stuff, which Baretti had lately published. He joined with me, and said, 'Nothing odd will
do long. Tristram Shandy did not last.' I expressed a desire to be acquainted with a lady
who had been much talked of, and universally celebrated for extraordinary address and
insinuation. JOHNSON. 'Never believe extraordinary characters which you hear of
people. Depend upon it, Sir, they are exaggerated. You do not see one man shoot a great
deal higher than another.' I mentioned Mr. Burke. JOHNSON. 'Yes; Burke is an
extraordinary man. His stream of mind is perpetual.' It is very pleasing to me to record,
that Johnson's high estimation of the talents of this gentleman was uniform from their
early acquaintance. Sir Joshua Reynolds informs me, that when Mr. Burke was first
elected a member of Parliament, and Sir John Hawkins expressed a wonder at his
attaining a seat, Johnson said, 'Now we who know Mr. Burke, know, that he will be one
of the first men in this country.' And once, when Johnson was ill, and unable to exert
himself as much as usual without fatigue, Mr. Burke having been mentioned, he said,
'That fellow calls forth all my powers. Were I to see Burke now it would kill me.' So
much was he accustomed to consider conversation as a contest, and such was his notion
of Burke as an opponent.
Next morning, Thursday, March 21, we set out in a post-chaise to pursue our ramble. It
was a delightful day, and we rode through Blenheim park. When I looked at the
magnificent bridge built by John Duke of Marlborough, over a small rivulet, and
recollected the Epigram made upon it--
'The lofty arch his high ambition shows,
The stream, an emblem of his bounty flows:'
and saw that now, by the genius of Brown, a magnificent body of water was collected, I
said, 'They have DROWNED the Epigram.' I observed to him, while in the midst of the
noble scene around us, 'You and I, Sir, have, I think, seen together the extremes of what
can be seen in Britain:--the wild rough island of Mull, and Blenheim park.'
We dined at an excellent inn at Chapel-house, where he expatiated on the felicity of
England in its taverns and inns, and triumphed over the French for not having, in any
perfection, the tavern life. 'There is no private house, (said he,) in which people can enjoy
themselves so well, as at a capital tavern. Let there be ever so great plenty of good things,
ever so much grandeur, ever so much elegance, ever so much desire that every body
should be easy; in the nature of things it cannot be: there must always be some degree of
care and anxiety. The master of the house is anxious to entertain his guests; the guests are
anxious to be agreeable to him: and no man, but a very impudent dog indeed, can as
freely command what is in another man's house, as if it were his own. Whereas, at a
tavern, there is a general freedom from anxiety. You are sure you are welcome: and the
more noise you make, the more trouble you give, the more good things you call for, the
welcomer you are. No servants will attend you with the alacrity which waiters do, who
are incited by the prospect of an immediate reward, in proportion as they please. No, Sir;
there is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is
produced as by a good tavern or inn.'* He then repeated, with great emotion, Shenstone's
lines:--
'Whoe'er has travell'd life's dull round,
Where'er his stages may have been,
May sigh to think he still has found
The warmest welcome at an inn.'
* Sir John Hawkins has preserved very few Memorabilia of Johnson. There is, however,
to be found, in his bulky tome [p. 87], a very excellent one upon this subject:--'In
contradiction to those, who, having a wife and children, prefer domestick enjoyments to
those which a tavern affords, I have heard him assert, that a tavern chair was the throne of
human felicity.--"As soon," said he, "as I enter the door of a tavern, I experience an
oblivion of care, and a freedom from solicitude: when I am seated, I find the master
courteous, and the servants obsequious to my call; anxious to know and ready to supply
my wants: wine there exhilarates my spirits, and prompts me to free conversation and an
interchange of discourse with those whom I most love: I dogmatise and am contradicted,
and in this conflict of opinions and sentiments I find delight."'-- BOSWELL.
In the afternoon, as we were driven rapidly along in the post- chaise, he said to me 'Life
has not many things better than this.'
We stopped at Stratford-upon-Avon, and drank tea and coffee; and it pleased me to be
with him upon the classick ground of Shakspeare's native place.
He spoke slightingly of Dyer's Fleece.--'The subject, Sir, cannot be made poetical. How
can a man write poetically of serges and druggets? Yet you will hear many people talk to
you gravely of that excellent poem, The Fleece.' Having talked of Grainger's Sugar-Cane,
I mentioned to him Mr. Langton's having told me, that this poem, when read in
manuscript at Sir Joshua Reynolds's, had made all the assembled wits burst into a laugh,
when, after much blank-verse pomp, the poet began a new paragraph thus:--
'Now, Muse, let's sing of rats.'
And what increased the ridicule was, that one of the company, who slily overlooked the
reader, perceived that the word had been originally MICE, and had been altered to RATS,
as more dignified.
Johnson said, that Dr. Grainger was an agreeable man; a man who would do any good
that was in his power. His translation of Tibullus, he thought, was very well done; but
The Sugar-Cane, a poem, did not please him; for, he exclaimed, 'What could he make of
a sugar-cane? One might as well write the "Parsley-bed, a Poem;" or "The Cabbagegarden,
a Poem."' BOSWELL. 'You must then pickle your cabbage with the sal atticum.'
JOHNSON. 'You know there is already The Hop-Garden, a Poem: and, I think, one could
say a great deal about cabbage. The poem might begin with the advantages of civilized
society over a rude state, exemplified by the Scotch, who had no cabbages till Oliver
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