Sir; there will always be fome truth mixed with the falfehood, and how can 1776. it be ascertained how much is true and how much is falfe? Befides, Sir, what Ætat. 67. damages would a jury give me for having been reprefented as fwearing?" BOSWELL. "I think, Sir, you should at least difavow fuch a publication, because the world and posterity might with much plaufible foundation fay, Here is a volume which was publickly advertifed and came out in Dr. Johnson's own time, and, by his filence, was admitted by him to be genuine." JOHNSON. "I fhall give myself no trouble about the matter." He was, perhaps, above suffering from such spurious publications; but I could not help thinking, that many men would be much injured in their reputation, by having abfurd and vicious fayings imputed to them; and that redrefs ought in fuch cafes to be given. A story He faid, "The value of every story depends on its being true. ́is a picture either of an individual or of human nature in general: if it be falfe, it is a picture of nothing. For instance: suppose a man should tell that Johnson, before setting out for Italy, as he had to cross the Alps, fat down to make himself wings. This many people would believe; but it would be a picture of nothing. ******* (naming a worthy friend of ours,) used to think a story, a story, till I fhewed him that truth was effential to it." I obferved, that Foote entertained us with stories which were not true; but that, indeed, it was properly not as narratives that Foote's stories pleafed us, but as collections of ludicrous images. JOHNSON. "Foote is quite impartial, for he tells lies of every body." The importance of ftrict and fcrupulous veracity cannot be too often inculcated. Johnson was known to be fo rigidly attentive to it, that even in his common converfation the flightest circumftance was mentioned with exact precision. The knowledge of his having fuch a principle and habit made his friends have a perfect reliance on the truth of every thing that he told, however it might have been doubted if told by many others. As an instance of this, I may mention an odd incident which he related as having happened to him one night in Fleet-street. "A gentlewoman (faid he) begged I would give her my arm to affift her in croffing the ftreet, which I accordingly did; upon which the offered me a fhilling, fuppofing me to be the watchman. I perceived that she was fomewhat in liquor." This, if told by moft people, would have been thought an invention: when told by Johnfon, it was believed by his friends as much as if they had seen what paffed. We landed at the Temple-ftairs, where we parted. D 2 1 found 1776. I found him in the evening in Mrs. Williams's room. We talked of Etat. 67. religious orders. He faid, "It is as unreafonable for a man to go into a Carthufian convent, for fear of being immoral, as for a man to cut off his hands for fear he should steal. There is, indeed, great refolution in the immediate act of difmembering himself; but when that is once done, he has no longer any merit for though it is out of his power to fteal, yet he may all his life be a thief in his heart. So when a man has once become a Carthufian, he is obliged to continue fo, whether he chooses it or not. Their filence, too, is abfurd. We read in the gofpel of the apoftles being fent to preach, but not to hold their tongues. All feverity that does not tend to increafe good, or prevent evil, is idle. I faid to the Lady Abbess of a convent, Madam, you are here, not for the love of virtue, but the fear of vice.' She said, She fhould remember this as long as fhe lived." I thought it hard to give her this view of her fituation, when she could not help it; and, indeed, I wondered at the whole of what he now faid; becaufe, both in his "Rambler" and "Idler," he treats religious aufterities with much folemnity of respect. Finding him ftill perfevering in his abftinence from wine, I ventured to fpeak to him of it.-JOHNSON. "Sir, I have no objection to a man's drinking wine, if he can do it in moderation. I found myself apt to go to excess in it, and therefore, after having been for fome time without it, on account of illnefs, I thought it better not to return to it. Every man is to judge for himfelf, according to the effects which he experiences. One of the fathers. tells us, he found fafting made him fo peevish that he did not practise it.” Though he often enlarged upon the evil of intoxication, he was by no means harsh and unforgiving to those who indulged in occasional excess in wine. One of his friends, I well remember, came to fup at a tavern with him and fome other gentlemen, and too plainly discovered that he had drunk too much at dinner. When one who loved mifchief, thinking to produce a fevere cenfure, afked Johnfon, fome days afterwards, "Well, Sir, what did your friend fay to you, as an apology for being in fuch a fituation?" Johnson anfwered, "Sir, he faid all that a man should fay: he faid he was forry for it." I heard him once give a very judicious practical advice upon this fubject: "A man, (faid he,) who has been drinking wine at all freely, fhould never go into a new company. With those who have partaken of wine with him, he may be pretty well in unifon; but he will probably be offenfive, or appear ridiculous, to other people. He 1776. He allowed very great influence to education. "I do not deny, Sir, but there is fome original difference in minds; but it is nothing in comparison of Etat. 67. what is formed by education. We may inftance the science of numbers, which all minds are equally capable of attaining; yet we find a prodigious difference in the powers of different men, in that refpect, after they are grown up, because their minds have been more or less exercised in it; and I think the fame caufe will explain the difference of excellence in other things, gradations admitting always fome difference in the first principles." This is a difficult fubject; but it is beft to hope that diligence may do a great deal. We are fure of what it can do, in increasing our mechanical force and dexterity. I again visited him on Monday. He took occafion to enlarge, as he often did, upon the wretchedness of a fea-life. "A fhip is worse than a gaol. There is, in a gaol, better air, better company, better conveniency of every kind; and a ship has the additional disadvantage of being in danger. When men come to like a fea-life, they are not fit to live on land.”—“ Then (faid I,) it would be cruel in a father to breed his fon to the fea." JOHNson. "It would be cruel in a father who thinks as I do. Men go to fea, before they know the unhappiness of that way of life; and when they have come to know it, they cannot escape from it, because it is then too late to choose another profeffion; as indeed is generally the cafe with men, when they have once engaged in any particular way of life." On Tuesday, March 19, which was fixed for our propofed jaunt, we met in the morning at the Somerfet coffee-house in the Strand, where we were taken up by the Oxford coach. He was accompanied by Mr. Gwyn, the architect; and a gentleman of Merton College, whom we did not know, had the fourth feat. We foon got into converfation; for it was very remarkable of Johnson, that the prefence of a stranger was no restraint upon his talk. I observed that Garrick, who was about to quit the ftage, would foon have an eafier life. JOHNSON. "I doubt that, Sir." BOSWELL. "Why, Sir, he will be Atlas with the burthen off his back." JOHNSON. "But I know not, Sir, if he will be fo fteady without his load. However, he should never play any more, but be entirely the gentleman, and not partly the player: he should no longer fubject. himself to be hiffed by a mob, or to be infolently treated by performers, whom he used to rule with a high hand, and who would gladly retaliate." BOSWELL. "I think he fhould play once a year for the benefit of decayed actors, as it has been faid he means to do." JOHNSON. "Alas, Sir! he will foon be a decayed actor himself." Johnfon 1776. Ætat. 67. Johnfon expreffed his disapprobation of ornamental architecture, fuch as magnificent columns fupporting a portico, or expenfive pilafters fupporting merely their own capitals, "because it confumes labour difproportionate to its utility." For the fame reason he fatyrised ftatuary. "Painting (faid he,) confumes labour not difproportionate to its effect; but a fellow will hack half a year at a block of marble to make something in stone that hardly resembles a man. The value of ftatuary is owing to its difficulty. You would not value the fineft head cut upon a carrot." Here he feemed to me to be strangely deficient in tafte; for surely ftatuary is a noble art of imitation, and preferves a wonderful expreffion of the varieties of the human frame; and although it must be allowed that the circumstances of difficulty enhances the value of a marble head, we should confider, that if it requires a long time in the performance, it has a proportionate value in durability. Gwyn was a fine lively rattling fellow. Dr. Johnfon kept him in fubjection, but with a kindly authority. The fpirit of the artist, however, rose against what he thought a Gothick attack, and he made a brisk defence. "What, Sir, will you allow no value to beauty in architecture or in ftatuary? Why should we allow it then in writing? Why do you take the trouble to give us so many fine allufions, and bright images, and elegant phrases? You might convey all your inftruction without thefe ornaments." Johnfon fmiled with complacency; but said, Why, Sir, all thefe ornaments are ufeful, because they obtain an easier reception for truth; but a building is not at all more convenient for being decorated with fuperfluous carved work." Gwyn at last was lucky enough to make one reply to Dr. Johnson, which he allowed to be excellent. Johnfon cenfured him for taking down a church which might have ftood many years, and building a new one at a different place, for no other reafon but that there might be a direct road to a new bridge; and his expreffion was, "You are taking a church out of the way, that the people may go in a straight line to the bridge."-" No, Sir (faid Gwyn) I am putting the church in the way, that the people may not go out of the way." JOHNSON. (with a hearty loud laugh of approbation,) Speak no more. Reft your colloquial fame upon this." Upon our arrival at Oxford, Dr. Johnfon and I went directly to Univerfity College, but were disappointed on finding that one of the fellows, his friend Mr. Scott, who accompanied him from Newcastle to Edinburgh, was gone to the country. We put up at the Angel inn, and paffed the evening by ourselves in eafy and familiar converfation. Talking of conftitutional melancholy, he obferved, "A man fo afflicted, Sir, muft divert diftreffing thoughts, 1776. thoughts, and not combat with them." BOSWELL. "May not he think them down, Sir?" JOHNSON. "No, Sir. To attempt to think them down is Atat. 67. madness. He fhould have a lamp conftantly burning in his bed-chamber during the night, and if wakefully disturbed, take a book, and read, and compose himself to reft. To have the management of the mind is a great art, and it may be attained in a confiderable degree by experience and habitual exercife." BOSWELL. " Should not he provide amusements for himfelf? Would it not, for inftance, be right for him to take a courfe of chymistry?" JOHNSON. "Let him take a course of chymistry, or a course of rope-dancing, or a course of any thing to which he is inclined at the time. Let him contrive to have as many retreats for his mind as he can, as many things to which it can fly from itself. Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy' is a valuable work. It is, perhaps, overloaded with quotation. But there is great fpirit and great power in what Burton fays, when he writes from his own mind.” Next morning we vifited Dr. Wetherell, Mafter of University College, with whom Dr. Johnfon conferred on the moft advantageous mode of difpofing of the books printed at the Clarendon prefs, on which fubject his letter has been inferted in a former page. I often had occafion to remark, Johnson loved bufinefs, loved to have his wifdom actually operate on real life. Dr. Wetherell and I talked of him without referve in his own prefence. WETHERELL. "I would have given him a hundred guineas if he would. have written a preface to his Political Tracts,' by way of a Discourse on the British Conftitution." BOSWELL. " Dr. Johnson, though in his writings, and upon all occafions a great friend to the conftitution both in church and state, has never written expressly in fupport of either. There is really a claim upon him for both. I am fure he could give a volume of no great bulk upon each, which would comprise all the fubftance, and with his fpirit would effectually maintain them. He fhould erect a fort on the confines of each." I could perceive that he was difpleased by this dialogue. He burft out, Why fhould I be always writing?" I hoped he was conscious that the debt was juft, and meant to discharge it, though he disliked being dunned. We then went to Pembroke College, and waited on his old friend Dr. Adams, the master of it, whom I found to be a moft polite, pleafing, communicative man. Before his advancement to the headship of his College, I had intended to go and vifit him at Shrewsbury, where he was rector of St. Chad's, in order to get from him what particulars he could recollect of Johnson's academical life. He now obligingly gave me part of that authentick |