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JOHNSON AND BLONDIN.

Extracted, by permission, from the latest edition of Boswell's Life of Dr. Johnson.

THE next day was Saturday and I called upon my revered friend in the Temple, and after some hesitation I mentioned that I had purchased tickets of admission to the Crystal Palace, to see the feats of the French acrobat, Blondin, who was to exhibit that day. I said that I did not know whether I should go or not.

“Sir,” said Dr. Johnson, “why do you tell me a lie? You know that you have resolved upon witnessing this Frenchman's exhibition, and the weakness of the desire is less culpable than the cowardice of the mendacity that would veil it.”

I admitted that I had a curiosity to behold an instance of the power of courage and skill in surmounting difficulties of a grave nature.

“You are a humbug,” said my venerated friend. “You care nothing for the fellow's courage or skill, but you have a vulgar desire to go with the multitude, and perhaps a concealed hope that you may be present at a painful catastrophe.”

I urged that the Prince of Wales, my Sovereign's eldest son, had witnessed the sight, and rewarded the performer with a medal. My honoured friend became exceedingly angry. “Do not,” he said, “drag the name of a member of the Royal Family of these realms (royal, de facto, he added with a murmur to himself) into your miserable plea. The Prince of Wales, in not refusing to join in a transatlantic holiday, was gracefully discharging an instalment of the duty for which he was accredited to the West. You have no business on Sydenham Hill, and if you had a medal, so far from bestowing it upon Blondin, you would stick it upon your own hat, and repeat the Paoli farce. Let me hear no such nonsense.”

But my character, as is well known, is one of invincible fortitude and pertinacity, and when I know myself to be in the right, I am not easily put down. I therefore returned to the charge with a courage which almost astonished myself.

“Pindar sang the praises of horse-racing, Dr. Johnson,” I replied.

“A horse is not a Frenchman, nor are you a Pindar,” retorted my revered friend, with that quickness which belonged to him. The lively sally restored his good humour, for he added, “you are not even a Pindar of Wakefield, though in your heart you despise Goldy's Vicar of that locality.”

This was unjust, and I told him that though I did not think so highly of Goldsmith's little tale as some did, I was far from despising an elegantly written and moral fable. I then said, “Dr. Johnson, will you do me the favour to come and see Blondin?”

He laughed, and said I was putting him to the experimentum Crucis— which I afterwards thought a most felicitous phrase, because the Frenchman had to “cross” the transept. I doubt not that I have lost hundreds of equally good things through my culpable negligence of transcription.

“Why, Sir,” he said, “if you had asked me to purchase a ticket for this sight, I should have peremptorily refused, because I am not justified in contributing to bribe a fellow-creature though only a Frenchman and a mountebank, to risk the loss of his life. But as you have paid for the tickets, and as I shall not repay you, the onus is with yourself, and I will accompany you.”

“We are at the Crystal Palace,” I remarked, as the train entered the station.

“The building is not of Crystal, nor is it a Palace,” said my illustrious friend.

The name, I said humbly, was given by Mr. Punch.

“Mr. Punch is a great authority," said Dr. Johnson, removing his hat for a moment, “and I willingly accept his nomenclature. The fact had escaped me.”

So ready was he to own an error, when it was properly brought before him.

“Mr. Punch,” he continued, “is most fortunate in selecting denominations. It was he who gave the name of Arcadia to that new arcaded Garden and locality at South Kensington; a name which I observe the journals are all adopting without acknowledgment of the original inventor. But few can so well afford to be robbed, though the wealth of the Bank of England is no excuse for the criminality of the burglar.”

We proceeded across the beautiful garden, and my revered friend, whose classic recollections were ever ready, pointed to the Mercury on one of the water-temples, and remarked that there was a Blondin ready perched. I said “Stat in eternum,” but was immediately and sternly rebuked by my honoured friend for light use of a word signifying eternity. “But,” he added, playfully, “do not be cast down, for you yourself are an everlasting donkey.” This re-assured me, and we ascended to the gallery, and took our seats. Gazing down upon the vast area, on the sides of which, and around it, were nearly ten thousand persons, Dr. Johnson whispered, slily,

“Do you think as many persons would come to see you supported by a single cord?”

I felt hurt, for though I am conscious of many short-comings, it was wounding to think that the greatest moralist of the age had ever seriously contemplated my coming to be hanged.

“Do not be a fool,” said Dr. Johnson, kindly. “You will repose in your Scottish mausoleum, followed by an incalculable array of semidenuded Caledonian boors; so be happy, and survey mankind.”

The Frenchman came upon the rope, ran, tumbled, stood on his head, feigned to slip, lay down, walked backwards blindfolded, and performed his other extraordinary gymnastic feats at an height of one hundred and eighty feet from the floor that had been cleared below. Military music played, the vast assembly applauded, and tears came into my eyes.

“What are you blubbering for?” said my illustrious friend. “Do you envy that poor acrobat his triumph, or do you imagine that you yourself could perform those feats better? In the first alternative the sentiment is unworthy, in the second the vanity is egregious.”

Thus did he ever seek to improve my mind and heart, and what do I not owe to him I told him? I told him, however, that he misjudged me, and that I was weeping to think that ten thousand of my fellow-creatures had assembled to derive excitement from the chance of a French mountebank breaking his neck.

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“Spare your tears, and stow your twaddle,” responded my venerable friend. “They have come for no such savage purpose. They have heard that a person has acquired the art of safely walking on a suspended cord, and they evince a desire to witness a triumph of courage and of skill. Do you degrade your fellow subjects to the level of the Roman spectators of gladiator-fights? Is there one person in that crowd who would turn up the thumb, if doing so would bring down that acrobat to that floor?”

I did not dare to remind him that he had summarily crushed my own plea in his chambers, but I asked him whether he would take anything to drink. He was condescending enough to partake of a bottle of Scottish ale with me, and seasoned it by a good humoured jibe at my selecting liquor bearing the name of my country.

“The health of the French acrobat, with the American reputation in a tumbler of Scotch ale!” he said.

“Drunk by Dr. Johnson,” I ventured to add, whose reputation is neither French, nor American, nor Scotch, nor English, but universal.”

“You are a thundering humbug,” said my revered friend, smiling. I have reason to believe that he was pleased, for he permitted me to pay the cab from the terminus to the Temple.