The Life of Samuel Johnson

by James Boswell

  I ventured to mention a person703 who was as violent a Scotsman as he was an Englishman; and literally had the same contempt for an Englishman compared with a Scotsman, that he had for a Scotsman compared with an Englishman; and that he would say of Dr. Johnson, ‘Damned rascal! to talk as he does of the Scotch.’ This seemed, for a moment, ‘to give him pause.’ It, perhaps, presented his extreme prejudice against the Scotch in a point of view somewhat new to him, by the effect of contrast.

  By the time when we returned to Ashbourne, Dr. Taylor was gone to bed. Johnson and I sat up a long time by ourselves.

  He was much diverted with an article which I shewed him in the Critical Review of this year, giving an account of a curious publication, entitled, A Spiritual Diary and Soliloquies, by John Rutty, M.D. Dr. Rutty was one of the people called Quakers, a physician of some eminence in Dublin, and authour of several works. This Diary, which was kept from 1753 to 1775, the year in which he died, and was now published in two volumes octavo, exhibited, in the simplicity of his heart, a minute and honest register of the state of his mind; which, though frequently laughable enough, was not more so than the history of many men would be, if recorded with equal fairness.

  The following specimens were extracted by the Reviewers: –

  ‘Tenth month, 1753.

  23. Indulgence in bed an hour too long.

  Twelfth month, 17. An hypochondriack obnubilation704 from wind and indigestion.

  Ninth month, 28. An over-dose of whisky.

  29. A dull, cross, cholerick day.

  First month, 1757 – 22. A little swinish at dinner and repast.

  31. Dogged on provocation.

  Second month, 5. Very dogged or snappish.

  14. Snappish on fasting.

  26. Cursed snappishness to those under me, on a bodily indisposition.

  Third month, 11. On a provocation, exercised a dumb resentment for two days, instead of scolding.

  22. Scolded too vehemently.

  23. Dogged again.

  Fourth month, 29. Mechanically and sinfully dogged.’

  Johnson laughed heartily at this good Quietist’s self-condemning minutes; particularly at his mentioning, with such a serious regret, occasional instances of ‘swinishness in eating, and doggedness of temper.’ He thought the observations of the Critical Reviewers upon the importance of a man to himself so ingenious and so well expressed, that I shall here introduce them.

  After observing, that ‘There are few writers who have gained any reputation by recording their own actions,’ they say: –

  ‘We may reduce the egotists to four classes. In the first we have Julius Csesar: he relates his own transactions; but he relates them with peculiar grace and dignity, and his narrative is supported by the greatness of his character and atchievements. In the second class we have Marcus Antoninus: this writer has given us a series of reflections on his own life; but his sentiments are so noble, his morality so sublime, that his meditations are universally admired. In the third class we have some others of tolerable credit, who have given importance to their own private history by an intermixture of literary anecdotes, and the occurrences of their own times: the celebrated Huetius has published an entertaining volume upon this place “De rebus ad eum pertinentibus.”705 In the fourth class we have the journalists, temporal and spiritual: Elias Ashmole, William Lilly, George Whitefield, John Wesley, and a thousand other old women and fanatick writers of memoirs and meditations.’

  I mentioned to him that Dr. Hugh Blair, in his lectures on Rhetorick and Belles Lettres, which I heard him deliver at Edinburgh, had animadverted on the Johnsonian style as too pompous; and attempted to imitate it, by giving a sentence of Addison in The Spectator, No. 411, in the manner of JOHNSON. When treating of the utility of the pleasures of imagination in preserving us from vice, it is observed of those ‘who know not how to be idle and innocent,’ that ‘their very first step out of business is into vice or folly;’ which Dr. Blair supposed would have been expressed in The Rambler thus: ‘Their very first step out of the regions of business is into the perturbation of vice, or the vacuity of folly.’a JOHNSON. ‘sir, these are not the words I should have used. No, Sir; the imitators of my style have not hit it. Miss Aikin has done it the best; for she has imitated the sentiment as well as the diction.’

  I intend, before this work is concluded, to exhibit specimens of imitation of my friend’s style in various modes; some caricaturing or mimicking it, and some formed upon it, whether intentionally or with a degree of similarity to it, of which, perhaps, the writers were not conscious.b

  In Baretti’s Review, which he published in Italy, under the title of Frusta Letteraria, it is observed, that Dr. Robertson the historian had formed his style upon that of Il celebre Samuele Johnson. My friend himself was of that opinion; for he once said to me, in a pleasant humour, ‘sir, if Robertson’s style be faulty, he owes it to me; that is, having too many words, and those too big ones.’

  I read to him a letter which Lord Monboddo had written to me, containing some critical remarks upon the style of his Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland. His Lordship praised the very fine passage upon landing at Icolmkill;c but his own style being exceedingly dry and hard, he disapproved of the richness of Johnson’s language, and of his frequent use of metaphorical expressions. JOHNSON. ‘Why, Sir, this criticism would be just, if in my style, superfluous words, or words too big for the thoughts, could be pointed out; but this I do not believe can be done. For instance; in the passage which Lord Monboddo admires, ”We were now treading that illustrious region,” the word illustrious, contributes nothing to the mere narration; for the fact might be told without it: but it is not, therefore, superfluous; for it wakes the mind to peculiar attention, where something of more than usual importance is to be presented. ”Illustrious!” for what? and then the sentence proceeds to expand the circumstances connected with Iona. And, Sir, as to metaphorical expression, that is a great excellence in style, when it is used with propriety, for it gives you two ideas for one; – conveys the meaning more luminously, and generally with a perception of delight.’

  He told me, that he had been asked to undertake the new edition of the Biographia Britannica, but had declined it; which he afterwards said to me he regretted. In this regret many will join, because it would have procured us more of Johnson’s most delightful species of writing; and although my friend Dr. Kippis has hitherto discharged the task judiciously, distinctly, and with more impartiality than might have been expected from a Separ-atist,706 it were to have been wished that the superintendence of this literary Temple of Fame had been assigned to ‘a friend to the constitution in Church and State.’ We should not then have had it too much crowded with obscure dissenting teachers, doubtless men of merit and worth, but not quite to be numbered amongst ‘the most eminent persons who have flourished in Great-Britain and Ireland.’a

  On Saturday, September 20, after breakfast, when Taylor was gone out to his farm, Dr. Johnson and I had a serious conversation by ourselves on melancholy and madness; which he was, I always thought, erroneously inclined to confound together. Melancholy, like ‘great wit,’ may be ‘near allied to madness;’707 but there is, in my opinion, a distinct separation between them. When he talked of madness, he was to be understood as speaking of those who were in any great degree disturbed, or as it is commonly expressed, ‘troubled in mind.’ Some of the ancient philosophers held, that all deviations from right reason were madness; and whoever wishes to see the opinions both of ancients and moderns upon this subject, collected and illustrated with a variety of curious facts, may read Dr. Arnold’s very entertaining work.a

  Johnson said, ‘A madman loves to be with people whom he fears; not as a dog fears the lash; but of whom he stands in awe.’ I was struck with the justice of this observation. To be with those of whom a person, whose mind is wavering and dejected, stands in awe, represses and composes an uneasy tumult of spirits, and consoles him with the contemplation of something steady, and
at least comparatively great.

  He added, ‘Madmen are all sensual in the lower stages of the distemper. They are eager for gratifications to sooth their minds, and divert their attention from the misery which they suffer; but when they grow very ill, pleasure is too weak for them, and they seek for pain.b Employment, Sir, and hardships, prevent melancholy. I suppose in all our army in America there was not one man who went mad.’

  We entered seriously upon a question of much importance to me, which Johnson was pleased to consider with friendly attention. I had long complained to him that I felt myself discontented in Scotland, as too narrow a sphere, and that I wished to make my chief residence in London, the great scene of ambition, instruction, and amusement: a scene, which was to me, comparatively speaking, a heaven upon earth. JOHNSON. ‘Why, Sir, I never knew any one who had such a gust for London as you have: and I cannot blame you for your wish to live there: yet, Sir, were I in your father’s place, I should not consent to your settling there; for I have the old feudal notions, and I should be afraid that Auchinleck would be deserted, as you would soon find it more desirable to have a country-seat in a better climate. I own, however, that to consider it as a duty to reside on a family estate is a prejudice; for we must consider, that working-people get employment equally, and the produce of land is sold equally, whether a great family resides at home or not; and if the rents of an estate be carried to London, they return again in the circulation of commerce; nay, Sir, we must perhaps allow, that carrying the rents to a distance is a good, because it contributes to that circulation. We must, however, allow, that a well-regulated great family may improve a neighbourhood in civility and elegance, and give an example of good order, virtue, and piety; and so its residence at home may be of much advantage. But if a great family be disorderly and vicious, its residence at home is very pernicious to a neighbourhood. There is not now the same inducement to live in the country as formerly; the pleasures of social life are much better enjoyed in town; and there is no longer in the country that power and influence in proprietors of land which they had in old times, and which made the country so agreeable to them. The Laird of Auchinleck now is not near so great a man as the Laird of Auchinleck was a hundred years ago.’

  I told him, that one of my ancestors never went from home without being attended by thirty men on horseback. Johnson’s shrewdness and spirit of enquiry were exerted upon every occasion. ‘Pray (said he,) how did your ancestor support his thirty men and thirty horses, when he went at a distance from home, in an age when there was hardly any money in circulation?’ I suggested the same difficulty to a friend, who mentioned Douglas’s going to the Holy Land with a numerous train of followers. Douglas could, no doubt, maintain followers enough while living upon his own lands, the produce of which supplied them with food; but he could not carry that food to the Holy Land; and as there was no commerce by which he could be supplied with money, how could he maintain them in foreign countries?

  I suggested a doubt, that if I were to reside in London, the exquisite zest with which I relished it in occasional visits might go off, and I might grow tired of it. JOHNSON. ‘Why, Sir, you find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.’

  To obviate his apprehension, that by settling in London I might desert the seat of my ancestors, I assured him, that I had old feudal principles to a degree of enthusiasm; and that I felt all the dulcedo of the natale solum.709 I reminded him, that the Laird of Auchinleck had an elegant house, in front of which he could ride ten miles forward upon his own territories, upon which he had upwards of six hundred people attached to him; that the family seat was rich in natural romantick beauties of rock, wood, and water; and that in my ‘morn of life,’710 I had appropriated the finest descriptions in the ancient Classicks to certain scenes there, which were thus associated in my mind. That when all this was considered, I should certainly pass a part of the year at home, and enjoy it the more from variety, and from bringing with me a share of the intellectual stores of the metropolis. He listened to all this, and kindly ‘hoped it might be as I now supposed.’

  He said, ‘A country gentleman should bring his lady to visit London as soon as he can, that they may have agreeable topicks for conversation when they are by themselves.’

  As I meditated trying my fortune in Westminster Hall, our conversation turned upon the profession of the law in England. JOHNSON. ‘You must not indulge too sanguine hopes, should you be called to our bar. I was told, by a very sensible lawyer, that there are a great many chances against any man’s success in the profession of the law; the candidates are so numerous, and those who get large practice so few. He said, it was by no means true that a man of good parts and application is sure of having business, though he, indeed, allowed that if such a man could but appear in a few causes, his merit would be known, and he would get forward; but that the great risk was, that a man might pass half a life-time in the Courts, and never have an opportunity of shewing his abilities.’a

  We talked of employment being absolutely necessary to preserve the mind from wearying and growing fretful, especially in those who have a tendency to melancholy; and I mentioned to him a saying which somebody had related of an American savage, who, when an European was expatiating on all the advantages of money, put this question: ‘Will it purchase occupation?’ JOHNSON. ‘Depend upon it, Sir, this saying is too refined for a savage. And, Sir, money will purchase occupation; it will purchase all the conveniences of life; itwill purchase variety of company; it will purchase all sorts of entertainment.’

  I talked to him of Forster’s Voyage to the South Seas, which pleased me; but I found he did not like it. ‘sir, (said he,) there is a great affectation of fine writing in it.’ BOSWELL. ‘But he carries you along with him.’ JOHNSON. ‘No, Sir; he does not carry me along with him: he leaves me behind him: or rather, indeed, he sets me before him; for he makes me turn over many leaves at a time.’

  On Sunday, September 21, we went to the church of Ashbourne, which is one of the largest and most luminous that I have seen in any town of the same size. I felt great satisfaction in considering that I was supported in my fondness for solemn publick worship by the general concurrence and munificence of mankind.

  Johnson and Taylor were so different from each other, that I wondered at their preserving such an intimacy. Their having been at school and college together, might, in some degree, account for this; but Sir Joshua Reynolds has furnished me with a stronger reason; for Johnson mentioned to him, that he had been told by Taylor he was to be his heir. I shall not take upon me to animadvert upon this; but certain it is, that Johnson paid great attention to Taylor. He now, however, said to me, ‘sir, I love him; but I do not love him more; my regard for him does not increase. As it is said in the Apocrypha, ”his talk is of bullocks:”a I do not suppose he is very fond of my company. His habits are by no means sufficiently clerical: this he knows that I see; and no man likes to live under the eye of perpetual disapprobation.’

  I have no doubt that a good many sermons were composed for Taylor by JOHNSON. At this time I found, upon his table, a part of one which he had newly begun to write: and Concio pro Tayloro711 appears in one of his diaries. When to these circumstances we add the internal evidence from the power of thinking and style, in the collection which the Reverend Mr. Hayes has published, with the significant title of ‘sermons left for publication by the Reverend John Taylor, LL.D.,’ our conviction will be complete.

  I, however, would not have it thought, that Dr. Taylor, though he could not write like Johnson, (as, indeed, who could?) did not sometimes compose sermons as good as those which we generally have from very respectable divines. He shewed me one with notes on the margin in Johnson’s hand-writing; and I was present when he read another to Johnson, that he might have his opinion of it, and Johnson said it was ‘very well.’ These, we may be sure, were not Johnson’s; for he was above litt
le arts, or tricks of deception.

  Johnson was by no means of opinion, that every man of a learned profession should consider it as incumbent upon him, or as necessary to his credit, to appear as an authour. When in the ardour of ambition for literary fame, I regretted to him one day that an eminent Judge712 had nothing of it, and therefore would leave no perpetual monument of himself to posterity. ‘Alas, Sir, (said Johnson,) what a mass of confusion should we have, if every Bishop, and every Judge, every Lawyer, Physician, and Divine, were to write books.’

  I mentioned to Johnson a respectable person713 of a very strong mind, who had little of that tenderness which is common to human nature; as an instance of which, when I suggested to him that he should invite his son,714 who had been settled ten years in foreign parts, to come home and pay him a visit, his answer was, ‘No, no, let him mind his business.’ JOHNSON. I do not agree with him, Sir, in this. Getting money is not all a man’s business: to cultivate kindness is a valuable part of the business of life.’

  In the evening, Johnson, being in very good spirits, entertained us with several characteristical portraits. I regret that any of them escaped my retention and diligence. I found, from experience, that to collect my friend’s conversation so as to exhibit it with any degree of its original flavour, it was necessary to write it down without delay. To record his sayings, after some distance of time, was like preserving or pickling long-kept and faded fruits, or other vegetables, which, when in that state, have little or nothing of their taste when fresh.