约翰逊4-6-15

who cannot lie, and cannot be mistaken.'About this time he wrote to Mrs. Lucy Porter, mentioning his bad health,and that he intended a visit to Lichfield. 'It is, (says he,) with nogreat expectation of amendment that I make every year a journey into thecountry; but it is pleasant to visit those whose kindness has been oftenexperienced.'On April 18, (being Good-Friday,) I found him at breakfast, in his usualmanner upon that day, drinking tea without milk, and eating a cross-bunto prevent faintness; we went to St. Clement's church, as formerly. Whenwe came home from church, he placed himself on one of the stone-seats athis garden-door, and I took the other, and thus in the open air and in aplacid frame of mind, he talked away very easily. JOHNSON. 'Were I acountry gentleman, I should not be very hospitable, I should not havecrowds in my house[632].' BOSWELL. 'Sir Alexander Dick[633] tells me,that he remembers having a thousand people in a year to dine at hishouse: that is, reckoning each person as one, each time that he dinedthere.' JOHNSON. 'That, Sir, is about three a day.' BOSWELL. 'How yourstatement lessens the idea.' JOHNSON. 'That, Sir, is the good ofcounting[634]. It brings every thing to a certainty, which beforefloated in the mind indefinitely.' BOSWELL. 'But _Omne ignotum promagnifico est[635]: one is sorry to have this diminished.' JOHNSON.'Sir, you should not allow yourself to be delighted with errour.'BOSWELL. 'Three a day seem but few.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, he whoentertains three a day, does very liberally. And if there is a largefamily, the poor entertain those three, for they eat what the poor wouldget: there must be superfluous meat; it must be given to the poor, orthrown out.' BOSWELL. 'I observe in London, that the poor go about andgather bones, which I understand are manufactured.' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir;they boil them, and extract a grease from them for greasing wheels andother purposes. Of the best pieces they make a mock ivory, which is usedfor hafts to knives, and various other things; the coarser pieces theyburn and pound, and sell the ashes.' BOSWELL. 'For what purpose, Sir?'JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, for making a furnace for the chymists for meltingiron. A paste made of burnt bones will stand a stronger heat than anything else. Consider, Sir; if you are to melt iron, you cannot line yourpot with brass, because it is softer than iron, and would melt sooner;nor with iron, for though malleable iron is harder than cast iron, yetit would not do; but a paste of burnt-bones will not melt.' BOSWELL. 'Doyou know, Sir, I have discovered a manufacture to a great extent, ofwhat you only piddle at,--scraping and drying the peel of oranges[636].At a place in Newgate-street, there is a prodigious quantity prepared,which they sell to the distillers.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, I believe they make ahigher thing out of them than a spirit; they make what is calledorange-butter, the oil of the orange inspissated, which they mix perhapswith common pomatum, and make it fragrant. The oil does not fly off inthe drying.'BOSWELL. 'I wish to have a good walled garden.' JOHNSON. 'I don't thinkit would be worth the expence to you. We compute in England, a park wallat a thousand pounds a mile; now a garden-wall must cost at least asmuch. You intend your trees should grow higher than a deer will leap.Now let us see; for a hundred pounds you could only have forty-foursquare yards, which is very little; for two hundred pounds, you may haveeighty-four square yards[637], which is very well. But when will you getthe value of two hundred pounds of walls, in fruit, in your climate? No,Sir, such contention with Nature is not worth while. I would plant anorchard, and have plenty of such fruit as ripen well in your country. Myfriend, Dr. Madden[638], of Ireland, said, that "in an orchard thereshould be enough to eat, enough to lay up, enough to be stolen, andenough to rot upon the ground." Cherries are an early fruit, you mayhave them; and you may have the early apples and pears.' BOSWELL. 'Wecannot have nonpareils.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, you can no more have nonpareilsthan you can have grapes.' BOSWELL. 'We have them, Sir; but they arevery bad.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, never try to have a thing merely to shewthat you _cannot_ have it. From ground that would let for fortyshillings you may have a large orchard; and you see it costs you onlyforty shillings. Nay, you may graze the ground when the trees are grownup; you cannot while they are young.' BOSWELL. 'Is not a good garden avery common thing in England, Sir?' JOHNSON. 'Not so common, Sir, asyou imagine[639]. In Lincolnshire there is hardly an orchard; inStaffordshire very little fruit.' BOSWELL. 'Has Langton no orchard?'JOHNSON. 'No, Sir.' BOSWELL. 'How so, Sir?' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, from thegeneral negligence of the county. He has it not, because nobody else hasit.' BOSWELL. 'A hot-house is a certain thing; I may have that.'JOHNSON. 'A hot-house is pretty certain; but you must first build it,then you must keep fires in it, and you must have a gardener to takecare of it.' BOSWELL. 'But if I have a gardener at any rate?--' JOHNSON.'Why, yes.' BOSWELL.' I'd have it near my house; there is no need tohave it in the orchard.' JOHNSON. 'Yes, I'd have it near my house. Iwould plant a great many currants; the fruit is good, and they make apretty sweetmeat.'I record this minute detail, which some may think trifling, in order toshew clearly how this great man, whose mind could grasp such large andextensive subjects, as he has shewn in his literary labours, was yetwell-informed in the common affairs of life, and loved toillustrate them.Mr. Walker, the celebrated master of elocution[640], came in, and thenwe went up stairs into the study. I asked him if he had taught manyclergymen. JOHNSON. 'I hope not.' WALKER. 'I have taught only one, andhe is the best reader I ever heard, not by my teaching, but by his ownnatural talents.' JOHNSON. 'Were he the best reader in the world, Iwould not have it told that he was taught.' Here was one of his peculiarprejudices. Could it be any disadvantage to the clergyman to have itknown that he was taught an easy and graceful delivery? BOSWELL. 'Willyou not allow, Sir, that a man may be taught to read well?' JOHNSON.'Why, Sir, so far as to read better than he might do without beingtaught, yes. Formerly it was supposed that there was no difference inreading, but that one read as well as another.' BOSWELL. 'It iswonderful to see old Sheridan as enthusiastick about oratory asever[641],' WALKER. 'His enthusiasm as to what oratory will do, may betoo great: but he reads well.' JOHNSON. 'He reads well, but he readslow[642]; and you know it is much easier to read low than to read high;for when you read high, you are much more limited, your loudest note canbe but one, and so the variety is less in proportion to the loudness.Now some people have occasion to speak to an extensive audience, andmust speak loud to be heard.' WALKER. 'The art is to read strong,though low.'Talking of the origin of language; JOHNSON. 'It must have come byinspiration. A thousand, nay, a million of children could not invent alanguage. While the organs are pliable, there is not understandingenough to form a language; by the time that there is understandingenough, the organs are become stiff. We know that after a certain age wecannot learn to pronounce a new language. No foreigner, who comes toEngland when advanced in life, ever pronounces English tolerably well;at least such instances are very rare. When I maintain that languagemust have come by inspiration, I do not mean that inspiration isrequired for rhetorick, and all the beauties of language; for when onceman has language, we can conceive that he may gradually formmodifications of it. I mean only that inspiration seems to me to benecessary to give man the faculty of speech; to inform him that he mayhave speech; which I think he could no more find out withoutinspiration, than cows or hogs would think of such a faculty.' WALKER.'Do you think, Sir, that there are any perfect synonimes in anylanguage?' JOHNSON. 'Originally there were not; but by using wordsnegligently, or in poetry, one word comes to be confoundedwith another.'He talked of Dr. Dodd[643]. 'A friend of mine, (said he,) came to me andtold me, that a lady wished to have Dr. Dodd's picture in a bracelet,and asked me for a motto. I said, I could think of no better than_Currat Lex_. I was very willing to have him pardoned, that is, to havethe sentence changed to transportation: but, when he was once hanged, Idid not wish he should be made a saint.'Mrs. Burney, wife of his friend Dr. Burney, came in, and he seemed to beentertained with her conversation.Garrick's funeral was talked of as extravagantly expensive. Johnson,from his dislike to exaggeration, would not allow that it wasdistinguished by any extraordinary pomp. 'Were there not six horses toeach coach?' said Mrs. Burney. JOHNSON. 'Madam, there were no more sixhorses than six phoenixes[644].'Mrs. Burney wondered that some very beautiful new buildings should beerected in Moorfields, in so shocking a situation as between Bedlam andSt. Luke's Hospital; and said she could not live there. JOHNSON. 'Nay,Madam, you see nothing there to hurt you. You no more think of madnessby having windows that look to Bedlam, than you think of death by havingwindows that look to a church-yard.' MRS. BURNEY. 'We may look to achurch-yard, Sir; for it is right that we should be kept in mind ofdeath.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, Madam, if you go to that, it is right that weshould be kept in mind of madness, which is occasioned by too muchindulgence of imagination. I think a very moral use may be made of thesenew buildings: I would have those who have heated imaginations livethere, and take warning.' MRS. BURNEY. 'But, Sir, many of the poorpeople that are mad, have become so from disease, or from distressingevents. It is, therefore, not their fault, but their misfortune; and,therefore, to think of them is a melancholy consideration.'Time passed on in conversation till it was too late for the service ofthe church at three o'clock. I took a walk, and left him alone for sometime; then returned, and we had coffee and conversation again byourselves.I stated the character of a noble friend of mine, as a curious case forhis opinion:--'He is the most inexplicable man to me that I ever knew.Can you explain him, Sir? He is, I really believe, noble-minded,generous, and princely. But his most intimate friends may be separatedfrom him for years, without his ever asking a question concerning them.He will meet them with a formality, a coldness, a stately indifference;but when they come close to him, and fairly engage him in conversation,they find him as easy, pleasant, and kind, as they could wish. One thensupposes that what is so agreeable will soon be renewed; but stay awayfrom him for half a year, and he will neither call on you, nor send toinquire about you.' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, I cannot ascertain his characterexactly, as I do not know him; but I should not like to have such a manfor my friend. He may love study, and wish not to be interrupted by hisfriends; _Amici fures temporis_. He may be a frivolous man, and be somuch occupied with petty pursuits, that he may not want friends. Or hemay have a notion that there is a dignity in appearing indifferent,while he in fact may not be more indifferent at his heart than another.'We went to evening prayers at St. Clement's, at seven, and then parted.On Sunday, April 20, being Easter-day, after attending solemn service atSt. Paul's, I came to Dr. Johnson, and found Mr. Lowe, the painter,sitting with him. Mr. Lowe mentioned the great number of new buildingsof late in London, yet that Dr. Johnson had observed, that the number ofinhabitants was not increased. JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, the bills ofmortality prove that no more people die now than formerly; so it isplain no more live. The register of births proves nothing, for not onetenth of the people of London are born there.' BOSWELL. 'I believe, Sir,a great many of the children born in London die early.' JOHNSON. 'Why,yes, Sir.' BOSWELL. 'But those who do live, are as stout and strongpeople as any[645]: Dr. Price[646] says, they must be naturally strongerto get through.' JOHNSON. 'That is system, Sir. A great travellerobserves, that it is said there are no weak or deformed people among theIndians; but he with much sagacity assigns the reason of this, which is,that the hardship of their life as hunters and fishers does not allowweak or diseased children to grow up. Now had I been an Indian, I musthave died early; my eyes would not have served me to get food. I indeednow could fish, give me English tackle; but had I been an Indian I musthave starved, or they would have knocked me on the head, when they saw Icould do nothing.' BOSWELL. 'Perhaps they would have taken care of you:we are told they are fond of oratory, you would have talked to them.'JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, I should not have lived long enough to be fit totalk; I should have been dead before I was ten years old. Depend uponit, Sir, a savage, when he is hungry, will not carry about with him alooby of nine years old, who cannot help himself. They have noaffection, Sir.' BOSWELL. 'I believe natural affection, of which wehear so much, is very small.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, natural affection isnothing: but affection from principle and established duty is sometimeswonderfully strong.' LOWE. 'A hen, Sir, will feed her chickens inpreference to herself.' JOHNSON. 'But we don't know that the hen ishungry; let the hen be fairly hungry, and I'll warrant she'll peck thecorn herself. A cock, I believe, will feed hens instead of himself; butwe don't know that the cock is hungry.' BOSWELL. 'And that, Sir, is notfrom affection but gallantry. But some of the Indians have affection.'JOHNSON. 'Sir, that they help some of their children is plain; for someof them live, which they could not do without being helped.'I dined with him; the company were, Mrs. Williams, Mrs. Desmoulins, andMr. Lowe. He seemed not to be well, talked little, grew drowsy soonafter dinner, and retired, upon which I went away.Having next day gone to Mr. Burke's seat in the country, from whence Iwas recalled by an express, that a near relation of mine had killed hisantagonist in a duel, and was himself dangerously wounded[647], I sawlittle of Dr. Johnson till Monday, April 28, when I spent a considerablepart of the day with him, and introduced the subject, which then chieflyoccupied my mind. JOHNSON. 'I do not see, Sir, that fighting isabsolutely forbidden in Scripture; I see revenge forbidden, but notself-defence.' BOSWELL. 'The Quakers say it is; "Unto him that smiteththee on one cheek, offer him also the other[648]."' JOHNSON. 'But stay,Sir; the text is meant only to have the effect of moderating passion; itis plain that we are not to take it in a literal sense. We see this fromthe context, where there are other recommendations, which I warrant youthe Quaker will not take literally; as, for instance, "From him thatwould borrow of thee, turn thou not away[649]." Let a man whose creditis bad, come to a Quaker, and say, "Well, Sir, lend me a hundredpounds;" he'll find him as unwilling as any other man. No, Sir, a manmay shoot the man who invades his character, as he may shoot him whoattempts to break into his house[650]. So in 1745, my friend, TomCumming the Quaker[651], said, he would not fight, but he would drive anammunition cart; and we know that the Quakers have sent flannelwaistcoats to our soldiers, to enable them to fight better.' BOSWELL.'When a man is the aggressor, and by ill-usage forces on a duel in whichhe is killed, have we not little ground to hope that he is gone into astate of happiness?' JOHNSON. 'Sir, we are not to judge determinately ofthe state in which a man leaves this life. He may in a moment haverepented effectually, and it is possible may have been accepted by GOD.There is in _Camden's Remains_, an epitaph upon a very wicked man, whowas killed by a fall from his horse, in which he is supposed to say,'"Between the stirrup and the ground,I mercy ask'd, I mercy found[652]."'BOSWELL. 'Is not the expression in the Burial-service, "in the _sure_and _certain_ hope of a blessed resurrection[653]," too strong to beused indiscriminately, and, indeed, sometimes when those over whosebodies it is said, have been notoriously profane?' JOHNSON. 'It is sureand certain _hope_, Sir; not _belief_.' I did not insist further;but cannot help thinking that less positive words would be moreproper[654].Talking of a man who was grown very fat, so as to be incommoded withcorpulency; he said, 'He eats too much, Sir.' BOSWELL. 'I don't know,Sir; you will see one man fat who eats moderately, and another lean whoeats a great deal.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, whatever may be the quantitythat a man eats, it is plain that if he is too fat, he has eaten morethan he should have done. One man may have a digestion that consumesfood better than common; but it is certain that solidity is encreased byputting something to it.' BOSWELL. 'But may not solids swell and bedistended?' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir, they may swell and be distended; butthat is not fat.'We talked of the accusation against a gentleman for supposeddelinquencies in India[655]. JOHNSON. 'What foundation there is foraccusation I know not, but they will not get at him. Where bad actionsare committed at so great a distance, a delinquent can obscure theevidence till the scent becomes cold; there is a cloud between, whichcannot be penetrated: therefore all distant power is bad. I am clearthat the best plan for the government of India is a despotick governour;for if he be a good man, it is evidently the best government; andsupposing him to be a bad man, it is better to have one plunderer thanmany. A governour whose power is checked, lets others plunder, that hehimself may be allowed to plunder; but if despotick, he sees that themore he lets others plunder, the less there will be for himself, so herestrains them; and though he himself plunders, the country is a gainer,compared with being plundered by numbers.'I mentioned the very liberal payment which had been received forreviewing; and, as evidence of this, that it had been proved in a trial,that Dr. Shebbeare[656] had received six guineas a sheet for that kindof literary labour. JOHNSON, 'Sir, he might get six guineas for aparticular sheet, but not _communibus sheetibus_[657].' BOSWELL. 'Pray,Sir, by a sheet of review is it meant that it shall be all of thewriter's own composition? or are extracts, made from the book reviewed,deducted.' JOHNSON. 'No, Sir: it is a sheet, no matter of what.'BOSWELL. 'I think that it is not reasonable.' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir, it is.A man will more easily write a sheet all his own, than read an octavovolume to get extracts[658].' To one of Johnson's wonderful fertility ofmind I believe writing was really easier than reading and extracting;but with ordinary men the case is very different. A great deal, indeed,will depend upon the care and judgement with which the extracts aremade. I can suppose the operation to be tedious and difficult: but inmany instances we must observe crude morsels cut out of books as if atrandom; and when a large extract is made from one place, it surely maybe done with very little trouble. One however, I must acknowledge, mightbe led, from the practice of reviewers, to suppose that they take apleasure in original writing; for we often find, that instead of givingan accurate account of what has been done by the authour whose workthey are reviewing, which is surely the proper business of a literaryjournal, they produce some plausible and ingenious conceits of theirown, upon the topicks which have been discussed[659].Upon being told that old Mr. Sheridan, indignant at the neglect of hisoratorical plans, had threatened to go to America; JOHNSON. 'I hope hewill go to America.' BOSWELL. 'The Americans don't want oratory.'JOHNSON. 'But we can want Sheridan[660].'On Monday[661], April 29, I found him at home in the forenoon, and Mr.Seward with him. Horace having been mentioned; BOSWELL. 'There is agreat deal of thinking in his works. One finds there almost every thingbut religion.' SEWARD. 'He speaks of his returning to it, in his Ode_Parcus Deorum cultor et infrequens_[662] JOHNSON. 'Sir, he was not inearnest: this was merely poetical.' BOSWELL. 'There are, I am afraid,many people who have no religion at all.' SEWARD. 'And sensible peopletoo.' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, not sensible in that respect. There must beeither a natural or a moral stupidity, if one lives in a total neglectof so very important a concern.' SEWARD. 'I wonder that there should bepeople without religion.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, you need not wonder at this,when you consider how large a proportion of almost every man's life ispassed without thinking of it. I myself was for some years totallyregardless of religion. It had dropped out of my mind. It was at anearly part of my life. Sickness brought it back, and I hope I have neverlost it since[663].' BOSWELL. 'My dear Sir, what a man must you havebeen without religion! Why you must have gone on drinking, andswearing, and--[664]' JOHNSON. (with a smile) 'I drank enough and sworeenough, to be sure.' SEWARD. 'One should think that sickness and theview of death would make more men religious.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, they do notknow how to go about it: they have not the first notion. A man who hasnever had religion before, no more grows religious when he is sick, thana man who has never learnt figures can count when he has need ofcalculation.'I mentioned a worthy friend of ours[665] whom we valued much, butobserved that he was too ready to introduce religious discourse upon alloccasions. JOHNSON. 'Why, yes, Sir, he will introduce religiousdiscourse without seeing whether it will end in instruction andimprovement, or produce some profane jest. He would introduce it in thecompany of Wilkes, and twenty more such.'I mentioned Dr. Johnson's excellent distinction between liberty ofconscience and liberty of teaching[666]. JOHNSON. 'Consider, Sir; if youhave children whom you wish to educate in the principles of the Churchof England, and there comes a Quaker who tries to pervert them to hisprinciples, you would drive away the Quaker. You would not trust to thepredomination of right, which you believe is in your opinions; you wouldkeep wrong out of their heads. Now the vulgar are the children of theState. If any one attempts to teach them doctrines contrary to what theState approves, the magistrate may and ought to restrain him.' SEWARD.'Would you restrain private conversation, Sir?' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, itis difficult to say where private conversation begins, and where itends. If we three should discuss even the great question concerning theexistence of a Supreme Being by ourselves, we should not be restrained;for that would be to put an end to all improvement. But if we shoulddiscuss it in the presence of ten boarding-school girls, and as manyboys, I think the magistrate would do well to put us in the stocks, tofinish the debate there.'Lord Hailes had sent him a present of a curious little printed poem, onrepairing the University of Aberdeen, by David Malloch, which hethought would please Johnson, as affording clear evidence that Mallethad appeared even as a literary character by the name of _Malloch_; hischanging which to one of softer sound, had given Johnson occasion tointroduce him into his _Dictionary_, under the article _Alias_[667].This piece was, I suppose, one of Mallet's first essays. It is preservedin his works, with several variations. Johnson having read aloud, fromthe beginning of it, where there were some common-place assertions as tothe superiority of ancient times;--'How false (said he) is all this, tosay that in ancient times learning was not a disgrace to a Peer as it isnow. In ancient times a Peer was as ignorant as any one else. He wouldhave been angry to have it thought he could write his name[668]. Men inancient times dared to stand forth with a degree of ignorance with whichnobody would dare now to stand forth. I am always angry when I hearancient times praised at the expence of modern times. There is now agreat deal more learning in the world than there was formerly; for it isuniversally diffused. You have, perhaps, no man who knows as much Greekand Latin as Bentley[669]; no man who knows as much mathematicks asNewton: but you have many more men who know Greek and Latin, and whoknow mathematicks[670].'On Thursday, May 1, I visited him in the evening along with young Mr.Burke. He said, 'It is strange that there should be so little reading in