the way, that the people may go in a straight line to the bridge.'--'No, Sir, (said Gwyn,) I
am putting the church IN the way, that the people may not GO OUT OF THE WAY.'
JOHNSON. (with a hearty loud laugh of approbation,) 'Speak no more. Rest your
colloquial fame upon this.'
Upon our arrival at Oxford, Dr. Johnson and I went directly to University College, but
were disappointed on finding that one of the fellows, his friend Mr. Scott, who
accompanied him from Newcastle to Edinburgh, was gone to the country. We put up at
the Angel inn, and passed the evening by ourselves in easy and familiar conversation.
Talking of constitutional melancholy, he observed, 'A man so afflicted, Sir, must divert
distressing thoughts, and not combat with them.' BOSWELL. 'May not he think them
down, Sir?' JOHNSON. 'No, Sir. To attempt to THINK THEM DOWN is madness. He
should have a lamp constantly burning in his bed-chamber during the night, and if
wakefully disturbed, take a book, and read, and compose himself to rest. To have the
management of the mind is a great art, and it may be attained in a considerable degree by
experience and habitual exercise.' BOSWELL. 'Should not he provide amusements for
himself? Would it not, for instance, be right for him to take a course of chymistry?'
JOHNSON. 'Let him take a course of chymistry, or a course of rope-dancing, or a course
of any thing to which he is inclined at the time. Let him contrive to have as many retreats
for his mind as he can, as many things to which it can fly from itself. Burton's Anatomy
of Melancholy is a valuable work. It is, perhaps, overloaded with quotation. But there is
great spirit and great power in what Burton says, when he writes from his own mind.'
Next morning we visited Dr. Wetherell, Master of University College, with whom Dr.
Johnson conferred on the most advantageous mode of disposing of the books printed at
the Clarendon press. I often had occasion to remark, Johnson loved business, loved to
have his wisdom actually operate on real life.
We then went to Pembroke College, and waited on his old friend Dr. Adams, the master
of it, whom I found to be a most polite, pleasing, communicative man. Before his
advancement to the headship of his college, I had intended to go and visit him at
Shrewsbury, where he was rector of St. Chad's, in order to get from him what particulars
he could recollect of Johnson's academical life. He now obligingly gave me part of that
authentick information, which, with what I afterwards owed to his kindness, will be
found incorporated in its proper place in this work.
Dr. Adams told us, that in some of the Colleges at Oxford, the fellows had excluded the
students from social intercourse with them in the common room. JOHNSON. 'They are in
the right, Sir: there can be no real conversation, no fair exertion of mind amongst them, if
the young men are by; for a man who has a character does not choose to stake it in their
presence.' BOSWELL. 'But, Sir, may there not be very good conversation without a
contest for superiority?' JOHNSON. 'No animated conversation, Sir, for it cannot be but
one or other will come off superiour. I do not mean that the victor must have the better of
the argument, for he may take the weak side; but his superiority of parts and knowledge
will necessarily appear: and he to whom he thus shews himself superiour is lessened in
the eyes of the young men.'
We walked with Dr. Adams into the master's garden, and into the common room.
JOHNSON. (after a reverie of meditation,) 'Ay! Here I used to play at draughts with Phil.
Jones and Fludyer. Jones loved beer, and did not get very forward in the church. Fludyer
turned out a scoundrel, a Whig, and said he was ashamed of having been bred at Oxford.
He had a living at Putney, and got under the eye of some retainers to the court at that
time, and so became a violent Whig: but he had been a scoundrel all along to be sure.'
BOSWELL. 'Was he a scoundrel, Sir, in any other way than that of being a political
scoundrel? Did he cheat at draughts?' JOHNSON. 'Sir, we never played for MONEY.'
He then carried me to visit Dr. Bentham, Canon of Christ-Church, and Divinity
Professor, with whose learned and lively conversation we were much pleased. He gave us
an invitation to dinner, which Dr. Johnson told me was a high honour. 'Sir, it is a great
thing to dine with the Canons of Christ-Church.' We could not accept his invitation, as we
were engaged to dine at University College. We had an excellent dinner there, with the
Master and Fellows, it being St. Cuthbert's day, which is kept by them as a festival, as he
was a saint of Durham, with which this college is much connected.
We drank tea with Dr. Horne, late President of Magdalen College, and Bishop of
Norwich, of whose abilities, in different respects, the publick has had eminent proofs, and
the esteem annexed to whose character was increased by knowing him personally.
We then went to Trinity College, where he introduced me to Mr. Thomas Warton, with
whom we passed a part of the evening. We talked of biography--JOHNSON. 'It is rarely
well executed. They only who live with a man can write his life with any genuine
exactness and discrimination; and few people who have lived with a man know what to
remark about him. The chaplain of a late Bishop, whom I was to assist in writing some
memoirs of his Lordship, could tell me scarcely any thing.'
I said, Mr. Robert Dodsley's life should be written, as he had been so much connected
with the wits of his time, and by his literary merit had raised himself from the station of a
footman. Mr. Warton said, he had published a little volume under the title of The Muse in
Livery. JOHNSON. 'I doubt whether Dodsley's brother would thank a man who should
write his life: yet Dodsley himself was not unwilling that his original low condition
should be recollected. When Lord Lyttelton's Dialogues of the Dead came out, one of
which is between Apicius, an ancient epicure, and Dartineuf, a modern epicure, Dodsley
said to me, "I knew Dartineuf well, for I was once his footman."'
I mentioned Sir Richard Steele having published his Christian Hero, with the avowed
purpose of obliging himself to lead a religious life; yet, that his conduct was by no means
strictly suitable. JOHNSON. 'Steele, I believe, practised the lighter vices.'
Mr. Warton, being engaged, could not sup with us at our inn; we had therefore another
evening by ourselves. I asked Johnson, whether a man's being forward to make himself
known to eminent people, and seeing as much of life, and getting as much information as
he could in every way, was not yet lessening himself by his forwardness. JOHNSON.
'No, Sir, a man always makes himself greater as he increases his knowledge.
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