Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D Part 9

Nor was Mr. Johnson more merciful with regard to the amus.e.m.e.nts people are contented to call such. "You hunt in the morning," says he, "and crowd to the public rooms at night, and call it _diversion_, when your heart knows it is perishing with poverty of pleasures, and your wits get blunted for want of some other mind to sharpen them upon. There is in this world no real delight (excepting those of sensuality), but exchange of ideas in conversation; and whoever has once experienced the full flow of London talk, when he retires to country friendships, and rural sports, must either be contented to turn baby again and play with the rattle, or he will pine away like a great fish in a little pond, and die for want of his usual food." "Books without the knowledge of life are useless," I have heard him say; "for what should books teach but the art of _living_?

To study manners, however, only in coffee-houses, is more than equally imperfect; the minds of men who acquire no solid learning, and only exist on the daily forage that they pick up by running about, and s.n.a.t.c.hing what drops from their neighbours as ignorant as themselves, will never ferment into any knowledge valuable or durable; but like the light wines we drink in hot countries, please for the moment, though incapable of keeping. In the study of mankind much will be found to swim as froth, and much must sink as feculence, before the wine can have its effect, and become that n.o.blest liquor which rejoices the heart, and gives vigour to the imagination."

I am well aware that I do not and cannot give each expression of Dr.

Johnson with all its force or all its neatness; but I have done my best to record such of his maxims, and repeat such of his sentiments, as may give to those who know him not a just idea of his character and manner of thinking. To endeavour at adorning, or adding, or softening, or meliorating such anecdotes, by any tricks my inexperienced pen could play, would be weakness indeed; worse than the Frenchman who presides over the porcelain manufactory at Seve, to whom, when some Greek vases were given him as models, he lamented la tristesse de telles formes; and endeavoured to a.s.sist them by cl.u.s.ters of flowers, while flying Cupids served for the handles of urns originally intended to contain the ashes of the dead. The misery is, that I can recollect so few anecdotes, and that I have recorded no more axioms of a man whose every word merited attention, and whose every sentiment did honour to human nature. Remote from affectation as from error or falsehood, the comfort a reader has in looking over these papers is the certainty that these were really the opinions of Johnson, which are related as such.

Fear of what others may think is the great cause of affectation; and he was not likely to disguise his notions out of cowardice. He hated disguise, and n.o.body penetrated it so readily. I showed him a letter written to a common friend, who was at some loss for the explanation of it. "Whoever wrote it," says our doctor, "could, if he chose it, make himself understood; but 'tis the letter of an _embarra.s.sed man_ sir;" and so the event proved it to be.

Mysteriousness in trifles offended him on every side. "It commonly ended in guilt," he said; "for those who begin by concealment of innocent things will soon have something to hide which they dare not bring to light." He therefore encouraged an openness of conduct, in women particularly, "who," he observed, "were often led away when children, by their delight and power of surprising." He recommended, on something like the same principle, that when one person meant to serve another, he should not go about it slily, or as we say, underhand, out of a false idea of delicacy, to surprise one's friend with an unexpected favour, "which, ten to one," says he, "fails to oblige your acquaintance, who had some reasons against such a mode of obligation, which you might have known but for that superfluous cunning which you think an elegance. Oh!

never be seduced by such silly pretences," continued he; "if a wench wants a good gown, do not give her a fine smelling-bottle, because that is more delicate: as I once knew a lady lend the key of her library to a poor scribbling dependant, as if she took the woman for an ostrich that could digest iron." He said, indeed, "that women were very difficult to be taught the proper manner of conferring pecuniary favours; that they always gave too much money or too little; for that they had an idea of delicacy accompanying their gifts, so that they generally rendered them either useless or ridiculous."

He did, indeed, say very contemptuous things of our s.e.x, but was exceedingly angry when I told Miss Reynolds that he said "It was well managed of some one to leave his affairs in the hands of his wife, because, in matters of business," said he, "no woman stops at integrity."

This was, I think, the only sentence I ever observed him solicitous to explain away after he had uttered it. He was not at all displeased at the recollection of a sarcasm thrown on a whole profession at once; when a gentleman leaving the company, somebody who sat next Dr. Johnson asked him, who he was? "I cannot exactly tell you, sir," replied he, "and I would be loth to speak ill of any person who I do not know deserves it, but I am afraid he is an _attorney_." He did not, however, encourage general satire, and for the most part professed himself to feel directly contrary to Dr. Swift; "who," says he, "hates the world, though he loves John and Robert, and certain individuals."

Johnson said always, "that the world was well constructed, but that the particular people disgraced the elegance and beauty of the general fabric." In the same manner I was relating once to him how Dr. Collier observed that the love one bore to children was from the antic.i.p.ation one's mind made while one contemplated them. "We hope," says he, "that they will sometime make wise men or amiable women; and we suffer 'em to take up our affection beforehand. One cannot love _lumps of flesh_, and little infants are nothing more." "On the contrary," says Johnson, "one can scarcely help wishing, while one fondles a baby, that it may never live to become a man; for it is so probable that when he becomes a man, he should be sure to end in a scoundrel." Girls were less displeasing to him; "for as their temptations were fewer," he said, "their virtue in this life, and happiness in the next, were less improbable; and he loved," he said, "to see a knot of little misses dearly."

Needlework had a strenuous approver in Dr. Johnson, who said "that one of the great felicities of female life was the general consent of the world that they might amuse themselves with petty occupations, which contributed to the lengthening their lives, and preserving their minds in a state of sanity." "A man cannot hem a pocket-handkerchief," said a lady of quality to him one day, "and so he runs mad, and torments his family and friends." The expression struck him exceedingly, and when one acquaintance grew troublesome, and another unhealthy, he used to quote Lady Frances's observation, "That a man cannot hem a pocket-handkerchief."

The nice people found no mercy from Mr. Johnson; such, I mean, as can only dine at four o'clock, who cannot bear to be waked at an unusual hour, or miss a stated meal without inconvenience. _He_ had no such prejudices himself, and with difficulty forgave them in another.

"Delicacy does not surely consist," says he, "in impossibility to be pleased, and that is false dignity indeed which is content to depend upon others."

The saying of the old philosopher who observes, "That he who wants least is most like the G.o.ds, who want nothing," was a favourite sentence with Dr. Johnson, who on his own part required less attendance, sick or well, than ever I saw any human creature. Conversation was all he required to make him happy; and when he would have tea made at two o'clock in the morning, it was only that there might be a certainty of detaining his companions round him. On that principle it was that he preferred winter to summer, when the heat of the weather gave people an excuse to stroll about and walk for pleasure in the shade, while he wished to sit still on a chair and chat day after day, till somebody proposed a drive in the coach, and that was the most delicious moment of his life. "But the carriage must stop some time," he said, "and the people would come home at last," so his pleasure was of short duration.

I asked him why he doated on a coach so? and received for answer, "That in the first place the company were shut in with him _there_, and could not escape, as out of a room. In the next place, he heard all that was said in a carriage, where it was my turn to be deaf," and very impatient was he at my occasional difficulty of hearing. On this account he wished to travel all over the world, for the very act of going forward was delightful to him, and he gave himself no concern about accidents, which he said never happened. Nor did the running away of the horses on the edge of a precipice between Vernon and St. Denis, in France, convince him to the contrary, "for nothing came of it," he said, "except that Mr.

Thrale leaped out of the carriage into a chalk-pit, and then came up again looking _as white_!" When the truth was, all their lives were saved by the greatest Providence ever exerted in favour of three human creatures; and the part Mr. Thrale took from desperation was the likeliest thing in the world to produce broken limbs and death.

Fear was indeed a sensation to which Mr. Johnson was an utter stranger, excepting when some sudden apprehensions seized him that he was going to die, and even then he kept all his wits about him to express the most humble and pathetic pet.i.tions to the Almighty. And when the first paralytic stroke took his speech from him, he instantly set about composing a prayer in Latin, at once to deprecate G.o.d's mercy, to satisfy himself that his mental powers remained unimpaired, and to keep them in exercise, that they might not perish by permitted stagnation. This was after we parted; but he wrote me an account of it, and I intend to publish that letter, with many more.

When one day he had at my house taken tincture of antimony instead of emetic wine, for a vomit, he was himself the person to direct us what to do for him, and managed with as much coolness and deliberation as if he had been prescribing for an indifferent person. Though on another occasion, when he had lamented in the most piercing terms his approaching dissolution, and conjured me solemnly to tell him what I thought, while Sir Richard Jebb was perpetually on the road to Streatham, and Mr.

Johnson seemed to think himself neglected if the physician left him for an hour only, I made him a steady, but as I thought a very gentle harangue, in which I confirmed all that the doctor had been saying; how no present danger could be expected, but that his age and continued ill- health must naturally accelerate the arrival of that hour which can be escaped by none. "And this," says Johnson, rising in great anger, "is the voice of female friendship, I suppose, when the hand of the hangman would be softer."

Another day, when he was ill, and exceedingly low-spirited, and persuaded that death was not far distant, I appeared before him in a dark-coloured gown, which his bad sight, and worse apprehensions, made him mistake for an iron-grey. "Why do you delight," said he, "thus to thicken the gloom of misery that surrounds me? Is not here sufficient acc.u.mulation of horror without antic.i.p.ated mourning?" "This is not mourning, sir," said I, drawing the curtain, that the light might fall upon the silk, and show it was a purple mixed with green. "Well, well," replied he, changing his voice, "you little creatures should never wear those sort of clothes, however; they are unsuitable in every way. What! have not all insects gay colours?" I relate these instances chiefly to show that the fears of death itself could not suppress his wit, his sagacity, or his temptation to sudden resentment.

Mr. Johnson did not like that his friends should bring their ma.n.u.scripts for him to read, and he liked still less to read them when they were brought. Sometimes, however, when he could not refuse, he would take the play or poem, or whatever it was, and give the people his opinion from some one page he had peeped into. A gentleman carried him his tragedy, which, because he loved the author, Johnson took, and it lay about our rooms some time. "What answer did you give your friend, sir?" said I, after the book had been called for. "I told him," replied he, "that there was too much _Tig_ and _Tirry_ in it!" Seeing me laugh most violently, "Why, what would'st have, child?" said he. "I looked at the dramatis, and there was _Tig_ranes and _Tiri_dates, or Teribazus, or such stuff. A man can tell but what he knows, and I never got any farther than the first page. Alas, madam!" continued he, "how few books are there of which one ever can possibly arrive at the _last_ page. Was there ever yet anything written by mere man that was wished longer by its readers, excepting 'Don Quixote,' 'Robinson Crusoe,' and the 'Pilgrim's Progress?'" After Homer's Iliad, Mr. Johnson confessed that the work of Cervantes was the greatest in the world, speaking of it I mean as a book of entertainment. And when we consider that every other author's admirers are confined to his countrymen, and perhaps to the literary cla.s.ses among _them_, while "Don Quixote" is a sort of common property, an universal cla.s.sic, equally tasted by the court and the cottage, equally applauded in France and England as in Spain, quoted by every servant, the amus.e.m.e.nt of every age from infancy to decrepitude; the first book you see on every shelf, in every shop, where books are sold, through all the states of Italy; who can refuse his consent to an avowal of the superiority of Cervantes to all other modern writers? Shakespeare himself has, till lately, been worshipped only at home, though his plays are now the favourite amus.e.m.e.nts of Vienna; and when I was at Padua some months ago, Romeo and Juliet was acted there under the name of Tragedia Veronese; while engravers and translators _live_ by the hero of La Mancha in every nation, and the sides of miserable inns all over England and France, and I have heard Germany too, are adorned with the exploits of Don Quixote. May his celebrity procure my pardon for a digression in praise of a writer who, through four volumes of the most exquisite pleasantry and genuine humour, has never been seduced to overstep the limits of propriety, has never called in the wretched auxiliaries of obscenity or profaneness; who trusts to nature and sentiment alone, and never misses of that applause which Voltaire and Sterne labour to produce, while honest merriment bestows her unfading crown upon Cervantes.

Dr. Johnson was a great reader of French literature, and delighted exceedingly in Boileau's works. Moliere, I think, he had hardly sufficient taste of, and he used to condemn me for preferring La Bruyere to the Duc de Rochefoucault, who, he said, was the only gentleman writer who wrote like a professed author. The asperity of his harsh sentences, each of them a sentence of condemnation, used to disgust me, however; though it must be owned that, among the necessaries of human life, a rasp is reckoned one as well as a razor.

Mr. Johnson did not like any one who said they were happy, or who said any one else was so. "It is 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 a.s.sertion, which she did somewhat roundly, as we say, and with an accent and manner capable of offending Mr. Johnson, if her position had not been sufficient, without anything more, to put him in 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 repet.i.tion. 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?

"The life of a sailor was also a continual scene of danger and exertion,"

he said; "and the manner in which time was spent shipboard would make all who saw a cabin envy a gaol." The roughness of the language used on board a man-of-war, where he pa.s.sed a week on a visit to Captain Knight, disgusted him terribly. He asked an officer what some place was called, and received for answer, that it was where the loplolly man kept his loplolly, a reply he considered, not unjustly, as disrespectful, gross, and ignorant; for though in the course of these memoirs I have been led to mention Dr. Johnson's tenderness towards _poor_ people, I do not wish to mislead my readers, and make them think he had any delight in _mean_ manners or coa.r.s.e expressions. Even dress itself, when it resembled that of the vulgar, offended him exceedingly; and when he had condemned me many times for not adorning my children with more show than I thought useful or elegant, I presented a little girl to him who came o'visiting one evening covered with shining ornaments, to see if he would approve of the appearance she made. When they were gone home, "Well, sir," said I, "how did you like little miss? I hope she was _fine_ enough." "It was the finery of a beggar," said he, "and you know it was; she looked like a native of Cow Lane dressed up to be carried to Bartholomew Fair."

His reprimand to another lady for crossing her little child's handkerchief before, and by that operation dragging down its head oddly and unintentionally, was on the same principle. "It is the beggar's fear of cold," said he, "that prevails over such parents, and so they pull the poor thing's head down, and give it the look of a baby that plays about Westminster Bridge, while the mother sits shivering in a niche."

I commended a young lady for her beauty and pretty behaviour one day, however, to whom I thought no objection could have been made. "I saw her," says Dr. Johnson, "take a pair of scissors in her left hand, though; and for all her father is now become a n.o.bleman, and as you say, excessively rich, I should, were I a youth of quality ten years hence, hesitate between a girl so neglected, and a _negro_."

It was indeed astonishing how he _could_ remark such minutenesses with a sight so miserably imperfect; but no accidental position of a ribband escaped him, so nice was his observation, and so rigorous his demands of propriety. When I went with him to Lichfield and came downstairs to breakfast at the inn, my dress did not please him, and he made me alter it entirely before he would stir a step with us about the town, saying most satirical things concerning the appearance I made in a riding-habit, and adding, "'Tis very strange that such eyes as yours cannot discern propriety of dress. If I had a sight only half as good, I think I should see to the centre."

My compliances, however, were of little worth. What really surprised me was the victory he gained over a lady little accustomed to contradiction, who had dressed herself for church at Streatham one Sunday morning in a manner he did not approve, and to whom he said such sharp and pungent things concerning her hat, her gown, etc., that she hastened to change them, and returning quite another figure received his applause, and thanked him for his reproofs, much to the amazement of her husband, who could scarcely believe his own ears.

Another lady, whose accomplishments he never denied, came to our house one day covered with diamonds, feathers, etc., and he did not seem inclined to chat with her as usual. I asked him why, when the company was gone. "Why, her head looked so like that of a woman who shows puppets," said he, "and her voice so confirmed the fancy, that I could not bear her to-day. When she wears a large cap I can talk to her."

When the ladies wore lace tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs to their clothes he expressed his contempt of the reigning fashion in these terms: "A Brussels tr.i.m.m.i.n.g is like bread sauce," said he, "it takes away the glow of colour from the gown, and gives you nothing instead of it. But sauce was invented to heighten the flavour of our food, and tr.i.m.m.i.n.g is an ornament to the manteau or it is nothing. Learn," said he, "that there is propriety or impropriety in everything how slight soever, and get at the general principles of dress and of behaviour; if you then transgress them you will at least know that they are not observed."

All these exactnesses in a man who was nothing less than exact himself made him extremely impracticable as an inmate, though most instructive as companion and useful as a friend. Mr. Thrale, too, could sometimes overrule his rigidity by saying coldly, "There, there, now we have had enough for one lecture, Dr. Johnson. We will not be upon education any more till after dinner, if you please," or some such speech. But when there was n.o.body to restrain his dislikes it was extremely difficult to find anybody with whom he could converse without living always on the verge of a quarrel, or of something too like a quarrel to be pleasing. I came into the room, for example, one evening where he and a gentleman, whose abilities we all respect exceedingly, were sitting. A lady who walked in two minutes before me had blown 'em both into a flame by whispering something to Mr. S---d, which he endeavoured to explain away so as not to affront the Doctor, whose suspicions were all alive. "And have a care, sir," said he, just as I came in, "the Old Lion will not bear to be tickled." The other was pale with rage, the lady wept at the confusion she had caused, and I could only say with Lady Macbeth--

"Soh! you've displac'd the mirth, broke the good meeting With most admir'd disorder."

Such accidents, however, occurred too often, and I was forced to take advantage of my lost lawsuit and plead inability of purse to remain longer in London or its vicinage. I had been crossed in my intentions of going abroad, and found it convenient, for every reason of health, peace, and pecuniary circ.u.mstances, to retire to Bath, where I knew Mr. Johnson would not follow me, and where I could for that reason command some little portion of time for my own use, a thing impossible while I remained at Streatham or at London, as my hours, carriage, and servants had long been at his command, who would not rise in the morning till twelve o'clock, perhaps, and oblige me to make breakfast for him till the bell rung for dinner, though much displeased if the toilet was neglected, and though much of the time we pa.s.sed together was spent in blaming or deriding, very justly, my neglect of economy and waste of that money which might make many families happy. The original reason of our connection, his _particularly disordered health and spirits_, had been long at an end, and he had no other ailments than old age and general infirmity, which every professor of medicine was ardently zealous and generally attentive to palliate, and to contribute all in their power for the prolongation of a life so valuable. Veneration for his virtue, reverence for his talents, delight in his conversation, and habitual endurance of a yoke my husband first put upon me, and of which he contentedly bore his share for sixteen or seventeen years, made me go on so long with Mr. Johnson; but the perpetual confinement I will own to have been terrifying in the first years of our friendship and irksome in the last. Nor could I pretend to support it without help, when my coadjutor was no more. To the a.s.sistance we gave him, the shelter our house afforded to his uneasy fancies, and to the pains we took to soothe or repress them, the world perhaps is indebted for the three political pamphlets, the new edition and correction of his "Dictionary," and for the "Poets' Lives," which he would scarce have lived, I think, and kept his faculties entire to have written, had not incessant care been exerted at the time of his first coming to be our constant guest in the country, and several times after that, when he found himself particularly oppressed with diseases incident to the most vivid and fervent imaginations. I shall for ever consider it as the greatest honour which could be conferred on any one to have been the confidential friend of Dr.

Johnson's health, and to have in some measure, with Mr. Thrale's a.s.sistance, saved from distress at least, if not worse, a mind great beyond the comprehension of common mortals, and good beyond all hope of imitation from perishable beings.

Many of our friends were earnest that he should write the lives of our famous prose authors; but he never made any answer that I can recollect to the proposal, excepting when Sir Richard Musgrave once was singularly warm about it, getting up and entreating him to set about the work immediately, he coldly replied, "_Sit down_, _sir_!"

When Mr. Thrale built the new library at Streatham, and hung up over the books the portraits of his favourite friends, that of Dr. Johnson was last finished, and closed the number. It was almost impossible _not_ to make verses on such an accidental combination of circ.u.mstances, so I made the following ones. But as a character written in verse will for the most part be found imperfect as a character, I have therefore written a prose one, with which I mean, not to complete, but to conclude these "Anecdotes" of the best and wisest man that ever came within the reach of my personal acquaintance, and I think I might venture to add, that of all or any of my readers:--

Gigantic in knowledge, in virtue, in strength, Our company closes with JOHNSON at length; So the Greeks from the cavern of Polypheme past, When wisest, and greatest, Ulysses came last.

To his comrades contemptuous we see him look down, On their wit and their worth with a general frown.

Since from Science' proud tree the rich fruit he receives, Who could shake the whole trunk while they turned a few leaves.

His piety pure, his morality nice-- Protector of virtue, and terror of vice; In these features Religion's firm champion displayed, Shall make infidels fear for a modern crusade.

While th' inflammable temper, the positive tongue, Too conscious of right for endurance of wrong: We suffer from JOHNSON, contented to find, That some notice we gain from so n.o.ble a mind; And pardon our hurts, since so often we've found The balm of instruction poured into the wound.

'Tis thus for its virtues the chemists extol Pure rectified spirit, sublime alcohol; From noxious putrescence, preservative pure, A cordial in health, and in sickness a cure; But exposed to the sun, taking fire at his rays, Burns bright to the bottom, and ends in a blaze.

It is usual, I know not why, when a character is given, to begin with a description of the person. That which contained the soul of Mr. Johnson deserves to be particularly described. His stature was remarkably high, and his limbs exceedingly large. His strength was more than common, I believe, and his activity had been greater, I have heard, than such a form gave one reason to expect. His features were strongly marked, and his countenance particularly rugged; though the original complexion had certainly been fair, a circ.u.mstance somewhat unusual. His sight was near, and otherwise imperfect; yet his eyes, though of a light grey colour, were so wild, so piercing, and at times so fierce, that fear was, I believe, the first emotion in the hearts of all his beholders. His mind was so comprehensive, that no language but that he used could have expressed its contents; and so ponderous was his language, that sentiments less lofty and less solid than his were would have been enc.u.mbered, not adorned by it.

Mr. Johnson was not intentionally, however, a pompous converser; and though he was accused of using big words, as they are called, it was only when little ones would not express his meaning as clearly, or when, perhaps, the elevation of the thought would have been disgraced by a dress less superb. He used to say, "that the size of a man's understanding might always be justly measured by his mirth," and his own was never contemptible. He would laugh at a stroke of genuine humour, or sudden sally of odd absurdity, as heartily and freely as I ever yet saw any man; and though the jest was often such as few felt besides himself, yet his laugh was irresistible, and was observed immediately to produce that of the company, not merely from the notion that it was proper to laugh when he did, but purely out of want of power to forbear it. He was no enemy to splendour of apparel or pomp of equipage. "Life," he would say, "is barren enough surely with all her trappings; let us therefore be cautious how we strip her." In matters of still higher moment he once observed, when speaking on the subject of sudden innovation, "He who plants a forest may doubtless cut down a hedge; yet I could wish, methinks, that even he would wait till he sees his young plants grow."

With regard to common occurrences, Mr. Johnson had, when I first knew him, looked on the still-shifting scenes of life till he was weary; for as a mind slow in its own nature, or unenlivened by information, will contentedly read in the same book for twenty times, perhaps, the very act of reading it being more than half the business, and every period being at every reading better understood; while a mind more active or more skilful to comprehend its meaning is made sincerely sick at the second perusal; so a soul like his, acute to discern the truth, vigorous to embrace, and powerful to retain it, soon sees enough of the world's dull prospect, which at first, like that of the sea, pleases by its extent, but soon, like that, too, fatigues from its uniformity; a calm and a storm being the only variations that the nature of either will admit.

Of Mr. Johnson's erudition the world has been the judge, and we who produce each a score of his sayings, as proofs of that wit which in him was inexhaustible, resemble travellers who, having visited Delhi or Golconda, bring home each a handful of Oriental pearl to evince the riches of the Great Mogul. May the public condescend to accept my _ill- strung_ selection with patience at least, remembering only that they are relics of him who was great on all occasions, and, like a cube in architecture, you beheld him on each side, and his size still appeared undiminished.

As his purse was ever open to almsgiving, so was his heart tender to those who wanted relief, and his soul susceptible of grat.i.tude, and of every kind impression: yet though he had refined his sensibility he had not endangered his quiet, by encouraging in himself a solicitude about trifles, which he treated with the contempt they deserve.

It was well enough known before these sheets were published, that Mr.

Johnson had a roughness in his manner which subdued the saucy, and terrified the meek; this was, when I knew him, the prominent part of a character which few durst venture to approach so nearly; and which was for that reason in many respects grossly and frequently mistaken, and it was perhaps peculiar to him, that the lofty consciousness of his own superiority which animated his looks, and raised his voice in conversation, cast likewise an impenetrable veil over him when he said nothing. His talk, therefore, had commonly the complexion of arrogance, his silence of superciliousness. He was, however, seldom inclined to be silent when any moral or literary question was started; and it was on such occasions that, like the sage in "Ra.s.selas," he spoke, and attention watched his lips; he reasoned, and conviction closed his periods; if poetry was talked of, his quotations were the readiest; and had he not been eminent for more solid and brilliant qualities, mankind would have united to extol his extraordinary memory. His manner of repeating deserves to be described, though at the same time it defeats all power of description; but whoever once heard him repeat an ode of Horace would be long before they could endure to hear it repeated by another.

His equity in giving the character of living acquaintance ought not undoubtedly to be omitted in his own, whence partiality and prejudice were totally excluded, and truth alone presided in his tongue, a steadiness of conduct the more to be commended, as no man had stronger likings or aversions. His veracity was, indeed, from the most trivial to the most solemn occasions, strict, even to severity; he scorned to embellish a story with fict.i.tious circ.u.mstances, which, he used to say, took off from its real value. "A story," says Johnson, "should be a specimen of life and manners; but if the surrounding circ.u.mstances are false, as it is no more a representation of reality, it is no longer worthy our attention."

For the rest--that beneficence which during his life increased the comforts of so many may after his death be, perhaps, ungratefully forgotten; but that piety which dictated the serious papers in the "Rambler" will be for ever remembered; for ever, I think, revered. That ample repository of religious truth, moral wisdom, and accurate criticism, breathes, indeed, the genuine emanations of its great author's mind, expressed, too, in a style so natural to him, and so much like his common mode of conversing, that I was myself but little astonished when he told me that he had scarcely read over one of those inimitable essays before they went to the press.

I will add one or two peculiarities more before I lay down my pen. Though at an immeasurable distance from content in the contemplation of his own uncouth form and figure, he did not like another man much the less for being a c.o.xcomb. I mentioned two friends who were particularly fond of looking at themselves in a gla.s.s. "They do not surprise me at all by so doing," said Johnson; "they see, reflected in that gla.s.s, men who have risen from almost the lowest situations in life; one to enormous riches, the other to everything this world can give--rank, fame, and fortune.

They see, likewise, men who have merited their advancement by the exertion and improvement of those talents which G.o.d had given them; and I see not why they should avoid the mirror."

The other singularity I promised to record is this: That though a man of obscure birth himself, his partiality to people of family was visible on every occasion; his zeal for subordination warm even to bigotry; his hatred to innovation, and reverence for the old feudal times, apparent, whenever any possible manner of showing them occurred. I have spoken of his piety, his charity, and his truth, the enlargement of his heart, and the delicacy of his sentiments; and when I search for shadow to my portrait, none can I find but what was formed by pride, differently modified as different occasions showed it; yet never was pride so purified as Johnson's, at once from meanness and from vanity. The mind of this man was, indeed, expanded beyond the common limits of human nature, and stored with such variety of knowledge, that I used to think it resembled a royal pleasure ground, where every plant, of every name and nation, flourished in the full perfection of their powers, and where, though lofty woods and falling cataracts first caught the eye, and fixed the earliest attention of beholders, yet neither the trim parterre nor the pleasing shrubbery, nor even the antiquated evergreens, were denied a place in some fit corner of the happy valley.