第96章

We talked of publick speaking--JOHNSON.'We must not estimate a man's powers by his being able,or not able to deliver his sentiments in publick.Isaac Hawkins Browne,one of the first wits of this country,got into Parliament,and never opened his mouth.

For my own part,I think it is more disgraceful never to try to speak,than to try it and fail;as it is more disgraceful not to fight,than to fight and be beaten.'This argument appeared to me fallacious;for if a man has not spoken,it may be said that he would have done very well it he had tried;whereas,if he has tried and failed,there is nothing to be said for him.'Why then,(Iasked,)is it thought disgraceful for a man not to fight,and not disgraceful not to speak in publick?'JOHNSON.'Because there may be other reasons for a man's not speaking in publick than want of resolution:he may have nothing to say,(laughing.)Whereas,Sir,you know courage is reckoned the greatest of all virtues;because,unless a man has that virtue,he has no security for preserving any other.'

On Thursday,April 6,I dined with him at Mr.Thomas Davies's,with Mr.Hicky,the painter,and my old acquaintance Mr.Moody,the player.

Dr.Johnson,as usual,spoke contemptuously of Colley Cibber.'It is wonderful that a man,who for forty years had lived with the great and the witty,should have acquired so ill the talents of conversation:and he had but half to furnish;for one half of what he said was oaths.'He,however,allowed considerable merit to some of his comedies,and said there was no reason to believe that the Careless Husband was not written by himself.Davies said,he was the first dramatick writer who introduced genteel ladies upon the stage.Johnson refuted this observation by instancing several such characters in comedies before his time.DAVIES.(trying to defend himself from a charge of ignorance,)'I mean genteel moral characters.''I think (said Hicky,)gentility and morality are inseparable.'BOSWELL.'By no means,Sir.The genteelest characters are often the most immoral.Does not Lord Chesterfield give precepts for uniting wickedness and the graces?A man,indeed,is not genteel when he gets drunk;but most vices may be committed very genteelly:a man may debauch his friend's wife genteelly:he may cheat at cards genteelly.'HICKY.'I do not think THAT is genteel.'BOSWELL.'Sir,it may not be like a gentleman,but it may be genteel.'JOHNSON.'You are meaning two different things.One means exteriour grace;the other honour.It is certain that a man may be very immoral with exteriour grace.

Lovelace,in Clarissa,is a very genteel and a very wicked character.Tom Hervey,who died t'other day,though a vicious man,was one of the genteelest men that ever lived.'Tom Davies instanced Charles the Second.JOHNSON.(taking fire at any attack upon that Prince,for whom he had an extraordinary partiality,)'Charles the Second was licentious in his practice;but he always had a reverence for what was good.Charles the Second knew his people,and rewarded merit.The Church was at no time better filled than in his reign.He was the best King we have had from his time till the reign of his present Majesty,except James the Second,who was a very good King,but unhappily believed that it was necessary for the salvation of his subjects that they should be Roman Catholicks.HE had the merit of endeavouring to do what he thought was for the salvation of the souls of his subjects,till he lost a great Empire.WE,who thought that we should NOT be saved if we were Roman Catholicks,had the merit of maintaining our religion,at the expence of submitting ourselves to the government of King William,(for it could not be done otherwise,)--to the government of one of the most worthless scoundrels that ever existed.No;Charles the Second was not such a man as -----,(naming another King).He did not destroy his father's will.He took money,indeed,from France:but he did not betray those over whom he ruled:he did not let the French fleet pass ours.George the First knew nothing,and desired to know nothing;did nothing,and desired to do nothing:and the only good thing that is told of him is,that he wished to restore the crown to its hereditary successor.'He roared with prodigious violence against George the Second.When he ceased,Moody interjected,in an Irish tone,and with a comick look,'Ah!poor George the Second.'

I mentioned that Dr.Thomas Campbell had come from Ireland to London,principally to see Dr.Johnson.He seemed angry at this observation.DAVIES.'Why,you know,Sir,there came a man from Spain to see Livy;and Corelli came to England to see Purcell,and when he heard he was dead,went directly back again to Italy.'

JOHNSON.'I should not have wished to be dead to disappoint Campbell,had he been so foolish as you represent him;but I should have wished to have been a hundred miles off.'This was apparently perverse;and I do believe it was not his real way of thinking:he could not but like a man who came so far to see him.He laughed with some complacency,when I told him Campbell's odd expression to me concerning him:'That having seen such a man,was a thing to talk of a century hence,'--as if he could live so long.