Life of Johnson Volume II Part 77

[1184] Lewis XVI.

[1185] The King's sister, who was guillotined in the Reign of Terror.

[1186] See p. 391. BOSWELL.

[1187] 'When at Versailles, the people showed us the Theatre. As we stood on the stage looking at some machinery for playhouse purposes; "Now we are here, what shall we act, Mr. Johnson:--_The Englishman in Paris_"? "No, no," replied he, "we will try to act _Harry the Fifth_."'

Piozzi's _Anec_. p. 101. _The Englishman in Paris_ is a comedy by Foote.

[1188] This epithet should be applied to this animal, with one bunch.

BOSWELL.

[1189] He who commanded the troops at the execution of Lewis XVI.

[1190] 1462.

[1191] I cannot learn of any book of this name. Perhaps Johnson saw _Durandi Rationale Officiorum Divinorum_, which was printed in 1459, one year later than Johnson mentions. A copy of this he had seen at Blenheim in 1774. His _Journey into North Wales_, Sept. 22.

[1192] He means, I suppose, that he read these different pieces while he remained in the library. BOSWELL.

[1193] Johnson in his _Dictionary_ defines _Apartment_ as _A room; a set of rooms_.

[1194] Smollett (_Travels_, i. 85) writes of these temporary servants:--'You cannot conceive with what eagerness and dexterity these rascally valets exert themselves in pillaging strangers. There is always one ready in waiting on your arrival, who begins by a.s.sisting your own servant to unload your baggage, and interests himself in your own affairs with such artful officiousness that you will find it difficult to shake him off.'

[1195] Livres--francs we should now say.

[1196] It was here that Rousseau got rid of his children. 'Je savais que l'education pour eux la moins perilleuse etait celle des enfans trouves; et je les y mis.' _Les Reveries, ix'me promenade_.

[1197] Dr. Franklin, in 1785, wrote:--'I am credibly informed that nine-tenths of them die there pretty soon.' _Memoirs_, iii. 187. Lord Kames (_Sketches of the History of Man_, iii. 91) says:--'The Paris almanac for the year 1768 mentions that there were baptised 18,576 infants, of whom the foundling-hospital received 6025.'

[1198] St. Germain des Pres. Better known as the Prison of the Abbaye.

[1199] I have looked in vain into De Bure, Meerman, Mattaire, and other typographical books, for the two editions of the _Catholicon_, which Dr.

Johnson mentions here, with _names_ which I cannot make out. I read 'one by _Latinius_, one by _Boedinus_.' I have deposited the original MS. in the British Museum, where the curious may see it. My grateful acknowledgements are due to Mr. Planta for the trouble he was pleased to take in aiding my researches. BOSWELL. A Mr. Planta is mentioned in Mme.

D'Arblay's _Diary_, v. 39.

[1200] Friar Wilkes visited Johnson in May 1776. _Piozzi Letters_, i.

336. On Sept. 18, 1777, Mrs. Thrale wrote to Johnson:--'I have got some news that will please you now. Here is an agreeable friend come from Paris, whom you were very fond of when we were there--the Prior of our English Benedictine Convent, Mr. Cowley ... He inquires much for you; and says Wilkes is very well, No. 45, as they call him in the Convent. A cell is always kept ready for your use he tells me.' _Ib_ p. 373.

[1201] The writing is so bad here, that the names of several of the animals could not be decyphered without much more acquaintance with natural history than I possess.--Dr. Blagden, with his usual politeness, most obligingly examined the MS. To that gentleman, and to Dr. Gray, of the British Museum, who also very readily a.s.sisted me, I beg leave to express my best thanks. BOSWELL

[1202] It is thus written by Johnson, from the French p.r.o.nunciation of _fossane_. It should be observed, that the person who shewed this Menagerie was mistaken in supposing the _fossane_ and the Brasilian weasel to be the same, the _fossane_ being a different animal, and a native of Madagascar. I find them, however, upon one plate in Pennant's _Synopsis of Quadrupeds_. BOSWELL.

[1203] How little Johnson relished this talk is shewn by his letter to Mrs. Thrale of May 1, 1780, and by her answer. He wrote:--'The Exhibition, how will you do, either to see or not to see? The Exhibition is eminently splendid. There is contour, and keeping, and grace, and expression, and all the varieties of artificial excellence.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. III. She answered:--'When did I ever plague about contour, and grace, and expression? I have dreaded them all three since that hapless day at Compiegne when you teased me so.' _Ib_ p. 116

[1204] '_Nef_, (old French from _nave_) _the body of a church_.'

Johnson's _Dictionary_.

[1205] My worthy and ingenious friend, Mr. Andrew Lumisden, by his accurate acquaintance with France, enabled me to make out many proper names, which Dr. Johnson had written indistinctly, and sometimes spelt erroneously. Boswell. Lumisden is mentioned in Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 13.

[1206] Baretti, in a marginal note on _Piozzi Letters_, i. 142, says that 'Johnson saw next to nothing of Paris.' On p. 159 he adds:--'He noticed the country so little that he scarcely spoke of it ever after.'

He shews, however, his ignorance of Johnson's doings by saying that 'in France he never touched a pen.'

[1207] Hume's reception in 1763 was very different. He wrote to Adam Smith:--'I have been three days at Paris, and two at Fontainebleau, and have everywhere met with the most extraordinary honours which the most exorbitant vanity could wish or desire.' The Dauphin's three children, afterwards Lewis XVI, Lewis XVIII, and Charles X, had each to make a set speech of congratulation. He was the favourite of the most exclusive coteries. J.H. Burton's _Hume_, ii. 168, 177, 208. But at that date, sceptical philosophy was the rage.

[1208] Horace Walpole wrote from Paris in 1771 (_Letters_, v.

317-19):--'The distress here is incredible, especially at Court.... The middling and common people are not much richer than Job when he had lost everything but his patience.' Rousseau wrote of the French in 1777:--'Cette nation qui se pretend si gaie montre peu cette gaite dans ses jeux. Souvent j'allais jadis aux guinguettes pour y voir danser le menu peuple; mais ses danses etaient si maussades, son maintien si dolent, si gauche, que j'en sortais plutot contriste que rejoui.' _Les Reveries, IXme. promenade_. Baretti (_Journey to Genoa_, iv. 146) denies that the French 'are ent.i.tled to the appellation of cheerful.'

'Provence,' he says (_ib_. 148), 'is the only province in which you see with some sort of frequency the rustic a.s.semblies roused up to cheerfulness by the _fifre_ and the _tambourin_.' Mrs. Piozzi describes the absence of 'the happy middle state' abroad. 'As soon as Dover is left behind, every man seems to belong to some other man, and no man to himself.' Piozzi's _Journey_, ii. 341. Voltaire, in his review of _Julia Mandeville_ (_Works_, xliii. 364), says:--'Pour peu qu'un roman, une tragedie, une comedie ait de succes a Londres, on en fait trois et quatre editions en peu de mois; c'est que l'etat mitoyen est plus riche et plus instruit en Angleterre qu'en France, &c.' But Barry, the painter (_post_, May 17, 1783), in 1766, described to Burke, 'the crowds of busy contented people which cover (as one may say) the whole face of the country.' But he was an Irishman comparing France with Ireland. 'They make a strong, but melancholy contrast to a miserable ------ which I cannot help thinking of sometimes. You will not be at any loss to know that I mean Ireland.' Barry's _Works_, i. 57. 'Hume,' says Dr. J. H.

Burton, 'in his _Essay on The Parties of Great Britain_ (published in 1741), alludes to the absence of a middle cla.s.s in Scotland, where he says, there are only "two ranks of men, gentlemen who have some fortune and education, and the meanest starving poor; without any considerable number of the middling rank of men, which abounds more in England, both in cities and in the country, than in any other quarter of the world."'

_Life of Hume_, i. 198. I do not find this pa.s.sage in the edition of Hume's _Essays_ of 1770.

[1209] Yet Smollett wrote in 1763:--'All manner of butcher's meat and poultry are extremely good in Paris. The beef is excellent.' He adds, 'I can by no means relish their cookery.' Smollett's _Travels_, i. 86.

Horace Walpole, in 1765, wrote from Amiens on his way to Paris:--'I am almost famished for want of clean victuals, and comfortable tea, and bread and b.u.t.ter.' _Letters_, iv. 401. Goldsmith, in 1770, wrote from Paris:--'As for the meat of this country I can scarce eat it, and though we pay two good shillings an head for our dinner, I find it all so tough, that I have spent less time with my knife than my pick-tooth.'

Forster's _Goldsmith_, ii. 219.

[1210] Walpole calls Paris 'the ugliest, beastliest town in the universe,' and describes the indelicacy of the talk of women of the first rank. _Letters_, iv. 435. See _post_, May 13, 1778, and under Aug. 29, 1783.

[1211] Madame du Boccage, according to Miss Reynolds, whose authority was Baretti. Croker's _Boswell_, p. 467. See _post_, June 25, 1784.

[1212] In Edinburgh, Johnson threw a gla.s.s of lemonade out of the window because the waiter had put the sugar into it 'with his greasy fingers.'

Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 14.

[1213] Mrs. Thrale wrote to Johnson in 1782:--'When we were in France we could form little judgement [of the spread of refinement], as our time was pa.s.sed chiefly among English; yet I recollect that one fine lady, who entertained us very splendidly, put her mouth to the teapot, and blew in the spout when it did not pour freely.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 247.

[1214] That he did not continue exactly as in London is stated by Boswell himself. 'He was furnished with a Paris-made wig of handsome construction,' (_Post_, April 28, 1778). His _Journal_ shews that he bought articles of dress (_ante_, p. 398). Hawkins (_Life_, p. 517) says that 'he yielded to the remonstrances of his friends so far as to dress in a suit of black and a Bourgeois wig, but resisted their importunity to wear ruffles. By a note in his diary it appears that he laid out near thirty pounds in clothes for this journey.' A story told by Foote we may believe as little as we please. 'Foote is quite impartial,' said Johnson, 'for he tells lies of everybody.' _Post_, under March 15, 1776.

[1215] If Johnson's Latin was understood by foreigners in France, but not in England, the explanation may be found in his _Life of Milton_ (_Works_, vii. 99), where he says:--'He who travels, if he speaks Latin, may so soon learn the sounds which every native gives it, that he need make no provision before his journey; and if strangers visit us, it is their business to practise such conformity to our modes as they expect from us in their own countries.' Johnson was so st.u.r.dy an Englishman that likely enough, as he was in London, he would not alter his p.r.o.nunciation to suit his Excellency's ear. In Priestley's _Works_, xxiii. 233, a conversation is reported in which Dr. Johnson argued for the Italian method of p.r.o.nouncing Latin.

[1216] See _ante_, ii. 80.

[1217] As Mme. de Boufflers is mentioned in the next paragraph, Boswell no doubt, wishes to shew that the letter was addressed to her. She was the mistress of the Prince of Conti. She understood English, and was the correspondent of Hume. There was also a Marquise de Boufflers, mistress of old King Stanislaus.

[1218] In the _Piozzi Letters_ (i. 34), this letter is dated May 16, 1771; in Boswell's first and second editions, July 16, 1771; in the third edition, July 16, 1775. In May, 1771, Johnson, so far as there is anything to shew, was in London. On July 16, both in 1771 and 1775, he was in Ashbourne. One of Hume's Letters (_Private Corres_., p. 283), dated April 17, 1775, shews that Mme. de Boufflers was at that time 'speaking of coming to England.'

[1219] Mme. de Boufflers was in England in the summer of 1763. Jesse's _Selwyn_, i. 235.

[1220] Boscovich, a learned Jesuit, was born at Ragusa in 1711, and died in 1787. He visited London in 1760, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. Chalmers's _Biog. Dict_. See _ante_, p. 125.

[1221] See _ante_, p. 288.

[1222] Four years later Johnson thus spoke to Miss Burney of her father:--'"I love Burney; my heart goes out to meet him." "He is not ungrateful, Sir," cried I; "for most heartily does he love you." "Does he, Madam? I am surprised at that." "Why, Sir? Why should you have doubted it?" "Because, Madam, Dr. Burney is a man for all the world to love: it is but natural to love him." I could have almost cried with delight at this cordial, unlaboured _eloge_.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 196.

[1223] 'Though a sepulchral inscription is professedly a panegyrick, and therefore not confined to historical impartiality, yet it ought always to be written with regard to truth. No man ought to be commended for virtues which he never possessed, but whoever is curious to know his faults must inquire after them in other places.' Johnson's _Works_, v.

265. See _post_, April 24, 1779.

[1224] See _ante_, i. 46.

[1225] See _post_, iii. 12, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 22.

[1226] Johnson's d.i.c.k Wormwood, in _The Idler_, No. 83, a man 'whose sole delight is to find everything wrong, triumphs when he talks on the present system of education, and tells us with great vehemence that we are learning words when we should learn things.' In the _Life of Milton_ (_Works_, vii, 75), Johnson writes:--'It is told that in the art of education Milton performed wonders; and a formidable list is given of the authors, Greek and Latin, that were read in Aldersgate-street, by youth between ten and fifteen or sixteen years of age. Those who tell or receive these stories should consider, that n.o.body can be taught faster than he can learn. The speed of the horseman must be limited by the power of the horse.' He advised Boswell 'not to _refine_ in the education of his children. You must do as other people do.' _Post_, iii.