Page:Six Essays on Johnson.djvu/60

56 I am seated, I find the master courteous, and the servants obsequious to my call; anxious to know and ready to supply my wants: wine there exhilarates my spirits, and prompts me to free conversation and an interchange of discourse with those whom I most love: I dogmatize and am contradicted, and in this conflict of opinions and sentiments I find delight.’ The company shared in this delight, and posterity has been made free of it. But the affection felt for Johnson by his friends had another root. All his dialectic dropped from him when he found himself alone, or in the presence of a single intimate. We come to closer quarters with Johnson in the best pages of The Rambler than in the most brilliant of the conversations recalled by Boswell. The hero of a hundred fights puts off his armour, and becomes a wise and tender confessor.

When Mrs. Thrale and Boswell knew him, Johnson, it must be remembered, was already famous. He was often liable to the intrusion of foolish persons, who came without invitation to consult him on their private affairs. They had heard of him as a celebrated man, and were willing to believe him an oracle. Mrs. Thrale has given an account, which we could ill spare, of some of these visitors. In his happy retreat at Streatham Johnson would sometimes tell stories of his experiences. Once he told the following tale: ‘A person (said he) had for these last five weeks often called at my door, but would not leave his name or other message, but that he wished to speak with me. At last we met, and he told me that he was oppressed by scruples of conscience: I blamed him gently for not applying, as the rules of our church direct, to his parish priest or other discreet clergyman; when, after some compliments on his part, he told me, that he was