who cannot lie, and cannot be mistaken.'
About this time he wrote to Mrs. Lucy Porter, mentioning his bad health,
and that he intended a visit to Lichfield. 'It is, (says he,) with no
great expectation of amendment that I make every year a journey into the
country; but it is pleasant to visit those whose kindness has been often
experienced.'
On April 18, (being Good-Friday,) I found him at breakfast, in his usual
manner upon that day, drinking tea without milk, and eating a cross-bun
to prevent faintness; we went to St. Clement's church, as formerly. When
we came home from church, he placed himself on one of the stone-seats at
his garden-door, and I took the other, and thus in the open air and in a
placid frame of mind, he talked away very easily. JOHNSON. 'Were I a
country gentleman, I should not be very hospitable, I should not have
crowds in my house[632].' BOSWELL. 'Sir Alexander Dick[633] tells me,
that he remembers having a thousand people in a year to dine at his
house: that is, reckoning each person as one, each time that he dined
there.' JOHNSON. 'That, Sir, is about three a day.' BOSWELL. 'How your
statement lessens the idea.' JOHNSON. 'That, Sir, is the good of
counting[634]. It brings every thing to a certainty, which before
floated in the mind indefinitely.' BOSWELL. 'But _Omne ignotum pro
magnifico est[635]: one is sorry to have this diminished.' JOHNSON.
'Sir, you should not allow yourself to be delighted with errour.'
BOSWELL. 'Three a day seem but few.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, he who
entertains three a day, does very liberally. And if there is a large
family, the poor entertain those three, for they eat what the poor would
get: there must be superfluous meat; it must be given to the poor, or
thrown out.' BOSWELL. 'I observe in London, that the poor go about and
gather bones, which I understand are manufactured.' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir;
they boil them, and extract a grease from them for greasing wheels and
other purposes. Of the best pieces they make a mock ivory, which is used
for hafts to knives, and various other things; the coarser pieces they
burn and pound, and sell the ashes.' BOSWELL. 'For what purpose, Sir?'
JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, for making a furnace for the chymists for melting
iron. A paste made of burnt bones will stand a stronger heat than any
thing else. Consider, Sir; if you are to melt iron, you cannot line your
pot with brass, because it is softer than iron, and would melt sooner;
nor with iron, for though malleable iron is harder than cast iron, yet
it would not do; but a paste of burnt-bones will not melt.' BOSWELL. 'Do
you know, Sir, I have discovered a manufacture to a great extent, of
what you only piddle at,--scraping and drying the peel of oranges[636].
At a place in Newgate-street, there is a prodigious quantity prepared,
which they sell to the distillers.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, I believe they make a
higher thing out of them than a spirit; they make what is called
orange-butter, the oil of the orange inspissated, which they mix perhaps
with common pomatum, and make it fragrant. The oil does not fly off in
the drying.'
BOSWELL. 'I wish to have a good walled garden.' JOHNSON. 'I don't think
it would be worth the expence to you. We compute in England, a park wall
at a thousand pounds a mile; now a garden-wall must cost at least as
much. You intend your trees should grow higher than a deer will leap.
Now let us see; for a hundred pounds you could only have forty-four
square yards, which is very little; for two hundred pounds, you may have
eighty-four square yards[637], which is very well. But when will you get
the value of two hundred pounds of walls, in fruit, in your climate? No,
Sir, such contention with Nature is not worth while. I would plant an
orchard, and have plenty of such fruit as ripen well in your country. My
friend, Dr. Madden[638], of Ireland, said, that "in an orchard there
should be enough to eat, enough to lay up, enough to be stolen, and
enough to rot upon the ground." Cherries are an early fruit, you may
have them; and you may have the early apples and pears.' BOSWELL. 'We
cannot have nonpareils.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, you can no more have nonpareils
than you can have grapes.' BOSWELL. 'We have them, Sir; but they are
very bad.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, never try to have a thing merely to shew
that you _cannot_ have it. From ground that would let for forty
shillings you may have a large orchard; and you see it costs you only
forty shillings. Nay, you may graze the ground when the trees are grown
up; you cannot while they are young.' BOSWELL. 'Is not a good garden a
very common thing in England, Sir?' JOHNSON. 'Not so common, Sir, as
you imagine[639]. In Lincolnshire there is hardly an orchard; in
Staffordshire very little fruit.' BOSWELL. 'Has Langton no orchard?'
JOHNSON. 'No, Sir.' BOSWELL. 'How so, Sir?' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, from the
general negligence of the county. He has it not, because nobody else has
it.' BOSWELL. 'A hot-house is a certain thing; I may have that.'
JOHNSON. 'A hot-house is pretty certain; but you must first build it,
then you must keep fires in it, and you must have a gardener to take
care of it.' BOSWELL. 'But if I have a gardener at any rate?--' JOHNSON.
'Why, yes.' BOSWELL.' I'd have it near my house; there is no need to
have it in the orchard.' JOHNSON. 'Yes, I'd have it near my house. I
would plant a great many currants; the fruit is good, and they make a
pretty sweetmeat.'
I record this minute detail, which some may think trifling, in order to
shew clearly how this great man, whose mind could grasp such large and
extensive subjects, as he has shewn in his literary labours, was yet
well-informed in the common affairs of life, and loved to
illustrate them.
Mr. Walker, the celebrated master of elocution[640], came in, and then
we went up stairs into the study. I asked him if he had taught many
clergymen. JOHNSON. 'I hope not.' WALKER. 'I have taught only one, and
he is the best reader I ever heard, not by my teaching, but by his own
natural talents.' JOHNSON. 'Were he the best reader in the world, I
would not have it told that he was taught.' Here was one of his peculiar
prejudices. Could it be any disadvantage to the clergyman to have it
known that he was taught an easy and graceful delivery? BOSWELL. 'Will
you not allow, Sir, that a man may be taught to read well?' JOHNSON.
'Why, Sir, so far as to read better than he might do without being
taught, yes. Formerly it was supposed that there was no difference in
reading, but that one read as well as another.' BOSWELL. 'It is
wonderful to see old Sheridan as enthusiastick about oratory as
ever[641],' WALKER. 'His enthusiasm as to what oratory will do, may be
too great: but he reads well.' JOHNSON. 'He reads well, but he reads
low[642]; and you know it is much easier to read low than to read high;
for when you read high, you are much more limited, your loudest note can
be but one, and so the variety is less in proportion to the loudness.
Now some people have occasion to speak to an extensive audience, and
must speak loud to be heard.' WALKER. 'The art is to read strong,
though low.'
Talking of the origin of language; JOHNSON. 'It must have come by
inspiration. A thousand, nay, a million of children could not invent a
language. While the organs are pliable, there is not understanding
enough to form a language; by the time that there is understanding
enough, the organs are become stiff. We know that after a certain age we
cannot learn to pronounce a new language. No foreigner, who comes to
England when advanced in life, ever pronounces English tolerably well;
at least such instances are very rare. When I maintain that language
must have come by inspiration, I do not mean that inspiration is
required for rhetorick, and all the beauties of language; for when once
man has language, we can conceive that he may gradually form
modifications of it. I mean only that inspiration seems to me to be
necessary to give man the faculty of speech; to inform him that he may
have speech; which I think he could no more find out without
inspiration, than cows or hogs would think of such a faculty.' WALKER.
'Do you think, Sir, that there are any perfect synonimes in any
language?' JOHNSON. 'Originally there were not; but by using words
negligently, or in poetry, one word comes to be confounded
with another.'
He talked of Dr. Dodd[643]. 'A friend of mine, (said he,) came to me and
told me, that a lady wished to have Dr. Dodd's picture in a bracelet,
and asked me for a motto. I said, I could think of no better than
_Currat Lex_. I was very willing to have him pardoned, that is, to have
the sentence changed to transportation: but, when he was once hanged, I
did not wish he should be made a saint.'
Mrs. Burney, wife of his friend Dr. Burney, came in, and he seemed to be
entertained with her conversation.
Garrick's funeral was talked of as extravagantly expensive. Johnson,
from his dislike to exaggeration, would not allow that it was
distinguished by any extraordinary pomp. 'Were there not six horses to
each coach?' said Mrs. Burney. JOHNSON. 'Madam, there were no more six
horses than six phoenixes[644].'
Mrs. Burney wondered that some very beautiful new buildings should be
erected in Moorfields, in so shocking a situation as between Bedlam and
St. Luke's Hospital; and said she could not live there. JOHNSON. 'Nay,
Madam, you see nothing there to hurt you. You no more think of madness
by having windows that look to Bedlam, than you think of death by having
windows that look to a church-yard.' MRS. BURNEY. 'We may look to a
church-yard, Sir; for it is right that we should be kept in mind of
death.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, Madam, if you go to that, it is right that we
should be kept in mind of madness, which is occasioned by too much
indulgence of imagination. I think a very moral use may be made of these
new buildings: I would have those who have heated imaginations live
there, and take warning.' MRS. BURNEY. 'But, Sir, many of the poor
people that are mad, have become so from disease, or from distressing
events. It is, therefore, not their fault, but their misfortune; and,
therefore, to think of them is a melancholy consideration.'
Time passed on in conversation till it was too late for the service of
the church at three o'clock. I took a walk, and left him alone for some
time; then returned, and we had coffee and conversation again by
ourselves.
I stated the character of a noble friend of mine, as a curious case for
his opinion:--'He is the most inexplicable man to me that I ever knew.
Can you explain him, Sir? He is, I really believe, noble-minded,
generous, and princely. But his most intimate friends may be separated
from him for years, without his ever asking a question concerning them.
He will meet them with a formality, a coldness, a stately indifference;
but when they come close to him, and fairly engage him in conversation,
they find him as easy, pleasant, and kind, as they could wish. One then
supposes that what is so agreeable will soon be renewed; but stay away
from him for half a year, and he will neither call on you, nor send to
inquire about you.' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, I cannot ascertain his character
exactly, as I do not know him; but I should not like to have such a man
for my friend. He may love study, and wish not to be interrupted by his
friends; _Amici fures temporis_. He may be a frivolous man, and be so
much occupied with petty pursuits, that he may not want friends. Or he
may have a notion that there is a dignity in appearing indifferent,
while he in fact may not be more indifferent at his heart than another.'
We went to evening prayers at St. Clement's, at seven, and then parted.
On Sunday, April 20, being Easter-day, after attending solemn service at
St. Paul's, I came to Dr. Johnson, and found Mr. Lowe, the painter,
sitting with him. Mr. Lowe mentioned the great number of new buildings
of late in London, yet that Dr. Johnson had observed, that the number of
inhabitants was not increased. JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, the bills of
mortality prove that no more people die now than formerly; so it is
plain no more live. The register of births proves nothing, for not one
tenth of the people of London are born there.' BOSWELL. 'I believe, Sir,
a great many of the children born in London die early.' JOHNSON. 'Why,
yes, Sir.' BOSWELL. 'But those who do live, are as stout and strong
people as any[645]: Dr. Price[646] says, they must be naturally stronger
to get through.' JOHNSON. 'That is system, Sir. A great traveller
observes, that it is said there are no weak or deformed people among the
Indians; but he with much sagacity assigns the reason of this, which is,
that the hardship of their life as hunters and fishers does not allow
weak or diseased children to grow up. Now had I been an Indian, I must
have died early; my eyes would not have served me to get food. I indeed
now could fish, give me English tackle; but had I been an Indian I must
have starved, or they would have knocked me on the head, when they saw I
could do nothing.' BOSWELL. 'Perhaps they would have taken care of you:
we are told they are fond of oratory, you would have talked to them.'
JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, I should not have lived long enough to be fit to
talk; I should have been dead before I was ten years old. Depend upon
it, Sir, a savage, when he is hungry, will not carry about with him a
looby of nine years old, who cannot help himself. They have no
affection, Sir.' BOSWELL. 'I believe natural affection, of which we
hear so much, is very small.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, natural affection is
nothing: but affection from principle and established duty is sometimes
wonderfully strong.' LOWE. 'A hen, Sir, will feed her chickens in
preference to herself.' JOHNSON. 'But we don't know that the hen is
hungry; let the hen be fairly hungry, and I'll warrant she'll peck the
corn herself. A cock, I believe, will feed hens instead of himself; but
we don't know that the cock is hungry.' BOSWELL. 'And that, Sir, is not
from affection but gallantry. But some of the Indians have affection.'
JOHNSON. 'Sir, that they help some of their children is plain; for some
of them live, which they could not do without being helped.'
I dined with him; the company were, Mrs. Williams, Mrs. Desmoulins, and
Mr. Lowe. He seemed not to be well, talked little, grew drowsy soon
after dinner, and retired, upon which I went away.
Having next day gone to Mr. Burke's seat in the country, from whence I
was recalled by an express, that a near relation of mine had killed his
antagonist in a duel, and was himself dangerously wounded[647], I saw
little of Dr. Johnson till Monday, April 28, when I spent a considerable
part of the day with him, and introduced the subject, which then chiefly
occupied my mind. JOHNSON. 'I do not see, Sir, that fighting is
absolutely forbidden in Scripture; I see revenge forbidden, but not
self-defence.' BOSWELL. 'The Quakers say it is; "Unto him that smiteth
thee on one cheek, offer him also the other[648]."' JOHNSON. 'But stay,
Sir; the text is meant only to have the effect of moderating passion; it
is plain that we are not to take it in a literal sense. We see this from
the context, where there are other recommendations, which I warrant you
the Quaker will not take literally; as, for instance, "From him that
would borrow of thee, turn thou not away[649]." Let a man whose credit
is bad, come to a Quaker, and say, "Well, Sir, lend me a hundred
pounds;" he'll find him as unwilling as any other man. No, Sir, a man
may shoot the man who invades his character, as he may shoot him who
attempts to break into his house[650]. So in 1745, my friend, Tom
Cumming the Quaker[651], said, he would not fight, but he would drive an
ammunition cart; and we know that the Quakers have sent flannel
waistcoats to our soldiers, to enable them to fight better.' BOSWELL.
'When a man is the aggressor, and by ill-usage forces on a duel in which
he is killed, have we not little ground to hope that he is gone into a
state of happiness?' JOHNSON. 'Sir, we are not to judge determinately of
the state in which a man leaves this life. He may in a moment have
repented effectually, and it is possible may have been accepted by GOD.
There is in _Camden's Remains_, an epitaph upon a very wicked man, who
was killed by a fall from his horse, in which he is supposed to say,
'"Between the stirrup and the ground,
I mercy ask'd, I mercy found[652]."'
BOSWELL. 'Is not the expression in the Burial-service, "in the _sure_
and _certain_ hope of a blessed resurrection[653]," too strong to be
used indiscriminately, and, indeed, sometimes when those over whose
bodies it is said, have been notoriously profane?' JOHNSON. 'It is sure
and certain _hope_, Sir; not _belief_.' I did not insist further;
but cannot help thinking that less positive words would be more
proper[654].
Talking of a man who was grown very fat, so as to be incommoded with
corpulency; he said, 'He eats too much, Sir.' BOSWELL. 'I don't know,
Sir; you will see one man fat who eats moderately, and another lean who
eats a great deal.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, whatever may be the quantity
that a man eats, it is plain that if he is too fat, he has eaten more
than he should have done. One man may have a digestion that consumes
food better than common; but it is certain that solidity is encreased by
putting something to it.' BOSWELL. 'But may not solids swell and be
distended?' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir, they may swell and be distended; but
that is not fat.'
We talked of the accusation against a gentleman for supposed
delinquencies in India[655]. JOHNSON. 'What foundation there is for
accusation I know not, but they will not get at him. Where bad actions
are committed at so great a distance, a delinquent can obscure the
evidence till the scent becomes cold; there is a cloud between, which
cannot be penetrated: therefore all distant power is bad. I am clear
that the best plan for the government of India is a despotick governour;
for if he be a good man, it is evidently the best government; and
supposing him to be a bad man, it is better to have one plunderer than
many. A governour whose power is checked, lets others plunder, that he
himself may be allowed to plunder; but if despotick, he sees that the
more he lets others plunder, the less there will be for himself, so he
restrains them; and though he himself plunders, the country is a gainer,
compared with being plundered by numbers.'
I mentioned the very liberal payment which had been received for
reviewing; and, as evidence of this, that it had been proved in a trial,
that Dr. Shebbeare[656] had received six guineas a sheet for that kind
of literary labour. JOHNSON, 'Sir, he might get six guineas for a
particular sheet, but not _communibus sheetibus_[657].' BOSWELL. 'Pray,
Sir, by a sheet of review is it meant that it shall be all of the
writer's own composition? or are extracts, made from the book reviewed,
deducted.' JOHNSON. 'No, Sir: it is a sheet, no matter of what.'
BOSWELL. 'I think that it is not reasonable.' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir, it is.
A man will more easily write a sheet all his own, than read an octavo
volume to get extracts[658].' To one of Johnson's wonderful fertility of
mind I believe writing was really easier than reading and extracting;
but with ordinary men the case is very different. A great deal, indeed,
will depend upon the care and judgement with which the extracts are
made. I can suppose the operation to be tedious and difficult: but in
many instances we must observe crude morsels cut out of books as if at
random; and when a large extract is made from one place, it surely may
be done with very little trouble. One however, I must acknowledge, might
be led, from the practice of reviewers, to suppose that they take a
pleasure in original writing; for we often find, that instead of giving
an accurate account of what has been done by the authour whose work
they are reviewing, which is surely the proper business of a literary
journal, they produce some plausible and ingenious conceits of their
own, upon the topicks which have been discussed[659].
Upon being told that old Mr. Sheridan, indignant at the neglect of his
oratorical plans, had threatened to go to America; JOHNSON. 'I hope he
will go to America.' BOSWELL. 'The Americans don't want oratory.'
JOHNSON. 'But we can want Sheridan[660].'
On Monday[661], April 29, I found him at home in the forenoon, and Mr.
Seward with him. Horace having been mentioned; BOSWELL. 'There is a
great deal of thinking in his works. One finds there almost every thing
but religion.' SEWARD. 'He speaks of his returning to it, in his Ode
_Parcus Deorum cultor et infrequens_[662] JOHNSON. 'Sir, he was not in
earnest: this was merely poetical.' BOSWELL. 'There are, I am afraid,
many people who have no religion at all.' SEWARD. 'And sensible people
too.' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, not sensible in that respect. There must be
either a natural or a moral stupidity, if one lives in a total neglect
of so very important a concern.' SEWARD. 'I wonder that there should be
people without religion.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, you need not wonder at this,
when you consider how large a proportion of almost every man's life is
passed without thinking of it. I myself was for some years totally
regardless of religion. It had dropped out of my mind. It was at an
early part of my life. Sickness brought it back, and I hope I have never
lost it since[663].' BOSWELL. 'My dear Sir, what a man must you have
been without religion! Why you must have gone on drinking, and
swearing, and--[664]' JOHNSON. (with a smile) 'I drank enough and swore
enough, to be sure.' SEWARD. 'One should think that sickness and the
view of death would make more men religious.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, they do not
know how to go about it: they have not the first notion. A man who has
never had religion before, no more grows religious when he is sick, than
a man who has never learnt figures can count when he has need of
calculation.'
I mentioned a worthy friend of ours[665] whom we valued much, but
observed that he was too ready to introduce religious discourse upon all
occasions. JOHNSON. 'Why, yes, Sir, he will introduce religious
discourse without seeing whether it will end in instruction and
improvement, or produce some profane jest. He would introduce it in the
company of Wilkes, and twenty more such.'
I mentioned Dr. Johnson's excellent distinction between liberty of
conscience and liberty of teaching[666]. JOHNSON. 'Consider, Sir; if you
have children whom you wish to educate in the principles of the Church
of England, and there comes a Quaker who tries to pervert them to his
principles, you would drive away the Quaker. You would not trust to the
predomination of right, which you believe is in your opinions; you would
keep wrong out of their heads. Now the vulgar are the children of the
State. If any one attempts to teach them doctrines contrary to what the
State approves, the magistrate may and ought to restrain him.' SEWARD.
'Would you restrain private conversation, Sir?' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, it
is difficult to say where private conversation begins, and where it
ends. If we three should discuss even the great question concerning the
existence of a Supreme Being by ourselves, we should not be restrained;
for that would be to put an end to all improvement. But if we should
discuss it in the presence of ten boarding-school girls, and as many
boys, I think the magistrate would do well to put us in the stocks, to
finish the debate there.'
Lord Hailes had sent him a present of a curious little printed poem, on
repairing the University of Aberdeen, by David Malloch, which he
thought would please Johnson, as affording clear evidence that Mallet
had appeared even as a literary character by the name of _Malloch_; his
changing which to one of softer sound, had given Johnson occasion to
introduce him into his _Dictionary_, under the article _Alias_[667].
This piece was, I suppose, one of Mallet's first essays. It is preserved
in his works, with several variations. Johnson having read aloud, from
the beginning of it, where there were some common-place assertions as to
the superiority of ancient times;--'How false (said he) is all this, to
say that in ancient times learning was not a disgrace to a Peer as it is
now. In ancient times a Peer was as ignorant as any one else. He would
have been angry to have it thought he could write his name[668]. Men in
ancient times dared to stand forth with a degree of ignorance with which
nobody would dare now to stand forth. I am always angry when I hear
ancient times praised at the expence of modern times. There is now a
great deal more learning in the world than there was formerly; for it is
universally diffused. You have, perhaps, no man who knows as much Greek
and Latin as Bentley[669]; no man who knows as much mathematicks as
Newton: but you have many more men who know Greek and Latin, and who
know mathematicks[670].'
On Thursday, May 1, I visited him in the evening along with young Mr.
Burke. He said, 'It is strange that there should be so little reading in
