DR. JOHNSON AT THE STADIUM
I am now to record a curious incident in Dr. Johnson’s life, which fell under my own observation; of whichpars magna fui, and which I am persuaded will, with the liberal-minded, be in no way to his discredit.
When I was a boy in the year 1745 I wore a white cockade and prayed for King James, till one of my uncles gave me a shilling on condition that I should pray for King George, which I accordingly did. This uncle was General Cochran; and it was with natural gratification that I received from another member of that family, Mr. Charles Cochran, a more valuable present than a shilling, that is to say, an invitation to witness the Great Fight at the Stadium and to bring with me a friend. “Pray,” said I, “let us have Dr. Johnson.” Mr. Cochran, who is much more modest than our other great theatre-manager, Mr. Garrick, feared that Dr. Johnson could hardly be prevailed upon to condescend. “Come,” said I, “if you’ll let me negotiate for you, I will be answerable that all shall go well.”
I had not forgotten Mrs. Thrale’s relation (which she afterwards printed in her “Anecdotes”) that“Mr. Johnson was very conversant in the art of attack and defence by boxing, which science he had learned from his uncle Andrew, I believe; and I have heard him discourse upon the age when people were received, and when rejected, in the schools once held for that brutal amusement, much to the admiration of those who had no expectation of his skill in such matters, from the sight of a figure which precluded all possibility of personal prowess.” This lively lady was, however, too ready to deviate from exact authenticity of narration; and, further, I reflected that, whatever the propensities of his youth, he who had now risen to be called by Dr. Smollett the Great Cham of literature might well be affronted if asked to countenance a prize-fight.
Notwithstanding the high veneration which I entertained for him, I was sensible that he was sometimes a little actuated by the spirit of contradiction, and by means of that I hoped I should gain my point. I therefore, while we were sitting quietly by ourselves at his house in an evening, took occasion to open my plan thus:—“Mr. Cochran, sir, sends his respectful compliments to you, and would be happy if you would do him the honour to visit his entertainment at the Stadium on Thursday next?”Johnson.—“Sir, I am obliged to Mr. Cochran. I will go——”Boswell.—“Provided, sir, I suppose, that the entertainment is of a kind agreeable to you?”Johnson.—“What do you mean, sir? What do you take me for? Do you think I am soignorant of the world as to imagine that I am to prescribe to a gentleman what kind of entertainment he is to offer his friends?”Boswell.—“But if it were a prize-fight?”Johnson.—“Well, sir, and what then?”Boswell.—“It might bring queer company.”Johnson.—“My dear friend, let us have no more of this. I am sorry to be angry with you; but really it is treating me strangely to talk to me as if I could not meet any company whatever occasionally.” Thus I secured him.
As it proved, however, whether by good luck or by the forethought of the ingenious Mr. Cochran, Dr. Johnson could not have found himself in better company than that gathered round him in Block H at the Stadium. There were many members of the Literary Club, among them Mr. Beauclerk, Mr. Burke, Mr. Garrick, Mr. Gibbon, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Mr. R. B. Sheridan. A gentleman present, who had been dining at the Duke of Montrose’s, where the bottle had been circulated pretty freely, was rash enough to rally Dr. Johnson about his Uncle Andrew, suggesting that his uncle’s nephew might now take the opportunity of exhibiting his prowess in the ring.Johnson.—“Sir, to be facetious, it is not necessary to be indecent. I am not for tapping any man’s claret, but we see thatthouhast already tapped his Grace’s.”Burke.—“It is remarkable how little gore is ever shed in these contests. Here have we been for half an hour watching—let me see, what are their names?—EddieFeathers and Gus Platts—and not even a bleeding nose between them.”Reynolds.—“In a previous contest one boxer knocked the other’s teeth out.”Sheridan.—“Yes, but they were false teeth.”
At this moment the talk was interrupted by the arrival of the Prince. As His Highness passed Dr. Johnson, my revered friend made an obeisance which was an even more studied act of homage than his famous bow to the Archbishop of York; and he subsequently joined in singing “For he’s a jolly good fellow” with the most loyal enthusiasm, repeating the word “fe-ellow” over and over again, doubtless because it was the only one he knew. (“Like a word in a catch,” Beauclerk whispered.) I am sorry that I did not take note of an eloquent argument in which he proceeded to maintain that the situation of Prince of Wales was the happiest of any person’s in the kingdom, even beyond that of the Sovereign.
But there was still no sign of Beckett and Carpentier, the heroes of the evening, and the company became a little weary of the preliminary contests. A hush fell upon the assembly, and many glanced furtively towards the alley down which the champions were to approach.Gibbon.—“We are unhappy because we are kept waiting. ‘Man never is, but always to be, blest.’”Johnson.—“And we are awaiting we know not what. To the impatience of expectation is added the disquiet of the unknown.”Garrick(playing round his old friend with a fond vivacity).—“My dear sir, men are naturally a little restless, when they have backed Beckett at 70 to 40.”Reynolds.—“But, see, the lights of the kinematographers” (we were all abashed by the word in the presence of the Great Lexicographer) “are brighter than ever. I observe all the contestants take care to smile under them.”Sheridan.—“When theydoagree, their unanimity is wonderful.”Johnson.—“Among the anfractuosities of the human mind, I know not if it may not be one, that there is a morbid longing to attitudinize in the ‘moving pictures.’”
But at length Beckett and Carpentier made their triumphal entry. Beckett first, quietly smiling, with eyes cast down, Carpentier debonair and lightly saluting the crowd with an elegant wave of the hand. After the pair had stripped and Dr. Johnson had pointed out that “the tenuity, the thin part” in Carpentier’s frame indicated greater lightness, if Beckett’s girth promised more solid resistance, Mr. Angle invited the company to preserve silence during the rounds and to abstain from smoking. To add a last touch to the solemnity of the moment, Carpentier’s supernumerary henchmen (some six or eight, over and above his trainer and seconds) came and knelt by us, in single file, in the alley between Block H and Block E, as though at worship.
What then happened, in the twinkling of an eye, all the world now knows, and knows rather betterthan I knew myself at the moment, for I saw Beckett lying on his face in the ring without clearly distinguishing the decisive blow. While Carpentier was being carried round the ring on the shoulders of his friends, being kissed first by his trainer and then by ladies obligingly held up to the ring for the amiable purpose, I confess that I watched Beckett, and was pleased to see he had successfully resumed his quiet smile. As I carried my revered friend home to Bolt Court in a taximetric cabriolet, I remarked to him that Beckett’s defeat was a blow to our patriotic pride, whereupon he suddenly uttered, in a strong, determined tone, an apophthegm at which many will start:—“Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel!” “And yet,” said Beauclerk, when I told him of this later, “he had not been kissed by Carpentier.”