ÆäÀÌÁö À̹ÌÁö
PDF
ePub

smith in Westminster abbey. While we surveyed the Poets' Corner, I said to him, from Ovid,

Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur istis.

When we got to Temple-bar, he stopped me, pointed to the heads upon it, and slyly whispered me,

3

Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur istis.” *

"At the Literary Club," says Boswell, "before Johnson came in, we talked of his Journey to the Western Islands, and of his coming away willing to believe the second sight,' which seemed to excite some ridicule. I was then so impressed with the truth of many of the stories which I had been told, that I avowed my conviction, saying, 'He is only willing to believe I do believe: the evidence is enough for me, though not for his great mind. What will not fill a quart bottle will fill a pint bottle: I am filled with belief.' 'Are you?' said Colman ; 'then cork it up.""

Johnson having gone to Mrs. Abington's benefit, at supper, one of the company attempted, with too much forwardness, to rally him on his late appearance at the theatre; but had reason to repent of his temerity. "Why, sir, did you go to Mrs. Abington's benefit? Did you see?" JOHNSON. "No, sir." "Did you hear?" JOHNSON. " No, sir."

"Why then, sir, did you go?" JOHNSON. Because, sir, she is a favourite of the public;

• In allusion to Johnson's political principles, and perhaps his own,

and when the public cares the thousandth part for you that it does for her, I will go to your benefit too."

66

Dr. Burney having remarked, that Mr. Garrick was beginning to look old, Johnson said, Why, sir, you are not to wonder at that; no man's face has had more wear and tear."

Johnson censured Gwyn for taking down a church, which might have stood many years, and building a new one at a different place, for no other reason, but that there might be a direct road to a new bridge; and his expression was, "You are taking a church out of the way, that the people may go in a straight line to the bridge." GWYN. "No, sir; I am putting the church in the way, that the people may not go out of the way." JOHNSON (with a hearty loud laugh of approbation.) "Speak no more: rest your colloquial fame upon this."

Being by no means pleased with their inn at Bristol, Boswell said, "Let us see now how we should describe it." Johnson was ready with his raillery. "Describe it, sir? Why, it was so bad, that Boswell wished to be in Scotland!"

received a visit from When she came into

In the autumn of 1783, he the celebrated Mrs. Siddons. the room, there happened to be no chair ready for her, which he observing, said, with a smile, "Madam, you, who so often occasion a want of seats to other people, will the more easily excuse the want of one yourself."

Dr. Johnson said to Miss Hannah More, who had expressed a wonder, that the poet who had written Paradise Lost, should write such poor sonnets

"Milton, madam, was a genius, that could cut a Colossus from a rock, but could not carve heads upon cherry-stones."

Boswell told him, that David Hume had made a short collection of Scotticisms. "I wonder," said Johnson," that he should find them."

No. X.

BULLS.

THERE had been an execution of two or three criminals at Oxford on a Monday. Soon afterwards, one day at dinner, Boswell was saying, that Mr. Swinton, the chaplain of the gaol, and also a frequent preacher before the university, a learned man, but often thoughtless and absent, preached the condemnation-sermon on repentance, before the convicts, on the preceding day, Sunday; and in the close, he told his audience, that he should give them the remainder of what he had to say on the subject the next Lord's Day. Upon which, one of the company, a doctor of divinity, and a plain matter-of-fact man, by way of offering an apology for Mr. Swinton, gravely remarked, that he had probably preached the same sermon before the university. "Yes, sir," says Johnson, "but the uni- · versity were not to be hanged the next morning."

Boswell mentioned, that Dr. Thomas Campbell had come from Ireland to London, principally to see Dr. Johnson: he seemed angry at this observation. DAVIES. "Why, sir, there came a man from Spain to see Livy, and Corelli came to England to

[ocr errors]

see Purcell, and when he heard he was dead, went directly back again to Italy." JOHNSON. "I should not wish to have been dead, to disappoint Campbell; but I should have wished to have been a hundred miles off." Boswell adds: "This was apparently perverse; and I do believe it was not his real way of thinking: he could not but like a man who came so far to see him. He laughed with some complacency, when I told him Campbell's odd expression to me concerning him, that having seen such a man, was a thing to talk of a century hence,' as if he could live so long."

Of the father of one of his friends, he observed, "He never clarified his notions by filtrating them through other minds: he had a canal upon his estate, where at one place the bank was too lowI dug the canal deeper,' said he."

He once in his life was known himself to have uttered what is called a bull. Sir Joshua Reynolds, when they were riding together in Devonshire, complained, that he had a very bad horse, for that even when going down hill he moved slowly step by .step. "Ay," said Johnson," and when he goes up hill, he stands still."

Mr. Davies was here mistaken: Corelli never was in England.-Burney.

No. XI.

LANGUAGE.

SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS once asked Johnson by what means he had attained his extraordinary accuracy and flow of language. He told him, that he had early laid it down as a fixed rule to do his best on every occasion, and in every company: to impart whatever he knew in the most forcible language he could put it into: and that by constant practice, and never suffering any careless expressions to escape him, or attempting to deliver his thoughts without arranging them in the clearest manner, it became habitual to him.

When Johnson showed Boswell a proof-sheet of the character of Addison, in which he so highly extols his style, Boswell could not help observing, that it had not been his own model, as no two styles. could differ more from each other. JOHNSON.

Sir, Addison had his style, and I have mine." When he ventured to ask him, whether the difference did not consist in this, that Addison's style was full of idioms, colloquial phrases, and proverbs; and his own more strictly grammatical, and free from such phraseology and modes of speech as can never be literally translated or understood by foreigners; he allowed the discrimination to be just.

Talking of Hume's style: JOHNSON. "Why, sir, his style is not English; the structure of his sen

« ÀÌÀü°è¼Ó »