having been too silent. 'Sir,' said I, 'you will recollect that he very properly took up Sir Joshua for being glad that Charles Fox had praised Goldsmith's Traveller, and you joined him.' JOHNSON: 'Yes, sir, I knocked Fox on the head, without ceremony. Reynolds is too much under Fox and Burke at present. He is under the Fox star, and the Irish constellation. He is always under some planet.' BOSWELL: 'There is no Fox star.' JOHNSON: 'But there is a Dog star.' BOSWELL: 'They say, indeed, a fox and a dog are the same animal.' I reminded him of a gentleman who, Mrs. Cholmondeley said, was first talkative from affectation, and then silent from the same cause; that he first thought, 'I shall be celebrated as the liveliest man in every company; and then, all at once, 'Oh! it is much more respectable to be grave, and look wise.' 'He has reversed the Pythagorean discipline, by being first talkative, and then silent. He reverses the course of nature too; he was first the gay butterfly, and then the creeping worm.' Johnson laughed loud and long at this expansion and illustration of what he himself had told me. We dined together with Mr. Scott (now Sir William Scott, his Majesty's Advocate-General) at his chambers in the Temple; nobody else there. The company being small, Johnson was not in such spirits as he had been the preceding day, and for a considerable time little was said. At last he burst forth: 'Subordination is sadly broken down in this age. No man, now, has the same authority which his father had-except a gaoler. No master has it over his servants; it is diminished in our colleges: nay, in our grammar schools.' BOSWELL: 'What is the cause of this, sir?" JOHNSON: 'Why, the coming in of the Scotch' (laughing sarcastically). BOSWELL: 'That is to say, things have been turned topsy-turvy. But your serious cause?" JOHNSON: 'Why, sir, there are many causes, the chief of which is, I think, the great increase of money. No man now depends upon the lord of a manor, when he can send to another country and fetch provisions. The shoeblack at the entry of my court does not depend on me. I can deprive him but of a penny a day, which he hopes somebody else will bring him; and that penny I must carry to another shoeblack; so the trade suffers nothing. I have explained, in my Journey to the Hebrides, how gold and silver destroy feudal subordination. But, besides, there is a general relaxation of reverence. No son now depends upon his father, as in former times. Paternity used to be considered as of itself a great thing, which had a right to many claims. That is, in general, reduced to very small bounds. My hope is, that as anarchy produces tyranny, this extreme relaxation will produce freni strictio.' JOHN Talking of fame, for which there is so great a desire, I observed how little there is of it in reality, compared with the other objects of human attention. 'Let every man recollect, and he will be sensible how small a part of his time is employed in talking or thinking of Shakspeare, Voltaire, or any of the most celebrated men that have ever lived, or are now supposed to occupy the attention and admiration of the world. Let this be extracted and compressed; into what a narrow space will it go!' I then slily introduced Mr. Garrick's fame, and his assuming the airs of a great man. SON: 'Sir, it is wonderful how little Garrick assumes. No, sir, Garrick fortunam reverenter habet. Consider, sir,-celebrated men, such as you have mentioned, have had their applause at a distance; but Garrick had it dashed in his face, sounded in his ears, and went home every night with the plaudits of a thousand in his cranium. Then, sir, Garrick did not find, but made his way to the tables, the levees, and almost the bed-chambers of the great. Then, sir, Garrick had under him a numerous body of people; who, from fear of his power and hopes of his favour, and admiration of his talents, were constantly submissive to him. And here is a man who has advanced the dignity of his profession. Garrick has made a player a higher character.' SCOTT: 'And he is a very sprightly writer too.' JOHNSON: 'Yes, sir; and all this supported by great wealth of his own acquisition. If all this had happened to me, I should have had a couple of fellows with long poles walking before me, to knock down everybody that stood in the way. Consider, if all this had happened to Cibber or Quin, they'd have jumped over the moon. Yet Garrick speaks to us' (smiling). BOSWELL: 'And Garrick is a very good man, a charitable man.' JOHNSON : 'Sir, a liberal man. He has given away more money than any man in England. There may be a little vanity mixed; but he has shown that money is not his first object.' BOSWELL: 'Yet Foote used to say of him, that he walked out with an intention to do a generous action; but turning the corner of a street, he met with the ghost of a halfpenny, which frightened him.' JOHNSON: 'Why, sir, that is very true, too; for I never knew a man of whom it could be said with less certainty to-day, what he will do to-morrow, than Garrick; it depends so much on his humour at the time.' SCOTT: 'Iamglad to hear of his liberality. He has been represented as very saving.' JOHNSON: 'With his domestic saving we have nothing to do. I remember drinking tea with him long ago, when Peg Woffington made it, and he grumbled at her for making it too strong. He had then 1 When Johnson told this little anecdote to Sir Joshua Reynolds, he mentioned a circumstance which he omitted to-day:-'Why,' said Garrick, 'it is as red as blood.'-BOSWELL begun to feel money in his purse, and did not know when he should have enough of it.' On the subject of wealth, the proper use of it, and the effects of that art which is called economy, he observed, 'It is wonderful to think how men of very large estates not only spend their yearly incomes, but are often actually in want of money. It is clear they have not value for what they spend. Lord Shelburne told me that a man of high rank, who looks into his own affairs, may have all that he ought to have, all that can be of any use, or appear with any advantage, for £5000 a year. Therefore a great proportion must go in waste; and, indeed, this is the case with most people, whatever their fortune is.' BOSWELL: 'I have no doubt, sir, of this. But how is it? What is waste?" JOHNSON: 'Why, sir, breaking bottles, and a thousand other things. Waste cannot be accurately told, though we are sensible how destructive it is. Economy on the one hand, by which a certain income is made to maintain a man genteelly, and waste on the other, by which, on the same income, another man lives shabbily, cannot be defined. It is a very nice thing; as one man wears his coat out much sooner than another, we cannot tell how.' was uniformly violent; but in conversation he always exalted the profession of a soldier. And yet I have, in my large and various collection of his writings, a letter to an eminent friend, in which he expresses himself thus: 'My godson called on me lately. He is weary, and rationally weary, of a military life. If you can place him in some other state, I think you may increase his happiness, and secure his virtue. A soldier's time is passed in distress and danger, or in idleness and corruption.' Such was his cool reflection in his study; but whenever he was warmed and animated by the presence of company, he, like other philosophers, whose minds are impregnated with poetical fancy, caught the common enthusiasm for splendid renown. He talked of Mr. Charles Fox, of whose abilities he thought highly, but observed that he did not talk much at our CLUB. I have heard Mr. Gibbon remark, 'that Mr. Fox could not be afraid of Dr. Johnson; yet he certainly was very shy of saying anything in Dr. Johnson's presence.' Mr. Scott now quoted what was said of Alcibiades by a Greek poet, to which Johnson assented.1 He told us that he had given Mrs. Montagu a catalogue of all Daniel Defoe's works of imagination; most, if not all of which, as well as of his other works, he now enumerated, allowing a considerable share of merit to a man who, bred a tradesman, had written so variously and so well. Indeed, his Robinson Crusoe is enough of itself to establish his reputation. He expressed great indignation at the imposture of the Cock Lane ghost, and related with much satisfaction how he had assisted in detecting the cheat, and had published an account of it in the newspapers. Upon this subject I incautiously offended him, by pressing him with too many questions, and he showed his displeasure. I apologized, saying that 'I asked questions in order to be instructed and entertained; I repaired eagerly to the fountain; but that the moment he gave me a hint, the moment he put a lock upon the well, I desisted.' 'But, sir,' said he, 'that is forcing one to do a disagreeable thing:' and he continued to rate me. 'Nay, sir,' said I, 'when you have put a lock upon the well, so that I can no longer drink, do We talked of war. JOHNSON: 'Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea.' BOSWELL: 'Lord Mansfield does not.' JOHNSON: 'Sir, if Lord Mansfield were in a company of general officers and admirals who have been in service, he would shrink; he'd wish to creep under the table.' BOSWELL: 'No; he'd think he could try them all.' JOHNSON: 'Yes, if he could catch them: but they'd try him much sooner. No, sir; were Socrates and Charles the Twelfth of Sweden both present in any company, and Socrates to say, "Follow me, and hear a lecture in philosophy;" and Charles, laying his hand on his sword, to say, "Follow me, and dethrone the Czar;" a man would be ashamed to follow Socrates. Sir, the impression is universal: yet it is strange. As to the sailor, when you look down from the quarter-deck to the space below, you see the utmost extremity of human misery: such crowding, such filth, such stench!' BosWELL: 'Yet sailors are happy.' JOHNSON: 'They are happy as brutes are happy, with a piece of fresh meat-with the grossest sensuality. But, sir, the profession of soldiers and sailors has the dignity of danger. Mankind reverence those who have got over fear, which is so general a weakness.' SCOTT: 'But is not courage mechanical, and to be acquired?' JOHNSON: 'Why yes, sir, in a collective sense. Soldiers consider themselves only as part of a great machine.' SCOTT: 'We find people fond him, and that Mr. Scott's observation must have been of being sailors." JOHNSON: 'I cannot account for that, any more than I can account for other strange perversions of imagination.' His abhorrence of the profession of a sailor 1 Wishing to discover the ancient observation here referred to, I applied to Sir William Scott on the subject, but he had no recollection of it. My old and very learned friend, Dr. Michael Kearney, formerly senior fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, and now Archdeacon of Raphoe in Ireland, has, however, most happily elucidated this passage. He remarks to me, that 'Mr. Boswell's memory must here have deceived that Mr. Fox, in the instance mentioned, might be considered as the reverse of Pheax, of whom, as Plutarch relates in the Life of Alcibiades, Eupolis the tragedian said, "It is true he can talk, and yet he is no speaker."'-MALONE. not make the fountain of your wit play upon me and wet me.' He sometimes could not bear being teased with questions. I was once present when a gentleman asked so many, as, 'What did you do, sir?'-'What did you say, sir?' that he at last grew enraged, and said, 'I will not be put to the question. Don't you consider, sir, that these are not the manners of a gentleman? I will not be baited with what and why; what is this? what is that? why is a cow's tail long? why is a fox's tail bushy?" The gentleman, who was a good deal out of countenance, said, 'Why, sir, you are so good, that I venture to trouble you.' JOHNSON: 'Sir, my being so good is no reason why you should be so ill.' Talking of the Justitia hulk at Woolwich, in which criminals were punished by being confined to labour, he said, 'I do not see that they are punished by this: they must have worked equally, had they never been guilty of stealing. They now only work; so, after all, they have gained; what they stole is clear gain to them; the confinement is nothing. Every man who works is confined the smith to his shop, the tailor to his garret.' BosWELL: 'And Lord Mansfield to his Court.' JOHNSON: 'Yes, sir. You know the notion of confinement may be extended, as in the song, "Every island is a prison." There is, in Dodsley's collection, a copy of verses to the author of that song.' Smith's Latin verses on Pococke, the great traveller,1 were mentioned. He repeated some of them, and said they were Smith's best verses. He talked with an uncommon animation of travelling into distant countries; that the mind was enlarged by it, and that an acquisition of dignity of character was derived from it. He expressed a particular enthusiasm with respect to visiting the wall of China. I catched it for the moment, and said I really believed I should go and see the wall of China, had I not children, of whom it was my duty to take care. 'Sir,' said he, 'by doing so, you would do what would be of importance in raising your children to eminence. There would be a lustre reflected upon them from your spirit and curiosity. They would be at all times regarded as the children of a man who had gone to view the wall of China-I am serious, sir.' When we had left Mr. Scott's, he said, 'Will you go home with me?'-'Sir,' said I, 'it is late; but I'll go with you for three minutes.' JOHNSON: 'Or four.' We went to Mrs. Williams's room, where we found Mr. Allen, the printer, who was the landlord of his house in Bolt Court, a worthy, obliging man, and his very old acquaintance; and what was exceed 1 Smith's verses are on Edward Pococke, the great Oriental linguist. He travelled, it is true; but Dr. Richard Pococke, late Bishop of Ossory, who published Travels through the East, is usually called the great traveller.-KEARNEY. ingly amusing, though he was of a very diminu. tive size, he used, even in Johnson's presence, to imitate the stately periods and slow and solemn utterance of the great man. I this evening boasted that although I did not write what is called stenography, or short-hand, in appropriated characters devised for the purpose, I had a method of my own of writing half words, and leaving out some altogether, so as yet to keep the substance and language of any discourse which I had heard so much in view, that I could give it very completely soon after I had taken it down. He defied me, as he had once defied an actual short-hand writer; and he made the experiment by reading slowly and distinctly a part of Robertson's History of America, while I endeavoured to write it in my way of taking notes. It was found that I had it very imperfectly; the conclusion from which was, that its excellence was principally owing to a studied arrangement of words, which could not be varied or abridged without an essential injury. On Sunday, April 12, I found him at home before dinner; Dr. Dodd's poem, entitled Thoughts in Prison, was lying upon his table. This appearing to me an extraordinary effort by a man who was in Newgate for a capital crime, I was desirous to hear Johnson's opinion of it; to my surprise he told me he had not read a line of it. I took up the book, and read a passageto him. JOHNSON: 'Pretty well, if you are previously disposed to like them.' I read another passage, with which he was better pleased. He then took the book into his own hands, and having looked at the prayer at the end of it, he said, 'What evidence is there that this was composed the night before he suffered? I do not believe it.' He then read aloud where he prays for the King, etc., and observed, 'Sir, do you think that a man, the night before he is to be hanged, cares for the succession of a royal family?-Though he may have composed this prayer then. A man who has been canting all his life, may cant to the last. -And yet a man, who has been refused a pardon, after so much petitioning, would hardly be praying thus fervently for the King.' He and I, and Mrs. Williams, went to dine with the Reverend Dr. Percy. Talking of Goldsmith, Johnson said he was very envious. I defended him, by observing that he owned it frankly upon all occasions. JOHNSON: 'Sir, you are enforcing the charge. He had so much envy that he could not conceal it. He was so full of it that he overflowed. He talked of it, to be sure, often enough. Now, sir, what a man avows he is not ashamed to think; though many a man thinks what he is ashamed to avow. We are all envious naturally; but by checking envy we get the better of it. So we are all thieves naturally; a child always tries to get at what it wants the nearest way. By good instruction and good habits this is cured, till a man has not even an inclination to seize what is another's; has no struggle with himself about it.' t And here I shall record a scene of too much heat between Dr. Johnson and Dr. Percy, which I should have suppressed, were it not that it gave occasion to display the truly tender and benevolent heart of Johnson, who, as soon as he found a friend was at all hurt by anything which he had 'said in his wrath,' was not only prompt and desirous to be reconciled, but exerted himself to make ample reparation. Books of travels having been mentioned, Johnson praised Pennant very highly, as he did at Dunvegan, in the Isle of Skye.1 Dr. Percy, knowing himself to be the heir male of the ancient Percys, and having the warmest and most dutiful attachment to the noble House of Northumberland, could not sit quietly and hear a man praised who had spoken disrespectfully of Alnwick Castle and the Duke's pleasuregrounds, especially as he thought meanly of his travels. He therefore opposed Johnson eagerly. JOHNSON: 'Pennant, in what he has said of Alnwick, has done what he intended; he has made you very angry.' PERCY: 'He has said the garden is trim, which is representing it like a citizen's parterre, when the truth is, there is a very large extent of fine turf and gravel walks.' JOHNSON: 'According to your own account, sir, Pennant is right. It is trim. Here is grass cut close, and gravel rolled smooth. Is not that trim? The extent is nothing against that; a mile may be as trim as a square yard. Your extent puts me in mind of the citizen's enlarged dinner, two pieces of roast beef and two puddings. There is no variety, no mind exerted in laying out the ground, no trees.' PERCY: 'He pretends to give the natural history of Northumberland, and yet takes no notice of the im 1 Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, edit. 3, p. 221.BOSWELL 2 See this accurately stated, and the descent of his family from the Earls of Northumberland clearly deduced, in the Reverend Dr. Nash's excellent History of Worcestershire, vol. ii. p. 318. The Doctor has subjoined a note, in which he says, 'The Editor hath seen and carefully examined the proofs of all the particulars above mentioned, now in the possession of the Reverend Thomas Percy.' The same proofs I have also myself carefully examined, and have seen some additional proofs which have occurred since the Doctor's book was published; and both as a lawyer accustomed to the consideration of evidence, and as a genealogist versed in the study of pedigrees, I am fully satisfied. I cannot help observing, as a circumstance of no small moment, that in tracing the Bishop of Dromore's genealogy, essential aid was given by the late Elizabeth Duchess of Northumberland, heiress of that illustrious house; a lady not only of high dignity of spirit, such as became her noble blood, but of excellent understanding and lively talents. With a fair pride I can boast of the honour of her Grace's correspondence, specimens of which adorn my archives.-BOSWELL. The mense number of trees planted there of late.' JOHNSON: 'That, sir, has nothing to do with the natural history; that is, civil history. A man who gives the natural history of the oak, is not to tell how many oaks have been planted in this place or that. A man who gives the natural history of the cow, is not to tell how many cows are milked at Islington. animal is the same, whether milked in the park or at Islington.' PERCY: 'Pennant does not describe well; a carrier who goes along the side of Lochlomond would describe it better.' JOHNSON: 'I think he describes very well.' PERCY: 'I travelled after him.' JOHNSON: 'And I travelled after him.' PERCY: 'But, my good friend, you are shortsighted, and do not see so well as I do.' I wondered at Dr. Percy's venturing thus. Dr. Johnson said nothing at the time; but inflammable particles were collecting for a cloud to burst. In a little while, Dr. Percy said something more in disparagement of Pennant. JOHNSON (pointedly): 'This is the resentment of a narrow mind, because he did not find everything in Northumberland.' PERCY (feeling the stroke) : 'Sir, you may be as rude as you please.' JOHNSON: 'Hold, sir! Don't talk of rudeness. Remember, sir, you told me (puffing hard with passion struggling for a vent) I was short-sighted. We have done with civility. We are to be as rude as we please.' PERCY: 'Upon my honour, sir, I did not mean to be uncivil.' JOHNSON : 'I cannot say so, sir; for I did mean to be uncivil, thinking you had been uncivil.' Dr. Percy rose, ran up to him, and taking him by the hand, assured him affectionately that his meaning had been misunderstood; upon which a reconciliation instantly took place. JOHNSON: 'My dear sir, I am willing you shall hang Pennant.' PERCY (resuming the former subject): 'Pennant complains that the helmet is not hung out to invite to the hall of hospitality. Now, I never heard that it was a custom to hang out a helmet.' JOHNSON: 'Hang him up, hang him up.' BOSWELL (humouring the joke): 'Hang out his skull instead of a helmet, and you may drink ale out of it in your hall of Odin, as he is your enemy; that will be truly ancient. There will be Northern Antiquities." JOHNSON: 'He's a Whig, sir; a sad dog (smiling at his own violent expressions, merely for political difference of opinion). But he's the best traveller I ever 1 It certainly was a custom, as appears from the following passage in Perce Forest, vol. iii. p. 108:'Fasoient mettre au plus hault de leur hostel un heaulme, en signe que tous les gentils hommes et gentilles femmes entrassent hardiment en leur hostel comme en leur propre,' etc. -KEARNEY. The author's second son, Mr. James Boswell, late of Brazen nose College, in Oxford, and now of the Inner Temple, had noticed this passage in Perce Forest, and suggested to me the same remark.-MALONE. 2 The title of a book translated by Dr. Percy.BOSWELL read; he observes more things than any one else does.' I could not help thinking that this was too high praise of a writer who traversed a wide extent of country in such haste, that he could put together only curt frittered fragments of his own, and afterwards procured supplemental intelligence from parochial ministers, and others not the best qualified, or most partial narrators, whose ungenerous prejudice against the house of Stuart glares in misrepresentation: a writer who at best treats merely of superficial objects, and shows no philosophical investigation of character and manners, such as Johnson has exhibited in his masterly Journey over part of the same ground; and who, it should seem from a desire of ingratiating himself with the Scotch, has flattered the people of North Britain so inordinately and with so little discrimination, that the judicious and candid amongst them must be disgusted, while they value more the plain, just, yet kindly report of Johnson. Having impartially censured Mr. Pennant as a traveller in Scotland, let me allow him, from authorities much better than mine, his deserved praise as an able zoologist: and let me also, from my own understanding and feelings, acknowledge the merits of his London, which, though said to be not quite accurate in some particulars, is one of the most pleasing topographical performances that ever appeared in any language. Mr. Pennant, like his countrymen in general, has the true spirit of a gentleman. As a proof of it, I shall quote from his London the passage in which he speaks of my illustrious friend :-' I must by no means omit Bolt Court, the long residence of Dr. Samuel Johnson, a man of the strongest natural abilities, great learning, a most retentive memory, of the deepest and most unaffected piety and morality, mingled with those numerous weaknesses and prejudices which his friends have kindly taken care to draw from their dread abode.1 I brought on myself his transient anger, by observing that "in his tour in Scotland, he once had long and woeful experience of oats being the food of men in Scotland, as they were of horses in England." It was a national reflection unworthy of him, and I shot my bolt. In return he gave me a tender hug.2 Con amore he also said of me, "The dog is a Whig." I admired the virtues of Lord Russell, and pitied his fall. I should have been a Whig at the Revolution. There 1 This is the common cant against faithful biography. Does the worthy gentleman mean that I, who was taught discrimination of character by Johnson, should have omitted his frailties, and, in short, have bedaubed him as the worthy gentleman has bedaubed Scotland? -BOSWELL. * See Dr. Johnson's Journey to the Western Islands, p. 296: See his Dictionary, article Oats and my Voyage to the Hebrides, first edit.-PENNANT. Mr. Boswell's Journal.-PENNANT, have been periods since, in which I should have been, what I now am, a moderate Tory, a supporter, as far as my little influence extends, of a well-poised balance between the crown and people; but should the scale preponderate against the Salus populi, that moment may it be said, "The dog's a Whig!"" We had a calm after the storm, stayed the evening and supped, and were pleasant and gay. But Dr. Percy told me he was very uneasy at what had passed: for there was a gentleman there who was acquainted with the Northumberland family, to whom he hoped to have appeared more respectable, by showing how intimate he was with Dr. Johnson, and who might now, on the contrary, go away with an opinion to his disadvantage. He begged I would mention this to Dr. Johnson, which I afterwards did. His observation upon it was, 'This comes of stratagem; had he told me that he wished to appear to advantage before that gentleman, he should have been at the top of the house all the time.' He spoke of Dr. Percy in the handsomest manner. Then, sir,' said I, 'may I be allowed to suggest a mode by which you may effectually counteract any unfavourable report of what passed. I will write a letter to you upon the subject of the unlucky contest of that day, and you will be kind enough to put in writing, as an answer to that letter, what you have now said: and as Lord Percy is to dine with us at General Paoli's soon, I will take an opportunity to read the correspondence in his Lordship's presence.' This friendly scheme was accordingly carried into execution without Dr. Percy's knowledge. Johnson's letter placed Dr. Percy's unquestionable merit in the fairest point of view: and I contrived that Lord Percy should hear the correspondence, by introducing it at General Paoli's, as an instance of Dr. Johnson's kind disposition towards one in whom his Lordship was interested. Thus every unfavourable impression was obviated that could possibly have been made on those by whom he wished most to be regarded. I breakfasted the day after with him, and informed him of my scheme and its happy completion, for which he thanked me in the warmest terms, and was highly delighted with Dr. Johnson's letter in his praise, of which I gave him a copy. He said, 'I would rather have this than degrees from all the universities in Europe. It will be for me, and my children, and grand-children.' Dr Johnson having afterwards asked me if I had given him a copy of it, and being told I had, was offended, and insisted that I should get it back, which I did. As, however, he did not desire me to destroy either the original or the copy, or forbid me to let it be seen, I think myself at liberty to apply to it his general declaration to me concerning his own letters, - 'That he did not choose they should be published in his lifetime; but had no objection to their appearing after |