GOLDSMITH.(turning to me,)'I ask you first,Sir,what would you do if you were affronted?'I answered I should think it necessary to fight.'Why then,(replied Goldsmith,)that solves the question.'JOHNSON.'No,Sir,it does not solve the question.It does not follow that what a man would do is therefore right.'Isaid,I wished to have it settled,whether duelling was contrary to the laws of Christianity.Johnson immediately entered on the subject,and treated it in a masterly manner;and so far as I have been able to recollect,his thoughts were these:'Sir,as men become in a high degree refined,various causes of offence arise;which are considered to be of such importance,that life must be staked to atone for them,though in reality they are not so.Abody that has received a very fine polish may be easily hurt.
Before men arrive at this artificial refinement,if one tells his neighbour he lies,his neighbour tells him he lies;if one gives his neighbour a blow,his neighbour gives him a blow:but in a state of highly polished society,an affront is held to be a serious injury.It must therefore be resented,or rather a duel must be fought upon it;as men have agreed to banish from their society one who puts up with an affront without fighting a duel.
Now,Sir,it is never unlawful to fight in self-defence.He,then,who fights a duel,does not fight from passion against his antagonist,but out of self-defence;to avert the stigma of the world,and to prevent himself from being driven out of society.Icould wish there was not that superfluity of refinement;but while such notions prevail,no doubt a man may lawfully fight a duel.'
The General told us,that when he was a very young man,I think only fifteen,serving under Prince Eugene of Savoy,he was sitting in a company at table with a Prince of Wirtemberg.The Prince took up a glass of wine,and,by a fillip,made some of it fly in Oglethorpe's face.Here was a nice dilemma.To have challenged him instantly,might have fixed a quarrelsome character upon the young soldier:to have taken no notice of it might have been considered as cowardice.Oglethorpe,therefore,keeping his eye upon the Prince,and smiling all the time,as if he took what his Highness had done in jest,said 'Mon Prince,--'.(I forget the French words he used,the purport however was,)'That's a good joke;but we do it much better in England;'and threw a whole glass of wine in the Prince's face.An old General who sat by,said,'Il a bien fait,mon Prince,vous l'avez commence:'and thus all ended in good humour.
Dr.Johnson said,'Pray,General,give us an account of the siege of Belgrade.'Upon which the General,pouring a little wine upon the table,described every thing with a wet finger:'Here we were,here were the Turks,'&c.&c.Johnson listened with the closest attention.
A question was started,how far people who disagree in a capital point can live in friendship together.Johnson said they might.
Goldsmith said they could not,as they had not the idem velle atque idem nolle--the same likings and the same aversions.JOHNSON.
'Why,Sir,you must shun the subject as to which you disagree.For instance,I can live very well with Burke:I love his knowledge,his genius,his diffusion,and affluence of conversation;but Iwould not talk to him of the Rockingham party.'GOLDSMITH.'But,Sir,when people live together who have something as to which they disagree,and which they want to shun,they will be in the situation mentioned in the story of Bluebeard:"You may look into all the chambers but one."But we should have the greatest inclination to look into that chamber,to talk of that subject.'
JOHNSON.(with a loud voice,)'Sir,I am not saying that YOU could live in friendship with a man from whom you differ as to some point:I am only saying that I could do it.You put me in mind of Sappho in Ovid.'
Goldsmith told us,that he was now busy in writing a natural history,and,that he might have full leisure for it,he had taken lodgings,at a farmer's house,near to the six milestone,on the Edgeware road,and had carried down his books in two returned post-chaises.He said,he believed the farmer's family thought him an odd character,similar to that in which the Spectator appeared to his landlady and her children:he was The Gentleman.Mr.Mickle,the translator of The Lusiad,and I went to visit him at this place a few days afterwards.He was not at home;but having a curiosity to see his apartment,we went in and found curious scraps of deions of animals,scrawled upon the wall with a black lead pencil.
On Saturday,April 11,he appointed me to come to him in the evening,when he should be at leisure to give me some assistance for the defence of Hastie,the schoolmaster of Campbelltown,for whom I was to appear in the house of Lords.When I came,I found him unwilling to exert himself.I pressed him to write down his thoughts upon the subject.He said,'There's no occasion for my writing.I'll talk to you.'...
Of our friend,Goldsmith,he said,'Sir,he is so much afraid of being unnoticed,that he often talks merely lest you should forget that he is in the company.'BOSWELL.'Yes,he stands forward.'
JOHNSON.'True,Sir;but if a man is to stand forward,he should wish to do it not in an aukward posture,not in rags,not so as that he shall only be exposed to ridicule.'BOSWELL.'For my part,I like very well to hear honest Goldsmith talk away carelessly.'JOHNSON.'Why yes,Sir;but he should not like to hear himself.'...
On Tuesday,April 14,the decree of the Court of Session in the schoolmaster's cause was reversed in the House of Lords,after a very eloquent speech by Lord Mansfield,who shewed himself an adept in school discipline,but I thought was too rigorous towards my client.On the evening of the next day I supped with Dr.Johnson,at the Crown and Anchor tavern,in the Strand,in company with Mr.
Langton and his brother-in-law,Lord Binning.
