[1089] On Dr. Boswell's death, in 1780, Boswell wrote of him:--'He was a very good scholar, knew a great many things, had an elegant taste, and was very affectionate; but he had no conduct. His money was all gone. And do you know he was not confined to one woman. He had a strange kind of religion; but I flatter myself he will be ere long, if he is not already, in Heaven.' Letters of Boswell, p. 258.
[1090] Johnson had written the Life of 'the great Boerhaave,' as he called him. Works, vi. 292.
[1091] 'At Edinburgh,' he wrote, 'I passed some days with men of learning, whose names want no advancement from my commemoration, or with women of elegance, which, perhaps, disclaims a pedant's praise.' Johnson's Works, ix. 159.
[1092] See ante, iv. 178.
[1093] 'My acquaintance,' wrote Richardson (Corres. iv. 317), 'lies chiefly among the ladies; I care not who knows it.' Mrs. Piozzi, in a marginal note on her own copy of the Piozzi Letters, says:--'Dr. Johnson said, that if Mr. Richardson had lived till I came out, my praises would have added two or three years to his life. "For," says Dr. Johnson, "that fellow died merely from want of change among his flatterers: he perished for want of more, like a man obliged to breathe the same air till it is exhausted."' Hayward's Piozzi, i. 311. In her Journey, i. 265, she says:--'Richardson had seen little, and Johnson has often told me that he had read little.' See ante, iv. 28.
[1094] He may live like a gentleman, but he must not 'call himself Farmer, and go about with a little round hat.' Ante, p. 111.
[1095] Boswell italicises this word, I think, because Johnson objected to the misuse of it. '"Sir," said Mr. Edwards, "I remember you would not let us say prodigious at college."' Ante, iii. 303.
[1096] As I have been scrupulously exact in relating anecdotes concerning other persons, I shall not withhold any part of this story, however ludicrous.--I was so successful in this boyish frolick, that the universal cry of the galleries was, 'Encore the cow! Encore the cow!' In the pride of my heart, I attempted imitations of some other animals, but with very inferior effect. My reverend friend, anxious for my fame, with an air of the utmost gravity and earnestness, addressed me thus: 'My dear sir, I would confine myself to the cow.' BOSWELL. Blair's advice was expressed more emphatically, and with a peculiar burr--'Stick to the cow, mon.' WALTER SCOTT. Boswell's record, which moreover is far more humorous, is much more trustworthy than Scott's tradition.
[1097] Mme. de Sevigne in describing a death wrote:--'Cela nous fit voir qu'on joue long-temps la comedie, et qu'a la mort on dit la verite.' Letter of June 24, 1672. Addison says:--'The end of a man's life is often compared to the winding up of a well-written play, where the principal persons still act in character, whatever the fate is which they undergo.... That innocent mirth which had been so conspicuous in Sir Thomas More's life did not forsake him to the last. His death was of a piece with his life. There was nothing in it new, forced, or affected.' The Spectator, No. 349. Young also thought, or at least, wrote differently.
'A death-bed's a detector of the heart. Here tired dissimulation drops her mask.'
Night Thoughts, ii.
'"Mirabeau dramatized his death" was the happy expression of the Bishop of Autun (Talleyrand).' Dumont's Mirabeau, p. 251. See ante, iii. 154.
[1098] See ante, i. 408, 447; and ii. 219, 329.
[1099] Dr. A. Carlyle (Auto. p. 291) says of Blair's conversation that 'it was so infantine that many people thought it impossible, at first sight, that he could be a man of sense or genius. He was as eager about a new paper to his wife's drawing-room, or his own new wig, as about a new tragedy or a new epic poem.' He adds, that he was 'capable of the most profound conversation, when circumstances led to it. He had not the least desire to shine, but was delighted beyond measure to shew other people in their best guise to his friends. "Did not I shew you the lion well to-day?" used he to say after the exhibition of a remarkable stranger.' He had no wit, and for humour hardly a relish. Robertson's reputation for wisdom may have been easily won. Dr. A. Carlyle says (ib. p. 287):--'Robertson's translations and paraphrases on other people's thoughts were so beautiful and so harmless that I never saw anybody lay claim to their own.' He may have flattered Johnson by dexterously echoing his sentiments.
[1100] In the Marmor Norfolciense (ante, i. 141) Johnson says:--'I know that the knowledge of the alphabet is so disreputable among these gentlemen [of the army], that those who have by ill-fortune formerly been taught it have partly forgot it by disuse, and partly concealed it from the world, to avoid the railleries and insults to which their education might make them liable.' Johnson's Works, vi. III. See ante, iii. 265.
[1101] 'One of the young ladies had her slate before her, on which I wrote a question consisting of three figures to be multiplied by two figures.