J.--"Why, Sir, I am afraid there is none; a general anarchy prevails in my kitchen, as I am told Mr. Levet, who says it is not now what it used to be." Mr. T.--"But how do you get your dinners drest?" Dr. J.--"Why, Desmouline has the chief management, for we have no jack." Mr. T.--"No jack? Why, how do they manage without?" Dr. J.--"Small joints, I believe, they manage with a string, and larger one done at the tavern. I have some thoughts (with a profound gravity) of buying a jack, because I think a jack is some credit to a house." Mr. T.--"Well, but you'll have a spit too?" Dr. J.--"No Sir, no; that would be superfluous; for we shall never use it; if a jack is seen, a spit will be presumed."' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, i. 115.
[628] See ante, i. 418.
[629] See ante, i. 252.
[630] 'By inscribing this slight performance to you, I do not mean so much to compliment you as myself. It may do me some honour to inform the publick, that I have lived many years in intimacy with you. It may serve the interests of mankind also to inform them, that the greatest wit may be found in a character, without impairing the most unaffected piety.' BOSWELL.
[631] See an account of this learned and respectable gentleman, and of his curious work in the Middle State, Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3rd edition. p. 371. [Oct. 25.] BOSWELL. See post, June 9, 1784.
[632] See ante, i. 225, for Boswell's project works, and i. 211.
[633] 'When the efficiency [of men and women] is equal, but the pay unequal, the only explanation that can be given is custom.' J. S. Mill's Political Economy, Book ii. ch. xiv. 5.
[634] The day before he told Boswell this he had recorded:--'My general resolution, to which I humbly implore the help of God, is to methodise my life, to resist sloth. I hope from this time to keep a journal.' Pr. and Med. p. 124. Four times more he recorded the same resolution to keep a journal. See ante, i. 433, and post, Apr. 14,1775.
[635] See post, March 30, 1778, where Johnson says:--'A man loves to review his own mind. That is the use of a diary or journal.'
[636] 'He who has not made the experiment, or who is not accustomed to require rigorous accuracy from himself, will scarcely believe how much a few hours take from certainty of knowledge and distinctness of imagery ... To this dilatory notation must be imputed the false relations of travellers, where there is no imaginable motive to deceive. They trusted to memory what cannot be trusted safely but to the eye, and told by guess what a few hours before they had known with certainty.' Johnson's Works, ix. 144.
[637] Goldsmith, in his dedication to Reynolds of the Deserted Village, refers no doubt to Johnson's opinion of luxury. He writes:--'I know you will object (and indeed several of our best and wisest friends concur in the opinion) that the depopulation it deplores is nowhere to be seen, and the disorders it laments are only to be found in the poet's own imagination.... In regretting the depopulation of the country I inveigh against the increase of our luxuries; and here also I expect the shout of modern politicians against me. For twenty or thirty years past it has been the fashion to consider luxury as one of the greatest national advantages.' See post, April 15, 1778.
[638] Johnson, in his Parl. Debates (Works, x. 418), makes General Handasyd say:--'The whole pay of a foot soldier is sixpence a day, of which he is to pay fourpence to his landlord for his diet, or, what is very nearly the same, to carry fourpence daily to the market ... Twopence a day is all that a soldier had to lay out upon cleanliness and decency, and with which he is likewise to keep his arms in order, and to supply himself with some part of his clothing. If, Sir, after these deductions he can, from twopence a day, procure himself the means of enjoying a few happy moments in the year with his companions over a cup of ale, is not his economy much more to be envied than his luxury?'
[639] The humours of Ballamagairy. BOSWELL.
[640]
'Ah me! when shall I marry me? Lovers are plenty; but fail to relieve me. He, fond youth, that could carry me, Offers to love, but means to deceive me. But I will rally and combat the ruiner: Not a look, nor a smile shall my passion discover; She that gives all to the false one pursuing her, Makes but a penitent and loses a lover.'
Boswell, in a letter published in Goldsmith's Misc. Works, ii. 116, with the song, says:--'The tune is a pretty Irish air, call The Humours of Ballamagairy, to which, he told me, he found it very difficult to adapt words; but he has succeeded very happily in these few lines. As I could sing the tune and was fond of them, he was so good as to give me them. I preserve this little relic in his own handwriting with an affectionate care.'
[641] See ante, i. 408, and post April 7, 1776.
[642] See ante, ii. 74.
[643] See ante, i. 429.
[644] See ante, ii. 169, for Johnson's 'half-a-guinea's worth of inferiority.'
[645] Boswell (ante, i. 256) mentions that he knew Lyttelton.