been guilty of vicious actions would do well to force himself into solitude and sadness, Johuson said, "No, Sir, unless it prevent him from being vicious again. With some people, gloomy penitence is only madness turned upside down. A man may be gloomy, till, in order to be relieved from gloom, he has recourse again to criminal indulgences." Mr. Boswell once confessed an excess of which he had very seldom been guilty, namely, that he had spent a whole night in playing at cards, and that he could not look back on it with satisfaction. Instead of a harsh animadversion, Johnson mildly said, "Alas, Sir! on how few things can we look back with satisfaction!"-B. "By associating with you, Sir, I am always getting an accession of wisdom. But perhaps a man, after knowing his own character-the limited strength of his own mind, should not be desirous of having too much wisdom, considering, quid valeant humeri, how little he can carry."-J. "Sir, be as wise as you can; let a man be aliis lætus, sapiens sibi: Though pleas'd to see the dolphins play, I mind my compass and my way.' You may be wise in your study in the morning, and gay in company at a tavern in the evening. Every man is to take care of his own wisdom and his own virtue, without minding too much what others think." Talking of the great consequence which a man acquired by being employed in his profession, "I suggested (says Mr. B.) a doubt of the justice of the general opinion, that it is improper in a lawyer to solicit employment; for why, I urged, should it not be equally allowable to solicit that as the means of consequence as it is to solicit votes to be elected a member of parliament? Mr. Strahan had told me, that a countryman of his and mine, who had risen to eminence in the law, had, when first making his way, solicited him to get him employed in city causes."-J. Sir, it is wrong to stir up lawsuits; but when once it is certain that a law-suit is to go on, there is nothing wrong in a lawyer's endeavouring that he shall have the benefit rather than another."-B. " You would not solicit employment, Sir, if you were a lawyer."-J. "No, Sir; but not because I should think it wrong, but because I should disdain it." This was a good distinction, which will be felt by men of just pride. He proceeded: "However, I would not have a lawyer to be wanting to himself in using fair means. I would have him to inject a little hint now and then, to prevent his being overlooked." Against melancholy he recommended constant occupation of mind, a great deal of exercise, moderation in eating and drinking, and especially to shun drinking at night. He said, melancholy people were apt to fly to intemperance for relief, but that it sunk them much deeper in misery. He observed, that labouring men who work hard, and live sparingly, are seldom or never troubled with low spirits. On Mr. Boswell's succeeding to his paternal inheritance, it was not to be supposed that the great moralist would omit the opportunity of advising his friend. Accordingly, we find him thus addressing Mr. B.: "You have now a new station, and have therefore new cares and new. employments. Life, as Cowley seems to say, ought to resemble a well-ordered poem; of which one rule generally received is, that the exordium should be simple, and should promise little. Begin your new course of life with the least show and the least expence possible; you may at your pleasure increase both, but you cannot easily diminish them. Do not think your estate your own while any man can call upon you for money which you cannot pay; therefore, begin with timorous parsimony. Let it be your first care not to be in any man's debt. "When the thoughts are extended to a future state, the present life seems hardly worthy of all those principles of conduct and maxims of prudence which one generation of men has transmitted to another; but upon a closer view, when it is perceived how much evil is produced, and how much good is impeded by embarrassment and distress, and how little room the expedients of poverty leave for the exercise of virtue, it grows manifest that the boundless importance of the next life enforces some attention to the interests of this. "Be kind to old servants, and secure the kindness of the agents and factors: do not disgust them by asperity, or unwelcome gaiety, or apparent suspicion. From them you must learn the real state of your affairs, the characters of your tenants, and the value of your lands. "You have now a new character and new duties; think on them, and practise them. "Make an impartial estimate of your revenue; and whatever it is, live upon less. Resolve never to be poor. Frugality is not only the basis of quiet, but of beneficence. No man can help others that wants help himself; we must have enough before we have to spare. "Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult." Upon its being mentioned, that an opulent and very indolent Scotch nobleman, who totally resigned the management of his affairs to a man of knowledge and abilities, had claimed some merit by saying, "The next best thing to managing a man's own affairs well, is being sensible of incapacity, and not attempting it, but having full confidence in one who can do it," Johnson said, "Nay, Sir, this is paltry. There is a middle course. Let a man give application; and depend upon it he will soon get above a despicable state of helplessness, and attain the power of acting for himself." MANNERS. JOHNSON had an utter abhorrence of affectation. Talking of old Mr. Langton, he said, "Sir, you will seldom see such a gentleman; such are his stores of literature; such his knowledge in divinity; and such his exemplary life: and, Sir (added he), he has no grimace, no gesticulation, no bursts of admiration on trivial occasions; he never embraces you with an overacted cordiality." Being in company with a gentleman who affected to maintain Dr. Berkeley's strange position, "That nothing exists but as perceived by some mind;" when the gentleman was going away, Johnson said to him, "Pray, Sir, don't leave us; for we may, perhaps, forget to think of you, and then you will cease to exist." |