Chapter VI: From Grub Street to Easy Street

There followed days of comfort. Best of all comforts that came to be Johnson’s, was his membership in the Literary Club which Sir Joshua Reynolds had formed. Then indeed he could meet and talk with choice spirits, for Burke was a member as also was Oliver Goldsmith. Beauclerk, Sir John Hawkins, Adam Smith, Sheridan and other literary lights were on the roll. One evening every week they met at the sign of the Turk’s Head in Gerrard Street, Soho, and, having supped and wined like gentlemen, discussed things dear to the heart of intelligent men without inhibitions or prohibitions, until early morning. No subject was barred and discussion was free. It was an improvement on a coffee-house gathering, for bores and undesirables were not admitted. From the record kept by Boswell, who first became acquainted with Johnson the year before the Club was founded, (1763), it can be seen that there was real sociability in the little circle. Further, it was a wonderful age and topics came thick and fast. We can well imagine some of them, such as the suicide of the boy poet and literary forger, Chatterton: the account of Johnson’s Tour in the Hebrides with Boswell: the story of Johnson’s meeting with the young king in Buckingham Palace: the discussion of Fielding’s novels: the talk on Sterne’s Tristram Shandy, greatest of quaint books; the reading of Percy’s Reliques of Ancient Poetry: the debate on the novels of the bookseller Richardson; the excitement when Goldsmith’s She Stoops to Conquer was played: the crowding round Johnson when he received the degree of LL. D., in 1765, from Trinity College, Dublin: the heated arguments on the authorship of the Letters of Junius: the doubts and despairs and misgivings when the question of American taxation came up: the joy with which Burke’s Speech on Conciliation with America was read: the talk about Hume and his lack of orthodox religion: the diving into economics and questions relating to political economy when the Wealth of Nations stirred the English speaking world: the greetings when Boswell returned from Corsica and the farewells and God-speeds when Johnson went to Wales with the Thrales in 1774.

Johnson was mighty jealous of the exclusiveness of the club: much opposed to the entrance into the magic circle of any unclubbable man. Once, when Sir Joshua Reynolds was telling Garrick of its excellence, “I’d like it much if I was a member,” said the actor manager. Sir Joshua carried the message to Johnson. “He’ll be of us?” growled the grand Cham. “How does he know we’ll permit him?” Then there was a pause, after which he added: “Why, the first duke in England has no right to use such language.” But Garrick had a friend in Sir John Hawkins, too, and he put in a good word for Garrick. “Sir,” said Johnson, “he will disturb us by his buffoonery.” Mr. Thrale was appealed to and he interceded for Garrick. “If, sir, Garrick should apply for membership, I shall blackball him,” declared the Doctor. “Who, sir?” exclaimed the astonished Thrale. “Mr. Garrick?--your friend, your companion--blackball him?” “Why, sir,” replied Johnson, “I love my little David dearly--better than any or all his flatterers do; but surely one ought to sit in a society like ours. ‘Unelbowed by a gamster, pimp, or player.’”

Garrick failed to understand his exclusion and made many diplomatic inquiries. What had he done? Who disliked him? Had he been the subject of conversation? Then one day Oliver Goldsmith took the matter up. “It would,” he said, “give an agreeable variety to the meetings; for there can be nothing new among us: we have, indeed, traveled over one another’s minds.” That, the grand Cham would not allow, and he was piqued at the suggestion. “Sir,” said he, “you have not traveled over my mind, I assure you.” But Goldsmith’s plea won Sir Joshua, and Garrick became a member. Shortly afterwards, Sir William Jones, the Richard Burton of his day, was also admitted.

Boswell had almost as much difficulty in becoming a member as Garrick. “The honor of being elected into the Club,” said the Bishop of St. Asaph, “is not inferior to that of being representative of Westminster and Surrey.” Boswell could show no credentials. What had he done? What were his merits? For answer there was but one statement. He was the follower of Johnson, and, moreover, according to the Cham, he was clubable. Then there was a dark hint. So long as Boswell remained unadmitted, no other name should become eligible. Boswell has left on record the mental anxiety that was his while waiting to know the result of the ballot, and he was the happiest of men when he learned at last that the ballot was clear.

Like the late William Marion Reedy, Johnson was ever ready to offer aid to literary aspirants. As Reedy brought to light many, Sara Teasdale, Zoe Akins, Harris Merton Lyon, Edgar Lee Masters, Witter Bynner, John L. Hervey, to name a few, so Samuel Johnson with his advice and encouragement, and, often his influence, found an audience for struggling writers and heartened them to renewed efforts. When Goldsmith’s Traveler appeared, the first reception was unpromising. Dr. Johnson gave it a favorable notice in the “Critical Review” and that turned the trick. The public that likes its opinions ready-made took notice. The Great Cham had approved so all must be well. Even the illuminati were astonished that a mere drudge, a hack, a newspaper essayist, should have written such a poem and before a year was ended a fourth edition had gone to press and Goldsmith was acclaimed the best poet of his day. At the club, one evening, a member tackled Goldsmith. “What do you mean,” he asked, “by the last word in the first line of your Traveler, remote, solitary, _slow_? Do you mean tardiness of locomotion?” “Yes,” answered Goldsmith, flurried and inattentive. But the protecting Johnson had also heard. “No, sir,” he interjected. “You did not mean tardiness of locomotion; you meant that sluggishness of mind which comes upon a man in solitude.” “Ah,” interjected the poet, “_that_ was what I meant.” But that was sufficient to set rumor going. There were additions to the story and, before long, it was whispered that Goldsmith had not written the line in question. Then in the startling manner in which whispering tongues can poison truth, it became an open secret that Johnson had written the finest passages in the poem. Johnson heard, and at once indicated the verses he had contributed, nine in all and by no means the best. Further, he came out with a paper, proclaiming The Traveler the finest poem that had seen the light of print since the days of Pope.

“He (Goldsmith) imitates you, sir,” said Boswell.

“Why, no, sir,” answered Johnson. “Jack Hawksworth is one of my imitators, but not Goldsmith. Goldy, sir, has great merit.”

“But, sir, he is much indebted to you for his getting so high in the public estimation.”

But Johnson would not admit that. “Why, sir, he has, perhaps, got _sooner_ to it by his intimacy with me.”

Johnson, indeed, discovered the native talent in Goldsmith and sympathized with his struggle against poverty. Not only was he generous with his literary criticism and advice but he went a step further, checking him for his occasional extravagance and improvidence. Of one incident in their acquaintance Johnson told the following tale:

“I received, one morning, a message from Goldsmith that he was in
great distress, and, as it was not in his power to come to me,
begging that I would come to him as soon as possible. I sent him a
guinea, and promised to come to him directly. I accordingly went as
soon as I was dressed, and found that his landlady had arrested him
for his rent, at which he was in a violent passion; I perceived that
he had already changed my guinea, and had a bottle of Madeira and a
glass before him. I put the cork into the bottle, desired he would be
calm, and began to talk with him of the means by which he would be
extricated. He then told me that he had a novel ready for the press,
which he produced for me. I looked into it and saw its merit; told
the landlady I would soon return; and, having gone to a bookseller,
sold it for sixty pounds. I brought Goldsmith the money, and he
discharged his rent, not without rating his landlady in a high tone
for having used him so ill.”

The novel so rescued was the immortal “Vicar of Wakefield” and in spite of Johnson’s recommendation, the short-sighted publisher kept it for nearly two years before giving it to the world.

Again, when Goldsmith’s play “The Good Natured Man,” was accepted, Johnson was to the fore with his protecting kindness, attending rehearsals, furnishing the prologue and counselling. The piece was coldly received, and, in the evening after its first appearance, Goldsmith went to Johnson with his troubles, weeping in an excess of emotion. But that display the old Spartan disapproved. “No man,” said he, “should be expected to sympathize with the sorrows of vanity.”

A little later, at a dinner, Goldsmith told the tale of his appointment, making merry at his own mood and temporary pessimism, for Goldsmith had the young boy’s temperament that kept him forever flitting between the depths of gloom or the heights of good humor, tears or laughter. He wound up his recital by saying: “When all were gone, except Johnson here, I burst out a-crying, and even swore that I would never write again.”

The doctor frowned his disapproval, hearing this. “All this,” he said, “I thought had been a secret between you and me, and I am sure I would not have said anything about it for the world.”

On another occasion Johnson took Goldsmith in hand. It was when the latter had been cast down by a vindictive attack upon him by a self appointed critic of whom the world now knows nothing. “Never mind, sir,” said the Doctor. “A man whose business it is to be talked of is much helped by being attacked. Fame, sir, is a shuttlecock; if it be struck only at one end of the room, it will soon fall to the ground; to keep it up, it must be struck at both ends.”

In the case of Goldsmith’s “She Stoops to Conquer,” Johnson used every effort to get it produced. He firmly believed in it, although the manager of Covent Garden theater was dead against it and even the principal players, when, after weeks of uncertainty, it was put in rehearsal, declined their parts. But Johnson was like an everlasting rock, and, by his efforts, it was produced on Monday, March 15, 1778. On the production of it, he wrote to Boswell, saying: “I know of no comedy for many years, that has so much exhilarated an audience; it has answered so much the great end of comedy, making an audience merry,” and time has amply demonstrated the correctness of Johnson’s taste, for the display has lived up to its old reputation as an acting work as distinct from a purely literary one. As I write this, I notice an announcement of the play being given in London, England, to crowded and delighted audiences.

Johnson’s advocacy of Goldsmith is shown again in the incident telling of the discussion anent the Roman History. To Boswell, he said: “Whether we take Goldsmith as a poet, as a comic writer, or as a historian, he stands in the first class.”

“A historian!” cried the astonished Boswell, who knew that Goldsmith had undertaken the writing of the two big volumes as a piece of hack work, to keep the wolf from the door, “My dear sir, you surely will not rank his compilation of the Roman History with the works of other historians of his age.”

“Why, who are before him?” asked Johnson.

“Hume--Robertson--Lord Lyttleton,” answered Boswell, forgetting perhaps for the moment and in the heat of the argument, Johnson’s antipathy to all things Scotch.

“I have not read Hume,” said Johnson, “but doubtless Goldsmith’s History is better than the verbiage of Robertson, or the foppery of Dalrymple.”

“But will you not admit the superiority of Robertson, in whose history we find such penetration, such painting?” queried the Scot.

But Johnson was stubborn. “Sir, you must consider how that penetration and that painting is employed. It is not history, it is imagination. He who describes what he never saw draws from fancy. Robertson paints minds as Sir Joshua paints faces, in a history piece; he imagines a heroic countenance. You must look upon Robertson’s work as a menace, and try it by that standard. History it is not. Besides, sir, it is the great excellence of a writer to put into his book as much as his book will hold. Goldsmith has done this in his history. Now Robertson might have put twice as much in his book. Robertson is like a man who has packed wool in gold; the wool takes up more room than the gold. No, sir, I always thought Robertson would be crushed with his own weight--would be buried under his own ornaments. Goldsmith tells you shortly all you want to know; Robertson detains you a great deal too long. No man will read Robertson’s cumbrous detail a second time; but Goldsmith’s plain narrative will please again and again. I would say to Robertson what an old tutor of a college said to one of his pupils, ‘Read over your compositions, and whenever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out!’--Goldsmith’s abridgement is better than that of Lucius Florus or Eutropius; and, I venture to say, that if you compare him with Vertot in the same places of Roman history, you will find that he excels Vertot. Sir, he has the art of compiling, and of saying everything he has to say in a pleasing manner. He is now writing a Natural History, and will make it as entertaining as a Persian tale.”

Johnson’s prediction as to the Persian tale quality of the Natural History was verified. The charming style of the book makes it as entertaining as Darwin’s Voyage in the Beagle or any of the books of Fabre. While it was in preparation, there were many talks with Johnson on the ways of animals. One is particularly happy, the more especially as it shows Johnson’s sturdy common sense opposed to Goldsmith’s happy credulity. They were talking of the custom of the natives of Otaheite in dog eating and Goldsmith had said that the Chinese also used dogs as food and that a dog butcher in China was as common as any other butcher. “When he walks abroad,” said Goldsmith, “all the dogs fall upon him.”

“That is not owing to his killing dogs,” said Johnson. “I remember a butcher at Lichfield, whom a dog that was in the house where I lived, always attacked. It is the smell of carnage which provokes this, let the animals he has killed be what they may.”

“Yes,” said Goldsmith, “there is a general abhorrence in animals at the signs of massacre. If you put a tub full of blood into a stable, the horses are likely to go mad.”

“I doubt that,” said Johnson.

“Nay, sir, it is a fact well authenticated,” persisted Goldsmith.

“You had better prove it before you put it in your book on Natural History,” suggested Thrale. “You may do it in my stable if you will.”

“Nay, sir,” Johnson said. “I would not have him prove it. If he is content to take his information from others, he may get through his book with little trouble, and without much endangering his reputation. But if he makes experiments for so comprehensive a book as his, there would be no end to them; his erroneous assertions would fall then upon himself; and he might be blamed for not having made experiments as to every particular.”