The Life of Samuel Johnson

by James Boswell

  Talking of the great difficulty of obtaining authentick information for biography, Johnson told us, ‘When I was a young fellow I wanted to write the Life of Dryden, and in order to get materials, I applied to the only two persons then alive who had seen him; these were old Swinney, and old Cibber. Swinney’s information was no more than this, ”That at Will’s coffee-house Dryden had a particular chair for himself, which was set by the fire in winter, and was then called his winter-chair; and that it was carried out for him to the balcony in summer, and was then called his summer-chair.” Cibber could tell no more but ”That he remembered him a decent old man, arbiter of critical disputes at Will’s.” You are to consider that Cibber was then at a great distance from Dryden, had perhaps one leg only in the room, and durst not draw in the other.’ Bo swell. ‘Yet Cibber was a man of observation?’ JOHNSON. ‘I think not.’ BOSWELL. ‘You will allow his Apology to be well done.’ JOHNSON. ‘Very well done, to be sure, Sir. That book is a striking proof of the justice of Pope’s remark:

  “Each might his several province well command,

  Would all but stoop to what they understand.” ‘636

  BOSWELL. ‘And his plays are good.’ JOHNSON. ‘Yes; but that was his trade; l’esprit du corps:637 he had been all his life among players and play-writers. I wondered that he had so little to say in conversation, for he had kept the best company, and learnt all that can be got by the ear. He abused Pindar to me, and then shewed me an Ode of his own, with an absurd couplet, making a linnet soar on an eagle’s wing.a I told him that when the ancients made a simile, they always made it like something real.’

  Mr. Wilkes remarked, that ‘among all the bold flights of Shakspeare’s imagination, the boldest was making Birnamwood march to Dunsinane;638 creating a wood where there never was a shrub; a wood in Scotland! ha! ha! ha!’ And he also observed, that ‘the clannish slavery of the Highlands of Scotland was the single exception to Milton’s remark of ”The Mountain Nymph, sweet Liberty,”639 being worshipped in all hilly countries.’ – ‘When I was at Inverary (said he,) on a visit to my old friend, Archibald, Duke of Argyle, his dependents congratulated me on being such a favourite of his Grace. I said, ”It is then, gentlemen, truely lucky for me; for if I had displeased the Duke, and he had wished it, there is not a Campbell among you but would have been ready to bring John Wilkes’s head to him in a charger. It would have been only

  “Off with his head! So much for Aylesbury.”640

  I was then member for Aylesbury.’

  Dr. Johnson and Mr. Wilkes talked of the contested passage in Horace’s Art of Poetry, ‘Difficile est proprie communia dicere.’641 Mr. Wilkes according to my note, gave the interpretation thus; ‘It is difficult to speak with propriety of common things; as, if a poet had to speak of Queen Caroline drinking tea, he must endeavour to avoid the vulgarity of cups and saucers.’ But upon reading my note, he tells me that he meant to say, that ‘the word communia, being a Roman law term, signifies here things communis juris, that is to say, what have never yet been treated by any body; and this appears clearly from what followed,

  “—Tuque

  Rectius lliacum carmen deducts in actus,

  Quäm siproferres ignota indictaque primus.”642

  You will easier make a tragedy out of the Iliad than on any subject not handled before.’a JOHNSON. ‘He means that it is difficult to appropriate to particular persons qualities which are common to all mankind, as Homer has done.’ Wilkes. ‘We have no City-Poet now: that is an office which has gone into disuse. The last was Elkanah Settle. There is something in names which one cannot help feeling. Now Elkanah Settle sounds so queer, who can expect much from that name? We should have no hesitation to give it for John Dryden, in preference to Elkanah Settle, from the names only, without knowing their different merits.’ JOHNSON. ‘I suppose, Sir, Settle did as well for Aldermen in his time, as John Home could do now. Where did Beckford and Trecothick learn English?’

  Mr. Arthur Lee mentioned some Scotch who had taken possession of a barren part of America, and wondered why they should choose it. JOHNSON. ‘Why, Sir, all barrenness is comparative. The Scotch would not know it to be barren.’ BOSWELL. ‘Come, come, he is flattering the English. You have now been in Scotland, Sir, and say if you did not see meat and drink enough there.’ JOHNSON. ‘Why yes, Sir; meat and drink enough to give the inhabitants sufficient strength to run away from home.’ All these quick and lively sallies were said sportively, quite in jest, and with a smile, which showed that he meant only wit. Upon this topick he and Mr. Wilkes could perfectly assimilate; here was a bond of union between them, and I was conscious that as both of them had visited Caledonia, both were fully satisfied of the strange narrow ignorance of those who imagine that it is a land of famine. But they amused themselves with persevering in the old jokes. When I claimed a superiority for Scotland over England in one respect, that no man can be arrested there for a debt merely because another swears it against him; but there must first be the judgement of a court of law ascertaining its justice; and that a seizure of the person, before judgement is obtained, can take place only, if his creditor should swear that he is about to fly from the country, or, as it is technically expressed, is in meditatione fugæ:651 Wilkes. ‘That, I should think, may be safely sworn of all the Scotch nation.’ 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.’

  They were quite frank and easy. Johnson told the story of his asking Mrs. Macaulay to allow her footman to sit down with them, to prove the ridiculousness of the argument for the equality of mankind; and he said to me afterwards, with a nod of satisfaction, ‘You saw Mr. Wilkes acquiesced.’ Wilkes talked with all imaginable freedom of the ludicrous title given to the Attorney-General, Diabolus Regis;652 adding, ‘I have reason to know something about that officer; for I was prosecuted for a libel.’ Johnson, who many people would have supposed must have been furiously angry at hearing this talked of so lightly, said not a word. He was now, indeed, ‘a good-humoured fellow.’

  After dinner we had an accession of Mrs. Knowles, the Quaker lady, well known for her various talents, and of Mr. Alderman Lee. Amidst some patriotick groans, somebody (I think the Alderman) said, ‘Poor old England is lost.’ JOHNSON. ‘sir, it is not so much to be lamented that Old England is lost, as that the Scotch have found it.’a WILKES. ‘Had Lord Bute governed Scotland only, I should not have taken the trouble to write his eulogy, and dedicate Mortimer to him.’

  Mr. Wilkes held a candle to shew a fine print of a beautiful female figure which hung in the room, and pointed out the elegant contour of the bosom with the finger of an arch connoisseur. He afterwards, in a conversation with me, waggishly insisted, that all the time Johnson shewed visible signs of a fervent admiration of the corresponding charms of the fair Quaker.

  This record, though by no means so perfect as I could wish, will serve to give a notion of a very curious interview, which was not only pleasing at the time, but had the agreeable and benignant effect of reconciling any animosity, and sweetening any acidity, which in the various bustle of political contest, had been produced in the minds of two men, who though widely different, had so many things in common – classical learning, modern literature, wit, and humour, and ready repartee – that it would have been much to be regretted if they had been for ever at a distance from each other.

  Mr. Burke gave me much credit for this successful negociation; and pleasantly said, that ‘there was nothing to equal it in the whole history of the Corps Diplomatique.’

  I attended Dr. Johnson home, and had the satisfaction to hear him tell Mrs. Williams how much he had been pleased with Mr. Wilkes’s company, and what an ag
reeable day he had passed.

  I talked a good deal to him of the celebrated Margaret Caroline Rudd, whom I had visited, induced by the fame of her talents, address, and irresistible power of fascination. To a lady who disapproved of my visiting her, he said on a former occasion, ‘Nay, Madam, Boswell is in the right; I should have visited her myself, were it not that they have now a trick of putting every thing into the news-papers.’ This evening he exclaimed, ‘I envy him his acquaintance with Mrs. Rudd.’

  I mentioned a scheme which I had of making a tour to the Isle of Man, and giving a full account of it; and that Mr. Burke had playfully suggested as a motto,

  ‘The proper study of mankind is Man.’653

  JOHNSON. ‘sir, you will get more by the book than the jaunt will cost you; so you will have your diversion for nothing, and add to your reputation.’

  On the evening of the next day I took leave of him, being to set out for Scotland. I thanked him with great warmth for all his kindness. ‘sir, (said he,) you are very welcome. Nobody repays it with more.’

  How very false is the notion which has gone round the world of the rough, and passionate, and harsh manners of this great and good man. That he had occasional sallies of heat of temper, and that he was sometimes, perhaps, too ‘easily provoked’ by absurdity and folly, and sometimes too desirous of triumph in colloquial contest, must be allowed. The quickness both of his perception and sensibility disposed him to sudden explosions of satire; to which his extraordinary readiness of wit was a strong and almost irresistible incitement. To adopt one of the finest images in Mr. Home’s Douglas,

  ‘ On each glance of thought

  Decision followed, as the thunderbolt

  Pursues the flash!’654

  I admit that the beadle within him was often so eager to apply the lash, that the Judge had not time to consider the case with sufficient deliberation.

  That he was occasionally remarkable for violence of temper may be granted: but let us ascertain the degree, and not let it be supposed that he was in a perpetual rage, and never without a club in his hand, to knock down every one who approached him. On the contrary, the truth is, that by much the greatest part of his time he was civil, obliging, nay, polite in the true sense of the word; so much so, that many gentlemen, who were long acquainted with him, never received, or even heard a strong expression from him.

  The following letters concerning an Epitaph which he wrote for the monument of Dr. Goldsmith, in Westminster-Abbey, afford at once a proof of his unaffected modesty, his carelessness as to his own writings, and of the great respect which he entertained for the taste and judgement of the excellent and eminent person to whom they are addressed:

  ‘To SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS

  ‘DEAR SIR, – I have been kept away from you, I know not well how, and of these vexatious hindrances I know not when there will be an end. I therefore send you the poor dear Doctor’s epitaph. Read it first yourself; and if you then think it right, shew it to the Club. I am, you know, willing to be corrected. If you think any thing much amiss, keep it to yourself, till we come together. I have sent two copies, but prefer the card. The dates must be settled by Dr. Percy. I am, Sir, your most humble servant,

  ‘May 16, 1776.’ ‘Sam. JOHNSON.’

  To THE SAME

  ’sIR, – Miss Reynolds has a mind to send the Epitaph to Dr. Beattie; I am very willing, but having no copy, cannot immediately recollect it. She tells me you have lost it. Try to recollect and put down as much as you retain; you perhaps may have kept what I have dropped. The lines for which I am at a loss are something of rerum civilium sive naturalium.a655 It was a sorry trick to lose it; help me if you can. I am, Sir, your most humble servant,

  ‘June 22, 1776.’ ‘Sam JOHNSON.’

  ‘The gout grows better but slowly.’

  It was, I think, after I had left London this year, that this Epitaph gave occasion to a Remonstrance to the Monarch of Literature, for an account of which I am indebted to Sir William Forbes, of Pitsligo.

  That my readers may have the subject more fully and clearly before them, I shall first insert the Epitaph.

  OLIVARII GOLDSMITH,

  PoetcB, Pbysici, Historici,

  Qui nullum fere scribendi genus

  Non tetigit,

  Nullum quod tetigit non ornavit:

  Sive risus essent movendi,

  Sive lacrymcB,

  Affectuum potens at lenis dominator:

  Ingenio sublimis, vividus, versatilis,

  Oratione grandis, nitidus, venustus:

  Hoc monumento memoriam coluit

  Sodalium amor,

  Amicorum fides,

  Lectorum veneratio.

  Natus in Hiberniä FornicB Longfordiensis,

  In loco cut nomen Pallas,

  Nov. XXIX. MDCCXXXI;

  Eblante literis institutus;

  Obiit Londini,

  April IV, MDCCLXXIV.’656

  Sir William Forbes writes to me thus: –

  ‘I enclose the Round Robin. This jeu d’esprit took its rise one day at dinner at our friend Sir Joshua Reynolds’s. All the company present, except myself, were friends and acquaintance of Dr. Goldsmith. The Epitaph, written for him by Dr. Johnson, became the subject of conversation, and various emendations were suggested, which it was agreed should be submitted to the Doctor’s consideration. But the question was, who should have the courage to propose them to him? At last it was hinted, that there could be no way so good as that of a Round Robin, as the sailors call it, which they make use of when they enter into a conspiracy, so as not to let it be known who puts his name first or last to the paper. This proposition was instantly assented to; and Dr. Barnard, Dean of Derry, now Bishop of Killaloe, drew up an address to Dr. Johnson on the occasion, replete with wit and humour, but which it was feared the Doctor might think treated the subject with too much levity. Mr. Burke then proposed the address as it stands in the paper in writing, to which I had the honour to officiate as clerk.

  ‘Sir Joshua agreed to carry it to Dr. Johnson, who received it with much good humour,a and desired Sir Joshua to tell the gentlemen, that he would alter the Epitaph in any manner they pleased, as to the sense of it; but he would never consent to disgrace the walls of Westminster Abbey with an English inscription.

  ‘I consider this Round Robin as a species of literary curiosity worth preserving, as it marks, in a certain degree, Dr. Johnson’s character.’

  My readers are presented with a faithful transcript658 of a paper, which I doubt not of their being desirous to see.

  Sir William Forbes’s observation is very just. The anecdote now related proves, in the strongest manner, the reverence and awe with which Johnson wasregarded, bysomeofthemosteminentmenofhistime, invariousdepart-ments, And even by such of them as lived mostwithhim;whileitalso confirms what I have again and again inculcated, that he was by no means of that ferocious and irascible character which has been ignorantly imagined.

  This hasty composition is also to be remarked as one of a thousand instances which evince the extraordinary promptitude of Mr. Burke; who while he is equal to the greatest things, can adorn the least; can, with equal facility, embrace the vast and complicated speculations of politicks, or the ingenious topicks of literary investigation.a

  ‘Dr. JOHNSON to Mrs. BOSWELL

  ‘MADAM, – You must not think me uncivil in omitting to answer the letter with which you favoured me some time ago. I imagined it to have been written without Mr. Boswell’s knowledge, and therefore supposed the answer to require, what I could not find, a private conveyance.

  ‘The difference with Lord Auchinleck is now over; and since young Alexander has appeared, I hope no more difficulties will arise among you; for I sincerely wish you all happy. Do not teach the young ones to dislike me, as you dislike me yourself; but let me at least have Veronica’s kindness, because she is my acquaintance.

  ‘You will now have Mr. Boswell home; it is well that you have him; he has led a wild life. I have taken him to Lich
field, and he has followed Mr. Thrale to Bath. Pray take care of him, and tame him. The only thing in which I have the honour to agree with you is, in loving him; and while we are so much of a mind in a matter of so much importance, our other quarrels will, I hope, produce no great bitterness. I am, Madam, your most humble servant,

  ‘May 16, 1776.’ ‘Sam. JOHNSON.’

  ‘Mr. BOSWELL to DR. JOHNSON

  ‘Edinburgh, June 25, 1776.

  ‘You have formerly complained that my letters were too long. There is no danger of that complaint being made at present; for I find it difficult for me to write to you at all. [Here an account of having been afflicted with a return of melancholy or bad spirits.]