WIT AND WISDOM OF SAMUEL JOHNSON.*

"THE true genius," said Dr. Johnson, "is a mind of large general powers accidentally determined to some particular direction." Whether this can be admitted as universally true is a matter of considerable doubt. Though Michael Angelo and Leonardo could have been, and indeed were, anything they chose, Mozart and Beethoven could hardly have excelled but in music. Still, however disputable is the proposition in general, it is in Johnson's own case unquestionably true. What distinguished the author of the English Dictionary above other men was not essentially his poetry or his prose—The Vanity of Human Wishes or the Lives of the Poets—but the immense force and capacity of his mental powers. These powers were turned to writing, and won for their possessor the highest place in literature. Had they been turned towards the law, as Johnson once pathetically expressed a wish to Boswell that they had been, Johnson's name would probably have eclipsed even that of Mansfield as a lawyer and a Judge. Johnson's mind, in truth, was that of the ordinary sensible, well-balanced man, multiplied six or seven times. Ordinary men have usually in their composition a little of the sense of beauty, a little humour, a little penetration, a little power of thinking clearly and speaking clearly, a little love of truth and justice, and a little of the faculty of criticism. To possess any one of these qualities in a high degree, while the others remain small, is the mark of the man of more than common kind. It was Dr. Johnson's peculiarity to keep the proportions of the ordinary mind, and yet to have all the qualities enormously increased in power. The fact that his mind was thus nothing but the ordinary mind multiplied, gave him that strong common- sense which is the mark of an intelligence in which the various qualities are evenly balanced. The man with the sense of beauty or the sense of humour so abnormally developed as not to be kept in check by the other qualities, is liable to say and to write things which the ordinary person cannot understand. Dr. Johnson never wrote a word which could not be understood by plain, every-day people. At no. time in Dr. Johnson's life were his mental powers active on one subject alone. Possessed always of an appetite for mental food as huge and omnivorous as the hunger which distinguished him at the dinner-table, Johnson at one time or another brought himself into spiritual contact with almost every subject which can interest mankind.

It thus happens that his writings lend themselves with great • Wit and Wisdom of Samuel Johnson. Selected and Arranged by George Birkbeck MU, D.O.L. Oxford Clarendon Press. 1888.

appropriateness to such selection and arrangement as have been attempted by Mr. Birkbeck Hill in his Wit and Wisdom of Samuel ,Tohnson. The work undertaken in the present volume has been extremely well carried out. Some readers may perhaps object to finding that only half the book consists of quotations from Boswell, Mrs. Piozzi, and the other memoirists, and that Basselas, the Lives of the Poets, and the Rambler have been so largely drawn upon. The complaint, however, cannot be seriously maintained, for though the anecdotal quotations are undoubtedly more lively, the selections from the works are full of interest, and are in a certain sense more valuable. Any one can fish out the good stories from Boswell. To hunt for the pearls in the Rambler is beyond most men's time and patience. The plan adopted in the present work has been to place the various selections under subject-headings, alphabeti-

cally arranged. With such a plan we have no desire to quarrel. We wish, however, that a good index had been added. Its omission prevents Mr. Hill's little book from being so useful as it might be for finding favourite pieces of Johnsonian wit or wisdom. Say we want to find the delightful snub delivered to Hannah More. If we could remember that the words were, "Dearest lady, consider with yourself what your flattery is worth before you bestow it so freely," we should, no doubt, at once turn to "Flattery." Not remembering it, however, we have Hannah More as our only clue; and since there is no index., that clue is useless. The introduction with which Mr. Hill prefaces his book is a continuous panegyric of his hero ; but though the

praise is perhaps too high, and though Johnson's faults are occasionally taken for virtues, it cannot certainly be rebuked in the phrase just quoted. The flattery is well worth bestowing. The following example of the clever way in which Mr. Hill has impregnated his own writing with Boswell's sentences may interest our readers

"He was the most humorous of men, incomparable at buffoonery,' fall of fun and comical humour, and love of nonsense.' His laugh was irresistible.' 'He gives you,' says Garrick, a forcible hag, and shakes laughter out of you, whether you will or no.' He spends a whole night in festivity at a tavern, to do honour to an authoress's 'fret literary child.' He orders 'a magnificent hot apple-pie, and has it stuck with bay-leaves.' He invokes the muses by some ceremonies of his own invention, and encircles her brows with a crown of laurel.' At five in the morning 'his face still shines with meridian splendour.' He rallies the company to partake of a second refreshment of coffee,' and it is near eight o'clock before he goes home to bed. He gets up at three on a summer morning to have a frisk' with those young dogs, Beanolerk and Langton, and joins in drinking a bowl of that liquor called Bishop which he had always liked.' With this entire absence of all studied behaviour,' he combines the most inflexible dignity of character.' Perhaps there never was a man more entirely free from what is known in this age as snobbishness.' In the days of his poverty his clothes might be little better than a beggar's, and his chairs might have lost a leg ; but no external circumstances ever prompted him to make an apology, or to seem even sensible of their existence.' He reproaches Mrs. Thrale with her despicable dread of living in the Borough.'"

Before leaving Mr. Hill's introduction, a memorable sentence may be noticed. It is that in which he declares that our acquaintance with Johnson is more like that which we have with the characters of fiction than with an actual man Our acquaintance with him is not as with Dryden, or Pope, or Gibbon ; but as with Falstaff and Don Quixote, with Sir Roger de Coverley and my Uncle Toby." Nothing could be more true than this. It is a rare honour, and one which is shared with Johnson by perhaps only one other character in our literature,— Pepys the Diarist.

Perhaps the most astonishing mental gift possessed by Dr.

Johnson, was that which enabled him to strike with his fall brain-force at a moment's notice. Impromptus have been said to be so effective because they are so carefully prepared. Johnson's impromptus, however, are real impromptus. Great as was his rudeness, it may be excused by his marvellous readi- ness. When he replied to Lady Macleod—who, after having poured him out sixteen cups of tea, had at last inquired "if a small basin would not save him trouble, and be more agreeable "— " It is to save yourself trouble, Madam, not me," we cannot help pardoning the rudeness on account of the astonishing quickness. As an instance of this rapidity of thought, what could be better than his remark after hearing a celebrated musical performer go through a hard composition ? Some one had suggested to Dr. Johnson that the piece was very difficult. "Difficult, Madam ; I would it had been impossible," was the reply. Again, how

delightful was his simple greeting of the young-lady admirer who found her way into Dr. Johnson's study, and there delivered herself of a speech previously prepared,—" Fiddle-de-dee, my

dear "! It was cruel, but it was irresistible,' must, we suppose, be the excuse. Occasionally, of course, Dr. Johnson's rudeness was mere brutal plain-speaking. Such was his comment when Mr. Pot was introduced as a person who had said that he con-

sidered Irene "the finest tragedy of modern times,"—" If Pot says so, Pot lies." Almost as bad was the remark with which he greeted the admiring Mr. Crawford's suggestion—intended

to be specially appreciative because it was Johnson's own view- " Do you know, Dr. Johnson, I like Dr. Donne's original satires better than Pope's,"—" Well, Sir, I can't help that."

With anecdotes as to Dr. Johnson's ideas on the subject of cleanliness, as might be expected, so admiring an editor as Mr.

Hill does not concern himself. He introduces, however, the delightful answer given to Mrs. Thrale when she inquired if he had ever disputed with his wife :—" Perpetually. My wife had a particular reverence for cleanliness, and desired the praise of neatness in her dress and furniture, as many ladies do, till they become troublesome to their best friends, slaves to their own besoms, and only sigh for the hour of sweeping their husbands out of the house, as dirt and useless lumber. A clean floor is so comfortable,' she would say sometimes, by way of twittering." It may be remembered that it is in the same conversation that is recorded his wife's delightful verbal victory over Dr. Johnson. Mrs. Thrale inquired "if he ever huffed his wife about his dinner." " So often," he replied, "that at last she called to me and said,—' Nay, hold, Mr. Johnson, and do not make a farce of thanking God for a dinner which in a few minutes you will protest not eatable.'" We have given some of the instances of Dr. Johnson's wit collected in the present volume. It would be hardly doing justice to the work not to quote as well some of the profound pieces of common-sense selected by Mr. Hill. This is how Johnson dealt with that ever-recurring fallacy, that education may be an evil,—a fallacy so peculiarly perplexing to those whom, for want of a less offensive phrase, we may call "the better vulgar :"—

" Mr. Langton told us he was about to establish a school upon his estate, but it had been suggested to him that it might have a ten- dency to make the people less industrious.' Johnson : 'No, Sir. While learning to read and write is a distinction, the few who have that distinction may be the less inclined to work; but when every- body learns to read and write, it is no longer a distinction. A man who has a laced waistcoat is too fine a man to work ; but if everybody bad laced waistcoats, we should have people working in laced waist- coats. There are no people whatever more industrious, none who work more than our manufacturers ; yet they have all learnt to read and write. Sir, you must not neglect doing a thing immediately good from fear of remote evil,—from fear of its being abused. A man who has candles may sit up too late, which he would not do if he had not candles ; but nobody will deny that the art of making candles, by which light is continued to us beyond the time that the sun gives us light, is a valuable art and ought to be preserved.'"

How apt and how telling are the illustrations given here ! It is impossible not to be convinced by such an arguer.

We cannot leave Dr. Johnson, however, without noticing one more anecdote of the humorous kind,—an anecdote which is enriched, too, with a touch of pathos. It is thus Johnson delivered himself on the subject of dress :—" Sir, were I to have anything fine, it should be very fine. Were I to wear a ring, it should not be a bauble, but a stone of great value.

Were I to wear a laced or embroidered waistcoat, it should be very rich. I had once a very rich laced waistcoat, which I wore the first night of my tragedy." Dr. Johnson's affectionate reference to his "very rich laced waistcoat," and to his tragedy, has always been regarded by the present writer as one of the most charming of all the charming things in Johnsonian lore.