them live better, but only makes them idler; and idleness is a very bad thing for human nature. 66 It is a very good custom to keep a journal for a man's own use; he may write upon a card a day all that is necessary to be written, after he has had experience of life. At first there is a great deal to be written, because there is a great deal of novelty; but when once a man has settled his opinions, there is seldom much to be set down." "There is nothing wonderful in the Journal1 which we see Swift kept in London; for it contains slight topics, and it might soon be written." I praised the accuracy of an account-book of a lady whom I men. tioned. JOHNSON: "Keeping accounts, Sir, is of no use when a man is spending his own money, and has nobody to whom he is to account. You won't eat less beef to-day, because you have written down what it cost yesterday." I mentioned another lady who thought as he did, so that her husband could not get her to keep an account of the expense of the family, as she thought it enough that she never exceeded the sum allowed her. JOHNSON: "Sir, it is fit she should keep an account, because her husband wishes it; but I do not see its use." I maintained that keeping an account had this advantage, that it satisfies a man that his money has not been lost or stolen, which he might sometimes be apt to imagine, were there no written state of his expense; and besides, a calculation of economy, so as not to exceed one's income, cannot be made without a view of the different articles in figures, that one may see how to retrench in some particulars less necessary than others. This he did not attempt to answer. 66 66 Talking of an acquaintance of ours, whose narratives, which abounded in curious and interesting topics, were unhappily found to be very fabulous, I mentioned Lord Mansfield's having said to me, Suppose we believe one half of what he tells." JOHNSON: 'Ay; but we don't know which half to believe. By his lying we lose not only our reverence for him, but all comfort in his conversation." BoswELL: " May we not take it as amusing fiction? JOHNSON: "Sir, the misfortune is, that you will insensibly believe as much of it as you incline to believe." 1 In his Life of Swift, he thus speaks of this Journal: "In the midst of his power and his politics, he kept a journal of his visits, his walks, his interviews with ministers, and quarrels with his servant, and transmitted it to Mrs. Johnson and Mrs. Dingley, to whom he knew that whatever befel him was interesting, and no account could be too minute. Whether these diurnal trifles were properly exposed to eyes which had never received any pleasure from the Dean, may be reasonably doubted: they have, however, some odd attractions: the reader finding frequent mention of names which he has been used to consider as important, goes on in hope of informa tion; and as there is nothing to fatigue attention if he is disappointed, he can hardly complain." It may be added, that the reader not only hopes to find, but does find, in this very entertaining Journal, much curious information, respecting persons and things, which he will in vain seek for in other books of the same period.-MALONE. It is remarkable, that notwithstanding their congeniality in politics, he never was acquainted with a late eminent noble judge [Mansfield], whom I have heard speak of him, as a writer, with great respect. Johnson, I know not upon what degree of investigation, entertained no exalted opinion of his lordship's intellectual character. Talking of him to me one day, he said, "It is wonderful, Sir, with how little real superiority of mind men can make an eminent figure in public life." He expressed himself to the same purpose concerning another law-lord, who, it seems, once took a fancy to associate with the wits of London; but with so little success, that Foote said, "What can he mean by coming among us? He is not only dull himself, but the cause of dulness in others." Trying him by the test of his colloquial powers, Johnson had found him very defective. He once said to Sir Joshua Reynolds, "This man now has been ten years about town, and has made nothing of it;" meaning as a companion. He said to me, I never heard anything from him in company that was at all striking; and depend upon it, Sir, it is when you come close to a man in conversation, that you discover what his real abilities are to make a speech in a public assembly is a knack. Now I honour Thurlow, Sir; Thurlow is a fine fellow; he fairly puts his mind to yours. 1 66 After repeating to him some of his pointed, lively sayings, I said, "It is a pity, Sir, you don't always remember your own good things, that you may have a laugh when you will." JOHNSON: "Nay, Sir, it is better that I forget them, that I may be reminded of them, and have a laugh on their being brought to my recollection." When I recalled to him his having said as we sailed up Lochlomond, That if he wore anything fine, it should be very fine;" I observed that all his thoughts were upon a great scale. JOHNSON: "Depend upon it, Sir, every man will have as fine a thing as he can get; as large a diamond for his ring." Boswell : "Pardon me, Sir; a man of a narrow mind will not think of it; a slight trinket will satisfy him: 'Nec sufferre queat majoris pondera gemmæ.'' I told him I should send him some " Essays" that I had written,2 which I hoped he would be so good as to read, and pick out the good ones. JOHNSON: "Nay, Sir, send me only the good ones; don't make me pick them.' I heard him once say, "Though the proverb Nullum numen abest, si sit prudentia,' does not always prove true, we may be certain of the converse of it, Nullum numen adest, si sit imprudentia.' 1 Knowing as well as I do what precision and elegance of oratory his Lordship can display, I cannot but suspect that his unfavourable appearance in a social circle, which drew such animadversions upon him, must be owing to a cold affectation of consequence, from being reserved and stiff. If it be so, and he might be an agreeable man if he would, we cannot be sorry that he misses his aim.-Boswell. 2 Under the title of "The Hypochondriac."-MALONE. Once, when Mr. Seward was going to Bath, and asked his commands, he said, "Tell Dr. Harrington that I wish he would publish another volume of the Nuga Antiquæ;'1 it is a very pretty book." 2 Mr. Seward seconded this wish, and recommended to Dr. Harrington to dedicate it to Johnson, and take for his motto what Catullus says to Cornelius Nepos : -namque tu solebas, Meas esse aliquid putare NUGAS." As a small proof of his kindliness and delicacy of feeling, the following circumstance may be mentioned :-One evening, when we were in the street together, and I told him I was going to sup at Mr. Beauclerk's, he said, "I'll go with you." After having walked part of the way, seeming to recollect something, he suddenly stopped, and said, “I cannot go, but I do not love Beauclerk the less. - On the frame of his portrait, Mr. Beauclerk had inscribed,] "It After Mr. Beauclerk's death, when it became Mr. Langton's property, he made the inscription be defaced. Johnson said complacently, was kind in you to take it off;" and then, after a short pause, added, "and not unkind in him to put it on." 66 He said, How few of his friends' houses would a man choose to be at, when he is sick!" He mentioned one or two. I recollect only Thrale's. 66 He observed, There is a wicked inclination in most people to suppose an old man decayed in his intellects. If a young or middle-aged man, when leaving a company, does not recollect where he laid his hat, it is nothing; but if the same inattention is discovered in an old man, people will shrug up their shoulders, and say, 'his memory is going.' When I once talked to him of some of the sayings which every body repeats, but nobody knows where to find; such as, Quos DEUS vult perdere, prius dementat; he told me that he was once offered ten guineas to point out from whence Semel insanivimus omnes was taken. He could not do it; but many years afterwards met with it by chance in Johannes Baptista Mantuanus.3 I It has since appeared.-BOSWELL. 2 A new and greatly improved edition of this very curious collection was published by Mr. Park in 1804, in 2 vols. 8vo. In this edition the letters are chronologically arranged, and the account of the Bishops, which was formerly printed from a very corrupt copy, is taken from Sir John Harrington's original manuscript which he presented to Henry, Prince of Wales, and is now in the Royal Library in the Museum.-MALONE. 8 The words occur (as Mr. Bindley observes to me), in the First Eclogue of Mantuanus, De honesto Amore, &c. "Id commune malum; semel insanivimus omnes." With the following elucidation of the other saying-Quos Deus (it should rather be Quem I am very sorry that I did not take a note of an eloquent argument in which he maintained that the situation of Prince of Wales was the happiest of any person's in the kingdom, even beyond that of the Sovereign. I recollect only-the enjoyment of hope,-the high superiority of rank, without the anxious cares of government,-and a great degree of power, both from natural influence wisely used, and from the sanguine expectations of those who look forward to the chance of future favour. Sir Joshua Reynolds communicated to me the following particulars : Johnson thought the poems, published as translations from Ossian, had so little merit, that he said, Sir, a man might write such stuff for 66 ever, if he would abandon his mind to it." He said, "A man should pass a part of his time with the laughers, by which means anything ridiculous or particular about him might be presented to his view, and corrected." I observed, he must have been a Jupiter) vult perdere, prius dementat-Mr. Boswell was furnished by Mr. Richard How, of Apsley, in Bedfordshire, as communicated to that gentleman by his friend Mr. John Pitts, late Rector of Great Brickhill, in Buckinghamshire: "Perhaps no scrap of Latin whatever has been more quoted than this. It occasionally falls even from those who are scrupulous even to pedantry in their Latinity, and will not admit a word into their compositions which has not the sanction of the first age. The word demento is of no authority, either as a verb active or neuter.-After a long search, for the purpose of deciding a bet, some gentlemen of Cambridge found it among the fragments of Euripides, in what edition I do not recollect, where it is given as a translation of a Greek Iambic: Ον Θεὸς θέλει ἀπολέσαι, πρῶτ ̓ ἀποφρενοῖ. The above scrap was found in the hand-writing of a suicide of fashion, Sir D. O., some years ago, lying on the table of the room where he had destroyed himself. The suicide was a man of classical acquirements: he left no other paper behind him." Another of these proverbial sayings— source. "Incidit in Scyllam, cupiens vitare Charybdim," I some years ago, in a note on a passage in "The Merchant of Venice," traced to its It occurs (with a slight variation) in " The Alexandreis," of Philip Gaultier (a poet of the thirteenth century), which was printed at Lyons in 1558. Darius is the person addressed : Quo tendis inertem, Rex periture, fugam? nescis, heu! perdite, nescis The author of this line was first ascertained by Galleottus Martius, who died in 1476; as is observed in "Menagiana," vol. iii., p. 130, edit. 1762.-For an account of Philip Gaultier, see "Vossius de Poet. Latin." p. 254, fol. 1697. A line not less frequently quoted than any of the preceding, was suggested for inquiry, several years ago, in a note on " The Rape of Lucrece:" Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris :" But the author of this verse has not, I believe, been discovered.-MALONE. bold laugher who would have ventured to tell Dr. Johnson of any of his particularities.1 Having observed the vain ostentatious importance of many people in quoting the authority of Dukes and Lords, as having been in their company, he said, he went to the other extreme, and did not mention his authority when he should have done it, had it not been that of a Duke or a Lord. Dr. Goldsmith said once to Dr. Johnson, that he wished for some additional members to the LITERARY CLUB, to give it an agreeable variety; for, said, he, there can now be nothing new among us: we have travelled over one another's minds. Johnson seemed a little angry, and said, "Sir, you have not travelled over my mind, I promise you." Sir Joshua, however, thought Goldsmith right; observing, that "when people have lived a great deal together, they know what each of them will say on every subject. A new understanding, therefore, is desirable; because though it may only furnish the same sense upon a question which would have been furnished by those with whom we are accustomed to live, yet this sense will have a different colouring; and colouring is of much effect in everything else as well as in painting." Johnson used to say that he made it a constant rule to talk as well as he could both as to sentiment and expression, by which means, what had been originally effort became familiar and easy. The consequence of this, Sir Joshua observed, was, that his common conversation in all companies was such as to secure him universal attention, as something above the usual colloquial style was expected. Yet, though Johnson had this habit in company, when another mode was necessary, in order to investigate truth, he could descend to a language intelligible to the meanest capacity. An instance of this was witnessed by Sir Joshua Reynolds, when they were present at an examination of a little blackguard boy, by Mr. Saunders Welch, the late Westminster Justice. Welch, who imagined that he was exalting himself in Dr. Johnson's eyes by using big words, spoke in a manner that was utterly unintelligible to the boy; Dr. Johnson perceiving it, addressed himself to the boy, and changed the pompous phraseology into colloquial language. Sir Joshua Reynolds, who was much amused by this procedure, which seemed a kind of reversing of what might have been expected from the two men, took notice of it to Dr. Johnson, as they walked away by themselves. Johnson said, that it was continually the case; and that he was always obliged to translate the justice's 1 I am happy, however, to mention a pleasing instance of his enduring with great gentleness to hear one of his most striking particularities pointed out:-Miss Hunter, a niece of his friend Christopher Smart, when a very young girl, struck by his extraordinary motions, said to him," Pray, Dr. Johnson, why do you make such strange gestures?"-"From bad habit," he replied. "Do you, my dear, take care to guard against bad habits." This I was told by the young lady's brother at Margate.-BoswELL |