第27章

Sharp was pained exceedingly when relating the history of a hurricane that happened about that time in the West Indies, where, for aught I know, he had himself lost some friends too, he observed Dr. Johnson believed not a syllable of the account. "For 'tis SO easy," says he, "for a man to fill his mouth with a wonder, and run about telling the lie before it can be detected, that I have no heart to believe hurricanes easily raised by the first inventor, and blown forwards by thousands more." I asked him once if he believed the story of the destruction of Lisbon by an earthquake when it first happened. "Oh! not for six months," said he, "at least. I DID think that story too dreadful to be credited, and can hardly yet persuade myself that it was true to the full extent we all of us have heard."Among the numberless people, however, whom I heard him grossly and flatly contradict, I never yet saw any one who did not take it patiently excepting Dr. Burney, from whose habitual softness of manners I little expected such an exertion of spirit; the event was as little to be expected. Mr. Johnson asked his pardon generously and genteelly, and when he left the room, rose up to shake hands with him, that they might part in peace. On another occasion, when he had violently provoked Mr. Pepys, in a different but perhaps not a less offensive manner, till something much too like a quarrel was grown up between them, the moment he was gone, "Now," says Dr. Johnson, "is Pepys gone home hating me, who love him better than I did before. He spoke in defence of his dead friend; but though I hope _I_ spoke better who spoke against him, yet all my eloquence will gain me nothing but an honest man for my enemy!" He did not, however, cordially love Mr. Pepys, though he respected his abilities. "I know the dog was a scholar," said he when they had been disputing about the classics for three hours together one morning at Streatham, "but that he had so much taste and so much knowledge I did NOT believe. I might have taken Barnard's word though, for Barnard would not lie."We had got a little French print among us at Brighthelmstone, in November, 1782, of some people skating, with these lines written under:--"Sur un mince chrystal l'hyver conduit leurs pas, Le precipice est sous la glace;Telle est de nos plaisirs la legere surface, Glissez mortels; n'appayez pas."And I begged translation from everybody. Dr. Johnson gave me this:--"O'er ice the rapid skater flies, With sport above and death below;Where mischief lurks in gay disguise, Thus lightly touch and quickly go."He was, however, most exceedingly enraged when he knew that in the course of the season I had asked half-a-dozen acquaintance to do the same thing;and said, "it was a piece of treachery, and done to make everybody else look little when compared to my favourite friends the PEPYSES, whose translations were unquestionably the best." I will insert them, because he DID say so. This is the distich given me by Sir Lucas, to whom I owe more solid obligations, no less than the power of thanking him for the life he saved, and whose least valuable praise is the correctness of his taste:--"O'er the ice as o'er pleasure you lightly should glide, Both have gulfs which their flattering surfaces hide."This other more serious one was written by his brother:--"Swift o'er the level how the skaters slide, And skim the glitt'ring surface as they go: