answered, "Sir, there is no settling the point of precedency between a louse and a flea." p. 92. [It has been asserted (European Mag. 1796, p. 16), that the foregoing comparison was made, not between Derrick and Smart, but between Derrick and Boyce, a person] Piozzi [of whose ingenuity and distress Anec. Johnson told some curious anecdotes; particularly that when he was almost perishing with hunger, and some money was produced to purchase him a dinner, he got a bit of roast beef, but could not eat it without ketchup, and laid out the last half-guinea he possessed in truffles and mushrooms, eating them in bed too, for want of clothes, or even a shirt to sit up in.] Once, when checking my boasting too frequently of myself in company, he said to me," Boswell, you often vaunt so much as to provoke ridicule. You put me in mind of a man who was standing in the kitchen of an inn with his back to the fire, and thus accosted the person next him. Do you know, sir, who I am?' 'No, sir,' said the other, I have not that advantage.' Sir,' said he, I am the great Twalmley, who invented the New Floodgate Iron !." The Bishop of Killaloe, on my repeating the story to him, defended Twalmley, by observing that he was entitled to the epithet of great; for Virgil in his group of worthies in the Elysian fields— Hic manus ob patriam pugnando vulnera passi, &c. EN. 6. v. 660. mentions Inventas aut qui vitam excoluere per artes. v. 663. He was pleased to say to me one morning when we were left alone in his study, Boswell, I think I am easier with you than with almost any body." He would not allow Mr. David Hume any credit for his political principles, though similar to his own; saying of him, "Sir, he was a tory by chance." His acute observation of human life made him remark, "Sir, there is nothing by which a man exasperates most people more than by displaying a superior ability of brilliancy in conversation. They seem pleased at the time; but their envy makes them curse him at their hearts 2." My readers will probably be surprised to hear that the great Dr. Johnson could amuse himself with so slight and playful a species of composition as a charade. I have recovered one which he made on Dr. Barnard, now Lord Bishop of Killaloe; who has been pleased for many years to treat me with so much intimacy and social ease, that I may presume to call him not only my right reverend, but my very dear friend. I therefore with peculiar pleasure give to the world a just and elegant compliment thus paid to his lordship by Johnson. CHARADE. "My first shuts out thieves from your house or your room, 4 My second expresses a Syrian perfume. Johnson asked Richard Owen Cambridge, Esq. if he had read the Spanish translation of Sallust, said to be written by a prince of Spain, with the assistance of his tutor, who is professedly the authour of a treatise annexed, on the Phoenician language. Mr. Cambridge commended the work, particularly as he thought the translator understood his authour better than is commonly the case with translators; but said, he was disappointed in the purpose for which he borrowed the book; to see whether a Spaniard could be better furnished with inscriptions from monuments, coins, or other antiquities, which he might more probably find on a coast so immediately opposite to Carthage, than the antiquaries of any other countries. JOHNSON. "I am very sorry you were not gratified in your expectations." CAMBRIDGE. "The language would have been of little use, as there is no history existing in that tongue to balance the partial accounts which the Roman writers have left us." JOHNSON. "No, sir. They have not been partial, they have told their own story without shame or regard to equitable treatment of their injured enemy; they had no compunction, no feeling for a Carthaginian. Why, sir, they would never have borne Virgil's description of Eneas's treatment of Dido, if she had not been a Carthaginian." I gratefully acknowledge this and other communications from Mr. Cambridge, whom, if a beautiful villa on the banks of the Thames, a few miles distant from London, a numerous and excellent library, which he accurately knows and reads, a choice collection of pictures, which he understands and relishes, an easy fortune, an What the great Twalmley was so proud of amiable family, an extensive circle of friends having invented was neither more nor less than a and acquaintance, distinguished by rank, kind of box-iron for smoothing linen.-BOSWELL. fashion, and genius, a literary fame, various, * [This may be doubted. Johnson himself was, elegant, and still increasing, colloquial talas we have seen, sometimes envious of the bril-ents rarely to be found, and, with all these liancy of his friends; but, in general, surely per- means of happiness, enjoying, when well sons of a brilliant conversation (if it be not sarcastic) are rather popular.-ED. 2 3 Bar. • Nard. • Barnard. advanced in years, health and vigour of body, serenity and animation of mind, do not entitle to be addressed fortunate senex! I know not to whom, in any age, that expression could with propriety have been used. Long may he live to hear and to feel it !! Johnson's love of little children, which he discovered upon all occasions, calling them pretty dears," and giving them sweetmeats, was an undoubted proof of the real humanity and gentleness of his disposition 2. His uncommon kindness to his servants, and serious concern, not only for their comfort in this world, but their happiness in the next, was another unquestionable evidence of what all, who were intimately acquainted with him, knew to be true. Nor would it be just, under this head, to omit the fondness which he showed for animals which he had taken under his protection. I never shall forget, the indulgence with which he treated Hodge, his cat; for whom he himself used to go out and buy oysters, lest the servants, having that trouble, should take a dislike to the poor creature. I am, unluckily, one of those who have an antipathy to a cat, so that I am uneasy when in the room with one; and I own I frequently suffered a good deal from the presence of this same Hodge. I recollect him one day scrambling up Dr. Johnson's breast, apparently with much satisfaction, while my friend, smiling and half-whistling, rubbed down his back, and pulled him by the tail; and when I observed he was a fine cat, saying, "Why, yes, sir, but I have had cats whom I liked better than this; " and then, as if perceiving Hodge to be out of countenance, adding, " But he is a very fine cat, a very fine cat indeed." of this work. Mr. Seward saw him pre sented to the Archbishop of York, and described his bow to an ARCHBISHOP as such a studied elaboration of homage, such an extension of limb, such a flexion of body, as have seldom or ever been equalled. I cannot help mentioning with much regret, that by my own negligence I lost an opportunity of having the history of my family from its founder, Thomas Boswell, in 1504, recorded and illustrated by Johnson's pen. Such was his goodness to me, that when I presumed to solicit him for so great a favour, he was pleased to say, "Let me have all the materials you can collect, and I will do it both in Latin and English; then let it be printed, and copies of it be deposited in various places for security and preservation." I can now only do the best I can to make up for this loss, keeping my great master steadily in view. Family histories, like the imagines majorum of the ancients, excite to virtue; and I wish that they who really have blood, would be more careful to trace and ascertain its course. Some have affected to laugh at the history of the house of Yvery 3 it would be well if many others would transmit their pedigrees to posterity, with the same accuracy and generous zeal with which the noble lord who compiled that work has honoured and perpetuated his ancestry. On Thursday, April 10, I introduced to him, at his house in Bolt-court, the Hon-ourable and Reverend William Stuart 4, son of the Earl of Bute; a gentleman truly worthy of being known to Johnson; being, with all the advantages of high birth, learning, travel, and elegant manners, an exemplary parish priest in every respect. This reminds me of the ludicrous account After some compliments on both sides, which he gave Mr. Langton of the despica- the tour which Johnson and I had made to ble state of a young gentleman of good fam-the Hebrides was mentioned. JOHNSON. "I ily. "Sir, when I heard of him last, he was running about town shooting cats." And then, in a sort of kindly reverie, he bethought himself of his own favourite cat, and said, "But Hodge sha n't be shot; no, no, Hodge shall not be shot." He thought Mr. Beauclerk made a shrewd and judicious remark to Mr. Langton, who, after having been for the first time in company with a well-known wit about town, was warmly admiring and praising him,"See him again," said Beauclerk, His respect for the hierarchy, and particularly the dignitaries of the church, has been more than once exhibited in the course 1 Mr. Cambridge enjoyed all the blessings here enumerated for many years after this passage was written. He died at his seat near Twickenham, Sept. 17, 1802, in his eighty-sixth year.-MA got an acquisition of more ideas by it than by any thing that I remember. I saw quite a different system of life." BOSWELL. "You would not like to make the same journey again?" JOHNSON. "Why no, sir; not the same: it is a tale told. Gravina, an Italian critick, observes, that every man desires to see that of which he has read but no man desires to read an account of what he has seen: so much does description fall short of reality. Description only excites curiosity; seeing satisfies it. Other 3. Written by John, Earl of Egmont, and printed (but not published) in 1764.-MALONE. 4 At that time vicar of Luton, in Bedfordshire, where he lived for some years, and fully merited the character given of him in the text; he was afterwards Lord Archbishop of Armagh, and Primate of Ireland-MALONE: [and died May, 1822, in a very strange way, having had poison, by mistake for medicine, administered to him by the hand of his lady.-ED.] 338 WELL. 66 people may go and see the Hebrides." Bos- | see in it such modes of life as very few He in particular "I should wish to go and see could even imagine. some country totally different from what I recommended to us to explore Wapping, have been used to; such as Turkey, where which we resolved to do 3, religion and every thing else are different." JOHNSON. "Yes, sir; there are two objects of curiosity,-the Christian world, and the Mahometan world. All the rest may be considered as barbarous." BOSWELL. "Pray, sir, is the Turkish Spy'a genuine book?" JOHNSON. "No, sir. Mrs. Manley, in her life, says, that her father wrote the first two volumes: and in another book, Dunton's Life and Errours,' we find that the rest was written by one Sault, at two guineas a sheet, under the direction of Dr. Midgeley 2." The Mr. Lowe, the painter, who was with him, was very much distressed that a large picture which he had painted was refused to be received into the Exhibition of the Royal Academy. Mrs. Thrale knew Johnson's character so superficially, as to represent him as unwilling to do small acts of benevolence; and mentions, in particular, that he would hardly take the trouble to write a letter in favour of his friends. truth, however, is that he was remarkable, in an extraordinary degree, for what she denies to him; and, above all, for this very BOSWELL. "This has been a very fac-sort of kindness, writing letters for those to tious reign, owing to the too great indul- whom his solicitations might be of service. JOHNSON. "I He now gave Mr. Lowe the following, of gence of government." think so, sir. What at first was. lenity, which I was diligent enough, with his pergrew timidity. Yet this is reasoning à pos- mission, to take copies at the next coffeeteriori, and may not be just. Supposing a house, while Mr. Windham was so good few had at first been punished, I believe as to stay by me. faction would have been crushed; but it might have been said, that it was a sanguinary reign. A man cannot tell à priori what will be best for government to do. This reign has been very unfortunate. We have had an unsuccessful war; but that does not prove that we have been ill governed. One side or other must prevail in war, as one or other must win at play. When we beat Louis, we were not better governed; nor were the French better governed when Louis beat us." On Saturday, April 12, I visited him, in company with Mr. Windham, of Norfolk, whom, though a whig, he highly valued. One of the best things he ever said was to this gentleman; who, before he set out for Ireland as secretary to Lord Northington, when lord lieutenant, expressed to the sage some modest and virtuous doubts, whether he could bring himself to practise those arts which it is supposed a person in that situation has occasion to employ. "Don't be afraid, sir," said Johnson, with a pleasant smile; you will soon make a very pretty rascal." He talked to-day a good deal of the wonderful extent and variety of London, and observed, that men of curious inquiry might "TO SÍR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. "12th April, 1783. "SIR, Mr. Lowe considers himself as cut off from all credit and all hope by the rejection of his picture from the Exhibition. Upon this work he has exhausted all his powers, and suspended all his expectations: and, certainly, to be refused an opportunity of taking the opinion of the publick, is in itself a very great hardship. It is to be condemned without a trial. "If you would procure the revocation of this incapacitating edict, you would deliver an uhappy man from great affliction. The council has sometimes reversed its own determination; and I hope that, by your interposition, this luckless picture may be got &c. admitted. I am, "SAM. JOHNSON." "TO MR. BARRY. "12th April, 1783. "SIR,-Mr. Lowe's exclusion from the Exhibition gives him more trouble than you and the other gentlemen of the council could imagine or intend. He considers disgrace and ruin as the inevitable consequence of your determination. you "He says, that some pictures have been [John Dunton was a mad bookseller.-ED.] received after rejection; and if there be 2The Turkish Spy was pretended to have been written originally in Arabick; from Arabick any such precedent, I earnestly entreat that translated into Italian, and thence into English. Of his work I can say nothing; I pretend will use your interest in his favour. The real authour of the work, which was in fact not to judge of painting, and this picture I originally written in Italian, was I. P. Marana, a Genoese, who died at Paris in 1693. John Dun- 3 We accordingly carried our scheme into exeton, in his life, says, that "Mr. William Brad-cution, in October, 1792; but whether from that shaw received from Dr. Midgeley forty shillings uniformity which has in modern times, in a great a sheet for writing part of the Turkish Spy;' but degree, spread through every part of the meI do not find that he any where mentions Sault tropolis, or from our want of sufficient exertion, as engaged in that work."-MALONE. we were disappointed.-BOSWELL. BOSWELL. "Three a day seem never saw; but I conceive it extremely not allow yourself to be delighted with hard to shut out any man from the possibil-errour." ity of success; and therefore I repeat my request that you will propose the re-consideration of Mr. Lowe's case; and if there be any among the council with whom my name can have any weight, be pleased to communicate to them the desire of, sir, your most humble servant, "SAM. JOHNSON." but few." JOHNSON. "Nay, sir, he who entertains three a day does very liberally. And if there is a large family, the poor entertain those three, for they eat what the poor would get there must be superfluous meat; it must be given to the poor, or thrown out." BOSWELL. "I observe in London, that the poor go about and gather bones, which I understand are manufactured." JOHNSON. "Yes, sir; they boil them, and extact a grease from them for greasing wheels and other purposes. Of the best pieces they make a mock ivory, which is used for hafts to knives, and various other things; the coarser pieces they burn and pound, and sell the ashes." BosWELL. "For what purpose, sir?" JOHN"Why, sir, for making a furnace for the chemists for melting iron. A paste made of burnt bones will stand a stronger heat than any thing else. Consider, sir, if you are to melt iron, you cannot line your pot with brass, because it is softer than iron, and would melt sooner; nor with iron, for though malleable iron is harder than cast iron, yet it would not do; but a paste of burnt bones will not melt." BosWELL. SON. Such intercession was too powerful to be resisted; and Mr. Lowe's performance was admitted at Somerset-place. The subject, as I recollect, was the deluge, at that point of time when the water was verging to the top of the last uncovered mountain. Near to the spot was seen the last of the antediluvian race, exclusive of those who were saved in the ark of Noah. This was one of those giants, then the inhabitants of the earth, who had still strength to swim, and with one of his hands held aloft his infant child. Upon the small remaining dry spot appeared a famished lion, ready to spring at the child and devour it. Mr. Lowe told me that Johnson said to him, "Sir, your picture is noble and probable." "A compliment, indeed," said Mr. Lowe, "from a man who cannot lie, and cannot be mis-"Do you know, sir, I have discovered a taken." About this time he wrote to Mrs. Lucy Porter, mentioning his bad health, and that he intended a visit to Lichfield. "It is," says he, "with no great expectation of amendment that I make every year a journey into the country; but it is pleasant to visit those whose kindness has been often experienced." manufacture to a great extent, of what you only piddle at-scraping and drying the peel of oranges 1? At a place in Newgate-street there is a prodigious quantity prepared, which they sell to the distillers." JOHNSON. "Sir, I believe they make a higher thing out of them than a spirit; they make what is called orange-butter, the oil of the orange inspissated, which they mix perhaps with common pomatum, and make it fragrant. The oil does not fly off in the drying." BOSWELL. "I wish to have a good walled garden." JOHNSON. "I don't think it would be worth the expense to you. We compute, in England, a park-wall at a thousand pounds a mile; now a garden-wall must cost at least as much. You intend your trees should grow higher than a deer will leap. Now let us see; for a hundred pounds you could only have forty-four square yards 2, which is very little; for two On April 18 (being Good Friday), I found him at breakfast, in his usual manner upon that day, drinking tea without milk, and eating a cross bun to prevent faintness; we went to St. Clement's church, as formerly. When we came home from church, he placed himself on one of the stone seats at his garden door, and I took the other, and thus in the open air, and in a placid frame of mind, he talked away very easily. JOHNSON. "Were I a country gentleman I should not be very hospitable; I should Rot have crowds in my house." BosWELL. "Sir Alexander Dick tells me that he remembers having a thousand people in a year to dine at his house; that is, reckoning each person as one, each time that he dined there." JOHNSON. "That, sir, is about three a day." BosWELL. "How 66 your statement lessens the idea!" JOHNSON. "That, sir, is the good of counting. It brings every thing to a certainty, which before floated in the mind indefinitely. BOSWELL. "But Omne ignotum pro magnifico est: one is sorry to have this diminished." JOHNSON. "Sir, you should It is suggested to me by an anonymous annotator on my work, that the reason why Dr. Johnbe found in the 358th Letter in Mrs. Piozzi's son collected the peels of squeezed oranges may Collection, where it appears that he recommended cine.-BOSWELL. [See ante, vol. i. p. 512, dried orange-peel, finely powdered," as a medinote.-ED.] 2 [The Bishop of Ferns observes, that Mr. Boswell here mistakes forty-four square yards for forty-four yards square, and thus makes Johnson talk nonsense. What Johnson probably said was this: 1760 yards of wall cost a thousand hundred pounds you may have eighty-four square yards, which is very well. But when will you get the value of two hundred pounds of walls, in fruit, in your climate? No, sir; such contention with nature is not worth while. I would plant an orchard, and have plenty of such fruit as ripen well in your country. My friend, Dr. Madden, of Ireland, said, that in an orchard there should be enough to eat, enough to lay up, enough to be stolen, and enough to rot upon the ground.' Cherries are an early fruit; you may have them; and you may have the early apples and pears." BoswELL. "We cannot have nonpareils." JOHNSON. "Sir, you can no more have nonpareils than you can have grapes." BoswELl. "We have them, sir; but they are very bad." JOHNSON. "Nay, sir, never try to have a thing merely to show that you cannot have it. From ground that would let for forty shilings you may have a large orchard; and you see it costs you only forty shillings. Nay, you may graze the ground when the trees are grown up; you cannot, while they are young." BOSWELL. "Is not a good garden a very common thing in England, sir?" JOHNSON. "Not so common, sir, as you imagine. In Lincolnshire there is hardly an orchard; in Staffordshire very little fruit." BOSWELL. "Has Langton no orchard?" JOHNSON. "No, sir." BosWELL. "How so, sir?" JOHNSON. "Why, | sir, from the general negligence of the county. He has it not, because nobody else has it." Boswell. "A hot-house is a certain thing; I may have that." JOHNSON. "A hot-house is pretty certain; but you must first build it, then you must keep fires in it, and you must have a gardener to take care of it." Boswell. "But if I have a garJOHNSON. dener at any rate?" Why, yes." BOSWELL. "I'd have it near my house; there is no need to have it in the orchard." JOHNSON. "Yes, I'd have it near my house. I would plant a great many currants; the fruit is good, and they make a pretty sweetmeat." I record this minute detail, which some may think trifling, in order to show clearly how this great man, whose mind could grasp such large and extensive subjects, as he has shown in his literary labours, was yet well-informed in the common affairs of life, and loved to illustrate them, pounds; therefore, one hundred and seventy-six yards will cost a hundred pounds. One hundred and seventy-six yards will enclose a garden-not of forty-four square yards, which would be a small closet-but of forty-four yards square, nearly half an acre. Of course, its double will well enclose a garden of eighty-eight yards square (eighty-four is either a misprint or an additional error), and that, as Johnson remarks, is very well, for it would be above an acre and a half.-ED.] Mr. Walker, the celebrated master of elocution, came in, and then we went up stairs into the study. I asked him if he had taught many clergymen. JOHNSON. "I hope not." WALKER. "I have taught only one, and he is the best reader I ever heard, not by my teaching, but by his own JOHNSON. natural talents." "Were he the best reader in the world, I would not have it told that he was taught." Here was one of his peculiar prejudices. Could it be any disadvantage to the clergyman to have it known that he was taught an easy and graceful delivery? BOSWELL. "Will you not allow, sir, that a man may be taught to read well?" JOHNSON. Why, sir, so far as to read better than he might do without being taught, yes. Formerly it was supposed that there was no difference in read ing, but that one read as well as another." BOSWELL. "It is wonderful to see old Sheridan as enthusiastick about oratory as ever." WALKER. "His enthusiasm as to what oratory will do, may be too great: JOHNSON. "He reads but he reads well." well, but he reads low; and you know it is much easier to read low than to read high; for when you read high, you are much more limited, your loudest note can be but one, and so the variety is less in proportion to the loudness. Now some people have occasion to speak to an extensive audience, and must speak loud to be heard." WALKER. "The art is to read strong, though low.” Talking of the origin of language:JOHNSON. "It must have come by inspiration. A thousand, nay a million of children could not invent a language. While the organs are pliable, there is not understanding enough to form a language; by the time that there is understanding enough, the organs are become stiff. We know that after a certain age we cannot learn to pronounce a new language. No foreigner, who comes to England when advanced in life, ever pronounces English tolerably well; at least such instances are very rare. When I maintain that language must have come by inspiration, I do not mean that inspiration is required for rhetorick, and all the beauties of language; for when once man has language, we can conceive that he may gradually form modifications of it. I mean only that inspiration seems to me to be necessary to give man the faculty of speech; to inform him that he may have speech; which I think he could no more find out without inspiration, than cows or hogs would think of such a faculty.” WALKER. "Do you think, sir, that there are any perfect synonymes in any language?" JOHNSON. "Originally there were not: [He published several works on elocution and pronunciation, and died August 1, 1807, in the seventy-sixth year of his age.-ED.] |