On the frame of his portrait,Mr.Beauclerk had inscribed,--'--------Ingenium ingens Inculto latet hoc sub corpore.'
After Mr.Beauclerk's death,when it became Mr.Langton's property,he made the inion be defaced.Johnson said complacently,'It was kind in you to take it off;'and then after a short pause,added,'and not unkind in him to put it on.'
He said,'How few of his friends'houses would a man choose to be at when he is sick.'He mentioned one or two.I recollect only Thrale's.
He observed,'There is a wicked inclination in most people to suppose an old man decayed in his intellects.If a young or middle-aged man,when leaving a company,does not recollect where he laid his hat,it is nothing;but if the same inattention is discovered in an old man,people will shrug up their shoulders,and say,"His memory is going."'
Sir Joshua Reynolds communicated to me the following particulars:--Johnson thought the poems published as translations from Ossian had so little merit,that he said,'Sir,a man might write such stuff for ever,if he would ABANDON his mind to it.'
He said,'A man should pass a part of his time with THE LAUGHERS,by which means any thing ridiculous or particular about him might be presented to his view,and corrected.'I observed,he must have been a bold laugher who would have ventured to tell Dr.Johnson of any of his particularities.I am happy,however,to mention a pleasing instance of his enduring with great gentleness to hear one of his most striking particularities pointed out:--Miss Hunter,a niece of his friend Christopher Smart,when a very young girl,struck by his extraordinary motions,said to him,Pray,Dr.Johnson,why do you make such strange gestures?'From bad habit,he replied.'Do you,my dear,take care to guard against bad habits.'This I was told by the young lady's brother at Margate.--Boswell.
Dr.Goldsmith said once to Dr.Johnson,that he wished for some additional members to THE LITERARY CLUB,to give it an agreeable variety;for (said he,)there can now be nothing new among us:we have travelled over one another's minds.Johnson seemed a little angry,and said,'Sir,you have not travelled over MY mind,Ipromise you.'Sir Joshua,however,thought Goldsmith right;observing,that 'when people have lived a great deal together,they know what each of them will say on every subject.A new understanding,therefore,is desirable;because though it may only furnish the same sense upon a question which would have been furnished by those with whom we are accustomed to live,yet this sense will have a different colouring;and colouring is of much effect in every thing else as well as in painting.'
Johnson used to say that he made it a constant rule to talk as well as he could both as to sentiment and expression,by which means,what had been originally effort became familiar and easy.The consequence of this,Sir Joshua observed,was,that his common conversation in all companies was such as to secure him universal attention,as something above the usual colloquial style was expected.
Yet,though Johnson had this habit in company,when another mode was necessary,in order to investigate truth,he could descend to a language intelligible to the meanest capacity.An instance of this was witnessed by Sir Joshua Reynolds,when they were present at an examination of a little blackguard boy,by Mr.Saunders Welch,the late Westminster Justice.Welch,who imagined that he was exalting himself in Dr.Johnson's eyes by using big words,spoke in a manner that was utterly unintelligible to the boy;Dr.Johnson perceiving it,addressed himself to the boy,and changed the pompous phraseology into colloquial language.Sir Joshua Reynolds,who was much amused by this procedure,which seemed a kind of reversing of what might have been expected from the two men,took notice of it to Dr.Johnson,as they walked away by themselves.Johnson said,that it was continually the case;and that he was always obliged to TRANSLATE the Justice's swelling diction,(smiling,)so as that his meaning might be understood by the vulgar,from whom information was to be obtained.
Sir Joshua once observed to him,that he had talked above the capacity of some people with whom they had been in company together.'No matter,Sir,(said Johnson;)they consider it as a compliment to be talked to,as if they were wiser than they are.
So true is this,Sir,that Baxter made it a rule in every sermon that he preached,to say something that was above the capacity of his audience.'
Johnson's dexterity in retort,when he seemed to be driven to an extremity by his adversary,was very remarkable.Of his power in this respect,our common friend,Mr.Windham of Norfolk,has been pleased to furnish me with an eminent instance.However unfavourable to Scotland,he uniformly gave liberal praise to George Buchanan,as a writer.In a conversation concerning the literary merits of the two countries,in which Buchanan was introduced,a Scotchman,imagining that on this ground he should have an undoubted triumph over him,exclaimed,'Ah,Dr.Johnson,what would you have said of Buchanan,had he been an Englishman?'
'Why,Sir,(said Johnson,after a little pause,)I should NOT have said of Buchanan,had he been an ENGLISHMAN,what I will now say of him as a SCOTCHMAN,--that he was the only man of genius his country ever produced.'
Though his usual phrase for conversation was TALK,yet he made a distinction;for when he once told me that he dined the day before at a friend's house,with 'a very pretty company;'and I asked him if there was good conversation,he answered,'No,Sir;we had TALKenough,but no CONVERSATION;there was nothing DISCUSSED.'
Such was his sensibility,and so much was he affected by pathetick poetry,that,when he was reading Dr.Beattie's Hermit in my presence,it brought tears into his eyes.
