196 JOHNSON ON FIDDLING. party in this country, is in the worst state that can be imagined: he is looked upon as a mere intermeddler. A native may do it from interest."-Boswell: "Or principle."-GOLDSMITH: "There are people who tell a hundred political lies every day, and are not hurt by it. Surely, then, one may tell truth with safety."-JOHNSON: "Why, Sir, in the first place, he who tells a hundred lies has disarmed the force of his lies. But besides, a man had rather have a hundred lies told of him, than one truth which he does not wish should be told."-GOLDSMITH: "For my part, I'd tell truth, and shame the devil."-JOHNSON: "Yes, Sir; but the devil will be angry. I wish to shame the devil as much as you do, but I should choose to be out of the reach of his claws."GOLDSMITH: "His claws can do you no harm, when you have the shield of truth." A certain gentleman was mentioned as being a very learned man, and especially an eminent Grecian. JOHNSON: "I am not sure of that. His friends gave him out as such, but I know not who of his friends are able to judge of it."-GOLDSMITH: "He is what is much better; he is a worthy humane man."-JOHNSON: "Nay, Sir, that is not to the purpose of our argument: that will as much prove that he can play the fiddle as well as Giardini, as that he is an eminent Grecian.”— GOLDSMITH: "The greatest musical performers have but small emoluments. Giardini, I am told, does not get above seven hundred a year."-JOHNSON: "That is indeed but little for a man to get, who does best that which so many endeavour to do. There is nothing, I think, in which the power of art is shown so much as in playing on the fiddle. In all other things we can do something at first. Any man will forge a bar of iron if you give him a hammer; not so well as a smith, but tolerably. A man will saw a piece of wood, and make a box, though a clumsy one; but give him a fiddle and a fiddlestick, and he can do nothing." They talked of the King's going to see Goldsmith's new play, "She Stoops to Conquer." GOLDSMITH: "I wish he would. Not that it would do me the GOLDSMITH'S TALK. 197 least good."-JOHNSON [laughing]: "Well, then, let us say it would do him good. No, Sir, this affectation will not pass it is mighty idle. In such a state as ours who would not wish to please the chief magistrate ?"-GOLDSMITH: "I do wish to please him. I remember a line in Dryden, 'And every poet is the monarch's friend.' It ought to be reversed."-JOHNSON: "Nay, there are finer lines in Dryden on the subject: For colleges on bounteous kings depend, Speaking of Goldsmith, on another occasion, the Doctor said: "Goldsmith should not be for ever attempting to shine in conversation he has not temper for it, he is so much mortified when he fails. Sir, a game of jokes is composed partly of skill, partly of chance; a man may be beat at times by one who has not the tenth part of his wit. Now, Goldsmith's putting himself against another, is like a man laying a hundred to one who cannot spare the hundred. It is not worth a man's while. A man should not lay a hundred to one, unless he can easily spare it, though he has a hundred chances for him he can get but a guinea, and he may lose a hundred. Goldsmith is in this state. When he contends, if he gets the better, it is a very little addition to a man of his literary reputation: if he does not get the better, he is miserably vexed." Goldsmith's talk seems to have been too much of a hit-or-miss character to please Johnson; but we have seen already that he could sometimes beat the Doctor with his own weapons, and other instances might be given. For example: Goldsmith once remarked that he thought he could write a good fable, avoiding the common error of making the animals talk out of character. "For instance," said he, "the fable of the little fishes, who saw birds fly over their heads, and, envying them, petitioned Jupiter to be changed into birds. The skill," continued he, "consists in making them talk like little fishes." [The Doctor had been all this while sitting shaking his sides and laughing.] "Why, Dr. 198 A PLEA FOR ROUGH HANDLING. Johnson, this is not so easy as you seem to think; for if you were to make little fishes talk, they would talk like WHALES." That was a magnificent retort. And here is another : Sir, [to Boswell, who was claiming for Johnson unquestioned literary supremacy] you are for making a monarchy of what should be a republic.” 66 It was the Doctor's indiscriminate worshippers, far oftener than the Doctor himself, who occasioned any little explosions of temper on the part of Goldsmith. When the latter was talking, on one occasion, with great fluency and vivacity, a German who sat next him, perceiving that the Doctor was rolling himself about as if preparing to speak, suddenly stopped Goldsmith, exclaiming "Stop, stop, Toctor Shonson is going to say something." This sort of thing was insufferable, and it no doubt occurred very often. But those who wish to do Dr. Johnson himself justice—and all his readers ought to wish that-must never forget that they themselves must make up his full estimate of men and things by putting together the separate verdicts he pronounced at separate times. It is simply because it was against the grain of Johnson's whole nature to give either one-sided praise or indiscriminate blame that his deliverances seem so often at variance among themselves. As Sir Joshua Reynolds, an acute thinker, once said: "He was fond of discrimination, which he could not show without pointing out the bad as well as the good in every character; and as his friends were those whose characters he knew best, they afforded him the best opportunity for showing the acuteness of his judgment." So it comes to pass that even the men he most loves-as in the case of Goldsmith-he tosses and tumbles about in rather a wild way, looking at them now from this side, now from that; yet, when we have got them fairly on their legs again, we are somehow made to feel that this rough handling has given us a knowledge of them which no more delicate and kid-glovey approaches could ever have afforded. Had Johnson's conscience been more lax and his veracity less decided, he might have pleased his friends better then, and saved his readers from some perplexity nɔw. Let us always remember, however, that the easiest course was precisely that which he did not choose. "Falsehood is so casy, "OUT OF THE DEPTHS.” 199 truth so difficult. The pencil is conscious of a delightful facility in drawing a griffin—the longer the claws and the larger the wings the better: but that marvellous facility which we mistook for genius is apt to forsake us when we want to draw a real unexaggerated lion.” One little picture now, after all this talk. On Good Friday the Doctor and his friend Boswell went to the Church of St. Clement Danes, where Johnson had his seat. Boswell remarks: "I never shall forget the tremulous earnestness with which he pronounced the awful petition in the Litany, 'In the hour of death, and at the day of judgment, good Lord deliver us."" This, then, is the way in which Samuel Johnson tries to express his sense of the awful mystery of life, and the wonders and terrors of the mighty future. "Thoughts are so great-are they not? They seem to lie upon us like a deep flood." And, under the pressure of this overwhelming mass of spiritual waters, that struggling soul could but fill the forms of the ancient altar-service with a solemn cry for help to bear it all. The powers of the world to come assail us poor mortals in so many dreaded shapes, that it were cruelty not to allow us to fight them with whatever weapons come to hand; whether brought from the armoury of some remote and respectable "ology," or from that of some new and despised "ism." 200 GARRICK A MEMBER OF THE CLUB. CHAPTER XXII. GARRICK A MEMBER OF THE CLUB-THE DOCTOR ON THE (1773-) ABOUT this time, our friend Garrick was admitted a member of the Literary Club. Several erroneous accounts of the circumstances attending his entrance were actively circulated; owing their origin, most of them, to the prevailing passion for finding, or fabricating, Johnsoniana. One version of the story has it that Johnson, on being told that Garrick intended to apply for admission, said, "He will disturb us by his buffoonery." Another puts it even more strongly and offensively: "If Garrick does apply, I'll blackball him. Surely one ought to sit in a society like ours, 'Unelbowed by a gamester, pimp, or player.'" The true account is this: Not long after the formation of the Club, Sir Joshua Reynolds spoke of it to Garrick. "I like it much," said the latter; "I think I shall be of you.” "He'll be of us!" said Johnson, when he heard of Garrick's remark; "how does he know we will permit him? The first duke in England has no right to hold such language." Yet when Garrick was proposed in the regular way Johnson warmly supported him-as became such an old friend; although he had taken momentary offence at the somewhat cavalier-like tone of the "I think I shall be of you." Garrick remained a member of the Club till his death. Thursday, April 29th: General OGLETHORPE's. Goldsmith spoke slightingly of Mallet. JOHNSON: "Why, Sir, Mallet had talent enough to keep his literary reputation alive as long as he himself lived; and that, let me |