"Sir," he said "young men have more virtue than old men; they have more
generous sentiments in every respect. I love the young dogs of this
age: they have more wit and humour and knowledge of life than we had;
but then the dogs are not so good scholars."
Boswell was certainly "a young dog"; and even the fact that he came
from Scotland must have been a source of pleasure to Johnson, who, when
he had no other retort ready, could always bring out the old joke in a
new form.
Above all, Boswell was _clubable_; and Johnson could give no higher
praise.
But we must return to the Mitre, where Boswell is now a proud host:
"I had as my guests this evening at the Mitre tavern, Dr Johnson, Dr
Goldsmith, Mr Thomas Davies, Mr Eccles ... and the Reverend Mr John
Ogilvie, who was desirous of being in company with my illustrious
friend, while I, in my turn, was proud to have the honour of shewing
one of my countrymen upon what easy terms Johnson permitted me to live
with him.... Mr Ogilvie was unlucky enough to choose for the topick
of his conversation the praises of his native country. He began with
saying, that there was very rich land round Edinburgh. Goldsmith, who
had studied physick there, contradicted this, very untruly, with a
sneering laugh. Disconcerted a little by this, Mr Ogilvie then took
new ground, where, I suppose, he thought himself perfectly safe; for
he observed, that Scotland had a great many noble wild prospects.
JOHNSON. '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!'"
The friendship ripened quickly. When Boswell announced that he would
shortly be going to Utrecht to continue his study of the law, Johnson
said, "I must see thee out of England; I will accompany you to
Harwich." Boswell "could not find words to express what he felt upon
this unexpected and very great mark of his affectionate regard."
When the time came, he was loth to go:
"After tea he carried me to what he called his walk, which was a long
narrow paved court in the neighbourhood, overshadowed by some trees.
There we sauntered a considerable time; and I complained to him that my
love of London and of his company was such, that I shrunk almost from
the thought of going away, even to travel, which is generally so much
desired by young men. He roused me by manly and spirited conversation.
He advised me, when settled in any place abroad, to study with an
eagerness after knowledge and to apply to Greek an hour every day; and
when I was moving about, to read diligently the great book of mankind."
On the way to Harwich Johnson was more jocular. In the stage coach
"a fat elderly gentlewoman, and a young Dutchman seemed the most
inclined among us to conversation. At the inn where we dined, the
gentlewoman said that she had done her best to educate her children;
and particularly that she had never suffered them to be a moment idle.
JOHNSON. 'I wish, Madam, you would educate me too; for I have been an
idle fellow all my life.' 'I am sure, Sir, (said she) you have not been
idle.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, Madam, it is very true; and that gentleman there
(pointing to me,) has been idle. He was idle at Edinburgh. His father
sent him to Glasgow, where he continued to be idle. He then came to
London, where he has been very idle; and now he is going to Utrecht,
where he will be as idle as ever.' I asked him privately how he could
expose me so. JOHNSON. 'Poh, poh! (said he) they knew nothing about
you, and will think of it no more.'"
The first meeting between these two men had taken place in May
1763. Boswell left for Utrecht in the August of the same year. His
description of his farewell to Johnson at Harwich shews how firmly
their friendship had been formed in a few months:
"My revered friend walked down with me to the beach, where we embraced
and parted with tenderness, and engaged to correspond by letters. I
said, 'I hope, Sir, you will not forget me in my absence.' JOHNSON.
'Nay, Sir, it is more likely you should forget me, than that I should
forget you.' As the vessel put out to sea, I kept my eyes upon him for
a considerable time, while he remained rolling his majestick frame in
his usual manner: and at last I perceived him walk back into the town,
and he disappeared."
_More about Boswell_
Boswell travelled a good deal and visited several European countries
besides Holland. He took a special interest in Corsica and afterwards
wrote a book about the people of the island. Johnson was at first
discouraging on this subject and wished Boswell would empty his head of
it, but he afterwards highly praised his _Journal_.
On his return to London, Boswell found that his admiration of his
hero's "extraordinary mind" was "increased and confirmed," and when,
a few years later, he was about to be married, he promised himself a
great deal of instructive conversation with Johnson "on the conduct
of the married state," but Johnson (who said once that marriages in
general would be as happy, and often more so, if they were all made by
the Lord Chancellor) "did not say much upon that topick."
When Johnson went to stay with his friend in Scotland, Mrs Boswell
found his visit quite long enough:
"The truth is, that his irregular hours and uncouth habits, such as
turning the candles with their heads downwards, when they did not burn
bright enough, and letting the wax drop upon the carpet, could not but
be disagreeable to a lady. Besides, she had not that high admiration
of him which was felt by most of those who knew him; and what was very
natural to a female mind, she thought he had too much influence over
her husband. She once in a little warmth, made, with more point than
justice, this remark upon that subject: 'I have seen many a bear led by
a man; but I never before saw a man led by a bear.'"
It is delightful to note Boswell's pride as each fresh link is formed
in the chain of friendship. Johnson, as we have seen, was a devout
Christian and encouraged his friend to join him in his devotions:
"On the 9th of April [1773], being Good Friday, I breakfasted with him
on tea and cross-buns; _Doctor_ Levet, as Frank called him, making the
tea. He carried me with him to the Church of St Clement Danes, where
he had his seat; and his behaviour was, as I had imaged to myself,
solemnly devout. I never shall forget the tremulous earnestness with
which he pronounced the awful petition in the Litany: 'In the hour of
death, and at the day of judgement, good LORD deliver us.' We went to
church both in the morning and evening. In the interval between the two
services we did not dine; but he read in the Greek New Testament, and I
turned over several of his books."
Two days later he had his first dinner at Johnson's house:
"I had ... great curiosity to dine with DR SAMUEL JOHNSON, in the
dusky recess of a court in Fleet-street. I supposed we should scarcely
have knives and forks, and only some strange, uncouth, ill-drest dish:
but I found every thing in very good order. We had no other company
but Mrs Williams and a young woman whom I did not know. As a dinner
here was considered as a singular phænomenon, and as I was frequently
interrogated on the subject, my readers may perhaps be desirous to know
our bill of fare.... We had a very good soup, a boiled leg of lamb and
spinach, a veal pye, and a rice pudding."
Boswell was made still prouder when shortly afterwards he was admitted
to the Club:
"On Friday, April 30, I dined with him at Mr Beauclerk's, where were
Lord Charlemont, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and some more members of the
LITERARY CLUB, whom he had obligingly invited to meet me, as I was
this evening to be balloted for as candidate for admission into that
distinguished society. Johnson had done me the honour to propose me,
and Beauclerk was very zealous for me...."
"The gentlemen went away to their club, and I was left at Beauclerk's
till the fate of my election should be announced to me. I sat in a
state of anxiety which even the charming conversation of Lady Di
Beauclerk could not entirely dissipate. In a short time I received
the agreeable intelligence that I was chosen. I hastened to the place
of meeting, and was introduced to such a society as can seldom be
found.... Upon my entrance, Johnson placed himself behind a chair, on
which he leaned as on a desk or pulpit, and with humorous formality
gave me a _Charge_, pointing out the conduct expected from me as a good
member of this club."
When they were travelling together in Scotland Johnson frankly told him
a little more about the election, and Boswell as frankly tells us:
"He told me, 'Sir, you got into our club by doing what a man can do.
Several of the members wished to keep you out. Burke told me, he
doubted if you were fit for it: but, now you are in, none of them are
sorry. Burke says, that you have so much good humour naturally, it is
scarce a virtue.' BOSWELL. 'They were afraid of you, Sir, as it was you
who proposed me.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, they knew, that if they refused you,
they'd probably never have got in another. I'd have kept them all out.'"
Perhaps the boldest thing Boswell did in the course of his friendship
with Johnson was to arrange a meeting between him and John Wilkes.
The story of Wilkes belongs to the history-books. Himself a member
of parliament, he had in 1763 violently attacked the king and his
minister, Lord Bute, in a famous issue of _The North Briton_. For this
he was imprisoned in the Tower and expelled from the House of Commons.
But outside Parliament there was much sympathy with him, especially
in London, and he quickly became a popular hero. "Wilkes and Liberty
for ever" was the cry. He was three times re-elected as member for
Middlesex, but each time Parliament refused to let him take his seat.
Finally, after being made Lord Mayor of London in 1774, he had a great
triumph in the House of Commons in the following year, when all the
previous resolutions against him were annulled.
It is not difficult to imagine how Dr Johnson, with his principles
of loyalty to king and government, felt towards this hero of popular
liberty.
Boswell realised this quite well:
"My desire of being acquainted with celebrated men of every
description, had made me, much about the same time, obtain an
introduction to Dr Samuel Johnson and to John Wilkes, Esq. Two men more
different could perhaps not be selected out of all mankind. They had
even attacked one another with some asperity in their writings; yet
I lived in habits of friendship with both. I could fully relish the
excellence of each.... I conceived an irresistible wish, if possible,
to bring Dr Johnson and Mr Wilkes together. How to manage it, was a
nice and difficult matter."
Boswell went tactfully to work. After getting Johnson's consent to dine
at Mr Dilly's, he hinted at strange company:
"'Provided, Sir, I suppose, that the company which he is to have, is
agreeable to you.' JOHNSON. 'What do you mean, Sir? What do you take
me for? Do you think I am so ignorant of the world, as to imagine that
I am to prescribe to a gentleman what company he is to have at his
table?' BOSWELL. 'I beg your pardon, Sir ... I should not be surprized
to find Jack Wilkes there.' JOHNSON. 'And if Jack Wilkes _should_ be
there, what is that to _me_, Sir?'"
"Upon the much-expected Wednesday, I called on him about half an hour
before dinner, as I often did when we were to dine out together, to see
that he was ready in time, and to accompany him. I found him buffeting
his books, as upon a former occasion, covered with dust, and making no
preparation for going abroad. 'How is this, Sir? (said I.) Don't you
recollect that you are to dine at Mr Dilly's?' JOHNSON. 'Sir, I did
not think of going to Dilly's: it went out of my head. I have ordered
dinner at home with Mrs Williams.' BOSWELL. 'But, my dear Sir, you know
you were engaged to Mr Dilly, and I told him so. He will expect you,
and will be much disappointed if you don't come.' JOHNSON. 'You must
talk to Mrs Williams about this.'"
Here, as Boswell says, was a sad dilemma. There was nothing for it but
to approach Mrs Williams. She was difficult at first, but "gradually
softened" and finally gave her consent that the Doctor should go.
"I flew back to him, still in dust, and careless of what should be the
event, 'indifferent in his choice to go or stay'; but as soon as I had
announced to him Mrs Williams' consent, he roared 'Frank, a clean
shirt,' and was very soon drest. When I had him fairly seated in a
hackney-coach with me, I exulted as much as a fortune-hunter who has
got an heiress into a post-chaise with him to set out for Gretna-Green.
When we entered Mr Dilly's drawing-room, he found himself in the
midst of a company he did not know.... 'And who is the gentleman in
lace?'--'Mr Wilkes, Sir.' This information confounded him still more;
he had some difficulty to restrain himself, and taking up a book, sat
down upon a window-seat and read, or at least kept his eye upon it
intently for some time, till he composed himself...."
"The cheering sound of 'Dinner is upon the table,' dissolved his
reverie, and we _all_ sat down without any symptom of ill humour....
Mr Wilkes placed himself next to Dr Johnson, and behaved to him with
so much attention and politeness, that he gained upon him insensibly.
No man eat more heartily than Johnson, or loved better what was nice
and delicate. Mr Wilkes was very assiduous in helping him 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, I am obliged to you, Sir,' cried Johnson, bowing, and turning his
head to him...."
The good fare provided by Mr Dilly and the tact of John Wilkes himself
soon made things easier. Johnson was before long talking in his
usual domineering way about poets and players, and eventually he and
Wilkes found at least one "bond of union"--a common prejudice against
Scotland. So they "amused themselves with persevering in the old jokes."
"JOHNSON (to Mr Wilkes). 'You must know, Sir, I lately took my friend
Boswell and shewed him genuine civilised life in an English provincial
town. I turned him loose at Lichfield, my native city, that he might
see for once real civility: for you know he lives among savages in
Scotland, and among rakes in London.' WILKES. 'Except when he is with
grave, sober, decent people like you and me.' JOHNSON (smiling). 'And
we ashamed of him.'"
Boswell did not mind this kind of chaff. He was too pleased with his
"successful negociation."
Once or twice Johnson went too far, even for Boswell's humble devotion:
"On Saturday, May 2, [1778] I dined with him at Sir Joshua Reynolds's,
where there was a very large company ... less attention was paid to
him than usual, which put him out of humour; and upon some imaginary
offence from me, he attacked me with such rudeness, that I was vexed
and angry.... I was so much hurt, and had my pride so much roused, that
I kept away from him for a week...."
"On Friday, May 8, I dined with him at Mr Langton's. I was reserved and
silent, which I suppose he perceived, and might recollect the cause.
After dinner when ... we were by ourselves, he drew his chair near to
mine, and said, in a tone of conciliating courtesy, 'Well, how have you
done?' BOSWELL. 'Sir, you have made me very uneasy by your behaviour to
me when we were last at Sir Joshua Reynolds's. You know, my dear Sir,
no man has a greater respect and affection for you, or would sooner
go to the end of the world to serve you. Now to treat me so--.' He
insisted that I had interrupted him, which I assured him was not the
case; and proceeded--'But why treat me so before people who neither
love you nor me?' JOHNSON. 'Well, I am sorry for it. I'll make it up
to you twenty different ways, as you please.' BOSWELL. 'I said to-day
to Sir Joshua, when he observed that you _tossed_ me sometimes--I
don't care how often, or how high he 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.'"
But these tiffs were rare. "My regard for you" Johnson told Boswell
with a sincerity we cannot doubt "is greater almost than I have words
to express; but I do not choose to be always repeating it."
He did so, however, in many a letter to his friend:
"My dear Boswell," he wrote "do not neglect to write to me; for your
kindness is one of the pleasures of my life, which I should be sorry to
lose."
Boswell's reply was no less sincere:
"Be assured, my dear Sir, that my affection and reverence for you are
exalted and steady. I do not believe that a more perfect attachment
ever existed in the history of mankind."
_David Garrick_
Except for the part he played in Johnson's _Irene_, we have heard
little of David Garrick since he came to London in 1737 "with
three-halfpence in his pocket."
He at first entered Lincoln's Inn to study the law, but he had a
passion for the stage and made his first appearance in the part of a
harlequin. Unlike Johnson, he did not have to face a long period of
poverty and 'cold obscurity'; he received a legacy of £1000 and before
he had spent it all, his acting of the part of _Richard III_ in 1741
quickly made him famous.
Mr Pope declared: "That young man never had his equal as an actor and
he never will have a rival," and there were "a dozen dukes of a night"
at the theatre in Goodman's Fields.
He made large sums of money and in a few years' time became manager of
Drury Lane theatre, where he tried hard, but in vain, to make Johnson's
tragedy a success.
In the bitterness of his early struggle Johnson was no doubt a little
jealous of his old pupil.
"His being outstripped by his pupil" says Boswell "in the race of
immediate fame, as well as of fortune, probably made him feel some
indignation, as thinking that whatever might be Garrick's merits in
his art, the reward was too great when compared with what the most
successful efforts of literary labour could attain.... His schoolfellow
and friend, Dr Taylor, told me a pleasant anecdote of Johnson's
triumphing over his pupil David Garrick. When that great actor had
played some little time at Goodman's fields, Johnson and Taylor went
to see him perform, and afterwards passed the evening at a tavern with
him and old Giffard[22]. Johnson ... after censuring some mistakes in
emphasis which Garrick had committed in the course of that night's
acting, said, 'the players, Sir, have got a kind of rant, with which
they run on, without any regard to accent or emphasis.' Both Garrick
and Giffard were offended at this sarcasm, and endeavoured to refute
it; upon which Johnson rejoined, 'Well now, I'll give you something
to speak, with which you are little acquainted, and then we shall see
how just my observation is. That shall be the criterion. Let me hear
you repeat the ninth Commandment, "Thou shalt not bear false witness
against thy neighbour."' Both tried at it, said Dr Taylor, and both
mistook the emphasis, which should be upon _not_ and _false witness_.
Johnson put them right, and enjoyed his victory with great glee."
[Illustration: A PIT CHECK, GOODMAN'S FIELDS THEATRE]
[Illustration: DRURY LANE THEATRE]
Whether Johnson was right or not may still be argued, but he loved to
get Davy back at school again. Garrick, too, retained some of his
school-boy tricks of mimicry:
"He could imitate Johnson very exactly.... I recollect his exhibiting
him to me one day, as if saying, 'Davy has some convivial pleasantry
about him, but 'tis a futile fellow;' which he uttered perfectly with
the tone and air of Johnson."
Johnson's provincial accent (he pronounced _once_ as _woonse_) gave
Garrick another opening:
"Garrick sometimes used to take him off, squeezing a lemon into a
punch-bowl, with uncouth gesticulations, looking round the company, and
calling out, 'Who's for _poonsh_?'"
Johnson, for his part, never quite got rid of his feeling of contempt
for the actor's profession. He often discussed it with Boswell:
"BOSWELL. 'Sir ..., you never will allow merit to a player.'
JOHNSON. 'Merit, Sir! what merit? Do you respect a rope-dancer, or a
ballad-singer?' BOSWELL. 'No, Sir: but we respect a great player, as a
man who can conceive lofty sentiments and can express them gracefully.'
JOHNSON. 'What, Sir, a fellow who claps a hump on his back, and a lump
on his leg, and cries "_I am Richard the Third?_"' ... BOSWELL. 'My
dear Sir! you may turn anything into ridicule ... a great player does
what very few are capable to do: his art is a very rare faculty. _Who_
can repeat Hamlet's soliloquy, "To be, or not to be," as Garrick does
it?' JOHNSON. 'Anybody may. Jemmy, there (a boy about eight years old,
who was in the room), will do it as well in a week.' BOSWELL. 'No, no,
Sir: and as a proof of the merit of great acting, and of the value
which mankind set upon it, Garrick has got a hundred thousand pounds.'
JOHNSON. 'Is getting a hundred thousand pounds a proof of excellence?
That has been done by a scoundrel commissary.'"
Poor Bozzy! "I was _sure_, for once," he says, "that I had the best
side of the argument." As if that made any difference to Johnson when
he was "talking for victory"!
Both Garrick and Johnson were lovers of books--but in a different way.
Johnson was "born to grapple with whole libraries," as Boswell's uncle
said, but he did not treat a rare volume with the tender care of a
collector. When he was putting his books in order, he wore a pair of
large gloves "such as hedgers use," and "buffeted" them so that clouds
of dust flew round him. When he was reading a new book it was said that
"he tore out the heart of it"; when he was tidying his old ones it is
to be feared that he sometimes tore off the covers of them. Garrick had
some old and valued editions, and seems to have offended Johnson by
hesitating to lend them to him. Even Boswell admits that "considering
the slovenly and careless manner in which books were treated by
Johnson, it could not be expected that scarce and valuable editions
should have been lent to him."
Garrick, moreover, had learnt by experience. Here is the story as he
told it to Miss Burney:
"'David!' said Johnson, 'will you lend me your _Petrarca_[23]?'
'Y-e-s, Sir!' 'David! you sigh?' 'Sir--you shall have it certainly.'
Accordingly the book, stupendously bound, I sent to him that very
evening. But scarcely had he taken it in his hands, when, as Boswell
tells me, he poured forth a Greek ejaculation and a couplet or two from
Horace, and then in one of those fits of enthusiasm which always seem
to require that he should spread his arms aloft, he suddenly pounces my
poor _Petrarca_ over his head upon the floor. And then, standing for
several minutes lost in abstraction, he forgot probably that he had
ever seen it."
As his old schoolmaster, Johnson took good care that Garrick should not
suffer from swelled head:
"Not very long after the institution of our club, Sir Joshua Reynolds
was speaking of it to Garrick. 'I like it much, (said he,) I think
I shall be of you.' When Sir Joshua mentioned this to Dr Johnson,
he was much displeased with the actor's conceit. '_He'll be of us_,
(said Johnson) how does he know we will _permit_ him? The first Duke
in England has no right to hold such language.' However, when Garrick
was regularly proposed some time afterwards, Johnson, though he had
taken a momentary offence at his arrogance, warmly and kindly supported
him, and he was accordingly elected, was a most agreeable member, and
continued to attend our meetings to the time of his death."
Each of them, indeed, was ready to help the other when he could.
When the advertisement of Johnson's _Dictionary_ appeared in _The
Gentleman's Magazine_, there was printed beneath it a complimentary
ode, written by Garrick, and ending with the lines:
And Johnson, well arm'd like a hero of yore,
Has beat forty French, and will beat forty more![24]
When Drury Lane theatre was first opened under the management of
Garrick, the prologue (one of the two decent prologues in the language,
according to Byron) was written by Johnson. It is a fine appeal to the
public to support Garrick in ennobling the stage by the revival of
Shakespeare:
Ah! let not censure term our fate our choice,
The stage but echoes back the public voice;
The drama's laws, the drama's patrons give,
For we that live to please, must please to live.
The truth was, as Sir Joshua Reynolds said:
"Johnson considered Garrick to be as it were his _property_. He would
allow no man either to blame or to praise Garrick in his presence,
without contradicting him."
Boswell discovered this, as we have seen, at the famous meeting in Tom
Davies's back parlour.
Garrick died in 1779 and was buried with great pomp in Westminster
Abbey. His death provoked one of the most famous of all Johnson's
sentences:
"That stroke of death" he wrote, "has eclipsed the gaiety of nations."
[Illustration: DAVID GARRICK]
Of his personal character Johnson said even finer things and when
Boswell tried to press him, he retired, as usual, defeated:
"JOHNSON. 'Garrick was a very good man, the cheerfullest man of
his age; a decent liver in a profession which is supposed to give
indulgence to licentiousness; and a man who gave away, freely, money
acquired by himself. He began the world with a great hunger for money;
the son of a half-pay officer, bred in a family, whose study was to
make four-pence do as much as others made four-pence halfpenny do. But,
when he had got money, he was very liberal....'
[BOSWELL] 'You say, Sir, his death eclipsed the gaiety of nations.'
JOHNSON. 'I could not have said more nor less. It is the truth;
_eclipsed_, not _extinguished_; and his death _did_ eclipse; it was
like a storm.' BOSWELL. 'But why nations? Did his gaiety extend farther
than his own nation?' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, some exaggeration must be
allowed. Besides, nations may be said--if we allow the Scotch to be
a nation, and to have gaiety,--which they have not. _You_ are an
exception, though. Come, gentlemen, let us candidly admit that there is
one Scotchman who is cheerful.' BEAUCLERK. 'But he is a very unnatural
Scotchman.'"
Oliver Goldsmith once wrote a series of playful epitaphs for his
friends. These were his first two lines on Garrick:
Here lies David Garrick, describe him who can,
An abridgment of all that was pleasant in man.