1773. -,། Etat. 64. He talked with approbation of an intended edition of "The Spectator,” with notes; two volumes of which had been prepared by a gentleman eminent in the literary world, and the materials which he had collected for the remainder had been transferred to another hand. He obferved, that all works which defcribe manners, require notes in fixty or feventy years, or lefs; and told us, he had communicated all he knew that could throw light upon "The Spectator." He faid, "Addison had made his Sir Andrew Freeport a true Whig, arguing againft giving charity to beggars, and throwing out other fuch ungracious fentiments; but that he had thought better, and made amends by making him found an hofpital for decayed farmers." He called for the volume of "The Spectator" in which that account is contained, and read it aloud to us. He read fo well, that every thing acquired additional weight and grace from his utterance. The converfation having turned on modern imitations of ancient ballads, and fome one having praised their fimplicity, he treated them with that ridicule which he always difplayed when this fubject was mentioned. He difapproved of introducing fcripture phrafes into fecular difcourfe. This feemed to me a queftion of fome difficulty. A fcripture expreffion may be ufed, like a highly claffical phrafe, to produce an inftantaneous strong impreffion; and it may be done without being at all improper. Yet I own there is danger, that applying the language of our facred book to ordinary fubjects may tend to leffen our reverence for it. If therefore it be introduced. at all, it should be with very great caution. On Thursday, April 8, I fat a good part of the evening with him, but he was very filent. He faid, "Burnet's History of his own Times,' is very entertaining. The ftyle indeed is mere chit-chat. I do not believe that Burnet intentionally lyed; but he was fo much prejudiced, that he took no pains to find out the truth. He was like a man who refolves to regulate his time by a certain watch; but will not inquire whether the watch is right or not. Though he was not disposed to talk, he was unwilling that I fhould leave him; and when I looked at my watch, and told him it was twelve o'clock, he cried, "What's that to you and me?" and ordered Frank to tell Mrs. Williams that we were coming to drink tea with her, which we did. It was fettled that we should go to church together next day. On the 9th of April, being Good-Friday, I breakfafted with him on tea and cross-buns; Doctor Levet, as Frank called him, making the tea. He carried me with him to the church of St. Clement Danes, where he had his feat; and 1773. his behaviour was, as I had imaged to myself, folemnly devout. I never fhall forget the tremulous earnestness with which he pronounced the aweful petition Atat. 64 in the Litany: " In the hour of death, and at the day of judgement, good LORD deliver us." We went to church both in the morning and evening. In the interval between the two fervices we did not dine, but he read in the Greek New Testament, and I turned over several of his books. In Archbishop Laud's Diary, I found the following paffage, which I read to Dr. Johnson: "1623. February 1, Sunday. I ftood by the most illuftrious Prince Charles', at dinner. He was then very merry, and talked occafionally of many things with his attendants. Among other things, he said, that if he were neceffitated to take any particular profeffion of life, he could not be a lawyer, adding his reafons: I cannot (faith he,) defend a bad, nor yield in a good caufe." JOHNSON. "Sir, this is falfe reasoning; because every cause has a bad fide: and a lawyer is not overcome, though the cause which he has endeavoured to fupport be determined against him." I told him that Goldfmith had faid to me a few days before, "As I take my fhoes from the fhoemaker, and my coat from the taylor, fo I take my religion from the priest." I regretted this loose way of talking. JOHNSON. "Sir, he knows nothing; he has made up his mind about nothing." To my great furprize, he asked me to dine with him on Eafter-day. I never fuppofed that he had a dinner at his houfe; for I had not then heard of any one of his friends having been entertained at his table. He told me, “I generally have a meat pye on Sunday: it is baked at a publick oven, which is very properly allowed, because one man can attend it; and thus the advantage is obtained of not keeping fervants from church to drefs dinners." April 11, being Eafter-Sunday, after having attended divine fervice at St. Paul's, I repaired to Dr. Johnson's. I had gratified my curiofity much in dining with JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU, while he lived in the wilds of Neufchatel: I had as great a curiofity to dine with DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON, in the dufky recefs of a court in Fleet-street. I fuppofed we should scarcely have knives and forks, and only some strange uncouth ill-dreft dish: but I found every thing in very good order. We had no other company but Mrs. Williams and a young woman whom I did not know. As a dinner here was confidered as a fingular phænomenon, and as I was frequently interrogated on the subject, my 394 1773. Etat. 64. readers may perhaps be defirous to know our bill of fare. Foote, I remember, in allufion to Francis, the negro, was willing to fuppofe that our repaft was black broth. But the fact was, that we had a very good foup, a boiled leg of lamb and fpinach, a veal pye, and a rice pudding. Of Dr. John Campbell, the authour, he said, "He is a very inquifitive and a very able man, and a man of good religious principles, though I am afraid he has been deficient in practice. Campbell is radically right; and we may hope, that in time there will be good practice.” He owned that he thought Hawkefworth was one of his imitators, but he did not think Goldfimith was. Goldfimith, he faid, had great merit. BOSWELL. «But, Sir, he is much indebted to you for his getting so high in the publick eftimation." JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, he has, perhaps, got fooner to it by his intimacy with me." Goldfimith, though his vanity often excited him to occafional competition, had a very high regard for Johnfon, which he at this time expreffed in the strongest manner in the Dedication of his comedy, entitled, "She ftoops to conquer 4." Johnfon obferved, that there were very few books printed in Scotland before the Union. He had feen a complete collection of them in the poffeffion of the Honourable Archibald Campbell, a nonjuring Bishop. I wish this collection had been kept entire. Many of them are in the library of the Faculty of Advocates at Edinburgh. I told Dr. Johnfon that I had fome intention to write the life of the learned and worthy Thomas Ruddiman. He said, “I fhould take pleafure in helping you to do honour to him. But his farewell letter to the Faculty of Advocates, when he refigned the office of their Librarian, fhould have been in Latin." I put a queftion to him upon a fact in common life, which he could not anfwer, nor have I found any one elfe who could. What is the reafon that women fervants, though obliged to be at the expence of purchasing their own clothes, have much lower wages than men fervants, to whom a great proportion of that article is furnished, and when in fact our female houfe fervants work much harder than the male? 4By infcribing this flight performance to you, I do not mean fo much to compliment you, as my felf. It may do me fome honour to inform the publick, that I have lived many years in intimacy with you. It may ferve the interefts of mankind alfo to inform them, that the greatest wit may be found in a character, without impairing the most unaffected piety." 5 See an account of this learned and refpectable gentleman, and of his curious work on the Middle State," Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides," 3d edit. p. 371. He He told me, that he had twelve or fourteen times attempted to keep a 1773. journal of his life, but never could perfevere. He advised me to do it. "The Etat. 64. great thing to be recorded, (faid he,) is the ftate of your own mind; and you should write down every thing that you remember, for you cannot judge at first what is good or bad; and write immediately while the impreffion is fresh, for it will not be the fame a week afterwards." I again folicited him to communicate to me the particulars of his early years. He faid, "You fhall have them all for two-pence. I hope you fhall know a great deal more of me before you write my Life." He mentioned to me this day many circumstances, which I wrote down when I went home, and have interwoven in the former part of this narrative. On Tuesday, April 13, he and Dr. Goldsmith and I dined at General Oglethorpe's. Goldsmith expatiated on the common topick, that the race of our people was degenerated, and that this was owing to luxury. JOHNSON. "Sir, in the first place, I doubt the fact. I believe there are as many tall men in England now, as ever there were. But, fecondly, fuppofing the ftature of our people to be diminished, that is not owing to luxury; for, Sir, confider to how very finall a proportion of our people luxury can reach. Our foldiery, furely, are not luxurious, who live on fix-pence a day; and the fame remark will apply to almost all the other claffes. Luxury, fo far as it reaches the poor, will do good to the race of people: it will strengthen and multiply them. Sir, no nation was ever hurt by luxury; for, as I faid before, it can reach but to a very few. I admit that the great increase of commerce and manufactures hurts the military spirit of a people; because it produces a competition for fomething else than martial honours,-a competition for riches. It also hurts the bodies of the people; for you will observe, there is no man who works at any particular trade, but you may know him from his appearance to do so. One part or other of his body being more used than the reft, he is in fome degree deformed: but, Sir, that is not luxury. A tailor fits cross-legged; but that is not luxury." GOLDSMITH. "Come, you're just going to the fame place by another road." JOHNSON. "Nay, Sir, I fay that is not luxury. Let us take a walk from Charing-crofs to Whitechapel, through, I fuppofe, the greatest series of fhops in the world, what is there in any of thefe fhops, (if you except gin-fhops,) that can do any human being any harm?" GOLDSMITH. "Well, Sir, I'll accept your challenge. The very next fhop to Northumberland-house is a pickle-fhop." JOHNSON. "Well, Sir: do we not know that a maid can in one afternoon make pickles fufficient to ferve a whole family for a year? nay, that five pickle-fhops can ferve all the kingdom? Befides, Eee 2 Sir, 1773. L Sir, there is no harm done to any body by the making of pickles, or the eatEtat. 64 ing of pickles." We drank tea with the ladies; and Goldfmith fung Tony Lumpkin's fong in his comedy," She stoops to conquer," and a very pretty one, to an Irish tune, which he had defigned for Mifs Hardcastle; but as Mrs. Bulkeley, who played the part, could not fing, it was left out. He afterwards wrote it down for me, by which means it was preferved, and now appears amongst his poems. Dr. Johnson, in his way home, ftopt at my lodgings in Piccadilly, and fat with me, drinking tea a fecond time, till a late hour. I told him that Mrs. Macaulay faid, fhe wondered how he could reconcile his political principles with his moral; his notions of inequality and fubordination with wishing well to the happiness of all mankind, who might live fo agreeably, had they all their portions of land, and none to domineer over another. JOHNSON. Why, Sir, I reconcile my principles very well, because mankind are happier in a state of inequality and fubordination. Were they to be in this pretty,ftate of equality, they would foon degenerate into brutes;— they would become Monboddo's nation;-their tails would grow. Sir, all would be lofers, were all to work to all:-they would have no intellectual improvement. All intellectual improvement arifes from leifure: all leisure arifes from one working for another." Talking of the family of Stuart, he faid, "It should seem that the family at present on the throne has now established as good a right as the former family, by the long confent of the people; and that to disturb this right might be confidered as culpable. At the fame time I own, that it is a very difficult question, when confidered with refpect to the house of Stuart. To oblige people to take oaths as to the difputed right, is wrong. I know not whether I could take them: but I do not blame thofe who do." So confcientious and fo delicate was he upon this fubject, which has occafioned fo much clamour against him. Talking of law cafes, he faid, "The English reports, in general, are very poor: only the half of what has been said is taken down; and of that half, much is mistaken. Whereas, in Scotland, the arguments on each side are deliberately put in writing, to be confidered by the Court. I think a collection of your cafes upon fubjects of importance, with the opinions of the Judges upon them, would be valuable.” On Thursday, April 15, I dined with him and Dr. Goldfmith at General Paoli's. We found here, Signor Martinelli, of Florence, authour of a History of England in Italian, printed at London, I spoke |