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'modern _cant_.'[685] 'Custom,' wrote Sir Joshua, 'or politeness, or courtly manners hasauthorised such an eastern hyperbolical style of compliment, that partof Dr. Johnson's character for rudeness of manners must be put to theaccount of scrupulous adherence to truth. His obstinate silence, whilstall the company were in raptures, vying with each other who shouldpepper highest, was considered as rudeness or ill-nature.' Taylor's_Reynolds_, ii. 458.[686] 'The shame is to impose words for ideas upon ourselves or others.'Johnson's _Works_, vi. 64. See _ante_, p.122, where he says: 'There is amiddle state of mind between conviction and hypocrisy.' Bacon, in his_Essay of Truth_, says: 'It is not the lie that passeth through themind, but the lie that sinketh in and settleth in it, that doththe hurt.'[687] See _ante_, p. 204.[688] 'I dined and lay at Harrison's, where I was received with thatold-fashioned breeding which is at once so honourable and sotroublesome.' Gibbon's _Misc. Works_, i. 144. Mr. Pleydell, in _GuyMannering_, ed. 1860, iv. 96, says: 'You'll excuse my old-fashionedimportunity. I was born in a time when a Scotchman was thoughtinhospitable if he left a guest alone a moment, except when he slept.'[689] See _ante_, ii. 167.[690] See _ante_, i. 387.[691] In Johnson's _Works_, ed. 1787, xi. 197, it is recorded thatJohnson said, 'Sheridan's writings on elocution were a continualrenovation of hope, and an unvaried succession of disappointments.'According to the _Gent. Mag._ 1785, p. 288, he continued:--'If weshould have a bad harvest this year, Mr. Sheridan would say:--"It wasowing to the neglect of oratory."' See _ante_, p. 206.[692] Burke, no doubt, was this 'bottomless Whig.' When Johnson said 'sothey _all_ are now,' he was perhaps thinking of the Coalition Ministryin which Lord North and his friends had places.[693] No doubt Burke, who was Paymaster of the Forces. He is Boswell's'eminent friend.' See _ante_ ii.222, and _post_, Dec. 24, 1783, andJan.8, 1784. In these two consecutive paragraphs, though two people seemto be spoken of, yet only one is in reality.[694] I believe that Burke himself was present part of the time, andthat he was the gentleman who 'talked of _retiring_. On May 19 and 21 hehad in Parliament defended his action in restoring to office two clerks,Powell and Bembridge, who had been dismissed by his predecessor, and hehad justified his reforms in the Paymaster's office. 'He awaited,' hesaid, the 'judgement of the House. ...If they so far differed insentiment, he had only to say, _Nunc dimittis servum tuum.' Parl. Hist._xxiii.919.[695] A copy of _Evelina_ had been placed in the Bodleian. 'Johnsonsays,' wrote Miss Burney, 'that when he goes to Oxford he will write myname in the books, and my age when I writ them, and then,' he says, 'theworld may know that we _So mix our studies, and so joined our fame._ Forwe shall go down hand in hand to posterity.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_,i.429. The oldest copy of _Evelina_ now in the Bodleian is of an editionpublished after Johnson's death. Miss Burney, in 1793, married GeneralD'Arblay, a French refugee.[696] Macaulay maintained that Johnson had a hand in the composition of_Cecilia_. He quotes a passage from it, and says:--'We say withconfidence, either Sam. Johnson or the Devil.' (_Essays_, ed. 1874, iv.157.) That he is mistaken is shown by Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_ (ii. 172).'Ay,' cried Dr. Johnson, 'some people want to make out some credit to mefrom the little rogue's book. I was told by a gentleman this morningthat it was a very fine book, if it was all her own.' "It is all herown," said I, "for me, I am sure, for I never saw one word of it beforeit was printed."' On p. 196 she records the following:--'SIR JOSHUA."Gibbon says he read the whole five volumes in a day." "'Tisimpossible," cried Mr. Burke, "it cost me three days; and you know Inever parted with it from the day I first opened it."' See _post_, amongthe imitators of Johnson's style, under Dec. 6, 1784.[697] In Mr. Barry's printed analysis, or description of these pictures,he speaks of Johnson's character in the highest terms. BOSWELL. Barry,in one of his pictures, placed Johnson between the two beautifulduchesses of Rutland and Devonshire, pointing to their Graces Mrs.Montagu as an example. He expresses his 'reverence for his consistent,manly, and well-spent life.' Barry's _Works_, ii. 339. Johnson, in histurn, praises 'the comprehension of Barry's design.' _Piozzi Letters_,ii. 256. He was more likely to understand it, as the pictures formed aseries, meant 'to illustrate one great maxim of moral truth, viz. thatthe obtaining of happiness depends upon cultivating the human faculties.We begin with man in a savage state full of inconvenience, imperfection,and misery, and we follow him through several gradations of culture andhappiness, which, after our probationary state here, are finallyattended with beatitude or misery.' Barry's _Works_, ii. 323. HoraceWalpole (_Letters_, viii. 366) describes Barry's book as one 'which doesnot want sense, though full of passion and self, and vulgarismsand vanity.'[698] Boswell had tried to bring about a third meeting between Johnsonand Wilkes. On May 21 he wrote:--'Mr. Boswell's compliments to Mr.Wilkes. He finds that it would not be unpleasant to Dr. Johnson to dineat Mr. Wilkes's. The thing would be so curiously benignant, it were apity it should not take place. Nobody but Mr. Boswell should be asked tomeet the doctor.' An invitation was sent, but the following answer wasreturned:--'May 24, 1783. Mr. Johnson returns thanks to Mr. and MissWilkes for their kind invitation; but he is engaged for Tuesday to SirJoshua Reynolds, and for Wednesday to Mr. Paradise.' Owing to Boswell'sreturn to Scotland, another day could not be fixed. Almon's _Wilkes_,iv. 314, 321.[699] 'If the tree fall toward the south, or toward the north, in theplace where the tree falleth, there it shall be.' _Ecclesiastes_, xi. 3.[700] 'When a tree is falling, I have seen the labourers, by a trivialjerk with a rope, throw it upon the spot where they would wish it shouldlie. Divines, understanding this text too literally, pretend, by alittle interposition in the article of death, to regulate a person'severlasting happiness. I fancy the allusion will hardly countenancetheir presumption.' Shenstone's _Works_, ed. 1773, ii. 255.[701] Hazlitt says that 'when old Baxter first went to Kidderminster topreach, he was almost pelted by the women for maintaining from thepulpit the then fashionable and orthodox doctrine, that "Hell was pavedwith infants' skulls.'" _Conversations of Northcote_, p. 80.[702] _Acts_, xvii. 24.[703] Now the celebrated Mrs. Crouch. BOSWELL.[704] Mr. Windham was at this time in Dublin, Secretary to the Earl ofNorthington, then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. BOSWELL. See_ante_, p.200.[705] Son of Mr. Samuel Paterson. BOSWELL. See _ante_, iii.90, and_post_, April 5, 1784.[706] The late Keeper of the Royal Academy. He died on Jan. 23 of thisyear. Reynolds wrote of him:--'He may truly be said in every sense, tohave been the father of the present race of artists.' Northcote's_Reynolds_ ii.137.[707] Mr. Allen was his landlord and next neighbour in Bolt-court._Ante_, iii. 141.[708] Cowper mentions him in _Retirement_:--'Virtuous and faithful Heberden! whose skillAttempts no task it cannot well fulfill,Gives melancholy up to nature's care,And sends the patient into purer air.'Cowper's _Poems_, ed. 1786, i. 272.He is mentioned also by Priestley (_Auto._ ed. 1810, p.66) as one of hischief benefactors. Lord Eldon, when almost a briefless barrister,consulted him. 'I put my hand into my pocket, meaning to give him hisfee; but he stopped me, saying, "Are you the young gentleman who gainedthe prize for the essay at Oxford?" I said I was. "I will take no feefrom you." I often consulted him; but he would never take a fee.'Twiss's _Eldon_, i. 104.[709] How much he had physicked himself is shewn by a letter of May 8.'I took on Thursday,' he writes, 'two brisk catharticks and a dose ofcalomel. Little things do me no good. At night I was much better. Nextday cathartick again, and the third day opium for my cough. I livedwithout flesh all the three days.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii.257. He had beenbled at least four times that year and had lost about fifty ounces ofblood. _Ante_, pp.142, 146. On Aug. 3, 1779, he wrote:--'Of the lastfifty days I have taken mercurial physick, I believe, forty.' _Notes andQueries_, 6th S. v.461.[710] An exact reprint of this letter is given by Professor Mayor in_Notes and Queries_, 6th S. v.481. The omissions and the repetitions'betray,' he says, 'the writer's agitation.' The postscript Boswell hadomitted. It is as follows:--'Dr. Brocklesby will be with me to meet Dr.Heberden, and I shall have previously make (sic) master of the case aswell as I can.'[711] Vol. ii. p.268, of Mrs. Thrale's _Collection_. BOSWELL. Thebeginning of the letter is very touching:--'I am sitting down in nocheerful solitude to write a narrative which would once have affectedyou with tenderness and sorrow, but which you will perhaps pass over nowwith the careless glance of frigid indifference. For this diminution ofregard, however, I know not whether I ought to blame you, who may havereasons which I cannot know, and I do not blame myself, who have for agreat part of human life done you what good I could, and have never doneyou evil.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 268. 'I have loved you,' he continued,'with virtuous affection; I have honoured you with sincere esteem. Letnot all our endearments be forgotten, but let me have in this greatdistress your pity and your prayers. You see I yet turn to you with mycomplaints as a settled and unalienable friend; do not, do not drive mefrom you, for I have not deserved either neglect or hatred.'_Ib._ p.271.[712] On Aug. 20 he wrote:--'I sat to Mrs. Reynolds yesterday for mypicture, perhaps the tenth time, and I sat near three hours with thepatience of _mortal born to bear_; at last she declared it quitefinished, and seems to think it fine. I told her it was _Johnson'sgrimly ghost_. It is to be engraved, and I think _in glided_, &c., willbe a good inscription.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 302. Johnson is quotingfrom Mallet's ballad of _Margaret's Ghost_:--'Twas at the silent solemn hour,When night and morning meet;In glided Margaret's grimly ghost,And stood at William's feet.'_Percy Ballads_, in. 3, 16.According to Northcote, Reynolds said of his sister's oil-paintings,'they made other people laugh and him cry.' 'She generally,' Northcoteadds, 'did them by stealth.' _Life of Reynolds_, ii. 160.[713] 'Nocte, inter 16 et 17 Junii, 1783.Summe pater, quodcunque tuum de corpore NumenHoc statuat, precibus Christus adesse velit:Ingenio parcas, nee sit mihi culpa rogasse,Qua solum potero parte placere tibi.'_Works_, i.159.[714] According to the _Gent. Mag_. 1783, p.542, Dr. Lawrence died atCanterbury on June 13 of this year, his second son died on the 15th.But, if we may trust Munk's _Roll of the College of Physicians_, ii.153,on the father's tomb-stone, June 6 is given as the day of his death. Mr.Croker gives June 17 as the date, and June 19 as the day of the son'sdeath, and is puzzled accordingly.[715] Poor Derrick, however, though he did not himself introduce me toDr. Johnson as he promised, had the merit of introducing me to Davies,the immediate introductor. BOSWELL. See _ante_, i.385, 391.[716] Miss Burney, calling on him the next morning, offered to make histea. He had given her his own large arm-chair which was too heavy forher to move to the table. '"Sir," quoth she, "I am in the wrong chair.""It is so difficult," cried he with quickness, "for anything to be wrongthat belongs to you, that it can only be I that am in the wrong chair tokeep you from the right one."' Dr. Burney's _Memoirs_, ii. 345.[717] His Lordship was soon after chosen, and is now a member of THECLUB. BOSWELL. He was father of the future prime-minister, who was bornin the following year.[718] He wrote on June 23:--'What man can do for man has been done forme.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii.278. Murphy (_Life_, p. 121) says that,visiting him during illness, he found him reading Dr. Watson's_Chymistry_ (_ante_, p. 118). 'Articulating with difficulty hesaid:--"From this book he who knows nothing may learn a great deal, andhe who knows will be pleased to find his knowledge recalled to his mindin a manner highly pleasing."'[719] 'I have, by the migration of one of my ladies, more peace at home;but I remember an old savage chief that says of the Romans with greatindignation-_ubi solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant_ [_Tacitus,Agricola_, c. xxx]. _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 259.[720] 'July 23. I have been thirteen days at Rochester, and am just nowreturned. I came back by water in a common boat twenty miles for ashilling, and when I landed at Billingsgate, I carried my budget myselfto Cornhill before I could get a coach, and was not much incommoded'_Ib_. ii.294. See _ante_, iv.8, 22, for mention of Rochester.[721] Murphy (_Life_, p. 121) says that Johnson visited Oxford thissummer. Perhaps he was misled by a passage in the _Piozzi Letters_ (ii.302) where Johnson is made to write:--'At Oxford I have just leftWheeler.' For _left_ no doubt should be read _lost_. Wheeler died onJuly 22 of this year. _Gent. Mag_. 1783, p. 629.[722] This house would be interesting to Johnson, as in it Charles II,'for whom he had an extraordinary partiality' (_ante_, ii. 341), lay hidfor some days after the battle of Worcester. Clarendon (vi. 540)describes it 'as a house that stood alone from neighbours and from anyhighway.' Charles was lodged 'in a little room, which had been madesince the beginning of the troubles for the concealment of delinquents.'[723] 'I told Dr. Johnson I had heard that Mr. Bowles was very muchdelighted with the expectation of seeing him, and he answered me:--"Heis so delighted that it is shocking. It is really shocking to see howhigh are his expectations." I asked him why, and he said:--"Why, if anyman is expected to take a leap of twenty yards, and does actually takeone of ten, everybody will be disappointed, though ten yards may be morethan any other man ever leaped."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii.260. OnOct. 9, he wrote:--'Two nights ago Mr. Burke sat with me a long time.We had both seen Stonehenge this summer for the first time.' _PiozziLetters_, ii.315.[724] Salisbury is eighty-two miles from Cornhill by the old coach-road.Johnson seems to have been nearly fifteen hours on the journey.[725] 'Aug. 13, 1783. I am now broken with disease, without thealleviation of familiar friendship or domestic society. I have no middlestate between clamour and silence, between general conversation andself-tormenting solitude. Levett is dead, and poor Williams is makinghaste to die.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii.301. 'Aug. 20. This has been a dayof great emotion; the office of the Communion of the Sick has beenperformed in poor Mrs. Williams's chamber.' _Ib_. 'Sept. 22. PoorWilliams has, I hope, seen the end of her afflictions. She acted withprudence and she bore with fortitude. She has left me."Thou thy weary [worldly] task hast done,Home art gone and ta'en thy wages."[_Cymbeline_, act iv. sc. 2.]Had she had good humour and prompt elocution, her universal curiosityand comprehensive knowledge would have made her the delight of all thatknew her.' _Ib_. p. 311.[726] Johnson (_Works_, viii. 354) described in 1756 such a companion ashe found in Mrs. Williams. He quotes Pope's _Epitaph on Mrs. Corbet_,and continues:--'I have always considered this as the most valuable ofall Pope's epitaphs; the subject of it is a character not discriminatedby any shining or eminent peculiarities; yet that which really makes,though not the splendour, the felicity of life, and that which everywise man will choose for his final and lasting companion in the languorof age, in the quiet of privacy, when he departs, weary and disgusted,from the ostentatious, the volatile and the vain. Of such a characterwhich the dull overlook, and the gay despise, it was fit that the valueshould be made known, and the dignity established.' See _ante_, i.232.[727] _Pr. and Med_. p. 226. BOSWELL.[728] I conjecture that Mr. Bowles is the friend. The account followsclose on the visit to his house, and contains a mention of Johnson'sattendance at a lecture at Salisbury.[729] A writer in _Notes and Queries_, 1st S. xii. 149, says:--'Mr.Bowles had married a descendant of Oliver Cromwell, viz. Dinah, thefourth daughter of Sir Thomas Frankland, and highly valued himself uponthis connection with the Protector.' He adds that Mr. Bowles was anactive Whig.[730] Mr. Malone observes, 'This, however, was certainly a mistake, asappears from the _Memoirs_ published by Mr. Noble. Had Johnson beenfurnished with the materials which the industry of that gentleman hasprocured, and with others which, it it is believed, are yet preserved inmanuscript, he would, without doubt, have produced a most valuable andcurious history of Cromwell's life.' BOSWELL.[731] See _ante_, ii.358, note 3.[732] _Short Notes for Civil Conversation_. Spedding's _Bacon_, vii.109.[733] 'When I took up his _Life of Cowley_, he made me put it away totalk. I could not help remarking how very like he is to his writing, andhow much the same thing it was to hear or to read him; but that nobodycould tell that without coming to Streatham, for his language wasgenerally imagined to be laboured and studied, instead of the merecommon flow of his thoughts. "Very true," said Mrs. Thrale, "he writesand talks with the same ease, and in the same manner."' Mme. D'Arblay's_Diary_, i. 120. What a different account is this from that given byMacaulay:--'When he talked he clothed his wit and his sense in forcibleand natural expressions. As soon as he took his pen in his hand to writefor the public, his style became systematically vicious.' Macaulay's_Essays_, edit. 1843, i.404. See _ante_, ii.96, note; iv.183; and_post_, the end of the vol.[734] See _ante_, ii.125, iii.254, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 14.[735] Hume said:--'The French have more real politeness, and the Englishthe better method of expressing it. By real politeness I mean softnessof temper, and a sincere inclination to oblige and be serviceable, whichis very conspicuous in this nation, not only among the high, but low; inso much that the porters and coachmen here are civil, and that, not onlyto gentlemen, but likewise among themselves.' J.H. Burton's _Hume_,i. 53.[736] This is the third time that Johnson's disgust at this practice isrecorded. See _ante_, ii.403, and iii.352.[737] See _ante_, iii.398, note 3.[738] 'Sept. 22, 1783. The chymical philosophers have discovered a body(which I have forgotten, but will enquire) which, dissolved by an acid,emits a vapour lighter than the atmospherical air. This vapour iscaught, among other means, by tying a bladder compressed upon the bodyin which the dissolution is performed; the vapour rising swells thebladder and fills it. _Piozzi Letters_, ii.310. The 'body' wasiron-filings, the acid sulphuric acid, and the vapour nitrogen. Theother 'new kinds of air' were the gases discovered by Priestley.[739] I do not wonder at Johnson's displeasure when the name of Dr.Priestley was mentioned; for I know no writer who has been suffered topublish more pernicious doctrines. I shall instance only three. First,_Materialism_; by which _mind_ is denied to human nature; which, ifbelieved, must deprive us of every elevated principle. Secondly,_Necessity_; or the doctrine that every action, whether good or bad, isincluded in an unchangeable and unavoidable system; a notion utterlysubversive of moral government. Thirdly, that we have no reason to thinkthat the _future_ world, (which, as he is pleased to _inform_ us, willbe adapted to our _merely improved_ nature,) will be materiallydifferent from _this_; which, if believed, would sink wretched mortalsinto despair, as they could no longer hope for the 'rest that remainethfor the people of GOD' [_Hebrews_, iv.9], or for that happiness which isrevealed to us as something beyond our present conceptions; but wouldfeel themselves doomed to a continuation of the uneasy state under whichthey now groan. I say nothing of the petulant intemperance with which hedares to insult the venerable establishments of his country.As a specimen of his writings, I shall quote the following passage,which appears to me equally absurd and impious, and which might have