 Section 22 of the Life of Samuel Johnson, Volume 2. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Life of Samuel Johnson, Volume 2 by James Boswell. Section 22, 1776, continued. On Friday, March 22, having set out early from Henley, where we had lain the preceding night, we arrived at Birmingham about nine o'clock, and, after breakfast, went to call on his old school fellow, Mr. Hector. A very stupid maid, who opened the door, told us that her master was gone out, he was gone to the country she could not tell when he would return. In short, she gave us a miserable reception, and Johnson observed she would have behaved no better to people who wanted him in the way of his profession. He said to her, my name is Johnson. Tell him I called. Will you remember the name? She answered, with rustic simplicity, in the Warwickshire pronunciation, I don't understand you, sir. Blockhead said he, I'll write. I never heard the word Blockhead applied to a woman before, though I do not see why it should not, when there is evident occasion for it. He, however, made another attempt to make her understand him, and word loud in her ear, Johnson, and then she catched the sounds. We next called on Mr. Lloyd, one of the people called Quakers. He, too, was not at home, but Mrs. Lloyd was, and received us courteously, and asked us to dinner. Johnson said to me, after the uncertainty of all human things at Hector's, this invitation came very well. We walked about the town, and he was pleased to see it increasing. I talked of legitimation by subsequent marriage, which obtained in the Roman law and still obtains in the law of Scotland. Johnson, I think it is a bad thing, because the chastity of women being of the utmost importance, as all property depends upon it, they who forfeit it should not have any possibility of being restored to good character, nor should the children, by an illicit connection, attain the full right of lawful children by the posterior consent of the offending parties. His opinion upon the subjects deserves consideration. Upon his principle there may at times be a hardship, and seemingly a strange one, upon individuals, but the general good of society is better secured. And after all it is unreasonable in an individual to repine that he is not the advantage of a state which is made different from his own, by the social institution under which he is born. A woman does not complain that her brother, who is younger than her, gets their common father's estate. Why then should a natural son complain that a younger brother, by the same parents lawfully begotten, gets it? The operation of law is similar in both cases. Besides, a legitimate son, who has a younger, legitimate brother, by the same father and mother, has no stronger claim to the father's estate than if that legitimate brother had only the same father, from whom alone the estate descends. Mr. Lloyd joined us in the street, and in a little while we met friend Hector, as Mr. Lloyd called him. It gave me pleasure to observe the joy which Johnson and he expressed on seeing each other again. Mr. Lloyd and I left them together, while he obligingly showed me some of the manufacturers of this very curious assemblage of artificers. We all met at dinner at Mr. Lloyd's, where we were entertained with great hospitality. Mr. and Mrs. Lloyd had been married the same year with their Majesties, and like them, had been blessed with a numerous family of fine children, their numbers being exactly the same. Johnson said, Marriage is the best state for a man in general, and every man is a worst man, in proportion as he is unfit for the married state. I have always loved the simplicity of manners, and the spiritual mindedness of the Quakers. And talking with Mr. Lloyd, I observed that the essential part of religion was piety, a devout intercourse with the Divinity, and that many a man was a Quaker without knowing it. Dr. Johnson had said to me in the morning, while we walked together, that he liked hearing individuals among the Quakers, but not the sects. When we were at Mr. Lloyd's, I kept clear of introducing any questions concerning the peculiarities of their faith. But, having asked to look at Baskerville's edition of Barclays Apology, Johnson laid hold of it, and the chapter on baptism happening to be open, Johnson remarked, He says there is neither precept nor practice for baptism in the scriptures, that is false. Here he was the aggressor, by no means in a gentle manner, and the Good Quakers had the advantage of him, for he had read negligently, and had not observed that Barclays speaks of infant baptism, which they calmly made him perceive. Mr. Lloyd, however, was in his great a mistake, for when insisting that the rite of baptism by water was to cease, when the spiritual administration of Christ began, he maintained that John the Baptist said, My baptism shall decrease, but his shall increase. Whereas the words are, he must increase, but I must decrease. One of them having objected to the observance of days and months and years, Johnson answered, The church does not superstitiously observe days, merely as days, but as memorials of important facts. Christmas might be kept as well upon one day of the year as another, but there should be a stated day for commemorating the birth of our Savior, because there is danger that what may be done on any day will be neglected. He said to me at another time, Sir, the holidays observed by our church are of great use in religion. There can be no doubt of this in a limited sense, I mean if the numbers of such consecrated portions of time be not too extensive. The excellent Mr. Nelson's Festivals and Fasts, which has, I understand, the greatest sale of any book ever printed in England except the Bible, is the most valuable help to devotion, and in addition to it I would recommend two sermons on the same subject by Mr. Pot, Archdeacon of St. Albans, equally distinguished for his piety and elegance. I am sorry to have to say it that Scotland is the only Christian country, Catholic or Protestant, where the great events of our religion are not solemnly commemorated by its ecclesiastical establishment on days set apart for the purpose. Mr. Hector was so good as to accompany me to see the great works of Mr. Bolton, at a place which he has called Soho, about two miles from Birmingham, which the very ingenious proprietor showed me himself to the best advantage. I wish Johnson had been with us, for it was a scene which I should have been glad to contemplate by his light. The vastness and the contrivance of some of the machinery would have matched his mighty mind. I shall never forget Mr. Bolton's expression to me. I sell here, sir, what all the world desires to have. Power. He had about seven hundred people at work. I contemplated him as an iron chieftain, and he seemed to be a father to his tribe. One of them came to him, complaining grievously of his landlord for having restrained his goods. Your landlord is in the right, Smith, said Bolton, but I'll tell you what. Find you a friend who will lay down one half of your rent, and I'll lay down the other half, and you shall have your goods again. From Mr. Hector I now learnt many particulars of Dr. Johnson's early life, which, with others that he gave me at different times since, have contributed to the formation of this work. Dr. Johnson said to me in the morning, you will see, sir, at Mr. Hector's, his sister, Mrs. Careless, a clergyman's widow. She was the first woman with whom I was in love. It dropped out of my head imperceptibly, but she and I shall always have a kindness for each other. He laughed at the notion that a man can never be really in love but once, and considered it as a mere romantic fancy. On our return from Mr. Bolton's, Mr. Hector took me to his house, where we found Johnson sitting placidly at tea, with his first love, who, though now advanced in years, was a gentile woman, very agreeable, and well-bred. Johnson lamented to Mr. Hector the state of one of their school-fellows, Mr. Charles Congrive, a clergyman, which he thus described. He obtains, I believe, a considerable preference in Ireland, but now lives in London, quite a valitudinarian, afraid to go into any house but his own. He takes a short airing in his post-chase every day. He has an elderly woman, whom he calls cousin, who lives with him, and jonks his elbow when his glass has stood too long empty, and encourages him in drinking, in which he is very willing to be encouraged. Not that he gets drunk, for he is a very pious man, but he is always muddy. He confesses to one bottle of port every day, and he probably drinks more. He is quite unsocial. His conversation is quite monosyllabical. And when, at my last visit, I asked him what o'clock was, that signal of my departure had so pleasing an effect on him, that he sprung up to look at his watch, like a greyhound, bounding at a hair. When Johnson took leave of Mr. Hector, he said, Don't grow like Congreve, nor let me grow like him when you are near me. When he again talked of Mrs. Careless tonight, he seemed to have had his affection revived, for he said, If I had married her, it might have been as happy for me. Boswell. Pray, sir, do you not suppose that there are fifty women in the world, with any one of whom a man may be as happy, as with any one woman in particular? Johnson. I, sir, fifty thousand. Boswell. Then, sir, you are not of opinion with some who imagine that certain men and certain women are made for each other, and that they cannot be happy if they miss their counterparts. Johnson. To be sure not, sir, I believe marriages would in general be as happy, and often more so, if they were all made by the Lord Chancellor, upon a due consideration of characters and circumstances without the parties having any choice in the matter. I wish to have stayed at Birmingham tonight, to have talked more with Mr. Hector, but my friend was impatient to reach his native city, so we drove on that stage, in the dark, and were long pensive and silent. When we came within the focus of the Lickfield lamps, now he said, We are getting out of a stale death. We put up at the three crowns, not one of the great ends, but a good old-fashioned one, which was kept by Mr. Wilkins. And was the very next house, to that in which Johnson was born, and brought up, and which was still his own property. We had a comfortable supper, and got into high spirits. I fell on my taurism glow in this old capital of Staffordshire. I could have offered incense, Genoi loci, and I indulged in libations of that ale, which Boniface, in the Boe strategium, recommends with such an eloquent jollity. Next morning he introduced me to Mrs. Lucy Porter, his stepdaughter. She was now an old maid, with much simplicity of manner. She had never been in London. Her brother, a captain in the Navy, had left her a fortune of ten thousand pounds. About a third of which she had laid out in building a stately house, and making a handsome garden in an elevated situation in Lickfield. Johnson, when here by himself, used to live in her house. She reverenced him, and he had a parental tenderness for her. We then visited Mr. Peter Garrick, who, had that morning received a letter from his brother David, announcing our coming to Lickfield. He was engaged to dinner, but asked us to tea, and to sleep at his house. Johnson, however, would not quit his old acquaintance, Wilkins, of the three crowns. The family likeness of the Garricks was very striking. And Johnson thought that David's vivacity was not so peculiar to himself as was supposed. Sir, said he, I don't know, but if Peter had cultivated all the arts of gaiety as much as David has done, he might have been as brisk and lively. Depend upon it, sir, vivacity is much an art, and depends greatly on habit. I believe there is a good deal of truth in this. Notwithstanding, a ludicrous story told me by a lady abroad of a heavy German baron, who had lived much with the young English at Geneva, and was ambitious to be as lively as they, with which view he, with assiduous exertion, was jumping over the tables and chairs in his lodgings, and when the people of the house ran in and asked, with surprise, what the matter was. He answered, Ch'apprends titre fief. We dined at our inn, and had with us a Mr. Jackson, one of Johnson's school-fellows, whom he treated with much kindness, though he seemed to be a low man, dull and untaught. He had a coarse-gray coat, black waistcoat, greasy leather breeches, and a yellow uncurled wig, and his countenance had the ruddyness which betokens one, who is in no haste to leave his can. He drank only ale. He had tried to be a cutler at Birmingham, but had not succeeded, and now he lived poorly at home, and had some scheme of dressing leather in a better manner than common, to his indistinct account of which Dr. Johnson listened with patient attention, that he might assist him with his advice. Here was an instance of genuine humanity and real kindness in his great man, who had been most unjustly represented as altogether harsh and destitute of tenderness. A thousand such instances might have been recorded in the course of his long life, though that his temper was warm and hasty, and his manner often rough, cannot be denied. I saw here for the first time oat ale and oat cakes, not as hard as in Scotland's, but soft like a Yorkshire cake, were served at breakfast. It was pleasant to me to find that oats, the food of the horses, were so much used as the food of the people in Dr. Johnson's own town. He expatiated in praise of Lickfield and its inhabitants, who, he said, were the most sober, decent people in England's, the gentlest in proportion to their wealth, and spoke the purest English. I doubted as to the last article of this theology, for they had several provincial sounds. As there, pronounced like fear, instead of like fair, once pronounced woons, instead of wands or wands, Johnson himself never got entirely free of those provincial accents. Garek sometimes used to take him off, squeezing a lemon into a punch-bowl, with uncouth gesticulations, looking round the company and calling out, Who's for Poonch? Very little business appeared to be going forward in Lickfield. I found, however, two strange manufacturers for so inland a place, sailcloth, and streamers for ships. And I observed them making some saddle-claws, and dressing sheepskins, but upon the whole the busy hand of industry seemed to be quite slackened. Surely, sir, said I, you are an idle set of people. Sir, said Johnson, we are a city of philosophers. We work with our heads, and make the boobies of Birmingham work for us with their hands. There was, at this time, a company of players performing at Lickfield. The manager, Mr. Stanton, sent his compliments, and begged Leave to wait on Dr. Johnson. Johnson received him very courteously, and he drank a glass of wine with us. He was a plain, decent, well-behaved man, and expressed his gratitude to Dr. Johnson for having once got him permission from Dr. Taylor at Ashbourne to play there upon moderate terms. Garrick's name was soon introduced. Johnson. Garrick's conversation is gay and grotesque. It is a dish of all sorts, but all good things. There is no solid meat in it, there is a want of sentiment in it. Not but that he has sentiment sometimes, and sentiment, too very powerful and very pleasing, but it has not its full proportion in his conversation. When we were by ourselves, he told me, Forty years ago, sir, I was in love with an actress here, Mrs. Emmett, who acted Flora in Hobb and the Well. What merit this lady has as an actress, or what was her figure, or her manner, I have not been informed. But, if we may believe Mr. Garrick, his old master's taste in theatrical merit was by no means refined. He was not an... Elegance-from-arram spectator. Garrick used to tell that Johnson said of an actor who played Sir Harry Wildair at Lickfield, there is a courtly vivacity about the fellow, when in fact, according to Garrick's account, he was the most vulgar ruffian that ever went upon boards. We had promised Mr. Stanton to be at his theatre on Monday. Dr. Johnson, jocularly, proposed me to write a prologue for The Occasion, a prologue by James Boswell, Esquire, from the Hepurdies. I was really inclined to take the hints. Me thought, prologue spoken before Dr. Samuel Johnson at Lickfield, 1776, would have sounded as well as prologue spoken before the Duke of York at Oxford, in Charles II's time. Much might have been said of what Lickfield had done for Shakespeare by producing Johnson and Garrick, but I found he was averse to it. We went and viewed the museum of Mr. Richard Green, apothecary here, who told me he was proud of being a relation of Dr. Johnson's. It was truly a wonderful collection, both of antiques and natural curiosities, and ingenious works of art. He had all the articles accurately arranged with their names upon labels printed at his own little press, and on the staircase leading to it was a board with the names of contributors marked in gold letters. A printed catalogue of the collection was to be had at a bookseller's. Johnson expressed his admiration of the activity and diligence and good fortune of Mr. Green in getting together, in his situation, so great a variety of things. And Mr. Green told me that Johnson once said to him, Sir, I should have soon have thought of building a man of war as of collecting such a museum. Mr. Green's obliging alacrity in showing it was very pleasing. His engraved portrait, with which he has favored me, has a motto truly characteristical of his disposition. Nemo, see-by, vivette. A physician being mentioned who had lost his practice, because his whimsically changing his religion had made people distrustful of him, I maintain that this was unreasonable, as religion is unconnected with medical skill. Johnson, Sir, it is not unreasonable, for when people see a man absurd in what they understand, they may conclude the same of him in what they do not understand. If a physician were to take to eating horse flesh, nobody would employ him, though one may eat horse flesh and be a very skillful physician. If a man were educated in an absurd religion, his continuing to profess it would not hurt him, though his changing to it would. We drank tea and coffee at Mr. Peter Garrick's, where was Mrs. Aston, one of the maiden sisters of Mrs. Wamsley, wife of Johnson's, first friends, and sister also of the lady of whom Johnson used to speak with the warmest admiration by the name of Molly Aston, who was afterwards married to Captain Brody of the Navy. On Sunday, March 24th, we breakfasted with Mrs. Cobb, a widow-lady who lived in an agreeable, sequestered place close by the town, called the Friary, it having been formerly a religious house. She and her niece, Miss Addie, were great admirers of Dr. Johnson, and he behaved to them with a kindness and easy pleasantry, such as we see between old and intimate acquaintance. He accompanied Mrs. Cobb to St. Mary's Church, and I went to the cathedral, where I was very much delighted with the music finding it to be peculiarly solemn and accordant with the words of the service. We dined at Mr. Peter Garrick's, who was in a very lively humor, and verified Johnson, saying that if he had cultivated gaiety as much as his brother David, he might have equally excelled in it. He was today quite a London narrator, telling us a variety of anecdotes with that earnestness and attempt at mimicry which we usually find in the wits of the metropolis. Dr. Johnson went with me to the cathedral in the afternoon. It was grand and pleasing to contemplate this illustrious writer, now full of fame, worshipping in the solemn temple of his native city. I returned to tea and coffee at Mr. Peter Garrick's, and then found Dr. Johnson at the Reverend Mr. Seward's, canon residentiary who inhabited the Bishop's Palace, in which Mr. Wamsley lived, and which had been the scene of many happy hours in Johnson's early life. Mr. Seward had, with ecclesiastical hospitality and politeness, asked me in the morning merely as a stranger to dine with him, and in the afternoon, when I was introduced to him, he asked Dr. Johnson and me to spend the evening and sup with him. He was a gentile, well-bred, dignified clergyman who had traveled with Lord Charles Fitzroy, uncle of the present Duke of Grafton, who died when abroad, and he had lived much in the great world. He was an ingenious and literary man, had published an edition of Beaumont and Fletcher, and written verses in Dozley's collection. His lady was the daughter of Mr. Hunter, Johnson's first schoolmaster. And now, for the first time, I had the pleasure of seeing his celebrated daughter, Miss Anna Seward, to whom I have since been indebted for many civilities, as well as some obliging communications concerning Johnson. Mr. Seward mentioned to us the observations which he had made upon the strata of earth and volcanoes, from which it appeared that they were so very different in depth at different periods that no calculation, whatever, could be made as to the time required for their formation. This fully refuted and anti-mosaical remark introduced into Captain Brydon's entertaining tour, I hope peedlessly, from a kind of vanity which is too common in those who have not sufficiently studied the most important of all subjects. Dr. Johnson, indeed, had said before, independent of this observation, shall all the accumulated evidence of the history of the world, shall the authority of what is unquestionably the most ancient writing be overturned by an uncertain remark such as this? On Monday, March 25th, we breakfasted at Mrs. Lucy Porter's. Johnson had sent an express to Dr. Taylor's, acquainting him of our being at Lickfield's. And Taylor had returned an answer that his post-chase should come for us this day. While we sat at breakfast, Dr. Johnson received a letter by the post, which seemed to agitate him very much. When he had read it, he exclaimed, One of the most dreadful things that has happened in my time. The phrase, my time, like the word age, is usually understood to refer to an event of a public or general nature. I imagine something like an assassination of the king, like a gunpowder plot carried into execution, or like another fire of London. When asked, What is it, sir? he answered, Mr. Thrail has lost his only son. This was, no doubt, a very great affliction to Mr. and Mrs. Thrail, which their friends would consider accordingly. But from the manner in which the intelligence of it was communicated by Johnson, it appeared for the moment to be comparatively small. I, however, soon felt a sincere concern, and was curious to observe how Dr. Johnson would be affected. He said, This is a total extinction to their family, as much as if they were sold into captivity. Upon my mentioning, that Mr. Thrail had daughters, who might inherit his wealth. Daughters, said Johnson, warmly. He'll no more value his daughters than I was going to speak. Sir, said he, Don't you know how you yourself think? Sir, he wishes to propagate his name. In short, I saw a male succession strong in his mind, even when there was no name, no family, of any long standing. I said it was lucky he was not present when this misfortune happened. Johnson, it is lucky for me. People in distress never think that you feel enough. Boswell, and sir, they will have the hope of seeing you, which will be a relief in the meantime, and when you get to them, the pain will be so far abated that they will be capable of being consoled by you. Which, in the first violence of it, I believe, would not be the case. Johnson, no, sir, violent pain of mind, like violent pain of body, must be severely felt. Boswell, I own, sir, I have not so much feeling for the distress of others as some people have, or pretend to have. But I know this, that I would do all in my power to relieve them. Johnson, sir, it is affection to pretend to feel the distress of others as much as they do themselves. It is equally so, as if one should pretend to feel as much pain while a friend's leg is cutting off as he does. No, sir, you have expressed the rational and just nature of sympathy. I would have gone to the extremity of the earth to have preserved this boy. He was soon quite calm. The letter was from Mr. Threl's clerk, and concluded, I need not say how much they wish to see you in London. He said, we shall hasten back from tailors. Mrs. Lucy Porter and some other ladies of the place talked a great deal of him when he was out of the room, not only with veneration, but affection. It pleased me to find that he was so much beloved in his native city. Mrs. Aston, whom I had seen the preceding night, and her sister, Mrs. Gastrel, a widow-lady, had each a house and garden and pleasure grounds prettily situated upon Stowhill, at gentle eminence adjoining to Lakefield. Johnson walked away to dinner there, leaving me by myself without any apology. I wondered at this want of that facility of manners from which a man has no difficulty in carrying a friend to a house where he is intimate. I felt it very unpleasant to be thus left in solitude in a country town, where I was an entire stranger, and began to think myself unkindly deserted. But I was soon relieved, and convinced that my friend, instead of being deficient in delicacy, had conducted the matter with perfect propriety, for I received the following note in his handwriting. Mrs. Gastrel, at the lower house on Stowhill, desires Mr. Boswell's company to generate, too. I accepted the invitation, and had here another proof how amiable his character was in the opinion of those who knew him best. I was not informed till afterwards that Mrs. Gastrel's husband was the clergyman who, while he lived at Stratford upon Avon, where he was proprietor of Shakespeare's garden, with gothic barbarity cut down his mulberry tree, and, as Dr. Johnson told me, did it to vex his neighbors. His lady, I have reason to believe, on the same authority, participated in the guilt of what the enthusiasts of our immortal bard had done to him almost a species of sacrilege. After dinner, Dr. Johnson wrote a letter to Mrs. Threl on the death of her son. I said it would be very distressing to Threl, but she would soon forget it, as she had so many things to think of. Johnson. No, sir. Threl will forget it first. She has many things that she may think of. This was a very just remark upon the different effects of those pursuits which occupy a vacant and easy mind, and those serious engagements which arrest attention and keep us from brooding over grief. He observed, of Lord Butte, it was said of Augustus that it would have been better for Rome that he had never been born or had never died, so it would have been better for this nation if Lord Butte had never been ministered or had never resigned. In the evening we went to the town hall, which was converted into a temporary theatre, and saw Theodicius with the Stratford Jubilee. I was happy to see Dr. Johnson sitting in a conspicuous part of the pit and receiving affectionate homage from all his acquaintance. We were quite gay and merry. I afterwards mentioned to him that I condemned myself for being so, when poor Mr. and Mrs. Threl were in such distress. Johnson. You are wrong, sir. Twenty years hence Mr. and Mrs. Threl will not suffer much pain from the death of their son. Now, sir, you are to consider that distance of place as well as distance of time operates upon the human feelings. I would not have you be gay in the presence of the distressed because it would shock them, but you may be gay at a distance. Pain for the loss of a friend or of a relation whom we love is occasioned by the want which we feel. In time the vacuity is filled with something else, or sometimes the vacuity closes up of itself. Mr. Seward and Mr. Pearson, another clergyman here, stopped with us at our inn, and after they left us we sat up late as we used to do in London. Here I shall record some fragments of my friend's conversation during this jaunt. Marriage, sir, is much more necessary to a man than to a woman, for he is much less able to supply himself with domestic comforts. You will recollect my saying to some ladies the other day that I had often wondered why young women should marry as they have so much more freedom and so much more attention paid to them while unmarried than when married. I indeed did not mention the strong reason for their marrying—the mechanical reason. Boswell. Why, that is a strong one, but does not imagination make it much more important than it is in reality? Is it not, to a certain degree, a delusion in us as well as in women? Johnson. Why, yes, sir, but it is a delusion that is always beginning again. Boswell. I don't know, but there is upon the whole more misery than happiness produced by that passion. Johnson. I don't think so, sir. Never speak of a man in his own presence. It is always indelicate and may be offensive. Questioning is not the mode of conversation among gentlemen. It is assuming a superiority, and it is particularly wrong to question a man concerning himself. There may be parts of his former life which he may not wish to be made known to other persons, or even brought to his own recollection. A man should be careful never to tell tales of himself to his own disadvantage. People may be amused and laugh at the time, but they will be remembered and brought out against him upon some subsequent occasion. Much may be done if a man puts his whole mind to a particular object. By doing so, Norton has made himself the great lawyer that he is allowed to be. I mentioned an acquaintance of mine, a secretary, who was a very religious man, who not only attended regularly on public worship with those of his communion, but made a particular study of the scriptures, and even wrote a commentary on some parts of them, yet was known to be very less sensuous in indulging himself with women, maintaining that men are to be saved by faith alone, and that the Christian religion had not prescribed any fixed rule for the intercourse between the sexes. Johnson. Sir, there is no trusting to that crazy piety. He observed that it was strange how well Scotchmen were known to one another in their own country, though being born in very distant counties, for we do not find that the gentlemen of neighboring counties in England are mutually known to each other. Johnson, with his usual acuteness, at once saw and explained the reason of this. Sir, you have Edinburgh, where the gentlemen from all your counties meet, and which is not so large, but they are all known. There is no such common place of collection in England, except London, where from its great size and diffusion many of those who reside in contiguous counties of England may long remain unknown to each other. On Tuesday, March 26th, there came for us an equipage properly suited to a wealthy, well-beneficed clergyman, Dr. Taylor's large roomy post-chase, drawn by four south plump horses, and driven by two steady, jolly postillions, which conveyed us to Ashbourne, when I found my friend's school fellow living upon an establishment perfectly corresponding with his substantial, incredible equipage. His house, garden, pleasure grounds, table, in short, everything good, and no scantiness appearing. Every man should form such a plan of living as he can execute completely. Let him not draw an outline wider than he can fill up. I have seen many skeletons of show and magnificence which excite at once ridicule and pity. Dr. Taylor has a good estate of his own, and good preferment in the church, being a prebandary of Westminster and Rector of Bosworth. He was a diligent justice of the peace, and presided over the town of Ashbourne, to the inhabitants of which I was told he was very liberal. And as a proof of this, it was mentioned to me he had the preceding winter distributed two hundred pounds among such of them as stood in need of his assistance. He had consequently a considerable political interest in the county of Derby, which he employed to support the Devonshire family, for though the school fellow and friend of Johnson he was a wig. I could not perceive, in his character much congeniality, of any sort with that of Johnson, who, however said to me, Sir, he has a very strong understanding. His size, figure, and countenance, and manner, were that of a hearty English squire, with the parson super-induced. And I took particular notice of his upper servant, Mr. Peters, a decent grave man in purple clothes, and a large white wig, like the butler or major domo of a bishop. Dr. Johnson and Dr. Taylor met with great cordiality, and Johnson soon gave him the same set account of their school fellow, Congrave, that he had given to Mr. Hector, adding a remark of such a moment to the rational conduct of a man in the decline of life that it deserves to be imprinted upon every mind. There is nothing against which an old man should be so much upon his guard as putting himself to nurse. Enumerable have been the melancholy instances of men once distinguished for firmness, resolution, and spirit, who in their latter days have been governed like children, by interested female artifice. Dr. Taylor commended a physician, who was known to him and Dr. Johnson, and said, I fight many battles for him, as many people in the country dislike him. Johnson, but you should consider, sir, that by every one of your victories he is a loser, for every man of whom you get the better will be very angry and resolve not to employ him. Whereas, if people get the better of you in argument about him, they'll think, we'll send for Dr. Blank, nevertheless. This was an observation deep and sure in human nature. Next day we talked of a book in which an eminent judge was arraigned before the bar of the public as having pronounced an unjust decision in a great cause. Dr. Johnson maintains that this publication would not give any uneasiness to the judge. Or, said he, either he acted honestly or he meant to do injustice. If he acted honestly, his own consciousness would protect him. If he meant to do injustice, he will be glad to see the man who attacks him so much vexed. Next day, as Dr. Johnson had acquainted Dr. Taylor of the reason for his returning speedily to London, it was resolved that we should set out after dinner. A few of Dr. Taylor's neighbors were his guests that day. Dr. Johnson talked with approbation of one who had attained to the state of the philosophical wise man, that is, to have no want of anything. Then, sir, said I, the savage is a wise man. Sir, said he, I do not mean simply being without, but not having a want. I maintained against this proposition that it was better to have fine clothes, for instance, than not to feel the want of them. Johnson, no, sir, fine clothes are good only as they supply the want of other means of procuring respect. Was Charles XII, thank you, less respected, for his coarse blue coat and black stock? And you find the king of Prussia dresses plain, because the dignity of his character is sufficient. I here brought myself into a scrape, for I heedlessly said, would not you, sir, be the better for velvet and embroidery? Johnson, sir, you put an end to all argument when you introduce your opponent himself. Have you no better manners? There is your want. I apologized by saying I had mentioned him as an instance of one who wanted as little as any man in the world, and yet perhaps might receive some additional luster from dress. End of section 22. End of The Life of Samuel Johnson, volume 2.