Boswell’s Life of Johnson: 221

Edited by Dan Leo, Professor of Basic Remedial English Language Skills, Olney Community College; author of Bozzie and Dr. Sam: A Murder at the Blue-Stocking Club, the Olney Community College Press.

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About this time it was much the fashion for several ladies to have evening assemblies, where the fair sex might participate in conversation with literary and ingenious men, animated by a desire to please. These societies were denominated Blue-stocking Clubs, the origin of which title being little known, it may be worth while to relate it. One of the most eminent members of those societies, when they first commenced, was Mr. Stillingfleet, whose dress was remarkably grave, and in particular it was observed, that he wore blue stockings. Such was the excellence of his conversation, that his absence was felt as so great a loss, that it used to be said, 'We can do nothing without the blue stockings;' and thus by degrees the title was established. Miss Hannah More has admirably described a Blue-stocking Club, in her Bas Bleu, a poem in which many of the persons who were most conspicuous there are mentioned. Johnson was prevailed with to come sometimes into these circles, and did not think himself too grave even for the lively Miss Monckton (now Countess of Corke), who used to have the finest bit of blue at the house of her mother, Lady Galway. Her vivacity enchanted the Sage, and they used to talk together with all imaginable ease.  A singular instance happened one evening, when she insisted that some of Sterne's writings were very pathetick. Johnson bluntly denied it.  'I am sure (said she) they have affected me.'  'Why (said Johnson, smiling, and rolling himself about,) that is, because, dearest, you're a dunce.'  When she some time afterwards mentioned this to him, he said with equal truth and politeness; 'Madam, if I had thought so, I certainly should not have said it.' Another evening Johnson's kind indulgence towards me had a pretty difficult trial. I had dined at the Duke of Montrose's with a very agreeable party, and his Grace, according to his usual custom, had circulated the bottle very freely. Lord Graham and I went together to Miss Monckton's, where I certainly was in extraordinary spirits, and above all fear or awe. In the midst of a great number of persons of the first rank, amongst whom I recollect with confusion, a noble lady of the most stately decorum, I placed myself next to Johnson, and thinking myself now fully his match, talked to him in a loud and boisterous manner, desirous to let the company know how I could contend with Ajax.  I particularly remember pressing him upon the value of the pleasures of the imagination, and as an illustration of my argument, asking him, 'What, Sir, supposing I were to fancy that the—( naming the most charming Duchess in his Majesty's dominions) were in love with me, should I not be very happy?'  My friend with much address evaded my interrogatories, and kept me as quiet as possible; but it may easily be conceived how he must have felt. However, when a few days afterwards I waited upon him and made an apology, he behaved with the most friendly gentleness. While I remained in London this year, Johnson and I dined together at several places. I recollect a placid day at Dr. Butter's, who had now removed from Derby to Lower Grosvenor-street, London; but of his conversation on that and other occasions during this period, I neglected to keep any regular record, and shall therefore insert here some miscellaneous articles which I find in my Johnsonian notes. His disorderly habits, when 'making provision for the day that was passing over him,' appear from the following anecdote, communicated to me by Mr. John Nichols:— 'In the year 1763, a young bookseller, who was an apprentice to Mr. Whiston, waited on him with a subscription to his Shakspeare: and observing that the Doctor made no entry in any book of the subscriber's name, ventured diffidently to ask, whether he would please to have the gentleman's address, that it might be properly inserted in the printed list of subscribers.  'I shall print no list of subscribers;' said Johnson, with great abruptness: but almost immediately recollecting himself, added, very complacently, 'Sir, I have two very cogent reasons for not printing any list of subscribers;— one, that I have lost all the names,— the other, that I have spent all the money.' Johnson could not brook appearing to be worsted in argument, even when he had taken the wrong side, to shew the force and dexterity of his talents. When, therefore, he perceived that his opponent gained ground, he had recourse to some sudden mode of robust sophistry. Once when I was pressing upon him with visible advantage, he stopped me thus:— 'My dear Boswell, let's have no more of this; you'll make nothing of it. I'd rather have you whistle a Scotch tune.' Care, however, must be taken to distinguish between Johnson when he 'talked for victory,' and Johnson when he had no desire but to inform and illustrate.  'One of Johnson's principal talents (says an eminent friend of his) was shewn in maintaining the wrong side of an argument, and in a splendid perversion of the truth. If you could contrive to have his fair opinion on a subject, and without any bias from personal prejudice, or from a wish to be victorious in argument, it was wisdom itself, not only convincing, but overpowering.' He had, however, all his life habituated himself to consider conversation as a trial of intellectual vigour and skill; and to this, I think, we may venture to ascribe that unexampled richness and brilliancy which appeared in his own. As a proof at once of his eagerness for colloquial distinction, and his high notion of this eminent friend, he once addressed him thus:- '——, we now have been several hours together; and you have said but one thing for which I envied you.' He disliked much all speculative desponding considerations, which tended to discourage men from diligence and exertion. He was in this like Dr. Shaw, the great traveller, who Mr. Daines Barrington told me, used to say, 'I hate a cui bono man.'  Upon being asked by a friend what he should think of a man who was apt to say non est tanti {“it is not worth it” – Editor};-'That he's a stupid fellow, Sir; (answered Johnson): What would these tanti men be doing the while?'  When I in a low-spirited fit, was talking to him with indifference of the pursuits which generally engage us in a course of action, and inquiring a reason for taking so much trouble;  'Sir (said he, in an animated tone) it is driving on the system of life.' Goldsmith could sometimes take adventurous liberties with him, and escape unpunished. Beauclerk told me that when Goldsmith talked of a project for having a third Theatre in London, solely for the exhibition of new plays, in order to deliver authours from the supposed tyranny of managers, Johnson treated it slightingly; upon which Goldsmith said, 'Ay, ay, this may be nothing to you, who can now shelter yourself behind the corner of a pension;' and that Johnson bore this with good-humour. Johnson had called twice on the Bishop of Killaloe before his Lordship set out for Ireland, having missed him the first time. He said, 'It would have hung heavy on my heart if I had not seen him. No man ever paid more attention to another than he has done to me; and I have neglected him, not wilfully, but from being otherwise occupied. Always, Sir, set a high value on spontaneous kindness. He whose inclination prompts him to cultivate your friendship of his own accord, will love you more than one whom you have been at pains to attach to you.' Johnson told me, that he was once much pleased to find that a carpenter, who lived near him, was very ready to shew him some things in his business which he wished to see:  'It was paying (said he) respect to literature.' (classix comix™ is brought to you by the friendly folks at Bob’s Bowery Bar, that beacon of good cheer at the northwest corner of Bleecker and the Bowery: “A word to the wise guy and gal: Wednesday nights are ‘Wiener Wednesdays’ at my favorite ‘stop’ Bob’s Bowery Bar! All night long all wieners are only two-bits a piece, yes that’s one quarter dollar for one of our six-inch dogs served on a fresh-baked sourdough bun and with your choice of toppings including raw or fried onions, sauerkraut, Cheez Whiz, and Bob’s Mom’s infamous hellfire sauce. I put away six of those babies with ‘everything’ last Wednesday night, and I won’t tell you how many imperial pints of Bob’s basement-brewed box I washed those wieners down with!” – Horace P. 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Boswell’s Life of Johnson: 220

Edited by Dan Leo, Professor of 18th Century British Badinage Studies, Olney Community College; author of Bozzie and Dr. Sam: A Corpse in Queen’s Gate Mews, the Olney Community College Press.

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For some time after this day I did not see him very often, and of the conversation which I did enjoy, I am sorry to find I have preserved but little. I was at this time engaged in a variety of other matters, which required exertion and assiduity, and necessarily occupied almost all my time. One day having spoken very freely of those who were then in power, he said to me, 'Between ourselves, Sir, I do not like to give opposition the satisfaction of knowing how much I disapprove of the ministry.'  And when I mentioned that Mr. Burke had boasted how quiet the nation was in George the Second's reign, when Whigs were in power, compared with the present reign, when Tories governed;— 'Why, Sir, (said he,) you are to consider that Tories having more reverence for government, will not oppose with the same violence as Whigs, who being unrestrained by that principle, will oppose by any means.' This month he lost not only Mr. Thrale, but another friend, Mr. William Strahan, Junior, printer, the eldest son of his old and constant friend, Printer to his Majesty.  'TO MRS. STRAHAN.  'DEAR MADAM, 'The grief which I feel for the loss of a very kind friend is sufficient to make me know how much you suffer by the death of an amiable son; a man, of whom I think it may truly be said, that no one knew him who does not lament him. I look upon myself as having a friend, another friend, taken from me. 'Comfort, dear Madam, I would give you if I could, but I know how little the forms of consolation can avail. Let me, however, counsel you not to waste your health in unprofitable sorrow, but go to Bath, and endeavour to prolong your own life; but when we have all done all that we can, one friend in time must lose the other. 'I am, dear Madam, 'Your most humble servant, 'Sam. Johnson.' April 23, 1781 On Tuesday, May 8, I had the pleasure of again dining with him and Mr. Wilkes, at Mr. Dilly's. No negociation was now required to bring them together; for Johnson was so well satisfied with the former interview, that he was very glad to meet Wilkes again, who was this day seated between Dr. Beattie and Dr. Johnson; (between Truth and Reason, as General Paoli said, when I told him of it.)  WILKES. 'I have been thinking, Dr. Johnson, that there should be a bill brought into parliament that the controverted elections for Scotland should be tried in that country, at their own Abbey of Holy-Rood House, and not here; for the consequence of trying them here is, that we have an inundation of Scotchmen, who come up and never go back again.'  JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, I see no reason why they should be tried at all; for, you know, one Scotchman is as good as another.'  WILKES. 'Pray, Boswell, how much may be got in a year by an Advocate at the Scotch bar?'  BOSWELL. 'I believe two thousand pounds.'  WlLKES. 'How can it be possible to spend that money in Scotland?'  JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, the money may be spent in England: but there is a harder question. If one man in Scotland gets possession of two thousand pounds, what remains for all the rest of the nation?'  WILKES. 'You know, in the last war, the immense booty which Thurot carried off by the complete plunder of seven Scotch isles; he re-embarked with three and six-pence.'  Here again Johnson and Wilkes joined in extravagant sportive raillery upon the supposed poverty of Scotland, which Dr. Beattie and I did not think it worth our while to dispute. The subject of quotation being introduced, Mr. Wilkes censured it as pedantry.  JOHNSON. 'No, Sir, it is a good thing; there is a community of mind in it. Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world.'  We talked of Letter-writing.  JOHNSON. 'It is now become so much the fashion to publish letters, that in order to avoid it, I put as little into mine as I can.'  BOSWELL. 'Do what you will, Sir, you cannot avoid it. Should you even write as ill as you can, your letters would be published as curiosities.' He gave us an entertaining account of Bet Flint, a woman of the town, who, with some eccentrick talents and much effrontery, forced herself upon his acquaintance.  'Bet (said he) wrote her own Life in verse, which she brought to me, wishing that I would furnish her with a Preface to it. (Laughing.) I used to say of her that she was generally slut and drunkard; occasionally, whore and thief. She had, however, genteel lodgings, a spinnet on which she played, and a boy that walked before her chair. Poor Bet was taken up on a charge of stealing a counterpane, and tried at the Old Bailey. Chief Justice ———, who loved a wench, summed up favourably, and she was acquitted. After which Bet said, with a gay and satisfied air, 'Now that the counterpane is my own, I shall make a petticoat of it.' Talking of oratory, Mr. Wilkes described it as accompanied with all the charms of poetical expression.  JOHNSON. 'No, Sir; oratory is the power of beating down your adversary's arguments, and putting better in their place.'  WlLKES. 'But this does not move the passions.'  JOHNSON. 'He must be a weak man, who is to be so moved.'  WlLKES. (naming a celebrated orator) 'Amidst all the brilliancy of ——'s imagination, and the exuberance of his wit, there is a strange want of taste. It was observed of Apelles's Venus {Apelles was a renowned painter of ancient Greece – Editor}, that her flesh seemed as if she had been nourished by roses: his oratory would sometimes make one suspect that he eats potatoes and drinks whisky.' Mr. Beauclerk's great library was this season sold in London by auction. Mr. Wilkes said, he wondered to find in it such a numerous collection of sermons; seeming to think it strange that a gentleman of Mr. Beauclerk's character in the gay world should have chosen to have many compositions of that kind.  JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, you are to consider, that sermons make a considerable branch of English literature; so that a library must be very imperfect if it has not a numerous collection of sermons: and in all collections, Sir, the desire of augmenting it grows stronger in proportion to the advance in acquisition; as motion is accelerated by the continuance of the impetus. Besides, Sir, (looking at Mr. Wilkes with a placid but significant smile) a man may collect sermons with intention of making himself better by them. I hope Mr. Beauclerk intended, that some time or other that should be the case with him.' Mr. Wilkes said to me, loud enough for Dr. Johnson to hear, 'Dr. Johnson should make me a present of his Lives of the Poets, as I am a poor patriot, who cannot afford to buy them.'  Johnson seemed to take no notice of this hint; but in a little while, he called to Mr. Dilly, 'Pray, Sir, be so good as to send a set of my Lives to Mr. Wilkes, with my compliments.'  This was accordingly done; and Mr. Wilkes paid Dr. Johnson a visit, was courteously received, and sat with him a long time. The company gradually dropped away. Mr. Dilly himself was called downstairs upon business; I left the room for some time; when I returned, I was struck with observing Dr. Samuel Johnson and John Wilkes, Esq., literally tête-à-tête; for they were reclined upon their chairs, with their heads leaning almost close to each other, and talking earnestly, in a kind of confidential whisper, of the personal quarrel between George the Second and the King of Prussia. Such a scene of perfectly easy sociality between two such opponents in the war of political controversy, as that which I now beheld, would have been an excellent subject for a picture. It presented to my mind the happy days which are foretold in Scripture, when the lion shall lie down with the kid.  After this day there was another pretty long interval, during which Dr. Johnson and I did not meet. When I mentioned it to him with regret, he was pleased to say, 'Then, Sir, let us live double.' (classix comix™ is made possible in part through the continuing support of the Bob’s Bowery Bar Foundation for Literary and Artistic Excellence: “If like me you keep somewhat irregular hours I should like to remind you that my favorite ‘stop’ Bob’s Bowery Bar serves its breakfast menu from 7am to 3am daily, so no matter what time you crawl out of bed you can count on a hearty ‘most important meal of your day’ at Bob’s! Lately I’ve been going for the Amish Farmer’s Special: two cage-free eggs ‘any style’, two thick slices each of fried mush and fried scrapple, two crispy rashers of house-cured bacon, fried pickled tomatoes, home fries, and sourdough toast dripping with creamery butter and lingonberry preserves. You may have to go back to bed afterwards, but you won’t go to bed hungry!” – Horace P. Sternwall, host and narrator of Bob’s Bowery Bar Presents Philip Morris Commander’s “Blanche Weinberg: Lady Psychiatrist”, broadcast live 8pm Sundays {EST} exclusively on the Dumont Television Network. This week’s presentation: The Boy Who Thought He Was a Two-Headed Dog , by Herschel Peter Stolzfuss, starring Kitty Carlisle as “Dr. Blanche”, with very special guest star Jerry Mathers as “Skippy”.)   part 221

Boswell's Life of Johnson: 219

Edited by Dan Leo, Assistant Professor of 18th Century Literary History Studies, Olney Community College; author of Bozzie and Dr. Sam: The Case of the Purloined Portrait, the Olney Community College Press.

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On Friday, April 20, I spent with him one of the happiest days that I remember to have enjoyed in the whole course of my life.  Mrs. Garrick, whose grief for the loss of her husband was, I believe, as sincere as wounded affection and admiration could produce, had this day, for the first time since his death, a select party of his friends to dine with her. The company was Miss Hannah More, who lived with her, and whom she called her Chaplain; Mrs. Boscawen, Mrs. Elizabeth Carter, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Dr. Burney, Dr. Johnson, and myself. We found ourselves very elegantly entertained at her house in the Adelphi {a “large pile of buildings under the affected name of the Adelphi” on the site of Durham Yard, built by two Scottish brothers named Adams – Editor}, where I have passed many a pleasing hour with him 'who gladdened life.' She looked well, talked of her husband with complacency, and while she cast her eyes on his portrait, which hung over the chimney-piece, said, that 'death was now the most agreeable object to her.'   The very semblance of David Garrick was cheering. Mr. Beauclerk, with happy propriety, inscribed under that fine portrait of him, which by Lady Diana's kindness is now the property of my friend Mr. Langton, the following passage from his beloved Shakspeare {from Love’s Labour’s Lost – Editor}:         'A merrier man,  Within the limit of becoming mirth,  I never spent an hour's talk withal.  His eye begets occasion for his wit;  For every object that the one doth catch,  The other turns to a mirth-moving jest; Which his fair tongue (Conceit's expositor) Delivers in such apt and gracious words, That aged ears play truant at his tales, And younger hearings are quite ravished: So sweet and voluble is his discourse.' We were all in fine spirits; and I whispered to Mrs. Boscawen, 'I believe this is as much as can be made of life.'  In addition to a splendid entertainment, we were regaled with Lichfield ale, which had a peculiar appropriated value. Sir Joshua, and Dr. Burney, and I, drank cordially of it to Dr. Johnson's health; and though he would not join us, he as cordially answered, 'Gentlemen, I wish you all as well as you do me.' The general effect of this day dwells upon my mind in fond remembrance; but I do not find much conversation recorded. What I have preserved shall be faithfully given. One of the company mentioned Mr. Thomas Hollis, the strenuous Whig, who used to send over Europe presents of democratical books, with their boards stamped with daggers and caps of liberty.  Mrs. Carter said, 'He was a bad man. He used to talk uncharitably.'  JOHNSON. 'Poh! poh! Madam; who is the worse for being talked of uncharitably? Besides, he was a dull poor creature as ever lived: And I believe he would not have done harm to a man whom he knew to be of very opposite principles to his own. I remember once at the Society of Arts, when an advertisement was to be drawn up, he pointed me out as the man who could do it best. This, you will observe, was kindness to me. I however slipt away, and escaped it.' Mrs. Carter having said of the same person, 'I doubt {“doubt” = “suspect” – Editor} he was an Atheist.'  JOHNSON. 'I don't know that. He might perhaps have become one, if he had had time to ripen, (smiling.) He might have exuberated into an Atheist.' Sir Joshua Reynolds praised Mudge's Sermons.  JOHNSON. 'Mudge's Sermons are good, but not practical. He grasps more sense than he can hold; he takes more corn than he can make into meal; he opens a wide prospect, but it is so distant, it is indistinct. I love Blair's Sermons. Though the dog is a Scotchman, and a Presbyterian, and every thing he should not be, I was the first to praise them. Such was my candour.' (smiling.)  MRS. BOSCAWEN. 'Such his great merit to get the better of all your prejudices.'  JOHNSON. 'Why, Madam, let us compound the matter; let us ascribe it to my candour, and his merit.'  In the evening we had a large company in the drawing-room, several ladies, the Bishop of Killaloe, Dr. Percy, Mr. Chamberlayne, of the Treasury, &c. &c.  Somebody said the life of a mere literary man could not be very entertaining.  JOHNSON. 'But it certainly may. This is a remark which has been made, and repeated, without justice; why should the life of a literary man be less entertaining than the life of any other man? Are there not as interesting varieties in such a life? As a literary life it may be very entertaining.'  BOSWELL. 'But it must be better surely, when it is diversified with a little active variety— such as his having gone to Jamaica; or— his having gone to the Hebrides.'  Johnson was not displeased at this. Talking of a very respectable authour, he told us a curious circumstance in his life, which was, that he had married a printer's devil {“apprentice” – Editor}.  REYNOLDS. 'A printer's devil, Sir! Why, I thought a printer's devil was a creature with a black face and in rags.'  JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir. But I suppose, he had her face washed, and put clean clothes on her. (Then looking very serious, and very earnest.) And she did not disgrace him; the woman had a bottom of good sense.'  The word bottom thus introduced, was so ludicrous when contrasted with his gravity, that most of us could not forbear tittering and laughing; though I recollect that the Bishop of Killaloe kept his countenance with perfect steadiness, while Miss Hannah More slyly hid her face behind a lady's back who sat on the same settee with her. His pride could not bear that any expression of his should excite ridicule, when he did not intend it; he therefore resolved to assume and exercise despotick power, glanced sternly around, and called out in a strong tone, 'Where's the merriment?'  Then collecting himself, and looking aweful, to make us feel how he could impose restraint, and as it were searching his mind for a still more ludicrous word, he slowly pronounced, 'I say the woman was fundamentally sensible;' as if he had said, hear this now, and laugh if you dare. We all sat composed as at a funeral. He and I walked away together; we stopped a little while by the rails of the Adelphi, looking on the Thames, and I said to him with some emotion that I was now thinking of two friends we had lost, who once lived in the buildings behind us, Beauclerk and Garrick.  'Ay, Sir, (said he, tenderly) and two such friends as cannot be supplied.' (classix comix™ is brought to you by Bob’s Bowery Bar, conveniently located at the northwest corner of Bleecker and the Bowery: “I should like to advise our viewers that every Wednesday night at Bob’s Bowery Bar is ‘Half-Price Burger Night’, so come on by and tuck into a big juicy fresh-ground patty of free-range organic Angus beef nestled into a buttered and toasted house-baked sourdough bun, with your choice of a variety of toppings – or, for the unfaint of heart, order the Horace Heart-Attack Special: a bloody rare burger topped with two thick rashers of Amish slab bacon, melted New York State sharp cheddar, a hillock of caramelized onions, and lashings of Mom’s own ‘hellfire’ sauce; if you’re like me then ‘just one’ won’t be enough! Vegan options available upon request.”  – Horace P. Sternwall, host and narrator of Bob’s Bowery Bar Presents Philip Morris Commander’s “Blanche Weinberg: Lady Psychiatrist”, broadcast live 8pm Sundays {EST} exclusively on the Dumont Television Network. This week’s play: The Lady Who Loved Cats, by Hillary Pope St. Adelbert, starring Kitty Carlisle as “Dr. Blanche”, with very special guest star Thelma Ritter.) part 220