LETTER 106. TO BENNET LANGTON, ESQ. At Mr. Rothwell's, Perfumer, in New Bond Street. "Lichfield, Oct. 10, 1767. "DEAR SIR,-That you have been all summer in London is one more reason for which I regret my long stay in the country. I hope that you will not leave the town before my return. We have here only the chance of vacancies in the passing carriages, and I have bespoken one that may, if it happens, bring me to town on the fourteenth of this month; but this is not certain. It will be a favour if you communicate this to Mrs. Williams: I long to see all my friends. I am, dear Sir, your most humble servant, LETTER 107. TO MRS. ASTON. "SAM. JOHNSON." "Nov. 17, 1767. MADAM,—If you impute it to disrespect or inattention, that I took no leave when I left Lichfield, you will do me great injustice. I know you too well not to value your friendship. "When I came to Oxford I inquired after the product of our walnut-tree, but it had, like other trees this year, but very few nuts, and for those few I came too late. The tree, as I told you, madam, we cannot find to be more than thirty years old, and upon measuring it, I found it, at about one foot from the ground, seven feet in circumference, and at the height of about seven feet the circumference is five feet and a half; it would have been, I believe, still bigger, but that it has been lopped. The nuts are small, such as they call single nuts; whether this nut is of quicker growth than better I have not yet inquired; such as they are, I hope to send them next year. "You know, dear madam, the liberty I took of hinting, that I did not think your present mode of life very pregnant with happiness. Reflection has not yet changed my opinion. Solitude excludes pleasure, and does not always secure peace. Some communication of sentiments is commonly necessary to give vent to the imagination, and discharge the mind of its own flatulencies. Some lady surely might be found, in whose conversation you might delight, and in whose fidelity you might repose. The world, says Locke, has people of all sorts. You will forgive me this obtrusion of my opinion; I am sure I wish you well. "Poor Kitty has done what we have all to do, and Lucy has the world to begin anew I hope she will find some way to more content than I left her possessing. "Be pleased to make my compliments to Mrs. Hinckley and Miss Turton. I am, Madam, your most obliged and most humble servant, "SAM, JOHNSON." CHAPTER XXII. 1768. State of Johnson's Mind-Visit to Town-malling-Prologue to Goldsmith's "Good-natured Man "-Boswell publishes his "Account of Corsica "-Practice of the Law-Novels and Comedies-The Douglas Cause-Reading MSS.-St. Kilda-Oxford-Guthrie-HumeRobertson-Future Life of Brutes-Scorpions-Maupertuis-Woodcocks-Swallows-Bell's Travels-Chastity-Choice of a Wife-Baretti's Italy-Liberty-Kenrick-ThomsonMonsey-Swift-Lord Eglingtoune-Letter on the Formation of a Library-Boswell at the Stratford Jubilee-Johnson's Opinion of the "Account of Corsica." Ir appears from his notes of the state of his mind, that he suffered great perturbation and distraction in 1768. "Town-malling, in Kent, 18th Sept., 1768, at night.--I have now begun the sixtieth year of my life. How the last year has past, I am unwilling to terrify myself with thinking. This day has been past in great perturbation: I was distracted at church in an uncommon degree, and my distress has had very little intermission. I have found myself somewhat relieved by reading, which I therefore intend to practise when I am able. This day it came into my mind to write the history of my melancholy. On this I purpose to deliberate; I know not whether it may not too much disturb me." Nothing of his writings was given to the public this year, except the Prologue to his friend Goldsmith's comedy of “The Goodnatured Man." The first lines of this Prologue are strongly characteristical of the dismal gloom of his mind; which in his case, as in the case of all who are distressed with the same malady of imagination, transfers to others its own feelings. Who could suppose it was to introduce a comedy, when Mr. Bensley solemnly began, "Press'd with the load of life, the weary mind Surveys the general toil of human kind." But this dark ground might make Goldsmith's humour shine the more1 In this prologue, after the line-" And social sorrow loses half its pain," the following couplet was inserted : VOL. I. 19 433 In the spring of this year, having published my "Account of Corsica, with the Journal of a Tour to that Island," I returned to London, very desirous to see Dr. Johnson, and hear him upon the subject. I found he was at Oxford, with his friend Mr. Chambers, who was now Vinerian Professor, and lived in New-Inn Hall. Having had no letter from him since that in which he criticised the Latinity of my Thesis, and having been told by somebody that he was offended at my having put into my book an extract of his letter to me at Paris, I was impatient to be with him, and therefore followed him to Oxford, where I was entertained by Mr. Chambers, with a civility which I shall ever gratefully remember. I found that Dr. Johnson had sent a letter to me to Scotland, and that I had nothing to complain of but his being more indifferent to my anxiety than I wished him to be. Instead of giving, with the circumstances of time and place, such fragments of his conversation as I preserved during this visit to Oxford, I shall throw them together in continuation. I asked him whether, as a moralist, he did not think that the practice of the law, in some degree, hurt the nice feeling of honesty. JOHNSON. "Why no, Sir, if you act properly. You are not to deceive your clients with false representations of your opinions: you are not to tell lies to a Judge." BOSWELL. "But what do you think of supporting a cause which you know to be bad?" JOHNSON." Sir, you do not know it to be good or bad till the Judge determines it. I have said that you are to state facts fairly; so that your thinking, or what you call knowing, a cause to be bad, must be from reasoning, must be from your supposing your arguments to be weak and inconclusive. But, Sir, that is not enough. An argument which does not convince yourself, may convince the Judge to whom you urge it; and if it does convince him, why, then, Sir, you are wrong, and he is right. It is his business to judge; and you are not to be confident in your own opinion that a cause is bad, but to say "Amidst the toils of this returning year, So the prologue appeared in the Public Advertiser. Goldsmith probably thought that the lines printed in Italic characters might give offence, and therefore prevailed on Johnson to omit them. The epithet little, which perhaps the author thought might diminish his dignity, was also changed to anxious.-M. all you can for your client, and then hear the Judge's opinion." BOSWELL. "But, Sir, does not affecting a warmth when you have no warmth, and appearing to be clearly of one opinion when you are in reality of another opinion, does not such dissimulation impair one's honesty? Is there not some danger that a lawyer may put on the same mask in common life, in the intercourse with his friends?" JOHNSON. "Why no, Sir. Everybody knows you are paid for affecting warmth for your client; and it is, therefore, properly no dissimulation: the moment you come from the bar you resume your usual behaviour. Sir, a man will no more carry the artifice of the bar into the common intercourse of society, than a man who is paid for tumbling upon his hands will continue to tumble upon his hands when he should walk on his feet.' Talking of some of the modern plays, he said, " False Delicacy," was totally void of character. He praised Goldsmith's "Goodnatured Man;" said it was the best comedy that had appeared since "The Provoked Husband," and that there had not been of late any such character exhibited on the stage as that of Croaker. I observed it was the Suspirius of his Rambler [No. 59]. He said, Goldsmith had owned he had borrowed it from thence. "Sir," continued he, "there is all the difference in the world between characters of nature and characters of manners; and there is the difference between the characters of Fielding and those of Richardson. Characters of manners are very entertaining; but they are to be understood by a more superficial observer than characters of nature, where a man must dive into the recesses of the human heart." It always appeared to me, that he estimated the compositions of Richardson too highly, and that he had an unreasonable prejudice against Fielding. In comparing those two writers, he used this expression; "that there was as great a difference between them, as between a man who knew how a watch was made, and a man who 1 See post, Aug. 15, 1773, where Johnson has supported the same argument.-J. BosWELL, jun. 2 By Hugh Kelly. He died, an. ætat. 88, Feb. 3, 1777. 3 How charming, how wholesome, Fielding is! To take him up after Richardson, is like emerging from a sick-room heated by stoves, into an open lawn, on a breezy day in May.— COLERIDGE, Table Talk, could tell the hour by looking on the dial-plate." This was a short and figurative state of his distinction between drawing characters of nature and characters only of manners. But I cannot help being of opinion, that the neat watches of Fielding are as well constructed as the large clocks of Richardson, and that his dial-plates are brighter. Fielding's characters, though they do not expand themselves so widely in dissertation, are as just pictures of human nature, and I will venture to say, have more striking features, and nicer touches of the pencil; and though Johnson used to quote with approbation a saying of Richardson's, "that the virtues of Fielding's heroes were the vices of a truly good man," I will venture to add, that the moral tendency of Fielding's writings, though it does not encourage a strained and rarely possible virtue, is ever favourable to honour and honesty, and cherishes the benevolent and generous affections. He who is as good as Fielding would make him, is an amiable member of society, and may be led on by more regulated instructors, to a higher state of ethical perfection.' Johnson proceeded; "Even Sir Francis Wronghead' is a character of manners, though drawn with great humour." He then repeated, very happily, all Sir Francis's credulous account to Manly of his being with "the great man," and securing a place. I asked him, if "The Suspicious Husband" did not furnish a well-drawn character, that of Ranger. JOHNSON. "No, Sir; Ranger is just a rake, a mere rake, and a lively young fellow, but no character." The great Douglas Cause was at this time a very general subject of discussion. I found he had not studied it with much attention,* but had only heard parts of it occasionally. He, however, talked 1 Johnson was inclined, as being personally acquainted with Richardson, to favour the opinion of his admirers that he was acquainted with the inmost recesses of the human heart, and had an absolute command over the passions; but he seemed not firm in it, and could at any time be talked into a disapprobation of all fictitious relations, of which he would frequently say, they took no hold of the mind.-HAWKINS. 2 In the comedy of The Provoked Husband, begun by Sir John Vanbrugh and finished by Colley Cibber. By Dr. Benjamin Hoadly. Garrick's inimitable performance of Ranger was the main support of the piece during its first run. George II. was so well pleased with this comedy, that he sent the author one hundred pounds. 4 Boswell, who was counsel on the side of Mr. Douglas, had published, in 1766, a pamphlet entitled the "Essence of the Douglas Cause," but which, it will be seen, post, April 27, 1778. he could not induce Johnson even to read. |