‘His friend Garrick was so busy in conducting the drama, that they could not have so much intercourse as Mr. Garrick used to profess an anxious wish that there should be.a There might, indeed, be something in the contemptuous severity as to the merit of acting, which his old preceptor nourished in himself, that would mortify Garrick after the great applause which he received from the audience. For though Johnson said of him, “Sir, a man who has a nation to admire him every night, may well be expected to be somewhat elated;” yet he would treat theatrical matters with a ludicrous slight. He mentioned one evening, “I met David coming off the stage, drest in a woman’s riding-hood, when he acted in The Wonder;945I came full upon him, and I believe he was not pleased.”’
‘Once he asked Tom Davies, whom he saw drest in a fine suit of clothes, “And what art thou to-night?” Tom answered, “The Thane of Ross;”946 (which it will be recollected is a very inconsiderable character.) “O brave!” said Johnson.’
‘Of Mr. Longley, at Rochester, a gentleman of very considerable learning, whom Dr. Johnson met there, he said, “My heart warms towards him. I was surprised to find in him such a nice acquaintance with the metre in the learned languages; though I was somewhat mortified that I had it not so much to myself, as I should have thought.”’
‘Talking of the minuteness with which people will record the sayings of eminent persons, a story was told, that when Pope was on a visit to Spence at Oxford, as they looked from the window they saw a Gentleman Commoner, who was just come in from riding, amusing himself with whipping at a post. Pope took occasion to say, “That young gentleman seems to have little to do.” Mr. Beauclerk observed, “Then, to be sure, Spence turned round and wrote that down;” and went on to say to Dr. Johnson, “Pope, Sir, would have said the same of you, if he had seen you distilling.” JOHNSON. “Sir, if Pope had told me of my distilling, I would have told him of his grotto.”’947
‘He would allow no settled indulgence of idleness upon principle, and always repelled every attempt to urge excuses for it. A friend one day suggested, that it was not wholesome to study soon after dinner. JOHNSON. “Ah, Sir, don’t give way to such a fancy. At one time of my life I had taken it into my head that it was not wholesome to study between breakfast and dinner.”’
‘Mr. Beauclerk one day repeated to Dr. Johnson Pope’s lines,
“Let modest Foster, if he will, excel
Ten metropolitans in preaching well:”948
Then asked the Doctor, “Why did Pope say this?” JOHNSON. “Sir, he hoped it would vex somebody.”’
‘Dr. Goldsmith, upon occasion of Mrs. Lennox’s bringing out a play, said to Dr. Johnson at the club, that a person949 had advised him to go and hiss it, because she had attacked Shakspeare in her book called Shakspeare Illustrated. JOHNSON. “And did not you tell him he was a rascal?” GOLDSMITH. “No, Sir, I did not. Perhaps he might not mean what he said.” JOHNSON. “Nay, Sir, if he lied, it is a different thing.” Colman slily said, (but it is believed Dr. Johnson did not hear him,) “Then the proper expression should have been, – Sir, if you don’t lie, you’re a rascal.”’
‘His affection for Topham Beauclerk was so great, that when Beauclerk was labouring under that severe illness which at last occasioned his death, Johnson said, (with a voice faultering with emotion,) “Sir, I would walk to the extent of the diameter of the earth to save Beauclerk.”’
‘One night at tHE cLUB he produced a translation of an Epitaph which Lord Elibank had written in English, for his Lady, and requested of Johnson to turn into Latin for him. Having read Domina de North et Gray,950 he said to Dyer, “You see, Sir, what barbarisms we are compelled to make use of, when modern titles are to be specifically mentioned in Latin inscriptions.” When he had read it once aloud, and there had been a general approbation expressed by the company, he addressed himself to Mr. Dyer in particular, and said, “Sir, I beg to have your judgement, for I know your nicety.” Dyer then very properly desired to read it over again; which having done, he pointed out an incongruity in one of the sentences. Johnson immediately assented to the observation, and said, “Sir, this is owing to an alteration of a part of the sentence, from the form in which I had first written it; and I believe, Sir, you may have remarked, that the making a partial change, without a due regard to the general structure of the sentence, is a very frequent cause of errour in composition.”’
‘Johnson was well acquainted with Mr. Dossie, authour of a treatise on Agriculture; and said of him, “Sir, of the objects which the Society of Arts have chiefly in view, the chymical effects of bodies operating upon other bodies, he knows more than almost any man.” Johnson, in order to give Mr. Dossie his vote to be a member of this Society, paid up an arrear which had run on for two years. On this occasion he mentioned a circumstance as characteristick of the Scotch. “One of that nation, (said he,) who had been a candidate, against whom I had voted, came up to me with a civil salutation. Now, Sir, this is their way. An Englishman would have stomached it, and been sulky, and never have taken further notice of you; but a Scotchman, Sir, though you vote nineteen times against him, will accost you with equal complaisance after each time, and the twentieth time, Sir, he will get your vote.”’
‘Talking on the subject of toleration, one day when some friends were with him in his study, he made his usual remark, that the State has a right to regulate the religion of the people, who are the children of the State. A clergyman having readily acquiesced in this, Johnson, who loved discussion, observed, “But, Sir, you must go round to other States than your own. You do not know what a Bramin has to say for himself.a In short, Sir, I have got no further than this: Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it. Martyrdom is the test.”’
‘A man, he observed, should begin to write soon; for, if he waits till his judgement is matured, his inability, through want of practice to express his conceptions, will make the disproportion so great between what he sees, and what he can attain, that he will probably be discouraged from writing at all. As a proof of the justness of this remark, we may instance what is related of the great Lord Granville; that after he had written his letter, giving an account of the battle of Dettingen, he said, “Here is a letter, expressed in terms not good enough for a tallow-chandler to have used.”’
‘Talking of a Court-martial that was sitting upon a very momentous publick occasion, he expressed much doubt of an enlightened decision; and said, that perhaps there was not a member of it, who in the whole course of his life, had ever spent an hour by himself in balancing probabilities.’
‘Goldsmith one day brought to the club a printed Ode, which he, with others, had been hearing read by its authour951 in a publick room at the rate of five shillings each for admission. One of the company952 having read it aloud, Dr. Johnson said, “Bolder words and more timorous meaning, I think never were brought together.”’
‘Talking of Gray’s Odes, he said, “They are forced plants raised in a hot-bed; and they are poor plants; they are but cucumbers after all.” A gentleman present, who had been running down Ode-writing in general, as a bad species of poetry, unluckily said, “Had they been literally cucumbers, they had been better things than Odes.” – “Yes, Sir, (said Johnson,) for a hog.”’
‘His distinction of the different degrees of attainment of learning was thus marked upon two occasions. Of Queen Elizabeth he said, “She had learning enough to have given dignity to a bishop;” and of Mr. Thomas Davies he said, “Sir, Davies has learning enough to give credit to a clergyman.”’
‘He used to quote, with great warmth, the saying of Aristotle recorded by Diogenes Laertius; that there was the same difference between one learned and unlearned, as between the living and the dead.’953
‘It is very remarkable, that he retained in his memory very slight and trivial, as well as important things. As an instance of this, it seems that an inferiour domestick of the Duke of Leeds had attempted to celebrate his Grace’s marr
iage in such homely rhimes as he could make; and this curious composition having been sung to Dr. Johnson he got it by heart, and used to repeat it in a very pleasant manner. Two of the stanzas were these: –
“When the Duke of Leeds shall married be
To a fine young lady of high quality,
How happy will that gentlewoman be
In his Grace of Leeds’s good company.
She shall have all that’s fine and fair,
And the best of silk and sattin shall wear;
And ride in a coach to take the air,
And have a house in St. James s-square.a
To hear a man, of the weight and dignity of Johnson, repeating such humble attempts at poetry, had a very amusing effect. He, however, seriously observed of the last stanza repeated by him, that it nearly comprized all the advantages that wealth can give.’
‘An eminent foreigner, when he was shewn the British Museum, was very troublesome with many absurd inquiries. “Now there, Sir, (said he,) is the difference between an Englishman and a Frenchman. A Frenchman must be always talking, whether he knows any thing of the matter or not; an Englishman is content to say nothing, when he has nothing to say.”’
‘His unjust contempt for foreigners was, indeed, extreme. One evening, at old Slaughter’s coffee-house, when a number of them were talking loud about little matters, he said, “Does not this confirm old Meynell’s observation –For any thing I see, foreigners are fools.”’
‘He said, that once, when he had a violent tooth-ach, a Frenchman accosted him thus: – “Ah, Monsieur, vous etudiez trop.”’956
‘Having spent an evening at Mr. Langton’s with the Reverend Dr. Parr, he was much pleased with the conversation of that learned gentleman; and after he was gone, said to Mr. Langton, “Sir, I am obliged to you for having asked me this evening. Parr is a fair man. I do not know when I have had an occasion of such free controversy. It is remarkable how much of a man’s life may pass without meeting with any instance of this kind of open discussion.”’
‘We may fairly institute a criticism between Shakspeare and Corneille, as they both had, though in a different degree, the lights of a latter age. It is not so just between the Greek dramatick writers and Shakspeare. It may be replied to what is said by one of the remarkers on Shakspeare, that though Darius’s shade had prescience, it does not necessarily follow that he had all past particulars revealed to him.’957
‘Spanish plays, being wildly and improbably farcical, would please children here, as children are entertained with stories full of prodigies; their experience not being sufficient to cause them to be so readily startled at deviations from the natural course of life. The machinery of the Pagans is uninteresting to us: when a Goddess appears in Homer or Virgil, we grow weary; still more so in the Grecian tragedies, as in that kind of composition a nearer approach to Nature is intended. Yet there are good reasons for reading romances; as – the fertility of invention, the beauty of style and expression, the curiosity of seeing with what kind of performances the age and country in which they were written was delighted: for it is to be apprehended, that at the time when very wild improbable tales were well received, the people were in a barbarous state, and so on the footing of children, as has been explained.’
‘It is evident enough that no one who writes now can use the Pagan deities and mythology; the only machinery, therefore, seems that of ministering spirits, the ghosts of the departed, witches, and fairies, though these latter, as the vulgar superstition concerning them (which, while in its force, infected at least the imagination of those that had more advantage in education, though their reason set them free from it,) is every day wearing out, seem likely to be of little further assistance in the machinery of poetry. As I recollect, Hammond introduces a hag or witch into one of his love elegies, where the effect is unmeaning and disgusting.’
‘The man who uses his talent of ridicule in creating or grossly exaggerating the instances he gives, who imputes absurdities that did not happen, or when a man was a little ridiculous describes him as having been very much so, abuses his talents greatly. The great use of delineating absurdities is, that we may know how far human folly can go; the account, therefore, ought of absolute necessity to be faithful. A certain character (naming the person) as to the general cast of it, is well described by Garrick, but a great deal of the phraseology he uses in it, is quite his own, particularly in the proverbial comparisons, “obstinate as a pig,” &c., but I don’t know whether it might not be true of Lord –,958 that from a too great eagerness for praise and popularity, and a politeness carried to a ridiculous excess, he was likely, after asserting a thing in general, to give it up again in parts. For instance, if he had said Reynolds was the first of painters, he was capable enough of giving up, as objections might happen to be severally made, first his outline, – then the grace in form, – then the colouring, – and lastly, to have owned that he was such a mannerist, that the disposition of his pictures was all alike.’
‘For hospitality, as formerly practised, there is no longer the same reason; heretofore the poorer people were more numerous, and from want of commerce, their means of getting a livelihood more difficult; therefore the supporting them was an act of great benevolence; now that the poor can find maintenance for themselves, and their labour is wanted, a general undiscerning hospitality tends to ill, by withdrawing them from their work to idleness and drunkenness. Then, formerly rents were received in kind, so that there was a great abundance of provisions in possession of the owners of the lands, which, since the plenty of money afforded by commerce, is no longer the case.’
‘Hospitality to strangers and foreigners in our country is now almost at an end, since, from the increase of them that come to us, there have been a sufficient number of people that have found an interest in providing inns and proper accommodations, which is in general a more expedient method for the entertainment of travellers. Where the travellers and strangers are few, more of that hospitality subsists, as it has not been worth while to provide places of accommodation. In Ireland there is still hospitality to strangers, in some degree; in Hungary and Poland probably more.’
‘Colman, in a note on his translation of Terence, talking of Shakspeare’s learning, asks, “What says Farmer to this? What says Johnson?” Upon this he observed, “Sir, let Farmer answer for himself: I never engaged in this controversy. I always said, Shakspeare had Latin enough to grammaticise his English.”’
‘A clergyman,959 whom he characterised as one who loved to say little oddities, was affecting one day, at a Bishop’s table, a sort of slyness and freedom not in character, and repeated, as if part of The Old Man’s Wish,960 a song by Dr. Walter Pope, a verse bordering on licentiousness. Johnson rebuked him in the finest manner, by first shewing him that he did not know the passage he was aiming at, and thus humbling him: “Sir, that is not the song: it is thus.” And he gave it right. Then looking stedfastly on him, “Sir, there is a partof that song which Ishould wish toexemplifyin myown life: –
‘May I govern my passions with absolute sway!’ ”’961
‘Being asked if Barnes knew a good deal of Greek, he answered, “I doubt, Sir, he was unoculus inter cæcos.”’962
‘He used frequently to observe, that men might be very eminent in a profession, without our perceiving any particular power of mind in them in conversation. “It seems strange (said he,) that a man should see so far to the right, who sees so short a way to the left. Burke is the only man whose common conversation corresponds with the general fame which he has in the world. Take up whatever topick you please, he is ready to meet you.”’
‘A gentleman,963 by no means deficient in literature, having discovered less acquaintance with one of the Classicks than Johnson expected, when the gentleman left the room, he observed, “You see, now, how little any body reads.” Mr. Langton happening to mention his having read a good deal in Clenardus’s Greek Grammar, “Why, Sir, (said he,) who is there in this town who knows any thing of Clena
rdus but you and I?” And upon Mr. Langton’s mentioning that he had taken the pains to learn by heart the Epistle of St. Basil, which is given in that Grammar as a praxis,964 “Sir, (said he,) I never made such an effort to attain Greek.”’
‘Of Dodsley’s Publick Virtue, a Poem, he said, “It was fine blank (meaning to express his usual contempt for blank verse); however, this miserable poem did not sell, and my poor friend Doddy said, Publick Virtue was not a subject to interest the age.”’
‘Mr. Langton, when a very young man, read Dodsley’s Cleone, a Tragedy, to him, not aware of his extreme impatience to be read to. As it went on he turned his face to the back of his chair, and put himself into various attitudes, which marked his uneasiness. At the end of an act, however, he said, “Come let’s have some more, let’s go into the slaughter-house again, Lanky. But I am afraid there is more blood than brains.” Yet he afterwards said, “When I heard you read it, I thought higher of its power of language: when I read it myself, I was more sensible of its pathetick effect;” and then he paid it a compliment which many will think very extravagant. “Sir, (said he,) if Otway had written this play, no other of his pieces would have been remembered.” Dodsley himself, upon this being repeated to him, said, “It was too much:” it must be remembered, that Johnson always appeared not to be sufficiently sensible of the merit of Otway.’
‘Snatches of reading (said he,) will not make a Bentley or a Clarke. They are, however, in a certain degree advantageous. I would put a child into a library (where no unfit books are) and let him read at his choice. A child should not be discouraged from reading any thing that he takes a liking to, from a notion that it is above his reach. If that be the case, the child will soon find it out and desist; if not, he of course gains the instruction; which is so much the more likely to come, from the inclination with which he takes up the study.’
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