Samuel Johnson - Leslie Stephen
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 _tete-a-tete_ 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.