LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
DR. JOHNSON AND NONSENSE. are IRE EDITOR OP THE " SPECTATOR:1 Sin,—May I be allowed to vindicate Dr. Johnson's memory, from the serious charge you bring against him, in the- Spectator of November 10th, of not being able to appreciate- nonsense ? I do not care how he defined " Nonsense " in hie dictionary, though "unmeaning or ungrammatical language"' is not the only definition in my copy; "trifles,—things of na importance" is therein given as a second definition. But however that may be, few men could be more appreciative- than he of the thing itself.
Do you not remember, Sir, his own confession of how he- was fairly overcome by Foote's nonsense ? "Having no good. opinion of the fellow, I was resolved not to be pleased ; and. it is very difficult to please a man against his will. I went on eating my dinner pretty sullenly, affecting not to mind him a but the dog was so very comical that I was obliged to lay down my knife and fork, throw myself back upon my chair,. and fairly laugh it out."
Goldsmith, as you truly say, was one of the best nonsense-- writers in the last century ; but Goldsmith knew very well that he had an appreciative judge of nonsense in the great Doctor. How else would he have ventured his little jokes upon him ? As, for instance, when they were supping together on kidneys, and Johnson had been complaining that it would be difficult to calculate how many of the "pretty little things' it would take to satisfy a man's appetite, Goldsmith asked him if he could guess how many it would take to reach to the moon ?—" No, Sir," growled the Doctor, "nor could you." —" Why, yes, Sir; one, if it were big enough."
Or what about that night-scene outside the Temple Gate, which poor dear bewildered Boswell calls "the most ludicrous exhibition of the awful, melancholy, venerable Johnson," when he "sent forth peal after peal of laughter so loud, that in the silence of the night his voice seemed to resound from Temple- Bar to Fleet Ditch." Johnson had, I believe, been talking the most delightful nonsense about Benet Langton's will, ant1i 'threatening to turn it into ballad-verse; and very delightful nonsense-verse I have no doubt his would have been. But, of 'course, a Scotchman could not understand this sort of pleasantry in the very least ; and we only have a much- muddled account of it from Boswell, with the remark appended —that "this playful manner was certainly not such as might have been expected from the author of the ' Rambler.' " But if I mistake not, Johnson did on one occasion go a step further than threaten to produce nonsense-verses; did actually produce some. I can only recall the fragment :—
"I put my hat upon my head
And went into the Strand, And there I met another man Whose hat was in his hand."
Perhaps that was all that ever came into existence of this mock-ballad. I am not suggesting that Johnson could ever have rivalled Lear in this delightful line of literature ; but
that he would have appreciated Lear's excellence, I am sure.
Trowel Rectory, Nottingham, November 12th.
[Johnson could undoubtedly appreciate comedy, and surely it was comedy in which Foote was so great, not pure nonsense. Nobody could have defined nonsense as Dr. Johnson did, who loved it. The second meaning given is even wider of the mark than the first.—En. Spectator.]
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