want of knowledge or forgetfulness; for Louis the Fourteenth did send an embassy to the King of Siam,* and the Abbé Choisi, who was employed in it, published an account of it in two volumes. On Saturday, May 2, I dined with him at Sir Joshua Reynold's, where there was a very large company, and a great deal of conversation; but owing to some circumstances which I cannot now recollect, I have no record of any part of it, except that there were several people there by no means of the Johnsonian school; so that less attention was paid to him than usual, which put him out of humour; and upon some imaginary offence from me, he attacked me with such rudeness, that I was vexed and angry, because it gave those persons an opportunity of enlarging upon his supposed ferocity, and ill treatment of his best friends. I was so much hurt, and had my pride so much roused, that I kept away from him for a week, and perhaps might have kept away much longer, nay, gone to Scotland without seeing him again, had not we fortunately met and been reconciled. To such unhappy chances are human friendships liable. Next day, Thursday, April 30, I found him at home by himself. JOHNSON: "Well, Sir, Ramsay gave us a splendid dinner. I love Ramsay. You will not find a man in whose conversation there is more instruction, more information, and more elegance, than in Ramsay's." BOSWELL: "What I admire in Ramsay, is his continuing to be so young." JOHNSON: "Why, yes, Sir, it is to be admired. I value myself upon this, that there is nothing of the old man in my conversation. I am now sixty-eight, and I have no more of it than at twenty-eight." | BOSWELL: "But, Sir, would not you wish to know old age? He who is never an old man, does not know the whole of human life; for old age is one of the divisions of it.' JOHNSON: "Nay, Sir, what talk is this ?" On Friday, May 8, I dined with him at BOSWELL: "I mean, Sir, the Sphinx's de- Mr. Langton's. I was reserved and silent, scription of it ;-morning, noon, and night. which I suppose he perceived, and might I would know night, as well as morning and recollect the cause. After dinner, when noon." JOHNSON: "What, Sir, would you Mr. Langton was called out of the room, know what it is to feel the evils of old age? and we were by ourselves, he drew his chair Would you have the gout? Would you have near to mine, and said, in a tone of conciliadecrepitude ?"-Seeing him heated, I would ting courtesy, "Well, how have you done?" not argue any farther; but I was confident BOSWELL: "Sir, you have made me very that I was in the right. I would, in due uneasy by your behaviour to me when we time, be a Nestor, an elder of the people; were last at Sir Joshua Reynolds's. You and there should be some difference between know, my dear Sir, no man has a greater the conversation of twenty-eight and sixty- respect and affection for you, or would sooner eight. A grave picture should not be gay. go to the end of the world to serve you. There is a serene, solemn, placid old age. Now to treat me so-." He insisted that JOHNSON: "Mrs. Thrale's mother said of I had interupted him, which I assured him me what flattered me much. A clergyman was not the case; and proceeded-"But was complaining of want of society in the why treat me so before people who neither country where he lived; and said, They love you nor me?" JOHNSON: "Well, I talk of runts;' (that is, young cows.)+ Sir, am sorry for it. I'll make it up to you (said Mrs. Salusbury,) Mr. Johnson would twenty different ways, as you please." Boslearn to talk of runts' meaning that I was WELL: "I said to-day to Sir Joshua, when a man who would make the most of my si- he observed that you tossed me sometimes. tuation, whatever it was." He added, " I-I don't care how often, or how high he think myself a very polite man.” [The Abbé de Choisi was sent by Louis XIV. on an embassy to the King of Siam, in 1683, with a view, it has been said, to convert the King of that country to Christianity. M.] t [Johnson clearly meant (what the author has often elsewhere mentioned,) that he had none of the listlessness of old age, that he had the same activity and energy of mind as formerly; not that a man of sixty-eight might dance in a public assembly with as much propriety as he could at twenty-eight. His conversation, being the pro duct of much various knowledge, great acuteness, and extraordinary wit, was equally well suited to every period of life; and as in his youth it probably did not ex hibit any unbecoming levity, so certainly in his later years it was totally free from the garrulity and queruLousness of old age. M.] Such is the signification of this word in Scotland, and it should seem in Wales. (See Skinner in v.) But the heifers of Scotland and Wales, when brought to England, being alway: smaller than those of this country, the word runt has acquired a secondary sense, and generally signifies a heifer diminutive in size, small beyond the ordinary growth of that animal; and in this sense alone the word is acknowledged by Dr. Johnson, in his Dictionary. M.] tosses me, when only friends are present, for then I fall on soft ground: but I do not like falling on stones, which is the case when enemies are present.—I think this is a pretty good image, Sir." JOHNSON: "Sir, it is one of the happiest I have ever heard." The truth is, there was no venom in the wounds which he inflicted at any time, unless they were irritated by some malignant infusion by other hands. We were instantly as cordial again as ever, and joined in hearty laugh at some ludicrous but innocent peculiarities of one of our friends. BoswELL: "Do you think, Sir, it is always culpable to laugh at a man to his face ?" JOHNSON: "Why, Sir, that depends upon the man and the thing. If it is a slight man, and a slight thing, you may; for you take nothing valuable from him." He said, "I read yesterday Dr. Blair's Mrs. Thrale told us, that a curious cler gyman of our acquaintance had discovered a licentious stanza, which Pope had origi nally in his "Universal Prayer," before the stanza, him at the moment. Some time afterwards | yet assured me, that he could form a clear he said, "Lord Marchmont will call on me, opinion upon most of the causes that came and then I shall call on Lord Marchmont." before the House of Lords, "as they were so well enucleated in the Cases." Mrs. Thrale was uneasy at his unaccountable caprice; and told me, that if I did not take care to bring about a meeting between Lord Marchmont and him, it would never take place, which would be a great pity. I sent a card to his Lordship, to be left at Johnson's house, acquainting him that Dr. Johnson could not be in town next day, but would do himself the honour of waiting on him at another time.-I give this account fairly, as a specimen of that unhappy temper with which this great and good man had occasionly to struggle, from something morbid in his constitution. Let the most censorious of my readers suppose himself to have a violent fit of the tooth-ache, or to have re ceived a severe stroke on the shin-bone, and when in such a state to be asked a question; and if he has any candour he will not be surprised at the answers which Johnson sometimes gave in moments of irritation, which, let me assure them, is exquisitely painful. But it must not be erroneously supposed that he was, in the smallest degree, careless concerning any work which he undertook, or that he was generally thus peevish. It will be seen that in the following year he had a very agreeable interview with Lord Marchmont, at his Lordship's house; and this very afternoon he soon forgot any fretfulness, and fell into conversation as usual. I mentioned a reflection having been thrown out against four Peers for having presumed to rise in opposition to the opinion of the twelve judges, in a cause in the House of Lords, as if that were indecent. JOHNSON: "Sir, there is no ground for censure. The Peers are Judges themselves; and supposing them really to be of a different opinion, they might from duty be in opposition to the Judges, who were there only to be consulted." In this observation I fully concurred with him; for unquestionably, all the Peers are vested with the highest judicial powers; and when they are confident that they understand a cause, are not obliged, nay ought not to acquiesce in the opinion of the ordinary Law Judges, or even in that of those who from their studies and experience are called the Law Lords. I consider the Peers in general as I do a jury, who ought to listen with respectful attention to the sages of the law; but, if after hearing them, they have a firm opinion of their own, are bound as hobest men, to decide accordingly. Nor is it so difficult for them to understand even law questions, as is generally thought; provided they will bestow sufficient attention upon them. This observation was made by my honoured relation to the late Lord Cathcart, who had spent his life in camps and courts; "What conscience dictates to be done, It was this: "Can sins of moment claim the rod And that offend great Nature's GOD, BOSWELL: "In that stanza of Pope's, rod of fires,' is certainly a bad metaphor." MRS. THRALE: "And sins of moment' is a faulty expression; for its true import is momentous, which cannot be intended." JoHsSON: "It must have been written of mo ments.' Of moment, is momentous; of moments, momentary. I warrant you, however, Pope wrote this stanza, and some friend struck it out. Boileau wrote some such thing, and Arnaud struck it out, saying, Vous gagné. rez deux ou trois impies, et perdrez je ne sais combien des honnêtes gens.' These fellows want to say a daring thing, and don't know how to go about it. Mere poets know no more of fundamental principles than -" Here he was interrupted somehow. Mrs. Thrale mentioned Dryden. JOHNSON: “He puzzled himself about predestination.— How foolish it was in Pope to give all his friendship to Lords who thought they honoured him by being with him; and to choose such Lords as Burlington, and Cobham, and Bolingbroke? Bathurst was negative, a pleasing man; and I have heard no ill of Marchmont ;-and then always saying, I do not value you for being a Lord;" which was a sure proof that he did. I never say, I do not value Boswell more for being born to an estate, because I do not care. WELL: "Nor for being a Scotchman?" JOHNSON: "Nay, Sir, I do value you more for being a Scotchman. You are a Scotchman without the faults of Scotchmen. You would not have been so valuable as you are had you not been a Scotchman." Bos Talking of divorces, I asked if Othello's doctrine was not plausible; "He that is robb'd, not wanting what is stolen. Let him not know't, and he's not robb'd at all." make him unhappy ?" JOHNSON: "Perhaps, Sir, I should not; but that would be from prudence on my own account. A man would tell his father." BosWELL: "Yes; because he would not have spurious children to get any share of the family inheritance." MRS. THRALE: "Or he would tell his brother." BOSWELL: "Certainly his elder brother." JOHNSON: "You would tell your friend of a woman's infamy, to prevent his marrying a whore: there is the same reason to tell him of his wife's infidelity, when he is married, to prevent the consequences of imposition. It is a breach of confidence not to tell a friend." BOSWELL: "Would you tell Mr. ?" (naming a gentleman who assuredly was not in the least danger of such a miserable disgrace, though married to a fine woman.) JOHNSON: "No, Sir; because it would do no good: he is so sluggish, he'd never go to parliament and get through a divorce." He said of one of our friends, "He is ruining himself without pleasure. A man who loses at play, or who runs out his fortune at court, makes his estate less, in hopes of making it bigger: (I am sure of this word, which was often used by him) but it is a sad thing to pass through the quagmire of parsimony, to the gulf of ruin. To pass over the flowery path of extravagance, is very well." · Amongst the numerous prints pasted on the walls of the dining-room at Streatham, was Hogarth's Modern Midnight Conversation. I asked him what he knew of Parson Ford, who makes a conspicuous figure in the riotous groupe. JOHNSON: “ Sir, he was my acquaintance and relation, my mother's nephew. He had purchased a living in the country, but not simonically. I never saw him but in the country. I have been told he was a man of great parts; very profligate, but I never heard he was impious." BOSWELL: "Was there not a story of his ghost having appeared?" JOHNSON: "Sir, it was believed. A waiter at the Hummums, in which house Ford died, had been absent for some time, and returned, not knowing that Ford was dead. Going down to the cellar, according to the story, he met him; going down again, he met him a second time. When he came up, he asked some of the people of the house what Ford could be doing there. They told him Ford was dead. The waiter took a fever, in which he lay for some time. When he recovered he said he had a message to deliver to some women from Ford; but he was not to tell what, or to whom. He walked out; he was followed; but somewhere about St. Paul's they lost him. He came back, and said he had delivered the message, and the women exclaimed, Then we are all undone !' Dr. Pellet, who was not a credulous man, inquired into the truth of this story, and he said, the evidence was irresistible. My wife went to the Hummums; (it is a place where people get themselves cupped.) I believe she went with intention to hear about this story of Ford. At first they were unwilling to tell her; but after they had talked to her, she came away satisfied that it was true. To be sure the man had a fever; and this vision may have been the beginning of it. But if the message to the women, and their behaviour upon it, were true as related, there was something supernatural. That rests upon his word; and there it remains." After Mrs. Thrale was gone to bed, Johnson and I sat up late. We resumed Sir Joshua Reynolds's argument on the preceding Sunday, that a man would be virtuous, though he had no other motive than to preserve his character. JOHNSON: "Sir, it is not true: for, as to this world, vice does not hurt a man's character." BOSWELL: "Yes, Sir, debauching a friend's wife will." JOHNSON: "No, Sir. Who thinks the worse of for it?" BoSWELL: "Lord was not his friend." JOHNSON: "That is only a circumstance, Sir, a slight distinction. He could not get into the house but by Lord A man is chosen Knight of the shire, not the less for having debauched ladies." BOSWELL: "What, Sir, if he debauched the ladies of gentlemen in the county, will not there be a general resentment against him?" JOHNSON: "No, Sir, He will lose those particular gentlemen; but the rest will not trouble their heads about it:" (warmly.) BOSWELL: "Well, Sir, I cannot think so." JOHNSON: "Nay, Sir, there is no talking with a man who will dispute what every body knows: (angrily.) Don't you know this?" BOSWELL: “No, Sir; and I wish to think better of your country than you represent it. I knew in Scotland a gentleman obliged to leave it for debauching a lady; and in one of our counties an Earl's brother lost his election, because he had debauched the lady of another Earl in that county, and destroyed the peace of a noble family." Still he would not yield. He proceeded: "Will you not allow, Sir, that vice does not hurt a man's character so as to obstruct his prosperity in life, when you know that was loaded with wealth and honours; a man who had acquired his fortune by such crimes, that bis consciousness of them impelled him to cut his own throat." BOSWELL: "You will recollect, Sir, that Dr. Robertson said, he cut his throat because he was weary of still life; little things not being sufficient to move his great mind." JOHNSON: (very angry,) "Nay, Sir, what stuff is this? You had no more this opinion after Robertson said it, than before. I know nothing more offensive than repeating what one knows to be foolish things, by way of continuing a dispute, to see what a man will answer,-to make him your butt!" (angrier still.) BOSWELL: "My dear Sir, I had no such intention as you seem to suspect I had not indeed. Might not this nobleman have felt every thing weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable,' as Hamlet says!" JOHNSON: "Nay, if you are to bring in gabble, I'll talk no more. I will not, upon my honour."-My readers will decide upon this dispute. Next morning I stated to Mrs. Thrale at breakfast, before he came down, the dispute of last night as to the influence of character upon success in life. She said he was certainly wrong; and told me, that a baronet lost an election in Wales, because he had debauched the sister of a gentleman in the country whom he made one of his daughters invite as her companion at his seat in the country, when his lady and his other children were in London. But she would not encounter Johnson upon the subject. I staid all this day with him at Streatham. He talked a great deal in very good humour. Looking at Messrs. Dilly's splendid edition of Lord Chesterfield's miscellaneous works, he laughed, and said, "Here are now two speeches ascribed to him, both of which were written by me: and the best of it is, they have found out that one is like Demosthenes, and the other like Cicero." He censured Lord Kames's "Sketches of the History of Man," for misrepresenting Clarendon's account of the appearance of Sir George Villier's ghost, as if Clarendon were weakly credulous; when the truth is that Clarendon only says, that the story was upon a better foundation of credit, than usually such discourses are founded upon; nay, speaks thus of the person who was reported to have seen the vision, "the poor man, if he had been at all waking;" which Lord Kames has omitted. He added, "in this book it is maintained that virtue is natural to man, and, that if he would but consult our own hearts, we should be virtuous. Now, after consulting our own hearts all we can, and with all the helps we have, we find how few of us are virtuous. This is saying a thing which all mankind know not to be true." BOSWELL: "Is not modesty natural?" JOHNSON: "I cannot say, Sir, as we find no people quite in a state of nature; but I think the more they are taught, the more modest they are. The French are a gross, ill-bred, untaught people; a lady there will spit on the floor and rub it with her foot, What I gained by being in France was, learning to be better satisfied with my own country. Time may be employed to more advantage from nineteen to twentyfour, almost in any way than in travelling; when you set travelling against mere negation, against doing nothing, it is better to be sure; but how much more would a young man improve were he to study during those years. Indeed, if a young man is wild, and must run after women and bad company, it is better this should be done abroad, as on his return, he can break off such connexions, and begin at home a new man, with a cha racter to form, and acquaintances to make. How little does travelling supply to the con versation of any man who has travelled; how little to Beauclerk ?" BOSWELL: "What say you to Lord -? JOHNSON: "I never but once heard him talk o. what he had seen, and that was a large serpent in one of the pyramids of Egypt.” BOSWELL: "Well, I happened to hear him tell the same thing, which made me mention him." 66 I talked of a country life.-JOHNSON: "Were I to live in the country, I would not devote myself to the acquisition of popularity; I would live in a much better way, much more happily; I would have my tinie at my own command." BoswELL: "But, Sir, is it not a sad thing to be at a distance from all our literary friends?" JOHNSON: "Sir, you will by and by have enough of this conversation which now delights you so much." As he was a zealous friend of subordination, he was at all times watchful to repress the vulgar cant against the manners of the great;High people, Sir, (said he) are the best; take a hundred ladies of quality, you'll find them better wives, better mothers, more willing to sacrifice their cwn pleasure to their children, than a hundred other women. Tradeswomen (I mean the wives of tradesmen) in the city, who are worth from 10 to 15,000l. are the worst creatures upon the earth, grossly ignorant, and thinking vie ciousness fashionable. Farmers, I think, are often worthless fellows. Few lords will cheat; and, if they do, they'll be ashamed of it; farmers cheat and are not ashamed of it: they have all the sensual vices too of the nobility, with cheating into the bargain. There is as much fornication and adultery amongst farmers as amongst noblemen." BOSWELL: "The notion of the world, Sir, however, is, that the morals of women of quality are worse than those in lower stations." JORN SON: "Yes, Sir, the licentiousness of one woman of quality makes more noise than that of a number of women in lower stations; then, Sir, you are to consider the malignity of women in the city against women of quality, which will make them believe any thing of them, such as that they call their coachmen to bed. No, Sir, so far as I have obe served, the higher in rank the richer ladies are, they are the better instructed and the more virtuous." This year the Reverend Mr. Horne published his "Letter to Mr. Dunning, on the English Particle;" Johnson read it, and though not treated in it with sufficient re spect, he had candour enough to say to Mr. Seward, "Were I make a new edition of my Dictionary, I would adopt several of Mr. Horne's etymologies; I hope they did not put the dog in the pillory for his libel; he has too much literature for that." On Saturday, May 16, I dined with him at Mr. Beauclerk's with Mr. Langton, Mr. Steevens, Dr. Higgins, and some others. I regret very feelingly every instance of my remissness in recording his memorabilia; I am afraid it is the condition of humanity (as Mr. Windham, of Norfolk, once observed to me, after having made an admirable speech in the House of Commons, which was highly applauded, but which he afterwards perceived might have been better :) "that we are more uneasy from thinking of our wants, than happy in thinking of our acquisitions." This is an unreasonable mode of disturbing our tranquillity, and should be corrected; let me then comfort myself with the large treasure of Johnson's conversation which I have preserved for my own enjoy. ment and that of the world, and let me exhibit what I have upon each occasion, whether more or less, whether a bulse, or only a few sparks of a diamond. He said, "Dr. Mead lived more in the broad sunshine of life than almost any man." The disaster of General Burgoyne's army was then the common topic of conversation. It was asked why piling their arms was insisted upon as a matter of such consequence, when it seemed to be a circumstance so inconsiderable in itself. JOHNSON: "Why, Sir, a French author says, 'Il y a beaucoup de puerilités dans la guerre.' All distinctions are trifles, because great things can seldom occur, and those distinctions are settled by custom. A savage would as willingly have his meat sent to him in the kitchen, as eat it at the table here: as men become civilized, various modes of denoting honourable preference are invented." He this day made the observations upon the similarity between "Rasselas" and "Candide:" which I have inserted in its proper place, when considering his admirable philosophical Romance. He said "Candide," he thought, had more power in it than any thing that Voltaire had written. He said, “The lyrical part of Horace never can be perfectly translated; so much of the excellence is in the numbers and the expression.. Francis has done it the best; I'll take his, five out of six, against them all." On Sunday, May 17, I presented to him Mr. Fullarton, of Fullarton, who has since distinguished himself so much in India, to In Mr. Horne Tooke's enlargement of that "Letter," which he has since published with the title of **Leа #тépоCT; or the Diversions of Purley" he mentions this compliment, as if Dr. Johnson, instead of several of his etymologies, had said all. His recollection having thus magnified it, shews how ambitious he was of the approbation of so great a man. whom he naturally talked of travels, as Mr. Brydone accompanied him in his tour to Sicily and Malta. He said, "The information which we have from modern travellers is much more authentic than what we had from ancient travellers; ancient travellers guessed; modern travellers measure. The Swiss admit that there is but one error in Stanyan. If Brydone were more attentive to his Bible, he would be a good traveller." 66 He said, "Lord Chatham was a Dictator; he possessed the power of putting the State in motion; now there is no power, all order is relaxed." BosWELL: "Is there no hope of a change to the better?" JOHNSON: Why, yes, Sir, when we are weary of this relaxation. So the City of London will appoint its Mayors again by seniority." BosWELL: "But is not that taking a mere chance for having a good or a bad Mayor ?" JOHNSON: "Yes, Sir; but the evil of competition is greater than that of the worst Mayor that can come; besides, there is no more reason to suppose that the choice of a rabble will be right, than that chance will be right." On Tuesday, May 19, I was to set out for Scotland in the evening. He was engaged to dine with me at Mr. Dilly's; I waited upon him to remind him of his appointment and attend him thither; he gave me some salutary counsel, and recommended vigorous resolution against any deviation from moral duty. BOSWELL:"But you would not have me to bind myself by a solemn obligation?" JOHNSON: (much agitated,)" What! a vow→O, no, Sir, a vow is a horrible thing, it is a snare for sin. The man who cannot go to heaven without a vow-may go-" Here standing erect, in the middle of his library, and rolling grand, his pause was truly a curious compound of the solemn and the ludicrous; he half-whistled in his usual way, when pleasant, and he paused, as if checked by religious awe.-Methought he would have added-to Hell-but was restrained. I humoured the dilemma." What! Sir, (said I,) In cœlum jusseris ibit ?'" alluding to his imitation of it, "And bid him go to Hell, to Hell he goes." I had mentioned to him a slight fault in his noble" Imitation of the Tenth Satire of Juvenal," a too near recurrence of the verb spread, in his description of the young Enthusiast at College: "Through all his veins the fever of renown, Spreads from the strong contagion of the gown; He had desired me to change spreads to burns, but for perfect authenticity, I now had it done with his own hand.† I thought The slip of paper on which he made the correction, is deposited by me in the noble library to which it relates, and to which I have presented other pieces of his handwriting. |