On Tuesday,August 2(the day of my departure from London having been fixed for the 5th,)Dr.Johnson did me the honour to pass a part of the morning with me at my Chambers.He said,that 'he always felt an inclination to do nothing.'I observed,that it was strange to think that the most indolent man in Britain had written the most laborious work,The English Dictionary.
I had now made good my title to be a privileged man,and was carried by him in the evening to drink tea with Miss Williams,whom,though under the misfortune of having lost her sight,I found to be agreeable in conversation;for she had a variety of literature,and expressed herself well;but her peculiar value was the intimacy in which she had long lived with Johnson,by which she was well acquainted with his habits,and knew how to lead him on to talk.
After tea he carried me to what he called his walk,which was a long narrow paved court in the neighbourhood,overshadowed by some trees.There we sauntered a considerable time;and I complained to him that my love of London and of his company was such,that Ishrunk almost from the thought of going away,even to travel,which is generally so much desired by young men.He roused me by manly and spirited conversation.He advised me,when settled in any place abroad,to study with an eagerness after knowledge,and to apply to Greek an hour every day;and when I was moving about,to read diligently the great book of mankind.
On Wednesday,August 3,we had our last social evening at the Turk's Head coffee-house,before my setting out for foreign parts.
I had the misfortune,before we parted,to irritate him unintentionally.I mentioned to him how common it was in the world to tell absurd stories of him,and to ascribe to him very strange sayings.JOHNSON.'What do they make me say,Sir?'BOSWELL.
'Why,Sir,as an instance very strange indeed,(laughing heartily as I spoke,)David Hume told me,you said that you would stand before a battery of cannon,to restore the Convocation to its full powers.'Little did I apprehend that he had actually said this:
but I was soon convinced of my errour;for,with a determined look,he thundered out 'And would I not,Sir?Shall the Presbyterian KIRK of Scotland have its General Assembly,and the Church of England be denied its Convocation?'He was walking up and down the room while I told him the anecdote;but when he uttered this explosion of high-church zeal,he had come close to my chair,and his eyes flashed with indignation.I bowed to the storm,and diverted the force of it,by leading him to expatiate on the influence which religion derived from maintaining the church with great external respectability.
On Friday,August 5,we set out early in the morning in the Harwich stage coach.A fat elderly gentlewoman,and a young Dutchman,seemed the most inclined among us to conversation.At the inn where we dined,the gentlewoman said that she had done her best to educate her children;and particularly,that she had never suffered them to be a moment idle.JOHNSON.'I wish,madam,you would educate me too;for I have been an idle fellow all my life.''I am sure,Sir,(said she)you have not been idle.'JOHNSON.'Nay,Madam,it is very true;and that gentleman there (pointing to me,)has been idle.He was idle at Edinburgh.His father sent him to Glasgow,where he continued to be idle.He then came to London,where he has been very idle;and now he is going to Utrecht,where he will be as idle as ever.I asked him privately how he could expose me so.JOHNSON.'Poh,poh!(said he)they knew nothing about you,and will think of it no more.'In the afternoon the gentlewoman talked violently against the Roman Catholicks,and of the horrours of the Inquisition.To the utter astonishment of all the passengers but myself,who knew that he could talk upon any side of a question,he defended the Inquisition,and maintained,that 'false doctrine should be checked on its first appearance;that the civil power should unite with the church in punishing those who dared to attack the established religion,and that such only were punished by the Inquisition.'He had in his pocket Pomponius Mela de situ Orbis,in which he read occasionally,and seemed very intent upon ancient geography.Though by no means niggardly,his attention to what was generally right was so minute,that having observed at one of the stages that I ostentatiously gave a shilling to the coachman,when the custom was for each passenger to give only six-pence,he took me aside and scolded me,saying that what I had done would make the coachman dissatisfied with all the rest of the passengers,who gave him no more than his due.This was a just reprimand;for in whatever way a man may indulge his generosity or his vanity in spending his money,for the sake of others he ought not to raise the price of any article for which there is a constant demand.
