sentence in Mr. Greville's Maxims, Characters, and Reflections; a book which is entitled to much more praise than it has received: 'ARISTARCHUS is charming; how full of knowledge, of sense, of sentiment! You get him with difficulty to your supper; and after having delighted everybody and himself for a few hours, he is obliged to return home; he is finishing his treatise, to prove that unhappiness is the portion of man.' CHAPTER LXI. 1784. ON Sunday, June 13, our philosopher was calm at breakfast. There was something exceedingly pleasing in our leading a College life, without restraint, and with superior elegance, in consequence of our living in the Master's house, and having the company of ladies. Mrs. Kennicot related, in his presence, a lively saying of Dr. Johnson to Miss Hannah More, who had expressed a wonder that the poet, who had written Paradise Lost, should write such poor Sonnets: 'Milton, madam, was a genius that could cut a colossus from a rock, but could not carve heads upon cherry stones.' We talked of the casuistical question, whether it was allowable at any time to depart from Truth? JOHNSON: The general rule is, that truth should never be violated, because it is of the utmost importance to the comfort of life that we should have a full security by mutual faith; and occasional inconveniences should be willingly suffered, that we may preserve it. There must, however, be some exceptions. If, for instance, a murderer should ask you which way a man is gone, you may tell him what is not true, because you are under a previous obligation not to betray a man to a murderer.' BOSWELL: 'Supposing the person who wrote Junius were asked whether he was the author, might he deny it?' JOHNSON: 'I don't know what to say to this. If you were sure that he wrote Junius, would you, if he denied it, think as well of him afterwards? Yet it may be urged, that what a man has no right to ask, you may refuse to communicate; and there is no other effectual mode of preserving a secret, and an important secret, the discovery of which may be very hurtful to you, but a flat denial: for if you are silent, or hesitate, or evade, it will be held equivalent to a confession. But stay, sir, here is another case. Supposing the author had told me confidentially that he had written Junius, and I were asked if he had, I should hold myself at liberty to deny it, as being under a previous promise, express or implied, to conceal it. Now, what I ought to do for the author, may I not do for myself? But I deny the lawfulness of telling a lie to a sick man, for fear of alarming him. You have no business with consequences; you are to tell the truth. Besides, you are not sure what effect your telling him that he is in danger may have. It may bring his distemper to a crisis, and that may cure him. Of all lying, I have the greatest abhorrence of this, because I believe it has been frequently practised on myself.' I cannot help thinking that there is much weight in the opinion of those who have held, that truth, as an eternal and immutable principle, ought, upon no account whatever, to be violated, from supposed previous or superior obligations, of which every man being to judge for himself, there is great danger that we too often, from partial motives, persuade ourselves that they exist; and probably, whatever extraordinary instances may sometimes occur, where some evil may be prevented by violating this noble principle, it would be found that human happiness would, upon the whole, be more perfect were truth universally preserved. In the notes to The Dunciad, we find the following verses addressed to Pope: 'While malice, Pope, denies thy page Its own celestial fire; While wayward pens thy worth assail, But when the world's loud praise is thine, When none shall rail, and every lay It is surely not a little remarkable that they Miss Seward, should appear without a name. knowing Dr. Johnson's almost universal and minute literary information, signified a desire that I should ask him who was the author. He was prompt with his answer: 'Why, sir, they were written by one Lewis, who was either under-master or an usher of Westminster school, and published a Miscellany, in which "Grongar Hill" first came out.' Johnson praised them highly, and repeated them with a noble anima 1 Lewis's Verses addressed to Pope (as Mr. Bindley suggests to me) were first published in a collection of pieces in verse and prose on occasion of The Dunciad, 8vo, 1732. They are there called an Epigram. 'Grongar Hill,' the same gentleman observes, was first printed in Savage's Miscellanies as an Ode (it is singular that Johnson should not have recollected this), and was re-printed in the same year (1726), in Lewis's Miscellany, in the form it now bears. Lewis was author of Philip of Macedon, a tragedy, published in 1727, and dedicated to Pope; and in 1730 he published a second volume of miscellaneous poems. -MALONE. this intense application he almost brought him- | imagined to have an extreme degree of timidity, self to his grave, though he were of a very resolved to send him to a public school, that he strong constitution, and after reduced himself might acquire confidence-'Sir,' said Johnson, to eight hours; but that he would not advise this is a preposterous expedient for removing anybody to so much; that he thought six hours his infirmity; such a disposition should be cula day, with attention and constancy, was suffi- tivated in the shade. Placing him at a public cient; that man must use his body as he would school is forcing an owl upon day.' his horse and his stomach: not tire him at once, but rise with an appetite.' On Wednesday, June 19th, Dr. Johnson and I returned to London; he was not well to-day, and said very little, employing himself chiefly in reading Euripides. He expressed some displeasure at me, for not observing sufficiently the various objects on the road. If I had your eyes, sir,' said he, 'I should count the passengers.' It was wonderful how accurate his observation of visual objects was, notwithstanding his imperfect eyesight, owing to a habit of attention. That he was much satisfied with the respect paid to him at Dr. Adams's is thus attested by himself: I returned last night from Oxford, after a fortnight's abode with Dr. Adams, who treated me as well as I could expect or wish; and he that contents a sick man, a man whom it is impossible to please, has surely done his part well.' After his return to London from this ex cursion, I saw him frequently, but have few memorandums; I shall therefore here insert some particulars which I collected at various times. Speaking of a gentleman whose house was much frequented by low company: Rags, sir,' said he, 'will always make their appearance, where they have a right to do it.' Of the same gentleman's mode of living he said, 'Sir, the servants, instead of doing what they are bid, stand round the table in idle clusters, gaping upon the guests; and seem as unfit to attend a company as to steer a man of war.' A dull country magistrate gave Johnson a long tedious account of his exercising his criminal jurisdiction, the result of which was having sentenced four convicts to transportation. Johnson, in an agony of impatience to get rid of such a companion, exclaimed, 'I heartily wish, sir, that I were a fifth.' Johnson was present when a tragedy was read, in which there occurred this line: 'Who rules o'er freemen should himself be free.' The company having admired it much-'I cannot agree with you,' said Johnson; it might as well be said, "Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat." He was pleased with the kindness of Mr. Cator, who was joined with him in Mr. Thrale's important trust, and thus describes him: "There is much good in his character, and much usefulness in his knowledge.' He found a cordial solace at that gentleman's seat at Beckenham, in Kent, which is indeed one of the finest The Rev. Mr. Astle, of Ashbourne, in Derbyshire, brother to the learned and ingenious Thomas Astle, Esq., was from his early years known to Dr. Johnson, who obligingly advised him as to his studies, and recommended to him the following books, of which a list, which he has been pleased to communicate, lies before me, in Johnson's own hand-places at which I ever was a guest, and where writing : "Universal History" (ancient); "Rollin's Ancient History;" "Puffendorf's Introduction to History;' ;""Vertot's History of Knights of Malta;" "Vertot's Revolution of Portugal;" "Vertot's Revolution of Sweden;" "Carte's History of England;" "Present State of England;" "Geographical Grammar;" "Prideaux's Connexion;" "Nelson's Feasts and Fasts;" "Duty of Man;" "Gentleman's Religion;" "Clarendon's History;" "Watts's Improvement of the Mind;' ""Watts's Logic;" "Nature Displayed;" "Louth's English Grammar;" "Blackwell on the Classics ;" ""Sherlock's Ser""Burnett's Life of Hale; " mons; " 'Dupin's History of the Church;" "Shuckford's Connexions;" "Law's Serious Call;" "Walton's Complete Angler;" "Sandys's Travels; " "Sprat's History of the Royal Society;" "England's Gazetteer;" "Goldsmith's Roman History;" "Some Commentaries on the Bible. "' It having been mentioned to Dr. Johnson, that a gentleman who had a son whom he I find more and more a hospitable welcome. Johnson seldom encouraged general censure of any profession; but he was willing to allow a due share of merit to the various departments necessary in civilised life. In a splenetic, sarcastical, or jocular frame of mind, however, he would sometimes utter a pointed saying of that nature. One instance has been mentioned, where he gave a sudden satirical stroke to the character of an attorney. The too indiscriminate admission to that employment, which requires both abilities and integrity, has given rise to injurious reflections, which are totally inapplicable to many very respectable men who exercise it with reputation and honour. Johnson having argued for some time with a pertinacious gentleman, his opponent, who had talked in a very puzzling manner, happened to say, 'I don't understand you, sir;' upon which Johnson observed, 'Sir, I have found you an argument; but I am no obliged to find you an understanding.' manner. highly, I said, 'Sir, you were a cod surrounded by smelts. Is not this enough for you?-at a time, too, when you were not fishing for a compliment?' He laughed at this with a complacent approbation. Old Mr. Sheridan observed, upon my mentioning it to him, 'He liked your compliment so well, he was willing to take it with pun sauce.' For my own part, I think no innocent species of wit or pleasantry should be suppressed, and that a good pun may be ad conversation. Talking to me of Horry Walpole (as Horace late Earl of Orford was often called), Johnson allowed that he got together a great many curious little things, and told them in an elegant Mr. Walpole thought Johnson a more amiable character after reading his Letters to Mrs Thrale, but never was one of the true admirers of that great man.' We may suppose a prejudice conceived, if he ever heard Johnson's account to Sir George Staunton, that when he made the speeches in Parliament for the Gentle-mitted among the smaller excellences of lively man's Magazine, he always took care to put Sir Robert Walpole in the wrong, and to say everything he could against the electorate of Hanover.' The celebrated Heroic Epistle, in which Johnson is satirically introduced, has been ascribed both to Mr. Walpole and Mr. Mason. One day at Mr. Courtenay's, when a gentleman expressed his opinion that there was more energy in that poem than could be expected from Mr. Walpole, Mr. Warton, the late Laureate, observed, 'It may have been written by Walpole, and buckram'd by Mason.'2 He disapproved of Lord Hailes for having modernized the language of the ever-memorable John Hales of Eton, in an edition which his Lordship published of that writer's works. 'An author's language, sir,' said he, is a characteristical part of his composition, and is also characteristical of the age in which he writes. Besides, sir, when the language is changed, we are not sure that the sense is the same. No, sir: I am sorry Lord Hailes has done this.' Here it may be observed, that his frequent use of the expression, No, sir, was not always to intimate contradiction; for he would say so when he was about to enforce an affirmative proposition which had not been denied, as in the instance last mentioned. I used to consider it as a kind of flag of defiance: as if he had said, 'Any argument you may offer against this is not just. No, sir, it is not.' It was like Falstaff's 'I deny your major.' Sir Joshua Reynolds having said that he took the altitude of a man's taste by his stories and his wit, and of his understanding by the remarks which he repeated, being always sure that he must be a weak man who quotes common things with an emphasis as if they were oracles, Johnson agreed with him; and Sir Joshua having also observed that the real character of a man was found out by his amusements, Johnson added, 'Yes, sir; no man is a hypocrite in his pleasures.' I have mentioned Johnson's general aversion to a pun. He once, however, endured one of mine. When we were talking of a numerous company in which he had distinguished himself 1 In his Posthumous Works he has spoken of Johnson in the most contemptuous manner.-MALONE. 2 It is now (1804) known that the Heroic Epistle was written by Mason.-MALONE. Had Johnson treated at large De Claris Oratoribus, he might have given us an admirable work. When the Duke of Bedford attacked the Ministry as vehemently as he could, for having taken upon them to extend the time for the importation of corn, Lord Chatham, in his first speech in the House of Lords, boldly avowed himself to be an adviser of that measure. 'My colleagues,' said he, as I was confined by indisposition, did me the signal honour of coming to the bedside of a sick man to ask his opinion. But, had they not thus condescended, I should have taken up my bed and walked, in order to have delivered that opinion at the Council-board.' Mr. Langton, who was present, mentioned this to Johnson, who observed, 'Now, sir, we see that he took these words as he found them; without considering, that though the expression in Scripture, take up thy bed and walk, strictly suited the instance of the sick man restored to health and strength, who would of course be supposed to carry his bed with him, it could not be proper in the case of a man who was lying in a state of feebleness, and who certainly would not add to the difficulty of moving at all, that of carrying his bed.' When I pointed out to him in the newspaper one of Mr. Grattan's animated and glowing speeches in favour of the freedom of Ireland, in which this expression occurred (I know not if accurately taken): 'We will persevere till there is not one link of the English chain left to clank upon the rags of the meanest beggar in Ireland; '-Nay, sir,' said Johnson, 'don't you perceive that one link cannot clank?' Mrs. Thrale has published, as Johnson's, a kind of parody or counterpart of a fine poetical passage in one of Mr. Burke's speeches on American Taxation. It is vigorously but somewhat coarsely executed; and, I am inclined to suppose, is not quite correctly exhibited. I hope he did not use the words 'vile agents' for the Americans in the House of Parliament; and if he did so in an extempore effusion, I wish the lady had not committed it to writing. Mr. Burke uniformly showed Johnson the greatest respect; and when Mr. Townshend, now Lord Sydney, at a period when he was conspicuous in opposition, threw out some reflection in Parliament upon the grant of a dipped in Pactolus, I should not have noticed you.' He seemed to take a pleasure in speaking in his own style; for when he had carelessly missed it, he would repeat the thought translated into it. Talking of the comedy of The Rehearsal, he said, 'It has not wit enough to keep it sweet.' This was easy; he therefore caught himself, and pro pension to a man of such political principles as Johnson, Mr. Burke, though then of the same party with Mr. Townshend, stood warmly forth in defence of his friend, to whom, he justly observed, the pension was granted solely on account of his eminent literary merit. I am well assured that Mr. Townshend's attack upon Johnson was the occasion of his hitching in a rhyme;' for that in the original copy of Gold-nounced a more round sentence: 'It has not smith's character of Mr. Burke, in his Retaliation, another person's name stood in the couplet where Mr. Townshend is now introduced: "Though fraught with all learning kept straining his throat To persuade Tommy Townshend to lend him a vete.' It may be worth remarking, among the minutice of my collection, that Johnson was once drawn to serve in the militia, the Trained Bands of the City of London, and that Mr. Rackstrow, of the Museum in Fleet Street, was his colonel. It may be believed he did not serve in person; but the idea, with all its circumstances, is certainly laughable. He upon that occasion provided himself with a musket, and with a sword and belt, which I have seen hanging in his closet. He was very constant to those whom he once employed, if they gave him no reason to be displeased. When somebody talked of being imposed on in the purchase of tea and sugar, and such articles: "That will not be the case,' said he, if you go to a stately shop, as I always do. In such a shop it is not worth their while to take a petty advantage.' An author of most anxious and restless vanity being mentioned,-'Sir,' said he, there is not a young sapling upon Parnassus more severely blown about by every wind of criticism than that, poor fellow.' The difference, he observed, between a wellbred and an ill-bred man is this: One immediately attracts your liking, the other your aversion. You love the one till you find reason to hate him; you hate the other till you find reason to love him.' The wife of one of his acquaintance had fraudulently made a purse for herself out of her husband's fortune. Feeling a proper compunction in her last moments, she confessed how much she had secreted; but before she could tell where it was placed, she was seized with a convulsive fit and expired. Her husband said, he was more hurt by her want of confidence in him, than by the loss of his money. I told him,' said Johnson, 'that he should console himself: for perhaps the money might be found, and he was sure that his wife was gone.' A foppish physician once reminded Johnson of his having been in company with him on a former occasion. I do not remember it, sir.' The physician still insisted; adding, that he that day wore so fine a coat that it must have attracted his notice. 'Sir,' said Johnson, 'had you been vitality enough to preserve it from putrefaction.' He censured a writer of entertaining travels for assuming a feigned character, saying (in his sense of the word), 'He carries out one lie; we know not how many he brings back.' At another time, talking of the same person, he observed, 'Sir, your assent to a man whom you have never known to falsify, is a debt; but after you have known a man to falsify, your assent to him then is a favour.' Though he had no taste for painting, he admired much the manner in which Sir Joshua Reynolds treated of his art, in his Discourses to the Royal Academy. He observed one day of a passage in them, 'I think I might as well have said this myself;' and once, when Mr Langton was sitting by him, he read one of them very eagerly, and expressed himself thus: "Very well, Master Reynolds; very well indeed. Eut it will not be understood.' When I observed to him that painting was so far inferior to poetry, that the story or even emblem which it communicates must be previously known, and mentioned, as a natural and laughable instance of this, that a little Miss, on seeing a picture of Justice with the scales, had exclaimed to me, 'See, there's a woman selling sweetmeats;' he said, 'Painting, sir, can illustrate, but cannot inform.' No man was more ready to make an apology, when he had censured unjustly, than Johnson. When a proof-sheet of one of his works was brought to him, he found fault with the mode in which a part of it was arranged, refused to read it, and in a passion desired that the compositor might be sent to him. The compositor was Mr. Manning, a decent, sensible man, who had composed about one-half of his Dictionary, when in Mr. Strahan's printing-house; and a great part of his Lives of the Poets, when in that of Mr. Nichols ; and who (in his seventy-seventh year), when in Mr. Baldwin's printing-house, composed a part of the first edition of this work concerning him. By producing the manuscript, he at once satisfied Dr. Johnson that he was not to blame. Upon which Johnson candidly and earnestly said to him, 'Mr. Compositor, I ask your pardon; Mr. Compositor, I ask your pardon again and again.' 1 Compositor in the printing-house means the person who adjusts the types in the order in which they are to stand for printing; and arranges what is called the form, from which an impression is taken.-BoswELL. |