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.'Iobserved 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 Ienter 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 manu 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 Cabbage-garden,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 Cromwell's soldiers introduced them;and one might thus shew how arts are propagated by conquest,as they were by the Roman arms.'He seemed to be much diverted with the fertility of his own fancy.
I told him,that I heard Dr.Percy was writing the history of the wolf in Great-Britain.JOHNSON.'The wolf,Sir!why the wolf?why does he not write of the bear,which we had formerly?Nay,it is said we had the beaver.Or why does he not write of the grey rat,the Hanover rat,as it is called,because it is said to have come into this country about the time that the family of Hanover came?
I should like to see The History of the Grey Rat,by Thomas Percy,D.D.,Chaplain in Ordinary to his Majesty,'(laughing immoderately).BOSWELL.'I am afraid a court chaplain could not decently write of the grey rat.'JOHNSON.'Sir,he need not give it the name of the Hanover rat.'Thus could he indulge a luxuriant sportive imagination,when talking of a friend whom he loved and esteemed.