gave you no cause of offence." "No offence! (returned he with an altered voice;) and is it nothing then to sit whispering together when I am present, without ever directing their discourse towards me, or offering me a share in the conversation?" "That was, because you frighted him who spoke first about those hot balls." "Why, Madam, if a creature is neither capable of giving dignity to falsehood, nor willing to remain contented with the truth, he deserves no better treatment." Mr. Johnson's fixed incredulity of every thing he heard, and his little care to conceal that incredulity, was teizing enough to be sure and I saw Mr. Sharp was pained exceedingly, when relating the history of a hurricane that happened about that time in the West Indies, where, for aught I know, he had himself lost some friends too, he observed Dr. Johnson believed not a syllable of the account: "For 'tis so easy (says he) for a man to fill his mouth with a wonder, and run about telling the lie before it can be detected, that I have no heart to believe hurricanes easily raised by the first inventor, and blown forwards by thousands more." I asked him once if he believed the story of the destruction of Lisbon by an earthquake when it first happened: "Oh ! not for six months (said he) at least: I did think that story too dreadful to be credited, and can hardly yet persuade myself that it was true to the full extent we all of us have heard.” Among the numberless people, however, whom I heard him grossly and flatly contradict, I never yet saw any one who did not take it patiently excepting Dr. Burney, from whose habitual softness of manners I little expected such an exertion of spirit: the event was as little to be expected. Mr. Johnson asked his pardon generously and genteelly, and when he left the room rose up to shake hands with him, that they might part in peace. On another occasion, when he had violently provoked Mr. Pepys, in a different but perhaps not a less offensive manner, till something much too like a quarrel was grown up between them, the moment he was gone, "Now (says Dr. Johnson) is Pepys gone home hating me, who love him better than I did before: he spoke in defence of his dead friend; but though I hope I spoke better who spoke against him, yet all my eloquence will gain me nothing but an honest man for my enemy!" He did not however cordially love Mr. Pepys, though he respected his abilities. "I knew the dog was a scholar (said he, when they had been disputing about the classics for three hours together one morn ing at Streatham); but that he had so much taste and so much knowledge I did not believe: I might have taken Barnard's word though, for Barnard would not lie." We had got a little French print among us at Brighthelmstone, in November 1782, of some people skaiting, with these lines written under: "Sur un mince chrystal l'hyver conduit leurs pas, Le precipice est sous la glace; Telle est de nos plaisirs la legere surface, Glissez mortels; n'appuyez pas." And I begged translations from every body: Dr. Johnson gave me this; "O'er ice the rapid skaiter flies, With sport above and death below; He was however most exceedingly enraged when he knew that in the course of the season I had asked half a dozen acquaintance to do the same thing; and said, it was a piece of treachery, and done to make every body else look little when compared to my favourite friends the Pepyses, whose translations were unquestionably the best. I will insert them, because he did say so. This is the distich given me by Sir Lucas, to whom I owe more solid obligations, no less than the power of thanking him for the life he saved, and whose least valuable praise is the correctness of his taste: "O'er the ice as o'er pleasure you lightly should glide, This other more serious one was written by his brother: "Swift o'er the level how the skaiters slide, Dr. Johnson seeing this last, and thinking a moment, repeated, "O'er crackling ice, o'er gulphs profound, Though thus uncommonly ready both to give and take offence, Mr. Johnson had many rigid maxims concerning the necessity of continued softness and compliance of disposition: and when I once mentioned Shenstone's idea, that some little quarrel among lovers, relations, and friends was useful, and contributed to their general happiness upon the whole, by making the soul feel her elastic force, and return to the beloved object with renewed delight:—“Why, what a pernicious maxim is this now (cries Johnson), all quarrels ought to be avoided studiously, particularly conjugal ones, as no one can possibly tell where they may end; besides that lasting dislike is often the consequence of occasional disgust, and that the cup of life is surely bitter enough, without squeezing in the hateful rind of resentment." It was upon something like the same principle, and from his general hatred of refinement, that when I told him how Dr. Collier, in order to keep the servants in humour with his favourite dog, by seeming rough with the animal himself on many occasions, and crying out, “Why will nobody knock this cur's brains out?" meant · to conciliate their tenderness towards Pompey; he returned me for answer, "that the maxim was evidently false, and founded on ignorance of human life: that the servants would kick the dog the sooner for having obtained such a sanction to their severity: and I once (added he) chid my wife for beating the cat before the maid, who will now (said I) treat puss with cruelty perhaps, and plead her mistress's example." I asked him upon this, if he ever disputed with his wife? (I had heard that he loved her passionately.) "Perpetually (said he): my wife had a particular reverence for cleanliness, and desired the praise of neatness in her dress and furniture, as many ladies do, till they become troublesome to their best friends, slaves to their own besoms, and only sigh for the hour of sweeping their husbands out of the house as dirt and useless lumber; a clean floor is so comfortable, she would say sometimes, by way of twitting; till at last I told her, that I thought we had had talk enough about the floor, we would now have a touch at the ceiling." On another occasion I have heard him blame her for a fault many people have, of setting the miseries of their neighbours half unintentionally half wantonly before their eyes, shewing Life, vol. i., pp. 61, 183. them the bad side of their profession, situation, &c. He said, "she would lament the dependence of pupillage to a young heir. &c., and once told a waterman who rowed her along the Thames in a wherry, that he was no happier than a galley-slave, one being chained to the oar by authority, the other by want. I had however (said he, laughing), the wit to get her daughter on my side always before we began the dispute. She read comedy better than any body he ever heard (he said); in tragedy she mouthed too much." Garrick told Mr. Thrale however, she was a little painted puppet, of no value at all, and quite disguised with affectation, full of odd airs of rural elegance; and he made out some comical scenes, by mimicking her in a dialogue he pretended to have overheard: I do not know whether he meant such stuff to be believed or no, it was so comical; nor did I indeed ever see him represent her ridiculously, though my husband did. The intelligence I gained of her from old Levett, was only perpetual illness and perpetual opium. The picture I found of her at Litchfield was very pretty, and her daughter Mrs. Lucy Porter said it was like. Mr. Johnson has told me, that her hair was eminently beautiful, quite blonde like that of a baby; but that she fretted about the colour, and was always desirous to dye it black, which he very judiciously hindered her from doing. His account of their wedding we used to think ludicrous enough :-"I was riding to church (says Johnson), and she following on another single horse; she hung back, however, and I turned about to see whether she could get her steed along, or what was the matter. I had however soon occasion to see it was only coquetry, and that I despised, so quickening my pace a little she mended hers; but I believe there was a tear or twopretty dear creature!" Johnson loved his dinner exceedingly, and has often said in my hearing, perhaps for my edification, "that wherever the dinner is ill got there is poverty, or there is avarice, or there is stupidity; in short, the family is somehow grossly wrong; for (continued he) a man seldom thinks with more earnestness of any thing than he does of his dinner; and if he cannot get that well dressed, he should be suspected of inaccuracy in other things." One day when he was speaking upon the subject, I asked him, if he ever huffed his wife about his dinner? "So often (replied he), that at last she called to me, and said, 'Nay, hold Mr. Johnson, and do not make a farce of thanking God for a dinner which in a few minutes you will protest not eatable.'" When any disputes arose between our married acquaintance however, Mr. Johnson always sided with the husband, "whom (he said) the woman had probably provoked so often, she scarce knew when or how she had disobliged him first. Women (says Dr. Johnson) give great offence by a contemptuous spirit of non-compliance on petty occasions. The man calls his wife to walk with him in the shade, and she feels a strange desire just at that moment to sit in the sun; he offers to read her a play, or sing her a song, and she calls the children in to disturb them, or advises him to seize that opportunity of settling the family accounts. Twenty such tricks will the faithfullest wife in the world not refuse to play, and then look astonished when the fellow fetches in a mistress. Boarding-schools were established (continued he) for the conjugal quiet of the parents: the two partners cannot agree which child to fondle, nor how to fondle them, so they put the young ones to school, and remove the cause of contention. The little girl pokes her head, the mother reproves her sharply: 'Do not mind your mamma,' says the father, my dear, but do your own way.' The mother complains to me of this: 'Madam (said I), your husband is right all the while; he is with you but two hours of the day perhaps, and then you teize him by making the child cry. Are not ten hours enough for tuition? And are the hours of pleasure so frequent in life, that when a man gets a couple of quiet ones to spend in familiar chat with his wife, they must be poisoned by petty mortifications? Put missey to school; she will learn to hold her head like her neighbours, and you will no longer torment your family for want of other talk."" The vacuity of life had at some early period of his life struck so forcibly on the mind of Mr. Johnson that it became by repeated impression his favourite hypothesis, and the general tenor of his reasonings commonly ended there, wherever they might begin. Such things therefore as other philosophers often attribute to various and contradictory causes, appeared to him uniform enough; all was done to fill up the time, upon his principle. I used to tell him, that it was like the Clown's answer in As you like it,1 of “Oh Lord, Sir!" for that it suited every 1 An error of memory for All's well that ends well.-Ed. |