Page:Six Essays on Johnson.djvu/59

Rh was conscious of it, his manners were polished and courtly.

But when he joined issue in debate, he gave no quarter. ‘In mixed company,’ says Sir Joshua Reynolds, ‘the most light and airy dispute was with him a dispute in the arena. He fought on every occasion as if his whole reputation depended upon the victory of the minute, and he fought with all the weapons. If he was foiled in argument, he had recourse to abuse and rudeness. That he was not thus strenuous for victory with his intimates in tête-à-tête conversations, may be easily believed.’ Once, when he was reproached for too great warmth in a dispute with Burke, ‘It may be so,’ he replied, ‘for Burke and I should have been of one opinion if we had had no audience.’ And Reynolds lays great stress on the necessity of distinguishing the behaviour of Johnson in the prize-ring of debate from ‘his natural disposition seen in his quiet hours.’

Boswell, of course, knew Johnson well in both moods. It is not so certain that he agreed with Johnson in preferring the quietness of intimate talk. ‘That is the happiest conversation,’ said Johnson, ‘where there is no competition, no vanity, but a calm quiet interchange of sentiments.’ But that is not the kind of conversation which Boswell has most fully recorded. The place of his meeting with Johnson was commonly a tavern or a social assembly, and his portrait is largely gladiatorial. There is nothing unfair in this; as a gladiator Johnson was known to a wide circle of social acquaintance, and he took a pride in his achievements. His description of his joy in battle has been preserved for us by Hawkins: ‘As soon as I enter the door of a tavern, I experience an oblivion of care, and a freedom from solicitude: when