But the most intimate in the house, amongst the Wits, from being the
personal favourite of Mr. Thrale, was Mr. Murphy; who, for gaiety
of spirits, powers of dramatic effect, stories of strong humour and
resistless risibility, was nearly unequalled: and they were coupled
with politeness of address, gentleness of speech, and well bred, almost
courtly, demeanour.
He was a man of great erudition,[32] without one particle of pedantry;
and a stranger not only to spleen and malevolence, but the happiest
promoter of convivial hilarity.
With what pleasure, and what pride, does the editor copy, from an
ancient diary, the following words that passed between Dr. Johnson
and Mr. Murphy, relative to Dr. Burney, upon the first meeting of the
editor with Mr. Murphy at Streatham!
Mrs. Thrale was lamenting the sudden disappearance of Dr. Burney, who
was just gone to town _sans adieu_; declaring that he was the most
complete male-coquet she knew, for he only gave just enough of his
company to make more desired.
“Dr. Burney,” said Mr. Murphy, “is, indeed, a most extraordinary man. I
think I do not know such another. He is at home upon all subjects; and
upon all is so highly agreeable! I look upon him as a wonderful man.”
“I love Burney!” cried Dr. Johnson, emphatically: “my heart, as I told
him—goes out to meet Burney!”
“He is not ungrateful, Sir,” cried the Doctor’s bairne, “for heartily
indeed does he love you!”
“Does he, Madam?” said the Doctor, looking at her earnestly: “I am
surprised at that!”
“And why, Sir?—Why should you have doubted it?”
“Because, Madam,” answered he, gravely, “Dr. Burney is a man for every
body to love. It is but natural to love _him_!”
He paused, as if with an idea of a self-conceived contrast not
gaifying; but he soon cheerfully added, “I question if there be in
the world such another man, altogether, for mind, intelligence, and
manners, as Dr. Burney.”
Dr. Johnson, at this time, was engaged in writing his Lives of the
Poets; a work, to him, so light and easy, that it never robbed his
friends of one moment of the time that he would, otherwise, have spared
to their society. Lives, however, strictly speaking, they are not; he
merely employed in them such materials, with respect to biography,
as he had already at hand, without giving himself any trouble in
researches for what might be new, or unknown; though he gladly accepted
any that were offered to him, if well authenticated, The critical
investigations alone he considered as his business. He himself never
named them but as prefaces. No man held in nobler scorn, a promise that
out-went performance.
The ease and good-humour with which he fulfilled this engagement, made
the present a moment peculiarly propitious for the opening acquaintance
with him of the new, and by no means very hardened author; for whose
terrors of public notice he had a mercy the most indulgent. He quickly
saw that—whether wise or not—they were true; and soothed them without
raillery or reprehension; though in this he stood nearly alone! Her
fears of him, therefore, were soon softened off by his kindness; or
dispelled by her admiration.
The friendship with which so early he had honoured the father, was
gently and at once, with almost unparalleled partiality, extended to
the daughter: and, in truth, the whole current of his intercourse with
both was as unruffled by storm as it was enlightened by wisdom.
While this charming work was in its progress, when only the Thrale
family and its nearly adopted guests, the two Burneys, were assembled,
Dr. Johnson would frequently produce one of its proof sheets to
embellish the breakfast table, which was always in the library; and
was, certainly, the most sprightly and agreeable meeting of the day;
for then, as no strangers were present to stimulate exertion, or
provoke rivalry, argument was not urged on by the mere spirit of
victory; it was instigated only by such truisms as could best bring
forth that conflict of _pros_ and _cons_ which elucidates opposing
opinions. Wit was not flashed with the keen sting of satire; yet it
elicited not less gaiety from sparkling with an unwounding brilliancy,
which brightened without inflaming, every eye, and charmed without
tingling, every ear.
These proof sheets Mrs. Thrale was permitted to read aloud; and the
discussions to which they led were in the highest degree entertaining.
Dr. Burney wistfully desired to possess one of them; but left to his
daughter the risk of the petition. A hint, however, proved sufficient,
and was understood not alone with compliance, but vivacity. Boswell,
Dr. Johnson said, had engaged Frank Barber, his negro servant, to
collect and preserve all the proof sheets; but though it had not been
without the knowledge, it was without the order or the interference
of their author: to the present solicitor, therefore, willingly
and without scruple, he now offered an entire life; adding, with a
benignant smile, “Choose your poet!”
Without scruple, also, was the acceptance; and, without hesitation,
the choice was Pope. And that not merely because, next to Shakespeare
himself, Pope draws human characters the most veridically, perhaps,
of any poetic delineator; but for yet another reason. Dr. Johnson
composed with so ready an accuracy, that he sent his copy to the
press unread; reserving all his corrections for the proof sheets:[33]
and, consequently, as not even Dr. Johnson could read twice without
ameliorating some passages, his proof sheets were at times liberally
marked with changes; and, as the Museum copy of Pope’s Translation of
the Iliad, from which Dr. Johnson has given many examples, contains
abundant emendations by Pope, the Memorialist secured at once, on the
same page, the marginal alterations and second thoughts of that great
author, and of his great biographer.
When the book was published, Dr. Johnson brought to Streatham a complete
set, handsomely bound, of the Works of the Poets, as well as his own
Prefaces, to present to Mr. and Mrs. Thrale. And then, telling this
Memorialist that to the King, and to the chiefs of Streatham alone he
could offer so large a tribute, he most kindly placed before her a
bound copy of his own part of the work; in the title page of which he
gratified her earnest request by writing her name, and “From the Author.”
After which, at her particular solicitation, he gave her a small
engraving of his portrait from the picture of Sir Joshua Reynolds. And
while, some time afterwards, she was examining it at a distant table,
Dr. Johnson, in passing across the room, stopt to discover by what she
was occupied; which he no sooner discerned, than he began see-sawing
for a moment or two in silence; and then, with a ludicrous half laugh,
peeping over her shoulder, he called out: “Ah ha!—Sam Johnson!—I see
thee!—and an ugly dog thou art!”
He even extended his kindness to a remembrance of Mr. Bewley, the
receiver and preserver of the wisp of a Bolt Court hearth-broom, as
a relic of the Author of the Rambler; which anecdote Dr. Burney had
ventured to confess: and Dr. Johnson now, with his compliments, sent a
set of the Prefaces to St. Martin’s-street, directed,
“_For the Broom Gentleman_:”
which Mr. Bewley received with rapturous gratitude.
Dr. Johnson wrote nothing that was so immediately popular as his
Lives of the Poets. Such a subject was of universal attraction, and he
treated it with a simplicity that made it of universal comprehension.
In all that belonged to classical criticism, he had a facility so
complete, that to speak or to write produced immediately the same clear
and sagacious effect. His pen was as luminous as his tongue, and his
tongue was as correct as his pen.
Yet those—and there are many—who estimate these Prefaces as the
best of his works, must surely so judge them from a species of
mental indolence, that prefers what is easiest of perusal to what
is most illuminating: for rich as are these Prefaces in ideas and
information, their subjects have so long been familiar to every English
reader, that they require no stretch of intellect, or exercise of
reflection, to lead him, without effort, to accompany the writer in
his annotations and criticisms. The Rambler, on the contrary, embodies
a course equally new of Thought and of Expression; the development
of which cannot always be foreseen, even by the deepest reasoner and
the keenest talents, because emanating from original genius. To make
acquaintance, therefore, with the Rambler, the general peruser must
pause, occasionally, to think as well as to read; and to clear away
sundry mists of prejudice, or ignorance, ere he can keep pace with the
sublime author, when the workings of his mind, his imagination, and his
knowledge, are thrown upon mankind.