I proposed to Lord Marchmont that he should revise Johnson's Life of Pope:'So (said his Lordship,)you would put me in a dangerous situation.You know he knocked down Osborne the bookseller.'
Elated with the success of my spontaneous exertion to procure material and respectable aid to Johnson for his very favourite work,The Lives of the Poets,I hastened down to Mr.Thrale's at Streatham,where he now was,that I might insure his being at home next day;and after dinner,when I thought he would receive the good news in the best humour,I announced it eagerly:'I have been at work for you to-day,Sir.I have been with Lord Marchmont.He bade me tell you he has a great respect for you,and will call on you to-morrow at one o'clock,and communicate all he knows about Pope.'--Here I paused,in full expectation that he would be pleased with this intelligence,would praise my active merit,and would be alert to embrace such an offer from a nobleman.But whether I had shewn an over-exultation,which provoked his spleen;or whether he was seized with a suspicion that I had obtruded him on Lord Marchmont,and humbled him too much;or whether there was any thing more than an unlucky fit of ill-humour,I know not;but,to my surprize,the result was,--JOHNSON.'I shall not be in town to-morrow.I don't care to know about Pope.'MRS.THRALE.
(surprized as I was,and a little angry,)'I suppose,Sir,Mr.
Boswell thought,that as you are to write Pope's Life,you would wish to know about him.'JOHNSON.'Wish!why yes.If it rained knowledge I'd hold out my hand;but I would not give myself the trouble to go in quest of it.'There was no arguing with him at the moment.Some time afterwards he said,'Lord Marchmont will call on me,and then I shall call on Lord Marchmont.'Mr.Thrale was uneasy at his unaccountable caprice;and told me,that if I did not take care to bring about a meeting between Lord Marchmont and him,it would never take place,which would be a great pity.Isent a card to his Lordship,to be left at Johnson's house,acquainting him,that Dr.Johnson could not be in town next day,but would do himself the honour of waiting on him at another time.
I give this account fairly,as a specimen of that unhappy temper with which this great and good man had occasionally to struggle,from something morbid in his constitution.Let the most censorious of my readers suppose himself to have a violent fit of the tooth-ach,or to have received a severe stroke on the shin-bone,and when in such a state to be asked a question;and if he has any candour,he will not be surprized at the answers which Johnson sometimes gave in moments of irritation,which,let me assure them,is exquisitely painful.But it must not be erroneously supposed that he was,in the smallest degree,careless concerning any work which he undertook,or that he was generally thus peevish.It will be seen,that in the following year he had a very agreeable interview with Lord Marchmont,at his Lordship's house;and this very afternoon he soon forgot any fretfulness,and fell into conversation as usual.
JOHNSON.'How foolish was it in Pope to give all his friendship to Lords,who thought they honoured him by being with him;and to choose such Lords as Burlington,and Cobham,and Bolingbroke!
Bathurst was negative,a pleasing man;and I have heard no ill of Marchmont;and then always saying,"I do not value you for being a Lord;"which was a sure proof that he did.I never say,I do not value Boswell more for being born to an estate,because I do not care.'BOSWELL.'Nor for being a Scotchman?'JOHNSON.'Nay,Sir,I do value you more for being a Scotchman.You are a Scotchman without the faults of a Scotchman.You would not have been so valuable as you are,had you not been a Scotchman.'
Amongst the numerous prints pasted on the walls of the dining-room at Streatham,was Hogarth's 'Modern Midnight Conversation.'Iasked him what he knew of Parson Ford,who makes a conspicuous figure in the riotous group.JOHNSON.'Sir,he was my acquaintance and relation,my mother's nephew.He had purchased a living in the country,but not simoniacally.I never saw him but in the country.I have been told he was a man of great parts;very profligate,but I never heard he was impious.'BOSWELL.'Was there not a story of his ghost having appeared?'JOHNSON.'Sir,it was believed.A waiter at the Hummums,in which house Ford died,had been absent for some time,and returned,not knowing that Ford was dead.Going down to the cellar,according to the story,he met him;going down again he met him a second time.When he came up,he asked some of the people of the house what Ford could be doing there.They told him Ford was dead.The waiter took a fever,in which he lay for some time.When he recovered,he said he had a message to deliver to some women from Ford;but he was not to tell what,or to whom.He walked out;he was followed;but somewhere about St.Paul's they lost him.He came back,and said he had delivered the message,and the women exclaimed,"Then we are all undone!"Dr.Pellet,who was not a credulous man,inquired into the truth of this story,and he said,the evidence was irresistible.My wife went to the Hummums;(it is a place where people get themselves cupped.)I believe she went with intention to hear about this story of Ford.At first they were unwilling to tell her;but,after they had talked to her,she came away satisfied that it was true.To be sure the man had a fever;and this vision may have been the beginning of it.But if the message to the women,and their behaviour upon it,were true as related,there was something supernatural.That rests upon his word;and there it remains.'
I staid all this daywith him at Streatham.He talked a great deal,in very good humour.
Wednesday,May 13.--ED.