Boswell’s Life of Johnson: 55

Edited by Dan Leo, LL.D., Horace P. Sternwall Professor of English-Language Literature, Olney Community College; author of Bozzie and Dr. Sam: Who Stole the Laird of Fitzhugh’s Golf Clubs?, the Olney Community College Press.

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On Tuesday, July 26, I found Mr. Johnson alone. It was a very wet day, and I again complained of the disagreeable effects of such weather. JOHNSON. 'Sir, this is all imagination, which physicians encourage; for man lives in air, as a fish lives in water; so that if the atmosphere press heavy from above, there is an equal resistance from below. To be sure, bad weather is hard upon people who are obliged to be abroad; and men cannot labour so well in the open air in bad weather, as in good: but, Sir, a smith or a taylor, whose work is within doors, will surely do as much in rainy weather, as in fair. Some very delicate frames, indeed, may be affected by wet weather; but not common constitutions.' We talked of the education of children; and I asked him what he thought was best to teach them first. JOHNSON. 'Sir, it is no matter what you teach them first, any more than what leg you shall put into your breeches first. Sir, you may stand disputing which is best to put in first, but in the mean time your breech is bare. Sir, while you are considering which of two things you should teach your child first, another boy has learnt them both.' On Thursday, July 28, we again supped in private at the Turk's Head coffee-house. JOHNSON. 'Swift has a higher reputation than he deserves. His excellence is strong sense; for his humour, though very well, is not remarkably good. I doubt whether The Tale of a Tub be his; for he never owned it, and it is much above his usual manner. 'Has not ---- a great deal of wit, Sir?' JOHNSON. 'I do not think so, Sir. He is, indeed, continually attempting wit, but he fails. And I have no more pleasure in hearing a man attempting wit and failing, than in seeing a man trying to leap over a ditch and tumbling into it.' He laughed heartily, when I mentioned to him a saying of his concerning Mr. Thomas Sheridan, which Foote took a wicked pleasure to circulate. 'Why, Sir, Sherry is dull, naturally dull; but it must have taken him a great deal of pains to become what we now see him. Such an excess of stupidity, Sir, is not in Nature.' 'So (said he,) I allowed him all his own merit.' He now added, 'Sheridan cannot bear me. I bring his declamation to a point. I ask him a plain question, “What do you mean to teach?” ‘Besides, Sir, what influence can Mr. Sheridan have upon the language of this great country, by his narrow exertions? Sir, it is burning a farthing candle at Dover, to shew light at Calais.' Talking of a young man who was uneasy from thinking that he was very deficient in learning and knowledge, he said,  'Time will do for him all that is wanting.' The conversation then took a philosophical turn. JOHNSON. 'Human experience, which is constantly contradicting theory, is the great test of truth. A system, built upon the discoveries of a great many minds, is always of more strength, than what is produced by the mere workings of any one mind, which, of itself, can do little. There is not so poor a book in the world that would not be a prodigious effort were it wrought out entirely by a single mind, without the aid of prior investigators. The French writers are superficial; because they are not scholars, and so proceed upon the mere power of their own minds; and we see how very little power they have.' 'As to the Christian religion, Sir, besides the strong evidence which we have for it, there is a balance in its favour from the number of great men who have been convinced of its truth, after a serious consideration of the question. Grotius was an acute man, a lawyer, a man accustomed to examine evidence, and he was convinced. Grotius was not a recluse, but a man of the world, who certainly had no bias to the side of religion. Sir Isaac Newton set out an infidel, and came to be a very firm believer.' He this evening again recommended to me to perambulate Spain. I said it would amuse him to get a letter from me dated at Salamancha.  JOHNSON. 'I love the University of Salamancha; for when the Spaniards were in doubt as to the lawfulness of their conquering America, the University of Salamancha gave it as their opinion that it was not lawful.'  He spoke this with great emotion, and with that generous warmth which dictated the lines in his London, against Spanish encroachment. I expressed my opinion of my friend Derrick as but a poor writer. JOHNSON. 'To be sure, Sir, he is; but you are to consider that his being a literary man has got for him all that he has. Sir, he has nothing to say for himself but that he is a writer. Had he not been a writer, he must have been sweeping the crossings in the streets, and asking halfpence from every body that past.' Poor Derrick! I remember him with kindness. Johnson said once to me, 'Sir, I honour Derrick for his presence of mind. One night, when Floyd, another poor authour, was wandering about the streets in the night, he found Derrick fast asleep upon a bulk; upon being suddenly waked, Derrick started up, "My dear Floyd, I am sorry to see you in this destitute state; will you go home with me to my lodgings?"' I again begged his advice as to my method of study at Utrecht. 'Come, (said he) let us make a day of it. Let us go down to Greenwich and dine, and talk of it there.' The following Saturday was fixed for this excursion. As we walked along the Strand to-night, arm in arm, a woman of the town accosted us, in the usual enticing manner. 'No, no, my girl, (said Johnson) it won't do.' He, however, did not treat her with harshness, and we talked of the wretched life of such women; and agreed, that much more misery than happiness, upon the whole, is produced by illicit commerce between the sexes. (To be continued. This week’s chapter was sponsored by Bob’s Bowery Bar™, at Bleecker and the Bowery: “Ah, the carefree days of youth, when I, a fresh-faced young naïf from the provinces first came to the fabled metropolis with the express purpose of becoming a writer – would I have survived those lean early years had I not discovered Bob’s Bowery Bar™ with its welcoming atmosphere and it famous lunch special of Bob’s Mom’s Grilled Cheese ‘n’ Ham and a pint of Bob’s ‘basement-brewed’ bock, all for the price of a mere two bits?” – Horace P. Sternwall, host of “The Horace P. Sternwall Classics Theatre”, exclusively on the Dumont Television Network (check your local paper for listings). part 56

His Other Chance

by Edgar A Guest

illustrated by roy dismas

He was down and out, and his pluck was gone, And he said to me in a gloomy way: "I've wasted my chances, one by one, And I'm just no good, as the people say. Nothing ahead, and my dreams all dust, Though once there was something I might have been, But I wasn't game, and I broke my trust, And I wasn't straight and I wasn't clean." "You're pretty low down," says I to him, "But nobody's holding you there, my friend. Life is a stream where men sink or swim, And the drifters come to a sorry end; But there's two of you living and breathing still-- The fellow you are, and he's tough to see, And another chap, if you've got the will, The man that you still have a chance to be." He laughed with scorn. "Is there two of me? I thought I'd murdered the other one. I once knew a chap that I hoped to be, And he was decent, but now he's gone." "Well," says I, "it may seem to you That life has little of joy in store, But there's always something you still can do, And there's never a man but can try once more. "There are always two to the end of time-- The fellow we are and the future man. The Lord never meant you should cease to climb, And you can get up if you think you can. The fellow you are is a sorry sight, But you needn't go drifting out to sea. Get hold of yourself and travel right; There's a fellow you've still got a chance to be."

Boswell’s Life of Johnson: 54

Edited by Dan Leo, LL.D., Adjunct Professor of Penmanship Studies, Olney Community College; author of Bozzie and Dr. Sam: The Case of the Obstreperous Black Dog, the Olney Community College Press.

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This account of his reading, given by himself in plain words, sufficiently confirms what I have already advanced upon the disputed question as to his application. It reconciles any seeming inconsistency in his way of talking upon it at different times; and shews that idleness and reading hard were with him relative terms, the import of which, as used by him, must be gathered from a comparison with what scholars of different degrees of ardour and assiduity have been known to do. And let it be remembered, that he was now talking spontaneously, and expressing his genuine sentiments; whereas at other times he might be induced from his spirit of contradiction, or more properly from his love of argumentative contest, to speak lightly of his own application to study. It is pleasing to consider that the old gentleman's gloomy prophecy as to the irksomeness of books to men of an advanced age, which is too often fulfilled, was so far from being verified in Johnson, that his ardour for literature never failed, and his last writings had more ease and vivacity than any of his earlier productions. He mentioned to me now, for the first time, that he had been distrest by melancholy, and for that reason had been obliged to fly from study and meditation, to the dissipating variety of life. Against melancholy he recommended constant occupation of mind, a great deal of exercise, moderation in eating and drinking, and especially to shun drinking at night. He said melancholy people were apt to fly to intemperance for relief, but that it sunk them much deeper in misery. He observed, that labouring men who work hard, and live sparingly, are seldom or never troubled with low spirits. He again insisted on the duty of maintaining subordination of rank. 'Sir, I would no more deprive a nobleman of his respect, than of his money. I consider myself as acting a part in the great system of society, and I do to others as I would have them to do to me. I would behave to a nobleman as I should expect he would behave to me, were I a nobleman and he Sam. Johnson.  ‘Sir, there is one Mrs. Macaulay in this town, a great republican. One day when I was at her house, I put on a very grave countenance, and said to her, "Madam, I am now become a convert to your way of thinking. I am convinced that all mankind are upon an equal footing; and to give you an unquestionable proof, Madam, that I am in earnest, here is a very sensible, civil, well-behaved fellow-citizen, your footman; I desire that he may be allowed to sit down and dine with us." I thus, Sir, shewed her the absurdity of the levelling doctrine. She has never liked me since.  ‘Sir, your levellers wish to level down as far as themselves; but they cannot bear levelling up to themselves. They would all have some people under them; why not then have some people above them?'  I mentioned a certain authour who disgusted me by his forwardness, and by shewing no deference to noblemen into whose company he was admitted.  JOHNSON. 'Suppose a shoemaker should claim an equality with him, as he does with a Lord; how he would stare. "Why, Sir, do you stare? (says the shoemaker,) I do great service to society. 'Tis true I am paid for doing it; but so are you, Sir: and I am sorry to say it, paid better than I am, for doing something not so necessary. For mankind could do better without your books, than without my shoes."  ‘Thus, Sir, there would be a perpetual struggle for precedence, were there no fixed invariable rules for the distinction of rank, which creates no jealousy, as it is allowed to be accidental.' A writer of deserved eminence being mentioned, Johnson said,  'Why, Sir, he is a man of good parts, but being originally poor, he has got a love of mean company and low jocularity; a very bad thing, Sir. To laugh is good, as to talk is good. But you ought no more to think it enough if you laugh, than you are to think it enough if you talk. You may laugh in as many ways as you talk; and surely every way of talking that is practised cannot be esteemed.' I spoke of Sir James Macdonald as a young man of most distinguished merit, who united the highest reputation at Eton and Oxford, with the patriarchal spirit of a great Highland Chieftain. I mentioned that Sir James had said to me, that he had never seen Mr. Johnson, but he had a great respect for him, though at the same time it was mixed with some degree of terrour.  JOHNSON. 'Sir, if he were to be acquainted with me, it might lessen both.' The mention of this gentleman led us to talk of the Western Islands of Scotland, to visit which he expressed a wish that then appeared to me a very romantick fancy, which I little thought would be afterwards realised. He told me, that his father had put Martin's account of those islands into his hands when he was very young, and that he was highly pleased with it; that he was particularly struck with the St. Kilda man's notion that the high church of Glasgow had been hollowed out of a rock; a circumstance to which old Mr. Johnson had directed his attention. He said he would go to the Hebrides with me, when I returned from my travels, unless some very good companion should offer when I was absent, which he did not think probable; adding, 'There are few people to whom I take so much to as you.' And when I talked of my leaving England, he said with a very affectionate air, 'My dear Boswell, I should be very unhappy at parting, did I think we were not to meet again.' I cannot too often remind my readers, that although such instances of his kindness are doubtless very flattering to me, yet I hope my recording them will be ascribed to a better motive than to vanity; for they afford unquestionable evidence of his tenderness and complacency, which some, while they were forced to acknowledge his great powers, have been so strenuous to deny. He maintained that a boy at school was the happiest of human beings. I supported a different opinion, from which I have never yet varied, that a man is happier; and I enlarged upon the anxiety and sufferings which are endured at school. JOHNSON. 'Ah! Sir, a boy's being flogged is not so severe as a man's having the hiss of the world against him. Men have a solicitude about fame; and the greater share they have of it, the more afraid they are of losing it.'  I silently asked myself, 'Is it possible that the great SAMUEL JOHNSON really entertains any such apprehension, and is not confident that his exalted fame is established upon a foundation never to be shaken?'  (To be continued. This week’s episode was made possible in part though a generous grant from the Bob’s Bowery Bar™ Foundation for the Encouragement of the Graphic Arts. “’Be of Good Cheer’ says the sign above the door, and I know of no more likely a guarantee of earthly felicity than the passing of an hour or two in Bob’s Bowery Bar™; be sure to try Bob’s justly famous basement-brewed house bock, and tell them Horace sent you!” – Horace P. Sternwall, host of “Horace P. Sternwall’s Thriller Theatre”, 9pm (EST) Tuesdays, exclusively on the Dumont Television Network. part 55

Boswell’s Life of Johnson: 53

Edited by Dan Leo, LL.D., Assistant Professor of Basic English Composition, Olney Community College; author of Bozzie and Dr. Sam: The Judge Who Was Not Sober, the Olney Community College Press.

Illustrated by rhoda penmarq, inks by eddie el greco; lettering by roy dismas ; a rhoda penmarq™/horace p. sternwall™/aaron spellchek™ co-production. 

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Mr. Dempster having endeavoured to maintain that intrinsick merit ought to make the only distinction amongst mankind. JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, mankind have found that this cannot be. How shall we determine the proportion of intrinsick merit? Were that to be the only distinction amongst mankind, we should soon quarrel about the degrees of it. Were all distinctions abolished, the strongest would not long acquiesce, but would endeavour to obtain a superiority by their bodily strength. But, Sir, as subordination is very necessary for society, and contensions for superiority very dangerous, mankind, that is to say, all civilized nations, have settled it upon a plain invariable principle. A man is born to hereditary rank; or his being appointed to certain offices, gives him a certain rank. Subordination tends greatly to human happiness. Were we all upon an equality, we should have no other enjoyment than mere animal pleasure.” I said, I considered distinction of rank to be of so much importance in civilised society, that if I were asked on the same day to dine with the first Duke in England, and with the first man in Britain for genius, I should hesitate which to prefer. JOHNSON. 'To be sure, Sir, if you were to dine only once, and it were never to be known where you dined, you would choose rather to dine with the first man for genius; but to gain most respect, you should dine with the first Duke in England. For nine people in ten that you meet with, would have a higher opinion of you for having dined with a Duke; and the great genius himself would receive you better, because you had been with the great Duke.'  He took care to guard himself against any possible suspicion that his settled principles of reverence for rank and respect for wealth were at all owing to mean or interested motives; for he asserted his own independence as a literary man.  'No man (said he) who ever lived by literature, has lived more independently than I have done.'  He said he had taken longer time than he needed to have done in composing his Dictionary. He received our compliments upon that great work with complacency, and told us that the Academy della Crusca could scarcely believe that it was done by one man. Next morning I found him alone, and have preserved the following fragments of his conversation. Of a gentleman who was mentioned, he said, 'I have not met with any man for a long time who has given me such general displeasure. He is totally unfixed in his principles, and wants to puzzle other people.’ I said his principles had been poisoned by a noted infidel writer, but that he was, nevertheless, a benevolent good man.’ JOHNSON. 'We can have no dependance upon that instinctive, that constitutional goodness which is not founded upon principle. I grant you that such a man may be a very amiable member of society. I can conceive him placed in such a situation that he is not much tempted to deviate from what is right; and as every man prefers virtue, when there is not some strong incitement to transgress its precepts, I can conceive him doing nothing wrong. But if such a man stood in need of money, I should not like to trust him; and I should certainly not trust him with young ladies, for there there is always temptation. Hume, and other sceptical innovators, are vain men, and will gratify themselves at any expence. Truth will not afford sufficient food to their vanity; so they have betaken themselves to errour.  ‘Truth, Sir, is a cow which will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bull.  ‘If I could have allowed myself to gratify my vanity at the expence of truth, what fame might I have acquired. Every thing which Hume has advanced against Christianity had passed through my mind long before he wrote.  ‘Always remember this, that after a system is well settled upon positive evidence, a few partial objections ought not to shake it. The human mind is so limited, that it cannot take in all the parts of a subject, so that there may be objections raised against any thing. There are objections against a plenum, and objections against a vacuum; yet one of them must certainly be true.’ I mentioned Hume's argument against the belief of miracles, that it is more probable that the witnesses to the truth of them are mistaken, or speak falsely, than that the miracles should be true.  JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, the great difficulty of proving miracles should make us very cautious in believing them. But let us consider; although GOD has made Nature to operate by certain fixed laws, yet it is not unreasonable to think that he may suspend those laws, in order to establish a system highly advantageous to mankind.  ‘Now the Christian religion is a most beneficial system, as it gives us light and certainty where we were before in darkness and doubt. The miracles which prove it are attested by men who had no interest in deceiving us; but who, on the contrary, were told that they should suffer persecution, and did actually lay down their lives in confirmation of the truth of the facts which they asserted. Indeed, for some centuries the heathens did not pretend to deny the miracles; but said they were performed by the aid of evil spirits. This is a circumstance of great weight.  ‘Then, Sir, when we take the proofs derived from prophecies which have been so exactly fulfilled, we have most satisfactory evidence. Supposing a miracle possible, as to which, in my opinion, there can be no doubt, we have as strong evidence for the miracles in support of Christianity, as the nature of the thing admits.' At night Mr. Johnson and I supped in a private room at the Turk's Head coffee-house, in the Strand.  'I encourage this house (said he;) for the mistress of it is a good civil woman, and has not much business.' 'Sir, I love the acquaintance of young people; because, in the first place, I don't like to think myself growing old. In the next place, young acquaintances must last longest, if they do last; and then, Sir, young men have more virtue than old men; they have more generous sentiments in every respect.  ‘I love the young dogs of this age: they have more wit and humour and knowledge of life than we had; but then the dogs are not so good scholars. Sir, in my early years I read very hard. It is a sad reflection, but a true one, that I knew almost as much at eighteen as I do now. My judgement, to be sure, was not so good; but I had all the facts. I remember very well, when I was at Oxford, an old gentleman said to me, "Young man, ply your book diligently now, and acquire a stock of knowledge; for when years come upon you, you will find that poring upon books will be but an irksome task."' (To be continued. This week’s episode was sponsored in part by the good people of Bob’s Bowery Bar™ at the northwest corner of Bleecker and the Bowery. “I know of no finer cure for a brutal hangover than two or possibly three cold mugs of Bob’s Bowery Bar’s justly famous ‘basement-brewed’ house bock and a plate of ‘Bob’s Mom’s’ corned-beef hash and organic scrambled eggs. Stagger back to your room for a good long nap and when you awaken you will find yourself as ready as you’ll ever be to face what’s left of another day.” – Horace P. Sternwall, author of “Alleyways of Doom” and Other Poems of Urban Life and Death. part 54

Selections from Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary: “H”

Edited by Dan Leo, Horace P. Sternwall Professor of Unread Classics, Canasta Team Coach, Olney Community College; author of Bozzie and Dr. Sam: The Return of the Inebriate Lord; the Olney Community College Press.

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H is in English, as in other languages, a note of aspiration, sounded only by a strong emission of the breath, without any conformation of the organs of speech, and is therefore by many grammarians accounted no letter. The h in English is scarcely ever mute at the beginning of a word, or where it immediately precedes a vowel; as house, behaviour: where it is followed by a consonant it has no sound, according to the present pronunciation: but anciently, as now in Scotland, it made the syllable guttural; as right, bought. To Haggle. To be tedious in a bargain; to be long in coming to the price. To Hang. To choak and kill by suspending by the neck, so as that the ligature intercepts the breath and circulation. He hath commission from thy wife and me To Hang Cordelia in the prison.  Shakespeare’s King Lear. Happiness. Felicity; state in which the desires are satisfied. The various and contrary choices that men make in the world, argue that the same thing is not good to every man alike: this variety of pursuits shews, that every one does not place his happiness in the same thing. Locke. Hell. The place of the devil and wicked souls. For it is a knell That summons thee to heaven, or to hell. Shakes. Macbeth. Hell-black. Black as hell. The sea, which such a storm as his bare head In hell-black night endur'd, would have boil'd up, And quench'd the stelled fires.    Shakesp. King Lear. Helminthick. Relating to worms. Here. In this place. Before thy here approach, Old Siward, with ten thousand warlike men, All ready at appoint, was setting forth.  Shakesp. Macbeth. Heretick. One who propagates his private opinions in opposition to the Catholick church. When a Papist uses the word hereticks, he generally means Protestants; when a Protestant uses the word, he means any persons willfully and contentiously obstinate in fundamental errours.   Watt’s Logick. Heteroscians.Those whose shadows fall only one way, as the shadows of us who live north of the Tropick fall at noon always to the North. Hiation. The act of gaping. Hog. The general name of swine. This will raise the price of hogs, if we grow all to be porkeaters.   Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice. Horse. A neighing quadruped, used in war, and draught and carriage. A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!   Shak. R. III. To Humectate. To wet; to moisten. The Nile and Niger do not only moisten and contemperate the air by their exhalations, but refresh and humectate the earth by their annual inundations.    Brown's Vulgar Errours. Hysterical. Troubled with fits; disordered in the regions of the womb. Many hysterical women are sensible of wind passing from the womb.  Floyer on the Humours. (Our adaptation of Boswell’s Life of Johnson will resume next week. We wish to acknowledge the continuing sponsorship of Bob’s Bowery Bar™, at the northwest corner of Bleecker and the Bowery: “How often, in those early days of my writing career, did I gladly respond to the siren call of Bob’s Bowery Bar, where a couple of dollars could fill my stomach with Bob’s famous basement-brewed bock and generous lashings of 'Bob’s Mom’s' soul-warming corned-beef hash?” – from Horace P. Sternwall’s A Cold-Water Flat on the Bowery: Memories of a World Now Sadly Gone.) "I"