Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

chair, and put himself into various attitudes, which marked his uneasiness. At the end of an act, however, he said, "Come, let's have some more; let's go into the slaughter-house again, Lanky. But I am afraid there is more blood than brains." Yet he afterwards said, "When I heard you read it, I thought higher of its power of language: when I read it myself, I was more sensible of its pathetic effect;" and then he paid it a compliment which many will think very extravagant. "Sir," said he, "if Otway had written this play, no other of his pieces would have been remembered." Dodsley himself, upon this being repeated to him, said, "It was too much" it must be remembered, that Johnson always appeared not to be sufficiently sensible of the merit of Otway.'

one of the languages entirely different, he might
have been very soon satisfied.'

'Mr. Langton and he having gone to see a
freemason's funeral procession when they were
at Rochester, and some solemn music being
played on French horns, he said, "This is the
first time that I have ever been affected by
musical sounds;" adding "that the impression
made upon him was of a melancholy kind."
Mr. Langton saying that this effect was a fine
one-JOHNSON: "Yes, if it softens the mind so
as to prepare it for the reception of salutary
feelings, it may be good; but inasmuch as it is
melancholy per se, it is bad."

[ocr errors]

'Goldsmith had long a visionary project, that some time or other, when his circumstances should be easier, he would go to Aleppo, in "Snatches of reading," said he, "will not order to acquire a knowledge, as far as might make a Bentley or a Clarke. They are, how-be, of any arts peculiar to the East, and introever, in a certain degree advantageous. I would put a child into a library (where no unfit books are), and let him read at his choice. A child should not be discouraged from reading anything that he takes a liking to, from a notion that it is above his reach. If that be the case, the child will soon find it out and desist; if not, he of course gains the instruction; which is so much the more likely to come, from the inclination with which he takes up the study."

'Though he used to censure carelessness with great vehemence, he owned that he once, to avoid the trouble of locking up five guineas, hid them, he forgot where, so that he could not find them.'

'A gentleman who introduced his brother to Dr. Johnson, was earnest to recommend him to the Doctor's notice, which he did by saying, "When we have sat together some time, you'll find my brother grow very entertaining."Sir," said Johnson, "I can wait."'

66

[merged small][ocr errors]

'In the latter part of his life, in order to satisfy himself whether his mental faculties were impaired, he resolved that he would try to learn a new language, and fixed upon the Low Dutch for that purpose, and this he continued till he had read about one half of Thomas à Kempis; and finding that there appeared no abatement of his power of acquisition, he then desisted, as thinking the experiment had been duly tried. Mr. Burke justly observed, that this was not the most vigorous trial, Low Dutch being a language so near to our own; had it been

1 This assertion concerning Johnson's insensibility to the pathetic powers of Otway is too round. I once asked him whether he did not think Otway frequently tender, when he answered, 'Sir, he is all tenderness.' - BURNEY.

duce them into Britain. When this was talked
of in Dr. Johnson's company, he said, "Of all
men, Goldsmith is the most unfit to go out upon
such an inquiry; for he is utterly ignorant of
such arts as we already possess, and consequently
could not know what would be accessions to our
present stock of mechanical knowledge. Sir,
he would bring home a grinding-barrow which
you see in every street in London, and think he
had furnished a wonderful improvement."

"Greek, sir," said he, "is like lace; every
man gets as much of it as he can."

[ocr errors]

'When Lord Charles Hay, after his return from America, was preparing his defence to be offered to the court-martial which he had demanded, having heard Mr. Langton as high in expressions of admiration of Johnson as he usually was, he requested that Dr. Johnson might be introduced to him; and Mr. Langton having mentioned it to Johnson, he very kindly and readily agreed, and being presented by Mr. Langton to his Lordship, while under arrest, he saw him several times; upon one of which occasions Lord Charles read to him what he had prepared, which Johnson signified his approbation of, saying, "It is a very good, soldierly defence." Johnson said, that he had advised his Lordship, that as it was in vain to contend with those who were in possession of power, if they would offer him the rank of lieutenantgeneral, and a government, it would be better judged to desist from urging his complaints. It is well known that his Lordship died before the sentence was made known.'

'Johnson one day gave high praise to Dr.

1 The French horn, however, is so far from being melancholy per se, that when the strain is light, and in the field, there is nothing so cheerful! It was the funeral occasion, and probably the solemnity of the strain, that produced the plaintive effect here nientioned.-BURNEY.

2 It should be remembered that this was said twenty-five or thirty years ago, when lace was very generally worn.—MALONE.

[ocr errors]

Bentley's verses in Dodsley's Collection, which he recited with his usual energy. Dr. Adam Smith, who was present, observed, in his decisive, professorial manner, "Very well-very well." Johnson, however, added, "Yes, they are very well, sir; but you may observe in what manner they are well. They are the forcible verses of a man of a strong mind, but not accustomed to write verse; for there is some uncouthness in the expression."'1

'Drinking tea one day at Garrick's with Mr. Langton, he was questioned if he was not somewhat of a heretic as to Shakspeare; said Garrick, "I doubt he is a little of an infidel." "Sir," said Johnson, "I will stand by the lines I have written on Shakspeare in my Prologue at the opening of your theatre." Mr. Langton suggested that, in the line,

"And panting Time toil'd after him in vain," Johnson might have had in his eye the passage in The Tempest, where Prospero says of Miranda,

-She will outstrip all praise,

And make it halt behind her." Johnson said nothing. Garrick then ventured to observe, "I do not think that the happiest line in the praise of Shakspeare." Johnson exclaimed (smiling), "Prosaical rogues! next time I write I'll make both time and space pant.'

'It is well known that there was formerly a rude custom for those who were sailing upon the Thames to accost each other as they passed in the most abusive language they could invent; generally, however, with as much satirical humour as they were capable of producing. Addison gives a specimen of this ribaldry, in No. 383 of the Spectator, when Sir Roger de Coverley and he are going to Spring Garden. Johnson was once eminently successful in this species of contest. A fellow having attacked him with some coarse raillery, Johnson answered him thus, "Sir, your wife, under pretence of keeping a bawdy-house, is a receiver of stolen goods." One evening, when he and Mr. Burke and Mr. Langton were in company together, and the admirable scolding of Timon of Athens was mentioned, this instance of Johnson's was quoted, and thought to have at least equal excellence.'

The difference between Johnson and Smith is apparent even in this slight instance. Smith was a Dan of extraordinary application, and had his mind crowded with all manner of subjects; but the force, acuteness, and vivacity of Johnson were not to be found there. He had book-making so much in his thoughts, and was so chary of what might be turned to account in that way, that he once said to Sir Joshua Reynolds, that he made it a rule, when in company, Lever to talk of what he understood. Beauclerk had for a short time a pretty high opinion of Smith's conversation. Garrick, after listening to him for a while, as to one of whom his expectations had been raised, turned slily to a friend, and whispered him, 'What say Jon to this?-eh? flabby, I think.'-BOSWELL.

'As Johnson always allowed the extraordinary talents of Mr. Burke, so Mr. Burke was fully sensible of the wonderful powers of Johnson. Mr. Langton recollects having passed an evening with both of them, when Mr. Burke repeatedly entered upon topics which it was evident he would have illustrated with extensive knowledge and richness of expression; but Johnson always seized upon the conversation, in which, however, he acquitted himself in a most masterly manner. As Mr. Burke and Mr. Langton were walking home, Mr. Burke observed that Johnson had been very great that night. Mr. Langton joined in this, but added, he could have wished to hear more from another person, plainly intimating that he meant Mr. Burke. "Oh, no," said Mr. Burke, "it is enough for me to have rung the bell to him."

'Beauclerk having observed to him of one of their friends, that he was awkward at counting money, "Why, sir," said Johnson, "I am likewise awkward at counting money. But then, sir, the reason is plain: I have had very little money to count."

'He had an abhorrence of affectation. Talking of old Mr. Langton, of whom he said, "Sir, you will seldom see such a gentleman, such are his stores of literature, such his knowledge in divinity, and such his exemplary life;" he added, "and, sir, he has no grimace, no gesticulation, no bursts of admiration on trivial occasions; he never embraces you with an overacted cordiality."

[ocr errors]

'Being in company with a gentleman who thought fit to maintain Dr. Berkeley's ingenious philosophy, that nothing exists but as perceived by some mind; when the gentleman was going away, Johnson said to him, "Pray, sir, don't leave us; for we may perhaps forget to think of you, and then you will cease to exist."

'Goldsmith, upon being visited by Johnson one day in the Temple, said to him, with a little jealousy of the appearance of his accommodation, "I shall soon be in better chambers than these." Johnson at the same time checked him, and paid him a handsome compliment, implying that a man of his talents should be above attention to such distinctions. "Nay, sir, never mind that. Nil te quæsiveris extra.”'

At the time when his pension was granted to him, he said, with a noble literary ambition, "Had this happened twenty years ago, I should have gone to Constantinople to learn Arabic, as Pococke did."'

'As an instance of the niceness of his taste, though he praised West's translation of Pindar, he pointed out the following passages as faulty, by expressing a circumstance so minute as to detract from the general dignity which should prevail :

"Down, then, from thy glittering nail.
Take, O muse, thy Dorian lyre."'

'When Mr. Vesey' was proposed as a member of the Literary Club, Mr. Burke began by saying that he was a man of gentle manners. "Sir," said Johnson, "you need say no more. When you have said a man of gentle manners, you have said enough.'

"The late Mr. Fitzherbert told Mr. Langton that Johnson said to him, "Sir, a man has no more right to say an uncivil thing, than to act one; no more right to say a rude thing to another, than to knock him down."

[ocr errors]

"My dear friend Dr. Bathurst," said he, with a warmth of approbation, "declared he was glad that his father, who was a West Indian planter, had left his affairs in total ruin, because, having no estate, he was not under the temptation of having slaves.'

'Richardson had little conversation, except about his own works, of which Sir Joshua Reynolds said he was always willing to talk, and glad to have them introduced. Johnson, when he carried Mr. Langton to see him, professed that he could bring him out into conversation, and used this illusive expression, "Sir, I can make him rear." But he failed; for in that interview Richardson said little else than that there lay in the room a translation of his Clarissa into German.' 2

'Once, when somebody produced a newspaper in which there was a letter of stupid abuse of Sir Joshua Reynolds, of which Johnson himself came in for a share, "Pray," said he, "let us have it read aloud from beginning to end;" which being done, he with a ludicrous earnestness, and not directing his look to any particular person, called out, "Are we alive

after all this satire?"

'He had a strong prejudice against the political character of Secker, one instance of which appeared at Oxford, where he expressed great dissatisfaction at his varying the old

1 The Right Honourable Agmondesham Vesey was elected a member of the LITERARY CLUB in 1773, and died in 1784.-MALONE.

2 A literary lady has favoured me with a characteristic anecdote of Richardson. One day at his country house at Northend, where a large company was assembled at dinner, a gentleman who was just returned from Paris, willing to please Mr. Richardson, mentioned to him a very flattering circumstance--that he had seen his Clarissa lying on the King's brother's table. Richardson, observing that part of the company were engaged in talking to each other, affected then not to attend to it. But by and by, when there was a general silence, and he thought that the flattery might be fully heard, he addressed himself to the gentleman, ‘I think, sir, you were saying something about-,' pausing in a high flutter of expectation. The gentleman, provoked at his inordinate vanity, resolved not to indulge it, and with an exquisitely sly air of indifference answered, 'A mere trifle, sir, not worth repeating. The mortification of Richardson was visible, and he did not speak ten words more the whole day. Dr. Johnson was present, and appeared to enjoy it much. -BOSWELL

established toast, "Church and King." "The Archbishop of Canterbury," said he (with an affected smooth smiling grimace), "drinks Constitution in Church and State." Being asked what difference there was between the two toasts, he said, "Why, sir, you may be sure he meant something." Yet when the life of that prelate, prefixed to his sermons by Dr. Porteous and Dr. Stinton, his chaplains, first came out, he read it with the utmost avidity, and said, "It is a life well written, and that well deserves to be recorded."'

Of a certain noble lord he said, "Respect him you could not; for he had no mind of his own. Love him you could not; for that which you could do with him, every one else could.""

'Of Dr. Goldsmith he said, "No man was more foolish when he had not a pen in his hand, or more wise when he had."

'He told, in his lively manner, the following literary anecdote :-"Green and Guthrie, an Irishman and a Scotchman, undertook a translation of Duhalde's History of China. Green said of Guthrie, that he knew no English, and Guthrie of Green, that he knew no French; and these two undertook to translate Duhalde's History of China. In this translation there was found the twenty-sixth day of the new moon.' Now, as the whole age of the moon is but twenty-eight days, the moon, instead of being new, was nearly as old as it could be. The blunder arose from their mistaking the word neuvième (ninth) for nouvelle or neuve (new).”

"Talking of Dr. Blagden's copiousness and precision of communication, Dr. Johnson said, Blagden, sir, is a delightful fellow."

66

'On occasion of Dr. Johnson's publishing his pamphlet of The False Alarm, there came out a very angry answer (by many supposed to be by Mr. Wilkes). Dr. Johnson determined on not answering it; but, in conversation with Mr. Langton, mentioned a particular or two, which, if he had replied to it, he might perhaps have inserted. In the answerer's pamphlet, it had been said with solemnity, "Do you consider, sir, that a House of Commons is to the people as a creature is to its Creator?" "To this question," said Dr. Johnson, "I could have replied that, in the first place, the idea of a Creator must be such as that he has a power to unmake or annihilate his creature."

""Then it cannot be conceived that a creature can make laws for its Creator."'1

1 His profound adoration of the GREAT FIRST CAUSE was such as to set him above that philosophy and vain deceit with which men of narrow conceptions have been infected. I have heard him strongly maintain, that what is right is not so from any natural fitness, but because God wills it to be right:' and it is certainly so, because he has predisposed the relations of things so as that which he wills must be right.-BOSWELL.

4.66

"Depend upon it," said he, "that if a man talks of his misfortunes, there is something in them that is not disagreeable to him; for where there is nothing but pure misery, there never is any recourse to the mention of it."

'A man must be a poor beast, that should read no more in quantity than he could utter aloud.'

'Imlac, in Rasselas, I spelt with a c at the end, because it is less like English, which should always have the Saxon k added to the c.' 'Many a man is mad in certain instances, and goes through life without having it perceived; for example, a madness has seized a person of supposing himself obliged literally to pray continually; had the madness turned the opposite way, and the person thought it a crime ever to pray, it might not improbably have continued unobserved.'

'He apprehended that the delineation of characters in the end of the first book of The Retreat of the Ten Thousand, was the first instance of the kind that was known.'

""Supposing," said he, "a wife to be of a studious or argumentative turn, it would be very troublesome; for instance, if a woman should continually dwell upon the subject of the Arian heresy.'

[ocr errors]

'No man speaks concerning another, even suppose it be in his praise, if he thinks he does not hear him, exactly as he would if he thought he was within hearing.'

"The applause of a single human being is of great consequence." This he said to me with great earnestness of manner, very near the time of his decease, on occasion of having desired me to read a letter addressed to him from some person in the north of England, which when I had done, and he asked me what the contents | were, as I thought being particular upon it might fatigue him, it being of great length, I only told him in general that it was highly in his praise; and then he expressed himself as above.'

'He mentioned with an air of satisfaction what Baretti had told him, that meeting, in the course of his studying English, with an excellent paper in the Spectator, one of four that were written by the respectable dissenting minister, Mr. Grove, of Taunton, and observing the genius and energy of mind that it exhibits, it greatly quickened his curiosity to visit our country; as he thought, if such were the lighter periodical essays of our authors, their productions on more weighty occasions must be wonderful indeed,'

further upon it, that the opportunities in general that they possess of improving their condition are much fewer than men have; and adding, as he looked round the company, which consisted of men only, "There is not one of us who does not think he might be richer, if he would use his endeavour.""

'He thus characterized an ingenious writer of his acquaintance: "Sir, he is an enthusiast by rule."'

""He may hold up that SHIELD against all his enemies," was an observation on Homer, in reference to his description of the shield of Achilles, made by Mrs. Fitzherbert, wife to his friend Mr. Fitzherbert, of Derbyshire, and respected by Dr. Johnson as a very fine one. He had in general a very high opinion of that lady's understanding.'

'An observation of Bathurst's may be mentioned, which Johnson repeated, appearing to acknowledge it to be well founded-namely, it was somewhat remarkable how seldom, on occasion of coming into the company of any new person, one felt any wish or inclination to see him again,'

This year the Rev. Dr. Franklin, having published a translation of Lucian, inscribed to him the Demonax thus:

'To Dr. SAMUEL JOHNSON, the Demonax of the present age, this piece is inscribed by a sincere admirer of his respectable talents.

"THE TRANSLATOR.'

Though, upon a particular comparison of Demonax and Johnson, there does not seem to be a great deal of similarity between them, this dedication is a just compliment from the general character given by Lucian of the ancient sage ἄριστον ὧν οἶδα ἐγὼ φιλοσόφων γενόμενον (the best philosopher whom I have ever seen or known).

CHAPTER LII. 1781.

IN 1781, Johnson at last completed his Lives of the Poets, of which he gives this account :'Some time in March I finished The Lives of the Poets, which I wrote in my usual way, dilatorily and hastily, unwilling to work, and working with vigour and haste.' In a memorandum previous to this, he says of them: 'Written, I hope, in such a manner as may tend to the promotion of piety.'

This is the work which, of all Dr. Johnson's writings, will perhaps be read most generally, 'He observed once, at Sir Joshua Reynolds's, and with most pleasure. Philology and biothat a beggar in the street will more readily askgraphy were his favourite pursuits, and those alms from a man, though there should be no marks of wealth in his appearance, than from even a well-dressed woman; which he accounted for from the great degree of carefulness as to money that is to be found in women; saying

who lived most in intimacy with him heard him upon all occasions, when there was a proper opportunity, take delight in expatiating upon the various merits of the English Poets; upon the niceties of their characters, and the events.

of their progress through the world which they contributed to illuminate. His mind was so full of that kind of information, and it was so well arranged in his memory, that in performing what he had undertaken in this way, he had little more to do than to put his thoughts upon paper, exhibiting first each poet's life, and then subjoining a critical examination of his genius and works. But when he began to write, the subject swelled in such a manner, that, instead of prefaces to each poet of no more than a few pages, as he had originally intended,' he produced an ample, rich, and most entertaining view of them in every respect. In this he resembled Quintilian, who tells us, that in the composition of his Institutions of Oratory, Latius se tamen aperiente materiâ, plus quàm imponebatur oneris sponte suscepi.' The booksellers, justly sensible of the great additional value of the copyright, presented him with another hundred pounds, over and above two hundred, for which his agreement was to furnish such prefaces as he thought fit.

This was, however, but a small recompense for such a collection of biography, and such principles and illustrations of criticism, as, if digested and arranged in one system by some modern Aristotle or Longinus, might form a code upon that subject, such as no other nation can show. As he was so good as to make me a present of the greatest part of the original and indeed only manuscript of this admirable work, I have an opportunity of observing with wonder the correctness with which he rapidly struck off such glowing composition. He may be assimilated to the Lady in Waller, who could impress with 'Love at first sight:'

'Some other nymphs with colours faint, And pencil slow, may Cupid paint, And a weak heart in time destroy; She has a stamp, and prints the boy." That he, however, had a good deal of trouble and some anxiety in carrying on the work, we see from a series of letters to Mr. Nichols, the printer, whose variety of literary inquiry and obliging disposition rendered him useful to John

son.

Mr. Steevens appears, from the papers in my possession, to have supplied him with some anecdotes and quotations; and I observe the fair hand of Mrs. Thrale as one of his copyists of select passages. But he was principally indebted to my steady friend, Mr. Isaac Reed, of

1 His design is thus announced in his Advertisement: -The booksellers having determined to publish a body of English poetry, I was persuaded to promise them a preface to the works of each author; an undertaking, as it was then presented to my mind, not very tedious or difficult. My purpose was only to have allotted to every poet an advertisement, like that which we find in the French Miscellanies, containing a few dates, and a general character; but I have been led beyond my intention, I hope by the honest desire of giving useful pleasure.'-BOSWELL.

Staple Inn, whose extensive and accurate knowledge of English literary history I do not express with exaggeration, when I say it is wonderful; indeed, his labours have proved it to the world; and all who have the pleasure of his acquaintance can bear testimony to the frankness of his communications in private society.

It is not my intention to dwell upon each of Johnson's Lives of the Poets, or attempt an analysis of their merits, which, were I able to do it, would take up too much room in this work; yet I shall make a few observations upon some of them, and insert a few various readings.

The Life of Cowley he himself considered as the best of the whole, on account of the dissertation which it contains on the Metaphysical Poets. Dryden, whose critical abilities were equal to his poetical, had mentioned them in his excellent dedication of his Juvenal, but had barely mentioned them. Johnson has exhibited them at large, with such happy illustration from their writings, and in so luminous a manner, that indeed he may be allowed the full merit of novelty, and to have discovered to us, as it were, a new planet in the poetical hemisphere.

[ocr errors]

It is remarked by Johnson, in considering the works of a poet,' that amendments are seldom made without some token of a rent;' but I do not find that this is applicable to prose. We shall see that though his amendments in this work are for the better, there is nothing of the pannus assutus; the texture is uniform: and indeed, what had been there at first is very seldom unfit to have remained.

Various Readings in the Life of COWLEY. 'All [future votaries of] that may hereafter pant for solitude.

"To conceive and execute the [agitation or perception] pains and the pleasures of other minds.

"The wide effulgence of [the blazing] a summer noon.'

In the Life of Waller, Johnson gives a distinct and animated narrative of public affairs in that variegated period, with strong yet nice touches of character; and having a fair opportunity to display his political principles, does it with an unqualified manly confidence, and satisfies his readers how nobly he might have executed a Tory history of his country.

So easy is his style in these Lives, that I do not recollect more than three uncommon or

1 Life of Sheffield.-BOSWELL

2 See however ante, where the same remark is made, and Johnson is there speaking of prose. In his Life of Dryden, his observations in the opera of King Arthur furnish a striking instance of the truth of this remark. -MALONE.

3 The original reading is enclosed in crotchets, and the present one is printed in italics.-BOSWELL

« AnteriorContinuar »