The Town Part 11

"He nursed," says Mrs. Thrale, in her superfluous style, "_whole nests_ of people in his house, where the lame, the blind, the sick, and the sorrowful found a sure retreat from all the evils whence his little income could secure them, and commonly spending the middle of the week at our house, he kept his numerous family in Fleet Street upon a settled allowance; but returned to them every Sat.u.r.day to give them three good dinners and his company, before he came back to us on the Monday night, treating them with the same, or perhaps more, ceremonious civility, than he would have done by as many people of fas.h.i.+on, making the Holy Scripture thus the rule of his conduct, and only expecting salvation as he was able to obey its precepts."[117]

Johnson's female inmates were not like the romantic ones of Richardson.

"We surely cannot but admire," says Boswell, "the benevolent exertions of this great and good man, especially when we consider how grievously he was afflicted with bad health, and how uncomfortable his home was made by the perpetual jarring of those whom he charitably accommodated under his roof. He has sometimes suffered me to talk jocularly of his group of females, and call them his _seraglio_. He thus mentions them, together with honest Levitt, in one of his letters to Mrs.

Thrale: 'Williams hates everybody; Levett hates Desmoulins, and does not love Williams; Desmoulins hates them both; Poll loves none of them.'"[118]

[Ill.u.s.tration: JOHNSON'S HOUSE IN BOLT COURT.]

Of his residence in Inner Temple Lane we have spoken before. He lived there six or seven years, and then removed to Johnson's Court, No. 7, where he resided for ten. Johnson's Court is in the neighbourhood of Gough Square. It was during this period that he accompanied his friend Boswell to Scotland, where he sometimes humorously styled himself "Johnson of that _ilk_" (that same, or Johnson of Johnson), in imitation of the local designations of the Scottish chiefs. In 1776, in his sixty-seventh year, still adhering to the neighbourhood, he removed into Bolt Court, No. 8, where he died eight years after, on the 13th December, 1784. In Bolt Court he had a garden, and perhaps in Johnson's Court and Gough Square: which we mention to show how tranquil and removed these places were, and convenient for a student who wished, nevertheless, to have the bustle of London at hand.

Maitland (one of the compilers upon Stow), who published his history of London in 1739, describes Johnson and Bolt Courts as having "good houses, well inhabited;" and Gough Square he calls fas.h.i.+onable.[119]

Johnson was probably in every tavern and coffee-house in Fleet Street.

There is one which has taken his name, being styled, _par excellence_, "Doctor Johnson's Coffee-house." But the house he most frequented was the Mitre tavern, on the other side of the street, in a pa.s.sage leading to the Temple. It was here, as we have seen, that he took his two innocent theologians, and paternally dandled them out of their misgivings on his knee. The same place was the first of the kind in which Boswell met him. "We had a good supper," says the happy biographer, "and port wine, of which he then sometimes drank a bottle." (At intervals he abstained from all fermented liquors for a long time.) "The orthodox, high-church sound of the Mitre, the figure and manner of the celebrated Samuel Johnson, the extraordinary power and precision of his conversation, and the pride arising from finding myself admitted as his companion, produced a variety of sensations, and a pleasing elevation of mind beyond what I had before experienced."[120] They sat till between one and two in the morning.

He told Boswell at that period that "he generally went abroad at about four in the afternoon, and seldom came home till two in the morning. I took the liberty to ask if he did not think it wrong to live thus, and not to make more use of his great talents. He owned it was a bad habit."

The next time, Goldsmith was with them, when Johnson made a remark which comes home to everybody, namely, that granting knowledge in some cases to produce unhappiness, "knowledge _per se_ was an object which every one would _wish_ to attain, though, perhaps, he might not take the trouble necessary for attaining it." One of his most curious remarks followed, occasioned by the mention of Campbell, the author of the _Hermippus Redivivus_, on which Boswell makes a no less curious comment. "Campbell," said Johnson, "is a good man, a pious man. I am afraid he has not been in the inside of a church for many years; but he never pa.s.ses a church without pulling off his hat. This shows that he has good principles." On which, says Boswell in a note, "I am inclined to think he was misinformed as to this circ.u.mstance. I own I am jealous for my worthy friend Dr. John Campbell. For though _Milton_ could without remorse absent himself from public wors.h.i.+p, _I_ cannot."[121]

It was at their next sitting in this house, at which the Rev. Dr.

Ogilvie, a Scotch writer, was present, that Johnson made his famous joke, in answer to that gentleman's remark, that Scotland has a great many "n.o.ble wild prospects." _Johnson._ "I believe, sir, you have a great many. Norway, too, has n.o.ble, wild prospects; and Lapland is remarkable for prodigious, n.o.ble, wild prospects. But, sir, let me tell you, the n.o.blest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees is the high road that leads him to England!" "This unexpected and pointed sally,"

says Boswell, "produced a roar of applause. After all, however" (he adds), "those who admire the rude grandeur of nature, cannot deny it to Caledonia."[122]

Johnson had the highest opinion of a tavern, as a place in which a man might be comfortable, if he could anywhere. Indeed, he said that the man who could not enjoy himself in a tavern, could be comfortable nowhere. This, however, is not to be taken to the letter. Extremes meet; and Johnson's uneasiness of temper led him into the gayer necessities of Falstaff. However, it is a.s.suredly no honour to a man, not to be able to "take his ease at his inn." "There is no private house," said Johnson, talking on this subject, "in which people can enjoy themselves so well as at a capital tavern. Let there be ever so great a plenty of good things, ever so much grandeur, ever so much elegance, ever so much desire that everybody should be easy, in the nature of things it cannot be: there must always be some degree of care and anxiety. The master of the house is anxious to entertain his guests; the guests are anxious to be agreeable to him; and no man, but a very impudent dog indeed, can as freely command what is in another man's house as if it were his own. Whereas, at a tavern, there is a general freedom from anxiety. You are sure you are welcome; and the more noise you make, the more trouble you give, the more good things you call for, the welcomer you are. No servants will attend you with the alacrity which waiters do, who are incited by the prospect of an immediate reward in proportion as they please. No, sir, there is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced, as by a good tavern or inn." He then repeated with great emotion Shenstone's lines:--

"Whoe'er has travelled life's dull round, Where'er his stages may have been, May sigh to think he still has found The warmest welcome at an inn."[123]

"Sir John Hawkins," says Boswell in a note on this pa.s.sage, "has preserved very few _memorabilia_ of Johnson." There is, however, to be found in his bulky tome, a very excellent one upon this subject. "In contradiction to those who, having a wife and children, prefer domestic enjoyments to those which a tavern affords, I have heard him a.s.sert, that _a tavern chair was the throne of human felicity_. 'As soon' (said he), 'as I enter the door of a tavern, I experience an oblivion of care, and a freedom from solicitude: when I am seated, I find the master courteous, and the servants obsequious to my call, anxious to know and ready to supply my wants: wine there exhilarates my spirits, and prompts me to free conversation, and an interchange of discourse with those whom I most love; I dogmatise, and am contradicted; and in this conflict of opinion and sentiments I find delight.'"

The following anecdote is highly to Johnson's credit, and equally worthy of every one's attention. "Johnson was known to be so rigidly attentive to the truth," says Boswell, "that even in his common conversation the slightest circ.u.mstance was mentioned with exact precision. The knowledge of his having such a principle and habit made his friends have a perfect reliance on the truth of everything that he told, however it might have been doubted if told by many others. As an instance of this I may mention an odd incident, which he related as having happened to him one night in Fleet Street. 'A gentlewoman'

(said he) 'begged I would give her my arm to a.s.sist her in crossing the street, which I accordingly did; upon which she offered me a s.h.i.+lling, supposing me to be the watchman. I perceived that she was somewhat in liquor.' This, if told by most people, would have been thought an invention; when told by Johnson, it was believed by his friends, as much as if they had seen what pa.s.sed."[124]

The gentlewoman, however, might have taken him for the watchman without being in liquor, if she had no eye to discern a great man through his uncouthness. Davies, the bookseller, said, that he "laughed like a rhinoceros." It may be added he walked like a whale; for it was rolling rather than walking. "I met him in Fleet Street,"

says Boswell, "walking, or rather, indeed, moving along; for his peculiar march is thus described in a very just and picturesque manner, in a short life of him published very soon after his death:--'When he walked the streets, what with the constant roll of his head, and the concomitant motion of his body, he appeared to make his way by that motion independent of his feet.' That he was often much stared at," continues Boswell, "while he advanced in this manner, may be easily believed; but it was not safe to make sport of one so robust as he was. Mr. Langton saw him one day, in a fit of absence, by a sudden start, drive the load off a porter's back, and walk forwards briskly, without being conscious of what he had done. The porter was very angry, but stood still, and eyed the huge figure with much earnestness, till he was satisfied that his wisest course was to be satisfied and take up his burden again."[125]

There is another remark on Fleet Street and its superiority to the country, which must not be pa.s.sed over. Boswell, not having Johnson's reasons for wanting society, was a little over-weening and gratuitous on this subject; and on such occasions the doctor would give him a knock. "It was a delightful day," says the biographer; "as we walked to St. Clement's Church, I again remarked that Fleet Street was the most cheerful scene in the world; 'Fleet Street,' said I, 'is in my mind more delightful than Tempe.' _Johnson._--'Ay, sir, but let it be compared with Mull.'"[126]

The progress of knowledge, even since Johnson's time, has enabled us to say, without presumption, that we differ with this extraordinary person on many important points, without ceasing to have the highest regard for his character. His faults were the result of temperament; perhaps his good qualities and his powers of reflection were, in some measure, so too; but this must be the case with all men. Intellect and beneficence, from whatever causes, will always command respect; and we may gladly compound, for their sakes, with foibles which belong to the common chances of humanity. If Johnson has added nothing very new to the general stock, he has contributed (especially by the help of his biographer) a great deal that is striking and entertaining. He was an admirable critic, if not of the highest things, yet of such as could be determined by the exercise of a masculine good sense; and one thing he did, perhaps beyond any man in England, before or since--he advanced, by the powers of his conversation, the strictness of his veracity, and the respect he exacted towards his presence, what may be called the personal dignity of literature. The consequence has been, not exactly what he expected, but certainly what the great interests of knowledge require; and Johnson has a.s.sisted men, with whom he little thought of co-operating, in setting the claims of truth and beneficence above all others.

East from Fetter Lane, on the same side of the street, is Crane Court--the princ.i.p.al house in which, facing the entry, was that in which the Royal Society used to meet, and where they kept their museum and library before they removed to their late apartments in Somerset House. The society met in Crane Court up to a period late enough to allow us to present to our imaginations Boyle and his contemporaries prosecuting their eager inquiries and curious experiments in the early dawn of physical science, and afterwards Newton presiding in the noontide glory of the light which he had shed over nature.

FOOTNOTES:

[75] See Walter Scott's edition of Dryden, vol. x., p. 372.

"Abhorrers" were addressers on the side of the court, who had avowed "abhorrence" of the proceedings of the Whigs. The word was a capital one to sound through a trumpet.

[76] Aubrey says that his death took place in a cellar in Long Acre; and adds; "Mr. Edm. Wylde, &c., had made a collection for him, and given him money." But Aubrey's authority is not valid against Wood's.

He is to be read like a proper gossip, whose accounts we may pretty safely reject or believe, as it suits other testimony.

[77] Wood's Athenae Oxonienses, fol. vol. ii., p. 145.

[78] Baker's Biographia Dramatica. Reed's edition, 1782, vol. i., p.

207.

[79] Malone in the Prolegomena to Shakspeare, as above, vol, iii., p.

287.

[80] Correspondence of Samual Richardson, &c., by Anna Let.i.tia Barbauld, vol. i., p. 97.

[81] Our authority (one of the highest in this way) is Mr. Nichols, in his Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century, vol. iv., p. 579.

[82]

"---- Apoplexy cramm'd intemperance knocks Down to the ground at once, as butcher felleth ox;"--

says Thomson, in his Castle of Indolence. It was the death which the good-natured, indolent poet probably expected for himself, and which he would have had, if a cold and fever had not interfered; for there is an apoplexy of the head alone, as well as of the whole body; and men of letters who either exercise little, or work overmuch, seem almost sure to die of it, or of palsy; which is a disease a.n.a.logous.

It is the last stroke, given in the kind resentment of nature, to the brains which should have known better than bring themselves to such a pa.s.s. In the biography of Italian literati, "Mori' d' apoplessia"--(he died of apoplexy)--is a common verdict.

[83] Correspondence, as above, vol. i., p. 177.

[84] Correspondence, &c., by Mrs. Barbauld, vol.i., p. 183.

[85] Life and Reign of King James I., quoted in Howell's State Trials, vol. ii., p. 745.

[86] State Trials, _ut supra_, p. 762.

[87] "It is an opinion which universally prevails with regard to those cross-legged monuments," says Dr. Nash, "that they were all erected to the memory of Knights Templars. Now to me it is very evident that not one of them belonged to that order; but, as Mr. Habingdon, in describing this at Alve church, hath justly expressed it, to Knights of the Holy Voyage. For the order of Knights Templars followed the rule of the Canons regular of St. Austin, and, as such, were under a vow of celibacy. Now there is scarcely one of these monuments which is certainly known for whom it is erected; but it is as certain, that the person it represented was a married man. The Knights Templars always wore a white habit, with a red cross on the left shoulder. I believe, not a single instance can be produced of either the mantle or cross being carved on any of these monuments, which surely would not have been omitted, as by it they were distinguished from all other orders, had these been really designed to represent Knights Templars. Lastly, this order was not confined to England only, but dispersed itself all over Europe: yet it will be very difficult to find one cross-legged monument anywhere out of England; whereas they would have abounded in France, Italy, and elsewhere, had it been a fas.h.i.+on peculiar to that famous order. But though, for these reasons, I cannot allow the cross-legged monuments to have been for Knights Templars, yet they had some relation to them, being the memorials of those zealous devotees, who had either been in Palestine, personally engaged in what was called the Holy War, or had laid themselves under a vow to go thither, though perhaps they were prevented from it by death. Some few, indeed, might possibly be erected to the memory of persons who had made pilgrimages there merely out of private devotion. Among the latter, probably, was that of the lady of the family of Mepham, of Mepham in Yorks.h.i.+re, to whose memory a cross-legged monument was placed in a chapel adjoining to the one collegiate church of Howden, in Yorks.h.i.+re, and is at this day remaining, together with that of her husband on the same tomb. As this religious madness lasted no longer than the reign of Henry III. (the tenth and last crusade being published in the year 1268), and the whole order of Knights Templars was dissolved by Edward II., military expeditions to the Holy Land, as well as devout pilgrimages there, had their period by the year 1312; consequently none of those cross-legged monuments are of a later date than the reign of Edward II., or beginning of Edward III., nor of an earlier than that of King Stephen, when these expeditions first took place in this kingdom."--_History and Antiquities of Worcesters.h.i.+re_, fol. vol.

i., p. 31. Since Dr. Nash wrote, however, it has been denied that even the cross legs had any thing to do with crusades.

[88] Prologue to the Canterbury Tales. We quote no edition, because where we could we have modernised the spelling; which is a justice to this fine old author in a quotation, in order that n.o.body may pa.s.s it over. With regard to Chaucer being of the Temple, and to his beating the Franciscan in Fleet Street, all which is reported, depends upon the testimony of a Mr. Buckley, who, according to Speght, had seen a Temple record to that effect.

[89] Prothalamion.

[90] "Shove-groat, named also Slyp-groat, and Slide-thrift, are sports occasionally mentioned by the writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and probably were a.n.a.logous to the modern pastime called Justice Jervis, or Jarvis, which is confined to common pot-houses, and only practised by such as frequent the tap-rooms."--_Strutt's Sports and Pastimes of the People of England_, 1828, chap, i., sect. xix. It is played with halfpence, which are jerked with the palm of the hand from the edge of a table, towards certain numbers described upon it.

[91] Londinium Redivivum, vol. ii., p. 290.

[92] Sir John Davies, who was afterwards Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench, and wrote a poem on the Art of Dancing (so lively was the gravity of those days!) "bastinadoed" a man at dinner in the Temple Hall, for which he was expelled. The man probably deserved it, for Davies had a fine nature; and he went back again by favour of the excellent Lord Ellesmere.

[93] Dunciad, book ii.

[94] Boswell's Life of Johnson, eighth edit., 8vo. 1816, vol. iv., p.

27.

[95] Boswell's Life of Johnson, eighth edit. 1816, vol. i., p. 398.

[96] Boswell's Life of Johnson, eighth edit. 1816, vol. i., p. 378.

[97] Ibid., vol. ii., p. 421.