The Sun.
London, England, 1826-10-09 00:00:00

.

MONDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 9, 18'26.

LITERATURE.

BOSWELL REDIVIVUS.
(From the New Monthly Magazine for October.)
I inquired if he remembered much of Johnson, Burke, and
that set? He said, " Yes, s good deal, as he had often seen them.
Burke came into Sir Joshua's painting room one day, when
who was then a young man, was sitting for one of the children in
Count IJgolino. (It is the one iu profile with the hand to the
face.) He was introduced as a pupil of Sir Joshua's, and on his
looking up, Mr. Burke said, Then I see that Mr. N— is not
only an artist, but has a head that would do for Titian to paint.'
—Goldsmith and Burke had often violent disputes about politics ;
the one being a staunch Tory, and the other at that time a Whig
and outrageous anti-courtier. One day he came into the room,
when Goldsmith was there, full of ire and abuse against
the late king, and went on in such a torrent of the most unquali-
fied invective that Goldsmith threatened to leave the room. The
other, however, persisted, and Goldsmith went out, unable to
bear it any longer. So much for Mr. Burke's pretended consistency
and uniform loyalty ! When N first came to Sir Joshua, he
wished very much to see Goldsmith ;'"and one sky Sir Joshua, on
introducing him, asked why he had been so anxious to see him ?
Because, said N--, 'heis a notable • man.' This expres-
sion notable, in its ordinary sense, was so contrary to Goldsmith's
character, that they both burst out a-laughing very heartily.
Goldsmith was two thousand pounds in debt at the time of his
death, which was hastened by his chagrin and distressed circum-
stances ; and when She stoops to Conquer' was performed, he
was choked all dinner-time that he could not swallow a mouth-
ful. A party went from Sir Joshua's to support it. Tice
present title was not fixed upon till that morning. N went
with Ralph, Sir Joshua's man, into the gallery, to see how
it went off ; and after the second act, there was no doubt of
its success." N.-- says, people had a great idea of the li-
terary parties at Sir Joshua's. He once asked Lord Boring-
don to dine with Sir Joshua and the rest ; but though a men of
rank and also of good information, he seemed as much alarmed
at the idea as if you had tried to force him into one of the cages
at Exeter-'Change. N-- remarked that he thought ,peolde
of talents had their full share of admiration. He bad seen young
ladie;s of quality, Lady Mary's and Lady Dorothy's, peeping into a
room where Mrs. Siddons was sitting, with all the same timidity
and curiosity as if it were some preternatural being—l am sure
more than if it had been the queen. Ile then made some obser-
vations on the respect paid to rank, and said, " However ridicu-
lous it might seem, it was no more than the natural expression of
the highest respect in other cases. For instance, as to that,of
bowing out of the ,King's presence backwards, would you not do
the stone if you were introduced to Dr. Johnson for the first time?
You would contrive not to turn your back upon him, till you were
out of the room." He said, " You violent politicians make more
route about royalty than it is worth: it is only the highest place,
and somebody must fill it, no matter who : neither do the persons
themselves think so much of it as you do. They are glad to get
into privet.), as much as they can. Nor is it a sinecure. The late
King (I have-been told) used often to have to sign 'his name to
papers, and do nothing else for three hours together, till his fingers
fairly ached, and then he would take a walk in the garden, and
come in to repeat Alm some drudgery for three hours more. So,
when they told Louis XY. that if he went on with his extrava-
gance he would bring about a revolution, and be sent over to Eng-
lane
with a pension, he merely asked, Do you think the pension
would be a pretty good one?" He noticed the Memoir, of Car-
dinal de Retz, and praised them fur their extreme vivacity and
great insight into human nature. Once when the mob
had besieged the palace, and the Cardinal was obliged to
go and appease them, a brick-bat was flung at him and knocked
him down, and one of the assailants presenting a bayonet at
his throat, he suddenly called out, " Oh, you wretch ! if your
father could have seen you in this barbarous action, what would
he have said ?" The man immediately withdrew, though, says the
Cardinal, " I knew no more of his father than the babe unborn."
then adverted to the talent of players for drollery and sud-
den shifts and expedients, and said tiles by living in an element
of comic invention, they imbibed a pm-lion of it. He repeated
that jest of Reynolds, who filled up the blanks in is militia !wiper
that was sent him with the description, Old, lame, and a
coward ;" and another story told of Matthews, the comedian, who
being left in a room with an old gentleman and a little child, and
the former putting the question to it, " Well, my dear, which do
you like best, the dog or the cat ?" by exercising his powers of
ventriloquism, 'mule the child !Seem to answer, " I don't ear* a
damn for either,"-,-to the utter confusion of the old gentlentet,
who immediately took the father to task for bringing ulif Ills
son in such profaneness and total want of common humanity.
Ile then returned to the question of the inconsistent and un-
reasonable expectations of mankind as to their success in diffe-
rent pursuits, and answered the common complaint, " What
a shame it was that Milton only got thirteen pounds nine dia-
ling' and sixpence by Paradise Lost," He mid, " Not at all ;
he did not write it to get money, he had gained what he proposed
by writing it, not thirteen pounds nine shillings and sixpence, but
an immortal reputation. When Dr. Johnson was asked why he
was not invited out to dine as Garrick was, he answered as if it was
a triumph to him, Because great lords and ladies don't like to have
their mouths stopped !' But who does like to have their mouths
stopped ? Did he, more thin others ? People like to he amused
in general ; but they did not give him the leas credit for wisdom,
and a capacity to instruct them by his writings. In like manner,
it has been said, that the King only sought one interview with Dr.
Johnson ; whereas, if be had been a buffoon or a sycophant, he
would have asked for more. No, there was nothing to complain
of : it was a compliment paid by rank to letters, and once was
enough. The King was more afraid of this interview than Dr.
Johnson was ; and went to it as a schoolboy to his task. But he
did not want to have this trial repeated every day, nor was it ne-
cessary. The very jealousy of his self-love marked his respect :
and if he had thought less of Dr. Johnson, he would have been
more willing to risk the encounter. They had each their place to
fill, and would best preserve their self-respect, and perhaps their
respect for each other, by rernaieing in dick proper sphere. So
they make an outcry about the Prince leaving Sheridan to die in
absolute want. He had left him long before : was he to send
every day to know if he was dying? These things cannot he
helped, without exacting too much of human nature." I agreed
to this view of the subject, and said,—" I did not see why literary
people should repine if they met with their desert. in their own
way, without expecting to get rich ; but that they often got nothing
for their pains but unmerited abuse and party ohloquy."—" Oh, it
is not party spite," said he, " but the envyof human nature.--
Do you think to distinguish yourself with impunity? Do you
imagine that your superiority will be delightful to others? Or
that they will not strive all they can, and to the last moment, to
pull you down? I remember myself once saying to Opie, how
hard it vas upon a poor author or player to be hunted down for
not succeeding in an innocent and laudable attempt, just as if
they had committed some heinous crime ! And he said,---' They
have committed the greatest crime in the eyes of mankird, that
of pretending to a superiority over them I' Do you think that
party abuse, and the running down particular authors, is any
thing new ? Look at the manner in which Pope and Dryden
were assailed by a set of reptiles. Do you believe the John Bull
and Blackwood had not their prototypes in theparty.poblications
of that day? Depend upon it, what you take for political cabal
and hostility is (nine parts in ten) private pique and malice nos-
ing threntik those authorized channels."
We now got into a dispute about nicknames ; and H.--me
coining in
and
sitting down at my elbow, my old pugnacious
habit seemed to return upon ins. contended, that they
filadvoargcu'ealecowannsadYissgotaileraP7l7,tEei:ar:.vmhaniyvlii,,nlgeaiingadb;;4lL,nutllysanijontddr—ein:mh'uTyt I;aettihhree7mghiosovleet
ins the name of Fat Jack,' but becatua I Was lean ?" Ile pre
an instance which I thought made against himself, of a man at
Plymouth, a baker by profession, who hid got the name of Tid-
drlol/—lie could not tell how. "Then,"
ensiamderswLthor
"itanysaid, "it was a
alsrennosset drove him mad. Taltihmeethohawyittsh"cathlieled:aafeftel: him in the street, besieged his shop-windows ; even the soldiers
took it up, An marched to parade, heating
and repeating," Tiddydoll, Tiddydall) as they palsied by his
door. He flew out upon them at the sound, with inextin-
juishable fury, and was knocked down and rolled in
t
and got up in an agony of rage and shame, his white e
vexed all over with mud. A gentleman, a physician in the' neigh-
bourhood, one day' called him in and remonstrated with him on
tateenn extl,
re
• That is, a remarkable cast,

PRICE ID.

the subject. He advised him to take no notice of his persecutors.
What,' he said, does it signify? Suppose they were to call
me Tiddydoll said the man, you called me so your-
self; you only sent for me in to insult me !' and, after heaping
every epithet of abuse upon him, flew out of the house in the most
ungovernable passion." I told N-. this was just the thing I
meant. Even if a name had confessedly no meaning, by applying
it constantly, and by way of excellence to another, it seemed as if
he must be an abstraction of insignificance: whereas, if it pointed
to any positive defect, or specific charge, it was at least limited to
the one, and you stood a chance of repelling the other. The
virtue of a nickname consisted in its being indefinable and baffling
all proof or reply.

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