visible mark: what are stars and other signs of su periority made for?"

58. General Satire. -Physic. — Law.

Though no man, perhaps, made such rough replies as Dr. Johnson, yet nobody had a more just aversion to general satire. He always hated and censured Swift for his unprovoked bitterness against the professors of medicine; and used to challenge his friends, when they lamented the exorbitancy of physicians' fees, to produce him one instance of an estate raised by physic in England. When an acquaintance, too, was one day exclaiming against the tediousness of the law and its partiality

"Let us hear, Sir," said Johnson, "no general abuse; the law is the last result of human wisdom acting upon human experience for the benefit of the public."

59. Unnecessary Scruples.

As the mind of Dr. Johnson was greatly expanded, so his first care was for general, not particular or petty morality; and those teachers had more of his blame than praise, I think, who seek to oppress life with unnecessary scruples: Scruples would," as he observed,

66

I certainly make men miserable, and seldom make them good. Let us ever," he said, "studiously fly from those instructors against whom our Saviour denounces heavy judgments, for having bound up burdens grievous to be borne, and laid them on the shoulders of mortal men."

No one had, however, higher notions of the hard task of true Christianity than Johnson, whose daily terror lest he had not done enough originated in piety, but ended in little less than disease. Reasonable with regard to others, he had formed vain hopes of performing impossibilities himself; and finding his good works ever below his desires and intent, filled his imagination with

fears that he should never obtain forgiveness for omis sions of duty and criminal waste of time.

60. Jestiny.

Mr. Johnson liked a frolic or a jest well enough; though he had strange serious rules about it too; and very angry was he if any body offered to be merry when he was disposed to be grave. "You have an ill-founded notion," said he, "that it is clever to turn matters off with a joke, as the phrase is; whereas, nothing produces enmity so certain, as one person's showing a disposition to be merry, when another is inclined to be either serious or displeased."

61. Distressed Authors.

No man told a story with so good a grace, or knew so well what would make an effect upon his auditors. When he raised contributions for some distressed author, or wit in want, he often made us all more than amends by diverting descriptions of the lives they were then passing in corners, unseen by any body but himself and that odd old surgeon, Robert Levett, whom he kept in his house to tend the out-pensioners, and of whom he said most truly and sublimely, that

"In misery's darkest caverns known,

His ready help was ever nigh,

Where hopeless anguish pour'd his groan,

And lonely want retired to die."

I have forgotten the year, but it could scarcely I think be later than 1765 or 1766, that he was called abruptly from our house after dinner, and returning in about three hours, said, he had been with an enraged author, whose landlady pressed him for payment within doors, while the bailiffs beset him without; that he was drink- . ing himself drunk with Madeira to drown care, and fretting over a novel which when finished was to be his

whole fortune; but he could not get it done for distrac tion, nor could he step out of doors to offer it to sale. Mr. Johnson therefore set away the bottle, and went to the bookseller, recommending the performance, and desiring some immediate relief; which when he brought back to the writer, he called the woman of the house directly to partake of punch, and pass their time in merriment. (1)

There was a Mr. Boyce, too, who wrote some very elegant verses printed in the Magazines of five-andtwenty years ago, of whose ingenuity and distress I have heard Dr. Johnson tell 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 catchup, 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.

Another man, for whom he often begged, made as wild use of his friend's beneficence as these, spending in punch the solitary guinea which had been brought him one morning; when resolving to add another claimant to a share of the bowl, besides a woman who always lived with him, and a footman who used to carry out petitions for charity, he borrowed a chairman's watch, and pawning it for half a crown, paid a clergyman to marry him to a fellow-lodger in the wretched house they all inhabited, and got so drunk over the guinea bowl of punch the evening of his wedding day, that having many years lost the use of one leg, he now contrived to fall from the top of the stairs to the bottom, and break his arm; in which condition his companions left him to call Mr. Johnson, who relating the series of his tragi-comical distresses, obtained from the Literary Club a seasonable relief

(1) [See antè, Vol. II. p. 193.1

62. The Literary Club.

Of that respectable society I have heard him speak in the highest terms, and with a magnificent panegyric on each member, when it consisted only of a dozen or fourteen friends; but as soon as the necessity of enlarging it brought in new faces, and took off from his confidence in the company, he grew less fond of the meeting, and loudly proclaimed his carelessness who might be admitted, when it was become a mere dinner club.

63. Johnson's Incredulity.

Mr. Johnson's incredulity amounted almost to disease and I have seen it mortify his companions exceedingly. Two gentlemen, I perfectly well remember, dining with us at Streatham in the summer 1782, when Elliot's brave defence of Gibraltar was a subject of common discourse, one of these men naturally enough began some talk about red-hot balls thrown with surprising dexte rity and effect: which Dr. Johnson having listened some time to "I would advise you, Sir," said he with a cold sneer, 66 never to relate this story again: you really can scarce imagine how very poor a figure you make in the telling of it." Our guest being bred a Quaker, and I believe a man of an extremely gentle lisposition, needed no more reproofs for the same folly; so if he ever did speak again, it was in a low voice to the friend who came with him. The check was given before dinner, and after coffee I left the room. When in the evening, however, our companions were returned to London, and Mr. Johnson and myself were left alone,

with only our usual family about us — "I did not quarrel with those Quaker fellows," said he, very seriously. "You did perfectly right," replied I; " for they gave you no cause of offence." "No offence!" returned he with an altered voice; "and is it nothing then to sit whispering together when I am present, without ever

directing their scourse towards me, or offering me a share in the conversation?" That was because you frighted him who spoke first about those hot balls. Why, Madam, if a creature is neither capable of giving dignity to falsehood, nor willing to remain contented with the truth, he deserves no better treatment." (1)

Mr. Johnson's fixed incredulity (2) of every thing he heard, and his little care to conceal that incredulity, was teasing enough to be sure: and I saw Mr. Sharp was pained exceedingly, when relating the history of a hurricane that happened about that time in the West Indies, where, for aught I know, he had himself lost some friends too, he observed Dr. Johnson believed not a

syllable of the account: "For 't is so easy,” says he,

"for a man to fill his mouth with a wonder, and run about telling the lie before it can be detected, that I have no heart to believe hurricanes easily raised by the first inventor, and blown forwards by thousands more." I asked him once if he believed the story of the destruc

(1) Mr. Malone, in his MS. notes, is very indignant that Mrs. Piozzi has omitted to state what the story was which produced this observation, and because she has not done so questions the veracity of the whole anecdote; but this is very unjust. Mrs. Piozzi's object was to exhibit Johnson's manners, and not to re.. cord the minute details of the Quaker's story. — C.

(2) Mr. Malone, in his MS. notes, observes on this passage, "Here is another GROSS MISREPRESENTATION. He had no fixed incredulity concerning every thing he heard; but he had observed the great laxity with which almost every story is told, and therefore always examined it accurately, and frequently found some gross exaggeration. The writer herself had not the smallest regard for truth, as Johnson told Mr. Boswell (see his Life of Johnson), and hence this scrutinising habit of her guest was to her a very sore subOn this I must take leave to say, that Mr. Malone's observation defeats itself; because if Dr. Johnson's incredulity was a sore subject with Mrs. Piozzi, she cannot be blamed for recording it. Mr. Malone might have questioned her judgment, in supposing that Johnson was equally incredulous as to other persons, but not her sincerity, in describing him as she found him; and if he found almost every story told with great laxity, Is it surprising that he should have an habitual incredulity? -C.

ject."