Immortal Memories | Page 6

a citizen of Lichfield--you who are will not wish
to challenge me--that this city has distinguished itself in quite an

unique way. I do not believe that it can be found that any other town or
city of England--I will not say of Scotland or of Ireland--has done
honour to a literary son in the same substantial measure that Lichfield
has done honour to Samuel Johnson. The peculiar glory of the deed is
that it was done to the living Johnson, not coming, as so many honours
do, too late for a man to find pleasure in the recognition. We know
that--
Seven wealthy towns contend for Homer dead, Through which the
living Homer begged his bread.
But I doubt whether in the whole history of literature in England it can
be found that any other purely literary man has received in his lifetime
so substantial a mark of esteem from the city which gave him birth, as
Johnson did when your Corporation, in 1767, "at a common-hall of the
bailiffs and citizens, without any solicitation," presented him with the
ninety-nine years' lease of the house in which he was born. Your
citizens not only did that for Johnson, but they gave him other marks of
their esteem. He writes from Lichfield to Sir Joshua Reynolds to
express his pleasure that his portrait has been "much visited and much
admired." "Every man," he adds, "has a lurking desire to appear
considerable in his native place." Then we all remember Boswell's
naive confession that his pleasure at finding his hero so much beloved
led him, when the pair arrived at this very hostelry, to imbibe too much
of the famous Lichfield ale. If Boswell wished, as he says, to offer
incense to the spirit of the place, how much more may we desire to do
so to-night, when exactly 125 years have passed, and his hero is now
more than ever recognized as a king of men.
I do not suggest that we should honour Johnson in quite the same way
that Boswell did. This is a more abstemious age. But we must drink to
his memory all the same. Think of it. A century and a quarter have
passed since that memorable evening at the Three Crowns, when
Johnson and Boswell thus foregathered in this very room. You recall
the journey from Birmingham of the two companions. "We are getting
out of a state of death," the Doctor said with relief, as he approached
his native city, feeling all the magic and invigoration that is said to

come to those who in later years return to "calf-land." Then how good
he was to an old schoolfellow who called upon him here. The fact that
this man had failed in the battle of life while Johnson had succeeded,
only made the Doctor the kinder. I know of no more human picture
than that--"A Mr. Jackson," as he is called by Boswell, "in his coarse
grey coat," obviously very poor, and as Boswell suggests, "dull and
untaught." The "great Cham of Literature" listens patiently as the
worthy Jackson tells his troubles, so much more patiently than he
would have listened to one of the famous men of his Club in London,
and the hero-worshipping Boswell drinks his deep potations, but never
neglects to take notes the while. Of Boswell one remembers further that
Johnson had told Wilkes that he had brought him to Lichfield, "my
native city," "that he might see for once real Civility--for you know he
lives among savages in Scotland, and among rakes in London." All
good stories are worth hearing again and again, and so I offer an
apology for recalling the picture to your mind at this time and in this
place.
Alas! I have not the gift of the worldfamed Lord Verulam, who, as
Francis Bacon, sat in the House of Commons. The members, we are
told, so delighted in his oratory that when he rose to speak they "were
fearful lest he should make an end." I am making an end. Johnson then
was not only a great writer, a conversationalist so unique that his
sayings have passed more into current speech than those of any other
Englishman, but he was also a great moralist--a superb inspiration to a
better life. We should not love Johnson so much were he not presented
to us as a man of many weaknesses and faults akin to our own, not a
saint by any means, and therefore not so far removed from us as some
more ethereal characters of whom we may read. Johnson striving to
methodize his life, to fight against sloth and all the minor vices to
which he was prone, is the Johnson whom some of us prefer to keep
ever in mind. "Here was," I quote