Читать книгу The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - James Boswell - Страница 188

BOSWELL. See post, May 16, 1778, where Johnson said, ‘Dr. Mead lived more in the broad sunshine of life than almost any man.’

[465] Johnson was used to speak of him in this manner:—‘Tom is a lively rogue; he remembers a great deal, and can tell many pleasant stories; but a pen is to Tom a torpedo, the touch of it benumbs his hand and his brain.’ Hawkins’s Johnson, p. 209. Goldsmith in his Life of Nash (Cunningham’s Goldsmith’s Works, iv. 54) says:—‘Nash was not born a writer, for whatever humour he might have in conversation, he used to call a pen his torpedo; whenever he grasped it, it benumbed all his faculties.’ It is very likely that Nash borrowed this saying from Johnson. In Boswell’s Hebrides, Sept. 24, 1773, we read:—Dr. Birch being mentioned, Dr. Johnson said he had more anecdotes than any man. I said, Percy had a great many; that he flowed with them like one of the brooks here. JOHNSON. “If Percy is like one of the brooks here, Birch was like the River Thames. Birch excelled Percy in that as much as Percy excels Goldsmith.” Disraeli (Curiosities of Literature, iii, 425) describes Dr. Birch as ‘one to whom British history stands more indebted than to any superior author. He has enriched the British Museum by thousands of the most authentic documents of genuine secret history.’

[466] Ante, p. 140.

[467] In 1761 Mr. John Levett was returned for Lichfield, but on petition was declared to be not duly elected (Parl. Hist. xv. 1088). Perhaps he was already aiming at public life.

[468] One explanation may be found of Johnson’s intimacy with Savage and with other men of loose character. ‘He was,’ writes Hawkins, ‘one of the most quick-sighted men I ever knew in discovering the good and amiable qualities of others’ (Hawkins’s Johnson, p. 50). ‘He was,’ says Boswell (post, April 13, 1778), ‘willing to take men as they are, imperfect, and with a mixture of good and bad qualities.’ How intimate the two men were is shown by the following passage in Johnson’s Life of Savage:—‘Savage left London in July, 1739, having taken leave with great tenderness of his friends, and parted from the author of this narrative with tears in his eyes.’ Johnson’s Works, viii. 173.

[469] As a specimen of his temper, I insert the following letter from him to a noble Lord, to whom he was under great obligations, but who, on account of his bad conduct, was obliged to discard him. The original was in the hands of the late Francis Cockayne Cust, Esq., one of His Majesty’s Counsel learned in the law:

‘Right Honourable BRUTE, and BOOBY,

‘I find you want (as Mr. —— is pleased to hint,) to swear away my life, that is, the life of your creditor, because he asks you for a debt.—The publick shall soon be acquainted with this, to judge whether you are not fitter to be an Irish Evidence, than to be an Irish Peer.—I defy and despise you.

‘I am,

‘Your determined adversary,