JOHNSON.'Nay,Sir;we'll send YOU to him.If your company does not drive a man out of his house,nothing will.'This was a horrible shock,for which there was no visible cause.I afterwards asked him why he had said so harsh a thing.JOHNSON.Because,Sir,you made me angry about the Americans.'BOSWELL.'But why did you not take your revenge directly?'JOHNSON.(smiling,)'Because,Sir,I had nothing ready.A man cannot strike till he has his weapons.'This was a candid and pleasant confession.
He shewed me to-night his drawing-room,very genteelly fitted up;and said,'Mrs.Thrale sneered when I talked of my having asked you and your lady to live at my house.I was obliged to tell her,that you would be in as respectable a situation in my house as in hers.
Sir,the insolence of wealth will creep out.'BOSWELL.'She has a little both of the insolence of wealth,and the conceit of parts.'
JOHNSON.'The insolence of wealth is a wretched thing;but the conceit of parts has some foundation.To be sure it should not be.
But who is without it?'BOSWELL.'Yourself,Sir.'JOHNSON.
'Why,I play no tricks:I lay no traps.'BOSWELL.'No,Sir.You are six feet high,and you only do not stoop.'
We talked of the numbers of people that sometimes have composed the household of great families.I mentioned that there were a hundred in the family of the present Earl of Eglintoune's father.Dr.
Johnson seeming to doubt it,I began to enumerate.'Let us see:my Lord and my Lady two.'JOHNSON.'Nay,Sir,if you are to count by twos,you may be long enough.'BOSWELL.'Well,but now I add two sons and seven daughters,and a servant for each,that will make twenty;so we have the fifth part already.'JOHNSON.'Very true.
You get at twenty pretty readily;but you will not so easily get further on.We grow to five feet pretty readily;but it is not so easy to grow to seven.'
On Monday,April 20,I found him at home in the morning.We talked of a gentleman who we apprehended was gradually involving his circumstances by bad management.JOHNSON.'Wasting a fortune is evaporation by a thousand imperceptible means.If it were a stream,they'd stop it.You must speak to him.It is really miserable.Were he a gamester,it could be said he had hopes of winning.Were he a bankrupt in trade,he might have grown rich;but he has neither spirit to spend nor resolution to spare.He does not spend fast enough to have pleasure from it.He has the crime of prodigality,and the wretchedness of parsimony.If a man is killed in a duel,he is killed as many a one has been killed;but it is a sad thing for a man to lie down and die;to bleed to death,because he has not fortitude enough to sear the wound,or even to stitch it up.'I cannot but pause a moment to admire the fecundity of fancy,and choice of language,which in this instance,and,indeed,on almost all occasions,he displayed.It was well observed by Dr.Percy,now Bishop of Dromore,'The conversation of Johnson is strong and clear,and may be compared to an antique statue,where every vein and muscle is distinct and bold.Ordinary conversation resembles an inferiour cast.'
On Saturday,April 25,I dined with him at Sir Joshua Reynolds's,with the learned Dr.Musgrave,Counsellor Leland of Ireland,son to the historian,Mrs.Cholmondeley,and some more ladies.
'Demosthenes Taylor,as he was called,(that is,the Editor of Demosthenes)was the most silent man,the merest statue of a man that I have ever seen.I once dined in company with him,and all he said during the whole time was no more than Richard.How a man should say only Richard,it is not easy to imagine.But it was thus:Dr.Douglas was talking of Dr.Zachary Grey,and ascribing to him something that was written by Dr.Richard Grey.So,to correct him,Taylor said,(imitating his affected sententious emphasis and nod,)"RICHARD."'
Mrs.Cholmondeley,in a high flow of spirits,exhibited some lively sallies of hyperbolical compliment to Johnson,with whom she had been long acquainted,and was very easy.He was quick in catching the MANNER of the moment,and answered her somewhat in the style of the hero of a romance,'Madam,you crown me with unfading laurels.'
We talked of a lady's verses on Ireland.MISS REYNOLDS.'Have you seen them,Sir?'JOHNSON.'No,Madam.I have seen a translation from Horace,by one of her daughters.She shewed it me.'MISSREYNOLDS.'And how was it,Sir?'JOHNSON.'Why,very well for a young Miss's verses;--that is to say,compared with excellence,nothing;but,very well,for the person who wrote them.I am vexed at being shewn verses in that manner.'MISS REYNOLDS.'But if they should be good,why not give them hearty praise?'JOHNSON.
