LETTERS TO BOSWELL. fit to be trusted with feudal estates. 251 When she mends and loves me, there may be more hope of her daughters. "I will not send compliments to my friends by name, because I would be loath to leave any out in the enumeration. Tell them, as you see them, how well I speak of Scotch politeness, and Scotch hospitality, and Scotch beauty, and of everything Scotch, but Scotch oat-cakes, and Scotch prejudices. "SAM. JOHNSON." We can excuse the Doctor for not loving our national prejudices, but his dislike to our national cakes must be put down to his own bad taste. Could the good old man's visit to our land have been postponed for a hundred years, he would have found among us none but very honest prejudices-like his own; and that discovery would have made our Scotch bannocks much sweeter in his mouth. "DEAR SIR, "TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. 66 London, August 27, 1775. "I am returned from the annual ramble into the middle counties. Having seen nothing I had not seen before, I have nothing to relate. Time has left that part of the island few antiquities; and commerce has left the people no singularities. I was glad to go abroad, and, perhaps, glad to come home; which is, in other words, I was, I am afraid, weary of being at home, and weary of being abroad. Is not this the state of life? But, if we confess this weariness, let us not lament it; for all the wise and all the good say, that we may cure it. "For the black fumes which rise in your mind, I can prescribe nothing but that you disperse them by honest business or innocent pleasure, and by reading, sometimes easy, and sometimes serious. Change of place is useful, and I hope that your residence at Auchinleck will have many good effects. "Mrs. Thrale was so entertained with your Journal,' that she almost read herself blind. She has a great regard for you. "Of Mrs. Boswell, though she knows in her heart that she does not love me, I am always glad to hear any good, and hope that 252 she and the little dear ladies will have neither sickness nor any other affliction. But she knows that she does not care what becomes of me, and for that she may be sure that I think her very much to blame. THE DOCTOR "CHAFFS" MRS. BOSWELL. "SAM. JOHNSON." "TO THE SAME. "September 14, 1775. "MY DEAR SIR, "I now write to you, lest in some of your freaks and humours you should fancy yourself neglected. Such fancies I must entreat you never to admit, at least never to indulge; for my regard for you is so radicated and fixed, that it is become part of my mind, and cannot be effaced but by some cause uncommonly violent; therefore, whether I write or not, set your thoughts at rest. I now write to tell you that I shall not very soon write again, for I am to set out to-morrow on another journey. * "Make my compliments to Mrs. Boswell, if she is in good humour with me. "I am, Sir, &c., "SAM. JOHNSON." 66 The Doctor, it appears, is to set out on another journey tomorrow," but we must leave him here to-day; only begging the reader's special attention to the amusing fact that Johnson never despatches a letter to his friend Boswell without "chaffing," in a deliciously quaint way, his late hostess. "Pray teach Veronica to love me. Bid her not mind mamma." "Make my compliments to Mrs. Boswell, though she does not love me," and so on. There was a world of fun (of its kind) in our good grave Doctor, and this was one of his little ways of giving it out. THE DOCTOR IN FRANCE. 253 CHAPTER XXVII. TOUR IN FRANCE-NOTES FROM THE DOCTOR'S DIARY-TABLEAU. (1775.). "TO MR. ROBERT LEVETT. "DEAR SIR, "Calais, Sept. 18th, 1775. "We are here in France, after a very pleasing passage of no more than six hours. I know not when I shall write again, and therefore I write now, though you cannot suppose that I have much to say. You have seen France yourself. From this place we are going to Rouen, and from Rouen to Paris, where Mr. Thrale designs to stay about five or six weeks. We have a regular recommendation to the English resident, so we shall not be taken for vagabonds. We think to go one way and return another, and see as much as we can. I will try to speak a little French; I tried hitherto but little, but I spoke sometimes. If I heard better, suppose I should learn faster. I "I am, Sir, your humble servant, This, then, is the journey on which the Doctor was to "set out to-morrow," and which he seems to have entered upon as quite a matter of course-nothing less than a Tour in France with Mr. and Mrs. Thrale. Nothing puts this man about he who is master of his own soul finds himself at home in every country, and is not set gaping in wide-mouthed wonder by the sight of every new face. "DEAR SIR, "TO THE SAME. "Paris, Oct. 23, 1775. "We are still here, commonly very busy in looking about us. 254 A RACE IN THE RAIN. We have been to-day at Versailles. You have seen it, and I shall not describe it. We came yesterday from Fontainebleau, where the Court is now. We went to see the King and Queen at dinner, and the Queen was so impressed by Miss, that she sent one of the gentlemen to inquire who she was. I find all true that you have ever told me of Paris. Mr. Thrale is very liberal, and keeps us two coaches, and a very fine table; but I think our cookery very bad. "Mrs. Thrale got into a convent of English nuns, and I talked with her through the grate, and I am very kindly used by the English Benedictine friars. But upon the whole I cannot make much acquaintance here; and though the churches, palaces, and some private houses, are very magnificent, there is no very great pleasure, after having seen many, in seeing more; at least the pleasure, whatever it be, must some time have an end, and we are beginning to think when we shall come home. Mr. Thrale calculates that as we left Streatham on the fifteenth of September, we shall see it again about the fifteenth of November. "I think I had not been on this side of the sea five days before I found a sensible improvement in my health. I ran a race in the rain this day, and beat Baretti. Baretti is a fine fellow, and speaks French, I think, quite as well as English. "Make my compliments to Mrs. Williams; and give my love to Francis, and tell my friends that I am not lost. "I am, dear Sir, "Your affectionate, humble, &c., "SAM. JOHNSON." "I ran a race in the rain this day, and beat Baretti." It does one's heart good to see the old man of nearly three-score years and ten making himself merry in this way like a little child; resolving, 66 Spite of care, and spite of grief, To gambol with Life's falling Leaf." That race is worth half-a-dozen Ramblers. NOTES FROM THE DOCTOR'S JOURNAL. 255 "BOSWELL TO DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. "MY DEAR SIR, "Edinburgh, Oct 24, 1775. "If I had not been informed that you were at Paris, you should have had a letter from me by the earliest opportunity, announcing the birth of my son on the 9th instant. I now write, as I suppose your fellow-traveller, Mr. Thrale, will return to London this week, to attend his duties in Parliament, and that you will not stay behind him. "Shall we have a 'Journey to Paris' from you in the winter? What a different scene have you viewed this autumn from that which you viewed in autumn 1773!" Johnson never wrote any full account of this journey into France; but he kept a faithful and minute diary of his life and observations there from Oct. 10th to Nov. 4th. We shall give a few of these memoranda as specimens of the whole. Oct. 11th, Wednesday." The French have no laws for the maintenance of their poor.-Monk not necessarily a priest.-Benedictines rise at four; are at church an hour and a half; at church again half an hour before, half an hour after, dinner; and again from half an hour after seven to eight. They may sleep eight hours. Bodily labour wanted in monasteries. "The poor taken to hospitals, and miserably kept.-Monks in the convent, fifteen ;-accounted poor." Oct. 16th, Monday.-" Austin Nuns.-Grate.-Mrs. Fermor, Abbess. She knew Pope, and thought him disagreeable.—Mrs. has many books; has seen life.-Their frontlet disagreeable. Their hood.-Their life easy.-Rise about five; hour and half at chapel; dine at ten. Another hour and a half at chapel -half an hour about three, and half an hour more at seven; four hours in chapel.-A large garden.-Thirteen pensioners.Teacher complained. "At the Boulevards saw nothing, yet was glad to be there. -Rope-dancing and farce.-Egg-dance. "N. [Note.] Near Paris, whether on week-days or Sundays, the roads empty." |