Life of Samuel Johnson, Vol. II (version 2) — Section 64

Next morning he introduced me to Mrs. Lucy Porter, his step-daughter.

She was now an old maid, with much simplicity of manner.

She had never been in London.

Her brother, a Captain in the navy, had left her a fortune of ten thousand pounds; about a third of which she had laid out in building a stately house, and making a handsome garden, in an elevated situation in Lichfield.

Johnson, when here by himself, used to live at her house.

She reverenced him, and he had a parental tenderness for her[1356].

We then visited Mr. Peter Garrick, who had that morning received a letter from his brother David, announcing our coming to Lichfield.

He was engaged to dinner, but asked us to tea, and to sleep at his house.

Johnson, however, would not quit his old acquaintance Wilkins, of the Three Crowns.

The family likeness of the Garricks was very striking[1357];

and Johnson thought that David's vivacity was not so peculiar to himself as was supposed.

'Sir, (said he,) I don't know but if Peter had cultivated all the arts of gaiety as much as David has done, he might have been as brisk and lively.

Depend upon it, Sir, vivacity is much an art, and depends greatly on habit.'

I believe there is a good deal of truth in this, notwithstanding a ludicrous story told me by a lady abroad, of a heavy German baron, who had lived much with the young English at Geneva, and was ambitious to be as lively as they; with which view, he, with assiduous exertion, was jumping over the tables and chairs in his lodgings; and when the people of the house ran in and asked, with surprize, what was the matter, he answered, '_Sh' apprens t'etre fif_.'

We dined at our inn, and had with us a Mr. Jackson[1358], one of Johnson's schoolfellows, whom he treated with much kindness, though he seemed to be a low man, dull and untaught.

He had a coarse grey coat, black waistcoat, greasy leather breeches, and a yellow uncurled wig; and his countenance had the ruddiness which betokens one who is in no haste to 'leave his can.'

He drank only ale.

He had tried to be a cutler at Birmingham, but had not succeeded; and now he lived poorly at home, and had some scheme of dressing leather in a better manner than common; to his indistinct account of which, Dr. Johnson listened with patient attention, that he might assist him with his advice.

Here was an instance of genuine humanity and real kindness in this great man, who has been most unjustly represented as altogether harsh and destitute of tenderness.

A thousand such instances might have been recorded in the course of his long life; though that his temper was warm and hasty, and his manner often rough, cannot be denied.

I saw here, for the first time, _oat ale_; and oat cakes not hard as in Scotland, but soft like a Yorkshire cake, were served at breakfast.

It was pleasant to me to find, that _Oats_, the _food of horses_[1359], were so much used as the _food of the people_ in Dr. Johnson's own town.

He expatiated in praise of Lichfield and its inhabitants, who, he said, were 'the most sober, decent people[1360] in England, the genteelest in proportion to their wealth, and spoke the purest English[1361].'

I doubted as to the last article of this eulogy: for they had several provincial sounds; as _there_, pronounced like _fear_, instead of like _fair; once_ pronounced _woonse_, instead of _wunse_, or _wonse_.

Johnson himself never got entirely free of those provincial accents[1362].

Garrick sometimes used to take him off, squeezing a lemon into a punch-bowl, with uncouth gesticulations, looking round the company, and calling out, 'Who's for _poonsh_?

[1363]' Very little business appeared to be going forward in Lichfield.

I found however two strange manufactures for so inland a place, sail-cloth and streamers for ships; and I observed them making some saddle-cloths, and dressing sheepskins: but upon the whole, the busy hand of industry seemed to be quite slackened.

'Surely, Sir, (said I,) you are an idle set of people.'

'Sir, (said Johnson,) we are a city of philosophers, we work with our heads, and make the boobies of Birmingham[1364] work for us with their hands.'

There was at this time a company of players performing at Lichfield.

The manager, Mr. Stanton, sent his compliments, and begged leave to wait on Dr. Johnson.

Johnson received him very courteously, and he drank a glass of wine with us.

He was a plain decent well-behaved man, and expressed his gratitude to Dr. Johnson for having once got him permission from Dr. Taylor at Ashbourne to play there upon moderate terms.

Garrick's name was soon introduced.

JOHNSON.

'Garrick's conversation is gay and grotesque.

It is a dish of all sorts, but all good things.

There is no solid meat in it: there is a want of sentiment in it.

Not but that he has sentiment sometimes, and sentiment, too, very powerful and very pleasing: but it has not its full proportion in his conversation.'

When we were by ourselves he told me, 'Forty years ago, Sir, I was in love with an actress here, Mrs. Emmet, who acted Flora, in _Hob in the Well_[1365].'

What merit this lady had as an actress, or what was her figure, or her manner, I have not been informed: but, if we may believe Mr. Garrick, his old master's taste in theatrical merit was by no means refined[1366]; he was not an _elegans formarum spectator_[1367].

Garrick used to tell, that Johnson said of an actor, who played Sir Harry Wildair [1368] at Lichfield, 'There is a courtly vivacity about the fellow;' when in fact, according to Garrick's account, 'he was the most vulgar ruffian that ever went upon _boards_.'

We had promised Mr. Stanton to be at his theatre on Monday.

Dr. Johnson jocularly proposed me to write a Prologue for the occasion: 'A Prologue, by James Boswell, Esq.

from the Hebrides.'

I was really inclined to take the hint.

Methought, 'Prologue, spoken before Dr. Samuel Johnson, at Lichfield, 1776;' would have sounded as well as, 'Prologue, spoken before the Duke of York, at Oxford,' in Charles the Second's time.

Much might have been said of what Lichfield had done for Shakspeare, by producing Johnson and Garrick.

But I found he was averse to it.

We went and viewed the museum of Mr. Richard Green, apothecary here, who told me he was proud of being a relation of Dr. Johnson's. It was, truely, a wonderful collection, both of antiquities and natural curiosities, and ingenious works of art.

He had all the articles accurately arranged, with their names upon labels, printed at his own little press; and on the staircase leading to it was a board, with the names of contributors marked in gold letters.

A printed catalogue of the collection was to be had at a bookseller's. Johnson expressed his admiration of the activity and diligence and good fortune of Mr. Green, in getting together, in his situation, so great a variety of things; and Mr. Green told me that Johnson once said to him, 'Sir, I should as soon have thought of building a man of war, as of collecting such a museum.'

Mr. Green's obliging alacrity in shewing it was very pleasing.

His engraved portrait, with which he has favoured me, has a motto truely characteristical of his disposition, '_Nemo sibi vivat_.'

A physician being mentioned who had lost his practice, because his whimsically changing his religion had made people distrustful of him, I maintained that this was unreasonable, as religion is unconnected with medical skill.

JOHNSON.

'Sir, it is not unreasonable; for when people see a man absurd in what they understand, they may conclude the same of him in what they do not understand.

If a physician were to take to eating of horse-flesh, nobody would employ him; though one may eat horse-flesh, and be a very skilful physician.

If a man were educated in an absurd religion, his continuing to profess it would not hurt him, though his changing to it would.'

We drank tea and coffee at Mr. Peter Garrick's, where was Mrs. Aston, one of the maiden sisters of Mrs. Walmsley, wife of Johnson's first friend[1369], and sister also of the lady of whom Johnson used to speak with the warmest admiration, by the name of Molly Aston[1370], who was afterwards married to Captain Brodie of the navy.

On Sunday, March 24, we breakfasted with Mrs. Cobb, a widow lady, who lived in an agreeable sequestered place close by the town, called the Friary, it having been formerly a religious house.

She and her niece, Miss Adey, were great admirers of Dr. Johnson; and he behaved to them with a kindness and easy pleasantry, such as we see between old and intimate acquaintance.

He accompanied Mrs. Cobb to St. Mary's church, and I went to the cathedral, where I was very much delighted with the musick, finding it to be peculiarly solemn and accordant with the words of the service.

We dined at Mr. Peter Garrick's, who was in a very lively humour, and verified Johnson's saying, that if he had cultivated gaiety as much as his brother David, he might have equally excelled in it.

He was to-day quite a London narrator, telling us a variety of anecdotes with that earnestness and attempt at mimicry which we usually find in the wits of the metropolis.

Dr. Johnson went with me to the cathedral in the afternoon[1371].

It was grand and pleasing to contemplate this illustrious writer, now full of fame, worshipping in the 'solemn temple[1372]' of his native city.

I returned to tea and coffee at Mr. Peter Garrick's, and then found Dr. Johnson at the Reverend Mr. Seward's[1373], Canon Residentiary, who inhabited the Bishop's palace[1374], in which Mr. Walmsley lived, and which had been the scene of many happy hours in Johnson's early life.

Mr. Seward had, with ecclesiastical hospitality and politeness, asked me in the morning, merely as a stranger, to dine with him; and in the afternoon, when I was introduced to him, he asked Dr. Johnson and me to spend the evening and sup with him.

He was a genteel well-bred dignified clergyman, had travelled with Lord Charles Fitzroy, uncle of the present Duke of Grafton, who died when abroad, and he had lived much in the great world.

He was an ingenious and literary man, had published an edition of Beaumont and Fletcher, and written verses in Dodsley's collection.

His lady was the daughter of Mr. Hunter, Johnson's first schoolmaster.

And now, for the first time, I had the pleasure of seeing his celebrated daughter, Miss Anna Seward, to whom I have since been indebted for many civilities, as well as some obliging communications concerning Johnson[1375].

Mr. Seward mentioned to us the observations which he had made upon the strata of earth in volcanos, from which it appeared, that they were so very different in depth at different periods, that no calculation whatever could be made as to the time required for their formation.

This fully refuted an antimosaical remark introduced into Captain Brydone's entertaining tour, I hope heedlessly, from a kind of vanity which is too common in those who have not sufficiently studied the most important of all subjects.

Dr. Johnson, indeed, had said before, independent of this observation, 'Shall all the accumulated evidence of the history of the world;--shall the authority of what is unquestionably the most ancient writing, be overturned by an uncertain remark such as this?

[1376]'