Boswell’s Life of Johnson: 201

Edited by Dan Leo, Associate Professor of 18th Century British Social Studies, Olney Community College; author of Bozzie and Dr. Sam: The Ambassador Says Well, the Olney Community College Press.

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On Tuesday, October 13, I dined with him at Mr. Ramsay's, with Lord Newhaven, and some other company, none of whom I recollect, but a beautiful Miss Graham, a relation of his Lordship's, who asked Dr. Johnson to hob or nob with her. He was flattered by such pleasing attention, and politely told her, he never drank wine; but if she would drink a glass of water, he was much at her service. She accepted.  'Oho, Sir! (said Lord Newhaven) you are caught.'  JOHNSON. 'Nay, I do not see how I am caught; but if I am caught, I don't want to get free again. If I am caught, I hope to be kept.'  Then when the two glasses of water were brought, smiling placidly to the young lady, he said, 'Madam, let us reciprocate.' Lord Newhaven and Johnson carried on an argument for some time, concerning the Middlesex election.  Johnson said, 'Parliament may be considered as bound by law as a man is bound where there is nobody to tie the knot. As it is clear that the House of Commons may expel, and expel again and again, why not allow of the power to incapacitate for that parliament, rather than have a perpetual contest kept up between parliament and the people.'  Lord Newhaven took the opposite side; but respectfully said, 'I speak with great deference to you, Dr. Johnson; I speak to be instructed.'  This had its full effect on my friend. He bowed his head almost as low as the table, to a complimenting nobleman; and called out, 'My Lord, my Lord, I do not desire all this ceremony; let us tell our minds to one another quietly.'  After the debate was over, he said, 'I have got lights on the subject to-day, which I had not before.'  This was a great deal from him, especially as he had written a pamphlet upon it. He observed, 'The House of Commons was originally not a privilege of the people, but a check for the Crown on the House of Lords. I remember Henry the Eighth wanted them to do something; they hesitated in the morning, but did it in the afternoon. He told them, "It is well you did; or half your heads should have been upon Temple-bar." But the House of Commons is now no longer under the power of the crown, and therefore must be bribed.'  He added, 'I have no delight in talking of publick affairs.' Of his fellow-collegian, the celebrated Mr. George Whitefield, he said, 'Whitefield never drew as much attention as a mountebank does; he did not draw attention by doing better than others, but by doing what was strange. Were Astley to preach a sermon standing upon his head on a horse's back, he would collect a multitude to hear him; but no wise man would say he had made a better sermon for that. I never treated Whitefield's ministry with contempt; I believe he did good. He had devoted himself to the lower classes of mankind, and among them he was of use. But when familiarity and noise claim the praise due to knowledge, art, and elegance, we must beat down such pretensions.' What I have preserved of his conversation during the remainder of my stay in London at this time, is only what follows:  I told him that when I objected to keeping company with a notorious infidel, a celebrated friend of ours said to me, 'I do not think that men who live laxly in the world, as you and I do, can with propriety assume such an authority. Dr. Johnson may, who is uniformly exemplary in his conduct. But it is not very consistent to shun an infidel to-day, and get drunk to-morrow.'  JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, this is sad reasoning. Because a man cannot be right in all things, is he to be right in nothing? Because a man sometimes gets drunk, is he therefore to steal? This doctrine would very soon bring a man to the gallows.' After all, however, it is a difficult question how far sincere Christians should associate with the avowed enemies of religion; for in the first place, almost every man's mind may be more or less 'corrupted by evil communications;' secondly, the world may very naturally suppose that they are not really in earnest in religion, who can easily bear its opponents; and thirdly, if the profane find themselves quite well received by the pious, one of the checks upon an open declaration of their infidelity, and one of the probable chances of obliging them seriously to reflect, which their being shunned would do, is removed. He, I know not why, shewed upon all occasions an aversion to go to Ireland, where I proposed to him that we should make a tour.  JOHNSON. 'It is the last place where I should wish to travel.'  BOSWELL. 'Should you not like to see Dublin, Sir?'  JOHNSON. 'No, Sir? Dublin is only a worse capital.'  BOSWELL. 'Is not the Giant's-Causeway worth seeing?'  JOHNSON. 'Worth seeing? yes; but not worth going to see.' Yet he had a kindness for the Irish nation, and thus generously expressed himself to a gentleman from that country, on the subject of an UNION which artful Politicians have often had in view — 'Do not make an union with us, Sir. We should unite with you, only to rob you. We should have robbed the Scotch, if they had had any thing of which we could have robbed them.' Of an acquaintance of ours, whose manners and every thing about him, though expensive, were coarse, he said, 'Sir, you see in him vulgar prosperity.' A foreign minister of no very high talents, who had been in his company for a considerable time quite overlooked, happened luckily to mention that he had read some of his Rambler in Italian, and admired it much. This pleased him greatly; he observed that the title had been translated, Il Genio errante, though I have been told it was rendered more ludicrously, Il Vagabondo; and finding that this minister gave such a proof of his taste, he was all attention to him, and on the first remark which he made, however simple, exclaimed, 'The Ambassadour says well— His Excellency observes—.' And then he expanded and enriched the little that had been said, in so strong a manner, that it appeared something of consequence.  This was exceedingly entertaining to the company who were present, and many a time afterwards it furnished a pleasant topick of merriment: 'The Ambassadeur says well,' became a laughable term of applause, when no mighty matter had been expressed. I left London on Monday, October 18, and accompanied Colonel Stuart to Chester, where his regiment was to lye for some time.   (classix comix™ is brought to you by Bob’s Bowery Bar™, conveniently located at the northwest corner of Bleecker and the Bowery: “In solidarity with yesterday’s festive Women’s March, Bob’s Bowery Bar this week will give every member of the distaff gender who comes in a first drink of the day on the house, free, gratis and for nothing! Sorry, ladies, ‘well drinks’ and domestic beers only, and in the case of those whose gender may be debatable, your server’s word is final! Offer good from 7am Monday to 4am next Sunday.” – Horace P. Sternwall, host and narrator of Bob’s Bowery Bar Presents Philip Morris Commander’s “Blanche Weinberg: Lady Psychiatrist”, broadcast live 8pm Sunday {EST} exclusively on the Dumont Television Network. 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Boswell’s Life of Johnson: 200

Edited by Dan Leo, Assistant Professor of Classical Greek for Beginners, Olney Community College; author of Bozzie and Dr. Sam: The Greeks Had a Name for It, the Olney Community College Press.

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I read him a letter from Dr. Hugh Blair concerning Pope, (in writing whose life he was now employed,) which I shall insert as a literary curiosity.  'TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.  'DEAR SIR,  'In the year 1763, being at London, I was carried by Dr. John Blair, Prebendary of Westminster, to dine at old Lord Bathurst's; where we found the late Mr. Mallet, Sir James Porter, who had been Ambassadour at Constantinople, the late Dr. Macaulay, and two or three more. The conversation turning on Mr. Pope, Lord Bathurst told us, that The Essay on Man was originally composed by Lord Bolingbroke in prose, and that Mr. Pope did no more than put it into verse: that he had read Lord Bolingbroke's manuscript in his own hand-writing; and remembered well, that he was at a loss whether most to admire the elegance of Lord Bolingbroke's prose, or the beauty of Mr. Pope's verse. When Lord Bathurst told this, Mr. Mallet bade me attend, and remember this remarkable piece of information; as, by the course of Nature, I might survive his Lordship, and be a witness of his having said so. The conversation was indeed too remarkable to be forgotten. A few days after, meeting with you, who were then also in London, you will remember that I mentioned to you what had passed on this subject, as I was much struck with this anecdote. But what ascertains my recollection of it beyond doubt, is that being accustomed to keep a journal of what passed when I was in London, which I wrote out every evening, I find the particulars of the above information, just as I have now given them, distinctly marked; and am thence enabled to fix this conversation to have passed on Friday, the 22d of April, 1763. 'I remember also distinctly, (though I have not for this the authority of my journal,) that the conversation going on concerning Mr. Pope, I took notice of a report which had been sometimes propagated that he did not understand Greek. Lord Bathurst said to me, that he knew that to be false; for that part of the Iliad was translated by Mr. Pope in his house in the country; and that in the mornings when they assembled at breakfast, Mr. Pope used frequently to repeat, with great rapture, the Greek lines which he had been translating, and then to give them his version of them, and to compare them together. 'If these circumstances can be of any use to Dr. Johnson, you have my full liberty to give them to him. I beg you will, at the same time, present to him my most respectful compliments, with best wishes for his success and fame in all his literary undertakings. I am, with great respect, my dearest Sir,  'Your most affectionate,  'And obliged humble servant,  'HUGH BLAIR.'  'Broughton Park,  'Sept. 21, 1779.' JOHNSON. 'Depend upon it, Sir, this is too strongly stated. Pope may have had from Bolingbroke the philosophick stamina of his Essay; and admitting this to be true, Lord Bathurst did not intentionally falsify. But the thing is not true in the latitude that Blair seems to imagine; we are sure that the poetical imagery, which makes a great part of the poem, was Pope's own. It is amazing, Sir, what deviations there are from precise truth, in the account which is given of almost every thing. I told Mrs. Thrale, "You have so little anxiety about truth, that you never tax your memory with the exact thing." Now what is the use of the memory to truth, if one is careless of exactness? Lord Hailes's Annals of Scotland are very exact; but they contain mere dry particulars. They are to be considered as a Dictionary. You know such things are there; and may be looked at when you please. Robertson paints; but the misfortune is, you are sure he does not know the people whom he paints; so you cannot suppose a likeness. Characters should never be given by an historian, unless he knew the people whom he describes, or copies from those who knew them.' BOSWELL. 'Why, Sir, do people play this trick which I observe now, when I look at your grate, putting the shovel against it to make the fire burn?'  JOHNSON. 'They play the trick, but it does not make the fire burn. There is a better; (setting the poker perpendicularly up at right angles with the grate.) In days of superstition they thought, as it made a cross with the bars, it would drive away the witch.' BOSWELL. 'By associating with you, Sir, I am always getting an accession of wisdom. But perhaps a man, after knowing his own character — the limited strength of his own mind, should not be desirous of having too much wisdom, considering, quid valeant humeri {“what your shoulders cannot bear”; Horace – Editor}, how little he can carry.'  JOHNSON. 'Sir, be as wise as you can; let a man be aliis laetus, sapiens sibi {“cheerful for others, wise for himself” – Editor}: "Though pleas'd to see the dolphins play,  I mind my compass and my way."  {From “The Spleen”, by Matthew Green – Editor} You may be wise in your study in the morning, and gay in company at a tavern in the evening. Every man is to take care of his own wisdom and his own virtue, without minding too much what others think.' He said, 'Dodsley first mentioned to me the scheme of an English Dictionary; but I had long thought of it.'  BOSWELL. 'You did not know what you were undertaking.'  JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir, I knew very well what I was undertaking,— and very well how to do it, — and have done it very well.'  BOSWELL. 'An excellent climax! and it has availed you. In your Preface you say, "What would it avail me in this gloom of solitude?" You have been agreeably mistaken.' In his Life of Milton he observes, 'I cannot but remark a kind of respect, perhaps unconsciously, paid to this great man by his biographers: every house in which he resided is historically mentioned, as if it were an injury to neglect naming any place that he honoured by his presence.' I had, before I read this observation, been desirous of shewing that respect to Johnson, by various inquiries. Finding him this evening in a very good humour, I prevailed on him to give me an exact list of his places of residence, since he entered the metropolis as an authour, which I subjoin in a note. I mentioned to him a dispute between a friend of mine and his lady, concerning conjugal infidelity, which my friend had maintained was by no means so bad in the husband, as in the wife.  JOHNSON. 'Your friend was in the right, Sir. Between a man and his Maker it is a different question: but between a man and his wife, a husband's infidelity is nothing. They are connected by children, by fortune, by serious considerations of community. Wise married women don't trouble themselves about the infidelity in their husbands.'  BOSWELL. 'To be sure there is a great difference between the offence of infidelity in a man and that of his wife.'  JOHNSON. 'The difference is boundless. The man imposes no bastards upon his wife.' Here it may be questioned whether Johnson was entirely in the right. I suppose it will not be controverted that the difference in the degree of criminality is very great, on account of consequences: but still it may be maintained, that, independent of moral obligation, infidelity is by no means a light offence in a husband; because it must hurt a delicate attachment, in which a mutual constancy is implied.— Johnson probably at another time would have admitted this opinion. And let it be kept in remembrance, that he was very careful not to give any encouragement to irregular conduct.  A gentleman, not adverting to the distinction made by him upon this subject, supposed a case of singular perverseness in a wife, and heedlessly said, 'That then he thought a husband might do as he pleased with a safe conscience.'  JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, this is wild indeed (smiling) you must consider that fornication is a crime in a single man; and you cannot have more liberty by being married.' He this evening expressed himself strongly against the Roman Catholics; observing, 'In every thing in which they differ from us they are wrong.'  He was even against the invocation of saints; in short, he was in the humour of opposition. Having regretted to him that I had learnt little Greek, as is too generally the case in Scotland; that I had for a long time hardly applied at all to the study of that noble language, and that I was desirous of being told by him what method to follow; he recommended to me as easy helps, Sylvanus's First Book of the Iliad; Dawson's Lexicon to the Greek New Testament; and Hesiod, with Pasoris Lexicon at the end of it.   (classix comix™ is underwritten in part by the Bob’s Bowery Bar™ Foundation for Unpopular but Worthy Art and Literature: “Are your joints aching with this record-setting ‘deep freeze’ we’re in the midst of? 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Boswell’s Life of Johnson: 199

Edited by Dan Leo, Associate Professor of 18th Century British Leisure and Recreational Studies, Olney Community College; author of Bozzie and Dr. Sam: The Case of the Missing Snuff-Box, the Olney Community College Press.

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On the 22nd of July, I wrote to him again; and gave him an account of my last interview with my worthy friend, Mr. Edward Dilly, at his brother's house at Southill, in Bedfordshire, where he died soon after I parted from him, leaving me a very kind remembrance of his regard. My letter was a pretty long one, and contained a variety of particulars; but he, it should seem, had not attended to it; for his next to me was as follows:— 'To JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.  'MY DEAR SIR, 'Are you playing the same trick again, and trying who can keep silence longest? Remember that all tricks are either knavish or childish; and that it is as foolish to make experiments upon the constancy of a friend, as upon the chastity of a wife. 'What can be the cause of this second fit of silence, I cannot conjecture; but after one trick, I will not be cheated by another, nor will harass my thoughts with conjectures about the motives of a man who, probably, acts only by caprice. I therefore suppose you are well, and that Mrs. Boswell is well too; and that the fine summer has restored Lord Auchinleck. I am much better than you left me; I think I am better than when I was in Scotland. 'I forgot whether I informed you that poor Thrale has been in great danger. Mrs. Thrale likewise has miscarried, and been much indisposed. Every body else is well; Langton is in camp. I intend to put Lord Hailes's description of Dryden into another edition, and as I know his accuracy, wish he would consider the dates, which I could not always settle to my own mind. 'Mr. Thrale goes to Brighthelmston, about Michaelmas, to be jolly and ride a hunting. I shall go to town, or perhaps to Oxford. Exercise and gaiety, or rather carelessness, will, I hope, dissipate all remains of his malady; and I likewise hope by the change of place, to find some opportunities of growing yet better myself. I am, dear Sir, 'Your humble servant,                   'SAM. JOHNSON.'  'Streatham, Sept. 9, 1779.' My readers will not be displeased at being told every slight circumstance of the manner in which Dr. Johnson contrived to amuse his solitary hours. He sometimes employed himself in chymistry, sometimes in watering and pruning a vine, sometimes in small experiments, at which those who may smile, should recollect that there are moments which admit of being soothed only by trifles. On the 20th of September I defended myself against his suspicion of me, which I did not deserve; and added, 'Pray let us write frequently. A whim strikes me, that we should send off a sheet once a week, like a stage-coach, whether it be full or not; nay, though it should be empty. The very sight of your handwriting would comfort me; and were a sheet to be thus sent regularly, we should much oftener convey something, were it only a few kind words.' My friend Colonel James Stuart, second son of the Earl of Bute, who had distinguished himself as a good officer of the Bedfordshire militia, had taken a publick-spirited resolution to serve his country in its difficulties, by raising a regular regiment, and taking the command of it himself. This, in the heir of the immense property of Wortley, was highly honourable. Having been in Scotland recruiting, he obligingly asked me to accompany him to Leeds, then the head-quarters of his corps; from thence to London for a short time, and afterwards to other places to which the regiment might be ordered. Such an offer, at a time of the year when I had full leisure, was very pleasing; especially as I was to accompany a man of sterling good sense, information, discernment, and conviviality; and was to have a second crop in one year of London and Johnson. Of this I informed my illustrious friend, in characteristical warm terms, in a letter dated the 30th of September, from Leeds. On Monday, October 4, I called at his house before he was up. He sent for me to his bedside, and expressed his satisfaction at this incidental meeting, with as much vivacity as if he had been in the gaiety of youth. He called briskly,  'Frank, go and get coffee, and let us breakfast in splendour.' During this visit to London I had several interviews with him, which it is unnecessary to distinguish particularly.  I consulted him as to the appointment of guardians to my children, in case of my death.  'Sir, (said he,) do not appoint a number of guardians. When there are many, they trust one to another, and the business is neglected. I would advise you to choose only one; let him be a man of respectable character, who, for his own credit, will do what is right; let him be a rich man, so that he may be under no temptation to take advantage; and let him be a man of business, who is used to conduct affairs with ability and expertness, to whom, therefore, the execution of the trust will not be burdensome.' On Sunday, October 10, we dined together at Mr. Strahan's. The conversation having turned on the prevailing practice of going to the East-Indies in quest of wealth;—  JOHNSON. 'A man had better have ten thousand pounds at the end of ten years passed in England, than twenty thousand pounds at the end of ten years passed in India, because you must compute what you give for money; and a man who has lived ten years in India, has given up ten years of social comfort and all those advantages which arise from living in England. The ingenious Mr. Brown, distinguished by the name of Capability Brown, told me, that he was once at the seat of Lord Clive, who had returned from India with great wealth; and that he shewed him at the door of his bed-chamber a large chest, which he said he had once had full of gold; upon which Brown observed, "I am glad you can bear it so near your bed-chamber.'"  We talked of the state of the poor in London.— JOHNSON. 'Saunders Welch, the Justice, who was once High-Constable of Holborn, and had the best opportunities of knowing the state of the poor, told me, that I under-rated the number, when I computed that twenty a week, that is, above a thousand a year, died of hunger; not absolutely of immediate hunger; but of the wasting and other diseases which are the consequences of hunger. This happens only in so large a place as London, where people are not known. What we are told about the great sums got by begging is not true: the trade is overstocked. And, you may depend upon it, there are many who cannot get work. A particular kind of manufacture fails: those who have been used to work at it, can, for some time, work at nothing else. You meet a man begging; you charge him with idleness: he says, "I am willing to labour. Will you give me work?"—" I cannot."—" Why, then you have no right to charge me with idleness."'  We left Mr. Strahan's at seven, as Johnson had said he intended to go to evening prayers. As we walked along, he complained of a little gout in his toe, and said, 'I shan't go to prayers to-night; I shall go to-morrow: Whenever I miss church on a Sunday, I resolve to go another day. But I do not always do it.'  This was a fair exhibition of that vibration between pious resolutions and indolence, which many of us have too often experienced. I went home with him, and we had a long quiet conversation. (classix comix™ is brought to you by Bob’s Bowery Bar™, conveniently located at the northwest corner of Bleecker and the Bowery: “Yes – brrr! – thermometers are bursting all over the city with this record-setting cold snap, and the good Lord only knows how many unfortunates are found by the dustmen on their rounds, frozen to death hugging empty bottles of cheap gin in the cobblestoned alleyways of the Bowery and the Lower East Side – but why shiver miserably in your cold sixth-floor walk-up when you can drop by Bob’s Bowery Bar and avail yourself of Bob’s famous ‘’De-Freezer Special’ – an imperial pint flagon of steamy-hot Royal Navy Rum spiced with medicinal herbs and healthful root decoctions, sweetened with jaggery and crystallized tropical fruits, and for the low, low price of fifty cents until the weather returns to some semblance of normality!” – Horace P. Sternwall, host and narrator of Bob’s Bowery Bar Presents Philip Morris Commander’s “Blanche Weinberg: Lady Psychiatrist”, broadcast live 8pm Sunday {EST} exclusively on the Dumont Television Network. This week’s play: The Bored Housewife , by Helena Pryce Sprague, starring Kitty Carlisle as “Dr. Blanche”, with special guest star Gloria Grahame as “Mrs. Merkel”.)    part 200