第101章

Probably Richard Brinsley Sheridan,whose romantic marriage with the beautiful Elizabeth Linley took place in 1773.He became a member of the Club on Johnson's proposal.See below,p.325.--ED.

Johnson arraigned the modern politicks of this country,as entirely devoid of all principle of whatever kind.'Politicks (said he,)are now nothing more than means of rising in the world.With this sole view do men engage in politicks,and their whole conduct proceeds upon it.'

Somebody found fault with writing verses in a dead language,maintaining that they were merely arrangements of so many words,and laughed at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge,for sending forth collections of them not only in Greek and Latin,but even in Syriac,Arabick,and other more unknown tongues.JOHNSON.

'I would have as many of these as possible;I would have verses in every language that there are the means of acquiring.Nobody imagines that an University is to have at once two hundred poets;but it should be able to show two hundred scholars.Pieresc's death was lamented,I think,in forty languages.And I would have had at every coronation,and every death of a King,every Gaudium,and every Luctus,University verses,in as many languages as can be acquired.I would have the world to be thus told,"Here is a school where every thing may be learnt."'

Having set out next day on a visit to the Earl of Pembroke,at Wilton,and to my friend,Mr.Temple,at Mamhead,in Devonshire,and not having returned to town till the second of May,I did not see Dr.Johnson for a considerable time,and during the remaining part of my stay in London,kept very imperfect notes of his conversation,which had I according to my usual custom written out at large soon after the time,much might have been preserved,which is now irretrievably lost.

On Monday,May 8,we went together and visited the mansions of Bedlam.I had been informed that he had once been there before with Mr.Wedderburne,(now Lord Loughborough,)Mr.Murphy,and Mr.

Foote;and I had heard Foote give a very entertaining account of Johnson's happening to have his attention arrested by a man who was very furious,and who,while beating his straw,supposed it was William Duke of Cumberland,whom he was punishing for his cruelties in Scotland,in 1746.There was nothing peculiarly remarkable this day;but the general contemplation of insanity was very affecting.

I accompanied him home,and dined and drank tea with him.

On Friday,May 12,as he had been so good as to assign me a room in his house,where I might sleep occasionally,when I happened to sit with him to a late hour,I took possession of it this night,found every thing in excellent order,and was attended by honest Francis with a most civil assiduity.I asked Johnson whether I might go to a consultation with another lawyer upon Sunday,as that appeared to me to be doing work as much in my way,as if an artisan should work on the day appropriated for religious rest.JOHNSON.'Why,Sir,when you are of consequence enough to oppose the practice of consulting upon Sunday,you should do it:but you may go now.It is not criminal,though it is not what one should do,who is anxious for the preservation and increase of piety,to which a peculiar observance of Sunday is a great help.The distinction is clear between what is of moral and what is of ritual obligation.'

On Saturday,May 13,I breakfasted with him by invitation,accompanied by Mr.Andrew Crosbie,a Scotch Advocate,whom he had seen at Edinburgh,and the Hon.Colonel (now General)Edward Stopford,brother to Lord Courtown,who was desirous of being introduced to him.His tea and rolls and butter,and whole breakfast apparatus were all in such decorum,and his behaviour was so courteous,that Colonel Stopford was quite surprized,and wondered at his having heard so much said of Johnson's slovenliness and roughness.

I passed many hours with him on the 17th,of which I find all my memorial is,'much laughing.'It should seem he had that day been in a humour for jocularity and merriment,and upon such occasions Inever knew a man laugh more heartily.We may suppose,that the high relish of a state so different from his habitual gloom,produced more than ordinary exertions of that distinguishing faculty of man,which has puzzled philosophers so much to explain.

Johnson's laugh was as remarkable as any circumstance in his manner.It was a kind of good humoured growl.Tom Davies described it drolly enough:'He laughs like a rhinoceros.'

'TO BENNET LANGTON,ESQ.

'DEAR SIR,--I have an old amanuensis in great distress.I have given what I think I can give,and begged till I cannot tell where to beg again.I put into his hands this morning four guineas.If you could collect three guineas more,it would clear him from his present difficulty.I am,Sir,your most humble servant,'May 21,1775.'

'SAM.JOHNSON.'

After my return to Scotland,I wrote three letters to him.

'TO JAMES BOSWELL,ESQ.

'DEAR SIR,--I am returned from the annual ramble into the middle counties.Having seen nothing I had not seen before,I have nothing to relate.Time has left that part of the island few antiquities;and commerce has left the people no singularities.Iwas glad to go abroad,and,perhaps,glad to come home;which is,in other words,I was,I am afraid,weary of being at home,and weary of being abroad.Is not this the state of life?But,if we confess this weariness,let us not lament it,for all the wise and all the good say,that we may cure it....

'Mrs.Thrale was so entertained with your Journal,that she almost read herself blind.She has a great regard for you.

'Of Mrs.Boswell,though she knows in her heart that she does not love me,I am always glad to hear any good,and hope that she and the little dear ladies will have neither sickness nor any other affliction.But she knows that she does not care what becomes of me,and for that she may be sure that I think her very much to blame.