wilkes, "when he is with grave, sober, decent

people like you and me." "And we ashamed of him," added Johnson,

smiling.

Boswell had to bear some jokes against himself and his countrymen from

the pair; but he had triumphed, and rejoiced greatly when he went home

with Johnson, and heard the great man speak of his pleasant dinner to

Mrs. Williams. Johnson seems to have been permanently reconciled to his

foe. "Did we not hear so much said of Jack Wilkes," he remarked next

year, "we should think more highly of his conversation. Jack has a great

variety of talk, Jack is a scholar, and Jack has the manners of a

gentleman. But, after hearing his name sounded from pole to pole as the

phoenix of convivial felicity, we are disappointed in his company. He

has always been at _me_, but I would do Jack a kindness rather than not.

The contest is now over."

In fact, Wilkes had ceased to play any part in public life. When Johnson

met him next (in 1781) they joked about such dangerous topics as some of

Wilkes's political performances. Johnson sent him a copy of the _Lives_,

and they were seen conversing _tête-à-tête_ in confidential whispers

about George II. and the King of Prussia. To Boswell's mind it suggested

the happy days when the lion should lie down with the kid, or, as Dr.

Barnard suggested, the goat.

In the year 1777 Johnson began the _Lives of the Poets_, in compliance

with a request from the booksellers, who wished for prefaces to a large

collection of English poetry. Johnson asked for this work the extremely

modest sum of 200 guineas, when he might easily, according to Malone,

have received 1000 or 1500. He did not meet Boswell till September, when

they spent ten days together at Dr. Taylor's. The subject which

specially interested Boswell at this time was the fate of the unlucky

Dr. Dodd, hanged for forgery in the previous June. Dodd seems to have

been a worthless charlatan of the popular preacher variety. His crime

would not in our days have been thought worthy of so severe a

punishment; but his contemporaries were less shocked by the fact of

death being inflicted for such a fault, than by the fact of its being

inflicted on a clergyman. Johnson exerted himself to procure a remission

of the sentence by writing various letters and petitions on Dodd's

behalf. He seems to have been deeply moved by the man's appeal, and

could "not bear the thought" that any negligence of his should lead to

the death of a fellow-creature; but he said that if he had himself been

in authority he would have signed the death-warrant, and for the man

himself, he had as little respect as might be. He said, indeed, that

Dodd was right in not joining in the "cant" about leaving a wretched

world. "No, no," said the poor rogue, "it has been a very agreeable

world to me." Dodd had allowed to pass for his own one of the papers

composed for him by Johnson, and the Doctor was not quite pleased. When,

however, Seward expressed a doubt as to Dodd's power of writing so

forcibly, Johnson felt bound not to expose him. "Why should you think

so? Depend upon it, sir, when any man knows he is to be hanged in a

fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully." On another occasion,

Johnson expressed a doubt himself as to whether Dodd had really

composed a certain prayer on the night before his execution. "Sir, do

you think that a man the night before he is to be hanged cares for the

succession of the royal family? Though he _may_ have composed this

prayer then. A man who has been canting all his life may cant to the

last; and yet a man who has been refused a pardon after so much

petitioning, would hardly be praying thus fervently for the king."

The last day at Taylor's was characteristic. Johnson was very cordial to

his disciple, and Boswell fancied that he could defend his master at

"the point of his sword." "My regard for you," said Johnson, "is greater

almost than I have words to express, but I do not choose to be always

repeating it. Write it down in the first leaf of your pocket-book, and

never doubt of it again." They became sentimental, and talked of the

misery of human life. Boswell spoke of the pleasures of society. "Alas,

sir," replied Johnson, like a true pessimist, "these are only struggles

for happiness!" He felt exhilarated, he said, when he first went to

Ranelagh, but he changed to the mood of Xerxes weeping at the sight of

his army. "It went to my heart to consider that there was not one in all

that brilliant circle that was not afraid to go home and think; but that

the thoughts of each individual would be distressing when alone." Some

years before he had gone with Boswell to the Pantheon and taken a more

cheerful view. When Boswell doubted whether there were many happy people

present, he said, "Yes, sir, there are many happy people here. There are

many people here who are watching hundreds, and who think hundreds are

watching them." The more permanent feeling was that which he expressed

in the "serene autumn night" in Taylor's garden. He was willing,

however, to talk calmly about eternal punishment, and to admit the

possibility of a "mitigated interpretation."

After supper he dictated to Boswell an argument in favour of the negro

who was then claiming his liberty in Scotland. He hated slavery with a

zeal which the excellent Boswell thought to be "without knowledge;" and

on one occasion gave as a toast to some "very grave men" at Oxford,

"Here's to the next insurrection of negroes in the West Indies." The

hatred was combined with as hearty a dislike for American independence.

"How is it," he said, "that we always hear the loudest yelps for liberty

amongst the drivers of negroes?" The harmony of the evening was

unluckily spoilt by an explosion of this prejudice. Boswell undertook

the defence of the colonists, and the discussion became so fierce that

though Johnson had expressed a willingness to sit up all night with him,

they were glad to part after an hour or two, and go to bed.

In 1778, Boswell came to London and found Johnson absorbed, to an extent

which apparently excited his jealousy, by his intimacy with the Thrales.

They had, however, several agreeable meetings. One was at the club, and

Boswell's report of the conversation is the fullest that we have of any

of its meetings. A certain reserve is indicated by his using initials

for the interlocutors, of whom, however, one can be easily identified as

Burke. The talk began by a discussion of an antique statue, said to be

the dog of Alcibiades, and valued at 1000_l_. Burke said that the

representation of no animal could be worth so much. Johnson, whose taste

for art was a vanishing quantity, said that the value was proportional

to the difficulty. A statue, as he argued on another occasion, would be

worth nothing if it were cut out of a carrot. Everything, he now said,

was valuable which "enlarged the sphere of human powers." The first man

who balanced a straw upon his nose, or rode upon three horses at once,

deserved the applause of mankind; and so statues of animals should be

preserved as a proof of dexterity, though men should not continue such

fruitless labours.

The conversation became more instructive under the guidance of Burke. He

maintained what seemed to his hearers a paradox, though it would be

interesting to hear his arguments from some profounder economist than

Boswell, that a country would be made more populous by emigration.

"There are bulls enough in Ireland," he remarked incidentally in the

course of the argument. "So, sir, I should think from your argument,"

said Johnson, for once condescending to an irresistible pun. It is

recorded, too, that he once made a bull himself, observing that a horse

was so slow that when it went up hill, it stood still. If he now failed

to appreciate Burke's argument, he made one good remark. Another speaker

said that unhealthy countries were the most populous. "Countries which

are the most populous," replied Johnson, "have the most destructive

diseases. That is the true state of the proposition;" and indeed, the

remark applies to the case of emigration.

A discussion then took place as to whether it would be worth while for

Burke to take so much trouble with speeches which never decided a vote.

Burke replied that a speech, though it did not gain one vote, would have

an influence, and maintained that the House of Commons was not wholly

corrupt. "We are all more or less governed by interest," was Johnson's

comment. "But interest will not do everything. In a case which admits of

doubt, we try to think on the side which is for our interest, and

generally bring ourselves to act accordingly. But the subject must admit

of diversity of colouring; it must receive a colour on that side. In the

House of Commons there are members enough who will not vote what is

grossly absurd and unjust. No, sir, there must always be right enough,

or appearance of right, to keep wrong in countenance." After some

deviations, the conversation returned to this point. Johnson and Burke

agreed on a characteristic statement. Burke said that from his

experience he had learnt to think better of mankind. "From my

experience," replied Johnson, "I have found them worse on commercial

dealings, more disposed to cheat than I had any notion of; but more

disposed to do one another good than I had conceived." "Less just, and

more beneficent," as another speaker suggested. Johnson proceeded to say

that considering the pressure of want, it was wonderful that men would

do so much for each other. The greatest liar is said to speak more truth

than falsehood, and perhaps the worst man might do more good than not.

But when Boswell suggested that perhaps experience might increase our

estimate of human happiness, Johnson returned to his habitual pessimism.

"No, sir, the more we inquire, the more we shall find men less happy."

The talk soon wandered off into a disquisition upon the folly of

deliberately testing the strength of our friend's affection.

The evening ended by Johnson accepting a commission to write to a friend

who had given to the Club a hogshead of claret, and to request another,

with "a happy ambiguity of expression," in the hopes that it might also

be a present.

Some days afterwards, another conversation took place, which has a

certain celebrity in Boswellian literature. The scene was at Dilly's,

and the guests included Miss Seward and Mrs. Knowles, a well-known

Quaker Lady. Before dinner Johnson seized upon a book which he kept in

his lap during dinner, wrapped up in the table-cloth. His attention was

not distracted from the various business of the hour, but he hit upon a

topic which happily combined the two appropriate veins of thought. He

boasted that he would write a cookery-book upon philosophical

principles; and declared in opposition to Miss Seward that such a task

was beyond the sphere of woman. Perhaps this led to a discussion upon

the privileges of men, in which Johnson put down Mrs. Knowles, who had

some hankering for women's rights, by the Shakspearian maxim that if two

men ride on a horse, one must ride behind. Driven from her position in

this world, poor Mrs. Knowles hoped that sexes might be equal in the

next. Boswell reproved her by the remark already quoted, that men might

as well expect to be equal to angels. He enforces this view by an

illustration suggested by the "Rev. Mr. Brown of Utrecht," who had

observed that a great or small glass might be equally full, though not

holding equal quantities. Mr. Brown intended this for a confutation of

Hume, who has said that a little Miss, dressed for a ball, may be as

happy as an orator who has won some triumphant success.[1]

[Footnote 1: Boswell remarks as a curious coincidence that the same

illustration had been used by a Dr. King, a dissenting minister.

Doubtless it has been used often enough. For one instance see _Donne's

Sermons_ (Alford's Edition), vol. i., p. 5.]

The conversation thus took a theological turn, and Mrs. Knowles was

fortunate enough to win Johnson's high approval. He defended a doctrine

maintained by Soame Jenyns, that friendship is a Christian virtue. Mrs.

Knowles remarked that Jesus had twelve disciples, but there was _one_

whom he _loved_. Johnson, "with eyes sparkling benignantly," exclaimed,

"Very well indeed, madam; you have said very well!"

So far all had gone smoothly; but here, for some inexplicable reason,

Johnson burst into a sudden fury against the American rebels, whom he

described as "rascals, robbers, pirates," and roared out a tremendous

volley, which might almost have been audible across the Atlantic.

Boswell sat and trembled, but gradually diverted the sage to less

exciting topics. The name of Jonathan Edwards suggested a discussion

upon free will and necessity, upon which poor Boswell was much given to

worry himself. Some time afterwards Johnson wrote to him, in answer to

one of his lamentations: "I hoped you had got rid of all this hypocrisy

of misery. What have you to do with liberty and necessity? Or what more

than to hold your tongue about it?" Boswell could never take this

sensible advice; but he got little comfort from his oracle. "We know

that we are all free, and there's an end on't," was his statement on one

occasion, and now he could only say, "All theory is against the freedom

of the will, and all experience for it."

Some familiar topics followed, which play a great part in Boswell's

reports. Among the favourite topics of the sentimentalists of the day

was the denunciation of "luxury," and of civilized life in general.

There was a disposition to find in the South Sea savages or American

Indians an embodiment of the fancied state of nature. Johnson heartily

despised the affectation. He was told of an American woman who had to be

bound in order to keep her from savage life. "She must have been an

animal, a beast," said Boswell. "Sir," said Johnson, "she was a speaking

cat." Somebody quoted to him with admiration the soliloquy of an

officer who had lived in the wilds of America: "Here am I, free and

unrestrained, amidst the rude magnificence of nature, with the Indian

woman by my side, and this gun, with which I can procure food when I

want it! What more can be desired for human happiness?" "Do not allow

yourself, sir," replied Johnson, "to be imposed upon by such gross

absurdity. It is sad stuff; it is brutish. If a bull could speak, he

might as well exclaim, 'Here am I with this cow and this grass; what

being can enjoy greater felicity?'" When Johnson implored Boswell to

"clear his mind of cant," he was attacking his disciple for affecting a

serious depression about public affairs; but the cant which he hated

would certainly have included as its first article an admiration for the

state of nature.

On the present occasion Johnson defended luxury, and said that he had

learnt much from Mandeville--a shrewd cynic, in whom Johnson's hatred

for humbug is exaggerated into a general disbelief in real as well as

sham nobleness of sentiment. As the conversation proceeded, Johnson

expressed his habitual horror of death, and caused Miss Seward's

ridicule by talking seriously of ghosts and the importance of the

question of their reality; and then followed an explosion, which seems

to have closed this characteristic evening. A young woman had become a

Quaker under the influence of Mrs. Knowles, who now proceeded to

deprecate Johnson's wrath at what he regarded as an apostasy. "Madam,"

he said, "she is an odious wench," and he proceeded to denounce her

audacity in presuming to choose a religion for herself. "She knew no

more of the points of difference," he said, "than of the difference

between the Copernican and Ptolemaic systems." When Mrs. Knowles said

that she had the New Testament before her, he said that it was the

"most difficult book in the world," and he proceeded to attack the

unlucky proselyte with a fury which shocked the two ladies. Mrs. Knowles

afterwards published a report of this conversation, and obtained another

report, with which, however, she was not satisfied, from Miss Seward.

Both of them represent the poor doctor as hopelessly confuted by the

mild dignity and calm reason of Mrs. Knowles, though the triumph is

painted in far the brightest colours by Mrs. Knowles herself. Unluckily,

there is not a trace of Johnson's manner, except in one phrase, in

either report, and they are chiefly curious as an indirect testimony to

Boswell's superior powers. The passage, in which both the ladies agree,

is that Johnson, on the expression of Mrs. Knowles's hope that he would

meet the young lady in another world, retorted that he was not fond of

meeting fools anywhere.

Poor Boswell was at this time a water-drinker by Johnson's

recommendation, though unluckily for himself he never broke off his

drinking habits for long. They had a conversation at Paoli's, in which

Boswell argued against his present practice. Johnson remarked "that wine

gave a man nothing, but only put in motion what had been locked up in

frost." It was a key, suggested some one, which opened a box, but the

box might be full or empty. "Nay, sir," said Johnson, "conversation is

the key, wine is a picklock, which forces open the box and injures it. A

man should cultivate his mind, so as to have that confidence and

readiness without wine which wine gives." Boswell characteristically

said that the great difficulty was from "benevolence." It was hard to

refuse "a good, worthy man" who asked you to try his cellar. This,

according to Johnson, was mere conceit, implying an exaggerated

estimate of your importance to your entertainer. Reynolds gallantly took

up the opposite side, and produced the one recorded instance of a

Johnsonian blush. "I won't argue any more with you, sir," said Johnson,

who thought every man to be elevated who drank wine, "you are too far

gone." "I should have thought so indeed, sir, had I made such a speech

as you have now done," said Reynolds; and Johnson apologized with the

aforesaid blush.

The explosion was soon over on this occasion. Not long afterwards,

Johnson attacked Boswell so fiercely at a dinner at Reynolds's, that the

poor disciple kept away for a week. They made it up when they met next,

and Johnson solaced Boswell's wounded vanity by highly commending an

image made by him to express his feelings. "I don't care how often or

how high Johnson tosses me, when only friends are present, for then I

fall upon soft ground; but I do not like falling on stones, which is the

case when enemies are present." The phrase may recall one of Johnson's

happiest illustrations. When some one said in his presence that a _congé

d'élire_ might be considered as only a strong recommendation: "Sir,"

replied Johnson, "it is such a recommendation as if I should throw you

out of a two-pair of stairs window, and recommend you to fall soft."

It is perhaps time to cease these extracts from Boswell's reports. The

next two years were less fruitful. In 1779 Boswell was careless, though

twice in London, and in 1780, he did not pay his annual visit. Boswell

has partly filled up the gap by a collection of sayings made by Langton,

some passages from which have been quoted, and his correspondence gives

various details. Garrick died in January of 1779, and Beauclerk in

March, 1780. Johnson himself seems to have shown few symptoms of

increasing age; but a change was approaching, and the last years of his

life were destined to be clouded, not merely by physical weakness, but

by a change of circumstances which had great influence upon his

happiness.