ultimate decision of an important cause by the supreme judicature of the nation?" JOHNSON. "No, Sir, I do not think it was wrong to publish these letters. If they are thought to do harm, why not answer them? But they will do no harm. If Mr. Douglas be indeed the son of Lady Jane, he cannot be hurt: if he be not her son, and yet has the great estate of the family of Douglas, he may well submit to have a pamphlet against him by Andrew Stuart. Sir, I think such a publication does good, as it does good to show us the possibilities of human life. And, Sir, you will not say that the Douglas cause was a cause of easy decision, when it divided your Court as much as it could do, to be determined at all. When your judges are seven and seven, the casting vote of the president must be given on one side or other; no matter, for my argument, on which; one or the other must be taken; as when I am to move, there is no matter which leg I move first. And then, Sir, it was otherwise determined here. No, Sir, a more dubious determination of any question cannot be imagined. He said, "Goldsmith should not be for ever attempting to shine in conversation: he has not temper for it, he is so much mortified when he fails. Sir, a game of jokes is composed partly of skill, partly of chance; a man may be beat at times by one who has not the tenth part of his wit. Now Goldsmith's putting himself against another, is like a man laying a hundred to one, who cannot spare the hundred. It is not worth a man's while. A man should not lay a hundred to one, unless he can easily spare it, though he has a hundred chances for him he can get but a guinea, and may lose a hundred. Goldsmith is in this state. When he contends, if he gets the better, it is a very little addition to a man of his literary reputation if he does not get the better, he is miserably vexed." Johnson's own superlative powers of wit set him above any risk of such uneasiness. Garrick had remarked to me of him, a few days before, "Rabelais and all other wits are nothing compared with him. You may be diverted by them; but Johnson gives you a forcible hug, and shakes laughter out of you, whether you will or no." Goldsmith, however, was often very fortunate in his witty contests, even when he entered the lists with Johnson himself. Sir Joshua Reynolds was in company with them one day, when Goldsmith said, that he thought he could write a good fable, mentioned the simplicity which that kind of composition requires, and observed, that in most fables the animals intro "For in duced seldom talk in character. stance," said he, "the fable of the little fishes, who saw birds fly over their heads, and, envying them, petitioned Jupiter to be changed into birds. The skill," continued he, "consists in making them talk like little fishes." While he indulged himself in this fanciful reverie, he observed Johnson shaking his sides, and laughing. Upon which he smartly proceeded, Why, Dr. Johnson, this is not so easy as you seem to think: for if you were to make little fishes talk, they would talk like WHALES." Johnson, though remarkable for his great variety of composition, never exercised his talents in fable, except we allow his beautiful [fairy] tale [the Fountains] published in Mrs. Williams's Miscellanies to be of that species. I have, however, found among his manuscript collections the following sketch of one: "Glow-worm 2 lying in the garden saw a candle littleness of its own light; in a neighbouring palace, and complained of the another observed wait a little; soon dark, have outlasted wo [many] of these glaring lights, which are only brighter as they haste to nothing." On Thursday, April 29., I dined with him at General Oglethorpe's, where were Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mr. Langton, Dr. Goldsmith, and Mr. Thrale. I was very desirous to get Dr. Johnson absolutely fixed in his resolution to go with me to the Hebrides this year; and I told him that I had received a letter from Dr. Robertson, the historian, upon the subject, with which he was much pleased, and now talked in such a manner of his long intended tour, that I was satisfied he meant to fulfil his engagement. The custom of eating dogs at Otaheite being mentioned, Goldsmith observed, that this was also a custom in China; that a dog-butcher is as common there as any other butcher; and that when he walks abroad all the dogs fall on him. JOHNSON. "That is not owing to his killing dogs, Sir. I remember a butcher at Lichfield, whom a dog that was in the house where I lived, always attacked. It is the smell of carnage which provokes this, let the animals he has killed be what they may." GOLDSMITH. "Yes, there is a general abhor rence in animals at the signs of massacre. If you put a tub full of blood into a stable, the horses are like to go mad." JOHNSON. "I doubt that." GOLDSMITH. "Nay, Sir, it is a fact well authenticated." THRALE. "You had better prove it before you put it into your book on natural history. You may do it in my stable if you will." JOHNSON. "Nay, Sir, 1 1 I regretted that Dr. Johnson never took the trouble to study a question which interested nations. He would not even read a pamphlet which I wrote upon it, entitled," The Essence of the Douglas Cause;" which, I have reason to flatter myself, had considerable effect in favour of Mr. Douglas; of whose legitimate filiation I was then, and am still, firmly convinced. Let me add, that no fact can be more respectably ascertained, than by the judgment of the most august tribunal in the world; a judgment in which Land Mansfield and Lord Camden united in 1769, and from which only five of a numerous body entered a protest. - BoswkLi It has already been observed [ante,'p. 46.] that one of his first Essays was a Latin poem on a Glow-worm; bat whether it be any where extant, has not been ascertained. - MALONE would not have him prove it. If he is content to take his information from others, he may get through his book with little trouble, and without much endangering his reputation. But if he makes experiments for so comprehensive a book as his, there would be no end to them; his erroneous assertions would then fall upon himself; and he might be blamed for not having made experiments as to every particular." The character of Mallet having been introduced, and spoken of slightingly by Goldsmith;-JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, Mallet had talents enough to keep his literary reputation alive as long as he himself lived; and that, let me tell you, is a good deal." GOLDSMITH. "But I cannot agree that it was so. His literary reputation was dead long before his natural death. I consider an author's literary reputation to be alive only while his name will insure a good price for his copy from the booksellers. I will get you (to Johnson) a hundred guineas for any thing whatever that you shall write, if you put your name to it." Dr. Goldsmith's new play, "She Stoops to Conquer," being mentioned;-JOHNSON. "I know of no comedy for many years that has so much exhilarated an audience, that has answered so much the great end of comedymaking an audience merry." Goldsmith having said, that Garrick's compliment to the Queen, which he introduced into the play of "The Chances," which he had altered and revised this year, was mean and gross flattery;-JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, I would not write, I would not give solemnly under my hand, a character beyond what I thought really true; but a speech on the stage, let it flatter ever so extravagantly, is formular. It has always been formular to flatter kings and queens; so much so, that even in our church-service we have our most religious king,' used indiscriminately, whoever is king. Nay, they even flatter themselves; we have been graciously pleased to grant. No modern flattery, however, is so gross as that of the Augustan age, where the emperor was deified;-Præsens Divus habebitur Augustus.' And as to meanness". (rising into warmth)-"how is it mean in a player, a showman, -a fellow who exhibits himself for a shilling, to flatter his queen? The attempt, indeed, was dangerous; for if it had missed, what became of Garrick, and what became of the queen? As Sir William Temple says of a great general, it is necessary not only that his designs be formed in a masterly manner, but that they should be attended with Dos Jons. "Ay, but when things are at the worst they'll mend: example does every thing, and the fair sex will certainly grow better, whenever the greatest is the best woman in the kingdom." Act v. sc. 2.- WRIGHT. so shall Augustus be, Though still on earth, proclaimed a Deity." Hor. Od. iil. v. 2.- CROKER. success. Sir, it is right, at a time when the royal family is not generally liked, to let it be seen that the people like at least one of them." SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. "I do not perceive why the profession of a player should be despised; for the great and ultimate end of all the employments of mankind is to produce amusement. Garrick produces more amusement than any body." BOSWELL. "You say, Dr. Johnson, that Garrick exhibits himself for a shilling. In this respect he is only on a footing with a lawyer, who exhibits himself for his fee, and even will maintain any nonsense or absurdity, if the case require it. Garrick refuses a play or a part which he does not like: a lawyer never refuses." JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, what does this prove? only that a lawyer is worse. Boswell is now like Jack in ''The Tale of a Tub,' who, when he is puzzled by an argument, hangs himself. He thinks I shall cut him down, but I'll let him hang”. (laughing vociferously). SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. "Mr. Boswell thinks that the profession of a lawyer being unquestionably honourable, if he can show the profession of a player to be more honourable, he proves his argument." narrative will please again and again. I would say to Robertson what an old tutor of a college said to one of his pupils: Read over your compositions, and wherever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.' Goldsmith's abridgement is better than that of Lucius Florus or Eutropius; and I will venture to say, that if you compare him with Vertot, in the same places of the Roman History, you will find that he excels Vertot. Sir, he has the art of compiling, and of saying every thing he has to say in a pleasing manner. He is now writing a Natural History, and will make it as entertaining as a Persian tale." I cannot dismiss the present topic_without observing, that it is probable that Dr. Johnson, who owned that he often "talked for victory," rather urged plausible objections to Dr. Robertson's excellent historical works, in the ardour of contest, than expressed his real and decided opinion; for it is not easy to suppose, that he should so widely differ from the rest of the literary world.2 JOHNSON. "I remember once being with Goldsmith in Westminster Abbey. While we surveyed the Poets' Corner, I said to him, seldom comes where he is not more ignorant than any one else." SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. "Yet there is no man whose company is more liked." JOHNSON. "To be sure, Sir. When people find a man of the most distinguished abilities as a writer, their inferior while he is with them, it must be highly gratifying to them. What Goldsmith comically says of himself is very true, he always gets the better when he argues alone; meaning, that he is master of a subject in his study, and can write well upon it; but when he comes into company, grows confused, and unable to talk. Take him as a poet, his Traveller' is a very fine performance; ay, and so is his 'Deserted Village,' were it not sometimes too much the echo of his Traveller.' Whether, indeed, we take him as a poet,-as a comic writer,- -or as an historian, he stands in the first class." BOSWELL. "An historian! My dear Sir, you surely will not rank his compilation of the Roman History with the works of other historians of this age?" JOHNSON. "Why, who are before him?" BOSWELL." Hume,-Robertson, Lord Lyttelton." JOHNSON (his antipathy to the Scotch beginning to rise). "I have not read Hume; but, doubtless, Goldsmith's History is better than the verbiage of Robertson, or the foppery of Dalrymple." BOSWELL. "Will you not admit the superiority of Robertson, in whose History we find such penetration, such painting?" JOHNSON. "Sir, you must consider how that penetration and that painting are employed. It is not history, it is imagination. He who de-Pilgrim's Progress' has great merit, both for scribes what he never saw, draws from fancy. invention, imagination, and the conduct of the Robertson paints minds as Sir Joshua paints story; and it has had the best evidence of its faces in a history-piece: he imagines an heroic merit, the general and continued approbation countenance. You must look upon Robert- of mankind. Few books, I believe, have had son's work as romance, and try it by that a more extensive sale. It is remarkable, that standard. History it is not. Besides, Sir, it it begins very much like the poem of Dante; is the great excellence of a writer to put into yet there was no translation of Dante when his book as much as his book will hold. Gold- Bunyan wrote. There is reason to think that smith has done this in his History. Now he had read Spenser." Robertson might have put twice as much into his book. Robertson is like a man who has packed gold in wool: the wool takes up more room than the gold. No, Sir; I always thought Robertson would be crushed by his own weight, -would be buried under his own ornaments. Goldsmith tells you shortly all you want to know: Robertson detains you a great deal too long. No man will read Robertson's cumbrous detail a second time; but Goldsmith's plain 1 Robertson's Charles V. and Goldsmith's Roman History were both published in 1769.-WRIGHT. 2 See antè. Mr. Boswell's friendship for both Johnson and Robertson is here sorely perplexed- but there seems no ground for doubting that his real and decided opinion' of Robertson's works was very low-he, on every occasion, repeats it with contemptuous consistency. CROKER. And our name may, perhaps, be mixed with theirs! Ovid. de Art. Amand. 1. iii. v. 339.-C. 4 The heads of Messrs. Fletcher and Townley, executed on the 31st July, 1746, for the rebellion of 1745, were placed on Temple Bar: whether the heads of the rebels of 1715 remained there, or whether others were afterwards added, 1 do not know. - CROKER. In allusion to Dr. Johnson's supposed political principles, 'Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur istís."" When we got to Temple Bar he stopped me, pointed to the heads upon it, and slily whispered me, 'Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur ISTIS,' 35 Johnson praised John Bunyan highly. "His A proposition which had been agitated, that monuments to eminent persons should, for the time to come, be erected in St. Paul's church, as well as in Westminster Abbey, was mentioned; and it was asked, who should be honoured by having his monument first erected there. Somebody suggested Pope. JOHNSON. 66 Why, Sir, as Pope was a Roman Catholic, I would not have his to be first. I think Milton's rather should have the precedence. I think and perhaps his own. - BOSWELL. Goldsmith was certainly not a Jacobite, though he was a Tory. In a letter to Langton (Sept. 7. 1771) he says of some criticisms on his History of England: "However, they set me down as an arrant Tory, and consequently an honest man."- Prior's Life, ul. 330. CROKER, 1846, 6 Here is another instance of his high admiration of Milton as a poet, notwithstanding his just abhorrence of that sour republican's political principles. His candour and discrimination are equally conspicuous. Let us hear no more of his injustice to Milton." BOSWELL. A monument to Milton in St. Paul's Cathedral would, as Dr. Hall observes, be the more appropriate from his having received his early education in the adjoining school. –– CaoxER. more highly of him now than I did at twenty. There is more thinking in him and in Butler, than in any of our poets." Some of the company expressed a wonder why the author of so excellent a book as "The Whole Duty of Man" should conceal himself.1 JOHNSON. "There may be different reasons assigned for this, any one of which would be very sufficient. He may have been a clergyman, and may have thought that his religious counsels would have less weight when known to come from a man whose profession was theology. He may have been a man whose practice was not suitable to his principles, so that his character might injure the effect of his book, which he had written in a season of penitence. Or he may have been a man of rigid self-denial, so that he would have no reward for his pious labours while in this world, but refer it all to a future state." The gentlemen went away to their club, and I was left at Beauclerk's till the fate of my election should be announced to me. I sat in a state of anxiety which even the charming conversation of Lady Di Beauclerk could not entirely dissipate. In a short time I received the agreeable intelligence that I was chosen. I hastened to the place of meeting, and was introduced to such a society as can seldom be found. Mr. Edmund Burke, whom I then saw for the first time, and whose splendid talents had long made me ardently wish for his acquaintance; Dr. Nugent, Mr. Garrick, Dr. Goldsmith, Mr. (afterwards Sir William) Jones, and the company with whom I had dined. Upon my entrance, Johnson placed himself behind a chair, on which he leaned as on a desk or pulpit, and with humorous formality gave me a charge, pointing out the conduct expected from me as a good member of this club, Goldsmith produced some very absurd verses which had been publicly recited to an audience for money. JOHNSON. "I can match this non In a manuscript in the Bodleian Library several circumstances are stated, which strongly incline me to believe that Dr. Accepted Frewen, Archbishop of York, was the author of this work. MALONE. See, on the subject of the author of this celebrated and excellent work, Gent. Mag, vol. xxiv. p 26., and Ballard's Memoirs of Learned Ladies, p. 300. The late eccentric but learned Dr. Barrett, of Trinity College, Dublin, believed, I know not on what evidence, that Dr. Chapel, formerly proVost of that college, was the author. - CROKER. Dr. Johnson's memory here was not perfectly accurate : "Eugenio" does not conclude thus. There are eight more lines after the last of those quoted by him; and the passage which he meant to recite is as follows: "Say now, ye fluttering, poor assuming elves, Mr. Reed informs me that the author of Eugenio, Thomas Beech, a wine-merchant at Wrexham in Denbighshire, soon after its publication, viz. May 17. 1737, cut his own throat; and that it appears by Swift's works, that the poem had been ahown to him, and received some of his corrections. Johnson had read "Eugenio" on his first coming to town, for we see it mentioned in one of his letters to Mr. Cave, which has been inserted in this work. BOSWELL. One wonders at And now, ye trifling, self-assuming elves, Then we upon our globe's last verge shall go, Talking of puns, Johnson, who had a great contempt for that species of wit, deigned to allow that there was one good pun in “Menagiana," I think on the word corps.+ Much pleasant conversation passed, which Johnson relished with great good humour. But his conversation alone, or what led to it, or was interwoven with it, is the business of this work. On Saturday, May 1., we dined by ourselves at our old rendezvous, the Mitre tavern. He was placid, but not much disposed to talk. He observed, that "the Irish mix better with the English than the Scotch do; their language is nearer to English; as a proof of which, they succeed very well as players, which Scotchmen do not. Then, Sir, they have not that extreme nationality which we find in the Scotch. I will do you, Boswell, the justice to say, that you are the most unscottified of your countrymen. You are almost the only instance of a Scotchman that I have known, who did not at every other sentence bring in some other Scotchman." 5 We drank tea with Mrs. Williams. I introduced a question which has been much agitated in the church of Scotland, whether the claim of lay-patrons to present ministers to parishes be well founded; and supposing it to be well the patience and good nature with which Swift read and corrected this stupid poem. — - CROKER. 3 There is no such poem ;-the lines are part of an allusion to the Royal Society, in the Annus Mirabilis, stanza 164. CROKER 4 I formerly thought that I had perhaps mistaken the word, and imagined it to be corps, from its similarity of sound to the real one. For an accurate and shrewd unknown gentleman, to whom I am indebted for some remarks on my work, observes on this passage: "Q. if not on the word, fort? A vociferous French preacher said of Bourdaloue, Il préche fort bien, et moi bien fort.' — Menagiana. See also Anecdotes Littéraires, art. Bourdaloue." But my ingenious and obliging-correspondent, Mr. Abercrombie of Philadelphia, has pointed out to me the following passage; which renders the preceding conjecture unnecessary, and confirms my original statement : — "Madame de Bourdonne, chanoinesse de Remiremont, venoit d'entendre un discours plein de feu et d'esprit, raais fort peu solide, et très-irrégulier. Une de ses amies, qui y prenoit intérêt pour l'orateur, lui dit en sortant, Eh bien, Madame, que vous semble-t il de ce que vous venez d'entendre? Qu'il y a d'esprit?' 'Il y a tant,' répondit Madame de Bourdonne, que je n'y ai pas vu de corps.'' Menagiana, tome ii. p. 64. - BOSWELL. 5 Boswell confesses that Garrick used to rally him on his nationality, and there are abundant instances in these volumes to show that he was not exempt from that amiable prejudice. - CROKER. He did not give me full credit when I mentioned that I had carried on a short conversation by signs with some Esquimaux, who were then in London, particularly with one of them, who was a priest. He thought I could not make them understand me. No man was more incredulous as to particular facts which were at all extraordinary; and therefore no man was more scrupulously inquisitive, in order to discover the truth. founded, whether it ought to be exercised county were afraid of him. No business could without the concurrence of the people? That, be done for his declamation." church is composed of a series of judicatures: a presbytery, a synod, and finally, a general assembly; before all of which this matter may be contended and in some cases the presbytery having refused to induct or settle, as they call it, the person presented by the patron, it has been found necessary to appeal to the General Assembly. He said, I might see the subject well treated in the "Defence of Pluralities; and although he thought that a patron should exercise his right with tenderness to the inclinations of the people of a parish, he was very clear as to his right. Then, supposing the question to be pleaded before the General Assembly, he dictated to me what follows. [See APPENDIX.] Though I present to my readers Dr. Johnson's masterly thoughts on the subject, I think it proper to declare, that notwithstanding I am myself a lay patron, I do not entirely subscribe to his opinion. On Friday, May 7., I breakfasted with him at Mr. Thrale's in the Borough. While we were alone, I endeavoured as well as I could to apologise for a lady2 who had been divorced from her husband by act of parliament. I said that he had used her very ill, had behaved brutally to her, and that she could not continue to live with him without having her delicacy contaminated; that all affection for him was thus destroyed; that the essence of conjugal union being gone, there remained only a cold form, a mere civil obligation; that she was in the prime of life, with qualities to produce happiness; that these ought not to be lost; and, that the gentleman on whose account she was divorced had gained her heart while thus unhappily situated. Seduced, perhaps, by the charms of the lady in question, I thus attempted to palliate what I was sensible could not be justified; for when I had finished my harangue, my venerable friend gave me a proper check:-"My dear Sir, never accustom your mind to mingle virtue and vice. The woman's a, and there's an end on't." 3 He described the father of one of his friends thus: "Sir, he was so exuberant a talker at public meetings, that the gentlemen of his 1 This question has been still more seriously debated in our own day, and is not at all, I fear, satisfactorily settled. — CROKER, 1846. * No doubt Lady Diana Spencer, daughter of Charles Duke of Marlborough, born in 1734, married in 1757 to Viscount Bolingbroke, from whom she was divorced in 1768, and married immediately after Mr. Topham Beauclerk. All that Johnson says is very true; but he would have been better entitled to hold such high language if he had not practically waived his right by living in that lady's private society. He should either, as a strict moralist, have refused her his countenance, or, as a man of honour and gratitude, been silent as to her frailties. It was not fair to enjoy her society, and disparage her character. - CROKER. 3 One evening," says Mrs. Piozzi, "in the rooms at Brighthelmstone, he fell into a comical discussion with Lord Bolingbroke, that lady's first husband: happening to sit by him, he chose to harangue very loudly about the nature, and use, and abuse of divorces. Many people gathered round them to hear what was said, and when my husband called him away, and told him to whom he had been talking, he I dined with him this day at the house of my friends, Messieurs Edward and Charles Dilly, booksellers in the Poultry: there were present, their elder brother Mr. Dilly of Bedfordshire, Dr. Goldsmith, Mr. Langton, Mr. Claxton 3, Rev. Dr. Mayo, a dissenting minister, the Rev. Mr. Toplady 6, and my friend the Rev. Mr. Temple.7 Hawkesworth's compilation of the Voyages to the South Sea being mentioned; - JOHNSON. "Sir, if you talk of it as a subject of commerce, it will be gainful; if as a book that is to increase human knowledge, I believe there will not be much of that. Hawkesworth can tell only what the voyagers have told him; and they have found very little, only one new animal, I think." BOSWELL. "But many insects, Sir." JOHNSON. "Why Sir, as to insects, Ray reckons of British insects twenty thousand species. They might have staid at home and discovered enough in that way." Talking of birds, I mentioned Mr. Daines Barrington's ingenious Essay against the received notion of their migration. JOHNSON. "I think we have as good evidence for the migration of woodcocks as can be desired. We find they disappear at a certain time of the year, and appear again at a certain time of the year; and some of them, when weary in their flight, have been known to alight on the rigging of ships far out at sea." One of the company observed, that there had been instances of some of them found in summer in Essex. JOHNSON. "Sir, that strengthens our argument. Exceptio probat regulam. Some being found, shows that, if all remained, many would be found. A few sick or lame ones may be found." GOLDSMITH. “There is a partial mi received an answer which I will not venture to write down." Something, no doubt, equivalent to what Boswell repeats in the text. CROKER. 4 Old Mr. Langton.- CROKER. 5 I suppose John Claxton. Esq. F.A.S., author of a paper in the Archeologia, ➡ CROKER. A. M. Toplady, Vicar of Broad Hembury, in Devon; author of Historic Proof of the Doctrinal Calvinism of the Church of England," and many works of the same Calvinistic principle: he died in 1778. æt. 38. CROKER. 7 In his letter to Mrs. Thrale, 20th May, 1775, he says, " I dined yesterday in a large company at a Dissenting bookseller's, and disputed against toleration with one Dr. Mayer," This must have been the dinner noted in the text, but I cannot reconcile the dates, and the mention of the death of the Queen of Denmark, which happened on the 10th May, 1775, ascertains that the date of the letter is correct. Boswell, who made many of his notes on mere scraps, and in a very confused way, must, I think, have misdated and misplaced his note of this conversation. |
