was; so that he may think it more for his interest to take his chance of his party coming in." Mrs. Pritchard being mentioned, he said, "Her playing was quite mechanical. It is wonderful how little mind she had. Sir, she had never read the tragedy of Macbeth all through. She no more thought of the play out of which her part was taken, than a shoemaker thinks of the skin out of which the piece of leather of which he is making a pair of shoes is cut." On Saturday, May 8, I dined with him at Mr. Thrale's, where we met the Irish Dr. Campbell 1. Johnson had supped the night before at Mrs. Abington's with some fashionable people whom he named; and he seemed much pleased with having made one in so elegant a circle. Nor did he omit to pique his mistress a little with jealousy of her housewifery; for he said, with a smile," Mrs. Abington's jelly, my dear lady, was better than yours." 3 Mrs. Thrale, who frequently practised a coarse mode of flattery, by repeating his bon mots in his hearing, told us that he had said, a certain celebrated actor was just fit to stand at the door of an auctionroom with a long pole, and cry, " Pray, gentlemen, walk in;" and that a certain authour, upon hearing this, had said, that another still more celebrated actor was fit for nothing better than that, and would pick your pocket after you came out. JOHNSON. "Nay, my dear lady, there is no wit in what our friend 2 [See ante, pp. 213 and 217.-ED.] [Certainly coarse enough; but not unfrequently practised by Boswell himself; and not much coarser than writing every mot, bon or otherwise, which he spoke, and giving him the record to read next morning.-See Tour to the Hebrides, passim.-ED.] 3 [Probably Sheridan.-ED.] 4 [Certainly Garrick; the author was, perhaps, Murphy: a great friend of the Thrales, and who had occasional differences with Garrick.-ED.] added; there is only abuse. You may as well say of any man that he will pick a pocket. Besides, the man who is stationed at the door does not pick people's pockets; that is done within by the auctioneer." 66 Mrs. Thrale told us that Tom Davies repeated, in a very bald manner, the story of Dr. Johnson's first repartee to me, which I have related exactly'. He made me say, "I was born in Scotland," instead of "I come from Scotland;" so that Johnson's saying, "That, sir, is what a great many of your countrymen cannot help," had no point, or even meaning; and that upon this being mentioned to Mr. Fitzherbert, he observed, "It is not every man that can carry a bon mot." On Monday, April 10, I dined with him at General Oglethorpe's, with Mr. Langton and the Irish Dr. Campbell, whom the general had obligingly given me leave to bring with me. This learned gentleman was thus gratified with a very high intellectual feast, by not only being in company with Dr. Johnson, but with General Oglethorpe, who had been so long a celebrated name both at home and abroad 3. I must, again and again, entreat of my readers not to suppose that my imperfect record of conversation 1 Vol. i. p. 401.-BOSWELL. 2 Let me here be allowed to pay my tribute of most sincere gratitude to the memory of that excellent person, my intimacy with whom was the more valuable to me, because my first acquaintance with him was unexpected and unsolicited. Soon after the publication of my "Account of Corsica," he did me the honour to call on me, and approaching me with a frank courteous air, said, " My name, sir, is Oglethorpe, and I wish to be acquainted with you." I was not a little flattered to be thus addressed by an eminent man, of whom I had read in Pope, from my early years, "Or, driven by strong benevolence of soul, I was fortunate enough to be found worthy of his good opinion, insomuch, that I not only was invited to make one in the many respectable companies whom he entertained at his table, but had a cover at his hospitable board every day when I happened to be disengaged; and in his society I never failed to enjoy learned and animated conversation, seasoned with genuine sentiments of virtue and religion. BoswELL. 3 [See ante, vol. i. p. 97.—ED.] VOL. III. Q Reyn. Recoll. Piozzi, p. 219-20. contains the whole of what was said by Johnson, or other eminent persons who lived with him. What I have preserved, however, has the value of the most perfect authenticity. He this day enlarged upon Pope's melancholy remark, "Man never is, but always to be blest." He asserted, that the present was never a happy state to any human being; but that, as every part of life, of which we are conscious, was at some point of time a period yet to come, in which felicity was expected, there was some happiness produced by hope. Being pressed upon this subject, and asked if he really was of opinion, that though, in general, happiness was very rare in human life, a man was not sometimes happy in the moment that was present, he answered, "Never, but when he is drunk." [It was a gloomy axiom of his, that the pains and miseries of human life outweighed its happiness and good; but on a lady's asking him, whether he would not permit the ease and quiet of common life to be put into the scale of happiness and good, he seemed embarrassed (very unusual with him), and, answering in the affirmative, rose from his seat, as if to avoid the inference and reply, which his answer authorized the lady to make.] [Dr. Johnson did not like any one who said they were happy, or who said any one else was so. "It was all cant," he would cry; "the dog knows he is miserable all the time." A friend whom he loved exceedingly told him on some occasion notwithstanding, that his wife's sister was really happy, and called upon the lady to confirm his assertion, which she did somewhat roundly as we say, and with an accent and manner capable of offending Dr. Johnson, if her p. 220. position had not been sufficient, without any thing Piozzi, more, to put him in a very ill humour." If your sister-in-law is really the contented being she professes herself, sir," said he," her life gives the lie to every research of humanity; for she is happy without health, without beauty, without money, and without understanding." This story he told me himself; and when I expressed something of the horror I felt, "The same stupidity," said he, " which prompted her to extol felicity she never felt, hindered her from feeling what shocks you on repetition. I tell you, the woman is ugly, and sickly, and foolish, and poor; and would it not make a man hang himself to hear such a creature say it was happy?"] He urged General Oglethorpe to give the world his Life. He said, "I know no man whose Life would be more interesting. If I were furnished with materials, I should be very glad to write it '." room. Mr. Scott of Amwell's Elegies were lying in the Dr. Johnson observed, "They are very well; but such as twenty people might write." Upon this I took occasion to controvert Horace's maxim, Non Di, non homines, non concessere columnæ:" for here (I observed) was a very middle-rate poet, who pleased many readers, and therefore poetry of a middle sort was entitled to some esteem; nor could I see why poetry should not, like every thing else, have different gradations of excellence, and consequently of value. Johnson repeated the common The general seemed unwilling to enter upon it at this time; but upon a subsequent occasion he communicated to me a number of particulars, which I have committed to writing; but I was not sufficiently diligent in obtaining more from him, not apprehending that his friends were so soon to lose him; for notwithstanding his great age, he was very healthy and vigorous, and was at at last carried off by a violent fever, which is often fatal at any period of life. -BOSWELL. remark, that " as there is no necessity for our having poetry at all, it being merely a luxury, an instrument of pleasure, it can have no value, unless when exquisite in its kind." I declared myself not satisfied. "Why, then, sir," said he, "Horace and you must settle it." He was not much in the humour of talking. No more of his conversation for some days appears in my journal, except that when a gentleman told him he had bought a suit of lace for his lady, he said, "Well, sir, you have done a good thing and a wise thing." "I have done a good thing," said the gentleman, "but I do not know that I have done a wise thing." JOHNSON. "Yes, sir; no money is better spent than what is laid out for domestic satisfaction. A man is pleased that his wife is dressed as well as other people; and a wife is pleased that she is dressed." On Friday, April 14, being Good Friday, I repaired to him in the morning, according to my usual custom on that day, and breakfasted with him. I observed that he fasted so very strictly, that he did not even taste bread, and took no milk with his tea; I suppose because it is a kind of animal food. He entered upon the state of the nation, and thus discoursed: "Sir, the great misfortune now is, that government has too little power. All that it has to bestow must of necessity be given to support itself; so that it cannot reward merit. No man, for instance, can now be made a bishop for his learning and piety1; his only chance for promotion is his being connected From this too just observation there are some eminent exceptions.-BosWELL. [That a general assertion should be pronounced too just by the very person who admits that it is not universally just is a little odd; but, moreover, the "eminent exceptions" destroy the whole force of the assertion. In a constitution of government and society like ours, influence, interest, and connexions must have some weight in the distribution even of church patronage. Johnson's assertion was that they had all the weight, to the utter exclusion of piety and learning. Boswell, by denying the entire exclusion, defeats the force of Johnson's observation, which certainly was too broadly and, of course, incorrectly expressed.-ED.] |