168 JOHNSON'S OPINION OF TAVERNS. the gayer necessities of Falstaff. However, it is assuredly 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 every body 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, The warmest welcome at an inn."* "Sir John Hawkins," says Boswell in a note on this passage, "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 * Boswell, vol. ii. p. 469. ANECDOTE OF JOHNSON. 6 169 enjoyments to those which a tavern affords, I have heard him assert, 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 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 circumstance 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 every thing 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 assist her in crossing the street, which I accordingly did; upon which she offered me a shilling, 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 passed." * 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." 170 ANECDOTE OF JOHNSON. 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 burthen again." There is another remark on Fleet Street and its superiority to the country, which must not be passed over. Boswell, not having Johnson's reasons for wanting society, was a little overweening 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 Tempè.' Johnson. Ay, sir, but let it be compared with Mull.'" + 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, * Boswell, vol. iv. p. 77, † Id. vol. iii. p. 327. 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 assisted men, with whom he little thought of cooperating, 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 principal 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 House and History of the favourite Earl of Essex. Visit there. Devereux Court. accomplished Scholar. Spenser's Essex Head Twining the Clement's Inn. Falstaff and Shallow. - Norfolk, Arundel, Surrey, and Howard Streets Lillie the Perfumer. Aaron Hill. - Cecil and Salisbury Streets. Pennant on the Word Place or Palace. New Exchange. Pantaleon Sa. - The White Milliner. Garrick and his Wife. - Beauclerc. Society of Arts, and Mr. Barry. - Bedford Street. - George, Villiers, and Buckingham Streets. York House and Buildings. - Squabble between the Spanish and French Ambassadors. -Hungerford Market. Street. - Franklin. - Northumberland House. Duplicity of Henry, Earl of Northampton. Violence of Lord Herbert of Cherbury. - Percy, Bishop of Dromore. — Pleasant Mistake of Goldsmith. N going through Fleet Street and the Strand, we seldom think that the one is named after a rivulet, now running under ground, and the other from its being on the banks of the river Thames. As little do most of us fancy that there was once a line of noblemen's houses on the one side, and that, at the |