how to retrench in some particulars less necessary than others.' This he did not attempt to answer. Talking of an acquaintance of ours, whose narratives, which abounded in curious and interesting topics, were unhappily found to be very fabulous; I mentioned Lord Mansfield's having said to me, ‘Suppose we believe one half of what he tells.' JOHNSON: 'Ay; but we don't know which half to believe. By his lying we lose not only our reverence for him, but all comfort in his conversation.' BOSWELL: 'May we not take it as amusing fiction?' JOHNSON: 'Sir, the misfortune is, that you will insensibly believe as much of it as you incline to believe.' It is remarkable, that notwithstanding their congeniality in politics he never was acquainted with a late eminent noble judge, whom I have heard speak of him as a writer, with great respect. Johnson, I know not upon what degree of investigation, entertained no exalted opinion of his Lordship's intellectual character. Talking of him to me one day, he said, 'It is wonderful, sir, with how little real superiority of mind men can make an eminent figure in public life.' He expressed himself to the same purpose concerning another law-lord, who, it seems, once took a fancy to associate with the wits of London; but with so little success, that Foote said, 'What can he mean by coming among us? He is not only dull himself, but the cause of dulness in others.' Trying him by the test of his colloquial powers, Johnson had found him very defective. He once said to Sir Joshua Reynolds, 'This man now has been ten years about town, and has made nothing of it'; meaning as a companion.1 He 1 Knowing as well as I do what precision and elegance of oratory said to me, 'I never heard anything from him in company that was at all striking; and depend upon it, sir, it is when you come close to a man in conversation that you discover what his real abilities are: to make a speech in a public assembly is a knack. Now I honour Thurlow, sir; Thurlow is a fine fellow; he fairly puts his mind to yours.' After repeating to him some of his pointed, lively sayings, I said, 'It is a pity, sir, you don't always remember your own good things, that you may have a laugh when you will.' JOHNSON: 'Nay, sir, it is better that I forget them, that I may be reminded of them, and have a laugh on their being brought to my recollection.' When I recalled to him his having said as we sailed up Loch Lomond, 'That if he wore anything fine, it should be very fine.' I observed that all his thoughts were upon a great scale. JOHNSON: 'Depend upon it, sir, every man will have as fine a thing as he can get; as large a diamond for his ring.' BOSWELL: 'Pardon me, sir: a man of a narrow mind will not think of it, a slight trinket will satisfy him : "Nec sufferre queat majoris pondera gemmæ."'1 I told him I should send him some 'Essays' which I had written, which I hoped he would be so good as to read, and pick out the good ones. JOHNSON: 'Nay, his Lordship can display, I cannot but suspect that his unfavourable appearance in a social circle, which drew such animadversions upon him, must be owing to a cold affectation of consequence from being reserved and stiff. If it be so, and he might be an agreeable man if he would, we cannot be sorry that he misses his aim. 1 Juvenal, Sat. i. 29. [Under the title of The Hypochondriac.—M.] VOL. VI. B sir, send me only the good ones; don't make me pick them.' I heard him once say, 'Though the proverb "Nullum numen abest, si sit prudentia" does not always prove true, we may be certain of the converse of it, "Nullum numen adest, si sit imprudentia.' Once, when Mr. Seward was going to Bath, and asking his commands, he said, 'Tell Dr. Harrington that I wish he would publish another volume of the Nuga antiquæ;1 it is a very pretty book.' 2 Mr. Seward seconded this wish, and recommended to Dr. Harrington to dedicate it to Johnson, and take for his motto what Catullus says to Cornelius Nepos : 'namque tu solebas, Meas esse aliquid putare Nugas.' As a small proof of his kindliness and delicacy of feeling, the following circumstance may be mentioned: One evening when we were in the street together, and I told him I was going to sup at Mr. Beauclerk's, he said, 'I'll go with you.' After having walked part of the way, seeming to recollect something, he suddenly stopped and said, 'I cannot go,—but I do not love Beauclerk the less.' On the frame of his portrait Mr. Beauclerk had inscribed, 'Ingenium ingens Inculto latet hoc sub corpore.' 1 It has since appeared. 2 [A new and greatly improved edition of this very curious collection was published by Mr. Park in 1804, in two volumes octavo. In this edition the letters are chronologically arranged, and the account of the bishops, which was formerly printed from a very corrupt copy, is taken from Sir John Harrington's original manuscript, which he presented to Henry, Prince of Wales, and is now in the Royal Library in the Museum.-M.] 3 Carm. i. 3. After Mr. Beauclerk's death, when it became Mr. Langton's property, he made the inscription be defaced. Johnson said complacently, 'It was kind in you to take it off'; and then, after a short pause, added, and not unkind in him to put it on.' He said, 'How few of his friends' houses would a man choose to be at, when he is sick!' He mentioned one or two. I recollect only Thrale's. He observed, 'There is a wicked inclination in most people to suppose an old man decayed in his intellects. If a young or middle-aged man, when leaving a company, does not recollect where he laid his hat, it is nothing; but if the same inattention is discovered in an old man, people will shrug up their shoulders, and say, "his memory is going." When I once talked to him of some of the sayings which everybody repeats, but nobody knows where to find, such as, Quos Deus vult perdere, prius dementat ; he told me that he was once offered ten guineas to point out from whence Semel insanivimus omnes was taken. He could not do it; but, many years afterwards, met with it by chance in Johannes Baptista Mantuanus.1 1 [The words occur (as Mr. Bindley observes to me) in the First Eclogue of Mantuanus, De honesto Amore, etc. Id commune malum; semel insanivimus omnes. With the following elucidation of the other saying-Quos Deus (it should rather be Quem Jupiter) vult perdere, prius dementat-Mr. Boswell was furnished by Mr. Richard How of Aspley, in Bedfordshire, as communicated to that gentleman by his friend, Mr. John Pitts, late Rector of Great Brickhill, in Buckinghamshire: Perhaps no scrap of Latin whatever has been more quoted than this. It occasionally falls even from those who are scrupulous even to pedantry in their Latinity, and will not admit a word into their compositions, which has not the sanction of the first age. The word demento is of no authority, either as a verb active or neuter.-After a long search, for the purpose of deciding a bet, some gentlemen of Cambridge found it I am very sorry that I did not take a note of an eloquent argument in which he maintained that the situation of the Prince of Wales was the happiest of any person's in the kingdom, even beyond that of the Sovereign. I recollect only the enjoyment of hope, the high superiority of rank, without the anxious cares of government, and a great degree of power, both from natural influence wisely used, and from the sanguine expectations of those who look forward to the chance of future favour. Sir Joshua Reynolds communicated to me the following particulars: Johnson thought the poems published as translations from Ossian had so little merit, that he said, among the fragments of Euripides, in what edition I do not recollect where it is given as a translation of a Greek Iambic : Ον Θεὸς δέλει ἀπολέσαι, πρῶτ ̓ ἀποφρενοῖ. The above scrap was found in the handwriting of a suicide of fashion, Sir D. O., some years ago, lying on the table of the room where he had destroyed himself. The suicide was a man of classical acquirements: he left no other paper behind him.' Another of these proverbial sayings, Incidit in Scyllam, cupiens vitare Charybdim, I some years ago, in a note on a passage in The Merchant of Venice, traced to its source. It occurs (with a slight variation) in the Alex andreis of Philip Gualtier) a poet of the thirteenth century), which was printed at Lyons in 1558. Darius is the person addressed: Quo tendis inertem, Rex periture, fugam? nescis, heu ! perdite, nescis The author of this line was first ascertained by Galeottus Martius, who died in 1476; as is observed in Menagiana, vol. iii. p. 130, edit. 1762.-For an account of Philip Gualtier, see Vossius de Poet. Latin., p. 254, fol. 1697. A line, not less frequently quoted than any of the preceding, was suggested for inquiry, several years ago, in a note on The Rape o Lucrece: 'Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris.' But the author of this verse has not, I believe, been discovered.-M.] |