"SIR,
"Mr. Lowe considers himself as cut off from all credit and all hope, by the rejection of his picture from the Exhibition. Upon this work he has exhausted all his powers, and suspended all his expectations: and, certainly, to be refused an opportunity of taking the opinion of the publick, is in itself a very great hardship. It is to be condemned without a trial.
If you could procure the revocation of this incapacitating edict, you would deliver an unhappy man from great affliction. The Council has sometimes reversed its own determination; and I hope, that by your interposition this luckless picture may be got admitted. I am, &c.
SAM. JOHNSON.
April 12, 1783.
To MR. BARRY.
SIR,
Mr. Lowe"s exclusion from the exhibition gives him more trouble than you and the other gentlemen of the Council could imagine or intend. He considers disgrace and ruin as the inevitable consequence of your determination.
He says, that some pictures have been received after rejection; and if there be any such precedent, I earnestly entreat that you will use your interest in his favour. Of his work I can say nothing; I pretend not to judge of painting; and this picture I never saw: but I conceive it extremely hard to shut out any man from the possibility of success; and therefore I repeat my request that you will propose the re-consideration of Mr. Lowe"s case; and if there be any among the Council with whom my name can have any weight, be pleased to communicate to them the desire of, Sir, Your most humble servant, SAM. JOHNSON. April 12, 1783.
Such intercession was too powerful to be resisted; and Mr. Lowe"s performance was admitted at Somerset Place[631]. The subject, as I recollect, was the Deluge, at that point of time when the water was verging to the top of the last uncovered mountain. Near to the spot was seen the last of the antediluvian race, exclusive of those who were saved in the ark of Noah. This was one of those giants, then the inhabitants of the earth, who had still strength to swim, and with one of his hands held aloft his infant child. Upon the small remaining dry spot appeared a famished lion, ready to spring at the child and devour it. Mr. Lowe told me that Johnson said to him, "Sir, your picture is n.o.ble and probable." "A compliment, indeed, (said Mr. Lowe,) from a man 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 d.i.c.k[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 coa.r.s.er 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 bra.s.s, 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,--sc.r.a.ping and drying the peel of oranges[636].
At a place in Newgate-street, there is a prodigious quant.i.ty 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-b.u.t.ter, the oil of the orange insp.i.s.sated, 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 n.o.body 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 ill.u.s.trate 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 p.r.o.nounce a new language. No foreigner, who comes to England when advanced in life, ever p.r.o.nounces 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 pa.s.sed 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 n.o.ble 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, n.o.ble-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 a.s.signs 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 c.o.c.k, I believe, will feed hens instead of himself; but we don"t know that the c.o.c.k 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 pa.s.sion; 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 c.u.mming 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 G.o.d.
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 quant.i.ty 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 pa.s.sed 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 a.s.sertions 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 n.o.body 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 the world, and so much writing. People in general do not willingly read, if they can have any thing else to amuse them[671]. There must be an external impulse; emulation, or vanity, or avarice. The progress which the understanding makes through a book, has more pain than pleasure in it. Language is scanty, and inadequate to express the nice gradations and mixtures of our feelings. No man reads a book of science from pure inclination. The books that we do read with pleasure are light compositions, which contain a quick succession of events. However, I have this year read all Virgil through[672]. I read a book of the _Aeneid_ every night, so it was done in twelve nights, and I had great delight in it. The _Georgicks_ did not give me so much pleasure, except the fourth book. The _Eclogues_ I have almost all by heart. I do not think the story of the _Aeneid_ interesting. I like the story of the _Odyssey_ much better[673]; and this not on account of the wonderful things which it contains; for there are wonderful things enough in the _Aeneid_;--the ships of the Trojans turned to sea-nymphs,--the tree at Polydorus"s tomb dropping blood. The story of the _Odyssey_ is interesting, as a great part of it is domestick. It has been said, there is pleasure in writing, particularly in writing verses. I allow you may have pleasure from writing, after it is over, if you have written well; but you don"t go willingly to it again[674]. I know when I have been writing verses, I have run my finger down the margin, to see how many I had made, and how few I had to make[675]."
He seemed to be in a very placid humour, and although I have no note of the particulars of young Mr. Burke"s conversation, it is but justice to mention in general, that it was such that Dr. Johnson said to me afterwards, "He did very well indeed; I have a mind to tell his father[676]."