rejoiced to see; and no wonder, for I have often heard him speak of Sir John in terms expressive of great esteem and much cordiality of friendship. On his asking Dr. Johnson when he had seen Dr. Hawkesworth, he roared out with great vehemency, 'Hawkesworth is grown a coxcomb, and I have done with him".'

We drank tea that afternoon at Sir John Hawkins's, and on our return I was surprised to hear Dr. Johnson's minute criticism on Lady Hawkins's dress, with every part of which almost he found fault 3.

Few people, I have heard him say, understood the art of carving better than himself; but that it would be highly indecorous in him to attempt it in company, being so near-sighted, that it required a suspension of his breath during the operation *. It must be owned, indeed, that it was to be regretted that he did not practise a little of that delicacy in eating, for he appeared to want breath more at that time than usual. It is certain that he did not appear to the best advantage at the hour of repast 5; but of this he was perfectly unconscious, owing probably to his being totally ignorant of the characteristic expressions of the human countenance, and therefore he could have no conception that his own expressed when most pleased any thing displeasing to others; for though, when particularly directing his attention towards any object to spy out defects or perfections, he generally succeeded better than most men'; partly, perhaps, from a desire to excite admiration of his perspicacity, of which he was not a little ambitious-yet I have heard him say, and I have often

1 Ante, ii. 81. Hawkins lived at Twickenham.

2 Malone says that 'Johnson was fond of him, but latterly owned that Hawkesworth-who had set out a modest, humble man-was one of the many whom success in the world had spoiled. He was latterly, as Sir Joshua Reynolds told me, an affected insincere man, and a great coxcomb in his dress. He had no literature whatever.' Prior's Malone, P. 441.

F. Greville, writing to Hume on

Sept. 24, 1764, quotes the opinion of 'my poor little inoffensive friend Hawkesworth.' Hume MSS., Royal Society of Edinburgh. For what Boswell calls his 'provoking effrontery,' see Life, i. 253.

3 Ante, i. 337. 4 According to Baretti Miss Williams, though blind, often carved. Life, ii. 99, n. 2. Boswell, who dined with Johnson more than once, does not mention who carved. 5 Ante, ii. 105. Life, i. 41.

7

6 Ante, i. 457.

perceived

perceived, that he could not distinguish any man's face half a yard distant from him, not even his most intimate acquaintance.

And yet Dr. Johnson's character, singular as it certainly was from the contrast of his mental endowments with the roughness of his manners, was, I believe, perfectly natural and consistent throughout; and to those who were intimately acquainted with him must, I imagine, have appeared so. For being totally devoid of all deceit, free from every tinge of affectation or ostentation 1, and unwarped by any vice, his singularities, those strong lights and shades that so peculiarly distinguish his character, may the more easily be traced to their primary and natural causes.

The luminous parts of his character, his soft affections, and I should suppose his strong intellectual powers, at least the dignified charm or radiancy of them, must be allowed to owe their origin to his strict, his rigid principles of religion and virtue; and the shadowy parts of his character, his rough, unaccommodating manners, were in general to be ascribed to those corporeal defects that I have already observed naturally tended to darken his perceptions of what may be called propriety and impropriety in general conversation; and of course in the ceremonious or artificial sphere of society gave his deportment so contrasting an aspect to the apparent softness and general uniformity of cultivated manners.

And perhaps the joint influence of these two primeval causes, his intellectual excellence and his corporeal defects, mutually contributed to give his manners a greater degree of harshness than they would have had if only under the influence of one of them; the imperfect perceptions of the one not unfrequently producing misconceptions in the other.

Besides these, many other equally natural causes concurred to constitute the singularity of Dr. Johnson's character. Doubtless,

the progress of his education had a double tendency to brighten and to obscure it. But I must observe, that this obscurity (implying only his awkward uncouth appearance, his ignorance of the rules of politeness, &c.) would have gradually disappeared at a more advanced period, at least could have had no manner of influence to the prejudice of Dr. Johnson's character, had it not been associated with those corporeal defects above mentioned. But, unhappily, his untaught, uncivilized manner seemed to render every little indecorum or impropriety that he committed doubly indecorous and improper.

ANECDOTES

BY WILLIAM SEWARD, F.R.S

OF music Dr. Johnson used to say that it was the only sensual pleasure without vice. European Magazine, 1795, p. 82.

Dr. Johnson was extremely averse to the present foppish mode of educating children, so as to make them what foolish mothers call 'elegant young men.' He said to some lady who asked him what she should teach her son in early life, 'Madam, to read, to write, to count; grammar, writing, and arithmetic; three things which, if not taught in very early life, are seldom or ever taught to any purpose, and without the knowledge of which no superstructure of learning or of knowledge can be built 3. Ib. p. 186.

The Doctor used to say that he once knew a man of so vagabond a disposition, that he even wished, for the sake of change of place, to go to the West Indies. He set off on this expedition, and the Doctor saw him in town four months

These anecdotes are collected from the European Magazine, Seward's Anecdotes of Distinguished Persons, and his Biographiana.

Boswell owns his obligation to him 'for several communications.' Life, iii. 123. For an account of him, see ib. n. I ; and Letters, i. 346, n. I. Johnson here uses sensual in the sense that he gives it in his first and

2

second definitions, as 'affecting the senses' or 'pleasing to the senses,' and not in the more limited sense which it now bears. For his feelings towards music, see ante, ii. 103.

3 'I hate by-roads in education. Education is as well known, and has long been as well known as ever it can be.' Life, ii. 407.

For arithmetic, see ante, i. 281, 295. afterwards

afterwards. Upon asking him, why he had not put his plan in execution, he replied, 'I have been returned these ten days from the West Indies. The sight of slavery was so horrid to me, that I could only stay two days in one of the islands'.' This man, who had been once a man of literature, and a private tutor to some young men of consequence, became so extremely torpid and careless in point of further information, that the Doctor, when he called upon him one day, and asked him to lend him a book, was told by him, that he had not one in the house.

Dr. Johnson, on learning the death of a celebrated West India Planter2, said, 'He is gone, I believe, to a climate in which he will not find the country much warmer and the men much blacker than that he has left.' Ib. p. 186.

Johnson was much pleased with a French expression made use of by a lady towards a person whose head was confused with a multitude of knowledge, at which he had not arrived in a regular and principled way,-Il a bâti sans échafaud,— 'he has built without his scaffold.'

He was once told that a friend of his, who had long lived in London, was about to quit it, to retire into the country, as being tired of London. 'Say rather, Sir,' said Johnson, 'that he is tired of life". European Magazine, 1797, p. 418.

Dr. Johnson said that he should be much pleased to write the Life of that man [Bacon], from whose writings alone a Dictionary of the English Language might be compiled *.