A nec.

p. 212.

p. 61.

Cad. &
Vanessa

man himself, had an idea that nothing promoted happiness so much as conversation.

"The saying of the old philosopher, who observes, 'that he who wants least is most like the gods, who want nothing,' was a favourite sentence with Dr. Johnson, who on his own part required less attendance, sick or well, than ever I saw any human creature. Conversation was all he required to make him happy; and when he would have tea made at two o'clock in the morning, it was only that there might be a certainty of detaining his companions round him. On that principle it was that he preferred winter to summer, when the heat of the weather gave people an excuse to stroll about, and walk for pleasure in the shade, while he wished to sit still on a chair, and chat day after day, till somebody proposed a drive in the coach; and that was the most delicious moment of his life. But the carriage must stop sometime,' as he said, and the people would come home at last; so his pleasure was of short duration.

"As ethics or figures, or metaphysical reasoning, was the sort of talk he most delighted in, so no kind of conversation pleased him less, I think, than when the subject was historical fact or general polity. 'What shall we learn from that stuff?" said Johnson: let us not fancy like Swift that we are exalting a woman's character by telling how she

"Could name the ancient heroes round,
Explain for what they were renown'd, &c. ''

I must not however lead my readers to suppose that
he meant to reserve such talk for men's company as
a proof of pre-eminence.
'He never,' as he ex-
pressed it, 'desired to hear of the Punic war while
he lived such conversation was lost time,' he said,
' and carried one away from common life, leaving no

ideas behind which could serve living wight as warn- Piozzi ing or direction.

How I should act is not the case,

But how would Brutus in my place?'

And now,' cries Dr. Johnson, laughing with obstreperous violence, if these two foolish lines can be equalled in folly ', except by the two succeeding ones -show them me.'

Anec.

"With a contempt not inferior he received the p. 160. praises of a pretty lady's face and behaviour. 'She says nothing, sir,' answered Johnson; a talking blackamoor were better than a white creature who adds nothing to life-and sitting down before one thus desperately silent takes away the confidence one should have in the company of her chair if she were once out of it.'

"No one was however less willing to begin any

[These are two lines of Swift's verses to Stella, 1720. Dr. Johnson's censure was too violent, and indeed he seems not to have correctly understood the dean's illustration. He is laying down certain general rules for distinguishing what honour is, and he exposes the many false meanings which the world assigns to that word. He proceeds to say that men should not decide what is honourable by a reference to their own feelings and circumstances, which naturally bias the judgment, but should consider, without reference to self, how a wise and good man would act.

"In points of honour to be tried,
All passion must be laid aside;
Ask no advice, but think alone;
Suppose the question not your own:
How shall I act?' is not the case;
But how would Brutus in my place?
In such a case would Cato bleed?

And how would Socrates proceed?"

It is plain here, and still plainer from the whole context of the poem, that Brutus, Cato, and Socrates are here put as the representatives of Patriotism and Virtue, and as the names of Zoilus, Bavius, or Pundarus are used generically to signify infamous persons: so here, Brutus, Cato, and Socrates (which might as well have been Sydney, Somers, or Clarendon, or any other illustrious names), are used as terms of honour to give point and a kind of dramatic effect to the general proposition. Swift never dreamt (as Mrs. Piozzi's report would lead us to think that Johnson supposed) to advise that our rules of conduct were to be drawn from the actual events of Greek and Roman history. This would have been as absurd as Johnson's own introduction of Roman manners into London in his description of the burning of Orgilio's palace, or the invocation of Democritus, which sounds so strangely amidst the modern illustrations of his own beautiful and splendid Vanity of Human Wishes.—ED.]

Anec.

Piozzi discourse than himself. His friend Mr. Thomas Tyers' said he was like the ghosts, who never speak till they are spoken to; and he liked the expression so well, that he often repeated it. He had indeed no necessity to lead the stream of chat to a favourite channel, that his fulness on the subject might be shown more clearly, whatever was the topic; and he usually left the choice to others. His information enlightened, his argument strengthened, and his wit made it ever remembered. Of him it might have been said, as he often delighted to say of Edmund Burke, that you could not stand five minutes with that man beneath a shed while it rained, but you must be convinced you had been standing with the greatest man you had ever yet seen.'

P. 184.

p. 73.

66

Having reduced his amusements to the pleasures of conversation merely, what wonder that Johnson should have had an avidity for the sole delight he was able to enjoy? No man conversed so well as he on every subject; no man so acutely discerned the reason of every fact, the motive of every action, the end of every design. He was indeed often pained by the ignorance or causeless wonder of those who knew less than himself, though he seldom drove them away with apparent scorn, unless he thought they added presumption to stupidity.

"He would sometimes good-naturedly enter into a long chat for the instruction or entertainment of people he despised. I perfectly recollect his condescending to delight my daughter's dancing-master with a long argument about his art; which the man protested, at the close of the discourse, the doctor knew more of than himself, and was astonished, enlightened, and amused, by the talk of a person little likely to make a good disquisition upon dancing.

[See ante, vol. i. p. 304, and vol. iii. p. 166.—ED.]

Anec.

"I have sometimes indeed been rather pleased than Piozzi vexed when Dr. Johnson has given a rough answer p. 73. to a man who perhaps deserved one only half as rough, because I knew he would repent of his hasty reproof, and make us all amends by some conversation at once instructive and entertaining. A young fellow asked him abruptly one day, 'Pray, sir, what and where is Palmyra? I heard somebody talk last night of the ruins of Palmyra.' "Tis a hill in Ireland,' replies Johnson, with palms growing on the top, and a bog at the bottom, and so they call it Palm-mira.' Seeing however that the lad thought him serious, and thanked him for the information, he undeceived him very gently indeed; told him the history, geography, and chronology, of Tadmor in the wilderness, with every incident, I think, that literature could furnish or eloquence express, from the building of Solomon's palace down to the voyage of Dawkins and Wood.

"He had no taste for the usual enjoyments and occupations of a country life, and would say, 'that after one had gathered apples in an orchard, one wishes to see them well baked, and removed to a London eating-house for enjoyment.' With such notions, who can wonder he often complained of us for living so much in the country-' Feeding the chickens,' as he said I did, till I starved my own understanding.' 'Get, however,' said he, a book about gardening, and study it hard, since you evill pass your life with birds and flowers, and learn to raise the largest turnips and to breed the biggest fowls.' It was vain to assure him that the goodness of such dishes did not depend upon their size; he laughed at the people who covered their canals with foreign fowls, when,' says he, our own geese and ganders are twice as large; if we fetched better animals from distant nations, there might be some

VOL. IV.

BB

p. 205.

Piozzi

Anec.

P. 206.

p. 81.

sense in the preference: but to get cows from Alderney, or water-fowl from China, only to see nature degenerating round us, is a poor ambition indeed.'

"Nor was Dr. Johnson more merciful with regard to the amusements people are contented to call such. You hunt in the morning,' says he, and crowd to the public rooms at night, and call it diversion; when your heart knows it is perishing with poverty of pleasures, and your wits get blunted for want of some other mind to sharpen them upon. There is in this world no real delight (excepting those of sensuality) but exchange of ideas in conversation; and whoever has once experienced the full flow of London talk, when he retires to country friendships and rural sports, must either be contented to turn baby again and play with the rattle, or he will pine away like a great fish in a little pond, and die for want of his usual food.'-Books without the knowledge of life are useless,' I have heard him say; 'for what should books teach but the art of living? To study manners, however, only in coffee-houses, is more than equally imperfect; the minds of men who acquire no solid learning, and only exist on the daily forage that they pick up by running about, and snatching what drops from their neighbours, as ignorant as themselves, will never ferment into any knowledge valuable or durable; but like the light wines we drink in hot countries, please for the moment, though incapable of keeping. In the study of mankind much will be found to swim as froth, and much must sink as feculence, before the wine can have its effect, and become that noblest liquor which rejoices the heart and gives vigour to the imagina

tion.'

"Solitude,' he one day added, is dangerous to reason, without being favourable to virtue: pleasures