Aetat. 57.]

Subordination.

15

that no two people can be half an hour together, but one shall acquire an evident superiority over the other.'

I mentioned the advice given us by philosophers, to console ourselves, when distressed or embarrassed, by thinking of those who are in a worse situation than ourselves. This, I observed, could not apply to all, for there must be some who have nobody worse than they are. JOHNSON. 'Why, to be sure, Sir, there are; but they don't know it. There is no being so poor and so contemptible, who does not think there is somebody still poorer, and still more contemptible.'

As my stay in London at this time was very short, I had not many opportunities of being with Dr. Johnson; but I felt my veneration for him in no degree lessened, by my having seen multorum hominum mores et urbes'. On the contrary, by having it in my power to compare him with many of the most celebrated persons of other countries', my admiration of his extraordinary mind was increased and confirmed.

The roughness, indeed, which sometimes appeared in his manners, was more striking to me now, from my having been accustomed to the studied smooth complying habits of the Continent; and I clearly recognised in him, not without respect for his honest conscientious zeal, the same indignant and sarcastical mode of treating every attempt to unhinge or weaken good principles.

One evening when a young gentleman' teized him with an account of the infidelity of his servant, who, he said, would

''Qui mores hominum multorum vidit et urbes.' 'Manners and towns of various nations viewed.' FRANCIS. Horace, Ars Poetica, 1. 142.

'By the time Boswell was twenty-six years old he could boast that he had made the acquaintance of Voltaire, Rousseau, and Paoli among foreigners; and of Adam Smith, Robertson, Hume, Johnson, Goldsmith, Garrick, Horace Walpole, Wilkes, and perhaps Reynolds, among Englishmen. He had twice at least received a letter from the Earl of Chatham.

' In such passages as this we may generally assume that the gentleman, whose name is not given, is Boswell himself. See ante, i. 4, and post, Oct. 16, 1769.

not

16

Boswell talks stuff.

[A.D. 1766. not believe the scriptures, because he could not read them in the original tongues, and be sure that they were not invented. 'Why, foolish fellow, (said Johnson,) has he any better authority for almost every thing that he believes?' BosWELL. Then the vulgar, Sir, never can know they are right, but must submit themselves to the learned.' JOHNSON. 'To be sure, Sir. The vulgar are the children of the State, and must be taught like children'. BOSWELL. Then, Sir, a poor Turk must be a Mahometan, just as a poor Englishman must be a Christian'?' JOHNSON. 'Why, yes, Sir; and what then? This now is such stuff as I used to talk to my mother, when I first began to think myself a clever fellow; and she ought to have whipt me for it.'.

Another evening Dr, Goldsmith and I called on him, with the hope of prevailing on him to sup with us at the Mitre. We found him indisposed, and resolved not to go abroad. Come then, (said Goldsmith,) we will not go to the Mitre to-night, since we cannot have the big man' with us.' Johnson then called for a bottle of port, of which Goldsmith and I partook, while our friend, now a water-drinker, sat by us. GOLDSMITH. 'I think, Mr. Johnson, you don't go near the theatres now. You give yourself no more concern about a new play, than if you had never had any thing to do with the stage.' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, our tastes greatly alter. The lad does not care for the child's rattle, and the old man does not care for the young man's whore.' GOLDSMITH. 'Nay, Sir, but your Muse was not a whore.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, I do not think she was. But as we advance in the journey of fife, we drop some of the things which have pleased us; whether it be that we are fatigued and don't choose to carry so many things any farther, or that we find other things which we like better.' BOSWELL. But, Sir, why don't you

See post, 1780, in Mr. Langton's 'Collection,' where this assertion is called his usual remark.'

"See post, April 15, 1778.

These two words may be observed as marks of Mr. Boswell's accuracy. It is a jocular Irish phrase, which, of all Johnson's acquaintances, no one probably, but Goldsmith, would have used.-CROKER.

Aetat. 57.]

Johnson like a retired physician.

17

give us something in some other way?" GOLDSMITH. 'Ay, Sir, we have a claim upon you'.' JOHNSON. 'No, Sir, I am not obliged to do any more. No man is obliged to do as much as he can do. A man is to have part of his life to himself. If a soldier has fought a good many campaigns, he is not to be blamed if he retires to ease and tranquillity. A physician, who has practised long in a great city, may be excused if he retires to a small town, and takes less practice., Now, Sir, the good I can do by my conversation bears the same proportion to the good I can do by my writings, that the practice of a physician, retired to a small town, does to his practice in a great city'.' BOSWELL. 'But I wonder, Sir, you have not more pleasure in writing than in not writing.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, you may wonder.'

He talked of making verses, and observed, 'The great difficulty is to know when you have made good ones. When composing, I have generally had them in my mind, perhaps fifty at a time, walking up and down in my room; and then I have written them down, and often, from laziness, have written only half lines. I have written a hundred lines in a day. I remember I wrote a hundred lines of The Vanity of Human Wishes in a day. Doctor, (turning to Goldsmith,) I am not quite idle; I made one line t'other day; but I made no more.' GOLDSMITH. Let us hear it; we'll

1 See ante, May 24, 1763.

* Johnson's best justification for the apparent indolence of the latter part of his life may be found in his own words: 'Every man of genius has some arts of fixing the attention peculiar to himself, by which, honestly exerted, he may benefit mankind. . . . To the position of Tully, that if virtue could be seen she must be loved, may be added, that if truth could be heard she must be obeyed.' The Rambler, No. 87. He fixed the attention best by his talk. For 'the position of Tully,' see post, under March 19, 1776.

⚫ See ante, i. 223, and post, May 1, 1783. Goldsmith wrote The Trav eller and Deserted Village on a very different plan. 'To save himself the trouble of transcription, he wrote the lines in his first copy very wide, and would so fill up the intermediate space with reiterated corrections, that scarcely a word of his first effusions was left unaltered.' Goldsmith's Misc. Works, i. 113.

II.—2

put