me bodies. JOHNSON. "Nay, Madam, we Of apparitions', he observed, "A total dis- imagined. The contrast between Macheath, Polly, and Lucy- and Dr. Samuel Johnson, blind, peevish Mrs. Williams, and lean, lank, preaching Mrs. Hall, was exquisite. I stole away to Coachmakers'-hall, and heard the difficult text of which we had talked, discussed with great decency, and some intelligence, by several speakers. There was a difference of opinion as to the appearance of ghosts in modern times, though the argument for it, supported by Mr. Addison's authority, preponderated. The immediate subject of debate was embarrassed by the bodies of the saints having been said to rise, and by the question what became of them afterwards :did they return again to their graves? or were they translated to heaven? Only one evangelist mentions the fact (Matthew, xxvii. 52, 53.), and the commentators whom I have looked at do not make the passage clear. There is, however, no occasion for our understanding it farther than to know that it was one of the extraordinary manifestations of divine power which accompanied the most important event that ever happened. CHAPTER LXXIII. 1781. Mudge's "Sermons." Miss Hannah More.A Printer's Devil. Quotation. Letter-writing. Bet Flint. nis inexplicable calling was a thing very well Dinner at Mrs. Garrick's. Some time after this, upon his making a remark which escaped my attention, Mrs. Wiliams and Mrs. Hall were both together striving to answer him. He grew angry, and called out loudly, "Nay, when you both speak at once, it is intolerable." But checking himself, and softening, he said, "This one may say, though, you are ladies." Then he brightened gay humour, and addressed them in the words of one of the songs in "The Beggar's Opera," into English Sermons. Blue-Stocking Clubs. Miss Monckton. Talking for Victory. A Cui Bono Man.· "Heroic Epistle." Lord Carlisle's Poems. Of Tory and Whig.". Dr. Barnard. 66 Visit Trusting to Impres- Ancient Egyptians. — Memory and Recollection.- Marrying a pretty Woman. Thrale's Brewery. Mr. Bewley. Johnson's Hearth-broom. Dr. Patten. Visit to Ashbourne and Lichfield. ON Friday, April 20., I spent with him one of the happiest days that I remember to have enjoyed in the whole course of my life. Mrs. Garrick, whose grief for the loss of her husband was, I believe, as sincere as wounded affection and admiration could produce, had this day, for the first time since his death, a select party of his friends to dine with her. The company was, Miss Hannah More, who lived with her, and whom she called her chaplain; Mrs. Boscawen, Mrs. Elizabeth Carter, Sir Joshua fond of the mysterious, and perhaps upon some occasions may have directed the conversation to those topics, when they would not spontaneously have suggested themselves to Johnson's mind; but that he also had a love for speculations of that nature may be gathered from his writings throughout. -J. BOSWELL, jun. 2 Garrick had been dead two years and three months. CROKER, 1847. once at the Society of Arts, when an adver. tisement was to be drawn up, he pointed me out as the man who could do it best. This, you will observe, was kindness to me. I however slipt away, and escaped it." Mrs. Carter having said of the same person, "I doubt he was an atheist:" JOHNSON, "I don't know that. He might, perhaps, have become one, if he had had time to ripen (smilHe might have exuberated into an Reynolds, Dr. Burney, Dr. Johnson, and myself. We found ourselves very elegantly entertained at her house in the Adelphi, where I have passed many a pleasing hour with him "who gladdened life." She looked well, talked of her husband with complacency, and while she cast her eyes on his portrait, which hung over the chimney-piece, said, that "death was now the most agreeable object to her." The very semblance of David Garrick was cheer-ing). ing. Mr. Beauclerk, with happy propriety, atheist." inscribed under that fine portrait of him, which by Lady Diana's kindness is now the property of my friend Mr. Langton, the following passage from his beloved Shakspeare: A merrier man, Within the limit of becoming mirth, I never spent an hour's talk withal. His eye begets occasion for his wit; For every object that the one doth catch The other turns to a mirth-moving jest ; Which his fair tongue (Conceit's expositor) Delivers in such apt and gracious words, That aged ears play truant at his tales, And younger hearings are quite ravished; So sweet and voluble is his discourse."1 We were all in fine spirits; and I whispered to Mrs. Boscawen, "I believe this is as much as can be made of life." In addition to a splendid entertainment, we were regaled with Lichfield ale, which had a peculiar appropriate value. Sir Joshua, and Dr. Burney, and I drank cordially of it to Dr. Johnson's health; and though he would not join us, he as cordially answered, "Gentlemen, I wish you all as well as you do me." The general effect of this day dwells upon my mind in fond remembrance; but I do not find much conversation recorded. What I have preserved shall be faithfully given. One of the company mentioned Mr. Thomas Hollis, the strenuous Whig, who used to send over Europe presents of democratical books, with their boards stamped with daggers and caps of liberty. Mrs. Carter said, "He was a bad man: he used to talk uncharitably." JOHNSON. "Poh! poh! Madam; who is the worse for being talked of very uncharitably? Besides, he was a dull poor creature as ever lived and I believe he would not have done harm to a man whom he knew to be of very opposite principles to his own. I remember Sir Joshua Reynolds praised "Mudge's Sermons." JOHNSON. "Mudge's Sermons are good, but not practical. He grasps more sense than he can hold; he takes more corn than he can make into meal; he opens a wide prospect, but it is so distant, it is indistinct. I love 'Blair's Sermons.' Though the dog is a Scotchman, and a presbyterian, and every thing he should not be, I was the first to praise them. Such was my candour" (smirg). MRS. BOSCAWEN. "Such his great merit, to get the better of all your prejudices." JonsSON. "Why, Madam, let us compound the matter; let us ascribe it to my candour, and his merit." In the evening we had a large company the drawing-room; several ladies, the Bishop of Killaloe (Dr. Barnard), Dr. Percy, Mr. Chamberlayne of the Treasury, &c. & Somebody said, the life of a mere literary mat could not be very entertaining. JOHNSON "But it certainly may. This is a remark which has been made, and repeated, without justice. Why should the life of a literary man be less entertaining than the life of any other man? Are there not as interesting varieties in such a life? As a literary life it may be very entertaining." BOSWELL. "But it must be better surely when it is diversified with a little active variety-such as his having gone to Jamaica; -or- his having gone to the Hebrides." Johnson was not displeased at this. Talking of a very respectable author, he told us a curious circumstance in his life, which was, that he had married a printer's devil. REYNOLDS. "A printer's devil, Sir! why, I thought a printer's devil was a creature with a black face and in rags." JOHNSON. "Yes, Sir. But I suppose he had her face washed, and put clean clothes on her." Then, looking very serious, and very earnest. "And she did not Rosaline's character of Biron. Love's Labour's Lost, act 2. sc. 1.- CROKER. 2 Boswell was right; four other such women or such men, it would have been difficult to collect. Hannah More gives two anecdotes only of this day, neither mentioned by Boswell. "Johnson was in full song, and I quarrelled with him sadly. I accused him of not having done justice to the Allegro and Penseroso.' He spoke disparagingly of both. I praised Lycidas, which he absolutely abused, adding, that if Milton had not written Paradise Lost he would have only ranked among the minor poets. He was a Phidias that could cut a Colossus out of a rock, but could not cut heads out of cherry stones." Boswell brought to my mind my being made by Sir William Forbes the umpire in a trial of skill between Garrick and Boswell, which could most nearly imitate Johnson's manner. 1 remember I gave it for Boswell in familiar conversation, and for Garrick in reciting poetry. Mrs. Boscawen shone with her usual wild lustre." Memoirs, i. 212.— Croker, 1847. 3 See ante, p. 679., a more favourable opinion. — CROKER 4 Edward Chamberlayne was, for a short time, Secretary of the Treasury under Lord Rockingham, an office which he unwillingly accepted; and, overwhelmed with its fanced responsibilities, he, on the 5th April, 1782, committed surade by throwing himself out of one of the windows of the Treasury. He lived 36 hours, with his understanding clear, arranged ha affairs with great coolness, did not reproach himself for sell. * murder, but expressed contrition that he had done business with Lord Rockingham on Good Friday! He was the brother of Mrs. Kennicott. See Hannah More's Memoirs, í. 245. -CROKER, 1847. disgrace him; the woman had a bottom of good sense." The word bottom thus introduced was so ludicrous when contrasted with his gravity, that most of us could not forbear tittering and laughing; though I recollect that the Bishop of Killaloe kept his countenance with perfect steadiness, while Miss Hannah More slily hid her face behind a lady's back who sat on the same settee with her. His pride could not bear that any expression of his should excite ridicule, when he did not intend it: he therefore resolved to assume and exercise despotic power, glanced sternly around, and called out in a strong tone, "Where's the merriment ?" Then collecting himself, and looking awful, to make us feel how he could impose restraint, and as it were searching his iind for a still more ludicrous word, he slowly pronounced, "I say the woman was fundamentally sensible;" as if he had said, Hear this now, and laugh if you dare. We all sat composed as at a funeral.1 He and I walked away together: we stopped a little while by the rails of the Adelphi, looking on the Thames, and I said to him with some emotion, that I was now thinking of two friends we had lost, who once lived in the buildings behind us, Beauclerk and Garrick. “Ay, sir, (said he, tenderly) and two such friends as cannot be supplied." For some time after this day I did not see him very often, and of the conversation which I did enjoy, I am sorry to find I have preserved but little. I was at this time engaged in a variety of other matters which required exertion and assiduity, and necessarily occupied almost all my time. One day, having spoken very freely of those who were then in power, he said to me, "Between ourselves, Sir, I do not like to give Opposition the satisfaction of knowing how much I disapprove of the ministry." And when I mentioned that Mr. Burke had boasted how quiet the nation was in George the Second's reign, when whigs were in power, compared with the present reign, when tories governed; -"Why, sir," said he, "you are to consider that tories having more reverence for government, will not oppose with the same violence as whigs, who, being unrestrained by that principle, will oppose by any means." This month he lost not only Mr. Thrale, but another friend, Mr. William Strahan, junior, printer, the eldest son of his old and constant friend, printer to his Majesty. JOHNSON TO MRS. STRAHAN. amiable son: a man of whom I think it may be truly said, that no one knew him who does not lament him. I look upon myself as having a friend, another friend, taken from me. "Comfort, dear Madam, I would give you, if I could; but I know how little the forms of consolation can avail. Let me, however, counsel you not to waste your health in unprofitable sorrow, but go to Bath, and endeavour to prolong your own life. But when we have all done all that we can, one friend must in time lose the other. I am, dear Madam, your most humble servant, SAM. JOHNSON." On Tuesday, May 8., I had the pleasure of again dining with him and Mr. Wilkes, at Mr. Dilly's. No negotiation was now required to bring them together; for Johnson was so well satisfied with the former interview, that he was very glad to meet Wilkes again, who was this day seated between Dr. Beattie and Dr. Johnson; (between Truth and Reason, as General Paoli said, when I told him of it.) WILKES. "I have been thinking, Dr. Johnson, that there should be a bill brought into parliament that the controverted elections for Scotland should be tried in that country, at their own Abbey of Holyrood-house, and not here; for the consequence of trying them here is, that we have an inundation of Scotchmen, who come up and never go back again. Now, here is Boswell, who is come upon the election for his own county, which will not last a fortnight." JOHNSON. "Nay, Sir, I see no reason why they should be tried at all; for, you know, one Scotchman is as good as another." WILKES. 66 Pray, Boswell, how much may be got in a year by an advocate at the Scotch bar?" BOSWELL. "I believe, two thousand pounds." WILKES. "How can it be possible to spend that money in Scotland ?" JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, the money may be spent in England; but there is a harder question. If one man in Scotland gets possession of two thousand pounds, what remains for all the rest of the nation ?" WILKES. "You know, in the last war, the immense booty which Thurot carried off by the complete plunder of seven Scotch isles; he re-embarked with three and sixpence." Here again Johnson and Wilkes joined in extravagant sportive raillery upon the supposed poverty of Scotland, which Dr. Beattie and I did not think it worth our while to dispute. The subject of quotation being introduced, Mr. Wilkes censured it as pedantry. JOHNSON. "No, Sir, it is a good thing; there is a community of mind in it. Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world." WILKES. "Upon the continent they all quote the Vulgate Bible. Shakspeare is chiefly quoted here: and we quote also Pope, Prior, Butler, Waller, and sometimes Cowley." We talked of letter-writing. JOHNSON. "It 2 In allusion to Dr. Beattie's Essay on Truth. - CROKER. |