The Life of Samuel Johnson

And this brings to my recollection another instance of the same nature. I once reminded him that when Dr. Adam Smith was expatiating on the beauty of Glasgow, he had cut him short by saying, ‘Pray, Sir, have you ever seen Brentford?’ and I took the liberty to add, ‘My dear Sir, surely that was shocking.’ ‘Why, then, Sir, (he replied,) you have never seen Brentford.’

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 talk enough, but no conversation; there was nothing discussed.’

Talking of the success of the Scotch in London, he imputed it in a considerable degree to their spirit of nationality. ‘You know, Sir, (said he,) that no Scotchman publishes a book, or has a play brought upon the stage, but there are five hundred people ready to applaud him.’

He gave much praise to his friend Dr. Burney’s elegant and entertaining travels, and told Mr. Seward that he had them in his eye, when writing his Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland.

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.

He disapproved much of mingling real facts with fiction. On this account he censured a book entitled Love and Madness.¹¹⁰³

Mr. Hoole told him, he was born in Moorfields, and had received part of his early instruction in Grub-street. ‘Sir, (said Johnson, smiling,) you have been regularly educated.’ Having asked who was his instructor, and Mr. Hoole having answered, ‘My uncle, Sir, who was a taylor;’ Johnson, recollecting himself, said, ‘Sir, I knew him; we called him the metaphysical taylor. He was of a club in Old-street, with me and George Psalmanazar, and some others: but pray, Sir, was he a good taylor?’ Mr. Hoole having answered that he believed he was too mathematical, and used to draw squares and triangles on his shop-board, so that he did not excel in the cut of a coat; – ‘I am sorry for it (said Johnson,) for I would have every man to be master of his own business.’

In pleasant reference to himself and Mr. Hoole, as brother authors, he often said, ‘Let you and I, Sir, go together, and eat a beef-steak in Grub-street.’

Sir William Chambers, that great Architect^a, whose works shew a sublimity of genius, and who is esteemed by all who know him for his social, hospitable, and generous qualities, submitted the manuscript of his Chinese Architecture to Dr. Johnson’s perusal. Johnson was much pleased with it, and said, ‘It wants no addition nor correction, but a few lines of introduction; which he furnished, and Sir William adopted.^a

He said to Sir William Scott, ‘The age is running mad after innovation; all the business of the world is to be done in a new way; men are to be hanged in a new way; Tyburn itself is not safe from the fury of innovation.’ It having been argued that this was an improvement, – ‘No, Sir, (said he, eagerly,) it is not an improvement: they object that the old method drew together a number of spectators. Sir, executions are intended to draw spectators. If they do not draw spectators they don’t answer their purpose. The old method was most satisfactory to all parties; the publick was gratified by a procession; the criminal was supported by it. Why is all this to be swept away?’ I perfectly agree with Dr. Johnson upon this head, and am persuaded that executions now, the solemn procession being discontinued, have not nearly the effect which they formerly had. Magistrates both in London, and elsewhere, have, I am afraid, in this, had too much regard to their own ease.

Of Dr. Hurd, Bishop of Worcester, Johnson said to a friend. ‘Hurd, Sir, is one of a set of men who account for every thing systematically; for instance, it has been a fashion to wear scarlet breeches; these men would tell you, that according to causes and effects, no other wear could at that time have been chosen.’ He however, said of him at another time to the same gentleman, ‘Hurd, Sir, is a man whose acquaintance is a valuable acquisition.’

That learned and ingenious Prelate, it is well known, published at one period of his life Moral and Political Dialogues, with a woefully whiggish cast. Afterwards, his Lordship having thought better, came to see his errour, and republished the work with a more constitutional spirit. Johnson, however, was unwilling to allow him full credit for his political conversion. I remember when his Lordship declined the honour of being Archbishop of Canterbury, Johnson said, ‘I am glad he did not go to Lambeth; for, after all, I fear he is a Whig in his heart.’

Johnson’s attention to precision and clearness in expression was very remarkable. He disapproved of parentheses; and I believe in all his voluminous writings, not half a dozen of them will be found. He never used the phrases the former and the latter, having observed, that they often occasioned obscurity; he therefore contrived to construct his sentences so as not to have occasion for them, and would even rather repeat the same words, in order to avoid them. Nothing is more common than to mistake surnames when we hear them carelessly uttered for the first time. To prevent this, he used not only to pronounce them slowly and distinctly, but to take the trouble of spelling them; a practice which I have often followed; and which I wish were general.

Such was the heat and irritability of his blood, that not only did he pare his nails to the quick; but scraped the joints of his fingers with a pen-knife, till they seemed quite red and raw.

The heterogeneous composition of human nature was remarkably exemplified in Johnson. His liberality in giving his money to persons in distress was extraordinary. Yet there lurked about him a propensity to paltry saving. One day I owned to him that ‘I was occasionally troubled with a fit of narrowness.’ ‘Why, Sir, (said he,) so am I. But I do not tell it.’ He has now and then borrowed a shilling of me; and when I asked for it again, seemed to be rather out of humour. A droll little circumstance once occurred: as if he meant to reprimand my minute exactness as a creditor, he thus addressed me: – ‘Boswell, lend me sixpence –not to be repaid.’

This great man’s attention to small things was very remarkable. As an instance of it, he one day said to me, ‘Sir, when you get silver in change for a guinea, look carefully at it; you may find some curious piece of coin.’

Though a stern true-born Englishman, and fully prejudiced against all other nations, he had discernment enough to see, and candour enough to censure, the cold reserve too common among Englishmen towards strangers: ‘Sir, (said he,) two men of any other nation who are shewn into a room together, at a house where they are both visitors, will immediately find some conversation. But two Englishmen will probably go each to a different window, and remain in obstinate silence. Sir, we as yet do not enough understand the common rights of humanity.’

Johnson was at a certain period of his life a good deal with the Earl of Shelburne, now Marquis of Lansdown, as he doubtless could not but have a due value for that nobleman’s activity of mind, and uncommon acquisitions of important knowledge, however much he might disapprove of other parts of his Lordship’s character, which were widely different from his own.

Maurice Morgann, Esq. authour of the very ingenious Essay on the character of Falstaff,^a being a particular friend of his Lordship, had once an opportunity of entertaining Johnson for a day or two at Wickham,¹¹⁰⁴when its Lord was absent, and by him I have been favoured with two anecdotes.

One is not a little to the credit of Johnson’s candour. Mr. Morgann and he had a dispute pretty late at night, in which Johnson would not give up, though he had the wrong side, and in short, both kept the field. Next morning, when they met in the breakfasting-room, Dr. Johnson accosted Mr. Morgann thus: – ‘Sir, I have been thinking on our dispute last night –You were in the right.’

The other was as follows: – Johnson, for sport perhaps, or from the spirit of contradiction, eagerly maintained that Derrick had merit as a writer. Mr. Morgann argued with him directly in vain. At length he had recourse to this device. ‘Pray, Sir, (said he,) whether do you reckon Derrick or Smart the best poet?’ Johnson at once felt himself rouzed; and answered, ‘Sir, there is no settling the point of precedency between a louse and a flea.’

Once, when checking my boasting too frequently of myself in company, he said to me, ‘Boswell, you often vaunt so much as to provoke ridicule. You put me in mind of a man who was standing in the kitchen of an inn with his back to the fire, and thus accosted the person next him, “Do you know, Sir, who I am?” “ No, Sir, (said the other,) I have not that advantage.” “ Sir, (said he,) I am the great Twalmley, who invented the New Flood-gate Iron.” ‘^a The Bishop of Killaloe, on my repeating the story to him, defended Twalmley, by observing, that he was entitled to the epithet of great; for Virgil in his groupe of worthies in the Elysian fields –

Hie manus ob patriam pugnando vulnera passi; &c.¹¹⁰⁵

mentions

Inventas aut qui vitam excoluere per artes.¹¹⁰⁶

He was pleased to say to me one morning when we were left alone in his study, ‘Boswell, I think I am easier with you than with almost any body.’

He would not allow Mr. David Hume any credit for his political principles, though similar to his own; saying of him, ‘Sir, he was a Tory by chance.’

His acute observation of human life made him remark, ‘Sir, there is nothing by which a man exasperates most people more, than by displaying a superiour ability or brilliancy in conversation. They seem pleased at the time; but their envy makes them curse him in their hearts.’

My readers will probably be surprised to hear that the great Dr. Johnson could amuse himself with so slight and playful a species of composition as a Charade. I have recovered one which he made on Dr. Barnard, now Lord Bishop of Killaloe; who has been pleased for many years to treat me with so much intimacy and social ease, that I may presume to call him not only my Right Reverend, but my very dear Friend. I therefore with peculiar pleasure give to the world a just and elegant compliment thus paid to his Lordship by Johnson.

CHARADE.

My first^a shuts out thieves from your house or your room,

My second^b expresses a Syrian perfume.

My whole^c is a man in whose converse is shar’d,

The strength of a Bar and the sweetness of Nard.’

Johnson asked Richard Owen Cambridge, Esq. if he had read the Spanish translation of Sallust, said to be written by a Prince of Spain, with the assistance of his tutor,¹¹⁰⁷ who is professedly the authour of a treatise annexed, on the Phœnician language.

Mr. Cambridge commended the work particularly, as he thought the Translator understood his authour better than is commonly the case with Translators: but said, he was disappointed in the purpose for which he borrowed the book; to see whether a Spaniard could be better furnished with inscriptions from monuments, coins, or other antiquities which he might more probably find on a coast, so immediately opposite to Carthage, than the Antiquaries of any other countries. Johnson. ‘I am very sorry you was not gratified in your expectations.’ CAMBRIDGE. ‘The language would have been of little use, as there is no history existing in that tongue to balance the partial accounts which the Roman writers have left us.’ JOHNSON. ‘No, Sir. They have not been partial, they have told their own story, without shame or regard to equitable treatment of their injured enemy; they had no compunction, no feeling for a Carthaginian. Why, Sir, they would never have borne Virgil’s description of æneas’s treatment of Dido, if she had not been a Carthaginian.’

I gratefully acknowledge this and other communications from Mr. Cambridge, whom, if a beautiful villa on the banks of the Thames, a few miles distant from London, a numerous and excellent library, which he accurately knows and reads, a choice collection of pictures, which he understands and relishes, an easy fortune, an amiable family, an extensive circle of friends and acquaintance, distinguished by rank, fashion and genius, a literary fame, various, elegant and still increasing, colloquial talents rarely to be found, and with all these means of happiness, enjoying, when well advanced in years, health and vigour of body, serenity and animation of mind, do not entitle to be addressed fortunate senex!¹¹⁰⁸ I know not to whom, in any age, that expression could with propriety have been used. Long may he live to hear and to feel it!

Johnson’s love of little children, which he discovered upon all occasions, calling them ‘pretty dears,’ and giving them sweetmeats, was an undoubted proof of the real humanity and gentleness of his disposition.

His uncommon kindness to his servants, and serious concern, not only for their comfort in this world, but their happiness in the next, was another unquestionable evidence of what all, who were intimately acquainted with him, knew to be true.

Nor would it be just, under this head, to omit the fondness which he shewed for animals which he had taken under his protection. I never shall forget the indulgence with which he treated Hodge, his cat: for whom he himself used to go out and buy oysters, lest the servants having that trouble should take a dislike to the poor creature. I am, unluckily, one of those who have an antipathy to a cat, so that I am uneasy when in the room with one; and I own, I frequently suffered a good deal from the presence of this same Hodge. I recollect him one day scrambling up Dr. Johnson’s breast, apparently with much satisfaction, while my friend smiling and half-whistling, rubbed down his back, and pulled him by the tail; and when I observed he was a fine cat, saying, ‘why yes, Sir, but I have had cats whom I liked better than this;’ and then as if perceiving Hodge to be out of countenance, adding, ‘but he is a very fine cat, a very fine cat indeed.’

This reminds me of the ludicrous account which he gave Mr. Langton, of the despicable state of a young Gentleman of good family. ‘Sir, when I heard of him last, he was running about town shooting cats.’ And then in a sort of kindly reverie, he bethought himself of his own favourite cat, and said, ‘But Hodge shan’t be shot; no, no, Hodge shall not be shot.’

He thought Mr. Beauclerk made a shrewd and judicious remark to Mr. Langton, who, after having been for the first time in company with a well known wit about town, was warmly admiring and praising him, ‘See him again,’ said Beauclerk.

His respect for the Hierarchy, and particularly the Dignitaries of the Church, has been more than once exhibited in the course of this work. Mr. Seward saw him presented to the Archbishop of York, and described his Bow to an Arch-Bishop, as such a studied elaboration of homage, such an extension of limb, such a flexion of body, as have seldom or ever been equalled.

I cannot help mentioning with much regret, that by my own negligence I lost an opportunity of having the history of my family from its founder Thomas Boswell, in 1504, recorded and illustrated by Johnson’s pen. Such was his goodness to me, that when I presumed to solicit him for so great a favour, he was pleased to say, ‘Let me have all the materials you can collect, and I will do it both in Latin and English; then let it be printed and copies of it be deposited in various places for security and preservation.’ I can now only do the best I can to make up for this loss, keeping my great Master steadily in view. Family histories, like the imagines majorum¹¹⁰⁹ of the Ancients, excite to virtue; and I wish that they who really have blood, would be more careful to trace and ascertain its course. Some have affected to laugh at the history of the house of Yvery:^a it would be well if many others would transmit their pedigrees to posterity, with the same accuracy and generous zeal with which the Noble Lord, who compiled that work has honoured and perpetuated his ancestry.

On Thursday, April 10, I introduced to him, at his house in Bolt-court, the Honourable and Reverend William Stuart, son of the Earl of Bute; a gentleman truly worthy of being known to Johnson; being, with all the advantages of high birth, learning, travel, and elegant manners, an exemplary parish priest in every respect.

After some compliments on both sides, the tour which Johnson and I had made to the Hebrides was mentioned. JOHNSON. ‘I got an acquisition of more ideas by it than by any thing that I remember. I saw quite a different system of life.’ BOSWELL. ‘You would not like to make the same journey again?’ JOHNSON. ‘Why no, Sir; not the same: it is a tale told. Gravina, an Italian critick, observes, that every man desires to see that of which he has read; but no man desires to read an account of what he has seen: so much does description fall short of reality. Description only excites curiosity: seeing satisfies it. Other people may go and see the Hebrides.’ BOSWELL. ‘I should wish to go and see some country totally different from what I have been used to; such as Turkey, where religion and everything else are different.’ JOHNSON. ‘Yes, Sir; there are two objects of curiosity, – the Christian world, and the Mahometan world. All the rest may be considered as barbarous.’ BOSWELL. ‘Pray, Sir, is the Turkish Spy¹¹¹⁰ a genuine book?’ JOHNSON. ‘No, Sir. Mrs. Manley, in her Life, says that her father wrote the first two volumes: and in another book, Dunton’s Life and Errours, we find that the rest was written by one Sault, at two guineas a sheet, under the direction of Dr. Midgeley.’^b

BOSWELL. ‘This has been a very factious reign, owing to the too great indulgence of Government.’ JOHNSON. ‘I think so, Sir. What at first was lenity, grew timidity. Yet this is reasoning à posteriori,¹¹¹¹ and may not be just. Supposing a few had at first been punished, I believe faction would have been crushed; but it might have been said, that it was a sanguinary reign. A man cannot tell à priori¹¹¹² what will be best for Government to do. This reign has been very unfortunate. We have had an unsuccessful war; but that does not prove that we have been ill governed. One side or other must prevail in war, as one or other must win at play. When we beat Louis, we were not better governed; nor were the French better governed when Louis beat us.’¹¹¹³

On Saturday, April 12, I visited him, in company with Mr. Windham, of Norfolk, whom, though a Whig, he highly valued. One of the best things he ever said was to this gentleman; who, before he set out for Ireland as Secretary to Lord Northington, when Lord Lieutenant, expressed to the Sage some modest and virtuous doubts, whether he could bring himself to practise those arts which it is supposed a person in that situation has occasion to employ. ‘Don’t be afraid, Sir, (said Johnson, with a pleasant smile,) you will soon make a very pretty rascal.’

He talked to-day a good deal of the wonderful extent and variety of London, and observed, that men of curious enquiry might see in it such modes of life as very few could even imagine. He in particular recommended to us to explore Wapping, which we resolved to do.^a

Mr. Lowe, the painter, who was with him, was very much distressed that a large picture which he had painted was refused to be received into the Exhibition of the Royal Academy. Mrs. Thrale knew Johnson’s character so superficially, as to represent him as unwilling to do small acts of benevolence; and mentions in particular, that he would hardly take the trouble to write a letter in favour of his friends. The truth, however, is, that he was remarkable, in an extraordinary degree, for what she denies to him; and, above all, for this very sort of kindness, writing letters for those to whom his solicitations might be of service. He now gave Mr. Lowe the following, of which I was diligent enough, with his permission, to take copies at the next coffee-house, while Mr. Windham was so good as to stay by me.

‘To SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS

‘SIR, – Mr. Lowe considers himself as cut off from all credit and all hope, by the rejection of his picture from the Exhibition. Upon this work he has exhausted all his powers, and suspended all his expectations: and, certainly, to be refused an opportunity of taking the opinion of the publick, is in itself a very great hardship. It is to be condemned without a trial.

‘If you could procure the revocation of this incapacitating edict, you would deliver an unhappy man from great affliction. The Council has sometimes reversed its own determination; and I hope, that by your interposition this luckless picture may be got admitted. I am, &c.

‘April 12, 1783.’ ‘SAM. JOHNSON.’

‘To MR. BARRY

‘SIR, – Mr. Lowe’s exclusion from the exhibition gives him more trouble than you and the other gentlemen of the Council could imagine or intend. He considers disgrace and ruin as the inevitable consequence of your determination.

‘He says, that some pictures have been received after rejection; and if there be any such precedent, I earnestly intreat that you will use your interest in his favour. Of his work I can say nothing; I pretend not to judge of painting; and this picture I never saw: but I conceive it extremely hard to shut out any man from the possibility of success; and therefore I repeat my request that you will propose the re-consideration of Mr. Lowe’s case; and if there be any among the Council with whom my name can have any weight, be pleased to communicate to them the desire of, Sir, your most humble servant,

‘April 12, 1783.’ ‘SAM. JOHNSON.’

Such intercession was too powerful to be resisted; and Mr. Lowe’s performance was admitted at Somerset Place. The subject, as I recollect, was the Deluge, at that point of time when the water was verging to the top of the last uncovered mountain. Near to the spot was seen the last of the antediluvian race, exclusive of those who were saved in the ark of Noah. This was one of those giants, then the inhabitants of the earth, who had still strength to swim, and with one of his hands held aloft his infant child. Upon the small remaining dry spot appeared a famished lion, ready to spring at the child and devour it. Mr. Lowe told me that Johnson said to him, ‘Sir, your picture is noble and probable.’ ‘A compliment, indeed, (said Mr. Lowe,) from a man who cannot lie, and cannot be mistaken.’

About this time he wrote to Mrs. Lucy Porter, mentioning his bad health, and that he intended a visit to Lichfield. ‘It is, (says he,) with no great expectation of amendment that I make every year a journey into the country; but it is pleasant to visit those whose kindness has been often experienced.’

On April 18, (being Good-Friday,) I found him at breakfast, in his usual manner upon that day, drinking tea without milk, and eating a cross-bun to prevent faintness; we went to St. Clement’s church, as formerly. When we came home from church, he placed himself on one of the stone-seats at his garden-door, and I took the other, and thus in the open air and in a placid frame of mind, he talked away very easily. JOHNSON. ‘Were I a country gentleman, I should not be very hospitable, I should not have crowds in my house.’ BOSWELL. ‘Sir Alexander Dick tells me, that he remembers having a thousand people in a year to dine at his house: that is, reckoning each person as one, each time that he dined there.’ JOHNSON. ‘That, Sir, is about three a day.’ BOSWELL. ‘How your statement lessens the idea.’ JOHNSON. ‘That, Sir, is the good of counting. It brings every thing to a certainty, which before floated in the mind indefinitely.’ BOSWELL. ‘But Omne ignotum pro magnifico est:¹¹¹⁴ one is sorry to have this diminished.’ JOHNSON. ‘Sir, you should not allow yourself to be delighted with errour.’ BOSWELL. ‘Three a day seem but few.’ JOHNSON. ‘Nay, Sir, he who entertains three a day, does very liberally. And if there is a large family, the poor entertain those three, for they eat what the poor would get: there must be superfluous meat; it must be given to the poor, or thrown out.’ BOSWELL. ‘I observe in London, that the poor go about and gather bones, which I understand are manufactured.’ JOHNSON. ‘Yes, Sir; they boil them, and extract a grease from them for greasing wheels and other purposes. Of the best pieces they make a mock ivory, which is used for hafts to knives, and various other things; the coarser pieces they burn and pound, and sell the ashes.’ BOSWELL. ‘For what purpose, Sir?’ JOHNSON. ‘Why, Sir, for making a furnace for the chymists for melting iron. A paste made of burnt bones will stand a stronger heat than any thing else. Consider, Sir; if you are to melt iron, you cannot line your pot with brass, because it is softer than iron, and would melt sooner; nor with iron, for though malleable iron is harder than cast iron, yet it would not do; but a paste of burnt-bones will not melt.’ BOSWELL. ‘Do you know, Sir, I have discovered a manufacture to a great extent, of what you only piddle at, – scraping and drying the peel of oranges.^a At a place in Newgate-street, there is a prodigious quantity prepared, which they sell to the distillers.’ JOHNSON. ‘Sir, I believe they make a higher thing out of them than a spirit; they make what is called orange-butter, the oil of the orange inspissated,¹¹¹⁵ which they mix perhaps with common pomatum,¹¹¹⁶ and make it fragrant. The oil does not fly off in the drying.’

BOSWELL. ‘I wish to have a good walled garden.’ JOHNSON. ‘I don’t think it would be worth the expence to you. We compute in England, a park wall at a thousand pounds a mile; now a garden-wall must cost at least as much. You intend your trees should grow higher than a deer will leap. Now let us see; for a hundred pounds you could only have forty-four square yards, which is very little; for two hundred pounds, you may have eighty-four square yards, which is very well. But when will you get the value of two hundred pounds of walls, in fruit, in your climate? No, Sir, such contention with Nature is not worth while. I would plant an orchard, and have plenty of such fruit as ripen well in your country. My friend, Dr. Madden, of Ireland, said, that “in an orchard there should be enough to eat, enough to lay up, enough to be stolen, and enough to rot upon the ground.” Cherries are an early fruit, you may have them; and you may have the early apples and pears.’ BOSWELL. ‘We cannot have nonpareils.’¹¹¹⁷ JOHNSON. ‘Sir, you can no more have nonpareils than you can have grapes.’ BOSWELL. ‘We have them, Sir; but they are very bad.’ JOHNSON. ‘Nay, Sir, never try to have a thing merely to shew that you cannot have it. From ground that would let for forty shillings you may have a large orchard; and you see it costs you only forty shillings. Nay, you may graze the ground when the trees are grown up; you cannot while they are young.’ BOSWELL. ‘Is not a good garden a very common thing in England, Sir?’ JOHNSON. ‘Not so common, Sir, as you imagine. In Lincolnshire there is hardly an orchard; in Staffordshire very little fruit.’ BOSWELL. ‘Has Langton no orchard?’Johnson. ‘No, Sir.’ BOSWELL. ‘How so, Sir?’Johnson. ‘Why, Sir, from the general negligence of the county. He has it not, because nobody else has it.’ BOSWELL. ‘A hot-house is a certain thing; I may have that.’ JOHNSON. ‘A hot-house is pretty certain; but you must first build it, then you must keep fires in it, and you must have a gardener to take care of it.’ BOSWELL. ‘But if I have a gardener at any rate? – ‘JOHNSON. ‘Why, yes.’ Boswell. I’d have it near my house; there is no need to have it in the orchard.’ JOHNSON. ‘Yes, I’d have it near my house. I would plant a great many currants; the fruit is good, and they make a pretty sweetmeat.’

I record this minute detail, which some may think trifling, in order to shew clearly how this great man, whose mind could grasp such large and extensive subjects, as he has shewn in his literary labours, was yet well-informed in the common affairs of life, and loved to illustrate them.

Mr. Walker, the celebrated master of elocution, came in, and then we went up stairs into the study. I asked him if he had taught many clergymen. JOHNSON. ‘I hope not.’ WALKER. ‘I have taught only one, and he is the best reader I ever heard, not by my teaching, but by his own natural talents.’ JOHNSON. ‘Were he the best reader in the world, I would not have it told that he was taught.’ Here was one of his peculiar prejudices. Could it be any disadvantage to the clergyman to have it known that he was taught an easy and graceful delivery? BOSWELL. ‘Will you not allow, Sir, that a man may be taught to read well?’ JOHNSON. ‘Why, Sir, so far as to read better than he might do without being taught, yes. Formerly it was supposed that there was no difference in reading, but that one read as well as another.’ BOSWELL. ‘It is wonderful to see old Sheridan as enthusiastick about oratory as ever.’ WALKER. ‘His enthusiasm as to what oratory will do, may be too great: but he reads well.’ JOHNSON. ‘He reads well, but he reads low; and you know it is much easier to read low than to read high; for when you read high, you are much more limited, your loudest note can be but one, and so the variety is less in proportion to the loudness. Now some people have occasion to speak to an extensive audience, and must speak loud to be heard.’ WALKER. ‘The art is to read strong, though low.’

Talking of the origin of language; JOHNSON. ‘It must have come by inspiration. A thousand, nay, a million of children could not invent a language. While the organs are pliable, there is not understanding enough to form a language; by the time that there is understanding enough, the organs are become stiff. We know that after a certain age we cannot learn to pronounce a new language. No foreigner, who comes to England when advanced in life, ever pronounces English tolerably well; at least such instances are very rare. When I maintain that language must have come by inspiration, I do not mean that inspiration is required for rhetorick, and all the beauties of language; for when once man has language, we can conceive that he may gradually form modifications of it. I mean only, that inspiration seems to me to be necessary to give man the faculty of speech; to inform him that he may have speech; which I think he could no more find out without inspiration, than cows or hogs would think of such a faculty.’ WALKER. ‘Do you think, Sir, that there are any perfect synonimes in any language?’ JOHNSON. ‘Originally there were not; but by using words negligently, or in poetry, one word comes to be confounded with another.’