has in eating a luxurious dinner. You see I put the case fairly. A hungry man may have as much, nay, more pleasure in eating a plain dinner, than a man grown fastidious has in eating a luxurious dinner. But I suppose the man who decides between the two dinners to be equally a hungry man." Talking of the different governments,— JOHNSON. "The more contracted power is, the more easily it is destroyed. A country governed by a despot is an inverted cone. Government there cannot be so firm as when it rests upon a broad basis gradually contracted, as the government of Great Britain, which is founded on the parliament, then is in the privy council, then in the king." BOSWELL. "Power, when contracted into the person of a despot, may be easily destroyed, as the prince may be cut off. So Caligula wished that the people of Rome had but one neck, that he might cut them off at a blow." OGLETHORPE. It was of the senate he wished that. The senate by its usurpation controlled both the emperour and the people. And don't you think that we see too much of that in our own parliament?" Dr. Johnson endeavoured to trace the etymology of Maccaronick verses, which he thought were of Italian invention, from Maccaroni; but on being informed that this would infer that they were the most common and easy verses, maccaroni being the most ordinary and simple food, he was at a loss; for he said, "He rather should have supposed it to import, in its primitive signification, a composition of several things 2; for Maccaronick verses are verses made out of a mixture of different languages, that is, of one language with the termination of another." I suppose we scarcely know of a language in any country, where there is any learning, in which that motley ludicrous species of composition may not be found. It is particularly droll in Low Dutch. The "Polemo-middinia" of Drummond, of Hawthornden, in which there is a jumble of many languages moulded, as if it were [Boswell was right, and Oglethorpe wrong; the exclamation in Suetonius is "Utinam populus Romanus unam cervicem haberet." Calig. xxx. -ED.] 2 Dr. Johnson was right in supposing that this kind of poetry derived its name from maccherone. "Ars ista poetica (says Merlin Coccaie, whose true name was Theophilo Folengo) nuncupatur ars macaronica, a macaronibus derivata; qui macarones sunt quoddam pulmentum, farina, caseo, butyro compaginatum, grossum, rude, et rusticanum. Ideo macaronica nil nisi grossedinem, ruditatem, et vocabulazzos debet in se continere." Warton's Hist. of Eng. Poet. ii. 357. Folengo's assumed name was taken up in consequence of his having been instructed in his youth by Virago Coccaio. He died in 1544.-MALONE. all in Latin, is well known. Mr. Langton made us laugh heartily at one in the Gre cian mould, by Joshua Barnes, in which are to be found such comical Anglo-hellenisms as xx 66010 16 vyber: they were banged with clubs. On Wednesday, 15th April, I dined with Dr. Johnson at Mr. Dilly's, and was in high spirits, for I had been a good part of the morning with Mr. Orme, the able and eloquent historian of Hindostan, who expressed a great admiration of Johnson. "I do not care," said he, " on what subject Johnson talks; but I love better to hear him talk than any body. He either gives you new thoughts, or a new colouring. It is a shame to the nation that he has not been more liberally rewarded. Had I been George the Third, and thought as he did about America, I would have given Johnson three hundred a year for his Taxation no Tyranny,' alone." I repeated this, and Johnson was much pleased with such praise from such a man as Orme. "He At Mr. Dilly's to-day were Mrs. Knowles 3, the ingenious quaker lady, Miss Seward, the poetess of Lichfield, the Reverend Dr. Mayo, and the Rev. Mr. Beresford, tutor to the Duke of Bedford. Before dinner Dr. Johnson seized upon Mr. Charles Sheridan's 4" Account of the late Revolution in Sweden," and seemed to read it ravenously, as if he devoured it, which was to all appearance his method of studying. knows how to read better than any one," says Mrs. Knowles; "he gets at the substance of a book directly; he tears out the heart of it." He kept it wrapt up in the tablecloth in his lap during the time of dinner, from an avidity to have one entertainment in readiness, when he should have finished another; resembling (if I may use so coarse a simile) a dog who holds a bone in his paws in reserve, while he eats something else which has been thrown to him. The subject of cookery having been very naturally introduced at a table where Johnson, who boasted of the niceness of his palate, owned that," he always found a good dinner," he said "I could write a better book, of cookery than has ever yet been written; it should be a book upon philomuch more simple. Cookery may be made sophical principles. Pharmacy is now made pounded of five ingredients, had formerly fifso too. A prescription which is now comty in it. So in cookery, if the nature of the ingredients be well known, much fewer will do. Then, as you cannot make bad meat good, I would tell what is the best butcher's meat, the best beef, the best pieces; how to choose 3 [See ante, p. 77.—ED.] The elder brother of Mr. Richard Brinsley Sheridan. He died in 1806.-MALONE. Yo. young fowls; the proper seasons of different | them. I'll turn them loose upon the world, vegetables; and then how to roast and boil and let them take their chance." DR. MA"Mrs. Glasse's and compound.” DILLY. "Pray, sir, are Ganganelli's letters JOHNSON. 'Cookery,' which is the best, was written authentick?" 66 No, sir. Volby Dr. Hill. Half the trade know this." taire put the same question to the editor of JOHNSON. "Well, sir. This shows how them that I did to Macpherson-Where much better the subject of cookery may be are the originals? treated by a philosopher. I doubt if the book be written by Dr. Hill; for, in Mrs. Glasse's Cookery,' which I have looked into, salt-petre and sal-prunella are spoken of as different substances, whereas sal-prunella is only salt-petre burnt on charcoal; and Hill could not be ignorant of this. However, as the greatest part of such a book is made by transcription, this mistake may have been carelessly adopted. But you shall see what a book of cookery I shall make: I shall agree with Mr. Dilly for the copy-right." MISS SEWARD. "That would be Hercules with the distaff indeed." JOHNSON. "No, madam. Women can spin very well; but they cannot make a good book of cookery." JOHNSON. "O! Mr. Dilly-you must know that an English Benedictine monk 2 at Paris has translated The Duke of Berwick's Memoirs,' from the original French, and has sent them to me to sell. I offered them to Strahan, who sent them back with this answer;-That the first book he had published was the Duke of Berwick's Life, by which he had lost: and he hated the name." Now I honestly tell you that Strahan has refused them; but I also honestly tell you that he did it upon no principle, for he never looked into them." DILLY. "Are they well translated, sir?" JOHNSON. Why, sir, very well; in a style very current and clear. I have written to the Benedictine to give me an answer upon two points. What evidence is there that the letters are authentick? (for if they are not authentick, they are nothing). And how long will it be before the original French is published? For if the French edition is not to appear for a considerable time, the translation will be almost as valuable as an original book. They will make two volumes in octavo; and I have undertaken to correct every sheet as it comes from the press." Mr. Dilly desired to see them, and said he would send for them. He asked Dr. Johnson if he would write a preface to them. JOHNSON. "No, sir. The Benedictines were very kind to me, and I'll do what I undertook to do; but I will not mingle my name with them. I am to gain nothing by As physicians are called the faculty, and counsellors at law the profession, the booksellers of London are denominated the trade. Johnson disapproved of these denominations.-Bos WELL. [The Abbe Hook. They were published, in 1779, by Cadell.- MACKINTOSH.] 66 Mrs. Knowles affected to complain that men had much more liberty allowed them than women. JOHNSON. "Why, madam, women have all the liberty they should wish to have. We have all the labour and the danger, and the women all the advantage. We go to sea, we build houses, we do every thing, in short, to pay our court to the women." MRS. KNOWLES. "The Doctor reasons very wittily, but not convincingly. Now, take the instance of building; the mason's wife, if she is ever seen in liquor, is ruined: the mason may get himself drunk as often as he pleases, with little loss of character; nay, may let his wife and chilJOHNSON. dren starve." Madam, you must consider, if the mason does get himself drunk, and let his wife and children starve, the parish will oblige him to find security for their maintenance. We have different modes of restraining evil. Stocks for the men, a ducking-stool for women, and a pound for beasts. If we require more perfection from women than from ourselves, it is doing them honour. · And women have not the same temptations that we have; they may always live in virtuous company; men must mix in the world indiscriminately. If a woman has no inclination to do what is wrong, being secured from it is no restraint to her. I am at liberty to walk into the Thames; but if I were to try it, my friends would restrain me in Bedlam, and I should be obliged to them." MRS. KNOWLES. "Still, Doctor, I cannot help thinking it a hardship that more indulgence is allowed to men than to women. It gives a superiority to men, to which I do not see how they are entitled." JOHNSON. "It is plain, madam, one or other must have the superiority. As Shakspeare says, If two men ride on a horse, one must ride behind."" DILLY. "I suppose, sir, Mrs. Knowles would have them ride in panniers, one on each side." JOHNSON. "Then, sir, the horse would throw them both." MRS. KNOWLES. "Well, I hope that in another world the sexes will be equal." BOSWELL. "That is being too ambitious, madam. We might as well desire to be equal with the angels. We shall all, I hope, be happy in a future state, but we must not expect to be all happy in the same degree. It is enough, if we be happy according to our several capacities. A worthy carman will get to heaven as well as Sir Isaac Newton. Yet, though equally good, they will Probably not." not have the same degrees of happiness." | scribed by the ancient philosophers. SureJOHNSON. 66 ly, madam, your sect must approve of this; for you call all men friends." MRS. KNOWLES. "We are commanded to do good to all men, but especially to them who are of the household of faith."" JOHNSON. "Well, madam; the household of faith is wide enough." MRS. KNOWLES. "But, Doctor, our Saviour had twelve apostles, yet there was one whom he loved. John was called the disciple whom Jesus loved." " JOHNSON (with eyes sparkling benignantly). Very well, indeed, madam. You have said very well." BOSWELL. "A fine application. Pray, sir, had you ever thought of it?" JOHNSON. "I had not, son." Upon this subject I had once before sounded him by mentioning the late Reverend Mr. Brown of Utrecht's image; that a great and small glass, though equally full, did not hold an equal quantity; which he threw out to refute David Hume's saying, that a little miss, going to dance at a ball, in a fine new dress, was as happy as a great orator, after having made an eloquent and applauded speech. After some thought, Johnson said, "I come over to the parAs an instance of coincidence of thinking, Mr. Dilly told me, that Dr. King, a late dissenting minister in London, said to him, upon the happiness in a future state of good men of different capacities, “A pail does not hold so much as a tub; but, if it be equally full, it has no reason to complain. Every saint in heaven will have as much happiness as he can hold." Mr. Dilly thought this a clear, though a familiar, illustration of the phrase, "One star differeth from another in brightness." [1 Cor. xv. 41.] Dr. Mayo having asked Johnson's opinion of Soame Jenyns's " View of the Internal Evidence of the Christian Religion "— JOHNSON. "I think it a pretty book; not very theological indeed; and there seems to be an affectation of ease and carelessness, as if it were not suitable to his character to be very serious about the matter.' BosWELL. "He may have intended this to introduce his book the better among genteel people, who might be unwilling to read too grave a treatise. There is a general levity in the age. We have physicians now with bag-wigs; may we not have airy divines, at least somewhat less solemn in their appearance than they used to be?" JOHNSON. Jenyns might mean as you say." BOSWELL. "You should like his book, Mrs. Knowles, as it maintains, as you friends do, that courage is not a christian virtue." MRS. KNOWLES. 66 Yes, indeed, I like him there; but I cannot agree with him that friendship is not a christian virtue." JOHNSON." Why, madam, strictly speaking, he is right. All friendship is preferring the interest of a friend, to the neglect, or, perhaps, against the interest, of others; so that an old Greek said, 'He that has friends has no friend 2. Now Christianity recommends universal benevolence; to consider all men as our brethren; which is contrary to the virtue of friendship, as de See on this question Bishop Hall's Epistles, dec. iii. epist. 6. "Of the different degrees of heavenly glory, and of our mutual knowledge of each other above," and vol. ii. p. 7, where also this subject is discussed.--MALONE. 2 [Oi qira, ou qixos, a phrase frequently quoted by Dr. Johnson.—ED.] sir." From this pleasing subject, he, I know not how or why, made a sudden transition to one upon which he was a violent aggressor; for he said, "I am willing to love all mankind, except an American;" and his inflammable corruption bursting into horrid fire, he "breathed out threatenings and slaughter 3;" calling them "rascals, robbers, pirates;" and exclaiming, he 'd" burn and destroy them." Miss Seward, looking to him with mild but steady astonishment, said, "Sir, this is an instance that we are always most violent against those whom we have injured.” He was irritated still more by this delicate and keen reproach; and roared out another tremendous volley, which one might fancy could be heard across the Atlantick. During this tempest I sat in great uneasiness, lamenting his heat of temper, till, by degrees, I diverted his attention to other topicks. DR. MAYO (to Dr. Johnson). "Pray, sir, have you read Edwards, of New England, on Grace?" JOHNSON. "No, sir." BOSWELL. "It puzzled me so much as to the freedom of the human will, by stating, with wonderful acute ingenuity, our being actuated by a series of motives which we cannot resist, that the only relief' I had was to forget it." MAYO. "But he makes the proper distinction between moral and physical necessity." BOSWELL."Alas! sir, they come both to the same thing. You may be bound as hard by chains when covered by leather, as when the iron appears. The argument for the moral necessity of human actions is always, I observe, fortified by supposing universal prescience to be one of the attributes of the Deity." JOHNSON. "You are surer that you are free, than you are of prescience; you are surer that you can lift up your finger or not means as you please, than you are of any conclu- | was not Mandeville's doctrine of "private sion from a deduction of reasoning. But vices publick benefits." JOHNSON. "The let us consider a little the objection from fallacy of that book is, that Mandeville prescience. It is certain I am either to go defines neither vices nor benefits. He home to-night or not; that does not prevent reckons among vices every thing that gives my freedom." BOSWELL. "That it is pleasure. He takes the narrowest system certain you are either to go home or not, of morality, monastick morality, which does not prevent your freedom: because holds pleasure itself to be a vice, such as the liberty of choice between the two is eating salt with our fish, because it makes compatible with that certainty. But if one it eat better; and he reckons wealth as a of these events be certain now, you have publick benefit, which is by no no future power of volition. If it be cer- always true. Pleasure of itself is not a tain you are to go home to-night, you must vice. Having a garden, which we all go home." JOHNSON. "If I am well ac- know to be perfectly innocent, is a great quainted with a man, I can judge with pleasure. At the same time, in this state great probability how he will act in any case, of being there are many pleasures vices, without his being restrained by my judging. which however are so immediately agreeaGod may have this probability increased ble that we can hardly abstain from them. to certainty." BOSWELL. "When it is The happiness of heaven will be, that increased to certainty, freedom ceases, be- pleasure and virtue will be perfectly consistcause that cannot be certainly foreknown ent. Mandeville puts the case of a man which is not certain at the time; but if it who gets drunk at an alehouse, and says be certain at the time, it is a contradiction it is a public benefit, because so much in terms to maintain that there can be money is got by it to the publick. But it afterwards any contingency dependent upon must be considered, that all the good gained the exercise of will or any thing else." by this, through the gradation of alehouseJOHNSON. "All theory is against the free-keeper, brewer, maltster, and farmer, is dom of the will; all experience for it." I overbalanced by the evil caused to the man did not push the subject any farther. I was glad to find him so mild in discussing a question of the most abstract nature, involved with theological tenets which he generally would not suffer to be in any degree opposed 2. .He, as usual, defended luxury: "You cannot spend money in luxury without doing good to the poor. Nay, you do more good to them by spending it in luxury; you make them exert industry, whereas by giving it you keep them idle Lown, indeed, there may be more virtue in giving it immediately in charity, than in spending it in luxury; though there may be pride in that too." Miss Seward asked, if this 1 [This seems a very loose report. Dr. Johnson never could have talked of "GOD's having probability increased to certainty." To the Eternal and Infinite Creator there can be neither probability nor futurity. The action which is future to mortals is only a point of eternity in the eye of the ALMIGHTY, and it and all the motives that led to it are and were from all eternity present to HIM. Our bounded intellects cannot comprehend the prescience of the Deity; but if that attribute be conceded, there seems no difficulty in reconciling it with our own free-agency; for God has already seen what man will choose to do.-ED.] If any of my readers are disturbed by this thorny question, I beg leave to recommend to them Letter 69 of Montesquieu's Lettres Persannes, and the late Mr. John Palmer of Islington's Answer to Dr. Priestley's mechanical arguments for what he absurdly calls "philosophical necessity."-BOSWELL. and his family by his getting drunk. This is the way to try what is vicious, by ascertaining whether more evil than good is produced by it upon the whole, which is the case in all vice. It may happen that good is produced by vice, but not as vice; for instance, a robber may take money from its owner, and give it to one who will make a better use of it. Here is good produced; but not by the robbery as robbery, but as translation of property. I read Mandeville forty or, I believe, fifty years ago 3. He did not puzzle me; he opened my views into real life very much. No, it is clear that the happiness of society depends on virtue. In Sparta, theft was allowed by general consent; theft, therefore, was there not a crime, but then there was no security; and what a life must they have had, when there was no security! Without truth there must be a dissolution of society. As it is, there is so little truth, that we are almost afraid to trust to our ears; but how should we be, if falsehood were multiplied ten times! Society is held together by communication and information; and I remember this remark of Sir Thomas Brown's, 'Do the devils lie? No: for then hell could not subsist."" 4 Talking of Miss *, a literary lady, he said, "I was obliged to speak to Miss Reynolds, to let her know that I desired she would not flatter me so much." Somebody now observed." She flatters Garrick." [See ante, v. 1. p. 263.—ED.] JOHNSON. "She is in the right to flatter | man cannot be sure himself that he has diGarrick. She is in the right for two reasons; first, because she has the world with her, who have been praising Garrick these thirty years; and secondly, because she is rewarded for it by Garrick. Why should she flatter me? I can do nothing for her. Let her carry her praise to a better market." Then turning to Mrs. Knowles, "You, madam, have been flattering me all the evening; I wish you would give Boswell a little now. If you knew his merit as well as I do, you would say a great deal, he is the best travelling companion in the world." Somebody mentioned the Reverend Mr. Mason's prosecution of Mr. Murray, the bookseller', for having inserted in a collection of "Gray's Poems" only fifty lines, of which Mr. Mason had still the exclusive property, under the statute of Queen Anne; and that Mr. Mason had persevered, notwithstanding his being requested to name his own terms of compensation 2. Johnson signified his displeasure at Mr. Mason's conduct very strongly; but added, by way of showing that he was not surprised at it, "Mason's a whig." MRS. KNOWLES (not hearing distinctly). "What! a prig, sir?" JOHNSON. "Worse, madam; a whig! But he is both!" I expressed a horrour at the thought of death. MRS. KNOWLES. 66 Nay, thou shouldst not have a horrour for what is the gate of life." JOHNSON (standing upon the hearth, rolling about, with a serious, solemn, and somewhat gloomy air). "No rational man can die without uneasy apprehension." MRS. KNOWLES. "The Scriptures tell us, The righteous shall have hope in his death." JOHNSON. "Yes, madam, that is, he shall not have despair. But, consider, his hope of salvation must be founded on the terms on which it is promised that the mediation of our Saviour shall be applied to us,-namely, obedience; and where obedience has failed, then, as suppletory to it, repentance. But what man can say that his obedience has been such, as he would approve of in another, or even in himself upon close examination, or that his repentance has not been such as to require being repented of? No man can be sure that his obedience and repentance will obtain salvation." MRS. KNOWLES. "But divine intimation of acceptance may be made to the soul." JOHNSON. "Madam, it may; but I should not think the better of a man who should tell me on his death-bed, he was sure of salvation. A 1 [Mr. Murray was a spirited and intelligent bookseller, the father of the publisher of this work. -ED.] 2 See "A letter to W. Mason, A. M. from J. Murray, bookseller in London," second edition, p. 20.-BOSWELL. vine intimation of acceptance: much less can he make others sure that he has it.” BoswELL. "Then, sir, we must be contented to acknowledge that death is a terrible thing." JOHNSON. "Yes, sir. I have made no approaches to a state which can look on it as not terrible." MRS. KNOWLES (seeming to enjoy a pleasing serenity in the persuasion of benignant divine light). "Does not St. Paul say, 'I have fought the good fight of faith, I have finished my course; henceforth is laid up for me a crown of life?" JOHNSON. "Yes, madam; but here was a man inspired, a man who had been converted by supernatural interposition." Boswell. "In prospect death is dreadful; but in fact we find that people die easy." JOHNSON. Why, sir, most people have not thought much of the matter, so cannot say much, and it is supposed they die easy. Few believe it certain they are then to die; and those who do set themselves to behave with resolution 3, as ́a man does who is going to be hanged ;-he is not the less unwilling to be hanged." MISS SEWARD. "There is one mode of the fear of death, which is certainly absurd; and that is the dread of annihilation, which is only a pleasing sleep without a dream." JOHNSON. "It is neither pleasing nor sleep; it is nothing. Now mere existence is so much better than nothing, that one would rather exist even in pain, than not exist." BOSWELL. "If annihilation be nothing, then existing in pain is not a comparative state, but is a positive evil, which I cannot think we should choose. I must be allowed to differ here, and it would lessen the hope of a future state founded on the argument, that the Supreme Being, who is good as he is great, will hereafter compensate for our present sufferings in this life. For if existence, such as we have it here, be comparatively a good, we have no reason to complain, though no more of it should be given to us. But if our only state of existence were in this world, then we might with some reason complain that we are so dissatisfied with our enjoyments compared with our desires." JOHNSON. "The lady confounds annihilation, which is nothing, with the apprehension of it, which is dreadful. It is in the apprehension of it that the horrour of annihilation consists." "Pray, Of John Wesley, he said, "He can talk well on any subject." Boswell. sir, what has he made of his story of a ghost?" JOHNSON.. "Why, sir, he believes it; but not on sufficient authority. He did not take time enough to examine the girl. It was at Newcastle where the ghost was said to have appeared to a young wo 3 [See ante, v. i. p. 384, where Paoli assumes that they are thinking of something else.—ED.] |