APRIL 17., being Good Friday, I waited on Johnson, as usual. I observed at breakfast, that although it was a part of his abstemious discipline, on this most solemn fast, to take no milk in his tea, yet when Mrs. Desmoulins inadvertently poured it in, he did not reject it. I talked of the strange indecision of mind, and imbecility of the common occurrences of life, which we may observe in some people. JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, I am in the habit of getting others to do things for me." BOSWELL. "What, Sir! have you that weakness? JOHNSON. "Yes, Sir. But I always think afterwards I should have done better for myself."

I told him that at a gentleman's house' where there was thought to be such extravagance or bad management that he was living much beyond his income, his lady had objected to the cutting of a pickled mango, and that I had taken an opportunity to ask the price of it, and found it was only two shillings; so here was a very poor saving. JOHNSON. "Sir, that is the blundering economy of a narrow understanding. It is stopping one hole in a sieve."

I expressed some inclination to publish an account of my travels upon the continent of Europe, for which I had a variety of materials collected. JOHNSON. "I do not say, Sir, you may not publish your travels; but I give you my opinion, that you would lessen yourself by it. What can you tell of countries so well known as those upon the continent of Europe, which you have visited?" BOSWELL. "But I can give an entertaining narrative, with many incidents, anecdotes, jeux d'esprit, and remarks, so as to make very pleasant reading.” JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, most modern travellers in Europe who have published their travels have

England, Mrs. Knowles did not hesitate to designate her as da APOSTATE, although she had not quitted her sect, but only married one who did not belong to it. - CROKER.

1 Mr. Langton and Lady Rothes; who, however, protested to Miss Hawkins (Mem. ii. 282.) that there was no other colour of truth in the story, but that there was a mango on the table. I have already remarked Boswell's strange proneness to tell disagreeable things of his " worthy friend." CROKER.

been laughed at: I would not have you added to the number. The world is now not contented to be merely entertained by a traveller's narrative; they want to learn something. Now some of my friends asked me, why I did not give some account of my travels in France. The reason is plain; intelligent readers had seen more of France than I had. You might have liked my travels in France, and THE CLUB might have liked them; but, upon the whole, there would have been more ridicule than good produced by them." BOSWELL. "I cannot agree with you, Sir. People would like to read what you say of any thing. Suppose a face has been painted by fifty painters before; still we love to see it done by Sir Joshua." JOHNSON. "True, Sir; but Sir Joshua cannot paint a face when he has not time to look on it." BOSWELL. "Sir, a sketch of any sort by him is valuable. And, Sir, to talk to you in your own style (raising my voice and shaking my head), you should have given us your travels in France. I am sure I am right, and there's an end on't."

I said to him that it was certainly true, as my friend Dempster had observed in his letter to me upon the subject, that a great part of what was in his "Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland" had been in his mind before he left London. JOHNSON. Why, yes, Sir, the topics were; and books of travels will be good in proportion to what a man has previously in his mind; his knowing what to observe; his power of contrasting one mode of life with another. As the Spanish proverb says, 'He who would bring home the wealth of the Indies must carry the wealth of the Indies with him.' So it is in travelling; a man must carry knowledge with him, if he would bring home knowledge." BOSWELL. "The proverb, I suppose, Sir, means, he must carry a large stock with him to trade with." JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir.

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It was a delightful day: as we walked to St. Clement's church, I again remarked that Fleetstreet was the most cheerful scene in the world.

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Fleet-street," said I, "is in my mind more delightful than Tempé." JOHNSON. "Ay, Sir, but let it be compared with Mull !"

There was a very numerous congregation to-day at St. Clement's church, which Dr. Johnson said he observed with pleasure.

And now I am to give a pretty full account of one of the most curious incidents in Johnson's life, of which he himself has made the following minute on this day:

seen me since 1729. He knew me, and asked if

I remembered one Edwards; I did not at first recollect the name, but gradually, as we walked along, recovered it, and told him a conversation that had passed at an alehouse between us. My purpose is to continue our acquaintance." (Pr. und Med., p. 164.)

It was in Butcher-row that this meeting happened. Mr. Edwards, who was a decentlooking, elderly man, in gray clothes, and a wig of many curls, accosted Johnson with familiar confidence, knowing who he was, while Johnson returned his salutation with a courteous formality, as to a stranger. But as soon as Edwards had brought to his recollection their having been at Pembroke College together nine-and-forty years ago, he seemed much pleased, asked where he lived, and said he should be glad to see him in Bolt-court. EDWARDS. "Ah, Sir! we are old men now." JOHNSON (who never liked to think of being old). "Don't let us discourage one another." EDWARDS. "Why, doctor, you look stout and hearty. I am happy to see you so; for the newspapers told us you were very ill." JOHNSON. Ay, Sir, they are always telling lies of us old fellows."

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him now.

Wishing to be present at more of so singular a conversation as that between two fellow-collegians, who had lived forty years in London without ever having chanced to meet, I whispered to Mr. Edwards that Dr. Johnson was going home, and that he had better accompany So Edwards walked along with us, I eagerly assisting to keep up the conversation. Mr. Edwards informed Dr. Johnson that he had practised long as a solicitor in Chancery, but that he now lived in the country upon a little farm, about sixty acres, just by Stevenage, in Hertfordshire, and that he came to London (to Barnard's Inn, No. 6.) generally twice a week. Johnson appearing to be in a reverie, Mr. Edwards addressed himself to me, and expatiated on the pleasure of living in the country. Boswell. "I have no notion of this, Sir. What you have to entertain you is, I think, exhausted in half an hour." EDWARDS. "What! don't you love to have hope realised? I see my grass, and my corn, and my trees growing. Now, for instance, I am curious to

1 This deliberate assertion of Johnson, that he had not seen Edwards since 1729, is a confirmation of the opinion derived by Dr. Hall, from the dates in the college books, that Johnson did not return to Pembroke College after Christmas, 1729 an important fact in his early history. See antè, p. 13. n. 2. CROKER.

2 Nay, not so. The question raised was the want of interest in a country life; and the fear was, therefore, as good as the hope. CROKER.

3 Johnson said to me afterwards, " Sir, they respected me for my literature; and yet it was not great but by comparison. Sir, it is amazing how little literature there is in the world."- BOSWELL.

4 Matthew Bloxam entered at Pembroke College, March 25. 1729; M. A., July, 1735. — Hall.- CROKER.

5 This line has frequently been attributed to Dryden, when at Westminster. But neither Eton nor Westminster have in truth any claim to it, the line being borrowed from an epigram by Crashaw. The original is much more elegant than the copy, the water being personified, and the word on which

see if this frost has not nipped my fruit trees." JOHNSON (who we did not imagine was attending). "You find, Sir, you have fears as well as hopes." So well did he see the whole, when another saw but the half of a subject.2

When we got to Dr. Johnson's house, and were seated in his library, the dialogue went on admirably. EDWARDS. "Sir, I remember you would not let us say prodigious at college. For even then, Sir (turning to me), he was delicate in language, and we all feared him.”3 JOHNSON (to Edwards). "From your having practised the law long, Sir, I presume you must be rich." EDWARDS. "No, Sir; I got a good deal of money; but I had a number of poor relations, to whom I gave a great part of it.” JOHNSON. "Sir, you have been rich in the most valuable sense of the word." EDWARDS. "But I shall not die rich." JOHNSON. "Nay. sure, Sir, it is better to live rich, than to die rich." EDWARDS. "I wish I had continued at college." JOHNSON. "Why do you wish that, Sir?" EDWARDS. "Because I think I should have had a much easier life than mine has been. I should have been a parson, and had a good living, like Bloxam+ and several others, and lived comfortably." JOHNSON. "Sir, the life of a parson, of a conscientious clergyman, is not easy. I have always considered a clergyman as the father of a larger family than he is able to maintain. I would rather have Chancery suits upon my hands than the cure of souls. No, Sir, I do not envy a clergyman's life as an easy life, nor do I envy the clergyman who makes it an easy life." Here taking himself up all of a sudden, he exclaimed, “O! Mr. Edwards, I'll convince you that I recollect you. Do you remember our drinking together at an alehouse near Pembroke-gate? At that time, you told me of the Eton boy, who, when verses on our Saviour's turning water into wine were prescribed as an exercise, brought up s single line, which was highly admired:

• Vidit et erubuit lympha pudica Deum'; and I told you of another fine line in 'Camden's Remains; an eulogy upon one of our kings, who was succeeded by his son, a prince of equal merit :

'Mira cano, Sol occubuit, nox nulla secuta est,'

the point of the epigram turns being reserved to the close of the line:

"Unde rubor vestris et non sua purpura lymphis ?
Quæ rosa mirantes tam nova mutat aquas?
Numen, convivæ, præsens agnoscite numen,
Nympha pudica DEUM vidit, et erubuit.”—Malone.

Thus paraphrased by Aaron Hill:
"When Christ at Cana's feast, by power divine,
Inspired cold water with the warmth of wine;
See, cried they, while in redd'ning tide it gush'd
The bashful stream has seen its Lord - and blush","

But I do not agree in Mr. Malone's preference of the ! quatrain to the epigrammatic force of the single line. — Ca KER, 1847.

6 The line (ascribed to Giraldus Cambrensis) was on the death of Henry II., and the accession of Richard. edition it has not the final est. - CROKER.

In my

EDWARDS. "You are a philosopher, Dr. Johnson. I have tried too in my time to be a philosopher; but, I don't know how, cheerfulness was always breaking in." Mr. Burke, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mr. Courtenay, Mr. Malone, and, indeed, all the eminent men to whom I have mentioned this, have thought it an exquisite trait of character. The truth is, that philosophy, like religion, is too generally supposed to be hard and severe, at least so grave as to exclude all gaiety.'

EDWARDS. "I have been twice married, doctor. You, I suppose, have never known what it was to have a wife." JOHNSON. "Sir, I have known what it was to have a wife, and (in a solemn, tender, faltering tone) I have known what it was to lose a wife. It had almost broke my heart."

EDWARDS. "How do you live, Sir? For my part, I must have my regular meals, and a glass of good wine. I find I require it." JOHNSON. "I now drink no wine, Sir. Early in life I drank wine; for many years I drank none. I then for some years drank a great deal." EDWARDS. "Some hogsheads, I warrant you." JOHNSON. "I then had a severe illness, and left it off, and I have never begun it again. I never felt any difference upon myself from eating one thing rather than another, nor from one kind of weather rather than another. There are people, I believe, who feel a difference; but I am not one of them. And as to regular meals, I have fasted from the Sunday's dinner to the Tuesday's dinner without any inconvenience. I believe it is best to eat just as one is hungry: but a man who is in business, or a man who has a family, must have stated meals. I am a straggler. 1 may leave this town and go to Grand Cairo, without being missed here, or observed there." EDWARDS. "Don't you eat supper, Sir? JOHNSON. "No, Sir." EDWARDS. "For my part, now, I consider supper as a turnpike through which one must pass in order to go to bed." 3

JOHNSON. "You are a lawyer, Mr. Edwards. Lawyers know life practically. A bookish man should always have them to converse with. They have what he wants." EDWARDS. "I am grown old: I am sixty-five." JOHNSON. "I shall be sixty-eight next birth-day. Come, Sir, drink water, and put in for a hundred."

Mr. Edwards mentioned a gentleman who had left his whole fortune to Pembroke College. JOHNSON. "Whether to leave one's whole fortune to a college be right, must depend upon

It seems that he abstained from wine at his coming to London, or perhaps still earlier, from his first great illness in 1730, and continued to do so for many years." He had resumed it prior to 1752, when he visited Oxford, and probably drank "a great deal." "University College witnessed three bottles," (April 7. 1778.) In 1763 he would sometimes drink a bottle of port (June 25.), but about 1764, after another severe hypochondriacal attack, he again left off wine, and per

circumstances. I would leave the interest of the fortune I bequeathed to a college to my relations or my friends, for their lives. It is the same thing to a college, which is a permanent society, whether it gets the money now or twenty years hence; and I would wish to make my relations or friends feel the benefit of it."

This interview confirmed my opinion of Johnson's most humane and benevolent heart. His cordial and placid behaviour to an old fellow collegian, a man so different from himself; and his telling him that he would go down to his farm and visit him, showed a kindness of disposition very rare at an advanced age. He observed, "how wonderful it was that they had both been in London forty years, without having ever once met, and both walkers in the street too!" Mr. Edwards, when going away, again recurred to his consciousness of senility, and, looking full in Johnson's face, said to him, “You'll find in Dr. Young,

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O my coevals; remnants of yourselves.'" Johnson did not relish this at all; but shook his head with impatience. Edwards walked off seemingly highly pleased with the honour of having been thus noticed by Dr. Johnson. When he was gone, I said to Johnson, I thought him but a weak man. JOHNSON. Why yes, Sir. Here is a man who has passed through life without experience: yet I would rather have him with me than a more sensible man who will not talk readily. This man is always willing to say what he has to say." Yet Dr. Johnson had himself by no means that willingness which he praised so much, and I think so justly for who has not felt the painful effect of the dreary void, when there is a total silence in a company, for any length of time; or, which is as bad, or perhaps worse, when the conversation is with difficulty kept up by a perpetual effort?

Johnson once observed to me, "Tom Tyers described me the best: 'Sir,' said he, you are like a ghost you never speak till you are spoken to."

The gentleman whom he thus familiarly mentioned, was Mr. Thomas Tyers, son of Mr. Jonathan Tyers, the founder of that excellent place of public amusement, Vauxhall Gardens, which must ever be an estate to its proprietor, as it is peculiarly adapted to the taste of the English nation; there being a mixture of curious show,-gay exhibition,- music, vocal and

sisted in that practice till about 1781 (See March 20. 1781), from which time, I presume, he drank it occasionally and medicinally. CROKER, 1847.

3 I am not absolutely sure but this was my own suggestion, though it is truly in the character of Edwards. -BOSWELL. 4 This must have been the Rev. James Phipps, who had been a scholar of Pembroke, and who, in 1773, left his estates to the college to purchase livings for a particular foundation, and for other purposes.- Hall. - CROKER

5 He is pleasantly, but too contemptuously, described in "The Idler," No. 48., under the name of Tom Restless; a circumstance pointed out to Mr. Nichols by Dr. Johnson himself. - CROKER.

instrumental, not too refined for the general ear; for all which only a shilling is paid '; and, though last, not least, good eating and drinking for those who choose to purchase that regale. Mr. Thomas Tyers was bred to the law; but having a handsome fortune, vivacity of temper, and eccentricity of mind, he could not confine himself to the regularity of practice. He therefore ran about the world with a pleasant carelessness, amusing every body by his desultory conversation. He abounded in anecdote, but was not sufficiently attentive to accuracy. I therefore cannot venture to avail myself much of a biographical sketch of Johnson which he published, being one among the various persons ambitious of appending their names to that of my illustrious friend. That sketch is, however, an entertaining little collection of fragments. Those which he published of Pope and Addison are of higher merit; but his fame must rest chiefly upon his "Political Conferences," in which he introduces several eminent persons delivering their sentiments in the way of dialogue, and discovers a considerable share of learning, various knowledge, and discernment of character. This much may I be allowed to say of a man who was exceedingly obliging to me, and who lived with Dr. Johnson in as easy a manner as almost any of his very numerous acquaintance.

SON.

Mr. Edwards had said to me aside, that Dr. Johnson should have been of a profession. I repeated the remark to Johnson, that I might have his own thoughts on the subject.. JOHN"Sir, it would have been better that I had been of a profession. I ought to have been a lawyer." BOSWELL. "I do not think, Sir, it would have been better, for we should not have had the English Dictionary." JOHNSON. 66 But you would have had reports." BoswELL. "Ay; but there would not have been another who could have written the Dictionary. There have been many very good judges. Suppose you had been lord chancellor; you would have delivered opinions with more extent of mind, and in a more ornamented manner, than per

haps any chancellor ever did, or ever will do. But, I believe, causes have been as judiciously decided as you could have done." JOHNSON. "Yes, Sir. Property has been as well settled."

Johnson, however, had a noble ambition floating in his mind, and had, undoubtedly, often speculated on the possibility of his supereminent powers being rewarded in this great and liberal country by the highest honours of the state. Sir William Scott informs me, that upon the death of the late Lord Lichfield, who | was chancellor of the University of Oxford, he said to Johnson, "What a pity it is, Sir, that you did not follow the profession of the law! You might have been lord chancellor of Great Britain, and attained to the dignity of the peerage; and now that the title of Lichfield, your native city, is extinct, you might have had it.” Johnson, upon this, seemed much agitated; and, in an angry tone, exclaimed, Why will you vex me by suggesting this, when it is too late?"

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But he did not repine at the prosperity of others. The late Dr. Thomas Leland told Mr. Courtenay, that when Mr. Edmund Burke showed Johnson his fine house and lands near Beaconsfield, Johnson coolly said, "Non equidem invideo; miror magis."

"14

Yet no man had a higher notion of the dignity of literature than Johnson, or was more determined in maintaining the respect which he justly considered as due to it. Of this, besides the general tenor of his conduct in society, some characteristical instances may be mentioned.

He told Sir Joshua Reynolds, that once when he dined in a numerous company of booksellers, where the room, being small, the head of the table, at which he sat, was almost close to the fire, he persevered in suffering a great deal of inconvenience from the heat, rather than quit his place, and let one of them sit above him.

Goldsmith, in his diverting simplicity, complained one day, in a mixed company, of Lord Camden. "I met him," said he, "at Lord

1 In summer, 1792, additional and more expensive decorations having been introduced, the price of admission was raised to two shillings. I cannot approve of this. The company may be more select, but a number of the honest commonalty are, I fear, excluded from sharing in elegant and innocent entertainments. An attempt to abolish the oneshilling gallery at the playhouse has been very properly counteracted. BOSWELL. The admission was subsequently raised to four shillings, without improving either the class of company, or the profits of the proprietors. C. 1830, 1831. It has been long closed, and is only occasionally used for letting off a balloon or some such exhibition,- CROKER, 1847.

2 That accurate judge of human life, Dr. Johnson, has often been heard by me to observe, that it was the greatest misfortune which could befall a man to have been bred to no profession, and pathetically to regret that this misfortune was his own."-More's Practical Piety, p. 313. — MARKLAND. 3 This Lord Lichfield died in 1772, but was succeeded by his uncle, and the title was not extinct till 1776. — CROKER, 1847.

4 I am not entirely without suspicion that Johnson may have felt a little momentary envy; for no man loved the good things of this life better than he did; and he could not but be conscious that he deserved a much larger share of them than he ever had. I attempted in a newspaper to comment

on the above passage in the manner of Warburton, who must be allowed to have shown uncommon ingenuity, in giving to any author's text whatever meaning he chose it should cazy. As this imitation may amuse my readers, I shall here introduce it:

"No saying of DR. JOHNSON's has been more mistanker. stood than his applying to MR. BURKE, when he first saw him at his fine place at Beaconsfield, Non equidem rurocco miror magis. These two celebrated men had been trend for many years before Mr. Burke entered on his paru mentary career. They were both writers, both members of THE LITERARY CLUB; when, therefore. Dr. Johrman Faw Mr. Burke in a situation so much more splendid than that to which he himself had attained, he did not mean to express that he thought it a disproportionate prosperity; but whe he, as a philosopher, asserted an exemption from envy. equidem invideo, he went on in the words of the poet, "mePUR magis, thereby signifying, either that he was occupied in admiring what he was glad to see, or, perhaps, that, ca sidering the general lot of men of superior abilities, be wondered that Fortune, who is represented as blins, should in this instance, have been so just."- BosWELL. All this very foolish; the quotation, if really made, was in terms, and no doubt in meaning, the very reverse of invidious. to Johnson's envy, see antè, p. 133. n. 4.- CROKEM