light1.] wrote a play called Love in a Hollow | with looks of high exultation and deTree.' He found out that it was a bad one, and therefore wished to buy up all the copies and burn them. The Duchess of Marlborough had kept one; and when he was against her at an election, she had a new edition of it printed, and prefixed to it, as a frontispiece, an elephant dancing on a rope, to show that his lordship's writing comedy was as awkward as an elephant dancing on a rope." p. 4. [Dr. Johnson was always jealous Piozzi, of his reputation for personal activity, and sometimes exhibited it with very strange vehemence. One day when he saw Mr. Thrale leap over a cabriolet stool, to show that he was not tired after a chase of fifty miles or more, he suddenly jumped over it too; but in a way so strange and so unwieldy, that our terror, lest he should break his bones, took from us even the power of laughing.] [Miss Reyn, Reynolds relates that Dr. Johnson Recoll. was very ambitious of excelling in common acquirements, as well as the uncommon, and particularly in feats of activity. One day, as he was walking in Gunisbury Park (or Paddock) with some gentlemen and ladies, who were admiring the extraordinary size of some of the trees, one of the gentlemen remarked that, when he was a boy, he made nothing of climbing (swarming, she thought was the phrase) the largest there. Why, I can swarm it now," replied Dr. Johnson, which excited a hearty laugh-(he was then between fifty and sixty); on which he ran to the tree, clung round the trunk, and ascended to the branches, and, Miss Reynolds believes, would have gone in amongst them, had he not been very earnestly entreated to descend, and down he came with a triumphant air, seeming to make nothing of it. On Sunday, April 1, I dined with him at Mr. Thrale's, with Sir Philip Jennings Clerk 2 and Mr. Perkins 3, who had the superintendence of Mr. Thrale's brewery, with a salary of five hundred pounds a year. Sir Philip had the appearance of a gentleman of ancient family, well advanced in life. He wore his own white hair in a bag of goodly size, a black velvet coat, with an embroidered waistcoat, and very rich laced ruffles; which Mrs. Thrale said were old fashioned, but which, for that reason, I thought the more respectable, more like a tory; yet Sir Philip was then in opposition in parliament. "Ah, sir," said Johnson, "ancient ruffles and modern principles do not agree." Sir Philip defended the opposition to the American war ably and with temper, and I joined him. He said the majority of the nation was against the ministry. JOHNSON. "I, sir, am against the ministry; but it is for having too little of that of which opposition thinks they have too much. Were I minister, if any man wagged his finger against me, he should be turned out; for that which it is in the power of government to give at pleasure to one or to another should be given to the supporters of government. If you will not oppose at the expense of losing your place, your opposition will not be honest, you will feel no serious grievance; and the present opposition is only a contest to get what others have. Sir Robert Walpole acted as I would do. As to the American war, the sense of the nation is with the ministry. The majority of those who can understand is with it; the majority of those who can only hear is against it; and as those who can only hear are more numerous than those who can understand, and opposition is always londest, a majority of the rabble will be for opposition.” This boisterous vivacity entertained us; but the truth in my opinion was that those who could understand the best were against the American war, as almost every man now is, when the question has been coolly considered. At another time, at a gentleman's seat in Devonshire, as he and some company were sitting in a saloon, before which was a spacious lawn, it was remarked as a very proper place for running a race. A young lady present boasted that she could outrun any person; on which Dr. Johnson rose up and said, "6 Madam, you cannot outrun me;" and, going out on the lawn, they started. The lady at first had the advantage; but Dr. Johnson happening to have" slippers on much too small for his feet, kicked them off up into the air, and ran a great length without them, leaving the lady far behind him, and, having won the victory, he returned, leading her by the hand, Mr. Mrs. Thrale gave high praise to Mr. Dudley Long 4 (now North). JOHNSON. Nay, my dear lady, do n't talk so. Long's character is very short. It is nothing. He fills a chair. He is a man of [This exhibition occurred during his visit to Devonshire in 1762, at the house of the lady to whom he made the avowal mentioned ante, vol. i. p. 164.-ED.] 2 Life of Charlemont, vol. i. p. 401. Without stopping here to discuss Lord Charlemont's princi- [Sir P. J. Clerk, Bart., member for Totness ple, the Editor may observe that Mr. Hardy rep-in several parliaments, was, at this time, in very resents Lord Charlemont as having felt some per-active opposition to the government.-ED.] sonal dissatisfaction on this occasion, for which 3 [See vol. i. p. 494.—ED.] surely there was not much reason.-ED.] [See ante, p. 283.-ED.] I genteel appearance, and that is all1. know nobody who blasts by praise as you do for whenever there is exaggerated praise, every body is set against a character. They are provoked to attack it. Now there is Pepys 2: you praised that man with such disproportion, that I was incited to lessen him, perhaps more than he deserves. His blood is upon your head. By the same principle, your malice defeats itself; for your censure is too violent. And yet (looking to her with a leering smile) she is the first woman in the world, could she but restrain that wicked tongue of hers;-she would be the only woman, could she but command that little whirligig." ED. Anec. Upon the subject of exaggerated praise I took the liberty to say, that I thought there might be very high praise given to a known character which deserved it, and therefore it would not be exaggerated. Thus, one might say of Mr. Edmund Burke, he is a very wonderful man. JOHNSON. "No, sir, you would not be safe, if another man had a mind perversely to contradict. He might answer, Where is all the wonder? Burke is, to be sure, a man of uncommon abilities; with a great quantity of matter in his mind, and a great fluency of language in his mouth. But we are not to be stunned and astonished by him.' So you see, sir, even Burke would suffer, not from any fault of his own, but from your folly 3." Mrs. Thrale mentioned a gentleman who had acquired a fortune of four thousand a year in trade, but was absolutely miserable because he could not talk in company; so miserable, that he was impelled to lament his situation in the street to ******, whom he hates, and who he knows despises him. "I am a most unhappy man," said he. "I am invited to conversations; I go to conversations; but, alas! I have no conversation." JOHNSON. "Man commonly cannot be successful in different ways. This gentleman has spent, in getting four thousand pounds a year, the time in which he might have learnt to talk; and now he cannot talk." Mr. Perkins made a [Between Johnson and Pepys there was no cordiality, and Johnson's dislike was certainly increased, if not caused, by some degree of jealousy at the regard which Mrs. Thrale had for Pepys; and as the latter would not tamely submit to Johnson's violence, there were sometimes Piozzi, stormy scenes between them.] [On one occasion, when he had prop. 109. voked Mr. Pepys, till something much too like a quarrel was grown up between them, the moment he was gone, "Now," says Dr. Johnson, " is Pepys gone home hating me, who love him better than I did before. He spoke in defence of his dead friend; but though I hope I spoke better who spoke against him, yet all my eloquence will gain me nothing but an hon-shrewd and droll remark: "If he had got est man for my enemy'!" He did not, however, cordially love Mr. Pepys, though he respected his abilities. “I knew the dog was a scholar," said he, when they Some other gentlemen came in. The had been disputing about the classics for conversation concerning the person 4 whose three hours together one morning at Streat-character Dr. Johnson had treated so slightham; "but that he had so much taste and ingly, as he did not know his merit, was so much knowledge I did not believe: I resumed. Mrs. Thrale said, "You think might have taken Barnard's word though, so of him, sir, because he is quiet, and does for Barnard would not lie."] not exert himself with force. You'll be saying the same thing of Mr. ***** there, who sits as quiet." This was not well bred; and Johnson did not let it pass without correction. "Nay, madam, what right have you to talk thus? Both Mr. ***** and I have reason to take it ill. You may talk so of Mr. ***** *; but why do you make me do it? Have I said any thing against might shoot him: but I have not shot Mr. ***** ? You have set him, that I 1 Here Johnson condescended to play upon the words Long and short. But little did he know that, owing to Mr. Long's reserve in his presence, he was talking thus of a gentleman distinguished amongst his acquaintance for acuteness of wit; and to whom, I think, the French expression, " Il petille d'esprit," is particularly suited. He has gratified me by mentioning that he heard Dr. Johnson say, "Sir, if I were to lose Boswell it would be a limb amputated."-BoswELL. his four thousand a year as a mountebank, he might have learnt to talk at the same time that he was getting his fortune." him." One of the gentlemen said he had seen three folio volumes of Dr. Johnson's say 2 William Weller Pepys, Esq., one of the masters in the high court of chancery, and well known in polite circles. My acquaintance with him is not sufficient to enable me to speak of him from my own judgment. But I know that both at Eton [This is a fresh instance (see ante, 29th and Oxford he was the intimate friend of the late March, 1776) of Johnson's contradicting his own Sir James Macdonald, the Marcellus of Scotland, assertions when another person ventured to repeat whose extraordinary talents, learning, and virtues them. Boswell's supposed folly was saying exwill ever be remembered with admiration and re-actly the same thing that Johnson had said to him gret.-BOSWELL. [See ante, vol. i. p. 285.- on the 20th March, 1776. Ante, p. 38.—ED.] · ED.] [Mr. Dudley North.-ED.] ings collected by me. "I must put you right, sir," said I; "for I am very exact in authenticity. You could not see folio volumes, for I have none: you might have seen some in quarto and octavo. This is an inattention which one should guard against." JOHNSON. "Sir, it is a want of concern about veracity. He does not know that he saw any volumes. If he had seen them he could have remembered their size." Mr. Thrale's death was a very essential loss to Johnson, who, although he did not foresee all that afterwards happened, was sufficiently convinced that the comforts which Mr. Thrale's family afforded him would now in a great measure cease. He, however, continued to show a kind attention to his widow and children as long as it was acceptable; and he took upon him, with a very earnest concern, the office of one of his executors; the importance of which seemed greater than usual to him, from his circumstances having been always such that he had scarcely any share in the real business of life. His friends of the Club were in hopes that Mr. Thrale might have made a liberal provision for him for his life, which, as Mr. Thrale left no son and a very large fortune, it would have been highly to his honour to have done; and, considering Dr. Johnson's age, could not have been of long duration; but he bequeathed him only two hundred pounds, which was the legacy given to each of his executors. I could not but be somewhat diverted by hearing Johnson talk in a pompous manner of his new office, and particuJohnson was in the house, and thus men- larly of the concerns of the brewery, which tions the event: Mr. Thrale appeared very lethargick today. I saw him again on Monday evening, at which time he was not thought to be in immediate danger: but early in the morning of Wednesday the 4th he expired. Upon that day there was a call of the literary Club; but Johnson apologised for his absence by the following note: "Wednesday, [4th April.] "Mr. Johnson knows that Sir Joshua Reynolds and the other gentlemen will excuse his incompliance with the call, when they are told that Mr. Thrale died this morning." ["Good Friday, 13th April, 1781. "On Wednesday, 11th, was buried my dear friend Thrale, who died on Wednesday, 4th; and with him were buried many of my hopes and pleasures. About five, I think, on Wednesday morning he expired. I felt almost the last flutter of his pulse, and looked for the last time upon the face that for fifteen years had never been turned upon me but with respect or benignity. Farewell. May God, that delighteth in mercy, have had mercy on thee! "I had constantly prayed for him some time before his death. "The decease of him, from whose friendship I had obtained many opportunities of amusement, and to whom I turned my thoughts as to a refuge from misfortunes, has left me heavy. But my business is with myself."] ED. "18th September. Pr. and 'My first knowledge of Thrale Med. p. was in 1765. I enjoyed his favour for almost a fourth part of my life.”] 188. | it was at last resolved should be sold. Lord Lucan tells a very good story, which, if not precisely exact, is certainly characteristical; that when the sale of Thrale's brewery was going forward, Johnson appeared bustling about, with an inkhorn and pen in his button-hole, like an exciseman; and on being asked what he really considered to be the value of the property which was to be disposed of, answered, We are not here to sell a parcel of boilers and vats, but the potentiality of growing rich beyond the dreams of avarice." ... vol. ii. p. 191. ["TO MRS. THrale. "London, 5th April, 1781. "DEAREST MADAM,-Of your in- Letters, junctions to pray for you and write to you, I hope to leave neither unobserved; and I hope to find you willing in a short time to alleviate your trouble by some other exercise of the mind. I am not without my part of the calamity. No [At a subsequent date he added, on death since that of my wife has ever opthe same paper, pressed me like this. But let us remember that we are in the hands of Him who knows when to give and when to take away, who will look upon us with mercy through all our variations of existence, and who invites us to call on himn in the day of trouble. Call upon him in this great revolution of life, and call with confidence. You will then find comfort for the past, and support for the future. He that has given you happiness in marriage, to a degree of which, without personal knowledge, I should have thought the description fabulous, can give 1 Johnson's expressions on this occasion remind us of Isaac Walton's eulogy on Whitgift, in his Life of Hooker. "He lived to be present at the expiration of her (Queen Elizabeth's) last breath, and to behold the closing of those eyes that had long looked upon him with reverence and affection."-KEARNEY. you another mode of happiness as a mother, and at last the happiness of losing all temporal cares in the thoughts of an eternity in heaven. "I do not exhort you to reason yourself into tranquillity. .We must first pray, and then labour; first implore the blessing of God, and those means which he puts into our hands, Cultivated ground has few weeds; a mind occupied by lawful business has little room for useless regret. "We read the will to-day; but I will not fill my first letter with any account than that, with all my zeal for your advantage, I am satisfied; and that the other executors, more used to consider property than I, commended it for wisdom and equity. Yet why should I not tell you that you have five hundred pounds for your immediate expenses, and two thousand pounds a year, with both the houses, and all the goods? "Let us pray for one another, that the time, whether long or short, that shall yet be granted us, may be well spent; and that when this life, which at the longest is very short, shall come to an end, a better may begin which shall never end."] Hawk. p. 551, 552. pears at first sight so unfeeling, that it is but justice to insert extracts of letters to Mrs. Thrale, in which Johnson accounts for going into company at this period.] ["DR. JOHNSON TO MRS. THRale, "London, April 9th, 1781. "DEAREST MADAM,-That you Letters, are gradually recovering your tran- vol. ii. quillity is the effect to be humbly p. 195. expected from trust in God. Do not represent life as darker than it is. Your loss has been very great, but you retain more than almost any other can hope to possess. You are high in the opinion of mankind; you have children from whom much pleasure may be expected; and that you will find many friends you have no reason to doubt. Of my friendship, be it more or less, I hope you think yourself certain, without much art or care. It will not be easy for me to repay the benefits that I have received; but I hope to be always ready at your call. Our sorrow has different effects: you are withdrawn into solitude, and I am driven into company. I am afraid of thinking what I have lost. I never had such a friend before. Let me have your prayers and those of my dear Queeney. "The prudence and resolution of your design to return so soon to your business and your duty deserves great praise: I shall communicate it on Wednesday to the other executors."] ["DR. JOHNSON TO MRS. THRALE. [The death of Mr. Thrale dissolved the friendship between him and Johnson; but it abated not in the latter that care for the interests of those whom his friend had left behind him, which he thought himself bound to cherish, as a living principle of gratitude. The favours he had received from Mr. Thrale were to be repaid by the exercise of kind offices to- "DEAREST MADAM,-You will not supwards his relict and her children, and these, pose that much has happened since last circumstanced as Johnson was, could only night, nor indeed is this a time, for talking be prudent counsels, friendly admonition to much of loss and gain. The business of the one, and preceptive instruction to the Christians is now for a few days in their others, both which he was ever ready to in- own bosoms. God grant us to do it proterpose. Nevertheless, it was observed by perly! hope you gain ground on your af myself, and other of Johnson's friends, that, fliction: I hope to overcome mine. You soon after the decease of Mr. Thrale, his and Miss must comfort one another. May visits to Streatham became less and less fre- you long live happily together! I have noquent, and that he studiously avoided the body whom I expect to share my uneasimention of the place or family. It seems ness; nor, if I could communicate it, would that between him and the widow there was it be less. I give it little vent, and amuse a formal taking of leave, for I find in his it as I can. Let us pray for one another; diary the following note: and when we meet, we may try what fidelity and tenderness will do for us. "April 5th, 1783. "I took leave of Mrs. Thrale. I was "There is no wisdom in useless and much moved. I had some expostulations hopeless sorrow; but there is something in with her. She said that she was likewise it so like virtue, that he who is wholly withaffected. I commended the Thrales without it cannot be loved, nor will, by me at great good-will to God. May my petitions least, be thought worthy of esteem."] have been heard!"] On Friday, April 6, he carried me to dine at a club which, at his desire, had been lately formed at the Queen's Arms in St. Paul's Churchyard. [Their dining at a club on the next day but one after the loss of such a friend as Mr. Thrale ap ED. He had told Mr. Hoole that he wished to have a city Club, and asked him to collect one; but, said he, "Don't let them be pa triots." The company were to-day very sensible, well-behaved men. I have pre served only two particulars of his conversa tion. He said he was glad Lord George | dining twice abroad in Passion-week; a Gordon had escaped, rather than that a laxity in which I am convinced he would precedent should be established for hanging not have indulged himself at the time when a man for constructive treason, which, in he wrote his solemn paper in "The Ramconsistency with his true, manly, constitu- bler" upon that awful season. It appeared tional toryism, he considered would be a to me, that by being much more in compadangerous engine of arbitrary power. And ny, and enjoying more luxurious living, he upon its being mentioned that an opulent had contracted a keener relish for pleasure, and very indolent Scotch nobleman, who and was consequently less rigorous in his totally resigned the management of his af- religious rites. This he would not acknowfairs to a man of knowledge and abilities, ledge; but he reasoned with admirable had claimed some merit by saying, "The sophistry as follows: "Why, sir, a bishnext best thing to managing a man's own op's calling company together in this week affairs well is being sensible of incapacity, is, to use the vulgar phrase, not the thing. and-not attempting it, but having full con- But you must consider laxity is a bad thing; fidence in one who can do it: "-JOHNSON. but preciseness is also a bad thing; and "Nay, sir, this is paltry. There is a mid- your general character may be more hurt dle course. Let a man give application; by preciseness than by dining with a bishand depend upon it he will soon get above op in Passion-week. There might be a a despicable state of helplessness, and attain handle for reflection. It might be said, the power of acting for himself." 'He refuses to dine with a bishop in PasOn Saturday, April 7, I dined with him sion-week, but was three Sundays absent at Mr. Hoole's with Governour Bouchier from church.'" BOSWELL. Very true, and Captain Orme, both of whom had been sir. But suppose a man to be uniformly of long in the East Indies; and, being men of good conduct, would it not be better that good sense and observation, were very en- he should refuse to dine with a bishop in tertaining. Johnson defended the oriental this week, and so not encourage a bad pracregulation of different castes of men', which tice by his example?" JOHNSON. "Why, was objected to as totally destructive of the sir, you are to consider whether you might hopes of rising in society by personal merit. not do more harm by lessening the influHe showed that there was a principle in itence of a bishop's character by your disapsufficiently plausible by analogy. "We probation in refusing him, than by going see," said he, "in metals that there are dif- to him." ferent species; and so likewise in animals, though one species may not differ very widely from another, as, in the species of dogs, the cur, the spaniel, the mastiff. The Bramins are the mastiffs of mankind." On Thursday, April 12, I dined with him at a bishop's, where were Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mr. Berenger, and some more company. He had dined the day before at another bishop's 2. I have unfortunately recorded none of his conversation at the bishop's where we dined together: but I have preserved his ingenious defence of his Rajapouts, the military caste; the Bramins, pacifick and abstemious.-KEARNEY. 2 [The only bishops at whose houses Johnson is recorded to have dined were Shipley of St. Asaph and Porteus of Chester, afterwards of London. By a letter post, April, 1782, it appears that he dined two consecutive days, in April, with the Bishops of St. Asaph's and Chester. It seems so unlikely that he should, in two succeeding Aprils, have dined successively with these two bishops, that the Editor suspected that the letter placed under the year 1782, but undated in Mrs. Piozzi's volume, really belonged to 1781, and referred to the dinners mentioned in the text; but the statement in that letter, that the second of May fell on a Thursday, fixes its date to 1782. The matter is of some little importance, for we had rather be assured that Bishop Porteus were not the bishop alluded to.—ED.] "TO MRS. LUCY PORTER, IN LICHFIEld. "The spring is now making quick advances. As it is the season in which the whole world is enlivened and invigorated, I hope that both you and I shall partake of its benefits. My desire is to see Lichfield; but being left executor to my friend, I know not whether I can be spared; but I will try, for it is now long since we saw one another; and how little we can promise ourselves many more interviews, we are taught by hourly examples of mortality. not be an evil. Write to me soon, my dearLet us try to live so as that mortality may est: your letters will give me great pleasure. "I am sorry that Mr. Porter has not had his box; but by sending it to Mr. Mathias, who very readily undertook its conveyance, I did the best I could, and perhaps before now he has it. "Be so kind as to make my compliments to my friends. I have a great value for |