bottom and so they call it Palm-mira. Seeing however that the lad thought him serious, and thanked him for the information, he undeceived him very gently indeed; told him the history, geography, and chronology of Tadmor in the wilderness, with every incident that literature could furnish I think, or eloquence express, from the building of Solomon's palace to the voyage of Dawkins and Wood'. On another occasion, when he was musing over the fire in our drawing-room at Streatham, a young gentleman called to him suddenly, and I suppose he thought disrespectfully, in these words: Mr. Johnson, Would you advise me to marry? I would advise no man to marry, Sir (returns for answer in a very angry tone Dr. Johnson), who is not likely to propagate understanding;' and so left the room 2. Our companion looked confounded, and I believe had scarce recovered the consciousness of his own existence, when Johnson came back, and drawing his chair among us, with altered looks and a softened voice, joined in the general chat, insensibly led the conversation to the subject of marriage, where he laid himself out in a dissertation so useful, so elegant, so founded on the true knowledge of human life, and so adorned with beauty of sentiment, that no one ever 'Horace Walpole makes the following use of this anecdote (Letters, ix. 48): In fact the poor man is to be pitied: he was mad, and his disciples did not find it out, but have unveiled all his defects; nay, have exhibited all his brutalities as wit, and his lowest conundrums as humour. Judge! The Piozzi relates that, a young man asking him where Palmyra was, he replied, "In Ireland; it was a bog planted with palmtrees."... What will posterity think of us when it reads what an idol we adored?' For Jamaica Dawkins' and the troop of Turkish horse which he hired to guard him and Wood on their way to Palmyra see Life, iv. 126. 2 The young gentleman was Mr. Thrale's nephew, Sir John Lade, on whom Johnson wrote some lines on his coming of age. lb. iv. 413; Letters, ii. 190. According to Mr. Hayward 'he married a woman of the town, and contrived to waste the whole of a fine fortune before he died.' Hayward's Piozzi, i. 78. In the Sporting Magazine for 1796, p. 162, is the following entry :-' Another of Sir John Lade's estates is under the hammer; the money arising from which has been long appropriated; £200,000 have indiscreetly slipped through this baronet's fingers since he became possessed of his property.' He became of age in 1780. Letters, ii. 191, n. 1. See also post, p. 281. recollected recollected the offence, except to rejoice in its consequences. He repented just as certainly however, if he had been led to praise any person or thing by accident more than he thought it deserved; and was on such occasions comically earnest to destroy the praise or pleasure he had unintentionally given '. 2 Sir Joshua Reynolds mentioned some picture as excellent. 'It has often grieved me, Sir (said Mr. Johnson), to see so much mind as the science of painting requires, laid out upon such perishable materials: why do not you oftener make use of copper? I could wish your superiority in the art you profess, to be preserved in stuff more durable than canvas.' Sir Joshua urged the difficulty of procuring a plate large enough for historical subjects. and was going to raise further objections: 'What foppish obstacles are these! (exclaims on a sudden Dr. Johnson :) Here is Thrale has a thousand tun of copper; you may paint it all round if you will, I suppose; it will serve him to brew in afterwards: Will it not, Sir?' (to my husband who sat by). Indeed Dr. Johnson's utter scorn of painting was such, that I have heard him say, that he should sit very quietly in a room hung round with the works of the greatest masters, and never feel the slightest disposition to turn them if their backs were outermost, unless it might be for the sake of telling Sir Joshua that he had turned them3. Such speeches may 'It may be alleged that ... as a false satire ought to be recanted for the sake of him whose reputation may be injured, false praise ought likewise to be obviated, lest the distinction between vice and virtue should be lost,' &c. Works, viii. 126. See also Life, iv. 82, and ante, p. 185. 2 Johnson defines foppish as— (1) Foolish, idle, vain. (2) Vain in show; foolishly ostentatious; vain of dress. See post, p. 219 for 'foppish lamentations.' 3 He wrote to Miss Reynolds on Oct. 19, 1779:-'You will do me a great favour if you will buy for me the prints of Mr. Burke, Mr. Dyer, and Dr. Goldsmith, as you know good impressions. If any of your own pictures are engraved buy them for me. I am fitting up a little room with prints.' Letters, ii. 107. Among his effects that were sold after his death were 146 portraits, of which 61 were framed and glazed. Life, iv. 441. See also ib. i. 363, n. 3. Horace Walpole wrote on May 6, 1770 (Letters, v. 236):—‘Another rage is for prints of English portraits; I have been collecting them above thirty years, and originally never gave for a mezzotinto above one or two shillings. The lowest are now a crown; most from half a guinea to a guinea.' appear appear offensive to many, but those who knew he was too blind to discern the perfections of an art which applies itself immediately to our eye-sight, must acknowledge he was not in the wrong. He delighted no more in music than painting; he was almost as deaf as he was blind: travelling with Dr. Johnson was for these reasons tiresome enough. Mr. Thrale loved prospects, and was mortified that his friend could not enjoy the sight of those different dispositions of wood and water, hill and valley, that travelling through England and France affords a man. But when he wished to point them out to his companion: 'Never heed such nonsense,' would be the reply: a blade of grass is always a blade of grass, whether in one country or another: let us if we do talk, talk about something; men and women are my subjects of enquiry; let us see how these differ from those we have left behind.' When we were at Rouen together 3, he took a great fancy to the Abbé Roffette, with whom he conversed about the destruction of the order of Jesuits, and condemned it loudly, as a blow to the general power of the church, and likely to be followed with many and dangerous innovations, which might at length become fatal to religion itself, and shake even the foundation of Christianity. The gentleman seemed to wonder and delight in his conversation: the talk was all in Latin, which 'He said of music, 'it excites in my mind no ideas, and hinders me from contemplating my own.' Hawkins's Johnson, p. 319. See also Life, ii. 409. 2 The more a man likes scenery the more he dislikes to have it pointed out to him. Johnson was not wholly insensible to scenery. In his Tour to Wales he describes how 'the way lay through pleasant lanes, and overlooked a region beautifully diversified with trees and grass.' Ib. v. 439. See ib. n. 2 for my note on his insen sibility to nature, and post, p. 323. 4 The order was suppressed in France in 1764, and generally in 1773. Penny Cyclopaedia, ed. 1839, xiii. 113. Gibbon, during the alarm caused by the Reign of Terror, 'argued in favour of the Inquisition at Lisbon, and said he would not, at the present moment, give up even that old establishment.' Gibbon's Misc. Works, i. 328. both 2 both spoke fluently, and Mr. Johnson pronounced a long eulogium upon Milton with so much ardour, eloquence, and ingenuity, that the Abbé rose from his seat and embraced him. My husband seeing them apparently so charmed with the company of each other, politely invited the Abbé to England, intending to oblige his friend; who, instead of thanking, reprimanded him severely before the man, for such a sudden burst of tenderness towards a person he could know nothing at all of; and thus put a sudden finish to all his own and Mr. Thrale's entertainment from the company of the Abbé Roffette. When at Versailles the people shewed us the theatre. As we stood on the stage looking at some machinery for playhouse purposes: Now we are here, what shall we act, Mr. Johnson,— The Englishman at Paris 3? No, no (replied he), we will try to act Harry the Fifth.' His dislike of the French was well known to both nations, I believe; but he applauded the number of their books and the graces of their style. They have few sentiments (said he), but they express them neatly; they have little meat too, but they dress it well. Johnson's own 'While Johnson was in France, he was generally very resolute in speaking Latin. It was a maxim with him that a man should not let himself down, by speaking a language which he speaks imperfectly.' Life, ii. 404. For instances of his colloquial Latin see ib. ii. 125, n. 5, 406. 2 For Johnson's lofty praise of Milton see ib. i. 230. 3 A comedy by Foote. 4 In a note on The Merry Wives of Windsor he says:-'To be a foreigner was always in England, and I suppose everywhere else, a reason of dislike.' Johnson's Shakespeare, ii. 479. But according to Reynolds 'the prejudices he had to countries did not extend to individuals.' Life, iv. 169, n. 1. See also ib. iv. 15. 5 He admitted that the French, though not the highest perhaps in any department of literature, yet in every department were very high.' Ib. ii. 125. He spoke often in praise of French literature. "The French are excellent in this, (he would say,) they have a book on every subject."' Ib. iv. 237. 'There is,' he said, 'perhaps, more knowledge circulated in the French literature than in any other. There is more original knowledge in English.' Ib. v. 310. In Macaulay's Essay on Horace Walpole (Essays, ed. 1843, ii. 107), there is an interesting expansion of the last passage. 6 During his visit to Paris he says: 'Mr. Thrale keeps us a very fine table; but I think our cookery very bad.' Life, ii. 385. 'Their meals are gross.' Ib. p. 389. 'Mr. notions notions about eating however was nothing less than delicate; a leg of pork boiled till it dropped from the bone, a veal-pye with plums and sugar, or the outside cut of a salt buttock of beef, were his favourite dainties' with regard to drink, his liking was for the strongest, as it was not the flavour, but the effect he sought for, and professed to desire2; and when I first knew him, he used to pour capillaire into his Port wine. For the last twelve years however, he left off all fermented liquors 3. To make himself some amends indeed, he took his chocolate liberally, pouring in large quantities of cream, or even melted butter; and was so fond of fruit, that though he usually eat seven or eight large peaches of a morning before breakfast began, and treated them with proportionate attention after dinner again, yet I have heard him protest that he never had quite as much as he wished of wall-fruit, except once in his life, and that was when we were all together at Ombersley, the seat of my Lord Sandys. I was saying to a friend one day, that I did not like Thrale justly observed that the cookery of the French was forced upon them by necessity; for they could not eat their meat unless they added some taste to it.' Life, ii. 403. Arthur Young wrote :—'There is not better beef in the world than at Paris.' Travels in France (1792-4), 1890, p. 306. In 1769 there was a tax of fifty shillings upon every ox sold in Paris. Burke's Works, ed. 1808, ii. 88. I By plums Mrs. Piozzi probably meant raisins. In Johnson's Dictionary the second definition of plum is raisin; grape dried in the sun. In the Art of Cookery, by a Lady, ed. 1748, p. 134, among the ingredients of a veal-pie are included some stoned raisins and currants washed clean, and some sugar.' Opposite the passage in the Life (i. 470) where Johnson says, 'This was a good dinner enough, to be sure; but it was not a dinner to ask a man to,' Mr. Hussey wrote on the margin of 4 Susan Burney, describing her visit to Streatham in 1779, says :-'There sat Mrs. Thrale and Dr. Johnson, the latter finishing his breakfast upon peaches. . . . He insisted upon my eating one of his peaches, and, when I had eat it, took a great deal of pains to persuade me to take another.' Early Diary of F. Burney, ii. 256. 5 Life, v. 455. Johnson, a few months before his death, wrote to Dr. Brocklesby :-'What I consider as a goose |