though I do not fee why it fhould not, when there is evident occafion for it. He, however, made another attempt to make her understand him, and roared loud in her ear, "JOHNSON," and then fhe catched the found. We then called on Mr. Lloyd, one of the people called Quakers. He too was not at home; but Mrs. Lloyd was, and received us courteously, and afked us to dinner. Johnfon faid to me, "After the uncertainty of all human things at Hector's, this invitation came very well." We walked about the town, and he was pleafed to fee it increafing. I talked of legitimation by fubfequent marriage, which obtained in the Roman law, and ftill obtains in the law of Scotland. JOHNSON. "I think it a bad thing; because the chastity of women being of the utmost importance, as all property depends upon it, they who forfeit it should not have any poffibility of being reftored to good character; nor fhould the children, by an illicit connection, attain the full rights of lawful children, by the pofteriour confent of the offending parties." His opinion upon this fubject deferves confideration. Upon his principle there may, at times, be a hardship, and seemingly a strange one, upon individuals; but the general good of fociety is better fecured. And, after all, it is unreasonable in an individual to repine that he has not the advantage of a state which is made different from his own, by the focial inftitution under which he is born. A woman does not complain that her brother, who is younger than her, gets their common father's estate. Why then should a natural fon complain that a younger brother, by the fame parents lawfully begotten, gets it? The operation of law is fimilar in both cafes. Befides; an illegitimate fon, who has a younger legitimate brother by the fame father and mother, has no ftronger claim to the father's eftate, than if that legitimate brother had only the fame father, from whom alone the eftate defcends. Mr. Lloyd joined us in the street; and in a little while we met Friend Hector, as Mr. Lloyd called him. It gave me pleasure to obferve the joy which Johnfon and he expreffed on feeing each other again. Mr. Lloyd and I left them together, while he obligingly fhewed me fome of the manufactures of this very curious affemblage of artificers. We all met at dinner at Mr. Lloyd's, where we were entertained with great hofpitality. Mr. and Mrs. Lloyd had been married the fame year with their Majefties, and, like them, had been blessed with a numerous family of fine children, their numbers being exactly the fame. Johnfon faid, "Marriage is the best ftate for man in general; and every man is a worfe man, in proportion as he is unfit for the married ftate." I have 1776. Ætat. 67. 1776. Etat. 67. I have always loved the fimplicity of manners, and the fpiritual-mindednefs of the Quakers; and talking with Mr. Lloyd, I obferved, that the essential part of religion was piety, a devout intercourfe with the Divinity; and that many a man was a Quaker without knowing it. As Dr. Johnson had faid to me in the morning, while we walked together, that he liked individuals among the Quakers, but not the feet; when we were at Mr. Lloyd's I kept clear of introducing any question concerning the peculiarities of their faith. But I having afked to look at Bafkerville's edition of "Barclay's Apology," Johnfon laid hold of it; and the chapter on baptifin happening to open, Johnson remarked, "He fays there is neither precept nor practice for baptifm, in the fcriptures; that is falfe." Here he was the aggreffor, by no means in a gentle manner; and the good Quakers had the advantage of him; for he had read negligently, and had not obferved that Barclay speaks of infant baptifm, which they calmly made him perceive. Mr. Lloyd, however, was in as great a miftake; for when infifting that the rite of baptifm with water was to cease, when the spiritual adminiftration of CHRIST began, he maintained, that John the Baptist faid, "My baptifm fhall decrease, but bis fhall increafe." Whereas the words are, "He muft increase, but I must decrease." One of them having objected to the "obfervance of days, and months, and years," Johnfon anfwered, "The Church does not fuperftitiously observe days, merely as days, but as memorials of important facts. Chriftmas might be kept as well upon one day of the year as another: but there fhould be a stated day for commemorating the birth of our Saviour, because there is danger that what may be done on any day, will be neglected." Mr. Hector was fo good as to accompany me to fee the great works of Mr. Bolton, at a place which he has called Soho, about two miles from Birmingham, which the very ingenious proprietor fhewed me himself to the beft advantage. I wish that Johnfon had been with us; for it was a scene which I fhould have been glad to contemplate by his light. The vastness and the contrivance of fome of the machinery would have "matched his mighty mind.” I shall never forget Mr. Bolton's expreffion to me: "I fell here, Sir, what all the world defires to have,-Power." He had about feven hundred people at work. I contemplated him as an iron chieftain, and he seemed to be a father to his tribe. One of them came to him, complaining grievously of his landlord for having distrained his goods. "Your landlord is in the 2 John iii. 30. 1776. right, Smith, (faid Bolton). But I'll tell you what: find you a friend who will lay down one half of your rent, and I'll lay down the other half; and you Ætat. 67. fhall have your goods again." From Mr. Hector I now learnt many particulars of Dr. Johnfon's early life, which, with others that he gave me at different times fince, have contributed to the formation of this work. will fee, Sir, at Mr. Hector's, Dr. Johnson faid to me in the morning, "You his fifter, Mrs. Careless, a clergyman's widow. whom I was in love. It dropt out of my head fhall always have a kindness for each other." He laughed at the notion that a man never can be really in love but once, and confidered it as a mere romantick fancy. On our return from Mr. Bolton's, Mr. Hector took me to his houfe, where we found Johnson fitting placidly at tea, with his first love; who, though now advanced in years, was a genteel woman, very agreeable, and well-bred. Johnson lamented to Mr. Hector the ftate of one of their school-fellows, Mr. Charles Congreve, a clergyman, which he thus defcribed: "He obtained, I believe, confiderable preferment in Ireland, but now lives in London, quite as a valetudinarian, afraid to go into any house but his own. He takes a fhort airing in his post-chaise every day. He has an elderly woman, whom he calls coufin, who lives with him, and jogs his elbow, when his glafs has stood too long empty, and encourages him in drinking, in which he is very willing to be encouraged; not that he gets drunk, for he is a very pious man, but he is always muddy. He confeffes to one bottle of port every day, and he probably drinks more. He is quite unfocial; his converfation is monofyllabical: and when, at my laft vifit, I asked him what a clock it was, that fignal of my departure had fo pleafing an effect on him, that he fprung up to look at his watch, like a greyhound bounding at a hare." When Johnson took leave of Mr. Hector, he faid, "Don't grow like Congreve; nor let me grow like him, when you are near me." When he again talked of Mrs. Careless to-night, he seemed to have had his affection revived; for he faid, "If I had married her, it might have been as happy for me." BOSWELL. "Pray, Sir, do you not fuppofe that there are fifty women in the world, with any one of whom a man may be as happy, as with any one woman in particular." JOHNSON. Aye, fifty thousand." BOSWELL. "Then, Sir, you are not of opinion with fome who imagine that certain men and certain women are made for each other; and that they can VOL. II. F not 1776. Etat. 67. not be happy if they miss their counterparts." JOHNSON. "To be fure not, Sir. I believe marriages would in general be as happy, and often more so, if they were all made by the Lord Chancellor, upon a due confideration of characters and circumftances, without the parties having any choice in the matter." I wished to have ftaid at Birmingham to-night, to have talked more with Mr. Hector; but my friend was impatient to reach his native city: fo we drove on that ftage in the dark, and were long pensive and filent. When we came within the focus of the Lichfield lamps, "Now (faid he,) we are getting out of a state of death." We put up at the Three Crowns, not one of the great inns, but a good old fashioned one, which was kept by Mr. Wilkins, and was the very next house to that in which Johnfon was born and brought up, and which was still his own property3. We had a comfortable supper, and got into high fpirits. I felt all my Toryifin glow in this old capital of Staffordfhire. I could have offered incense genio loci; and I indulged in libations of that ale, which Bonniface, in "The Beaux Stratagem," recommends with fuch an eloquent jollity. Next morning he introduced me to Mrs. Lucy Porter, his ftep-daughter. She was now an old maid, with much fimplicity of manner. She had never been in London. Her brother, a Captain in the navy, had left her a fortune of ten thousand pounds; about a third of which fhe had laid out in building a ftately house, and making a handfome garden, in an elevated fituation in Lichfield. Johnson, when here by himself, ufed to live at her house. She reverenced him, and he had a parental tenderness for her. He was We then vifited Mr. Peter Garrick, who had that morning received a letter from his brother David, announcing our coming to Lichfield. engaged to dinner, but asked us to tea, and to fleep at his houfe. Johnfon, however, would not quit his old acquaintance Wilkins, of the Three Crowns. The family likeness of the Garricks was very ftriking; and Johnfon thought that David's vivacity was not fo peculiar to himself as was fuppofed. "Sir, (faid he,) I don't know but if Peter had cultivated all the arts of gaiety as much as David has done, he might have been as brifk and lively. Depend upon it, Sir, vivacity is much an art, and depends greatly on habit." I believe there is a good deal of truth in this, notwithstanding a ludicrous story told me by a lady abroad, of a heavy German baron, who had lived 3 I went through the houfe where my illuftrious friend was born, with a reverence with which it doubtless will long be vifited. An engraved view of it, with the adjacent buildings, is in The Gentleman's Magazine" for February, 1785. much with the young English at Geneva, and was ambitious to be as lively as they; with which view, he, with affiduous exertion, was jumping over the tables and chairs in his lodgings; and when the people of the house ran in and asked, with furprize, what was the matter, he answered, "Sh' apprens t'etre fif." We dined at our inn, and had with us a Mr. Jackson, one of Johnson's schoolfellows, whom he treated with much kindnefs, though he seemed to be a low man, dull and untaught. He had a coarfe grey coat, black waistcoat, greasy leather breeches, and a yellow uncurled wig; and his countenance had the ruddinefs which betokens one who is in no hafte to "leave his can." He drank only ale. He had tried to be a cutler at Birmingham, but had not fucceeded; and now he lived poorly at home, and had some scheme of dreffing leather in a better manner than common; to his indistinct account of which, Dr. Johnson liftened with patient attention, that he might affift him with his advice. Here was an inftance of genuine humanity and real kindness in this great man, who has been moft unjustly represented as altogether harsh and destitute of tenderness. A thousand such inftances might have been recorded in the courfe of his long life; though, that his temper was warm and hafty, and his manner often rough, cannot be denied. 1776. Etat. 67. I faw here, for the first time, oat ale; and oat cakes not hard as in Scotland, but foft like a Yorkshire cake, were served at breakfast. It was pleasant to me to find, that "Oats," the "food of borfes," were so much used as the food of the people in Dr. Johnson's own town. He expatiated in praise of Lich- . field and its inhabitants, who, he said, were "the most fober, decent people in England, the genteeleft in proportion to their wealth, and spoke the pureft English." I doubted as to the laft article of this eulogy; for they had several provincial founds; as, there, pronounced like fear, instead of like fair; once, pronounced woonfe, instead of wunfe, or wonfe. Johnson himself never got entirely free of his provincial accent. Garrick fometimes ufed to take him off, squeezing a lemon into a punch-bowl, with uncouth gefticulations, looking round the company, and calling out, "Who's for poonfh?" Very little bufinefs appeared to be going forward in Lichfield. I found however two strange manufactures for fo inland a place, fail-cloth and ftreamers for fhips; and I obferved them making fome faddle-cloths, and dreffing sheepskins: but upon the whole, the bufy hand of industry feemed to be quite flackened. "Surely, Sir, (faid I,) you are an idle fet of people." "Sir, (faid Johnfon,) we are a city of philofophers: we work with our heads, and make the boobies of Birmingham work for us with their hands." |