It is not till some time after Johnson had come into the enjoyment1 of his pension, that we first see him through the eyes of competent observers.
The Johnson of our knowledge, the most familiar figure to all students of English literary history had already long passed the prime of life, and done the greatest part of his literary work. His character, in the common phrase, had been "formed" years before; as, indeed, people's characters are chiefly formed in the cradle; and, not only his character, but the habits which are learnt in the great schoolroom of the world were fixed2 beyond any possibility of change. The strange eccentricities3 which had now become a second nature, amazed the society in which he was for over twenty years a prominent figure. Unsympathetic observers, those especially to whom the Chesterfield type represented the ideal of humanity, were simply disgusted or repelled5. The man, they thought, might be in his place at a Grub Street pot-house; but had no business in a lady's drawing-room. If he had been modest and retiring, they might have put up with his defects; but Johnson was not a person whose qualities, good or bad, were of a kind to be ignored. Naturally enough, the fashionable world cared little for the rugged6 old giant. "The great," said Johnson, "had tried him and given him up; they had seen enough of
him;" and his reason was pretty much to the purpose. "Great lords and great ladies don't love to have their mouths stopped," especially not, one may add, by an unwashed fist.
It is easy to blame them now. Everybody can see that a saint in beggar's rags is intrinsically better than a sinner in gold lace. But the principle is one of those which serves us for judging the dead, much more than for regulating our own conduct. Those, at any rate, may throw the first stone at the Horace Walpoles and Chesterfields, who are quite certain that they would ask a modern Johnson to their houses. The trial would be severe. Poor Mrs. Boswell complained grievously of her husband's idolatry. "I have seen many a bear led by a man," she said; "but I never before saw a man led by a bear." The truth is, as Boswell explains, that the sage8's uncouth9 habits, such as turning the candles' heads downwards10 to make them burn more brightly, and letting the wax drop upon the carpet, "could not but be disagreeable to a lady."
He had other habits still more annoying to people of delicate perceptions. A hearty11 despiser of all affectations, he despised especially the affectation of indifference12 to the pleasures of the table. "For my part," he said, "I mind my belly13 very studiously and very carefully, for I look upon it that he who does not mind his belly will hardly mind anything else." Avowing15 this principle he would innocently give himself the airs of a scientific epicure16. "I, madam," he said to the terror of a lady with whom he was about to sup, "who live at a variety of good tables, am a much better judge of cookery than any person who has a very tolerable cook, but lives much at home, for his palate is gradually adapted to the taste of his cook, whereas, madam, in trying by a wider range, I can more exquisitely18 judge." But his pretensions20 to exquisite19 taste are by no means borne but by independent witnesses. "He laughs," said Tom Davies, "like a rhinoceros," and he seems to have eaten like a wolf—savagely, silently, and with undiscriminating fury. He was not a pleasant object during this
performance. He was totally absorbed in the business of the moment, a strong perspiration22 came out, and the veins23 of his forehead swelled24. He liked coarse satisfying dishes—boiled pork and veal-pie stuffed with plums and sugar; and in regard to wine, he seems to have accepted the doctrines25 of the critic of a certain fluid professing26 to be port, who asked, "What more can you want? It is black, and it is thick, and it makes you drunk." Claret, as Johnson put it, "is the liquor for boys, and port for men; but he who aspires27 to be a hero must drink brandy." He could, however, refrain, though he could not be moderate, and for all the latter part of his life, from 1766, he was a total abstainer28. Nor, it should be added, does he ever appear to have sought for more than exhilaration from wine. His earliest intimate friend, Hector, said that he had never but once seen him drunk.
His appetite for more innocent kinds of food was equally excessive. He would eat seven or eight peaches before breakfast, and declared that he had only once in his life had as much wall-fruit as he wished. His consumption of tea was prodigious29, beyond all precedent30. Hawkins quotes Bishop31 Burnet as having drunk sixteen large cups every morning, a feat32 which would entitle him to be reckoned as a rival. "A hardened and shameless tea-drinker," Johnson called himself, who "with tea amuses the evenings, with tea solaces33 the midnights, and with tea welcomes the mornings." One of his teapots, preserved by a relic-hunter, contained two quarts, and he professed34 to have consumed five and twenty cups at a sitting. Poor Mrs. Thrale complains that he often kept her up making tea for him till four in the morning. His reluctance35 to go to bed was due to the fact that his nights were periods of intense misery36; but the vast potations of tea can scarcely have tended to improve them.
The huge frame was clad in the raggedest of garments, until his acquaintance with the Thrales led to a partial reform. His wigs38 were generally burnt in front, from his shortsighted knack40 of reading with his head close to the candle; and at the Thrales, the butler stood ready to effect a change of wigs as he passed into the dining-room. Once or twice we have accounts of his bursting into unusual splendour. He appeared at the first representation of Irene in a scarlet41 waistcoat laced with gold; and on one of his first interviews with Goldsmith he took the trouble to array himself decently, because Goldsmith was reported to have justified42 slovenly43 habits by the precedent of the leader of his craft. Goldsmith, judging by certain famous suits, seems to have profited by the hint more than his preceptor. As a rule, Johnson's appearance, before he became a pensioner44, was worthy45 of the proverbial manner of Grub Street. Beauclerk used to describe how he had once taken a French lady of distinction to see Johnson in his chambers46. On descending47 the staircase they heard a noise like thunder. Johnson was pursuing them, struck by a sudden sense of the demands upon his gallantry. He brushed in between Beauclerk and the lady, and seizing her hand conducted her to her coach. A crowd of people collected to stare at the sage, dressed in rusty48 brown, with a pair of old shoes for slippers49, a shrivelled wig39 on the top of his head, and with shirtsleeves and the knees of his breeches hanging loose.
In those days, clergymen and physicians were only just abandoning the use of their official costume in the streets, and Johnson's slovenly habits
were even more marked than they would be at present. "I have no passion for clean linen," he once remarked, and it is to be feared that he must sometimes have offended more senses than one.
In spite of his uncouth habits of dress and manners, Johnson claimed and, in a sense, with justice, to be a polite man. "I look upon myself," he said once to Boswell, "as a very polite man." He could show the stately courtesy of a sound Tory, who cordially accepts the principle of social distinction, but has far too strong a sense of self-respect to fancy that compliance50 with the ordinary conventions can possibly lower his own position. Rank of the spiritual kind was especially venerable to him. "I should as soon have thought of contradicting a bishop," was a phrase which marked the highest conceivable degree of deference51 to a man whom he respected. Nobody, again, could pay more effective compliments, when he pleased; and the many female friends who have written of him agree, that he could be singularly attractive to women. Women are, perhaps, more inclined than men to forgive external roughness in
consideration of the great charm of deep tenderness in a thoroughly52 masculine nature. A characteristic phrase was his remark to Miss Monckton. She had declared, in opposition53 to one of Johnson's prejudices, that Sterne's writings were pathetic: "I am sure," she said, "they have affected54 me." "Why," said Johnson, smiling and rolling himself about, "that is because, dearest, you are a dunce!" When she mentioned this to him some time afterwards he replied: "Madam, if I had thought so, I certainly should not have said it." The truth could not be more neatly55 put.
Boswell notes, with some surprise, that when Johnson dined with Lord Monboddo he insisted upon rising when the ladies left the table, and took occasion to observe that politeness was "fictitious56 benevolence," and equally useful in common intercourse57. Boswell's surprise seems to indicate that Scotchmen in those days were even greater bears than Johnson. He always insisted, as Miss Reynolds tells us, upon showing ladies to their carriages through Bolt Court, though his dress was such that her readers would, she thinks, be astonished that any man in his senses should have shown himself in it abroad or even at home. Another odd indication of Johnson's regard for good manners, so far as his lights would take him, was the extreme disgust with which he often referred to a certain footman in Paris, who used his fingers in place of sugar-tongs. So far as Johnson could recognize bad manners he was polite enough, though unluckily the limitation is one of considerable importance.
Johnson's claims to politeness were sometimes, it is true, put in a rather startling form. "Every man of any education," he once said to the amazement59 of his hearers, "would rather be called a rascal60 than accused of deficiency in the graces." Gibbon, who was present, slily inquired of a lady whether among all her acquaintance she could not find one exception. According to Mrs. Thrale, he went even further. Dr. Barnard, he said, was the only man who had ever done justice to his good breeding; "and you may observe," he added, "that I am well-bred to a degree of needless scrupulosity61." He proceeded, according to Mrs. Thrale, but the report a little taxes our faith, to claim the virtues63 not only of respecting ceremony, but of never contradicting or interrupting his hearers. It is rather odd that Dr. Barnard had once a sharp altercation65 with Johnson,
and avenged66 himself by a sarcastic68 copy of verses in which, after professing to learn perfectness from different friends, he says,— Johnson shall teach me how to place, In varied69 light, each borrow'd grace; From him I'll learn to write; Copy his clear familiar style, And by the roughness of his file, Grow, like himself, polite.
Johnson, on this as on many occasions, repented70 of the blow as soon as it was struck, and sat down by Barnard, "literally71 smoothing down his arms and knees," and beseeching72 pardon. Barnard accepted his apologies, but went home and wrote his little copy of verses.
Johnson's shortcomings in civility were no doubt due, in part, to the narrowness of his faculties73 of perception. He did not know, for he could not see, that his uncouth gestures and slovenly dress were offensive; and he was not so well able to observe others as to shake off the manners contracted in Grub Street. It is hard to study a manual of etiquette74 late in life, and for a man of Johnson's imperfect faculties it was probably impossible. Errors of this kind were always pardonable, and are now simply ludicrous. But Johnson often shocked his companions by more indefensible conduct. He was irascible, overbearing, and, when angry, vehement75 beyond all propriety76. He was a "tremendous companion," said Garrick's brother; and men of gentle nature, like Charles Fox, often shrank from his company, and perhaps exaggerated his brutality77.
Johnson, who had long regarded conversation as the chief amusement, came in later years to regard it as almost the chief employment of life; and he had studied the art with the zeal78 of a man pursuing a favourite hobby. He had always, as he told Sir Joshua Reynolds, made it a principle to talk on all occasions as well as he could. He had thus obtained a mastery over his weapons which made him one of the most accomplished79 of conversational80 gladiators. He had one advantage which has pretty well disappeared from modern society, and the disappearance81 of which has been destructive to excellence82 of talk. A good talker, even more than a good orator83, implies a good audience. Modern society is too vast and too restless to give a conversationalist a fair chance. For the formation of real proficiency84 in the art, friends should meet often, sit long, and be thoroughly at ease. A modern audience generally breaks up before it is well warmed through, and includes enough strangers to break the magic circle of social electricity. The clubs in which Johnson delighted were excellently adapted to foster his peculiar85 talent. There a man could "fold his legs and have his talk out"—a pleasure hardly to be enjoyed now. And there a set of friends meeting regularly, and meeting to talk, learnt to sharpen each other's skill in all dialectic manoeuvres.
Conversation may be pleasantest, as Johnson admitted, when two friends meet quietly to exchange their minds without any thought of display. But conversation considered as a game, as a bout17 of intellectual sword-play, has also charms which Johnson intensely appreciated. His talk was not of the encyclopaedia86 variety, like that of some more modern celebrities87; but it was full of apposite illustrations and unrivalled in keen argument, rapid flashes of wit and humour, scornful retort and dexterous88 sophistry89. Sometimes he would fell his adversary90 at a blow; his sword, as Boswell said, would be through your body in an instant without preliminary flourishes; and in the excitement of talking for victory, he would use any device that came to hand. "There is no arguing with Johnson," said Goldsmith, quoting a phrase from Cibber, "for if his pistol misses fire, he knocks you down with the butt-end of it." Johnson's view of conversation is indicated by his remark about Burke. "That fellow," he said at a time of illness, "calls forth92 all my powers. Were I to see Burke now, it would kill me." "It is when you come close to a man in conversation," he said on another occasion, "that you discover what his real abilities are. To make a speech in an assembly is a knack. Now I honour Thurlow, sir; Thurlow is a fine fellow, he fairly puts his mind to yours."
Johnson's retorts were fair play under the conditions of the game, as it is fair play to kick an opponent's shins at football. But of course a man who had, as it were, become the acknowledged champion of the ring, and who had an irascible and thoroughly dogmatic temper, was tempted93 to become unduly94 imperious. In the company of which Savage21 was a distinguished95 member, one may guess that the conversational fervour sometimes degenerated96 into horse-play. Want of arguments would be supplied by personality, and the champion would avenge67 himself by brutality on an opponent who happened for once to be getting the best of him. Johnson, as he grew older and got into more polished society, became milder in his manners; but he had enough of the old spirit left in him to break forth at times with ungovernable fury, and astonish the well-regulated minds of respectable ladies and gentlemen.
Anecdotes97 illustrative of this ferocity abound99, and his best friends—except, perhaps, Reynolds and Burke—had all to suffer in turn. On one occasion, when he had made a rude speech even to Reynolds, Boswell states, though with some hesitation100, his belief that Johnson actually blushed. The records of his contests in this kind fill a large space in Boswell's pages. That they did not lead to worse consequences shows his absence of rancour. He was always ready and anxious for a reconciliation101, though he would not press for one if his first overtures102 were rejected. There was no venom103 in the wounds he inflicted104, for there was no ill-nature; he was rough in the heat of the struggle, and in such cases careless in distributing blows; but he never enjoyed giving pain. None of his tiffs105 ripened107 into permanent quarrels, and he seems scarcely to have lost a friend. He is a pleasant contrast in this, as in much else, to Horace Walpole, who succeeded, in the course of a long life, in breaking with almost all his old friends. No man set a higher value upon friendship than Johnson. "A man," he said to Reynolds, "ought to keep his friendship in constant repair;" or he would find himself left alone as he grew older. "I look
upon a day as lost," he said later in life, "in which I do not make a new acquaintance." Making new acquaintances did not involve dropping the old. The list of his friends is a long one, and includes, as it were, successive layers, superposed upon each other, from the earliest period of his life.
This is so marked a feature in Johnson's character, that it will be as well at this point to notice some of the friendships from which he derived108 the greatest part of his happiness. Two of his schoolfellows, Hector and Taylor, remained his intimates through life. Hector survived to give information to Boswell, and Taylor, then a prebendary of Westminster, read the funeral service over his old friend in the Abbey. He showed, said some of the bystanders, too little feeling. The relation between the two men was not one of special tenderness; indeed they were so little congenial that Boswell rather gratuitously109 suspected his venerable teacher of having an eye to Taylor's will. It seems fairer to regard the acquaintance as an illustration of that curious adhesiveness110 which made Johnson cling to less attractive persons. At any rate, he did not show the complacence of the proper will-hunter. Taylor was rector of Bosworth and squire111 of Ashbourne. He was a fine specimen112 of the squire-parson; a justice of the peace, a warm politician, and what was worse, a warm
Whig. He raised gigantic bulls, bragged113 of selling cows for 120 guineas and more, and kept a noble butler in purple clothes and a large white wig. Johnson respected Taylor as a sensible man, but was ready to have a round with him on occasion. He snorted contempt when Taylor talked of breaking some small vessels114 if he took an emetic115. "Bah," said the doctor, who regarded a valetudinarian116 as a "scoundrel," "if you have so many things that will break, you had better break your neck at once, and there's an end on't." Nay117, if he did not condemn118 Taylor's cows, he criticized his bulldog with cruel acuteness. "No, sir, he is not well shaped; for there is not the quick transition from the thickness of the fore-part to the tenuity—the thin part—behind, which a bulldog ought to have." On the more serious topic of politics his Jacobite fulminations roused Taylor "to a pitch of bellowing119." Johnson roared out that if the people of England were fairly polled (this was in 1777) the present king would be sent away to-night, and his adherents120 hanged to-morrow. Johnson, however, rendered Taylor the substantial service of writing sermons for him, two volumes of which were published after they were both dead; and Taylor must have been a bold man, if it be true, as has been said, that he refused to preach a sermon written by Johnson upon Mrs. Johnson's death, on the ground that it spoke121 too favourably122 of the character of the deceased.
Johnson paid frequent visits to Lichfield, to keep up his old friends. One of them was Lucy Porter, his wife's daughter, with whom, according to Miss Seward, he had been in love before he married her mother. He was at least tenderly attached to her through life. And, for the most part, the good people of Lichfield seem to have been proud of their fellow-townsman, and gave him a substantial proof of their sympathy by continuing to him, on favourable123 terms, the lease of a house originally granted to his father. There was, indeed, one remarkable124 exception in Miss Seward, who belonged to a genus specially4 contemptible125 to the old doctor. She was one of the fine ladies who dabbled126 in poetry, and aimed at being the centre of a small literary circle at Lichfield. Her letters are amongst the most amusing illustrations of the petty affectations and squabbles characteristic of such a provincial127 clique128. She evidently hated Johnson at the bottom of her small soul; and, indeed, though Johnson once paid her a preposterous129 compliment—a weakness of which this stern moralist was apt to be guilty in the company of ladies—he no doubt trod pretty roughly upon some of her pet vanities.
By far the most celebrated130 of Johnson's Lichfield friends was David Garrick, in regard to whom his relations were somewhat peculiar. Reynolds said that Johnson considered Garrick to be his own property, and would never allow him to be praised or blamed by any one else without contradiction. Reynolds composed a pair of imaginary dialogues to illustrate131 the proposition, in one of which Johnson attacks Garrick in answer to Reynolds, and in the other defends him in answer to Gibbon. The dialogues seem to be very good reproductions of the Johnsonian manner, though perhaps the courteous132 Reynolds was a little too much impressed by its roughness; and they probably include many genuine remarks of Johnson's. It is remarkable that the praise is far more pointed133 and elaborate than the blame, which turns chiefly upon the general inferiority of an actor's position. And, in fact, this seems to have corresponded to Johnson's opinion about Garrick as gathered from Boswell.
The two men had at bottom a considerable regard for each other, founded upon old association, mutual134 services, and reciprocal respect for talents of very different orders. But they were so widely separated by circumstances, as well as by a radical135 opposition of temperament136, that any close intimacy137 could hardly be expected. The bear and the monkey are not likely to be intimate friends. Garrick's rapid elevation138 in fame and fortune seems to have produced a certain degree of envy in his old schoolmaster. A grave moral philosopher has, of course, no right to look askance at the rewards which fashion lavishes139 upon men of lighter140 and less lasting141 merit, and which he professes142 to despise. Johnson, however, was troubled with a rather excessive allowance of human nature. Moreover he had the good old-fashioned contempt for players, characteristic both of the Tory and the inartistic mind. He asserted roundly that he looked upon players as no better than dancing-dogs. "But, sir, you will allow that some players are better than others?" "Yes, sir, as some dogs dance better than others." So when Goldsmith accused Garrick of grossly flattering the queen, Johnson exclaimed, "And as to meanness—how is it mean in a player, a showman, a fellow who exhibits himself for a shilling, to flatter his queen?" At another time Boswell suggested that we might respect a great player. "What! sir," exclaimed Johnson, "a fellow who claps a hump upon his back and a lump on his leg and cries, 'I am Richard III.'? Nay, sir, a ballad-singer is a higher man, for he does two things: he repeats and he sings; there is both recitation and music in his performance—the player only recites."
Such sentiments were not very likely to remain unknown to Garrick nor to put him at ease with Johnson, whom, indeed, he always suspected of laughing at him. They had a little tiff106 on account of Johnson's Edition of Shakspeare. From some misunderstanding, Johnson did not make use of Garrick's collection of old plays. Johnson, it seems, thought that Gar-rick should have courted him more, and perhaps sent the plays to his house; whereas Garrick, knowing that Johnson treated books with a roughness ill-suited to their constitution, thought that he had done quite enough by asking Johnson to come to his library. The revenge—if it was revenge—taken by Johnson was to say nothing of Garrick in his Preface, and to glance obliquely143 at his non-communication of his rarities. He seems to have thought that it would be a lowering of Shakspeare to admit that his fame owed anything to Garrick's exertions144.
Boswell innocently communicated to Garrick a criticism of Johnson's upon one of his poems— I'd smile with the simple and feed with the poor.
"Let me smile with the wise, and feed with the rich," was Johnson's tolerably harmless remark. Garrick, however, did not like it, and when Boswell tried to console him by saying that Johnson gored145 everybody in turn, and added, "foenum habet in cornu." "Ay," said Garrick vehemently146, "he has a whole mow147 of it." The most unpleasant incident was when Garrick proposed rather too freely to be a member of the Club.
Johnson said that the first duke in England had no right to use such language, and said, according to Mrs. Thrale, "If Garrick does apply, I'll blackball him. Surely we ought to be able to sit in a society like ours— 'Unelbowed by a gamester, pimp, or player!'"
Nearly ten years afterwards, however, Johnson favoured his election, and when he died, declared that the Club should have a year's widowhood. No successor to Garrick was elected during that time.
Johnson sometimes ventured to criticise148 Garrick's acting149, but here Gar-rick could take his full revenge. The purblind150 Johnson was not, we may imagine, much of a critic in such matters. Garrick reports him to have said of an actor at Lichfield, "There is a courtly vivacity151 about the fellow;" when, in fact, said Garrick, "he was the most vulgar ruffian that ever went upon boards."
In spite of such collisions of opinion and mutual criticism, Johnson seems to have spoken in the highest terms of Garrick's good qualities, and they had many pleasant meetings. Garrick takes a prominent part in two or three of the best conversations in Boswell, and seems to have put his interlocutors in specially good temper. Johnson declared him to be "the first man in the world for sprightly152 conversation." He said that Dry-den had written much better prologues153 than any of Garrick's, but that Garrick had written more good prologues than Dryden. He declared that it was wonderful how little Garrick had been spoilt by all the flattery that he had received. No wonder if he was a little vain: "a man who is perpetually flattered in every mode that can be conceived: so many bellows154 have blown the fuel, that one wonders he is not by this time become a cinder155!" "If all this had happened to me," he said on another occasion, "I should have had a couple of fellows with long poles walking before me, to knock down everybody that stood in the way. Consider, if all this had happened to Cibber and Quin, they'd have jumped over the moon. Yet Garrick speaks to us," smiling. He admitted at the same time that Garrick had raised the profession of a player. He defended Garrick, too, against the common charge of avarice156. Garrick, as he pointed out, had been brought up in a family whose study it was to make fourpence go as far as fourpence-halfpenny. Johnson remembered in early days drinking tea with Garrick when Peg157 Woffington made it, and made it, as Garrick grumbled158, "as red as blood." But when Garrick became rich he became liberal. He had, so Johnson declared, given away more money than any man in England.
After Garrick's death, Johnson took occasion to say, in the Lives of the Poets, that the death "had eclipsed the gaiety of nations and diminished the public stock of harmless pleasures." Boswell ventured to criticise the observation rather spitefully. "Why nations? Did his gaiety extend further than his own nation?" "Why, sir," replied Johnson, "some imagination must be allowed. Besides, we may say nations if we allow the Scotch58 to be a nation, and to have gaiety—which they have not." On the whole, in spite of various drawbacks, Johnson's reported observations upon Garrick will appear to be discriminative159, and yet, on the whole, strongly favourable to his character. Yet we are not quite surprised that Mrs. Gar-rick did not respond to a hint thrown out by Johnson, that he would be glad to write the life of his friend.
At Oxford160, Johnson acquired the friendship of Dr. Adams, afterwards Master of Pembroke and author of a once well-known reply to Hume's argument upon miracles. He was an amiable161 man, and was proud to do the honours of the university to his old friend, when, in later years, Johnson revisited the much-loved scenes of his neglected youth. The warmth of Johnson's regard for old days is oddly illustrated162 by an interview recorded by Boswell with one Edwards, a fellow-student whom he met again in 1778, not having previously163 seen him since 1729. They had lived in London for forty years without once meeting, a fact more surprising then than now. Boswell eagerly gathered up the little scraps164 of college anecdote98 which the meeting produced, but perhaps his best find was a phrase of Edwards himself. "You are a philosopher, Dr. Johnson," he said; "I have tried, too, in my time to be a philosopher; but, I don't know how, cheerfulness was always breaking in." The phrase, as Boswell truly says, records an exquisite trait of character.
Of the friends who gathered round Johnson during his period of struggle, many had vanished before he became well known. The best loved of all seems to have been Dr. Bathurst, a physician, who, failing to obtain practice, joined the expedition to Havannah, and fell a victim to the climate (1762). Upon him Johnson pronounced a panegyric165 which has contributed a proverbial phrase to the language. "Dear Bathurst," he said, "was a man to my very heart's content: he hated a fool and he hated a rogue166, and he hated a Whig; he was a very good hater." Johnson remembered Bathurst in his prayers for years after his loss, and received from him a peculiar legacy167. Francis Barker had been the negro slave of Bathurst's father, who left him his liberty by will. Dr. Bathurst allowed him to enter Johnson's service; and Johnson sent him to school at considerable expense, and afterwards retained him in his service with little interruption till his own death. Once Barker ran away to sea, and was discharged, oddly enough, by the good offices of Wilkes, to whom Smollett
applied168 on Johnson's behalf. Barker became an important member of Johnson's family, some of whom reproached him for his liberality to the nigger. No one ever solved the great problem as to what services were rendered by Barker to his master, whose wig was "as impenetrable by a comb as a quickset hedge," and whose clothes were never touched by the brush.
Among the other friends of this period must be reckoned his biographer, Hawkins, an attorney who was afterwards Chairman of the Middlesex Justices, and knighted on presenting an address to the King. Boswell regarded poor Sir John Hawkins with all the animosity of a rival author, and with some spice of wounded vanity. He was grievously offended, so at least says Sir John's daughter, on being described in the Life of Johnson as "Mr. James Boswell" without a solitary169 epithet170 such as celebrated or well-known. If that was really his feeling, he had his revenge; for no one book ever so suppressed another as Boswell's Life suppressed Hawkins's. In truth, Hawkins was a solemn prig, remarkable chiefly for the unusual intensity171 of his conviction that all virtue64 consists in respectability. He had a special aversion to "goodness of heart," which he regarded as another name for a quality properly called extravagance or vice91. Johnson's tenacity172 of old acquaintance introduced him into the Club, where he made himself so disagreeable, especially, as it seems, by rudeness to Burke, that he found it expedient173 to invent a pretext174 for resignation. Johnson called him a "very unclubable man," and may perhaps have intended him in the quaint37 description: "I really believe him to be an honest man at the bottom; though, to be sure, he is rather penurious175, and he is somewhat mean; and it must be owned he has some degree of brutality, and is not without a tendency to savageness176 that cannot well be defended."
In a list of Johnson's friends it is proper to mention Richardson and Hawkesworth. Richardson seems to have given him substantial help, and was repaid by favourable comparisons with Fielding, scarcely borne out by the verdict of posterity177. "Fielding," said Johnson, "could tell the hour by looking at the clock; whilst Richardson knew how the clock was made." "There is more knowledge of the heart," he said at another time, "in one letter of Richardson's than in all Tom Jones." Johnson's preference of the sentimentalist to the man whose humour and strong sense were so like his own, shows how much his criticism was biassed178 by his prejudices; though, of course, Richardson's external decency179 was a recommendation to the moralist. Hawkesworth's intimacy with Johnson seems to have been chiefly in the period between the Dictionary and the pension. He was considered to be Johnson's best imitator; and has vanished like other imitators. His fate, very doubtful if the story believed at the time be true, was a curious one for a friend of Johnson's. He had made some sceptical remarks as to the efficacy of prayer in his preface to the South Sea Voyages; and was so bitterly attacked by a "Christian180" in the papers, that he destroyed himself by a dose of opium181.
Two younger friends, who became disciples183 of the sage soon after the appearance of the Rambler, are prominent figures in the later circle. One
of these was Bennet Langton, a man of good family, fine scholarship, and very amiable character. His exceedingly tall and slender figure was compared by Best to the stork184 in Raphael's cartoon of the Miraculous185 Draught186 of Fishes. Miss Hawkins describes him sitting with one leg twisted round the other as though to occupy the smallest possible space, and playing with his gold snuff-box with a mild countenance187 and sweet smile. The gentle, modest creature was loved by Johnson, who could warm into unusual eloquence188 in singing his praises. The doctor, however, was rather fond of discussing with Boswell the faults of his friend. They seem to have chiefly consisted in a certain languor189 or sluggishness191 of temperament which allowed his affairs to get into perplexity.
Once, when arguing the delicate question as to the propriety of telling a friend of his wife's unfaithfulness, Boswell, after his peculiar fashion, chose to enliven the abstract statement by the purely192 imaginary hypothesis of Mr. and Mrs. Langton being in this position. Johnson said that it would be useless to tell Langton, because he would be too sluggish190 to get a divorce. Once Langton was the unconscious cause of one of Johnson's oddest performances. Langton had employed Chambers, a common friend of his and Johnson's, to draw his will. Johnson, talking to Chambers and Boswell, was suddenly struck by the absurdity193 of his friend's appearing in the character of testator. His companions, however, were utterly194 unable to see in what the joke consisted; but Johnson laughed obstreperously195 and irrepressibly: he laughed till he reached the Temple Gate; and when in Fleet Street went almost into convulsions of hilarity196. Holding on by one of the posts in the street, he sent forth such peals197 of laughter that they seemed in the silence of the night to resound198 from
Temple Bar to Fleet Ditch. Not long before his death, Johnson applied to Langton for spiritual advice. "I desired him to tell me sincerely in what he thought my life was faulty." Langton wrote upon a sheet of paper certain texts recommending Christian charity; and explained, upon inquiry199, that he was pointing at Johnson's habit of contradiction. The old doctor began by thanking him earnestly for his kindness; but gradually waxed savage and asked
Langton, "in a loud and angry tone, What is your drift, sir?" He complained of the well-meant advice to Boswell, with a sense that he had been unjustly treated. It was a scene for a comedy, as Reynolds observed, to see a penitent200 get into a passion and belabour his confessor.
Through Langton, Johnson became acquainted with the friend whose manner was in the strongest contrast to his own. Topham Beauclerk was a man of fashion. He was commended to Johnson by a likeness201 to Charles II., from whom he was descended202, being the grandson of the first Duke of St. Alban's. Beauclerk was a man of literary and scientific tastes. He inherited some of the moral laxity which Johnson chose to pardon in his ancestor. Some years after his acquaintance with Boswell he married Lady Diana Spencer, a lady who had been divorced upon his account from her husband, Lord Bolingbroke. But he took care not to obtrude203 his faults of life, whatever they may have been, upon the old moralist, who entertained for him a peculiar affection. He specially admired Beauclerk's skill in the use of a more polished, if less vigorous, style of conversation than his own. He envied the ease with which Beauclerk brought out his sly incisive204 retorts. "No man," he said, "ever was so free when he was going to say a good thing, from a look that expressed that it was coming; or, when he had said it, from a look that expressed that it had come." When Beauclerk was dying (in 1780), Johnson said, with a faltering205 voice, that he would walk to the extremity206 of the diameter of the earth to save him. Two little anecdotes are expressive207 of his tender
feeling for this incongruous friend. Boswell had asked him to sup at Beauclerk's. He started, but, on the way, recollecting208 himself, said, "I cannot go; but I do not love Beauclerk the less." Beauclerk had put upon a portrait of Johnson the inscription209,— Ingenium ingens Inculto latet hoc sub corpore.
Langton, who bought the portrait, had the inscription removed. "It was kind in you to take it off," said Johnson; and, after a short pause, "not unkind in him to put it on."
Early in their acquaintance, the two young men, Beau and Lanky210, as Johnson called them, had sat up one night at a tavern211 till three in the morning. The courageous212 thought struck them that they would knock up the old philosopher. He came to the door of his chambers, poker213 in hand, with an old wig for a nightcap. On hearing their errand, the sage exclaimed, "What! is it you, you dogs? I'll have a frisk with you." And so Johnson with the two youths, his juniors by about thirty years, proceeded to make a night of it. They amazed the fruiterers in Covent Garden; they brewed214 a bowl of bishop in a tavern, while Johnson quoted the poet's address to Sleep,— "Short, O short, be then thy reign215, And give us to the world again!"
They took a boat to Billingsgate, and Johnson, with Beauclerk, kept up their amusement for the following day, when Langton deserted216 them to go to breakfast with some young ladies, and Johnson scolded him for leaving his friends "to go and sit with a parcel of wretched unidea'd girls." "I shall have my old friend to bail217 out of the round-house," said Garrick when he heard of this queer alliance; and he told Johnson that he would be in the Chronicle for his frolic. "He durst not do such a thing. His wife would not let him," was the moralist's retort.
Some friends, known to fame by other titles than their connexion with Johnson, had by this time gathered round them. Among them was one, whose art he was unable to appreciate, but whose fine social qualities and dignified218 equability of temper made him a valued and respected companion. Reynolds had settled in London at the end of 1752. Johnson met him at the house of Miss Cotterell. Reynolds had specially admired Johnson's Life of Savage, and, on their first meeting, happened to make a remark which delighted Johnson. The ladies were regretting the loss of a friend to whom they were under obligations. "You have, however," said Reynolds, "the comfort of being relieved from a burden of gratitude219."
The saying is a little too much like Rochefoucauld, and too true to be pleasant; but it was one of those keen remarks which Johnson appreciated because they prick220 a bubble of commonplace moralizing without demanding too literal an acceptation. He went home to sup with Reynolds and became his intimate friend. On another occasion, Johnson was offended by two ladies of rank at the same house, and by way of taking down their pride, asked Reynolds in a loud voice, "How much do you think you and I could get in a week, if we both worked as hard as we could?" "His appearance," says Sir Joshua's sister, Miss Reynolds, "might suggest the poor author: as he was not likely in that place to be a blacksmith or a porter." Poor Miss Reynolds, who tells this story, was another attraction to Reynolds' house. She was a shy, retiring maiden221 lady, who vexed222 her famous brother by following in his steps without his talents, and was deeply hurt by his annoyance223 at the unintentional mockery.
Johnson was through life a kind and judicious224 friend to her; and had attracted her on their first meeting by a significant indication of his character. He said that when going home to his lodgings225 at one or two in the morning, he often saw poor children asleep on thresholds and stalls—the wretched "street Arabs" of the day—and that he used to put pennies into their hands that they might buy a breakfast.
Two friends, who deserve to be placed beside Reynolds, came from Ireland to seek their fortunes in London. Edmund Burke, incomparably the greatest writer upon political philosophy in English literature, the master of a style unrivalled for richness, flexibility226, and vigour227, was radically228 opposed to Johnson on party questions, though his language upon the French Revolution, after Johnson's death, would have satisfied even the strongest prejudices of his old friend. But he had qualities which commended him even to the man who called him a "bottomless Whig," and who generally spoke of Whigs as rascals229, and maintained that the first Whig was the devil. If his intellect was wider, his heart was as warm as Johnson's, and in conversation he merited the generous applause and warm emulation230 of his friends. Johnson was never tired of praising the extraordinary readiness and spontaneity of Burke's conversation. "If a man," he said, "went under a shed at the same time with Burke to avoid a shower, he would say, 'This is an extraordinary man.' Or if Burke went into a stable to see his horse dressed, the ostler would say, 'We have had an extraordinary man here.'" When Burke was first going into Parliament, Johnson said in answer to Hawkins, who wondered that such a man should get a seat, "We who know Mr. Burke, know that he will be one of the first men in the country." Speaking of certain other members of Parliament, more after the heart of Sir John Hawkins, he said that he grudged232 success to a man who made a figure by a knowledge of a few forms, though his mind was "as narrow as the neck of a vinegar cruet;" but then he did not grudge231 Burke's being the first man in the House of Commons, for he would be the first man everywhere. And Burke equally admitted Johnson's supremacy233 in conversation. "It is enough for me," he said to some one who regretted Johnson's monopoly of the talk on a particular occasion, "to have rung the bell for him."
The other Irish adventurer, whose career was more nearly moulded upon that of Johnson, came to London in 1756, and made Johnson's acquaintance. Some time afterwards (in or before 1761) Goldsmith, like Johnson, had tasted the bitterness of an usher's life, and escaped into the scarcely more tolerable regions of Grub Street. After some years of trial, he was becoming known to the booksellers as a serviceable hand, and had two works in his desk destined234 to lasting celebrity235. His landlady236 (apparently 1764) one day arrested him for debt. Johnson, summoned to his assistance, sent him a guinea and speedily followed. The guinea had already been changed, and Goldsmith was consoling himself with a bottle of Madeira. Johnson corked237 the bottle, and a discussion of ways and means brought out the manuscript of the Vicar of Wakefield. Johnson looked into it, took it to a bookseller, got sixty pounds for it, and returned to Goldsmith, who paid his rent and administered a sound rating to his landlady.
The relation thus indicated is characteristic; Johnson was as a rough but helpful elder brother to poor Goldsmith, gave him advice, sympathy, and applause, and at times criticised him pretty sharply, or brought down his conversational bludgeon upon his sensitive friend. "He has nothing of the bear but his skin," was Goldsmith's comment upon his clumsy friend, and the two men appreciated each other at bottom. Some of their readers may be inclined to resent Johnson's attitude of superiority. The admirably pure and tender heart, and the exquisite intellectual refinement238 implied in the Vicar and the Traveller, force us to love Goldsmith in spite of superficial foibles, and when Johnson prunes239 or interpolates lines in the Traveller, we feel as though a woodman's axe62 was hacking240 at a most delicate piece of carving241. The evidence of contemporary observers, however, must force impartial242 readers to admit that poor Goldsmith's foibles were real, however amply compensated243 by rare and admirable qualities. Garrick's assertion, that he "wrote like an angel but talked like poor Poll," expresses the unanimous opinion of all who had actually seen him. Undoubtedly244 some of the stories of his childlike vanity, his frankly245 expressed envy, and his general capacity for blundering, owe something to Boswell's feeling that he was a rival near the throne,
and sometimes poor Goldsmith's humorous self-assertion may have been taken too seriously by blunt English wits. One may doubt, for example, whether he was really jealous of a puppet tossing a pike, and unconscious of his absurdity in saying "Pshaw! I could do it better myself!"
Boswell, however, was too good an observer to misrepresent at random246, and he has, in fact, explained very well the true meaning of his remarks.
Goldsmith was an excitable Irishman of genius, who tumbled out whatever came uppermost, and revealed the feelings of the moment with utter want of reserve. His self-controlled companions wondered, ridiculed247, misinterpreted, and made fewer hits as well as fewer misses.
His anxiety to "get in and share," made him, according to Johnson, an "unsocial" companion. "Goldsmith," he said, "had not temper enough for the game he played. He staked too much. A man might always get a fall from his inferior in the chances of talk, and Goldsmith felt his falls too keenly." He had certainly some trials of temper in Johnson's company.
"Stay, stay," said a German, stopping him in the full flow of his eloquence, "Toctor Johnson is going to say something." An Eton Master called Graham, who was supping with the two doctors, and had got to the pitch of looking at one person, and talking to another, said, "Doctor, I shall be glad to see you at Eton." "I shall be glad to wait on you," said Goldsmith. "No," replied Graham, "'tis not you I mean, Doctor Minor248; 'tis Doctor Major there." Poor Goldsmith said afterwards, "Graham is a fellow to make one commit suicide."
Boswell who attributes some of Goldsmith's sayings about Johnson to envy, said with probable truth that Goldsmith had not more envy than others, but only spoke of it more freely. Johnson argued that we must be angry with a man who had so much of an odious249 quality that he could not keep it to himself, but let it "boil over." The feeling, at any rate, was momentary250 and totally free from malice251; and Goldsmith's criticisms upon Johnson and his idolators seem to have been fair enough. His objection to Boswell's substituting a monarchy252 for a republic has already been mentioned. At another time he checked Boswell's flow of panegyric by asking, "Is he like Burke, who winds into a subject like a serpent?" To which Boswell replied with charming irrelevance253, "Johnson is the Hercules who strangled serpents in his cradle." The last of Goldsmith's hits was suggested by Johnson's shaking his sides with laughter because Goldsmith admired the skill with which the little fishes in the fable254 were made to talk in character. "Why, Dr. Johnson, this is not so easy as you seem to think," was the retort, "for if you were to make little fishes talk, they would talk like whales."
In spite of sundry255 little sparrings, Johnson fully14 appreciated Goldsmith's genius. Possibly his authority hastened the spread of public appreciation256, as he seemed to claim, whilst repudiating257 Boswell's too flattering theory that it had materially raised Goldsmith's position. When Reynolds quoted the authority of Fox in favour of the Traveller, saying that his friends might suspect that they had been too partial, Johnson replied very truly that the Traveller was beyond the need of Fox's praise, and that the partiality of Goldsmith's friends had always been against him. They would hardly give him a hearing. "Goldsmith," he added, "was a man who, whatever he wrote, always did it better than any other man could do." Johnson's settled opinion in fact was that embodied258 in the famous epitaph with its "nihil tetigit quod non ornavit," and, though dedications260 are perhaps the only literary product more generally insincere than epitaphs, we may believe that Goldsmith too meant what he said in the dedication259 of She Stoops to Conquer. "It may do me some
honour to inform the public that I have lived many years in intimacy with you. It may serve the interests of mankind also to inform them that the greatest wit may be found in a character, without impairing261 the most unaffected piety262."
Though Johnson was thus rich in friendship, two connexions have still to be noticed which had an exceptional bearing upon his fame and happiness. In January, 1765, he made the acquaintance of the Thrales. Mr. Thrale was the proprietor263 of the brewery264 which afterwards became that of Barclay and Perkins. He was married in 1763 to a Miss Hester Lynch Salisbury, who has become celebrated from her friendship with Johnson.1 She was a woman of great vivacity and independence of character. She had a sensitive and passionate266, if not a very tender nature, and enough literary culture to appreciate Johnson's intellectual power, and on occasion to play a very respectable part in conversation. She had far more Latin and English scholarship than fell to the lot of most ladies of her day, and wit enough to preserve her from degenerating267 like some of the "blues," into that most offensive of beings—a feminine prig. Her marriage had been one of convenience, and her husband's want of sympathy, and jealousy268 of any interference in business matters, forced her,
she says, to take to literature as her sole resource. "No wonder," she adds, "if I loved my books and children." It is, perhaps, more to be wondered at that her children seem to have had a rather subordinate place in her affections. The marriage, however, though not of the happiest, was perfectly269 decorous. Mrs. Thrale discharged her domestic duties irreproachably270, even when she seems to have had some real cause of complaint. To the world she eclipsed her husband, a solid respectable man, whose mind, according to Johnson, struck the hours very regularly, 1.Mrs. Thrale was born in 1740 or 1741, probably the latter. Thrale was born in 1724. though it did not mark the minutes. The Thrales were introduced to Johnson by their common friend, Arthur Murphy, an actor and dramatist, who afterwards became the editor of Johnson's works. One day, when calling upon Johnson, they found him in such a fit of despair that Thrale tried to stop his mouth by placing his hand before it. The pair then joined in begging Johnson to leave his solitary abode271, and come to them at their country-house at Streatham. He complied, and for the next sixteen years a room was set apart for him, both at Streatham and in their house in Southwark. He passed a large part of his time with them, and derived from the intimacy most of the comfort of his later years. He treated Mrs. Thrale with a kind of paternal272 gallantry, her age at the time of their acquaintance being about twenty-four, and his fifty-five. He generally called her by the playful name of "my mistress," addressed little poems to her, gave her solid advice, and gradually came to confide273 to her his miseries274 and ailments275 with rather surprising frankness. She flattered and amused him, and soothed276 his sufferings and did something towards humanizing his rugged exterior277. There was one little grievance278 between them which requires notice. Johnson's pet virtue in private life was a rigid279 regard for truth. He spoke, it was said of him, as if he was always on oath. He would not, for example, allow his servant to use the phrase "not at home," and even in the heat of conversation resisted the temptation to give point to an anecdote. The lively Mrs. Thrale rather fretted280 against the restraint, and Johnson admonished281 her in vain. He complained to Boswell that she was willing to have that said of her, which the best of mankind had died rather than have said of them.
Boswell, the faithful imitator of his master in this respect, delighted in taking up the parable282. "Now, madam, give me leave to catch you in the fact," he said on one occasion; "it was not an old woman, but an old man whom I mentioned, as having told me this," and he recounts his check to the "lively lady" with intense complacency. As may be imagined, Boswell and Mrs. Thrale did not love each other, in spite of the well-meant efforts of the sage to bring about a friendly feeling between his disciples. It is time to close this list of friends with the inimitable Boswell. James Boswell, born in 1740, was the eldest283 son of a Whig laird and lord of sessions. He had acquired some English friends at the Scotch universities, among whom must be mentioned Mr. Temple, an English clergyman.
Boswell's correspondence with Temple, discovered years after his death by a singular chance, and published in 1857, is, after the Life of Johnson,
one of the most curious exhibitions of character in the language. Boswell was intended for the Scotch bar, and studied civil law at Utrecht in the winter of 1762. It was in the following summer that he made Johnson's acquaintance. Perhaps the fundamental quality in Boswell's character was his intense capacity for enjoyment. He was, as Mr. Carlyle puts it, "gluttonously284 fond of whatever would yield him a little solacement, were it only of a stomachic character." His love of good living and good drink would have made him a hearty admirer of his countryman, Burns, had Burns been famous in Boswell's youth. Nobody could have joined with more thorough abandonment in the chorus to the poet's liveliest songs in praise of love and wine. He would have made an excellent fourth when "Willie brewed a peck of malt, and Rab and Allan came to see," and the drinking contest for the Whistle commemorated285 in another lyric286 would have excited his keenest interest. He was always delighted when he could get Johnson to discuss the ethics287 and statistics of drinking. "I am myself," he says, "a lover of wine, and therefore curious to hear whatever is remarkable concerning drinking." The remark is à propos to a story of Dr. Campbell drinking thirteen bottles of port at a sitting. Lest this should seem incredible, he quotes Johnson's dictum. "Sir, if a man drinks very slowly and lets one glass evaporate before he takes another, I know not how long he may drink." Boswell's faculty288 for making love was as great as his power of drinking. His letters to Temple record with amusing frankness the vicissitudes289 of some of his courtships and the versatility290 of his passions. Boswell's tastes, however, were by no means limited to sensual or frivolous291 enjoyments292. His appreciation of the bottle was combined with an equally hearty sensibility to more intellectual pleasures. He had not a spark of philosophic293 or poetic294 power, but within the ordinary range of such topics as can be discussed at a dinner-party, he had an abundant share of liveliness and intelligence. His palate was as keen for good talk as for good wine. He was an admirable recipient295, if not an originator, of shrewd or humorous remarks upon life and manners. What in regard to sensual enjoyment was mere296 gluttony, appeared in higher matters as an insatiable curiosity. At times this faculty became intolerable to his neighbours. "I will not be baited with what and why," said poor Johnson, one day in desperation. "Why is a cow's tail long? Why is a fox's tail bushy?" "Sir," said Johnson on another occasion, when
Boswell was cross-examining a third person about him in his presence. "You have but two subjects, yourself and me. I am sick of both." Boswell,
however, was not to be repelled by such a retort as this, or even by ruder rebuffs. Once when discussing the means of getting a friend to leave London, Johnson said in revenge for a previous offence, "Nay, sir, we'll send you to him. If your presence doesn't drive a man out of his house, nothing will." Boswell was "horribly shocked," but he still stuck to his victim like a leech297, and pried298 into the minutest details of his life and manners. He observed with conscientious299 accuracy that though Johnson abstained300 from milk one fast-day, he did not reject it when put in his cup. He notes the whistlings and puffings, the trick of saying "too-tootoo" of his idol7: and it was a proud day when he won a bet by venturing to ask Johnson what he did with certain scraped bits of orange-peel. His curiosity was not satisfied on this occasion; but it would have made him the prince of interviewers in these days. Nothing delighted him so much as rubbing shoulders with any famous or notorious person. He scraped acquaintance with Voltaire, Wesley, Rousseau, and Paoli, as well as with Mrs. Rudd, a forgotten heroine of the Newgate Calendar. He was as eager to talk to Hume the sceptic, or Wilkes the demagogue, as to the orthodox Tory, Johnson; and, if repelled, it was from no deficiency in daring. In 1767, he took advantage of his travels in Corsica to introduce himself to Lord Chatham, then Prime Minister. The letter moderately ends by asking, "Could your lordship find time to honour me now and then with a letter? I have been told how favourably your lordship has spoken of me. To correspond with a Paoli and with a Chatham is enough to keep a young man ever ardent301 in the pursuit of virtuous302 fame." No other young man of the day, we may be sure, would have dared to make such a proposal to the majestic303 orator. His absurd vanity, and the greedy craving304 for notoriety at any cost, would have made Boswell the most offensive of mortals, had not his unfeigned good-humour disarmed305 enmity.
Nobody could help laughing, or be inclined to take offence at his harmless absurdities306. Burke said of him that he had so much good-humour naturally, that it was scarcely a virtue. His vanity, in fact, did not generate affectation. Most vain men are vain of qualities which they do not really possess, or possess in a lower degree than they fancy. They are always acting a part, and become touchy307 from a half-conscious sense of the imposture308. But Boswell seems to have had few such illusions. He thoroughly and unfeignedly enjoyed his own peculiarities309, and thought his real self much too charming an object to be in need of any disguise. No man, therefore, was ever less embarrassed by any regard for his own dignity. He was as ready to join in a laugh at himself as in a laugh at his neighbours. He reveals his own absurdities to the world at large as frankly as Pepys confided310 them to a journal in cypher. He tells us how drunk he got one night in Skye, and how he cured his headache with brandy next morning; and what an intolerable fool he made of himself at
an evening party in London after a dinner with the Duke of Montrose, and how Johnson in vain did his best to keep him quiet. His motive311 for the concession312 is partly the wish to illustrate Johnson's indulgence, and, in the last case, to introduce a copy of apologetic verses to the lady whose guest he had been. He reveals other weaknesses with equal frankness. One day, he says, "I owned to Johnson that I was occasionally troubled with a fit of narrowness." "Why, sir," said he, "so am I. But I do not tell it." Boswell enjoys the joke far too heartily313 to act upon the advice.
There is nothing, however, which Boswell seems to have enjoyed more heartily than his own good impulses. He looks upon his virtuous resolution with a sort of aesthetic314 satisfaction, and with the glow of a virtuous man contemplating315 a promising316 penitent. Whilst suffering severely317 from the consequences of imprudent conduct, he gets a letter of virtuous advice from his friend Temple. He instantly sees himself reformed for the rest of his days. "My warm imagination," he says, "looks forward with great complacency on the sobriety, the healthfulness, and worth of my future life." "Every instance of our doing those things which we ought not to have done, and leaving undone318 those things which we ought to have done, is attended," as he elsewhere sagely319 observes, "with more or less of what is truly remorse320;" but he seems rather to have enjoyed even the remorse. It is needless to say that the complacency was its own reward, and that the resolution vanished like other more eccentric impulses. Music, he once told Johnson, affected him intensely, producing in his mind "alternate sensations of pathetic dejection, so that I was ready to shed tears, and of daring resolution so that I was inclined to rush into the
thickest of the [purely hypothetical] battle." "Sir," replied Johnson, "I should never hear it, if it made me such a fool." Elsewhere he expresses a wish to "fly to the woods," or retire into a desert, a disposition321 which Johnson checked by one of his habitual322 gibes323 at the quantity of easily accessible desert in Scotland. Boswell is equally frank in describing himself in situations more provocative324 of contempt than even drunkenness in a drawing-room. He tells us how dreadfully frightened he was by a storm at sea in the Hebrides, and how one of his companions, "with a happy readiness," made him lay hold of a rope fastened to the masthead, and told him to pull it when he was ordered. Boswell was thus kept quiet in mind and harmless in body. This extreme simplicity325 of character makes poor Boswell loveable in his way. If he sought notoriety, he did not so far mistake his powers as to set up for independent notoriety.2 He was content to shine in reflected light: and the affectations with which he is charged seem to have been unconscious imitations of his great idol. Miss
Burney traced some likeness even in his dress. In the later part of the Life we meet phrases in which Boswell is evidently aping the true Johnsonian
style. So, for example, when somebody distinguishes between "moral" and "physical necessity;" Boswell exclaims, "Alas326, sir, they come both to the same thing. You may be as hard bound by chains when covered by leather, as when the iron appears." But he specially emulates327 the profound melancholy328 of his hero. He seems to have taken pride in his sufferings from hypochondria; though, in truth, his melancholy diverges329 from Johnson's by as great a difference as that which divides any two varieties in Jaques's classification. Boswell's was the melancholy of a man who spends too much, drinks too much, falls in love too often, and is forced to live in the country in dependence265 upon a stern old parent, when he is longing330 for a jovial331 life in London taverns332. Still he was excusably vexed when Johnson refused to believe in the reality of his complaints, and showed scant333 sympathy to his noisy would-be fellow-sufferer. Some of Boswell's freaks were, in fact, very trying. Once he gave up writing letters for a long time, to see whether Johnson would be induced to write first. Johnson became anxious, though he half-guessed the truth, and in reference to Boswell's confession334 gave his disciple182 a piece of his mind.
"Remember that all tricks are either knavish335 or childish, and that it is as foolish to make experiments upon the constancy of a friend as upon the
chastity of a wife." In other ways Boswell was more successful in aping his friend's peculiarities. When in company with Johnson, he became delightfully336 pious337. "My dear sir," he exclaimed once with unrestrained fervour, "I would fain be a good man, and I am very good now. I fear God and honour the king; I wish to do no ill and to be benevolent338 to all mankind." Boswell hopes, "for the felicity of human nature," that many experience this mood; though Johnson judiciously339 suggested that he should not trust too much to impressions. In some matters Boswell showed a touch of independence by outvying the Johnsonian prejudices.
He was a warm admirer of feudal340 principles, and especially held to the propriety of entailing341 property upon heirs male. Johnson h
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enjoyment
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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eccentricities
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| n.古怪行为( eccentricity的名词复数 )；反常；怪癖 | |
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specially
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repelled
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| v.击退( repel的过去式和过去分词 )；使厌恶；排斥；推开 | |
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rugged
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idol
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sage
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uncouth
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downwards
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hearty
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indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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belly
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fully
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avowing
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| v.公开声明，承认( avow的现在分词 ) | |
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16
epicure
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| n.行家，美食家 | |
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17
bout
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| n.侵袭，发作；一次(阵，回)；拳击等比赛 | |
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18
exquisitely
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| adv.精致地；强烈地；剧烈地；异常地 | |
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19
exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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20
pretensions
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| 自称( pretension的名词复数 )； 自命不凡； 要求； 权力 | |
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21
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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22
perspiration
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| n.汗水；出汗 | |
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23
veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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24
swelled
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| 增强( swell的过去式和过去分词 )； 肿胀； （使）凸出； 充满（激情） | |
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25
doctrines
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| n.教条( doctrine的名词复数 )；教义；学说；（政府政策的）正式声明 | |
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26
professing
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| 声称( profess的现在分词 )； 宣称； 公开表明； 信奉 | |
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27
aspires
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| v.渴望，追求( aspire的第三人称单数 ) | |
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28
abstainer
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| 节制者，戒酒者，弃权者 | |
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29
prodigious
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| adj.惊人的，奇妙的；异常的；巨大的；庞大的 | |
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30
precedent
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| n.先例，前例；惯例；adj.在前的，在先的 | |
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31
bishop
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| n.主教，（国际象棋）象 | |
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32
feat
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| n.功绩；武艺，技艺；adj.灵巧的，漂亮的，合适的 | |
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33
solaces
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| n.安慰，安慰物( solace的名词复数 ) | |
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34
professed
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| 公开声称的，伪称的，已立誓信教的 | |
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35
reluctance
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|
| n.厌恶，讨厌，勉强，不情愿 | |
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36
misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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37
quaint
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| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
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38
wigs
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| n.假发，法官帽( wig的名词复数 ) | |
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39
wig
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| n.假发 | |
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40
knack
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| n.诀窍，做事情的灵巧的，便利的方法 | |
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41
scarlet
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| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
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42
justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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43
slovenly
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|
| adj.懒散的，不整齐的，邋遢的 | |
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44
pensioner
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| n.领养老金的人 | |
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45
worthy
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|
| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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46
chambers
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|
| n.房间( chamber的名词复数 )；（议会的）议院；卧室；会议厅 | |
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47
descending
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|
| n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
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48
rusty
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|
| adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的 | |
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49
slippers
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| n. 拖鞋 | |
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50
compliance
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|
| n.顺从；服从；附和；屈从 | |
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51
deference
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|
| n.尊重，顺从；敬意 | |
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52
thoroughly
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|
| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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53
opposition
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| n.反对，敌对 | |
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54
affected
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|
| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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55
neatly
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|
| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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56
fictitious
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|
| adj.虚构的，假设的；空头的 | |
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57
intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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58
scotch
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|
| n.伤口，刻痕；苏格兰威士忌酒；v.粉碎，消灭，阻止；adj.苏格兰(人)的 | |
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59
amazement
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|
| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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60
rascal
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| n.流氓；不诚实的人 | |
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61
scrupulosity
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| n.顾虑 | |
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62
axe
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|
| n.斧子；v.用斧头砍，削减 | |
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63
virtues
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| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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64
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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65
altercation
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| n.争吵，争论 | |
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66
avenged
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|
| v.为…复仇，报…之仇( avenge的过去式和过去分词 )；为…报复 | |
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67
avenge
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|
| v.为...复仇，为...报仇 | |
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68
sarcastic
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|
| adj.讥讽的，讽刺的，嘲弄的 | |
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69
varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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70
repented
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| 对（自己的所为）感到懊悔或忏悔( repent的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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71
literally
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|
| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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72
beseeching
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|
| adj.恳求似的v.恳求，乞求（某事物）( beseech的现在分词 ) | |
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73
faculties
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| n.能力( faculty的名词复数 )；全体教职员；技巧；院 | |
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74
etiquette
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|
| n.礼仪，礼节；规矩 | |
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75
vehement
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|
| adj.感情强烈的；热烈的；(人)有强烈感情的 | |
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76
propriety
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|
| n.正当行为；正当；适当 | |
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77
brutality
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| n.野蛮的行为，残忍，野蛮 | |
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78
zeal
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| n.热心，热情，热忱 | |
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79
accomplished
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|
| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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80
conversational
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|
| adj.对话的，会话的 | |
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81
disappearance
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|
| n.消失，消散，失踪 | |
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82
excellence
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|
| n.优秀，杰出，(pl.)优点，美德 | |
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83
orator
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| n.演说者，演讲者，雄辩家 | |
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84
proficiency
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| n.精通，熟练，精练 | |
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85
peculiar
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|
| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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86
encyclopaedia
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|
| n.百科全书 | |
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87
celebrities
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|
| n.（尤指娱乐界的）名人( celebrity的名词复数 )；名流；名声；名誉 | |
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88
dexterous
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|
| adj.灵敏的；灵巧的 | |
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89
sophistry
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| n.诡辩 | |
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90
adversary
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|
| adj.敌手，对手 | |
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91
vice
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| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
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92
forth
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|
| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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93
tempted
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|
| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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94
unduly
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|
| adv.过度地，不适当地 | |
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95
distinguished
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|
| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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96
degenerated
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| 衰退，堕落，退化( degenerate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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97
anecdotes
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|
| n.掌故，趣闻，轶事( anecdote的名词复数 ) | |
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98
anecdote
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| n.轶事，趣闻，短故事 | |
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99
abound
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|
| vi.大量存在；(in，with)充满，富于 | |
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100
hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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101
reconciliation
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| n.和解，和谐，一致 | |
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102
overtures
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| n.主动的表示，提议；（向某人做出的）友好表示、姿态或提议( overture的名词复数 )；（歌剧、芭蕾舞、音乐剧等的）序曲，前奏曲 | |
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103
venom
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|
| n.毒液，恶毒，痛恨 | |
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104
inflicted
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| 把…强加给，使承受，遭受( inflict的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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105
tiffs
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| n.争吵( tiff的名词复数 )；（酒的）一口；小饮 | |
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106
tiff
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| n.小争吵，生气 | |
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107
ripened
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|
| v.成熟，使熟( ripen的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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108
derived
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|
| vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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109
gratuitously
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| 平白 | |
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110
adhesiveness
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| 粘[附着，胶粘]性，粘附[胶粘]度 | |
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111
squire
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| n.护卫, 侍从, 乡绅 | |
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112
specimen
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| n.样本，标本 | |
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113
bragged
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| v.自夸，吹嘘( brag的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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114
vessels
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| n.血管( vessel的名词复数 )；船；容器；（具有特殊品质或接受特殊品质的）人 | |
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115
emetic
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| n.催吐剂；adj.催吐的 | |
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116
valetudinarian
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| n.病人；健康不佳者 | |
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117
nay
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| adv.不；n.反对票，投反对票者 | |
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118
condemn
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| vt.谴责，指责；宣判(罪犯)，判刑 | |
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119
bellowing
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| v.发出吼叫声，咆哮（尤指因痛苦）( bellow的现在分词 )；（愤怒地）说出（某事），大叫 | |
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120
adherents
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| n.支持者，拥护者( adherent的名词复数 )；党羽；徒子徒孙 | |
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121
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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122
favourably
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| adv. 善意地，赞成地 =favorably | |
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123
favourable
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| adj.赞成的，称赞的，有利的，良好的，顺利的 | |
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124
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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125
contemptible
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|
| adj.可鄙的，可轻视的，卑劣的 | |
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126
dabbled
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| v.涉猎( dabble的过去式和过去分词 )；涉足；浅尝；少量投资 | |
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127
provincial
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| adj.省的，地方的；n．外省人，乡下人 | |
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128
clique
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| n.朋党派系，小集团 | |
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129
preposterous
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| adj.荒谬的，可笑的 | |
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130
celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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131
illustrate
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| v.举例说明，阐明；图解，加插图 | |
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132
courteous
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| adj.彬彬有礼的，客气的 | |
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133
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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134
mutual
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|
| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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135
radical
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|
| n.激进份子，原子团，根号；adj.根本的，激进的，彻底的 | |
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136
temperament
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| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
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137
intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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138
elevation
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| n.高度；海拔；高地；上升；提高 | |
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139
lavishes
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| v.过分给予，滥施( lavish的第三人称单数 ) | |
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140
lighter
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| n.打火机，点火器；驳船；v.用驳船运送；light的比较级 | |
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141
lasting
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| adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持 | |
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142
professes
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|
| 声称( profess的第三人称单数 )； 宣称； 公开表明； 信奉 | |
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143
obliquely
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|
| adv.斜； 倾斜； 间接； 不光明正大 | |
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144
exertions
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| n.努力( exertion的名词复数 )；费力；（能力、权力等的）运用；行使 | |
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145
gored
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| v.（动物）用角撞伤，用牙刺破( gore的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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146
vehemently
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| adv. 热烈地 | |
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147
mow
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| v.割（草、麦等），扫射，皱眉；n.草堆，谷物堆 | |
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148
criticise
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| v.批评，评论；非难 | |
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149
acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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150
purblind
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| adj.半盲的；愚笨的 | |
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151
vivacity
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| n.快活，活泼，精神充沛 | |
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152
sprightly
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| adj.愉快的，活泼的 | |
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153
prologues
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| n.序言，开场白( prologue的名词复数 ) | |
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154
bellows
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| n.风箱；发出吼叫声，咆哮（尤指因痛苦）( bellow的名词复数 )；（愤怒地）说出（某事），大叫v.发出吼叫声，咆哮（尤指因痛苦）( bellow的第三人称单数 )；（愤怒地）说出（某事），大叫 | |
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155
cinder
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| n.余烬，矿渣 | |
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156
avarice
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| n.贪婪；贪心 | |
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157
peg
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| n.木栓，木钉；vt.用木钉钉，用短桩固定 | |
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158
grumbled
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| 抱怨( grumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 发牢骚； 咕哝； 发哼声 | |
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159
discriminative
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| 有判别力 | |
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160
Oxford
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| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
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161
amiable
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| adj.和蔼可亲的，友善的，亲切的 | |
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162
illustrated
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| adj. 有插图的，列举的 动词illustrate的过去式和过去分词 | |
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163
previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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164
scraps
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| 油渣 | |
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165
panegyric
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| n.颂词，颂扬 | |
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166
rogue
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| n.流氓；v.游手好闲 | |
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167
legacy
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| n.遗产，遗赠；先人(或过去)留下的东西 | |
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168
applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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169
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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170
epithet
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| n.（用于褒贬人物等的）表述形容词，修饰语 | |
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171
intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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172
tenacity
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| n.坚韧 | |
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173
expedient
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| adj.有用的，有利的；n.紧急的办法，权宜之计 | |
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174
pretext
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| n.借口，托词 | |
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175
penurious
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| adj.贫困的 | |
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176
savageness
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| 天然，野蛮 | |
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177
posterity
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| n.后裔，子孙，后代 | |
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178
biassed
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| （统计试验中）结果偏倚的，有偏的 | |
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179
decency
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| n.体面，得体，合宜，正派，庄重 | |
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180
Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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181
opium
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| n.鸦片；adj.鸦片的 | |
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182
disciple
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| n.信徒，门徒，追随者 | |
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183
disciples
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| n.信徒( disciple的名词复数 )；门徒；耶稣的信徒；（尤指）耶稣十二门徒之一 | |
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184
stork
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| n.鹳 | |
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185
miraculous
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| adj.像奇迹一样的，不可思议的 | |
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186
draught
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| n.拉，牵引，拖；一网（饮，吸，阵)；顿服药量，通风；v.起草，设计 | |
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187
countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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188
eloquence
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| n.雄辩；口才，修辞 | |
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189
languor
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| n.无精力，倦怠 | |
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190
sluggish
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| adj.懒惰的，迟钝的，无精打采的 | |
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191
sluggishness
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| 不振，萧条，呆滞；惰性；滞性；惯性 | |
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192
purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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193
absurdity
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| n.荒谬，愚蠢；谬论 | |
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194
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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195
obstreperously
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196
hilarity
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| n.欢乐；热闹 | |
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197
peals
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| n.（声音大而持续或重复的）洪亮的响声( peal的名词复数 )；隆隆声；洪亮的钟声；钟乐v.（使）（钟等）鸣响，（雷等）发出隆隆声( peal的第三人称单数 ) | |
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198
resound
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| v.回响 | |
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199
inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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200
penitent
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|
| adj.后悔的；n.后悔者；忏悔者 | |
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201
likeness
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| n.相像，相似（之处） | |
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202
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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203
obtrude
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| v.闯入；侵入；打扰 | |
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204
incisive
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| adj.敏锐的，机敏的，锋利的，切入的 | |
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205
faltering
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| 犹豫的，支吾的，蹒跚的 | |
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206
extremity
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| n.末端，尽头；尽力；终极；极度 | |
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207
expressive
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| adj.表现的，表达…的，富于表情的 | |
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208
recollecting
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| v.记起，想起( recollect的现在分词 ) | |
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209
inscription
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| n.（尤指石块上的）刻印文字，铭文，碑文 | |
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210
lanky
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| adj.瘦长的 | |
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211
tavern
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| n.小旅馆，客栈；小酒店 | |
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212
courageous
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| adj.勇敢的，有胆量的 | |
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213
poker
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| n.扑克；vt.烙制 | |
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214
brewed
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| 调制( brew的过去式和过去分词 )； 酝酿； 沏（茶）； 煮（咖啡） | |
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215
reign
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| n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势 | |
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216
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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217
bail
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| v.舀（水），保释；n.保证金，保释，保释人 | |
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218
dignified
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| a.可敬的，高贵的 | |
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219
gratitude
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|
| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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220
prick
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| v.刺伤，刺痛，刺孔；n.刺伤，刺痛 | |
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221
maiden
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| n.少女，处女；adj.未婚的，纯洁的，无经验的 | |
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222
vexed
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| adj.争论不休的；（指问题等）棘手的；争论不休的问题；烦恼的v.使烦恼( vex的过去式和过去分词 )；使苦恼；使生气；详细讨论 | |
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223
annoyance
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|
| n.恼怒，生气，烦恼 | |
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224
judicious
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| adj.明智的，明断的，能作出明智决定的 | |
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225
lodgings
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| n. 出租的房舍, 寄宿舍 | |
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226
flexibility
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| n.柔韧性，弹性，（光的）折射性，灵活性 | |
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227
vigour
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| （=vigor）n.智力，体力，精力 | |
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228
radically
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| ad.根本地，本质地 | |
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229
rascals
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|
| 流氓( rascal的名词复数 )； 无赖； （开玩笑说法）淘气的人（尤指小孩）； 恶作剧的人 | |
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230
emulation
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| n.竞争；仿效 | |
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231
grudge
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| n.不满，怨恨，妒嫉；vt.勉强给，不情愿做 | |
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232
grudged
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| 怀恨（grudge的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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233
supremacy
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| n.至上；至高权力 | |
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234
destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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235
celebrity
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| n.名人，名流；著名，名声，名望 | |
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236
landlady
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| n.女房东，女地主 | |
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237
corked
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|
| adj.带木塞气味的，塞着瓶塞的v.用瓶塞塞住( cork的过去式 ) | |
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238
refinement
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| n.文雅；高尚；精美；精制；精炼 | |
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239
prunes
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| n.西梅脯，西梅干( prune的名词复数 )v.修剪（树木等）( prune的第三人称单数 )；精简某事物，除去某事物多余的部分 | |
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240
hacking
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| n.非法访问计算机系统和数据库的活动 | |
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241
carving
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| n.雕刻品，雕花 | |
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242
impartial
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| adj.(in,to)公正的，无偏见的 | |
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243
compensated
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| 补偿，报酬( compensate的过去式和过去分词 )； 给（某人）赔偿（或赔款） | |
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244
undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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245
frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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246
random
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| adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动 | |
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247
ridiculed
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| v.嘲笑，嘲弄，奚落( ridicule的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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248
minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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249
odious
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| adj.可憎的，讨厌的 | |
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250
momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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251
malice
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| n.恶意，怨恨，蓄意；[律]预谋 | |
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252
monarchy
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| n.君主，最高统治者；君主政体，君主国 | |
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253
irrelevance
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| n.无关紧要；不相关；不相关的事物 | |
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254
fable
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| n.寓言；童话；神话 | |
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255
sundry
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| adj.各式各样的，种种的 | |
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256
appreciation
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| n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨 | |
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257
repudiating
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| v.（正式地）否认( repudiate的现在分词 )；拒绝接受；拒绝与…往来；拒不履行（法律义务） | |
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258
embodied
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| v.表现( embody的过去式和过去分词 )；象征；包括；包含 | |
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259
dedication
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| n.奉献，献身，致力，题献，献辞 | |
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260
dedications
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| 奉献( dedication的名词复数 )； 献身精神； 教堂的)献堂礼； （书等作品上的）题词 | |
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261
impairing
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| v.损害，削弱( impair的现在分词 ) | |
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262
piety
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| n.虔诚，虔敬 | |
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263
proprietor
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| n.所有人；业主；经营者 | |
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264
brewery
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| n.啤酒厂 | |
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265
dependence
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| n.依靠，依赖；信任，信赖；隶属 | |
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266
passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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267
degenerating
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| 衰退，堕落，退化( degenerate的现在分词 ) | |
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268
jealousy
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| n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌 | |
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269
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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270
irreproachably
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| adv.不可非难地，无过失地 | |
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271
abode
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| n.住处，住所 | |
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272
paternal
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| adj.父亲的，像父亲的，父系的，父方的 | |
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273
confide
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| v.向某人吐露秘密 | |
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274
miseries
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| n.痛苦( misery的名词复数 )；痛苦的事；穷困；常发牢骚的人 | |
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275
ailments
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| 疾病（尤指慢性病），不适( ailment的名词复数 ) | |
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276
soothed
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| v.安慰( soothe的过去式和过去分词 )；抚慰；使舒服；减轻痛苦 | |
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277
exterior
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| adj.外部的，外在的；表面的 | |
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278
grievance
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| n.怨愤，气恼，委屈 | |
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279
rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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280
fretted
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| 焦躁的，附有弦马的，腐蚀的 | |
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281
admonished
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| v.劝告( admonish的过去式和过去分词 )；训诫；（温和地）责备；轻责 | |
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282
parable
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| n.寓言，比喻 | |
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283
eldest
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| adj.最年长的，最年老的 | |
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284
gluttonously
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285
commemorated
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| v.纪念，庆祝( commemorate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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286
lyric
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| n.抒情诗，歌词；adj.抒情的 | |
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287
ethics
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| n.伦理学；伦理观，道德标准 | |
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288
faculty
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| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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289
vicissitudes
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| n.变迁，世事变化；变迁兴衰( vicissitude的名词复数 )；盛衰兴废 | |
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290
versatility
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| n.多才多艺，多样性，多功能 | |
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291
frivolous
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| adj.轻薄的；轻率的 | |
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292
enjoyments
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| 愉快( enjoyment的名词复数 )； 令人愉快的事物； 享有； 享受 | |
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293
philosophic
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| adj.哲学的，贤明的 | |
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294
poetic
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| adj.富有诗意的，有诗人气质的，善于抒情的 | |
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295
recipient
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| a.接受的,感受性强的 n.接受者,感受者,容器 | |
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296
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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297
leech
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| n.水蛭，吸血鬼，榨取他人利益的人；vt.以水蛭吸血；vi.依附于别人 | |
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298
pried
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| v.打听，刺探（他人的私事）( pry的过去式和过去分词 )；撬开 | |
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299
conscientious
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| adj.审慎正直的，认真的，本着良心的 | |
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300
abstained
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| v.戒（尤指酒），戒除( abstain的过去式和过去分词 )；弃权（不投票） | |
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301
ardent
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，强烈的，烈性的 | |
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302
virtuous
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| adj.有品德的，善良的，贞洁的，有效力的 | |
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303
majestic
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| adj.雄伟的，壮丽的，庄严的，威严的，崇高的 | |
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304
craving
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| n.渴望,热望 | |
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305
disarmed
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| v.裁军( disarm的过去式和过去分词 )；使息怒 | |
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306
absurdities
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| n.极端无理性( absurdity的名词复数 )；荒谬；谬论；荒谬的行为 | |
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307
touchy
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| adj.易怒的；棘手的 | |
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308
imposture
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| n.冒名顶替，欺骗 | |
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309
peculiarities
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| n. 特质, 特性, 怪癖, 古怪 | |
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310
confided
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| v.吐露（秘密，心事等）( confide的过去式和过去分词 )；（向某人）吐露（隐私、秘密等） | |
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311
motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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312
concession
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| n.让步，妥协；特许(权) | |
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313
heartily
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| adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很 | |
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314
aesthetic
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| adj.美学的，审美的，有美感 | |
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315
contemplating
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| 深思，细想，仔细考虑( contemplate的现在分词 )； 注视，凝视； 考虑接受（发生某事的可能性）； 深思熟虑，沉思，苦思冥想 | |
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316
promising
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| adj.有希望的，有前途的 | |
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317
severely
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| adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地 | |
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318
undone
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| a.未做完的，未完成的 | |
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319
sagely
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| adv. 贤能地，贤明地 | |
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320
remorse
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| n.痛恨，悔恨，自责 | |
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321
disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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322
habitual
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| adj.习惯性的；通常的，惯常的 | |
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323
gibes
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| vi.嘲笑，嘲弄（gibe的第三人称单数形式） | |
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324
provocative
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| adj.挑衅的，煽动的，刺激的，挑逗的 | |
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325
simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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326
alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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327
emulates
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| v.与…竞争( emulate的第三人称单数 )；努力赶上；计算机程序等仿真；模仿 | |
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328
melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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329
diverges
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| 分开( diverge的第三人称单数 )； 偏离； 分歧； 分道扬镳 | |
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330
longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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331
jovial
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| adj.快乐的，好交际的 | |
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332
taverns
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| n.小旅馆，客栈，酒馆( tavern的名词复数 ) | |
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333
scant
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| adj.不充分的，不足的；v.减缩，限制，忽略 | |
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334
confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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335
knavish
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| adj.无赖（似）的，不正的；刁诈 | |
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336
delightfully
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| 大喜，欣然 | |
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337
pious
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| adj.虔诚的；道貌岸然的 | |
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338
benevolent
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| adj.仁慈的，乐善好施的 | |
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339
judiciously
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| adv.明断地，明智而审慎地 | |
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340
feudal
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| adj.封建的，封地的，领地的 | |
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341
entailing
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| 使…成为必要( entail的现在分词 )； 需要； 限定继承； 使必需 | |
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