Boswell’s Life of Johnson: 57

Edited by Dan Leo, LL.D., Horace P. Sternwall Professor of Literary Obscurantism, Olney Community College; author of Bozzie and Dr. Sam: The Case of the Bumptious Bumpkin, the Olney Community College Press.

Illustrated by rhoda penmarq with the assistance of eddie el greco and roy dismas; a penmarq studios™/desilu™ co-production.

to begin at the beginning, click here

for previous chapter, click here

On Tuesday, August 2 (the day of my departure from London having been fixed for the 5th,) Dr. Johnson did me the honour to pass a part of the morning with me at my Chambers.  He said, that 'he always felt an inclination to do nothing.' I observed, that it was strange to think that the most indolent man in Britain had written the most laborious work, The English Dictionary. I had now made good my title to be a privileged man, and was carried by him in the evening to drink tea with Miss Williams, whom, though under the misfortune of having lost her sight, I found to be agreeable in conversation; for she had a variety of literature, and expressed herself well; but her peculiar value was the intimacy in which she had long lived with Johnson, by which she was well acquainted with his habits, and knew how to lead him on to talk. After tea he carried me to what he called his walk, which was a long narrow paved court in the neighbourhood, overshadowed by some trees.  There we sauntered a considerable time; and I complained to him that my love of London and of his company was such, that I shrunk almost from the thought of going away, even to travel, which is generally so much desired by young men.  He roused me by manly and spirited conversation. He advised me, when settled in any place abroad, to study with an eagerness after knowledge, and to apply to Greek an hour every day; and when I was moving about, to read diligently the great book of mankind. On Wednesday, August 3, we had our last social evening at the Turk's Head coffee-house, before my setting out for foreign parts. I had the misfortune, before we parted, to irritate him unintentionally. I mentioned to him how common it was in the world to tell absurd stories of him, and to ascribe to him very strange sayings.  JOHNSON. 'What do they make me say, Sir?'  BOSWELL. 'Why, Sir, as an instance very strange indeed, (laughing heartily as I spoke,) David Hume told me, you said that you would stand before a battery of cannon, to restore the Convocation to its full powers.'  Little did I apprehend that he had actually said this: but I was soon convinced of my errour; for, with a determined look, he thundered out: 'And would I not, Sir? Shall the Presbyterian Kirk of Scotland have its General Assembly, and the Church of England be denied its Convocation?' He was walking up and down the room while I told him the anecdote; but when he uttered this explosion of high-church zeal, he had come close to my chair, and his eyes flashed with indignation. I bowed to the storm, and diverted the force of it, by leading him to expatiate on the influence which religion derived from maintaining the church with great external respectability. On Friday, August 5, we set out early in the morning in the Harwich stage coach. A fat elderly gentlewoman, and a young Dutchman, seemed the most inclined among us to conversation. At the inn where we dined, the gentlewoman said that she had done her best to educate her children; and particularly, that she had never suffered them to be a moment idle.  JOHNSON. 'I wish, madam, you would educate me too; for I have been an idle fellow all my life.'  'I am sure, Sir, (said she) you have not been idle.'  JOHNSON. 'Nay, Madam, it is very true; and that gentleman there (pointing to me,) has been idle. He was idle at Edinburgh. His father sent him to Glasgow, where he continued to be idle. He then came to London, where he has been very idle; and now he is going to Utrecht, where he will be as idle as ever.'  I asked him privately how he could expose me so.  JOHNSON. 'Poh, poh! (said he) they knew nothing about you, and will think of it no more.'  In the afternoon the gentlewoman talked violently against the Roman Catholicks, and of the horrours of the Inquisition. To the utter astonishment of all the passengers but myself, who knew that he could talk upon any side of a question, he defended the Inquisition, and maintained, that 'false doctrine should be checked on its first appearance; that the civil power should unite with the church in punishing those who dared to attack the established religion, and that such only were punished by the Inquisition.'  Though by no means niggardly, his attention to what was generally right was so minute, that having observed at one of the stages that I ostentatiously gave a shilling to the coachman, when the custom was for each passenger to give only six-pence, he took me aside and scolded me, saying that what I had done would make the coachman dissatisfied with all the rest of the passengers, who gave him no more than his due. This was a just reprimand; for in whatever way a man may indulge his generosity or his vanity in spending his money, for the sake of others he ought not to raise the price of any article for which there is a constant demand. He talked of Mr. Blacklock's poetry, so far as it was descriptive of visible objects; and observed, that 'as its authour had the misfortune to be blind, we may be absolutely sure that such passages are combinations of what he has remembered of the works of other writers who could see. That foolish fellow, Spence, has laboured to explain philosophically how Blacklock may have done, by means of his own faculties, what it is impossible he should do. The solution, as I have given it, is plain. Suppose, I know a man to be so lame that he is absolutely incapable to move himself, and I find him in a different room from that in which I left him; shall I puzzle myself with idle conjectures, that, perhaps, his nerves have by some unknown change all at once become effective? No, Sir; it is clear how he got into a different room: he was carried.' Having stopped a night at Colchester, Johnson talked of that town with veneration, for having stood a siege for Charles the First. The Dutchman alone now remained with us. He spoke English tolerably well; and thinking to recommend himself to us by expatiating on the superiority of the criminal jurisprudence of this country over that of Holland, he inveighed against the barbarity of putting an accused person to the torture, in order to force a confession. But Johnson was as ready for this, as for the Inquisition. 'Why, Sir, you do not, I find, understand the law of your own country. The torture in Holland is considered as a favour to an accused person; for no man is put to the torture there, unless there is as much evidence against him as would amount to conviction in England. An accused person among you, therefore, has one chance more to escape punishment, than those who are tried among us.' At supper this night he talked of good eating with uncommon satisfaction.  'Some people (said he,) have a foolish way of not minding, or pretending not to mind, what they eat. For my part, I mind my belly very studiously, and very carefully; for I look upon it, that he who does not mind his belly will hardly mind anything else.'  He now appeared to me Jean Bull philosophe, and he was, for the moment, not only serious but vehement. Yet I have heard him, upon other occasions, talk with great contempt of people who were anxious to gratify their palates; and the 206th number of his Rambler is a masterly essay against gulosity. His practice, indeed, I must acknowledge, may be considered as casting the balance of his different opinions upon this subject; for I never knew any man who relished good eating more than he did. When at table, he was totally absorbed in the business of the moment; his looks seemed rivetted to his plate; nor would he, unless when in very high company, say one word, or even pay the least attention to what was said by others, till he had satisfied his appetite, which was so fierce, and indulged with such intenseness, that while in the act of eating, the veins of his forehead swelled, and generally a strong perspiration was visible. To those whose sensations were delicate, this could not but be disgusting; and it was doubtless not very suitable to the character of a philosopher, who should be distinguished by self-command. But it must be owned, that Johnson, though he could be rigidly abstemious, was not a temperate man either in eating or drinking. He could refrain, but he could not use moderately. He told me, that he had fasted two days without inconvenience, and that he had never been hungry but once. They who beheld with wonder how much he eat upon all occasions when his dinner was to his taste, could not easily conceive what he must have meant by hunger; and not only was he remarkable for the extraordinary quantity which he eat, but he was, or affected to be, a man of very nice discernment in the science of cookery. He used to descant critically on the dishes which had been at table where he had dined or supped, and to recollect very minutely what he had liked. I remember, when he was in Scotland, his praising 'Gordon's palates', (a dish of palates at the Honourable Alexander Gordon's) with a warmth of expression which might have done honour to more important subjects. 'As for Maclaurin's imitation of a made dish, it was a wretched attempt.' He about the same time was so much displeased with the performances of a nobleman's French cook, that he exclaimed with vehemence, 'I'd throw such a rascal into the river;' and he then proceeded to alarm a lady at whose house he was to sup, by the following manifesto of his skill: 'I, Madam, who live at a variety of good tables, am a much better judge of cookery, than any person who has a very tolerable cook, but lives much at home; for his palate is gradually adapted to the taste of his cook; whereas, Madam, in trying by a wider range, I can more exquisitely judge.'  When invited to dine, even with an intimate friend, he was not pleased if something better than a plain dinner was not prepared for him.  I have heard him say on such an occasion, 'This was a good dinner enough, to be sure; but it was not a dinner to ask a man to.' On the other hand, he was wont to express, with great glee, his satisfaction when he had been entertained quite to his mind. One day when we had dined with his neighbour and landlord in Bolt-court, Mr. Allen, the printer, whose old housekeeper had studied his taste in every thing, he pronounced this eulogy: 'Sir, we could not have had a better dinner had there been a Synod of Cooks.'   (To be continued. This week’s chapter was brought to you by Bob’s Bowery Bar™, at the corner of Bleecker and the Bowery: “One of my favorite collations after a night on the town is the Bob’s Bowery Bar™ ‘Late-Night Special’: Fried Lebanon Bologna with Tangy Melted Cheddar on Grilled Whole Wheat Toast, Served with Herr’s Potato Chips, and Matched with a Pint of Bob’s Famous Basement-Brewed Bock – a steal at only $1.00! Offer only good between the hours of 2am and 4am.” – Horace P. Sternwall, host of The Bob’s Bowery Bar Mystery Hour, exclusively on the Dumont Television Network, Tuesdays at 10pm EST.) part 58

Boswell’s Life of Johnson: 56

Edited by Dan Leo, LL.D., Horace P. Sternwall Professor of Remedial English Composition, Olney Community College; author of Bozzie and Dr. Sam: The Case of the Kindly Strumpet, the Olney Community College Press..

Illustrated by rhoda penmarq; inks by eddie el greco, colors by roy dismas; a penmarq™/jack webb™ co-production.

to begin at the beginning, click here

for previous chapter, click here

On Saturday, July 30, Dr. Johnson and I took a sculler at the Temple-stairs, and set out for Greenwich. I asked him if he really thought a knowledge of the Greek and Latin languages an essential requisite to a good education. JOHNSON. 'Most certainly, Sir; for those who know them have a very great advantage over those who do not. Nay, Sir, it is wonderful what a difference learning makes upon people even in the common intercourse of life, which does not appear to be much connected with it.' And yet, (said I) people go through the world very well, and carry on the business of life to good advantage, without learning.' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, that may be true in cases where learning cannot possibly be of any use; for instance, this boy rows us as well without learning, as if he could sing the song of Orpheus to the Argonauts, who were the first sailors.' He then called to the boy, 'What would you give, my lad, to know about the Argonauts?' 'Sir (said the boy,) I would give what I have.' Johnson was much pleased with his answer, and we gave him a double fare. Dr. Johnson then turning to me, 'Sir, (said he) a desire of knowledge is the natural feeling of mankind; and every human being, whose mind is not debauched, will be willing to give all that he has to get knowledge.’ We landed at the Old Swan, and walked to Billingsgate, where we took oars, and moved smoothly along the silver Thames. It was a very fine day. We were entertained with the immense number and variety of ships that were lying at anchor, and with the beautiful country on each side of the river.   I talked of preaching, and of the great success which those called Methodists have. JOHNSON. 'Sir, it is owing to their expressing themselves in a plain and familiar manner, which is the only way to do good to the common people, and which clergymen of genius and learning ought to do from a principle of duty, when it is suited to their congregations; a practice, for which they will be praised by men of sense.  ‘To insist against drunkenness as a crime, because it debases reason, the noblest faculty of man, would be of no service to the common people: but to tell them that they may die in a fit of drunkenness, and shew them how dreadful that would be, cannot fail to make a deep impression.' Let this observation, as Johnson meant it, be ever remembered. I was much pleased to find myself with Johnson at Greenwich, which he celebrates in his London as a favourite scene. I had the poem in my pocket, and read the lines aloud with enthusiasm: 'On Thames's banks in silent thought we stood:  Where Greenwich smiles upon the silver flood:  Pleas'd with the seat which gave ELIZA birth,  We kneel, and kiss the consecrated earth.'   Afterwards he entered upon the business of the day, which was to give me his advice as to a course of study. And here I am to mention with much regret, that my record of what he said is miserably scanty. I recollect with admiration an animating blaze of eloquence, which rouzed every intellectual power in me to the highest pitch, but must have dazzled me so much, that my memory could not preserve the substance of his discourse; for the note which I find of it is no more than this: —'He ran over the grand scale of human knowledge; advised me to select some particular branch to excel in, but to acquire a little of every kind.'  The defect of my minutes will be fully supplied by a long letter upon the subject which he favoured me with, after I had been some time at Utrecht, and which my readers will have the pleasure to peruse in its proper place. We walked in the evening in Greenwich Park.  He asked me, I suppose, by way of trying my disposition, 'Is not this very fine?'  Having no exquisite relish of the beauties of Nature, and being more delighted with 'the busy hum of men,' I answered, 'Yes, Sir; but not equal to Fleet-street.'  JOHNSON. 'You are right, Sir.' We staid so long at Greenwich, that our sail up the river, in our return to London, was by no means so pleasant as in the morning; for the night air was so cold that it made me shiver. I was the more sensible of it from having sat up all the night before, recollecting and writing in my journal what I thought worthy of preservation; an exertion, which, during the first part of my acquaintance with Johnson, I frequently made. I remember having sat up four nights in one week, without being much incommoded in the day time. Johnson, whose robust frame was not in the least affected by the cold, scolded me, as if my shivering had been a paltry effeminacy, saying, 'Why do you shiver?'  Sir William Scott, of the Commons, told me, that when he complained of a headache in the post-chaise, as they were travelling together to Scotland, Johnson treated him in the same manner:  'At your age, Sir, I had no headache.'  It is not easy to make allowance for sensations in others, which we ourselves have not at the time. We must all have experienced how very differently we are affected by the complaints of our neighbours, when we are well and when we are ill. In full health, we can scarcely believe that they suffer much; so faint is the image of pain upon our imagination: when softened by sickness, we readily sympathize with the sufferings of others. We concluded the day at the Turk's Head coffee-house very socially. He was pleased to listen to a particular account which I gave him of my family, and of its hereditary estate, as to the extent and population of which he asked questions, and made calculations; recommending, at the same time, a liberal kindness to the tenantry, as people over whom the proprietor was placed by Providence.  He took delight in hearing my description of the romantick seat of my ancestors.  'I must be there, Sir, (said he) and we will live in the old castle; and if there is not a room in it remaining, we will build one.'  I was highly flattered, but could scarcely indulge a hope that Auchinleck would indeed be honoured by his presence, and celebrated by a description, as it afterwards was, in his Journey to the Western Islands. After we had again talked of my setting out for Holland, he said, 'I must see thee out of England; I will accompany you to Harwich.' I could not find words to express what I felt upon this unexpected and very great mark of his affectionate regard. Next day, Sunday, July 31, I told him I had been that morning at a meeting of the people called Quakers, where I had heard a woman preach. JOHNSON. 'Sir, a woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hinder legs. It is not done well; but you are surprized to find it done at all.' (To be continued. This project was made possible in part through a generous grant from the Bob’s Bowery Bar™ Foundation on the Graphic and Literary Arts: “Many was the time that I – an impecunious young writer living in a cold-water flat at the corner of Bleecker and the Bowery – would go down to the welcoming dark cave of Bob’s Bowery Bar™, always cool on the hottest summer day, always toasty warm on the bitterest February morning, and, whatever the season, always alive with the spirit of good fellowship!” – Horace P. Sternwall, bestselling author of The Apoplectic Policeman and Other Stories. part 57

Selections from Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary: “I”

Edited by Dan Leo, Horace P. Sternwall Professor of Spelling and Penmanship, Life Skills Coach, Olney Community College; author of Bozzie and Dr. Sam: The Zombies of Mayfair; the Olney Community College Press.

Illustrations by rhoda penmarq; lettering by roy dismas; colors by eddie el greco; a penmarq multinational studios™ production.

to begin selections from Samuel Johnson's Dictionary, click here

for previous selection from Samuel Johnson's Dictionary, click here

to begin at the beginning of Boswell's Life of Johnson, click here

for previous chapter of Boswell's Life of Johnson, click here

Iatroleptic.  That which cures by anointing. *** Ichneumon.  A small animal that breaks the eggs of the crocodile. *** Ichthyophagy.  Diet of fish; the practice of eating fish. *** Iconoclast.  A breaker of images. *** Idiot.  A fool; one without the powers of reason. Life is a tale, Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.  Shakespeare’s Macbeth. *** Idle.  Lazy; averse from labour. For shame, so much to do, and yet idle.  Bull. *** To Illaqueate.  To entangle; to entrap; to ensnare. I am illaqueated, but not truly captivated into an assent to your conclusion.  More’s Divine Dialogues. *** Illnatured.   Habitually malevolent; wanting kindness or goodwill; mischievous. These ill qualities denominate a person illnatured, they being such as make him grievous and uneasy to all whom he deals and associates himself with.  South’s Sermons *** Incest.  Unnatural and criminal conjunction of persons within degrees prohibited. We may easily guess with what impatience the world would have heard an incestuous Herod discoursing of chastity.  South *** Imp.  A subaltern devil, a puny devil. In this sense ‘tis still retained. Such we deny not to be the imps and limbs of Satan.  Hook. *** Intestine.  The gut; the bowel: most commonly without a singular. The intestines or guts may be inflamed by an acid substance taken inwardly.  Arbuthnot on Diet. *** Inthrall.  To enslave; to shackle; to reduce to servitude. A word now seldom used, at least in prose. She soothes, but never can inthrall my mind: Why may not peace and love for once be join’d.  Prior *** Inustion.  The act of burning. *** Inutility.  Uselessness; unprofitableness. *** (Our illustrated adaptation of Boswell’s Life of Johnson will resume next week. Classix Comix is made possible in part through  a generous grant from the Bob’s Bowery Bar™ Foundation for the Arts: “When next you find yourself in the neighborhood of Bleecker and the Bowery, may I suggest a refreshing stop at Bob’s Bowery Bar™ – tell them Horace P. Sternwall sent you, and receive a half-price discount on your first mug of Bob’s justly-celebrated ‘basement-brewed’ house bock!” – Horace P. Sternwall, host of The Bob’s Bowery Bar Mystery Hour, exclusively on the Dumont Television Network, Tuesdays at 10pm, EST.) "J"