The Life of Samuel Johnson - James Boswell [611]
I mentioned the very liberal payment which had been received for reviewing; and, as evidence of this, that it had been proved in a trial, that Dr. Shebbeare had received six guineas a sheet for that kind of literary labour. Johnson. ‘Sir, he might get six guineas for a particular sheet, but not communibus sheetibus.’1126 Boswell. ‘Pray, Sir, by a sheet of review is it meant that it shall be all of the writer’s own composition, or are extracts, made from the book reviewed, deducted?’ JOHNSON. ‘No, Sir: it is a sheet, no matter of what.’ BOSWELL. ‘I think that it is not reasonable.’ JOHNSON. ‘Yes, Sir, it is. A man will more easily write a sheet all his own, than read an octavo volume to get extracts.’ To one of Johnson’s wonderful fertility of mind I believe writing was really easier than reading and extracting; but with ordinary men the case is very different. A great deal, indeed, will depend upon the care and judgement with which the extracts are made. I can suppose the operation to be tedious and difficult: but in many instances we must observe crude morsels cut out of books as if at random; and when a large extract is made from one place, it surely may be done with very little trouble. One, however, I must acknowledge, might be led, from the practice of reviewers, to suppose that they take a pleasure in original writing; for we often find that, instead of giving an accurate account of what has been done by the authour whose work they are reviewing, which is surely the proper business of a literary journal, they produce some plausible and ingenious conceits of their own, upon the topicks which have been discussed.
Upon being told that old Mr. Sheridan, indignant at the neglect of his oratorical plans,1127 had threatened to go to America; Johnson. ‘I hope he will go to America.’ BOSWELL. ‘The Americans don’t want oratory.’ JOHNSON. ‘But we can want Sheridan.’
On Monday, April 29,1128I found him at home in the forenoon, and Mr. SEWARD with him. Horace having been mentioned; BOSWELL. ‘There is a great deal of thinking in his works. One finds there almost every thing but religion.’ SEWARD. ‘He speaks of his returning to it, in his Ode Parcus Deorum cultor et infrequens.’1129 JOHNSON. ‘Sir, he was not in earnest: this was merely poetical.’ BOSWELL. ‘There are, I am afraid, many people who have no religion at all.’ SEWARD. ‘And sensible people too.’ JOHNSON. ‘Why, Sir, not sensible in that respect. There must be either a natural or a moral stupidity, if one lives in a total neglect of so very important a concern.’ Seward. ‘I wonder that there should be people without religion.’ JOHNSON. ‘Sir, you need not wonder at this, when you consider how large a proportion of almost every man’s life is passed without thinking of it. I myself was for some years totally regardless of religion. It had dropped out of my mind. It was at an early part of my life. Sickness brought it back, and I hope I have never lost it since.’ BOSWELL. ‘My dear Sir, what a man must you have been without religion! Why you must have gone on drinking, and swearing, and – ‘JOHNSON. (with a smile,) ‘I drank enough and swore enough, to be sure.’ SEWARD. ‘One should think that sickness, and the view of death, would make more men religious.’ JOHNSON. ‘Sir, they do not know how to go about it: they have not the first notion. A man who has never had religion before, no more grows religious when he is sick, than a man who has never learnt figures can count when he