" Just so, we may hesitate long
between the romance and the worldliness of Johnson, not but what
there was a d----d deal of romance in his worldliness, and a d----d
deal of worldliness in his romance.
The late Lord Alvanley, whose heart was as inflammable as his wit was
bright, used to tell how a successful rival in the favour of a
married dame offered to retire from the field for _5001_., saying, "I
am a younger son: her husband does not give dinners, and they have no
country house: no _liaison_ suits me that does not comprise both." At
the risk of provoking Mr. Carlyle's anathema, I now avow my belief
that Johnson was, nay, boasted of being, open to similar influences;
and as for his "ideal Uranias," no man past seventy idealises women
with whom he has been corresponding for years about his or their
"natural history," to whom he sends recipes for "lubricity of the
bowels," with an assurance that it has had the best effect upon his
own.[1]
[Footnote 1: Letters, vol. ii. p. 397. The letter containing the
recipe actually begins "My dear Angel." Had Johnson forgotten Swift's
lines on Celia? or the repudiation of the divine nature by Ermodotus,
which occurs twice in Plutarch? The late Lord Melbourne complained
that two ladies of quality, sisters, told him too much of their
"natural history."]
Rough language, too, although not incompatible with affectionate
esteem, can hardly be reconciled with imaginative romance--
"Perhaps it was right to dissemble your love,
But why did you kick me down stairs?"
"His ugly old wife," says the reviewer, "was an angel.
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