Johnson having argued for some time with a pertinacious gentleman;his opponent,who had talked in a very puzzling manner,happened to say,'I don't understand you,Sir:'upon which Johnson observed,'Sir,I have found you an argument;but I am not obliged to find you an understanding.'
Talking to me of Horry Walpole,(as Horace late Earl of Orford was often called,)Johnson allowed that he got together a great many curious little things,and told them in an elegant manner.Mr.
Walpole thought Johnson a more amiable character after reading his Letters to Mrs.Thrale:but never was one of the true admirers of that great man.We may suppose a prejudice conceived,if he ever heard Johnson's account to Sir George Staunton,that when he made the speeches in parliament for the Gentleman's Magazine,'he always took care to put Sir Robert Walpole in the wrong,and to say every thing he could against the electorate of Hanover.'The celebrated Heroick Epistle,in which Johnson is satyrically introduced,has been ascribed both to Mr.Walpole and Mr.Mason.One day at Mr.
Courtenay's,when a gentleman expressed his opinion that there was more energy in that poem than could be expected from Mr.Walpole;Mr.Warton,the late Laureat,observed,'It may have been written by Walpole,and BUCKRAM'D by Mason.'
Sir Joshua Reynolds having said that he took the altitude of a man's taste by his stories and his wit,and of his understanding by the remarks which he repeated;being always sure that he must be a weak man who quotes common things with an emphasis as if they were oracles;Johnson agreed with him;and Sir Joshua having also observed that the real character of a man was found out by his amusements,--Johnson added,'Yes,Sir;no man is a hypocrite in his pleasures.'
I have mentioned Johnson's general aversion to a pun.He once,however,endured one of mine.When we were talking of a numerous company in which he had distinguished himself highly,I said,'Sir,you were a COD surrounded by smelts.Is not this enough for you?
at a time too when you were not FISHING for a compliment?'He laughed at this with a complacent approbation.Old Mr.Sheridan observed,upon my mentioning it to him,'He liked your compliment so well,he was willing to take it with PUN SAUCE.'For my own part,I think no innocent species of wit or pleasantry should be suppressed;and that a good pun may be admitted among the smaller excellencies of lively conversation.
Mr.Burke uniformly shewed Johnson the greatest respect;and when Mr.Townshend,now Lord Sydney,at a period when he was conspicuous in opposition,threw out some reflection in parliament upon the grant of a pension to a man of such political principles as Johnson;Mr.Burke,though then of the same party with Mr.
Townshend,stood warmly forth in defence of his friend,to whom,he justly observed,the pension was granted solely on account of his eminent literary merit.I am well assured,that Mr.Townshend's attack upon Johnson was the occasion of his 'hitching in a rhyme;'
for,that in the original copy of Goldsmith's character of Mr.
Burke,in his Retaliation,another person's name stood in the couplet where Mr.Townshend is now introduced:--'Though fraught with all learning kept straining his throat,To persuade Tommy Townshend to lend him a vote.'
It may be worth remarking,among the minutiae of my collection,that Johnson was once drawn to serve in the militia,the Trained Bands of the City of London,and that Mr.Rackstrow,of the Museum in Fleet-street,was his Colonel.It may be believed he did not serve in person;but the idea,with all its circumstances,is certainly laughable.He upon that occasion provided himself with a musket,and with a sword and belt,which I have seen hanging in his closet.
An authour of most anxious and restless vanity being mentioned,'Sir,(said he,)there is not a young sapling upon Parnassus more severely blown about by every wind of criticism than that poor fellow.'
The difference,he observed,between a well-bred and an ill-bred man is this:'One immediately attracts your liking,the other your aversion.You love the one till you find reason to hate him;you hate the other till you find reason to love him.'
A foppish physician once reminded Johnson of his having been in company with him on a former occasion;'I do not remember it,Sir.'
The physician still insisted;adding that he that day wore so fine a coat that it must have attracted his notice.'Sir,(said Johnson,)had you been dipt in Pactolus I should not have noticed you.'
He seemed to take a pleasure in speaking in his own style;for when he had carelessly missed it,he would repeat the thought translated into it.Talking of the Comedy of The Rehearsal,he said,'It has not wit enough to keep it sweet.'This was easy;he therefore caught himself,and pronounced a more round sentence;'It has not vitality enough to preserve it from putrefaction.'
Though he had no taste for painting,he admired much the manner in which Sir Joshua Reynolds treated of his art,in his Discourses to the Royal Academy.He observed one day of a passage in them,'Ithink I might as well have said this myself:'and once when Mr.
Langton was sitting by him,he read one of them very eagerly,and expressed himself thus:--'Very well,Master Reynolds;very well,indeed.But it will not be understood.'
When I observed to him that Painting was so far inferiour to Poetry,that the story or even emblem which it communicates must be previously known,and mentioned as a natural and laughable instance of this,that a little Miss on seeing a picture of Justice with the scales,had exclaimed to me,'See,there's a woman selling sweetmeats;'he said,'Painting,Sir,can illustrate,but cannot inform.'
