Chapter II: Part 2

This facility of writing, and this dilatoriness ever to write, Mr. Johnson always retained, from the days that he lay abed and dictated his first publication to Mr. Hector, who acted as his amanuensis, to the moment he made me copy out those variations in Pope's "Homer" which are printed in the "Poets' Lives." "And now," said he, when I had finished it for him, "I fear not Mr. Nicholson of a pin." The fine 'Rambler,' on the subject of Procrastination, was hastily composed, as I have heard, in Sir Joshua Reynolds's parlour, while the boy waited to carry it to press; and numberless are the instances of his writing under immediate pressure of importunity or distress. He told me that the character of Sober in the 'Idler' was by himself intended as his own portrait, and that he had his own outset into life in his eye when he wrote the Eastern story of "Gelaleddin." Of the allegorical papers in the 'Rambler,' Labour and Rest was his favourite; but Scrotinus, the man who returns late in life to receive honours in his native country, and meets with mortification instead of respect, was by him considered as a masterpiece in the science of life and manners. The character of Prospero in the fourth volume Garrick took to be his; and I have heard the author say that he never forgave the offence. Sophron was likewise a picture drawn from reality, and by Gelidus, the philosopher, he meant to represent Mr. Coulson, a mathematician, who formerly lived at Rochester. The man immortalised for purring like a cat was, as he told me, one Busby, a proctor in the Commons. He who barked so ingeniously, and then called the drawer to drive away the dog, was father to Dr. Salter, of the Charterhouse. He who sang a song, and by correspondent motions of his arm chalked out a giant on the wall, was one Richardson, an attorney. The letter signed "Sunday" was written by Miss Talbot; and he fancied the billets in the first volume of the 'Rambler' were sent him by Miss Mulso, now Mrs. Chapone. The papers contributed by Mrs. Carter had much of his esteem, though he always blamed me for preferring the letter signed "Chariessa" to the allegory, where religion and superstition are indeed most masterly delineated.

When Dr. Johnson read his own satire, in which the life of a scholar is painted, with the various obstructions thrown in his way to fortune and to fame, he burst into a passion of tears one day. The family and Mr. Scott only were present, who, in a jocose way, clapped him on the back, and said, "What's all this, my dear sir? Why, you and I and _Hercules_, you know, were all troubled with _melancholy_." As there are many gentlemen of the same name, I should say, perhaps, that it was a Mr. Scott who married Miss Robinson, and that I think I have heard Mr. Thrale call him George Lowis, or George Augustus, I have forgot which. He was a very large man, however, and made out the triumvirate with Johnson and Hercules comically enough. The Doctor was so delighted at his odd sally that he suddenly embraced him, and the subject was immediately changed. I never saw Mr. Scott but that once in my life.

Dr. Johnson was liberal enough in granting literary assistance to others, I think; and innumerable are the prefaces, sermons, lectures, and dedications which he used to make for people who begged of him. Mr. Murphy related in his and my hearing one day, and he did not deny it, that when Murphy joked him the week before for having been so diligent of late between Dodd's sermon and Kelly's prologue, Dr. Johnson replied, "Why, sir, when they come to me with a dead staymaker and a dying parson, what can a man do?" He _said_, however, that "he hated to give away literary performances, or even to sell them too cheaply. The next generation shall not accuse me," added he, "of beating down the price of literature. One hates, besides, ever to give that which one has been accustomed to sell. Would not you, sir," turning to Mr. Thrale, "rather give away money than porter?"

Mr. Johnson had never, by his own account, been a close student, and used to advise young people never to be without a book in their pocket, to be read at bye-times when they had nothing else to do. "It has been by that means," said he to a boy at our house one day, "that all my knowledge has been gained, except what I have picked up by running about the world with my wits ready to observe, and my tongue ready to talk. A man is seldom in a humour to unlock his bookcase, set his desk in order, and betake himself to serious study; but a retentive memory will do something, and a fellow shall have strange credit given him, if he can but recollect striking passages from different books, keep the authors separate in his head, and bring his stock of knowledge artfully into play. How else," added he, "do the gamesters manage when they play for more money than they are worth?" His Dictionary, however, could not, one would think, have been written by running up and down; but he really did not consider it as a great performance; and used to say "that he might have done it easily in two years had not his health received several shocks during the time."

When Mr. Thrale, in consequence of this declaration, teased him in the year 1768 to give a new edition of it, because, said he, there are four or five gross faults: "Alas! sir," replied Johnson, "there are four or five hundred faults instead of four or five; but you do not consider that it would take me up three whole months' labour, and when the time was expired the work would not be done." When the booksellers set him about it, however, some years after, he went cheerfully to the business, said he was well paid, and that they deserved to have it done carefully. His reply to the person who complimented him on its coming out first, mentioning the ill success of the French in a similar attempt, is well known, and, I trust, has been often recorded. "Why, what would you expect, dear sir," said he, "from fellows that eat frogs?" I have, however, often thought Dr. Johnson more free than prudent in professing so loudly his little skill in the Greek language; for though he considered it as a proof of a narrow mind to be too careful of literary reputation, yet no man could be more enraged than he if an enemy, taking advantage of this confession, twitted him with his ignorance; and I remember when the King of Denmark was in England one of his noblemen was brought by Mr. Colman to see Dr. Johnson at our country house, and having heard, he said, that he was not famous for Greek literature, attacked him on the weak side, politely adding that he chose that conversation on purpose to favour himself. Our Doctor, however, displayed so copious, so compendious a knowledge of authors, books, and every branch of learning in that language, that the gentleman appeared astonished. When he was gone home, says Johnson, "Now, for all this triumph I may thank Thrale's Xenophon here, as I think, excepting that _one_, I have not looked in a Greek book these ten years; but see what haste my dear friends were all in," continued he, "to tell this poor innocent foreigner that I know nothing of Greek! Oh, no, he knows nothing of Greek!" with a loud burst of laughing.

When Davies printed the "Fugitive Pieces" without his knowledge or consent, "How," said I, "would Pope have raved, had he been served so!" "We should never," replied he, "have heard the last on't, to be sure; but then Pope was a narrow man. I will, however," added he, "storm and bluster _myself_ a little this time," so went to London in all the wrath he could muster up. At his return I asked how the affair ended. "Why," said he, "I was a fierce fellow, and pretended to be very angry; and Thomas was a good-natured fellow, and pretended to be very sorry; so _there_ the matter ended. I believe the dog loves me dearly. Mr. Thrale," turning to my husband, "what shall you and I do that is good for Tom Davies? We will do something for him, to be sure."

Of Pope as a writer he had the highest opinion, and once when a lady at our house talked of his preface to Shakespeare as superior to Pope's, "I fear not, madam," said he, "the little fellow has done wonders." His superior reverence of Dryden, notwithstanding, still appeared in his talk as in his writings; and when some one mentioned the ridicule thrown on him in the 'Rehearsal,' as having hurt his general character as an author, "On the contrary," says Mr. Johnson, "the greatness of Dryden's reputation is now the only principle of vitality which keeps the Duke of Buckingham's play from putrefaction."

It was not very easy, however, for people not quite intimate with Dr. Johnson to get exactly his opinion of a writer's merit, as he would now and then divert himself by confounding those who thought themselves obliged to say to-morrow what he had said yesterday; and even Garrick, who ought to have been better acquainted with his tricks, professed himself mortified that one time when he was extolling Dryden in a rapture that I suppose disgusted his friend, Mr. Johnson suddenly challenged him to produce twenty lines in a series that would not disgrace the poet and his admirer. Garrick produced a passage that he had once heard the Doctor commend, in which he _now_ found, if I remember rightly, sixteen faults, and made Garrick look silly at his own table. When I told Mr. Johnson the story, "Why, what a monkey was David now," says he, "to tell of his own disgrace!" And in the course of that hour's chat he told me how he used to tease Garrick by commendations of the tomb-scene in Congreve's 'Mourning Bride,' protesting, that Shakespeare had in the same line of excellence nothing as good. "All which is strictly _true_," said he; "but that is no reason for supposing Congreve is to stand in competition with Shakespeare: these fellows know not how to blame, nor how to commend." I forced him one day, in a similar humour, to prefer Young's description of "Night" to the so much admired ones of Dryden and Shakespeare, as more forcible and more general. Every reader is not either a lover or a tyrant, but every reader is interested when he hears that

"Creation sleeps; 'tis as the general pulse
Of life stood still, and nature made a pause;
An awful pause--prophetic of its end."

"This," said he, "is true; but remember that, taking the compositions of Young in general, they are but like bright stepping-stones over a miry road. Young froths and foams, and bubbles sometimes very vigorously; but we must not compare the noise made by your tea-kettle here with the roaring of the ocean."

Somebody was praising Corneille one day in opposition to Shakespeare. "Corneille is to Shakespeare," replied Mr. Johnson, "as a clipped hedge is to a forest." When we talked of Steele's Essays, "They are too thin," says our critic, "for an Englishman's taste: mere superficial observations on life and manners, without erudition enough to make them keep, like the light French wines, which turn sour with standing awhile for want of _body_, as we call it."

Of a much-admired poem, when extolled as beautiful, he replied, "That it had indeed the beauty of a bubble. The colours are gay," said he, "but the substance slight." Of James Harris's Dedication to his "Hermes," I have heard him observe that, though but fourteen lines long, there were six grammatical faults in it. A friend was praising the style of Dr. Swift; Mr. Johnson did not find himself in the humour to agree with him: the critic was driven from one of his performances to the other. At length, "You _must_ allow me," said the gentleman, "that there are _strong facts_ in the account of 'The Four Last Years of Queen Anne.'" "Yes, surely, sir," replies Johnson, "and so there are in the Ordinary of Newgate's account." This was like the story which Mr. Murphy tells, and Johnson always acknowledged: how Mr. Rose of Hammersmith, contending for the preference of Scotch writers over the English, after having set up his authors like ninepins, while the Doctor kept bowling them down again; at last, to make sure of victory, he named Ferguson upon "Civil Society," and praised the book for being written in a _new_ manner. "I do not," says Johnson, "perceive the value of this new manner; it is only like Buckinger, who had no hands, and so wrote with his feet." Of a modern Martial, when it came out: "There are in these verses," says Dr. Johnson, "too much folly for madness, I think, and too much madness for folly." If, however, Mr. Johnson lamented that the nearer he approached to his own times, the more enemies he should make, by telling biographical truths in his "Lives of the Later Poets," what may I not apprehend, who, if I relate anecdotes of Mr. Johnson, am obliged to repeat expressions of severity, and sentences of contempt? Let me at least soften them a little by saying that he did not hate the persons he treated with roughness, or despise them whom he drove from him by apparent scorn. He really loved and respected many whom he would not suffer to love him. And when he related to me a short dialogue that passed between himself and a writer of the first eminence in the world, when he was in Scotland, I was shocked to think how he must have disgusted him. "Dr. --- asked me," said he, "why I did not join in their public worship when among them? for," said he, "I went to your churches often when in England." "So," replied Johnson, "I have read that the Siamese sent ambassadors to Louis Quatorze, but I never heard that the King of France thought it worth his while to send ambassadors from his court to that of _Siam_." He was no gentler with myself, or those for whom I had the greatest regard. When I one day lamented the loss of a first cousin killed in America, "Prithee, my dear," said he, "have done with canting. How would the world be worse for it, I may ask, if all your relations were at once spitted like larks, and roasted for Presto's supper?" Presto was the dog that lay under the table while we talked. When we went into Wales together, and spent some time at Sir Robert Cotton's, at Lleweny, one day at dinner I meant to please Mr. Johnson particularly with a dish of very young peas. "Are not they charming?" said I to him, while he was eating them. "Perhaps," said he, "they would be so--to a _pig_."

I only instance these replies, to excuse my mentioning those he made to others.

When a well-known author published his poems in the year 1777: "Such a one's verses are come out," said I. "Yes," replied Johnson, "and this frost has struck them in again. Here are some lines I have written to ridicule them; but remember that I love the fellow dearly now, for all I laugh at him:--

"'Wheresoe'er I turn my view,
All is strange, yet nothing new;
Endless labour all along,
Endless labour to be wrong;
Phrase that Time has flung away;
Uncouth words in disarray,
Tricked in antique ruff and bonnet,
Ode, and elegy, and sonnet.'"

When he parodied the verses of another eminent writer, it was done with more provocation, I believe, and with some merry malice. A serious translation of the same lines, which I think are from Euripides, may be found in Burney's "History of Music." Here are the burlesque ones:--

"Err shall they not, who resolute explore
Time's gloomy backward with judicious eyes;
And scanning right the practices of yore,
Shall deem our hoar progenitors unwise.

"They to the dome where smoke with curling play
Announced the dinner to the regions round,
Summoned the singer blithe, and harper gay,
And aided wine with dulcet streaming sound.

"The better use of notes, or sweet or shrill,
By quivering string, or modulated wind;
Trumpet or lyre--to their harsh bosoms chill,
Admission ne'er had sought, or could not find.

"Oh! send them to the sullen mansions dun,
Her baleful eyes where Sorrow rolls around;
Where gloom-enamoured Mischief loves to dwell,
And Murder, all blood-boltered, schemes the wound.

"When cates luxuriant pile the spacious dish,
And purple nectar glads the festive hour;
The guest, without a want, without a wish,
Can yield no room to Music's soothing power."

Some of the old legendary stories put in verse by modern writers provoked him to caricature them thus one day at Streatham; but they are already well known, I am sure.

"The tender infant, meek and mild,
Fell down upon the stone;
The nurse took up the squealing child,
But still the child squealed on."

A famous ballad also, beginning 'Rio verde, Rio verde,' when I commended the translation of it, he said he could do it better himself--as thus:

"Glassy water, glassy water,
Down whose current clear and strong,
Chiefs confused in mutual slaughter,
Moor and Christian roll along."

"But, sir," said I, "this is not ridiculous at all." "Why, no," replied he, "why should I always write ridiculously? Perhaps because I made these verses to imitate such a one," naming him:

"'Hermit hoar, in solemn cell
Wearing out life's evening grey;
Strike thy bosom, sage! and tell
What is bliss, and which the way?'

"Thus I spoke, and speaking sighed,
Scarce repressed the starting tear,
When the hoary sage replied,
'Come, my lad, and drink some beer.'"

I could give another comical instance of caricatura imitation. Recollecting some day, when praising these verses of Lopez de Vega--

"Se acquien los leones vence,
Vence una muger hermosa,
O el de flaco averguence,
O ella di ser mas furiosa,"

more than he thought they deserved, Mr. Johnson instantly observed "that they were founded on a trivial conceit, and that conceit ill-explained and ill-expressed besides. The lady, we all know, does not conquer in the same manner as the lion does. 'Tis a mere play of words," added he, "and you might as well say that

"'If the man who turnips cries,
Cry not when his father dies,
'Tis a proof that he had rather
Have a turnip than his father.'"

And this humour is of the same sort with which he answered the friend who commended the following line:--

"Who rules o'er freemen should himself be free."

"To be sure," said Dr. Johnson--

"'Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat.'"

This readiness of finding a parallel, or making one, was shown by him perpetually in the course of conversation. When the French verses of a certain pantomime were quoted thus:

"Je suis Cassandre descendue des cieux,
Pour vous faire entendre, mesdames et messieurs,
Que je suis Cassandre descendue des cieux,"

he cried out gaily and suddenly, almost in a moment--

"I am Cassandra come down from the sky,
To tell each bystander what none can deny,
That I am Cassandra come down from the sky."

The pretty Italian verses, too, at the end of Baretti's book called "Easy Phraseology," he did all' improviso, in the same manner:

"Viva! viva la padrona!
Tutta bella, e tutta buona,
La padrona e un angiolella
Tutta buona e tutta bella;
Tutta bella e tutta buona;
Viva! viva la padrona!"

"Long may live my lovely Hetty!
Always young and always pretty,
Always pretty, always young,
Live my lovely Hetty long!
Always young and always pretty!
Long may live my lovely Hetty!"

The famous distich, too, of an Italian improvisatore, when the Duke of Modena ran away from the comet in the year 1742 or 1743:

"Se al venir vestro i principi sen' vanno,
Deh venga ogni di --- durate un anno;"

"which," said he, "would do just as well in our language thus:

"'If at your coming princes disappear,
Comets! come every day--and stay a year.'"

When some one in company commended the verses of M. de Benserade a son Lit:

"Theatre des ris et des pleurs,
Lit! on je nais, et ou je meurs,
Tu nous fais voir comment voisins
Sont nos plaisirs et nos chagrins."

To which he replied without hesitating--

"'In bed we laugh, in bed we cry,
And born in bed, in bed we die;
The near approach a bed may show
Of human bliss to human woe.'"

The inscription on the collar of Sir Joseph Banks's goat, which had been on two of his adventurous expeditions with him, and was then, by the humanity of her amiable master, turned out to graze in Kent as a recompense for her utility and faithful service, was given me by Johnson in the year 1777, I think, and I have never yet seen it printed:

"Perpetui, ambita, bis terra, premia lactis,
Haec habet altrici Capra secunda Jovis."

The epigram written at Lord Anson's house many years ago, "where," says Mr. Johnson, "I was well received and kindly treated, and with the true gratitude of a wit ridiculed the master of the house before I had left it an hour," has been falsely printed in many papers since his death. I wrote it down from his own lips one evening in August, 1772, not neglecting the little preface accusing himself of making so graceless a return for the civilities shown him. He had, among other elegancies about the park and gardens, been made to observe a temple to the winds, when this thought naturally presented itself _to a wit_:

"Gratum animum laudo; Qui debuit omnia ventis,
Quam bene ventorum, surgere templa jubet!"

A translation of Dryden's epigram, too, I used to fancy I had to myself:

"Quos laudet vates, Graius, Romanus, et Anglus,
Tres tria temporibus secla dedere suis:
Sublime ingenium, Graius,--Romanus habebat
Carmen grande sonans, Anglus utrumque tulit.
Nil majus natura capit: clarare priores
Quae potuere duos, tertius unus habet:"

from the famous lines written under Milton's picture:

"Three poets in three distant ages born,
Greece, Italy, and England did adorn;
The first in loftiness of thought surpassed,
The next in majesty; in both the last.
The force of Nature could no further go,
To make a third she joined the former two."

One evening in the oratorio season of the year 1771 Mr. Johnson went with me to Covent Garden Theatre, and though he was for the most part an exceedingly bad playhouse companion, as his person drew people's eyes upon the box, and the loudness of his voice made it difficult for me to hear anybody but himself, he sat surprisingly quiet, and I flattered myself that he was listening to the music. When we were got home, however, he repeated these verses, which he said he had made at the oratorio, and he bade me translate them:

IN THEATRO.

"Tertii verso quater orbe lustri
Quid theatrales tibi crispe pompae!
Quam decet canos male literatos
Sera voluptas!

"Tene mulceri fidibus canoris?
Tene cantorum modulis stupere?
Tene per pictas oculo elegante
Currere formas?

"Inter equales sine felle liber,
Codices veri studiosus inter
Rectius vives, sua quisque carpat
Gaudia gratus.

"Lusibus gaudet puer otiosis
Luxus oblectat juvenem theatri,
At seni fluxo sapienter uti
Tempore restat."

I gave him the following lines in imitation, which he liked well enough, I think:

"When threescore years have chilled thee quite,
Still can theatric scenes delight?
Ill suits this place with learned wight,
May Bates or Coulson cry.

"The scholar's pride can Brent disarm?
His heart can soft Guadagni warm?
Or scenes with sweet delusion charm
The climacteric eye?

"The social club, the lonely tower,
Far better suit thy midnight hour;
Let each according to his power
In worth or wisdom shine!

"And while play pleases idle boys,
And wanton mirth fond youth employs,
To fix the soul, and free from toys,
That useful task be thine."

The copy of verses in Latin hexameters, as well as I remember, which he wrote to Dr. Lawrence, I forgot to keep a copy of; and he obliged me to resign his translation of the song beginning, "Busy, curious, thirsty fly," for him to give Mr. Langton, with a promise _not_ to retain a copy. I concluded he knew why, so never inquired the reason. He had the greatest possible value for Mr. Langton, of Langton Hall, Lincoln, of whose virtue and learning he delighted to talk in very exalted terms; and poor Dr. Lawrence had long been his friend and confident. The conversation I saw them hold together in Essex Street one day, in the year 1781 or 1782, was a melancholy one, and made a singular impression on my mind. He was himself exceedingly ill, and I accompanied him thither for advice. The physician was, however, in some respects more to be pitied than the patient. Johnson was panting under an asthma and dropsy, but Lawrence had been brought home that very morning struck with the palsy, from which he had, two hours before we came, strove to awaken himself by blisters. They were both deaf, and scarce able to speak besides: one from difficulty of breathing, the other from paralytic debility. To give and receive medical counsel, therefore, they fairly sat down on each side a table in the doctor's gloomy apartment, adorned with skeletons, preserved monsters, etc., and agreed to write Latin billets to each other. Such a scene did I never see. "You," said Johnson, "are timide and gelide," finding that his friend had prescribed palliative, not drastic, remedies. "It is not _me_," replies poor Lawrence, in an interrupted voice, "'tis nature that is gelide and timide." In fact, he lived but few months after, I believe, and retained his faculties still a shorter time. He was a man of strict piety and profound learning, but little skilled in the knowledge of life or manners, and died without having ever enjoyed the reputation he so justly deserved.

Mr. Johnson's health had been always extremely bad since I first knew him, and his over-anxious care to retain without blemish the perfect sanity of his mind contributed much to disturb it. He had studied medicine diligently in all its branches, but had given particular attention to the diseases of the imagination, which he watched in himself with a solicitude destructive of his own peace, and intolerable to those he trusted. Dr. Lawrence told him one day that if he would come and beat him once a week he would bear it, but to hear his complaints was more than _man_ could support. 'Twas therefore that he tried, I suppose, and in eighteen years contrived to weary the patience of a _woman_. When Mr. Johnson felt his fancy, or fancied he felt it, disordered, his constant recurrence was to the study of arithmetic, and one day that he was totally confined to his chamber, and I inquired what he had been doing to divert himself, he showed me a calculation which I could scarce be made to understand, so vast was the plan of it, and so very intricate were the figures: no other, indeed, than that the national debt, computing it at one hundred and eighty millions sterling, would, if converted into silver, serve to make a meridian of that metal, I forgot how broad, for the globe of the whole earth, the real _globe_. On a similar occasion I asked him, knowing what subject he would like best to talk upon, how his opinion stood towards the question between Paschal and Soame Jennings about number and numeration? as the French philosopher observes that infinity, though on all sides astonishing, appears most so when the idea is connected with the idea of number; for the notion of infinite number--and infinite number we know there is--stretches one's capacity still more than the idea of infinite space. "Such a notion, indeed," adds he, "can scarcely find room in the human mind." Our English author, on the other hand, exclaims, let no man give himself leave to talk about infinite number, for infinite number is a contradiction in terms; whatever is once numbered, we all see, cannot be infinite. "I think," said Mr. Johnson, after a pause, "we must settle the matter thus: numeration is certainly infinite, for eternity might be employed in adding unit to unit; but every number is in itself finite, as the possibility of doubling it easily proves; besides, stop at what point you will, you find yourself as far from infinitude as ever." These passages I wrote down as soon as I had heard them, and repent that I did not take the same method with a dissertation he made one other day that he was very ill, concerning the peculiar properties of the number sixteen, which I afterwards tried, but in vain, to make him repeat.

As ethics or figures, or metaphysical reasoning, was the sort of talk he most delighted in, so no kind of conversation pleased him less, I think, than when the subject was historical fact or general polity. "What shall we learn from _that_ stuff?" said he. "Let us not fancy, like Swift, that we are exalting a woman's character by telling how she

"'Could name the ancient heroes round,
Explain for what they were renowned,' etc."

I must not, however, lead my readers to suppose that he meant to reserve such talk for men's company as a proof of pre-eminence. "He never," as he expressed it, "desired to hear of the Punic War while he lived; such conversation was lost time," he said, "and carried one away from common life, leaving no ideas behind which could serve _living wight_ as warning or direction."

"How I should act is not the case,
But how would Brutus in my place."

"And now," cries Mr. Johnson, laughing with obstreperous violence, "if these two foolish lines can be equalled in folly, except by the two succeeding ones--show them me."

I asked him once concerning the conversation powers of a gentleman with whom I was myself unacquainted. "He talked to me at club one day," replies our Doctor, "concerning Catiline's conspiracy, so I withdrew my attention, and thought about Tom Thumb."

Modern politics fared no better. I was one time extolling the character of a statesman, and expatiating on the skill required to direct the different currents, reconcile the jarring interests, etc. "Thus," replies he, "a mill is a complicated piece of mechanism enough, but the water is no part of the workmanship." On another occasion, when some one lamented the weakness of a then present minister, and complained that he was dull and tardy, and knew little of affairs: "You may as well complain, sir," says Johnson, "that the accounts of time are kept by the clock; for he certainly does stand still upon the stair-head--and we all know that he is no great chronologer." In the year 1777, or thereabouts, when all the talk was of an invasion, he said most pathetically one afternoon, "Alas! alas! how this unmeaning stuff spoils all my comfort in my friends' conversation! Will the people have done with it; and shall I never hear a sentence again without the _French_ in it? Here is no invasion coming, and you _know_ there is none. Let the vexatious and frivolous talk alone, or suffer it at least to teach you _one_ truth; and learn by this perpetual echo of even unapprehended distress how historians magnify events expected or calamities endured; when you know they are at this very moment collecting all the big words they can find, in which to describe a consternation never felt, for a misfortune which never happened. Among all your lamentations, who eats the less--who sleeps the worse, for one general's ill-success, or another's capitulation? _Oh_, _pray_ let us hear no more of it!" No man, however, was more zealously attached to his party; he not only loved a Tory himself, but he loved a man the better if he heard he hated a Whig. "Dear Bathurst," said he to me one day, "was a man to my very heart's content: he hated a fool, and he hated a rogue, and he hated a _Whig_; he was a very good _hater_."

Some one mentioned a gentleman of that party for having behaved oddly on an occasion where faction was not concerned: "Is he not a citizen of London, a native of North America, and a Whig?" says Johnson. "Let him be absurd, I beg you of you; when a monkey is _too_ like a man, it shocks one."

Severity towards the poor was, in Dr. Johnson's opinion (as is visible in his "Life of Addison" particularly), an undoubted and constant attendant or consequence upon Whiggism; and he was not contented with giving them relief, he wished to add also indulgence. He loved the poor as I never yet saw any one else do, with an earnest desire to make them happy. "What signifies," says some one, "giving halfpence to common beggars? they only lay it out in gin or tobacco." "And why should they be denied such sweeteners of their existence?" says Johnson; "it is surely very savage to refuse them every possible avenue to pleasure, reckoned too coarse for our own acceptance. Life is a pill which none of us can bear to swallow without gilding; yet for the poor we delight in stripping it still barer, and are not ashamed to show even visible displeasure if ever the bitter taste is taken from their mouths." In consequence of these principles he nursed whole nests of people in his house, where the lame, the blind, the sick, and the sorrowful found a sure retreat from all the evils whence his little income could secure them: and commonly spending the middle of the week at our house, he kept his numerous family in Fleet Street upon a settled allowance; but returned to them every Saturday, to give them three good dinners, and his company, before he came back to us on the Monday night--treating them with the same, or perhaps more ceremonious civility than he would have done by as many people of fashion--making the Holy Scriptures thus the rule of his conduct, and only expecting salvation as he was able to obey its precepts.

While Dr. Johnson possessed, however, the strongest compassion for poverty or illness, he did not even pretend to feel for those who lamented the loss of a child, a parent, or a friend. "These are the distresses of sentiment," he would reply, "which a man who is really to be pitied has no leisure to feel. The sight of people who want food and raiment is so common in great cities, that a surly fellow like me has no compassion to spare for wounds given only to vanity or softness." No man, therefore, who smarted from the ingratitude of his friends, found any sympathy from our philosopher. "Let him do good on higher motives next time," would be the answer; "he will then be sure of his reward." It is easy to observe that the justice of such sentences made them offensive; but we must be careful how we condemn a man for saying what we know to be true, only because it _is_ so. I hope that the reason our hearts rebelled a little against his severity was chiefly because it came from a living mouth. Books were invented to take off the odium of immediate superiority, and soften the rigour of duties prescribed by the teachers and censors of human kind--setting at least those who are acknowledged wiser than ourselves at a distance. When we recollect, however, that for this very reason _they_ are seldom consulted and little obeyed, how much cause shall his contemporaries have to rejoice that their living Johnson forced them to feel there proofs due to vice and folly, while Seneca and Tillotson were no longer able to make impression--except on our shelves! Few things, indeed, which pass well enough with others would do with him: he had been a great reader of Mandeville, and was ever on the watch to spy out those stains of original corruption so easily discovered by a penetrating observer even in the purest minds. I mentioned an event, which if it had happened would greatly have injured Mr. Thrale and his family--"and then, dear sir," said I, "how sorry you would have been!" "I _hope_," replied he, after a long pause, "I should have been _very_ sorry; but remember Rochefoucault's maxim."

"I would rather," answered I, "remember Prior's verses, and ask--

'What need of books these truths to tell,
Which folks perceive that cannot spell?
And must we spectacles apply,
To see what hurts our naked eye?'

Will _anybody's_ mind bear this eternal microscope that you place upon your own so?" "I never," replied he, "saw one that _would_, except that of my dear Miss Reynolds--and hers is very near to purity itself." Of slighter evils, and friends more distant than our own household, he spoke less cautiously. An acquaintance lost the almost certain hope of a good estate that had been long expected. "Such a one will grieve," said I, "at her friend's disappointment." "She will suffer as much, perhaps," said he, "as your horse did when your cow miscarried." I professed myself sincerely grieved when accumulated distresses crushed Sir George Colebrook's family; and I was so. "Your own prosperity," said he, "may possibly have so far increased the natural tenderness of your heart, that for aught I know you _may_ be a _little sorry_; but it is sufficient for a plain man if he does not laugh when he sees a fine new house tumble down all on a sudden, and a snug cottage stand by ready to receive the owner, whose birth entitled him to nothing better, and whose limbs are left him to go to work again with."

I tried to tell him in jest that his morality was easily contented, and when I have said something as if the wickedness of the world gave me concern, he would cry out aloud against canting, and protest that he thought there was very little gross wickedness in the world, and still less of extraordinary virtue. Nothing, indeed, more surely disgusted Dr. Johnson than hyperbole; he loved not to be told of sallies of excellence, which he said were seldom valuable, and seldom true. "Heroic virtues," said he, "are the bons mots of life; they do not appear often, and when they do appear are too much prized, I think, like the aloe-tree, which shoots and flowers once in a hundred years. But life is made up of little things; and that character is the best which does little but repeated acts of beneficence; as that conversation is the best which consists in elegant and pleasing thoughts expressed in natural and pleasing terms. With regard to my own notions of moral virtue," continued he, "I hope I have not lost my sensibility of wrong; but I hope, likewise, that I have lived long enough in the world to prevent me from expecting to find any action of which both the original motive and all the parts were good."

The piety of Dr. Johnson was exemplary and edifying; he was punctiliously exact to perform every public duty enjoined by the Church, and his spirit of devotion had an energy that affected all who ever saw him pray in private. The coldest and most languid hearer of the Word must have felt themselves animated by his manner of reading the Holy Scriptures; and to pray by his sick-bed required strength of body as well as of mind, so vehement were his manners, and his tones of voice so pathetic. I have many times made it my request to Heaven that I might be spared the sight of his death; and I was spared it.

Mr. Johnson, though in general a gross feeder, kept fast in Lent, particularly the Holy Week, with a rigour very dangerous to his general health; but though he had left off wine (for religious motives, as I always believed, though he did not own it), yet he did not hold the commutation of offences by voluntary penance, or encourage others to practise severity upon themselves. He even once said "that he thought it an error to endeavour at pleasing God by taking the rod of reproof out of His hands." And when we talked of convents, and the hardships suffered in them: "Remember always," said he, "that a convent is an idle place, and where there is nothing to be _done_ something must be _endured_: mustard has a bad taste per se, you may observe, but very insipid food cannot be eaten without it."

His respect, however, for places of religious retirement was carried to the greatest degree of earthly veneration; the Benedictine convent at Paris paid him all possible honours in return, and the Prior and he parted with tears of tenderness. Two of that college being sent to England on the mission some years after, spent much of their time with him at Bolt Court, I know, and he was ever earnest to retain their friendship; but though beloved by all his Roman Catholic acquaintance, particularly Dr. Nugent, for whose esteem he had a singular value, yet was Mr. Johnson a most unshaken Church of England man; and I think, or at least I once _did_ think, that a letter written by him to Mr. Barnard, the King's Librarian, when he was in Italy collecting books, contained some very particular advice to his friend to be on his guard against the seductions of the Church of Rome.

The settled aversion Dr. Johnson felt towards an infidel he expressed to all ranks, and at all times, without the smallest reserve; for though on common occasions he paid great deference to birth or title, yet his regard for truth and virtue never gave way to meaner considerations. We talked of a dead wit one evening, and somebody praised him. "Let us never praise talents so ill employed, sir; we foul our mouths by commending such infidels," said he. "Allow him the lumieres at least," entreated one of the company. "I do allow him, sir," replied Johnson, "just enough to light him to hell." Of a Jamaica gentleman, then lately dead: "He will not, whither he is now gone," said Johnson, "find much difference, I believe, either in the climate or the company." The Abbe Reynal probably remembers that, being at the house of a common friend in London, the master of it approached Johnson with that gentleman so much celebrated in his hand, and this speech in his mouth: "Will you permit me, sir, to present to you the Abbe Reynal?" "_No_, _sir_," replied the Doctor very loud, and suddenly turned away from them both.

Though Mr. Johnson had but little reverence either for talents or fortune when he found them unsupported by virtue, yet it was sufficient to tell him a man was very pious, or very charitable, and he would at least _begin_ with him on good terms, however the conversation might end. He would sometimes, too, good-naturedly enter into a long chat for the instruction or entertainment of people he despised. I perfectly recollect his condescending to delight my daughter's dancing-master with a long argument about _his_ art, which the man protested, at the close of the discourse, the Doctor knew more of than himself, who remained astonished, enlightened, and amused by the talk of a person little likely to make a good disquisition upon dancing. I have sometimes, indeed, been rather pleased than vexed when Mr. Johnson has given a rough answer to a man who perhaps deserved one only half as rough, because I knew he would repent of his hasty reproof, and make us all amends by some conversation at once instructive and entertaining, as in the following cases. A young fellow asked him abruptly one day, "Pray, sir, what and where is Palmyra? I heard somebody talk last night of the ruins of Palmyra." "'Tis a hill in Ireland," replies Johnson, "with palms growing on the top, and a bog at the bottom, and so they call it _Palm-mira_." Seeing, however, that the lad thought him serious, and thanked him for the information, he undeceived him very gently indeed: told him the history, geography, and chronology of Tadmor in the wilderness, with every incident that literature could furnish, I think, or eloquence express, from the building of Solomon's palace to the voyage of Dawkins and Wood.

On another occasion, when he was musing over the fire in our drawing-room at Streatham, a young gentleman called to him suddenly, and I suppose he thought disrespectfully, in these words: "Mr. Johnson, would you advise me to marry?" "I would advise no man to marry, sir," returns for answer in a very angry tone Dr. Johnson, "who is not likely to propagate understanding," and so left the room. Our companion looked confounded, and I believe had scarce recovered the consciousness of his own existence, when Johnson came back, and drawing his chair among us, with altered looks and a softened voice, joined in the general chat, insensibly led the conversation to the subject of marriage, where he laid himself out in a dissertation so useful, so elegant, so founded on the true knowledge of human life, and so adorned with beauty of sentiment, that no one ever recollected the offence, except to rejoice in its consequences. He repented just as certainly, however, if he had been led to praise any person or thing by accident more than he thought it deserved; and was on such occasions comically earnest to destroy the praise or pleasure he had unintentionally given.

Sir Joshua Reynolds mentioned some picture as excellent. "It has often grieved me, sir," said Mr. Johnson, "to see so much mind as the science of painting requires laid out upon such perishable materials. Why do not you oftener make use of copper? I could wish your superiority in the art you profess to be preserved in stuff more durable than canvas." Sir Joshua urged the difficulty of procuring a plate large enough for historical subjects, and was going to raise further observations. "What foppish obstacles are these!" exclaims on a sudden Dr. Johnson. "Here is Thrale has a thousand tun of copper; you may paint it all round if you will, I suppose; it will serve him to brew in afterwards. Will it not, sir?" (to my husband, who sat by). Indeed, Dr. Johnson's utter scorn of painting was such that I have heard him say that he should sit very quietly in a room hung round with the works of the greatest masters, and never feel the slightest disposition to turn them if their backs were outermost, unless it might be for the sake of telling Sir Joshua that he _had_ turned them. Such speeches may appear offensive to many, but those who knew he was too blind to discern the perfections of an art which applies itself immediately to our eyesight must acknowledge he was not in the wrong.

He delighted no more in music than in painting; he was almost as deaf as he was blind; travelling with Dr. Johnson was for these reasons tiresome enough. Mr. Thrale loved prospects, and was mortified that his friend could not enjoy the sight of those different dispositions of wood and water, hill and valley, that travelling through England and France affords a man. But when he wished to point them out to his companion: "Never heed such nonsense," would be the reply; "a blade of grass is always a blade of grass, whether in one country or another. Let us, if we _do_ talk, talk about something; men and women are my subjects of inquiry; let us see how these differ from those we have left behind."

When we were at Rouen together, he took a great fancy to the Abbe Roffette, with whom he conversed about the destruction of the order of Jesuits, and condemned it loudly as a blow to the general power of the Church, and likely to be followed with many and dangerous innovations, which might at length become fatal to religion itself, and shake even the foundation of Christianity. The gentleman seemed to wonder and delight in his conversation. The talk was all in Latin, which both spoke fluently, and Mr. Johnson pronounced a long eulogium upon Milton with so much ardour, eloquence, and ingenuity, that the Abbe rose from his seat and embraced him. My husband, seeing them apparently so charmed with the company of each other, politely invited the Abbe to England, intending to oblige his friend, who, instead of thanking, reprimanded him severely before the man for such a sudden burst of tenderness towards a person he could know nothing at all of, and thus put a sudden finish to all his own and Mr. Thrale's entertainment from the company of the Abbe Roffette.

When at Versailles the people showed us the theatre. As we stood on the stage looking at some machinery for playhouse purposes: "Now we are here, what shall we act, Mr. Johnson--The Englishman at Paris?" "No, no," replied he, "we will try to act Harry the Fifth." His dislike to the French was well known to both nations, I believe; but he applauded the number of their books and the graces of their style. "They have few sentiments," said he, "but they express them neatly; they have little meat, too, but they dress it well." Johnson's own notions about eating, however, were nothing less than delicate: a leg of pork boiled till it dropped from the bone, a veal pie with plums and sugar, or the outside cut of a salt buttock of beef, were his favourite dainties. With regard to drink, his liking was for the strongest, as it was not the flavour, but the effect, he sought for, and professed to desire; and when I first knew him, he used to pour capillaire into his port wine. For the last twelve years, however, he left off all fermented liquors. To make himself some amends, indeed, he took his chocolate liberally, pouring in large quantities of cream, or even melted butter; and was so fond of fruit, that though he usually ate seven or eight large peaches of a morning before breakfast began, and treated them with proportionate attention after dinner again, yet I have heard him protest that he never had quite as much as he wished of wall-fruit, except once in his life, and that was when we were all together at Ombersley, the seat of my Lord Sandys. I was saying to a friend one day, that I did not like goose; "one smells it so while it is roasting," said I. "But you, madam," replies the Doctor, "have been at all times a fortunate woman, having always had your hunger so forestalled by indulgence, that you never experienced the delight of smelling your dinner beforehand." "Which pleasure," answered I pertly, "is to be enjoyed in perfection by such as have the happiness to pass through Porridge Island of a morning." "Come, come," says he, gravely, "let's have no sneering at what is serious to so many. Hundreds of your fellow-creatures, dear lady, turn another way, that they may not be tempted by the luxuries of Porridge Island to wish for gratifications they are not able to obtain. You are certainly not better than all of _them_; give God thanks that you are happier."

I received on another occasion as just a rebuke from Mr. Johnson, for an offence of the same nature, and hope I took care never to provoke a third; for after a very long summer, particularly hot and dry, I was wishing naturally but thoughtlessly for some rain to lay the dust as we drove along the Surrey roads. "I cannot bear," replied he, with much asperity and an altered look, "when I know how many poor families will perish next winter for want of that bread which the present drought will deny them, to hear ladies sighing for rain, only that their complexions may not suffer from the heat, or their clothes be incommoded by the dust. For shame! leave off such foppish lamentations, and study to relieve those whose distresses are real."