426 "LET ME ALONE, LET ME ALONE." The young lady shortly afterwards made a remark that pleased Johnson greatly; whereupon he turned to her with a goodhumoured smile, and said, "That there should be so much excellence united with so much depravity, is strange." Our Doctor was a perfect courtier. Let the following conversation be read with reverence; for the fountains of Johnson's soul were opened while he spoke. JOHNSON: "I know of no good prayers but those in the 'Book of Common Prayer.""-DR. ADAMS (very earnestly): "I wish, Sir, you would compose some family prayers."-JOHNSON: "I will not compose prayers for you, Sir, because you can do it for yourself. But I have thought of getting together all the books of prayers which I could, selecting those which should appear to me the best; putting out some, inserting others, adding some prayers of my own, and prefixing a discourse on prayer." The company all gathered round him, and one or two of them urged him strongly to execute his plan. Their importunity seemed to agitate him greatly: "Do not," he cried, “talk thus of what is so awful. I know not what time GOD will allow me in this world. There are many things which I wish to do." They still persisted, Dr. Adams declaring that he never was more serious about anything in his life. JOHNSON: "Let me alone, let me alone: I am overwhelmed?" Then he put his hands before his face and reclined upon the table for some time. What was it that shook the old man so? It was the thought-so terrible to us all-that the night cometh when no man can work; and his night was near. So much to do, and so little time to do it in: that is a thought that might well shake the strongest. Speaking of the coarse invectives that had become fashionable in the House of Commons, Boswell said, "If members of Parliament must attack each other personally in the heat of debate, it should be done more genteelly."-JOHNSON: "No, Sir; that would be much worse. Abuse is not so dangerous when there is no vehicle of wit or delicacy, no subtle conveyance. The differ VISIT TO AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE. 427 ence between coarse and refined abuse is as the difference between being bruised by a club, and wounded by a poisoned arrow." On one of those evenings, a magnificent saying of the Doctor's about Milton was quoted in his hearing. Mrs. Hannah More had once expressed her wonder that the author of "Paradise Lost" should have written such poor Sonnets, and the Doctor had replied: "Milton, Madam, was a genius that could cut a colossus from a rock, but could not carve heads upon cherry-stones." During his recent stay at Oxford, the Doctor had called upon his former acquaintance, Mr. Sackville Parker, the bookseller, and on his return had given this touching account of his visit :"I have been to see my old friend, Sack. Parker; I find he has married his maid; he has done right. She had lived with him many years in great confidence, and they had mingled minds; I do not think he could have found any wife that would have made him so happy. The woman was very attentive and civil to me; she pressed me to fix a day for dining with them, and to say what I liked, and she would be sure to get it for me. Poor Sack. ! he is very ill indeed. We parted as never to meet again. It has quite broken me down." Mention was made of a letter from the Rev. Herbert Croft to a young gentleman who had been his pupil, in which he advised him to read to the end of whatever books he should begin to read. JOHNSON: "This is surely a strange advice you may as well resolve that whatever men you happen to get acquainted with, you are to keep to them for life. A book may be good for nothing; or there may be only one thing in it worth knowing : are we to read it all through? These voyages (pointing to the three large volumes of 'Voyages to the South Sea,' which were just come out), who will read them through? A man had better work his way before the mast, than read them through; they will be eaten by rats and mice, before they are read through. There can be little entertainment in such books; one set of savages is like another."-BOSWELL: "I do not think the people of Ota 428 A YOUNG GENTLEMAN SNUBBED. heite can be reckoned savages."-JOHNSON: "Don't cant in defence of savages."-BOSWELL: "They have the art of navigation."-JOHNSON: "A dog or a cat can swim."-BoSWELL: "They carve very ingeniously."-JOHNSON: "A cat can scratch, and a child with a nail can scratch." There is no arguing with the Doctor in this mood: that is clear. Johnson one day entered into a curious discussion of the difference between intuition and sagacity: "the one," he said, "may be called the eye of the mind: the other, the nose." A certain young gentleman argued against him, maintaining that nobody ever dreams of speaking of the nose of the mind. He went on much too long, and somewhat too presumptuously, thought the Doctor, who at length burst in upon his speech with a loud "What is it you are contending for, if you be contending?" And afterwards, imagining that the gentleman retorted upon him with a kind of smart drollery, he said, “Mr. it does not become you to talk so to me. Besides, ridicule is not your talent; you have there neither intuition nor sagacity." The gentleman protested he had meant no insult in the world, but, on the contrary, had the most profound respect for the Doctor. After a short pause, filled up with fears and horrible imaginings in the minds of the rest of the company:-JOHNSON: "Give me your hand, Sir. You were too tedious, and I was too short."-MR "Sir, I am honoured by your attention in any way."-JOHNSON: Come, Sir, let's have no more of it. We offended one another by our contention; let us not offend the company by our compliments." 66 That is a scene as good as a play. Boswell ventured to ask the Doctor whether he did not think that the roughness of his manner had lessened his influence for good. JOHNSON: "No, Sir, I have done more good as I am. Obscenity and impiety have always been repressed in my company." -BOSWELL: "True, Sir: and that is more than can be said of every Bishop. Greater liberties have been taken in the presence : NOBLE DELIVERANCE OF BURKE'S. 429 of a Bishop, though a very good man, from his being milder, and therefore not commanding such awe. Yet, Sir, many people who might have been benefited by your conversation, have been frightened away. A worthy friend of ours has told me, that he has often been afraid to talk to you."-JOHNSON: "Sir, he need not have been afraid, if he had anything rational to say. If he had not, it was better he did not talk." And now, having reached almost the last stage of our hero's life, and taking a large look back over his long past, we are bound to confess that we see but little in the whole of it except what is grand and imposing on the one hand, or beautiful and affecting on the other. Those occasional outbursts of temper which have scandalised so many, seem to us so much a part of the man himself—the man we love and admire in spite of those weaknesses, to some extent because of them—that we cannot wish even them away. We therefore gladly endorse Edmund Burke's noble deliverance upon this often-alleged defect in his venerable friend's character: "It is well," said he, " if, when a man comes to die, he has nothing heavier upon his conscience than having been a little rough in conversation." Samuel Johnson is perfectly safe, then; if the universe is governed in the interests of honesty and truth-as we are fain to believe that it is. 430 A MOURNFUL DUTY DISCHARGED. CHAPTER XLIV. THE DOCTOR'S LAST VISIT TO HIS NATIVE DISTRICT RETURN TO LONDON-DEATH-BED-SCENE CLOSED. (1784.) "TO THE REVEREND MR. BAGSHAW, AT BROMLEY. "SIR, “July 12, 1784. · 'Perhaps you may remember, that in the year 1753 you committed to the ground my dear wife. I now entreat your permission to lay a stone upon her; and have sent the inscription, that, if you find it proper, you may signify your allowance. "You will do me a great favour by showing the place where she lies, that the stone may protect her remains. "Mr. Ryland will wait on you for the inscription, and procure it to be engraved. You will easily believe that I shrink from this mournful office. When it is done, if I have strength remaining, I will visit Bromley once again, and pay you a part of the respect to which you have a right from, "Reverend Sir, "Your most humble Servant, "You will easily believe that I shrink from this mournful office." There lies the reason of his having shrunk so long. It is thirty years now since he laid his beloved Tetty in the grave; and all this while he has not had courage to pay the dead its last sad due but there must be no more delay-for the shadows are lengthening apace. Next day he set out for Staffordshire and Derbyshire, in the hope that change of air and scene might work him some good. A |