Etat. 63]

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND

393

has had it, than to an upstart, and so society is more easily supported." BOSWELL : "Perhaps, Sir, it might be done by the respect belonging to office, as among the Romans, where the dress, the toga, inspired reverence." JOHNSON: "Why, we know very little about the Romans. But, surely, it is much easier to respect a man who has always had respect, than to respect a man who we know was last year no better than ourselves, and will be no better next year. In republics, there is no respect for authority, but a fear of power." BOSWELL: "At present, Sir, I think riches seem to gain most respect." JOHNSON: "No, Sir, riches do not gain hearty respect; they only procure external attention. A very rich man, from low beginnings, may buy his election in a borough; but, cæteris paribus, a man of family will be preferred. People will prefer a man for whose father their fathers have voted, though they should get no money more, or even less. That shows that the respect for family is not merely fanciful, but has an actual operation. If gentlemen of family would allow the rich upstarts to spend their money profusely, which they are ready enough to do, and not vie with them in expense, the upstarts would soon be at an end, and the gentlemen would remain ; but if the gentlemen will

From a painting by Nathaniel Dance, R.A., in the National Portrait Gallery.

Photo by Emery Walker

FREDERICK NORTH, SECOND EARL OF GUILFORD, K.G. (b. 1732, d. 1792)

better known as Lord North. He was Prime Minister during the American War, and he was largely responsible for the measures that resulted in the loss of our American colonies. He was unfriendly to Johnson and suppressed his pamphlet on the Falkland Islands. Witty and eloquent, North had an inordinate love of sleep. Once when an orator, in order to point his remarks on the iniquity of the minister, said: Even now, in the midst of these perils, the noble lord is asleep," North replied, "I wish to God I was."

vie in expense with the upstarts, which is very foolish, they must be ruined." I gave him an account of the excellent mimicry of a friend of mine in Scotland; observing, at the same time, that some people thought it a very mean thing. JOHNSON: "Why, Sir, it is making a very mean use of man's powers. But to be a good mimic requires great powers; great acuteness of observation, great retention. of what is observed, and great pliancy of organs, to represent what is observed. I remember a lady of quality in this town, Lady, who was a wonderful mimic,

and used to make me laugh immoderately. I have heard she is now gone mad." BOSWELL: "It is amazing how a mimic can not only give you the gestures and voice of a person whom he represents; but even what a person would say on any particular subject." JOHNSON: "Why, Sir, you are to consider that the manner and some particular phrases of a person do much to impress you with an idea of him, and you are not sure that he would say what the mimic says in his character." BOSWELL: "I don't think Foote a good mimic, Sir." JOHNSON: "No, Sir; his imitations are not like. He gives you something different from himself, but not the character which he means to assume. He goes out of himself, without going into other people. He cannot take off any person unless he is strongly marked, such as George Faulkner.* He is like a painter who can draw the portrait of a man who has a wen upon his face, and who therefore is easily known. If a man hops upon one leg, Foote can hop upon one leg. But he has not that nice discrimination which your friend seems to possess. Foote is, however, very entertaining, with a kind of conversation between wit and buffoonery."

On Monday, March 23, I found him busy, preparing a fourth edition of his folioDictionary. Mr. Peyton, one of his original amanuenses, was writing for him. I put him in mind of a meaning of the word side which he had omitted, viz., relationship; as father's side, mother's side. He inserted it. I asked him if humiliating was a good word. He said he had seen it frequently used, but he did not know it to be legitimate English. He would not admit civilization, but only civility. With great deference to him, I thought civilization, from to civilize, better, in the sense opposed to barbarity, than civility; as it is better to have a distinct word for each sense than one word with two senses, which civility is, in his way of using it. He seemed also to be intent on some sort of chemical operation. I was entertained by observing how he contrived to send Mr. Peyton on an errand, without seeming to degrade him; "Mr. Peyton-Mr. Peyton, will you be so good as to take a walk to Temple Bar? You will there see a chemist's shop, at which you will be pleased to buy for me an ounce of oil of vitriol; not spirit of vitriol, but oil of vitriol. It will cost three half-pence." Peyton immediately went, and returned with it, and told him it cost but a penny.

I then reminded him of the schoolmaster's cause, and proposed to read to him the printed papers concerning it. "No, Sir (said he), I can read quicker than I can hear." So he read them to himself.

After he had read for some time, we were interrupted by the entrance of Mr. Kristrom, a Swede, who was tutor to some young gentleman in the city. He told me that there was a very good History of Sweden by Daline. Having at that time an intention of writing the history of that country, I asked Dr. Johnson whether one might write a history of Sweden, without going thither. Yes, Sir (said he), one for common use."

66

We talked of languages. Johnson observed that Leibnitz had made some progress in a work, tracing all languages up to the Hebrew. "Why, Sir (said he), you would not imagine that the French jour, day, is derived from the Latin dies, and yet nothing is more certain; and the intermediate steps are very clear. From dies comes diurnus. Diu is, by inaccurate ears, or inaccurate pronunciation, easily

*[George Faulkner (1699 (?)-1775) was the printer of the Dublin Journal, and a bookseller. Cumberland says in his memoirs : In his portraits of Faulkner, Foote found the only sitter whom his extravagant pencil could not caricature, for he had a solemn intrepidity of egotism, and a daring contempt of absurdity, that fairly outfaced imitation. George prosecuted Foote for lampooning him on the Dublin stage: his counsel, the prime-sergeant, compared him to Socrates, and his libeller to Aristophanes this, I believe, was all George got by his course of law."]

Etat. 63]

SIR ALEXANDER MACDONALD

395 confounded with giu; then the Italians form a substantive of the ablative of an adjective, and thence giurno, or, as they make it, giorno: which is readily contracted into giour, or jour." He observed, that the Bohemian language was true Sclavonic. The Swede said it had some similarity with the German. JOHNSON: "Why, Sir, to be sure, such parts of Sclavonia as confine with Germany, will borrow. German words and such parts as confine with Tartary will borrow Tartar words."

He said he never had it properly ascertained that the Scotch Highlanders and the Irish understood each other. I told him that my cousin, Colonel Graham, of the Royal Highlanders, whom I met at Drogheda, told me they did. JOHNSON : "Sir, if the Highlanders understood Irish, why translate the New Testament into Erse, as was lately done at Edinburgh, when there is an Irish translation? " BOSWELL: "Although the Erse and Irish are both dialects of the same language, there may be a good deal of diversity between them, as between the different dialects in Italy."-The Swede went away, and Mr. Johnson continued his reading of the papers. I said, “I am afraid, Sir, it is troublesome."—" Why, Sir (said he), I do not take much delight in it; but I'll go through it.'

We went to the Mitre, and dined in the room where he and I first supped together. He gave me great hopes of my cause. "Sir (said he), the government of a schoolmaster is somewhat of the nature of military government; that is to say, it must be arbitrary, it must be exercised by the will of one man, according to particular circumstances. You must show some learning upon this occasion. You must show that a schoolmaster has a prescriptive right to beat; and that an action of assault and battery cannot be admitted against him unless there is some great excess, some barbarity. This man has maimed none of his boys. They are all left with the full exercise of their corporeal faculties. In our schools in England, many boys have been maimed; yet I never heard of an action against a schoolmaster on that account. Puffendorff, I think, maintains the right of a schoolmaster to beat his scholars."

On Saturday, March 27, I introduced to him Sir Alexander Macdonald,* with whom he had expressed a wish to be acquainted. He received him very courteously. Sir Alexander observed that the Chancellors in England are chosen from views much inferior to the office, being chosen from temporary political views. JOHNSON: "Why, Sir, in such a government as ours, no man is appointed to an office because he is the fittest for it, nor hardly in any other government; because there are so many connexions and dependencies to be studied. A despotic prince may choose a man to an office merely because he is the fittest for it. The King of Prussia may do it." SIR A.: "I think, Sir, almost all great lawyers, such at least as have written upon law, have known only law, and nothing else." JOHNSON: "Why, no, Sir; Judge Hale was a great lawyer, and wrote upon law; and yet he knew a great many other things, and has written upon other things. Selden too." SIR A.: "Very true, Sir; and Lord Bacon. But was not Lord Coke a mere lawyer?" JOHNSON: "Why, I am afraid he was; but he would have taken it very ill if you had told him so. He would have prosecuted you for scandal." BOSWELL: "Lord Mansfield is not a mere lawyer." JOHNSON: "No, Sir, I never was in Lord Mansfield's company; but Lord Mansfield was distinguished at the University. Lord Mansfield, when he first came to town, drank champagne with the wits,' as Prior says. He was the friend of Pope." SIR A.: "Barristers, I believe, are not so abusive now

[Next brother of Sir James Macdonald, whom Boswell calls the Marcellus of Scotland. Sir Alexander succeeded his brother as eighth baronet, and was created an Irish Baron by the title of Lord Macdonald in 1776. The Chief Baron of the Exchequer, Sir Archibald Macdonald, was their youngest brother.]

as they were formerly. I fancy they had less law long ago, and so were obliged to take to abuse to fill up the time. Now they have such a number of precedents, they have no occasion for abuse.' JOHNSON: "Nay, Sir, they had more law long ago than they have now. As to precedents, to be sure they will increase in course of time; but the more precedents there are, the less occasion is there for law; that is to say, the less occasion is there for investigating principles." SIR A.: “I have been correcting several Scotch accents in my friend Boswell. I doubt, Sir, if any Scotchman ever attains to a perfect English pronunciation." JOHNSON : "Why, Sir, few of them do, because they do not persevere after acquiring a certain degree of it. But, Sir, there can be no doubt that they may attain to a perfect. English pronunciation if they will. We find how near they come to it; and certainly a man who conquers nineteen parts of the Scottish accent may conquer the twentieth. But, Sir, when a man has got the better of nine-tenths he grows weary, he relaxes his diligence, he finds he has corrected his accent so far as not to be disagreeable, and he no longer desires his friends to tell him when he is wrong; nor does he choose to be told. Sir, when people watch me narrowly, and I do not watch myself, they will find me out to be of a particular county. In the same manner, Dunning may be found out to be a Devonshire man.* So most Scotchmen may be found out. But, Sir, little aberrations are of no disadvantage. I never catched Mallet in a Scotch accent; and yet Mallet, I suppose, was past five-and-twenty before he came to London."

Upon another occasion I talked to him on this subject, having myself taken some pains to improve my pronunciation, by the aid of the late Mr. Love,† of Drury-lane Theatre, when he was a player at Edinburgh, and also of old Mr. Sheridan. Johnson said to me," Sir, your pronunciation is not offensive." With this concession I was pretty well satisfied; and let me give my countrymen of North Britain an advice, not to aim at absolute perfection in this respect; not to speak High English, as we are apt to call what is far removed from the Scotch, but which is by no means good English, and makes "the fools who use it " truly ridiculous. Good English is plain, easy, and smooth, in the mouth of an unaffected English gentleman. A studied and factitious pronunciation, which requires perpetual attention, and imposes perpetual constraint, is exceedingly disgusting. A small intermixture of provincial peculiarities may, perhaps, have an agreeable effect, as the notes of different birds concur in the harmony of the grove, and please more than if they were all exactly alike. I could name some gentlemen of Ireland to whom a slight proportion of the accent and recitative of that country is an advantage. The same observation will apply to the gentlemen of Scotland. I do not mean that we should speak as broad as a certain prosperous member of Parliament from that country; though it has been well observed that "it has been of no small use to him; as it rouses the attention of the House by its uncommonness; and is equal to tropes and figures in a good English speaker." I would give as an instance of what I mean to recommend to my countrymen the pronunciation of the late Sir Gilbert Elliot;§ and may I presume to add that of the present Earl of Marchmont,|| who told me, with great good humour, * [John Dunning (b. 1731, d. 1783) was created Lord Ashburton.]

† [Love (d. 1771) was the assumed name of a son of Dance, the architect. He wrote some theatrical pieces, was for many years manager of the theatre at Edinburgh, and subsequently of Drury Lane.— Croker.]

[Henry Dundas, Viscount Melville, whose accent and many of whose phrases were to the last particularly national.-Croker.]

§ [The third baronet, father of the first Lord Minto. He wrote the ballad "My Sheep I neglected," quoted in the "Lay of the Last Minstrel."—Lockhart.]

|| [Hugh, Fourth Earl of Marchmont (b. 1708, d. 1794), the friend and executor of Pope.-Croker.\

From a mezzotint by T. Blackmore, dated 1771, after the picture by Sir Joshua Reynolds, P.R.A.

actor and writer of comedy, was born at Truro, matriculated at Worcester College, Oxford, in 1737 and afterwards entered the Temple, but after dissipating his fortune he turned to the stage as a means of livelihood. He opened the Haymarket Theatre in 1747 as director, actor and author, with the "Diversions of the Morning," in which, and in other pieces, he displayed his gifts of mimicry with great success. Few persons of note escaped his ridicule, but his intention to "take off" Johnson met with a severe check

from the Doctor. See post, 1775.]