RAMSAY.'I am old enough to have been a contemporary of Pope.His poetry was highly admired in his life-time,more a great deal than after his death.'JOHNSON.'Sir,it has not been less admired since his death;no authours ever had so much fame in their own life-time as Pope and Voltaire;and Pope's poetry has been as much admired since his death as during his life;it has only not been as much talked of,but that is owing to its being now more distant,and people having other writings to talk of.Virgil is less talked of than Pope,and Homer is less talked of than Virgil;but they are not less admired.We must read what the world reads at the moment.
It has been maintained that this superfoetation,this teeming of the press in modern times,is prejudicial to good literature,because it obliges us to read so much of what is of inferiour value,in order to be in the fashion;so that better works are neglected for want of time,because a man will have more gratification of his vanity in conversation,from having read modern books,than from having read the best works of antiquity.
But it must be considered,that we have now more knowledge generally diffused;all our ladies read now,which is a great extension.Modern writers are the moons of literature;they shine with reflected light,with light borrowed from the ancients.
Greece appears to me to be the fountain of knowledge;Rome of elegance.'RAMSAY.'I suppose Homer's Iliad to be a collection of pieces which had been written before his time.I should like to see a translation of it in poetical prose like the book of Ruth or Job.'ROBERTSON.'Would you,Dr.Johnson,who are master of the English language,but try your hand upon a part of it.'JOHNSON.
'Sir,you could not read it without the pleasure of verse.
Dr.Robertson expatiated on the character of a certain nobleman;that he was one of the strongest-minded men that ever lived;that he would sit in company quite sluggish,while there was nothing to call forth his intellectual vigour;but the moment that any important subject was started,for instance,how this country is to be defended against a French invasion,he would rouse himself,and shew his extraordinary talents with the most powerful ability and animation.JOHNSON.'Yet this man cut his own throat.The true strong and sound mind is the mind that can embrace equally great things and small.Now I am told the King of Prussia will say to a servant,"Bring me a bottle of such a wine,which came in such a year;it lies in such a corner of the cellars."I would have a man great in great things,and elegant in little things.'He said to me afterwards,when we were by ourselves,'Robertson was in a mighty romantick humour,he talked of one whom he did not know;but I DOWNED him with the King of Prussia.''Yes,Sir,(said I,)you threw a BOTTLE at his head.'
An ingenious gentleman was mentioned,concerning whom both Robertson and Ramsay agreed that he had a constant firmness of mind;for after a laborious day,and amidst a multiplicity of cares and anxieties,he would sit down with his sisters and he quite cheerful and good-humoured.Such a disposition,it was observed,was a happy gift of nature.JOHNSON.'I do not think so;a man has from nature a certain portion of mind;the use he makes of it depends upon his own free will.That a man has always the same firmness of mind I do not say;because every man feels his mind less firm at one time than another;but I think a man's being in a good or bad humour depends upon his will.'I,however,could not help thinking that a man's humour is often uncontroulable by his will.
Next day,Thursday,April 30,I found him at home by himself.
JOHNSON.'Well,Sir,Ramsay gave us a splendid dinner.I love Ramsay.You will not find a man in whose conversation there is more instruction,more information,and more elegance,than in Ramsay's.'BOSWELL.'What I admire in Ramsay,is his continuing to be so young.'JOHNSON.'Why,yes,Sir,it is to be admired.Ivalue myself upon this,that there is nothing of the old man in my conversation.I am now sixty-eight,and I have no more of it than at twenty-eight.'BOSWELL.'But,Sir,would not you wish to know old age?He who is never an old man,does not know the whole of human life;for old age is one of the divisions of it.'JOHNSON.
'Nay,Sir,what talk is this?'BOSWELL.'I mean,Sir,the Sphinx's deion of it;--morning,noon,and night.I would know night,as well as morning and noon.'JOHNSON.'What,Sir,would you know what it is to feel the evils of old age?Would you have the gout?Would you have decrepitude?'--Seeing him heated,Iwould not argue any farther;but I was confident that I was in the right.I would,in due time,be a Nestor,an elder of the people;and there SHOULD be some difference between the conversation of twenty-eight and sixty-eight.A grave picture should not be gay.
There is a serene,solemn,placid old age.JOHNSON.'Mrs.
Thrale's mother said of me what flattered me much.A clergyman was complaining of want of society in the country where he lived;and said,"They talk of RUNTS;"(that is,young cows)."Sir,(said Mrs.Salusbury,)Mr.Johnson would learn to talk of runts:"meaning that I was a man who would make the most of my situation,whatever it was.'He added,'I think myself a very polite man.'