Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

A vile wife and false friend though are gone by the bargain,

So the gain d'ye see's more than the loss:

For though fortune's a jilt, and has pretty near starved me,
And my togs are all ragged and queer,

I ne'er yet gave the bag to the friend who had served me,

Or caused ruined beauty a tear.

The heart's all-when that's built as it should, sound and clever,
We go 'fore the wind like a fly,

But if rotten and crank, you may luff up forever,
You'll always sail in the wind's eye:

With palaver and nonsense I'm not to be paid off,
I'm adrift, let it blow then great guns,

A gale, a fresh breeze, or the old gemman's head off,

I takes life rough and smooth as it runs:

Content, though hard fortune has pretty near starved me,
And my togs are all ragged and queer;

I ne'er yet gave the bag to the friend who had served me,
Or caused ruined beauty a tear.

NATURE AND NANCY.

Let swabs, with their wows, their palaver, and lies,

Sly flattery's silk sails still be trimming,

Swear their Polls be all angels dropped down from the skies

I your angels don't like - I loves women.

And I loves a warm heart, and a sweet honest mind,

Good as truth, and as lively as fancy;

As constant as honor, as tenderness kind;
In short, I loves Nature and Nancy.

I read in a song about Wenus, I thinks,

All rigged out with her Cupids and Graces: And how roses and lilies, carnations and pinks,

Was made paint to daub over their faces.

They that loves it may take all such art for their pains —
For mine 'tis another guess fancy;

Give me the rich health, flesh and blood, and blue veins,

That pays the sweet face of my Nancy.

Why, I went to the play, where they talked well at least,
As to act all their parts they were trying;

They were playing at soldiers, and playing at feast,
And some they were playing at dying.

Let 'em hang, drown, or starve, or take poison, d'ye see,
All just for their gig and their fancy;

What to them was but jest is right earnest to me,
For I live and I'd die for my Nancy.

Let the girls then, like so many Algerine Turks,

Dash away, a fine gay painted galley,

With their jacks, and their pennants, and gingerbread works, All for show, and just nothing for value

False colors throw out, decked by labor and art,

To take of pert coxcombs the fancy;

They are all for the person, I'm all for the heart-
In short, I'm for Nature and Nancy.

THE STANDING TOAST.

(The last song written by Mr. Dibdin.)

The moon on the ocean was dimmed by a ripple,
Affording a checkered delight,

The gay jolly tars passed the word for the tipple
And the toast-for 'twas Saturday night:
Some sweetheart or wife that he loved as his life,
Each drank, while he wished he could hail her;
But the standing toast that pleased the most
Was-The wind that blows, the ship that goes,
And the lass that loves a sailor!

Some drank the king and his brave ships,
And some the constitution,

Some - May our foes and all such rips

Own English resolution!

That fate might bless some Poll or Bess,

And that they soon might hail her:

But the standing toast that pleased the most
Was-The wind that blows, the ship that goes,
And the lass that loves a sailor!

Some drank our queen, and some our land,
Our glorious land of freedom!

Some that our tars might never stand

For our heroes brave to lead 'em!

That beauty in distress might find

Such friends as ne'er would fail her.

But the standing toast that pleased the most
Was-The wind that blows, the ship that goes,
And the lass that loves a sailor!

REMINISCENCES OF DR. JOHNSON.

BY JAMES BOSWELL.

[JAMES BOSWELL, celebrated as the friend and biographer of Dr. Johnson, was born at Edinburgh, October 29, 1740, the son of a judge of the Scottish Court of Session, and styled Lord Auchinleck. After studying law at the Scottish universities, he spent some time in continental travel, and met Voltaire, Rousseau, Paoli, the Corsican patriot, and other eminent men. In 1773 he accompanied Dr. Johnson, to whom he had been introduced ten years before, on a tour to the Hebrides, and became a member of the famous Literary Club. This select society of writers was instituted by Johnson, and included among its members Burke, Goldsmith, Reynolds, and Garrick. Boswell subsequently settled in London and was admitted to the English bar (1786). His death, which occurred May 19, 1795, was indirectly due to intemperance. Boswell's "Life of Johnson" (1791) had an immense success at the time of its publication, and is generally admitted to be the greatest biography in the English language. Other works by the same author are: "Journal of the Tour to the Hebrides," "An Account of Corsica," various political pamphlets, etc.]

IN the spring of this year [1768], having published my "Account of Corsica, with the Journal of a Tour to that Island," I returned to London, very desirous to see Dr. Johnson, and hear him upon the subject. I found he was at Oxford, with his friend Mr. Chambers, who was now Vinerian Professor, and lived in New Inn Hall. Having had no letter from him since that in which he criticised the Latinity of my Thesis, and having been told by somebody that he was offended at my having put into my book an extract of his letter to me at Paris, I was impatient to be with him, and therefore followed him to Oxford, where I was entertained by Mr. Chambers, with a civility which I shall ever gratefully remember. I found that Dr. Johnson had sent a letter to me to Scotland, and that I had nothing to complain of but his being more indifferent to my anxiety than I wished him to be. Instead of giving, with the circumstances of time and place, such fragments of his conversation as I preserved during this visit to Oxford, I shall throw them together in continuation.

I asked him whether, as a moralist, he did not think that the practice of the law, in some degree, hurt the nice feeling of honesty. Johnson-"Why no, Sir, if you act properly. You are not to deceive your clients with false representations of your opinion; you are not to tell lies to a judge." Boswell"But what do you think of supporting a cause which you know to be bad?" Johnson-"Sir, you do not know it to be good

99

or bad till the judge determines it. I have said that you are to state facts fairly; so that your thinking, or what you call knowing, a cause to be bad must be from reasoning, must be from your supposing your arguments to be weak and inconclusive. But, Sir, that is not enough. An argument which does not convince yourself may convince the judge to whom you urge it; and if it does convince him, why, then, sir, you are wrong, and he is right. It is his business to judge; and you are not to be confident in your own opinion that a cause is bad, but to say all you can for your client, and then hear the judge's opinion. Boswell-"But, Sir, does not affecting a warmth when you have no warmth, and appearing to be clearly of one opinion when you are in reality of another opinion, does not such dissimulation impair one's honesty? Is there not some danger that a lawyer may put on the same mask in common life in the intercourse with his friends?" Johnson—“Why no, Sir. Everybody knows you are paid for affecting warmth for your client; and it is, therefore, properly no dissimulation: the moment you come from the bar you resume your usual behavior. Sir, a man will no more carry the artifice of the bar into the common intercourse of society, than a man who is paid for tumbling upon his hands will continue to tumble upon his hands when he should walk on his feet."

Talking of some of the modern plays, he said, "False Delicacy" was totally void of character. He praised Goldsmith's "Good-natured Man"; said it was the best comedy that had appeared since "The Provoked Husband," and that there had not been of late any such character exhibited on the stage as that of Croaker. I observed it was the Suspirius of his Rambler. He said, Goldsmith had owned he had borrowed it from thence. "Sir," continued he, "there is all the difference in the world between characters of nature and characters of manners; and there is the difference between the characters of Fielding and those of Richardson. Characters of manners are very entertaining; but they are to be understood by a more superficial observer than characters of nature, where a man must dive into the recesses of the human heart."

It always appeared to me that he estimated the compositions of Richardson too highly, and that he had an unreasonable prejudice against Fielding. In comparing those two writers he used this expression: "That there was as great a difference between them as between a man who knew how a watch was made and

a man who could tell the hour by looking on the dial plate." This was a short and figurative state of his distinction between drawing characters of nature and characters only of manners. But I cannot help being of opinion that the neat watches of Fielding are as well constructed as the large clocks of Richardson, and that his dial plates are brighter. Fielding's characters, though they do not expand themselves so widely in dissertation, are as just pictures of human nature, and, I will venture to say, have more striking features, and nicer touches of the pencil; and though Johnson used to quote with approbation a saying of Richardson's, "That the virtues of Fielding's heroes were the vices of a truly good man," I will venture to add that the moral tendency of Fielding's writings, though it does not encourage a strained and rarely possible virtue, is ever favorable to honor and honesty, and cherishes the benevolent and generous affections. He who is as good as Fielding would make him is an amiable member of society, and may be led on by more regulated instructors to a higher state of ethical perfection.

Johnson proceeded: "Even Sir Francis Wronghead is a character of manners, though drawn with great good humor." He then repeated, very happily, all Sir Francis' credulous account to Manly of his being with "the great man" and securing a place. I asked him if "The Suspicious Husband" did not furnish a well-drawn character, that of Ranger. Johnson-"No, Sir; Ranger is just a rake, a mere rake, and a lively young fellow, but no character."

The great Douglas cause was at this time a very general subject of discussion. I found he had not studied it with much attention, but had only heard parts of it occasionally. He, however, talked of it, and said, "I am of opinion that positive proof of fraud should not be required of the plaintiff, but that the judges should decide according as probability shall appear to preponderate, granting to the defendant the presumption of filiation to be strong in his favor. And I think, too, that a good deal of weight should be allowed to the dying declarations, because they were spontaneous. There is a great difference between what is said without our being urged to it, and what is said from a kind of compulsion. If I praise a man's book without being asked my opinion of it, that is honest praise, to which one may trust. But if an author asks me if I like his book, and I give him something like praise, it must not be taken as my real opinion.

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »