James Boswell - THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON - All 6 Volumes in One Edition

[Page 451: A schoolboy’s happiness. Ætat 54.]

The mention of this gentleman led us to talk of the Western Islands of Scotland, to visit which he expressed a wish that then appeared to me a very romantick fancy, which I little thought would be afterwards realised[1324]. He told me, that his father had put Martin’s account of those islands into his hands when he was very young, and that he was highly pleased with it; that he was particularly struck with the St. Kilda man’s notion that the high church of Glasgow had been hollowed out of a rock[1325]; a circumstance to which old Mr. Johnson had directed his attention. He said he would go to the Hebrides with me, when I returned from my travels, unless some very good companion should offer when I was absent, which he did not think probable; adding, ‘There are few people to whom I take so much to as you.’ And when I talked of my leaving England, he said with a very affectionate air, ‘My dear Boswell, I should be very unhappy at parting, did I think we were not to meet again[1326].’ I cannot too often remind my readers, that although such instances of his kindness are doubtless very flattering to me, yet I hope my recording them will be ascribed to a better motive than to vanity; for they afford unquestionable evidence of his tenderness and complacency, which some, while they were forced to acknowledge his great powers, have been so strenuous to deny.

He maintained that a boy at school was the happiest of human beings[1327]. I supported a different opinion, from which I have never yet varied, that a man is happier; and I enlarged upon the anxiety and sufferings which are endured at school. JOHNSON. ‘Ah! Sir, a boy’s being flogged is not so severe as a man’s having the hiss of the world against him. Men have a solicitude about fame[1328]; and the greater share they have of it, the more afraid they are of losing it.’ I silently asked myself, ‘Is it possible that the great SAMUEL JOHNSON really entertains any such apprehension, and is not confident that his exalted fame is established upon a foundation never to be shaken?’

He this evening drank a bumper to Sir David Dalrymple[1329], ‘as a man of worth, a scholar, and a wit.’ ‘I have (said he) never heard of him except from you; but let him know my opinion of him: for as he does not shew himself much in the world, he should have the praise of the few who hear of him.’

[Page 452: The Tale Of A Tub. A.D. 1763.]

On Tuesday, July 26, I found Mr. Johnson alone. It was a very wet day, and I again complained of the disagreeable effects of such weather. JOHNSON. ‘Sir, this is all imagination, which physicians encourage; for man lives in air, as a fish lives in water; so that if the atmosphere press heavy from above, there is an equal resistance from below. To be sure, bad weather is hard upon people who are obliged to be abroad; and men cannot labour so well in the open air in bad weather, as in good: but, Sir, a smith or a taylor, whose work is within doors, will surely do as much in rainy weather, as in fair. Some very delicate frames, indeed, may be affected by wet weather; but not common constitutions.’ [1330]

We talked of the education of children; and I asked him what he thought was best to teach them first. JOHNSON. ‘Sir, it is no matter what you teach them first, any more than what leg you shall put into your breeches first. Sir, you may stand disputing which is best to put in first, but in the mean time your breech is bare. Sir, while you are considering which of two things you should teach your child first, another boy has learnt them both.’

On Thursday, July 28, we again supped in private at the Turk’s Head coffee-house. JOHNSON. ‘Swift has a higher reputation than he deserves. His excellence is strong sense; for his humour, though very well, is not remarkably good. I doubt whether The Tale of a Tub be his; for he never owned it, and it is much above his usual manner[1331].’

[Page 453: Mr. Thomas Sheridan’s dulness. Ætat 54.]

‘Thompson, I think, had as much of the poet about him as most writers.

Every thing appeared to him through the medium of his favourite pursuit.

He could not have viewed those two candles burning but with a poetical

eye[1332].’

‘Has not ——[1333] a great deal of wit, Sir?’ JOHNSON. ‘I do not think so, Sir. He is, indeed, continually attempting wit, but he fails. And I have no more pleasure in hearing a man attempting wit and failing, than in seeing a man trying to leap over a ditch and tumbling into it.’

He laughed heartily, when I mentioned to him a saying of his concerning Mr. Thomas Sheridan, which Foote took a wicked pleasure to circulate. ‘Why, Sir, Sherry is dull, naturally dull; but it must have taken him a great deal of pains to become what we now see him. Such an excess of stupidity, Sir, is not in Nature.’ ‘So (said he,) I allowed him all his own merit.’

[Page 454: Experience the test of truth. A.D. 1763.]

He now added, ‘Sheridan cannot bear me. I bring his declamation to a point. I ask him a plain question, ‘What do you mean to teach?’ Besides, Sir, what influence can Mr. Sheridan have upon the language of this great country, by his narrow exertions? Sir, it is burning a farthing candle at Dover, to shew light at Calais[1334].’

Talking of a young man[1335] who was uneasy from thinking that he was very deficient in learning and knowledge, he said, ‘A man has no reason to complain who holds a middle place, and has many below him; and perhaps he has not six of his years above him;—perhaps not one. Though he may not know any thing perfectly, the general mass of knowledge that he has acquired is considerable. Time will do for him all that is wanting.’

The conversation then took a philosophical turn. JOHNSON. ‘Human experience, which is constantly contradicting theory, is the great test of truth. A system, built upon the discoveries of a great many minds, is always of more strength, than what is produced by the mere workings of any one mind, which, of itself, can do little. There is not so poor a book in the world that would not be a prodigious effort were it wrought out entirely by a single mind, without the aid of prior investigators. The French writers are superficial[1336]; because they are not scholars, and so proceed upon the mere power of their own minds; and we see how very little power they have.’

[Page 455: The University of Salamancha. Ætat 54.]

‘As to the Christian religion, Sir, besides the strong evidence which we have for it, there is a balance in its favour from the number of great men who have been convinced of its truth, after a serious consideration of the question. Grotius was an acute man, a lawyer, a man accustomed to examine evidence, and he was convinced. Grotius was not a recluse, but a man of the world, who certainly had no bias to the side of religion. Sir Isaac Newton set out an infidel[1337], and came to be a very firm believer.’

He this evening again recommended to me to perambulate Spain[1338]. I said it would amuse him to get a letter from me dated at Salamancha. JOHNSON. ‘I love the University of Salamancha; for when the Spaniards were in doubt as to the lawfulness of their conquering America, the University of Salamancha gave it as their opinion that it was not lawful.’ He spoke this with great emotion, and with that generous warmth which dictated the lines in his London , against Spanish encroachment[1339].

I expressed my opinion of my friend Derrick as but a poor writer. JOHNSON. ‘To be sure, Sir, he is; but you are to consider that his being a literary man has got for him all that he has. It has made him King of Bath[1340]. Sir, he has nothing to say for himself but that he is a writer. Had he not been a writer, he must have been sweeping the crossings in the streets, and asking halfpence from every body that past.’