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rays of regal bounty" were "to shine" upon America, through that dense troubled body, a modern British Parliament. But enough of this subject; for your angry voice at Ashbourne upon it still sounds awful "in my mind's ears." -I ever am, my dear sir, your most affectionate humble servant, 'JAMES BOSWELL.'

TO THE SAME.

'EDINBURGH, March 12, 1778. 'MY DEAR SIR,-The alarm of your late illness distressed me but a few hours, for on the evening of the day that it reached me I found it contradicted in the London Chronicle, which I could depend upon as authentic concerning you, Mr. Strahan being the printer of it. I did not sce the paper in which "the approaching extinction of a bright luminary" was announced. Sir William Forbes told me of it; and he says he saw me so uneasy, that he did not give me the report in such strong terms as he read it. He afterwards sent me a letter from Mr. Langton to him, which relieved me much. I am, however, not quite easy, as I have not heard from you; and now I shall not have that comfort before I see you, for I set out for London to-morrow before the post comes in. I hope to be with you on Wednesday morning: and I ever am, with the highest veneration, my dear sir, your most obliged, faithful, and affectionate humble servant, 'JAMES BOSWELL.'

CHAPTER XLIII.

1778.

ON Wednesday, March 18, I arrived in London, and was informed by good Mr. Francis that his master was better, and was gone to Mr. Thrale's at Streatham, to which place I wrote to him, begging to know when he would be in town. He was not expected for some time; but next day having called on Dr. Taylor, in Dean's Yard, Westminster, I found him there, and was told he had come to town for a few hours. He met me with his usual kindness, but instantly returned to the writing of something on which he was employed when I came in, and on which he seemed much intent. Finding him thus engaged, I made my visit very short, and had no more of his conversation, except his expressing a serious regret that a friend of ours was living at too much expense, considering how poor an appearance he made. 'If,' said he, 'a man has splendour from his expense, if he spends his money in pride or in pleasure, he has value; but if he lets others spend it for him, which is most commonly the case, he has no advantage

from it.'

2

1 Alluding to a line in his Vanity of Human Wishes, describing Cardinal Wolsey in his state of elevation :'Through him the rays of regal bounty shine.' -BOSWELL.

2 Mr. Langton.

On Friday, March 20, I found him at his own house, sitting with Mrs. Williams, and was informed that the room formerly allotted to me was now appropriated to a charitable purpose; Mrs. Desmoulins,' and I think her daughter, and a Miss Carmichael, being all lodged in it. Such was his humanity, and such his generosity, that Mrs. Desmoulins herself told me he allowed her half-a-guinea a week. Let it be remembered that this was above a twelfth part of his pension.

His liberality, indeed, was at all periods of his life very remarkable. Mr. Howard, of Lichfield, at whose father's house Johnson had in his early years been kindly received, told me that when he was a boy at the Charter-house, his father wrote to him to go and pay a visit to Mr. Samuel Johnson, which he accordingly did, and found him in an upper room, of poor appearance. Johnson received him with much courteousness, and talked a great deal to him as to a schoolboy, of the course of his education, and other particulars. When he afterwards came to know and understand the high character of this great man, he recollected his condescension with wonder. He added, that when he was going away, Mr. Johnson presented him with half-a-guinea; and this, said Mr. Howard, was at a time when he probably had not another.

room.

We retired from Mrs. Williams to another He Tom Davies soon after joined us. had now unfortunately failed in his circumstances, and was much indebted to Dr. Johnson's kindness in obtaining for him many alleviations of his distress. After he went away, Johnson blamed his folly in quitting the stage, by which he and his wife got £500 a year. I said I believed it was owing to Churchill's attack upon him:

'He mouths a sentence, as curs mouth a bone.' JOHNSON: 'I believe so too, sir. But what a man is he, who is to be driven from the stage by a line? Another line would have driven him from his shop.'

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I told him that I was engaged as counsel at the bar of the House of Commons to oppose a road bill in the county of Stirling, and asked him what mode he would advise me to follow in addressing such an audience. JOHNSON: Why, sir, you must provide yourself with a good deal of extraneous matter, which you are to produce occasionally, so as to fill up the time; for you must consider that they do not listen much. If you begin with the strength of your cause, it may be lost before they begin to listen. When you catch a moment of attention, press the merits of the question upon them.' He said, as to one point of the merits, that he

1 Daughter of Dr. Swinfen, Johnson's godfather, and widow of Mr. Desmoulins, a writing-master.-Bos.

WELL

thought it would be a wrong thing to deprive the small landholders of the privilege of assessing themselves for making and repairing the high roads; it was destroying a certain portion of liberty, without a good reason, which was always a bad thing.' When I mentioned this observation next day to Mr. Wilkes, he pleasantly said, 'What does he talk of liberty? Liberty is as ridiculous in his mouth as Religion in mine.' Mr. Wilkes's advice, as to the best mode of speaking at the bar of the House of Commons, was not more respectful towards the senate than that of Dr. Johnson: 'Be as impudent as you can, as merry as you can, and say whatever comes uppermost. Jack Lee' is the best heard there of any counsel; and he is the most impudent dog, and always abusing us.'

In my interview with Dr. Johnson this evening I was quite easy, quite as his companion; upon which I find in my Journal the following reflection: 'So ready is my mind to suggest matter for dissatisfaction, that I felt a sort of regret that I was so easy. I missed that awful reverence with which I used to contemplate Mr. Samuel Johnson, in the complex magnitude of his literary, moral, and religious character. I have a wonderful superstitious love of mystery; when, perhaps, the truth is, that it is owing to the cloudy darkness of my own mind. I should be glad that I am more advanced in my progress of being, so that I can view Dr. Johnson with a steadier and clearer eye. My dissatisfaction to-night was foolish. Would it not be foolish to regret that we shall have less mystery in a future state? That "we now see in a glass darkly," but shall "then see face to face?" ’— This reflection, which I thus freely communicate, will be valued by the thinking part of my readers, who may have themselves experienced a similar state of mind.

He returned next day to Streatham, to Mr. Thrale's; where, as Mr. Strahan once complained to me, 'he was in a great measure absorbed from the society of his old friends.' I was kept in London by business, and wrote to him on the 27th, that a separation from him for a week, when we were so near, was equal to a separation for a year when we were at four hundred miles distance. I went to Streatham on Monday, March 30. Before he appeared, Mrs. Thrale made a very characteristical remark: I do not know for certain what will please Dr. Johnson: but I know for certain that it will displease him to praise anything, even what he likes, extravagantly.'

I had before dinner repeated a ridiculous story told me by an old man, who had been a passenger with me in the stage-coach to-day. Mrs. Thrale, having taken occasion to allude to it, in talking to me, called it 'The story told you by the old woman.'-' Now, madam,' said I, 'give! me leave to catch you in the fact: it was not an old woman, but an old man, whom I mentioned as having told me this.' I presumed to take an opportunity, in the presence of Johnson, of showing this lively lady how ready she was, unintentionally, to deviate from exact authenticity of narration.

Thomas à Kempis, he observed, must be a good book, as the world has opened its arms to receive it. It is said to have been printed, in one language or other, as many times as there have been months since it first came out.1 I always was struck with this sentence in it: 'Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be.'"

2

He said, 'I was angry with Hurd about Cowley, for having published a selection of his works: but, upon better consideration, I think there is no impropriety in a man's publishing as much as he chooses of any author, if he does not put the rest out of the way. A man, for instance, may print the Odes of Horace alone.' He seemed to be in a more indulgent humour than when this subject was discussed between him and Mr. Murphy..

When we were at tea and coffee, there came in Lord Trimlestown, in whose family was an ancient Irish peerage; but it suffered by taking the generous sides in the troubles of the last century. He was a man of pleasing conversation, and was accompanied by a young gentleman, his son.

I mentioned that I had in my possession the Life of Sir Robert Sibbald, the celebrated Scottish antiquary, and founder of the Royal College of Physicians at Edinburgh, in the original manuscript in his own handwriting; and that it was, I believed, the most natural and candid account of himself that ever was given by any man. As an instance, he tells that the Duke of Perth, then Chancellor of Scotland, pressed him very much to come over to the Roman Catholic faith: that he resisted all his Grace's arguments

1 The first edition was in 1492. Between that period and 1792, according to this account, there were three thousand six hundred editions. But this is very improbable.-MALONE.

2 The original passage is :-Si non potes te talem facere, qualem vis, quomodo poteris alium ad tuum habere beneplacitum? De Imit. Christ. lib. i. cap. xvi.

At dinner he laughed at querulous declamations against the age, on account of luxury, increase of London,-scarcity of provisions,--J. BOSWELL, jun. and other such topics. 'Houses,' said he, 'will be built till rents fall; and corn is more plenti

ful now than ever it was.'

1 Afterwards Solicitor-General during the Rockingham administration.

3 Since this was written, the attainder has been

reversed; and Nicholas Barnewall is now a peer of Ireland with this title. The person mentioned in the text had studied physic, and prescribed gratis to the poor. Hence arose the subsequent conversation.MALONE.

for a considerable time, till one day he felt himself, as it were, instantaneously convinced, and with tears in his eyes ran into the Duke's arms, and embraced the ancient religion; that he continued very steady in it for some time, and accompanied his Grace to London one winter, and lived in his household; that there he found the rigid fasting prescribed by the church very severe upon him; that this disposed him to reconsider the controversy, and having then seen that he was in the wrong, he returned to Protestantism. I talked of some time or other publishing this curious life. MRS. THRALE: 'I think you had as well let alone that publication. To discover such weakness exposes a man when he is gone.' JOHNSON: Nay, it is an honest picture of human nature. How often are the primary motives of our greatest actions as small as Sibbald's for his re-conversion!' MRS. THRALE: 'But may they not as well be forgotten?' JOHNSON: 'No, madam, a man loves to review his own mind. That is the use of a diary, or journal.' LORD TRIMLESTOWN: True, sir. As the ladies love to see themselves in a glass, so a man likes to see himself in his journal.' BosWELL: A very pretty allusion.' JOHNSON: 'Yes, indeed.' BOSWELL: And as a lady adjusts her dress before a mirror, a man adjusts his character by looking at his journal.' I next year found the very same thought in Atterbury's Funeral Sermon on Lady Cutts; where, having mentioned her diary, he says, 'In this glass she every day dressed her mind.' This is a proof of coincidence, and not of plagiarism; for I had never read that sermon before.

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Next morning, while we were at breakfast, Johnson gave a very earnest recommendation of what he himself practised with the utmost conscientiousness: I mean a strict attention to truth, even in the most minute particulars. 'Accustom your children,' said he, constantly' to this; if a thing happened at one window, and they, when relating it, say that it happened at another, do not let it pass, but instantly check them; you do not know where deviation from truth will end.' BosWELL: 'It may come to the door: and when once an account is at all varied in one circumstance, it may by degrees be varied so as to be totally different from what really happened.' Our lively hostess, whose fancy was impatient of the rein, fidgeted at this, and ventured to say, 'Nay, this is too much. If Mr. Johnson should forbid me to drink tea, I would comply, as I should feel the restraint only twice a day; but little variations in narrative must happen a thousand times aday, if one is not perpetually watching.' JOHNSON: 'Well, madam, and you ought to be perpetually watching. It is more from carelessness about truth than from intentional lying, that there is so much falsehood in the world."

In his review of Dr. Warton's Essay on the Writings and Genius of Pope, Johnson has

care.

given the following salutary caution upon this subject:-'Nothing but experience could evince the frequency of false information, or enable any man to conceive that so many groundless reports should be propagated, as every man of eminence may hear of himself. Some men relate what they think, as what they know; some men of confused memories and habitual inaccuracy, ascribe to one man what belongs to another; and some talk on, without thought or A few men are sufficient to broach falsehoods, which are afterwards innocently diffused by successive relaters.' Had he lived to read what Sir John Hawkins and Mrs. Piozzi have related concerning himself, how much would he have found his observation illustrated! He was indeed so much impressed with the prevalence of falsehood, voluntary or unintentional, that I never knew any person who, upon hearing an extraordinary circumstance told, discovered more of the incredulus odi. He would say, with a significant look and decisive tone, 'It is not so. Do not tell this again.' He inculcated upon all his friends the importance of perpetual vigilance against the slightest degrees of falsehood; the effect of which, as Sir Joshua Reynolds observed to me, has been, that all who were of his school are distinguished for a love of truth and accuracy, which they would not have possessed in the same degree, if they had not been acquainted with Johnson.

Talking of ghosts, he said, 'It is wonderful that five thousand years have now elapsed since the creation of the world, and still it is undecided whether or not there has ever been an instance of the spirit of any person appearing after death. All argument is against it; but all belief is for it.'

He said, 'John Wesley's conversation is good, but he is never at leisure. He is always obliged to go at a certain hour. This is very disagreeable to a man who loves to fold his legs and have out his talk, as I do.'

On Friday, April 3, I dined with him in London, in a company where were present several eminent men, whom I shall not name, but distinguish their parts in the conversation by different letters.

F.: I have been looking at this famous antique marble dog of Mr. Jennings, valued at a thousand guineas, said to be Alcibiades' dog.' JOHNSON: His tail, then, must be docked. That was the mark of Alcibiades' dog.' 'A thousand guineas! The representation of 1 Literary Magazine, 1756, p. 37.-BOSWELL.

E.:

2 The following plausible but over-prudent counsel on this subject is given by an Italian writer [Dante], quoted by Redi, de Generatione Insectorum, with the epithet of 'divini poetæ :'

'Sempre à quel ver che a faccia di menzogna
Dei l'uom chiuder le labbra quanto ei puote
Però che senza colpa fa vergogna.'

-BOSWELL.

3 Believed to be THE CLUB.

ment to have children, to know that they can get a living by emigration.' R.: 'Yes, if there were an emigration of children under six years of age. But they don't emigrate till they could earn their livelihood in some way at home.' C. It is remarkable that the most unhealthy countries, where there are the most destructive diseases, such as Egypt and Bengal, are the most populous.' JOHNSON: 'Countries which are the most populous have the most destructive diseases. That is the true state of the proposition.' C.: 'Holland is very unhealthy, yet it is exceedingly populous.' JOHNSON: 'I know not that Holland is unhealthy. But its populousness is owing to an influx of people from all other countries. Disease cannot be the cause of populousness; for it not only carries off a great proportion of the people, but those who are left are weakened, and unfit for the purposes of increase.'

no animal whatever is worth so much. At this rate a dead dog would indeed be better than a living lion.' JOHNSON: 'Sir, it is not the worth of the thing, but of the skill in forming it, which is so highly estimated. Everything that enlarges the sphere of human powers, that shows man he can do what he thought he could not do, is valuable. The first man who balanced a straw upon his nose; Johnson, who rode upon three horses at a time; in short, all such men deserved the applause of mankind, not on account of the use of what they did, but of the dexterity which they exhibited.' BOSWELL: 'Yet a misapplication of time and assiduity is not to be encouraged. Addison, in one of his Spectators, commends the judgment of a king, who, as a suitable reward to a man that by long perseverance had attained to the art of throwing a barley-corn through the eye of a needle, gave him a bushel of barley.' JOHNSON: 'He must have been a king of Scotland, where barley is R.: ' Mr. E., I don't mean to flatter, but when scarce.' F. One of the most remarkable posterity reads one of your speeches in Parliaantique figures of an animal is the boar atment, it will be difficult to believe that you took Florence.' JOHNSON: "The first boar that is well made in marble should be preserved as a wonder. When men arrive at a facility of making boars well, then the workmanship is not of such value, but they should however be preserved as examples, and as a greater security for the restoration of the art, should it be lost.' E. We hear prodigious complaints at present of emigration. I am convinced that emigration makes a country more populous.' J.: 'That sounds very much like a paradox.' E.: 'Exportation of men, like exportation of all other commodities, makes more be produced.' JOHNSON: 'But there would be more people were there not emigration, provided there were food for more.' E.: 'No; leave a few breeders, and you'll have more people than if there were no emigration.' JOHNSON: 'Nay, sir, it is plain there will be more people, if there are more breeders. Thirty cows in good pasture will produce more calves than ten cows, provided they have good bulls.' E.: 'There are bulls enough in Ireland.' JOHNSON (smiling): 'So, sir, I should think from your argument.' BOSWELL: 'You said, exportation of men, likerity, which I hold to be pure [smiling], but I exportation of other commodities, makes more be produced. But a bounty is given to encourage the exportation of corn, and no bounty is given for the exportation of men; though, indeed, those who go gain by it.' R.: 'But the bounty on the exportation of corn is paid at home.' E.: That's the same thing.' JOHNSON: No sir.' R.: 'A man who stays at home gains nothing by his neighbour's emigrating.' BOSWELL: 'I can understand that emigration may be the cause that more people may be produced in a country; but the country will not therefore he the more populous; for the people issue from it. It can only be said that there is a flow of people. It is an encourage.

so much pains, knowing with certainty that it could produce no effect, that not one vote would be gained by it.' E.: 'Waiving your compliment to me, I shall say in general, that it is very well worth while for a man to take pains to speak well in Parliament. A man who has vanity, speaks to display his talents; and if a man speaks well, he gradually establishes a certain reputation and consequence in the general opinion, which sooner or later will have its political reward. Besides, though not one vote is gained, a good speech has its effect. Though an act which has been ably opposed passes into a law, yet in its progress it is modelled, it is softened in such a manner, that we see plainly the minister has been told that the members attached to him are so sensible of its injustice or absurdity from what they have heard, that it must be altered.' JOHNSON: And, sir, there is a gratification of pride. Though we cannot out-vote them, we will out-argue them. They shall not do wrong without its being shown both to themselves and to the world.' E.: 'The House of Commons is a mixed body (I except the mino

take the whole House). It is a mass by no means pure; but neither is it wholly corrupt, though there is a large proportion of corruption in it. There are many members who generally go with the minister, who will not go all lengths. There are many honest well-meaning country gentlemen who are in Parliament only to keep up the consequence of their families. Upon most of these a good speech will have influence.' JOHNSON: 'We are all more or less governed by interest. But interest will not make us do everything. In a case which admits of doubt, we try to think on the side which is for our interest, and generally bring ourselves to act accordingly. But the subject must admit of diversity of

colouring; it must receive a colour on that side. In the House of Commons there are members enough who will not vote what is grossly unjust or absurd. No, sir, there must always be right enough, or appearance of right, to keep wrong in countenance.' BOSWELL: "There is surely always a majority in Parliament who have places, or who want to have them, and who therefore will be generally ready to support government without requiring any pretext.' E. True, sir; that majority will always follow.

"Quò clamor vocat et turba faventium." BOSWELL: Well, now, let us take the common phrase, Place-hunters. I thought they had hunted without regard to anything, just as their huntsman, the minister, leads, looking only to the prey.' J.: 'But taking your metaphor, you know that in hunting there are few so desperately keen as to follow without reserve. Some do not choose to leap ditches and hedges and risk their necks, or gallop over steeps, or even to dirty themselves in bogs and mire.' BOSWELL: I am glad there are some good, quiet, moderate political hunters.' E.: 'I believe in any body of men in England I should have been in the minority: I have always been in the minority.' P.: "The House of Commons resembles a private company. How seldom is any man convinced by another's argument! passion and pride rise against it.' R.: What would be the consequence if a minister, sure of a majority in the House of Commons, should resolve that there should be no speaking at all upon his side.' E.: 'He must soon go out. That has been tried; but it was found it would not do.'

E. The Irish language is not primitive; it is Teutonic, a mixture of the northern tongues; it has much English in it.' JOHNSON: 'It may have been radically Teutonic; but the English and High Dutch have no similarity to the eye, though radically the same. Once, when looking into Low Dutch, I found in a whole page only one word similar to English; stroem, like stream, and it signified tide.' E. 'I remember having seen a Dutch sonnet, in which I found this word, roesnopies. Nobody would at first think that this could be English; but when we inquire, we find roes, rose, and nopie, knob; so we have rosebuds.'

JOHNSON: I have been reading Thicknesse's Travels, which I think are entertaining.' BosWELL: What, sir, a good book?' JOHNSON: 'Yes, sir, to read once; I do not say you are to

1 Lord Bolingbroke, who, however detestable as a metaphysician, must be allowed to have had admirable talents as a political writer, thus describes the House of Commons in his Letter to Sir William Wyndham :'You know the nature of that assembly; they grow, like hounds, fond of the man who shows them game, and by whose halloo they are used to be encouraged.'BOSWELL.

make a study of it and digest it; and I believe it to be a true book in his intention. All travellers generally mean to tell truth; though Thicknesse observes, upon Smollett's account of his alarming a whole town in France by firing a blunderbuss, and frightening a French nobleman till he made him tie on his portmanteau, that he would be loth to say Smollett had told two lies in one page; but he had found the only town in France where these things could have happened. Travellers must often be mistaken. In everything, except where mensuration can be applied, they may honestly differ. There has been of late a strange turn in travellers to be displeased.'

E. From the experience which I have had-and I have had a great deal-I have learned to think better of mankind.' JOHNSON: 'From my experience I have found them worse in commercial dealings, more disposed to cheat, than I had any notion of; but more disposed to do one another good than I had conceived.' J. Less just and more beneficent.' JOHNSON: And really it is wonderful, considering how much attention is necessary for men to take care of themselves, and ward off immediate evils which press upon them, it is wonderful how much they do for others. As it is said of the greatest liar, that he tells more truth than falsehood; so it may be said of the worst man, that he does more good than evil.' BOSWELL: 'Perhaps from experience men may be found happier than we suppose.' JOHNSON: 'No, sir; the more we inquire, we shall find men less happy.' P. As to thinking better or worse of mankind from experience, some cunning people will not be satisfied unless they have put men to the test, as they think. There is a very good story told of Sir Godfrey Kneller,' in his character of a justice of the peace. A gentleman brought his servant before him, upon an accusation of having stolen some money from him; but it having come out that he had laid it purposely in the servant's way in order to try his honesty, Sir Godfrey sent the master to prison.'2 JOHNSON: To resist temptation once is not a sufficient proof of honesty. If a servant, indeed, were to resist the continued temptation of silver lying in a window, as some people let it lie, when he is sure his master does not know how much there is of it, he would give a strong proof of honesty. But this is a proof to which you have no right to put a man. You know, humanly speaking, there is a certain degree of temptation which will overcome any virtue.

1A celebrated portrait painter in the reigns of Charles 11., James 11., and William III.

2 Pope thus introduces this story:-
Faith! in such case if you should prosecute,
I think Sir Godfrey should decide the suit,
Who sent the thief who stole the cash away,
And punish'd him that put it in his way.'

Imit. of Horace, book ii. epist. 2.-BOSWELL

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