CHAPTER XLI-1778 JOHNSON AND EDWARDS Johnson's Method of Reading-His Knowledge of Cookery-The Duke of Berwick's Memoirs-Mrs. Knowles Quakerism-Dr. Mayo-Luxury-Miss Hannah More-Flattery-Thoughts on Death— John Wesley's Talk-Miss Jane Harry-Good Friday Fare-Johnson Encounters is old FellowCollegian, Mr. Oliver Edwards-Early Recollections-Thomas Tyers-Johnson's Knowledge of Law-Goldsmith and Lord Camden-George Psalmanazar-Hon. Daines Barrington-Horne Tooke-Dr. Shebbeare. 66 ON Wednesday, April 15, I dined with Dr. Johnson at Mr. Dilly's, and was in high spirits, for I had been a good part of the morning with Mr. Orme, the able and eloquent historian of Hindostan, who expressed a great admiration of Johnson. I do not care (said he) on what subject Johnson talks; but I love better to hear him talk than anybody. He either gives you new thoughts, or a new colouring. It is a shame to the nation that he has not been more liberally rewarded. Had I been George the Third, and thought as he did about America, I would have given Johnson three hundred a year for his Taxation no Tyranny,' alone." I repeated this, and Johnson was much pleased with such praise from such a man as Orme. At Mr. Dilly's to-day were Mrs. Knowles, the ingenious Quaker lady,* Miss Seward, the poetess of Lichfield, the Reverend Dr. Mayo, and the Rev. Mr. Beresford, tutor to the Duke of Bedford. Before dinner, Dr. Johnson seized Before dinner, Dr. Johnson seized upon Mr. Charles Sheridan's "Account of the late Revolution in Sweden," and seemed to read it † ravenously, as if he devoured it, which was to all appearance his method of studying. "He knows how to read better than any one (said Mrs. Knowles); he gets at the substance of a book directly; he tears out the heart of it." He kept it wrapt up in the tablecloth in his lap during the time of dinner, from an avidity to have one entertainment in readiness, when he should have finished another; resembling (if I may use so coarse a simile) a dog who holds a bone in his paws in reserve, while he eats something else which has been thrown to him. The subject of cookery having been very naturally introduced at a table where Johnson, who boasted of the niceness of his palate, owned that "he always found a good dinner," he said, "I could write a better book of cookery than has ever yet been written; it should be a book upon philosophical principles. Pharmacy is now made much more simple. Cookery may be made so too. A prescription which is now compounded of five ingredients, had formerly fifty in it. So in cookery, if the nature of the ingredients be well known, much fewer will do. Then, as you cannot make bad meat good, I would tell what is the best butcher's meat, the best beef, the best pieces; how to choose young fowls; the proper seasons of different vegetables; and then how to roast, and boil, and compound." DILLY: "Mrs. * Dr. Johnson, describing her needlework in one of his letters to Mrs. Thrale, uses the learned word sutile; which Mrs. Thrale has mistaken, and made the phrase injurious by writing "futile pictures.” † [The elder brother of R. B. Sheridan, Esq. He died in 1806. M.] Etat. 69] MRS. GLASSE'S "COOKERY" 787 Glasse's Cookery,' which is the best, was written by Dr. Hill. Half the trade * know this." JOHNSON: "Well, Sir. This shows how much better the subject of cookery may be treated by a philosopher. I doubt if the book be written by Dr. Hill; for, in Mrs. Glasse's Cookery,' which I have looked into, saltpetre and sal-prunella are spoken of as different substances, whereas sal-prunella is only saltpetre burnt on charcoal; and Hill could not be ignorant of this. However, as the greatest part of such a book is made by transcription, this mistake may have been carelessly adopted. But you shall see what a book of cookery I shall make. I shall agree with Mr. Dilly for the copyright." MISS SEWARD: "That would be Hercules with the distaff indeed." JOHNSON: "No, Madam. JOHNSON: "No, Madam. Women can spin very well; but they cannot make a good book of cookery." 66 JOHNSON: "O! Mr. Dilly-you must know that an English Benedictine Monk at Paris has translated The Duke of Berwick's Memoirs,'† from the original French, and has sent them to me to sell. I offered them to Strahan, who sent them back with this answer :- That the first book he had published was the Duke of Berwick's "Life," by which he had lost : and he hated the name.'-Now I honestly tell you that Strahan has refused them; but I also honestly tell you that he did it upon no principle, for he never looked into them." DILLY: "Are "Are they well translated, Sir?" JOHNSON: "Why, Sir, very well-in a style very current and very clear. I have written to the Benedictine to give me an answer upon two points :-What evidence is there that the letters are authentic? (for if they are not authentic they are nothing); and how long will it be before the original French is published? For if the French edition is not to appear for a considerable time, the translation will be almost as valuable as an original book. They will make two volumes in octavo ; and I have undertaken to correct every sheet as it comes from the press." Mr. Dilly desired to see them, and said he would send for them. He asked Dr. Johnson if he would write a Preface for them. JOHNSON : "No, Sir. The Benedictines were As Physicians are called the Faculty, and Counsellors at Law the Profession, the Booksellers of London are denominated the Trade. Johnson disapproved of these denominations. † [The Abbé Hook. They were published in 1779 by Cadell.-Mackintosh. The Memoires du Maréchal de Berwick (written in the third person) had been published by the Abbé de Margon, in 1737 those mentioned in the text are written in the first person, as by Berwick himself, but were revised by the Abbé Hook, and published in Paris by Berwick's grandson, the Duc de Fitzjames, 1778-80.-Croker.] very kind to me, and I'll do what I undertook to do: but I will not mingle my name with them. I am to gain nothing by them. "I'll turn them loose upon the world, and let them take their chance." DR. MAYO: "Pray, Sir, are Ganganelli's letters* authentic ? " JOHNSON: "No, Sir. Voltaire put the same question to the editor of them that I did to Macpherson-'Where are the originals?"" Mrs. Knowles affected to complain that men had much more liberty allowed them than women. JOHNSON : JOHNSON: "Why, Madam, women have all the liberty they should wish to have. We have all the labour and the danger, and the women all the advantage. We go to sea, we build houses, we do everything, in short, to pay our court to the women." MRS. KNOWLES: "The Doctor reasons very wittily, but not convincingly. Now, take the instance of building; the mason's wife, if she is ever seen in liquor, is ruined; the mason may get himself drunk as often as he pleases, with little loss of character; nay, may let his wife and children starve." JOHNSON : "Madam, you must consider, if the mason does get himself drunk, and let his wife and children starve, the parish will oblige him to find security for their maintenance. We have different modes of restraining evil. Stocks for the men, a ducking-stool for women, and a pound for beasts. If we require more perfection from women than from ourselves, it is doing them honour. And women have not the same temptations that we have; they may always live in virtuous company: men must mix in the world indiscriminately. If a woman has no inclination to do what is wrong, being secured from it is no restraint to her. I am at liberty to walk into the Thames; but if I were to try it, my friends would restrain me in Bedlam, and I should be obliged to them." MRS. KNOWLES: "Still, Doctor, I cannot help thinking it a hardship that more indulgence is allowed to men than to women. It gives a superiority to men, to which I do not see how they are entitled." JOHNSON: "It is plain, Madam, one or other must have the superiority. As Shakspeare says, 'If two men ride on a horse, one must ride behind.' DILLY: "I suppose, Sir, Mrs. Knowles would have them ride in panniers, one on each side." JOHNSON: "Then, Sir, the horse would throw them both." MRS. KNOWLES: "Well, I hope that in another world the sexes will be equal." BoSWELL: BOSWELL: "That is being too ambitious, Madam. We might as well desire to be equal with the angels. We shall all, I hope, be happy in a future state, but we must not expect to be all happy in the same degree. It is enough, if we be happy according to our several capacities. A worthy carman will get to heaven as well as Sir Isaac Newton. Yet, though equally good, they will not have the same degrees of happiness." JOHNSON: "Probably not." † Upon this subject I had once before sounded him, by mentioning the late Reverend Mr. Brown, of Utrecht's image that a great and small glass, though equally full, did not hold an equal quantity; which he threw out to refute David Hume's saying, that a little miss, going, to dance at a ball, in a fine new dress, was as happy as a great orator, after having made an eloquent and applauded speech. After some thought, Johnson said, “I come over to the parson. As an instance of coincidence of thinking, Mr. Dilly told me that Dr. King, a late dissenting minister in London, said to him, upon the happiness in a future state of good men, of different capacities, "A pail does not hold so much as a tub; but, if it be equally full, it has *[These pretended letters of Pope Clement XIV, Ganganelli, were written and published by the Marquis Caraciolli, first in French, in 1775, and afterwards in Italian, in 1777.—Croker.] † [See on this question Bishop Hall's Epistles, Dec. iii. Epist. 6, "Of the different degrees of heavenly glory, and of our mutual knowledge of each other above." M.] Etat. 69] SOAME JENYNS 789 no reason to complain. Every saint in heaven will have as much happiness as he can hold." Mr. Dilly thought this a clear, though a familiar, illustration of the phrase, "One star differeth from another in brightness." Dr. Mayo having asked Johnson's opinion of Soame Jenyns's "View of the Internal Evidence of the Christian Religion; "- JOHNSON: "I think it a pretty book; not very theological, indeed; and there seems to be an affectation of ease and carelessness, as if it were not suitable to his character to be very serious about the matter." BosWELL: "He may have intended this to introduce his book the better among genteel people, who might be unwilling to read too grave a treatise. There is a general levity in the age. We have physicians, now, with bag-wigs; may we not have airy divines, at least somewhat less solemn in their appearance than they used to be?" JOHNSON: "Jenyns might mean as you say." BOSWELL: "You should like his book, Mrs. Knowles, as it maintains, as you friends do, that courage is not a Christian virtue." MRS. KNOWLES: "Yes, indeed, I like him there; but I cannot agree with him that friendship is not a Christian virtue." JOHNSON: "Why, Madam, strictly speaking, he is right. All friendship is preferring the interest of a friend to the neglect, or, perhaps, against the interest of others; "Here lies poor Johnson. Reader, have a care, A scholar and a Christian-yet a brute. Will tell you how he wrote, and talk'd, and cough'd, and spit." Boswell's reply is printed on p. 186. In 1776 Jenyns published his View of the Evidence of the Christian Religion," which by some is regarded as an attack upon, and by others as an apology for established faith. so that an old Greek said, 'He that has friends has no friend.' Now Christianity recommends universal benevolence-to consider all men as our brethren; which is contrary to the virtue of friendship, as described by the ancient philosophers. Surely, Madam, your sect must approve of this; for, you call all men friends." MRS. KNOWLES: "We are commanded to do good to all men, but especially to them who are of the household of Faith.' JOHNSON: "Well, Madam. The household of Faith is wide enough." MRS. KNOWLES: "But, Doctor, our Saviour had twelve Apostles, yet there was one whom he loved. John was called the disciple whom JESUS loved."" JOHNSON (with eyes sparkling benignantly): "Very well, 6 BOSWELL: "A fine application. Pray, Sir, had you ever thought of it? JOHNSON: "I had not, Sir." indeed, Madam. You have said very well." BOSWELL: From this pleasing subject, he, I know not how or why, made a sudden transition to one upon which he was a violent aggressor; for he said, "I am willing to love all mankind, except an American:" and his inflammable corruption bursting into horrid fire, he " breathed out threatenings and slaughter;" calling them, “rascals— robbers-pirates;" and exclaiming, he'd "burn and destroy them." Miss Seward, looking to him with mild but steady astonishment, said, “Sir, this is an instance that we are always most violent against those whom we have injured."-He was irritated still more by this delicate and keen reproach; and roared out another tremendous volley, which one might fancy could be heard across the Atlantic. During this tempest I sat in great uneasiness, lamenting his heat of temper; till, by degrees, I diverted his attention to other topics. 66 DR. MAYO (to Dr. Johnson): "Pray, Sir, have you read Edwards, of New England, on Grace?" JOHNSON: "No, Sir." BOSWELL: "It puzzled me so much as to the freedom of the human will, by stating, with wonderful acute ingenuity, our being actuated by a series of motives which we cannot resist, that the only relief I had was to forget it." MAYO: "But he makes the proper distinction between moral and physical necessity." BOSWELL: "Alas, Sir, they come both to the same thing. You may be bound as hard by chains when covered by leather, as when the iron appears. The argument for the moral necessity of human actions is always, I observe, fortified by supposing universal prescience to be one of the attributes of the Deity." JOHNSON: "You are surer that you are free than you are of prescience; you are surer that you can lift up your finger or not as you please than you are of any conclusion from a deduction of reasoning. But let us consider a little the objection from prescience. It is certain I am either to go home to-night or not; that does not prevent my freedom." BOSWELL : That it is certain you are either to go home or not, does not prevent your freedom; because the liberty of choice between the two is compatible with that certainty. But if one of these events be certain now, you have no future power of volition. If it be certain you are to go home to-night, you must go home." JOHNSON: "IfI am well acquainted with a man, I can judge with great probability how he will act in any case, without his being restrained by my judging. GOD may have this probability increased to certainty." BOSWELL: BOSWELL: "When it is increased to certainty, freedom ceases, because that cannot be certainly foreknown, which is not certain at the time; but if it be certain at the time, it is a contradiction in terms to maintain that there can be afterwards any contingency dependant upon the exercise of will or anything else." JOHNSON: "All theory is against the freedom of the will; all experience for it."I did not push the subject any farther. I was glad to find him so mild in discussing a question of the most abstract nature, involved with theological tenets, which he generally would not suffer to be in any degree opposed.* He, as usual, defended luxury: "You cannot spend money in luxury without doing good to the poor. Nay, you do more good to them by spending it in luxury, you make them exert industry, whereas, by giving it, you keep them idle. I own, indeed, there may be more virtue in giving it immediately in charity, than in spending it in luxury; though there may be pride in that too." Miss Seward asked if this was not Mandeville's doctrine of " private vices public benefits." JOHNSON: "The * If any of my readers are disturbed by this thorny question, I beg leave to recommend to them Letter 69 of Montesquieu's Lettres Persannes; and the late Mr. John Palmer of Islington's Answer to Dr. Priestley's mechanical arguments for what he absurdly calls "Philosophical necessity." |