296 POLITICS ROUTED BY POLITENESS. there."-JOHNSON: "Why, yes, Sir; meat and drink enough to give the inhabitants sufficient strength to run away from home.” [Then turning to Mr. Wilkes]: "You must know, Sir, I lately took my friend Boswell, and showed him genuine civilized life in an English provincial town. I turned him loose at Lichfield, my native city, that he might see for once real civility: for you know he lives among savages in Scotland, and among rakes in London."-WILKES: Except when he is with grave, sober, decent people, like you and me.”—JOHNSON (smiling): "And we ashamed of him." In the course of the evening, Mr. Wilkes jumped up to show the company the good points of a fine print of a beautiful female figure that hung in the room; enlarging most eloquently upon the exquisite contour of the bosom, and running a knowing finger all the while over the lines of it. He afterwards waggishly insisted that our friend the Doctor had, during the whole description, been casting eyes of loving admiration upon the live charms of Mrs. Knowles, a clever Quaker lady, who was one of the guests. And why not? the Doctor is only sixty-seven: and "ran a race in the rain" the other day, " and beat Baretti!" Thus the evening passed on, with joke and serious talk, and kindly feeling sanctifying both. It is a rich scene, and Johnson has played his part in it like the fine old, sound-hearted, goodnatured fellow he is. The Doctor is perfectly in character throughout. One sees now how false the notion is that Johnson's political Toryism was the strongest force in his being; intellect could master it; good-humour could beat it hollow; humanity could crush it out of sight. Why, even the little politenesses of the dinnertable could almost put it to flight ;-"Pray give me leave, Sir;It is better here-A little of the brown-Some fat, Sir-A little of the stuffing-Some gravy-Let me have the pleasure of giving you some butter-Allow me to recommend a squeeze of this orange; or the lemon, perhaps, may have more zest."-" Sir, Sir, I am obliged to you, Sir." JOHNSON'S QUICKENING POWER. 297 CHAPTER XXXII. DR. BOSWELL'S EPIGRAM-ROUND ROBIN-LETTERS-HOURS OF GLOOM. (1776—1777.) A FINE epigrammatic description which Boswell's uncle once gave of Doctor Johnson has kept hovering in our mind for a long while now, and must go down at last: "A robust genius, born to grapple with whole libraries." That is a magnificent sayingperhaps the very best estimate ever made, in as many words, of the intellectual side of our Author's character. It was almost worth the Doctor's while to come into the world only to call forth such a remark from another man. And this is only one instance, chosen from among hundreds, of the sort of life-giving force which streamed from Johnson's mere presence in the midst of his generation. His influence as a grand massive intellect, standing there a mark for all the forces of the finest minds of his time to aim at, can hardly be over-rated: provoking his enemies to do their worst, and constraining his friends to say their bestin either case calling forth power which would otherwise have slumbered for ever. It is not only what he himself did, but also what he indirectly compelled his contemporaries to do, which secures our Author's title to being recognised as the Man of his Time. In a very real sense Samuel Johnson was the intellectual Head-Centre of his age. He heated his enemies and warmed his friends; in both cases troubling the stagnant waters of the intellectual life around. In such troubling there is always a healing virtue at work. Taking the word "wit" in its old and wide signification, the Doctor might with perfect propriety have adopted Falstaff's proud boast and said: "I am not simply witty myself, but the cause that wit is in other men." 298 LETTERS. "DEAR SIR, "TO SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. "May 16, 1776. "I have been kept away from you, I know not well how, and of those vexatious hindrances I know not when there will be an end. I therefore send you the poor dear Doctor's epitaph. Read it first yourself; and if you then think it right, show it to the Club. I am, you know, willing to be corrected. If you think anything much amiss, keep it to yourself till we come together. I have sent two copies, but prefer the card. The dates must be settled by Dr. Percy. "Miss Reynolds has a mind to send the Epitaph to Dr. Beattie; I am very willing, but having no copy cannot immediately recollect it. She tells me you have lost it. Try to recollect, and put down as much as you retain ; you perhaps may have kept what I have dropt. The lines for which I am at a loss are something of rerum civilium sive naturalium. It was a sorry trick to lose it; help me if you can. "I am, Sir, "Your most humble servant, "The gout grows better but slowly." We give the Epitaph here referred to; partly for its own sake, partly because it gave rise to one of the most interesting of our curiosities of literature, in the shape of a Round Robin, which we have also inserted. ROUND ROBIN. "OLIVARII GOLDSMITH, Poetæ, Physici, Historici, Nullum quod tetigit non ornavit : Affectuum potens at lenis dominator: Amicorum fides, Lectorum veneratio. Natus in Hiberniâ Fornia Longfordiensis, Eblanæ literis institutus ; Obiit Londini, April IV. MDCCLXXIV." 299 The Doctor's friends had several objections to this Epitaphthe chief of which was that it had been written in Latin. But who would be bold enough to state these objections to Johnson himself? One day at dinner, in Sir Joshua Reynolds's house, the Round Robin was proposed, as a medium of conveyance which would commit them all in a body, but no one of them in particular. Edmund Burke performed the literary part of the work, and then all the company round signed their names. Sir Joshua agreed to present the awful document. The Doctor received and read it with great good-humour, only remarking, when he came to Dr. Warton's name, "I wonder that Joe Warton, a scholar by profession, should be such a fool"; and when he came to Burke's, "I should have thought Mund Burke would have had more sense." His final verdict was, that he would alter the Epitaph in any way the gentlemen pleased, as to the sense of it; but "he would never consent to disgrace the walls of Westminster Abbey with an English inscription." And as the bearer of this royal decree Sir Joshua, the ambassador, reverently 300 EPITAPH ON GOLDSMITH. took his leave. The Epitaph was engraved on Goldsmith's monument without any alteration. As these pages will probably be held less sacred than "the walls of Westminster Abbey" an English translation of the inscription may not be thought to profane them. Johnson has given the date of Goldsmith's birth inaccurately: the poet was born on Nov. 10th, 1728. The mistake, we believe, still remains on the monument. "You must not think me uncivil in omitting to answer the letter with which you favoured me some time ago. I imagined it to have been written without Mr. Boswell's knowledge, and therefore supposed the answer to require, what I could not find, a private conveyance. "Do not teach the young ones to dislike me, as you dislike me yourself; but let me at least have Veronica's kindness, because she is my acquaintance. |