L 1776. Etat. 67. not be happy if they mifs their counterparts." JOHNSON. I wished to have ftaid at Birmingham to-night, to have talked more with Mr. Hector; but my friend was impatient to reach his native city: so we drove on that stage in the dark, and were long penfive and filent. When we came within the focus of the Lichfield lamps, "Now (faid he,) we are getting out of a state of death." We put up at the Three Crowns, not one of the great inns, but a good old fashioned one, which was kept by Mr. Wilkins, and was the very next house to that in which Johnson was born and brought up, and which was ftill his own property'. We had a comfortable supper, and got into high spirits. I felt all my Toryifm glow in this old capital of Staffordfhire. I could have offered incenfe genio loci; and I indulged in libations of that ale, which Bonniface, in "The Beaux Stratagem," recommends with fuch an eloquent jollity. Next morning he introduced me to Mrs. Lucy Porter, his ftep-daughter. She was now an old maid, with much fimplicity 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 ftately house, and making a handfome garden, in an elevated fituation in Lichfield. Johnson, when here by himself, used to live at her house. She reverenced him, and he had a parental tenderness for her. We then vifited 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 fleep at his houfe. Johnson, however, would not quit his old acquaintance Wilkins, of the Three Crowns. The family likeness of the Garricks was very striking; and Johnson thought that David's vivacity was not fo peculiar to himself as was fuppofed. «Sir, (faid 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 brifk 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 3 I went through the house where my illuftrious friend was born, with a reverence with which it doubtless will long be vifited. An engraved view of it, with the adjacent buildings, is in The Gentleman's Magazine" for February, 1785. 1776. much with the young English at Geneva, and was ambitious to be as lively as they; with which view, he, with affiduous exertion, was jumping over the tat. 67. tables and chairs in his lodgings; and when the people of the house ran in and asked, with furprize, what was the matter, he answered, "Sh' apprens t'etre fif." We dined at our inn, and had with us a Mr. Jackson, one of Johnson's schoolfellows, whom he treated with much kindness, though he feemed 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 ruddinefs which betokens one who is in no hafte to "leave his can." He drank only ale. He had tried to be a cutler at Birmingham, but had not fucceeded; and now he lived poorly at home, and had some scheme of dreffing leather in a better manner than common; to his indistinct account of which, Dr. Johnson listened with patient attention, that he might affift him with his advice. Here was an inftance of genuine humanity and real kindness in this great man, who has been moft unjustly reprefented as altogether harsh and deftitute of tenderness. A thousand fuch inftances might have been recorded in the courfe of his long life; though, that his temper was warm and hafty, and his manner often rough, cannot be denied. I faw here, for the first time, oat ale; and oat cakes not hard as in Scotland, but foft like a Yorkshire cake, were ferved at breakfast. It was pleasant to me to find, that "Oats," the "food of borfes," were so much used as the food of the people in Dr. Johnson's own town. He expatiated in praife of Lichfield and its inhabitants, who, he said, were "the most sober, decent people in England, the genteeleft in proportion to their wealth, and spoke the pureft English." I doubted as to the laft article of this eulogy; for they had several provincial founds; as, there, pronounced like fear, instead of like fair; once, pronounced woonfe, instead of wunfe, or wonfe. Johnson himself never got entirely free of his provincial accent. Garrick fometimes ufed 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?” Very little business appeared to be going forward in Lichfield. I found however two ftrange manufactures for fo inland a place, fail-cloth and ftreamers for fhips; and I observed them making fome faddle-cloths, and dreffing sheepskins: but upon the whole, the bufy hand of industry seemed to be quite flackened. "c Surely, Sir, (faid I,) you are an idle fet of people." "Sir, (faid Johnson,) we are a city of philofophers: we work with our heads, and make the boobies of Birmingham work for us with their hands." 1776. There was at this time a company of players performing at Lichfield. The Etat. 67. manager, Mr. Stanton, fent his compliments, and requested 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 expreffed his gratitude to Dr. Johnson for having once got him permiffion from Dr. Taylor at Afhbourne to play there upon moderate terms. Garrick's name was foon introduced. JOHNSON. "Garrick's converfation is gay and grotesque. It is a dish of all forts, but all good things. There is no folid meat in it there is a want of fentiment in it. Not but that he has fentiment fometimes, and fentiment too very powerful and very pleafing: but it has not its full proportion in his converfation." 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." 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 mafter's tafte in theatrical merit was by no means refined; he was not an elegans formarum fpectator. Garrick ufed to tell, that Johnson faid of an actor, who played Sir Harry Wildair 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 propofed me to write a Prologue for the occafion: "A Prologue, by James Boswell, Efq. from the Hebrides." I was really inclined to take the hint. Methought, "Prologue, fpoken before Dr. Samuel Johnson, at Lichfield, 1776;" would have founded as well as, Prologue, fpoken before the Duke of York, at Oxford," in Charles the Second's time. Much might have been faid of what Lichfield had done for Shakspeare, by producing Johnson and Garrick. But I found he was averfe to it. We went and viewed the mufeum of Mr. Richard Green, apothecary here, who told me he was proud of being a relation of Dr. Johnson's. It was, truly, a wonderful collection, both of antiquities and natural curiofities, and ingenious works of art. He had all the articles accurately arranged, with their names upon labels, printed at his own little prefs; 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 bookfeller's. Johnfon expreffed his admiration of the activity and diligence and good fortune of Mr. Green, in getting together, in his fituation, fo great a variety of things; and Mr. Green told me, that Johnson once faid to him, “Sir, I fhould I fhould as foon have thought of building a man of war, as of collecting fuch a museum." Mr. Green's obliging alacrity in fhewing it was very pleafing. His engraved portrait, with which he has favoured me, has a motto truly characteristical of his difpofition, "Nemo fibi vivat.” A phyfician being mentioned who had loft his practice, because his whimsically changing his religion had made people diftruftful of him, I maintained. that this was unreasonable, as religion is unconnected with medical skill. JOHNSON. "Sir, it is not unreafonable; for when people fee a man abfurd in what they understand, they may conclude the fame 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 horfe-flesh, and be a very skilful physician. If a man were educated in an abfurd religion, his continuing to profefs it would not hurt him, though his changing to it would." We drank tea and coffee at Mr. Peter Garrick's, where was Mrs. Afton, one of the maiden fifters of Mrs. Walmsley, wife of Johnson's firft friend, and fifter alfo of the lady of whom Johnfon used to speak with the warmest admiration, by the name of Molly Afton, 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 fequeftered place close by the town, called the Friary, it having been formerly a religious houfe. She and her niece, Mifs Adey, were great admirers of Dr. Johnson; and he behaved to them with a kindness and eafy pleasantry, fuch as we fee 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 mufick, finding it to be peculiarly folemn, 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 faying, 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 mimickry which we usually find in the wits of the metropolis. Dr. Johnson went with me to the cathedral in the afternoon. It was grand and pleafing to contemplate this illuftrious writer, now full of fame, worshipping in "the folemn temple" of his native city. I returned to tea and coffee at Mr. Peter Garrick's, and then found Dr. Johnfon at the Reverend Mr. Seward's, Canon Refidentiary, who inhabited the Bishop's palace, in which Mr. Walmfley lived, and which had been the fcene of many happy hours in Johnfon's early life. Mr. Seward had, with ecclefiaftical. 1776. Ætat, 67. 1776. ecclefiaftical hofpitality and politenefs, asked me in the morning, merely as a Atat. 67. ftranger, 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 fup 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 verfes in Dodfley'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 feeing his celebrated daughter, Mifs Anna Seward, to whom I have fince been indebted for many civilities, as well as fome obliging communications concerning Johnson. Mr. Seward mentioned to us the observations which he had made upon the ftrata of earth in volcanos, from which it appeared, that they were fo very different in depth in different periods, that no calculation whatever could be made as to the time required for their formation. This fully refuted an antimofaical 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 fufficiently studied the most important of all fubjects. Dr. Johnson, indeed, had faid before, independent of this obfervation, "Shall all the accumulated evidence of the hiftory of the world;-fhall the authority of what is unqueftionably the most ancient writing, be overturned by an uncertain remark such as this?" On Monday, March 25, we breakfasted at Mrs. Lucy Porter's. He had sent an express to Dr. Taylor's, acquainting him of our being at Lichfield, and Taylor had returned an answer that his poft-chaife fhould come for us this day. While we fat at breakfast, Dr. Johnson received a letter by the post, which feemed to agitate him very much. When he had read it, he exclaimed, "One of the moft dreadful things that has happened in my time." The phrase my time, like the word age, is ufually understood to refer to an event of a publick or general nature. I imagined something like an affaffination of the King-like a gunpowder plot carried into execution-or like another fire of London. When asked, "What is it, Sir?" he anfwered, " Mr. Thrale has loft his only fon!" This was, no doubt, a very great affliction to Mr. and Mrs. Thrale, which their friends would confider accordingly; but from the manner in which the intelligence of it was communicated by Johnson, it appeared for the moment to be comparatively small. I however, foon felt a fincere concern, and was curious to observe how Dr. Johnson would be |