BOSWELL.
[1262] Boswell wrote to Temple about six weeks later:--'Murphy says he has read thirty pages of Smith's Wealth, but says he shall read no more; Smith, too, is now of our Club. It has lost its select merit.' Letters of Boswell, p. 233. Johnson can scarcely have read Smith; if he did, it made no impression on him. His ignorance on many points as to what constitutes the wealth of a nation remained as deep as ever.
[1263] Mr. Wedderburne. CROKER.
[1264] A similar bill had been thrown out sixteen years earlier by 194 to 84. 'A Bill for a Militia in Scotland was not successful; nor could the disaffected there obtain this mode of having their arms restored. Pitt had acquiesced; but the young Whigs attacked it with all their force.' Walpole's Reign of George II, iii. 280. Lord Mountstuart's bill was thrown out by 112 to 95, the Ministry being in the minority. The arguments for and against it are stated in the Ann. Reg. xix 140. See post, iii. i. Henry Mackenzie (Life of John Home, i. 26) says:--'The Poker Club was instituted at a time when Scotland was refused a militia, and thought herself affronted by the refusal. The name was chosen from a quaint sort of allusion to the principles it was meant to excite, as a club to stir up the fire and spirit of the country.' See ante, p. 376.
[1265] 'Scotland paid only one fortieth to the land-tax, the very specific tax out of which all the expenses of a militia were to be drawn.' Ann. Reg. xix. 141.
[1266] In a new edition of this book, which was published in the following year, the editor states, that either 'through hurry or inattention some obscene jests had unluckily found a place in the first edition.' See post, April 28, 1778.
[1267] See ante, ii. 338, note 2.
[1268] The number of the asterisks, taken with the term worthy friend, renders it almost certain that Langton was meant. The story might, however, have been told of Reynolds, for he wrote of Johnson:--'Truth, whether in great or little matters, he held sacred. From the violation of truth, he said, in great things your character or your interest was affected; in lesser things, your pleasure is equally destroyed. I remember, on his relating some incident, I added something to his relation which I supposed might likewise have happened: "It would have been a better story," says he, "if it had been so; but it was not."' Taylor's Reynolds, ii. 457. Mrs. Piozzi records (Anec. p. 116):--'"A story," says Johnson, "is a specimen of human manners, and derives its sole value from its truth, When Foote has told me something, I dismiss it from my mind like a passing shadow; when Reynolds tells me something, I consider myself as possessed of an idea the more."'
[1269] Boswell felt this when, more than eight years earlier, he wrote:--'As I have related Paoli's remarkable sayings, I declare upon honour that I have neither added nor diminished; nay, so scrupulous have I been, that I would not make the smallest variation, even when my friends thought it would be an improvement. I know with how much pleasure we read what is perfectly authentick.' Boswell's Corsia, ed. 1879, p. 126. See post, iii. 209.
[1270] In his Life of Browne (Works, vi. 478) he sayd of 'innocent frauds':--'But no fraud is innocent; for the confidence which makes the happiness of society is in some degree diminished by every man whose practice is at variance with his words.' 'Mr. Tyers,' writes Murphy (Life, p. 146), 'observed that Dr. Johnson always talked as if he was talking upon oath.' Compared with Johnson's strictness, Rouseau's laxity is striking. After describing 'ces gens qu'on appelle vrais dans le monde,' he continues;--'L'homme que j'appele vrai fait tout le contraire. En choses parfaitnement indifferentes la verite qu'alors l'autre respecte si fort le touche fort peu, et il ne se fera guere de scrupule d'amuser une compagnie par des faits controuve, dont il ne resulte aucun jugement injuste ni pour ni contre qui que ce soit vivant ou mort.' Les Reveries: IVine Promenade.
[1271] No doubt Mrs. Fermor (ante, p. 392.)
[1272] No. 110.
[1273] No. 52.
[1274] But see ante, ii. 365, and Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 19.
[1275] See ante, ii. 8, and post, April 7, 1778.
[1276] Three weeks later, at his usual fast before Easter, Johnson recorded:--'I felt myself very much disordered by emptiness, and called for tea with peevish and impatient eagerness.' Pr. and Med. p. 147.
[1277] Of the use of spirituous liquors, he wrote (Works, vi. 26):--'The mischiefs arising on every side from this compendious mode of drunkenness are enormous and insupportable, equally to be found among the great and the mean; filling palaces with disquiet and distraction, harder to be borne as it cannot be mentioned, and overwhelming multitudes with incurable diseases and unpitied poverty.' Yet he found an excuse for drunkenness which few men but he could have found. Stockdale (Memoirs, ii. 189) says that he heard Mrs. Williams 'wonder what pleasure men can take in making beasts of themselves. "I wonder, Madam," replied Johnson, "that you have not penetration enough to see the strong inducement to this excess; for he who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man."'
[1278] Very likely Boswell.