On April 18, (being Good-Friday,) I found him at breakfast, in his usual manner upon that day, drinking tea without milk, and eating a cross-bun to prevent faintness; we went to St. Clement's church, as formerly. When we came home from church, he placed himself on one of the stone-seats at his garden-door, and I took the other, and thus in the open air and in a placid frame of mind, he talked away very easily.
JOHNSON. 'Were I a country gentleman, I should not be very hospitable, I should not have crowds in my house.'
BOSWELL. 'Sir Alexander Dick tells me, that he remembers having a thousand people in a year to dine at his house: that is, reckoning each person as one, each time that he dined there.'
JOHNSON. 'That, Sir, is about three a day.'
BOSWELL. 'How your statement lessens the idea.'
JOHNSON. 'That, Sir, is the good of counting. It brings every thing to a certainty, which before floated in the mind indefinitely.'
BOSWELL. 'But Omne ignotum pro magnifico est {“Everything unknown seems magnificent.” – Editor}: one is sorry to have this diminished.'
JOHNSON. 'Sir, you should not allow yourself to be delighted with errour.'
BOSWELL. 'Three a day seem but few.'
JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, he who entertains three a day, does very liberally. And if there is a large family, the poor entertain those three, for they eat what the poor would get: there must be superfluous meat; it must be given to the poor, or thrown out.'
BOSWELL. 'I observe in London, that the poor go about and gather bones, which I understand are manufactured.'
JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir; they boil them, and extract a grease from them for greasing wheels and other purposes. Of the best pieces they make a mock ivory, which is used for hafts to knives, and various other things; the coarser pieces they burn and pound, and sell the ashes.'
BOSWELL. 'For what purpose, Sir?'
JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, for making a furnace for the chymists for melting iron. A paste made of burnt bones will stand a stronger heat than any thing else. Consider, Sir; if you are to melt iron, you cannot line your pot with brass, because it is softer than iron, and would melt sooner; nor with iron, for though malleable iron is harder than cast iron, yet it would not do; but a paste of burnt-bones will not melt.'
BOSWELL. 'Do you know, Sir, I have discovered a manufacture to a great extent, of what you only piddle at,— scraping and drying the peel of oranges. At a place in Newgate-street, there is a prodigious quantity prepared, which they sell to the distillers.'
JOHNSON. 'Sir, I believe they make a higher thing out of them than a spirit; they make what is called orange-butter, the oil of the orange inspissated, which they mix perhaps with common pomatum, and make it fragrant. The oil does not fly off in the drying.'
BOSWELL. 'I wish to have a good walled garden.'
JOHNSON. 'I don't think it would be worth the expence to you. We compute in England, a park wall at a thousand pounds a mile; now a garden-wall must cost at least as much. You intend your trees should grow higher than a deer will leap.
Now let us see; for a hundred pounds you could only have forty-four square yards, which is very little; for two hundred pounds, you may have eighty-four square yards, which is very well. But when will you get the value of two hundred pounds of walls, in fruit, in your climate? No, Sir, such contention with Nature is not worth while. I would plant an orchard, and have plenty of such fruit as ripen well in your country. My friend, Dr. Madden, of Ireland, said, that "in an orchard there should be enough to eat, enough to lay up, enough to be stolen, and enough to rot upon the ground." Cherries are an early fruit, you may have them; and you may have the early apples and pears.'
BOSWELL. 'We cannot have nonpareils {a variety of russet apple – Editor}.'
JOHNSON. 'Sir, you can no more have nonpareils than you can have grapes.'
BOSWELL. 'We have them, Sir; but they are very bad.'
JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, never try to have a thing merely to shew that you cannot have it. From ground that would let for forty shillings you may have a large orchard; and you see it costs you only forty shillings. Nay, you may graze the ground when the trees are grown up; you cannot while they are young.'
BOSWELL. 'Is not a good garden a very common thing in England, Sir?'
JOHNSON. 'Not so common, Sir, as you imagine. In Lincolnshire there is hardly an orchard; in Staffordshire very little fruit.'
BOSWELL. 'Has Langton no orchard?'
JOHNSON. 'No, Sir.'
BOSWELL. 'How so, Sir?'
JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, from the general negligence of the county. He has it not, because nobody else has it.'
BOSWELL. 'A hot-hot-house is a certain thing; I may have that.'
JOHNSON. 'A hot-house is pretty certain; but you must first build it, then you must keep fires in it, and you must have a gardener to take care of it.'
BOSWELL. 'But if I have a gardener at any rate?—'
JOHNSON. 'Why, yes.'
BOSWELL.' I'd have it near my house; there is no need to have it in the orchard.'
JOHNSON. 'Yes, I'd have it near my house. I would plant a great many currants; the fruit is good, and they make a pretty sweetmeat.'
I record this minute detail, which some may think trifling, in order to shew clearly how this great man, whose mind could grasp such large and extensive subjects, as he has shewn in his literary labours, was yet well-informed in the common affairs of life, and loved to illustrate them.
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