change partners at pleasure, each would soon forget that fondness which mutual dependence and the paucity of general amusement alone had caused, and each would separately feel delighted by their release.' "The vacuity of life had at some early period of his life struck so forcibly on the mind of Dr. 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, of Oh Lord, sir!' for that it suited every occasion. One man, for example, was profligate and wild, as we call it, followed the girls, or sat still at the gaming-table. Why, life must be filled up,' said Johnson, and the man who is not capable of intellectual pleasures must content himself with such as his senses can afford.' Another was a hoarder: Why, a fellow must do something; and what so easy to a narrow mind as hoarding halfpence till they turn into sixpences?' · whoever has once experienced the full flow of London talk, when he retires to country friendships and rural sports, must either be contented to turn baby again and play with the rattle, or he will pine away like a great fish in a little pond, and die for want of his usual food. Books without the knowledge of life are useless,' I have heard him say; 'for what should books teach but the art of living? To study manners, however, only in coffee-houses, is more than equally imperfect; the minds of men who acquire no solid learning, and only exist on the daily forage that they pick up by running about, and snatching what drops from their neighbours, as ignorant as themselves, will never ferment into any knowledge valuable or durable; but like the light wines we drink in hot countries, please for the moment, though incapable of keeping. In the study of mankind much will be found to swim as froth and much must sink as feculence, before the wine can have its effect, and become that noblest liquor which rejoices the heart and gives vigour to the imagination.' "Solitude,' he one day added, 'is dangerous to reason, without being favourable to virtue: pleasures of some sort are necessary to the intellectual as to the corporeal health; and those who resist gaiety will be likely for the most part to fall a sacrifice to appetite; for the solicitations of sense are always at hand; and a dram to a vacant and solitary person is a speedy and seducing relief. Remember,' continued he, that the solitary mortal is certainly luxurious, probably superstitious, and possibly mad: the mind stagnates for want of employment, grows morbid, and is extinguished like a candle in foul air.' It was on this principle that Johnson encouraged parents to carry their daughters early and much into company; for what harm can be done before so many witnesses? Solitude is the surest nurse of all prurient passions; and a girl in the hurry of preparation, or tumult of gaiety, "He hated disguise, and nobody penehas neither inclination nor leisure to let ten-trated it so readily. I showed him a letter der expressions soften or sink into her heart. written to a common friend, who was at The ball, the show, are not the dangerous some loss for the explanation of it. Whoplaces: no, 'tis the private friend, the kind ever wrote it,' says our Doctor, 'could, if he consoler, the companion of the easy vacant chose it, make himself understood; but 't is hour, whose compliance with her opinions the letter of an embarrassed man, sir;' and can flatter her vanity, and whose conversa- so the event proved it to be. tion can just soothe, without ever stretching her mind, that is the lover to be feared; he who buzzes in her ear at court, or at the opera, must be contented to buzz in vain.? These notions Dr. Johnson carried so very far, that I have heard him say, 'If you would shut up any man with any woman, so as to make them derive their whole pleasure from each other, they would inevitably fall in love, as it is called, with each other; but at six months' end, if you would throw them both into public life, where they might · "Avarice was a vice against which, however, I never much heard Dr. Johnson declaim, till one represented it to him connected with cruelty, or some such disgraceful companion. Do not,' said he, ' discourage your children from hoarding, if they have a taste to it: whoever lays up his penny rather than part with it for a cake, at least is not the slave of gross appetite; and shows besides a preference always to be esteemed, of the future to the present moment. Such a mind may be made a good one; but the natural spendthrift, who grasps his pleasures greedily and coarsely, and cares for nothing but immediate indulgence, is very little to be valued above a negro.' "Mysteriousness in trifles offended him on every side: it commonly ended in guilt,' he said; for those who begin by concealment of innocent things will soon have something to hide which they dare not bring to light.' He therefore encouraged an openness of conduct, in women particu larly, 'who,' he observed, 'were often led away, when children, by their delight and power of surprising,' "He recommended, on something like the same principle, that when one person meant to serve another, he should not go "I pitied a friend before him who had a whining wife, that found every thing pain ful to her, and nothing pleasing- He does not know that she whimpers,' says Johnson; when a door has creaked for a fortnight together, you may observe, the master will scarcely give sixpence to get it oiled. "Nice people found no mercy from Dr. Johnson; such I mean as can dine only at four o'clock, who cannot bear to be waked at an unusual hour, or miss a stated meal without inconvenience. He had no such prejudices himself, and with difficulty forgave them in another. surely consist,' says he, in impossibility to Delicacy does not be pleased; and that is false dignity indeed which is content to depend upon others.' "That poverty was an evil to be avoided by all honest means, however, no man was more ready to avow: concealed poverty particularly, which he said was the general corrosive that destroyed the peace of almost every family; to which no evening perhaps ever returned without some new project for hiding the sorrows and dangers of the next day. Want of money,' says Dr. Johnson, is sometimes concealed under pretended avarice, and sly hints of aversion to part with it; sometimes under stormy anger, and affectation of boundless rage; but oftener still under a show of thoughtless extravagance and gay neglect: while to a penetrating eye none of these wretched veils suffice to keep the cruel truth from being seen. Poverty is hic et ubique,' says he, and if you do shut the jade out of the door, she will always contrive in some manner to poke her pale lean face in at the win dow.' Let "Of another lady, more insipid than of- "As the mind of Dr. Johnson was greatfensive, I once heard him say, She has ly expanded, so his first care was for genesome softness indeed, but so has a pillow.' ral, not particular or petty morality; and And when one observed in reply, that her those teachers had more of his blame than husband's fidelity and attachment were ex- praise, I think, who seek to oppress life with emplary, notwithstanding this low account unnecessary scruples. Scruples would,' at which her perfections were rated- Why, as he observed, certainly make men missir,' cries the Doctor, being married to those erable, and seldom make them good. sleepy-souled women, is just like playing at us ever,' he said, 'studiously fly from those cards for nothing; no passion is excited, instructers, against whom our Saviour deand the time is filled up. I do not howev-nounces heavy judgments, for having bound er envy a fellow one of those honeysuckle wives, for my part, as they are but creepers at best, and commonly destroy the tree they so tenderly cling about.' 66 Needlework had a strenuous approver in Dr. Johnson, who said, that one of the great felicities of female life was the general consent of the world, that they might amuse themselves with petty occupations, which contributed to the lengthening their lives, and preserving their minds in a state of sanity. A man cannot hem a pocket-handkerchief,' said a lady of quality to him one day, and so he runs mad, and torments his family and friends.' The expression struck him exceedingly, and when one acquaintance grew troublesome, and another unhealthy, he used to quote Lady Frances's observation, that a man cannot hem a pocket-handkerchief.' up burdens grievous to be borne, and laid them on the shoulders of mortal men.' No one had, however, higher notions of the hard task of true christianity than Johnson, whose daily terror lest he had not done enough originated in piety, but ended in little less than disease. Reasonable with regard to others, he had formed vain hopes of performing impossibilities himself; and finding his good works ever below his desires and intent, filled his imagination with fears that he should never obtain forgiveness for omissions of duty and criminal waste of time. "I used to tell him in jest, that his morality was easily contented; and when I have said something as if the wickedness of the world gave me concern, he would cry out aloud against canting, and protest that he thought there was very little gross wickedness in the world, and still less of extraor [Lady Frances Burgoyne, daughter of the last dinary virtue. Lord Halifax.-ED.] VOL. II 33 Though no man perhaps made such rough replies as Dr. Johnson, yet nobody had a more just aversion for general satire; he always hated and censured Swift for his unprovoked bitterness against the professors of medicine; and used to challenge his friends, when they lamented the exorbitancy of physicians' fees, to produce him one instance of an estate raised by physick in England. When an acquaintance too was one day exclaiming against the tediousness of the law and its partiality: Let us hear, sir,' said Johnson, no general abuse; the law is the last result of human wisdom acting upon human experience for the benefit of the publick.' "Dr. Johnson had indeed a veneration for the voice of mankind beyond what most people will own; and as he liberally confessed that all his own disappointments proceeded from himself, he hated to hear others complain of general injustice. I remember when lamentation was made of the neglect shewed to Jeremiah Markland 1, a great philologist, as some one ventured to call him- He is a scholar undoubtedly, sir,' replied Dr. Johnson; but remember that he would run from the world, and that it is not the world's business to run after him. I hate a fellow whom pride, or cowardice, or laziness, drives into a corner, and does nothing when he is there but sit and growl: let him come out as I do, and bark." "Dr. Johnson's knowledge of literary history was extensive and surprising; he knew every adventure of every book you could name almost, and was exceedingly. pleased with the opportunity which writing the poets' lives gave him to display it. He loved to be set at work, and was sorry. when he came to the end of the business he was about. "Alas, madam!' continued he, how few books are there of which one ever can possibly arrive at the last page! Was there ever yet any thing written by mere man that was wished longer by its readers, excepting Don Quixote, Robinson Crusoe, and the Pilgrim's Progress? After Homer's Iliad, Dr. Johnson confessed that the work of Cervantes was the greatest in the world, speaking of it, I mean, as a book of entertainment. "He had sometimes fits of reading very violent; and when he was in earnest about getting through some particular pages, for I have heard him say he never read but, one book 2, which he did not consider as with Jortin and Thirlby, he calls three contemporaries of great eminence.-ED.] 1 [Mr. Markland, who has favoured the Editor with many kind and useful suggestions, observes on this passage, that "Johnson's censure was undeserved. Jeremiah Markland was certainly no growler. He sought for, because he loved, retirement; and rejected all the honours and rewards which were liberally offered to his acceptance. During a long life, he devoted himself unceasingly to those pursuits for which he was best fitted, collating the classics, and illustrating the Scriptures. Sequantur alii famam, aucupentur Divitias, hic illa oculis irretortis contemplatus, post terga constanter rejecit. . . . In solitudinem se recepit, studiis excolendis et pauperibus sublevandis unicè intentus.' Such is the character 2 [On this passage Mr. Malone, in his MS. given of Markland by his pupil and friend Edward notes, says, "Here we have another gross exClarke." Mrs. Piozzi's flippant expression ("a aggeration. She does not state when he made great philologist as some one ventured to call this declaration. It might have been in 1765, him") will excite a smile, when we recollect what and in the subsequent nineteen years he might Markland has done as a philologist, and the estima- have read 500 books through perhaps, though tion in which he has been held both by the most it certainly was not his usual custom to do so." learned of his contemporaries (including John- Can the reader discover on what grounds the son himself), and the most distinguished scholars statement is called a gross exaggeration, when of our own time. Dr. Burney, in a tone of the Mr. Malone admits that it accords with Johnson's highest panegyric, numbered him with Bentley, usual custom? But we have many passages in Dawes, Toup, and Porson; and a still later wri-Boswell which corroborate Mrs. Piozzi's statement, ter has thus candidly enumerated his merits: (see, for instance vol. i. p. 310, and post, 15th "Markland was endowed with a respectable por- June, 1784.) The observation too as to the lady's tion of judgment and sagacity. He was very la- having made no allowance for the date at which borious, loved retirement, and spent a long life in Johnson spoke, came rather inconsistently from the study of the Greek and Latin languages. For Mr. Malone, who has laboriously made a delibe modesty, candour, literary honesty, and courteous- rate blunder of the same kind that he imputes to ness to other scholars, he is justly considered as Mrs. Piozzi: when Johnson observed, ante, p. the mode which ought to be proposed for the imi-143, that "Thomas à Kempis was said to have tation of every critic.”—Quart. Rev. vol. vii. p. | been printed, in one language or another, as many 442 so far Mr. Markland. It is but just to all times as there have been months since it first came parties, that the Editor should add, that (whatev- | out," Mr. Malone, with great gravity, informs us, er Johnson may have said in the current of con- "this is improbable, because, according to this versation, and probably in allusion to some mi-account, there would have been 3600 editions, nute and unrecorded circumstance) he had a fixed respect for the talents and character of Markland. For it will be seen hereafter that on the 20th Oct. 1782, he wrote to Mr. Nichols, urging him to obtain some record of the life of Markland, whom, that being the number of months between 1492 and 1792," (ante, loc. cit.) Because Boswell's book was published in 1792, Mr. Malone makes his calculation on that year, without reference either to the year in which Johnson quoted the obligatory, through in his whole life (and Lady Mary Wortley's Letters was the book), he would be quite lost to company, and withdraw all his attention to what he was reading, without the smallest knowledge or care about the noise made around him. His deafness made such conduct less odd and less difficult to him than it would have been to another man; but his advising others to take the same method, and pull a little book out when they were not entertained with what was going forward in society, seemed more likely to advance the growth of science than of polished manners, for which he always pretended extreme veneration. bribery or falsehood to evade it. Sumner,' said he, however, I have at length prevailed upon : I know not indeed whether his tenderness was persuaded, or his reason convinced, but the effect will always be the same. Poor Dr. Sumner died, however, before the next vacation.' "Dr. Johnson was of opinion, too, that young people should have positive not general rules given for their direction. My mother,' said he, was always telling me that I did not behave myself properly; that I should endeavour to learn behaviour, and such cant but when I replied, that she ought to tell me what to do, and what to avoid, her admonitions were commonly, for that time at least, at an end.' "This, I fear, was however at best a momentary refuge, found out by perverseness 3. No man knew better than Johnson in how many nameless and numberless actions behaviour consists: actions which can scarcely be reduced to rule, and which come under no description. Of these he retained so many very strange ones, that I suppose no one who saw his odd manner of gesticulating much blamed or wondered at the good lady's solicitude concerning her son's behaviour. "Dr. Johnson was a great reader of French literature, and delighted exceeding-, ly in Boileau's works. Moliere, I think, he had hardly sufficient taste of; and he used to condemn me for preferring La Bruyere to the Duc de Rochefoucault, 'who,' he said, was the only gentleman writer who wrote like a professed authour.' "The recollection of such reading as had delighted him in his infancy, made him always persist in fancying that it was the only reading which could please an infant; and he used to condemn me for putting Newbery's books into their hands as too "Though he was attentive to the peace trifling to engage their attention. Babies of children in general, no man had a strongdo not want,' said he, to hear about er contempt than he for such parents as babies; they like to be told of giants and openly profess that they cannot govern castles, and of somewhat which can stretch their children. How,' says he, is an and stimulate their little minds.' When in army governed? Such people, for the most answer I would urge the numerous editions part, multiply prohibitions till obedience and quick sale of Tommy Prudent or Goody becomes impossible, and authority appears Two Shoes, Remember always,' said he, absurd; and never suspect that they tease that the parents buy the books, and that their family, their friends, and themselves, the children never read them.' Mrs. Bar-only because conversation runs low, and bauld however had his best praise, and something must be said.' deserved it; no man was more struck than Dr. Johnson with voluntary descent from possible splendour to painful duty. "The remembrance of what had passed in his own childhood made Dr. Johnson very solicitous to preserve the felicity of children; and when he had persuaded Dr. Sumner to remit the tasks usually given to fill up boys' time during the holidays, he rejoiced exceedingly in the success of his negotiation, and told me that he had never ceased representing to all the eminent schoolmasters in England, the absurd tyranny of poisoning the hour of permitted pleasure, by keeping future misery before the children's eyes, and tempting them by "Dr. Johnson's knowledge and esteem of what we call low or coarse life was indeed prodigious; and he did not like that the upper ranks should be dignified with the name of the world. Sir Joshua Reynolds said one day, that nobody wore laced coats now; and that once every body wore them. See now,' says Johnson, how absurd that is; as if the bulk of mankind consisted of fine gentlemen that came to him to sit for their pictures. If every man who wears a laced coat (that he can pay for) was extirpated, who would them? With all this haughty contempt of gentility, no praise was more welcome to Dr. Johnson than that which said he had the notions or manners of a gentleman which character I have heard him define with accuracy and describe with ele gance. miss "I was saying to a friend one day, that I did not like goose; one smells it so while the appearance she made. When they it is roasting, said I. But you, madam,' | ornaments, to see if he would approve of replies the Doctor, have been at all times a fortunate woman, having always had your hunger so forestalled by indulgence, that you never experienced the delight of smelling your dinner beforehand. Which pleasure, answered I, pertly, is to be enjoyed in perfection by such as have the happiness to pass through Porridge-Islandmand to another lady for crossing her little of a morning.Come, come,' says he child's handkerchief before, and by that gravely, let's have no sneering at what is operation dragging down its head oddly and serious to so many: hundreds of your unintentionally, was on the same principle. fellow-creatures, dear lady, turn anotherIt is the beggar's fear of cold,' said he, that way, that they may not be tempted by the luxuries of Porridge-Island to wish for gratifications they are not able to obtain: you are certainly not better than all of them; give God thanks that you are hap-in a niche.' pier.' "I received on another occasion as just a rebuke from Dr. Johnson, for an offence of the same nature, and hope I took care never to provoke a third; for after a very long summer particularly hot and dry, I was wishing naturally, but thoughtlessly, for some rain to lay the dust as we drove along the Surrey roads. 'I cannot bear,' replied he, with much asperity and an altered look, when I know how many poor families will perish next winter for want of that bread which the present drought will deny them, to hear ladies sighing for rain, only that their complexions may not suffer from the heat, or their clothes be incommoded by the dust:-for shame! leave off such foppish lamentations, and study to relieve those whose distresses are real,' "But it was never against people of coarse life that his contempt was expressed, while poverty of sentiment in men who considered themselves to be company for the parlour, as he called it, was what he would not bear. "Even dress itself, when it resembled that of the vulgar, offended him exceeding ly; and when he had condemned me many times for not adorning my children with more show than I thought useful or elegant, I presented a little girl to him who came o'visiting one evening covered with shining 1 Porridge-Island is a mean street in London, filled with cook-shops for the convenience of the poorer inhabitants; the real name of it I know not, but suspect that which it is generally known by, to have been originally a term of derision.-Piozzi. ["It is not a street, but a paved alley near the church of St. Martin's in the Fields.". Malone MS. These are the kind of errors on which Mr. Malone founds his violent censures of Mrs. Piozzi's inaccuracy, which he often calls falsehood; but the lady may surely be forgiven if she, in her inexperience, calls that a "mean street" which the more accurate Malone, probably by personal inspection, found to be a paved alley.-ED.] prevails over such parents, and so they pull the poor thing's head down, and give it the look of a baby that plays about Westminster-bridge, while the mother sits shivering My compliances [in his criticisms on dress], however, were of little worth; what really surprised me was the victory he gained over a lady little accustomed to contradiction, who had dressed herself for church at Streatham one Sunday morning, in a manner he did not approve, and to whom he said such sharp and pungent things concerning her hat, her gown, &c. that she hastened to change them, and returning quite another figure received his applause, and thanked him for his reproofs, much to the amazement of her husband, who could scarcely believe his own ears. "Another lady, whose accomplishments he never denied, came to our house one day covered with diamonds, feathers, &c. and he did not seem inclined to chat with her as usual. I asked him why, when the company was gone. Why, her head looked so like that of a woman who shows puppets,' said he, and her voice so confirmed the fancy, that I could not bear her to-day; when she wears a large cap, I can talk to her.' "When the ladies wore lace trimmings to their clothes, he expressed his contempt of the reigning fashion in these terms: A Brussels trimming is like bread-sauce,' said he, 'it takes away the glow of colour from the gown, and gives you nothing in- · stead of it; but sauce was invented to ming is an ornament to the manteau, or it heighten the flavour of our food, and trimis nothing. Learn,' said he, that there is propriety or impropriety in every thing how slight soever, and get at the general principles of dress and of behaviour; if you then transgress them, you will at least know that they are not observed.' "It was indeed. astonishing how he could remark such minuteness with a sight so miserably imperfect; but no accidental position of a riband escaped him, so nice was his observation, and so rigorous his demands of propriety. "When he turned his back on Lord |