Life of Samuel Johnson, Vol. II (version 2) — Section 12

Dr. Johnson shunned to-night any discussion of the perplexed question of fate and free will, which I attempted to agitate.

'Sir, (said he,) we _know_ our will is free, and _there's_ an end on't[241].'

He honoured me with his company at dinner on the 16th of October, at my lodgings in Old Bond-street, with Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mr. Garrick, Dr. Goldsmith, Mr. Murphy, Mr. Bickerstaff[242], and Mr. Thomas Davies.

Garrick played round him with a fond vivacity, taking hold of the breasts of his coat, and, looking up in his face with a lively archness, complimented him on the good health which he seemed then to enjoy; while the sage, shaking his head, beheld him with a gentle complacency.

One of the company not being come at the appointed hour, I proposed, as usual upon such occasions, to order dinner to be served; adding, 'Ought six people to be kept waiting for one?'

'Why, yes, (answered Johnson, with a delicate humanity,) if the one will suffer more by your sitting down, than the six will do by waiting.'

Goldsmith, to divert the tedious minutes, strutted about, bragging of his dress, and I believe was seriously vain of it, for his mind was wonderfully prone to such impressions[243].

'Come, come, (said Garrick,) talk no more of that.

You are, perhaps, the worst--eh, eh!'

--Goldsmith was eagerly attempting to interrupt him, when Garrick went on, laughing ironically, 'Nay, you will always _look_ like a gentleman[244]; but I am talking of being well or _ill drest_.'

'Well, let me tell you, (said Goldsmith,) when my tailor brought home my bloom-coloured coat, he said, 'Sir, I have a favour to beg of you.

When any body asks you who made your clothes, be pleased to mention John Filby, at the Harrow, in Water-lane.'

JOHNSON.

'Why, Sir, that was because he knew the strange colour would attract crowds to gaze at it, and thus they might hear of him, and see how well he could make a coat even of so absurd a colour[245].'

After dinner our conversation first turned upon Pope.

Johnson said, his characters of men were admirably drawn, those of women not so well[246].

He repeated to us, in his forcible melodious manner, the concluding lines of the _Dunciad_[247].

While he was talking loudly in praise of those lines, one of the company[248] ventured to say, 'Too fine for such a poem:--a poem on what?'

JOHNSON, (with a disdainful look,) 'Why, on _dunces_.

It was worth while being a dunce then.

Ah, Sir, hadst _thou_ lived in those days!

It is not worth while being a dunce now, when there are no wits[249].'

Bickerstaff observed, as a peculiar circumstance, that Pope's fame was higher when he was alive than it was then[250].

Johnson said, his Pastorals were poor things, though the versification was fine[251].

He told us, with high satisfaction, the anecdote of Pope's inquiring who was the authour of his _London_, and saying, he will be soon _dA(C)terrA(C)_[252].

He observed, that in Dryden's poetry there were passages drawn from a profundity which Pope could never reach[253].

He repeated some fine lines on love, by the former, (which I have now forgotten[254],) and gave great applause to the character of Zimri[255].

Goldsmith said, that Pope's character of Addison[256] shewed a deep knowledge of the human heart.

Johnson said, that the description of the temple, in the _Mourning Bride_[257], was the finest poetical passage he had ever read; he recollected none in Shakspeare equal to it.

'But, (said Garrick, all alarmed for the "God of his idolatry[258],") we know not the extent and variety of his powers.'

'We are to suppose there are such passages in his works.

Shakspeare must not suffer from the badness of our memories.'

Johnson, diverted by this enthusiastick jealousy, went on with greater ardour: 'No, Sir; Congreve has _nature_;' (smiling on the tragick eagerness of Garrick;) but composing himself, he added, 'Sir, this is not comparing Congreve on the whole, with Shakspeare on the whole; but only maintaining that Congreve has one finer passage than any that can be found in Shakspeare.

Sir, a man may have no more than ten guineas in the world, but he may have those ten guineas in one piece; and so may have a finer piece than a man who has ten thousand pounds: but then he has only one ten-guinea piece.

What I mean is, that you can shew me no passage where there is simply a description of material objects, without any intermixture of moral notions, which produces such an effect[259].'

Mr. Murphy mentioned Shakspeare's description of the night before the battle of Agincourt[260];

but it was observed, it had _men_ in it.

Mr. Davies suggested the speech of Juliet, in which she figures herself awaking in the tomb of her ancestors[261].

Some one mentioned the description of Dover Cliff[262].

JOHNSON.

'No, Sir; it should be all precipice,--all vacuum.

The crows impede your fall.

The diminished appearance of the boats, and other circumstances, are all very good description; but do not impress the mind at once with the horrible idea of immense height.

The impression is divided; you pass on by computation, from one stage of the tremendous space to another.

Had the girl in _The Mourning Bride_ said, she could not cast her shoe to the top of one of the pillars in the temple, it would not have aided the idea, but weakened it.'

Talking of a Barrister who had a bad utterance, some one, (to rouse Johnson,) wickedly said, that he was unfortunate in not having been taught oratory by Sheridan[263].

JOHNSON.

'Nay, Sir, if he had been taught by Sheridan, he would have cleared the room.'

GARRICK.

'Sheridan has too much vanity to be a good man.'

We shall now see Johnson's mode of _defending_ a man; taking him into his own hands, and discriminating.

JOHNSON.

'No, Sir.

There is, to be sure, in Sheridan, something to reprehend, and every thing to laugh at; but, Sir, he is not a bad man.

No, Sir; were mankind to be divided into good and bad, he would stand considerably within the ranks of good.

And, Sir, it must be allowed that Sheridan excels in plain declamation, though he can exhibit no character.'

I should, perhaps, have suppressed this disquisition concerning a person of whose merit and worth I think with respect, had he not attacked Johnson so outrageously in his _Life of Swift_, and, at the same time, treated us, his admirers, as a set of pigmies[264].

He who has provoked the lash of wit, cannot complain that he smarts from it.

Mrs. Montagu, a lady distinguished for having written an Essay on Shakspeare, being mentioned.

REYNOLDS.

'I think that essay does her honour.'

JOHNSON, 'Yes, Sir; it does _her_ honour, but it would do nobody else honour.

I have, indeed, not read it all.

But when I take up the end of a web, and find it packthread, I do not expect, by looking further, to find embroidery.

Sir, I will venture to say, there is not one sentence of true criticism in her book.'

GARRICK.

'But, Sir, surely it shews how much Voltaire has mistaken Shakspeare, which nobody else has done[265].'

JOHNSON.

'Sir, nobody else has thought it worth while.

And what merit is there in that?

You may as well praise a schoolmaster for whipping a boy who has construed ill.

No, Sir, there is no real criticism in it: none shewing the beauty of thought, as formed on the workings of the human heart.'

The admirers of this Essay[266] may be offended at the slighting manner in which Johnson spoke of it; but let it be remembered, that he gave his honest opinion unbiased by any prejudice, or any proud jealousy of a woman intruding herself into the chair of criticism; for Sir Joshua Reynolds has told me, that when the Essay first came out, and it was not known who had written it, Johnson wondered how Sir Joshua could like it[267].

At this time Sir Joshua himself had received no information concerning the authour, except being assured by one of our most eminent literati, that it was clear its authour did not know the Greek tragedies in the original.

One day at Sir Joshua's table, when it was related that Mrs. Montagu, in an excess of compliment to the authour of a modern tragedy, had exclaimed, 'I tremble for Shakspeare;' Johnson said, 'When Shakspeare has got ---- for his rival, and Mrs. Montagu for his defender, he is in a poor state indeed.'

Johnson proceeded: 'The Scotchman[268] has taken the right method in his _Elements of Criticism_.

I do not mean that he has taught us any thing;

but he has told us old things in a new way.'

MURPHY.

'He seems to have read a great deal of French criticism, and wants to make it his own; as if he had been for years anatomising the heart of man, and peeping into every cranny of it.'

GOLDSMITH.

'It is easier to write that book, than to read it[269].'

JOHNSON.

'We have an example of true criticism in Burke's _Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful_; and, if I recollect, there is also Du Bos[270]; and Bouhours[271], who shews all beauty to depend on truth.

There is no great merit in telling how many plays have ghosts in them, and how this Ghost is better than that.

You must shew how terrour is impressed on the human heart.

In the description of night in _Macbeth_[272], the beetle and the bat detract from the general idea of darkness,--inspissated gloom.'

Politicks being mentioned, he said, 'This petitioning is a new mode of distressing government, and a mighty easy one.

I will undertake to get petitions either against quarter-guineas or half-guineas, with the help of a little hot wine.

There must be no yielding to encourage this.

The object is not important enough.

We are not to blow up half a dozen palaces, because one cottage is burning[273].'

The conversation then took another turn.

JOHNSON.

'It is amazing what ignorance of certain points one sometimes finds in men of eminence.

A

wit about town, who wrote Latin bawdy verses, asked me, how it happened that England and Scotland, which were once two kingdoms, were now one:--and Sir Fletcher Norton[274] did not seem to know that there were such publications as the Reviews.'