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By Root 5628 0

him at Mr. Strahan’s. He told us, that he was engaged to go that evening to Mrs. Abington’s benefit. ‘She was visiting some ladies whom I was visiting, and begged that I would come to her benefit. I told her I could not hear: but she insisted so much on my coming, that it would have been brutal to have refused her.’ This was a speech quite characteristical. He loved to bring forward his having been in the gay circles of life; and he was, perhaps, a little vain of the solicitations of this elegant and fashionable actress. He told us, the play was to be The Hypocrite, altered from Cibber’s Nonjuror,436 so as to satirize the Methodists. ‘I do not think (said he,) the character of The Hypocrite justly applicable to the Methodists, but it was very applicable to the Nonjurors. I once said to Dr. Madan, a clergyman of Ireland, who was a great Whig, that perhaps a Nonjuror would have been less criminal in taking the oaths imposed by the ruling power, than refusing them; because refusing them, necessarily laid him under almost an irresistible temptation to be more criminal; for, a man must live, and if he precludes himself from the support furnished by the establishment, will probably be reduced to very wicked shifts to maintain himself.’a BOSWELL. ‘I should think, Sir, that a man who took the oaths contrary to his principles, was a determined wicked man, because he was sure he was committing perjury; whereas a Nonjuror might be insensibly led to do what was wrong, without being so directly conscious of it.’ JOHNSON. ‘Why, Sir, a man who goes to bed to his patron’s wife is pretty sure that he is committing wickedness.’ BOSWELL. ‘Did the nonjuring clergymen do so, Sir?’ JOHNSON. ‘I am afraid many of them did.’

I was startled at his argument, and could by no means think it convincing. Had not his own father complied with the requisition of government, (as to which he once observed to me, when I pressed him upon it, ‘That, Sir, he was to settle with himself,’) he would probably have thought more unfavourably of a Jacobite who took the oaths:

‘—had he not resembled

My father as he swore—.’438

Mr. Strahan talked of launching into the great ocean of London, in order to have a chance for rising into eminence; and, observing that many men were kept back from trying their fortunes there, because they were born to a competency, said, ‘Small certainties are the bane of men of talents;’ which Johnson confirmed. Mr. Strahan put Johnson in mind of a remark which he had made to him; ‘There are few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting money.’ ‘The more one thinks of this, (said Strahan,) the juster it will appear.’

Mr. Strahan had taken a poor boy from the country439 as an apprentice, upon Johnson’s recommendation. Johnson having enquired after him, said, ‘Mr. Strahan, let me have five guineas on account, and I’ll give this boy one. Nay, if a man recommends a boy, and does nothing for him, it is sad work. Call him down.’

I followed him into the court-yard, behind Mr. Strahan’s house; and there I had a proof of what I had heard him profess, that he talked alike to all. ‘Some people (said he), tell you that they let themselves down to the capacity of their hearers. I never do that. I speak uniformly, in as intelligible a manner as I can.’

‘Well, my boy, how do you go on?’ – ‘Pretty well, Sir; but they are afraid I an’t strong enough for some parts of the business.’ JOHNSON. ‘Why, I shall be sorry for it; for when you consider with how little mental power and corporeal labour a printer can get a guinea a week, it is a very desirable occupation for you. Do you hear, – take all the pains you can; and if this does not do, we must think of some other way of life for you. There’s a guinea.’

Here was one of the many, many instances of his active benevolence. At the same time, the slow and sonorous solemnity with which, while he bent himself down, he addressed a little thick short-legged boy, contrasted with the boy’s aukwardness and awe, could not but excite some ludicrous emotions.

I met him at Drury-lane play-house