During the whole of this interview,Johnson talked to his Majesty with profound respect,but still in his firm manly manner,with a sonorous voice,and never in that subdued tone which is commonly used at the levee and in the drawing-room.After the King withdrew,Johnson shewed himself highly pleased with his Majesty's conversation,and gracious behaviour.He said to Mr.Barnard,'Sir,they may talk of the King as they will;but he is the finest gentleman I have ever seen.'And he afterwards observed to Mr.
Langton,'Sir,his manners are those of as fine a gentleman as we may suppose Lewis the Fourteenth or Charles the Second.'
At Sir Joshua Reynolds's,where a circle of Johnson's friends was collected round him to hear his account of this memorable conversation,Dr.Joseph Warton,in his frank and lively manner,was very active in pressing him to mention the particulars.'Come now,Sir,this is an interesting matter;do favour us with it.'
Johnson,with great good humour,complied.
He told them,'I found his Majesty wished I should talk,and I made it my business to talk.I find it does a man good to be talked to by his Sovereign.In the first place,a man cannot be in a passion--.'Here some question interrupted him,which is to be regretted,as he certainly would have pointed out and illustrated many circumstances of advantage,from being in a situation,where the powers of the mind are at once excited to vigorous exertion,and tempered by reverential awe.
During all the time in which Dr.Johnson was employed in relating to the circle at Sir Joshua Reynolds's the particulars of what passed between the King and him,Dr.Goldsmith remained unmoved upon a sopha at some distance,affecting not to join in the least in the eager curiosity of the company.He assigned as a reason for his gloom and seeming inattention,that he apprehended Johnson had relinquished his purpose of furnishing him with a Prologue to his play,with the hopes of which he had been flattered;but it was strongly suspected that he was fretting with chagrin and envy at the singular honour Dr.Johnson had lately enjoyed.At length,the frankness and simplicity of his natural character prevailed.He sprung from the sopha,advanced to Johnson,and in a kind of flutter,from imagining himself in the situation which he had just been hearing described,exclaimed,'Well,you acquitted yourself in this conversation better than I should have done;for I should have bowed and stammered through the whole of it.'
His diary affords no light as to his employment at this time.He passed three months at Lichfield;and I cannot omit an affecting and solemn scene there,as related by himself:--'Sunday,Oct.18,1767.Yesterday,Oct.17,at about ten in the morning,I took my leave for ever of my dear old friend,Catharine Chambers,who came to live with my mother about 1724,and has been but little parted from us since.She buried my father,my brother,and my mother.She is now fifty-eight years old.
'I desired all to withdraw,then told her that we were to part for ever;that as Christians,we should part with prayer;and that Iwould,if she was willing,say a short prayer beside her.She expressed great desire to hear me;and held up her poor hands,as she lay in bed,with great fervour,while I prayed,kneeling by her,nearly in the following words:
'Almighty and most merciful Father,whose loving kindness is over all thy works,behold,visit,and relieve this thy servant,who is grieved with sickness.Grant that the sense of her weakness may add strength to her faith,and seriousness to her repentance.And grant that by the help of thy Holy Spirit,after the pains and labours of this short life,we may all obtain everlasting happiness,through JESUS CHRIST our Lord;for whose sake hear our prayers.Amen.Our Father,&c.
'I then kissed her.She told me,that to part was the greatest pain that she had ever felt,and that she hoped we should meet again in a better place.I expressed,with swelled eyes,and great emotion of tenderness,the same hopes.We kissed,and parted.Ihumbly hope to meet again,and to part no more.'
1768:AETAT.59]--It appears from his notes of the state of his mind,that he suffered great perturbation and distraction in 1768.
Nothing of his writing was given to the publick this year,except the Prologue to his friend Goldsmith's comedy of The Good-natured Man.The first lines of this Prologue are strongly characteristical of the dismal gloom of his mind;which in his case,as in the case of all who are distressed with the same malady of imagination,transfers to others its own feelings.Who could suppose it was to introduce a comedy,when Mr.Bensley solemnly began,'Press'd with the load of life,the weary mind Surveys the general toil of human kind.'
But this dark ground might make Goldsmith's humour shine the more.
In the spring of this year,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.Ifound 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 Iwished 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.