Care,however,must be taken to distinguish between Johnson when he 'talked for victory,'and Johnson when he had no desire but to inform and illustrate.'One of Johnson s principal talents (says an eminent friend of his)was shewn in maintaining the wrong side of an argument,and in a splendid perversion of the truth.If you could contrive to have his fair opinion on a subject,and without any bias from personal prejudice,or from a wish to be victorious in argument,it was wisdom itself,not only convincing,but overpowering.'
He had,however,all his life habituated himself to consider conversation as a trial of intellectual vigour and skill;and to this,I think,we may venture to ascribe that unexampled richness and brilliancy which appeared in his own.As a proof at once of his eagerness for colloquial distinction,and his high notion of this eminent friend,he once addressed him thus:--'-----,we now have been several hours together;and you have said but one thing for which I envied you.'
Goldsmith could sometimes take adventurous liberties with him,and escape unpunished.Beauclerk told me that when Goldsmith talked of a project for having a third Theatre in London,solely for the exhibition of new plays,in order to deliver authours from the supposed tyranny of managers,Johnson treated it slightingly;upon which Goldsmith said,'Ay,ay,this may be nothing to you,who can now shelter yourself behind the corner of a pension;'and that Johnson bore this with good-humour.
Johnson had called twice on the Bishop of Killaloe before his Lordship set out for Ireland,having missed him the first time.He said,'It would have hung heavy on my heart if I had not seen him.
No man ever paid more attention to another than he has done to me;and I have neglected him,not wilfully,but from being otherwise occupied.Always,Sir,set a high value on spontaneous kindness.
He whose inclination prompts him to cultivate your friendship of his own accord,will love you more than one whom you have been at pains to attach to you.'
I asked him if he was not dissatisfied with having so small a share of wealth,and none of those distinctions in the state which are the objects of ambition.He had only a pension of three hundred a year.Why was he not in such circumstances as to keep his coach?
Why had he not some considerable office?JOHNSON.'Sir,I have never complained of the world;nor do I think that I have reason to complain.It is rather to be wondered at that I have so much.My pension is more out of the usual course of things than any instance that I have known.Here,Sir,was a man avowedly no friend to Government at the time,who got a pension without asking for it.Inever courted the great;they sent for me;but I think they now give me up.They are satisfied;they have seen enough of me.'
Strange,however,it is,to consider how few of the great sought his society;so that if one were disposed to take occasion for satire on that account,very conspicuous objects present themselves.His noble friend,Lord Elibank,well observed,that if a great man procured an interview with Johnson,and did not wish to see him more,it shewed a mere idle curiosity,and a wretched want of relish for extraordinary powers of mind.Mrs.Thrale justly and wittily accounted for such conduct by saying,that Johnson's conversation was by much too strong for a person accustomed to obsequiousness and flattery;it was mustard in a young child's mouth!
On Saturday,June 2,I set out for Scotland,and had promised to pay a visit in my way,as I sometimes did,at Southill,in Bedfordshire,at the hospitable mansion of 'Squire Dilly,the elder brother of my worthy friends,the booksellers,in the Poultry.Dr.
Johnson agreed to be of the party this year,with Mr.Charles Dilly and me,and to go and see Lord Bute's seat at Luton Hoe.He talked little to us in the carriage,being chiefly occupied in reading Dr.
Watson's second volume of Chemical Essays,which he liked very well,and his own Prince of Abyssinia,on which he seemed to be intensely fixed;having told us,that he had not looked at it since it was first published.I happened to take it out of my pocket this day,and he seized upon it with avidity.
