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By Root 5023 0

in the evening. Sir Joshua Reynolds, at Mrs. Abington’s request, had promised to bring a body of wits to her benefit; and having secured forty places in the front boxes, had done me the honour to put me in the group. Johnson sat on the seat directly behind me; and as he could neither see nor hear at such a distance from the stage, he was wrapped up in grave abstraction, and seemed quite a cloud, amidst all the sunshine of glitter and gaiety. I wondered at his patience in sitting out a play of five acts, and a farce of two. He said very little; but after the prologue to Bon Ton440 had been spoken, which he could hear pretty well from the more slow and distinct utterance, he talked of prologue-writing, and observed, ‘Dryden has written prologues superiour to any that David Garrick has written; but David Garrick has written more good prologues than Dryden has done. It is wonderful that he has been able to write such a variety of them.’

At Mr. Beauclerk’s, where I supped, was Mr. Garrick, whom I made happy with Johnson’s praise of his prologues; and I suppose, in gratitude to him, he took up one of his favourite topicks, the nationality of the Scotch, which he maintained in his pleasant manner, with the aid of a little poetical fiction. ‘Come, come, don’t deny it: they are really national. Why, now, the Adams are as liberal-minded men as any in the world: but, I don’t know how it is, all their workmen are Scotch. You are, to be sure, wonderfully free from that nationality: but so it happens, that you employ the only Scotch shoe-black in London.’ He imitated the manner of his old master with ludicrous exaggeration; repeating, with pauses and half-whistlings interjected,

‘Os homini sublime dedit, — ccelumque tueri

Jussit, — et erectos ad sidera — tollere vultus;’441

looking downwards all the time, and, while pronouncing the four last words, absolutely touching the ground with a kind of contorted gesticulation.

Garrick, however, when he pleased, could imitate Johnson very exactly; for that great actor, with his distinguished powers of expression which were so universally admired, possessed also an admirable talent of mimickry. He was always jealous that Johnson spoke lightly of him. I recollect his exhibiting him to me one day, as if saying, ‘Davy has some convivial pleasantry about him, but ’tis a futile fellow;’ which he uttered perfectly with the tone and air of JOHNSON.

I cannot too frequently request of my readers, while they peruse my account of Johnson’s conversation, to endeavour to keep in mind his deliberate and strong utterance. His mode of speaking was indeed very impressive;a and I wish it could be preserved as musick is written, according to the very ingenious method of Mr. Steele,b who has shewn how the recitation of Mr. Garrick, and other eminent speakers, might be transmitted to posterity in score.c

Next day I dined with Johnson at Mr. Thrale’s. He attacked Gray, calling him a ‘dull fellow.’ BOSWELL. ‘I understand he was reserved, and might appear dull in company; but surely he was not dull in poetry.’ JOHNSON. ‘Sir, he was dull in company, dull in his closet, dull everywhere. He was dull in a new way, and that made many people think him great. He was a mechanical poet.’ He then repeated some ludicrous lines, which have escaped my memory, and said, ‘Is not that great, like his Odes?’ Mrs. Thrale maintained that his Odes were melodious; upon which he exclaimed,

‘Weave the warp, and weave the woof;’ –

I added, in a solemn tone,

‘The winding-sheet of Edward’s race.’

‘There is a good line.’ ‘Ay, (said he,) and the next line is a good one,’ (pronouncing it contemptuously;)

‘Give ample verge and room enough.’ –442

‘No, Sir, there are but two good stanzas in Gray’s poetry, which are in his Elegy in a Country Church-yard.’ He then repeated the stanza,

‘For who to dumb forgetfulness a prey,’ &c.

mistaking one word; for instead of precincts he said confines. He added, ‘The other stanza I forget.’

A young lady who had married a man443 much her inferiour in rank being mentioned, a question arose how a woman