We talked of the difference between the mode of education at Oxford,and that in those Colleges where instruction is chiefly conveyed by lectures.JOHNSON.'Lectures were once useful;but now,when all can read,and books are so numerous,lectures are unnecessary.If your attention fails,and you miss a part of a lecture,it is lost;you cannot go back as you do upon a book.'
Dr.Scott agreed with him.'But yet (said I),Dr.Scott,you yourself gave lectures at Oxford.'He smiled.'You laughed (then said I,)at those who came to you.'
Dr.Scott left us,and soon afterwards we went to dinner.Our company consisted of Mrs.Williams,Mrs.Desmoulins,Mr.Levett,Mr.Allen,the printer,and Mrs.Hall,sister of the Reverend Mr.
John Wesley,and resembling him,as I thought,both in figure and manner.Johnson produced now,for the first time,some handsome silver salvers,which he told me he had bought fourteen years ago;so it was a great day.I was not a little amused by observing Allen perpetually struggling to talk in the manner of Johnson,like the little frog in the fable blowing himself up to resemble the stately ox.
He mentioned a thing as not unfrequent,of which I had never heard before,--being CALLED,that is,hearing one's name pronounced by the voice of a known person at a great distance,far beyond the possibility of being reached by any sound uttered by human organs.
'An acquaintance,on whose veracity I can depend,told me,that walking home one evening to Kilmarnock,he heard himself called from a wood,by the voice of a brother who had gone to America;and the next packet brought accounts of that brother's death.'Macbean asserted that this inexplicable CALLING was a thing very well known.Dr.Johnson said,that one day at Oxford,as he was turning the key of his chamber,he heard his mother distinctly call SAM.
She was then at Lichfleld;but nothing ensued.This phaenomenon is,I think,as wonderful as any other mysterious fact,which many people are very slow to believe,or rather,indeed,reject with an obstinate contempt.
Some time after this,upon his ****** a remark which escaped my attention,Mrs.Williams and Mrs.Hall were both together striving to answer him.He grew angry,and called out loudly,'Nay,when you both speak at once,it is intolerable.'But checking himself,and softening,he said,'This one may say,though you ARE ladies.'
Then he brightened into gay humour,and addressed them in the words of one of the songs in The Beggar's Opera:--'But two at a time there's no mortal can bear.'
'What,Sir,(said I,)are you going to turn Captain Macheath?'
There was something as pleasantly ludicrous in this scene as can be imagined.The contrast between Macheath,Polly,and Lucy--and Dr.
Samuel Johnson,blind,peevish Mrs.Williams,and lean,lank,preaching Mrs.Hall,was exquisite.
On Friday,April 20,I spent with him one of the happiest days that I remember to have enjoyed in the whole course of my life.Mrs.
Garrick,whose grief for the loss of her husband was,I believe,as sincere as wounded affection and admiration could produce,had this day,for the first time since his death,a select party of his friends to dine with her.The company was Miss Hannah More,who lived with her,and whom she called her Chaplain;Mrs.Boscawen,Mrs.Elizabeth Carter,Sir Joshua Reynolds,Dr.Burney,Dr.
Johnson,and myself.We found ourselves very elegantly entertained at her house in the Adelphi,where I have passed many a pleasing hour with him 'who gladdened life.'She looked well,talked of her husband with complacency,and while she cast her eyes on his portrait,which hung over the chimney-piece,said,that 'death was now the most agreeable object to her.'The very semblance of David Garrick was cheering.
We were all in fine spirits;and I whispered to Mrs.Boscawen,'Ibelieve this is as much as can be made of life.'In addition to a splendid entertainment,we were regaled with Lichfield ale,which had a peculiar appropriated value.Sir Joshua,and Dr.Burney,and I,drank cordially of it to Dr.Johnson's health;and though he would not join us,he as cordially answered,'Gentlemen,I wish you all as well as you do me.'
The general effect of this day dwells upon my mind in fond remembrance;but I do not find much conversation recorded.What Ihave preserved shall be faithfully given.
One of the company mentioned Mr.Thomas Hollis,the strenuous Whig,who used to send over Europe presents of democratical books,with their boards stamped with daggers and caps of liberty.Mrs.Carter said,'He was a bad man.He used to talk uncharitably.'JOHNSON.
'Poh!poh!Madam;who is the worse for being talked of uncharitably?Besides,he was a dull poor creature as ever lived:
and I believe he would not have done harm to a man whom he knew to be of very opposite principles to his own.I remember once at the Society of Arts,when an advertisement was to be drawn up,he pointed me out as the man who could do it best.This,you will observe,was kindness to me.I however slipt away,and escaped it.'
Mrs.Carter having said of the same person,'I doubt he was an Atheist.'JOHNSON.'I don't know that.He might perhaps have become one,if he had had time to ripen,(smiling.)He might have EXUBERATED into an Atheist.'
Sir Joshua Reynolds praised Mudge's Sermons.JOHNSON.'Mudge's Sermons are good,but not practical.He grasps more sense than he can hold;he takes more corn than he can make into meal;he opens a wide prospect,but it is so distant,it is indistinct.I love Blair's Sermons.Though the dog is a Scotchman,and a Presbyterian,and every thing he should not be,I was the first to praise them.Such was my candour,'(smiling.)MRS.BOSCAWEN.
'Such his great merit to get the better of all your prejudices.'
JOHNSON.'Why,Madam,let us compound the matter;let us ascribe it to my candour,and his merit.'
In the evening we had a large company in the drawing-room,several ladies,the Bishop of Killaloe,Dr.Percy,Mr.Chamberlayne,of the Treasury,&c.&c.
