I related a dispute between Goldsmith and Mr.Robert Dodsley,one day when they and I were dining at Tom Davies's,in 1762.
Goldsmith asserted,that there was no poetry produced in this age.
Dodsley appealed to his own Collection,and maintained,that though you could not find a palace like Dryden's Ode on St.Cecilia's Day,you had villages composed of very pretty houses;and he mentioned particularly The Spleen.JOHNSON.'I think Dodsley gave up the question.He and Goldsmith said the same thing;only he said it in a softer manner than Goldsmith did;for he acknowledged that there was no poetry,nothing that towered above the common mark.You may find wit and humour in verse,and yet no poetry.
Hudibras has a profusion of these;yet it is not to be reckoned a poem.The Spleen,in Dodsley's Collection,on which you say he chiefly rested,is not poetry.'BOSWELL.'Does not Gray's poetry,Sir,tower above the common mark?'JOHNSON.Yes,Sir;but we must attend to the difference between what men in general cannot do if they would,and what every man may do if he would.Sixteen-string Jacktowered above the common mark.'BOSWELL.'Then,Sir,what is poetry?'JOHNSON.'Why,Sir,it is much easier to say what it is not.We all KNOW what light is;but it is not easy to TELL what it is.'
A noted highwayman,who after having been several times tried and acquitted,was at last hanged.He was remarkable for foppery in his dress,and particularly for wearing a bunch of sixteen strings at the knees of his breeches.--BOSWELL.
On Friday,April 12,I dined with him at our friend Tom Davies's.
He reminded Dr.Johnson of Mr.Murphy's having paid him the highest compliment that ever was paid to a layman,by asking his pardon for repeating some oaths in the course of telling a story.
Johnson and I supt this evening at the Crown and Anchor tavern,in company with Sir Joshua Reynolds,Mr.Langton,Mr.Nairne,now one of the Scotch Judges,with the title of Lord Dunsinan,and my very worthy friend,Sir William Forbes,of Pitsligo.
We discussed the question whether drinking improved conversation and benevolence.Sir Joshua maintained it did.JOHNSON.'No,Sir:before dinner men meet with great inequality of understanding;and those who are conscious of their inferiority,have the modesty not to talk.When they have drunk wine,every man feels himself happy,and loses that modesty,and grows impudent and vociferous:
but he is not improved;he is only not sensible of his defects.'
Sir Joshua said the Doctor was talking of the effects of excess in wine;but that a moderate glass enlivened the mind,by giving a proper circulation to the blood.'I am (said he,)in very good spirits,when I get up in the morning.By dinner-time I am exhausted;wine puts me in the same state as when I got up;and Iam sure that moderate drinking makes people talk better.'JOHNSON.
'No,Sir;wine gives not light,gay,ideal hilarity;but tumultuous,noisy,clamorous merriment.I have heard none of those drunken,--nay,drunken is a coarse word,--none of those VINOUSflights.'SIR JOSHUA.'Because you have sat by,quite sober,and felt an envy of the happiness of those who were drinking.'
JOHNSON.'Perhaps,contempt.--And,Sir,it is not necessary to be drunk one's self,to relish the wit of drunkenness.Do we not judge of the drunken wit,of the dialogue between Iago and Cassio,the most excellent in its kind,when we are quite sober?Wit is wit,by whatever means it is produced;and,if good,will appear so at all times.I admit that the spirits are raised by drinking,as by the common participation of any pleasure:cock-fighting,or bear-baiting,will raise the spirits of a company,as drinking does,though surely they will not improve conversation.I also admit,that there are some sluggish men who are improved by drinking;as there are fruits which are not good till they are rotten.There are such men,but they are medlars.I indeed allow that there have been a very few men of talents who were improved by drinking;but I maintain that I am right as to the effects of drinking in general:and let it be considered,that there is no position,however false in its universality,which is not true of some particular man.'Sir William Forbes said,'Might not a man warmed with wine be like a bottle of beer,which is made brisker by being set before the fire?'--'Nay,(said Johnson,laughing,)Icannot answer that:that is too much for me.'
I observed,that wine did some people harm,by inflaming,confusing,and irritating their minds;but that the experience of mankind had declared in favour of moderate drinking.JOHNSON.
'Sir,I do not say it is wrong to produce self complacency by drinking;I only deny that it improves the mind.When I drank wine,I scorned to drink it when in company.I have drunk many a bottle by myself;in the first place,because I had need of it to raise my spirits;in the second place,because I would have nobody to witness its effects upon me.'
He told us,'almost all his Ramblers were written just as they were wanted for the press;that he sent a certain portion of the copy of an essay,and wrote the remainder,while the former part of it was printing.When it was wanted,and he had fairly sat down to it,he was sure it would be done.'
He said,that for general improvement,a man should read whatever his immediate inclination prompts him to;though,to be sure,if a man has a science to learn,he must regularly and resolutely advance.He added,'what we read with inclination makes a much stronger impression.If we read without inclination,half the mind is employed in fixing the attention;so there is but one half to be employed on what we read.'He told us,he read Fielding's Amelia through without stopping.He said,'if a man begins to read in the middle of a book,and feels an inclination to go on,let him not quit it,to go to the beginning.He may perhaps not feel again the inclination.'