The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson | Page 9

never succeeds there. 'Tis low;
'tis conceit. I used to say. Burke never once made a good joke.
[Footnote: This was one of the points upon which Dr Johnson was
strangely heterodox. For, surely, Mr Burke, with his other remarkable
qualities, is also distinguished for his wit, and for wit of all kinds too;
not merely that power of language which Pope chooses to denominate
wit.
True wit is Nature to advantage drest; What oft was thought, but ne'er
so well exprest.
but surprising allusions, brilliant sallies of vivacity, and pleasant
conceits. His speeches in Parliament are strewed with them. Take, for
instance, the variety which he has given in his wide range, yet exact
detail, when exhibiting his Reform Bill. And his conversation abounds
in wit. Let me put down a specimen. I told him, I had seen, at a blue
stocking assembly, a number of ladies sitting round a worthy and tall
friend of ours, listening to his literature. 'Ay,' said he, 'like maids round
a May-pole.' I told him, I had found a perfect definition of human
nature, as distinguished from the animal. An ancient philosopher said,
man was a 'two-legged animal without feathers', upon which his rival
sage had a cock plucked bare, and set him down in the school before all
the disciples, as a 'Philosophick Man'. Dr Franklin said, man was 'a
tool-making animal', which is very well; for no animal but man makes
a thing, by means of which he can make another thing. But this applies
to very few of the species. My definition of man is, 'a Cooking Animal'.
The beasts have memory, judgment and all the faculties and passions of
our mind, in a certain degree; but no beast is a cook. The trick of the
monkey using the cat's paw to roast a chestnut is only a piece of shrewd
malice in that turpissima bestia, which humbles us so sadly by its
similarity to us. Man alone can dress a good dish; and every man
whatever is more or less a cook, in seasoning what he himself eats.
'Your definition is good,' said Mr Burke, 'and I now see the full force of
the common proverb. "There is REASON in roasting of eggs".' When

Mr Wilkes, in his days of tumultuous opposition, was borne upon the
shoulders of the mob. Mr Burke (as Mr Wilkes told me himself, with
classical admiration,) applied to him what Horace says of Pindar,
... numerisque fertur LEGE solutis.
Sir Joshua Reynolds, who agrees with me entirely as to Mr Burke's
fertility of wit said, that this was 'dignifying a pun'. He also observed,
that he has often heard Burke say, in the course of an evening, ten good
things, each of which would have served a noted wit (whom he named)
to live upon for a twelvemonth.
I find, since the former edition, that some persons have objected to the
instances which I have given of Mr Burke's wit, as not doing justice to
my very ingenious friend; the specimens produced having, it is alleged,
more of conceit than real wit and being merely sportive sallies of the
moment, not justifying the encomium which they think with me, he
undoubtedly merits. I was well aware, how hazardous it was to exhibit
particular instances of wit, which is of so airy and spiritual a nature as
often to elude the hand that attempts to grasp it. The excellence and
efficacy of a bon mot depend frequently so much on the occasion on
which it is spoken, on the particular manner of the speaker, on the
person of whom it is applied, the previous introduction, and a thousand
minute particulars which cannot be easily enumerated, that it is always
dangerous to detach a witty saying from the group to which it belongs,
and to see it before the eye of the spectator, divested of those
concomitant circumstances, which gave it animation, mellowness, and
relief. I ventured, however, at all hazards to put down the first instances
that occurred to me, as proofs of Mr Burke's lively and brilliant fancy;
but am very sensible that his numerous friends could have suggested
many of a superior quality. Indeed, the being in company with him, for
a single day, is sufficient to shew that what I have asserted is well
founded; and it was only necessary to have appealed to all who know
him intimately, for a complete refutation of the heterodox opinion
entertained by Dr Johnson on this subject. HE allowed Mr Burke, as the
reader will find hereafter, to be a man of consummate and unrivalled
abilities in every light except that now under consideration; and the

variety of his allusions, and splendour of his imagery, have made such
an impression on ALL THE REST of the world,