customers amongst his numerous acquaintance. Fitzherbert was one who took his smallbeer;
but it was so bad that the servants resolved not to drink it. They were at some loss
how to notify their resolution, being afraid of offending their master, who they knew
liked Foote much as a companion. At last they fixed upon a little black boy, who was
rather a favourite, to be their deputy, and deliver their remonstrance; and having invested
him with the whole authority of the kitchen, he was to inform Mr. Fitzherbert, in all their
names, upon a certain day, that they would drink Foote's small-beer no longer. On that
day Foote happened to dine at Fitzherbert's, and this boy served at table; he was so
delighted with Foote's stories, and merriment, and grimace, that when he went down
stairs, he told them, "This is the finest man I have ever seen. I will not deliver your
message. I will drink his small-beer."'
Somebody observed that Garrick could not have done this. WILKES. 'Garrick would
have made the small-beer still smaller. He is now leaving the stage; but he will play
Scrub all his life.' I knew that Johnson would let nobody attack Garrick but himself, as
Garrick once said to me, and I had heard him praise his liberality; so to bring out his
commendation of his celebrated pupil, I said, loudly, 'I have heard Garrick is liberal.'
JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir, I know that Garrick has given away more money than any man in
England that I am acquainted with, and that not from ostentatious views. Garrick was
very poor when he began life; so when he came to have money, he probably was very
unskilful in giving away, and saved when he should not. But Garrick began to be liberal
as soon as he could; and I am of opinion, the reputation of avarice which he has had, has
been very lucky for him, and prevented his having many enemies. You despise a man for
avarice, but do not hate him. Garrick might have been much better attacked for living
with more splendour than is suitable to a player: if they had had the wit to have assaulted
him in that quarter, they might have galled him more. But they have kept clamouring
about his avarice, which has rescued him from much obloquy and envy.'
Talking of the great difficulty of obtaining authentick information for biography, Johnson
told us, 'When I was a young fellow I wanted to write the Life of Dryden, and in order to
get materials, I applied to the only two persons then alive who had seen him; these were
old Swinney, and old Cibber. Swinney's information was no more than this, "That at
Will's coffee-house Dryden had a particular chair for himself, which was set by the fire in
winter, and was then called his winter-chair; and that it was carried out for him to the
balcony in summer, and was then called his summer- chair." Cibber could tell no more
but "That he remembered him a decent old man, arbiter of critical disputes at Will's."
You are to consider that Cibber was then at a great distance from Dryden, had perhaps
one leg only in the room, and durst not draw in the other.' BOSWELL. 'Yet Cibber was a
man of observation?' JOHNSON. 'I think not.' BOSWELL. 'You will allow his Apology
to be well done.' JOHNSON. 'Very well done, to be sure, Sir. That book is a striking
proof of the justice of Pope's remark:
"Each might his several province well command,
Would all but stoop to what they understand."'
BOSWELL. 'And his plays are good.' JOHNSON. 'Yes; but that was his trade; l'esprit du
corps: he had been all his life among players and play-writers. I wondered that he had so
little to say in conversation, for he had kept the best company, and learnt all that can be
got by the ear. He abused Pindar to me, and then shewed me an Ode of his own, with an
absurd couplet, making a linnet soar on an eagle's wing. I told him that when the ancients
made a simile, they always made it like something real.'
Mr. Wilkes remarked, that 'among all the bold flights of Shakspeare's imagination, the
boldest was making Birnamwood march to Dunsinane; creating a wood where there
never was a shrub; a wood in Scotland! ha! ha! ha!' And he also observed, that 'the
clannish slavery of the Highlands of Scotland was the single exception to Milton's remark
of "The Mountain Nymph, sweet Liberty," being worshipped in all hilly countries.'--
'When I was at Inverary (said he,) on a visit to my old friend, Archibald, Duke of Argyle,
his dependents congratulated me on being such a favourite of his Grace. I said, "It is then,
gentlemen, truely lucky for me; for if I had displeased the Duke, and he had wished it,
there is not a Campbell among you but would have been ready to bring John Wilkes's
head to him in a charger. It would have been only
"Off with his head! So much for Aylesbury."
I was then member for Aylesbury.'
Mr. Arthur Lee mentioned some Scotch who had taken possession of a barren part of
America, and wondered why they should choose it. JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, all barrenness
is comparative. The SCOTCH would not know it to be barren.' BOSWELL. 'Come,
come, he is flattering the English. You have now been in Scotland, Sir, and say if you did
not see meat and drink enough there.' JOHNSON. 'Why yes, Sir; meat and drink enough
to give the enhabitants sufficient strength to run away from home.' All these quick and
lively sallies were said sportively, quite in jest, and with a smile, which showed that he
meant only wit. Upon this topick he and Mr. Wilkes could perfectly assimilate; here was
a bond of union between them, and I was conscious that as both of them had visited
Caledonia, both were fully satisfied of the strange narrow ignorance of those who
imagine that it is a land of famine. But they amused themselves with persevering in the
old jokes. When I claimed a superiority for Scotland over England in one respect, that no
man can be arrested there for a debt merely because another swears it against him; but
there must first be the judgement of a court of law ascertaining its justice; and that a
seizure of the person, before judgement is obtained, can take place only, if his creditor
should swear that he is about to fly from the country, or, as it is technically expressed, is
in meditatione fugoe: WILKES. 'That, I should think, may be safely sworn of all the
Scotch nation.' JOHNSON. (to Mr. Wilkes,) 'You must know, Sir, I lately took my friend
Boswell and shewed him genuine civilised life in an English provincial town. I turned
him loose at Lichfield, my native city, that he might see for once real civility: for you
know he lives among savages in Scotland, and among rakes in London.' WILKES.
'Except when he is with grave, sober, decent people like you and me.' JOHNSON.
(smiling,) 'And we ashamed of him.'
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