66 1763. This was modest in Johnson, but there was more truth than he perhaps intended in it. In general, Burke's views Et. 35. were certainly the subtler and more able. He penetrated deeper into the principles of things, below common life and what is called good sense, than Johnson could. "Is he like "Burke," asked Goldsmith, when Boswell seemed to exalt Johnson's talk too highly, "who winds into a subject like a serpent?" On the other hand, there was a strength and clearness in Johnson's conversational expression which was all his own, and which originated Percy's likening of it, as contrasted with ordinary conversation, to an antique statue with every vein and muscle distinct and bold, by the side of an inferior cast. t He had also wit, often an incomparable humour, and a hundred other interesting qualities, which Burke had not; while his rough dictatorial manner, his loud voice, and slow deliberate utterance, so much oftener suggested an objection than gave help to what he said, that one may doubt the truth of Lord Pembroke's pleasantry to Boswell, that "his sayings would not appear so extraordinary, were it not for his bow-wow way." Of the ordinary listener, at any rate, the bow-wow way exacted something too much; and was quite as likely to stun as to strike him. "He's a tremendous companion," said poor George Garrick, when urged to confess of him what he really thought. He brought, into common talk, too plain an anticipation of victory and triumph. He wore his determination not to be thrown or beaten, whatever side he might please to take, somewhat defiantly upon his sleeve; and startled peaceful society a little too much with his uncle Andrew's habits in the ring at Smithfield. It was a sense, on his own 66 * Boswell, iii. 304. Ibid, vii. 169. Ibid, iv. 8. § Murphy's Essay, 77. Sir James Macintosh remembered that while Mrs. Piozzi's Anecdotes, 5-6. 1763. Et. 35. 66 part, of this eagerness to make every subject a battle-ground, which made him say, at a moment of illness and exhaustion, that if he were to see Burke then, it would kill him.* From the first day of their meeting, now some years ago, at Garrick's dinner-table, his desire had been to measure himself, on all occasions, with Burke. "I suppose, Murphy," he said to Arthur, as they came away from the dinner, "you are proud of your countryman. Cum talis sit, utinam "noster esset." The club was an opportunity for both, and promptly seized; to the occasional overshadowing, no doubt, of the comforts and opportunities of other members. Yet for the most part their wit-combats seem not only to have interested the rest, but to have improved the temper of the combatants, and made them more generous to each other. "How very great Johnson has been to-night," said Burke to Langton, as they left the club together. Langton assented, but could have wished to hear more from another person. 66 Oh, no!" replied Burke, "it is enough for me to have rung "the bell to him." spending the Christmas of 1793 at Beaconsfield, Burke said to him that Johnson showed more powers of mind in company than in his writings; but he argued only for victory; and when he had neither a paradox to defend, nor an antagonist to crush, he would preface his assent with "Why no, sir!" Croker, 768. Boswell mentions the same peculiarity, and tells us that he used to consider the Why no, sir! as a kind of flag of defiance; as if he had said, "Any argument you may offer against this is not just. No, sir, it is not." It was like Falstaff's "I deny your major." viii. 318. "That fellow calls forth all my powers. Were I to see Burke now, it would "kill me. So much was he accustomed to consider conversation as a contest, and "such was his notion of Burke as an opponent." Boswell, vi. 80. On the other hand with what complacency, in his better health, he writes to Mrs. Thrale (Letters, ii. 127.) "But [Mrs. Montagu] and you have had, with all your adulation, "nothing finer said of you than was said last Saturday night of Burke and me. "We were at the Bishop of [St. Asaph's], a bishop little better than your bishop "[Hinchliffe]; and towards twelve we fell into talk, to which the ladies listened, "just as they do to you; and said, as I heard, There is no rising unless 66 somebody will cry Fire!" + Murphy's Essay, 53. Langton's collectanea, in Boswell, vii. 374. It must surely have been only for the purpose of ringing the bell to him, that he took the particular part in the 1763. Bennet Langton was, in his own person, an eminent example of the high and humane class who are content to Et. 35. ring the bell to their friends. Admiration of the Rambler made him seek admittance to its author, when he was himself, some eight years back, but a lad of eighteen; and his ingenuous manners and mild enthusiasm at once won Johnson's argument described to Boswell. "My excellent friend, Dr. Langton, told me, he was once present at a dispute between Dr. Johnson and Mr. Burke, on the "comparative merits of Homer and Virgil, which was carried on with extraordinary "abilities on both sides. Dr. Johnson maintained the superiority of Homer." Life, iv. 78. Another argument one would like to have heard on those frequent occasions when Johnson would quote Dryden's lines (of which he was so fond) about living past years again, and for his part protest that he never lived that week in his life which he would wish to repeat were an angel to make the proposal to him (Boswell, iii. 139); to which Burke would reply (Boswell does not represent it as addressed to Johnson, but it obviously must have been), that for his part he believed that every man "would lead his life over again; for every man is willing "to go on and take an addition to his life, which, as he grows older, he has no "reason to think will be better, or even so good as what has preceded." viii. 304. A subtle remark, which Johnson might nevertheless have met by simply again repeating the masterly lines of the old poet, which hit the truth so finely in marking as an inconsistency, a self-cozenage, what the argument of Burke would bring within the control of consistency and reason. "Strange cozenage!" cries the poet, "When I consider life, 'tis all a cheat, "Yet, fool'd with hope, men favour the deceit ; .... Strange cozenage! none would live past years again, "What the first sprightly running could not give. "I'm tired with waiting for this chemic gold, "Which fools us young, and beggars us when old.” To which, let me add, if Burke wished to make poetical rejoinder, he had but to quote the lines of Nourmahal from the same tragedy (Aurung-Zebe), "'Tis not for nothing that we life pursue, "It pays our hopes with something still that's new!" Scott's Dryden, v. 241. It is extraordinary how little of Burke's conversation Boswell has attempted to report. It is chiefly confined to his puns, one or two specimens of which I shall give hereafter. Meanwhile I close this note with what I have always regarded as the happiest specimen of that faculty of sudden and familiar illustration which Burke eminently possessed, and which must have given such a power as well as charm to his conversation. Boswell happened to remark to him that he thought Croft's Life 1763. love. That he represented a great Lincolnshire family, still Et. 35. living at their ancient seat of Langton, had not abridged his merits in the philosopher's regard;* and when he went up to Trinity-college Oxford, Johnson took occasion to visit him there; and there made the acquaintance of his college chum, and junior by two years, Topham Beauclerc, grandson of the first Duke of St. Albans. These two young men had several qualities in common,-ready intellect, perfect manners, great love of literature, and a thorough admiration of Johnson; but, with these, such striking points of difference, that Johnson could not comprehend their intimacy when first he saw them together. It was not till he discovered what a scorn of fools Beauclerc blended with his love of folly, what virtues of the mind he set off against his vices of the body, and with how much gaiety and wit he carried off his licentiousness, that he became as fond of the laughing rake as of his quiet contemplative companion. "I "shall have my old friend to bail out of the round house," exclaimed Garrick, when he heard of it; and of an incident in connexion with it, that occurred in the next Oxford vacation. His old friend had turned out of his chambers, at three o'clock in the morning, to have a "frisk" with the young "dogs;" had gone to a tavern in Covent Garden, and roared of Young a pretty successful imitation of Johnson's style, when Burke instantly opposed this vehemently, exclaiming, "No, no, it is not a good imitation of 'Johnson; it has all his pomp without his force; it has all the nodosities of "the oak without its strength." This was an image so happy, says Boswell, that one might have thought he would have been satisfied with it; but he was not. Setting his mind again to work, he added with exquisite felicity, "It has "all the contortions of the sibyl, without the inspiration." viii. 29. * "I have heard him say, with pleasure, Langton, sir, has a grant of free666 warren from Henry II.; and Cardinal Stephen Langton, in King John's reign, "was of this family.'" Boswell, i. 295. + Ibid, i. 295-298. One night when Beauclerk and Langton had supped at a tavern in London, and sat till about three in the morning, it came into their heads to go and knock 1763. out Lord Lansdowne's drinking song over a bowl of bishop; had taken a boat with them and rowed to Billingsgate; and Et. 35. (according to Boswell) had resolved, with Beauclerc, "to "persevere in dissipation for the rest of the day," when Langton pleaded an engagement to breakfast with some young ladies, and was scolded by Johnson for leaving social friends to go and sit with a set of wretched un-idea'd girls. "And as for Garrick, sir," said the sage, when his fright was reported to him, "he durst not do such a thing. His wife "would not let him!"* It was on hearing of similar proposed extravagances, soon after, that Beauclerc's mother angrily rebuked Johnson himself, and told him an old man should not put such things in young people's heads; but the frisking philosopher had as little respect for Lady Sydney's anger as for Garrick's decorous alarm. She had no notion of a joke, sir," he said; "had come late into life, and had a mighty unpliable understanding!" + 66 66 The taste for un-idea'd girls was not laughed out of Langton, nevertheless; and to none did his gentle domesticities become dearer than to Johnson. He left Oxford with a firstrate knowledge of Greek, and, what is of rarer growth at Oxford, with untiring and all-embracing tolerance. His manners endeared him to men from whom he differed most; he listened even better than he talked; and there is no figure at this memorable club more pleasing, none that takes kinder up Johnson, and see if they could prevail on him to join them in a ramble. They * Boswell, i. 299. |