After breakfast I departed,and pursued my journey northwards.Itook my post-chaise from the Green Man,a very good inn at Ashbourne,the mistress of which,a mighty civil gentlewoman,courtseying very low,presented me with an engraving of the sign of her house;to which she had subjoined,in her own hand-writing,an address in such singular simplicity of style,that I have preserved it pasted upon one of the boards of my original Journal at this time,and shall here insert it for the amusement of my readers:--'M.KILLINGLEY's duty waits upon Mr.Boswell,is exceedingly obliged to him for this favour;whenever he comes this way,hopes for a continuance of the same.Would Mr.Boswell name the house to his extensive acquaintance,it would be a singular favour conferr'd on one who has it not in her power to make any other return but her most grateful thanks,and sincerest prayers for his happiness in time,and in a blessed eternity.--Tuesday morn.'
I cannot omit a curious circumstance which occurred at Edensor-inn,close by Chatsworth,to survey the magnificence of which I had gone a considerable way out of my road to Scotland.The inn was then kept by a very jolly landlord,whose name,I think,was Malton.He happened to mention that 'the celebrated Dr.Johnson had been in his house.'I inquired WHO this Dr.Johnson was,that I might hear mine host's notion of him.'Sir,(said he,)Johnson,the great writer;ODDITY,as they call him.He's the greatest writer in England;he writes for the ministry;he has a correspondence abroad,and lets them know what's going on.'
My friend,who had a thorough dependance upon the authenticity of my relation without any EMBELLISHMENT,as FALSEHOOD or FICTION is too gently called,laughed a good deal at this representation of himself.
On Wednesday,March 18,I arrived in London,and was informed by good Mr.Francis that his master was better,and was gone to Mr.
Thrale's at Streatham,to which place I wrote to him,begging to know when he would be in town.He was not expected for some time;but next day having called on Dr.Taylor,in Dean's-yard,Westminster,I found him there,and was told he had come to town for a few hours.He met me with his usual kindness,but instantly returned to the writing of something on which he was employed when I came in,and on which he seemed much intent.Finding him thus engaged,I made my visit very short.
1778.
On Friday,March 20,I found him at his own house,sitting with Mrs.Williams,and was informed that the room formerly allotted to me was now appropriated to a charitable purpose;Mrs.Desmoulins,and I think her daughter,and a Miss Carmichael,being all lodged in it.Such was his humanity,and such his generosity,that Mrs.
Desmoulins herself told me,he allowed her half-a-guinea a week.
Let it be remembered,that this was above a twelfth part of his pension.
His liberality,indeed,was at all periods of his life very remarkable.Mr.Howard,of Lichfield,at whose father's house Johnson had in his early years been kindly received,told me,that when he was a boy at the Charter-House,his father wrote to him to go and pay a visit to Mr.Samuel Johnson,which he accordingly did,and found him in an upper room,of poor appearance.Johnson received him with much courteousness,and talked a great deal to him,as to a school-boy,of the course of his education,and other particulars.When he afterwards came to know and understand the high character of this great man,he recollected his condescension with wonder.He added,that when he was going away,Mr.Johnson presented him with half-a-guinea;and this,said Mr.Howard,was at a time when he probably had not another.
We retired from Mrs.Williams to another room.Tom Davies soon after joined us.He had now unfortunately failed in his circumstances,and was much indebted to Dr.Johnson's kindness for obtaining for him many alleviations of his distress.After he went away,Johnson blamed his folly in quitting the stage,by which he and his wife got five hundred pounds a year.I said,I believed it was owing to Churchill's attack upon him,'He mouths a sentence,as curs mouth a bone.'
JOHNSON.'I believe so too,Sir.But what a man is he,who is to be driven from the stage by a line?Another line would have driven him from his shop.'
He returned next day to Streatham,to Mr.Thrale's;where,as Mr.
Strahan once complained to me,'he was in a great measure absorbed from the society of his old friends.'I was kept in London by business,and wrote to him on the 27th,that a separation from him for a week,when we were so near,was equal to a separation for a year,when we were at four hundred miles distance.I went to Streatham on Monday,March 30.Before he appeared,Mrs.Thrale made a very characteristical remark:--'I do not know for certain what will please Dr.Johnson:but I know for certain that it will displease him to praise any thing,even what he likes,extravagantly.'
At dinner he laughed at querulous declamations against the age,on account of luxury,--increase of London,--scarcity of provisions,--and other such topicks.'Houses (said he,)will be built till rents fall:and corn is more plentiful now than ever it was.'
I had before dinner repeated a ridiculous story told me by an old man who had been a passenger with me in the stage-coach to-day.
Mrs.Thrale,having taken occasion to allude to it in talking to me,called it 'The story told you by the old WOMAN.'--'Now,Madam,(said I,)give me leave to catch you in the fact;it was not an old WOMAN,but an old MAN,whom I mentioned as having told me this.'Ipresumed to take an opportunity,in presence of Johnson,of shewing this lively lady how ready she was,unintentionally,to deviate from exact authenticity of narration.
