Mem. of Dr. W. p. 312. ferent, and scarce said any thing to me; perhaps he has heard what I said of his Shakspeare, or rather was offended at what I wrote to him-as he pleases. Of all solemn coxcombs, Goldsmith is the first; yet sensible-but affects to use Johnson's hard words in conversation. We had a Mr. Dyer', who is a scholar and a gentleman. Garrick is entirely off from Johnson, and cannot, he says, forgive him his insinuating that he withheld his old editions, which always were open to him, nor I suppose his never mentioning him in all his works.]" I returned to London in February, and found Dr. Johnson in a good house in Johnson's-court, Fleetstreet, in which he had accommodated Miss Williams with an apartment on the ground floor, while Mr. Levett occupied his post in the garret: his faithHawk. ful Francis was still attending upon him. [An upper 453,454. room, which had the advantages of a good light and p. 452, free air, he fitted up for a study, and furnished with books, chosen with so little regard to editions or their external appearance, as showed they were intended for use, and that he disdained the ostentation of learning. Here he was in a situation and circumstances that enabled him to enjoy the visits of his friends, and to receive them in a manner suitable to the rank and condition of many of them. A silver standish, and some useful plate, which he had been prevailed on to accept as pledges of kindness from some who most esteemed him, together with furniture that would not have disgraced a better dwelling, banished those appearances of squalid indigence, which, in his less happy days, disgusted those who came to see him. In one of his diaries he noted down a re 1 Samuel Dyer, Esq. a most learned and ingenious member of the Literary Club, for whose understanding and attainments Dr. Johnson had great respect. He died September 14, 1772. A more particular account of this gentleman may be found in a note on the Life of Dryden, p. 186, prefixed to the edition of that great writer's prose works, in four volumes, 8vo. 1800: in which his character is vindicated, and the very unfavourable and unjust representation of it, given by Sir John Hawkins in his Life of Johnson, p. 222-232, is minutely examined.-MALONE. [Johnson paid Dyer a degree of deference he showed to nobody else.-ED] p. 452, solution to take a seat in the church: this he might Hawk. possibly do about the time of this removal. The church 453,454. he frequented was that of St. Clement Danes, which, though not his parish church, he preferred to that of the Temple, which latter Sir John Hawkins had recommended to him as being free from noise, and, in other respects, more commodious. His only reason was, that in the former he was best known. He was not constant in his attendance on divine worship; but, from an opinion peculiar to himself, and which he once intimated to me, seemed to wait for some secret impulse as a motive to it. The Sundays which he passed at home were, nevertheless, spent in private exercises of devotion, and sanctified by acts of charity of a singular kind on that day he accepted of no invitation abroad, but gave a dinner to such of his poor friends as might else have gone without one. He had little now to conflict with but what he called his morbid melancholy, which, though oppressive, had its intermissions, and left him the free exercise of all his faculties, and the power of enjoying the conversation of his numerous friends and visitants. These reliefs he owed in a great measure to the use of opium', which he was accustomed to take in large quantities, the effect whereof was generally such an exhilaration of his spirits as he sometimes suspected for intoxication.] He received me with much kindness. The fragments of our first conversation, which I have preserved, are these: I told him that Voltaire, in a conversation with me, had distinguished Pope and Dryden thus:-" Pope drives a handsome chariot, with a couple of neat trim nags; Dryden a coach, [As Boswell does not contradict this statement, it must be presumed to be true, and is therefore admitted into the text; but it will be seen that, many years after this, and even when labouring under his last fatal illness, Johnson had some scruples about the use of opium. Perhaps, if we are to give credit to Hawkins's assertion, these later scruples may have arisen from his having formerly made too frequent use of this fascinating palliative.-ED.] and six stately horses 1." JOHNSON. "Why, sir, the truth is, they both drive coaches and six; but Dryden's horses are either galloping or stumbling: Pope's go at a steady even trot 2." He said of Goldsmith's "Traveller," which had been published in my absence, "There has not been so fine a poem since Pope's time." And here it is proper to settle, with authentick precision, what has long floated in publick report, as to Johnson's being himself the authour of a considerable part of that poem. Much, no doubt, both of the sentiments and expression were derived from conversation with him3; and it was certainly submitted to his friendly revision: but in the year 1783, he at my request marked with a pencil the lines which he had furnished, which are only line 420th, "To stop too fearful, and too faint to go;" and the concluding ten lines, except the last couplet but one, which I distinguish by the italic character: "How small of all that human hearts endure, That part which kings or laws can cause or cure. Our own felicity we make or find; With secret course which no loud storms annoy, Glides the smooth current of domestick joy : It is remarkable that Mr. Gray has employed somewhat the same image to characterise Dryden. He indeed furnishes his car with but two horses; but they are of ethereal race :" "Behold where Dryden's less presumptuous car, Wide o'er the fields of glory bear Two coursers of ethereal race, With necks in thunder clothed, and long resounding pace." 2 [Johnson, in the life of Pope, has made a comparison between him and Dryden, in the spirit of this correction of Voltaire's metaphor. It is one of the most beautiful critical passages in our language, and was probably suggested to Johnson's mind by this conversation, although he did not make use of the same illustration. ED.] 3 [This rests on no authority whatever, and may well be doubted. The Tra veller is a poem which, in a peculiar degree, seems written from the personal observation and feelings of its author.-ED.] The lifted axe, the agonizing wheel, Luke's iron crown, and Damien's bed of steel, Leave reason, faith, and conscience, all our own.” He added, "These are all of which I can be sure." They bear a small proportion to the whole, which consists of four hundred and thirty-eight verses. Goldsmith, in the couplet which he inserted', mentions Luke as a person well known, and superficial readers have passed it over quite smoothly; while those of more attention have been as much perplexed by Luke as by Lydiat, in "The Vanity of Human Wishes." The truth is, that Goldsmith himself was in a mistake. In the "Respublica Hungarica,” there is an account of a desperate rebellion in the year 1514, headed by two brothers, of the name of Zeck, George and Luke." When it was quelled, George, not Luke, was punished by his head being encircled with a red hot-iron crown: "corona candescente ferreá coronatur." The same severity of torture was exercised on the Earl of Athol, one of the murderers of King James I. of Scotland. Dr. Johnson at the same time favoured me by marking the lines which he furnished to Goldsmith's "Deserted Village," which are only the last four: "That trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay, Talking of education, "People have nowadays (said he) got a strange opinion that every thing should be taught by lectures. Now, I cannot see that lec [This is a strange way of speaking of the lines of an author in his own poem -Johnson's were rather the insertion; and it must be observed that they could only have been alterations of, or substitutions for other lines, conveying, though perhaps in less effective language, the same or similar sentiments. ED.] 2 On the iron crown, see Mr. Steevens's note 7, on act iv. scene i. of Richard III. It seems to be alluded to in Macbeth, act iv. scene i.: "Thy crown does sear," &c. See also Gough's Camden, vol. iii. p. 396.-BLAKEWAY. tures can do so much good as reading the books from which the lectures are taken. I know nothing that can be best taught by lectures, except where experiments are to be shown. You may teach chymistry by lectures:-you might teach making of shoes by lectures!" At night I supped with him at the Mitre tavern, that we might renew our social intimacy at the original place of meeting. But there was now a considerable difference in his way of living. Having had an illness', in which he was advised to leave off wine, he had, from that period, continued to abstain from it, and drank only water or lemonade. I told him that a foreign friend of his, whom I had met with abroad, was so wretchedly perverted to infidelity, that he treated the hopes of immortality with brutal levity; and said, "As man dies like a dog, let him lie like a dog." JOHNSON. "If he dies like a dog, let him lie like a dog." I added, that this man said to me, "I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am." JOHNSON. "Sir, he must be very singular in his opinion, if he thinks himself one of the best of men; for none of his friends think him so."-He said, "No honest man could be a Deist; for no man could be so after a fair examination of the proofs of Christianity." I named Hume. JOHNSON. "No, sir; Hume owned to a clergyman in the bishoprick of Durham, that he had never read the New Testament with attention."-I mentioned Hume's notion, that all who are happy are equally happy; a little miss with a new gown at a dancing-school ball, a general at the head of a victorious army, and an orator after having made an eloquent speech in a 2 [Probably the severe fit of hypochondria referred to ante, vol. i. p 501.—ED.] [Probably Baretti.-ED.] |