to comprehend it. I have known, and could name many, who understood this art in its perfection, but as it implies a trust in the company, not always to be risked, their practice of it was not very frequent. Raillery is of all weapons the most dangerous and two-edged; of course it ought never to be handled but by a gentleman, and never should be played with but upon a gentleman; the familiarity of a low-born vulgar man is dreadful; his raillery, his jocularity, like the shaking of a water-spaniel, can never fail to soil you with some sprinkling of the dunghill, out of which he sprung. A disagreement about a name or a date will mar the best story that was ever put together. Sir Joshua Reynolds luckily could not hear an interrupter of this sort; Johnson would not hear, or if he heard him, would not heed him; Soame Jenyns heard him, heeded him, set him right, and took up his tale, where he had left it, without any diminution of its humor, adding only a few more twists to his snuff-box, a few more taps upon the lid of it, with a preparatory grunt or two, the invariable forerunners of the amenity that was at the heels of them. He was the man, who bore his part in all societies with the most even temper and undisturbed hilarity of all the good companions whom I ever knew. He came into your house at the very moment you had put upon your card; he dressed himself to do your party honor in all the colors of the jay; his lace indeed had long since. lost its lustre, but his coat had faithfully retained its cut since the days when gentlemen wore embroidered figured velvets with short sleeves, boot cuffs, and buckram skirts; as nature had cast him in the exact mould of an ill-made pair of stiff stays, he followed her so close in the fashion of his coat, that it was doubted if he did not wear them: because he had a protuberant wen just under his pole, he wore a wig, that did not cover above half his head. His eyes were protruded like the eyes of the lobster, who wears them at the end of his feelers, and yet there was room between one of these and his nose for another wen that added nothing to his beauty; yet I heard this good man very innocently remark, when Gibbon published his history, that he wondered anybody so ugly could write a book. Such was the exterior of a man, who was the charm of the circle, and gave a zest to every company he came into; his pleasantry was of a sort peculiar to himself; it harmonized with everything; it was like the bread to our dinner; you did not perhaps make it the whole, or principal part, of your meal, but it was an admirable and wholesome auxiliary to your other viands. Soame Jenyns told you no long stories, engrossed not much of your attention, and was not angry with those that did; his thoughts were original, and were apt to have a very whimsical affinity to the paradox in them: he wrote verses upon dancing, and prose upon the origin of evil, yet he was a very indifferent metaphysician and a worse dancer; ill nature and personality, with the single exception of his lines upon Johnson, I never heard fall from his lips; those lines I have forgotten, though I believe I was the first person to whom he recited them; they were very bad, but he had been told that Johnson ridiculed his metaphysics, and some of us had just then been making extemporary epitaphs upon each other: though his wit was harmless, yet the general cast of it was ironical; there was a terseness in his repartees that had a play of words as well as of thought, as when speaking of the difference between laying out money upon land, or purchasing into the funds, he said, 'One was principal without interest, and the other interest without principal." Certain it is he had a brevity of expres sion that never hung upon the ear, and you felt the point in the very moment that he made the push. It was rather to be lamented that his lady, Mrs. Jenyns, had so great a respect for his good sayings, and so imperfect a recollection of them, for though she always prefaced her recitals of them with-as Mr. Jenyns says-it was not always what Mr. Jenyns said, and never, I am apt to think, as Mr. Jenyns said; but she was an excellent old lady, and twirled her fan with as much mechanical address as her ingenious husband twirled his snuffbox.2 The brilliant vivacity of Garrick was subject to be clouded; little flying stories had too much of his attention, and more of his credit than they should have had; and certainly there were too many babblers who had access to his ear. There was some A similar remark is attributed to Lord Mansfield. The funds,' said he, 'give interest without principal, and land principal without interest; but mortgages both principal and interest.' 6 2 Soame Jenyns, distinguished as a wit, author, and companion, was born in the year 1704, and died 1787. He was possessed,' says Boswell, of lively talents, and a style eminently pure and easy, and could very happily play with a light subject, either in prose or verse; but when he speculated on that most difficult and excruciating question, the Origin of Evil, he ventured far beyond his depth, and, accordingly, was exposed by Johnson, both with acute argument and brilliant wit.'-Life of Johnson, vol. i. p. 294. Jenyns submitted in silence, while Johnson lived; but after his death he published an attack on him in the form of an epitaph, which was copied into the leading newspapers and magazines of the time. This provoked retort on the part of Johnson's friends and admirers, and Jenyns, himself nearly sinking into the grave, was treated with great severity. precaution necessary as to the company you associated with him at your table; Fitzherbert understood that in general admirably well, yet he told me of a certain day, when Garrick, who had perhaps been put a little out of his way, and was missing from the company, was found in the back yard acting a turkey-cock to a black boy, who was capering for joy and continually crying out-Massa Garrick, do so make me laugh: I shall die with laughing.' The story I have no doubt is true; but I rather think it indicates the very contrary from a ruffled temper, and marks good humor in its strongest light. To give amusement to children, and to take pleasure in the act, is such a symptom of suavity, as can never be mistaken. I made a visit with him by his own proposal to Foote at Parson's Green; I have heard it said he was reserved and uneasy in his company; I never saw him more at ease and in a happier flow of spirits than on that occasion. Where a loud-tongued talker was in company, Edmund Burke declined all claims upon attention,' and Samuel Johnson, whose ears were not quick, seldom lent them to his conversation, though he loved the man, and admired his talents; I have seen a dull damping matter-of-fact man quell the effervescence even of Foote's unrivalled humor.2 1 Talking of conversation, on one occasion, Johnson said, 'There must, in the first place, be knowledge, there must be materials; in the second place, there must be command of words; in the third place, there must be imagination, to place things in such views as they are not commonly seen in; and in the fourth place, there must be presence of mind, and a resolution that is not to be overcome by failures; this last is an essential requisite; for want of it many people do not excel in conversation.'—Boswell's Johnson, vol. iv. p. 181. He thus described Burke's conversation: 'Burke's talk is the ebullition of his mind; he does not talk from a desire of distinction, but because his mind is full.'-Ibid., p. 182. 'If a man,' he said, on another occasion, 'were to go by chance at the same time with Burke under a shed, to shun a shower, he would say 'this is an extraordinary man.' If Burke should go into a stable to see his horse drest, the ostler would say, 'we have had an extraordinary man here.' . . . . When Burke does not descend to be merry, his conversation is very superior indeed. There is no proportion between the powers which he shows in serious talk, and in jocularity.'-Ibid. Boswell differed from his great friend as to Burke's pleasantry; and in this was supported by Mr. Windham, who thought Burke was often very happy in his merriment. 2 For loud, obstreperous, broad-faced mirth, I know not his equal,' said Johnson of Foote. I have been surprised,' says Taylor, 'that my old friend, Arthur Murphy, should have entertained so high an opinion of Foote as a wit, since there are very few proofs of such original jocularity as might be expected, considering he had acquired so high a reputation for bons mots and repartees. I have often wished there had been some record of that facetious fecundity which rendered Foote's conversational powers so entertaining to people of all ranks, for those sallies of his inexhaustible humor which have reached public notice, by no means afford such samples of original wit as to give adequate But I remember full well, when Garrick and I made him the visit above mentioned, poor Foote had something worse than a dull man to struggle with, and matter of fact brought home to him in a way, that for a time entirely overthrew his spirits, and most completely frighted him from his propriety. We had taken him by surprise, and of course were with him some hours before dinner, to make sure of our own if we had missed of his. He seemed overjoyed to see us, engaged us to stay, walked with us in his garden, and read to us some scenes roughly sketched for his Maid of Bath.' His dinner was quite good enough, and his wine superlative; Sir Robert Fletcher, who had served in the East Indies, dropped in before dinner and made the fourth of our party. When we had passed about two hours in perfect harmony and hilarity, Garrick called for his tea, and Sir Robert rose to depart; there was an unlucky screen in the room, that hid the door, and behind which Sir Robert hid himself for some purpose, whether natural or artificial I know not; but Foote, supposing him gone, instantly began to play off his ridicule at the expense of his departed guest. I must confess it was (in the cant phrase) a way that he had, and just now a very unlucky way, for Sir Robert, bolting from behind the screen, cried out: 'I am not gone, Foote; spare me till I am out of hearing; and now, with your leave, I will stay till these gentlemen depart, and then you shall amuse me at their cost, as you have amused them at mine.' A remonstrance of this sort was an electric shock, that could not be parried. No wit could furnish an evasion, no explanation could suffice for an excuse. The offended gentleman was to the full as angry as a brave man ought to be with an unfor support to his high reputation, and I conceive that his dramatic works may be considered as the chief foundation of his intellectual character.' -Records of my Life, p. 433. Foote being mentioned on one occasion, Johnson said: 'He is not a good mimic.' One of the company added, 'A merry-Andrew, a buffoon.' Johnson.-'But he has wit, too, and is not deficient in ideas, or in fertility and variety of imagery, and not empty of reading; he has knowledge enough to fill up his part. One species of wit he has in an eminent degree, that of escape. You drive him into a corner with both hands, but he's gone, sir, when you think you have got him-like an animal that jumps over your head. Then he has a great range for wit; he never lets truth stand between him and a jest, and he is sometimes mighty coarse. Garrick is under many restraints from which Foote is free.' Wilkes.-'Garrick's wit is more like Lord Chesterfield's.' Johnson. The first time I was in company with Foote, was at Fitzherbert's. Having no good opinion of the fellow, I was resolved not to be pleased; and it is very difficult to please a man against his will. I went on eating my dinner pretty sullenly, affecting not to mind him. But the dog was so very comical, that I was obliged to lay down my knife and fork, throw myself back upon my chair, and fairly laugh it out. No, sir, he was irresistible.'-Boswell's Johnson, vol. iii. pp. 70, 71. SIR THOMAS MILLS. 173 tunate wit, who possessed very little of that quality, which he abounded in. This event, which deprived Foote of all presence of mind, gave occasion to Garrick to display his genius and good nature in their brightest lustre; I never saw him in a more amiable light; the infinite address and ingenuity that he exhibited, in softening the enraged guest, and reconciling him to pass over an affront, as gross as could well be put upon a man, were at once the most comic and the most complete I ever witnessed. Why was not James Boswell present to have recorded the dialogue and the action of the scene? My stupid head only carried away the effect of it. It was as if Diomed (who being the son of Tydeus, was I conclude a great hero in a small compass) had been shielding Thersites from the wrath of Ajax; and so wrathful was our Ajax that if I did not recollect there was a certain actor at Delhi, who in the height of the massacre charmed away the furious passions of Nadir Shaw, and saved a remnant of the city, I should say this was a victory without a parallel. I hope Foote was very grateful, but when a man has been completely humbled, he is not very fond of recollecting it. There was a gentleman of very general notoriety at this time, who had the address to collect about him a considerable resort of men of wit and learning at no other expense on his part than of the meat and drink, which they consumed; for as he had no predilection for reading their works, he did not put himself to the charge of buying them. The gentleman himself was of the Scottish nation; in that nobody could be mistaken; all beyond that was matter of conjecture, save only that it was universally understood that Mr. Thomas Mills was under the protection of the great Lord Mansfield. Having been Town Major of Quebec, he took the title of a field officer, and having been squire to a knight of the Bath on the ceremony of an installation, he became Sir Thomas, and a knight himself. It was chiefly through my acquaintance with this gentleman that I became a member of a very pleasant society (for we never had the establishment of a club) who used to dine together upon stated days at the British Coffee House, then kept by Mrs. Anderson, a person of great respectability. Many of the members of this society were men of the first eminence for their talents, and as there was no exclusion in our system of any member's friend or friends, our parties were continually enlivened by the introduction of new guests, who of course furnished new sources for conversation from which politics and party seemed by general consent decidedly proscribed. Foote, Reynolds, Fitzherbert, Goldsmith, Garrick, Macpherson, Doctors Carlisle, Robinson, Beattie, Caleb Whitefoord, with many others, resorted there as they saw fit. |