One is a wit and one a scholar.'
[773] To Johnson might be applied what he himself said of Dryden:--'He appears to have known in its whole extent the dignity of his character, and to have set a very high value on his own powers and performances.' Works, vii. 291.
[774] In the original Yet mark.
[775] In the original Toil.
[776] In his Dictionary he defined patron as 'commonly a wretch who supports with insolence and is paid with flattery.' This definition disappears in the Abridgement, but remains in the fourth edition.
[777] Chesterfield, when he read Johnson's letter to Dodsley, was acting up to the advice that he had given his own son six years earlier (Letters, ii. 172):--'When things of this kind [bons mots] happen to be said of you, the most prudent way is to seem not to suppose that they are meant at you, but to dissemble and conceal whatever degree of anger you may feel inwardly: and, should they be so plain, that you cannot be supposed ignorant of their meaning, so join in the laugh of the company against yourself; acknowledge the hit to be a fair one, and the jest a good one, and play off the whole thing in seeming good humour; but by no means reply in the same way; which only shows that you are hurt, and publishes the victory which you might have concealed.'
[778] See post, March 23, 1783, where Johnson said that 'Lord Chesterfield was dignified, but he was insolent;' and June 27, 1784, where he said that 'his manner was exquisitely elegant.'
[779]
'Whate'er of mongrel no one class admits, A wit with dunces, and a dunce with wits.'
Pope's Dunciad, iv. 90.
'A true choice spirit we admit; With wits a fool, with fools a wit.'
Churchill's Duellist' Book iii.
'The solemn fop, significant and budge; A fool with judges, amongst fools a judge.'
Cowper's Poems, Conversation, 1. 299.
According to Rebecca Warner (Original Letters, p. 204), Johnson telling Joseph Fowke about his refusal to dedicate his Dictionary to Chesterfield, said: 'Sir, I found I must have gilded a rotten post.'
[780] That collection of letters cannot be vindicated from the serious charge of encouraging, in some passages, one of the vices most destructive to the good order and comfort of society, which his Lordship represents as mere fashionable gallantry; and, in others, of inculcating the base practice of dissimulation, and recommending, with disproportionate anxiety, a perpetual attention to external elegance of manners. But it must, at the same time, be allowed, that they contain many good precepts of conduct, and much genuine information upon life and manners, very happily expressed; and that there was considerable merit in paying so much attention to the improvement of one who was dependent upon his Lordship's protection; it has, probably, been exceeded in no instance by the most exemplary parent; and though I can by no means approve of confounding the distinction between lawful and illicit offspring, which is, in effect, insulting the civil establishment of our country, to look no higher; I cannot help thinking it laudable to be kindly attentive to those, of whose existence we have, in any way, been the cause. Mr. Stanhope's character has been unjustly represented as diametrically opposite to what Lord Chesterfield wished him to be. He has been called dull, gross, and awkward; but I knew him at Dresden, when he was Envoy to that court; and though he could not boast of the graces, he was, in truth, a sensible, civil, well-behaved man. BOSWELL. See post, March 28, 1775, under April, 29, 1776, and June 27, 1784.
[781] Chesterfield's Letters, iii. 129.
[782] Now one of his Majesty's principal Secretaries of State. BOSWELL. Afterwards Viscount Melville.
[783] Probably George, second Earl of Macclesfield, who was, in 1752, elected President of the Royal Society. CROKER. Horace Walpole (Letters, ii. 321) mentions him as 'engaged to a party for finding out the longitude.'
[784] In another work (Dr. Johnson: His Friends and his Critics, p. 214), I have shewn that Lord Chesterfield's 'Respectable Hottentot' was not Johnson. From the beginning of 1748 to the end of 1754 Chesterfield had no dealings of any kind with Johnson. At no time had there been the slightest intimacy between the great nobleman and the poor author. Chesterfield had never seen Johnson eat. The letter in which the character is drawn opens with the epigram:
Non amo te, Sabidi, nee possum dicere quare, Hoc tantum possum dicere, non amo te.
Chesterfield goes on to show 'how it is possible not to love anybody, and yet not to know the reason why.... How often,' he says, 'have I, in the course of my life, found myself in this situation with regard to many of my acquaintance whom I have honoured and respected, without being able to love.' He then instances the case of the man whom he describes as a respectable Hottentot. It is clear that he is writing of a man whom he knows well and who has some claim upon his affection. Twice he says that it is impossible to love him. The date of this letter is Feb.