[32] It is curious that Johnson, who was not exactly delicate in his
manner of eating (see p. 64), should be greatly upset by this. But he
complained of the same thing of a waiter in Edinburgh.
[33] See p. 45.
[34] Johnson produced an abridged edition in 1756.
_The True-Born Englishman_
For all his love of a post-chaise, Johnson was happiest in London. "You
yourself, Sir," said Boswell when they were in the Hebrides "have never
seen, till now, any thing but your native island." "JOHNSON. 'But,
Sir, by seeing London, I have seen as much of life as the world can
shew.' BOSWELL. 'You have not seen Pekin.' JOHNSON. 'What is Pekin? Ten
thousand Londoners would _drive_ all the people of Pekin: they would
drive them like deer.'"
The town, he said, was his element. He rejoiced in the "animated
appearance" of Fleet Street and "the full tide of life" at Charing
Cross, not so much because he loved shops and pavements better than
fields and hedgerows, as because London held his friends, his books,
and his amusements. Boswell once suggested that he himself might grow
tired of the city if he lived continuously in it:
"JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, you find no man, at all intellectual, who is
willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is
tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford'"; and
to the very end he found that "such conversation as London affords,
could be found nowhere else."
So, in his last illness in November 1784, he came to London to die. A
month later he was buried in Westminster Abbey; Edmund Burke and Bennet
Langton helped to bear the pall and Dr Taylor read the service. His
monument, which Reynolds did not wish to see in the overcrowded Abbey,
was erected in St Paul's Cathedral, and it is fitting that the nation's
memorial of Dr Johnson should be within sound of Fleet Street.
If London meant life to Johnson, it meant the life of England. His
prejudice against foreigners was of the old-fashioned kind:
"Like the ancient Greeks and Romans, he allowed himself to look upon
all nations but his own as barbarians.... If he was particularly
prejudiced against the Scots, it was because they were more in his
way; because he thought their success in England rather exceeded the
due proportion of their real merit.... He was indeed, if I may be
allowed the phrase, much of a _John Bull_; much of a blunt _true
born Englishman_."
[Illustration: FLEET STREET IN JOHNSON'S DAY]
His hatred of the Whigs was life-long and violent--the first Whig,
he said, was the Devil; but whatever may be thought of his political
opinions, there can be no doubt of his patriotism. What did he mean by
a patriot[35]? Here is his definition:
"A PATRIOT is he whose publick conduct is regulated by one single
motive, the love of his country; who, as an agent in parliament, has
for himself neither hope nor fear, neither kindness nor resentment, but
refers everything to the common interest. A true patriot is no lavish
promiser; he undertakes not to shorten parliament, to repeal laws....
Much less does he make a vague and indefinite promise of obeying the
mandates of his constituents.... He considers himself as deputed to
promote the publick good, and to preserve his constituents, with the
rest of his countrymen, not only from being hurt by others, but from
hurting themselves."
Johnson had no patience with a popular cry for liberty, such as was
raised by the crowds that rallied round John Wilkes. "They make a rout"
he said "about _universal_ liberty, without considering that all that
is to be valued, or indeed can be enjoyed by individuals, is _private_
liberty."
Sir Adam Fergusson, a Scotch member of parliament, once suggested that
luxury corrupts a people and destroys the spirit of liberty:
"JOHNSON. 'Sir, that is all visionary. I would not give half a guinea
to live under one form of government rather than another. It is of no
moment to the happiness of an individual.' ... SIR ADAM. 'But, Sir, in
the British constitution it is surely of importance to keep up a spirit
in the people, so as to preserve a balance against the crown.' JOHNSON.
'Sir, I perceive you are a vile Whig. Why all this childish jealousy of
the power of the crown? The crown has not power enough. When I say that
all governments are alike, I consider that in no government power can
be abused long. Mankind will not bear it. If a sovereign oppresses his
people to a great degree, they will rise and cut off his head.'"
It was his contempt for _political_ liberty that made him vehemently
support the losing side in the American War. He regarded the colonists
as rebels and _Taxation no Tyranny_ was the title of a pamphlet he
wrote in support of the king's cause.
But what specially enraged him was that the cry of "liberty" should be
raised by slave-owners. "How is it" he asked "that we hear the loudest
_yelps_ for liberty among the drivers of negroes?"
Nearly fifty years before the abolition of slavery was first discussed
in Parliament, Johnson had maintained "the natural right of the negroes
to liberty and independence." "An individual" he said "may, indeed,
forfeit his liberty by a crime; but he cannot by that crime forfeit
the liberty of his children."
Johnson's loyalty to the Crown was strengthened by an interview he had
with George III in 1767. It was in the library at the Queen's house[36]:
"His Majesty enquired if he was then writing any thing.... Johnson
said, he thought he had already done his part as a writer. 'I should
have thought so too, (said the King,) if you had not written so
well.'--Johnson observed to me, upon this, that 'No man could have
paid a handsomer compliment; and it was fit for a King to pay. It was
decisive.' When asked by another friend, at Sir Joshua Reynolds's,
whether he made any reply to this high compliment, he answered, 'No,
Sir. When the King had said it, it was to be so. It was not for me to
bandy civilities with my Sovereign.'"
Had he so chosen, Johnson might have entered Parliament. To the friends
of the king, it was urged, he would be found a lamb, to his enemies a
lion.
But Johnson knew that he was better fitted to be a public oracle in
Fleet Street than to catch the Speaker's eye at Westminster.
A true-born Englishman, he extolled the English virtues of honesty and
courage. Of the 'English common soldier' he wrote:
"Our nation may boast, beyond any other people in the world, of a kind
of epidemick bravery, diffused equally through all its ranks. We can
shew a peasantry of heroes, and fill our armies with clowns, whose
courage may vie with that of their general."
"Sir," he said at another time "you know courage is reckoned the
greatest of all virtues; because, unless a man has that virtue, he has
no security for preserving any other."
He himself had no small measure of it. True, he had an "aweful dread of
death, or rather 'of something after death,'" but "he feared nothing
else, not even what might occasion death":
"One day ... when two large dogs were fighting, he went up to them, and
beat them till they separated; and at another time, when told of the
danger there was that a gun might burst if charged with many balls, he
put in six or seven, and fired it off against a wall.... He told me
himself that one night he was attacked in the street by four men, to
whom he would not yield, but kept them all at bay, till the watch came
up, and carried both him and them to the round-house. In the play-house
at Lichfield, as Mr Garrick informed me, Johnson having for a moment
quitted a chair which was placed for him between the side-scenes, a
gentleman took possession of it, and when Johnson on his return civilly
demanded his seat, rudely refused to give it up; upon which Johnson
laid hold of it, and tossed him and the chair into the pit."